Rumble rumble rumble goes the engines of Spaceship-Omega. Here aboard, I’m straight chilling. It is Sunday whilst I type this, though for those without premonition and-or access to dimensions where it is not so, the column won’t be going up until Monday at 9 am. Hello! From the past! The aforementioned column is Monday Morning Commute. Within its walls we share the Enjoyable that we are partaking in during a given week. It’s a simple conceit, and through its execution we brighten our respective Existences. Communal exchange of arts. Maybe even fluids. If you do find a dance partner, please relegate your interfacing to the designated rooms upon the Spaceship.

Let’s do this.

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Game of Thrones has been kissed by fire in Season 3 – ratings are at a series high, and it’s easy to see why. The escalation all year has been almost out of control – new characters almost every week, new fantasy elements (to some viewers’ dismay), and new plots that aren’t in line with expectations.

The fifth episode’s title, “Kissed By Fire” is culled from a quote from red-headed wildling Ygritte, in reference to the boy that deflowered her. Red on red, as it were.

It’s a phrase very easily applied to half of Westeros, as well. The country is ravaged by war, farmlands are on fire, the religion of the Lord of Light and its affinity with fire are slowly creeping into all parts of the land, and Dany and her dragons have charred a city, and are marching to another.

And then there’s Beric Dondarrion.

This fool has had less than ten minutes of screen time and already reach maximum swagger allotment. It may have something to do with his pocket priest, Thoros of Myr – a red priest, not unlike Melisandre, Westeros’s resident shadow baby factory.

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I’m happy to share the first installment of my friend Jeff (Sajuta) Jackson’s Retro Game Club. Frankly I don’t know where he is going with it. What I do know is that it features wit, gorgeous artwork, and Mike Tyson’s Punch Out.

Hit the jump for the first full page.

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… and pessimist’s brains are half empty.

There’s something to be said for choosing a side in most every battle.  The eternal struggle between optimism and pessimism however is one of those battlegrounds that I would always avoid.  You see dear reader, I am a realist.  I see the world and the people in it for what they are, not what I would hope those to be, like the optimist.  I don’t project my own values and bitterness on the world as does the pessimist.  However, before we delve further we must understand to two opposite sides of the spectrum if we are to find the creamy center.  And nougat.   Sweet delicious nougat.

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Week in, week out, I find that I give fewer and fewer fucks about my greatest love: video games. Something about the world has changed recently: perhaps it’s a winding down as the console generation nears to a close, or maybe the industry has just plain run out of ideas. Whichever the case may be, I can’t help but wonder why anybody other than dedicated, pathetic losers like myself would be inclined to care. Abruptly, he slaps himself across the face with a force that ejects two fillings and a week’s worth of shitty debris that previously resided underneath his grubby fingernails. God-fucking-dammit, man! This is your one-true, your reason d’etre! C’mon, surely I can muster up a handful of halfway adequate reasons to deter any other would-be quitters. Here goes.

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[This! Is! Mad Men! recaps the most recent developments of Don Draper and his lovable gang of sleazeball advertisers. In the spirit of the show, the post itself may very well be drunk. And sexist. Apologies ahead of time.]

One of the secrets of getting good at any game is to learning how to navigate through the rules. Just as a hacker can manipulate an operating system, a true sportsman knows how to bend, ignore, or even break the rules of his given game. In fact, this practice is so prevalent that many sports even develop their own sets of etiquette, terms, and conditions that are implicitly agreed upon.

Life, often compared to a game, certainly has its share of unspoken agreements.

But who’re the people that turn the other way when the rules are broken? Who deals in terms of tacit transactions? Well, it always seems to be The Collaborators.

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Daenerys Targaryen has quickly captured the imagination and hopes of every viewer of HBO’s Thrones. Small wonder then, that the episodes are frequently titled after her story, and focus heavily on her story, even if it’s a story that’s been mostly divorced from the war in Westeros for over two years.

The “walk of punishment” is blatantly reminiscent of the crucifixion-executions of the Roman Empire. The condemned were forced to hang, nailed to wooden crosses, in rows lining the roads surrounding Rome (historians can correct me if needed).

This walk of punishment doesn’t seem to instill fear in Dany, as intended, but instead, compassion and fury.

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If there was one thing Durban hated, it was his bedside electronic crow.

Every morning, every goddamn morning, the metal-feathered automaton would leave its battery-perch, hover above the bed, and screech directly into Durban’s face. It didn’t matter to the faux-fowl whether Durban had a day off from the mineral farm or if he was dreaming of his ex-girlfriend from Jupiter or if he was in the midst of an ethanol-fueled fever dream. And this is why it was such an effective companion.

`Cause at 5:45 AM, the electronic crow was guaranteed to terror-scream Durban back into consciousness.

To be fair, Durban recognized the practical value of his name-brand, top-of-the line robot-rooster. After all, he wasn’t going to wake up and go to work completely of his own volition. And who could blame him? It takes a special sort of masochism to rise early enough to catch the first boneshaking Teleport-Shuttle of day to Rhea, the most bastardly of Saturn’s moons, only to spend the next eight hours scavenging for traces of Lupillian.

Goddamn.

But without the bird, Durban wouldn’t get to Rhea on time. And if Durban didn’t get to Rhea on time, there’s no chance an operator would save him an excavator. And if Durban didn’t excavate Lupillian, he wouldn’t be able to pay his rent. And on most days, the thought of not paying his rent on time positively horrified him.

But on one fantastic Monday morning, Durban decided that his hatred of the crow was more palpable than his fear of landlord-ire.

5:45 AM crept into existence, and the crow came to life. Shaking itself off of its docking station, the bird began to flutter upwards. But Durban had awoken nearly a half-hour before, plagued by a crotch-burn no doubt gifted to him by the discount Prosti-Clone he’d rented on Ganymede. So with one eye open and a fire plaguing his urethra, Durban waited for his every-morning adversary to strike first.

“CAW! CAW! THE CURRENT TIME IS FIVE-FORTY-FIVE ANTE-MERIDIEM! CAW! CA-“

Whoosh! The whiskey bottle spiraled through the air! Smash! The crow simply hadn’t been programmed to anticipate such an attack, and as such its beak was decimated by the hard glass corner of the bottle’s ass. The bird spent its last few seconds writhing in robo-agony, head caved in and vital sparks bleeding into the air.

“Well, I guess ya still woke me up, eh?” Durban was crouching down to assess the damage. Seeing that the target was destroyed, he took a self-satisfied swig from the whiskey bottle and walked over to his much-littered coffee table. From the table, Durban snatched a stack of comic books.

“Fuck work. And fuck birds. Today, I’m drinkin’ and readin’ comics.”

—-

Welcome to the Monday Morning Commute! As OL’s weekly gathering for entertainment show-and-tell, the MMC is digital nerd-discussion at its finest. Here’s how it works: I’m going to showcase some of the fun-stuffs I’ll be munching on throughout the week. Then, you hit up the comments section and show off the enjoyment-snacks you’ll be stuff into your own mind-gullet. In the process, we geek out and debate and talk all sorts of nonsense.

It’s wonderful.

Let’s go for it!

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Without question, Bioshock Infinite has proven itself as incredibly troubling to the novice reviewer (played by myself). It’s not that the game is overwhelmingly challenging, or so perfect that I find it difficult to find fault and give a balanced account, but more that every element has been considered and given such attention: making just about everything worthy of mentioning. It’s an overwhelming game to process, but I’m going to try for you, though, because I fucking adore you. Seriously, you don’t even know.

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