Amazing Stories Post: On Ghost Hunters

Pumpkin ale and scary tales aren’t the only things which come around this season. Have you heard a strange bump in the night? Perhaps a door mysteriously opened or slammed shut? Or maybe your druidic harvest ritual backfired, summoning an ancient elder thing that is tormenting your life? So what do you do? My advice, read Carl Sagan’s Demon Haunted World. Continued on Amazing Stories

Dragon Fire Frights: Pretty Bird

Sometimes, I don't know what time it is or where I am, but today is one of my good days. Who's a pretty bird? Who's a pretty, bird? The bird I'm talking to is Franky; the folks here named him that, I think. When I put my fingers through the cracks in the cage, he bites at me. But I know he's just scared. I'd probably do the same thing if a giant hand came toward me. Lots of stuff scares me.

The sun was going to sleep, and I got really hungry. The nurse came to get me for dinner. She is real pretty too; her name is Julie. Who's a pretty bird? She holds my hand and takes me to the cafeteria: that word always give me trouble. The dinner tonight is meatloaf, and I like it with lots of ketchup. It's so much better than the mystery casserole.

Comic Review: Star Trek / Doctor Who Assimilation²

I've neglected this blog a bit this month. Working full time and writing for the magazine has taken its tole on my attention to the rest of the world. Meaning, I'm still playing catchup to find things that annoy me or interest me to write about. I do have some short stories that I need to clean up and publish still, and I've been working on a novel. Anyways, here is my latest review of the Star Trek / Doctor Who crossover: Assimilation²

http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2013/08/comic-review-star-trek-doctor-who-assimilation%C2%B2/

Review: Magic 2014

I finally got around to playing this enough to review it. If you want to know what I think, head over to Amazing Stories to see.

http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2013/08/review-magic-2014/

I do have something I want to add, though: There are a lot of posers out there who google up the best deck configurations for Magic 2014 — who have no business playing any Duels of the Planeswalkers games, let alone any version of Magic the Gathering. However, it's been an absolute blast completely destroying them while watching them rage quit, very early, in sealed play.

A lot of people think this mode is flawed, and they're wrong. I'm sorry, but half of the game is discovering your favorite cards and forming strategies around them. I'm sure some of you would love to be able to trade with people, but the fact that none of us can makes it fair, forcing players to think a lot harder about the cards they put in their decks. Sure, even before the Internet, players could have read Scribe and copied championship level decks, but you'll never be a real player until you learn how to actually build one. And the auto build feature does not give you the best deck possible. Go ahead and use it; I don't, and these are my deck ratings.

Awesome Sealed Deck Strength in Magic 2014

When Our Heroes are Villains

This is my latest article for Amazing Stories magazine ( http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2013/07/when-our-heroes-are-villains/ ). It's a little bit of life experience mixed in with comic culture.

A List of Films I've Seen on Flights

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
Beverly Hills Cop
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
The Social Network
The Soloist
Alice in Wonderland (2010)
17 Again

On the Boycotting of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game Film

As a kid, Ender's Game was my favorite book. As an adult, I have no idea what I'd think of it. When I learned about his ideologies, I was fairly appalled and disappointed, too. But I'm not gay or very liberal, so I don't have a sense of being attacked by his bullshit. Of course, just leaving it at that would be far too easy, and I'm no fan of opinions involving little thought behind them.