#if a 6 month anniversary for a book release is not worth celebrating… then I DO NOT CARE! :D

[morg-among-the-stars]

It has been six months since my book One Day At a Time was released to the world; half a year!

I don’t know how many people on here have read it, but it has been a story that I am still insanely proud of. I hope whoever has read it and supported it has enjoyed it. All of the support has meant the world to me. (Thank you @turniptitaness for reading the little one-shots that I send you and for being so supportive of my little story kiddos :D)

So, for this anniversary/milestone of sorts, I'm having my asks open for anyone who has any questions in regards to it, the inspiration behind certain elements, unanswered questions, or anything of that nature. You, of course, do not have to send asks if you do not want to! I'm just happy to celebrate this mark in the story's history. <3

To start off with answering things… here are some fun facts! (Contains spoilers for chapter forty-five and onward)

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-This story is the second story I’ve ever successfully written. The first was a story called Where They Go, which I turn people away from because the improvement in quality and character writing between it and ODAAT is insane

-Every story I’ve written follows a similar theme and similar structure: a WLW friends to lovers story with some element of parental issues from one side (I have a niche and I’m running with it, I guess!)

-There are two other stories that have never (and will never) see the light of day, one being a fantasy story and another very heavily following the “sun and moon” duo trope

-The first story’s fantasy theme was the inspiration for Ava’s special interest in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, a fantasy video game. I was able to implement imagination and fantasy without having to write fantasy, which I was quite happy about

-The first successfully written story, Where They Go, was co-written by my younger sister. She helped me with so many elements, because I did not understand how to write good characters and interactions. With ODAAT, I made it a goal to write it all on my own and it turned out great with an entire year of writing improvement between the two stories being released (My sister did create the original character designs for ODAAT, as well as suggested a few small plot ideas, which I did use and also modify. Overall, this story was more mine than the last one)

-With every other story I’ve written (WTG and the never-seeing-the-light-of-day stories) one out of the two main girls were always autistic-coded. I’ve always wanted to write autistic characters and with Ava, I finally allowed myself to say that she’s autistic, full-stop. I was previously scared of criticism or backlash, but I learned to say, “It’s my characters, I’m allowed to say who and what they are”

-Ava is autistic and there is no trauma about it. She is not treated differently by her friends and family and she is never “asked” or pushed to change who she is. She is seen as desirable by Lilly, not in a pitying way, but out of genuine love. I, as an autistic and queer author, do not stand for all autistic people, nor queer people, or autistic queer people, but it is a niche in writing that I think should be used more (or not, maybe it’ll just be my thing /j)

-Specifically on the Wattpad platform, the writing of parents is either nonexistent or of two extremes: neglectful and abusive, or permissive and non-caring in a different way. ODAAT follows two examples of parents, two examples of mothers. Ava’s mother is a single mother with two other children. She’s kind and the “cool mom” but she has standards and seeks first to understand when any of her kids do something bad or irresponsible. That’s one example; she is not a perfect mom, but she damn-well tries her best. The other example is Lilly’s mother, who’s openly judgmental of “different” people (autistic, neurodivergent, LGBTQ+, or otherwise). She is not accepting of her daughter being a lesbian and that is her biggest problem; she views it as a phase and hopes and prays that it’ll “be over soon.” She is incredibly ignorant but she isn’t stupid. She knows that Lilly has been teased and that her life won’t be “traditionally” easy because of her queerness. She is not the villain of this story, there is no villain. She is an antagonist but in a small way; an uneducated person who’s trying to help her child in an inadvertent way, a way that she learns does not work

⚠️ THIS NEXT FACT MENTIONS SUICIDE AND DARK THEMES! SCROLL TO THE NEXT FACT IF YOU WISH TO! ⚠️

-For a split-second (a couple days) I considered making the ending of ODAAT to be incredibly sad. For that split-second, I was gonna rip away the sense of hope and optimism that comes after things go to shit in chapter forty-five, “Downpour”. I was going to make it that Lilly still gets the chance to get away from her mother and find hope in Ava and Ava’s mother, but as a result of momentarily running away, stuff get worse; Lilly was going to be cut off from her entire friend group and be barreled into a lonesome depression that would end in her… passing away by her own hands. I was going to make her mother irredeemable, a villian in her entirety. (I’ve thought about writing a one-shot for that, though the sadness might be too much, even for my standards). I changed that ending, because 1) there was so much build-up to Ava and Lilly getting together that ripping it all away would (to me) feel like a waste and would feel painful to put the reader through, 2) I wanted to show that ignorant people can be educated/redeemed (even though it’s hard to get through to them), and 3) a happy ending was needed, we don’t need another tragic death of an LGBTQ+ character

-There is no villain and there isn’t necessarily a hero, either. I wanted to show a gray-area of how people are. The phrase, “It explains it, but it does not excuse it” is used to explain that gray-area in terms of conflict and mistreatment

-All four of the main kiddos in the story serve a “traditional” story purpose but done in their own ways. Ava is the protagonist, but so is Lilly. Their stories are separate, but they are closely knit. They are each other’s love interests, not solely Ava or Lilly’s (one or the other). Lucas is the voice of the reader, who sees Ava and Lilly’s chemistry and wants to push them together as much as he can because he (and in turn, the reader) know that they go together like peas in a pod. Rose is logical, the voice of reason to Lucas’ abrupt and sometimes pushy, “Come on, just kiss already!” way of addressing things. They, like Lucas, can see the chemistry but they want it to happen naturally, to progress in a proper and healthy way.

-The four main kids are parallels of each other (which is why they bounce off each other well as a whole friend-group-unit). Ava and Lucas are both imaginative, excitable, and theatrical in their own ways, while Lilly and Rose are both calm and observant.

Those are the fun facts, which might’ve answered every question that a person could put in my ask box. Whoops 🤣😂

-Bonus sorta fun fact not really

I constantly imagine the story as if it were a movie with elaborate and really well done edits to the songs in my story’s playlist, but then I always get sad that those edits do not exist

[daleisgreat]

15 Years of Xbox 360: Flashback Special!

I am usually timely with these, but the holidays has resulted in this 15th Anniversary of the North American launch of the Xbox 360 Flashback Special to be about a month late. The 360 was one of the first major consoles to have a near simultaneous global launch in the three major market territories. With the United States and Canada launching first on November 22, 2005, followed by Europe on December 2nd and finally Japan on December 10th with most other smaller markets over the following year. The 360 had an extraordinarily long life cycle, with it being eight years until Microsoft launched its successor, the Xbox One. I had major highs and lows with the 360 so get ready to take in my journey with the system. Like with past system specials here, I recorded podcasts based on RPG games and comic book games that released on the 360, PS3 and Wii and have embedded them at the bottom of this entry for supplementary material if you crave even more 360 games to learn about. Be forewarned, this is my lengthiest Flashback Special yet, so I have implemented bookmarks for ease of navigation you can click or press on below! With that out of the way, the last special I did here was on the PS2, and I want to begin the 360 Flashback Special the same way by expanding upon its unavoidable….. CHAPTERS Part 1 – The Hype Part 2 – The Launch Part 3 - Reinventing Dashboards with Blades & Achievements Part 4 - Revolutionizing Downloadable Games on Consoles Part 5 - An Awesome Debut Year of Games Part 6 - Upgrade to HD Part 7 - Three Red Lights Part 8 - Kinect + Avatars = Wii’s Userbase Part 9 - Backwards Compatibility & Indie Games…..not those Indie Games Part 10 - For the Love of Online Co-op Part 11 - Bringing on J-RPGs and Doubling Down on Western RPGs Part 12 - Becoming a Pinball Wizard Part 13 - Racing Away to One of the Best Eras for the Genre Part 14 - The Fad that was Plastic Instruments Part 15 - Non-Kinect Casual/Family Game Hits and the Failure that was NXE Part 16 - Wanna Wrassle? Part 17 - Sports-ball Forever! Part 18 - No Russian, No Cauldron Part 19 – Dubious Honors Part 20 - Lightning Round Quick Hits Part 21 - ”It’s an Ocean” (THE END!!!) Part 22 – You’re Still Here!? Well then…. (STINGER!!!) The Hype Microsoft garnered a lot of attention by pulling the plug on its original Xbox early because of the PS2 being an unstoppable global force, and was determined to launch its system a year before the PS3. The Dreamcast had huge success in North America for its first year by launching ahead of the PS2 a year early, so I could see where they were coming from. I covered E3 2005 for the long defunct gaming site, VGpub. I recall getting a closed door tour with a few other gaming press members for the Xbox 360 and was shuffled around to a few isolated booths that showed off the 360’s “blade” dashboard interface and went over some of the functions of the system. I recall being shown Kameo running side-by-side an unreleased build on the original Xbox to demonstrate the 360’s horsepower. 360 had a couple games playable on the show floor that year with Top Spin 2 and Need for Speed: Most Wanted. From my brief time with those two games what I took away the most was the much-improved controller being lighter, slightly more ergonomic, and the much appreciated inclusion of the shoulderbumper buttons to replace the peculiar white and black buttons from its predecessor. Of the several games I was shown and/or played from E3 2005, the one that impressed me the most was Saints Row. I walked out of that demonstration thinking it looked like the first viable open world contender to Grand Theft Auto after countless watered down GTA-clones were flooding the market. Sure enough, Saints Row did not disappoint the following year and would have three more successful sequels over the years.

Back when cable TV mattered before the dawn of streaming, this MTV reveal event delivered on building anticipation for the 360.

Microsoft’s E3 press conference, which happened in tandem with a much publicized MTV reveal event of the 360 filled with all kinds of celebrities made it impossible to avoid the 360 launch hype building up to its November launch. Then there was Microsoft’s truly extraordinary “Zero Hour” launch event in the Mojave desert to give people the opportunity to travel all the way there just to buy an Xbox. Then there was the Mountain Dew contest where they were giving away 360s every so minutes and you increased your chances to win by entering more codes on their website, and yes, I must have entered at least a 100 codes from weeks of gathering bottle caps from co-workers to no avail. All this blitz of marketing engagement made it impossible to not pay attention to the 360’s launch. I was a huge fan of the original Perfect Dark on N64, and thus was eagerly stoked for the prequel, Perfect Dark Zero which made it a day one buy for me. Amped 3 wound up as the second game I pre-ordered for launch day, and it was a solid snowboarding game, which got a significant boost from its irreverent narrative that pushed me through playing it. The Launch With my pair of launch games pre-ordered I went on to count down the days until the 360’s launch. I thought I had my launch system guaranteed on November 22nd, but last second shenanigans prevented me from buying it at the final hour, yet I was able to procure dibs on the first batch of second wave systems that hit retail three weeks later. Launch window systems came with a couple limited pack-ins in the form of a DVD remote control (yay?) and the downloadable XBLA puzzler game, Hexic HD. Hexic HD was a perfectly fine hexagonal based puzzler from Alexey Pajitnov, the same designer who invented Tetris, but I mostly played Perfect Dark Zero in those opening months of the 360. I only got about halfway through the campaign, but I played a ton of deathmatch with friends and/or solo against bots. Like the previous game, PDZ had a plethora of multiplayer options and maps and tided me by splendidly during the first months of the 360’s lifecycle.

Perfect Dark Zero and Amped 3 were my first two 360 games and both held me over nicely during those initial launch window months! Over the next few weeks I played a fair amount of launch games my friends brought over and picked up/rented a couple more. Top Spin 2 I played far more than I thought I would and wound up finishing its lengthy career mode. Call of Duty 2 was a local multiplayer hit that friends repeatedly brought over. A few years later I eventually picked up Need for Speed: Most Wanted and got immersed working my way through its “blacklist” of rival racers to vanquish. Launch title Condemned: Criminal Origins I did not start playing until recent years, and I am kicking myself for not starting it sooner as it is a trip of a suspense/thriller first person game consisting of intense hand-to-hand and melee weapon combat over traditional firearms FPS weaponry. The game is still fun to this day and I have made it a ritual to play it on Halloween for the past three or four years. Reinventing Dashboards with Blades & Achievements

Also worth highlighting here during the launch was familiarizing myself with the much-loved “blade” dashboard in the launch window. The four blades were filled with many options to separate game, videos, photos and music media. I made heavy use of custom soundtracks on the original Xbox, and loved how the 360 had support for it built into the user interface so they could be dropped into any game. Dashboard and online features on the original Xbox like friends list, voice chat, game invites and more carried over on the 360 and later evolved into so much more through system updates that introduced must-have features like Party Chat that made it so several users can voice chat together regardless of what game any of them are playing. It made catching up with family and friends on weekend game nights more manageable. The biggest hit of the UI during that launch window was Microsoft debuting achievements that were mandatory for all games. These became an instant sensation among any ardent game player when accomplishing the criteria for an achievement and hearing the endorphin-rush of a sound effect and accompanying on screen graphic that indicated you unlocked another achievement. Most of the launch window games had straightforward achievements like finishing campaign missions or getting X amount of wins in sports and racing games, but they eventually evolved and encouraged users to play games in new ways I never thought of (Crackdown was a great early example of this with its achievement design). Also the way the Blades made it easy and irresistible to compare what achievements you accomplished in a game against other people on your friends list that it only upped the friendly competition between friends to see who could unlock more achievements. It is gratifying to see Microsoft allowed each Gamertag’s linked Gamerscore to carryover from 360 to Xbox One and now Series S|X. While achievements are still around today, and I occasionally dive into going out of my way to unlock some if I am enjoying my time with a game, they do not compare to the early years of the 360 where achievement-mania was running wild. Revolutionizing Downloadable Games on Consoles

This was also the first time a major console had an online digital store implemented at launch. The original Xbox had a scaled-down store they experimented with late in its lifecycle with about a dozen smaller classic arcade hits and smaller sized web browser-esque “flash” games of its era that could be purchased, and the 360 expanded on this bigtime. Initially, the 360 digital game marketplace known as “Xbox Live Arcade” launched with games maxing out at 50meg download limits so the game could fit on a memory card, so all of the first year or so worth of XBLA games were mostly re-releases of smaller-sized arcade classics like Smash TV, Contra and Gauntlet along with similar simple browser-based flash game of its era like Bankshot Billiards 2. Over the 360’s lifecycle though they kept increasing the game size limits to the point where disc-based games were coming out digitally and were multiple gigs in size as memory card and hard drive storage options increased. During the first few months of the 360 after launch developers were not flocking to releasing XBLA games because they were unsure if they were going to take off like digital games were slowly starting to on PC at that point. The launch dozen or so XBLA games were met with success, but developers were not anticipating it so in those early months only one or two new XBLA games hit a month. The big breakout XBLA success was a straightforward adaptation of the card game, Uno that launched in May 2006. I can attest for many sessions of simple, pick up and play rounds of Uno while catching up with friends over voice chat online. Microsoft eventually patched in support for the 360’s first webcam, the “Vision” camera, which lead to some peculiar matchups with strangers online who wanted to make sure to demonstrate all their adult substances they were consuming that evening. Later throughout 2006 and 2007 XBLA grew to releasing a game every Tuesday, and Microsoft enforced every XBLA game have a demo/trial so it was an eager experience to see what game would be hitting that Tuesday, because most of the time Microsoft did not announce the game until maybe a day before at that time.

It took over 20 years, but it was worth it to relive the iconic X-Men arcade game with online co-op, and EA did a bang-up job bringing back NFL Blitz for two of my most played XBLA titles! There are so many success stories of XBLA games to go on about, but I want to highlight a few of my favorites. Seeing the re-release of many classic arcade, 8 and 16-bit titles with enhanced graphics and online support was a big win for XBLA in this department. I remember interviews with the XBLA executives from this time answering fans demands and going through the legal hoopla with Konami to bring back arcade favorite beat-em-ups like TMNT, X-Men and The Simpsons, and all with online play! This treatment went doubly so for fighting games. It started with Street Fighter II: Turbo receiving the XBLA treatment, and within years Capcom, SNK, Namco and other studios were porting over their greatest hits onto XBLA like the first two Marvel vs. Capcom and Soul Calibur titles, many King of Fighters re-releases. My personal favorite is the remake, Super Street Fighter II Turbo: HD Remix that saw all new gorgeous artwork and a new officially endorsed ReMix soundtrack from the fantastic ocremix.org community.

Non-fighting game wise I was surprised by EA Sports’ revival of NFL Blitz. It is one of the few games I somehow got addicted to online, and become somewhat legitimately good at too and was able to genuinely earn the 10 straight online wins achievement against random ranked opponents! Renegade Ops is an addicting twin-stick shooter in an mini-open world unleashing destruction as pint-sized vehicles with a gruff CO barking orders from the chaotic minds from the team that also made Just Cause. Valiant Hearts I originally played on 360, and loved the passion they showed on their unique adventure/action take on a World War I game. I 1000% related to Double Fine’s take on being a wide-eyed kid caught up in the whimsical spirit of Halloween in both of its RPG-lite Costume Quest titles. Fans of past Sega consoles like the Genesis, Saturn and Dreamcast were well treated, and new fans emerged after a plethora of XBLA re-releases of titles like Guardian Heroes, Radiant Silvergun, both Sonic Adventure games, Daytona USA, Ikaruga, Virtua Fighter 2, Nights, Jet Set Radio, Sega Bass Fishing, Space Channel 5, Crazy Taxi, Rez and others saw new life in XBLA form. The Genesis saw packs of three games re-released in bundles themed around best-sellers in the Streets of Rage and Golden Axe 16-bit entries. Although I would recommend skipping the XBLA Genesis packs in favor of the 360 disc release of Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection that has 40 Genesis games and bonus unlockable Arcade and Master System titles. Sega obviously treated its back catalog well on the 360, and I put in many hours revisiting these past favorites. I bought into the hype for Shadow Complex, and it became the first “MetroidVania” I ever finished. Hydro Thunder Hurricane perfectly captured the nature of the 1999 arcade boat racer, while successfully evolving its gameplay into the HD era. Adorable puzzle-platformer Ra-Skulls brought back pleasant memories of Mr. Driller! Twisted Pixel’s Comic Jumper made smart use of implementing FMV-video into its charming superhero platform-action title. Despite its stomach-turning title, Deathspank is a lighthearted action-RPG I saw through to the end with a twist ending I did not see coming. That same developer, Hothead Games, released the first two turn-based RPG Penny Arcade games I ate up that perfectly encapsulated the popular web comic in videogame form.

Two of my best-of-class XBLA recommendations are Trials HD and its sequel, Trials Evolution. It is an exemplary example of the adage, “easy to learn, tough to master.” Its quirky, bouncy motorbike and instant reloading spawns made it easy to succumb to endlessly retrying its inventive stages after each wipeout. It also had innovative use of implementing Friends List leaderboards with their ghost times appearing as you play, just teasing you more and more upon each crash when coming close to usurping their times! The sequel added online multiplayer that clicked and made perfect use of Trials unique gameplay. Microsoft I recall got a lot of flak for their curating policies for XBLA at the time because they would only allow one game to release each Tuesday, and there were many indie developers lashing out for being on the short end of the stick for not getting their game slotted for release on XBLA. Eventually Microsoft upped it two XBLA games a week, with usually a more anticipated game hitting on Tuesday and a lesser known title from a smaller studio hitting on Friday. Looking back on this the obvious downside is the lack of quantity of XBLA titles with only one or two releasing a week, but the curation process lead to the hit-to-miss ratio of them being significantly in favor of the hit range. Sure there were some stinkers that creeped in their like the disappointing Turtles in Time Re-Shelled remake, but the good outweighs the bad greatly in the XBLA market, especially compared today to the ridiculous amounts of low-rent DIY shovelware hitting every week on all consoles with there being seemingly no restrictions for any developer to get their game on a current console, for better or worse.

The digital store also made game demos more easily accessible instead of the traditional demo disc, and downloading demos in the early years of the 360 was kind of a big deal, especially when they had major opening acts of action and intriguing narratives like the Prey and Just Cause demos that made a huge impression on me and triggered me to rush out and buy them. This also worked against games, with the most egregious case being EA Sport’s planned reboot of its basketball series with NBA Elite ‘11’s demo being so plagued with bugs and glitches, that EA infamously flatout cancelled the game days before its street date release and forced retailers to return their copies of the game. That last minute recall tempted overzealous retail employees to snatch up precious copies to make it one of the rarest physical releases on the 360, with copies going on eBay for many thousands of dollars. An Awesome Debut Year of Games

I have no idea if it was happenstance, or intentionally planned, but it worked out pleasantly in the 360’s favor in its first year of next-gen exclusivity they had one or two AAA exclusive games launching per month. Noticing multiple users on my friends list playing the latest AAA game, and with the dawn of podcasts in 2005 featuring their affable hosts discussing the latest games in exhausting detail on launch week is what I feel created the horribly named sensation, “Fear of Missing Out.” I ate up gaming podcasts upon discovering them in 2005 with 1up Yours, The Hotspot, Broadcast Gamer and Team Fremont Live being early favorites of mine and influencing my gaming purchases with their genuine positivity on the latest games that made it difficult to ignore their top picks. They, along with traditional print and online gaming press made it easier to keep up with the latest must-have game of the month for the 360’s first year. A month after launch Dead or Alive 4 snuck in at the end of 2005. It was the first fighting game on the system, and with it having a Spartan character from Halo’s universe as a guest fighter, and an innovative-for-the-time pre-fight lobby system lead to me spending many hours in it online and offline. I was terrible at it, but still had countless hours of fun, even while legitimately earning the dubious zero point achievement for 25 straight online losses.

Oblivion’s Adoring Fan I loved seeing respawn every couple of in-game days to tag along on my adventures before quickly getting slaughtered, and Test Drive Unlimited was an unprecedented always-online open world racing title that laid the foundation for Forza Horizon and The Crew! A couple months later, the first big RPG hit on 360 with Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. It was a huge improvement from Morrowind, and this Western open-world RPG was publisher Bethesda’s first mainstream console hit. It took me well over a hundred hours to finish that I spread out over the course of five years (just in time for Skyrim!). I had to resort to abusing the hell out of the dupe glitch for infinite invisibility potions to get past those dastardly Oblivion Gates, but it was an immensely gratifying experience to complete and fully 1000 gamerscore Oblivion! Pro tip, make sure to avoid a near freak-out experience like I had and have a bow in your inventory on the final Thieves Guild mission where you steal an actual Elder’s Scroll!

