Crushing Krisis

Crushing On: Mini Metro

December 3, 2017 by krisis

What do you do when you want to turn off your brain?

For me, it turns out the answer is “use it.”

I know, we’ve been over it before and it doesn’t make any sense. What I mean is that my favorite brain downtime is playing with inane little logic games. Some people like button mashers. Me, I like things with numbers and lines of best fit. I grew up on Final Fantasy. I want to get lost in a forest of meaningless logic and arbitrary rules where fast reactions are not a factor.

Recently, my obsession has been Mini Metro, which you can get on App Stores or Steam, but you can also play for free right in your browser.

The concept is dead simple: connect the subway stops of a quickly-growing city using a limited number of lines, trains, and tunnels, but unlimited tracks.

Doesn’t sound so hard, right? Well, when you have no control over where those stations pop up or where their commuters want to go things get tricky.

It’s a terrific game for brief downtime (like commuting!) and you can play it care-free or with great exactitude. It’s the sort of thing that fits into the little spaces in your life when your brain simply isn’t up for anything else. I love the simple iconography, although I will say that the lack of explanation of how the game works might make your first thirty minutes pretty maddening – especially when it comes to the dragging and dropping of lines and trains.

I played the browser version for a few days and (despite my initial frustrations) eventually broke down and actually downloaded Steam so I could have a full version where I could select cities and track achievements. I might not hesitate to pay for things I like, but getting me to download something is really hard.

Plus: it was made right here in New Zealand by developer DinoPoloClub!

The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula Power Rankings – Season 2, Episode 5

December 2, 2017 by krisis

It’s week five of Dragula, the search for a Drag Super-Monster who is equally gifted in the areas of glamour, horror, and filth.

This week’s episode went totally girly and campy by challenging the queens to be in a horror movie. They weren’t starring as a scary monster, but as the typical slutty girl who makes for an obvious first victim.

While a few of Dragula’s Exterminations have been hard to watch, this episode marked the first time I was unsettled by the main challenge of an episode – and I think that might have been part of the point.

There was something particularly shocking in watching a man act out these purposefully-exaggerated, somewhat sexualized acts of violence against someone doing her best to present as a woman but who we know to be a man.

Seeing the violence play-acted by two men really drove home the amount of degradation we put female characters through just for having the temerity to walk alone at night or dress provocatively.

With that realization comes the ultimate chicken-or-egg question: is this violence in our movies because being a woman is an inherently dangerous act, or do we expect and accept violence against women because the media normalizes it constantly in trope after trope, from the slutty girl dying first to the love interest getting fridged?

So far this season we have seen drag as torture and death, been reminded that rock’n’roll is simple socially-acceptable drag, and seen the queens in their most outlandish outfits while giving birth. The Boulet Brothers have unquestionably amped up the unspoken commentary in their challenges compared to the zombies and sea monsters of the first Season. I think that’s a big part of why the show is so much more compelling this time around.

Clever commentary aside, it’s shocking to see all six of the remaining queens deliver straight-up feminine performances for the first time this season. It emphasizes just how strong the remaining half of these girls are. This week’s weakest queens are weak for choices rather than faults.

Enough talk – watch Dragula’s fifth episode, and then see if you agree with how I’ve ranked the queens below.

creature comforts / window screens

December 1, 2017 by krisis

We’re in the midst of a bit of a late Spring heat wave here in Wellington and today it got as hot as 24°C.

For those of you not super quick at converting celsius to fahrenheit (I’m getting there), that’s 75°F.

Seventy-five degrees fahrenheit. It’s a wonder I survived!

Maybe I didn’t survive. Maybe I’ve died and gone to heaven – because this is my ideal weather.

My hatred for hot temperatures is widely known to my friends. Unless I am in the middle of leaping into a pool I can barely function once the mercury slips past 80°F. When Philly gets into the 90s I go into complete system shutdown.

I’d often remark that it would be nice to move to somewhere with lower highs, like the Pacific Northwest, but I never imagined I would move to place like this – where the average temperature is never over 65°F, it never drops below freezing, it hardly ever gets higher than 77°F, and the worst heatwaves of all time top out in the mid-80s.

Seriously, if I was an alien life form and biologists were charting my ideal habitat temperature range, their findings would simply say “Wellington.”

When you live somewhere where the temperature basically ranges from “chilly spring” to “warm spring” for the majority of the year, if you cannot be outside at the very least you want every possible window open. Luckily, our house has a lot of windows – including skylights – which means there’s double the motivation to open them, as spending a whole day indoors can start to feel like you’re under a magnifying glass.

Here’s the rub: of the many quirks I have discovered about Wellington, one is that they do not seem to believe in window screens.

(It’s actually not much of a Wellington-specific quirk. It turns out that’s the case in a lot of the world outside of North America.)

