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Bringing back blogging like it's 2008

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But What About The Men?

Essays, Not Rants! 245: But What About The Men???   I write a lot about women in fiction on this blog, to the point where I’ve had friends term it a feminist blog. But if you’ve ever wondered “jeez, Josh, you keep talking about women this and feminism that, what about the men!?”, well, this rant essay is for you.   One of the many things I like about (500) Days of Summer, is Tom. Not that he’s a particularly great guy or anything like that, but that with Tom we have a male protagonist who is all

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Of Stories and Hope

Essays, Not Rants! 243: Of Hope in Stories   I've never been a huge fan of tragedies. Don't get me wrong, I love stories like Othello, Whiplash, and Sicario; but those aren't the ones I count my favorite stories.   I sometimes joke that I tell hopeful stories because if I want stories of injustice and despair, I can just read the news. I skim headlines and it’s not hard to see Othello and Chinatown being reenacted in current events. There is, of course, a greatness to using tragedy to comment o

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Wise Old Masters

Essays, Not Rants! 242: Wise Old Masters   I have a very clear memory of being ten or eleven and watching Cartoon Network. I didn’t have cable growing up, so this was at a hotel or someone else’s place. I’d left Singapore and was in that whole growing-up-on-a-ship phase of my life.   Anyway.   Johnny Bravo was on, and for some reason or other the titular character had to learn some martial art or another. So he goes to a dojo, meets the guy, and asks him to teach him “the secrets of the East.”  

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*general internet frustrations*

Essays, Not Rants! 241: *General Internet Frustration*   Y'know, I had plenty of ideas about what this blog post was gonna be about. The casting choices in Dr. Strange verses Kubo and The Two Strings (with some Uncharted 4 thrown in) or maybe one about how Silk, a comic about an Asian woman with Spider-Man powers, is not a story about race but still tells a uniquely Asian story.   But then internet people had to be spoiled and cruel to Chelsea Cain because she dared write a feminist comic, to th

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Ghost Ship

Another RPG session tomorrow!   Unlike last time, this time I've got a detailed plan moving forward (I'm currently writing Page 4). The party finds an abandoned Old Republic military ship in the middle of nowhere. There's gonna be battle droids, droidekas, and a fight on foot against a vulture droid all while taking part in an old fashioned dungeon crawl through an Acclamator. Which, it turns out, due to a hyperdrive malfunction kinda time travelled!   So Clone Troopers! Who were recently give

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Bang For A Buck

Essays, Not Rants! 240: Bang for A Buck   Movie tickets here in New York short you around $15 a pop. Which is a lot for a movie, but we go anyway because, y'know, movies. So it's worth it, price of admission and all that for those two hours.   Conversely, your typical new video game costs $60 at base, ignoring deluxe editions, special editions, and inevitable DLC. Which makes it come up to around a lot; Star Wars Battlefront totals out $110 if you buy the bundle for all the expansions, which I h

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Am I Making Sense?

Essays, Not Rants! 239: Am I Making Sense?   Sometimes I wonder about the accessibility of this blog. Not literally, I mean “Essay Snot Rants dot net” is really easy to remember. I’m talking about the content here.   Sure, I talk about movies a lot. And a lot of the times those movies are blockbusters. You’ve got your discussions on why Rey is the best in The Force Awakens, your discussions on how Age of Ultron portrayed masculinity, and the close reading of an epic monologue from Pacific Rim. P

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The Give And Take of Books

Essays, Not Rants! 237: The Give And Take of Books   When I was 13 I visited a slave castle in Takoradi, Ghana. Which is a weird sentence to type, but kinda standard given the whole grew-up-on-a-ship-thing. It was sobering, seeing something you’d read about in history in person. But at the same time, for me, something firmly in the past. What had happened there was firmly in the was.   Now, I recently finished Yaa Gyasi’s exceptional Homegoing. Early on, a slave castle on Africa’s coast plays a

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Letting Different People Be Different

Essays, Not Rants! 236: Letting People Be Different   One of the many (many, many) things I love about Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is that the hunky guy Rebecca is pining for is an Asian guy (named Josh, but that parts not important right now). It’s incredibly refreshing — when was the last time you saw an Asian male as a romantic lead, let alone an object of sexual desire by a white woman in fiction? But that leads me to another one of the things I love about the show: it’s not a big deal. No one cares

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RPG Prison Break: After The Fact

So I didn't really sketch out much for the adventure, opting more to go with however the players went. It meant the break was a little too easy. I was also a bit under-nourished as a GM, having only had cereal for breakfast before arriving and having a couple beers. Soooo...   But yeah. Was fun. PC's spent more time at the cantina than I expected. Leesi pickpocketed everyone. Fran found the most emotionally vulnerable person there and charmed him into buying drinks and offering Imperial codes th

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Do Spoilers Spoil?

