Archive for Perspicacious Geek

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Why is Arkham Horror One Of My Favorite Games? – Perspicacious Geek

by on October 14, 2014 at 4:28 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek
And this is just the base set, you need a big ole' table.

And this is just the base set, you need a big ole’ table.

A few weeks ago I mentioned that board games are an amazing way to trick and lure your non-geeky friends into engaging in completely geeky activities. In that article I made a number of references to Arkham Horror (from now on will be referred to as AH) and if you listen to 9ES you’ll remember that Jono and I both considered AH to be an honourable mention in our made up “Game of the Year” category in our 2013 year in review. It would have be a clinch if it had come out in 2013, we gave it an honourable mention on the grounds that we spent far and above more time with AH than any other game in 2013 that we played as a group. The fact that it didn’t come out in 2013 sort of disqualified it from a real win though.

How did we get into this game in the first place? I’m a firm believer in getting someone presents instead of money during a gift giving event. If I do receive money I make sure to spend that money on something cool that I would normally not spend money on. If you give me cash for something, rest assured, I will not spend it on groceries. I had read a little bit about AH on various board game forums and I’m pretty sure I had even eyed it being played at PAX at one point or another. I have long since been a fan of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu lore (something about ancient beings who exist outside of our comprehension terrorizing the 1920s is amazing) so was down with the setting. The other thing that had instantly drawn me to it was the fact that the group of players played against the board. We’re a competitive backstabbing bunch (we’ll be touching on Diplomacy and Battlestar Galactica board games eventually) and the idea of a game where we’re not fucking each other over constantly seemed like a refreshing change of pace. With $60 of Christmas money in my hand I decided I would take a chance on this fancy board game I hadn’t actually played yet. The fact that there were 8 expansions of varying size available to me was also a big draw, since if we had fun with it we’d have plenty of room to enhance our experience. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Get Out of my Nightmares Songza – The Perspicacious Geek

by on October 7, 2014 at 5:09 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek
sleep

Or sometimes I sleep in a park, like a hobo.

This is a little change of pace, since this article isn’t really “about” anything, it’s more of a story. I still think it’s pretty entertaining, you might too:

I used to sleep in almost total silence in as close to total darkness as I could muster. I’m an incredibly light sleeper so any change in sound or light tends to wake me up. A lot of people listen to music or something to help them fall asleep but I found that if I tried that I would just lie in bed listening to music. This was doubly true if there was lyrics and triply true if it was just people talking. I have memories of sitting in the backseat of the car on a long road trip with my family with my older brother and mom fast asleep (and they had been for hours) while I was wide awake listening to what might just have been the two most boring people in the world talking about rocks. I feel like I may have inherited this trait from my dad since while those rock talkers would put normal people to sleep, talk radio has always been my dad’s go-to for long drives through the night to stay awake.

This became a slight compatibility issue when my girlfriend moved in. She had gotten used to falling asleep with movies on in her bedroom, something I would find to be impossible. She would always ask to play music and I would vehemently refuse since listening to music for an hour or two would just be completely shaving that time out of my sleep schedule. Eventually we settled on those nature playlists that Songza has. I could handle noise as long as it was basically a steady stream of the same noise. Crashing waves, crackling fires, steady rain, I could fall asleep listening to these no problem. Maybe they were even helping me fall asleep faster since I’ve always had a hard time getting to sleep due to an overactive brain.

After a few months of this I took the brave move of graduating to music, provided it was mellow and had no lyrics. We settled (and still frequently listen to) the “Muted Jazz” playlist. Quiet, unassuming jazz with no lyrics proved to be totally possible to fall asleep to. Although I will admit that my dreams definitely started taking place in smoky jazz bars in the 1930s. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Board Games as a Geek Gateway – The Perspicacious Geek

by on September 30, 2014 at 10:49 am
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek
arkham

These are all the pieces of a “game.” No really, these are a lot of fun

We live in a wonderful time to be a geek. Summer blockbusters are predominantly sci-fi oriented and comic books are being adapted into movies and TV shows at an alarming rate. Even lesser known (or formerly lesser known) creator owned comics like Kick Ass and Walking Dead are getting mainstream, major releases. Video games were once the pastime of nerds and geeks and there was a slim chance that jocks or your mom would be playing them. Now, thanks to Call of Duty, mobile games, the Wii and a million other reasons, video games is a huge growth industry rivaling Hollywood. Those pushes into the mainstream mean that being a “geek” has a lot less stigma than it used to. Which is good for us (the geeks). Hell, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are developing a Preacher pilot for AMC. Indeed, we live in a golden age of geekiness.

