Can't get around it --for now-- so, I guess I'll just go listen to the music I've already ripped from my CDs. I own those CDs, so it's not like I'm going to get a knock on my door from, oh, Deutche Grammophone asking me to pay them so I can listen to Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic play Grieg's Peer Gynt Suites.
One of the first CDs I ever bought. Sorry, Herbert, but Jethro Tull's Aqualung was the first.
Given where von Karajan presently is, I doubt he needs the money anyway.
Sweetest Day is on Saturday, October 21st this year, so I thought that some romance oriented RPG memes would be....
What, you've never heard of Sweetest Day?
Oh. Uh, you're not missing much.
When you're a teenager who isn't dating, Sweetest Day can be a real downer. From Holidaycardsapp.
I became aware of the "holiday" back in the 80s when I was in high school, when it frequently coincided with high schools' Homecoming or Fall Dance celebrations. I thought it was merely a holiday concocted by greeting card and candy companies to sell more products --and to be honest, I still believe that the promotion of Sweetest Day pretty much centers around those companies-- but much to my surprise the holiday is much older than I thought, and is primarily a Midwestern US holiday.
Well, I figured that I might as well play off of Sweetest Day to cover romance in RPGs, whether they be of the tabletop variety or the video game variety.
People will consider that Baldur's Gate II is the first RPG that incorporated elements of romance into it, but that was definitely not the first video game to incorporate "romance" or "pursuit of sex" into gameplay. I mean, anybody remember this old chestnut:
Yes, I played it. No, I'm not proud of that fact. From Wikipedia.
Or this one:
Yes, I played this one too, but never finished it. The Revenge of the Nerds vibe from this game was strong. From Wikipedia.
So... we've come from adventure games such as the above to Baldur's Gate II, to, well, uh... the perpetually thirsty Witcher 3 and Baldur's Gate III. Without further ado, here's a collection of RPG romance memes:
In our recently concluded 20+ year campaign, we explicitly told the DM we didn't want any romance or sex in the game. He still tried to insert that into the game, so I would torpedo that at every opportunity. From FB's dndmemes.
Heh. From mematic.
That's kind of what I'd expect from Wolverine. From imgflip.
This kind of goes without saying. From animalnouncomics.com, via Reddit.
*And yes, as a Cincinnatian and a Bengals fan, I suppose it's obligatory that I put this old video out there:
And in 2018, before he passed away, Sam describes the incident to radio talk show host Rich Eisen in the studio:
If you search YouTube for other parts of that interview with Sam, it's worth watching if nothing for his advocacy for donating organs. Sam was well known throughout the city as an advocate for the poor, homeless, and the hungry; he was one of a kind and the entire city mourned his passing.
Lo-fi music is pretty much a thing these days. You can't get on YouTube --or, I presume, a music streaming service-- and not run into people streaming it. It's designed to be low-fidelity with imperfections throughout the music, and no, not in an innovative way such as Thelonious Monk,
The first time I heard Straight, No Chaser, I thought
the pianist was just playing badly, but I soon learned
that there was a method to Monk's madness.
but designed to emulate an AM radio signal to a greater or lesser extent. Okay, that's not being really fair to the sound fidelity, because it does sound much better than an AM transistor radio. It kind of does have a unique, chill type of vibe that grows on you; a person can have it playing in the background while doing other tasks without the music standing up and demanding that you pay attention to it.
Lo-fi music doesn't have to be royalty free --that depends on the composer-- but I've noticed that a lot of it is advertised as such.
I guess you could say that if Easy Listening Music and Jazz had a kid that also listened to hip-hop, Lo-fi would be the result.
It is very much the 'it' music these days, and lots of people are looking to cash in on the trend with AI generated artwork gracing the YouTube videos of Lo-fi music. Just type in "lofi" in YouTube and you'll see what I mean. Sure, there's artwork that would look at home in a Thomas Kinkade painting,
and others that give off an anime vibe,
I teased my questing buddy with this, since
she plays a Bear Druid in WoW Classic.
but there's also plenty out there that veer toward hentai and other, far more sexually suggestive graphics.*
Sorry, but I'm not going beyond PG on this blog.
Graphically speaking, that is. But if you really
want to hunt around, you certainly can find the
explicit stuff.
Still, I guess it's to nobody's surprise that Blizzard got in on the act:
But what surprised me was what dropped today:
I have so many questions about this.
Wasn't rampant use of the arcane what caused the Queldorei/Sindorei magical addiction when Arthas destroyed the Sunwell? So while I understand why the animators did what they did, it just seemed like an unnecessary waste of the arcane.
