I was recently invited on to the Singapore-based video games podcast, Staring at Screens. Hosted by showrunners David and Joel, this week’s conversation was on female protagonists in video games. We examined which female protagonists we liked best, the lack of choice of good female characters to play back in the early days of gaming, archetypes, and other such things. Here’s your chance to hear how awkward I sound when I know I’m being recorded. Also I hate the sound of my voice. Also, if you could listen to my brain directly, bypassing my voice, I’d rather that happen.
I’m about 30 plus hours into a JRPG about high school teenagers fighting inner demons. Let’s jump after the cut together to find out more about this amazing game. Warning: Spoilers afoot!
“This time, I’m gonna be stronger/I’m not givin’ in”
When Rudimental first released its debut single Spoons, I fell in love. It was chill, silken, soulful, and it gave me a profound heartache I couldn’t get away from. The vocals were magical, and I couldn’t figure out why people weren’t fonder of the song. If this was the tone they were going to set for themselves as an outfit, I would be a longtime fan.
Then they blew up when Feel The Love took over the charts – a song so different from their first entry that I thought they quit their sound altogether in search of mainstream recognition. Turns out, that after many months and singles later, Rudimental was just proving that they were – and still are – the most high-impact, versatile quartet of music maestros I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing from the electronic scene.
Space Oddity by David Bowie, covered by Chris Hadfield
This video is truly dear to my heart. I love David Bowie, I love Space Oddity by David Bowie, but even more than those two things, I love Chris Hadfield, astronaut and Commander of the International Space Station, for his cover of David Bowie’s Space Oddity. Performed and recorded from believe it or not, outer space.
No green screen or CGI, everything you see is real footage taken from inside and out of the ISS. It’s beautiful, and truly a testament to how far we’ve come, not just in space travel, but also the power of the Internet and social media. It also helps that Hadfield is a damn good singer in his own right.
Between Two Ferns/Spring Break Anthem by Zach Galifianakis/The Lonely Island
I love Between Two Ferns. I think it’s Zach’s most inspired comedy sketch concept.
I love The Lonely Island. I think for “pseudo-rappers”, they are actually damn talented, and their videos are always just the most funniest sh*t.
Who would’ve thought they’d do a mash up such as this. But I think this is probably one of the smartest comedy music videos in the entire universe. So watch it, and then read my list why.
Watched it?
Good. So why do I think this is one of the most amazing videos ever:
1. James Franco is a star on Spring Breakers which is being parodied in the music video, but not actually mentioned in the interview at all.
2. Between Two Ferns is about the sometimes-moronic nature of interviewers who don’t know shit about the people they are interviewing, and the sometimes inane questions they ask of their interviewees – clearly James Franco has had more than a fair share of these
3. A lot of talk shows have a music segment, and frankly, it sometimes strikes me as awkward or downright weird how they go “Okay, that’s nice to hear, now let’s stop talking and go listen to a bunch of people who have been standing around over there waiting to perform.”
4. “Name one?” “Ed Norton” “Oh, why don’t you marry him?” – and then amazing how The Lonely Island always gets the best celebrity cameos.
5. Spring Break Anthem by The Lonely Island is actually a damn good song. Especially when they sing-
6. “- and marry a man!” Thereby turning this song on its head for all the people who you’d think it was originally intended for, like broskis, and frat boys, and jocks, and the lot. This is called cognitive dissonance: overt masculinity “banging chicks” vs subverted homosexuality “gay weddings”. It’s also a song about “bros”, and how homo sometimes bros can get.
7. Spring Breakers (if you haven’t watched it, you should) is a movie about cognitive dissonance, so this music video is about cognitive dissonance.
8. The Lonely Island continues their trend of rapping about shit people should actually be thinking about, wrapped up in seemingly “dumb” songs.
As James Franco ends the interview by saying, “That was awesome.” Yes it was.
The best time for me to review things is really when I’m in a drunken stupor because I am at my most straightforward. So to cut to the chase, here’s the shows I’ve been watching, new and old, and what I think of them.
YEAHHHHH I’M STILL ALIVE AT THE END OF THE SEASON!
Intrepid Big Gap writers Perr and Junch finally sit down and properly figure out what they thought about the season finale of Walking Dead. Perr’s been doing a great job catching us up to speed with individual episodes, but the magnitude of the season finale requires a little more gabbing. Read below the cut to see see what they thought.
