D&D......a late bloomer

Okay, the thing you should know about me is that I didn't start growing in my geekiness until I got into college. To a degree, I had always known it was there because unlike other girls my age, I was into Star Wars, and Lord of the Rings...oh, and The Hobbit...mustn't forget the story that started it all for me, especially since I have such fond memories of my father reading a chapter from the beloved tome to me when I was a child every night before I went to bed. He even did different voices for all the characters.

But I digress (be forewarned that I have a habit of doing that).

Having grown up in a strict household in which the words of my extremely religious parents was literally the law I lived by. That being said, I was never allowed to play D&D, Vampire the Masquerade, or anything else remotely like that. In fact, my elder brothers (who were teenagers right when D&D came out) had to hide all of their gaming tools--items which remained buried under layers of dust along with all of their other long forgotten trappings until I stumbled upon them in my adolescence.

Why was it, for lack of a better word, discarded you might ask?

Well, as my devoutly Catholic mother so aptly told me when I protested her taking my newly-found treasures away from me, it was evil. It was a 'doorway' designed to lure young adolescents over to the 'dark side'. Naturally, because I believed that what my parents said was the end all and be all of all things, I believed her and never brought the subject up again until high school during which time, my curiosity was once again piqued by a then friend of mine. However, because he was such a horrible DM, my D&D experience was once again killed before it could ever really begin.

And so my interest in D&D lay dormant inside of me for several years. Oh, it rose to the surface every so often in the form of PC games that I started playing in college, the first of which was Divine Divinity, but that was the closest I ever got. During the course of this, my fan-girlish behavior over The Vision of Escaflowne (the very first anime I ever bought for myself), led me to group RPGs on Yahoo. Being a young and impressionable fan-girl who was just starting to come into her own, you can just imagine my joy and excitement at finding other people (even though it was only in cyberspace) that were 'just like me'. This of course also led to my writing fanfiction, but that's a topic for another time. Getting back to the original topic, I never had the opportunity for table-gaming, so I was perfectly happy with solo PC games and MMOs (which came later). After all, I could play whenever I wanted and there was no indecisive, wishy-washy DM to contend with.

It was the perfect arrangement.

However, about a year ago I saw The Gamers: Dorkness Rising for the first time, and I felt such a kinship with the characters in the film. All the while I watched (despite the fact that there were moments I was laughing so hard that I couldn't think straight) I could not help but think to myself "These are my people". Then about a week ago, I found the original Gamers movie on Youtube, and found my curiosity for D&D renewed with a vengeance. Over the course of the past few days, the opportunity for table-gaming presented itself once more, and this time I grabbed it and held on with both hands.

Lucky for me, I married a man who is just as much of a geek as I am ;)

Hubby and I were at Borders the other day, and we came across both a DM kit as well as a started kit for players. Having played D&D during his teenage years, hubby was not at all opposed to picking the hobby up once more and even assuming the role of DM. We set to work on creating our characters that very same day and began an adventure. Hubby acted as both the DM as well as a party member, and even though it was only the two of us playing we had an absolute blast!

I find myself wishing that I had gotten into this sooner, and I can't help but feel a little cheated at the fact that this incredible fun was forbidden to me for so long. However, none of that is important anymore. All that matters is that I'm involved in it now, and I'm having the time of my life.

So I guess at the end of all this, I have only this to say...

Dungeons and Dragons for the win!

Nerd Rage-Fueled Rant (Part 3)...Well, Sort of...I'm too Full and Sleepy to be Enraged...

Okay, so this originally was going to be an annoyed, rage-infused rant with a heaping side of sarcasm that was all to be directed at Comicon's seemingly endless issues with tickets and registration. I mean seriously...do I have to roll on a natural 20 on a 20-sided die in order to get tickets to Comicon?

However, with my stomach as full as it is with the excellent feast that I cooked up, I simply can't find it in myself to be angry. So...with that being said, all I have left to say on the subject is this...

C'mon, Comicon...get it together!

Pretty please?

Nerd Rage-Fueled Rant (Part 2)

I have just learned that a big-screen revival of Joss Whedon's awesome Buffy the Vampire Slayer series is in the works. Normally, as a geek and an avid fan of the show, I would've danced for joy and burst into song when presented with good news such as this. However, when it was revealed that not only is Sarah Michelle Geller not reprising her role as the sassy heroine, but that Joss Whedon is not involved in the project in ANY way, all I wanted to do was break something  However, being unemployed at the moment, I realized that breaking something might not be the best thing to do...

Despite this, I still find myself filled with a raging disbelief that such an atrocity would occur. You don't believe me? Read for yourself...

http://blastr.com/2010/11/buffy-remake-still-going.php

While the above-referenced article goes onto say that the Batman franchise had no problem being revived, what I have to say to that is that the Batman franchise has switched hands more than once. Buffy on the other hand has not. The entire Buffy-verse is entirely of Whedon's creation...from the original movie all the way down to the comics that followed the end of the television series, and therefore I find it appalling that such a project would go on without him.

Seriously...WHAT is this creative team thinking?

Alas, poor Buffy...we knew thee well...

Nerd Rage-Fueled Rant (Part 1)

Okay, this rant is a long time coming, but here it is.

