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.
Transylvanilla 