The string of big-release games kept rolling through 2006. Test Drive Unlimited broke new ground for the racing genre with its always connected open world! Before From Software had blockbuster success with their string of Souls games, they were known at this time for their niche mech games, and had their most success yet with the release of Chromehounds in 2006. The online-focused mech game was more accessible from their previous feature-extensive Armored Core titles. A pair of popular third-person Tom Clancy games hit in 2006 with the first Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter and Rainbow Six: Vegas titles. I rented both of these and was terrible at them online, but I do recall having fun as the decoy in Vegas to draw out enemy fire so my friends could pick off my assailants! My anticipation for Saints Row paid off, and it wound up being an awesome GTA-clone done right that year! The first Gears of War was the big 2006 holiday release from Epic Games, riding the success of several hit Unreal FPS games, but long before their current Fortnite fame. It lived up to the hype and delivered with its unapologetic brand of in-your-face gore, and smooth drop-in/drop-out online campaign play. It became one of my favorite franchises on the 360, and I would up playing through the campaign of every single game released to this day! The final big 2006 release I want to highlight is Dead Rising’s brand of campy, zombie mayhem from Capcom that became a huge new IP for Capcom and also the catalyst for many 360 owners to… Upgrade to HD Up through most of 2006 was when I used a traditional CRT (AKA “Tube TV”) as my main gaming television. HDTVs were first noticeable on the market during the PS2/Xbox/GCN era, and a fair number of games supported HD resolutions (especially on Xbox), but HD graphics were never a marquee bullet point of that gen. That all changed with Dead Rising. For the first several months I remained content with the CRT visuals of launch window 360 games, then when playing the Dead Rising demo, I could not help but notice the game’s text was rather tiny and kind of difficult to read. Upon listening to podcasts I learned I was not alone on this and it turned out the game’s text was optimized and quite readable for HD resolutions. Many more games would soon follow this trend in the following months. I noticed this even more when a friend brought over a smaller HDTV and we put them side-by-side running Rainbow Six: Vegas and I saw for myself the difference in the legibility of the in-game text. So yeah, the core graphics for all games where shinier and crisper in HD, but my primary reason for upgrading at the end of 2006 was just to read the damn text. History is repeating itself in recent years with text starting to look smaller and requiring more eye-squinting again to read in games like Wreckfest and MLB: The Show for me, when I later learned that is so because the visuals are optimized for 4KTVs (which I finally upgraded to several weeks ago).

Did you experience the ‘Look and Sound of Perfect’ with 360’s HD-DVD player, along with its killer app of a film in Tokyo Drift? HD movies also arrived to the 360 in 2006 with the release of the ill-fated HD-DVD add-on. Sony getting the better end of the stick in exclusivity deals with studios lead to it losing the physical HD format war against BluRay, and movies stopped releasing on HD-DVD by the end of 2008. I almost impulse-bought the add-on upon seeing it on the clearance rack for $50, but thankfully I held off. By that time however HD streaming was starting to take off with TV shows and movies available to rent and purchase from 360’s online marketplace, and the 360 nabbing a year exclusive on being the first non-PC device to offer streaming Netflix. Streaming movies and TV shows exploded in popularity and before I knew it, almost anytime I logged on nearly half of my Friends list was making use of one of many streaming apps that would become available on the 360. A couple years before the 360 got to this level of success, it had a couple major hurdles to overcome, especially the right-of-passage a vast majority of early 360 owners fatefully dubbed…. Three Red Lights There have been a fair number of platforms that have been notorious over the years for noteworthy faulty hardware ratios like the first three original PlayStations and the problematic powering on trickery required to boot NES games, but those all pale in comparison to the atrocity of the launch year 360 units. Within a few months after launch more frequent whispers started to become prominent of knowing someone who had a 360 that failed on them with the telltale indicator being three flashing red lights on the system. Users would then have to call Microsoft to set them up with a shipping container to mail to Microsoft to repair and mail back. I was the first among my local friends and peers to get the three lights of doom, and I have painful memories of it because my system was lost in UPS transit for three months before I finally got it back after visiting the local UPS center’s lost and found.

360 #2 only lasted several months before red-lighting in 2007, and the third met its expiration date in 2011. I will refrain from going into the nuts and bolts of the architecture problems, but in layman’s terms Microsoft was in such a rush to get that year head start on Sony, that a high amount of faulty chips made their way to manufacturing and resulted in the system’s high failure rate. To Microsoft’s credit, they gave all launch year 360 owners an extended three year warranty to get their system replaced free of charge, which I took advantage of twice. The third one died after the extended warranty, but by that point Microsoft had a slim version of the console on the market releasing alongside Gears of War 3 that I snatched up, and **fingers crossed** have had no issues yet with. Being the first to be hit with the three red lights amidst my immediate local circle of friends and co-workers made it interesting. Over the next year every couple of months another friend would call or text me, and/or another co-worker would catch up with me at work and relay to me their troubles of their 360 bricking and I would be their unofficial tech support on how to get ahold of Microsoft to the point where I still remember the phone number to this day (1-800-4MY-XBOX) to get set up with the replacement system. I wound up buying a hard drive transfer cable to transfer data to new hard drives when switching systems and I recall at least a handful of people borrowing it from me when they switched systems due to switching systems and/or upgrading hard drives. In a bizarre twist, I will put a curse on Hollywood Video for my first two 360s red-ringing! The first time it happened I was playing a rented copy of Chromehounds. The Hollywood Video curse struck again in 2007 when renting Shadowrun caused my 360 to crash!!! As ubiquitous as the three red rings became, Microsoft wanted to ensure a 360 makeover image with a marketing assault for the 2010 launch of… Kinect + Avatars = Wii’s Userbase Nintendo’s Wii launched Holiday 2006, and the motion-based console was an initial sales juggernaut, and it took over two years before it was commonly available on store shelves. Both Sony and Microsoft initially had meek responses to it with Sony essentially patching in motion controls in time for the PS3’s launch with the Six Axis controller that was not that well received or regarded for its precision, and the 360 had the aforementioned Vision Camera, which was essentially Microsoft’s take on an Eye Toy that only saw a handful of games support it for motion controls. Holiday 2010 saw both companies with a meaningful response with PlayStation Move on PS3, and Kinect on 360.

Microsoft pulled the same marketing strategies as Nintendo did years earlier intentionally marketing the Kinect towards families and advertising it heavily on daytime television. Most of Microsoft’s Kinect games were more-or-less their takes on the hit Wii versions. This is when Microsoft implement cartoony characters that could be implemented across games called “Avatars.” They were especially prominent in Kinect games, and one cool side effect for them was the many digital clothing items for them that could be either bought off the Avatar Marketplace, or unlocked for free by playing through games. I am especially proud of my You Don’t Know Jack dummy, and goofy oversized head ornament I unlocked from finishing Comic Jumper. A fair amount of late gen 360 titles supported Avatars in-game, which made for some interesting sights like having your Avatar onstage in Guitar Hero 5 jamming out next to Kurt Cobain. Microsoft’s gamel paid off, and for two-to-three years, the Microsoft moved millions of units of that camera. It is safe to sumrise that the 1-2-3 punch of Kinect, Move and smartphones all combined to steal the “casual gamer” userbase that the Wii was known for and the Wii’s console sales in America plummeted from 2011 onwards. The Kinect boosted 360 console sales so much from the Holiday 2010 period until the Xbox One and PS4 launches in Holiday 2013 that in that three year timeframe Microsoft sold the most systems in America for all but a handful of months. By the Holiday 2013 launch of the Xbox One/PS4, the 360 overcame the Wii’s sizable lead to become the best-selling console of the Wii/360/PS3 generation in America.

Only Kinect game I ever played was the river-rafting follies seen in Kinect Adventures, but surprise hit games like the Gunstringer seen above tempted me to almost get a Kinect on multiple occasions. I never bought a Kinect, but did play Kinect Adventures at a friend’s….yes, it was that damn river raft mini-game. I paid attention to the games releasing for it and supporting the peripheral, and a few looked like genuinely entertaining games and went on to have critical acclaim. Many traditional games added optional “Better with Kinect” features like zoom-in art gallery halls, or audio play-calling in sports games. Even though the ardent game player in me despised the change in direction Microsoft took with the Kinect, I cannot deny there were still several games I wanted to try on it after seeing the positive reactions for Harmonix’s trilogy of Dance Central games, Twisted Pixel’s The Gunstringer and even the limited on-rail experience that is Fable: The Journey. Backwards Compatibility & Indie Games…..not those Indie Games Hitting around the same time as Kinect was Microsoft patching in a new division of purchasable digital games initially called Community Games, but later rebranded Indie Games. Microsoft made its XNA development tools easily available for almost any level of experienced developer. This lead to a deluge of DIY games that looked like they were made as a semester long development school project flooding the Indie Games channel. Some developers embraced the campy nature of the amateur works that dominated the 360 Indie Games scene, with Silver Dollar Games especially unleashing a plethora of their…brand…of games like Try Not to Fart and the ironically titled, Why Did I Buy This?

The 360 Indie Games scene left a lot to be desired as seen above with the quality of games from infamous companies like Silver Dollar Games There were a few gems in the rough to be discovered in the Indie Games channel, and like XBLA games, Microsoft enforced a free trial on all games so you knew what you were getting yourself in for before throwing down some hard earned Microsoft Points, which are like regular points, but fun! There are two DLC Quest games that are fun quirky $1 platformers riffing on how gratuitous in-game DLC would become. Tribute Games gained notoriety on here with their adorable Breakout homage, Wizorb. Finally, I was a huge fan of Zeboyd Games that earned their reputation for their 360 Indie Games and I played through and devoured all four of their humorous takes on throwback pixel RPGs (Breath of Death VII, Cthulu Saves the World, Penny Arcade’s Rain Slick 3 & 4) that released as Indie Games. Zeboyd earned their development stripes on the 360 Indie Games platform, and I am happy with their continued success today! For every one of these hits that broke through however, there were at least a few dozen forgettable releases overshadowing them. Indie Games was Microsoft’s answer for their curation policy to XBLA, but as you can see it only went so far.

Zeboyd’s four 360 Indie Games are excellent retro-style RPGs well worth your time and can be found on Steam today to experience these gems! Microsoft had similar lukewarm success with their backwards compatibility efforts on the 360. There was a huge demand leading to the 360’s launch to be fully compatible with all original Xbox games. Microsoft only originally promised that the first two Halo games would be back-compat on 360, but after enough user outcry, Microsoft released several updates over the 360’s lifespan patching in support for what ended up being a little under half of the original Xbox’s library being supported on the 360, but the software-based emulation had a list of issues and bugs that accompanied each compatibility update. Aside from a fair amount of both Halo games, I played through Fable and Spider-Man 2 via 360 back-compat, and ran into intermittent bouts of slowdown with the former, and random little portions of graphic flickering with the latter. Still enjoyed my time with both, but not without these added issues. Speaking of Halo…. For the Love of Online Co-op

The 360 featured countless games that supported online co-op which made playing the latest big AAA title all that more fun. This primarily effected first and third-person shooters with the big example for this being the Halo titles on the 360 (3, 4, Reach, ODST, Halo Anniversary Remake). I played through all five of those games in online co-op and enjoyed them all tremendously. I will give props to Halo 3 and 4 having my favorite narratives, and I loved the final level of Halo 3 being an homage to the last level of the first game where you drive a warthog through a lengthy labyrinth of enemies and terrain to navigate before a time limit expires and everything explodes, MacGrueber-style! Halo 3 brought in four player online co-op, which I experiment with friends online by trying out the “Skull” modifiers which only upped the difficulty and lead to us finishing a good chunk of the game on the highest difficulty. Halo 4 I continue to this day to reference an ill-fated moment I had when playing with my friend Derek, where I was controlling the Scorpion tank whilst marching it up a lengthy incline, and he was walking alongside me and I misinterpreted the level’s geometry where I did not see a turn and nonchalantly drove the Scorpion tank off the edge of a level and plummeted it down to its awaiting death to the erupting laughter from Derek on the headset.

While I had a lot of fun with the Halo titles online, there were plenty of other worthy options, with the first Crackdown standing out among them. Getting lost in that open world with a friend and wreaking havoc with powered-up heroes whose jumping abilities had seemingly no limits was a blast, so was coming up with random challenges for each other like making a competition to see who could race up to the top of the mammoth Agent’s tower first. Saints Row 2 is another open world game that had online co-op, and made discovering some of the game’s secrets I had no idea about like its hidden mall worth going out of the way to show to friends. Dead Island’s online co-op stood out to me with its in-depth crafting system and emphasis on melee combat ala Condemned. The four Gears of War titles on the 360 all feature first-class online co-op. Gears of War 3 I have classic memories of bringing over to a friend’s the night it launched and we set up our TVs next to each other and played through the entire journey over two days. The survival-based Horde modes from the Gears titles created a new sensation for online co-op, and I played many hours of it online in the first three Gears. I even became invested into the “deep” lore of the Gears franchise to the point that I read a couple of the novels. Gears of War: Judgment switched developer to People Can Fly who tried to freshen up the controls and gameplay a bit. They also focused the narrative on Baird and Cole’s origins which did not go over well with the fanbase, and while it was the least popular of the four on the 360 I will still give Microsoft props for trying something different with it.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance’s final boss battle with Galactus was made to experienced and conquered with someone in co-op, and while the Army of Two games weren’t perfect, I would be lying if I didn’t admit to having some fun times with all the games in online co-op If it was not for online co-op I would have not broken my curse to finally finish the first Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. I started and never finished that campaign on five, yes five, separate occasions with different sets of friends each time and stopped because we either lost interest and/or ran into logistic issues setting up times for everyone to meet together. A former co-worker Sean reached out to me to play with him online and I reluctantly agreed and started it the sixth time, but sure enough we stuck with it and completed it, and it was worth all the starts and stops because it remains years later one of my all-time favorite comic book games. That Galactus boss fight is a final boss fight that I will never forget and a truly epic final encounter to close the game! The second Ultimate Alliance game also featured online co-op and I finished that game on a much timelier basis because a lot of my co-workers also picked it up and we met up regularly for a couple weeks to finish it twice because it focused on the popular Civil War Marvel event that had two separate storylines. It had a more polished presentation, but the first Ultimate Alliance I easily rank as the superior game!

Some rapid-fire quick online co-op memories to wrap this segment up on: The first Kane & Lynch game was an interesting experience in co-op because I played it on this insanely huge HD projector. The first two Borderlands games were both huge hits with my friends and peers that won us all over with its loot-driven FPS gameplay. Credit to Derek for having patience with my crazy work hours and sticking with me for the better part of a year to pick away at and eventually finish Borderlands 2! To a lesser extent, another fun FPS co-op focused title were the Army of Two trilogy of titles. The games all had noticeable control issues, but the teamwork focused gameplay worked for us, and the franchise had a certain charisma to it with their many unlockable masks and charming fist bump animations to equip. Real time strategy games have historically been troublesome to pull off on consoles, but Ensemble Studios found the magic formula to make it work with Halo Wars, and somehow made online co-op viable with it too, and it was another game I found myself teaming up with Sean in a very enjoyable campaign that also featured some of the best CG cutscenes that remain stunning to this day. Finally, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand has likely the most ridiculous storyline of all these co-op titles where you play as 50 Cent himself to track down a prized skull across the middle east that made it a zany quest to just shake my head and go with to see where it took me next, and also for my friend Matt and I to jam out to its hip-hop flavored soundtrack to throughout. Bringing on J-RPGs and Doubling Down on Western RPGs In the console space, before this generation, role-playing games were dominant on the first two Nintendo and Sony platforms. That surprisingly changed this generation. Microsoft made pitches to Japanese developers in the early years of the 360 to release their games exclusively, or at least timed exclusively on the system. This lead to Square-Enix releasing exclusives like Infinite Undiscovery and Last Remnant on the 360, and porting its MMO, Final Fantasy XI onto the 360 in 2006 and making it cross-platform-online compatible with the PS2 and PC versions which meant it was the first game to share online user bases between consoles from different manufacturers. It took a little over a decade for this to happen again, so this was kind of a big deal. I still recall Square stunning gaming fans with their E3 announcement that Final Fantasy XIII would release day and date with the PS3 version (along with XIII’s two sequels later on), so it was surprising during this time to see Square open up its publishing portfolio on other platforms.

As twisted as its plot may be, I still got a lot out of Eternal Sonata with its highly entertaining battles. Blue Dragon was another early J-RPG that drew a lot of attention that Microsoft was serious about RPGs this gen. Other Japanese developers also released RPGs in the early 360 years with Blue Dragon, Enchanted Arms, Resonance of Fate, Eternal Sonata and Lost Odyssey all appearing. I purchased nearly all these games, but only one I played through of these was the bizarre Eternal Sonata, which is a traditional J-RPG set in the mind of dying legendary composer Federic Chopin. Its plot is as out there as its premise, and I will never forget its equally bizarre post-credits stinger, but I loved its engaging battle system that kept me glued in all the way through. I was also taking a music history class in college at the time, so the brief Chopin historical fact interludes between acts also did a lot for me. While Japanese RPGs took off on the 360, so did…. …. “Western RPGs” from companies on this side of the global hemisphere. Bethesda and BioWare are the two most prominent developers responsible for this slate of RPGs this generation after lighting the fire on the original Xbox. I already discussed my love for Oblivion, and Bethesda capitalized on that success with another blockbuster in the form of Fallout 3. Take the medieval fantasy world of Elder Scrolls and apply a retro-50s post-apocalypse skin to it and you have the formula for another Bethesda best-seller I once again put in over 100 hours in completing the main campaign and all of its DLC expansions. After that I needed a break from Bethesda’s games and have yet to play New Vegas. I did start up the Oblivion sequel, Skyrim and briefly made some headway into that, but got sidetracked by other holiday tent pole releases at that time and it regrettably succumbed to becoming lost in my backlog. I eventually picked up the remaster on Xbox One, and one day I will restart and finish that game!

Giant Bomb’s videos of their complete play-throughs of the Mass Effect trilogy is some of their best work that should not be missed! A series that did not get lost in my backlog was BioWare’s Mass Effect trilogy. The first game I initially got into as an awesome modern-day take on Star Trek, with an engrossing cast of crew mates on the Normandy. The first Mass Effect was a little rough around the edges, so I eventually fell off halfway through, but picked it up a couple years later and plowed right through it. The same thing happened with Mass Effect 2, but the advantage to finishing it in 2014 was that all the bonus story DLC add-ons were released and combined for a gratifying experience all together. ME2 delivered on hyping up being careful with pivotal story decisions that would have consequences in the infamous final “suicide mission” in the game. My initial run through of it saw three of my crew members not survive it through, and it gutted me so much I restarted that final mission and had to compromise with only two crew members passing away. Immediately after finishing ME2 I jumped right into ME3 and this time saw it all the way through within a couple months, luckily by this point the extended ending and all the story DLCs also just finished releasing and I was stunned with what Bioware held out of the core game and I can feel for players who initially played it and missed out on having a central character like Javic locked away behind DLC and missing out on essential storyline DLCs that dealt heavily with the origins of the Protheans and Reapers. The way I played it felt like a complete experience with all the DLC, but without it I sympathize for the critics who stated it felt unfinished upon first release.

There is also the fantastic “Citadel” DLC I want to give props to which is its own standalone swashbuckling adventure full of lighthearted campy jokes, and concludes with throwing a the party of all parties for all your friends! For people who have not played the initial Mass Effect trilogy, at least give a couple episodes of Giant Bomb’s Mass Alex play-through videos of all three games in their entirety a shot. I am almost wrapped up with them as of this writing, and it has been wonderful experiencing that trilogy all over again this way. Like Gears, I became so absorbed into the Mass Effect lore, that I have bought and read all of the novels, and almost all of them are good, even the Andromeda-based ones! I know the first Fable has been on the receiving end of a lot of criticism over the years for not delivering on all of its promises, but that does not take away from the final product on original Xbox still being a astounding action-RPG! I treasured my time with it, and the “Lost Chapters” expansion, and late in the 360’s life in 2014 it got the remastered treatment to bring the entire trilogy (and the spin-off Kinect game, The Journey) all on 360. Fable II from what I gathered has been the highpoint of the series from everyone I have talked to. I have only played through the prologue, and failed at getting back to it while covering other games in the gaming press at the time amidst another busy holiday release season. Fable III sounds like it did not win everyone over with its major storyline hook it marketed of overthrowing a corrupt sibling at the throne, and sadly the Kinect game, The Journey was the last major single player installment of the series as of this writing. Becoming a Pinball Wizard I have played various videogame pinball titles over the years, but for whatever reason the 360/PS3 gen is when it got ahold of me and never let go. It started with Crave’s Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection. Each real life table replica had their own set of goals to accomplish in order to unlock an achievement for each table, so I kept plugging away, and little-by-little I found hooked into addicting tables like Gorgar, Medieval Madness and No Good Gophers especially being my favorite. Later on Crave released an XBLA pay-per-table platform with tables from multiple companies called The Pinball Arcade. Every several months a new batch of tables were released and I found myself immediately downloading them and studying the in-game instructions for each table to thoroughly learn all of its intricacies and the addicting nature of filtered online Friends-list leaderboards had me plugged in to top the scoreboard for each table.

Well over 100 hours I invested into Pinball Arcade and Pinball FX on the 360. Two of my favorite tables are pictured above with No Good Gophers on the left, and Mars on the right. The same exact thing happened with Zen Studio’s XBLA title, Pinball FX. Their tables were not based on real tables, and as they gradually released more tables for download, they embraced their interactive nature and featured more computer animated toys that flew off of and around the table, and more dynamic special effects on the playfield that simply are not possible on real life tables. Despite them being not lifelike, and featuring more exaggerated pinball physics, I still embraced them when I was in the mood to switch up from the real tables in Pinball Arcade. Zen released a sequel a few years later in Pinball FX2 that had more dynamic community and hub-based features and integrated online friends leaderboards into actual gameplay with in-game pop-ups when your score was approaching a friend’s high-score which only intensified every attempt and kept me coming back more frequently. Some of my favorite tables from the first two PBFX games are the spooky mystery pin Paranormal, the Monty Python-influenced Epic Quest (with RPG stats and leveling that carries over in each attempt!) and the outer space themed Mars. Pinball FX3 on Xbox One/PS4 added even more community based features that keep me playing it weekly to this day, but that is a story for another time! Racing Away to One of the Best Eras for the Genre I believe Microsoft somehow found a way to publish one marquee AAA racing game each year for almost the entire 360 lifespan. They originally rotated between Bizarre Creation’s Project Gotham games, and Turn 10’s Forza Motorsport series each year. I never got into either of those series that much. Forza is the more serious sim, and I have tried out a couple installments over the years, but the intense sim mechanics are just not for me. If I would have put more time into PGR I feel I would have really got into that series, and I have some fleeting memories of getting into the second game for a brief moment on the original Xbox.

