Archive for Blogs

301 results.

Some Podcasts About Wrestling

by on April 7, 2019 at 1:00 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith

It’s WrestleMania Sunday!

To celebrate, why not take a trip into our podcast archives and listen to some of our favorite wrestling related episodes?

Pat on the Mat: Episode 20 – WrestleMania 35 Preview

It’s  WrestleMania (and all of the other events that go with it) weekend so this is the last episode of Montreal’s favorite English language wrestling podcast: Pat on the Mat! Walter was below the weather so Pat and I hold it down like PCO and Brody King while we run through everything we know (and speculate about a lot of things we don’t kn0w) about the 35th edition of the biggest wrestling event of the year, enjoy the show!

And be sure to keep tabs on Pat’s page over at TVA Sports to keep track of all of his French language coverage of WrestleMania.

 

 

Go Plug Yourself 179: Giant Tiger Returns!

If you only watch the WWE brand of pro-wrestling, you’re doing yourself a massive disservice. There is amazing, local, affordable indie wrestling promotions in Montreal and one of the best of those is the one and only BATTLEWAR and they will be celebrating their 7th Anniversary on April 14th at Foufounes Electrique. Giant Tiger is one of the mad geniuses behind the magic of BATTLEWAR and we welcome him back to the show to talk about learning to wrestle in the back of a porn studio, wrecking people’s cars with a moving truck (transporting a wrestling ring of course) and having his jaw wired shut after working a stiff match. It’s a good one.

 

 

Go Plug Yourself 152: Big Magic and Twiggy

One of NXT’s latest signings used to be the champion of Montreal’s favorite indie wrestling promotions! In preparation for their upcoming 6th Anniversary spectacular last year at Foufounes Electriques Walter and I are joined by not only Talent Relations Coordinator Twiggy, but the BATTLEWAR Champion himself, Big Magic! We talk about the history of the promotion, including Kevin Owens’ (as Kevin Steen) last match in Quebec in the BATTLEWAR ring with Big Magic himself as well as what WWE Talent Twiggy would like to have make a BATTLWAR appearance.

 

 

Go Plug Yourself 101: Speedball Mike Bailey

Back in 2016 we were lucky enough to sit down with up and coming indie wrestler Speedball Mike Bailey, back in town after some successful runs in PWG and AAA. Mike was about to be defending his IWS World Title against former WWE Heavyweight Champion Rey Mysterio Jr., March 5th 2016 at Metropolis. Fair warning, the audio levels are a little off-balanced for the first few minutes, but it normalizes pretty quickly.

Mike just recently fought another former WWE star a few weeks ago in Montreal for IWS: Tajiri!

 

 

Go Plug Yourself 56: SeXXXy Eddy

Eddy has been all over New York this past weekend, at Joey Ryan’s Penis Party, wrestling for IWS and even doing a naked moonsault at Joey Janela’s Spring Break!

I would probably be doing him some sort of a disservice if I didn’t refer to him by his full title “Triple X Sex Express SeXXXy Eddy”. You will note that not all the letters are capitalized, he wouldn’t want to go crazy. Internationally traveled pro-wrestler SeXXXy Eddy joins Walter and I for an amazing journey into the world of having sex and wrestling all the time. This is one of our all time greatest episodes guys, I’m not even kidding. Also, I cannot stress enough that you Google “SeXXXy Eddy CZW”. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

 

 

So We Got To Meet Jake the Snake

Back in 2016, we were lucky enough to sit down with WWE Hall of Famer Jake the Snake.

I’ve always had a fondness for Jake the Snake Roberts.

He had stopped by ComedyWorks to perform his spoken word show “Unspoken Word: Tales from the Road” and Walter and I were lucky enough to hang out with him for a bit and record it.

 

 

 

Go Plug Yourself Just for Laughs Special: Mick Foley!

WAY back in 2012 Walter and I set up our microphones at Just for Laughs and spoke to anyone who was willing to sit down with us.

One of those people? The Hardcore Legend, Cactus Jack himself, Mrs Foley’s baby boy: Mick Foley!

