Meet the Psycho

I've been super busy what with graduating college and looking for a job but I thought I'd just pop in to be one of the first to post about the new TF2 update. I've been playing this game since Orange Box and of course Pyro was always my favorite class, as anyone who knows me on Steam will tell you. I haven't played the actual update yet, but I gotta say, the new Meet the Pyro video (which I have been waiting for FOREVER) is rather... disturbing... I'm not sure how I feel about it, so I'll leave the interpretation up to you guys.



On an unrelated note, go see Brave, because BEARS.

Vote Zephri for Awesome

I've held the much coveted position of "Team Mom" on the Quidditch team for a while now, but since we officially got school club status this week, now we actually have to have elections and junk. So this is my platform, pretty much exactly what I was doing before, but now putting my stupidly expensive design degree to some use (although apparently there's a website that does this for you much faster, figures I'd just now figure this out).

Use The Force For Good

I still haven't seen The Hangover 2 (I heard it was pretty much the same exact script as the first one but every place it said "baby", they crossed it out and wrote "monkey", and instead of "tooth" it was "face tattoo") but I'm a big fan of the cast, especially since I fanatically follow The Office, Community, AND Parks and Recreation. I'm also a huge Star Wars nerd, if you couldn't guess, but who would have known that the two together would be so epic...

Or so sexy?

It's great fun for a great cause!

Madicon Reminder

   Oh, I almost forgot to mention, after all that talk of Quidditch, Madicon 21 is this weekend! I know it's really short notice, but I've been pretty busy and haven't been able to be as involved in it this year as I usually am. I've barely even got my costume in order, and after my win in the competition last year with my Nurse Joy cosplay, I've got a bit more pressure than usual. If you for some reason find yourself in the northwestern region of Virginia this March 9th-11th, come stop by James Madison University for our own gaming convention, hosted by the Science Fiction Fantasy Guild. I'll be gushing over special guest Kelly Turnbull from Manly Guys Doing Manly Things most of the weekend, because she's amazing (nothing to do with it being my staffing job), but if I can find the time to put it together in the next 3 days, I'll also be presenting a panel on Quidditch at some point during the con, maybe even piecing together a scrimmage for anyone interested. So come say hi, enjoy a tabletop oneshot, some 40K, video games, comics, music, and plenty of competitions, special artist and writer guests, vendors, and rescue owls. For those of you not lucky enough to make the queue for Comic-con 2012 tickets this past weekend (I only managed to snag Thurs, Fri and Sun, sadly...), Madicon is close enough for $20.

It's Sirius Business

   The Madison Marauders took 5th place out of 9 schools competing in the Blacksburg Brawl last weekend, only 20 points more and we would have made it to the semi-finals, though. We all went home bruised, exhausted and filthy, but proud of our growth as a team and of our snazzy new uniforms, designed by my fellow graphic designer friend and the Marauders' star keeper, Matt Pepper.

2 Months Mac-Free

With the help of a few computer scientist friends of mine I now have the most ridiculous new desktop PC that less than $2,000 and a minimal understanding of the insides of computers can get and I've been dying to play ANYTHING for the past 2 years since my MacBook Pro became a very expensive paperweight. And man, I could not have picked a better pair of games than Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Dragon Age II to break in this beast. From someone who's been squinting at a 15" laptop screen  for the past 7 years, I am totally blown away by seeing Tamriel reborn on my new monitor. I have no idea how Erik found out about this obscure company and I had to go through a lot of trouble getting it shipped from the UK through a 3rd party, but the first thing I did was watch the new The Dark Knight Rises trailer in HD and it brought tears to my eyes. Worth every penny. Or should I say pence?

I should have ditched the laptop years ago, this whole gigantic stationary computer thing is incredible. For one, I haven't accidentally fallen asleep in bed with with a dangerously overheated piece of machinery on my chest in almost a month. Added bonus, no more burn blisters on the heels of my palms from that ridiculous aluminum casing! Seriously, whoever's idea it was to put a hot processor in a heat-conducting metal box with no top or side vents should just toss out his engineering degree and go find a job designing medieval torture devices.

Dramatic reenactment of laptop gaming after more than 6 hours.

You're a Wizard, Zephri!

Because I didn't have enough nerdy hobbies before, I managed to find something even more time-consuming and obscure, a nerdy sport. "What is this sports thing you speak of?" you might ask. Indeed, I was myself very confused and opposed to the concept of playing outdoors, it is a brutal and unforgiving wilderness out there, full of bears, sabre cats and NO ETHERNET PORTS. Well, allow me to enlighten you. It's when a lot of semi-athletic people get together and run around with brooms between their legs, hitting each other with balls and chasing a person dressed in yellow with a sock shoved down their pants. Of course, I'm talking about Quidditch. Yes, it's a real thing. And this is how much of a dork I look like playing it:

The color coordination-challenged one in the rainbow socks.