While I did not get reeled into Forza Motorsport, I fell hook, line and sinker into PGR’s replacement, Forza Horizon from the developer, Playground. It lightened up the sim-based controls and offered up enough assist options to procure that comfortable blend of sim and arcade racing. I also wound up in favor of its open world hub nature to either drive around to new races and take in the country side, or hang around the game’s central music festival. The first Horizon had such a fitting licensed soundtrack of rock and electronica-based songs that I sought out the entire soundtrack and it is its own separate running playlist for me. Since I did not upgrade into the Xbox One/PS4 gen until 2016, that meant I picked up Forza Horizon 2 on the 360 instead, and thankfully it was not all that downgraded from its Xbox One version. Both games I wound up completing all the races, challenges and finding all the hidden barnyard cars. Yes, I even played through all of the Fast and Furious licensed expansion for Forza Horizon 2 where Ludacris himself as Tej provided voiceovers to set up each race. Before Forza Horizon, another game attempted the same thing a couple years earlier with Test Drive Unlimited. It featured a sorta-GPS replication of the entirety of Oahu as its open world hub and I absolutely ate it up and was white-knuckling the final race which was a one-on-one endurance race against the top ranked AI around the entire outer highway of the island. The sequel was fun too and added another island, but I think one Alex Navarro’s reaction to the opening cutscene in his Quick Look video will be my main takeaway of it. I have mentioned in previous console flashbacks how I love demo-derby racing games, and on 360 Flatout: Ultimate Carnage was king! It is a fantastic follow-up to the PS2/Xbox games, and my brother and I played it online regularly for years, I can go on about it forever, but instead I will embed below a special three-part video where my brother and I raved about why it was one of our favorites….

Many years ago my brother and I made this three-part YouTube series on our fandom for Flatout: Ultimate Carnage The summer of 2010 saw two new arcade racing games debut that both should have been successful new IPs with sequels to this day, but since the two released within a month of each other they presumably took up each other’s player base and both Activision and THQ did not pick them up for sequels. Activision invested in Bizarre for an all new racing IP in Blur, which is essentially conflating the power-ups of Mario Kart with underground street racing, and it was indeed as awesome as that pitch sounds. I played hours of it in the main career mode and online as well. On the other end THQ invested in Black Rock Studios with their innovative racer, Split/Second, a reality show-based driving game where studio directors would triggers obstacles and destructible environments to activate and provided an all-new gripping racing experience. It too was also a riot to endure and 100% finish, but it sadly never received a sequel either.

I loved the Burnout series the previous gen, and EA delivered with an upgraded port of Burnout Revenge that remains my favorite entry in the series to this day. I got into its open world follow-up, Burnout Paradise and developer Criterion were aces with their long-term support of free updates that kept me coming back to it. EA’s other flagship racing series, Need for Speed had a few entries I put serious time into. The 360 launch title, Most Wanted had an intriguing concept of working your way up the “Blacklist” of the most wanted street racers to compete against. When Criterion did an all new reboot of Most Wanted several years later, it combined that concept with the blazing fast gameplay from the Burnout series to my approval. Finally, I will give head-nods of recommendation to both of Sega’s Sonic kart-racers on the 360. They are the top Mario Kart-clones out there, and ooze with Sega fan service. The second game, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed successfully innovated with evolving stages that switched up from racing in karts, then into mini-bi-planes and then onto water-based hovercraft. I completed the careers for both games and put in a fair amount of online play with both entries too. The Fad that was the Plastic Instruments My gut told me the original PS2 Guitar Hero was going to be big within minutes of trying out the original demo in the fabled Kentia Hall at E3 2005. Adored the first game, but the second game was when it went mainstream, and was thrilled with the second game’s HD 360 release in 2007. 2005-2009 was the apex of the genre for my friends and me. There were countless nights of my friends and family passing the guitar around trying to best each other’s scores, and when 360 introduced online leaderboards for each song it upped the competition level even higher. Local city clubs and bars did Guitar Hero tournament nights and my favorite memory from these was on a Guitar Hero III tourney night when it was my turn to go up on stage to pick a random song out of a hat I was the lucky soul to draw one of the hardest songs in the game in the form of Slayer’s “Raining Blood.” I suffered on stage, and barely managed to finish, yet it remains a memory I shall cherish! In fall of 2007, Harmonix splintered away from Red Octane and teamed up with MTV Games to unleash the revolutionary Rock Band that brought in drums and karaoke to the fold for four player co-op play!

I will forever love the countless Rock Band nights I had in the first two Rock Band games that hit in 2007 & 2008, especially the nights I played with my old podcast co-hosts Chris and Scott. I downloaded well over a hundred extra DLC songs over a few years for it, and we would routinely meet up one or two nights a month for Rock Band nights for two years. Almost always, our last song to finish off a session was the final song in the first Rock Band’s career mode that was filled with many wrist-suffering solos, yes I am talking about Outlaws’ “Green Grass and High Tides”. Our Rock Band addiction culminated with the “Bladder of Steel” achievement which we procured when playing every song straight without a fail over the course of several hours! I was almost always the drummer on Rock Band nights. At first no one else wanted to do them, but eventually I got into them and kind of became somewhat decent at it on medium difficulty. One night at an Alice Cooper concert I became entranced at watching the drummer wail away all night that I convinced myself after the show to lay down a $200 pre-order for the premium ION Drum Set for Rock Band….though after a few months something about that bulky set did not gel with me and I did not prefer the way the drumsticks clanked off the pads and I never developed a rhythm for them and eventually gave them away to free up space.

The forgotten gem Rock Band title no one talks about, LEGO Rock Band! Behold one of its awesome boss stages with the Ghostbusters theme song! The plastic instrument genre quickly became oversaturated with numerous entries a year from Activision and EA. At first it was kind of interesting to dive into some of the band focused entries of the series like how Harmonix did a wonderful tribute to The Beatles with reliving their career and its groovy “Dreamscape” stages in The Beatles: Rock Band. The Metallica nut in me feasted on forcing carpal tunnel upon myself with the painfully intricate, yet entrancing solos from almost every track in Guitar Hero: Metallica. By the time Green Day: Rock Band and Guitar Hero: Van Halen rolled around though and other offshoots that I completely skipped like Band Hero and Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits, it was clear the writing was on the wall for the genre. I did manage to sneak in some last doses of fun with a couple other off-the-beaten-path entries though before this genre faded away from its zenith.

The head-bopping mash-ups of DJ Hero with its uniquely intuitive turntable controller and feeding my karaoke addiction with Lips were breaths of fresh air for the genre late in the 360’s life.

Microsoft’s karaoke series on 360, Lips, supplied a fair amount of fun with its unique glow-in-the-dark microphones and four volumes of songs released before Microsoft eventually morphed it into a karaoke pay-per-song app late in the 360’s lifecycle. My buddy Matt introduced me to LEGO Rock Band, which Matt got for free with any Black Friday purchase one year at Kohl’s and we were both nearly burnt out on the genre by this point, but thought we would at least give this graphically unique version a shot. The adorably twee nature of the LEGO visuals with its complementing soundtrack were irresistible, and it instantly won us over. We stuck with it all the way through, and were fans of its music video-esque “boss” levels, with the Ghostbusters theme song stage being one we replayed far too frequently. Another refreshing take on the genre was through DJ Hero and its sequel, DJ Hero II. I loved that turntable controller, and it flawlessly placed me into the DJ world with its mash-up stylings soundtrack and fitting club visuals. Both games were unsung heroes of the genre when they released because they both came out a year or two removed from the apex of the genre’s success, but the DJ & LEGO games brought in some much needed fresh air in that scene. Non-Kinect Casual/Family Game Hits and the Failure that was NXE Now while I almost entirely avoided the Kinect, there still remained deluge of non-Kinect casual party games that were a hit with the family on holidays and friends on game nights. The two Microsoft published Scene It games that came bundled with their user-friendly big button wireless controllers were family favorites for a few years and successful adaptations of the hit movie trivia DVD-board game. A guilty pleasure of mine is legacy licensed trivia/board games/game shows on consoles, and the 360 had plenty of them with solid editions of Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, Apples to Apples, Risk and Family Feud 2012. Doritos Crash Course seemed initially like a forgettable promotional game that was free on XBLA that only offered avatars racing each other on a variety of obstacle courses, but somehow its simple gameplay was addicting and far more entertaining than it had any right to be at family and friend gatherings.

You Don’t Know Jack was a fun revival of the hit PC irreverent trivia series that was dormant for nearly a decade before THQ brought it back on consoles in 2011. Friends and I played through every episode on the disc and its DLC packs, and I revisited it for several years because of one dumb habit where the adorably jerk-of-a-host, Cookie Masterson, would have a unique greeting to open the game if you played on a holiday. The success from this You Don’t Know Jack revival got the developers at then-Jellyvision to revitalize the brand and include a bunch of other party games in the popular yearly Jackbox games that are still going strong as of this writing. I also wanted to squeeze into this chapter of the flashback Microsoft’s polarizing decision to appeal the UI of the 360 to a more family/casual audience and changed the fan favorite “blades” UI into the detested “New Xbox Experience” (NXE) in 2008. Microsoft was trying to synergize with the equally detested UI of its latest PC operating system, Vista. Tablets were starting to become trendy at this point, and Microsoft was resilient on forcing a tablet-esque UI across all its devices and the results were a total system failure. I was among the many who made their outcry heard over how ugly the many rows of diagonally aligned boxes filled with ads were a visual nightmare on the eyes. I was use to some minor ad implementation in the Blades UI before promoting other 360 games available, but the NXE mixed in all sorts of commercials, movie trailers and other assorted promotions that hit the same wrong nerves as those eye-blasting web browser ads.

Microsoft eventually updated and tweaked the NXE into a much more aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly UI that remains on the 360 boot-up today. With the 360 user base understandably a modicum from what it was in its prime today, it is refreshing to see Microsoft lay off as of this writing with a complete absence of ads on the UI. I will also use this space to shout out the premium theme backgrounds that I have used for many years being the pumpkin patch and winter wonder land themes that are always a delight to see when I boot up the 360. Yes, the Xbox Live 360 servers are surprisingly still online in 2020, 15 years after the 360 launch. Most 360 online multiplayer supported games support peer-to-peer multiplayer so as long as Microsoft keeps the lights on, you will still be able to play 360 games online. Microsoft only kept the original Xbox Live servers up for seven and a half years, so to see them more than double that for 360’s servers as of today is…astonishing. Worth noting is some games like Chromehounds, Final Fantasy XI and all EA-published games utilized their own private servers which the publishers have shutdown long ago, so those games are unplayable online, but a vast majority still support the option. Wanna Wrassle? For several years on the 360, one of my yearly holiday season traditions was to buy the latest WWE Smackdown vs. RAW game and complete the career/season story mode and unlock all of the hidden wrestlers and features over the course of a few months. I did this from WWE Smackdown vs. RAW 2007 through 2011. For one of the yearly installments I was so close to unlocking all the achievements to get 1000 gamerscore, but the last one I needed required a grind to complete the main single player career mode five times. I decided at the time this was a perfect opportunity to catch up on past seasons of 24 and brought a second, smaller TV next to my living room TV and absentmindedly button mashed my way through those extra career mode playthroughs, and it took almost the entirety of the second season of 24 to accomplish that feat and earn that final achievement. No regrets!

WWE's yearly Smackdown vs. RAW games featured zombies in their storylines, while All-Stars shifted the gameplay to more arcadey fun for all! The story modes in those yearly WWE games were worth playing through because the writers in some cases got creative and did things that were not possible on TV like having the Undertaker cast mind control spells for example. They added and experimented with a plethora of new modes and options, with the WWE Universe mode being a prime example of going all out creating dream cards and custom storylines. The creation options became incredibly in-depth each year too, in the later installments the developers added a Create-a-Storyline feature that had a surprising level of customization full of custom text entries for dialogue and branching cutscenes. One infamous online community, Video Game Championship Wrestling, became famous for its machinima they created with this system that contained intricate storylines with created wrestlers in its league consisting of video game character icons, developers, comic book & anime characters, fabled movie legends and yes even sprinkling in a few wrestlers. I dabbled in creating a couple simple storylines, but it was too much for me to invest into, but thankfully users could upload and download storylines from the community which added seemingly infinite replay value.

You have not lived until you witnessed an episode of the acclaimed wrestling videogame machinima that is Video Game Championship Wrestling. Will it be Gabe Newell or Dr. Wily who will emerge here as VGCW champion? WWE released a couple spinoff games that were not as feature-dense, and contained more accessible, arcade-like controls. They were on the right path with Legends of Wrestlemania, which highlighted the 80s success of the then-WWF, but absolutely nailed it with WWE All-Stars which featured a hybrid of past legends and current stars, and all of them were intentionally designed to look like roided-out action figures capable of larger-than-life moves like hurling opponents 30 feet into the air in addition to juggling, fighting game-like air combos. This all combined for fun multiplayer sessions with friends and family members who usually are not fans of wrestling games, but genuinely got into the gameplay to my surprise. I rampaged through everything All-Stars had to offer within a couple months after the latest Smackdown vs. RAW game, and was kind of burnt out on wrestling games after this for a while and skipped all future WWE games for several years starting when they changed the branding with WWE ‘12.

TNA iMpact! was from the same people who made All-Stars and had super-fun Ultimate X match as seen above! FirePro Wrestling on the other hand features only controllable Avatars and none of the trademark legacy 2D gameplay the brand is usually known for. There were a few other non-WWE games I tried out before I took a 360 wrestling game sabbatical. Rumble Roses XX was the first 360 wrestling game and the second all-women wrestler game in America after its PS2 predecessor. Never put as much time into it as I meant to, so I cannot leave any lasting impressions on it other than it gave Dead or Alive a lot of competition with its variety of costumes. I did put a lot of time into TNA iMpact! however, which was the game the All-Stars developers worked on before. At the time it hit, I was into the TNA promotion, and the game was a pretty good representation of that product with a fun Ultimate X mode, and a story mode circled around a fictional costumed wrestler named Suicide who went on to become an actual wrestler in the promotion in 2008, and the character has remained there off-and-on to this day. Lucha Libre AAA Heroes del Ring introduced the high-flying luchadores from Mexico with their own exclusive game and featured some familiar past WCW/WWE/TNA stars, but had problematic controls to prevent it from having any lasting appeal. I never played the Kinect motion-based wrestling game, Hulk Hogan’s Main Event, but I have seen clips online to witness it in its near-broken state that lives up to one of my favorite reviews on Game Informer where it became one of their worst rated games ever. There are a couple of low budget Avatar Wrestling games on the Indie Games channel on 360 that are basic affairs, but there is one Avatar-based grappler that somehow got a full fledge XBLA release with the much-respected, best-in-class FirePro Wrestling branding. Those games have been a decades-long line of some of the best 2D wrestling games of all time, and somehow Microsoft was able to secure that branding for an admittedly decent and accessible Avatar wrestling game, but a game that should in no way be worthy of that elite branding. That would be like Phillips securing the Zelda and Mario licenses for their own low-rent made games on their CDi system….oh wait. Sports-ball Forever! Time to highlight some of my favorite go-to sports games on the system. Starting off with football, there I got use to buying Madden every two or three years. I only rented the 360 launch title, Madden NFL 06, which wounded up being one of the worst debut Madden titles on a console ever. This is because of EA’s overblown “Target Gameplay” video they debuted at a previous E3 where the final game, while still graphically a leap above Xbox/PS2, was far from what they teased. To make it worse, that was the same year they debuted the doomed “vision cone” gameplay feature in the earlier PS2/Xbox versions that went over so poorly that they had to disable it as a default option for the 360 version and hide it in the options. This was also the first lead Madden game to remove John Madden himself (and co-commentator Al Michaels) from commentary in favor of a nameless afterthought of a radio-style announcer. Madden NFL ‘06 is easily the all-time worst lead-platform version of Madden!

This video encapsulates why Madden 06 was an atrocity of a debut on the platform…at least it had easy achievements.

EA stepped it up with later entries, with Madden ‘10 remaining a favorite of mine for the brand this gen. I still recall that edition was when EA initially introduced their cash cow microtransaction-focused “Ultimate Team” feature as a free DLC a few months after its release. How foolish I seem now for at first dismissing it as an interesting curiosity I could not bother to invest a dime into ever, but only to see it blow up in DLC sales for EA and become integrated across all of EA’s sports titles and other publisher’s sports games within a few years. I only picked up one college EA effort this gen via NCAA Football ‘12 which was technically free with a six-month subscription to Sports Illustrated, but I got the most out of that game, and was huge into its “Road to Glory” mode. Road to Glory had my created player play out his final year of high school, and then go through a full college season. EA were absolute pros at this point with their college game, perfectly capturing the college game pageantry by jam-packing the it full of college anthems, cheerleaders, mascots and first-class commentary from the old College Gameday crew of Kirk Herbstreit and Brad Nessler. EA was also surprisingly generous with a community create-a-school option where users could create and upload teams and stadiums, and sure enough someone created my middle-of-nowhere Midwest FCS school and high school teams. It remains a heartbreaker (for good reason though) that EA pulled out of college sports games after the NCAA student athlete class action lawsuit, with NCAA Football ‘14 being their final installment. I do not feel that much love for EA though because of how they squashed 2K’s attempt at returning to football videogames with All-Pro Football 2K8. 2K signed on a couple hundred retired legends for their game, and players could pick a handful of legends to be the standout stars on their otherwise auto-generated teams. It was a fun, different approach, which EA quickly put the kibosh on by signing many of those legends away to appear in throwaway historical features in future Madden games. As I mentioned earlier though, EA did win back some favor with me by resurrecting the Blitz franchise with their excellent XBLA version of NFL Blitz.

There were a few other non-NFL games on the 360 I gave an honest try to, with Midway releasing an unlicensed, M-rated version of Blitz before they went bankrupt with Blitz: The League II. It showcases M-rated behind-the-scenes drama storylines, and more brutal and violent hits that bestow it the M-rating, and if you can handle that, then it is worth checking out. Finally, Backbreaker was an ahead-of-its-time pigskin game that debuted an all new physics engine that EA would eventually incorporate into Madden games. While the tech was not quite all the way there, the thing I associate most with that game is it playing P.O.D.’s “Here Comes the Boom” on every…single…kickoff. It was a huge detraction in my review, and I was surprised to see a few weeks later an email from my editor at the time passing along a note from the developers to revisit the game after an update addressing reviewer feedback, which did address a multitude of things, but at the top of the list was reducing the amount of times P.O.D.’s jam played to only twice a game, thank god! On the basketball side of things, I remained a huge fan of the NBA 2K series. The 360 carried over the awesome 24/7 mode I adored from PS2/Xbox era, which was an in-depth career mode for a single created baller, doing a global tour of the street hoops circuit. The 2K games struck gold in NBA 2K11 when Michael Jordan graced the cover and the game added a new historical Jordan mode where he relived his most monumental games with historically accurate rosters, and vintage 90s telecast presentation and commentary. The Jordan mode was a success, and integration of NBA legends became a big selling point on the 2K games going forward with future installments having a theme around the Jordan/Magic/Bird NBA breakout success of the 80s and the iconic ’92 Olympic Dream Team.

EA had a downward spiral with their sim hoops games, and I only tried out a couple demos of the earlier NBA Live titles this gen that did not win me over, including the attempted re-branding of the series with NBA Elite ‘11. That doomed demo was so glitch-laden that it got EA to cancel and recall the game from retailers mere days before its street date, and took them three years to launch another proper console NBA sim. I did love EA’s re-launch of NBA Jam however, along with the XBLA sequel, On Fire Edition. They hit all the right notes on re-introducing the classic arcade gameplay to a new generation. No idea why they have not done another NBA Jam since however, but at least On Fire Edition is back-compat on Xbox One and Series S|X. The PS3 consumed the bulk of my baseball playing time with their awesome MLB: The Show games of that era. However, I do have one chuckle-worthy memory of staying up late playing a lot of 2K’s arcade take on baseball, The Bigs, at a friend’s place one night. We played several games and I recall being impressed at how fast each game breezed by. I skipped all hockey sims this generation too, with the only time I digitally hit the ice this gen being EA’s killer NHL game on XBLA, 3-on-3 NHL Arcade, which delivered the hat trick of arcade fun gameplay, creative power-ups and intuitive controls.

For alternative and single player sports games, I already raved about Top Spin 2 during the 360 launch window. I could never get into EA’s thumb-stick controls for its Fight Night games, but I did enjoy 2K’s Don King’s Prize Fighter, which came from the same team that made the Rocky games on the previous gen I preferred more. Of all the MMA games, I briefly got into THQ’s UFC 2010, but the game always became a chore when gameplay transitioned into ground submissions. I enjoyed Tony Hawk’s Project 8 when it launched, but that series also had a fall from grace with several failed experimental games once EA stepped up the competition with Skate. One of the greatest mysteries in gaming history to me will always be Skate 3’s staying power in sales seeing it on sale for so many years that eventually EA repackaged the game in an Xbox One case with a sticker on it saying it is playable on both the 360 and through back-compat on Xbox One because there were no longer any other 360 retail games on store shelves. I tried a few times to get into Skate, but like the Fight Night games, the thumb-stick focused controls never gelled with me and I could never adapt. No Russian, No Cauldron

For several years straight, from the 360 launch in 2005 through 2012 I played every yearly installment from Activision’s flagship brand, Call of Duty. The first couple of years it was not that much though. Call of Duty 2 I only played several times in local couch multiplayer battles when friends brought over a copy. I always regretted never renting or buying it cheap to play through the single player campaign which I heard is excellent. Ditto that for the original CoD which eventually got a re-release on XBLA as Call of Duty Classic. However, I played through the entire campaigns for the next six games. CoD3 I rented from GameFly and breezed through in a weekend in split-screen co-op with my brother and did not think much of it at the time, but came to learn later that when playing in co-op it removes a few levels that proved to be too daunting to be handled in split screen. Then in 2007 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare released and first person shooters as we knew it changed. 13 years later it still has two of the most powerful moments in a FPS campaign in the form of the nuclear blast and its immediate fallout in the failed helicopter escape, and THE sniping level of all sniping levels in the flashback mission which immerses the player so well into the sniper role at its apex moment, that few other games since have managed to achieve. It overall was an incredibly gratifying campaign, which was equaled with a revolutionary online multiplayer experience that popularized persistent online multiplayer unlocks with a seemingly endless barrage of weapon and character customization unlocks to keep players reeled in. I was never “hooked” into the multiplayer on a regular basis, but starting with CoD4 and for the next few games I would occasionally pop on and play with colleagues who did play all the time, and had a blast catching up while apologizing for not carrying my own with my less-than-ideal kill/death/ratio.

