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kevkesblog · 4 years ago

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Translation: kicker magazine profile about Julian Brandt (July 27, 2020)

By Thomas Hennecke and Matthias Dersch

Had he made this artistic pass during the corona pandemic with empty stands in the stadium, it would have been a pity. A week before Christmas however, there is almost no free space in the Signal Iduna Park left. Everybody is ripped off their seats – except the RB Leipzig fans – the moment Julian Brandt marks the second goal. Brandt digs deep into his toolbox. Receiving the pass by Sancho, processing the ball, shot. Three actions in one fluent move, south American suppleness with ice-cold efficiency, a master class. Goal of the month December.

This cool blonde with the jersey number 19 – he is a man for the special moments. A player who makes a difference. And a gambler. A footballer having fun and who lets the difficult things look easy and made his relaxed demeanor a trademark. You can guess why he named Diego (the Bremer, not Maradona”, like Brandt said in BVB-TV) is his idol. The Brazilian used to have the blessings to do great things on the pitch. Diego also had a dream goal in his repertoire: 62,5 meter distance on April 20, 2007 against Alemannia Aachen. End score: 3:1.

The fact Brandt coolness also comes from a sometimes fatal way of risking things, relativizes his actions. You are torn a bit. People who appreciate show, spontaneity, art and creativity will love him more than people adding statistics and all mistakes and how they translate onto the pitch. The ‘Süddeutsche Zeitung’ looks beyond that and celebrated Brandt as a “Player with the Wow-Effect”. Brandt plays passes, so precise they will find almost every gap. As if they were managed by an electronic brain. He celebrates chop passes which look good and find their goals. But he also screws up counter chances with sloppy passes. He gives goals to his opponents with carless back passes. Or he shoots x-times against the goal, without a slightest danger to the goal keepers.

2019 is the second year with coach Lucien Favre and the so-called “restart”. BVB manager Zorc took a lot of money into his hands, in order to optimize the team. Looking back he wouldn’t be as passionate about some transfers as he was back then – but the 25 million euros for Brandt are still a good and useful investment, Zorc thinks: “Julian is a talented football player and has a lot of potential. He is very active on the pitch, demanding the ball, plays in a self-confidend way and doesn’t hide.”

Then follows the “but”. Zorc follows everything very closely from his box seat on the team bench. He sees mistakes by Brandt, unnecessary mistakes – calles “unforced errors” in tennis. “He still does a lot of them”, Zorc complains. “He has still work to do when it comes to working against the ball, Julian knows that best himself.” Indeed one doesn’t have to look far to find weaknesses. He himself is his biggest critic, the professional once claimed. Yet, he never lets that sort of self-reflection get out of his hands: “I always question myself, whenever I’m not performing well. But I never question the fact that I still can do it.”

It’s easy to spot: this Brandt-guy is not Mr. Perfect nor a football-playing robot. Rather he is an un-adjusted fine spirit on the pitch. Always in a good mood, with a fresh quote on his lips. During the USA-journey to Seattle last year, he was walking interested through the Museum of Pop Culture where Borussia was celebrating its “Black and Yellow night”. He had some small talk with journalists, he seems relaxed, approachable and cool. The opposite of the footballer clicheé of being arrogant. Brandt is “a fantastic guy” says Captian Marco Reus, “he’s a funny and open guy”.

As engaging, positive and uncomplicated his persona comes across: sometimes however Brandt appears to be less serious about stuff. It’s seems as if an extra scoop of ambition is missing, based on his body language. Unlike many other professionals. “I heard from many people before, about me looking like I’m sort of listlessness I embody”, Brandt said during an interview with the former BVB-player Patrick Owomoyela. Yet he assures: “My inner drive is always there.”

Brandt shows both faces during the game against Leipzig. Magical and faulty. He serves Timo Werner the 2:2-goal on a silver platter with his horrible wrong pass. “Perhaps someday there will be the award: wrong pass of the month”, says the 24 year-old. “I’m sure, I’ll get into the top 5.” BVB-boss Hans Joachim Watzke is face-palming on the stands in that moment. With some distance he likes Brandt’s way of playing. The BVB-boss says: “Julian makes extraordinary mistakes, because you can only play extraordinary if you take risky passes or have risky ideas.”

Five months later, both major teams in Germany play against each other on the evening of May 26. Borussia against Bayern; light house 2 against light house 1. Dortmund has to win, otherwise the Bundesliga title will be gone and Dortmund starts in a rush. Erling Haaland gets the ball in the midfield after 17 seconds, by winning a head ball against Joshua Kimmich. From the back Brandt storms in front like a speed train, captures the situation, speeds up the game and passes over to Thorgan Hazard with his left foot. The clock ticks – 19 seconds into the game – Manuel Neuer gets out of his goal and saves the situation for Bayern at the last moment. But he passes the ball into Haalands feet. His shot rushes through Neuers feet until Jerome Boating saves it for Bayern on the goal line. Brandt goal celebration dies on his lips. The blitz goal after just one minute – it would have been his act as well.

Same game, 43rd minute. Mats Hummels defending for Dortmund, the ball moves a few meters to the left. Kimmich gets the ball, looks up, sees Roman Bürki standing a bit too far away from the goal, shoots and scores. The guy standing the closest to Kimmich: Brandt. It would have been unfair to make him responsible for the goal alone, half of the team is responsible as well. Yet some people who’s heart is beating for black and yellow would have preferred Brandt at least trying to hinder Kimmich on making his genius shot. He does: nothing.

He's a day dreamer, Brandt once said. Day dreamers keep strolling through their thoughts. A study found out: day dreamers are capable finding time to dream because their brains have enough space left. In the past day dreaming was understood as a sign of lack of concentration and attention – today people see it as a sign of intelligence and creativity. Like a lost professor: brilliant, sharp mind, yet sunk into his own world.

It is however no explanation for him being passive in front of the goal in May that basically pre-decided the German championship. Brandt made his day dreamer confession in a different context – when asked about a career plan. He doesn’t have one, he said: “Everything that happens in my life, happens spontaneously. I don’t even know what I will be doing in three weeks from now.” Brandt lives his live as free and individual as possible and as disciplined as necessary. He likes to sleep long in the morning and only leave “shortly” in order to just barley making it on time at the training ground. “Every minute is sacred” he says with a wink of an eye. “I don’t know how often I had to pay a penalty for being too late.”

A year Brandt is employed in Dortmund. The statistics are showing respectable numbers. 42 games, seven goals, 13 assists, ten second-pass assists. The season prior in Leverkusen he had seven goals and 15 assists – just in the Bundesliga. He added six scorer points in the DFB Cup then and the Europa League. “I had to find my place during the first months. I played on many positions and didn’t know many of the boys yet. It’s why it was a bit un-harmonic”, says Brandt. “Nevertheless, now I’m “in”. I had a nice year with great moments. I have to say: I’m really satisfied. Everything can get much better. However its was fine for the first year.”

Brandt wanders through the BVB team, gets put into five different roles. The center midfield is the place where he can show his class the best – whenever he has the game in front of him. He can put his instincts and creativity into force and can create chances with his passes. He is basically a lost force when playing way in front. Except against Slavia Prag in the Champions League he confirmed with two assists, Favre decision putting him into the front as a striker. His abilities are also limited once he plays on the wings.

He never has a lack of commitment and engagement. Brandt is running on average 11,85 kilometers in 90 minutes. Nobody of the permanent Dortmund players is running more. He wins 52,4 % of his one-on-ones – more than Sancho (45,6%), Marco Reus (44,6%), Hazard (42,0%) or Haaland (41,4%). His passing with a 84 percent accuracy however still has room for improvement compared to the other specialists like Axel Witsel (94,1%), Dan-Axel Zagadou (91,1%) or Raphael Guerreiro (89,2%).

Brandt is brilliant in games like against Gladbach (DFB Cup, kicker-grade: 1,5), against Fortuna Düsseldorf or Schalke in the Bundesliga (both 1,5). He has personal low points in Freiburg (sub in and out of the same game; grade: 5), in Munich (grade: 6) and against Milan in the Champions League, where he basically loses the ball in almost every scene. Every game becomes a personal balancing act for the highly skilled national player: he dances on a high wire – here and there he loses his grip and crashes down.

His time in Dortmund started with a glitch. He makes a mistake and drives onto the parking lot of the youth time at 7.45am in the morning. A BVB employee has to show him the way. Brandt decided to leave the comfort zone Leverkusen on purpose. “Dortmund” – he says, “Dortmund is much bigger in terms of media interest, the stadium, the number of fans and in terms of pressure. It’s a different game here. It could make a mark on me and will serve me good.” And then there is the wish to win a title which made him to transfer to Dortmund. It’s about a basic attitude in sports, Brandt said a year ago, “everybody should have the drive to win every game.”

Because Dortmund only won 28 of their 46 games this past season (seven draws, eleven defeats) a lively debate about coach Favré heats up as well as a discussion about the mentality of the team. No fans will get together in Dortmund and celebrate the fifth second place finish of the team since 2013. Nobody will fill extra pages in historic club chronicles, some BVB players are now suspecting. “We are not satisfied to finish second”, Brandt confesses. “We aren’t angry, but also not satisfied. We want more.” He then sticks up for his colleagues who get criticized for some bad performances and whenever there are doubts about their mentality and the harsh criticism: “We want to the big price. The team is hungry, they are in for it to win titles. The team is capable of that. You have to always aim high.”

Children who are having their first day of school this year, have lived a life only knowing Bayern Munich as German football champions. In order for them to understand that other teams can be successful as well, Dortmund needs to win the “all-or-nothing”-games, Brandt thinks. The duels with the other Bundesliga havy weights: Bayern Munich, Leipzig, Mönchengladbach, Leverkusen. “You have to win those games, if you want to stay on top”, he says. “Yet you also have to take smaller teams seriously. Something like a 3-3 draw against Paderborn is fatal.”

Borussia Dortmund gave the players four weeks vacation. This Thursday the team will come back together well rested. The months during the corona crisis, the tough hygiene rules of the German Bundesliga, left a mark on Brandt. “It does something to you”, he confesses, “you don’t see many people. You see your family, perhaps a few friends. Otherwise: nobody. You are happy to be able to go out and have some freedoms again.” Now he can go out again – at least a bit.

#julianbrandt #julian brandt #bvb #BVB09 #borussiadortmund #borussia dortmund #Bundesliga #dfb #diemannschaft #German NT

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biteypyrotiger · 4 years ago

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Egyptology professor stories I’m sharing because she’s awesome and they make me laugh:

Long ass rambling below the cut.

1.)

First thing I want to say is that this professor is not a particularly imposing. She was maybe 5′2″. But often affected a stern demeanor that legitimately would have scared the shit out of me if she ever seemed truly angry with me.

At the beginning of the semester she told us very sternly that she had several rules about going on field trips and the first one was that we absolutely must keep up with her. To practice this we were going to take our first field trip to the university’s rare books library. That day she stands in the front of the class and says, sternly, “Remember. You must keep up with me. Are you all ready?”

Class: “Yes Doctor.”

Prof: “Good”

And then she proceeds to speed walk right the fuck out the door.

Now there were maybe 25 of us, crammed tightly into this really small classroom and it became immediately apparent that getting out of there was not going to be a swift exercise. So we all have to basically do the whole getting off an airplane thing and it took a good five minutes.

We all finally get outside and she’s standing outside the door, impatiently tapping her foot her foot and frowning at everyone.

Prof: Is that everyone?

Class: Yes Doctor.

Prof: Good.

And she takes off walking fast enough that we had to literally run to keep up with her. She speeds down the steps and to keep up with her, about five of us literally jumped down an entire flight of steps. I was one of them, and even doing that she was well ahead of us.

As we head out into the campus courtyard and the blazing Egyptian sun, most of the class just gave up. Myself and maybe five others, the same ones wiling to jump down flights of stairs to not break rule #1, were running after her and then finally ridiculously speedwalking and giggling behind her. She never looked back, never broke stride and kept the most focused look on her face the whole time.

We reach the library and remember that there is no elevator available and the rare books room is on the third or fourth floor. Again, Professor flies up the stairs without breaking stride. I slowed a bit at this point as my knees really hate stairs, but pressed on as best we could.

The Professor and us six determined students arrived and the foyar. All of us, young and relatively fit were panting and sweating profusely and giggling. I happened to stand next to professor and very close up could see that she was also sweating and breathing hard, but doing a fantasitc job of looking completely together, and with this expression of stoic disappointment as she waited for the rest of the class to catch up.

This is not a funny story, but I like to tell it so when I say that she was stern, you understand what I mean, and not that she was hard hearted or cruel.

I believe it was her second rule that said that, when we went on fieldtrips, we must wear a head covering or we would not be allowed to attend. Because running around the Egyptian desert for hours will melt your brain without it.

So first fieldtrip, we’re with another class taught by another professor. As we get off the bus (I think this was at Saqqara) she lines us up and inspects our dress. Some people in my class forgot, or were unable to grab something. She helped one guy tie a winter scarf around his head like a turbin. Many kids in the other class didn’t have anything. She scolded all of us and said, very seriously, “For my class, I will excuse it for today, but if you do not bring a head covering for the next fieldtrip than I will fail you for the entire class. Understood?”

Class: Yes Doctor.

As we start walking into the archaeological park and Professor took the front, several students from the other class leaned into us.

“Your professor is such a bitch,” said more than one of the other students to the murmured agreement of others.

Every single person in my class who heard that glared at them. “No. She’s not,” we snapped at them. “She’s saying that because she cares about us and doesn’t want us hurt.”

On our first fieldtrip, there was an early portion where our path through the sand took us up and down sand dunes every few feet. As Professor went down the sand dunes, she would let gravity pull her down and naturally speed up. In attempting to follow rule number 1, we would jog a bit at those points to keep up.

After a few dunes she started side eyeing us. Noticing that we sped up and slowed down along with her. So she randomly started to jog. And we jogged with her. And then she abruptly slowed and we slowed with her. And she jogged again and again we followed and back and forth at random intervals until finally she stopped and we all stopped and she demanded laughing, “What are you doing?!”

Class: We’re keeping up with you!

She just laughed at us and went on.

One one trip, I think it was to the Great Pyramids, but maybe something else, she intended to take us to a valley temple that would have been connected to the main pyramids. The temples are fairly far from the Pyramids and generally off limits to the public, but someone like an active archaeologist with a class, had passes to go to them and were allowed.

As we come to the corner of one of the queen pyramids, the final cover before we trek across the sand to the temple, Professor motions for us to stop and peers around the corner at a couple of guards on camels. She turns and looks at us.

Professor: Alright. We are going to walk in that direction to the temple and, though I have a pass and a right to go down there, those guards are probably going to try to stop us. So if you hear them yelling at us or blowing whistles, you are to pretend you do not hear them and continue walking. Understand?

Class: Yes Doctor.

So we start walking and, sure enough, after a few yards, we start hearing whistles and we dutifully ignore them and keep walking. And then we hear the camels come up along side us and the guards start yelling at us. As we have been caught and they are on camels that could easily outrun us, we stop. Professor and the other professor wheel on them and start arguing back in Arabic, clearly telling them they have a right and permission to go down there, but the guards aren’t having it. After a few moments of this, Professor blinks and looks at us. “What are you doing? Go!”

So we all start walking again. It takes a few minute of just walking through the hot sun and sand and then, suddenly, the two professors come running up the side of us and pass us at a full sprint.

“What are you doing?!” Professor yells at us. “Run! Run!”

And so we all break into a run, convinced the mounted police are after us. And then when we had a moment to think, we look over our shoulders and see the guards leaving. We look at her confused and she just slows to a walk and starts laughing at us.

Saqqara is an archaeological park whose most prominent feature is the Stepped Pyramid, the tomb of the first Pharaoh of a united Upper and Lower Egypt named Djoser. Though the Stepped Pyramid is the focus, Saqqara is FILLED with other tombs spanning, I believe, centuries, as people tried to build close to the first Pharaoh. Some of them are smaller, today much more dilapidated, pyramids, most of them smaller tombs built more like a tomb. Areas of the park are also covered with broken pottery shards. Now, in a lot of places, ancient pottery shards would be things that historians and archaeologists would gobble up all of these, but in Egypt, there are so many artifacts that they’re not particularly considered worthwhile and, they’re so ugly compared to the many other beautiful artifacts that they’re not well desired.

However, being good little wannabe archaeologists raised in the West and taught to respect and be careful of every bit of ancient artwork we found, we were all terrified of stepping on them and going through a great effort of picking our way around the stand to not step on them. Which was difficult.

Professor eventually noticed us dancing around and asked “What are you doing?”

Us: We don’t want to step on the pottery, Doctor.

She looked at us like we were adorable, but relatively stupid. “Oh. You’re all very sweet, but just give it up. You’re not going to be able to get anywhere like that.”

6.)

In a similar way, she found out that some of us were having a lot of issues with vendors and cab drivers in the city that could get very aggressive in pushing for a price or trying to force you to buy their wares. And the women in the class were having issues with men being pushy in general (hate to say it but Cairo is known to have an extremely high rate of sexual harassment, and I can attest to that).

Part of the problem, that I will attest to, is we all felt like we were constantly required to be incredibly mean to people, often to just walk down the street and while we might be willing to do it sometimes, we all felt terrible about doing it constantly.

Professor looked at us all fondly. “You all are very nice and you can go home and tell your mothers that she taught you very good manners. However, if you want to get by here, you need to drop all of it. You do not speak to your cab drivers aside from agreeing to a price, you walk away and the two most important words in your vocabulary are now ‘la’a’ (no) and ‘imshee’ (in her words, ‘bugger off’).”