 

 

 

If you’re still itching for more wrestling podcasts, check out the archives. We’ve got 19 episodes of Pat on the Mat for you to get through, Green Phantom has been a frequent guest on Go Plug Yourself, indie wrestler (and Sami Zayn’s improv friend) Twiggy has been on the show at least 5 times, IWS Owner PCP Manny has been on the show too!

Enjoy WrestleMania!

└ Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comments Off on Some Podcasts About Wrestling

Big Fish D&D: The Time We Found a Planet That Worshipped One of Us The Time We Found a Planet That Worshiped One of Us

by on March 24, 2019 at 5:46 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Jon, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

Where our heroes find planet in a crystal sphere where the inhabitants worship one of us. Ha ha! Spelljammer bay-bay!

I’m in black and Jon (the DM) is in blue.

If this is your first time checking out our little D&D Adventure Blog, you might want to check out this post that explains the setup and format of the game.  You can check out all “Big Fish” content on this nifty landing page. And if you’re enjoying our little GameTale Adventure Blog, please tell your friends on whatever platform you interact with them. If you think Jon and I are at all entertaining please consider checking out the geek-centric podcast we do every two weeks “9ES” right here.

D&D In The Sky With Diamonds

We find ourselves flying through a kaleidoscope of twisting strips of colour, snaking between each other in a backdrop of perfect darkness. The Space Whale is still a bit of a wreck. Yes, we named our Spelljamming ship after The Bravest Warriors’ space ship. We’re cool like that.

Also kinda the Lunar Whale from Final Fantasy IV.  Nobody has ever had an original thought.

A T-rex has stomped across it, molten hot lava has ripped through part of the hull and there’s a bit of jungle that has kind of sprouted up through the boards of the deck. If you remember, there was a bit of a hullabaloo a few sessions ago that involved some kind of a teleportation beam that got us into this mess in the first place.

Jon takes some delight in explaining this is part of the magic of Spelljammer. As long as the helm is intact, you can Spelljam. Doesn’t really matter (that much) what kind of shape the ship is in. Or even what shape the ship is. A freaking butterfly ship called a Flitter is actually a standard ship.

This is actually part of the Spelljammer mythos that I really enjoy.  Let’s just make sure the rules don’t get in the way of making it fun.  You want space hippos.  You get space hippos. Giant spaceship looks like a butterfly.  Why not? Screw making sense. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Comments Off on Big Fish D&D: The Time We Found a Planet That Worshipped One of Us The Time We Found a Planet That Worshiped One of Us

Festival de la Bête Noire: Les Affamées

by on February 24, 2019 at 12:09 am
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, VAGRANTS

One of the very first productions from the theatre troupe Les Choreutes, this is a solid and promising play from the young artists.

This is the first play I’ve seen from the Festival de la Bête Noire horror theatre festival playing at Mainline theatre. Since I was familiar with the venue I knew to expect a small, cozy setting akin to the Fringe Fest.

A convent is disrupted by the arrival of a strange woman coming in from an incessant downpour which has already been causing unease among the nuns. Her presence will trigger, as is literally announced by a narrator, the beginning of the end.

The stage and costume design, simple and effective, is to be commended. There is an immediate mood set within the first moments, strongly aided by the sound design which, for the first half or so, consists of a constant thunderstorm. The nun’s costumes (I wouldn’t necessarily call them habits) have effectively been designed as all uniformly dark. Along with the set lighting, the use of candlelight is extremely effective.

The acting is uniformly excellent and is the most impressive aspect of the play, especially in its earliest moments. At first it almost seemed as though this was going to be a dialogue-free, highly choreographed physical piece as the opening scene consists of a stylistically staged performance meant to show the sextet of nuns praying. The first interaction is silent, then we realize this is because the character in question, Juliette (Gabrielle Labadie) is either mute or has taken a vow of silence.

What follows is the most interesting and engaging portion of the play as we get to learn of the nuns’ recent plights brought on by the apocalyptic weather, some of their past personal traumas, and the stranger’s (Alma, played by Laurence-Anaïs Belleville in the most impressively physical and dance-oriented performance) past leading up to her arrival at their doorstep.