World at War was an interesting revisit back to World War II and I enjoyed Keifer Sutherland’s voiceover talents as a superior barking orders at me throughout. It also debuted its survival variant in Zombies mode that was a hit that year and frequently played with co-workers on game nights. While that mode would become a bigger focus and more expanded with each successive CoD game, for whatever reason it never became as popular or played as much then as in World at War. 2009’s Modern Warfare 2 somehow met the high bar for the quality of campaign that the first game set, and its “No Russian” level I will never forget and I was bug-eyed throughout it as I never experienced anything like it before or since while my character attempted to keep his cover. As good as Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare titles were, Treyarch stepped it up with 2010’s Black Ops and its Vietnam War setting. It remains my favorite single player campaign from this stretch of CoD games. The meaning of the “numbers” touched on throughout the campaign had a meaningful payoff, and I loved how Treyarch sprinkled in their own unique gameplay intricacies like “diving to prone” and my love for the RC Car killstreak bonus in multiplayer. No matter how much of a weak link I was for my coworkers in online multiplayer, as long as I got just one set of three kills straight to get that fun RC Car perk, then I considered that a successful multiplayer session! Infinity Ward had a satisfying conclusion to the Modern Warfare trilogy with MW3 in 2011, but 2012’s Black Ops II was surprisingly underwhelming to me. It felt like they tried to do too much with the campaign, and sprinkled in optional bonus missions I felt obligated to do, but broke up the narrative for me. Of course, it could have been CoD burnout by this point, and I have never played another CoD game since. If I were to play the campaign of just one CoD game after this from 2013 on, what would you recommend?

For five years I anticipated the low budget FPS efforts from Cauldron that had me reliving past historical battles and as a DC Secret Service agent seen above. Interestingly, while Treyarch and Infinity Ward took turns each year this gen delivering Activision’s big holiday FPS hit, quietly another studio, Cauldron, yearly released five budget-tiered FPS titles under the Activision Value banner. These little publicized releases always caught my eye, and I had no idea if it was the case, but Cauldron’s games felt like where Activision would send freshly recruited developers to get their feet wet before getting promoted to the CoD teams. Three of Cauldron’s five games were History Channel licensed games themed around recreating and reliving both sides of war in two installments based around the Civil War, and another in the Japanese theater of World War II. The history nut in me appreciated the History Channel-produced intro video for each level, and it was a budget-friendly alternative come down FPS game to breeze through in a weekend after the latest blockbuster CoD game. Cauldron also did a DC-terrorist themed FPS in Secret Service, and Jurassic Park-inspired FPS titled, Jurassic: The Hunted. I imagine all of these play horribly outdated now, but I still will appreciate them for what they brought to the plate. Dubious Honors

Hulk Hogan’s Main Event and NBA Elite 11 top the dubious honors list for reasons I already ranted on above, but wanted to make sure to at least notate here. Moving on to other bad games, here are a handful that I was not a fan of: Rogue Warrior was a super-short and barebones functioning FPS published from Bethesda, but bizarrely got AAA buzz and marketing. It did have a catchy closing credits song though. Turning Point was an FPS from Codemasters with an interesting concept of a post-WWII shooter if the Nazis won the war, but poorly executed and reason why Codemasters has primarily stuck with racing games since (although they did attempt one more FPS with Bodycount which I did not play, but understand is just as atrocious). One game that went on to have a misrepresented history I reviewed at the time was Bullet Witch. It was a middle-tier single player action game published by Atari, and while it had some problems I made sure to point out in my six out of ten review, I received serious flak from a few friends for overrating the game. While I addressed the game’s issues and marked it down appropriately so, I did have a fair amount of fun with the boss battles and messing around with some of the more powerful spells. Over the years I have seen many bill this game with the label that it is among the worst on the 360 with the same kind of tone and vitriol as ET received on the 2600. Even Mr. Microsoft Larry Hyrb poked fun at the game in an online video long ago. Again it is not a great game by any means, but it is far better than what a lot of people make it out to be.

An XBLA game that got one of their marketed themed event releases (‘Summer of Arcade’, ‘Fall Feast,’ etc.) was TMNT: Out of the Shadows. It looked to be a cannot-miss 3D brawler TMNT game, and with that level of hype how could it go wrong? Very much so in fact, and with some of the worst camera controls in gaming I could not put it down fast enough. Another painfully disappointing TMNT game was the aforementioned XBLA remake of Turtles in Time. It played well enough like the original, but the redone visuals did not capture the spirit of the affable 80s/90s cartoon like the original did, and it stripped out the SNES bonus levels and had poorly substituted voiceovers. Stay away! There were a couple of semi-decent 360/PS3 era Turtles games. Nickelodeon TMNT was a perfectly serviceable brawler that did a better job of bringing back the good memories of the arcade classics than Re-Shelled did. Ubisoft released a single player platformer/action game to coincide with the 2007 CG film, TMNT. It too was pretty straightforward, and not earth-shattering, but at least hit some TMNT fan service marks good enough to be a worthwhile entry. Danger of the Ooze is one that slipped through the cracks that I rarely hear talked about likely because it released late in the 360/PS3 lifecycle in 2014. This should be played by any Turtles fan because this is the standout Turtles game this gen from the platforming masters at Wayforward with their take on a pretty fun MetroidVania-style game the TMNT license seemed destined for all this time. Lightning Round Quick Hits

Microsoft did not release 360’s successor, the Xbox One until 2013, so with eight years between the 360 and Xbox One, a boatload of games hit that system and I played far too many of them which is why this is going on far longer than it should have. There remains a hearty amount of AAA, mid-tier, XBLA and other noteworthy games that I want to give their due, so bear with me as I attempt to rapid fire through these… -I got wrapped in too many open world games this gen, and I want to first give props to RockStar Games for managing to finish two of their behemoths in the form of Grand Theft Auto IV and Red Dead Redemption. GTAIV is the only GTA I finished the storyline for, and Niko Belic will be one of my favorite protagonists. The cell phone activities were initially a chore to retain friendship ratings, but eventually I came around to bowling, cab rides, comedy clubs and rounds of pool. RDR was the ultimate Wild West open world game. Neversoft’s 360 launch title, Gun, was in my backlog still and I blitzed through that in the weeks leading up to RDR’s launch because I just knew it would blow it away. Gun was a decent effort from Neverseft, but quickly became obsolete when starting up RDR, which did not disappoint, and delivered a remarkably atmospheric experience for its time in 2010. I loved getting lost on adventures out in the wild, and that original score is masterful and could not be have been better crafted. That final several hours of gameplay based around the family ranch is an incredibly bold choice of gameplay that will always have a special place with me. Kudos to RockStar with their spooky-themed story expansion, Undead Nightmare, which is a hell of a side story to RDR that is well worth your time all these years later!

GTA IV put a lot of attention on its mini-games that were entertaining shoulder content, and Red Dead Redemption introduced a drop-dead gorgeous wild-west open world I would crave getting lost in and exploring for adventures. -Another one of my top 10 favorites on the 360 released on the same day as RDR, and I am talking about sci-fi third person thriller that is Alan Wake. I got completely absorbed into Alan’s quest to find his wife, and Remedy had a five star presentation to keep me on my seat. Some people criticized its style of combat, but it worked for me, and I believe it will go down as the only game where its deadliest weapon in its arsenal is a flare gun! Easily the spookiest T-rated game I have played. Do not skip out on the DLC episodes that put a nice bow on the story, and the XBLA sort-of time loop sequel, American Nightmare

-Two open world games that I shamefully have resting in my backlog to this day are GTAV and Bully. I picked up both on 360, and eventually picked up the Xbox One version of GTAV. You know what open world games I did play through though? The first two Just Cause titles. This satirical take on the James Bond-super agent was right up my alley, and Rico’s unique gadgetry like hookshots, parachutes, and wide variety of instant vehicle drops innovated in new ways to traverse its gigantic open world. The chaos and destruction those games both were capable of raised the bar with how creative one could be to lay waste to their surroundings. -I already commented above how the first Saints Row lived up to its potential from its E3 demonstration I saw a year before its release. The sequels surprisingly kept getting better and better. The first two games were essentially damn good GTA-clones, but with both games having more zany activities and side missions than in GTA. Saints Row the Third upped the outrageous quotient for its plot and side missions, and was groundbreaking for how far it pushed the boundaries with its whacked out style of storytelling.

-It did not feel right to include it with the racing games above, but another recommended open world title from this era is Driver: San Francisco. Ubisoft and Reflections nailed making an open world driving game without races being the focal point. The spirit-car-swapping feature against all odds is cleverly explained, and actually works! -Despite its popularity I could never get into the Assassin’s Creed games which debuted in this generation. A friend borrowed me the first game and at first I was into its setting and gameplay, but that first game was notoriously rough around the edges and I believe I got hung up on a glitch that prevented me from making progress roughly halfway through, and I have inadvertently been done with the series since. I picked up a few other entries over the years and have been wanting to at least try them, especially hearing how the latest ones keep getting better and better. One day! -I finished my first Resident Evil game on the 360 with Resident Evil 5. That game also featured online co-op, but I ventured fourth and played it solo and still had an impeccable time with it. It put more of an emphasis on action to the dismay of critics, but having not played too much of prior entries that did not bother me, and there were still plenty of intense thrills had throughout.

This is easily my favorite arcade stick ever, and the exquisite 2011 Mortal Kombat reboot made its tall asking price worth it! -This generation saw collector’s editions become out of control, with games packed with all kinds of statures, Master Chief helmets, night-vision cameras and other gadgets for well over $100. The only one of these I invested in was 2011’s Mortal Kombat. I originally was not too hyped for that game because I had my fill of the series at that point after the three good entries on PS2/Xbox, and felt the series had nothing else to offer. My brother however is a big MK-fan and told me how he ordered the $200 edition that came with premium arcade-replica fighter stick. I went to his place to drop something off one day when he wasn’t home, and he told me had the game and stick hooked up and to give it a try while I was there. Within minutes of starting the story mode and realizing how they were reimagining the original trilogy and how they switched up the gameplay for that generation, I became immediately entranced with it and could not think of any other way to play it without that stick and could not rush home fast enough to pluck down a $200 order. I made sure to get a lot of use out of that stick, and is was absolutely worth it!

-Sniper: Ghost Warrior is an unorthodox FPS focused entirely on sniping, and for being a low-budget game at the time I had way more fun than I should have with it. Also loved how it did a 180 from games like CoD, where instead of one sniping mission to mix up the campaign gameplay, here there is one run ‘n gun mission for a break from all that sniping throughout the campaign! I am glad this game had a ton of success and City Interactive has released a few sequels that I hope to emerge from my backlog of doom. -I already elucidated on my Borderland 2 experience earlier. The first Borderlands was a surprise out of nowhere hit that I loved my first few days with it and could not get enough plowing through the campaign online with friends. Unfortunately I went on vacation a few days after it released for a week, and when I got back, sure enough, most of my friends were many levels higher than me and already vanquished the game, so I soldiered on the final third of the game on my own. It was a challenge and a half to beat the final gi-normous tentacle-laden boss, but I managed to squeak by it after gradually picking away from it behind a boulder for nearly an hour!

-I had a unique experience with the Portal games. The first one I initially played for about 15 minutes, quickly became frustrated with the teleporting mechanics and had to step away from it. A couple years later, an old co-worker Rick was one of many by that point stating why those games were some of the best games out there. I told him my case, and he offered to come over and bestow his Portal wisdom upon me. Many thanks to Rick, who did not straight-up spoil and told me what to do to get past Portal’s many puzzle rooms, but instead kind of nudged me into gradually easing into a feel for the core mechanics of the game and it helped greatly! I would not have been able to get into it without him. He had a surprise for me when he left, and left me his copy of Portal 2 to borrow and told me not to give it back to him until I finished it. I knew he was moving in a couple months at that point, and that compelled me to put all my attention into the Portal games. I am glad I did because both games are spectacular, especially the sequel which had a noticeably bigger budget to go all out with a AAA experience and narrative that came together to be one of my favorite games of that generation. -Bulletstorm was another innovative FPS with its implementation of a whip, and combining it with melee strikes and gunplay for a refreshing take on FPSs. It kind of came and went though, and I rarely hear people talk about it anymore, except for briefly last year when it got a re-release on Xbox One/PS4, with an extra DLC to have Duke Nukem replace the original protagonist’s voiceovers for the game. I will also associate the original Bulletstorm release for having one of the worst box arts of all time. It is just a no-frills footprint. If you played Bulletstorm before, sure, it will kind of make sense since kicking is a core melee attack, but if you were a potential consumer browsing games and had no clue about Bulletstorm then I would not blame you for not giving that cover more than half a second’s worth of thought.

-The trilogy of BioShock titles were all high ranking in my top 10 game of the year lists for their appropriate years. The first game immersed me into its aquatic utopia gone haywire, and it stood out from standard FPSs of the time with its heavy emphasis on its narrative and hunting down those audio tapes to get every nook and cranny of the story. Its “twist” was something else for its time, and remains one of my favorites to this day. The sequel had a lot of polarization because it was from a different studio, but I felt they mixed it up by playing as a Big Daddy for the whole game and I could not get enough of freezing Splicers and then doing a drill rush attack that shattered them into pieces. BioShock Infinite was an astounding way to wrap the trilogy with its mesmerizing city-in-the-sky setting, and one of my favorite storylines from this gen. Its two storyline DLC episodes that released around a year later are worth checking out if you missed out, especially the second episode that changed the gameplay into more stealth-based by playing as Elizabeth. It felt like a whole new game, and developer Irrational absolutely perfected the change-up! -Spec Ops: The Line will not light the world on fire for its stick-to-fundamentals third person action gameplay, but what appears to start off as just another rah-rah military shooter, eventually morphs into a far deeper and complex plot than what I thought it was going to be. A book eventually came out thoroughly breaking down its exposition because it stormed up that much of a discussion around it.

-Shmup fans had several worthy entries to play on the 360. Raiden IV and Deathsmiles were landmark new entries for the genre in their time. On XBLA, there were re-releases of a pair of renowned shmups from Treasure: Ikaruga and Radiant Silvergun. A pair of original shooters also stood out among the XBLA crop with the free of charge student developed game, Aegis Wing and also the beloved Sine Mora that captured the pilot play-by-play stylings of Star Fox and successfully merging it into a shmup. There were also a fair amount of Japan-exclusive shmups for the 360, most notably from respected shooter developer, Cave. Many of them are region-free and can be played on American 360s, so please keep that in mind! -I already told some tales above about my favorite comic book games, and embedded below is a video where I and my friend Matt painstakingly dissect a ton of comic book games that hit the 360. Highlights include the shockingly good movie licensed games, X-Men Origins: Wolverine & Captain America. Not-so-good highlights include the movie licensed Watchmen, Fantastic Four and Hellraiser games. Matt also had a lot more hands on time with the acclaimed Batman: Arkham and Spider-Man games on 360, and I have always respected his expertise in the genre so please give his takes a listen below! -The Telltale adventure/choose-your-own path story-driven games originally started off on PC, but became more and more popular with their console releases. I was 100% into the first two seasons of their Walking Dead games like everyone else. Loved the first one more, but my favorite Telltale episodic game is still Back to the Future. The Wolf Among Us was a fascinating twist on a mature dystopian fairy tale world. I was not impressed by their take on Game of Thrones, but I surprisingly enjoyed all eight episodes of Minecraft. I originally got that for my nephew who was huge into Minecraft at the time to play with, but he was not all that into this genre and I found myself getting into it instead. Telltale was pumping out so many of these episodic series that I could not keep up, and still one day want to go back and play through both Batman seasons they released, and their Borderlands series too which I hear is their best work.

Back to the Future remains my favorite Telltale episodic game, but the event-like nature of the first season of Walking Dead was an undeniable zeitgeist while it transpired. -The LEGO co-op games we know today based off nearly every license imaginable became ubiquitous this gen. Only one I put serious time into and was able to finish was LEGO Marvel Superheroes. This one is special to me because it was the first game that I got my nephew Carter really into right when he was old enough to start grasping modern controller-based games. Had to help him out in quite a few parts, but we got threw it, and now several years later his gaming skills have greatly improved, and I will gladly give him a humble brag on his conquest of finishing the tough-as-nails Cuphead.

-I subscribed to the Official Xbox Magazine for several years, until around 2009-ish, and I was surprised that they stuck with including demo discs for another year or two after that since downloading demos quickly made the discs obsolete. OXM did attempt a few exclusive disc goodies though, and one I always came back to was their own take on an episodic game called OXM Universe that lasted for about a couple years. The disc itself awarded up to 1000 “OXM” points based on checking out all the demos and videos on the disc. Those points could be used in the space ship station game, OXM Universe, which was entirely menu-driven to build space station tech and explore a galaxy. It did lead up to a decent conclusion if you stuck with it all the way to the demo disc that came with issue 100 and upon completing all the final tasks you are rewarded with a lengthy video filled with OXM staff past and present thanking everyone. THAT IS MIGHTY COOL OF THEM TO GO TO ALL THAT WORK FOR A DEMO DISC EXTRA!!! -I think one thing we take for granted in today’s console space is the ridiculous amount of weekly sales and specials on digital games across all platforms. It was not always that way. In the early years of the 360 digital marketplace, for a couple years all that was available was one weekly game on sale and one piece of DLC on sale each week and that was it for a couple years. Luckily, Steam was catching fire with their acclaimed Fall and Winter sales with their monster savings, and that eventually rubbed off on 360 and PS3 and by the end of those system’s lifecycles both started offering a surplus of weekly deals and flash sales. -Digital game preservation is something that is brought up more and more lately, and one thing that periodically ruminates in my mind is how the 360 handles patches/updates. For the longest time, most games had limits of 4mb patches until the later years in the system’s life where they started to change into the larger file sizes we associate with them today. However, the 360 has a nasty habit of auto-purging a game’s update on the 360 after several different games get played on the 360. So if you were to revisit an older comfort food game many years down the line long after the 360 online servers got shut down, any updates for that game were likely auto-deleted and cannot be re-downloaded. This could be huge for a lot of games whose patches likely helped patch out game breaking bugs and other issues that can no longer be downloaded whenever the 360 servers go offline. Just food for thought.

-Final random item I want to bring up is something you saw in the header image to this special. Yes, that is a leaning gallery of 360 faceplates! Remember those? They were kind of a thing for the first couple years of the 360 when Microsoft was flexing the customization options of the 360 so anyone can snap on or off a variety of 360 faceplates to make their system stand out in their own way. I never bought a single faceplate, and only procured them if they were pre-order bonuses, or part of some promotional giveaway. The only highlight of this was how I got my Madden NFL 08 faceplate, and that was when I participated in my Gamestop’s yearly Madden tournament where no more than four people showed up for the few years I participated. The year I won, was when I got the Madden NFL 08 faceplate, which sure as hell beats my Madden NFL 07 plastic beverage cup from the previous tourney! It will forever remain in my drawer with my faceplates for Full Auto, Eternal Sonata and Deathsmiles. It is not like there is some uber-popular YouTuber who has a unique fandom for that particular version of Madden who could benefit from it in any certain way. To the drawer the faceplate remains! ”It’s an Ocean” (THE END!!!) OMG, this took me a whole month to gradually pick away at. I did not come close at all to releasing this in time for the 360’s 15th anniversary of its launch. I feel that I could have made this into a mini-eBook and charged six cents for this!!! As you can tell from my many memories I have shared thus far, the 360 is a platform I hold in high regard. I waited three years to upgrade to the Xbox One and PS4 in 2016, so from late 2005 until late 2016, the 360 was one of my primary go to consoles. Which is why I had so many memories, good and bad, to get out of my system. If you want to catch up on one of about a dozen other flashback specials I have crafted like this (which are thankfully significantly shorter) over the years check out the links below. In the meantime, I will close this off with two embedded videos of episodes of my old podcast I recently un-vaulted circled around the 360. They are the final installments of our history of comic book games and RPG games series. Both episodes focus on the games that hit for those genres up until the point the episode was recorded for 360, PS3 and Wii. Many thanks once again if you have stuck with me for these near-18,000 words of garbled memories of mine, I sincerely appreciate it and I will see you all next time if I can somehow muster enough energy after this beast of an entry for yet another anniversary flashback special!

Listen to us break down almost all the RPGs that his this gen released through 2008

And here we dissect all the comic book games released on these platforms through April of 2011 My Other Gaming Flashbacks Dreamcast 20th Anniversary GameBoy 30th Anniversary Genesis 30th Anniversary NES 35th Anniversary PSone 25th Anniversary PS2 20th Anniversary PSP 15th Anniversary and Neo-Geo 30th Anniversary Saturn and Virtual Boy 25th Anniversaries TurboGrafX-16 30th Anniversary and 32-X 25th Anniversary

If you made it this far and have yet to experience the THING that is Rogue Warrior’s end credits theme song, then I dare you to click it above and not have Mickey Rourke’s lyrical lashings remain forever stuck in your head!

Enjoy this montage of the many creative demises of the worst sidekick in the history of videogames! You’re Still Here!? Well Then, Let Me Tell You Another Story About the Shephard….Not That Shepard

It is not my tale to tell of “another story about the Shephard.” Hopefully, EA and BioWare will right that ship as they teased at the recent Game Awards a few weeks ago. I am talking about the other Shepard on Xbox 360, that being Lost: Via Domus’s Jack Shephard. Jack and most (not all) of the cast from the first season of Lost are in that game, but are not playable. Instead, a new offscreen Oceanic survivor is introduced as the playable character, Elliot. The game was an average licensed adventure-lite game affair (find out all about by click or pressing here for my original review), but at the time when it released Lost was in its fourth of six TV seasons, and I was eating up every bit of fan service that game offered. It did have a couple minor things never seen in the TV show like the Dharma magnet, and I loved its ending which got my mind reeling with it possibly tying into new fan theories from the latest episodes of the show at the time. One in particular being my favorite episode of the series, “The Constant.” Not a great game, but loved how it treated the license. That said, this hit a few years before Telltale hit big with its Walking Dead games, and I can only imagine if they were the ones to give their episodic adventure game treatment to Lost instead. Now that is another story about the Shepard I would be all-in for day one!