In general: She was stern in a kind way. She cracked us up constantly. She lightly teased us and let us lightly tease her, usually by way of her frustration with another Egyptologist which was an endless well of amusement. At the end of the semester we played a quiz game to review in class and she asked for team names. I gave my team, the first name of the Egyptologist that annoyed her as the team name. The utter irritation on her face every time she had to call on us was great.

She was also a legitimately world renowned Egyptologist. And she never acted like it or said anything. Another professor subbed for our class one time and made absolutely emphatically clear to us that we were lucky to have her as a teacher.

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languaholic · 5 years ago

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Hi everyone!

So here is my proposal to make the most out of the last 100 days of the year. First of all, you don’t have to review lessons/pages every day if you don’t want to, I am doing it because it helps me learn things better.

The point of this challenge is that you dedicate at least 10 minutes every day in getting better at expressing yourself in another language and little by little increase your exposure so you are also more fluent.

To start this challenge, check the options below and decide if you either want to follow the order, skip some or change them for others. Just find what fits your rhythm better and register it so you can look at your progress ;)

Don’t forget to tag your posts with any of these:

100 Days Express Yourself Language Challenge

100 Days Language Learning Challenge

100 Days Language Studies Challenge

And let’s start!

1. Sing a song or read a poem in your target language

2. Translate into your native language the chorus of a target language song

3. Find some interesting idioms used in your target language and write them down illustrating with examples

4. Translate a quote from your native language into the target language

5. Get a list of some irregular verbs that are difficult to you and create sentences with each

6. Describe in your target language something you like or something you find fascinating

7. Watch a short video with the subs of your target language

8. Make a theme vocab list in the target language of the episode you watched and place examples under each word

9. Read an interesting article in the target language and try summarizing it in a few lines

10. Play an audiobook in the target language for ten minutes and write down the words you deem interesting and/or important to review later

11. Make a bucket list in the target language

12. Describe an item you need in the target language

13. Translate a few quotes into the target language

14. Describe your plans for winter vacations

15. Watch a TED talk with the target language audio and/or subs

16. Print a picture you like and write about it

17. Make a vocab list of things you love and add examples

18. Read a short fairy tale

19. Write about food you like

20. Summarize a movie, tv show, book, fanfic, etc. that you enjoyed

21. Find some jokes in the target language

22. Talk about someone you admire

23. Write about a place you would like to return to

24. Write about a dream you recently had

25. Make a vocab list of things you hate and add examples

26. Listen to some songs you like and record yourself singing along

27. Translate a comic or book or fanfic page from your target language into your native language (it can be a panel or a paragraph, etc.)

28. Listen to a podcast in the target language (duolingo has some options)

29. Watch a short in the target language or with the T.L. subs

30. Translate a song from the target language into your language

31. Read the news in your target language

32. Select some topics that you feel are difficult in your target language and use them making sentences or re-explaining them in the target language

33. Find some verbs with different meanings and illustrate the meanings with more examples

34. Write about a place you want to visit

35. Make a vocab list of things you fear

36. Read some riddles and try to find the answer

37. Select some words that sound the same but are different things (homophonous) and illustrate them with examples

38. Write a few sentences of what makes you anxious

39. Take a photo of the weather and describe it

40. Write a letter in the target language to a loved one who is no longer with you

41. Read a poem in your target language and record it

42. Find some proverbs and/or sayings in the target language and write them down

43. Make a list of yes/no questions in the target language

44. Find instructions for something in the target language and try following them

45. Make a vocab list of common swear words

46. Write in the target language an idea you disagree with

47. Write an argument about why you disagree with the idea above

48. Read some pages of your favorite book in the target language and write down the words you don’t understand

49. Read something light and make a list of WH questions in the target language about the reading

50. Make a review of a book, song, tv show, or movie

51. Write in the target language an idea you whole heartedly agree with

52. Write why you agree with the idea above

53. Make a top ten of things you like and write why in the target language

54. Print some pics of food you want to try and describe it in your target language

55. Make a vocab list with examples of things that bring you joy

56. Get your hands on some favorite quotes and translate them in the target language

57. Watch a documentary in the target language (or with the subs in the T.L.)

58. Write in your target language about something that obsess you

59. Translate into your target language a paragraph of something happy

60. Recite a dialogue of a movie, tv show, book, fanfic, etc. you like and record it

61. Talk in your target language about something that troubles you

62. Listen to a playlist in your target language and sing along (follow the lyrics if you need them)

63. Write some reflections in your target language about love

64. Select a constellation which story you like and write about it in your target language

65. Make a vocab list of slang in the target language

66. Check out a site in your target language and write down the words you find difficult

67. Find an actor/actress/singer/artist whose native language is your target language and write down some phrases they’ve said you liked

68. Check out videos of grammar topics you would like to delve into

69. Read out loud a fanfic or short story in your target language (250 words is recommended)

70. Write down a topic you would like to debate about and some main points about it

71. Develop the points of the topic you want to discuss

72. Create a speech with the points from the task before and read it out loud

73. Watch an episode of a TV show (I recommend it lasts 25 minutes or less) with the audio and subs of your target language

74. Check some funny videos in your target language (find some youtubers whose spin is comedy)

75. Select a song you like in another language different to the target language and translate it into your target language

76. Write in your target language about something you hate

77. Write about the music you like

78. Make a schedule you can follow next week

79. Play an agility game that includes a simultaneous physical and mental exercises in your target language (like jumping the rope for five minutes while reciting the irregular verbs or prepositions, etc.)

80. Check out a video in your target language that explains something you find interesting or exciting (can be a tutorial, a tour around somewhere, etc.)

81. Create a set of instructions in your target language to cook something

82. Make a vocab list of words that only exist in your target language

83. Translate into your target language a paragraph of something sad

84. Reflect in your target language about something that makes you super proud

85. Describe in your target language a scent you like

86. Watch an animated movie in your target language with subs in your native language

87. Tell or write something nice to your loved one(s)

88. Explain a grammatical law you find fascinating to someone

89. Write in your target language about something you miss

90. Lay down in the grass or somewhere where you can look up at the sky and come up with shapes and write them in your target language

91. Go to your favorite fanfic site, select the stats you want, and read a fic of 1,000 words written in your target language

92. Write in your target language a reflection about time

93. Make a short story with your pet(s) (or favorite animal) as your main character

94. Talk in your target language about a memory that marked you

95. Create your own language learning master post

96. Write a language overview in your target language

97. Write down in your target language what you feel when you think about longing

98. Get a book in your target language (short is recommended) and start reading it

99. Explain something you find fascinating in your target language to someone

100. Write down your purposes for next year and why they are important to you in your target language

And that’s it folks!

Good luck to the community who will try this, and please feel free to modify any of the points given. The point of this is to have fun while being constant in learning a language and get to create the habit of studying while learning how to express better in another language ;)

See you all at the end of the year!

#langblr #studyblr #100 days of languages #100 days of productivity #100 days of language learning #language learning #French learning #100 Days Express Yourself Language Challenge #100 Days Language Learning Challenge #100 Days Language Studies Challenge #TheChallenge

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winstonhcomedy · 5 years ago

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“Dope A-F” - 7/11-7/29- “Birthday Heckler, Winstmas Games, DC, and Amazing Shows”

Only a few days behind. That’s ok because I know I can catch up. Definitely doing way better than I was. It has been a chill week. I am still trying to adjust to losing my dad, and just trying to still enjoy comedy. So let’s hop right into it!

7/11

There were a couple of open mics this night. There was The Camel hosted by Jameson Babbowski right after work, and then after that will be Garden Grove which was going to be guest hosted by Brandon Beswick.

I headed over to The Camel right after work. I got there about 4:10 and ordered my dinner. I got to catch up and talk to the bartender/owner for about an hour. We talked about music, and the band my brother was in He is a super cool dude. A few more comics show up while I am waiting.

Liz and Mu were headlining so they both got there relatively early. There were a few comics from the standup class I subbed in. I got to ask them if what I was saying was helpful at all, and they all said it was. So that helped me feel pretty good about it. Anne Meng showed up as did. a few others comics. So we had a good hang going on.

Jameson finally gets there and sets the lineup. The hang continues for a bit and then the show starts. The first few comics do pretty well. There is an ok sized crowd. Better than the last few I had been to. I grabbed my light from the car because the first few comics you couldn’t see. We get it set up and then Mu goes up and has a really hot set. After him Liz goes up and she does pretty well too. She has a super drunk heckler during her set. She did a good job of not losing her shit on him, but he was just yelling the worst stuff. It kind of derailed her set.

After her were a few more comics. Then it was my turn. I had a good set. I did mostly new. I also did some dad material too. it is all coming together. I really enjoyed this set. People seemed to dig it, and I was able to really have a nice strong set. I’d give it a B.

I then hung out and watched the rest of the show. Most everyone did ok which was cool to watch. Legit 3/4 of the audience left right before the final guy which kind of sucked for him. He is new and he powered through it. After the show I grabbed my light and headed to Garden Grove.

It had started to rain so I put on my raincoat once I got to Garden Grove. I check in with Beswick and he lets know I am third. Mike Engle is there as are a bunch of my friends. Ry Mather, Jack Gerow, Jesse Pearlstein, Dylan, and Anthony Thompson all showed up. It was a super dope hang. The crowd was light, but the people there were really excited for comedy. There were a few people int he corner who were pretty loud, but for the most part everyone was at least attentive.

Brandon hosted and really started to try and work the audience over to get them ready. he ended on a pretty good pop, and I think he did a super good job hosting. After him the first few comics went up and did ok. I went up and just tried my material. I had a good but not great set. For the room I did well. I didn’t go into crowd work for the most part and I just did my new jokes for like 7 minutes. This felt good. I love just doing jokes at the open mics, and then being able to flex my crowd work muscle on other shows. I’d give this set a B-. It was super productive. If I had done crowd work I would have done better, but I wouldn’t have gotten as much out of it.

After my set I kind of just hung around for a long time. I talked shop with everybody. There were a few more comics from the class who asked some questions and hung out. It was cool to see them out at mics watching, and a few did some sets.

We had a nice long chat outside about comedy specials. This is always the best. Just like 30+ minutes talking about who we like and why we like them. Comedy is the absolute best shit in the whole world. After talking forever I said goodbye and headed home to pass out. I was super tired.

7/12

I didn’t do a set on this day. This was the day I was using to celebrate my birthday with my family. I just went over to my brother’s, hung with my nice, had a nice dinner, watched a movie, and hung out all night. It was everything I wanted. Just like 10 straight hours being with the one’s I love.

I knew I had a big show tomorrow, and would only get the first part of the day with them so I wanted the night before to really be special. I missed my dad so much during dinner. He would have loved everything about it. I’m glad I was with the one’s I love the most.

7/13

For my birthday I was headlining a show at Intermission Beer Company. Liz Carr was running a Virginia is for Lovers comedy show. So all the performers had to be based or born in VA.

Before all of this I spent time with my family. Enjoyed my niece’s company, and then went to Hardwood to watch Alex Jonestown Massacre play a cover set of Anti Flag. It was a super fun benefit show. I got to chill with Kenn for a bit, and see a few of my other friends before I headed over to Intermission.

I got to Intermission and Liz was there. I checked in and we caught up. Trayvon Fulton was also down from Philly. I haven’t seen him in a while so that was nice. Newer comic Heather Joyce was also on the show. Then Brock Hall, Alida Harper, and Jeff Simmermon also showed up.

Jeff was down from NYC and I was able to link him up with Liz to do a spot. The lineup was set, and people had started to show up. It looked a little light at first but then people started rolling in. I had a couple friend from high school come out, and I had about 8 people from work come as well. I love when they come. It makes me want to try even harder.

I got to chat and catch up with them. We talked and hung out before the show started. But the time the show began the room was almost completely full except for the one table at the very front.

Liz went up and did ok. She was followed by Heather and she got some pretty good pops during her set. She is super new and I’ve honestly only seen her perform at intermission. After her was Brock. He had some of his one liners work pretty well, but because he didn’t take a set list up with him he got off stage a little early. Which is ok. Then Alida went up and this was when I started to get in the zone for my set. I was supposed to do 20 to 25 and I wanted to do really well since my friends were there along with a ton of other people.

I went outside and stretched, and ran over myself et in my head a bit. I jumped up and down and tried to just get as loose as possible. Halfway through Alida’s set Jack Gerow showed to support and that meant a lot to me.

Alida got off stage and Jeff went up. By this time the front table had filled up completely. So the room was packed and Jeff went into his act. He did really well. He is a good comic and an even better dude. He handled the crowd a bit. He didn’t go in on them too much, but they were heckling a bit, and throwing him off of his rhythm. He had a really fun set, and was killing it.

After he got off stage. Liz gave me a wonderful intro and mentioned it was my birthday. I get on stage and immediately go into my act. The table at the very front had been filled by a dude and four girls. He was absolutely wasted and had been interrupting a lot throughout the night. He wasn’t being a dick on purpose, but it was affecting the show.

I had just walked in on him in the bathroom so I apologized for that while also shitting on him for not locking the door. Then I got to know him. I asked his name and he said it was Cody but he stood up when he told me. He didn’t have a job, but had a lot of money so I asked him what his dad did for a living. I also made fun of how he was acting the whole night. I

then asked the girls with him how they knew him. They wouldn’t answer. They were so embarrassed by how he was acting. He was absolutely super upset they didn’t have his back. I asked one of them if they were his gf and she said hell no. He looked at her shocked. This was the first he had found out about this. I started to feel bad so I apologized, and joked around. The crowd was loving it. I was killing.

He started vaping and I had to get him to stop. I joked around with them some more and then went into my act. Everything was working. It felt so good to be doing so well. I was having a hot one. I’d do a bit and then address the crowd a bit and then go right into the next joke. I did about 35 minutes and it was all working. I closed really strong, and honestly got a good fun video out of it. I hope the audio turned out well because I can’t wait to rewatch all the crowd work stuff. I’d give this set an A.

After my set they sang happy birthday to me, and I got to hang with my friends. I said thank you and all of my goodbyes. Then Cody drunkenly drove off with the other girls in his car. So we told the owners and we all kinda hung out before heading out. I then got dinner with Jack Gerow and we talked comedy for a long time. It was a blast and a great hang. Then I headed out with my coworkers and saw some other comics. It was an awesome birthday. I finally headed home to get a good nights sleep because I had a lot of driving to do the next day.

My first birthday without my dad had all of the ingredients to be a horrible time. I miss him so much. I didn’t know how it was going to go, but all I knew was he would want me to have a great time. I am so thankful I have my friends, coworkers, comics, family, and loved ones to be there for me and make surety birthday was as amazing as it could possible be.

7/14

The next day I got in my car and drove to Virginia Beach to the all day VB Strong comedy show and benefit at the Virginia Beach Funny Bone. It was 12 hours of comedy to benefit the shooting that happened in VB recently.

There was a huge number of comics and they ended up raising over 20 grand. It was a killer event and I was really glad to be a part of it. I ended up stuffing my face with wings and catching up with some friends waiting for my set to start. I was on the 6 o clock show, but I got to the see crowds for the 3 pm block and it was pretty full. It was so cool to see the community come together for a good cause.

When the 6 o clock show started Mike Easmeil (super dope VB comic) was hosting. He along with Rick Bruner (GM VB Funny Bone) are a couple of the dudes who were in charge of putting this whole thing together. I went up after Mike. It was about a half full room, and we were told to work somewhat clean. So I did my best.

I had a solid set. My material was working. I was cleaner than most. People connected with me and I was happy with the response I got. It also felt good to be doing a set for a good cause. I’d give this set a B.

After I got off stage Terry O’Quinn from Lost (does Improv) came over and said hi and he dug my set. I immediately texted my friend Kenn who loves Lost. This was a cool moment. I said goodbye and thanked Rick and everyone else. I then signed a poster that all the comics were signing and hit the road.

I headed to Cozzy’s because I was headlining Sunday Funnies. Mindy Ess was hosting it this week. I get there right as she is finishing up. There is a nice little crowd of about 20 non comics there. Which I am excited about.

A bunch of my friends are on the show. Francesca, Anne Meng, Richard Woody, and Paige are there. Also local comics David Vega and Wyatt Bowman were also doing spots. Wyatt and David went up first and they did ok. The crowd wasn’t really popping. Then Francesca, Richard, and Anne also went up. They had varying degrees of success. They just didn’t seem to really want jokes that much. Also the stuff they did and did not laugh at was weird as hell.

Paige went up and had he had a pretty good set too. He was able to get them on his side and kept working them. It had its down moments, but he was the first to really get any good pops from the audience.

After Paige it was my turn and I had a blast. I did about 20 minutes of crowd work. I started talking to this dude who had the name Mario Alfredo Lucero. I got some big pops talking about what a great name that was, and that he should have a pizza shop. I then talked to his wife, and also bounced around the room. I got some good pops throughout. Legit was doing the best I could have done.

At the end of my set I did 5 to 7 of new material. I knew it wouldn’t work as well as the crowd work because it was new, but I am trying to not just do crowd work at these tough shows. I figure if I do 75% crowd work and kill it is ok to bomb with 25% new stuff. I want to do well, but also want to work out material to get even better. So this was the strategy I used. It worked well. I’d give the whole set an A-.

I got off stage and said my goodbyes. Paige road down with Richard so he rode back with me. On the way back we go to talk, and then also we got stuck in traffic forever. After dropping him off I headed home and passed out!

7/15

I went to work today. Afterwards I kind of relaxed around town and watched some TV. I didn’t do anything too crazy. Tonight was The Southern but Chris Alan was out of town so JR was going to be guest hosting.