Once the more overt horror aspects start taking place, things become a bit more standard and somewhat rushed, as much of the action is told instead of shown and much seems to happen quite rushed. The soundtrack also changes from the previous natural sounds to an actual score which though well-done, isn’t as effective as I think it would have been had they kept with what was already established. Can’t fault them for actually having a horror score for a horror play, though.

This is essentially my one gripe against the play, that with such a good, initially well-paced and well-characterized build-up, the main action seems to be missing a lot of weight on its way to the conclusion. At forty-five minutes, it could benefit to have this aspect expanded on and developed for, easily, at least an extra fifteen minutes. We just don’t see the initial chaos brought on by Alma. Nor is the subtext of hunger (or desire) implied by the title and narrator ever fully developed.

That being said, what remains is a thoroughly well-executed, darkly beautiful and moody piece. A bit too brief, but benefitting immeasurably by its talented and memorable performances. I don’t think I was the only one who thought there could have been more to the proceedings as once it was obviously over, everyone around me was still hesitant to get up and leave, as if we were still expecting more. With performances like these aided by a well-conceived vision, the experience still ends up leaving one…sur sa faim.

└ Tags: , , ,
Comments Off on Festival de la Bête Noire: Les Affamées

Big Fish D&D: The Time We Started Spelljamming

by on February 17, 2019 at 5:48 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Gaming, Homepage, Jon, Jon's Junk, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

Where our heroes find themselves suddenly transported into outer space and find that they are now in the most logical of Dungeons & Dragons settings: Spelljammer.

I’m in black and Jon (the DM) is in blue. Eric has a few comments in red. To find out how we got here, check out our last adventure.

If this is your first time checking out our little D&D Adventure Blog, you might want to check out this post that explains the setup and format of the game.  You can check out all “Big Fish” content on this nifty landing page. And if you’re enjoying our little GameTale Adventure Blog, please tell your friends on whatever platform you interact with them. If you think Jon and I are at all entertaining please consider checking out the geek-centric podcast we do every two weeks “9ES” right here.

Right, so I’m not really sure how much time I should spend trying to explain Spelljammer to the reader here. And there’s a number of reasons for that. First of all, it is batshit crazy. Second of all, I knew very little of it myself (despite the setting being my suggestion at the end of last game).

So I guess you can prime yourself for some of the concepts at play here by just skimming through the Wikipedia page for Spelljammer or you can enter into it with the same knowledge that I had of the setting. Here is what I knew about Spelljammer when I sat down at the table for our first adventure in Spelljamming:

It’s sci-fi mashed into Dungeons & Dragons where magic explains away a lot of the “science” problems you can think of. People fly around on actual ships that function like spaceships between realities or whatever.

I would later learn that the realities are called “crystal spheres” and the ships didn’t even have to be ships. Also, the stuff connecting the crystal spheres is called the phlogiston. A word I wlll try to avoid typing from here on out.

Are you kidding me?  That word is a stroke of genius.  I can just hear gnomish space marines taking phlogiston seriously.  It’s some Dr Who / Hitchhiker’s Guide quality.

It’s actually a real word. It is “a substance supposed by 18th-century chemists to exist in all combustible bodies, and to be released in combustion.” ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Comments Off on Big Fish D&D: The Time We Started Spelljamming

Big Fish D&D – The Time Giddeon Messed Up Real Bad (Part 2)

by on January 10, 2019 at 9:17 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Gaming, Homepage, Jon, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

Big Fish is back with “The Time Giddeon Messed Up – Part 2” where Jon basically writes a character out of the game since the player quit and we come face to face (yet again) with the party’s nemesis Glacius Rex!

I’m in black and Jon (the DM) is in blue. This is Part 2, so you should probably check out Part 1.

If this is your first time checking out our little D&D Adventure Blog, you might want to check out this post that explains the setup and format of the game.  You can check out all “Big Fish” content on this nifty landing page. And if you’re enjoying our little GameTale Adventure Blog, please tell your friends on whatever platform you interact with them. If you think Jon and I are at all entertaining please consider checking out the geek-centric podcast we do every two weeks “9ES” right here.

