Category: Blogs

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NerdCrush: Rita Mordio

Jason

**Hello everyone and welcome to NerdCrush! A new series of Blogs dedicated to those characters out there that we have a serious NerdCrush on. You know which ones we’re talking about. Those characters who, from the moment they’re introduced, steal the show in our eyes and help carry their prospective plots along like no others could. The kind of characters who we aspire to be more like or perhaps someday meet in the real world through some form of eldritch magic. The kind of characters who, with a mere cameo appearance, can entice us to watch or play something we otherwise wouldn’t have given two shats about. These Blogs go out to those guys (and gals), our NerdCrushes.**

With Tales of Graces coming out on the 16th, I figured this was the perfect time to start my first NerdCrush piece as the character it revolves around, Rita Mordio, is not only a Tales character but the character that helped spark my interest in Japanese Role Playing Games (JRPGs) in the first place.

First things first. I should start by saying that my experience with JRPGs as a child was pretty much limited to a certain Pocket Monster game with yellow, electric mice. I grew up on Sonic and Wolfenstein, not Mario or Final Fantasy. So when Tales of Vesperia rolled around a few years back, not only had I not heard of the game before, but I honestly had no interest in playing it. Of course at the time I lived with At The Buzzer’s own Chris Etling, a diehard Tales fan if I ever saw one, who was not only going to get the game, but was interested in having all of us in the house play it. Not being one to shy away from new video games, I figured I’d give the game a chance, even if I’d had no prior experience with games like it before.

As it turns out, Tales of Vesperia was exactly the kind of game that I needed to play in order to get me into JRPGs. Real time combat, voiced cut-scenes, a typical “save the world” story with non-typical JRPG characters… I could write a review of Tales of Vesperia, but I won’t. I’ll leave that up to Chris if he ever feels like it. For now we’re going to focus on my favorite part of Vesperia, Rita Mordio. Continue reading “NerdCrush: Rita Mordio”

Blogs, Facts of Life, Shaun4 Comments

I’m Old and Get Off My Lawn

Shaun

I need more sleep. I get winded more easily. My knees throb simply from sitting at a desk too long. My hips are kind of wonky. I can’t sleep on my back anymore. I went swinging the other day — swinging on a swing set — and was ill for 45 minutes afterwards and had to lie down. Sometimes I completely lose where I am or what’s going on. Wait, I always did that. Still, the point is, I’m old.

I’m old, and I sort of feel it. 25…a fifth of the way through already, if I live to the conservative age of 125. My high school reunion is in three years. The other day, my roommate was napping in the office of our apartment, and I was napping on the couch. It was a nap party, and no one was having any fun. That’s not true, it was unfortunately spectacular. Continue reading “I’m Old and Get Off My Lawn”

Blogs, Chris, Facts of LifeLeave a comment

Number Three With a Bullet

Chris

Look, I know. It’s a copout. But it’s been a rough week. I’ve been working extra because someone’s on a vacation. I spent last weekend (and three days in the week) in Phoenix for my grandpa’s open heart surgery (which had a variety of complications, but he’s doing better now). All of that activity has me sick now, staring at another long work week.

So you get bullets. And you will like it. Continue reading “Number Three With a Bullet”

Blogs, Entertainment, Jason1 Comment

Lady Gaga and the Future of Music

Jason

**Many of you may not know this, and to be fair how would you, but I once wrote for NAU’s Lumberjack newspaper. While not everything I wrote was journalistic gold, there were a few gems that I still feel deserve a look at.**

Let me be the first to say I was not a fan of Lady Gaga. I just didn’t get it. She struck me as a typical wannabe superstar who was no different than any other pop singer we’d seen in recent years. Other than the rumors of her potentially being a man, nothing struck me as particularly interesting about her.

Yet something strange happened when I actually bothered to watch some of her music videos — I liked them. Apparently I’m not alone, either, because Lady Gaga now has the prestigious honor of being the first franchise to ever reach 1 billion views on YouTube. While it may seem like a frivolous accolade, one has to wonder why Gaga was the first to ever reach this milestone. Or perhaps more importantly, what does that say about the current generation’s mindset?

Underneath those over-extravagant hats lies the mind of a truly talented young woman. A keen eye will notice her music videos often have an atypical sexual undertone. While it’s no secret sex has been a huge factor in pop music for decades, Lady Gaga doesn’t limit her videos to sexual norms. Bondage, furries and other such “deviant” sexual ideas are rather common in her videos. With her achievement of reaching the 1 billion-view benchmark, it’s impossible to deny our generation is being exposed to these radical ideas. Continue reading “Lady Gaga and the Future of Music”

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Have a Nice Trip, See You Next Fall

Shaun

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…let’s see, I can’t remember exactly how it goes…but it’s something to the effect of “if you’re a nice guy, you don’t finish first. Or even close. More like…last.” Yeah, I think that’s pretty much it. Nailed it.