I get there right around 8 and it s a super light crowd. There is also only around 11 comics. So everybody is going to get about 7 minutes which should be fun.I get to hang out with a bunch of my friends. JR, Jack Gerow, Paige (showed up halfway through), John Marg, Sam Padgett, Samantha Wood, Luzader, Jericho Zornes, Johnny Rad, and some others I am sure I am forgetting. I was up like 7th. It was. fun hang and I was ready to get the show rolling. I walk in the back and change out of my shorts and put on a new outfit (because I can’t perform in shorts).

The show starts and I am recognized by this girl who tried comedy a few years ago. She had me talk to her standup club in college. I was so new I never should have done it. I was only like two years in and was trying to be edgier. My thoughts on comedy have changed dramatically. So it was going to be cool for her to see my material since hopefully I have evolved as a performer.

JR actually did some crowd work. He was a little aggressive. It was like he was channeling Chris. He did a pretty good job of getting the show rolling. Then Jericho went up. He had a pretty good set. People were doing ok. No one was really killing, but we were having a really good time. Eventually Johnny Rad went up and he did pretty well. He started shitting on Jericho. They were busting each other’s balls and that was fun.

After him was a new comic. He brought a table of people and he wasn’t terrible. He seemed nice and it seemed like he had worked really hard on his material. After his set it was my turn. I got up and made fun of Jericho and Johnny Rad bullying each other. I talked to the new dude and gave him a comic to check out. Then I just went into a bunch of new material. I have to sit down and write some of this out, but for the most part it was a really fun set. The new stuff was working, and if it didn’t work I at least know why. I’d give this set a C+. I got some good pops, but overall if I had stuck to crowd work it definitely would have gone better.

After me a few more comics went up. Sam Padgett had a good set too. She was all over the place. It was fun to watch. She forgot one part of a joke and said the wrong thing, but she played it off super well. She got some big laughs and it was fun to watch.

I then went outside to hang a bit. Paige eventually got there and we talked for a while. It was super fun, but I was exhausted and headed home. I ate some cereal at the house and then passed out!

7/16

During the night my grandpa was rushed to the hospital. They thought he was having a heart attack. Luckily he was ok, but I was planning on doing a podcast after work so I cancelled it before I knew he was fine. I got to work two hours late because I didn’t sleep well.

After work I went to therapy and got to have a pretty helpful session. Really struggling with missing my dad. Like it is not getting any easier. Honestly my brain tries to forget it even happened, but that is impossible. I also had to tell my therapist I couldn’t afford to come once a week. Which sucks, but I can still go every two weeks so I think I will be ok. If I realize I need once a week I will have to find a way to get a few hundred more dollars out of my budget.

After this I txted my friend Kenn and we grabbed a quick dinner at En Su Boca. It was a lot of fun. I love this dude to death and wish I got to see him more. I really cherish our friendship. We can talk about everything and he has always been there for me. I have become a lot more mindful in the time I have known Kenn and I hope that I have also been a positive influence on him as well.

After dinner I headed to meet up with Jason Kusterer. I just watched him play video games for a few hours. I just felt bad, and wanted to be around friends. It was a super fun hang and hopefully we can do more,

I drove us both to Mojos. I got to catch up and joke with Dylan and Ryan Mather. Carlton K showed up. There was a pretty good amount of comics so we were all going to get 5. Mike Engle was there as well. Claire Hakala was the bartender this week, but I don't know if she is going to get to do it from now on.

The show started and I went up second. Ry Mather was hosting and he may take over the show. He did a good job hosting and then Kusterer went first. He did half jokes and half a sweatlist. His set went pretty well all things considered. He made me laugh.

Then I went up and bombed my dick off. The dad stuff wasn’t working. Neither did my brand new joke that I like a lot. It still needs work. No one gave a shit what I was talking about. I wasn’t likable on stage, but I didn’t resort to crowd work and I just worked the bits. I’d give this set an F. It legit felt terrible.

I then hopped off stage and drove Kusterer and I to Fallout. I get there and there is an ok sized crowd. Maybe 10 people who weren’t comics. I am up in a few. Brock Hall, Danny Dunlea, Jack Johnston, Jack Gerow, and some others were there. Jarvis was hosting.

I didn’t watch a lot of the sets. I kind of just chilled. No one was really cracking them while I was there. There was a new person who went up and they had brought a table. I go up a few people after them.

I go up and honestly don’t enjoy my set. I do better than Mojos though. I do dad stuff, and the new joke works better. I know there is a way to get that joke to hit really hard. I need to just sit down and write. I am horrible at that. The rest of the set goes ok. I closed kind of weak, but honestly it was a learning experience. A very productive set. I’d give it a C-.

I go in the back and ask Kusterer if he can find another ride home. Jack said he would give him a ride and I head home. It is a long sad drive. I am in my thoughts the entire time. I get home and pass out. I don’t really feel good about comedy, but I feel good about the people in my life from comedy. It is an odd feeling.

7/17

I get off work and drive down to Norfolk to meet up with Nick Deez and Ryan Dix for their podcast. I am in traffic for what feels like ages, but I finally get there. I love doing podcasts. It is a ton of fun. I usually get to let loose, and there is no pressure since I am not the one hosting it.

I get to Nick’s and we start the DeezDix podcast. I ended up just ball busting. The first 20 minutes Ryan Dix was getting pretty heated. Apparently he had no idea I was busting balls and he was getting pretty upset. In hindsight that is hilarious, but he was definitely taking offense. After that part though everybody got into a rhythm and it was a pretty fun hour.

We made fun of Nick’s pop collection. We talked about Ryan making Gundams. Also we went over my fear of being serial killed ( a dumb irrational fear, but a fear nonetheless). It was a solid and fun podcast.

After this I headed to Hampton to perform on Wyatt Bowman’s show at Stuft.. It took me a while to find it because my GPS was acting up. Once I got there I saw it was a pretty dope spot. It had an actual stage, and it was legit packed. It was nuts the show actually started on time.

Wyatt Bowman went first and had an ok hosting set. People were laughing, and also paying attention,. After him was Torrey Huggins. He got some good pops up front. Some nice laughs. I could tell the crowd wanted to crack, and they were so close. I like Torrey a lot. Good dude, and works his ass off. I respect the hell out of that.

Then it was Nick Deez. Nick had an ok set. He had them early, and lost them a bit. The crowd was weird. They wanted to laugh, but when they weren’t into it they started to talk, and go back to their meals. Nick also works hard, and is another good friend of mine.

Then Justin King goes up. He couldn’t get them to connect with him. Justin is a dude I like a lot. He is also a comic that has an edgier take when he is on stage. They just weren’t the type of crowd that was digging that. He didn’t bomb, but you could tell the people were a little tight.

I go in the smoking room to talk to Nick and Torrey. They are kind of going over their sets, and just decompressing from the room. Another comic comes in the room and tells Nick and Torrey an audience member grabbed them when they were going into the bathroom. The audience member asked him if they were a comic and they responded yes. They then said the audience member said well I hope you are way better than the first few comics.

So I am in my own head trying to get ready for this set. I don’t really know why this comic said that. I don’t think it was malicious, but it was just weird. It didn’t seem like a joke/ball busting, and I just felt bad for the guys. These two dudes are obviously aware they didn’t have their best sets. This isn’t a constructive comment and a thing that could have been saved for later when they could have appreciated it. Like I said I was already in my own head, and I can only go off of my own personal experiences, but right after I am off stage is not when I would want to hear that.

I am getting ready to go up. I don’t really want to honestly. I saw how the first few sets went and I didn’t really feel like doing crowd work. I know that is what would work, but I didn’t want to fight this crowd that hard. I talk to that comic before going up and they’re like you’ve got to be loud and dirty because that is what this crowd wants.

I knew what I needed to do to succeed, but I didn’t want to do it. So I made the decision to just do my jokes, and really sell them. I put faith in myself as a comedian that my jokes would work. There was a crowd. They had shown they wanted to laugh. So why wouldn’t my jokes work?

I went up and had a really hot set. I felt really good about it. I did ten minutes of just material and I was destroying. Everybody was into it and there was no table talk. I had everyone’s attention. I did all teaching material, and it was really fun to do. I wish I had recorded, but alas I did not. I felt like I had gotten the show back on track, and done my job. Which felt good since I was just doing a guest spot I asked for since I was already in the area. I love being able to follow through when I ask for something. I’d give my set an A-

I leave and head to Cozzy’s to get a quick set in before going home. This is the open mic that Nick usually runs, but since he had a show he had Addison Hall running the mic.

We get there and there is like 5 audience members and the rest comics. It is a low energy kind of night. A few people go up before me and do ok. The people in the audience seem to enjoy the show so I am ready to have a good time.

Nick goes up and does ok. He has a new premise he is working on that made me laugh. I’m excited to see where that joke goes. After him it is my turn. I go up and just do new stuff. It is working ok. I know some of it needs work (all of it does), but it feels good to try new and get some laughs. I lost the crowd in the middle when I worked out dad material. The audience members weren't on board. It did not matter how good the jokes were (could have been perfect) they weren’t into it. So I closed with a few different things. It turned out ok. I’d give my set a C-. I learned a lot, but didn’t do as well as I wish.

I grab my stuff and head home. Unfortunately I left four of my notebooks so I have to wait until this coming Sunday before I can get a chance to get them back. I have a friend who is going to snag them and I am eternally grateful. I drive home, and then pass out.

7/18

I was stoked for today’s show. Kenny Wingle asked me to be on Buckin Comedy at the Funny Bone. It is going to be a fun time. The lineup is going to be me Klingman, Bounce Adams (doing a guest spot), James Paulk, Kenny Wingle, and myself. Then we are going to do sex with me is like at the end.

The room is about half full, and we have been having a pretty good hang. It was nice to catch up with James. I don’t know him very well, and have only worked with him a couple of times, but it was nice to see him and talk. He has some more free time now so he is getting back into the comedy game a bit.

Wingle was running a little late, but the hang before the show ruled. Wingle finally shows up and we start the show. Klingman goes up and does ok. It seemed like he was nervosa to swear, but once he did he really got them locked in toward the end of his set. Bounce went up and had a very strong 5 minute set. Very rarely have I seen him not do well. His 5 minutes is kind of undeniable. It is good to see, and it gets the crowd going.

It is my turn and I go up and I feel like I am doing ok. Some jokes are hitting, and some aren’t. Everyone is having some fun, but it isn’t what I want. I have this one lady int he front row who keeps screaming every time I say anything. I finally address it and get a huge laugh. I”m like, “I am so happy you love what I’m doing, but every time you scream everyone in this crowd hates me.” So she stops, but I know I am going to have to revisit her situation.

I go back into my set and it is doing ok. It is like a wave. I”ll get a huge laugh and then a chuckle. Which isn’t bad, but I just want to be killing. I go back into the crowd and talk a bit more and I finally go back to the drunk lady. Her name is Theresa and she’s a prison nurse. I bust her balls because of how drunk she is and I ask her about the craziest thing that has ever happened at work. She said she can’t tell me because it is a “penis story”.

So I go into a long thing about how she has to tell me. I thank god for sending me a heckling angel. After she tells the story, and I bust her on it some more I get off stage. The crowd work killed, but the material did ok as well. I’d give my set a B-. After this I went and got a weekend of work and talked to Jason (RVA Funny Bone gm) about what steps he thinks I need to take to kind of get to the next level.

James and Kenny go next, but during this time I am in and out because I am eating. I called my mom to talk a bit. I miss my dad a lot. He would have super enjoyed this show. The show is going well, but I am ready for sex with me is like to happen.

At the end of Kenny’s set he brings everybody back up and we go into the game. They love this way more than they liked the standup portion. It is crazy and filthy and dirty. I got a huge laugh on almost all of mine. I felt like I was on fire. Everybody had good ones, and even when they don’t work it gets a laugh because we are busting balls. I’d give this portion of the show an A. It was a crazy fun time.

After the show I say goodbye, and get some pictures with audience members. I grab what is left of my dinner and head out. I watch some tv and pass out. This was a successful day.

7/19

The next day after work I went and met my mom. I had been booked to do a private birthday part for the mom of one of my best friends from high schools. It was a 50th birthday party and mom was invited. It was good for mom to see her friend and meet new people. I had a blast catching up with my buddy Steve. He asked me to be his his wedding and of course I accepted.

We had a good time eating and just talking. I was supposed to perform for about 10 to 15 minutes outside beside their pool. Everyone had been drinking a bit, but it was supposed to be a clean show.

I went out and it was super warm. I get brought up before everyone is outside. So I stall a bit and make small talk. I do some jokes and get some laughs. It is just weird since it is outside, and everyone is pretty far from me. I do my act and it goes ok. Not great, and not terribly. People liked it, but they weren’t vibing with me. I didn’t get the same energy I was putting out. I’d give this show a C. It was fun, but it wasn’t amazing.

Honestly the bet part was seeing my old friend, and meeting his fiancee. It was a truly awesome time. I grabbed mom and we said our goodbyes before heading back home.

7/20

The next night I was booked by Var to perform on his Comic Shop show. It was my first time doing comedy in a barbershop so I was pretty excited. I had heard the last few were pretty fun, an dI think I am the first white comic who had been booked on it.

I get there and get to talk to Var. It was nice to finally get to have a conversation with him. Then Mike Jay, T Harris Jr, and Chris St. John showed up. We were hanging and shooting the shit. It was a lot of fun. Then Jayron showed up as well.

The show started and this dude Juice went up. I’d never heard him before but he didn’t really click with the audience. He got some laughs, but he was super unpolished, and you had to work for their attention.

After him it was time for T Harris Jr. He was outside having a smoke break or something. So there is this weird lull in the show. I stand up and motion I am ready to go up. So he brings me up. I go into my act and start busting balls. There is legit like 5 people on their phones and this one chick not smiling at all. I got some ok pops. I am proud of the set I did and I had some good crowd work moments. I didn’t really crack them, but I did do way better than I expected due to how the crowd was acting.

I definitely learned a lot, and it was cool to be the dude that was ready to go at any moment. I’d give this set a C as well. I could have done better, but I didn’t. I adjusted as well as I could, but honestly half of the audience didn’t seem to give a flying shit about the show. The people who were into it dug it and that’s all I can ask. I talked and hung for a bit before heading out to hang with some friends. I then headed home. I was ready for a day off.

7/22

The next night I drove all the way to Charlottesville for The Southern. I set everything up, and got to catch up with the GM Danny, and Jeyon. We talked about future shows, and I was ready to try some new jokes.

Then the power went out. That is right the power went out. So we waited until 7:30 to make the call, but we ended up cancelling the show. The few comics that came out all decided to go to Applebees and grab a bite to eat. It was me JR, Kenn, Chris, Johnny Rad, and Jaye.

We had a good meal, and talked comedy and all types of other shit. It wasn’t the same as doing a mic, but it was better than doing nothing. Afterwards I headed home and passed out.

7/24

I had off the previous night as well since there were no shows in town. So I was really excited for today. I was going to hit up two open mics, and also check out my friend’s at the funnybone.

On my way to work I hit a pothole and messed up my wheel. I called roadside assistance and the dude who came was a dude who was a fan of mine. I had met him a few times. He called and was like are you from Richmond. I told him no, and he was like oh that is weird because there is a comedian who has the same name as you. I was like yea that is me.

He was super helpful. His name was Richard and as soon as he said his name I remembered him. He got my spare on and I went to my grandads shop. I needed a new wheel they said so I was stuck with no vehicle.

So I drove it on the spare to my uncle’s body shop. I dropped it off and had my aunt/uncle on my dad’s side pick me up. We went to lunch and had a really good time. Talking about dad and everything else. Then they drove me to my mom’s car at the dealership where dad used to work. I grabbed the vehicle and headed home. By this time it was too late to really do anything so I hunkered in. Another night without comedy is a huge bummer, but I know I have a lot of shows the rest of the week. I did some writing and passed out.

7/25

I was stoked to finally be able to do some comedy this week. I had The Winstmas Games and a super good lineup. It was going to be team Charlottesville vs team Richmond. I had Chris Alan, Paige Campbell, and Heather Kilburn going up against Patrick Buhse, James Muñoz, and Brandon Beswick.

I got there crazy early to set up everything. I am hoping for a good turnout, but the summer is tough. You never know what is going to happen. Some of the comics start to show up and we get the hang going. I have about 8 or 9 people on the guest list so at least there will be a few guaranteed there.

I am also excited because Kyra Elizabeth of Kyra Elizabeth Photography came out and was going to take some pictures of the show. She does killer work, and it was awesome that she was willing to come out! I can’t wait to see the pics!

We start the show a little late and eventually we have around 30ish people there. This isn’t terrible, but I am definitely disheartened. We start the show and I start to bring everyone out. The energy is pretty weird for the first 20 or so minutes. Like good jokes aren’t getting any laughs. So everyone is trying really hard.

Eventually the show picks up and becomes really fun. The crowd enjoyed it and we did a good 70 minute episode of the show. My only problem was I felt like I was getting talked over the entire night. Which is incredibly frustrating when hosting. Like the thing I am best at is sitting back, and waiting to have a response to some of these jokes and I wasn’t getting n opportunity to do that.

I knew if I kept trying to do it then it would only hurt the show. So I was more silent than usual on the show. We still had a great show I just didn’t have as much fun as I usually do. I kept the games moving, but as far as making my own jokes I didn’t get a chance to do it.

Beswick and Muñoz did really well. They kept trying to one up each other. Buhse had some killer callbacks. Heather was pretty silent. She didn’t have much to say, but when she did she had some pretty funny lines. Paige and Chris both also did pretty well.

