Cancel Wendy Williams

I despise cancel culture but I am going to get behind this one.
Wendy Williams has insulted people with cleft palates.
Wendy Williams encourages her audience members to steal.
Wendy Williams mocked Terry Crews for talking about his experience with sexual abuse.
Wendy Williams said she forgave Chris Brown for savagely beating another woman, because "he's dreamy".
Wendy Williams went on air revealing that Method Man's wife was battling cancer with dug up private information. Not even the family knew about this.
Wendy Williams defended R. Kelly and did not think he deserved any punishment for underage sex and spreading STDs. She said that the 14 year old girl was at fault for letting the sex tape happen.
It's about time we cancel Wendy Williams.

Top 10 Video Games of the Decade.

People have been coming up to me on the streets asking what me top 10 video games of the decade are. In order for me to be left alone when I am in public, I’ve put together a top 10 list of the decade. There are many lists like it, but this one is mine. 

Honorable mentions:

God of War

I have never been a big fan of the series but playing Cory Barlog’s drastic reboot was a real treat. 

Spec Ops: The Line

An adaptation of my favorite book, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. This game will haunt you based on what decisions you make. 

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

This game shows you what it is like to struggle with psychosis. The developers went so far as to work closely with neuroscientists, mental health specialists, and people suffering from the condition.

Top 10 of 2010s: 10) Cuphead

I think all those years of raging over games like Gradius, Contra, Metal Slug, was some sort of preparation for Cuphead. It is the hardest game you will ever play. I have yet to beat it, but I play a few hours a week trying to get more gooder at it. Difficulty aside, the things that hook me into it are the simplicity of the run 'n gun gameplay and the beautiful animations inspired by cartoons of the 1930s.

9) Horizon Zero Dawn

The reason I decided to check this out was because of the Kojima connection. Guerilla Games developed an inhouse engine called Decima, which was going to be used by Hideo Kojima on his first post-Konami game. I’m glad I checked it out because it ended up being one of the best open world experiences I’ve had. Story wise it was awesome, very interesting take on a post apocalyptic world. From a design standpoint, this was one of the most beautiful games I have ever played.

8) Batman Arkham City

As much as I liked the contained, metroidvania style of Arkham Asylum, it was nice to explore a bigger world. It’s Batman flying around Gotham, solving crimes and beating the shit out of folks. What more can you ask for.

7) Yakuza 4

I love this series, but they are about to fuck it up with the 7th game. Yakuza 7 will ditch the beat em up fight system and adapt a Final Fantasy style turn based RPG battle system. Yuk. At least I can cherish the wonderful memories of playing through the 4th. It was the first in the series that let you play more than one character. Each characters story would eventually interconnect, like a Takashi Miike film Tarantino would want to steal from. 

6) Red Dead Redemption

I think is the best game Rockstar has ever made. The sequel was good, not great. But this was more enjoyable than GTA IV. I guess by the time the 4th Grand Theft Auto came out, I was a tad sick of that setting. RDR really made me feel like I was a gunslinging cowboy, hunting my own food, skinning animals for pelts, which I would get top dollar for. Great story too. 

5) Hotline Miami

As fucked up as it sounds, this is the game 10 year old me always wanted but never got because no one with game development skills thought about it yet. If Eric and Dylan were here, they would have loved this one, and probably would take their anger and frustration out in the game with it’s level editor. This is a wet dream for everyone who has fantasized about being Ryan Gosling’s character from Drive or any other cinematic works of director Nicolas Winding Refn. Also, ａｅｓｔｈｅｔｉｃ　ゅヵ曖.

4) The Last of Us

I’ll be honest, I only played this one recently because my kid brother would not shut up about it the last 6 years. What a work of art. How I managed to go 6 years without the game being spoiled for me, I have no idea. Not only is it a fantastic story with great twists and turns, but it’s a game that really made respect the writers and actors that work on these AAA titles. I would be lying if I said I did not choke up during the prologue of the game. No parent should have to watch their child die. Big ups to Troy Baker, Ashley Johnson (NOT ELLEN PAGE), Hana Hayes, and Nolan North.  

3) Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

The words “nonlinear” and “metal gear” don’t usually go together since the Metal Gear series has always been story heavy and very cinematic (Metal Gear Solid 4 has 60% cutscenes, 40% gameplay), but  the Phantom Pain does right what Rockstar Games has failed to do the last few years, true nonlinear gameplay. Despite the game being unfinished due to the very public and messy break up of creator and director of Metal Gear, Hideo Kojima and Metal Gear series rights holder, Konami (#FuckKonami), the Phantom Pain earns a top spot on my list because unlike Rockstars highly overrated GTA V or Red Dead Redemption 2, this game allowed me complete freedom to craft my own experiences doing the missions. The way it should be when you are roaming the open world. Every move I made in that game was non-scripted (unlike Rockstars recent games). Story wise, it was the weakest of them all. But Kiefer Sutherland’s Snake was a nice change from the corny David Hayter run. 

I actually ran into Kiefer (i call him Kiefer cause we are just a couple of guys from Crescent Town) a few years ago on the subway. He was in Toronto shooting Designated Survivor. I went up to him and started to talk about The Phantom Pain and how amazing it is. I think he was a bit relieved that I did not bring up 24, Designated Survivor or his role as Klansman Freddie Lee Cobb in Joel Schumacher’s grossly underrated adaptation of John Grisham’s A Time to Kill. He was genuinely interested in hearing what I thought of the game and how far I was at that point. Then we started talking about Crescent Town. He was a bit heartbroken when I told him the Crescent Town Tavern and Restaurant closed down. We both shed a tear for $2 fries and gravy and went our separate ways. I never saw him again after.

2) Tetris Effect

Despite what people think, I have not been playing Tetris my whole life. I only started playing Tetris because of a relationship I was in. It was 2011 and my girlfriend at the time was obsessed with Facebook Tetris. Whatever time we did not spend together, we spent playing Tetris with each other online over Facebook. She got me one of those tablets with USB ports for my birthday. I ended up getting two USB gamepads and installing a SNES emulator on it just so we could both play tetris whenever we were together. The relationship eventually fell apart, but I kept playing Tetris. I wish I could say it was some sort of “Days Go By” by Dirty Vegas situation where I still play Tetris to bring her back, but it was just one of those things I really got addicted to. It got to the point where I started seeing blocks in my life, even when I was not playing. They call this the tetris effect (also known as Tetris syndrome). I had to take a break from it, so I started to look into other puzzle games such as Lumines. Lumines is a game that was also a drop down blocks but with an emphasis on music as well. When I found out that the creator of Lumines, Tetsuya Mizuguchi (who also created some god tier games for Sega such as Rez and Space Channel 5) was doing a new Tetris game, I was pretty hyped up. Knowing his tastes in music and sense of game design, I knew this was going to be an instant favorite, and it was. I’ve played it everyday since it was released. I even ended up buying it on my PC for the days I was too lazy to turn on the PS4. Dolphin Surf is my favorite level and one of the few things that help me with my crippling depression. 

1) Death Stranding

Words cannot describe how much I love this game. Not only is it the best game I’ve ever played, but also one of the best cinematic experiences I’ve ever had. I think the break up of Hideo Kojima and Konami is probably the best thing to happen in the gaming world because now that he is independent, he has full creative freedom to do whatever the fuck he wants. The haters will say it’s boring, it’s a walking simulator, etc. It’s an emotional work of art. I would die happy knowing this was the last game I’ve played.

The Man from Musha

In the 1950s, Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian man, spent two years as an exchange student at a teacher’s college in Greeley, Colorado. During his stay, many aspects of American Life disgusted him. The amount of time people spent mowing their lawn, the shitty barbers, bland American food. But there was one particular thing that disgusted him the most. While at a church dance, he witnessed and I quote:
“The dance hall convulsed to the tunes on the gramophone and was full of bounding feet and seductive legs. Arms circled waists, lips met lips, chests met chests, and the atmosphere was full of passion.”
He also described the lyrics of one song he hated in particular:
“A dialogue between a boy and a girl returning from their evening date. The boy took the girl to his home and kept her from leaving. She entreated him to let her return home, for it was getting late and her mother was waiting, but every time she would make an excuse, he would reply to her with his line: but baby it’s cold outside.”

