Happy New Year! We’re excited to kick off our fourth year with this site and want to thank all of you for reading! Before we dig into to 2016, I wanted to share a project from this season.
In November, my RevPub partner was having trouble finding ornaments for his tree. You see, traditional ornaments weren’t going to cut it. He wanted a set of something cool. Think unique, a little geeky, and not ridiculously priced.
So, being the problem solver I am, I decided to paint a set of ornaments for him. I made a list of about 20 of his favorite things and decided what my ability would let me do! I narrowed them down to 10 and ended up with 8. The ornaments are a variety of ceramic, wood, and plastic. I used acrylic paints and mixed a lot of colors. Here are the results:
The Psych Pineapple
One of our favorite shows. Psych’s pineapple is an iconic image to all fans, and I added some quick snowflakes that look like its holiday marketing. This was the one I wanted to keep lol.
Cthulhu
H.P. Lovecraft’s monster Cthulhu from The Call of Cthulhu. James is a big Lovecraft fan, and I was terrified to do this one. There are about 1,000 images of this creature, so I went simple.
Warhammer Ork
Warhammer 40K Ork glyph. James loves his orks dirty, so that’s what I tried for the ork ornament.
James’ Cat Raz
I do not claim to know how to draw portraits, so I used a little shading. This was one of the more difficult ones. Again, I can’t draw, but I was happy with it. You can tell it’s a cat lol.
The X-men Boss
From the X-men arcade game. X-men, welcome to die! James and I actually played this game, and it’s one of my favorite Angry Video Game Nerd play-throughs. Seeing this always makes him laugh!
Ghostbusters
Who you gonna call? One of his favorite movies and the iconic image. I had a lot of people love this one! This was one of the last ones I did because it was going so well, I was afraid to finish it.
Hadouken!
Is this a hadouken?! were the best words I’ve ever heard. From Street Fighter and one of his favorite things to say while playing the game. This was such a pain. The design changed five times, and I almost scrapped it. Overall, I was happy with the final, and he knew what it was. That is all that matters.
Line from Scrooged
Bill Murray says this to his board members after watching the terrible promo. This movie is usually our Christmas movie tradition, and this one line says it all.
This project was a ton of fun and challenged my painting skills to the max. It also led to a few other ideas and possibly future gifts. I had never painted in this detail and want to thank Google images for helping me through it. Here’s to trying new things in 2016: Don’t be afraid; it usually works out!
It’s almost a whole new year and rather than looking back over the previous I thought I’d take a moment to talk about some things I hope we don’t carry forward as trends in the next year:
General Pessimism/Cynicism: One of the developments of the always online culture has been the rise of constant and needless pessimism and cynicism. Even with good news or a surprise announcement there is a tidal wave of negativity causing any positivity or even neutrality to be lost at sea. “This new movie is coming out!” immediately followed by “It’ll suck the director is s**t and the actors can’t act.” “This thing won an award” immediately followed by “it was overrated/stupid/not worth it/not as good as XXXXX thing that I like.” “So-and-so is having a sale, things are discounted 25% to 47%!” immediately followed by “When they discount more than 50% I’ll be impressed otherwise I’ll keep getting illegal bootlegs” (For real I saw a comment VERY similar to that last one just this week…) While I don’t expect the world to be full of shiny happy people (I’d have to kill everyone and then myself if that was the case) I’d like to think we could NOT automatically jump to negative conclusions right away. Though it might give 4Chan less to talk about.
Miserable Rich Celebrities with No Abilities: I still use an old email system that has multiple news items you can select for your “home” page. You can have entertainment, politics, sports, etc. because I like to get movie and music news I selected “entertainment” and rather than get any Entertainment Weekly style “This movie is coming out” or “This band is back together” (Guns and Roses people…I’ll be there no matter the cost…) I got article after article about Kardashians changing their hair, or having arguments, or wearing clothes. Every article is accompanied by a picture with some rich, attractive, woman with no discernable abilities other than standing in front of the camera, being rich, and dating other famous people, looking absolutely effing miserable. I don’t know who has made this trend popular or why people insist on making these “celebrities” famous, but I’d like to see less of that and more of people who actually do something, are good at something, and might even enjoy what they do. One more picture of a despondent, collagen inflated, dead-eyed face might induce a shooting spree. We can do completely without them…
Wearing Designer Athletic Clothes as Regular Clothes: Wearing your workout gear to go shopping or get gas or even to work doesn’t make everyone think you’ve been working out. Mostly it makes me personally wonder what would happen if I wore the ratty clothes I work out in to the office. It’s very American to wear exercise clothes as loungewear…and it’s a trend I hope dies with the last light of 2015.