We ended with Sex With Me Is Like and that seemed to go well. I might do this going forward because it guarantees the show ends on a laugh. I’d give the whole show a B, and my own personal performance an F. I really didn’t enjoy it, and I felt like I sucked.

I hung out with some friends a bit after and then headed home. I had a long weekend ahead of me.

7/26

The next day after work I hopped in my car and headed up too DC. I was going to be working the Improv the next few nights. I get off work an hour early! I’m hoping I miss traffic, but this is not the case. It took me 3 hours to make an hour 45 minute. It was miserable.

I finally get there and park and walk to the club. I am stoked. I am hosting two shows in the lounge. It is the standup showcase. The lineup is myself, Alex Scott, Ross Benoit, Paris Sashay, and Tony Woods. It is legit one of the best lineups I’ve ver been a part of. All of these folks are killers.

I’m chilling in the back and the comics start to show up. The hang is pretty fun, and Alex Scott and I start shooting the shit. Then Ross gets there. We talk about our upcoming show on Thursday, and just generally catch up.

The show is pretty packed. It is almost sold out. I am hoping it is a pretty fun crowd, but I haven’t gotten to so standup since Saturday and I feel so damn rusty. The show starts and I go up.

I do an ok set. Honestly it was just weird. I didn’t do poorly and I opened them up. I just know I could have done better. I stumbled on my words a little bit and it took me longer to connect to them. I honesty just need to be more confident, but I am so scared performing in DC. I’d give this first set a B-.

After me Alex goes up. He has a pretty good set, but they are still a little tight. Same thing for Ross. They’re all doing better than me, and it isn’t a bad crowd, but it just doesn’t feel like they’re loving the show. Then Paris goes up and she had a killer set, which was followed up by Tony Woods have a good one as well.

All in all it was a fun show, but I really hoped the next crowd was going to be better. I just wanted to step up and provide an even better show than the first one.

I chill for about an hour waiting for the second show. People start to file in and the pre show energy is awesome. They seem ready to go. It is also getting pretty full. I am way more confident than I was the first show. The first show reminded me that I know how to do this.

The second show starts and I go up and have a dope set. All of my stuff is working. They clicked with me from the beginning. I was smiling more, and we were all on the same page. There were moments I didn’t feel perfect, but for the most part it felt like I knew what I was doing again and deserved to be there. Hosting in the lounge can be tough. It is a different vibe than the main room. Sometimes they are crazy loose, and other times they are tight af. I am so glad this was the former. I’d give this set an A-.

The rest of the show goes great. Everybody is killing. Alex Scott kills, Ross murders, Paris slays, and Tony Wood absolutely destroys. He brings the house down. From top to bottom it is one of the best shows I have ever been on.

After this I head over to Big Hunt. I hang with Dom Rivera, Lafayette, and a few others. We are shooting the shit and hanging out. Andrew Cook comes out and is looking for someone to go first. I volunteer. I love going early here. No just because the audience is still there, but because I love the idea of getting home relatively early.

The show starts and there’s a pretty good crowd. Sami Sfeir is hosting and he has a solid opening set. He brings me up and I have a good one. I try a few new jokes and one goes over really well. I also get my R. Kelly joke to work the best it has in a while. I can’t wait for this to be the only thing I do. I’d give this set a B+.

After this I walk to my car. I hop in and drive to Fairfax. I get some snacks from the 7-11 and head to my buddies house. I get there and TJ gives me one of his Pony Gang t-shirts. It looks super dope and I am psyched. We watch a few episodes of Last Chance U and then I pass out.

7/27

The next day I pretty much just slept. I am trying to get caught up on how little I have slept the last month. TJ made burgers and we talked a bit before I went and took another nap.

I head into DC and go straight to the improv. There are less comics on the show tonight. It is just Ty Davis, Alex Scott, Ross, and myself. Matt Brown had to drop off because he was featuring at Magooby’s.

The show is absolutely packed. It looks like it is going to be a light crowd, but like five minutes before show time people start to pile in.

I go up and this might be the best show of the weekend. Everything works and feels good. I have a hot one and even try a new joke. That even works and I am just feeling it. I bring Ty Davis up and she kills. Then Ross, and Alex both destroyed. We had a super killer first show.

After this show ends a little early I am just hanging out talking to the staff. They say the second show is sold out so I am anticipating a fun one. I was wrong.

I hated my set. I felt like I was bombing my dick off. I felt like no one was enjoying it. I’d get a laugh and then nothing. Then I’d get another laugh and then nothing. It was just awful. I was so upset about this set. I’d give it a D. I am better than this and I can do better than this.

Everyone else after me did well. They had to work a little harder than they did in the first show, but I felt like I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I felt like a hack. I hate comedy when stuff like this happens. You can do well and then the very next set it looks and feels like I have never done comedy before.

After this show I headed to Big Hunt. It is an incredibly light crowd there for the open mic. But Sean Patton who was headlining left and was like, “ladies and gentleman that is how you don’t headline a room.” He said he felt horrible the entire weekend about the shows. This made m feel a little better. If this absolutely hilarious dude who is headlining feels this way then it is ok for me to.

I get to go up 8th. Dylan showed up and we get to chill a bit. It is always fun to talk comedy and see him. We chat about our shows, and then start to watch. I get to see some of my friends go up like Lafayette, Denise Taylor, Ross, Maddy, and a few others. They’re all doing pretty well. The crowd is hard to crack because they are all wasted and there is only like 15 of them. I tell myself I am going to try some new stuff when I go up.

I go up and I actually do pretty well. I get some pretty big laughs, and I tried a handful of new things. All but one of the new things worked. My energy felt good, and I just felt comfortable. I definitely felt like this was a very productive set. I really want to keep working at it and moving my way up the chain here. I’d give this set a C.

As soon s I am off stage I grab my stuff and say goodbye. I dipped out and started walking to my car. I have off tomorrow and I was so excited to just pass out at home and wake up and relax.

I get to my car and have absolutely no traffic the entire way back home. I get there around 3 and watch a little tv before passing out. I am ready for a day off.

7/29

Today starts pretty good. Get to go bowling for a field trip at work which was killer. Then I get a fb message from Kyra and she sent me some absolutely amazing photos of The Winstmas Games. At least it looks like the show was amazing. Legit hope she does some more because I was extremely impressed.

After work my mom picks me up since my car has been out of commission. She drives me to go grab my car and the bill ends up being half of what we thought. I ended up needing two wheels, but they sent one that had a flaw in it and they let me keep it for free. So I basically got two wheels for the price of one. Which is amazing and honestly I really needed it.

I grab my car and head up to Charlottesville. I met Keaton Ray for dinner. We talked comedy and about when his show was coming back at The Bridge. We go over some bits, and destroy some Jack Browns. Samantha Padgett and her significant other Lucy show up. We talk to them as we are leaving and tell them we will see them soon.

We head over to the Southern and I start to grab all of the PA stuff. I also take down all of the chairs, and get the tables moved. I don’t set the PA up yet because last time I did the damn power went out. So I just go and kind of relax as other comics show up.

JR shows up and he sets the PA up. A few people show up an hour beforehand and they aren’t even performing which is pretty cool. Some people brought friends and we have a pretty big lineup. John Marg showed up. As did Jack Gerow, Kenn Edwards (after I left), Jake Snyder, Paige (as I was leaving), Dylan, Sam Wood, Sam Padgett, Jack Johnston, and a lot more.

The hang is super fun. I go outside and Sam P called me over. She was being hassled by a weird dude trying to get a hug and sell her some drugs. It was sketchy af so I just chilled next to her until she was able to move.

Chris and I shoot the shit and are riffing inside before the show starts. It was nice to just kind of unwind and bust balls. It had been a minute since we had been able to do that. I really missed it.

The show started at around 8:15 and we had an ok sized crowd. Chris goes up and is having a fun hosting set. He actually tried some new jokes, and was busting everybody’s balls. As he went on I started to feel pretty sick. I don’t know what it was.

I honestly think a lot of it is stress from my dad. I haven’t slept much, and I have been having horrible stomach problems due to anxiety. I also think the greasy burger and fries I ate (as delicious as they were) did not help the situation.

Over the course of the show more and more people show up. I am up fifth, and before that I am running to grab chairs until we have a pretty awesome packed house for the open mic. Dylan went up first and he had a solid opening set.

Then a few more comics went up. They all did ok. The crowd had been enjoying it and kind of hot, but they hadn’t really popped yet. There was a gay comic from New York who said he used to do comedy in the 80s. He defiantly had an 80s vibe, but he also had a few jokes I enjoyed. I hope he keeps coming out.

Then it was Sam Wood’s turn. She goes up and I start to get mentally ready to try and have a hot set. I want to do better than I did the last day in DC. So I get new jokes ready, and I just want to go.

She brings me up, and people start to get up to talk and get drinks. So I am just patient and bide my time. I ask a few questions and use the first minute or so to just get people on my wave length and have them ready for the show.

Once people are settled in I proceeded to have a really good set. My jokes were working, and I was able to get some stuff tighter than it used to be. I also did some crowd work I really enjoyed. I got this one dude involved and pretended he was one of my favorite porn stars. I kept calling him Mike Rod and he was there with his mom. It was a lot of fun.

I’d give this set an A-. There were like one or two things that didn’t get the pop I wanted, but overall a great set. I got some big pops and woke up the crowd. I felt like I did my job, and at the same time got to work on some new material.

After my set I started to feel incredibly sick. I had to leave. I hung around for a few more comics and talked a little bit, but I couldn’t take it anymore. I packed my stuff up and said goodbye and headed out. I caught Paige on the way out and told him I felt shitty. After this I hopped in the car and headed home. I chilled for a bit with my mom and then just passed out. I needed it.

I AM CAUGHT UP AGAIN! You can’t keep me down laydees! I am defeating this damn blog one way or another. I refuse to not do it. I need to write about some other stuff that isn’t just my shows. I will figure it out baybees! Until then I love you so much and thank you for reading! See ya soon! xoxo

#comedy #jokes #standup #bomb #dc #charlottesville #richmond #va #rva #cville #comedyrva #improv #gameshow #podcast #hilarious

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thebrownblog · 5 years ago

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Different Seasons: Two Years in Quebec

Well, once again it’s been a while (I won’t even pretend at the end of this entry that the next one will be soon, it’ll be some time in 2021 if I follow the average posting frequency). What’s up folks? What could I possibly be here to talk about today? Probably the one thing that distuingishes and defines my life, the fact I moved thousands of miles from home to a place that seems to be frozen half the year, and doesn’t have English as a first language…and then decided not to move on again, stubbornly at times.

Before starting this, I just read back through my previous post from October 2017. “A hundred thousand changes, everything’s the same” sums it up nicely. It was clearly written by a younger, more enthusiastic version of myself who was still on a high from just arriving, and hadn’t yet experienced 2 brutal winters. I’d say I’ve probably matured and grown more in 2 years here than in the previous 5, however difficult Paris was. The foundations were laid by the Parisian struggle, but it’s definitely Quebec that’s put a few hairs on my chest.

This is a very seasonal existence, and there’s no way around it. The euphoric highs of summer and the beauty of autumn juxtaposed with the looooong slog that is winter. The euphoria of being out on the road all the time seeing beautiful place after beautiful place vs being stuck at home because of the gloomy and sometimes dangerous conditions (I will NEVER forget for as long as I live, how close I came to death in a sudden snowstorm in Maine last October, when visibility suddenly dropped to about 20cm in front of the car on a winding mountain road with moose out and about at night). I’d go so far as to actually call it a bi-polar existence over the course of a year, a life of extremes for sure. Am I capable of growing old in conditions like these? Probably not, but I’m not ready to give it up yet, and if I ever do I’m not sure it would be to go back to England anyway. Who knows?

However, I loved it here at the beginning, and I still do today. Why? Same reasons, by and large. Open space, open road (weather permitting). My own slightly bizarre version of the American Dream probably (Well, it IS just 25 minutes away). Ever since I was a kid, I was going to end up on this continent somehow. I always wanted to go to the USA. Why? Most likely being a big reader and film fan. Everything I loved reading and watching was always set in America. America to me was not and still is not defined by who is president at the time, and what crazy sh*t is happening politically. It’s more of a concept. To me it represents vast open space where you can go anywhere, and become anything you want as long as you have the will and the fortitude to make it happen (if the American Dream is dead I certainly never got the memo, and don’t really want want to either). In the end I ended up close enough, AND with a humane healthcare system.

What else do I love about here? The fact I feel like I actually have a chance in life. You can still work hard here in a ‘regular’ job here for a few years, save up and buy a house. This is completely dead where I come from, the idea of home ownership for me one day in London is a sick joke, and Paris was no better. I recently just moved into my own place for the first time, and actually have a spare bedroom…and it all costs less than a box room with barely enough space to swing a cat in in London. These things would have mattered less to me at 21, but now rapidly approaching 30 (yikes!) they matter more and more. Quality of life now matters a lot more to me than a place being hip and vibrant, and I have it much better here.

Some people understand completely, and others think I’m crazy, but that’s okay, crazy’s always worked for me.

I think to really understand me on this, you have to understand that I’m not attached to where I come from whatsoever. I miss my family a lot, and it’s painful at times, especially knowing my little sisters are growing up seeing me twice a year, but the place itself I could happily never see again. When you understand this, you can better comprehend how I’ve lasted this long already without the end being in sight yet.

Another big question is how someone from London feels more at home out in the sticks, and I think there’s two valid answers to this question. One is that I was completely and utterly burnt out with big city life after my negative experiences in my last years in London, and then the backbreaking experience in Paris in which I couldn’t even see just how miserable I’d become until I left. I clearly just wanted peace, affordability, a slower pace of life, and no more f*cking public transport!

The second is connected to childhood and Sweden. I grew up in London but I would always go to visit my grandparents a few times a year in Sweden, where they lived in the countryside. It was always a magical place for me, and everything that’s come out of me here (love of peace and quiet, nature, and nature photography etc) all actually started over there when I was much younger, but came out with a vengeance in Quebec. Funny how nearly everything about us all is programmed by our childhoods one way or another, whether we see it or not.

It is also my theory that people always crave the opposite of what they grow up with: those that grow up in the country want the bright lights of a big city, and those that grow up in cities often want a slower pace after a while.

Ironically, my life has also been busier living in a small place than it ever had been before. I came to learn quickly that doing nothing in these weather conditions is not an option unless you want to find yourself fat and depressed in a hurry. There ARE things to do here, you just have to find them yourself, the internet isn’t going to tell you much. Aside from private tutoring, I’ve kept busy in a wide range of eccentric ways. I’ve joined a rugby team, a football (’soccer’ to all you North American lunatics) team, played a lot of badminton, and got myself more seriously involved in photography. You’ll notice a lack of winter sports, which is a shame I know, but sadly I know myself and know I was born with two left feet. I don’t want to risk injuring myself in a way that would keep me from driving for any period of time as I’d lose all of my income. You drive or you die out here. A train?? What the hell is that???

So, what’s really changed for me since the post I made near the beginning of the experience? The biggest thing is probably integrating. I couldn’t understand a word anyone said to me here for the first 2 months. I spoke French well enough already after a year in France, but the dialect and accent here is so different it was often basically worthless. Nowadays I communicate just fine, and have integrated into the community. It’s been a new social experience for me being known pretty much everywhere I go. That’s what happens when you work at schools in a small place and you have something about you that is unique (a Brit who actually speaks the language and lives here…yeah, there aren’t many….).

It’s very different from the anonymity of a big city, and like all things has its pros and cons (sometimes you just want to go into a shop and buy something without being recognised by a current or former student), but mainly pro. Community spirit is a good thing that’s been pretty much lost in larger places. There’s definitely a kindness and willingness to help here that is more prevalent than anywhere else I’ve lived previously. Some of the families I private tutor for seem to have adopted me as one of their own!

Another big change was getting a new 2-year VISA in April which allows me to have any job, my first one was very restrictive, and made it tough to earn decent money at times. After getting it, I finished the year by supply teaching for a few months which was great experience, and certainly an adventure in itself as I ended up subbing for just about every subject on the curriculum. Obviously with the exception of English classes, this meant I had to do it in French all the time. If subbing for Maths, Science, and French isn’t a testament to how far I’ve come with the language from not being able to understand anything at all during the first two months here, I don’t know what is! However I drew the line at doing dictation in French one time, and put Netflix on instead, there are limits!

VISAs, VISAs, VISAs….well I’ve got myself started now. There’s been a constant stress from the moment I decided to stay on in October 2017. With the VISA I currently have, and the year I’m entitled to with my Swedish passport, I could fairly easily stay here until April 2022. However, I’m really tired of temporary solutions, and all the admin and costs that go into obtaining each one. I want to become a permanent resident, which is a more daunting and complex beast. When I come back from my trip home in early September all my energy will be put into finding a full-time job. You can’t get permanent residency without one. Whatever subbing and tutoring pay me is irrelevant because neither count as full-time, and I can’t go and study anything without swapping my working VISA for a restrictive study one (the headache never ends you see).

In many ways this next phase of the journey is going to be the acid test in terms of where I will end up. I will walk away from the teaching world temporarily or permanently if I need to, in order to find a full-time gig and get my residency. However, the job will have to involve my being an anglophone who speaks French to a high level. This is my advantage in this town, and the card I will always look to play in the employment game. If it can’t help me here like I’ve always thought it could, I would have to look elsewhere in the province eventually, and if there was still nothing cooking, I would have to ask myself the question for the first time about whether I would prefer to live amongst other anglophones in Canada, all opportunities being equal.

These are all ultimately questions for another day though. What’s certain is I have a good chunk of time left, and in that time I will continue to travel around Canada and the USA as much as I can within my means. I often feel like a born nomad, and I love nothing better than hitting the road and seeing new places. That’s my pleasure in life, and long may it continue. Everything else will work out how it’s supposed to, it always does.