[greensparty]

Album Review: U2 “All That You Can’t Leave Behind” Super Deluxe Edition

Released on October 30, 2000, U2′s 10th studio album was a comeback for the ages. When arguing about U2′s greatest album it always comes down to The Joshua Tree (read my review of the 2017 Super Deluxe Edition here) vs Achtung Baby. But whatever the feeling is about what’s #1, pretty much everyone across the board agrees that the third greatest album by the band is All That You Can’t Leave Behind! After the band’s 1997 album Pop received a very mixed reaction, this was the band coming back in a big way, returning to their late 80s rock sound. It was like they were saying “we’re not down for the count yet, just listen!”. It was an album I picked up while I was in college and listened to quite frequently in the next few years. It is easily one of the best albums of the 00s and it was my #1 Album of 2000. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of this landmark album, there are multi-format reissues that were released last week. I was lucky enough to review the 5-disc Super Deluxe Edition.

the newly released Super Deluxe Edition of All That You Can’t Leave Behind

Disc 1 is the original album remastered. It is such a strong collection of songs:  “Beautiful Day”, “Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out of”, the rocker “Elevation”, “Walk On”, “Peace on Earth”, “When I Look at the World”, “New York” and countless others. Song for song, this entire album hangs together so strongly. I would easily call this their 3rd best album. This was a return to form for the band and one felt like they were trying a little harder. Sometime around 2000, I read an interview with Bono and he said he joined the band in 1978 when they were all 18 and at this point in 2000, they had now been a band longer than they hadn’t. Doesn’t that blow your mind? The band was now a well-oiled machine and it showed!

original album cover

Disc 2 is B-Sides and out-takes alternatives. Some of these I knew already like “Summer Rain”, “Always”, “Big Girls are Best”, the acoustic version of “Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of” which were on their 2002 EP 7, “Stateless” from the Million Dollar Hotel soundtrack, and the Johnny Cash cover “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town”. Some of these are really great songs and I’m surprised they didn’t make their way onto another album at some point. I especially liked “Levitate” and “Flower Child”. This disc is what really makes this box set worth the price tag is the unreleased material.

the 2001 DVD of their Boston concert

Disc 3 is a live concert from June 2001 they did at the Fleet Center in Boston, MA. They performed on June 5, 6 and 9, 2001 at Fleet Center. I attended the show on June 9 and it was possibly my favorite U2 show of the 3 concerts I’ve seen (I also saw them in 1997 and 2005, if you’re curious). Later that year, there was a DVD released Elevation 2001: Live from Boston. Even though the disc said “filmed on June 6″, there were parts from all 3 Boston shows. That DVD has been in my DVD collection for about 18 years now! Disc 3 is the audio from all 19 tracks that were featured on that DVD release. It kinda surprises me that they never released it as a live album or even as a combo with the DVD. It is still as great a concert as I remember, especially the acoustic “Desire”, “Bullet the Blue Sky” and the dedication during “In a Little While” when Bono talks about how that was the last song Joey Ramone listened to before he died (Ramone passed away just a few months before that show).

Disc 4 is remixes. I’m not really a fan of remixes and don’t feel they add much to this set, but what’s kinda frustrating is that you get two remixes in a row of the exact same song...at least mix it up or something. This is the one portion of the Super Deluxe set I could’ve done without.

U2 in 2000

This Super Deluxe set comes with a 32-page book from Anton Corbijn. The longtime collaborator of U2 gets his own photo book of photos he took circa 2000, including the album cover and photos. Some cool pics in here!

This is an awesome Deluxe Edition! Disc 2 is the big highlight with several B-Sides that are better than most band’s A-Sides. Disc 3 is exciting to have in audio form. If you have the money, it’s worth springing for this, but in the end the real highlight of this album is the original album itself. Still one of the band’s best!

For info on All That You Can’t Leave Behind Super Deluxe Edition: https://www.u2.com/news/title/all-that-you-cant-leave-behind-turns-20/

Original album: 5 out of 5 stars

Super Deluxe Edition: 4.5 out of 5

[theteenagetrickster]

Techno is technocracy

This year noted the 400th wedding anniversary of the transatlantic slave labor and the arrival of 20-30 West Africans to the United States contents. In August, The New York City Times Magazine, led by personnel press reporter and investigative journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, released the very first edition of The 1619 Project, a collection of essays, rhymes, fiction and also photography that re-examines and also starts the sluggish procedure of changing United States background with correctives on occasions of structurally- and also socially-ordained public and also financial oppression of dark individuals. This change in race conversation certainly overflowed into the worldwide electronic popular music scene, as direct as well as understandable reminders of the extraction as well as erasure of dark culture through callouts and social networks retaliation.

The popular music market has always done not have nuance in respect to cultural sensitivity and recognition. In 2019 the need for a collective understanding of the importance of portrayal as well as liability seemed extra publicly vital. As the massive historic concern of The United States's tormented past is put in to situation through, primarily, black scholars and thinkers via a public organization, the significance and also worth of American culture and assets were also disputed.

The phrase "techno" was created by futurist and also business person Alvin Toffler in his 1980 book The 3rd Surge, which illustrates "created" countries, like The United States, and also their economic shifts coming from commercial creation to data-driven labor. Techno, as dark music and method, is coded along with industrial economic conditions and also involvement with market circulation. Its focus on beat patternization lends itself to become interlocked with various other monitors-- an excellent metaphor for American wonderful futurism, along with running as a literal social line, certainly not as well unlike the dark folk-tradition of storytelling.

Toffler's usage of techno was directly in endorsement to technocracy, or even a regulating system led by an elite lesson of technical professionals that create systems of development for a class of mostly skill-less consumers. Toffler notified technocracy had the potential to destabilize training class wheelchair and social areas via a "technocratic divide" which prefers the "notified" opinions of technological experts over a marginalized, and presumably questionable, community. When considering the specificity of African-Americans' 400-year-long history of injustice by methods of an only white European colonial controling physical body, the understanding of technocracy appears a whole lot even more scary.

Juan Atkins, that emerged the techno noise in the group Cybotron, 1st faced Toffler's creating in a secondary school course referred to as Future Studies. In the midst of Detroit's neglecting automotive field as well as the consequences of the ethnicity troubles of the 1970s, Cybotron's popular music reflected the industrial boom and decline of the metropolitan area which was meant to be actually an example of an American capitalist utopia. Detroit's failure in to dystopia motivated white colored people to take off to the residential areas, taking tasks as well as resources with them. The futurist bests of Toffler's works, along with his idea of the "techno revolutionist" who would certainly not really feel restricted or even defined by modern technology, encouraged Cybotron's popular music as they utilized readily available innovation to promote cutting-edge end results. In 1981, Juan Atkins created Cybotron's 'Planetary Cars' with the intent of it being actually a "unique as well as bold item of synthesizer rut, extra harmonic with Germany than the remainder of Black America." That exact same year in 1981, Paul Lesley as well as Sterling Jones' A Variety of Titles released 'Sharevari' which is often taken into consideration an early instance of techno.

Both Cybotron and A Lot of Brands's songs had their tracks transmitted on WGPR, 107.5 FM's Electrifying Mojo, a radio series along with a mainly black viewers as well as eclectic playlists consisting of music through Royal prince, the B-52s as well as Kraftwerk that influenced a lot of the Detroit sound. A year eventually, while on a see to The big apple, Atkins heard Afrika Bambaataa's 'World Rock' and viewed it as a better instance of his sonic sight. In 1988, Derrick May, a recognized pioneer of techno as well as ex-Northern Soul DJ and Kool Kat Records boss, Neil Rushton, assembled a cd of very early Detroit keep tracks of contacted Techno! The New Dancing Noise of Detroit for Virgin Records UK imprint 10 Records, which would certainly put the condition "techno" in to flow among music-buyers as well as journalists.

In July of this year, Mixmag operated a cover story entitled, "Exactly how Richie Hawtin improved digital popular music regularly and also once more". The British striking publication, which released its own debut issue in 1983 along with United States black disco group Shalamar on the cover, apparently formalized techno for worldwide consumption, according to a 2015 retrospective in The Independent; techno and acid house were actually certainly not imported in to the UK till 1988, a year after Phuture's 'Acid Rails' was actually launched. Much of digital popular music past prefers the job of Hawtin as one of the most significant Detroit DJ and developer as well as many years after the "invention" of techno in Detroit, Mixmag organized Richie Hawtin as the criterion wherefore a digital music icon can appear like.

The account, written by long time music writer as well as previous SIMPLE FACT factor Joe Muggs, illustrates Canada-native Hawtin's specialized proficiency as well as how he "longed for releasing on Derrick May's Transmat or Juan Atkins's Metroplex but [was actually] unable to receive the interest of [his] idolizers" and instead established his personal label, Plus 8, in 1990.

Five years after the label's creation, James Stinson of Drexciya talked to a critical and an unanswered question while being talked to through Tune Creator: "Why do Richie and his Additionally 8 household come down below as well as toss celebrations in midtown Detroit? ... [He] introduces all these youngsters from the suburbs and also from Canada and that shows a shortage of appreciation. I have actually been actually to everyone of those celebrations and I've never heard an Underground Resistance record, a Cybotron report, a Design 500 file or even an Eddie Fowlkes document. It's an overall disrespect and it's reached hinder."

Fast-forward to Oct 2019. Cold DJ/producer Nina Kraviz blog posts an image of herself on Twitter using cornrows, urging notable review. When confronted, Kraviz answered: "Realities examining [sic] For those who didn't recognize. I am actually not white european [sic] Braids is actually [sic] a part of several cultures. Heres [sic] is actually a viewpoint from a past history teacher." The "point of view" was provided through a screengrab coming from Quora, a user-edited question-and-answer site. Pigtails as well as cornrows are actually known typical African hairdos that became useful during the course of the transatlantic slave labor and were actually at some point utilized as a setting of top secret interaction in between slaves via styles that could duplicate maps to free of cost places in America. Kraviz is actually certainly not the 1st to acquire backlash for lifting hair-braiding-- one Kardashian or an additional has been actually proclaimed for lead-in different knotted types throughout the years-- neither is she the first to reject verification of the pain in the callouts that comply with, opting to acknowledge the retaliation an instance of reverse-racism. [Ed. note: There is actually no such thing as reverse-racism.]

Pair of months later on Mixmag honored Kraviz by placing her in the no. 6 area on its Best 10 DJs of the Year list. Her admittance, which has actually given that been actually amended, reviewed: "She sustains. The Shivery DJ might have caused a minor tweetstorm with her ill-judged reaction to objection of her hairstyle, but she stays the singular largest celebration draw on the planet and really innovative, psychological and also evocative DJ of single sight and success. Still Techno's brightest superstar."

A straightforward modification of techno's past history would comply with a trail of concepts like white colored extractive commercialism, white tour and re-urbanization as well as the economics of social fraud. Technocracy counts on the withholding and holding on to of info and sources to support criteria specified by a managing a frequently unethical best course. A thing or an encounter is offered value through specific requirements within a technocracy as well as by decentralizing current stories and allowing producers to inform their own tales, there is chance for an extra also and also ethical social substitution around the unfortunate situation of an economical market established by intense as well as willfully oblivious white International colonial belief. Continuing into 2020, a handful of prominent vocals of a brand new generation of Black Techno reveal their experiences and also chances for a decolonized dancing music society.

Frankie Decaiza Hutchinson It is actually constantly thought that a duty of mine to become able to press [the dark] background [of techno] and push black musicians. I had actually been thinking of doing an occasion such as this for a number of years yet it's difficult to just do this event without any type of community backing or structural backing. Having dealt with many dark musicians given that moving to Brooklyn and right now as booker at Bossa Nova Civic Nightclub, it merely believed that a no-brainer. Occupant was also such a very easy occasion to coordinate but our team most definitely need even more black individuals in booking postures at clubs. There is actually an overwhelming large number of white bookers everywhere in NYC which definitely impacts opportunities for black musicians. Nevertheless, I presume there is actually been actually a basic favorable shift in areas seeking to manual much more otherwise. There actually is no reason.

Akua This was actually a pivotal year for the Dark Techno area. Within my quick circle in Brooklyn, I've found my peers and also I blossom with our unapologetic method to redeeming as well as rejuvenating the often-ignored dark story of the style. Our interaction along with techno has straight directed the underground, political values in its own rawest form to permeate the homogenous scene and also take apart white colored patriarchal frame that has actually outlined the style for technique very long. As a dark woman in a scene where I am strongly obvious, yet undetectable at the same opportunity, it's been actually extremely inspiring to see that the additions my peers as well as I have actually created to continue modification on a domestic as well as international scale.Being able to explore worldwide this year has actually helped me boost as well as revise the purposes behind my engagement along with techno at the same time. While I have actually possessed the possibility to dip into places that are actually considered essential techno sites like Berghain's Saüle in Berlin, I have actually involved discover my task as not simply a rabble-rouser of adjustment, yet also one of a mender and also instructor. To become capable to participate in the music of black artists I respect a lot, like veterinarians Robert Armani and also Mike Dearborn, in the location's situation, it felt a lot more strong, given the challenging history between Berlin and the US as it pertains to techno. Knowledge like these have given me the chance to carry additional focus to the dark, POC and also queer senior citizens and forefathers that laid the structure for me to perform what I'm doing today. To me, there is actually something exclusive about digging via the archives to retell the accounts of my seniors in purchase to heal the cut origins of the genre and also to prompt folks to decolonize their minds when it concerns their viewpoint of techno.

"Portrayal issues, our terms issue, our songs issue, and also our lives issue. Individuals need to know that whether they like it or otherwise."-- Ash Lauryn

MoMA Ready Some of factors that have actually been actually uplifting me the very most are the hard-working DJs of Brooklyn's existing nightlife communities, especially the POC and QTPOC areas. Our team've all of been actually operating all together to develop spaces for ourselves in international dancing songs. My explanation for launching thus a lot songs this year is a bit even more individual. It stems a lot more from my wish to sustain freedom over my fine art and also the narratives bordering my craft. Each release is various and is actually discharged for a various purposes, even with the output. Receiving the popular music to people without a stream is actually something that inspires me, also. More of my colleagues is discharging music to be actually contributed to the library of black techno as well as dancing songs. I believe that everyone intend to find even more favorable modifications for POC in dancing popular music internationally. What much better to perform that than by creating the popular music that begins brand new chats? Techno roots can not be actually refuted. There is actually a brand-new generation of black DJs as well as producers that currently understand those roots and also desire to result in the legacy of black dance popular music in The United States.

Ash Lauryn Residence as well as techno popular music has actually observed somewhat of a renewal of dark and also brownish young people as of late, there is still an amazing volume of job to be carried out. I am actually happy to be actually an aspect of the act at a time where several are actually carried out being actually soundless on issues that matter to our company. There are a great deal of wonderful individuals doing excellent points all in hopes of protecting the rich black roots of dance music, and also I consider on my own to become some of all of them. Via my system Underground & & Afro-american, my goal is actually to boost and also inspire the future generations of dark dance popular music, and I can easily very most submissively state I am actually performing just that. Portrayal matters, our words matter, our popular music concern, and also our lifestyles issue. Individuals need to have to recognize that whether they like it or certainly not.

DeForrest Brown, Jr. is actually a New York-based thinker, reporter and also curator. He makes digital audio and extended media as Audio speaker Popular music and is an agent of the Make Techno Black Again project. His recent creating could be discovered in Afropunk, Artforum and Hyperallergic.

Find all of REALITY's year-end protection listed here.

This content was originally published here.

[travelguy4444]

The Top 5 Lesbian Travel Destinations in 2019

Posted: 2/21/2019 | February 21st, 2019

We want to speak to a wide range of voices on this website so have added an LGBTQ column to talk about travel issues that are important some of our community members. This month, Dani, one of our LGBT columnists, shares the top five lesbian travel destinations in 2019.

I have told you everything you need to know about traveling as a lesbian and how to plan the perfect lesbian-friendly trip, but what about lesbian-friendly destinations? What are the greatest locations for an unforgettable lesbian vacation — where you don’t have to be afraid to get weird stares or have to be careful with PDAs if you’re with your partner.

There are dozens of spots that fit the bill, some of which became more interesting at certain times: Lesbos became popular with gay women when the Sappho Women’s Festival was created in 2000, Los Angeles saw an increase in lesbian travelers when The L Word first aired in 2004, and Madrid was particularly popular with queer visitors during 2017 WorldPride.

So which destinations are having their “lesbian moment” in 2019?

Here are five that welcome LGBT travelers and have something that makes them particularly interesting for lesbians now, no matter if you’re solo or with your significant other. Read on for why I think you should hit up one of them this year:

1. New York City, USA

Why go?: New York City is not only known as one of the gay-friendliest cities in the world and the top-ranked LGBTQ destination in the US but it is where the Stonewall riots kicked off the modern gay liberation movement in 1969.

2019 marks the 50th anniversary of this significant event in LGBT culture, and to commemorate, New York City will host WorldPride in June — the Pride of Prides, a full month of festivities, with over 50 events. It’s the first time in its 20-year history that WorldPride is being held in the United States, and many celebrities are expected to join the festivities, including Madonna, who rang in the 50th anniversary year with a surprise performance at the historic Stonewall Inn bar on New Year’s Eve.

While this is a great excuse to visit NYC this year, there are many more things that make the city attractive for lesbian tourists — from world-class art museums to stunning Broadway productions and dozens of neighborhoods to explore, New York City is always worth a visit. In the summer, you will get to enjoy free performances by the New York Metropolitan Opera and the Philharmonic in the city’s parks, free outdoor movie screenings, and weekend flea markets and food markets. Check out Matt’s 3-day NYC itinerary that covers all of the city’s famous sights and museums.

You’ll also want to check out New York’s lesbian nightlife, including the iconic Cubbyhole Bar and Henrietta Hudson in the West Village, the popular Hot Rabbit party, and a number of Pride parties exclusively for women, such as the Femme Fatale rooftop party.

If you want to learn more about the LGBT history of New York, I recommend this informative LGBTQ History Walking Tour of Greenwich Village.

When to go: June. The biggest event, WorldPride, takes place on Sunday, June 30, 2019.

Before you go: Check out the lesbian events calendar before you visit NYC. There are regular lesbian stand-up comedy shows, dance parties, and exquisite drag shows. Events like lesbian speed dating or a comedy show are especially great if you are traveling solo.

2. Montreal, Canada

Why go?: Canada legalized same-sex marriage in 2005 and has been a popular destination for LGBT-travelers ever since, and while cities like Vancouver, Toronto, or Quebec are all LGBT-friendly , Montreal is known as the city with the biggest LGBT nightlife scene and is particularly lesbian-friendly (unlike most other popular LGBT destinations, which usually focus on male clientele). The favorable exchange rate of the Canadian dollar right now also means that a trip there is not too expensive.

Rue Sainte-Catherine is where most of Montreal’s gay nightlife is centered, and it’s the center of “the village,” Montreal’s gayborhood. Sadly, the infamous Le Drugstore, a lesbian bar on eight floors, closed down, but there are still plenty of amazing destinations. Don’t miss Complexe Sky, the biggest gay club in all of Canada, whose four floors each have different styles of music; the terrific rooftop terrace includes a pool and hot tub.

No matter if you make it to Montreal in time for Pride or not, I do recommend visiting in the summer, since the city prides itself on an abundance of outdoor activities during the warmer months. The streets are decked with outdoor seating, and you can relax on Jean Dore Beach on the shores of St Lawrence River, just minutes from downtown. Climb up to the top of Mount Royal for sweeping views over the city, marvel at the murals on Boulevard Saint-Laurent, and swing by lesbian-owned industrial warehouse-meets-beer garden Bar Alexandraplatz in the up-and-coming Mile-Ex neighborhood for a cold beer.

When to go?: No dates have been released yet, but there will hopefully be another edition of the popular Slut Island Festival, a feminist-queer DIY music festival that was founded in Montreal in 2013 mainly for performers and audiences who identify as women, trans*, gender-fluid, nonbinary, or people of color. The festival usually occurs in July.

Montreal Pride 2019 happens August 8–18, 2019.

Before you go: LezSpreadTheWord, an organization that publishes the feminist LSTW magazine and created the popular queer web series Féminin/Féminin, hosts the bimonthly girls party “Où sont les femmes?” — try to plan your trip around one of their awesome parties.

3. Mallorca, Spain

Why go?: Mallorca has been a popular holiday destination with Europeans for decades, but in 2012, the Spanish island popped up on the lesbian travel map for the first time thanks to the inaugural Ella Festival in Palma, Mallorca’s capital. In August, the festival celebrates its seventh edition, and no matter if you identify as lesbian, bisexual, queer, transgender, or intersex, every woman is welcome at Ella! You’ll get to enjoy beach parties, concerts, and a number of activities, from paddleboarding to beach volleyball, as well as island excursions.

While most of Mallorca’s LGBT nightlife happens in Palma, I recommend exploring the rest of the island as well. The easiest way to get around is by car, but you can also reach many beautiful beaches and little towns by bus. There are over 260 beaches in Mallorca, but make sure to visit the picturesque small bays of Cala Formentor and Cala Pi, and Cala Mesquida and Playa de Muro for wide sandy beaches. Also worth a visit: the Cap de Formentor lighthouse on the northern tip of Mallorca, and as many as you can of the charming little villages that dot the island, for example, Sóller, Fornalutx, Valledemossa, and Deià.

When to go?: The Ella Festival is August 30–September 6, 2019. Add on a week of island exploration before or after the festival.

Before you go: Check out Lesbian Mallorca, the “lesbian lifestyle directory” of the island, has a great overview of lesbian bars and lesbian-friendly and lesbian-owned restaurants, hotels, and shops.

4. Provincetown, Mass., USA

Why go?: Provincetown, often referred to as P-Town, is a small fishing town at the northern tip of Cape Cod, and it has long been a favorite with LGBT travelers. The charming little seaside destination is a fantastic vacation spot for anyone — straight or gay — with over 200 independent shops, plenty of art galleries, delicious restaurants, and great beaches, but its focus on lesbian travelers and the celebration of freedom of expression are what makes this open-minded community so attractive for girls.

Provincetown has more lesbian-owned businesses per capita than anywhere else in the US, the highest concentration of same-sex households in the US, and many LGBTQ-owned B&Bs and inns. No matter if you are solo or with your partner, there’s something for everyone: Provincetown is home to the oldest gay bar in the US, the A-House; the gayest main street in the world, Commercial Street; one of the top ten gay beaches in the world; and the East End Gallery District, offering world-class art. No matter what time of year you’re visiting, you’re likely to stumble upon one of the town’s many themed weeks or weekends (see below).

The daily tea dance (4–7pm) at the Boatslip, an expansive deck that overlooks Provincetown’s West End Harbor, is something you have to experience once — expect a packed dance floor and great people-watching. You’ll make new friends there for sure.

When to go: Try to plan your visit around one of the many women-focused events, depending which one best fits your preferences and interests: Women’s Media Summit (April 5–7); Single Women’s Weekend (May 17–19); Womxn of Color Weekend (May 30– June 2); Pride (May 31– June 3); Girl Splash (July 23–27); Family Week, the largest annual gathering of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer-identified families in the world (July 27–August 3); the incredible Carnival, which attracts 90,000 visitors (August 15–25); Women’s Week (October 14–20); or the weeklong transgender celebration Fantasia Fair (October 20–27).

Before you go: Since there are so many events year-round, make sure to check what’s going on in P-Town during the dates of your visit. If they happen to be during Carnival, for example, be aware that the town turns into party central. Never arrive without having accommodation booked in advance — B&Bs and hotels tend to fill up quickly.

5. Puerto Rico

Why go?: Just over a year after devastating Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico with full force in September 2017, the island is bouncing back. Almost all hotels are open again, the New York Times just awarded Puerto Rico the #1 spot on its popular 52 Places To Go in 2019 list, and thanks to its status as a United States commonwealth, the legal rights of LGBT citizens (same-sex marriage has been legal since 2015) have had a great influence on Puerto Rico, which is now the gay-friendliest of all Caribbean nations. Especially for Americans, Puerto Rico is an easy getaway: there are plenty of direct flights from East Coast airports (and other US hubs), you don’t need a passport, and it’s a fantastic winter escape, with temperatures around 81° Fahrenheit (27° Celsius) in January.