*ahem* To the people running DirecTV....

WHY in the hell would you cancel the G4 channel?!

Seriously, how high were you to think that doing that would be a good idea? You thought it wasn't financially feasible to continue carrying it? Did you not stop to consider the demographic you would be pissing off in the process?

Okay, now I know that not everyone can be classified by either themselves or by others as either a nerd or a geek, but that doesn't mean that those people don't play video games. Do you not know how many people in the U.S. play video games? You don't have to be a nerd or a geek in order to be a gamer, and as such...WHY would you take away the only real accurate means of measuring a game's worth?! Do you not realize how important X-Play was in that regard?! I can't even begin to count the number of times X-Play stopped either me or my husband from buying a bad game. Since we started watching X-Play, we've never had an instance of returning a game the very same day that we bought it, and I'm sure that other gamers share in that fortune as well.

As if no longer having X-Play wasn't bad enough, now you're leaving us all without the wonderfully entertaining Attack of the Show and Ninja Warrior?! HOW COULD YOU?!?!

For the love of Merlin, why, why, WHY would you do such a horrible thing?!

If you weren't the only cable provider available to us right now, hubby and I would SO quit you!

The naked shoe

People are often perplexed by my rage towards the "naked shoe" and often ask me about it when I go on one of my rants...mainly because I love shoes so much. I mean, I really LOVE shoes. Red shoes, black shoes, purple shoes, green shoes, stilettos, kitten heels, flats...it doesn't matter. I love them all! So why then do I hold such a rage towards the naked shoe? So here it is a nutshell...

It's just so...blah...

There's no twinkle, sparkle or any pop of color whatsoever.

In a world where shoes can make or break an outfit...where shoes can change an outfit from a fun 'shopping with the girls' ensemble and into a smokin' 'night on the town' ensemble, why then would you want to wear a shoe that fades into the background? Shoes, like any other accessory, are designed to make an outfit pop. Whether it be by bringing life to a little, black dress, or by drawing attention to an otherwise understated color in whatever outfit a girl might be wearing, shoes are designed to complete and ensemble and make it better.

Some might argue that the naked show makes your legs look longer (something that short girls like me would just fight tooth and nails for).

That's all well and good if your skin tone is close to the color of the shoe (like mine), but what if your skin is darker? That argument is pretty well trumped in that instance, isn't it? However, let's just say for the sake of argument that you're like me in your pigmentation and that your skin matches the shoe and thereby gives the illusion that your legs are in fact longer than what they really are. You are then left with the illusion that your feet are disfigured!

So there you have it...my rage towards the naked shoe in a nutshell.

End of rant ;)

Fable 3

As I said in my very first post, I love video games! Knowing this, you should've known that it would only be a matter of time before I posted a review/blog about one.

Who knows? Maybe this will be a regular thing ;)

In any case, let me just take this time to say how much I love Fable 3. If you're looking to play but haven't gotten around to it yet, or are playing but haven't reached the end yet, don't worry...I won't give away any spoilers ;)

While I've never played the first Fable game, I did in fact play Fable 2. While I enjoyed the sequel game while I was playing it, I was nevertheless left with a feeling of "That's it?" when the game's actual story line came to an end, and I found myself feeling disappointed. To me, it felt as though the creators had either run out of steam and ideas, or that they had rushed through the ending because they had to meet a deadline. Then, there was the fact that the more magic that my avatar used, the more covered her skin became with glowing blue lines that remained even when she wasn't engaged in battle. Then there was also the fact that once I was able to purchase Bowerstone Castle (a mission that left me with a feeling of poetic justice by the time of its completion), I were unable to make it your avatar's marital home. But those complaints was more of a personal pet peeve than anything else.

This was not however the case with Fable 3.

Not only are the graphics oh so much better than they were in Fable 2 (your avatar is SO much better looking in Fable 3 whether it be male or female), but when you do come to whatever story ending you're presented with (depending on which decisions you made throughout the course of the game) you're left with a feeling of completion. Clothing also fits and looks SO much better on your avatar (yes...it's a superficial point, but what do you want? I'm a girl! ;-p). Also, when you gain control of the castle, you're able to make it your marital home.

On a more 'nuts and bolts' aspect of the game, I personally find the quests in Fable 3 to be more fun than those in Fable 2. "How is this possible?" you might ask? Simple. Playing an RPG within and RPG.

Enough said ;)

Either way, I'm currently on my second time through playing the game (I literally started playing it against after I beat it the first time around), and I'm having just as much fun (if not more) as I did when I played it the first time through. Needless to say, I don't plan on trading this game in any time soon.

Intro ;)

Aha! I see that you brave and intrepid web-surfers have stumbled into the vortex that leads the random and runaway thoughts that wander and sometimes race through my mind at warp speed.


There...you've been warned ;)

Welcome to my blog! 

I am a comic book-reading, musical-loving, video game-playing, fanfic-writing geek who is an actual GIRL!! Yes, that's right, people...I am in fact a geek of the female variety. We DO in fact exist, though we are often fabled creatures and phenomena...like unicorns or double rainbows ;)

Anywho,this is to be the home of my wonderings, musings, likes, loves and raging hatreds. 

Again...you've been warned ;)