Alistair. He plays the role of lead torturer of Hell, and his character is manipulative and cruel. It’s amazing. I’m disappointed he’s gone now, but he was an incredibly fun evil to watch.

A few months ago, I wrote a short post about my friend’s amazing story of Rex Havoc, the space adventurer. The story is written much like a comic book, in short easily read chapters so it only takes a few minutes to read.

Of course, I’ve already said all this before, as you would see when you click on the above link. What’s new?

Well, Rex Havoc has been made available on the Amazon Kindle. It’s only one of his story arcs, but it’s a good one (It has me in it!), and it’s only priced at one dollar. The fact that one of my friends is selling an actual book, and one that’s fun to read at that, makes me feel pretty awesome. I can’t begin to imagine how cool he feels himself. I’m expecting it’s “leather jacket and motorcycle” cool.

If you have a Kindle or any device capable of reading Kindle books, I strongly suggest looking at this. If you’re not convinced, read the review for the book. It’s just down the book’s page a little.

My housemate and good friend Hugepedlar (That is his real name) has been creating music specifically tailored to ears. He has made lots of great songs which I’ve had the pleasure of hearing when he’s performed them live.

Now the man has decided to bless the entire world with his array of chiptune music, and is now selling them through Bandcamp. Right now there’s only one track on the page (A mix of multiple tracks the man played at a recent gig), but it’s nearly half an hour long, and definitely worth the cheap $2.50 price tag. But don’t take my word for it, read this one sentence review from another listener:

I need to poo.

There you have it. I’m sure you’re convinced now. If not, you can click on the cool art above, and give the track a free listen to see if you like it (You will.).

I love Reddit, because it has taught me a lot of useless things I’d be no worse off not knowing. Like just then, I learned Mark Zuckerburg is red-green colour blind. I didn’t necessarily need to know that, but now I do I feel just that little bit smarter.

Reddit also reveals things that are actually relevant to my interests. For example, did you know the new Evil Dead movie in pre-production will have a…female…lead?

The resemblance is non-existent.

I’m not sure how I feel about that, honestly. Whenever Evil Dead is mentioned, I think of the chin in all it’s glory. Finding out that the remake’s replacement for the character Ash Williams is a pretty-girl called Mia confuses me as to the direction of the movie. I can’t see them recreating the original trilogy, so I assume it’s going to be a serious stand-alone. At least, I hope it’s a stand-alone. The only other option is a series of movies loosely based on the original series, but I don’t want to think about that.

I know I’ll still go and see the movie when it’s released, but I must admit, I’m a little nervous at this announcement.

Trent Reznor (Of Nine Inch Nails fame), Atticus Ross and Karen O covered Led Zepplin’s Immigrant Song? Really?

Fuck. Yes.

This is what a cover should sound like; it’s not so much copying the song as re-imagining it into something completely new. I love it, and it’s actually got me interested in seeing what The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is all about.

I really miss when The Simpsons was exceptionally funny. In the over twenty years that the show has been on the air, it has evolved and usually for the better. However, in the past two or so years it feels like the show is trying too hard to be funny now. With shows like Family Guy and American Dad proving that completely random things can be funny, it feels like The Simpsons is attempting to emulate them to getting better ratings.

Hello, I am Mr. Snrub

Whenever I see a new episode, I’m left wondering what happen to my beloved show.

How do you classify what is mainstream? More importantly, how do you discern that from what is not mainstream?

Mainstream, as far as I’m aware, means things available to the public through common channels involving commercial bodies, such as games being sold through big publishers, and the like.

My problem is, how can you apply such a big generalized label to something, then judge it as such? It is easy for me to say “R n’ B music is not for me,” or, “Jesus this Death Metal music is ridiculous, I don’t even understand what the fuck they’re saying. Are they just growling?”. However, mainstream isn’t a genre. Mainstream music could be any genre and can involve any theme. With that in mind, how the hell could someone just ask about your views on mainstream music and expect a simple reply?

Here’s my view; this fucking subject is dumb. Mainstream music can be good, it can be bad. The same way as anything not mainstream (Indie?) can also be shit. Musical taste is subjective, and mainstream is a stupid label to judge something on.

Next question.

There are many books I have read over the years, but none have stayed with me more than The Chocolate War, a book written by Robert Cormier in the Seventies.

The book was a rather fantastical one for a school kid like I was; a school in which there was a secret society of students who essentially dictated how the students acted.
In amongst this, a new student is thrown who seeks to go against the grain, refusing to sell chocolates for the school, much to the headmaster and “The Vigils” (As the “secret society” is called) annoyance. They do everything they can to make him look like a bad guy and push him to bend to their will, from prank calls to enlisting the help of a bully to fight the rebel, named Jerry.
It all goes overboard from there, and I would explain how, but I don’t want to spoil the book in case you want to read it.

It was so well written and appealing I think I have read it at least a dozen times. In fact, my personal copy is on the verge of falling apart from being handled too much¹. The issues it faced, with everything from bullying to sexual issues, strike a chord with me, and the fictional themes surrounding The Vigils were intriguing to the point of getting me hooked.

One other tiny thing that made the book all the more intriguing for me when I first read it was that the setting was one Trinity High School. My instant reaction was “Oh my fucking god, I live near a school called Trinity!”. For quite a while, even though I knew the idea of the secret society was entirely fictional, that maybe the school in the book was based on the one I lived near. I soon learned that the school itself was also entirely made up, and that there are many schools that go by that name, but the idea contributed to the magic of the book.

In the end, The Chocolate War is and may forever be my favourite book. If you’ve never read it, you really should give it a look! It’s less than 300 pages, and it’ll keep you riveted. In fact, I’m probably going to start reading it again tomorrow.

1. This reminds me; must buy a new copy of The Chocolate War.

Watching television with the other half, we were greeted with the following:

I was extremely happy to see this; gaming doesn’t seem to get much mainstream media attention, and see adverts for these things on TV, even if it’s Foxtel, gives me a sort of hope that gaming will be taken more seriously in this country.