Also, this is Jon’s last chance to wrap up our random improv suggestions from the previous session which were, if you recall: “The time we were sliding through dimensions, in our Nemesis’ (Glacius Rex) keep, to rescue a Genasi Sorcerer who was the heir to a Kingdom and it all started with an avalanche.”

A Interlude of Socks

Not sure how much it has come up in these write ups, but my character has a pet monkey. I have spent a number of downtime actions training and improving the monkey. This monkey is not magical, nor do I have any magical abilities to speak with him or command him. Any commands I give him are based purely on my character’s Animal Handling skill. He is a mundane trained monkey.

His name is Socks.

↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comments Off on Big Fish D&D – The Time Giddeon Messed Up Real Bad (Part 2)

Big Fish – The Time Giddeon Messed Up Real Bad (Part 1)

by on December 30, 2018 at 6:14 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Jon, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

In which our heroes have an improbable adventure and ultimately discover their hideout has been compromised for quite some time.

I’m not going to lie, it’s been a while since we played these sessions, let’s hope my notes hold up.

If this is your first time checking out our little D&D Adventure Blog, you might want to check out this post that explains the setup and format of the game. You can check out all “Big Fish” content on this nifty landing page. And if you’re enjoying our little GameTale Adventure Blog, please tell your friends on whatever platform you interact with them. If you like reading these and enjoy what we do, consider dropping a coin or two over on our Patreon.

This two-part adventure serves as a kind of “Season Finale” where we have all picked an adventure pitch and the player who has yet to picked gets saddled with an adventure where their character has messed up real bad.

This happened to coincide with a player leaving the game due to time constraints. So this is the tale of the time Giddeon (The Bard) Messed Up Real Bad.

Freestyle Talespin

So the kick off of the game was basically a freestyle pitch session where each player tossed in elements until someone liked it. How nervous did this make you? Were you confident that your structure would allow a full on freestyle session?

Well, with the reveal in part 2 it sort of makes sense if the session was a total mess.  I wanted a total mess. Also I wanted to challenge myself and see if I could do it, and partly I wanted to introduce season 3 with a bang, and you guys pitched ideas that more or less exactly did what I wanted.  I win again! Just like always.

I think the first thing you asked for was a fill in the blank. “Remember the time we were…” and we came up with “sliding through dimensions”.

Then we needed a place? We opted for “Glacius Rex’s Keep”

The next thing we needed was an NPC concept. This story would involve a “Genasi Sorcerer who was the Heir to a Kingdom”.

Finally, we needed a hook. “It wasn’t an avalanche, it was a tidal wave.”

Recall that Jaxxo had final say on which of the ideas were chosen.  The first thing we picked was the lead. In a sense they all came from his head.

From that, Jon spun us a tale. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Comments Off on Big Fish – The Time Giddeon Messed Up Real Bad (Part 1)

Big Fish Returns! – The Time the Lizard Met His Nemesis In A Monastery

by on December 12, 2018 at 9:38 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Jon, Keith

So this is our first “back to normal” session after the multi-session epic that was our journey into the Barrier Peaks and what was basically a summer hiatus. 

Do you know what that means?

It means we ran out of time and had an incomplete adventure. So sad. Remember that in the framework of the game we have a real world clock that we’re kind of racing against in order to have a fully successful adventure.

I’m in black and Jon is in blue.

If this is your first time checking out our little D&D Adventure Blog, you might want to check out this post that explains the setup and format of the game.  You can check out all “Big Fish” content on this nifty landing page. And if you’re enjoying our little GameTale Adventure Blog, please tell your friends on whatever platform you interact with them.

Return of the Ice King

Ahem. I mean “Glacius Rex”.

Sure.

The Ne’er-do-well Cads find themselves in the city of Luskin, which is a pirate trade city or something. I just know that my character, a pirate by trade, is having the time of his life. Yo-ho’s and puffy shirts all around please and thank you.

Glacius Rex, who hasn’t made a true appearance since the ordeal with the Warlock, arrives with his as Jon puts it  “slightly derpy” white dragon and wreaks havoc on the town.

