Descent 2nd Edition Review-ish

In highschool, my friends used to come round on Friday nights and play Descent. Not much has changed, except I'm twenty four instead of sixteen, and now we're drinking tea instead of beer. Sad times.

Except not sad at all! Second Edition Descent arrived in the post the other day (thanks Dad) and it is really, REALLY fun.

Me, or Leoric of the Book

The updates to this game have made it super fun. I mean, Descent was always super fun, but it used to take sooooo long to finish one dungeon. In four hours, we finished the first three maps. There are also outdoor scenarios as well as indoor ones, to make it more interesting, and there is a massive campaign joining all the maps together! Yay! Of course we started that. So now you can take your XP and gold into towns and upgrade your weapons and stuff.

They've made the Overlord character (pretty much a DM) more fun too, as there are relics to find for them and the hero characters.

The best thing so far has been how evenly matched each scenario was. Like, up until the very last turn it could have gone either way.

For anyone who hasn't played Descent before, one of my friends described it as a mixture between Warhammer and traditional RPGs, with very simplified rules. The simplicity is what makes it for me - it's a very streamlined game, not a lot of sitting around and figuring things out. And now that the individual games can be finished in around an hour, you can play it without much preparation.

Awesome.

Out

Two of my favourite places.

Beatles

I know literally everybody already has this top but whatever, it's awesome. Neon hair still going strong. I wore this today to catch up with an old friend in the city. We went to the Vic Markets and I bought a weird glass thing with a unicorn inside, for $2.

I've been around a lot of conversations recently involving racism, or homophobia, and whether or not people should be 'allowed' to say certain things. For instance, the Aboriginal Memes facebook page, which was eventually taken down after an online petition was started. Which is great, if there weren't a bunch of other copycat pages which have just taken its place. Similarly, a conversation between a couple of friends the other night turned into a Free Speech vs. Hate Speech debate, including whether or not using 'gay' as an insult was ok because of 'intent'.

The thing I've come to notice is that some people, in the face of logic and/or empathy, will just not budge. They will refuse to see the world from another person's perspective, and they believe that their own view is the most objective and rational one. I'd just like to address this issue, in case someone ever stumbles upon this blog and finds themselves in the category of people who think that "words are just words, they mean nothing" and "if someone doesn't intend to hurt anyone, that's all that matters".

The reason these words mean nothing to you, these words like 'faggot' and 'nigger' and 'abo' and 'rape' and 'that's gay', the reason is that you will go through your life hearing them directed at other people, never at you. If they are directed at you, it will be by your other white, straight friends, while you laugh together. Never in your life will you hear them directed at you while walking home alone late at night, past a group of angry, drunk, strong men. Never will you hear them behind you as you start to run, and never will you hear them shouted over and over while you are beaten on the ground or raped. Never will you hear them muttered when you go to the police station to try and find help.

Nothing in this world exists without context. Ignoring a word's common usage and history is not intelligent or rational, it's just denial. Convenient denial, because you are in a position which allows you to be in denial. You don't think everyone else would like to think of them as 'just words'? Others aren't able to, because the words are tools, used to oppress and harm them. That is privilege.

The people these words affect, these people are not you. And these people are telling you that the words hurt them. By disagreeing, by minimising their experiences, by telling them that in your opinion they are wrong, they are being irrational - by doing this, you are effectively saying, "I am the only one that matters in this world. I don't care what happens to anyone else, my experience of life is the ONLY right one."

And you know what? Society will agree with you. Society will say, "Yes that's right! White, straight dude, you're right. Everyone else's experiences are nothing compared to your opinions."

So next time you call something gay, you laugh about a racist joke, and you roll your eyes at the person who is being too serious, who is trying to tell you that it's not funny - Pat yourself on the back. Because it's really fucking easy being you.

Bad photos of cool bands

After watching a few youtube clips of Zoobombs yesterday afternoon I decided it would probably be a good idea to go and see them at their last gig in Melbourne. Turns out they were the BEST BAND EVER. High energy, funk, rock and roll from Japan. I think a video or two is in order here, because it's hard to describe how cool they are without hearing them.

I am just SO GLAD I saw them. I had no idea who they were before yesterday and I know they're going to be one of my favourite bands now. Their show was crazy, they had soo many build ups and at one point the singer acted out giving his bass player a blow job. It was intense. But mostly, it was really really fun. 

A couple of their support bands were really good too; we came in on Sick Sad World shouting something like, 'Sexist scum!', which of course I give the seal of approval. Mangelwurzel were seriously good. Their singer sounds like Conan Mockasin crossed with Iggy Pop. They were feral punks who could actually sing and write good music. And they're apparently friends with one of my friends, so... more of that to come, hopefully. Here're some blurry pix because I've still been to lazy to learn how to use my camera properly inside:

Sick Sad World:

Mangelwurzel:

Zoobombs:

This is what I wore today, which is similar to what I wore to the gig last night:

That's right, slime hair. It's neon. I am very happy with it, and I hope it doesn't wash out instantly. Also, I've been meaning to do a mini review on Lush's Emotional Brilliance stuff as I get it... but I have no money so all I have so far is this one lipstick, called Strong. I LOVE it though. I've been looking for an orange lipstick for a while, and this one is BRIGHT orange. It takes a bit of getting used to, as if you put too much on at once it gets very smudgy and feathery. It only requires a little bit of product and it goes a long way. However if you want to get a really bright colour you need to wait until the first layer is dry and then apply another one. Not too much effort, really. And once it's dry... It seriously feels like you're wearing nothing, and it doesn't come off at all, even through eating and kissing. Although it's completely dry, it doesn't dry your lips out! My only complaint would be that it's hard to get a solid line going around the edge of your lips, it tends to look a little 'soft', kind of like a really pigmented lip stain. But I haven't tried using a lip brush yet, so maybe that would help.

That's it for me today. :)