Screen Obsession: This one is NOT going to happen but it’s something that is becoming the epidemic of the new age. I was at a shopping center a few months ago, walking from place to place when I passed a family, a woman and two girls, sitting on a stone wall together. The mom was staring at her phone, the teenage girl was staring at her phone, the pre-teen girl was staring at her phone. A family sitting together, out together all staring at some device and really getting nothing out of it. I use my phone for a few things, but the utter obsession people have developed with these devices is getting scary. Despite it being the latest/greatest of the “information age” it certainly hasn’t made people any smarter… It’s a good idea to make sure at some point each day you detach from the mobile device for a bit. Let the battery die. Live without it for a while. It won’t kill us to actually interact with a non-glowing, behind glass world for a while.
Great pic by Cameron Power from 2015 of ONE guy not staring at his phone at a train station.
Fandom Superiority: This is my big one, but probably only because of the news I read or the posts I see. Star Wars is not better than Star Trek is not better than Dr Who is not better than Lord of the Rings is not better than DC is not better than Marvel. I personally prefer some of those things over others, but all of these opinions are subjective by definition. Just because you prefer Batman movies to Iron Man movies doesn’t make you deeper, more profound and just because you like prefer Tony Stark to Bruce Wayne doesn’t automatically make you more fun. Fan mash ups and “oh you think XXXXX, that’s cute” posts don’t ever actually provide any insight or value they are just ways for fans to declare what they like is better than what someone else likes. And because you read the book and someone else just saw the movie or show doesn’t make you a bigger fan. It just means you’re a fan of the book and the movie or show. It IS ok to just like the movie and not the book. There are people who are just movie fans after all. Furthermore, just because you dress your kid as Yoda, Captain Kirk, Godzilla, Batman, Spiderman, or Dr Who doesn’t make you a better parent than someone who dresses their kid in a football jersey, a band tour shirt, or their favorite designer. It just means your indoctrinating them with your version of fandom over another. Your love of Mumford and Sons doesn’t make your tastes any better than someone who prefers Motorhead. You’re just different. Fans of all media, from sports to comics and movies to music need to stop segregating themselves, accept that we all have different tastes, and limit their sense of superiority. It’s just entertainment. Be entertained…
It seems fans are turning the media they love into hate vectors for the those they don’t…
Those are my high hopes for the New Year. I don’t do personal resolutions because if it’s not worth doing in October it’s not worth doing in January. But we at RevPub wish everyone a happy new year and a good start to their 2016!
I seldom steal ideas from my partner, but I found my RevPub partner’s X-mas Family Traditions post quite inspiring. Traditions – old and new – are a part of any holiday, but I’m also a fan of changing them. I think this is where people struggle the most because when “we’ve always done it” causes issues, it may be hard to let go. I also have to write a shout-out to my family: Thank you for the flexibility and drama-free holidays. I know this isn’t always the case, and I appreciate you for it.
My grandma’s tree 2015. This changes nearly every year, and it’s always gorgeous.
Here are a few of my family traditions, many of which have changed over time:
Story time: I owe my grandmother a great deal, and she is solely responsible for the love I have for Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Every year, and multiple times throughout the year, she would read us this book. She used inflections and brought the story alive. Even as an adult when I read it, I feel like I’m in Whoville. Or, depending on my mood I’m the Grinch!
When I grew up, my son loved Santa more than anything. So, every Christmas Eve I read ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. I make sure to bring the same excitement and passion to the story as my grandma did for me.
Christmas Movies: This is a personal tradition. Just as I watch only horror in October, I try to watch only Christmas in December. What makes a Christmas movie? Well, I count anything with snow and if they mention Christmas. This may seem unconventional, but it keeps things entertaining and avoids lame ones with bad acting. As my partner states, we watch Scrooged, and we have seen a number others together. As a kid, Home Alone, The Nightmare Before Christmas and The Grinch were some of our favorites. Looking back, this may have been the best way to shut us up for two hours.
