Posts Tagged perspicacious geek

79 results.

Games as Geek Gateways: The Game (IDW)

by on October 6, 2015 at 4:25 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

thegame1So far in this little series I’ve reviewed a very geeky, complex game that draws from the lore of H.P. Lovecraft (Arkham Horror) and a worker placement European style game that draws from the lore of Dungeons and Dragons (Lords of Waterdeep). If you’re able to get your non-geeky friends into Arkham Horror then good on you. The rules are dense, gameplay is very fiddly and there’s a lot of text to read through each and every time you play. Lords of Waterdeep might be an easier sell once you establish that the mechanics are pretty simple and that no knowledge of D&D is necessary.

However, if you’re trying to build up a gaming group that’s less than open minded about geeky intellectual properties and wants something a little more approachable, you might need to set your sights a little lower.

Like it or not, a lot of people still think Scrabble and Monopoly when they hear that you’re organizing a game night. But it’s 2015 and limiting yourself to the Hasbro/Parker Brothers offerings is for suckers. If you ever want to get people into the more interesting games I would personally recommend starting small. Possibly with a card game they’ve never heard of. It’s a much smaller step to get someone to play a simple little game they’ve never played before than it is to drop a 20 page rulebook on their heads and hope for the best.

Enter a game like The Game. Ignore the fact that it’s incredibly difficult to ever Google this game for obvious reasons (pro tip, add “IDW” into your search if you’re looking for an English copy, the publisher is supposed to be bringing The Game to North America this month). If you’re lucky enough to live somewhere that picks up foreign copies of board games I can vouch for the fact that there’s no text on the cards whatsoever. So, as you might be able to see in that picture I’m holding a French copy from publisher OYA. I found an English copy of the rules from the original publisher NSV and I was on my way. So if you can find a copy in some other language, you can easily pick it up without worry.

So now I’m playing The Game. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comments Off on Games as Geek Gateways: The Game (IDW)

Look At All My Sh*t – September SUMMON Loot Crate

by on September 29, 2015 at 4:02 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

It’s that time of the month again you guys. No, not that time of the month. It’s Loot Crate time of the month, after the enjoyable double-header last time we’re back down to just one box full o’ Loot.

This month’s theme was SUMMON, which presumably meant it would be full of things you could summon? Or things that summoner’s could use? Or like, summon special in your life, a lil’ summon summon? I had seen the preview image for the crate so I knew that there was going to be something Pokemon related in here, which I wasn’t too excited about. I’m not a tween and haven’t played Pokemon since I was a tween. However, I can see how it would be exciting for lots and lots of people. Anyhow, all that to say I started off early with a few reservations.LootSummonOverview

↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comments Off on Look At All My Sh*t – September SUMMON Loot Crate

3 More Things I Learnt In Taiwan – The Perspicacious Geek

by on September 8, 2015 at 4:27 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

It’s a little late in the day, but it’s still Tuesday which means that I’m still on time with this blog. I like to give myself the whole day to get these done since sometimes I haven’t actually written anything when I wake up on Tuesday morning. This weekend I was so far up North that I didn’t even cell phone reception or an internet connection. You can forgive me if I was more concerned with lounging on a dock in the sun and drinking bourbon lemonade than I was with writing an blog for a few dozen people to read.

Please forgive me.

I beg of you.

Alright, we’re back to things about Taiwan that I wish I knew before getting there. The last time we discussed bringing water with you everywhere, not being afraid to sleep in sex hotels and also that fried chicken in Taiwan is amazing. What further adventures will we have this week?

20150729_124806Taiwan Has Some Cinematic History You’ve Never Heard About

While we were in the Beitou and Xinbeitou to enjoy the hotsprings, we found out about the fact that as Beitou grew in popularity (in large part due to the Japanese interest in the area due to its natural hotsprings, duh) it also became the backdrop for a number of films set in Taiwan. Even a bunch of popular songs in the past hundred years are basically just about how awesome Beitou is. Much like a lot of foreign market cinema with local appeal it seemed that a lot of these movies went for mass appeal and combined genres. So it wasn’t uncommon to have action and romance cross over (and maybe even comedy, without speaking the language it was hard to get a bead on if there was much comedy).