When Qutb returned to Egypt, he was a changed man, determined to reject the West and embrace a purified version of Islam. He eventually became a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood, plotted to assassinate Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, and was executed by hanging in 1966. But his teachings and writings became a primary inspiration for a generation of militant Islamists, including Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.

To me, Baby It’s Cold Outside is not about female empowerment or possible implications of date rape.

It’s about the inception and formation of Al-Qaeda and rise of Islamic fundamentalism.

May 2006: My first paid gig

My first paid gig as an artist was a music video for a Romanian rap group from Jane and Finch called Gypsy Cartel. My buddy and I ran a production company called CT-Productionz and made a name for ourselves making music videos for Toronto based rappers we would find on SoundClick (the 2006 version of SoundCloud). We eventually caught the attention of rapper Chuckie Akenz and Paul Nguyen. Before Paul became a documentary filmmaker for the CBC, he used to run a site called Jane-Finch. The site showcased work done by artists living in Jane and Finch. We were the first non-J&F people to work on something for the site.
The shoot lasted a whole day. A lot of it was trying to get people in the video. Originally it was going to be just the 2 rappers but we made them call all their friends to be in it. We told them they would look like losers if they did not have anyone in the video especially when the song is called "Come with us". We eventually got a good amount of people (and a dog) to be in it. After the shoot, the Gyspy Cartel guys ordered a bunch of pizzas and we had a couple of beers. It was a fun day.
Editing was a nightmare though. The mouth movements did not sync up with the original audio track. We had to slow down all the scenes they were rapping in by a few milliseconds.
The video is not around anymore but I found a page that has some screenshots of the video. We really killed it on those camera angles 🙄

Master Race

I just read the last issue of Frank Miller and Brian Azzarello's Dark Knight III: The Master Race.
Honestly, the series wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I had my doubts when the series was announced a year and a half ago, mainly because I grew out of both Miller and Azzarello. And also because The Dark Knight Strike was fucking garbage (still worth a read thou lolz). Master Race was good, not great. It's on the same level as the Batman stuff Kevin Smith wrote. It's worth a read.

Recorded the episode of a radio drama/podcast I'm working on. Lots of editing this week. Can't wait for people to hear the first episode. It's gonna be a good one.

RIP Adam West

Really sad to hear about the passing of Adam West. I really enjoyed watching his Batman show when I was little. Couple of stations in the 90s still had it on syndication. It was more goofy and fun than the Batman I loved in the comics. But it was still Batman. My favorite thing that he has done thou was his appearance as The Gray Ghost in the brilliant Batman The Animated Series. The Grey Ghost was superhero that a young Bruce Wayne idolized. I think I'll watch that episode and then the Batman 66 movie tonight.

Earliest Memory

I fractured my wrist today at work. The timing of the events couldn't be played out more brilliantly.

5:00am - Arrive at my post at the "Generic Coffee Shop Franchise"
6:15am - Trip and fall on my hand
7:00am - Head to the emergency for X-Rays
9:00am - Leave the hospital with a cast on my hand
10:00am - At home watching F is For Family Season 2

I also got paid at work for my whole shift.

As I was waiting to do my X-Rays, I started thinking about what the earliest memory I have. I remember little flashes of stuff but I was trying to pinpoint what really stood out. It came to me on my way home from the hospital. When I was little, my family would travel a lot. I remember flashes of Singapore, Bangladesh and Hong Kong. I think on the way back from Singapore, my parents bought me a Batman toy. It wasn't an action figure but more of a 12" doll. I remember being really in love with it, especially the Bat-Symbol, which at the time I thought was the most beautiful thing ever. I came home and asked my dad if he remembered that time. He said he remembered me being at the duty-free shop just staring at it. Him and my mom were surprised because up until that point, I've never really asked to buy toys or anything. I pretty much just played with whatever toy my parents would find at the thrift stores where we bought our clothes. He was surprised that I still remembered that moment. I think that might have been the first time I have ever noticed anything Batman related, which started a lifelong obsession.

Just me and my cast

Song of the moment: Kamp! - Azure