The Food: I come from a family of cooks. Nearly everyone in my family tries to cook, and some are better than others (wink). While we have traditional foods, such as ham and grandma’s sherbet punch, I also remember my grandpa’s fudge and candy-coated Ritzs and the spread of more food than you can imagine. My family tries new recipes all the time, so our traditional menu constantly changes. It’s tradition for us to try new dishes!
This also leads to staples. My uncle has to bring sausage dip. I have to bring deviled eggs. That is a funny story in itself because I was asked to bring them one year and have been designated to bring them to every event since. This year, I used hot and sweet jalapenos because I was out of relish, and they went over a little too well.
Opening presents at my grandparents’ house. I was 9 to 11 in this. I believe the pen marks are from my brother.
The Celebrations: I come from a “nontraditional” family, as my parents divorced when I was a kid. I had a lot of Christmases, but my favorites were Santa in the morning, then going to my grandparents. When I was younger, we’d always gather on Christmas Day after seeing what Santa brought. As our families grew, we celebrate on the Sunday before Christmas. I appreciate this more than my family knows. This allows for new traditions on Christmas Day and gives parents more time with their kids. I’m pretty anti-travel on Christmas Day and try to stay home when possible. This doesn’t always go over well, but people get over things pretty quickly, so don’t be afraid to say no. As long as you visit around Christmas, that’s all that should matter.
Presents: I remember the first time I went to someone else’s Christmas, and they opened presents one at a time. I thought I was going to die from boredom – no offense intended. I also thought how terrible it would be if you got something you didn’t want. You’re sitting there in front of 10-plus people and have to fake happiness. I immediately felt pressure.
You see, my family opens presents at the same time. A couple of people pass out all the gifts, and my grandma essentially says, ready, set, go! It takes 10 minutes tops. We shout thank yous from across the room, hold up gifts to show someone who also likes it, and it’s chaotic. That tradition has never changed, and it’s awesome. Afterwards when all the wrappings are picked up, people walk around and see what everyone received and have conversations about them. In a way, it’s more personal and allows time to talk one-on-one. I realize most families open one at a time, but consider trying this sometime. It’s 10 minutes of chaos, then an hour of real conversation.
We hope you had a nice holiday, and we look forward to 2016! Happy Holidays and a very Happy New Year from RevPub!
It’s the holidays and while many traditions have entered into the realm of the universal, there are some that undoubtedly are only known to the families and friends who created and maintain them. One of the most famous is of course Festivus, a strange secular tradition created by Seinfeld writer Dan O’Keefe’s father Daniel. It is an unusual example as random stories from Seinfeld writers’ personal lives often ended up as plots on the show, but it makes you think how many other family-specific traditions exist out there and how many might gain wide-spread popularity if they were known. I’m sure every family has at least one; I thought I’d share a couple from my family:
Christmas Donuts: This is the biggest one in the Castro family. My maternal grandfather is a retired country musician who traveled extensively during his career (my mom told me a story of how a BeeGee was once her baby sitter at a bar). Due to his hectic traveling the family never knew where they would be or be during the holidays and developed a tradition of stopping and getting everyone donuts for a treat on Christmas morning. Even after the traveling stopped Christmas donuts continued, and my mom carried into my Christmases growing up. We used to get up painfully early on Christmas Eve, drive to Shipley’s Donuts, buy an ungodly amount of donuts, and put them in the fridge until Christmas. One year we decided early that no one needed donuts and chose to not get them… Then Christmas Eve afternoon we decided the tradition couldn’t die. We went to an absolutely packed H.G. Hills store, got bags of cheap Kruellers, and had those the next day instead. Even though I don’t have Christmas breakfast with the family now I still get Christmas Donuts. I guarantee sometime before 6AM Christmas Eve morning I’ll be driving to the nearest Shipley’s to get some donuts…
John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together: Like most families the actual present opening for a couple kids and parents on Christmas took considerable time. My mom decided to make it an annual tradition to put in a cassette tape of the John Denver/Muppets Christmas album A Christmas Together while we opened presents. Even skipping the slow/sentimental ones it would often play through a couple times during the morning. It’s still not Christmas until Animal shouts “Run Run Reindeer!” and Miss Piggy becomes dramatically offended at the misunderstood lyrics of “Christmas is Coming” (“Piggy pudding?!”)