Even believing in properly functioning windows is a bit of a hit-or-miss endeavor from house to house here. The Wellington region is notorious for not-so-well insulated homes, which perhaps seems moot given the ideal temperature range. However, that doesn’t take into account moisture. When we were shopping for a rental it was impressed upon us to search for houses with double-paned glass windows that seemed to adequately seal. Of the over-a-dozen houses we saw, I’d say only three or four fit the bill.

Yet, even in the most beautiful, modern home with thick, well-sealed windows, you are 99.9% likely to discover that not a single window or door in the house has a screen. In fact, they probably couldn’t even fit a screen, since windows here are frequently massive casements half as tall as me or multi-part horizontal sliding doors that might open an entire wall.

I find it completely puzzling. As someone who grew up owning cats (and, at one point, a bird), you could not possibly leave a window open more than a crack or else they would find their way out! Plus, who knows what kind of dastardly squirrels and scuzzy pigeons would find their way in. Which is not to mention that screens gave your windows some minor illusion of providing security for your house even when they were open.

We don’t have pets here, there are no squirrels, and I don’t think the rate of crime is anything like Philly. Of course, there are still bugs. Even as I’ve typed this post I’ve already squashed two, chased out a third, and swatted at a fourth. [Read more…] about creature comforts / window screens

Crushing Comics S01E30.1 – Thank you for watching 30 videos in 30 days!

December 1, 2017 by krisis

I took a breather from my reshelving to record a special out-of-continuity episode of Crushing Comics, wherein I do not unwrap any new books but do express my gratitude for your support as I’ve posted 30 videos in the last 30 days.

For over a decade now I have a habit of making November a very challenging month for myself by setting a lofty goal around producing new content. I’ve recorded 30 songs in 30 days, blogged daily, written the first draft of a novel, and turned CK into a pro-level music and comics blog for a month.

In all of those cases I was challenging myself to do more of something I already really loved – writing or playing music. The hard part was finding the time and inspiration to do it with great consistency.

This year was different. In addition to blogging daily, I challenged myself to do something I am extremely uncomfortable doing – shooting and editing video. This discomfort stretches all the way back to college, where a Film & Video 101 class was the first one I ever dropped.

(Yes, I just searched my own archives for corroboration of that memory. And found it. Because this blog is ancient).

Sixteen years later and I’m still averse to video. There are so many variables to control – all of the potential pitfalls of audio recording, plus a whole new visual layer in which I can make mistakes. My past video efforts have been defeated by everything from bad lighting to out-of-sync audio, and the concept of adding graphics and chyrons was just beyond me. It’s something I’ve only ever done begrudgingly and with great difficulty.

This year changed that. My Crushing Comics episodes certainly aren’t masterpieces of short film, but in recording and editing them I surmounted every one of my prior video challenges and actually learned new stuff along the way. I replaced my own head with an animated version twice!

Here’s the thing: I had no idea at the beginning of the month this was going to turn into a daily endeavor. I had an initial week of videos prepped because I always like to launch a new content project with consistency, but after day eight I had no expectation of keeping up that pace. The initial video editing was taking four hours an episode.

Going 30 for 30 happened because of you. It happened because the view counts kept going up, because you left delightful comments, and because you contributed to my Patreon campaign along the way. I had no idea that daily videos were going to be my monthly challenge, but you kinda forced my hand.

Beyond finally learning some skills behind the camera, I also got the chance to be in front of it for over five hours worth of hosting. That’s more time on camera than most TV shows broadcast in November! For me, it was a chance to get back to being a live presenter after over a year away from fronting a band and almost two years away from emceeing events. That’s a part of myself I never intended to step away from when the stay-at-home parent part of my life began, but circumstances conspired to have it take a back seat. I’m so happy to have it back

All of that is why I felt moved to make a thank you video today. Despite my long history of aggressive personal goal-setting, some achievements require external motivation (even if that’s just eyeballs other than my own to consume them). I did the work, but you made it possible.

The one downside of these many high-effort Novembers is that I very rarely keep up the momentum after the month has ended. Usually I’m too worn out, plus whatever lofty goal I set for 30 days is something unattainable in the long haul.

This year is different – I not only used the month to shoot 30 videos, but to plan ahead for more. Unwrapping will continue on Monday, with new episodes every weekday – I already have the next two weeks in the can! Plus, I’m already brewing plans for Season 2, because eventually all of these books will be unwrapped.

That’s a whole lot of words to say “thank you,” but here are two minutes more. Eagle-eyed viewers may be able to spot some near-future unwrappings in the background!

Updated: The Definitive Guide to Marvel’s Hercules

November 30, 2017 by krisis

Today I’ve updated the guide of Marvel’s marquee Olympian – The Definitive Guide to Marvel’s Hercules!

Want to learn more about Marvel’s take on the Greek God, but don’t need a rundown of every issue in which he’s made an appearance? Keep reading for a summary of Hercules’ history, a review of what he’s been up to in 2017, and a tally of how many Hercules comics have been collected overall!