Cardwyn: "She could never go incognito anywhere; she's too used to using the arcane for everything."
Me: Shush; it's just an artist's rendition.
Cardwyn: Don't shush me! Go back to writing!
Me: Yes, ma'am.
So... judging by the Water Elemental in the background, Jaina's a Frost Mage? Hasn't somebody told her that Frost is the worst spec in Retail right now? Or that it's pigeonholed into PvP?
And where is she, exactly, wearing clothing that covers her arms entirely, along with a heavy cloak and gloves? It doesn't look that cold outside.
Oh, right, the music. It's good enough, I suppose, but since it's background music it was, well, in the background while I worked. The floating book was occasionally distracting as it caught my eye on more than one occasion while I was working on a spreadsheet.
***
However, I will make a quick rant about a change to YouTube:
From Reddit, because when I actually wanted to see this pop up, it doesn't, but when I don't, it's effing everywhere.
At least you can click the X to remove this pop up, but it's still very annoying. I personally am not paying for the privilege of avoiding ads, because Google's algorithm is abjectly terrible at picking out spots to stick ads into a video, and the sound volume differences between the ad and any random YouTube video are different enough that it aggravates my tinnitus.
There. Told you it was a quick rant.
*In that respect it's a lot like ASMR these days, where you get some people definitely angling their ASMR appearances toward titillation for more clicks.
I have to imagine some marketer at Blizzard is counting the profit from these cash store items, thinking that this is like shooting fish in a barrel. Or to put it another way, there will always be whales around in Blizzard's space, which also explains the success of Diablo Immortal.
Last Saturday, my son, his SO, and I made a trip about 45 miles north of us along I-71 to attend the Ohio Renaissance Festival for the day.
I picked them up at their apartment around 10:30 and we headed in a northeastern direction. The weather had cooled off so that the high temps were in the low 60s (16-17 Celsius) with partly cloudy skies. After a month's worth of temperatures in the mid-80s to low-90s (30-32 Celsius) it sounded fantastic.
Apparently it did to everybody else, too:
When we got off the highway we were stuck in traffic for 2 miles until we reached the entrance. Along the way we were watching the capacity information on the Ren Fest's website, and by the time the photo above was taken they were expecting 90% capacity at the park grounds. I grew increasingly nervous as the line dragged on, because I realized they might reach capacity and we'd be out of luck, but we eventually parked and got in line to get into the park itself.**
I ran on ahead and got in line for tickets, as this line turned out to be the line for season pass holders, and then we got into the park itself.
On warmer days, there are Faire people on the ramparts heckling the crowd as they enter, but I guess they had the afternoon off.
The mythical Elizabethan town, Willy-Nilly On-The-Wash, is the home of the Faire. Queen Elizabeth herself is in attendance, along with her court, and she attends the jousts that are held in the center of the Faire.
The leaves partially obscure the Queen and her Court.
If you've ever been to a so-called Renaissance Festival --I say 'so-called' because these festivals aren't exactly what I'd call authentic but more in the spirit of an Elizabethan faire-- you know that there's jousting, shows, music, vendors, and food. And plenty of people dressed up in what SCA-dians call "garb" to more fully immerse themselves in the experience.
Not sure how I managed it, but these slice-of-life photos of the crowd somehow managed to have at least one person turning and looking right as I snapped the pic.
See what I mean?
But there were crowds. Holy crap, were there crowds.
I might have to invest in a selfie stick so I can get a higher angle of the scope of the crowd.
Before you ask, no, I did not make it to the Mud Show this time around. That's fine, because I caught a couple of other shows, including a fire show:
If you have trouble seeing it, trust me... The fire is real.
There were also artisans there, such as this person working with glass sculpture:
This is not the same as the glass blower, who was in another part of the Faire.
Still, it felt kind of weird being here after having been away for six years. Admittedly one of those years the Renaissance Festival was closed due to the Pandemic (2020), and I wasn't interested in attending in 2021 due to the potential aftereffects of said Pandemic, but the other years? Well, with kids going away to college and my wife simply not being interested in going any more***, I couldn't really justify driving up and wandering around by myself for an afternoon. I mean, I could do it, but it wouldn't be the same as attending with friends or family.
The Faire has been around for about 33 years, and over that time the trees have all grown and matured, buildings have been added, and activities have sprung up. Those trees ringing the jousting area above? They weren't there six years ago. Actually, the area behind where we were standing was an open field for about half a football field's length until you ran into the food vendors and bathrooms, but now... Well, it's all filled up to the point where it felt like you really were in a small town.
