It's a Blog? Always Has Been.

I'm going to try keep a blog page running on here. Everyone (including myself) complains about not having personalized web pages anymore so fuck you, I'm going to do it.

I'm going to aim for monthly updates focusing on:
-Neat things I've recently played/watched/read/listened etc
-Artistic side projects & hobby work that doesn't fit on my portfolio.

What I've Played:

I've been on a short ttrpg gap recently, but we'll be starting a little game of Cain soon. I last ran in Feburary for my Shadow of the Wolf campaign of Lancer, so I'm exited to get back into the GM chair. Here's a look at some experimental work I've done for that, just putting together investigation maps from google earth pro screenshots and random stock image collage.
You can make or find things like urban maps super easily and I always find it improves investigation games, I love finding old period-specific city maps for Call of Cthulhu adventures and just printing them out/putting them on the foundry. Lends a bit of context and geography to the scenes, plus everyone loves getting to stick pins into the important locations like a movie detective.

We also recently wrapped up a brief campaign of D&D 5e, which was a sort of tongue in cheek nostalgia trip with some newer ttrpg friends who'd never touched the monolith of Dungeons and Dragons before*. Here's my character art for that though- I'm happy with how she turned out for the time investment!

*I do not like Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition. Hadn't touched since I was a teen (holy shit I feel so old) and it plays even clunkier than I remembered. Just a bit naff really.

What I've Watched:

-Red Rooms (2023)
I've been in the mood for something evil and sinister recently and this did the trick. Reminded me a lot of personal classic Demonlover, with it's pitch-black cyber-noir overtones. Detached, cold, methodical. High rise apartments with wind howling at the windows and crypto gambling on the monitor, sterile courtrooms where people formally discuss unthinkable violence. If a movie was haunted, it'd be this.

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-Iran, Utopia In the Making (1980)
This is a documentary by Lebanese filmmaker Jocelyne Saab, who's filmography
I've been slowly working through. It's the first film of hers I've seen set outside her home city of Beirut, and is quite different in it's style and delivery.
Saab takes a heavy back seat here, and the result is a fascinating look at the contemporary viewpoints and climate of immediate post-revolution Iran. A lot of people say a lot of poorly aged things- it's a real humanization and grounding of a place in history we just don't see covered this way from western media. A genuine historical curio.

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-Nashville (1975)
This "Robert Altman" guy is pretty good at making movies, huh? I love how
meandering this is, a great movie with the confidence to completely waste your 
time on a bunch of mediocre country songs and dead end narratives. Awkward
and bumbling and totally pointless but also weirdly coincidentally meaningful in
the way real life is.

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What I've Been Listening Too:

-Sabotage/Live (1979)
This is a real deep cut by John Cale of the Velvet Underground, and one of my favorite of his solo recordings. A nasty, violent bit of cold war paranoia. Cale rips his voice apart screaming about nuclear bombs and military intelligence, music for the times. Dreadful stuff!

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