Truer words maybe have never been spoken. Don’t worry, nice girls: the same applies to you. This acute sort of perpetual misery is all inclusive. Don’t get me wrong; kindness sucking at racing doesn’t apply to every situation. If you suck as a person, it’s hard to be a good friend. Tools and douchebags need not apply for the Nice Olympics. But I tell you what, in my not-as-brief-as-I-would-like-anymore existence on this earth, one of the things that has rang true is there is no better way to woo the opposite sex than to be in a-hole city, population: you. Continue reading “Have a Nice Trip, See You Next Fall”

Blogs, Chris1 Comment

At the Buzzer Focus Group

Chris

This week marks the one-year anniversary of At the Buzzer’s first episode.

It’s kinda surprising to look back and see that much ground behind us. That first episode (which was terrible, by the way) ended up leading into 30 more over the course of 12 months. More importantly, the quality and regularity got much better.

As we’ve continued to put up more shows, we’ve started getting a variety of letters and comments from listeners. All things considered, I’m appreciative of anyone who takes the time to do something with ATB, whether that means simply listening in or sending us something for Buzz In.

Still, we’re always looking to improve. With that in mind, I’m using the time after our first year of business to ask for something more. Consider it a survey of sorts, a poor man’s focus group, where you tell us what you like and don’t like in the show. Your input has made a difference before. For example, the intro used to be twice as long before folks said “hey, that’s dumb and you’re dumb.” But this is on a much bigger scale.

So I’m asking fans of the show to take a few minutes and respond to this questionnaire. If you’re diligent, you can answer every question. If you’re less familiar with the program or you’re leaving for a hot date in a few minutes, you can answer only the ones you feel strongly about. Or you can give some kid a dollar and let him mash on the keys for a while.

Once you’re done, you can submit your feedback in two different ways:

  • To our inbox at mail@atthebuzzershow.com
  • As a comment on this post (use the box below)

Your test begins … now. Continue reading “At the Buzzer Focus Group”

Blogs, Jason, Video Games1 Comment

Review: Katawa Shoujo; or how I stopped worrying and learned to love disabled girls

Jason

**I’m gonna start this blog off by giving you all fair warning that the game I’m about to “review” most certainly crosses into NSFW territory. Although the content of this blog does not, Google searching this game and clicking some of the following links could very well be a trap.**

Katawa Shoujo, or Disability Girls, is a game/visual novel centered around a young man with a heart condition who finds himself at a school for the disabled that just so happens to be filled with cute, single girls. If that sounds like the setup for a bad porno or some kind of webcomic you’d find on 4chan, then you aren’t all that wrong.

Produced by 4 Leaf Studios, Katawa Shoujo does indeed find its origins on 4chan (/a/ in particular) where a thread popped up featuring the artwork of one RAITA. The piece featured all the building blocks for a dating game involving a private school for the disabled, and started quite a wave of interest in the subject. Of course, this kind of thing isn’t all that surprising to see on the Internet. Although surprisingly, from what I understand, this push for disabled and crippled girl content was actually urged on after a thread on /b/ featured the touching tale of a nurse at a nursing home doing his best to take care of a 7-year-old girl that had recently come under his care after having lost her family (and most of her limbs, plus an eye) in a terrible car accident. Kotaku posted a slightly more detailed history of all this on their site a little while back, for those interested in their article it’s here.

Regardless of its origins, though, the most important thing to remember about Katawa Shoujo is that it’s a game that would never have seen the light of day had it not been for the Internet. Now I don’t mean that in a “the web helped them put it together” kinda way that almost any project could claim these days. I mean it in the sort of “this game was developed and put together by people from many different locations all around the world without ever getting together in the fashion an typical game studio would” kinda way. This game is a shining example of the kind of quality projects that can only just now be made in this day and age. Continue reading “Review: Katawa Shoujo; or how I stopped worrying and learned to love disabled girls”

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Lebanon

Shaun

1. It’s not that I hate dancing, there are just things I would rather do. Like drink poison. In all seriousness, I’m just not that good at it. So that’s why the dancing in Lebanon is so perfect for me; as opposed to American dancing, where I can just blend in to the mass of incoherent writhing bodies, the most popular Lebanese dance, the Dubke, is set up as a circle. This way, every single person has an angle on just how bad I’m botching the steps and struggling for rhythm. I don’t dance with two left feet; it’s more like one left foot, and one horribly mangled left foot.

2. The toilets flush differently. Could be a European thing. I’ll check into it and get back to you on that one. Continue reading “Lebanon”