I tried really hard to remember some of the common traits that these movies shared, but I remember that they almost always had a protagonist who left his hometown, was reunited with a long-lost family member (often by discovering that they had matching birthmarks) and a scene where the love interest would pursue the protagonist (even if it meant ignoring all possible logic, like, being able to catch up to a train or something).

I can get behind basically any birthmark related storytelling. That’s really the one that stuck out for me. How common was birthmark related plot development that the people that put together a little display on the history of Taiwanese cinema felt the need to highlight it as an underlying trait of the entire country’s film output? Were audiences just like “oh man, I hope this movie has the old ‘birthmark twist’ in it, we love that one”.

Why don’t more American movies have matching birthmark story-lines? ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comments Off on 3 More Things I Learnt In Taiwan – The Perspicacious Geek

Board Games As Geek Gateways: Lords of Waterdeep

by on August 18, 2015 at 3:39 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek
Lords_of_the_water_deep_1

This picture makes the game look more complicated than it is.

A long time ago (holy shit it was nearly a year ago that I started this as a weekly blog) I talked about board games as a gateway to geekier things. At the time I really intended on talking about more board games in this blog but life has a way of sidetracking you and you end up writing about Mad Max all the time.

Well, it’s time to take a look at another board game. One that you would think would be an excellent gateway into the world of Dungeons & Dragons (but you’d be wrong): Lords of Waterdeep. Before we played this game I jokingly referred to it as “Lords of Watership Down”. That’s the game that I really want to play, but I’d imagine that it would basically just end with the entire table crying over the plight of rabbits.

I guess the first thing to address is the D&D branding. I’ve never played Forgotten Realms but apparently within the setting there’s this city called Waterdeep that is ruled over by the “Masked Lords” or something that keep the town running smoothly but also have their own little competitive squabbles of one-upping and undercutting each other. I could be super wrong here, but I feel like Jono said something like that when he described the setting.

There’s D&D flavour all over the game. The “core” resources are clerics, wizards, rogues and fighters. Missions involve fighting Beholders and Orcs and whatever but at the end of the day, it’s all just window dressing. Is this background information important to the game? Not at all.  Does having or not having an understanding of D&D help you or hinder you in any way? Not at all. They just as easily could have branded this as Game of Thrones, Vampire: The Masquerade or basically any fictional, historical or modern setting known for some level of political intrigue. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Comments Off on Board Games As Geek Gateways: Lords of Waterdeep

What Did I Miss? – Perspicacious Geek

by on August 11, 2015 at 3:30 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

So if you’ve been paying attention to the general going-ons of the site (listening to the podcasts that for the first time ever don’t include me on them would be a start) then you may have noticed that I have been gone for pretty much the last 3 weeks. I was on the actual other side of the world you guys. Well, provided that you consider being 12,000 km away from home as the other side of the world. Anyways, I had very limited internet access and other than what I gleaned from the occasional glimpse of Facebook I really didn’t have that much access to what was going on in the very important world of pop-culture. The more pressing issue was actually Typhoon Soudelor that was about to hit Taiwan as we were planning on flying out.

I mean, the really important stuff filtered through. Like, I became aware of the fact that Ian McShane will be joining the cast of Game of Thrones in some mystery role (although, I’m like 99% sure he will be a Greyjoy). I also heard that Meek Mill and Drake got into a fight over who wrote raps better and maybe something about one of them being the baby-daddy to Nicki Minaj’s unborn child. The fact that I have never heard of Meek Mill up until last week sort of speaks volumes about the fact that he will be remembered as the rapper who got into a fight with Drake and nothing more. I also saw Ronda Rousey KO a Brazilian UFC fighter in her usual amount of time (fights so short they fit into gifs!). In more upsetting news I heard about a little Canadian
robot that got smashed up in Philly, found out that Hulk Hogan was a racist and Rowdy Roddy Piper and lion named Cecil died.

I somehow also became aware that they are making Space Jam 2.

But what about the pop-culture that I didn’t get to hear about? Join me now on a journey of discovery into things that are barely newsworthy but possibly mildly interesting.