My dad’s kelaguen actually looks even better than this. The chicken is charred more and the ingredients very thoroughly mixed…
A Chamorro Buffet: Most people will have Turkey, dressing, gravy, potatoes, and ham on Christmas. Essentially Thanksgiving again. I can’t remember ever having that for Christmas. From the earliest holidays I can remember my dad always made the feast food from Guam. Kelaguen, Lumpia, charcoal BBQ ribs, chicken, and steak. I’d take it over any turkey or ham any day. He always makes enough that it’ll last a few days. Everyone eats their fill then eats their fill for about three days afterward…
Framily Traditions: Of course the modern family extends well beyond relatives. My RevPub partner and I have a number of annual traditions we do to celebrate the holidays. There’s the annual shopping day, which once would often start at 8 in the morning and end around 8 at night and the annual viewing of Scrooged. All of my friends also typically do individual Xmas exchanges as well. Just stopping by around the holidays to see what weird random stuff we found we thought we’d all like.
We here at RevPub wish everyone a happy holiday season and we hope you enjoy all of your family holiday traditions. You never know, one may end up as a storyline on a sitcom one day!
In 2009 I’d never heard of Felicia Day or really paid much attention to online video. My sister and I were obsessed with Demon’s Souls and during one of our many conversations she mentioned she was watching a show online called The Guild while playing Souls and after watching the episodes a couple times it was a great playlist just to put on repeat and listen to over and over for background while you played.
The premise wasn’t immediately grabbing to me. I didn’t play online much. I still haven’t played an MMO. I don’t play in groups when I do play online (Mostly just Mike and I playing various versions of Diablo). But I watched the first episode and fell in love with it. What’s it’s appeal?
Every cast member of the Knights of Good are terrific. Each distinct and absolutely hilarious.
The Cast: Felicia Day, Sandeep Parikh, Jeff Lewis, Amy Okuda, Vince Caso, and Robin Thorsen ARE the show. As the titular guild, “The Knights of Good” they are the people we see and get to know during the course of the show. Anyone who’s played games, online or off, knows gamers like these. The Rule Nazis, the acid tongued, the goof off… We’ve all had experiences with them and they’ve made their marks on our gaming memories…for better or worse. The fact that none of the cast was really into gaming prior to the show speaks volumes to how good they all are as performers. The expanded cast is also excellent, most notable are Wil Wheaton, Mike Rose, Teal Shearer, Teddy Garces, and Alexandaer Yi as rival guild “The Axis of Anarchy” and Michele Boyd, Ted Michaels, Brett Sheridan, and Fernando Chien as great supporting characters.
The Axis of Anarchy. Season 3 might be my favorite partially due to the casting of the rival Guild.
The Concept: You can get this show whether you play online or play games at all. At its base it’s just a person with a slightly unhealthy obsession trying to interact with a the world, both with those who share the obsession and those to whom it’s completely alien. We follow Felicia’s Cyd Sherman from her closeted socially awkward start, to her attempts to shed her awkardness, and finally we come back to her accepting who she is, who her friends are, and where she is in life. I can’t think of a season or episode I don’t like, even as the budgets increased and premises expanded it remains relatable and actually tracks, broadly, Felicia’s progress from shut-in gamer to an industry outsider-insider.
The Impact: Reading Felicia’s book made me realize how fast the internet world has changed. When I was watching the show YouTube was a place for cat videos and to find low-res versions of British TV shows not available in the US. I still had a MySpace account. Twitter wasn’t even a word most of us knew. This was one of the first big shows to make internet-based entertainment a phenomenon. It took a niche topic, released it on a niche medium, and had widespread impact. Felicia was able to launch her Geek and Sundry due to its success and many other online-only YoutTube shows followed in its wake. While it wasn’t the first and only (ONLY Tanith has the first and only…big ups to my 40k homies…) it was one of the avant garde pioneers and showed that YouTube shows could have narratives, productions, and concepts to rival TV. Look at YouTube now and you’ll see the legacy of Felicia Day’s Guild on countless channels covering countless topics.