Both San Juan, the capital, and Ponce, the island’s second largest city, have several gay and LGBT-friendly bars and nightclubs, and last year’s Pride Parade in San Juan attracted more than 5,000 people. Most gay bars are in San Juan’s vibrant Santurce neighborhood. Circo Bar is the most popular, and Oceano is a sophisticated, gay-owned, open-air beach bar across from Condado Beach. While there aren’t any lesbian bars per se (the last one, Cups, closed a few years ago), the go-to place for lesbians is El Cojo Bar (in the Hato Rey district), but all of Puerto Rico’s gay bars welcome women. Also worth a visit are Tía María Liquor Store and Splash Lounge.

While San Juan is the best base during your Puerto Rican gay-cation, don’t miss out on the rest of the island. The jungles of El Yunque National Forest will wow even avid hikers, the underground caves of Río Camuy Cave Park are spectacular, and of course there are dozens of picture-perfect Caribbean beaches all over the island.

A quick ferry ride brings you to Puerto Rico’s hidden gems: the island of Vieques, which is famous for Mosquito Bay and has the most bioluminescent bays in the world, and Culebra Island, where the turquoise waters at the stunning Playa Flamenco makes all your Caribbean beach dreams come true.

Vieques, a small dreamy island largely untouched by tourism, is especially popular with lesbian travelers. Don’t expect any LGBT nightlife there, but instead serene beaches, unspoiled nature, and even wild horses that roam freely in some parts. TripAdvisor listed Vieques as one of Top 25 Beach Destinations in the world, because the island has “more than 40 beaches and not one traffic light.” If you’re looking for a relaxing hideaway or a lesbian-friendly wedding spot—the W Resort offers same-sex ceremonies—Vieques is the place for you.

When to go: Puerto Rico is a wonderful beach destination during the winter months in the northern hemisphere. Mid-April to June, before the summer rainy season starts, is also a good time to visit — you’ll encounter less crowded beaches and fewer tourists. The gayest event of the year is Puerto Rico Pride, but the date for the 2019 edition has yet to be announced; it usually happens on Memorial Day Weekend.

Before you go: The upscale beachfront Ocean Park area of San Juan is where most LGBT travelers tend to stay. Not far from there is Condado, a pedestrian area with a gay-friendly beach (the stretch facing the gay Atlantic Beach Hotel). TripSavvy has a list of gay and gay-friendly hotels in San Juan.

***

Of course, these are not the only places that are worth a trip this year — there are hundreds of others around the globe. You don’t have to trek halfway around the globe to discover new amazing destinations. Why not plan a lesbian break during Pride weekend in a city nearby? But, out of all the places I’ve visited, I’ve found these had some of my favorite welcoming and vibrant Lesbian communities! They shouldn’t be missed.

What are your favorites? Leave a comment and let us know.

Dani Heinrich is the vagabonding writer and photographer behind GlobetrotterGirls.com. Originally from Germany, she has been nomadic since 2010, when she quit her corporate job and embarked on a round-the-world-trip. She has traveled through over 60 countries on four continents and has no plans to stop any time soon! You can also follow her adventures on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Book Your Trip: Logistical Tips and Tricks

Book Your Flight Find a cheap flight by using Skyscanner or Momondo. They are my two favorite search engines because they search websites and airlines around the globe so you always know no stone is left unturned.

Book Your Accommodation You can book your hostel with Hostelworld as they have the largest inventory. If you want to stay somewhere other than a hotel, use Booking.com as they consistently return the cheapest rates for guesthouses and cheap hotels. I use them all the time.

Don’t Forget Travel Insurance Travel insurance will protect you against illness, injury, theft, and cancellations. It’s comprehensive protection in case anything goes wrong. I never go on a trip without it as I’ve had to use it many times in the past. I’ve been using World Nomads for ten years. My favorite companies that offer the best service and value are:

World Nomads (for everyone below 70)

Insure My Trip (for those over 70)

Looking for the best companies to save money with? Check out my resource page for the best companies to use when you travel! I list all the ones I use to save money when I travel – and I think will help you too!

Photo credits: 3, 5

The post The Top 5 Lesbian Travel Destinations in 2019 appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

source https://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs/lesbian-travel-destinations/

[joementa]

Week Of July 10, 2017.

Wow.  What a week to come back from vacation!  There was a TON of music news announced during the week, so much that it nearly made me dizzy and was difficult to keep up with.  I tried to do as best as I can to track all of it.  We start off with some of the most important news – the next release was announced in the series of Bruce archives show.  This one is from October 20, 2009, the last Bruce show ever played at the Spectrum in Philly.  The show is really great, but would you expect anything different?  Highlights include “The Price You Pay” as the opener. I wasn’t at the show but I would have soiled my pants if I saw that open.  Why?  It hadn’t been played at all since 1981!  Then later in the night they played “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher”, definitely one of the best songs ever, and Bruce hadn’t played it since 1977. There also is a cool cover of The Drifters’ “Save The Last Dance For Me”, and a guest appearance by Mad Dog Lopez. Then Bruce brings it on home with my favorite song ever, “Rosalita”, to close out the show.

As you can tell by my notes above, this is another Bruce archive release that deserves a purchase. All of the order info is available right here. CDs don’t ship until August 7.  If you haven’t checked out any of the Bruce archive releases, I don’t know what you are waiting for.  Each one of them is worth it, and you are making a huge mistake if you don’t check them out.  I listen to them all of the time, especially in the summer when I do a lot of driving.

Earlier in the week, DMB announced a massive box set to celebrate their 25th anniversary (which actually occurred last year).  On July 28, they are releasing a box set consisting of 25 previously unreleased songs, with performances going back to 1993 and all the way up to 2015.  The box set comes with FIVE LPs, as well as a hard-cover book.  According to their website, only 2500 of these will be made, so you really need to make sure that you order it as soon as possible.  The pre-order info is right here.   I ordered mine within minutes of getting the email announcement – and if you’re in the Warehouse, you could have (and should have) done the same thing.  Being in the Warehouse is worth it, and this is just one example.  While I’m sad that DMB isn’t touring this year, I’m excited to have this live boxset to enjoy the last couple months of summer.  DMB is a great summer band!

I haven’t mentioned Pearl Jam too much lately.  Music-related news has been relatively quiet from them, and I haven’t been listening to them that much.  But that might soon change!  They just announced a new release in their archive series, the famous Soldier Field show from July 11, 1995, in EV’s hometown of Chicago.  The show has been bootlegged before.  However, this is an official release, and it looks like they used the original multi-track tapes to increase the quality.  If you are a member of the Ten Club (which you should be), you have until September 10 to pre-order.  I’m really excited to get this.  I saw the back cover of the release, and it says “sponsored by no one”. I’m good with that!

One album I am really excited for is the new Lana Del Rey album, Lust For Life.  I think she makes great music, and I love listening to her in the summertime, especially late at night.  Lust For Life comes out THIS FRIDAY, July 21. The tracklist has finally been released, and there are a bunch of pre-order options available in her official store.  You can find the info right here. Unfortunately the vinyl doesn’t come out until September 22.  While I’m definitely getting the vinyl, I can say that there’s no way I’m waiting that long to hear the album!

Here are a few other new albums to note.

Tori Amos’ next album is called Native Invader and it comes out on September 8.  She also announced a bunch of tour dates, which recently went on sale.  It doesn’t look like there are a lot of tickets left to most of her shows, so I wouldn’t wait to buy tickets.  I’ve heard she puts on a great show!  Unfortunately I probably won’t be able to catch her on this tour, so I will have to look forward to the next time she’s around.

Noah Gundersen is a really great singer and songwriter, and I’ve been a fan of his for a few years now. You NEED to hear his song “Middle Of June” – and I’m willing to make this easy for you.  Here is a link to the song.  Check it out NOW.  Anyways, his new album is called White Noise, and it’s out September 22.  You can find the pre-order info here.  There’s also a link to a 7” of two non-album songs.  And of course we are getting some tour dates.  I think you are smart enough to find out what those dates will be.  I’ve never seen him live before, and I’ve had competing priorities in the years’ that he has come to my area, so I’m really going to try to catch a show in the fall.  I hope I can make it.

One of my favorite albums from this year is Gargoyle by Mark Lanegan Band.  It’s a really great album.  In September, he’s putting out a remix EP of 6 songs from the album.  I haven’t heard anything from it, but it sounds interesting. The pre-order info is here.  While you’re waiting for that, pick up 3 reissues that come out on August 25 – Scraps At Midnght, Field Songs, and I’ll Take Care Of You.  I don’t know everything by Mark Lanegan ,but I’ve heard a lot, and it’s all great music.      

Paramore’s new album After Laughter is awesome, and it’s one of my favorite ones so far from this year.  The melodies are very catchy, the music is very ‘80’s-like, and the lyrics are very heavy and substantive.  I really think you should listen to their new album if you haven’t yet.  And like most musicians, Paramore is touring in support of their new album.  A lot of the tour dates are already sold out, so you probably want to buy tickets as soon as you can.  I’ve never seen them live before, but I’m excited to catch them in the fall.  Plus, Best Coast is opening a bunch of the shows. They’re also a great band.  So get you to see TWO great bands in just one night. You can’t complain about that!

I don’t have too many shows coming up over the next few weeks, but that’s okay for me because I have a couple of big life events to keep me busy.  However, I did get to go see Ed Sheeran earlier in the week.  Wow, what a show!  I’m always amazed at how ONE GUY is able to capture the attention of 20,000 people in attendance.  It usually requires a BAND to do what he does.  And he’s just one person on stage.  Everyone was locked in to the show, singing along, dancing, and screaming (they were DEFINITELY screaming).  I think it takes a real talent to do what he does, and you have to give props when it’s due. He definitely deserves it.    

And in the end, we come full circle.  Obviously Bruce is one of my biggest musical influences, and Dylan has been one of Bruce’s biggest musical influences (and mine too).  Hopefully you already know that Tulsa, Oklahoma is in the process of opening a collection of Dylan’s personal archives.  Rolling Stone recently got an early peak at some of items, and you can (and should) read about it right here.  This collection seems like a dream come true, and I can only hope I’m lucky enough to check it out one day.  One of the Dylan scholars said that there’s enough information here so that a separate book could be written about EACH Dylan album.  Let’s hope that happens!  

[aion-rsa]

Dark Horse Comics’ July 2017 Solicitations

Dark Horse has provided CBR with covers and solicit information for products shipping in July 2017. When you’re through checking out these solicitations, be sure to visit CBR’s Indie Comics Forum and discuss these Dark Horse releases with fellow readers.

Dark Horse Solicitations – Last Six Months

Product shipping June 2017

Product shipping May 2017

Product shipping April 2017

Product shipping March 2017

Product shipping February 2017

Product shipping January 2017

Aliens: Dead Orbit #4 (of 4)

James Stokoe (W/A/Cover)

On sale July 26

FC, 32 pages • $3.99 • Miniseries

With one last gambit aboard the space station, Wascylewski finds himself ambushed by two more deadly xenomorphs that will stop at nothing until he’s dead.

The conclusion to Orc Stain creator James Stokoe’s thrilling and claustrophobic Aliens story!

Aliens: Defiance Volume 2 TP

Brian Wood (W), Stephen Thompson (A), Tony Brescini (A), Eduardo Francisco (A), Dan Jackson (C), and Massimo Carnevale (Cover)

On sale Sept 13

FC, 152 pages • $19.99 • TP, 7” x 10”

Colonial Marine Private First Class Zula Hendricks is AWOL and on a mission to prove her mettle by eradicating the Alien species. She must battle with xenomorphs, fend off space pirates, and elude the insidious Weyland-Yutani corporation that wants their freighter back, all while facing rehabilitation from an old war injury.

Collects Aliens: Defiance #7–#12.

American Gods: Shadows #5

Neil Gaiman (W), P. Craig Russell (W/A), Scott Hampton (A/C), Glenn Fabry (Cover), and David Mack (Variant cover)

On sale July 12

FC, 32 pages • $3.99 • Ongoing

Strange things continue to plague Shadow and Wednesday as their mad American road trip takes them all the way to a surreal roadside attraction, the House on the Rock, where they encounter Mr. Nancy and the world’s largest carousel!

The Hugo, Bram Stoker, Locus, World Fantasy, and Nebula award–winning novel and upcoming Starz television series by Neil Gaiman is adapted as a comic series for the first time!

A Starz TV show!

“Russell’s lyrical layouts bring Gaiman’s visual, vivid prose to life like no other artist.”—Comic Book Resources

Angel Season 11 #7

Featuring Angelus and Darla!

Corinna Bechko (W), Zé Carlos (A), Michelle Madsen (C), Scott Fischer (Cover), and Stephanie Hans (Variant cover)

On sale July 19

FC, 32 pages • $3.99 • Ongoing

On a ship filled with zombies, pirates, and a plague of zombie-creating beetles, Angel is torn between saving his past evil self—to save his own future—and making sure that the ship he is on never reaches land.

“If the past is haunting Angel, there’s no telling where this story can go, but I’m eager to see where. The story is intriguing and the art top notch.”—SciFiPulse

Art of Over the Garden Wall HC & Ltd. Ed. HC

Sean Edgar (W) and Patrick McHale (W)

On sale Sept 13

FC, 184 pages • $39.99 • HC, 10” x 11”

FC, 184 pages • $49.99 • Ltd. Ed. HC, 10” x 11”

Venture into the Unknown! A complete tour through the development and production of the hit animated miniseries Over the Garden Wall, this volume contains hundreds of pieces of concept art and sketches, and a comprehensive look at the show’s breathtaking production art. Also includes commentary from creators Patrick McHale and Nick Cross, interviews with the cast and crew, and more!

Never-before-seen sketches and a comprehensive look at the production art behind the multiple-award-winning show!

Limited to 1, 000 copies Worldwide.

The Art of Rick and Morty HC

WHOA, ART BOOK! WUBBA LUBBA DUB-DUB!

James Siciliano (W), Justin Roiland (P), James McDermott (P), Jason Boesch (P), Carlos Ortega (P), and Andrew DeLange (P)

On sale Sept 12

FC, 224 pages • $39.99 • HC, 9” x 12”

The animated science-fiction adventures seen in Rick and Morty are irreverent, shocking, and hilarious—from the cynical and rapid-fire one-liners to the grotesque and endearing character designs. Now, take a deep transdimensional dive into the creation of these many insane universes with The Art of Rick and Morty!

Exclusive never-before-seen concept and production art from the making of the hit animated series!

Bankshot #2 (of 5)

Alex de Campi (W), ChrisCross (A/Cover), and Snakebite Cortez (C)

On sale July 26

FC, 32 pages • $3.99 • Miniseries

Marcus King was shot in the back, paralyzed, and left for dead. But fate, a beautiful woman, and science intervened. Now King has returned, better than ever, on a mission to take down the most dangerous adversary from his past: the Dutchman. Spies! Intrigue! Betrayal!

Written by Eisner nominee Alex de Campi (Archie vs. Predator).

Art by ChrisCross (Convergence: Justice League of America).

The Black Beetle: Kara Bocek HC

Francesco Francavilla (W/A/Cover)

On sale Sept 6

FC, 56 pages • $14.99 • HC, 7” x 10”

The masked American hero ventures to the Middle East incognito (as Tom Sawyer) to fight Nazis in pursuit of a mysterious object of terrible power—a weapon of unknown origin, older than the pyramids, which could fuel the Thousand-Year Reich of Hitler’s dreams.

This story originally appeared in Dark Horse Presents #28-#32.

Afterlife with Archie cocreator returns to his acclaimed original series!

Black Hammer #11

Jeff Lemire (W/Variant cover), Dean Ormston (A/Cover), and Dave Stewart (C)

On sale July 19

FC, 32 pages • $3.99 • Ongoing

He was born into the Red Tribes of Mars. He walked the streets of Spiral City as a police officer by day, vigilante hero by night. And now he’s trapped in the sleepy-but-sinister Rockwood. In each of these places, Barbalien has been an outsider. He’s never felt at home. Maybe, in the end, home is not a location . . . it’s something to find in other people.

B.P.R.D.: The Devil You Know #1

Mike Mignola (W/Variant cover), Scott Allie (W), Laurence Campbell (A), Dave Stewart (C), and Duncan Fegredo (Cover)

On sale July 26

FC, 32 pages • $3.99 • Ongoing

Before they were vanquished by the BPRD, Lovecraftian monsters created a Hell on Earth. Now Liz Sherman leads a crew through monster-infested ruins on the most important rescue mission of her life. As society tries to rebuild, strange cults vie for influence, and a demon emerges to lead the way . . .

Briggs Land: Lone Wolves #2 (of 6)

Brian Wood (W), Mack Chater (A), Lee Loughridge (C), Matthew Woodson (Cover), and Fiona Staples (Variant cover)

On sale July 12

FC, 32 pages • $3.99 • Miniseries

When Isaac Briggs went overseas to war, he shed his quiet, reserved personality for something fiercer and far more nationalist than the rest of his family are prepared to deal with.

Brian Wood’s critically acclaimed series returns for its next chapter in an even more relevant postelection America.

Briggs Land is currently in development for a television series at AMC TV!

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 11 #9

Christos Gage (W), Georges Jeanty (P/Variant cover), Dexter Vines (I/Variant cover), Dan Jackson (C), and Steve Morris (Cover)

On sale July 19

FC, 32 pages • $3.99 • Ongoing

The great escape is underway as Buffy, Faith, and Willow infiltrate headquarters at the Safe Zone. Everything and everyone they expected to stop their mission is in the way. The question is, can two powerless girls and one Slayer succeed with these ridiculous odds? Elsewhere: unexpected vampire complications . . .

Featuring everyone’s favorite “bad” Slayer, Faith Lehane!

“Any Buffy fan is going to be stoked about this new series, Season 11, and a new story arc of awesomeness!”—ComicWow!TV

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus: Season 8 Volume 1 TP

Joss Whedon (W), Brian K. Vaughan (W), Drew Goddard (W), Jeph Loeb (W), Georges Jeanty (P), Karl Moline (P), Paul Lee (P), Cliff Richards (P), Andy Owens (I), Dave Stewart (C), Michelle Madsen (C), and Jo Chen (Cover)

On sale Sept 13

FC, 592 pages • $24.99 • TP, 6” x 9”

Series creator Joss Whedon brought Buffy the Vampire Slayer back to life with this comics-only follow-up to Season 7 of the television show. Aptly named Season 8, these comics are the official sequel to Buffy and continue where the live-action series left off with the Slayer, her friends, and their ongoing challenge to fight the forces of darkness.

This oversized omnibus edition is one of two volumes that will contain the entirety of Season 8. Contains Buffy Season 8 Library Edition Volumes 1–2 (excluding sketchbook materials), all series covers (Buffy Season 8 #1–#20), the Willow one-shot Goddesses and Monsters, and the “Always Darkest” short from MySpace Dark Horse Presents #24.

A New York Times bestseller!

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Big Bads & Monsters Adult Coloring Book TP

Karl Moline (A/Cover), Georges Jeanty (A), Pablo Churin (A), Yishan Li (A), Newsha Ghasemi (A), Stephen Byrne (A), and others

On sale Sept 6

b&w, 96 pages • $14.99 • TP, 10” x 10”

Demons, horror, and fantasy fill these original illustrations based on Joss Whedon’s cult-classic television series. Inside this volume focused on their greatest foes, you’ll find heroes Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Giles fighting to save the world from the likes of the Master, Angelus, Spike, Drusilla, and other supernatural beasts and beings. Features forty-five original black-and-white illustrations.

Celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Joss Whedon’s cult-classic television series!

Colder Omnibus TP

Paul Tobin (W) and Juan Ferreyra (A/Cover)

On sale Sept 27

FC, 424 pages • $24.99 • TP, 7” x 10”

Declan Thomas, the former patient of an insane asylum that was destroyed in a fire, has the strange ability to step inside a person’s madness—and sometimes cure it. He hopes to one day cure his own, but time is running out, as a demonic predator pursues him.

Collects the entire Colder series.

Written by Eisner Award winner Paul Tobin (Bandette)!

Art by Green Arrow’s Juan Ferreyra!

“A fantastically twisted comic that uses horror elements brilliantly to create a suspenseful tale absolutely worth reading.”—Graphic Policy

Dark Horse Comics/DC Comics: Mask TP

Various (W/A)

On sale Sept 13

FC, 256 pages • $24.99 • TP, 7” x 10”

Grifter and the Mask team up and face off against smugglers at a Las Vegas weapons show. After destroying a planet, the Mask has a bounty on his head and Lobo hot on his tail in a mind-bending, time-twisting showdown between madmen. And last but not least, the Joker stumbles upon the mask, which inspires a new superpowered reign for the Clown Prince of Crime!

This volume collects Grifter/The Mask #1–#2, Lobo vs. the Mask #1–#2, and Joker/Mask #1–#4.

Collects never-before-reprinted material.

The Dark North HC

Martin Dunelind (W), Peter Bergting (A), Henrik Pettersson (A), Joakim Ericsson (A), Magnus Olsson (A), and Lukas Thelin (A/Cover)

On sale Sept 27

FC, 232 pages • $34.99 • HC, 9” x 11”

Originally crowdfunded in 2015, this illustrated prose/art book fusion features five unique tales ranging from Norse mythology to science fiction. The Dark North showcases artwork by Scandinavia’s leading illustrators and concept artists Peter Bergting, Henrik Pettersson, Joakim Ericsson, Magnus Olsson, and Lukas Thelin, prose by Martin Dunelind, and a foreword by author and filmmaker Clive Barker!

Foreword by Clive Barker!

Featuring artwork by Baltimore artist Peter Bergting, as well as popular game artists Henrik Pettersson, Magnus Olsson, Joakim Ericsson, and Lukas Thelin!

Dept. H #16

Matt Kindt (W/A/Cover) and Sharlene Kindt (C)

On sale July 19

FC, 28 pages • $3.99 • Ongoing

Looking into Hari Hardy’s past, it’s clear that Mia’s father’s long history has made him the author of his own destruction, and perhaps Mia’s as well. Meanwhile, some of the Dept. H crew appear to be going insane, for they feel compelled to aid a sea turtle older than time . . . and it demands to be worshiped?

Dragon Age: Knight Errant #3 (of 5)

Nunzio DeFilippis (W), Christina Weir (W), Fernando Heinz Furukawa (A), Michael Atiyeh (C), and Sachin Teng (Cover)

On sale July 12

FC, 32 pages • $3.99 • Miniseries

With Varric’s help, Vaea sets out on a rescue mission for the Inquisition. After dodging societal niceties with the stuffy prince Sebastian and the even stuffier Seneschal Granger, Vaea catches up to her quarry . . . only to discover the mission will be far from that simple!