One of the amazing side effects of this geek boom is the creation of amazing (and often very inspired by geek intellectual properties) board games. Once upon a time a movie themed board game would either be a) terrible or b) Monopoly reskinned with references to said movie. No longer. Battlestar Galactica,  Walking Dead, Game of Thrones and a whole host of other IPs have great board games. As a result of these popular franchises board games in general have gotten a whole lot better.

I remember going into hobby shops and there being a pile of Warhammer miniature figurines, a rack of RPG rule books and a little section of board games (Twilight Imperium, Settlers of Catan and a host of Steve Jackson mini-games spring to mind). Now, the situation is almost completely reversed. Head into a game shop and you’ll have a wide variety of awesome board games that are well designed, complex and sometimes tied to source material you’re already well aware of. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Fighting on the Internet is More Stupid Than You Think – Perspicacious Geek

by on September 23, 2014 at 8:06 am
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek
Fuck that website

Fuck that website

So, this is a geeky website. We talk about video games, horror movies, wrestling and comic books (among other things). Most of us have worked in tech support at one point, we work on a webcomic together, hell, we’ve all pretended to be vampires for fun on numerous occasions. There are all manner of geeks but there is one thing that is true of almost all of them: we spend a lot of time on the internet. A lot of time.

It makes a ton of sense when you think about it. Geek culture is (or was) by its nature niche. There wasn’t a bunch of people in any one place who were passionate about this one geeky thing so when a global network allowed us to all connect with one another, we were all up on that shit. Do you like to knit Dr. Who stuff? You can find like minded people easily. Seriously, I just assumed that that existed and a quick Google search totally proved me right. Basically, no matter what you’re into, if you’re a geek, you’re probably a pretty well traveled internet user.

Quid pro quo you’ve been in (or at least been witness to) an argument on the internet over something that in the big scheme of things is probably insignificant. In some cases it will be an argumentative clash of opinions between people who feel strongly about opposite sides of a story, in other cases only one will really care and the other will be trolling, sometimes, both will be trolling. Two people pretending to really care about something just to argue and try to get under the skin of the other one? We live in a wonderful world.

An interesting thing happens on the internet. People are way more likely to pick a fight and start an argument than they probably would out in the “real” world. Why? Well, depending on the situation there might be a degree of anonymity. Almost always there’s a sense of safety from sitting in your own home instead of being in someone’s face. Plus, it’s easy to dehumanize the person you’re arguing with. After all, you don’t know them. They’re just words on the screen that disagree with you. Fuck those words. Fuck that person. They probably stand against everything you’ve ever held true and believe in. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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If I’m On My Phone, Chill Out – The Perspicacious Geek

by on September 16, 2014 at 3:58 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

Ipg3f you see me fiddling on my phone, chill the fuck out.

I find that there are numerous blogs, inspirational posters and videos about how the use of cell phones is destroying our culture and our humanity. “Oh my God,” cries someone who must think my mom didn’t raise me correctly, “get off your cell phone!”

As is so often the case on the interwebs, there is a complete lack of a balanced perspective. Since this whole column is supposed to be about finding balance between geek life and “real” life I figured I would start with something that at its core is geeky and how to find balance in your life. If you think for a second that using an ultra-high tech device with a touch screen that lets you instantly communicate over a variety of platforms (instant messenger, email, phone, text message, Skype, and on and on) while listening to music, checking websites and shooting birds at pigs (or making birds flap, or trying to get to 2048, or crushing candy) isn’t the stuff of Star Trek dreams you’re being crazy. Using a smartphone is the most accepted form of geeking out there is. We are all geeks playing with gadgets.

The problem with the whole smartphone debate is that the anti-cell phone side of the coin is completely black and white. If you play on your phone in public you are a bad person who is letting real life pass you by while you “waste time” on digital fun times. Your children will grow up without you noticing, you will never see another sunset and you will die loveless and alone.

Fuck you.