Tomorrow’s flight back to England finally signals the end of the beginning in this long, meandering, and very seasonal story.

TL;DR:

Winter is too long and I need a full-time job to become a permanent resident, but I still like it here, and people are nice.

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lildaveselectronics · 6 years ago

Video

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[Street Fighter V] Extra Battle: Viable Ryu

If you were lucky enough to get the Extra Boss Battle before July 1, 2018 you got a chance to fight Ryu dubbed "The Master" it cost 1000FM to fight him and just like with Fortnite Thanos was for a limited time this is something I want to see more of in the future with different games and even more possible limited time crossover events that keeps interest and can change, add, or improve gameplay keeping things fresh, fun and unpredictable for the gamer. I think both are cool ideas and watching MDZ Jimmy fight what he calls him Viable Ryu was funny and entertaining check it out. This was pretty cool I had just made a post about the new DLC character G and the speculation on who he is and some of the boss battles of SFV so it was cool to see the Ryu The Master "A True Martial Artist" in his traditional Gi. G and Ryu's rival Sagat are the last 2 planned DLC characters planned coming out later this year, and with ideas like this they can keep the game fresh for years to come.

Bonus:

VesperArcade has been putting up a lot of quality strategy and advice videos for many of the top games this year including the fighting game genre. With the release of the character called G getting closer wanted to revisit one of the best years for fighting games.

Extra Bonus:

With Street Fighter celebrating its 30th Anniversary and speculation on who G is, Mortal Kombat coincidentally just came off of celebrating its 25th Anniversary and many anticipating a new Mortal Kombat game (Mortal Kombat 11) and whether the game would take place before or after Armageddon. SMGxPrincess, Dynasty, BruskPoet, History Behind the Warrior and Super have some of the best informative, fun insights, and gameplay with Mugen creators Borg117 & Bleed having some of the best new gameplay ideas, and Mortal Kombat Addict has his own Krypt Secrets with some of the best Mugen Mortal Kombat games. Mortal Kombat has a huge following and a strong enough background to keep the game going with all the secrets and characters already in the game but it would still be cool to see something new. Many wanted a crossover game with Street Fighter or even Killer Instinct but on its own it is still one of the top fighting games of the genre.

Kreate-a-Fighter was one of the best features from Mortal Kombat Armageddon between that and the Epic Gears and Shaders from Injustice 2 they are the perfect combination.

Update:

Dynasty has just posted New Mortal Kombat details in the form of a movie instead of the anticipated Mortal Kombat 11 game. Here they introduce a new character and a new story not necessarily what we know of Mortal Kombat. More of a spin off or a custom Mugen game, even though I was hoping for some kind of answer what happens after Armageddon I welcome any new idea and if done well it can work even though not canon (like the Japanese/Chinese relationship with Liu Kang & Kung Lao - ninja/shaolin monk brother relationship but without stereotyping it can happen right? I'm sure they will explain it like they picked which martial art or style they wanted when they were young). Mortal Kombat Rebirth pitch wasn't exactly canon either but looked good enough that we wanted to see it anyway. They did Mortal Kombat Legacy 1 & 2 instead but Mortal Kombat Rebirth I think would have worked.

New ideas sometimes keeps interest just like in the Kreate-a-Fighter post where Dynasty, Brusk Poet, SMGxPrincess and other fans game post ideas that gamers actually want as well as Borg117, Bleed, and Mortal Kombat Addict reinventing Mortal Kombat with gameplay that adds new experiences. Check out the new Mortal Kombat Movie details and see what you think as well as the Mortal Kombat Rebirth pitch and the version they actually went with Mortal Kombat Legacy 1 & 2, and check some great ideas for the new MK game in the Kreate-a-Fighter post and SMGxPrincess post below.

New Mortal Kombat Movie Details? Character Cast & Story Plot Revealed w/ No Sub-Zero & Scorpion?!

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SMGxPrincess usually has on point information and knows what she is talking about when it comes to the industry haven’t heard anything yet so I decided to put up the best ideas and information from SMGxPrincess and Dynasty. She posted information about a Shaolin Monks 2 as the next game personally I want the new Mortal Kombat 11 so hopefully both are true or it is combination of the 2.

MORTAL KOMBAT: REBIRTH (1080 HD)

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(This trailer actually works just tap play it had Reptile as the thumbnail but it works.)

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Trailer

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[HD] Mortal Kombat: Legacy II | Trailer

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Mortal Kombat is a one of a kind fighting game that keeps expanding and offers fans and gamers a like new ways to enjoy the franchise. For fans of the MK series check out some of the latest movies and games out and coming out each bringing its own unique direction that can also stand on its own and bring something new and entertaining.

IS BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL THE ANSWER TO CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON?

Blade of the Immortal has gotten overall a great reception with critics and fans alike scoring in the range of 85% of 81 critics they have consistently gotten the approval needed to solidify its space as a classic and gem that everyone needs to know about. It was based on a manga of the same name by Hiroaki Samura and is the 100th film from its director Takashi Miike.

IMMORTAL Unchained - First Gameplay Trailer (New RPG 2018) PS4/Xbox One/PC

Immortal Unchained: First 45 Minutes (Gameplay)

CRACKDOWN 3 gameplay 4k (e3 2017) Xbox One X

Crackdown 3 Trailer - E3 2018

RED FACTION GUERRILLA RE-MARS-TERED AND SAINTS ROW IS BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE!

Volition earlier in the year was bought by THQ Nordic reuniting them with old Volition titles from the past like Summoner and Red Faction. If you are not familiar with the Red Faction series you are in luck Red Faction Guerrilla is being remastered and if that’s not enough Saints Row 1 and 2 are now backwards compatible on the Xbox One. MrSaintsGodzilla21 has posted 2 videos so you can see how well these two have been upgraded as well as detailed explanation.

Agents of Mayhem had mixed reviews when it came out but it was a different perspective that even though is chaotic it is different enough you won’t confuse it with a Saints Row game kind of how Saints Row the Third separated itself from being a GTA clone. Check out Agents of Mayhem on Playstation Underground and hightlights for Agents of Mayhem and 10 years of Saints Row.

Anon | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflix

Jamie Foxx has been confirmed to play Spawn in this new reboot by the comic creator and artist Todd McFarlane in association with Blumhouse Productions which made news last year with its movie Get Out. It is said that they are taking more of a horror approach, as well as Spawn not really speaking. That works good with Jason or Michael Myers but some dialog would be good I hope they rethink that. I would like to see what the official word is from Todd McFarlane himself but Spawn not saying anything doesn’t sound right to me.

Since Spawn has been anticipated by fans of the comic, movies and video games here is the History of Spawn by Variant very entertaining and knowledgeable to watch and History of the Warrior talks about the real reason Spawn wasn’t in Injustice 2 well thought out and entertaining.

WILL 2 JOKERS BE THE BRIGHT IDEA THAT WILL DO DC COMICS JUSTICE?

If you had to choose the next Joker movie to be based around the one from Batman or Suicide Squad which would you pick? Personally as a fan of Suicide Squad and wanting to see something new I think it was good news that Jared Leto was getting an opportunity to play that version of the Joker to see where the story goes as this version looks different and even acts different. But for the sake of argument Joaquinn Phoenix playing the original Joker and having this version also a standalone movie seems like the best of both worlds.

MCU Could Tackle Horror Genre According to Kevin Feige

Marvel is thinking about getting in on the horror movie action and thinking about a few characters like Man-Thing and Blade. Blade one of the more popular characters in the Marvel Comics Universe already has a trilogy out on DVD and Blu-ray but getting a revamp wouldn’t hurt and I would like to see the direction they would. There is currently a Blade television show called Blade The Series you can watch now on the CW staring Kirk Jones (Sticky Fingaz from the group Onyx)

Joaquin Phoenix has just been officially announced as the Joker for the Origin film they are making, for any fans of Batman or the Joker check the new game Batman: The Enemy Within as well some of the older Batman games like Batman: Return to Arkham.

WB Officially Announces Joker Origin Movie With Joaquin Phoenix

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Telltale’s Batman: The Enemy Within Episode 1: ‘The Enigma’ Review

Batman: Return to Arkham includes what is considered to be 2 of the best games ever made now remastered for the new generation of players on the Playstation 4 and Xbox One. The game comes with 2 classics Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City. With the power of the Unreal Engine 4 giving it that graphical upgrade it looks better then before. Even though it has received mixed reviews it is still worth the pick up whether you are a new to the series or played it on the previous systems.

Update:

Adding information about Season 2 of The Punisher from IGN, also one of the better movies of 2017 Murder On The Oriental Express, 25 facts about Jigsaw from the Saw series and Team Spoiler.

#Games

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bthenoise · 5 years ago

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Q&A: Anthony Raneri Relives 20 Years Of Bayside Ahead Of Upcoming Anniversary Tour

In the year 2000, in the bustling streets of New York City, an emo-leaning punk rock band named Bayside was formed. 20 years later, after the release of eight fantastic albums and thousands of shows played all across the world, the highly influential act is gearing up to celebrate their latest accomplishment in a major way.

Starting in late May, Anthony Raneri and Co. will be embarking on a massive 20-year tour (presented by The Noise and Violent Gentlemen) with their friends Senses Fail, Hawthorne Heights and Can’t Swim.

As you can imagine, the band is eager to get things started.

“Everybody on the tour, we go way back with,” says Raneri. “Senses Fail, we've toured with -- not including Warped Tour -- we've done like two or three club tours with them and we've done like two or three Warped Tours with them too. So we’ve spent a lot of time together. And Hawthorne Heights, we've toured with a ton of times. We were together at the inception of both of our bands. We really came up together. We went through a lot of stuff together. They're like family to us. So it's really the perfect package.”

To see Raneri dive into more about the band’s upcoming tour as well as their nostalgic Bayside Museum, be sure to check out our in-depth Q&A with the vocalist/guitarist below. Afterward, make sure to grab tickets to see Bayside out on tour here.

Before we get into the tour, we hear you’re a big baseball fan?

ANTHONY RANERI: Yeah, I'm a huge baseball fan.

Well then, what are your thoughts on the upcoming season with the Astros’ cheating scandal and everything else going on?

I'm excited. I don't think the [Astros'] punishment was harsh enough because they're still the favorites in their division. Like, they're probably still gonna win their division. So what kind of punishment is that? That doesn't even set them back at all, you know? So there's that. But I also kind of think there's going to be a lot of distractions and negativity around that team so I think that will be their punishment. I think that's going to play a role in how they perform. But I'm a big Yankee fan, so I'm happy. We had a good offseason.

Getting Gerrit Cole to be your starting pitcher is never a bad thing.

Yeah, huge. I think the team looks good. It's sort of an embarrassment of riches right now. We have some positions with more talent then there's even room for so it's pretty exciting.

Back to the Astros, how many times do you think they'll be hit by pitches intentionally this season?

You know, I saw the Vegas odds said like 84 or 85 [times] or something like that, right?

Yep. Over/under 83.5.

I saw that and I was like, “okay, that's ridiculous.” You know, that's every other game. I can't imagine it's going to be that much but then watching spring training it's happening like almost every game. So I'm like, “maybe that 80-something number isn't that far off!” [laughs]

They kind of deserve it at this point but we'll see how the players handle it.

Yeah, it just depends. I mean, obviously, nobody wants to see anybody get hurt over a game. So you know, we'll see. I also think the MLB will put a stop to it before it gets too crazy. I think there will be a lot of people thrown out of games or suspended pretty quickly. Which is ironic if the punishment is harsher for that than it is for cheating [laughs]. But I'm sure that's what's going to happen. They have to protect people, you know?

Totally. Last baseball question: What is your World Series prediction for this year?

Yankees vs Dodgers. I think it's the dream World Series for MLB, Fox, and everybody who stands to profit off a World Series that a lot of people will watch.

The ratings would be insane. But who would you pick to win it all? The Yankees?

I think so. I mean, I think it'll be [close]. I think the Dodgers have looked good for years and they just got even better.

So diving into Bayside's upcoming 20-year anniversary tour, what's it been like for you personally getting ready to celebrate 20 years of the band? We're sure it's been kind of crazy looking at some of the old photos you guys have been sharing and whatnot.

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of funny nostalgic stuff swirling around in our camp. It hasn't all quite hit the public yet. Before all this sort of old nostalgia stuff hits [the internet], it's hours of us going through old pictures and old video. We just got like a multi-terabyte drive of video from Victory, our old label, of like the making of our first couple records and some tour stuff from like 2004-2005. We're starting to sift through that. It's wild. I mean, I know it's cliché but it really does just seem like yesterday as cliché as that sounds.

In regards to your guys' setlist for this tour, will you be bringing out a few older songs?

With all of our shows, we try to make everybody as happy as much as we can -- which is impossible to do but we try our best to keep everyone happy. So these shows are going to be pretty big and we definitely recognize that there will be a lot of people coming to the shows who just know the singles 'cause that is sort of what happens. The bigger the show, the more likely there are going to be a lot of people who only know the bigger more popular songs. When we play smaller shows -- like when we play the kind of underplay, more intimate stuff -- it's usually the real diehard fans who kind of get on it and get the tickets early. So that's where we're able to really stretch out the setlist and play the real kind of deeper stuff. So the bigger the show is, the more we have to lean towards the hits. With that said, we're definitely going to have the deeper cuts in there and the older stuff in there. It'll be a good combination of the hits, some deeper cuts and some stuff we never play. So a combination of trying to please the fans who probably haven't seen us in 10 years and are going to come out because it's a special event but also like the diehards that have been to 30-40 shows.

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Another cool thing you guys are doing along with the show obviously is the Bayside Museum. Without giving too much away, what sparked the idea for that and what might people expect?

We just thought it would be fun. I mean, it's nothing crazy really. We're going through old memorabilia, old photos, artifacts and stuff like that. We're just going to put a bunch, mostly just photos, with explanations and maybe little stories and we're gonna hang them around the lobby of the venue and fans at the show can walk around the lobby and look at the pictures, read the stories, and kind of get a little added experience.

It must be pretty crazy for you guys to go through these things but it will be great for the fans to see and experience it firsthand as well.

Yeah, there's so many -- our first record came out in 2004 -- so there's so many fans that have been with us since then, even some that have been with us before that first record. So you know, it feels like just yesterday to us but I have to imagine it feels the same way for them too.

Another exciting thing about this tour is you guys are bringing out bands that have either been around for or close to that 20-year mark with Senses Fail and Hawthorne Heights. How great is it going to be to celebrate 20 years with people that you've known for a pretty long time?

Oh, it's perfect. I mean, it's really the perfect package for this. Senses Fail, we've toured with -- not including Warped Tour -- we've done like two or three club tours with them and we've done like two or three Warped Tours with them too. So we’ve spent a lot of time together.

Including your 15-year anniversary tour too.

Yep. And Hawthorne Heights, we've toured with a ton of times. We were together at the inception of both of our bands. We really came up together. We went through a lot of stuff together. They're like family to us. So it's really the perfect package. And even Can't Swim, their manager is a good friend of ours. He actually used to work for us. He's toured with us. So we go back with their manager. And Chris, the singer, we go back with him too. We've known him since his early bands. We used to play with some of his earlier bands before he started Can't Swim. So yeah, everybody on the tour, we go way back with. It's a perfect, perfect package for this.

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A post shared by Bayside (@bayside) on Feb 3, 2020 at 12:27pm PST

Talking about all the history you have with all these bands and your own, when you look at this music scene over the past 20 years, what are some things that stand out to you the most nowadays?

The scene is certainly different than when we first started the band. It's definitely different than it was when I was younger, even like before the band. I mean, it used to be that if a band who was compared to bands you liked came through town you went to the show. Like I went to so many shows when I was younger, bands I had never heard before, but I knew they were on the same label as a bunch of other bands that I liked. So you went to the show. Those were our social events. We would try to go to as many shows as possible. So you know, that's changed. Definitely, the trends within the scene, the style of music has changed a lot through the years. But the one thing that's really consistent is that the cream rises to the top and I think it always has and always will no matter what sort of like sub-genre is happening within this scene and whatever's popular at the moment. There are bands that are sort of cashing in or just good enough to ride the trend and they'll have their minute of success and then there are bands that may be part of those trends but are actually great bands. Those are the bands that last. There are bands from 20 years ago that are still popular. There are bands from 25 years ago that are still popular. There are bands from five years ago that are still popular and then there are bands that aren't. So that's the one constant and it's that the cream rises to the top. Trends come and go but I think you actually got to be a pretty good band to really make it.

Looking ahead at the future of Bayside, after this 20-year tour, what excites you most about the band moving forward?

I mean, I think we're at a really comfortable place where we've earned the right to write our own ticket. That's really what's exciting. We're excited for a future that is as long as we want it to be, doing tours that we want to do and making records that we want to make and making them when we want to make them. We can tour with who we want. Like, we really earned the right [where] there's nothing that we have to do anymore. We could do or not do anything we want and that's what's most exciting about getting to this point.

A prime example of that, not that you guys strayed too far from what you normally do, but your latest album Interrobang is definitely a little bit outside of your comfort zone. Do you see Bayside going more in that direction in the future?

Sure. I mean, I definitely think we're having fun playing aggressive music right now. That’s definitely fun. So certainly, with Interrobang being like the most aggressive and heaviest record we've ever made, as I said, we have the freedom to do whatever we want musically or otherwise in business. So you know, we're just going to do what's fun and the heavy and fast stuff is what's fun for us right now.