Empowered Deluxe Edition Volume 3 HC

Adam Warren (W/A/Cover)

On sale Sept 13

b&w, 704 pages • $59.99 • HC, 6 1/2″ x 9”

Prepare your puny intellect for wonders awe-inspiring, comedy gut-busting, and images steamy within Adam Warren’s Empowered Deluxe Edition Volume 3. Collected within its vast confines are Empowered Volumes 7, 8, and 9 plus a priceless hoard of unpublished artwork, author’s notes, and arcane wisdom both illuminating and terrifying to behold!

Hardcover edition, 704 pages, limited to initial printing only!

2017 marks the tenth anniversary of Empowered!

The End League Library Edition HC

Rick Remender (W), Mat Broome (A), Eric Canete (A/Cover), Sean Parsons (A), Ashley MacDonald (A), Wendy Broome (C), Matthew Wilson (C), and Naomi Baker (C)

On sale Sept 20

FC, 248 pages • $39.99 • HC, 8″ x 12”

The genre-bending New York Times bestseller is now available in a deluxe oversized format! A thematic merging of The Lord of the Rings and Watchmen, The End League follows the last remaining superheroes on Earth as they embark on a desperate quest to find the one artifact that can save humanity—the Hammer of Thor. Superstar writer Rick Remender (Fear Agent, Tokyo Ghost) is joined by comics legends Mat Broome (X-Men, Batman) and Eric Canete (Iron Man, Martian Manhunter) on a perilous journey to save the world!

Collects all nine issues of the series.

Oversize library format matches the best-selling Fear Agent library editions!

Game of Thrones Jon Snow “Battle of the Bastards” Limited Edition Bust

On sale Aug 23 • Measures 6” from base to the top of his head, plus sword extension • $89.99

The pulse-pounding climax of the most recent HBO season of Game of Thrones was the “Battle of the Bastards,” where Jon Snow faces off in a life-or-death struggle with evil Ramsay Bolton—considered one of the most ambitious and elaborately choreographed battles ever staged for filmed entertainment. A key moment is when Jon prepares for his last stand by drawing his sword Longclaw and facing the Bolton army seemingly alone. This is the moment sculptor Dave Cortes and his studio capture.

This prepainted bust measures 6” from the base to the top of his head, plus sword extension. Edition size TBD at press time. Full-color deluxe packaging with a certificate of authenticity.

Groo: Play of the Gods #1 (of 4)

The return of Groo!

Sergio Aragonés (W/A/Cover), Mark Evanier (W), John Ercek (C), and Tom Luth (C)

On sale July 12

FC, 32 pages • $3.99 • Miniseries

Shakespeare wrote, “The play’s the thing.” Or was that Nathan Lane? Either way, the play matters, whether you be man or god . . . or even Groo.

In this, the first installment in the newest Groo miniseries (which is continued from the last Groo miniseries), the stupidest hero in the comic book shop finds himself in a new village . . . a village where you pray to the proper god or you pray for your life. And even the other gods know that they are all players. It’s from the award-winning team of Sergio Aragonés and Mark Evanier, with lettering by Stan Sakai, coloring by Tom Luth, and a running commentary by the gods above.

The all-star team returns: Sergio Aragonés, Mark Evanier, Tom Luth, and Stan Sakai.

Eisner and Harvey Award–winning creators and an Eisner Award–winning title!

Halo: UNSC Vulture Limited Edition Ship Replica

On sale Aug 9

6” limited edition • $49.99

The UNSC Vulture, also known as the AC-220 Gunship, is a heavy gunship used by the United Nations Space Command during the early years of the Human-Covenant War. The premier aerial combat vehicle for extended air-to-ground battles, the Vulture was originally produced to combat the rebel threat during the early years of the Insurrection.

The Vulture is heavily featured in the hit game Halo Wars 2, and now you can own this beautifully detailed polyresin, limited edition 6” replica. Includes display base. Limited edition of 2,000.

Hard Boiled HC (Second Edition)

Eisner Award Winner!

Frank Miller (W), Geof Darrow (W/A/Cover), and Dave Stewart (C)

On sale Sept 13

FC, 136 pages • $19.99 • HC, 8” x 12”

Carl Seltz is a suburban insurance investigator, a loving husband, and a devoted father. Nixon is a berserk, homicidal tax collector racking up mind-boggling body counts in a diseased urban slaughterhouse. Unit Four is the ultimate robot killing machine—and the last hope of the future’s enslaved mechanical servants. And they’re all the same psychotic entity.

From comic masters Geof Darrow and Frank Miller!

Recolored by Dave Stewart!

Collected in hardcover for the first time ever!

Joe Golem: Occult Detective—The Outer Dark #3 (of 3)

Mike Mignola (W), Christopher Golden (W), Patric Reynolds (A), Dave Stewart (C), and Dave Palumbo (Cover)

On sale July 26

FC, 32 pages • $3.99 • Miniseries

Joe discovers that the supernatural voices driving men insane may have roots in another dimension, and Church takes matters into his own hands when Lori starts to ask too many questions.

“Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden are a heck of a team, and Patric Reynolds continues to complement them perfectly by bringing unique worlds to life stunningly with his art.”—Big Comic Page

Lifeformed: Cleo Makes Contact TP

The fight for Earth’s future!

Matt Mair Lowery (W) and Cassie Anderson (A/Cover)

On sale Sept 6

FC, 192 pages • $12.99 • TP, 6” x 9”

In the wake of an alien invasion—and her father’s death—a young girl must fight for the future of Earth. Aided by a shape-shifting rebel alien posing as her father, the unlikely pair bond, fight back, and ponder what it means to be human. The powers of choice, courage, and unity are examined in Lifeformed: Cleo Makes Contact, an unforgettable debut work from creators Matt Mair Lowery and Cassie Anderson.

The first work by up-and-coming creators Matt Mair Lowery and Cassie Anderson!

Young adult sci-fi adventure starring a relatable, endearing young heroine.

Mass Effect: Andromeda—Tempest Silver Finish Limited-Edition Ship Replica

On sale July 19

8”, limited edition silver ship • $49.99

Mass Effect: Andromeda is a hit, and the new Tempest ship is key to the intergalactic exploring experience. Long and sleek, the new design is an instant classic.

Our 8” replica is also a hit, so we are offering collectors a special silver-colored, metal-plated limited edition. Approximately 8” long, this collector piece captures all the detail of the regular edition. Only 1,000 will be produced for worldwide distribution.

Mass Effect: Discovery #3 (of 4)

John Dombrow (W), Jeremy Barlow (W), Gabriel Guzmán (A/Cover), Michael Atiyeh (C), and Kate Niemczyk (Variant cover)

On sale July 26

FC, 32 pages • $3.99 • Miniseries

Following a lead to the lawless space station Omega, Tiran Kandros is closer than ever to uncovering the Andromeda Initiative’s biggest secret. Unfortunately, so is the deadly Agent Zeta! In a story that ties in to the highly anticipated Mass Effect: Andromeda game, writers John Dombrow and Jeremy Barlow and artist Gabriel Guzmán team up to create the next exciting chapter of the Mass Effect comics series!

From Eisner Award–nominated writer Jeremy Barlow!

Direct tie-in with Mass Effect: Andromeda for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One!

Misfits of Avalon Volume 3: The Future in the Wind TP

Kel McDonald (W/A/Cover)

On sale Sept 27

b&w, 216 pages • $14.99 • TP, 6” x 9”

Smart-mouthed teens Elsie, Kimber, Morgan, and Rae have enough to handle with magical rings, talking dogs, and faeries, but when they discover that the knight they’ve been battling for Excalibur is a familiar face with a mission of his own, they must get to the bottom of the real intentions behind the quest they were given.

Mister X: The Modern Age TP

Dean Motter (W/A/Cover)

On sale Sept 20

FC, 368 pages • $29.99 • TP, 7” x 10”

In the retrofuturistic metropolis of Radiant City, its mysterious creator, Mister X, must protect the city and its residents from the architecture of the city itself, which poses a danger to all those within it! Collecting every Mister X comic published by Dark Horse Comics, this trade includes Condemned, Excavations, and Razed, along with never-before-seen behind-the-scenes material!

All of Dark Horse’s Mister X material collected in an affordable paperback!

A great jumping-on point to the classic series!

Moebius Library: The Art of Edena HC

Moebius (W/A/Cover)

On sale Sept 20

FC, 176 pages • $34.99 • HC, 8” x 10”

A companion volume to the critically acclaimed and New York Times best-selling World of Edena graphic novel, Moebius Library: The Art of Edena collects four fantastic Edena-related short stories and a mother lode of Moebius illustrations. A celebration of the imagery of Edena and the creative enthusiasm Moebius held for his Edena universe, this volume collects the short stories “Seeing Naples,” “Another Planet,” “The Repairmen,” and “Dying to See Naples,” as Moebius explores his imagination with Stel and Atan, two of his favorite characters.

Out-of-print stories and hard-to-find images—collected in an affordable hardcover!

The second volume in Dark Horse’s Moebius Library series!

“Glowingly illustrated in the elegant clear-line art and rich colors for which Moebius is justly revered, the book careens spectacularly through science fiction, fantasy, allegory, pop psychology, and psychedelia.”—Publishers Weekly

The Once and Future Queen #5 (of 5)

Adam P. Knave (W), D.J. Kirkbride (W), and Nickolas Brokenshire (A/Cover)

On sale July 12

FC, 32 pages • $3.99 • Miniseries

Enemies are revealed and plans are set in motion as the Fae go to war! Can Rani, Gwen, Lance, and Merlin save humanity? And even if they do . . . at what cost?

“Fun, upbeat, and Wonderfully diverse.” —Big Comic Page

Predator: Hunters #3 (of 5)

Chris Warner (W), Francisco Ruiz Velasco (A/Variant cover), and Doug Wheatley (Cover)

On sale July 5

FC, 32 pages • $3.99 • Miniseries

Contact! The assault team encounters the Predator at night on the tropical island! First blood goes to the alien hunter, but ten-to-one odds and machine guns favor the humans . . . unless there’s something about their quarry they don’t know!

Rebels: These Free and Independent States #5 (of 8)

Brian Wood (W), Andrea Mutti (A), Lauren Affe (C), and Matthew Taylor (Cover)

On sale July 26

FC, 32 pages • $3.99 • Miniseries

As a veteran of the War of Independence, Seth Abbott retired to his Vermont cabin and lived a quiet life. When his son John returns from the War of 1812 to a bustling, vibrant America that’s finally found its place in the world, what awaits him?

“Gutsy, well-written and with solid artwork, it is the first part of a grounded historical tale that will elevate the literary value of anyone’s pull list.”—Word of the Nerd

Shadows on the Grave #6 (of 8)

Richard Corben (W/A/Cover)

On sale July 12

FC, 32 pages • $3.99 • Miniseries

A hunter becomes the hunted when he ventures into restricted woods, but the nature of his adversary is truly terrifying. Recurring dreams haunt a man every year around his birthday. And Denaeus surprises his enemy, the king, when he reappears with an offer to help.

“There’s also something about Corben’s distinctive artwork that’s inherently unnerving, from the grotesquely exaggerated facial features to his tense, claustrophobic panels and layouts.”—Big Comic Page

The Shaolin Cowboy: Who’ll Stop the Reign? #4 (of 4)

Geof Darrow (W/A/Cover), Dave Stewart (C), and Genndy Tartakovsky (Variant cover)

On sale July 19

FC, 32 pages • $3.99 • Miniseries

Bullets, claws, and fists fly when the evil congress of King Crab and the Revengers play their final trump card and attempt to pass a ban on the Shaolin Cowboy, who filibusters heads in the most dogged way possible. Who has the stronger constitution? Find out in issue #4!!!!!!

Star Trek: The Original Series Adult Coloring Book Volume 2—Where No Man Has Gone Before TP

Juann Cabal (A), Will Conrad (A), Gabriel Guzmán (A/Cover), and Derlis Santacruz (A)

On sale Sept 13

b&w, 96 pages • $14.99 • TP, 10” x 10”

The coloring voyage continues with Star Trek: The Original Series Adult Coloring Book—Where No Man Has Gone Before. This beautifully illustrated volume features all-new, stunningly detailed black-and-white images from seasons 2 and 3 of the iconic sixties television show. Printed on high-quality stock, each illustration offers an array of diverse details to color as faithfully or as wildly as you choose and is single sided to avoid unsightly bleed-though. This is a must-have collectible for Star Trek fans throughout the galaxy!

Forty-five brand-new black-and-white images from the second and third seasons of the classic science-fiction series!

Zodiac Starforce: Cries of the Fire Prince #1 (of 4)

Zodiac Starforce returns!

Kevin Panetta (W), Paulina Ganucheau (A/Cover), and Jen Bartel (Variant cover)

On sale July 5

FC, 32 pages • $3.99 • Miniseries

An elite group of teenage girls with magical powers have sworn to protect our planet against dark creatures . . . as long as they can get out of class! Known as the Zodiac Starforce, these high-school girls aren’t just combating math tests—they’re also battling monsters!

After defeating a former ZS member and her mean-girl minions, the girls thought they’d get a little break! But a new big bad’s come out to play, and demons are starting to overrun the downtown!

The post Dark Horse Comics’ July 2017 Solicitations appeared first on CBR.

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[newyorktheater]

Coriolanus starring Tom Hiddleston, see June 4

Carousel with Nathan Gunn Kelli O’Hara. See June 5

Jonny Orsini and Nathan Lane in The Nance, See June 12

Heroes of the Fourth Turning see June 13

Aenid Moloney in “Yes! Reflections of Molly Bloom” see June 16 (Bloom’s Day of course)

Click here for June 1 openings

Below is the calendar of “theater openings”* for June, 2020, with many online shows, series and festivals showcasing LGBTQ Pride Month, and the entire list demonstrating the perseverance and resilience of an art form that is adjusting to the shut-down of physical stages.

Among the one-time only star-studded spectacles in June: We Are One Public at the Public Theater (see June 1), two different Tony Awards celebrations (see June 7, the date that the Tony Awards would have taken place) and the New York Times’ “Offstage: Opening  Night” (see June 11.) This last show launches a series that will feature performances from shows that opened (or should have opened) in the 2019-2020 season.

Pride Plays festival director Nick Mayo with producers Michael Urie and Doug Nevin

Among the other exciting new online series in June: Lincoln Center’s Dance Week  (which continues every day through June 4th) and its Broadway Fridays (Carousel on June 5th, The Nance on June 12, Act One on June 19), and Pride Plays, a partnership between Playbill and Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, which will present “a live streamed theatrical event from the LGBTQIA+ theatrical canon” every Friday in June (including Mort Crowley’s sequel to The Boys in the Band. See June 26)  — plus 11 new LGBT plays by emerging writers at dates yet to be announced.

Also take note of The Civilians’ ninth annual Findings series, which for the first time is going online. The five offerings in this year’s groundbreaking documentary theater series share “a common thread of how humanity perseveres and seeks out joy through adversity.”

Since so many shows are being put together at the last minute — sometimes not announced until the very day of their launch — I will be updating/filling in this preview guide every day, and highlighting the offerings each new day with the link up top. This calendar as of this moment offers a glimpse of what’s  in store. Come back day by day for a better look.

Here are some ongoing series that have proven to be reliable sources of art and entertainment.

Four offer live performances (often called readings) of original plays: The Homebound Project Livelabs: One Acts from MCC Play-PerView Viral Monologues from 24 Hour Plays

(Play-PerView makes an exception to its original plays with what counts as a coup — the live reading of the Pulitzer finalist play Heroes of the Fourth Turning. see June 13)

A fifth offers live readings of classics and recent favorites: Plays in the House, Stars in the House’s twice weekly matinees  and now Plays in the House Teen Edition.

Three offer recordings of previous (glorious) stage productions.

Metropolitan Opera National Theatre at Home The Shows Must Go On from Andrew Lloyd Webber

For details about these and other ongoing series, check out my post Where To Get Your Theater Fix Online  (which lists, for example, the many long-running online sites such as BraadwayHD and Marquee TV that offer video-capture recordings of shows that were on stage)

All performances are free unless otherwise noted, although almost all hope for a donation (either to themselves or to a designated charity.)

*My definition of theater for the purposes of this calendar generally does not extend to variety shows, cast reunions, galas, panel discussions, documentaries, classes, interviews — all of which are in abundance this month, many worth checking out, but it would be too Herculean a task to list them all in a monthly calendar. My focus here is on creative storytelling in performance. (I make an occasional exception for a high-profile Netathon,involving many theater artists.)

June 1

We Are One Public The Public Theater Live beginning at 8 p.m. A 90-minute Netathon (my term for the starry online fundraising concerts of the pandemic era) featuring “cameo appearances” by Jane Fonda, Alicia Keys, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Meryl Streep, and “stories and songs” by Antonio Banderas, Laura Benanti, Kim Blanck, Ally Bonino, Danielle Brooks, Glenn Close, Jenn Colella, Elvis Costello, Claire Danes, Holly Gould, Danai Gurira, Anne Hathaway, Stephanie Hsu, Oscar Isaac, Nikki M. James, John Leguizamo, Audra McDonald, Grace McLean, Sandra Oh, Mia Pak, David Hyde Pierce, Phillipa Soo, Trudie Styler & Sting, Will Swenson, Shaina Taub, Kuhoo Verma, Ada Westfall, Kate Wetherhead.

The Revenger’s Tragedy Red Bull Theater Launches 7:30 p.m. Jesse Berger’s adaptation of Thomas Middleton’s Jacobean thriller, written a few years after Hamlet, is a searing examination of humankind’s social need for justice and our animal desire for vengeance. Vindice, the “Revenger,” sets off a chain reaction of havoc in a corrupt and decadent Venice.

The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey 92nd Y Recording launches at 8 p.m, available through June 30 Donation to 92nd Street Y required A recording of the one-man show written and performed by James Lecesne, whose short film “Trevor” spawned The Trevor Project, a national suicide prevention helpline for LGBTQ youth. I liked this show when I saw it Off-Broadway in 2015. From my review: “A 14-year-old boy is reported missing, and eventually found dead. Chuck DeSantis, who worked the case as a tough-talking detective “in a half-ass town down the Jersey shore,” begins to tell us the story as if it’s a murder mystery, a film noir on stage (“The dark side is my beat.”) But “The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey”…is not really a murder mystery. It is, above all, a showcase for the impressive theatrical talents of James Lecesne, who portrays the detective and eight other characters, male and female, young and old. He does this without props or a change of costumes — just precise, spot-on gestures; a shift in accent and manner of speech.”

Ten Stories: A Decameron The Builders Association https://www.buildersdecameron.com/

Throughout the month of May, The Buildings Association theater company presented five live half-hour episodes inspired by the Decameron, Boccaccio’s 14th-century plague-story. Starting today, all will be released for viewing

Burst Playground Zoomfest Launches 5 p.m. ET As part of the 25th anniversary celebration of the San Francisco Playground Festival of New Works (this year completely digital), this play by Rachel Bublitz focuses on Sarah Boyd, the head of one of the fastest growing tech companies in history, at a moment before everything bursts.

June 2

Coppélia Lincoln Center Part of Dance Week, the New York City Ballet presents the 19th century comic ballet of a mad inventor and the life-like doll he creates.

June 3

Pues Nada MCC Launches at 5:30 This latest play in the LiveLabs One Acts series is written by Aziza Barnes, and features Karen Pittman as St. Francis and Samira Wiley as Sunny

The Homebound Project #3 Launches at 7 p.m. Available through June 7 $10 donation to No Kid Hungry required (free to frontline and essential workers) This third edition of original plays fundraising for No Kid Hungry, on the theme of “champions,” features: Jennifer Carpenter and Thomas Sadoski in a work by John Guare, directed by Jerry Zaks; Ralph Brown in a work by Donnetta Lavinia Grays, directed by Jenna Worsham; Diane Lane in a work by Michael R. Jackson; Paola Lázaro in a work by Gina Femia, directed by Taylor Reynolds; Joshua Leonard in a work by Mara Nelson-Greenberg; Eve Lindley in a work by Daniel Talbott, directed by Kevin Laibson; Arian Moayed in a work by Xavier Galva; Ashley Park in a work by Bess Wohl, directed by Leigh Silverman; Will Pullen in a work by Samuel D. Hunter, directed by Jenna Worsham; Phillipa Soo in a work by Clare Barron, directed by Steven Pasquale; and Blair Underwood in a work by Korde Arrington Tuttle.

June 4

Coriolanus National Theatre Available through June 11 Tom Hiddleston (Betrayal, The Avengers, The Night Manager) plays the title role in Shakespeare’s searing tragedy of political manipulation and revenge.

AAADT_Revelations

Alvin Ailey Lincoln Center This last show in Dance Week is a 2015 broadcast featuring Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performing Chroma, Grace, Takademe, and its signature dance, Revelations

June 5

Carousel Lincoln Center Launches at 8 p.m. The first of Lincoln Center’s Broadway Fridays features a free digital stream of its concert production of this Rodgers and Hammerstein musical featuring the New York Philharmonic and starring Kelli O’Hara, Nathan Gunn, Stephanie Blythe, Shuler Hensley, Jason Danieley,Jessie Mueller, Kate Burton, Tony winner John Cullum, and New York City Ballet dancers Robert Fairchild and Tiler Peck.

Brave Smiles…Another Lesbian Tragedy Pride Plays Launches at 7 p.m. The Five Lesbian Brothers (Maureen Angelos, Babs Davy, Dominique Dibbell, Peg Healey, and Lisa Kron) directed by Leigh Silverman.

Julius Caesar Irondale The second of four installments of a revised version of its 2016 show “1599” nspired by the book “A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599” by James Shapiro.

Candidate X The Civilians Launches at 3 p.m. Part of the Civilians “Findings” series, the show is “a dynamic cross between testimonial-based theatre and dance theatre,” celebrating “the risk-takers who challenge and defy the gendered expectations our country has of those who lead.”

The Nesting Instinct Playground Zoomfest Launches 5 p.m. E.T. Part of the 25th anniversary celebration of the San Francisco Playground Festival of New Works (this year completely digital): Two siblings in a house in a Florida flood zone, a pair of blue-footed boobies (those are birds) on a shrinking island are the characters in two of the intertwined stories in this play by Tom Bruett that explores parenthood, identity and the steadfast power of home in a world that is changing drastically.

June 6

The Rendering Cycle Playground Zoomfest Launches 5 p.m. ET As part of the 25th anniversary celebration of the San Francisco Playground Festival of New Works (this year completely digital), Genevieve Jessee’s ten interwoven short plays present a theatrical journey through 400 years of the African Diaspora. Directed by Margo Hall

June 7

Tony Awards Celebration Broadway on Demand and TonyAwards.com Launches 6 p.m. A Netathon for American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League, co-producers of The Tony Awards (which would have taken place tonight), the hour-long even will celebrate “the Broadway community, the Tony Awards®, and the global impact that Broadway has as a cultural touchstone around the world.”