I exchange emails with my friend Ronan who lives in another country a dozen times a day, I check Facebook and see what my friends are up to and comment and interact with them all the time, I play online cell phone games with people from around the globe, I can check Instagram and see photos that Scott puts up of his son growing up. At the core, just about everything that’s going on with your smartphone is connecting you with people in new and exciting ways all the fucking time. What exactly is going on around me that is more amazing than all that? Probably nothing. On the off chance that something amazing does happen I will be able to take a picture or a video and share it with the world. So dismissing all that as a waste of time makes you sound like a Luddite grandpa who is scared of the way technology is changing the world. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Death From Above 1979 – The Physical World (PG2)

by on September 9, 2014 at 12:45 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek
Good news everyone, they're still apparently elephants.

Good news everyone, they’re still apparently elephants.

So remember how I mentioned this week’s article might be about playing around on your phone in public? Yeah, that’s not going to be happening. Instead I’m going to talk about Death From Above 1979 for a few reasons. The first is that their new album “The Physical World” came out today; their first full length studio album in a month shy of a decade.  The second is that I will be going to see them this Friday at the MRCY Block Party (along with Metric, Neutral Milk Hotel and some others). So a new album and a show all in the same week means that this article gets to exist today. BEHOLD. I’m going to give you fair warning, the actual review portion of this article is pretty far into it, if you want to skip ahead, just look for the bold text that says “Was it worth the wait?”.  I won’t even be mad.

Something strange happened to DFA 1979 when they broke up, it took a little while, but by breaking up right as they were on the rise they left their fan base wanting more and somehow made them more popular. Not only that, but people were discovering the band only to find out they already didn’t exist anymore. Officially they broke up in August 2006, but that had been after several months of not doing anything or playing any shows, so the “real” break up date would probably be a few months earlier.  Anyhow, details of the breakup aside, the band managed to ascend even further than when they were actually together. Instead of being just a cool band from Toronto who make energetic noise-pop, they were now this legendary band you never got to see live even though everyone says their shows were amazing and now your life is incomplete.

I got to see them in 2004 I think during Pop Montreal and in the haze of a decade’s worth of shows and substance abuse I recall having an amazing time. I also feel like I saw them another time before the breakup but I can’t be sure. No matter.  They were gone, I felt like I didn’t get to see them enough, a lot of people never got to see them. The legend grew.

Fast forward to 2011 when they were suddenly playing a handful of shows including an appearance at Osheaga. At this point there was no real indication that they were actually going to be getting back together and making new music, so we only had to take this as a “reunion”. Whatever, it was another chance to see them again so I was there. They killed it and were a highlight of the whole festival. I got to rock out to Sebastien Granger and Jesse Keeler one more time and that would be that, or so I thought. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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The Perspicacious Geek – An Introduction

by on September 2, 2014 at 4:04 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

geek2A little while ago I started (and subsequently abandoned) the mission of revisiting a lot of the geek milestones that Ernie Cline touched on in his (amazing) ode to 80s geekdom “Ready Player One”. Cline’s story was almost directly responsible for one of the most talked about (in my friend circle) occurrences of 2013: that time we played the original Tomb of Horrors like idiots. The whole experience got me to thinking that I wanted to write a regular column about stuff that I had experienced. Sort of like a 1960s Playboy columnist but writing about geek shit. Or regular shit. Ok, I just want to have a column where I tell you about things you should be doing and consuming, or about current events.

I regretted almost immediately my decision to call this stuff “The Perspicacious Geek” for a number of reasons.

1)      I have only had to write the word “perspicacious” twice (thrice if you count this sentence) and I have mangled it all three times. I like to challenge myself physically when it comes to typing.
2)      It is super pretentious sounding; this is a double edged sword. I like sounding pretentious since I think there’s a certain contingent of the internet who will be like “what a pretentious cocksucker, I will read this article to see how wrong and stupid he is”. And let’s face it, readers are readers, gotta get ‘dem clicks, holla! However, in the world where I pretend to be humble (whatever world that is, I don’t think “humble” would be on anyone’s list of adjectives that describe me) I am in no way extremely perspicacious (nailed the spelling first time). Sometimes people have to explain things to me like a hundred times and when I “get it” I’m still just nodding along blindly hoping the conversation moves on to something else.
3)      In reality, I’m really into terrible movies and watch a lot of pro-wrestling, this is pretty much the opposite of perspicacious.
4)      If I didn’t know the definition of the word, I would think that it is somehow related to perspiration. So if you’re bad with English you might think this article is about a sweaty geek. Which is like, the exact opposite of the intention. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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