 

Really looks like they're enjoying that meal.

Really looks like they’re enjoying that meal.

Michelle Rodriguez Drinks Piss with Bear Grylls

Ah, I’m so glad that Bear Grylls somehow popped back onto my radar. I watched a bunch of his show back when I had whatever channel his show was on. No matter how tired and worn the meme got, the “Drink Piss” meme almost always got a smile from me. When I was skimming through headlines and trending searches Michelle Rodriguez caught my eye based almost entirely on the fact that I had watched Furious 7 on the plane. If you haven’t seen Furious 7 you should probably get on that, it’s amazing. I guess he has a new show where he takes celebrities into the wild with him and Michelle Rodriguez was one of the lucky ones. Bear had a special treat in store for Michelle (and the real winners, us) when he caught a rodent and then informed her that to make a little soup-stock out of the mouse she would have to pee into a cup to provide the stock. Ha ha! Now you’re eating a mouse stewed in urine! That’s entertainment kids. The fact that Grylls and Rodriguez are both millionaires eating mousepiss soup brings a smile to me. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comments Off on What Did I Miss? – Perspicacious Geek

Really Listening to Lyrics Part 2 – Perspicacious Geek

by on August 4, 2015 at 8:54 am
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

dionpowermanI did this a little while ago and it was a lot of fun. Last time I took an older song and a newer song and I think that worked out pretty well. If you’re interested, that article is here.

Last time I was vaguely aware of some of the more messed up elements of the two songs I was about to analyze, I had heard them recently and a few things had stuck out to me as pretty damn weird.. This time, I am somewhat unaware of the lyrical content of these two songs. In today’s edition we will take a look at Dion’s “The Wandere” and Powerman 5000’s “World’s Collide”. Here’s the first thing you’re going to learn today: the song “The Wanderer” is by Dion. I have literally heard this song dozens if not hundreds of times and this is actually new information to me.

Both of these songs come out of different phases of my childhood. My dad liked oldies since he was a teenager in the early 60s and music wasn’t quite amazing at that point. I think he also was somehow aware that music from the later 60s and early 70s was very much fueled by drugs and felt that by sticking to the late 50s and early 60s he was maybe shielding us from some of the darker elements of rock. All that to say when I was a kid (like, younger than 10) I listened to a lot of cheesy pop oldies. When I was little older (around age 14 or 15) I really got into Powerman 5000 because they were loud and aggressive and didn’t have too much swearing in them so I wouldn’t get in a ton of trouble if my mom heard me listening to them. The lead singer also wore goggles and if you knew me back in high school then you know that I was all about that shit.

In summary: I listened to both of these songs a lot, knew a lot of these lyrics by heart and never really thought about them until today. Let’s go on a journey through sounds. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Comments Off on Really Listening to Lyrics Part 2 – Perspicacious Geek

Men (Or Ladies), Are You Simba or Aladdin?

by on July 14, 2015 at 10:41 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Movies, Perspicacious Geek

First to clear things up this is absolutely not a quiz. This is about childhood influencing the type of person you ultimately grow up to be. Specifically this is about two Disney movies with very different heroes.

Let’s set the stage shall we? And how about we lay off 9 or 10 year old me for having very linear gender stereotypes set up in my mind.

I was an early 80s kid. Born in ’83 I was hitting my “age where I remember movies” coming into the early 90s. Like a lot of families, seeing the latest big Disney animated film was almost automatic; if not in theaters then definitely when it came out on video. They were safe bets for family fun. I have fleeting memories of seeing both The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast in theaters. However, by the time 1992 rolled around I was at least slightly convinced that Disney movies were pretty much “for girls”. At this point the really big Disney flicks featured memorable female protagonists and generic cookie-cutter “Princes” (with a little less traditional “Prince” in the form of Peter Pan being the main exception).  So yeah, I would watch these movies, but none of the male characters resonated with my little expanding brain.alladin vs simba

↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Comments Off on Men (Or Ladies), Are You Simba or Aladdin?

