Moon Glow (and Other Wonderful Things)

Two posts in a week?  What madness is this?
In reality, it's not madness.  I have merely been inspired by the fact that I have an audience.  Blogger has this tool that allows you to see who is silently stalking your blog: it tells you how many hits your site has had, where those hits are coming from (there is/was someone in Germany and Lithuania - I SEE YOU!), and even what OS they're using.  Pretty snazzy if you ask me.

It's raining like crazy here in England and that is brilliant, but when the sun doesn't come out, you have to be your own sun and persist in being happy.  So.  Onward!  *trumpets*

The title is taken from a song by the band Redbird.  Take a listen!  It's a lovely little love song: happy and mellow and cool.  It's been on my mind, what with the full moon and my spiritual side flowing back like liquid moonlight.  If you like that song, you might also want to check out Drunk Lullaby.  My boyfriend is a dub-head, kind of like a dead-head but instead of being a Grateful Dead fan he's always listening to dub-step and deadmau5.  So Redbird's music is a wonderful tonic against the pounding bass that often fills the house.

What else is wonderful right now?  Webcomics.  Yes, webcomics.  There must be thousands of them out there, all deserving a shout and some free publicity.
First on the list is Busty Girl Comics.  Rampaige, the comic's creator, updates daily at noon (or 5 PM if you're in England) and her comics deal with the perks and problems of having a particularly busty chest.  Even better is the community that she has fostered.  In an Internet that is filled with h8ters, trolls, and general douche-nozzles, her site is all-inclusive.  In her comics she depicts women of various ages, sizes, and backgrounds (a few have had women in hijabs) and on her site she works to provide support for busty women (no pun intended).  I love it because she talks about boobs from a woman's perspective, rather than the male's idea of Holy crap, boobs!  Must...grab...must...stare...drool.... which seems to be the predominant narrative of a lady's mammary bits.  This past week Ms. Rampaige has been on a much-deserved hiatus and her updates have been handled by guest artists, including one MaggieKarp who is also worth a mention.
The second one I want to mention is Scandinavia and the World drawn by one Humon.  She also has a Deviantart somewhere in the dark corners of the Internet, but SatW is by far my favorite of her creations.  If you don't know anything about Sweden, Norway, Iceland, or Denmark the comics are a great crash course, and if you're an American who enjoys hearing what the outside world has to say about your culture it's brilliant!  All the countries are personified as men with their sister counterparts (so you have Japan and Sister Japan) while some countries are actually children of other countries (Fennoswede is (a) actually a country and (b) Sweden's son with Sister Finland).  The only downfall is she updates sporadically, but it's a small thing in light of her awesomeness.  Also, SatW is where I first learned about Eurovision (sorry, America isn't allowed to play)!

Finally, a friend asked me to talk about gaming.  I am not a gamer.  I am dating a gamer.  I have dubbed myself a "gamer groupie": someone who loves gamers and loves watching them do their thing while playing games, but refuses to pick up anything more than a casual game themselves.  For a very long time I have happily sat on this fence like mockingbird perched on a tree branch filled with cardinals.  Yet lately, one of the cardinals (namely my boyfriend) has decided that I'm not a mockingbird, but a cardinal in disguise, and has been putting me on more "hardcore" games.  It started out with Portal and Portal 2 (non-gamer people: Ever heard the phrase "the cake is a lie"?  You can thank Portal), both great games but frustrating as hell if you have problems thinking in a non-linear fashion or in three-dimensional space.  Even so, I was successful!  Encouraged by my success, I ventured into my first "real" game: Bioshock.
Bioshock takes place in a post-apocalyptic city in the 1950s.  This city was built underwater and stylistically the game is a steam-punker's dream come true.  Between that and the storyline, conveyed through directives sent to you via radio and recorded diaries you pick up throughout the game, I really *really* enjoyed it.  You get to work with both "magic" (known as "plasmids") and have powers like telekinesis, electro-bolts, fire balls, etc. and weaponry, starting with a basic wrench and working up to chemical throwers and cross-bows.  During the game I favored machine guns (I can't aim to save my life) and rifles (dead in a few shots!).  The hardest part, honestly, was switching between the two.  I was playing on the boy's PC where the right-click allows you to switch, left-click lets you fire, and the scroll button scrolls through your list of powers.  Scroll buttons are stupid!  I could never land on the plasmid/weapon I wanted and it cost me some time and health as I got shot while trying to attack with a machine gun rather than the less effective wrench.  For a really really awesome and hilarious review, I suggest Zero Punctuation by the fabulous, sarcastic Yahtzee.  Go here!

Right.  That's what's on my mind right now.  Did I cover everything?  I think I did.
For now.
:)