Essays, Not Rants! 235: Do Spoilers Spoil?   Darth Vader has Luke Skywalker on the ropes, cornered, defenseless, and missing a hand. But rather than killing the Rebel, Vader offers for Luke to join him. Luke refuses. Undeterred, Vader throws doubt on those Luke trusts and utters one of the most famous lines in cinema:   “No, I am your father.”   It’s shattering, throwing everything Luke knows into disarray. But Luke doesn’t join Vader, choosing instead to cast himself into the abyss below.   Als

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#AsianCowboy

Essays, Not Rants! 234: #AsianCowboy   I was vaguely aware of the casting for the new Magnificent Seven when it was first announced, but more so for the fact that it reminded me that I really needed to watch The Seven Samurai (which I still haven’t…)   Anyway, since then trailers for the new Magnificent Seven have been released and there’s been a little bit of buzz around it and reviews have been coming out. What’s most caught my attention — and what makes me really wanna see it — is actor Byung

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Designing a Prison

So my RPG group (Well, Sasha/Leesi) wanna do a prison break. So tomorrow we're doing a prison break. And I'm working on the adventure now 'cuz I've had a busy week.   First things first, they gotta get in prison. So during a brief stint on Cato Nemodia, they'll be given a parking ticket. Knowing the group this should spiral nicely out of control.   Now I'm working on a prison. I figure I gotta find weak points for them to exploit, but really, these guys are creative. I think I'll throw in a guy

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Frustrated Mumblings

Warning: More Grownup Cyprinidae Coming:   It's not that being an artist assistant is bad, it's just that it's kinda taxing, and the pay-by-hours isn't enough. But if I get this other gig, do I want that even though the pay is less, it's harder work, but maybe more hours? Do I want to do both? Hold out for something better? Can I hold out for something better? Am I selling myself short? But I need work.

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Budgeting Apps

Warning: Grown Up Rant/Tirade/Ramble Approaching   I've been keeping a budget via spreadsheet for the last couple years. A basic one where I've money set aside for various categories (food, transport, entertainment, misc, alcohol, bills), note down how much I get in paychecks and put in savings (then categorize what I'm saving up for).   Now, I'm in the market for a good app to do it for me, because I can be lazy with this budget thing. And there are a lot of great budget apps out there, but the

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Picture Lock

After a busy summer doing almost anything but (and a madly busy second-half of a spring semester), I've picture locked on The Conduits. Now it's off to music and sound and color correction and vfx for all that fun stuff.   Can't wait until it's done.    

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You Should Really Be Reading Mockingbird

Essays, Not Rants! 231: You Should Be Reading Mockingbird   There’s a lot to like about the new Mockingbird ongoing title from Marvel. For starters, it’s the next step in a really spiffy new direction Marvel’s been taking with their comics lately: diversity. In the past year-or-so, Marvel’s really stepped up their game with who’s in their comics. You’ve got Asian characters headlining their own series (Totally Awesome Hulk, and the fantastic-and-severely-under-appreciated Silk), and Spider-Man a

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Untitled

I was gonna write a post lamenting pending (f)unemployment and the frustrating nature of job hunting, but I will instead talk about the PC's in an Edge of The Empire RPG session I've been running most of the summer.   This whole time I've been expecting them to pull an Avengers and come together for the greater good, but really, they're more like the Guardians of The Galaxy who'll screw up and spend more time talking about money (and not being paid by the Rebel Alliance) than doing the right thi

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Meaning Upon Meaning

Essays, Not Rants! 229: Meaning Upon Meaning   Every movie monster in the book has some sort of sociocultural commentary associated with it. Zombies are the embodiment of a fear of conformist consumer culture, vampires are the elite rich who drain the life of the poor, werewolves are your neighbor’s double life, Godzilla is nuclear terror made real. A lot of fun can be found in figuring out what these all mean. Is Zombieland about the isolation that comes as a result of being the only people spe

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