Look At All My Sh*t – June Loot Crate “Cyber” Review

by on June 30, 2015 at 8:32 am
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek

We’re back everyone with another installment of me showing off the cool stuff that I pay for every month from Loot Crate. Hey, real question, when does Loot Crate start sending me free crates? Oh, hang on, sometimes I rip on the stuff that’s inside. They probably wouldn’t like that very much.

Sarah's taking the photos this month, so no cute girl pics. So long precious internet hits.

Sarah’s taking the photos this month, so no cute girl pics. So long precious internet hits.

This month’s theme was “CYBER” which I thought was a little weird as a theme, but hey, I think they pretty much pulled it off. I will admit that I was very sad there wasn’t some kind of a reference to “A/S/L” in the crate. Would’ve been hilarious. Trust me, comedy gold. On the upside though, there wasn’t a single item related to CSI: Cyber, which was a big plus.

Let’s take a look at what we’ve got this month, shall we? ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
2 Comments

People Who Scare Me On My Commute – Perspicacious Geek

by on June 23, 2015 at 4:55 pm
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek
top-10-tattoos-guys-should-never-get_4

Maybe you were a POW and no war prison can hold you down?

With all the excitement of the Montreal Fringe Festival last week I really didn’t have very much time to devote my creative energy to this blog. Now, what I would normally do in these circumstances would be to write another blog about Mad Max but I feel like maybe, just maybe, that ship has sailed.

Instead I’m going to talk about some people that bother me on the way to work and why.

People With Barb Wire Tattoos On Their Arms

Listen, this isn’t scary, it’s dumb.

What are you trying to say about yourself? That you would actually wrap your arm in barb wire if you could, but since you can’t do that all time you’ve chosen to have an artist’s interpretation of it on your arm forever? Is it because you’re so tough that you want people to know that at any given point you might wrap your arm in barb wire?

Are you a big fan of the film Barb Wire?

Do you know what I think when I see you? I think you make bad choices. I literally have a tattoo that includes a severed leg, a bumble bee, a wolfman and a pair of pants. Yet I still think you make bad choices. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Comments Off on People Who Scare Me On My Commute – Perspicacious Geek

Head to the Back of the Bus, There’s Room There – Perspicacious Geek

by on June 16, 2015 at 8:13 am
Posted In: Blogs, Homepage, Keith, Perspicacious Geek
There is one person on this bus, where are they? All the way at the front.

There is one person on this bus, where are they? All the way at the front.

I ride the bus nearly every day to work and  on my way home. I’ve been on buses in many other major North American cities. I wouldn’t consider myself to be a bus expert but I do like to think of myself as least an experienced bus goer. If you’ve never been on a bus I feel the need to warn you that I’ll be using some very bus-specific terminology in this piece and maybe you should brush up on your bus lingo (or “busingo” as we say in the bus biz). Complex bus words like “driver”, “seat” and “the back” will be popping up all over this article and if you’re not familiar you might miss out on some of the nuances of what I’m trying to get across.

What I’m here to write about today is general bus behavior when you get on the bus.

Here’s how I understand the process is supposed to work.

  1. Get on the bus.
  2. Pay your fare and nod to the driver.
  3. Move as far back as you can since there are people behind you, if there aren’t people behind you, more people might get on later.
    1. This doesn’t just apply to sitting, even if all the seats are full, you still move all the way to the back to stand.
    2. No, this doesn’t mean to the steps at the back, it means all the way back.
    3. Listen, if you can get to the back of the bus, that is where you should be going.
    4. Oh, you’re near the back door and you want to stop? Keep moving, there’s still a bunch of space at the back.
    5. No seriously, there is space at that back what is wrong with you?

You might (especially as a non-bus traveler) think that the 5 sub-points of step 3 are excessive but if you’ve ever been on a crowded bus, you know that those sub-rules exist for a reason and even with 5 clear clarifications about moving all the way to the back, many people on the bus will just get on the bus, look to see if there are any seats and if there isn’t, they will just stand there. Near the front of the bus. Everyone who gets on after them will have to push past them to try and get further into the bus. Most of the people that make it past will stop somewhere in the middle anyways, too tired from pushing past the people in the entrance of the bus to to make it all the way to the back. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Comments Off on Head to the Back of the Bus, There’s Room There – Perspicacious Geek