Feels like something right out of M.A.S.H., which really dates me.
"About a third of these buildings weren't even here six years ago," I mentioned to my son.
"Yeah, it's really grown up a lot," he replied.
Still, some of the places have been around forever, and it felt like seeing an old friend when I came across them.
Such as this vendor. They specialize in wooden swords and shields.
There were other vendors that did not want photos taken of their work, which was a shame, but I respected their requests. Among them were the weapons vendors, metalworks and leatherworks, clothiers, and jewelry vendors.
But you still couldn't escape the crowds. Holy crap were the crowds impressive.
No, Bourbon Chicken isn't period, but that's fine. If this were period, we might all be eating trenchers, I suppose, which would not be that healthy for someone with my health issues.
For someone who isn't a big fan of crowds, I just kind of hung in there, but it was the parking and direction where the crowds' impact was felt the most.
When we got off the highway, it took us 40-45 minutes to crawl along 2 miles to finally park. And on the way out, it took us 45 minutes just to leave the parking area. I do know that several people wearing "Parking" shirts/vests were unceremoniously relieved of duty by one of their superiors when it became obvious that they had no idea how to organize traffic flowing out of the park. Their situation wasn't helped by the rent-a-cops who were giving priority to cars already on the road rather than letting people leave the parking area.
I do know that there's been a bit of contention between the community that the Festival grounds are on and the Fest's management; the Fest wants to expand amenities, such as running water, electricity, cell phone service, etc. and the community is less concerned about that and more concerned about taking in their cut of taxes from all of the Faire goers. So... There's issues there, but that's also the price of success. The place is a destination location of 200,000 visitors annually, although I think this year they're probably going to smash that record.
Still, one last item that you might find amusing, this car that I saw while walking back to our car:
I was amused.
*If you've ever seen The Swordsmen's comedy act, they use that as a greeting.
**On Sunday, they reached capacity and had to turn people away from the entrance. Kind of wild if you ask me.
***She used to like going, but that all changed when the kids were little. She began to complain about the shows all being the same, everything costs too much, etc. etc. Considering she says that about practically everything --including Gen Con, in case you were wondering-- I pretty much have given up on trying to get her to go with me. In some ways, despite her not having grown up in Cincinnati, she has become the archetypal West Sider, with the only difference being that unlike the older hardcore West Siders she doesn't have any money stashed away in a coffee can in the backyard. I mean, there are some lines that should never be crossed.
Yeah, I know, it's a cop out, but I really don't have a theme for today. So, I'll post a bunch of memes that I've kind of stored up for a rainy day.
And no, it's not raining here in our little corner of the Midwest, but hey, I'm sticking with it.
I really like this one. Sometimes, the DM has gotta do what they've gotta do. From Pinterest.
Something like this happened last night, when I had a dream that I was supposed to provide a Top Ten list for various marching bands and I had to put everything together during the presentation itself. Needless to say, it did not go well. From Happier.
This has been my eternal struggle. I liken it to writing too many words that you then have to cull later. From funny memes.
I've been there. They effing HURT. From shaneplays.
I start a toon on a Classic WoW Hardcore Server, get past the initial wave of potential deaths, and...
Ouch.
Deathwyn Mk. 1 and Mk. 3 died on the same mobs, the middle of the pack Defias, at Level 14 and 13 respectively.*
After a day of stewing in my own juices, I decided to create Deathwyn Mk. 4, and she very nearly died early because I was being stupid and jumped down to where a lone Kobold was, only to suddenly find myself surrounded by respawns. At that point I just bailed and ran away, not caring about the loot that potentially dropped.**
But that's the thing: at L13 through L15 I believe something clicks on in my head saying, "You've got this, you know what to do, and you can run away easily if need be. Relax a bit..."
That's bad news.
The Hardcore Challenge servers are a bit different than regular servers for one big reason: the respawns are SO FAST. That makes normal questing fraught with danger, and given that you have only one life, you have to treat every attack as if it might be your last.
I need to play more conservatively, take fewer risks, and acknowledge that in HC servers just surviving is a victory. Maybe once I can get to L20 I can start to relax a bit, but you never know.
*Deathwyn Mk. 2 died to a murloc at L9 because I'd kill it, it would immediately respawn and attack, and I eventually ran out of both health potions and mana. After about the fourth respawn I was surrounded by other respawns and I was saying out loud "YOU HAVE GOT TO BE SHITTING ME!"
**When I managed to come back a bit later, I discovered it was a 6 slot bag. Woo hoo!
