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.