Quick one here to drop off another writing buddy, James Plett of the ingeniously-named THE PLETTEAU. He’s clever, incisive, and hilarious. He also writes at a pace that is frankly frightening. I’m going to shut up now, and let his intro do the talking:
THE PLETTEAU is a place that some attempt to reach and never can. It’s like a summit, but less pointy. It sounds a little French, but it’s not gay.
Ah, ’tis the season. Non-denominational Holiday Trees are going up on the University’s common area, flashing lights are strung haphazardly across the trees near my house in their charming, avant-garde way, and friends are emerging from the ivory tower of post-secondary education.
Today, I introduce a man that has decided to stop writing papers in order to write other, smaller papers. His name is Ryeburg, and as he will tell you, he is a Geek in the City. He knows more about tabletop gaming than I ever could, he loves awesome metal, and he is an appreciator of cats. This December, let’s go check out his blog.
Ryeburg presents : Geek in the City
I like letter grades, letter grades are easy and fun, but I think it’s time for a switch. See, I grew up reading the finest, Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM), meaning I’ve been reading reviews my whole life. EGM used to run a numeric system, three reviewers per article, on a .1-increment sliding scale from 0 to 10.0. Now, I’m not that ambitious (some are) – and frankly the difference between an 8.5 and an 8.6 feels negligible to me. Nevertheless, as one reader (I have readers! I love you all!) brought up, the connection between letter grades and academic life, of which I’m a recent escapee, feels a little too intimate. I get that. Nobody wants to feel like their essay was a Guilty Pleasure, or that their arts project was definitely a solid $0$, but no Paul’s Boutique. Keeping that in mind, Transylvanilla will be switching over to a numerical sliding scale of assessment, running in .5-increments from 0.0 to 10.0, respectively. Will this be a permanent shift? I doubt it – it’s an experiment and an homage. I won’t be retroactively editing previous reviews either – writers have to stand by what they’ve written in this swift and changeable literary landscape, so letter-grades they remain.
Feel free to contact me and throw in your two cents! Feel free to set up a Paypal account for me and literally throw in your two cents! For the next little while we’ll be doing things in style of the classic video-game magazines of my youth.
(Don’t worry, I’ll still be brutally abusing my right to italics.)
Ps. My pre-New-Year’s Resolution is to balance my genre allotment a wee bit. Nerfing Hip-Hop, upping everything else. Or maybe the other genres could, you know, try harder. Do you know a rock band that is, you know, trying harder? @Ryeburg does, hence the following review. #FF and all that.
~ T. out.
Quick one here (I’ll be back to work soon, promise!): the ‘Friends of the Show’ page has been updated, complete with two friends of mine. Both of them are on the internet. They are good men. Here goes:
Giovanni Zenone writes Broken Ideas, a blog of thoughts, which so far contains but one high-quality essay on New West legend Devin Townsend! Here’s hoping for more, the guy can write.
J. Gillingham brings us The Power of Hands, historical fiction that is totally accurate, except for when it isn’t (for awesome reasons).
That’s all for now! Let me know if you want to be featured. I can, and will, feature you – for we are the internet, and we ought to be friends.
Zoommmmmmm!