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#Bayside #Interrobang #Hopeless Records #Anthony Raneri #Interview

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andrewuttaro · 5 years ago

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New Look Sabres: GM 8 - LAK - Stats Class

How much would you give for the Sabres to win a Stanley Cup? The list goes pretty far for me stopping only once you get to some basic human needs and fundamental decency. I’d trade the Buffalo Bills for four of them. I think that’s a fair price for giving up an NFL team, that league sucks ass mightily. The Kings sold it all away for their two Stanley Cups. It’s hard to imagine the City of Los Angeles being a snake-bitten hockey market but before 2012 they were one of those first wave expansion teams who had come close again and again to never actually do the thing. It changed quickly and for most of the early years of this decade they were right up there with Chicago as the class of this league. That whole arrangement is no more. The players that won those Cups are eroding off the roster save for an unmovable few. If you win the Cup, even once, you did it. You’re allowed to be terrible for what… ten years afterward? They sank a lot of assets into those runs and it paid off. And though the dynasty team maybe eroding away that “killer instinct”, that never-say-die attitude, still echoes off the ice. It did last night against the Buffalo Sabres. We might look back on this game as just a record 47-save shutout for Carter Hutton or a record back-to-back plus forty save shutout for him; but this game was not what the score shows. LA never fighting in this game and the Sabres got some luck from the posts. Maybe this team learned something last night. In a tired win against a rested squad perhaps they learned you have to keep coming back, you got to cash in your opportunities or even games you should win will not go your way. The Sabres were not punished for their mistakes last night and they take two points from this one, but they have to be thinking about how the massive Kings counterattack nearly ruined it on multiple occasions. The frequency of occasions this game could’ve gotten away from them was a relative stats class on how to not protect a lead. Nonetheless they did. This was a silly shutout but those count all the same. We��ll talk about some advanced stats that show our Sabres lost their hold on it but at the end of the day the only stat that matters is the score and Buffalo won in that category 3-0.

Casey Mittelstadt was snake-bitten, at least in the goal scoring department. The eternal child looked absolutely elated to get the no goals monkey off his back. Jimmy Greasy Vesey similarly finally got on the scoresheet with an assist on the first goal of this game. The two were streaming into the zone… I don’t know… medium speed (?) and Vesey got the puck to Mittelstadt who sniped it home through a defender and Kings goalie Jake Campbell. You could see the relief both of them had with the outcome of that play. That goal came 2:36 into the game while a little over two minutes late at 5:20 into the first the visitors got their second goal of the game. This time Conor Sheary is getting Casey Mittelstadt into the zone at a faster rate of speed and receives the puck from the boy wonder to quick-fire a puck past Campbell. Campbell must have thought Mittelstadt was going to take the shot. 2-0 Sabres and we’re not even ten minutes into this game yet. As awesome as that was I may regret staying up for this game. The Kings are like if Jurassic Park was real. Yes, they have the killer instinct and the never-say-die attitude still that I mentioned earlier, but like a lot of dinosaurs they’re kind of slow and unwieldy. I’m not kidding when I say that 1-0 goal looked like it was in slow motion. Such a speed-of-smell team is then the perfect foil for a very hot Buffalo Sabres powerplay. After we were already up 2-0 the PP opportunity just absolutely grinded to a halt. There was not a shot on the Kings goal during the full two minutes. That first period powerplay was something microcosm of this game: the Sabres getting only non-dangerous token chances but the Kings just not being able to convert when they got the chance. In this whole first period the Sabres managed only 7 shots scoring on two of them while the Kings shot 11 times.

If you were watching this game as a fan of neither team for some reason the second period was probably the most interesting. As the period goes on the Buffalo Sabres are just caved in in terms of corsi by the LA Kings. I am not smart guy either, so I have been training myself in the ways of this sensei called Corsi for a couple years now. Corsi is an attempt to make a stat about shot differential that makes sense. The guy who invented it, Tim Barnes, was actually inspired to do so after listening to former Buffalo Sabres General Manager Darcy Regier talk so much about shots. Barnes wanted to name it the Regier number or the Ruff number for then-Sabres Coach Lindy Ruff, but both didn’t sound right to him. If he hadn’t been going by a fake name himself he should’ve called the stat Cellino because what combination of names would pay better homage to Western New York than Cellino and Barnes? *Ba dum tis* See what I did there? Anyway, Corsi includes shots on goal, missed shots on goal and blocked shot attempts. In effect it’s how much your team is actually getting puck to the opposition net to put it another way. That also why it breaks down to several sub-categories like 5 on 5 corsi or corsi for and against but I’m already starting to confuse myself here. Feel free to correct me on that description, Chad. By the time the second period is nearing an end the Kings’ corsi is +25 to Buffalo’s -25. The statistical lopsidedness of this game only grew as the game went on. And here’s the thing: the Kings were getting chances galore. Marco Scandella is having a bounce back season so far, but he delivered a goal on a silver platter Ilya Kovalchuk in the second when he squirts the puck (#SabresAfterDark) out from a puck battle behind the Buffalo net to nobody on his team. Kovalchuk was right there, got the puck one-on-one with Carter Hutton at just about point blank with no Sabres defender nearby and fired it wide. They call Alex Ovechkin the Russian machine that never breaks, Ilya Kovalchuk is the Russian machine that broke before the last lockout. Anze Kopitar got a chance earlier where he out-maneuvered Hutton in front but the Sabres’ goaltender’s skate stopped the goal. It’s more or less miraculous the Kings didn’t score through the middle period. You know who did? Yea, Casey Mittelstadt again. LOL.

Our favorite broken Russian machine cross-checked Rasmus Ristolainen and sent the visitors off to a powerplay. Ristolainen then collected a rebound and shot it in Casey’s direction where he was parked in front of the net. Campbell once again failed to track the puck and it ended up in the net behind him. At first it wasn’t clear if Mittelstadt touched the puck at all or if it went in off Kings defender Alec Martinez, but it was credited to Casey. Y’all have two Cups this decade, you don’t get to be upset. And so Mittelstadt was on the Hat trick hunt but because of the aforementioned growing statistical lopsidedness of this game that third Casey goal never came. The third period was wild. I’m told it was at least because admittedly I was in and out of consciousness. I’m no party boy and am no good after midnight. There was only one powerplay and no goals or other big game events in the final frame other than Buffalo holding on for dear life so let’s talk about another advanced stat. This one is a bit easier to wrap your head around then corsi: Expected Goals (xG). Think of expected goals as a combination of various danger-levels of shots on net plus goalie stats mixed in for some flavor. The name is almost self-explanatory, but this stat is literally how many goals should be scored if there was no luck and randomness in the game. Imagine only robots played hockey. If they were flawless robots who didn’t get malfunctions of any kind they would always meet the expected goals statistic. This game is played by humans though, so this stat often shows just how much a team overcomes to get a result. This stat is also often the base stat for all those fun heat maps the nerdiest of stats nerds feel the need to post without any explanation what we’re looking at. The software Chad DeDominicis uses plots it out rather well if you ask me. He tweeted a map of the expected goals and scoring chances for the third period and let me just say Wow. There are a lot of big, scary Kings circles representing high-danger chances right in front of the Sabres net while not so many large circles for Buffalo in front of the Kings net. Though the Sabres won this game 3-0 they were outshot… wait for it… 47 to 24. That’s a record-breaking shutout for Carter Hutton and an opposition outshooting us more than 2 to 1. But hey, we won.

Jimmy Vesey had a pretty decent game for once. I heard his voice for the first time in that interview with Rob Ray in the first intermission. Speaking of people who had a good game, Rob Ray was 100% Rob Ray for this game. He had funny walk up skit in the pregame and fumbled through the aforementioned interview like a champ. We should all have a conversation about Rob Ray at some point about whether we’ve turned him into a self-referential joke about hockey culture but that’s for another day. I brought this postgame to Stats Class, the class I hated the most in undergrad mind you, because this game is pulled straight from the Sabres win streak of last season. They were jobbed statistically and apart from coming back from behind late in the game they exhibited every quality of our fun but ill-fated Fall folly last year. I don’t want to think this is what undergirds the Sabres torrid start and statistically speaking the other wins so far this season show progress and sustainability. I’m all for my club getting shutouts but not like this. I don’t think I can do New Look Sabres reply guy tweet of the game today. By the time Sabres twitter was engaged in this game it was a little too late for quippy tweets, maybe Sunday night when I postgame the Sharks game. For now like, share and comment on this blog to help out. I’ll admit I was totally wrong that they would powerbomb the Kings from lower-earth orbit. I’ll be honest I just like saying that phrase. Here’s a question you could answer in your comment on this blog: What do we think of our first back-to-back of the season? Did it actually effect either game or was it not notable in any meaningful way? Now it’s Evander Kane and the San Jose Sharks on Saturday night to wrap up #SabresInCali. I suspect I’ll be #AndrewInBed before the final horn sounds on that one.

Thanks for Reading.

P.S. I’m fully out of steam on the #SabresAfterDark front. I think I peaked with challenge the goal, daddy.

#buffalo sabres #hockey #blog #nhl #LA Kings

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jodiwalker · 8 years ago

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A Bachelorette Recap: Rachel Is the Queen and We Are the Sorry People

"Let me tell you something. I'm not here to be played. I'm not here to be made a joke of … So I'm really going to need you to get the fuck out." – Rachel Lindsay of the House Bachelorette, First of Her Name, the Un-to-be-trifled-with, Queen of the Fuckbois, Ruler of the Mansion that Venereal Diseases Built, Breaker of Bullshit, and Mother of Reads

Can you all hear Rachel's perfect Texas drawl in your head as keenly as I can while reading the quote of the century? Has any Bachelorette ever held. that. shit. down. as deftly as this one? No. Because this isn't any Bachelorette. This is the Rachelorette 2K17 and if you are not a man who is ready to hold it down just as tight…than she is going to need you to get the fuck out.

I did not expect myself to be very interested in this DeMario storyline. I liked DeMario and his hollering out of wedding plus-ones in the premiere; so I wasn't rooting for him to be the creep [ed. note: hey, stay tuned on that creep front, 'cuz it's a big ol' YIKES] with a girlfriend. Plus, his girlfriend seemed a little too eager to be delivering her gotcha-moment on national television, and a little too unabashed about wearing a stone-cold waffle-weave scrunchie on her wrist while doing it...

But who cares about DeMario and how many man-rompers he left over at Lexi's house — this storyline is all about Rachel and how she managed to take the drama-covered receipts from Lexi, the slimy "new phone, who dis" excuses from DeMario, run them through her logic-o-meter (a brain, as it's called outside of this franchise), and calmly inform these people that she has 25 boyfriends, a dog who can currently only use three of his legs for unknown reasons, and a rented house in what appears to be an upper middle class retirement community to take care of...so she doesn't really have time to be running on some bullshit.

As Rachel has stated multiple times throughout her three-episode tenure, she keeps it 100. And if any of these knuckleheads keeps it any less than 100, then they better have a background in computer sciences to make their own sub-100 emoji, and some fresh New Balances to — let’s haveRachel reiterate this one last time — GTFO of here.

Never could I have imagined what it would be like to have a Bachelorette so fully in command of her own experience. Rachel doesn’t accept excuses from anyone, including herself. She seems completely aware of the Hellmouth she has willingly entered herself into, and the only way to make that Hellmouth work for her is to take it seriously and flush out one of these vampires to marry. [Ed. note: Is this metaphor falling apart? Who's Angel? Who's Spike?! Obviously Dean is Willow and, yes, he will develop a complex and moving witchcraft/lesbian storyline in season 4.] And speaking of the dumb-dumbs Rachel is dating, I want to take it all the way back to the premiere for a minute when there were 30 contesticles still hoping to woo Rachel.

It seemed like all anyone could say about Rachel—and the character that the editors seemed to be carving out for her—was that she was so beautiful and smart. Indeed, they had never a woman like her. I quickly ran through a list of all of the women that I know well and couldn't think of a single one who I would not describe as smart and beautiful. Which is fantastic for me and concerning for these donuts.

So, I'd now like to turn it over to my girl Hailee Steinfeld — who is quietly an Academy Award nominee, a budding pop princes, and definitive queen of the teenage eyebrow Hunger Games — and her song of the summer:

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Yes, Princess Hailee. Most girls are smart and strong and beautiful. If these dudes don't know any other women that they deem to be both smart and beautiful, then they are not good enough for Rachel. Also, heads up — these dudes aren't good enough for Rachel!

Rachel's only flaw seems to be that she’s not aware when a dude isn’t good enough for her. Rachel can be as smart and funny, and hand as many asses to as many duplicitous dummies as many times as she wants to, but the fact of the matter is, we have this wonderful Bachelorette…because she once truly wanted to be engaged to Nick Viall.

And that is as good of a reality check as any to remind us that this is still the Bachelorette, and two bros will still play a game of homoerotic "I'm not touching you" in the driveway when they get kicked out. Because a peacock cannot change its feathers (which would be a much better reference if this came on NBC!). Yes, of course, I wish that Rachel, Queen of the Fuckbois, Ruler of STD Mansion, Breaker of Bullshit, and Mother of Reads could be a little more like Hailee Steinfeld's breakout song of summer 2015, “Love Myself.” That’s right, the one where she boldly declares that she maybe, definitely screams her own name while she masturbates. I'm not talking about that declaration, though; I’m talking about the other, less intriguing, but altogether more important: Gonna love myself, no I don’t need anybody else (Hey!).

Alas, us women of a certain age weren't raised with the raging independence of the SnapChat generation. We must marry, and we must do it quickly — before our wombs rot and there are no Tickle Monsters or sociopathic amateur drummers left for us. We can scream our own name during orgasm, sure. But society and ABC contracts dictate that it would be much better if there were a Peter or Kenny beside us while we do it. Let’s get to know them, shall we...

DeMario's Return

Y'all. After being told to "get the fuck out," this dude thinks it's a good idea to Uber back over to the mansion for a little more screen time. But all it really does is give Rachel another chance to show off her PhD in rhetoric. I mean—the woman can talk, and I think anyone who watched Farmer Chris or Des with Bangs' season could reiterate the importance of that one simple skill to you.

However, there's nothing simple about the way Rachel pummels what's left of DeMario into the ground. DeMario tries to tell Rachel that Lexi assassinated his character and he was just caught off guard. Rachel kindly responds that all that can be true (in a tone that says it's very much not true), "But I need a man, that when confronted with a difficult situation, does not lie about it." Similarly, I need a Rachel that will speak for me every time I'm confronted with a difficult man. DeMario says that he had a little chat with his Uber driver on the way over, and that Uber driver — who was, without a doubt, a male— encouraged him to not take no for an answer. Bad advice, brother! Always, always, ALWAYS take no for an answer.

Once DeMario starts spouting "in order to experience joy, you need pain" quotes to Rachel (who literally has 20 other guys waiting inside for her, 18 of them hotter than DeMario) she's had it. "I'm glad you realized that you need to move forward," says Rachel, gearing up for something good. "But what I need you to understand is that forward isn't that way toward the mansion. Forward is outside of it." Do you understand that, DeMario? Do you smell what the Rachel is cooking? The other bros shuffle their feet behind her hoping they can somehow spin her hate of another man into a love for them. They ask if DeMario is coming back. "Fuck no," says Rachel.

The Frontrunners

Going back a few episodes, it must be noted that a few frontrunners have already emerged. And they are tall, strapping, brunette white men, because Rachel has a type.

Bryan is a 37-year-old chiropractor who doesn’t look like his name is really Bryan, like he's really a chiropractor, or like he's really 37-years-old. All of that is a compliment.

I really liked Bryan because Bryan is hot and speaks Spanish; I could even get past his Dementor-like kissing style…right up until some of the fellas went on a group date to Ellen and it was revealed during a game of Never Have I Ever—always a cool thing to play with eight guys, one gal, and a live studio audience—that half of the guys on the group date had already kissed Rachel. To the half that had not kissed her, this comes as a surprise. Because, I guess, they've never met a human woman and cannot imagine how Rachel might meet 30 dudes, which probably adds up to, like, 150 different abdominal muscles, and want to kiss some of them. To Bryan, this serves as an opportunity for him to showcase that he was the first guy to kiss her, which he unfortunately does by saying to another fella, "You got my sloppy seconds." It is proof that Rachel likes Bryan that she did not whip off her lace-front and cut him with words right there.

The other guy that had already gotten his kiss? Peter, who got the first one-on-one: a romantic day with Copper the Dog. I don’t care if Peter is boring. I would climb that man like a tree—and I would ask him to keep all of his fashionable suits on while I did it.

Of note: Anthony, who Rachel goes on a one-on-one with, riding horses down Rodeo Drive (not a thing, girl, no matter how many times you say it's a thing), might actually be good enough for Rachel…but he seems far too mentally and emotionally intelligent to be long for this world.

Do We Have To?

Honestly, if it weren't for the one incredible conversation regarding a banana during the saga of Lukas and Blake, I wouldn't even get into this because these two are The Worst. Lukas is the guy who nearly gives himself an aneurysm every 10 minutes trying to be funny. His idea of humor is just to scream a word: Whaboom. My idea of humor is listening to all of the other men genuinely not be able to remember what the stupid word he keeps saying is: Whabam? Kabloom? Ska-douche? Who cares!

Blake is the guy who talked about his dick for a full five minutes in his intro package, but thinks Lukas is in this for the wrong reasons. These two somehow know each other from the outside world, because Lukas used to date Blake's roommate, who Blake says is now being evicted from his apartment for calling him a maniac…ladies, try to keep your panties on, okay?

This all comes to a boil when Rachel tells Lukas that Blake has been questioning his reasons for being on the show, and Lukas responds calmly and not at all like a drunken, unhinged person, saying that he recently caught Blake standing over his bed eating a banana while he was sleeping. Blake's response to the claim of a moron: "Heh, impossible. I don't even eat carbs." Blake, you fucking tool.

