More Playing Catch-Up April 15, 2006
Posted by tonywgoodwyn in Berserkery, Browncoatings, City of Heroes, Geekery, Web/Tech.add a comment
In a previous post, I talked about some of the things I’d been doing during my time "off the radar." Now, in all honesty, I’ve been doing a lot more than three things–there’s been work, life, my cats, and a host of other stuff that’s both too numerous and too minute for me to thoroughly mention. However, I did leave off a couple of items that were pretty significant, because I was pressed for time (as always seems the case these days) when I wrote it. Anyway, for more pure geekery…
City of Heroes
Alas, I let my account with the online community game City of Heroes run out at the end of February, though to be honest I’d stopped playing several months ago. I didn’t really have any problems with City of Heroes, and I stuck with it for longer than I did with Star Wars: Galaxies, but it just seems I don’t derive as much pleasure playing these games as I did when I started. Kind of sad, but it’s a fact. All my best to the makers of this game, and I hope it lasts a long time. You probably just won’t see me at it anymore unless it’s under a guest account.
Berserk
Sarabeth has given me my first serious taste of anime, in the form of the 25-episode series Berserk, which is apparently based off of and abridged from a manga series of the same name. It was an effective showing: I got hooked on the show (which is a mere season long and ends on a real cliffhanger), and want to read the manga so I can get more of the story. The short of it: it’s a very violent but well-written story about a young warrior named Guts and his adventures involving a mercenary band known as the Band of the Hawk, led by a charismatic young man named Griffith. Highly recommended, so long as you keep your youngsters away from it.
A New Browncoat
I’ve likewise hooked Sarabeth on Firefly, having taken her and Sannie to a midnight showing of Serenity a few weeks ago in Minneapolis, and slowly showing her the occasional episode. I kind of envy her: she’s discovering all these for the first time, and really enjoying them. She’s been referring to herself as a Browncoat lately and is even researching Firefly/Serenity online bulletin RPGs (something we’re both into at various degrees). It makes me very proud and pleased. 
Evernote
Thanx to the Pegasus Librarian, who showed me and directed me to Evernote, a really slick note-taking software. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a digital equivalent to a notebook, and even potentially a filing system: it allows you to take notes on a continuous sheet of digital paper, allows categorization and a whole host of other cool features. There are some things it can’t do (yet) that will hopefully be fixed in the future, but for the moment I’m willing to wait for them as I play with this neat little program. It currently doesn’t want to work with the latest version of Firefox, but hopefully this will be fixed SOON.
Valentine’s Day Post-Mortem February 15, 2006
Posted by tonywgoodwyn in Browncoatings, Holiday Hijinx.2 comments
For those of you who don’t know, I have had much reason to dislike Valentine’s Day in recent years. Ever since being dumped on V-day a few years ago, I’ve had this arguably fortunate tendency to be single when it’s come around. While this exempts me from the necessity of participating in the wearisome, harrisome Hallmark holiday hijinx that inevitably come with this day, it still has left a bitter aftertaste with me for the time being.
While I’m not saying that’s changed, I do think I’ve done something that could mark a possible turnaround for this time of the year.
Late last year (the day after Thanksgiving, to be precise), a friend of mine introduced me to the short-lived Joss Whedon television show Firefly, and its cinema sequel Serenity. I was almost instantly captivated by this wonderful sci-fi Western and its complex characters, and now consider myself a bonafide an unapologetic Browncoat. I borrowed the DVD set of the series (which is not even a full season long) from my friend, and returned them a month later, quite reluctantly; then made sure I acquired Serenity right after the Christmas holiday.
Well, today I found myself in possession of a little more cash than I had anticipated, and promptly went to acquire my own DVD set of Firefly (not through Amazon, though–didn’t want to wait for the shipping).
I’ve known for the last couple months that this would be money well spent.
For those of you who haven’t yet sampled this show, I can only suggest that you give a viewing to one or two episodes. It’s a wonderful character study, as well as a nice blending of the science fiction and Western genres, and like any show worth its salt, Firefly is much more than its genre might suggest. The the writing is smart and witty, the plot arcs are compelling, and the characters are complex, well-acted and easy to relate to. You’ll walk away wondering how Fox could have canceled it so quickly.
Anyway, instead of marking V-Day as a day I’ve had to deal with the School of Hard Knocks in the classes of love these last few years, I can now look on it as the day I acquired a key item for a pursuit I’ve quickly come to love. The short time I’ve spent in the ‘Verse created by Joss Whedon has already inspired some of my writing and helped me make more friends, and I’m looking forward to enjoying more adventures from these Big Damn Heroes, however this story is continued.
So… bring on Valentine’s Day. Henceforth, it shall be associated with Firefly!