Dungeons and Shenanigans

The most epic thing to ever happen in the history of Dungeons and Dragons.

I've gotten back into the swing of tabletop roleplaying this year since I have a bit more flexibility with my schedule than I've had in the past 4 or 5 months, a brief calm before the graduation storm that has allowed me to not only pick up running my Dungeons and Dragons campaign again (this time in the vastly superior Pathfinder rules) but also play in a new game utilizing the World of Darkness system that I daresay was tailor-made just for me. That's right, zombie apocalypse. My fellow SFFG member Tim offered to GM a game based on a book I'm sure you're all familiar with, the Zombie Survival Guide. Hell fracking yes.

Happy Obligation Day!

N7 armor is red

Asari are blue

These romance options suck

So I guess Garrus will do

Hurray, another Single Awareness Day! Guess what I'm doing to celebrate this Hallmark holiday (other than spend an embarrassing amount of time trying to write nerdy poetry)? That's right, I have a hot date with that hunk of a space hero Commander Shepard.

Here's the perfect way to break the news to your special siha that that romantic dinner is postponed so you can go save the universe from Reapers, more Mass Effect Valentines!

NYAPOCALYPSE

HELP I'VE BEEN TRAPPED IN AN ENDLESS YOUTUBE LOOP FOR 3 HOURS AND EVERYTHING IS NYAN

Love!

I have the coolest readers ever! Seriously, you guys are not only considerate and sincere but you actually managed to make me feel guilty about how hard I was being on myself. So from the depths of my <3, thanks to everyone who kept checking my blog even after a year and a half of silence, everyone who comments, reads, subscribes, and everyone who stuck with me, even though I am a huge sentimental procrastinating doofus.

I love you, internet!

Maybe now I will be brave enough to face my email inbox...

Nope.

On a Serious Note: My Formal Apology

Hey everyone, this probably comes as a massive shock since it's been over a year and a half since my last post, but it's really me, Zephri, and I'm seriously still alive and nerdy as ever. I'm sorry I completely dropped off the face of the planet and just disappeared from the blogging circuit so suddenly, it's very complicated, but long story short, some shit happened, my dad had a stroke, and I kind of just mentally checked out for a long time. He's okay now, and so am I, but even if I had had a working computer (the ol' MacBook Pro finally gave out on me a while back) to post, it wasn't really at the top of my priorities, and by the time he got better, schoolwork eased up on me, and I got a new computer, it had been such a long time since I posted that I opted to hide and pretend my blogging responsibilities didn't exist rather than explain my absence. Not to mention that between stress and not having a computer, I wasn't really able to find time for many things worth posting about, I haven't played a game of 40K in months, despite the fact that Paul keeps reminding me how ridiculous the new Necron codex is.

Anyway, I'm trying hard not to make too many excuses just to curb my guilt at leaving you all hanging with not even a word of where I'd gone, to an extent, some of my absence was voluntary. A while back I noticed the reference to me in another Bell of Lost Souls article that implied I was basically a gimmick for site hits and didn't even play anymore. After my initial furious retort, I calmed myself down enough to realize that  it was at least partially true, no one really cared who I was or what I had to say about the game, the only reason I had got that interview was for being a girl. Not for being clever or witty or a brilliant strategist (though none of those things I actually claim to be), just for being born one gender rather than another and bothering to learn the rules of a tabletop game. It was extra insult to injury when the author of the article mentioned above backpedaled so fast after I called him out on not getting his facts straight that he actually had the nerve to ask for a follow up interview for BoLS on the whole ordeal. I never responded.

That first article garnered me enough attention, not always the friendly kind, and sometimes too friendly, that I became a bit overly skeptical with the whole thing and decided in my frustration that I was probably better off just disappearing than spending every day trying to read between the lines of comments and emails to discern who actually liked me and who was only interested in the waves I'd caused by simply being female. Now, this isn't to say that I'm accusing any of you of such things because it was mostly my own paranoia and insecurity, I honestly did enjoy writing and receiving all your feedback and advice. It's just that I thought I was helping the gamer girl community progress forward by stepping up to be their voice on BoLS, but it turns out that not only did I have delusions of grandeur, I probably ended up hurting the situation a lot more than anything with my naivety on the nature of that article.

So I handled this whole situation pretty terribly by just dropping everything and running away from it as soon as it became too much and I just wanted to apologize for it all, even if no one even reads this blog anymore, I at least got it all off my chest. I don't know if I'm going to return to blogging, I have plenty of new things in my life to talk about but not much of it is Warhammer-related anymore and the entire premise that this thing started from doesn't make me feel like the most honest or deserving person. Mostly I'm just too scared that you all will resent me for everything thus far and I'll never be taken seriously as anything but a gimmick in the online 40K community ever again. But I felt like I owed you all at least this much.