In many ways internet personalities, those who Felicia describes as “situationally famous,” are more “personal” than other celebrities. Performers like Felicia, James Rolfe, Jim Sterling, and Joe Vargas invite us into their worlds, and in many cases literally into their homes, to entertain us. Because of this we feel we know them better and can relate to them in ways we can’t with TV, movie, and music celebrities. Media has changed and I now find I spend far more time using internet media than I do anything “conventional.” Felicia and those who joined her in the internet media revolution have really changed entertainment forever. So while people lament the derivative nature of TV show and movies I say you’re looking in the wrong place. There are great experiences out there waiting for you to “sha-like-ub-scribe” and will provide hours upon hours of unparalleled, unique entertainment.
Quite multi-talented, the cast released several songs related to The Guild. “Do You Want to Date My Avatar” is probably the most famous, and is a great pop song in addition to being a fun show tie-in.
Jem and the Holograms 2015 had the third-worst opening in box-office history. That’s a pretty hefty price tag and epic fail for Universal, and my response is: They deserved it.
As a woman in my 30s, I was delighted to hear they were going to make a movie of my beloved childhood idol. You see, I was obsessed with Jem and the Holograms when I was a girl. I had the dolls, car, outfits, cassette tapes and books. My mom and I dressed up as them for Halloween.
As an adult, I have even watched a few episodes online. They are not as appealing now, but my taste in music has improved and I expect more. However, I still enjoy them.
quirkbooks.com
That is why I refused to see this movie after the trailer was released. Jem’s story was not a heart-felt, coming-of-digital-age story. The original Jem series was about glam, fashion, music, and relationships. There was drama, adult themes, mild cartoon violence, and flawed heroes. It was an 80s cartoon! These cartoons brought real-world issues to kids in a fun way. They were not politically correct. They did not try to make you feel warm and fuzzy. Many 80s cartoons simply taught kids how to deal with conflict.
Instead of rebooting the cartoon into an animated feature or sticking to some of the original story, Universal decided to modernize – aka bastardize – it. I will never see the movie, so I’m going to have to bash the trailers. Here are my biggest problems with the movie and why it failed:
A YouTube star. Because the world needed or wanted that? No.
It was a teen story. Jem and the Holograms and The Misfits were not teens. They were adults. They partied, had adult relations, and experienced adult conflicts. The cartoon showed kids how to deal with mature problems and relationships.
Universal chose the wrong audience. Who was the audience for this movie? It was women between the ages of 30-40 and possibly their moms. This age group is nichey, but there are roughly 157 million women born between 1980 and 1990 (US Census Bureau). That was the audience. As someone in that audience, I can say that a movie made about Hole vs. Babes in Toyland would have been more accurate to Jem and catered to the audience.
The music was awful. Again, audience. My generation still listens to Joan Jett and Guns N Roses. We still love hairbands and bad-A chicks. Not pop stars.
Identity crisis. Jem did not have an identity problem. She knew who she was. She was a rockstar superhero with a secret identity. She was not a troubled teen trying to find herself or hide and from the world. You would think with the superhero trend right now, Universal would have been smart enough to make that angle work. Here’s an idea: A female Scott Pilgrim-type movie. That would have been gold.
The costumes. If you’re going to “modernize” an 80s cartoon/movie, how does it make sense to have them play a keytar? The makeup and costumes looked like a Hunger Games rip off. In fact, I get a very Capitol feel from Juliette Lewis’ character and Hollywood from the trailer.
Synergy was Eve from Walle. And a projector that played home movies at that. The original Synergy was an 80s supercomputer built to alternate reality. She created holograms – hence the name – and could change their appearance. Synergy transformed reality, allowing them to have a different identity.
And there you have it. I accepted a live-action movie, and for a moment, was excited to see what Hollywood could do with my childhood idol. When I realized I could not relate to the story and characters, and they butchered it, I vowed to never see it. I would not watch this movie if it was my only form of entertainment. I will never support it. And Universal should pay close attention because 157 million women apparently felt the same way.
Revenant Publications 