Let's Detox with a Little…

The Pretty Boy Pitbull, Kenny King. If you had told me my favorite man in this group would be a pro-wrestler who goes by the name of the Pretty Boy Pitbull Kenny King, I would have said…Yeah, Jodi, that sounds exactly like you—nothing has ever sounded more like you.

But still, I did not expect Kenny, the pro-wrestler with a 10-year-old daughter to be quite so cuddly. He has endeared himself to me if for this quote alone: "Being a wrestler, I know all about white dudes acting crazy. And these white dudes are buggin'." These white dudes are buggin', Kenny, and you are not. Please stay this pure, and continue not to bug. Also, at some point you have to stop leading every conversation with your adorable love for your daughter. Because I don't know if Rachel is ready to be the step-mother to a teen. Mentioning that you used to be a Chippendales dancer, however, is a good start.

Lee Is a Sociopath Who Must Be Stopped and Since I Just Saw Wonder Woman, I Wouldn't Mind If Rachel Donned Leather Armor and Lasso-of-Truth'd His Ass

Ugh, another annoying storyline, but a complex one, at least. Actually…it's not that complex.

Eric is a young man with Steve Buscemi eyes who has clearly never seen this show, otherwise he would know that if you speak a word about the Bachelor(ette) that sounds like anything less than the complimentary rantings of a stalker, you will be taken to task by some dude named Iggy. See, Eric really likes Rachel, and he's getting frustrated that he can't tell if Rachel likes him back. He wonders aloud to a few friends if Rachel might be keeping her emotions in check since she's dating so many men at once.

And men quite literally come out of the woodwork to tell Eric that he is the devil and he'll never know love.

Listen, I don't really even like Eric that much. He doesn’t seem particularly interesting, and definitely isn't mature enough for Rachel, who could legitimately be the President of the United States right now. But there is no doubt that Lee's sociopathic behavior toward him is fueled by the fact that he thinks Eric is inferior to him. This is obvious because since this season has aired, sleuths have uncovered many a racist tweet from Lee, but also because Lee is a walking microagression with cold, dead shark eyes.

After Eric naively tries to float the idea that Rachel might be playing this gameshow like a game, some dude named Iggy that you don't need to retain to memory comes out of nowhere to confront him about it. Eric raises his voice because Iggy was out of line, and because sometimes people raise their voices when they're upset and consisting on a diet of protein powder and Belvita breakfast bars.

Lee latches onto the fact that he heard Eric yelling and will not let it go. He tells Rachel that Eric’s aggression made him “uncomfortable” (you code, bro?) and he does’t think Eric is right for her. Rachel asks Eric about it and Eric explains that he just wants some validation; Rachel validates him with the group date rose; Lee demeans and condescends to Eric by repeatedly saying creepy shit like he thinks he's "an amazing person" and he “loves him to death,” but he heard him get "aggressive," and that scared him. Then to the cameras: "I don't care if Eric disrespects me, okay? He means nothing … this is one kid with a bad issue."

Hey Lee, real quick: Fuck. You. You are transparent, and you are dangerous, and this season pretty much rides or dies on how soon Rachel gets rid of you. No pressure, Rach.

Just kidding, there is a ton of pressure on Rachel for this season to work out okay, and it's very unfair to her. Happy reality TV, everyone! See you back here, hopefully sooner rather than later. My only thoughts on Bachelor in Paradise for now: Sad, sad, sad. Bad, bad, bad.

#the bachelorette #the bachelorette recap #rachel lindsay

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casuallydeadinside · 8 years ago

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Bajillion Questions Meme

Rules: Answer all questions, add one question of your own and tag as many people as there are questions!

Tagged by @bigbossdidnothingwrong083

This is… a lot. Thanks for tagging me. If you wanted to know a ridiculous amount of things about me, look at this:

1. Coke or Pepsi: Pepsi.

2. Disney or DreamWorks: Disney.

3. Coffee or Tea: Tea.

4. Books or Movies: Movies.

5. Windows or Mac: Windows.

6. DC or Marvel: Marvel.

7. Xbox or Playstation: Playstation.

8. Dragon Age or Mass Effect: I haven’t played either of them, but probably Mass Effect.

9. Night Owl or Early Rise: Night Owl, sometimes until it becomes Early Rise.

10. Cards or Chess: Don’t really have a particular one, but cards are more varied than just static Chess.

11. Chocolate or Vanilla: Vanilla.

12. Vans or Converse: Funny, I also prefer boots.

13. Lavellan, Trevelyan, Cadash or Adaar (dragon age): Who?x2.

14. Fluff or Angst: I don’t read fan-fiction too.

16. Dogs or Cats: I like both, but I suppose cats?

17. Clear Skies or Rain: I have very conflicting opinion on which is better, but rain.

18. Cooking or Eating Out: Cooking 100%, I’LL COOK FOR YOU.

19. Spicy Food or Mild Food: I like spicy sometimes.

20. Halloween/Samhain or Solstice/Yule/Christmas: Halloween/Samhain just because finally winter started, I love winter.

21. Would you rather forever be a little too cold or a little too hot: Cold, come on, easy question. Hot I can’t rip my skin, Cold though I can put 100 layers of clothing and there’s a limit to how cold it can be.

22. If you could have a superpower, what would it be: Choose when to die, teleportation or reverse time.

23. Animation or Live Action: I love both too much to choose, I’ll pick animation.

24. Paragon or Renegade (Mass Effect): I prefer the sort of case-by-case thing.

25. Baths or Showers: Showers.

26. Team Cap or Team Iron Man: Team Iron Man because spider-man.

27. Fantasy or Sci-fi: Sci-Fi.

28. Do you have three or four favorite quotes? If so, what are they?

You bet I do!: "I don't have time for miracles, they make me puke" - Guts (Berserk) “I found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom.” - Narrator (Fight Club) “The mind of the subject will desperately struggle to create memories where none exist.” - Bioshock’s Infinite Title Card.

29. YouTube or Netflix: YouTube.

30. Harry Potter or Percy Jackson: Harry Potter.

31. When Do You Feel Accomplished: When I don’t regret or feel undeserved for what I’ve done.

32. Star Wars or Star Trek: Star Wars.

33. Paperback Books or Hardback Books: I don’t mind either.

34. Handwriting or Typing: Yeaaa... typing, handwriting not so good unless you give me time.

35. Velvet or Satin: According to google Satin is a type of weave and Velvet is fabric blah blah I don’t care for either sorry.

36. Video Games or Movies: videogames.

37. Would you rather be the dragon or own the dragon: befriend the dragon.

38. Sunrise or Sunset: Shit, too tough to decide, sunset I suppose.

39. What’s your favorite song: Waaaaay toooo haaaaard... I’ll choose an old one, March — Influence.

40. Horror Movies, yes or no: Yes when it’s done right.

41. Long or Short Hair: If it’s what I find attractive, I don’t care for either, as for me I prefer short hair in summer and mdium-long hair in winter.

42. Opera or Theatre: Haven’t really gone to many to say a strong opinion, but I suppose Theatre.

43. Assuming the multiverse theory is true and that every story ever told has really happened somewhere, which one of the movie/book/tv show/game/etc worlds would you pick to travel to first: Berserk, I want to get a Berserker’s Armor.

44. If you had to eat only one thing for the rest of your life what would it be: I suppose milk or rice would be the best case scenario, I want to actually extend how long it takes for me to die from mal-nutrition if I do have to only eat from one type of food.

45. Older guys/girls or younger guys/girls (I guess you can change this to your preference): My love life would make you think it would be older girls since they’re always 1 or 2 years older than me sometimes even only 6 months, I don’t really care much but since I never had anyone younger than me I actually want younger ones more now.

46. If you could erase any show from TV history, what would it be: Reality Shows.

47. Singing or Dancing: Singing.

48. Instagram or Twitter: Twitter, and barely.

49. Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit: Lord of the Rings easily.

50. If you could create either a sequel or bring back any tv show/movie, what would you choose: Asura’s Wrath for a game and Half Life 3 :3c.

51. Who is your movie/tv show character that you are looking up to and why? Guts, Asura, probably more. I want to be a strong-minded as them, maybe a little badass too

52. If you were ever convicted of a crime, what would it be? That is a very good question, I don’t know what to answer :| I don’t see myself doing something like “crime”.

53. Anime- subbed or dubbed? Subbed.

54. City or countryside? City.

55. What book have you read over and over? None.

56. What is your personality type? ESFP-A according to a quick 12 minute test. (I personally don’t feel this way, do with this info what you will ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

57. Would you rather change a moment in time or have a glimpse into the future? Change a moment in time.

Questions added by tikinaga:

58. Is there a popular series that you just can’t get into?:

Maybe stuff like romcoms or sitcoms I suppose.

Question added by bigbossdidnothingwrong083:

59. Dream job?

Programmer on some sort of video game related company.

Question added by me:

60: What are your favorite games? (I’d suggest only putting a handful)

God of War, Red Dead Redemption, Devil May Cry, Asura’s Wrath and Key of Heaven (If you have trouble looking this one up, just add PSP at the end of it).

I tag @bathtub-anima, @iam0hate0and0love, @thehoekage.

Jesus FUCK this is really long Thomas, ya bastard. (I’m so happy you tagged me though :) )

Anyone else who wants to do this feel free and tag me.

#questions #thomas

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translationandbetrayals · 5 years ago

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A Comprehensive Guide about Touhou Project! Part 3 - Touhou The Anime!?

Welcome to the third and probably the last part of this guide. If you’re not familiar with the Touhou series, then you are in the right place! This is a beginner friendly guide to introduce you to the topic so you can have an idea of this huge universe and his fandom. So I recommend you to read the first and second part of this guide before (or even after) you read this one. Here are the links for your convenience.

Part 1 What is Touhou?

Part 2 Touhou related content!

Go on and check them out! I will wait until you’re ready.

...

If you already read the others part of this guide, let's continue.

So last time we talked about all the other media that Touhou have. But today we are going to talk about something more interesting to most people over here. We’re going to talk the animes about Touhou.

Anime?

Yeah, anime

Anime like… For real?

Yes and no. Yes, They ARE a 10 to 25 minute anime (and some 40+ minutes films). But there is no official or licensed anime of the franchise. All of them are just fan created anime, and are commercialized in the doujins events like Comiket and Reitaisai (that one we talked in the second part of the guide). There are a couple of them and they cannot have more variety. But today we’re going to talk about some of them, with a little review and some of my personal opinion of course. And don’t be fooled by the fact that they are fan animations you can be surprised by the quality of them. So get let's started!

Musou Kakyou: A Summer Day's Dream. By MAIKAZE

Also known as Touhou Anime Project but was changed because ZUN (the creator of the series) expressed concern about being mistaken for an official product.

This is a slow paced fan anime about the characters of Touhou in his daily life when suddenly things all over the village start to be stolen, so the protagonist need to find out the culprit. It’s funny and silly, there are some good fights scenes in it too. It was released in Comiket 75 (2008) and has 4 episodes to this day. The first in 2008, the second one from 2012, the 2.5 episode from 2014 and the third episode is from 2016… Yeah… As you can see there are like 1 episode every 4 years… So I think the Fourth and final episode will be ready the next year! (2020) So if you’re suffering because you have to wait 1 week to watch your favorite anime of this season… Those time think in the people like myself, the one who has been waiting 4 years for a episode for like… 10 years! Hahaha (Please help me).

Anyways, this is a pretty good anime and a very short one, so 100% recommend if you want to watch something light to relax. Another important thing to mention is the participation of professionals voice actors in the episodes.

Fantasy Kaleidoscope ~The Memories of Phantasm~. By Manpuku Jinja.

Here we have a serious one. Fantasy Kaleidoscope is a 16 minute-duration fan anime. It started in 2011 (From the Comiket 80). It have 13 episodes and the series is still ongoing! The circle follow a schedule of 1 or 2 episodes per year, being released in the Comikets events most of the time.

It is high recognize by the high quality of his animation which is just sick as hell! And It’s follow the story of the originals games too! Being every episode an adaptation of a installment of the series. So it's a great way for the introduction of the story of the game!

But there is something else about this anime, I mean nothing is perfect right?

Did you notice it?

The project is highly recognized because they have no voice actors working for this project, basically all the budget goes to the animation (and the subtitles to know what the characters are saying haha). BUT I’m not saying that is an anime without audio, the reality cannot be further from this!

Every episode has a unique soundtrack that are in reality an arrangement versions of the soundtrack of the game that it been adapted and/or the musical theme of the characters that appears. And, every episode has sound effects for the movement, expressions and the fight scenes. This mean that literally the only thing it is missing in the episode is the voices of the characters.

The Promotional Artwork is gorgeous too!

Then you’re thinking, so anyone can put the voice in it, like a fan dub, and should work fine?

The answer is YES. And there are a couple of pretty good japanese fan dubbing for this anime. I think the creators has this in mind when they were making the first episode. “Make an animation in order to be fandubbed”. So in the end we have characters with the animations and the timing as if they were speaking but with subtitle in japanese to understand what are they saying.

It interesting to me how this anime reflects the “Touhou way” of doing things.We can even call it: “The Touhou way of doing an anime.” Haha.

Here is the first episode from the official YouTube Channel of Manpuku Jinja (They upload the older episodes when they release a new one)

Link to YouTube! (No voice, but with english subs!)

And here is the Japanese Dub version (It’s not hard to find the others episodes in Youtube with pretty good dub as well)

Link to YouTube! (With voice and subs!)

No review for this one, sorry.

This is a 30 min-duration fan anime by the Chinese circle Kyoto Fantasy Troupe called The Sealed Esoteric History, but I haven’t seen much of it. But It’s looks nice. Haha.

Well, that all from my part. It’s the last part of the guide in which I'm writer. So I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it! If someone want to continue or expand this guide, you’re welcome! it’s always a good thing to teach new people about this series so just keep it up!

And for the tradition:

Yeah… He uses a lot of trumpets in his music…

Yeah, I guess this is a good image to close this guide. Have a good one!

Thanks for reading!

Enrique Valdés F.

#Anime #Japan #submission

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swipestream · 6 years ago

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Adding a New Gamer to an Existing Group

For those of us who have gamed for a long time (I just hit 35 years of RPG experience myself), it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that not everyone is a gamer, or that “gamer” is really a spectrum. There are those folks that only like Yahtzee and Spades. There are folks that prefer chess, backgammon, and a rare game of Risk. Some people like cards only, or dice only, or just board games, or just family games. There are folks (like me) that enjoy any assortment of tiles, cards, dice, minis, books, playmats, or whatever hilarity hitting the tabletop. We live in blessed times that there are too many quality games to choose from. A side effect of this is that we have a wide variety of gamers to choose from, and I love them all.

Preparation Before Invitation

Let’s focus in on role-playing games for a bit, though. If you have a friend who is interested in joining your RPG group, there are some steps to take in preparation for extending the firm invite to the group.

If you’re not the host, get the homeowner’s permission to invite the new person into their home. This might involve the host meeting the prospective player in a neutral location, depending on how closely the host guards their privacy and home.

Talk to the group as a whole about the new player. At a minimum, get the GM’s permission. Preferably, everyone should be accepting of the new player, if not outright approving of it.

Talk to the prospective player about group expectations, including your social contract. If you’re not sure what a social contract is, I recommend these articles:

Gaming Charters and Social Contracts In Detail

A Reminder About Social Contracts

My Group’s Social Contract

Social Contracts for RPG Groups

Talk to the new player about table conduct. This includes what kind of jokes to expect, if alcohol is allowed during the game, general age ranges of the other players, if any children are in the group (or present in the area of the game area), etc.

Talk to the new player about game style. This includes system, themes, existing characters, events leading up to the game’s “present day,” and what kind of GM the person running the game is. This article by Wendelyn will be useful in this area.

Newb to Veteran

Once everyone is on board with the new player (including the new player), then you have a new gamer in your group! Make sure the new player will stay long enough to become a “grizzled veteran” of your campaign. There are some ways to tackle this.

If you are the GM, try to get some one-on-one time with the new player and work with her to create a character that will fit in. If your gaming style/system needs another player or two present during character creation (such as Fate Core), you can either sub in for the missing players or invite the more laid back or experienced players to join in for the character creation process. I’d also recommend running a one-hour solo game with the new player to get them into the rhythm of playing the character, running in the system, and getting used to acting in character without the pressure of doing so in front of a group of strangers.

If you’re not the GM, then still arrange some one-on-one time with the newcomer. Show up with a pre-generated character and a one-hour solo game in mind. Try to run the one-shot in the same style as the existing GM, so the new player can get accustomed to the styles, themes, ideas, and so on of the game system your group is using. Let the new player know that the actual GM will be the final say in rules, assisting with character creation, and will be running the game to avoid any confusion.

Before the new player shows up, make sure they know the exact days, time, and location of the game. If it’s a person’s house, make sure the new player knows not to show up too early (no more than 10 minutes early, or whatever the host likes), and not to show up too late (usually no more than 10-15 minutes late). If you can, be early to the game, so the friend isn’t hanging out in a stranger’s house without a familiar face around. Even better, arrange to carpool to the game, so you arrive together. Also, let the player know (though this should be covered in the social contract) about splitting food costs or showing up with snacks/drinks or showing with food already in the belly or however your group works these logistics.

Once the new player shows up at the first game with the full group, make sure they have a seat immediately next to the GM. This will make it easier for them to ask questions about rules, the world, her character, and so on without having to shout down the length of the table or feeling isolated. If the group is large enough, the GM may not have the time or ability to give that much focus to the newcomer. In this case, ask for a volunteer to “mentor” the newcomer and have an experienced player assist the new player.