It might be because I had been watching a lot of Adventure Time, but I just naturally kind of slipped into a mode of making fun of Glacius Rex. With quips like “More like Glacius Sex” and “When we’re done here, you won’t be having an ice day!” I think it really downplayed the whole part where there was a white dragon just wrecking a bunch of ships in the harbour. And freezing people to death.

Remember when we were setting this game up for the first time?  One of my goals was to get into humor in D&D a little more, and you turning on the Finn banter with Glacius Rex is more or less exactly perfect.  Any game that has a dumb ancient white dragon and an Ice King knockoff is going to be less than serious and that’s fine by me.

Glacius calls us “naughty pirates” and we have a good laugh. He then promises to return in 3 days and wants the City of Luskin to shower him with praise and riches.

In the midst of hilarious banter with our nemesis, Jaxxo the Lizard-Monk catches sight of a familiar foe and tails him. When he returns to the crew, he is shaken by what he has seen. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Comments Off on Big Fish Returns! – The Time the Lizard Met His Nemesis In A Monastery

Everyday is Halloween – Jessica Rabbit

by on October 13, 2018 at 7:00 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Sophie

Day 4! Honestly, how could I resist. I’ve wanted to do a Jessica Rabbit cosplay for a while now, this felt like a good first step haha!

No one suggested this one, it was just for me.

If you saw the previous challenges, you’ll notice my hair is a darker red… I wanted to refresh my colour so I would have a more rich and vibrant red for my Jessica photos. Commitment, people. I then spent like an hour blow-drying and curling my hair to get it to fall just right. For real though, I admire people who spend this much effort on their hair on a regular basis, I rarely ever do it and just this was like, ugh enough.

While I was out shopping for hair dye, I managed to find a glue stick for my brows! I applied a few layers while I was doing my hair, and let it dry completely. I had a hard time telling if it was perfectly smooth just like that… in retrospect, I should have powdered them to see the results before going in with foundation. Speaking of which, turns out my Makeup Forever HD cream wasn’t opaque enough to completely cover up my dark brown eye brows. Still though, quite an improvement from my first attempt. I think next time I’ll try either airbrush or Kryolan’s Dermacolor.

Either way, I dabbed on the HD cream foundation with a beauty blender again, contoured with the usual Shade & Light palette and highlighted subtly with the Senegence Pearlizer. I love that thing.

With a liner brush and pale brown powder, I traced out the rough shape I wanted for the eye-shadow. I didn’t wanna go full vertical like Toon Jessica, so I extended out to the sides a bit. I went with Urban Decay’s Electric Palette for the purple, Shadowsense – Onyx for crease and liner, and OCC pearly loose powder for the center of the lid.

I painted my brows on using Shadowsense – Garnet and tried to make them as symmetrical as possible in the time I had left… I had to get my ass to work. Glued on a few individual lashes from MUF and mixed 2 Everlasting Liquid Lipsticks, Nazh Fur Atoo and Outlaw, then added a dab of Pearlizer to create a plump effect.

Ta-daaahhhhhh!

└ Tags: , , ,
Comments Off on Everyday is Halloween – Jessica Rabbit

Everyday is Halloween – Club Kid Drag

by on October 13, 2018 at 2:01 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Sophie

I absolutely love drag makeup. It is crazy, over the top, larger than life, and insanely creative. Even more so when it comes to Club Kid Drag makeup, it is next level in-your-face, and creative on a whole nother level 😀

Alex Padowicz suggest I do this makeup. I was so down.

Here is the results along with inspirations, followed by what I used.

Me

Venetian mask of Pierrot

 

I’ve never glued down my eyebrows before, but from what I know, the most effective way to do it is with a glue stick. Sadly, I had none, and it was raining outside so I decided to try a very thick hair gel instead. I used several layers, but it didn’t give the best result. It was alright for a first attempt.

 

I decided to create a sort of Pierrot look, I have no idea why but his face had been stuck in my head for a bit. If you don’t know Pierrot, he is a character from a late 17th century French pantomime called Comédie Italienne. Essentially, he is a sad clown and it’s a french thing 😛

For the white base, I used my trusty Vibe European Body Art airbrush makeup in plain white. I wanted to avoid disturbing my brows as much as possible, seemed logical.

