Things that I love: Spring 2010 edition

1. “Always” by Erasure. See last post. Hey, I had never heard of Erasure until now, but I just found out they do this song: (wow) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH0SoZNdozs which I only know from some all-male a cappella group. I thought it was the same song as another song sung by a boy that goes really high forever but it has a girl’s name I think, like Aileen or something (not come on aileen) AUUUGHH I can’t think of it and it’s really bugging me

2. SPARTACUS: BLOOD AND SAND
Okay you guys, I know all of you hate my taste but SPARTACUS IS FUCKING AWESOME OKAY
I really mean that. The production value is very high. I mean, stuff is obviously greenscreen, but they’re not going for real realism–they’re going for ridiculous 300. Lavish sets. Beautiful people. Over the top everything. The blood is totally saturated red against a sort of subdued background so it’s like hyper red. Naked men PAINTED WITH GOLD. Full frontal nudity on display, with women opening their delicate mouths in admiration and things like “now there is a man blessed by the gods.” Their Os are like …. hold on, let me find an IPA thingy, I don’t know it very well… They took the actors who are from different countries (australian, scottish, american) and made them all speak a weird way, but it’s the same weird way. Give EVERYONE a funny accent and to my stupid American ears, it sounds consistent. The lines that they deliver are in a grand style that I’m sure is completely made up, but it’s very consistent with itself, and despite looking really staid on paper, somehow they make you believe just for 51 minutes that people can talk like that to each other. Also, you stop wondering why Ancient Romans would talk like Americans who are pretending to be Victorian Englishmen. Like, “gratitude”. Or “apologies” with a lowering of the eyes. Or “I would not have it so.” It’s totally contrived and all the actors pull it off. It’s great!

It’s a lot of fun.

I can’t say anything positive about anything without thinking about how I’m going to be ridiculed for saying something positive about it, so with that disclaimer aside, I like the writing. The plots are twisted (both twisted as in “tangled” and twisted as in “sick”). I like the characters. They are all evil. I even like its transparency about slaves, even unnamed extras wandering about holding water jugs–it’ll focus on her face after she is ordered to sleep with someone, so you know her life sucks, and her masters are evil. There is nothing subtle.

I never watched Xena, but Lucy Lawless is totally delicious. I love the way her Lucretia says “‘Proper’ is a word used by men who would enslave us with it.” Queen bitch aw yeah. And she thinks she is so world-wise, and it’s so much fun to watch her think she’s toying with her younger but higher-status friend. Also I watched 4 weddings and a funeral, but I have no idea who Batiatus was. I’m looking at IMDB and apparently he was the partner of the guy that died but I don’t really remember him. I’ve also seen sliding doors and remember nothing about his character there either. But Batiatus is awesome. And crazy.

Anyway this show is fantastic.

In other news, I watched the pilot episode of the x-files. Dat says he was a fan, and when I rushed up to the TV to point to the place where you can see the blood-tube on the girl’s forehead, Dat was like, “I know. Didn’t I tell you I was a fan?” I had to explain to him that there were fans of the x-files, then there were x-philes, then there were SHIPPERS. He hadn’t heard of shippers. HAHAHHAHA. Oh well, if I have nothing else to be an elitist motherfucker about, at least it’s how much time I spent reading Amber’s episode reviews. Do you remember? She had a quote from CC on her front page about how her reviews were one of the first that he looked at! hahaha

3. League of Legends.
LoL is from the creators of DotA. I am but a dabbler. I already preordered HoN to show my support for S2 Games, and now I’m playing their direct competitor? I don’t know if the fence really divides everybody hardcore into two camps (well three if you count DotA, still going strong), or if a lot of people play both (or all three), or what. Anyway.

I play Soraka because I love playing support. Soraka is perfect for me in every way–she even has an ability called Starcall (and everybody knows Priestess of the Moon was my favorite Warcraft III hero because of Starfall. I even rolled a druid 6 years ago exclusively because I thought they’d be getting Starfall and was really depressed when they didn’t and then when they did I was happy again but once-removed because I was already too firmly entrenched as a healer. haha). Starcall makes a bunch of stars shoot down and hit everything around me. It’s pretty spammable since the cooldown is only a few seconds.

The shadow of Blizzard is long. Many of the heroes seem almost directly out of Warcraft III (whose units were used as heroes in DotA of course).

An explanation: in DotA and its clones (HoN and LoL), you choose a hero (aka champion in LoL) at the beginning of every game. Every game is a new fresh thing. Your hero starts at level 1 and you level it up over time, and you buy items with gold that you earn by last-hitting neutral creeps (or minions in LoL) haha terminology.

In DotA, you have to make extensive use of leagues to keep track of scores, and third-party anti-cheat clients, because the whole game is a custom map inside of Warcraft III.

In HoN, they have a “public rating” system. As you win, your account gains points; as you lose, it loses points. Everyone starts at 1500. So your number is an approximation of your skill. People go as low as 1000, and the pros go up to 1900. I’m like a 1100 level player but I haven’t sunk my HoN rating that low yet cuz I haven’t lost enough games yet haha. HoN costs $30.

You can play LoL for completely free if you want. THey use micropayments. In LoL, instead of a public rating system, you “level up” your account (in LoL, your “account” (or “you” are called the “summoner”). As you play games, you gain some experience, to get levels, which unlock “Masteries” and “Rune Slots” which are persistent stats that you bring with you to every game. Highly customizable. After every game, you also gain IP, which is currency. You use IP to unlock access to heroes!!!!!! In any given week, there is a carefully chosen assortment of heroes available for free play, so that anybody just picking up the game can pick. OR you can pay real-life money to get “RP” or “Riot Points,” which you can use to make yourself get xp faster, get IP faster, or use to buy heroes or runes instead of IP. Anyway, I haven’t paid a dime for LoL (…yet) so I can only buy things using IP. I’ve only bought one hero so far–Soraka, of course–and the rest of the time, I just play the free heroes to get a taste for what’s out there.

Anyway, in the picture, you can see my Summoner level is 10 (out of 30, so I’m still very much a noob, with only 1/3 of my rune slots unlocked, access to only the very weakest of runes, and very few heroes) haha. But it’s fun.

4. DELICIOUS STRAWBERRY JAM FROM !!!!

I eat it by the spooooooooooooooooooon. Fresh from Washington!! THank youuu!!