One thing I love to do for people who are brand new to role playing is to give them some dice with a dice bag. I kind of go overboard with it, and you certainly don’t have to go this far if you don’t have the finances to do so. I always arrive at games with my “regular dice” and my “loaner dice.” If someone consistently needs to use the loaner dice, I just give them the bag. I usually do this on the third time in a row someone needs to borrow dice. It’s a nice gift. I don’t make it seem onerous or overbearing. I make it a funny and happy moment to “christen” them into gamer culture. My loaner dice bag is always a Chessex “Pound o’ Dice” and a large dice bag to fit them all in. This can run me anywhere between $25 and $35 dollars depending on if I can find the dice on sale. If you can’t afford this, then maybe prepare a set of loaner dice that constitute “retired” dice or a couple of the less expensive sets of dice found at your FLGS.

In addition to the dice, I always make sure I have spare paper, pencils, graph paper, and other sundry tools to ensure the newcomer has the proper tools. I’ve seen plenty of people who were hardcore board gamers think that RPGs contained “everything you need to play” and show up empty handed. Loaning them stuff is a clear way of showing them how to be prepared for future sessions.

Phil has a great article about using safety tools. While I usually game with people that I’ve known for years (if not decades), I don’t need those tools at my table. However, introducing these tools for the first few sessions is an excellent idea as everyone gets to know everyone else. Just make sure your existing group is aware of the change at the table beforehand, so it’s not a surprise to anyone.

Encourage everyone (if you aren’t already doing this) to build on the new player’s ideas with the “Yes, And” approach of gaming. This will make the player’s ideas inclusive into the overall story and give them some valuable spotlight time early on.

Conclusion

I’ve used these techniques to good effect over the years. It’s usually worked, but not always. Sometimes the folks try out RPGs for a month or three and then discover they prefer to spend their Friday nights playing bridge or horseshoes or the latest MMORPG. That’s perfectly fine, so don’t judge or belittle someone if your hobby is not right for her.

What are your tips for inviting new players to the group? Have anything to add to what I laid out here? I’d love to hear from you.

Adding a New Gamer to an Existing Group published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

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placetobenation · 7 years ago

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With the summer movie season almost upon us, Andy is here to try to make sure you don’t get fooled when spending your hard-earned money when you choose to take in the latest flick at the cinema.

When people ask me what my favorite type of movie is, I always say blockbusters. Don’t get me wrong, but with the exception of paranormal thrillers and torture-porn flicks like the Saw movies, I love all types of movies. As a movie fan, I believe in balance as far as the movies I see goes. I love to see a big budget summer movie, then follow up it with a comedy and then after that check out an independent drama. But there is one thing that I really hate, when I see an awesome trailer but then the movie is really disappointing and bad. And it’s not like you can really avoid trailers these days. There are at least fifteen minutes of trailers before every movie that you see in the theater. You can always be “that guy” who closes his eyes and covers his ears during them. I see where they are coming from, I like to go in with as little info as possible so that the reveals, twists and turns aren’t spoiled for me. For example, I didn’t try to avoid the trailers for Rogue One, outside of seeing them before other movies, I didn’t seek out more clips and info. It did pay off and I didn’t see some of the plot turns that occurred coming. Some trailers you will see for over a year before the film is released. And often the three-minute trailer can contain all of the best parts of a one hundred and twenty-minute movie, that really gets my goat, so to speak. Here are some of the worst offenders over the last twenty years.

Passengers, released December 21, 2016. Here is the plot summary, courtesy of IMDB.com: A spacecraft traveling to a distant colony planet and transporting thousands of people has a malfunction in its sleep chambers. As a result, two passengers are awakened 90 years early. This is a great concept for a movie, so many possibilities and directions it could go in. Add in two of the biggest stars today: Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt with beautiful set design and visual effects, it should be a success, right? So where did this movie fall flat? A few places, but mostly on the script level. The characters were under-developed, and it tried to borrow from too many other movies. This film was derivative of “Cast Away”, “Titanic” and “Home Alone.” Also, one of the characters has a major moral dilemma, but I would call more a “dick move” for what they did. In hindsight, the trailer was a bit deceptive, but in their defense, they don’t want to give away the “plot twist,” so I do get why they did it. I just wish this film held up to the promise it’s trailer gave us.

Suicide Squad, released August 5, 2016. Here is the plot summary, courtesy of IMDB.com: A secret government agency recruits some of the most dangerous incarcerated super-villains to form a defensive task force. Their first mission: save the world from the apocalypse. What a fun concept, right? Let’s get a team of the worst criminals we have and send them in to stop an even worse supervillain. This was probably one of the best trailers I’ve seen in a long time, especially with the classic rock hits, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Ballroom Blitz,” and “Spirit In The Sky” featured in it. It was so good that the studio had the team that cut the trailer take a shot at editing the film. They only had so much to work with, so they couldn’t even save this movie. I don’t hate this movie, I really liked some parts of it, but it was filled with missed opportunities. They didn’t really develop enough of the characters outside of Harley Quinn and Deadshot. The motivations of the characters weren’t fully defined either. Also, I think a lot of people are really getting sick of the heroes of movies having to stop the giant light in the sky. There were at least three other movies, although only one really got it right, that featured this that year, “Doctor Strange,” “Ghostbusters” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows,” so this needs to go away or least used minimally going forward. This gave a lot of concern that the DCEU was in trouble since with was is in such a rush to catch up to the MCU that they weren’t concentrating on the little things that matter and failing to properly set up the universe. Thankfully with “Wonder Woman” and “Justice League”, they have started to course-correct.

Transformers: Age Of Extinction, released June 27, 2014. Here is the plot summary, courtesy of IMDB.com: Autobots must escape sight from a bounty hunter who has taken control of the human serendipity: Unexpectedly, Optimus Prime and his remaining gang turn to a mechanic, his daughter, and her back-street racing boyfriend for help. Honestly, the entire franchise should be on this list. Transformers was one of my favorite cartoons growing up and there are some cool and good parts to these movies. But, it is mainly Michael Bay shitting on my childhood. In regards to this entry in the series, there are so many problems with this movie: the swift and brutal death of the apparent comic relief early in the movie; the mention of the “Romeo & Juliet” law as part of a sub-plot; Optimus Prime being really pissed off and killing a human on purpose. But the worst offense (I will admit it was a cool scene when it happened) was saving the Dinobots for a short scene at the end of the movie after it was the biggest promise from the trailer.

Man Of Steel, released June 14, 2013. Here is the plot summary, courtesy of IMDB.com: Clark Kent, one of the last of an extinguished race disguised as an unremarkable human, is forced to reveal his identity when the Earth is invaded by an army of survivors who threaten to bring the planet to the brink of destruction. We didn’t know it at the time, but this was the first entry in the DCEU. But man, this was no “Iron Man.” The trailer had some cool visuals and it seem to set up an epic battle between Superman and General Zod, which we did end up getting, but the tone of the movie was totally off. I’m not a comic book guy, but even I know that the tone of this movie was way too dark. Superman is the light, “boy scout” of the Superfriends. Batman is the dark character, which is what keeps the balance in the team. This movie was just in the wrong hands, Zack Snyder’s. Superman was too gritty and pissed off for most of the movie. He behaved more like Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. Plus, there was way too much imagery portraying him as a Christ figure. This is a prime example of that when it comes to a comic book movie, you need to put it in the hands of someone who knows and cares about the source material.

Elysium, released August 9, 2013. Here is the plot summary, courtesy of IMDB.com: In the year 2154, the very wealthy live on a man-made space station while the rest of the population resides on a ruined Earth. A man takes on a mission that could bring equality to the polarized worlds. After seeing “District 9”, like many, I was looking forward to Neil Blomkamp’s follow up. The trailer was great, but it basically gave away the entire movie. Yeah, a few plots points were omitted but anyone who has seen a movie before could piece together what the missing pieces were. Where “District 9” was sci-fi futuristic take on Apartheid, this film tried to do the same with the theme of division of classes and what could happen in the future. It gets too on the nose throughout and story goes off the rails by the end. Jodie Foster, much like Kate Winslet in the Divergent series, is missed-cast and gives a disappointing performance. When Blomkamp came out with his third film “Chappie”, I decided to skip it and from what I heard about it from people who saw it, I made the right decision.

John Carter, released March 9, 2012. Here is the plot summary, courtesy of IMDB.com: Transported to Barsoom, a Civil War vet discovers a barren planet seemingly inhabited by 12-foot barbarians. Finding himself prisoner of these creatures, he escapes, only to encounter Woola and a princess in desperate need of a savior. When this movie came out, most people found it to be too derivative of other movies in the genre, “Raiders of the Lost Ark” & “Star Wars.” The funny thing is that the book it is based-on inspired filmmakers like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg when they were making their early action-adventure films that I just mentioned. And that where the main problem is. The action sequences and special effects are good, but there many similar movies that did them better. Again, like many others on this list, it suffers from poor plot pacing and uneven characters. It was a shame because it was director Andrew Stanton’s first attempt at live-action after having such great success in animation with “Finding Nemo” & “Wall-E.”

Sucker Punch, released March 25, 2011. Here is the plot summary, courtesy of IMDB.com: A young girl is institutionalized by her abusive stepfather. Retreating to an alternative reality as a coping strategy, she envisions a plan which will help her escape from the mental facility. Surprise, surprise, Zack Snyder is on the list again. This is his attempt at an “Alice In Wonderland”-type story. This movie is visually stunning but not much else is there. The plot is similar to that of a video game with quests and levels that have to be beaten by the main characters. Except for Oscar Isaac & Jon Hamm, all the leads in this movie are all women, which is one positive that can be taken away from this film. However, that positive is almost turned into a negative by the way the characters are depicted and objectified.

Cowboys & Aliens, released July 29, 2011. Here is the plot summary, courtesy of IMDB.com: A spaceship arrives in Arizona, 1873, to take over the Earth, starting with the Wild West region. A posse of cowboys and natives are all that stand in their way. Spaceships attacking cowboys in the Wild West? Yes, sign me up. This film also had an incredible pedigree out of the gates. It was produced by Steven Spielberg, directed by Jon Favreau, written by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, and starring Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford and Olivia Wilde. However, this was one of the biggest disappointments I’ve ever seen. Again, the movie’s failure starts at the script level. There were so many character motivations that didn’t make much sense. Underneath the main leads, there was a tremendous amount of miscasting with some of the supporting roles. These were good actors but they shouldn’t have been in this movie. This was a rare misfire by Jon Favreau as a filmmaker. Outside of the concept, there’s nothing much original in this film, most of the set pieces and characters are paint-by-numbers for a western.

Where The Wild Things Are, released October 16, 2009. Here is the plot summary, courtesy of IMDB.com: Yearning for escape and adventure, a young boy runs away from home and sails to an island filled with creatures that take him in as their king. Many of us read this story when we were kids. Film adaptations of books can be difficult, especially when the source material is so short, only about ten sentences long, in this case. Spike Jonze is a director with a great vision. What we ended up getting is a movie that slogs and bores both kids and adults. It is so dark, bleak and depressing that one wonders what the filmmakers were trying to say from the get go.

Jennifer’s Body, released September 28, 2009. Here is the plot summary, courtesy of IMDB.com: A newly possessed high school cheerleader turns into a succubus who specializes in killing her male classmates. Can her best friend put an end to the horror? This was screenwriter Diablo Cody’s follow-up to her Oscar win for the critically acclaimed film “Juno.” This film had a lot going for on the surface. It starred Megan Fox, who was red hot coming off the “Transformers” franchise, the aforementioned Cody and horror was on an upswing at the time, especially horror comedies. However, this movie was neither very scary or very funny. There is plenty of witty dialogue, and some very sexy scenes that teenage boys will dream about, but it seems like there was some unfulfilled potential that the trailer promised.

Watchmen, released March 6, 2009. Here is the plot summary, courtesy of IMDB.com: In 1985 where former superheroes exist, the murder of a colleague sends active vigilante Rorschach into his own sprawling investigation, uncovering something that could completely change the course of history as we know it. Based on a graphic novel, many said that the source material was unfilmable. They were half-right. This was a pretty movie but the filmmakers (cough, Zack Snyder, etc.) spent more time on the look of the film and neglected character development and plot. There were also questionable casting choices as well as misplaced songs from the 80’s featured in the movie’s soundtrack. The biggest drawback of this movie is the run time, at an excruciating three hours plus.

X-Men: The Last Stand, released May 26, 2009. Here is the plot summary, courtesy of IMDB.com: When a cure is found to treat mutations, lines are drawn amongst the X-Men, led by Professor Charles Xavier, and the Brotherhood, a band of powerful mutants organized under Xavier’s former ally, Magneto. Bryan Singer did a very good job directing and world-building in the first two movies in the franchise. And in one movie, Bret Ratner flushed it all down the toilet. This film really messed with the canon of the franchise by killing off too many characters, namely Professor X and Cyclops. With the main plot being about a cure for mutants and the questions and decisions that come along, a much more capable director would have made a smaller film and focused on a few characters dealing with whether or not they should be “cured.” Instead, we got basically an assassination of a major comic franchise that Bryan Singer had to be lured back to in order to save it with “X-Men: The First Class.”, in which they thankfully ret-conned this film from the cinematic universe.

King Kong, released December 14, 2005. Here is the plot summary, courtesy of IMDB.com: After a movie crew travels to a mysterious island to shoot their picture, they encounter a giant and furious gorilla who takes their leading actress and forms a special relationship with her, protecting the beautiful lady at all costs. This one almost didn’t make this list, there are a lot of positives with this movie. Peter Jackson had just delivered on “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, so why not remake a classic monster movie with today’s money and technology behind you. This is another movie that suffers from being way too long. There are so many sequences that can be shortened, especially the one with the giant insects on Skull Island. It takes forever for them to get off the island and to New York. We could do without the ice skating scene in Central Park. The casting for this movie was actually very good along with great special effects. This is a tough movie to re-visit though because of the slogs between great action set pieces.

Be Cool, released March 4, 2005. Here is the plot summary, courtesy of IMDB.com: Disenchanted with the movie industry, Chili Palmer tries the music industry, meeting and romancing a widow of a music executive on the way. This movie made me mad when I saw it. I loved “Get Shorty.” I thought John Travolta did an awesome job in that film as the follow up to his comeback performance in “Pulp Fiction.” It was also touted as an on-screen reunion of John and Uma Thurman. Again, another movie with a great cast, but it seemed like a retread of the first movie, just a different industry setting and without the charm. It seemed to get lazy and go through the motions from the start of the movie.

The Matrix: Reloaded, released May 14, 2003. Here is the plot summary, courtesy of IMDB.com: Neo and the rebel leaders estimate that they have 72 hours until 250,00 probes discover Zion and destroy it and its inhabitants. During this, Neo must decide how he can save Trinity from a dark fate in his dreams. The first “Matrix” was groundbreaking and revolutionary so when they announced a sequel, who didn’t want to see what the filmmakers would do next. This time around, they focused too much on the action scenes and not enough on the characters in the world they built. There was too much exposition in the dialogue, and many of the subplots went unresolved. And what’s worse, they did it again in the next film in the franchise, “The Matrix: Revolutions.”

Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace, released May 19, 1999. Here is the plot summary, courtesy of IMDB.com: Two Jedi Knights escape a hostile blockade to find allies and come across a young boy who may bring balance to the Force, but the long dormant Sith resurface to reclaim their old glory. Where do I start? We waited 16 long years for a new Star Wars movie and because of that, they were able to sucker us in. They played off our hunger for the episodes of the saga that we had all heard about for years. They took advantage of our nostalgia for our beloved trilogy. It opened with the 20thCentury Fox and Lucasfilm logos. They gave us the John Williams score; an image of a desert planet with a spaceship; imagery of worlds we haven’t seen yet; podracing; Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor & Samuel L. Jackson as a Jedis; Yoda; Darth Maul with his two-handed light saber and R2-D2 & C3PO. What could go wrong? That’s a discussion for a whole other article. In a nutshell, too much CGI, an immaculate conception, Jar Jar Binks and the history of the trade federation. There are some good parts in Episodes I-III, but those are few and far between.

Pearl Harbor, released May 25, 2001. Here is the plot summary, courtesy of IMDB.com: A tale of war and romance mixed in with history, the story follows two lifelong friends and a beautiful nurse who are caught up in the horror of an infamous Sunday morning in 1941. This was great trailer that showed the promise of what could have been a rare big budget movie that went on to win numerous awards. The story of one of the most tragic and at the same time heroic days in American history was tailor-made for the big screen. What we ended up getting was overblown special effects, an underserved story with a love triangle shoved in. This is another case of an overall bad movie having some great scenes and imagery but it’s not worth sitting through the almost three-hour long slog.

Godzilla, released May 20, 1998. Here is the plot summary, courtesy of IMDB.com: A giant, reptilian monster surfaces, leaving destruction in its wake. To stop the monster (and its babies), and earthworm scientist, his reporter ex-girlfriend, and other unlikely heroes team up to save their city. Coming off the success of “Independence Day”, the team of Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich could do no wrong, right? Wrong! They decided to take a crack at one of the most famous monster/disaster movie icons, Godzilla and boy, they got it wrong. This was a case of egos getting in the way of making a great film. They threw out the original script and wrote the film themselves. They also changed the design of the title character. The casting was all wrong. Your protagonist is a worm expert played by Matthew Broderick. Really? The plot lacked logic and there wasn’t much in terms of dramatic tension throughout the entire movie. The tagline of the movie was “Size Does Matter.” Guess what? So does the script.

#IFTTT #Place to Be Nation

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