For the creepy yellow tones, which I doubled for contouring, I used my Kat Von D Shade & Light palette yet again, this time in the medium brown tone. It has a yellowy quality to it that I liked. I highlighted with a pearly white OCC loose powder, it had stunning blue tint reflections and I am so sad they didn’t pop in the photo. That’s what I get for not having proper lighting. For the rosy cheeks, generic pink blush with shimmer.

For the eyes and all the black details, I am ashamed to say I used Walmart purchase cheap-o Halloween tube makeup. I felt so dirty, but I couldn’t find my Makeup Forever one so bleh. I set the black on the lids with black eye-shadow from MAC, otherwise that shit would have creased like a mofo. It did the job.

Lips were largely overdrawn and reshaped using NYX Liquid Suede- Cherry Skies, and then outlined with Shadowsense – Onyx. The cheap black paint wasn’t smooth enough to get a proper lip line so I broke out the fancy shit, and before you ask why I didn’t just use that for all the black detail, it’s because it’s kinda pricey and I don’t wanna waste it’s long-lasting magic on a makeup I’ll have on for the time it takes to snap a decent selfie!

I used some fancy blue false lashes from Elise and Dollarama jewel stick-ons to finish off the look, and wrapped a scarf around my head and neck to kind of mimic Pierrot’s little black hat, grabbed a fake plastic rose and stuck it under my bra strap. Voila!

I am pretty happy with the results. I was a bit intimidated by the concept at first but I think as a first drag attempt on myself it was passable. Either way, I had a lot of fun creating this!

 

 

 

 

└ Tags: , , , ,
Comments Off on Everyday is Halloween – Club Kid Drag

Everyday is Halloween – Beautiful Gore

by on October 11, 2018 at 8:42 am
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Sophie

I’ve seen a few versions of this sort of thing. Each have beautifully glamorous makeup with either a zipper glued to their faces, unzipped to reveal gore or something else underneath, or flesh shredded all around to frame a perfect face. While these images are stunning, I have seen them a thousand times in the last few years. So when a friend suggested it, I wanted to do something slightly different.

I don’t claim to have come up with this idea on my own, I could swear I’ve seen a similar concept in the last year or two. I have failed to find the image I’m thinking of, which is why I am not including it as source of inspiration.

Either way, here is my creation, idea suggested by Quinn Kurenda.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I started off with super clean skin, and then sculpted scars where I felt the more obvious makeup lines would be seen. So eyebrows, eyeliner, lips and cheekbones. I used a two-part silicone (3rd Degree) to get this done quick and easy, since I had no prep time to make Pros-Aide transfers or anything. I made sure to blend in the edges as much as possible before it set, because once you start painting, that shit stands out and can really ruin the makeup.

For foundation, I had to use my airbrush. The downside to using silicone is that nothing wants to stick to it properly. A brush or a sponge tends to remove the product as quick as it puts it on. To spare myself that headache, airbrush was the solution, and I was able to get a smooth even base with Temptu Pro foundation. I chose a shade or two darker than my actual skin, to give it a ‘fake tan’ kind of look.

I then used a pale gold loose powder from OCC to create highlights (the colour name is sadly smudged off the label) and then punched up a couple of spots with the SeneGence Pearlizer. I wanted ridiculously overdone highlights. I then added a bit of contouring with my trusty Kat Von D Shade & Light palette.

I added a bit of rosy flesh colour to the lips, but not enough to have them look painted. I wanted to keep them ‘natural’, just like my eyes, save for a bit of black mascara.

I used alcohol activated makeup to paint inside the gashes to add depth, and around them a little to show redness. Illustrator Palette is awesome for that. Punched it up with Fleet St drying blood (I didn’t want it getting everywhere) and a bit of Graftobian Blood Gel to help it stick to the silicone.

And that was that. And for some reason, my friend Mark Pragai offered to come create a ‘moving image’ of my makeup with his fancy camera, but somehow it turned into a short hahaha! Thanks Mark, I love it <3

 

└ Tags: , , , , , ,
Comments Off on Everyday is Halloween – Beautiful Gore