Show of Shows: Broadway.com Salutes the Tonys Broadway.com Launches 7 p.m. Also a benefit for the Wing and the League, this one is produced by Paul Wontorek, who produced the 90th Sondheim celebration

June 9

Criminal Queerness Festival Dixon Place The first day of a festival that runs through June 29th, showcasing queer and trans artists from countries that criminalize or censor LGBTQ+ communities.

June 10

Black Feminist Video Game, African.Isch The Civilians Launches at 7 p.m. Part of the Civilians “Findings” series, the show presents a tapestry of theatrical narratives created from ethnographic interviews within the black community of Berlin, Germany.

June 11

Offstage: Opening Night Patti LuPone and Katrina Lenk and the cast of Company performing the show’s opening number; Tony winner Mary-Louise Parkerperforming a monologue from The Sound Inside; a chat with Slave Play scribe Jeremy O. Harris and a sing-along with Elizabeth Stanley from Jagged Little Pill. Times writers will also discuss some of their favorite moments from the truncated season. 7 p.m. Free, but need to register in advance

As You Like It Irondale The third of four installments of a revised version of its 2016 show “1599” nspired by the book “A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599” by James Shapiro.

June 12

The Nance Lincoln Center Launches at 8 p.m. A free digital stream of Lincoln Center Theater’s 2013 Broadway production of Douglas Carter Beane’s dark comedy starring Nathan Lane as a gay burlesque entertainer in the 1930s. ( My review)

One in two Pride Plays Donja R. Love’s portrait of what it means to be black and queer in America today.

June 13

Heroes of the Fourth Turning Play-Perview Launches at 8 p.m. Required $5 minimum donation A live one-time Zoom reading of this much-praised (and 2020 Pulitzer finalist) play by Will Arbery “It’s nearing midnight in Wyoming, where four young conservatives have gathered at a backyard after-party. They’ve returned home to toast their mentor Gina, newly inducted as president of a tiny Catholic college. But as their reunion spirals into spiritual chaos and clashing generational politics, it becomes less a celebration than a vicious fight to be understood.” My review when it was a Playwrights Horizons

  In These Uncertain Times Source Material Launches 7:30 p.m. A digital performance piece that uses drinking competitions, sad Chekhov monologues, and corona-virus meme collages to contemplate the impossibility of theater as we’ve known it, and forge a new path in the art form, while grieving for the past.

Best of Playground 24 Playground Zoomfest the top 10-minute plays from the 2019-20 season of the Playground Festival.

June 15

This Show Is Money The Civilians Launches at 8 p.m. A musical about the 1 and 99 percent, exploring how our choices with this fictional creation called money affect people around us in ways we find difficult to see.

June 16

Yes! Reflections of Molly Bloom Irish Rep The solo show excerpting the last chapter of “Ulysses” offered online on Bloom’s Day.

Looking for Leroy New Federal Theatre featuring AUDELCO Award winning actors Tyler Fauntleroy and Kim Sullivan, directed by Petronia Paley

June 18

Hamlet Irondale The third of four installments of a revised version of its 2016 show “1599” nspired by the book “A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599” by James Shapiro.

June 19

Act One Lincoln Center Broadway Fridays brings James Lapine stage adaptation of Moss Hart’s memoir for the stage, starring Tony Shalhoub, Andrea Martin and an especially winning Santino Fontana. My review from 2014

Masculinity Max Pride Plays A play by MJ Kaufman, directed by Will Davis

June 22

Against Women and Music The Civilians Launches at 3 p.m. Part of the Civilians’ Findings series, an anachronistic chamber musical that explores the notions of privilege, ambition and morality through the eyes of a female piano tuner in the 1800s. At that time, music was considered dangerous for women to play or even hear.

June 24

The Homebound Project #4

June 26

The Men from the Boys Pride Plays  Mort Crowley’s sequel to The Boys in the Band, showing what happens to the characters

June 28

Pride Spectacular Concert Playbill

June 30

Two Can Play New Federal Theatere Written by Trevor Rhone featuring Ron Bobb-Semple and Joyce Sylvester, directed by Clinton Turner Davis.

June 2020 Online Theater Openings: Pride and Perseverance. What’s Streaming Day by Day Click here for June 1 openings Below is the calendar of “theater openings”* for June, 2020, with many online shows, series and festivals showcasing LGBTQ Pride Month, and the entire list demonstrating the perseverance and resilience of an art form that is adjusting to the shut-down of physical stages.

[josephborrello]

Magnitude and Direction, Issue #33 | 17 May 2019

Hardware, Prototyping, and Fabrication

 How to build anything with delrin and a laser cutter. (I've been a big advocate for laser cutter-based manufacturing for a while, so this is a great breakdown of all the things you can make pretty quickly and cheaply with that machine, plus a very handy, widely used plastic.)  If I shared this before, then it was a while ago and it's worth bringing back for the M&D audience (especially now that there are more of you!). This is a guide from Autodesk for every piece of machinery in their Pier 9 workshop in San Francisco (which I, unfortunately didn't get to go to while I was out there). ⚔ Adafruit designed a fully 3D print-able collapsing lightsaber (just like the toy ones Toys R' Us used to sell, RIP) and you know I'm making a set over the weekend for dueling purposes.

Software and Programming

This CSS-only web chat app is definitely not a good idea, but at least its creator(s) are aware of that. Have you ever wanted to make cool *~*aesthetic*~* generative art (think Joy Division's "Unknown Pleasures" album cover)? Of course you have, and now there are some easy tutorials for you to follow.  A classic from the Transit Techies meetup, TransitFlow is software designed to make it easy to visualize the ebb and flow of multiple transit modalities simultaneously through both time and space. TL;DR: this code makes pretty maps!

Science, Engineering, and Biomedicine

 Just on its own, this picture of the Large Magellanic Cloud (a galactic satellite of our Milky Way) is incredibly impressive. It's capture is all the more impressive, though, because of the group that captured it: a small collection of amateur astronomers. ➡ Since we're on the opposite side of the calendar from winter (at least in the northern hemisphere) I think it's now safe to show this amazing video of a drop of water becoming a snowflake.  This galaxy simulator from Columbia's Department of Astronomy isn't the first intergalactic simulator I've shared here, but it is one of my favorites and produces some of the most beautiful results. It isn't actively supported on Columbia's servers anymore, though, so the link here is via the Internet Archive. If you have any trouble getting to it, drop me a line.

Mapping, History, and Data Science

 In celebration of the 100th anniversary of Children's Book Week a few weeks ago, the Library of Congress has released a free collection of their oldest children's books, with some of them dating back to the 1700s. Personally, I'm very curious to learn the plot details of The Cat's Party.  It turns out that, like most other things, there's no such thing as a truly original logo design. For tomorrow's edition of Moment of Inertia, I'll be exploring this theme of "originality" and what it means in the internet age in greater detail.  The study you never knew you needed to see: A comparison between the graffiti in men's and women's bathrooms.

Events and Opportunities

Did you realize I forgot to change the intro to this section in the last edition of M&D? In any case, there's a lot of exciting stuff coming up as we start heading towards summer.

Saturday, 5/18 The Futureworks Makerspace - the cornerstone of NYC's advanced manufacturing infrastructre - holds its grand opening. If you've been looking for a reason to go down to the Brooklyn Army Terminal, this is it.

Monday, 5/20 The New York Entrepreneurs, Startup & Business Coalition meetup group has one of their biggest networking happy hours yet, with the goal of bringing together people from a wide range of disciplines to meet potential co-founders, business partners, team members, and more.

Tuesday, 5/21 Harlem Biospace's next Riverside Chat deals with all things medical device investing (something I don't think the NYC ecosystem normally gives enough attention to).

Tuesday, 5/21 For anyone who will be in Detroit for TCT/RAPID (one of the biggest 3D printing industry trade shows of the year), my friends over at 3DHEALS will be hosting an invite-only happy hour. If you're interested in bioprinting and/or medical 3D printing applications, you should definitely check this out.

Wednesday, 5/29 SciArt convenes at Peculier Pub once again for their May mixer.

Wednesday, 5/29 Join NYDesigns for their monthly happy hour at Bierocracy to meet women engineers, developers, marketers, business developers, scientists, inventors, tinkerers, and awesome women involved in the New York City Tech ecosystem. Individuals who identify as female and men are welcome to attend as well!

Thursday, 5/30 JLABS @ NYC hosts their next Innovator and Entrepreneurs mixer, which is quickly becoming a mainstay of the NYC biotech scene.

Some other upcoming events to keep on your radar...

Thursday, 6/6 Join the Nanotech NYC meetup at their new monthly Nanonite Social! Whether you are a student, scientist, engineer or just curious about what nanotechnology is and how it's used, you're more than welcome to join the group. Heck, even if you aren’t a nanotech enthusiast and want to just get to know new people, come on by, it's a friendly group!

Saturday, 6/8 The next Music Community Lab hackathon explores the relationships between movement and music. The hackathon is on 6/8, but be sure to apply by 5/22 - space is limited!

Tuesday, 6/11 The Mid Atlantic Bio Angels have their next 1st Pitch competition. Always a great opportunity to connect with local up-and-coming biotech startups as well as the wider life science community in NYC.

Thursday, 6/20 JLABS celebrates 1 year in New York with a pitch competition some of the area's most promising local talent.

Thursday & Friday, 6/20-21 The Biodesign Challenge Summit 2019 on June 20th and 21st at Parsons School of Design and the Museum of Modern Art brings together 36 teams from 9 countries to present their visions for the future of biotechnology. Use code SUMMITVIP115 for a free pass.

Map of the Month

 It only has the years 2011 to 2013, but this map of all the filming locations in NYC is pretty fun to explore. On my block during that period, one movie was filmed: New Year's Eve staring well..., a bunch of people.

Odds & Ends

 With very little to work from the Image-to-Image AI will generate some pretty reasonable pictures of everyday objects.

[pete-and-pete]

Lori Greiner Net Worth: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Lori Greiner has been on ABC’s Shark Tank since 2012. As an inventor, entrepreneur, and television personality, Greiner has become a self-made millionaire. She developed her company For Your Ease Only, Inc., in 1996. The Chicago-based business does product development and marketing.

“I had to figure things out on my own. I feel that when you’re driving a business, you should know every facet of it since no one will love your business like you do,” Greiner told Parade in 2017.

Lori Greiner Net Worth: $50 Million

Lori Greiner’s net worth is $50 million, according to an estimate by Money Inc. She makes her money from the 700+ products that she has invented. She has also invested in hundreds of products on Shark Tank, some of which have made her millions.

Additionally, Greiner earns money from her long-running show on QVC, and sales of her book, which was released in 2014.

Here’s what you need to know:

1. She Has Invested More Than $9 Million on ‘Shark Tank’

According to Sharkalytics, a website that tracks the popular show, Greiner has invested more than $9.5 million on the show over the episodes the site analyzed. That sum is spread across 61 deals and 78 episodes.

Greiner’s average investment is just over $150,000. Her biggest deal came in Episode 6 of Season 5, when she sunk $600,000 in for a 9 percent stake of RuffleButts and RuggedButts, which sell girls and boys clothing and accessories, respectively. Her smallest deal landed her 7 percent of Scholly, a search engine that helps students navigate potential scholarships.

According to Sharkalytics, Greiner’s average stake in a company is 19 percent. Her largest stake is 65 percent of ReadeREST, a company that sells magnetic eyeglass holders, for which she invested $150,000.

Of Greiner’s 61 deals, 27 of them (44 percent) have been in conjunction with another shark. Her most frequent partner is Mark Cuban, with whom she’s gone in with 11 times.

2. She Makes Money on ‘Shark Tank’ & on QVC, Where She’s Had Her Own Show for Nearly 2 Decades

Greiner earns money for every appearance she makes on Shark Tank. But Shark Tank isn’t Greiner’s only taste of TV. After some early success on the Home Shopping Network, Lori moved on to her own show, Clever & Unique Creations, on QVC in 2000.

To celebrate her first decade on the channel, Greiner and QVC created a special affair.

“Last month, she launched 10 items as part of her 10th-anniversary celebration with QVC. And her appearances – usually several a month – often offer a mix of new products and best sellers,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reported in 2010.

Her success on QVC has even earned her a nickname.

“She is widely acclaimed as ‘The Queen of QVC’ due to her out-of-the-ballpark success in launching new products on QVC (and even helping to elevate and shape the brand of that program),” reads a Forbes report from 2012.

3. She Has Invented More Than 700 Products

According to her own website, Greiner has invented more than 700 products and holds 120 patents.

“Greiner says she never set out to be a serial inventor, but her first product, a plastic earring organizer she created in 1996, came out of a conversation she had with a friend about earrings and the fact that jewelry boxes are a nightmare,” Parade reported in September 2017.

Greiner took out a $300,000 loan and found a manufacturer that could produce her design. With a prototype in hand, she secured an order from retailer JC Penney and was able to pay back the initial loan within 18 months.

“In the beginning, I was just thinking as fast as I could to come up with more and more. I’d look for problems that people experience in everyday life. Then I would think about how an item could come to life,” Greiner told Parade.

4. She Made Millions With ‘Scrub Daddy,’ a Texture -Changing Household Sponge

One Shark Tank deal, in particular, has been a smash success for Greiner.

On Episode 7 of Shark Tank’s fourth season, Greiner invested in Scrub Daddy, a company that manufactures and sells a sponge that changes textures and is shaped like a smiley face. Founder Aaron Krause initially sought $100,000 for a 10 percent stake in Scrub Daddy. Greiner, perhaps seeing the value and marketability of the product, doubled that, taking a 20 percent stake for $200,000.

“The night the show aired, there was 30,000 hits to our website. Instantly you have a name brand and you have to be ready and prepared when they happen,” Krause told ABC News.

Additionally, Scrub Daddy appeared on QVC.

“In its first appearance on the network, Scrub Daddy sold 7,000 sets of six sponges in under seven minutes,” Bustle reported in December 2014.

Scrub Daddy has also diversified with Colors, Lemon Fresh and Heavy Duty lines, and can be purchased in retail stores.

5. She Released Her First Book, ‘Invent It, Sell It, Bank It! Make Your Million-Dollar Idea Into a Reality,’ in 2014

Greiner is known as the warm-blooded shark. Even when she’s not interested in a deal, she’s still willing to offer the people in front of her genuinely useful feedback to help them along in their journey.

“I know that when an entrepreneur stands before us pitching a concept, it is the biggest moment in his or her business life. It means everything and it’s an enormous risk. I get it because I was once in their shoes,” Greiner told Parade.

Perhaps with that in mind, Greiner published her first book, Invent It, Sell It, Bank It! Make Your Million-Dollar Idea into a Reality, in March 2014. A National Bestseller, the book is described as “a hands-on, nuts-and-bolts guide to getting a new product or company off the ground and making it a success.”

Her fellow shark, Mark Cuban, offered this review of her book.

“I am used to dealing with Mavericks and Lori fits the bill! Lori Greiner’s insightful and practical book, Invent It, Sell It, Bank It! should be on the required reading list for anyone who wants to take an idea and turn it into a real business,” reads Cuban’s review on Amazon.

source https://heavy.com/entertainment/2018/10/lori-greiner-net-worth/

[bluebookweb]

Pizza Hut at 60, Delivering Chipotle and The Dapper Doughnut Debuts

This edition of MRM’s Daily Bite has news from Pizza Hut,  Chipotle and DoorDash, The Dapper Doughnut, MR.SUB, P. F. Chang’s, Chicago Meat Authority and City Harvest.

Send news items to Barbara Castiglia at bcastiglia@modernrestaurantmanagement.com.

Happy 60th Birthday, Pizza Hut!

In celebration of its birthday, Pizza Hut  is introducing a new pizza that combines two of the brand’s most iconic menu items into one great new innovation called Double Cheesy Crust Pan Pizza.

The new, limited-time pizza pays homage to Stuffed Crust and Original Pan by baking a ring of cheese just inside the unmistakably golden edge of Pizza Hut Pan crust. An additional layer of toasted parmesan is baked on the crust edge and the pizza is topped off with a blend of parmesan and oregano. 

“In addition to winning over pizza fans with innovations like the Double Cheesy Crust Pan Pizza, Pizza Hut has also become part of the fabric of American pop culture,” said Zipporah Allen, CMO, Pizza Hut.  “Whether it’s making an appearance in iconic movies or changing the way we order food by being the first pizza ordered online, Pizza Hut has proven time and time again that No One Out Pizzas the Hut.” 

Did you know that Pizza Hut:

Made appearances in more than 19 movies

Created the nation’s largest reading-incentive program with BOOK IT!

Was the first pizza delivered to the White House

Was the first physical good ever purchased via the internet

Started with one store in Wichita, Kan., in 1958, opened in part thanks to a $600 loan from “mom” to the founding brothers Frank and Dan Carney

Choreographed the longest pizza delivery in history, sending an order via rocket to the International Space Station

Set a World Record for highest pizza delivery to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro

For many years was the largest global purchaser of kale

Created one-of-a kind Pie Tops sneakers that order pizza with a push of a button

Forged a global partnership with Toyota to explore the future of autonomous vehicle pizza delivery and other initiatives to improve mobility around the world

Earlier this year, Pizza Hut released the Pie Tops II, Bluetooth-enabled sneakers that order pizza and pause the TV with a push of a button. Recently, the company also launched voice command ordering, the first pizza tracker that includes text messaging and Hut Rewards, the only national pizza loyalty program with a faster way to free pizza through points for every dollar spent on food online.

“Over the past 60 years, Pizza Hut has become so much more than just a pizza company,” said Allen. “We are proud of the achievements made in the last 60 years and are looking forward to what the future holds.”

Chipotle Teams with DoorDash

Chipotle Mexican Grill and DoorDash teamed for a national delivery partnership that makes Chipotle delivery available from more than 1,500 Chipotle restaurants across the country, the company’s largest delivery footprint to date.

“Delivery is an important way we are making Chipotle even more convenient and accessible to our customers who want to get Chipotle delivered right to their home, office, or wherever they are,” said Curt Garner, chief digital and information officer at Chipotle. “By partnering with a delivery leader like DoorDash, we are making it even easier for customers to enjoy all the real ingredients that make up our delicious food.”

To launch this partnership, Chipotle customers are eligible for free delivery on Chipotle orders of $10 or more placed through DoorDash to Sunday, May 6, including May 5 in celebration of Cinco de Mayo. Chipotle customers in areas across the U.S where DoorDash is available can place their orders on the DoorDash mobile app or website. Delivery on qualifying orders will be free during regular Chipotle operating hours for the entire week using the promo code GETCHIPOTLE at checkout. 

“We strive to offer our customers the best selection possible,” said Christopher Payne, chief operating officer of DoorDash. “Our ability to deliver such delicious and requested food from restaurants like Chipotle, while keeping quality at the forefront, has enabled us to become a leader in this industry.”

The Dapper Doughnut Debuts

Beavers Coffee + Donuts is re-branding to The Dapper Doughnut, the name of their franchise company, and aggressively rolling out new locations nationwide. Childhood friends who shared an entrepreneurial spirit, strong worth ethic and passion for food, Gabriel Wiesen and James Nuccio started Beavers Coffee + Donuts in 2011. Making fresh, fried to order mini donuts and serving locally roasted coffee on Chicago’s first cooking food truck, the pair grew their business in Chicago to include five additional food trucks and a permanent location inside the Chicago French Market.

 Over the past year, they have opened up a new flagship store inside the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, and started franchising their made to order mini donut concept, which has turned into a runawayhit. To date, they have more than 30 franchise locations currently awarded and many more coming on board each month.

“We put it all on the line, and are so blessed with what has happened,” said Wiesen. “We are thrilled to have the ability to share our success with so many others who are also chasing their dream of owning a small business.”

In less than seven years, the company evolved from a “garage-born” startup, to an award-winning brand that franchisees want to be part of. Today, the franchise is available as traditional stand-alone storefronts, food trucks, and kiosks.

“Jimmy and I have poured our hearts and soul into this business- from physically doing every element of the operations when we first launched, to leading a staff of more than 50 currently. You might say Jimmy and I have donuts in our blood and coffee running through our veins,” added Wiesen. “We are incredibly proud of the Beavers Coffee + Donuts brand and all that our team has achieved. But as we grow further beyond Chicago we are adapting and appealing to a new national audience. We know our reputation for amazing donuts and customer service will follow us as we transition to The Dapper Doughnut, and we could not be more excited for what is to come.”

The Dapper Doughnut locations started opening outside of Chicago beginning roughly a year ago with stores currently open or in development in Reno, Dallas, Houston, Creve Couer, Missouri, Cincinnati, Nashville, Atlanta, New Stanton, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Boston, Denver, and Greenville, South Carolina with their flagship store at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and another flagship store to open this summer at the Fulton Center located in the financial district of Manhattan.

“Our goal, that we are on pace to reach, is 100+ franchise territories awarded by the end of 2018. We have also begun discussions with several large franchise development companies who are interested in potentially adding hundreds of locations both nationally and internationally this year. Those deals aside, we are experiencing tremendous growth, and we are honored and ready to work with so many great franchise partners,” said Wiesen.

 MR.SUB Turns 50

The first in its category in Canada to introduce RWA meats, MR.SUB  is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Since 1968, when MR.SUB first opened its doors in Yorkville, Toronto, it has been serving sandwiches, to over 270 locations across Canada and internationally. MR.SUB is now introducing meats raised without antibiotics to the menu.

“We are constantly evolving and remain dedicated to providing Canadians with fresh, quality ingredients, which is why we are excited to share that MR.SUB will now be serving our most popular proteins all raised without antibiotics,” said Jason Brading, Brand Vice President, MR.SUB.  “As we look back at the past 50 years and the opportunities that we’ve had to share our meals with Canadians, it’s easy to see that we did not get here alone. We’re dedicating our 50th anniversary to all who helped us grow and made our restaurants their home away from home. We’ve made the food, but it has been Canadians who have made MR.SUB, and we are proud to demonstrate our sincere appreciation by offering healthier choice options to our guests, like our new raised without antibiotics line up.”

MR.SUB will be the first National sub sandwich restaurant in the QSR industry in Canada to serve meats raised without antibiotics, including turkey, salami, ham and luncheon meat.

P.F. Chang’s Opening in China

P.F. Chang’s is opening  its first restaurant in China at the No1 Mall on the iconic Nanjing Road in Shanghai. P.F. Chang’s currently owns and operates more than 300 restaurants in 23 countries and territories.

“We’re thrilled to bring P.F. Chang’s to China,” said Michael Osanloo, P.F. Chang’s CEO. “We have been very successful in 23 other countries and are confident our unique Asian-inspired offerings will resonate with the sophisticated Chinese consumer. Our food is made fresh, from scratch every day in every P.F. Chang’s restaurant around the world. We’re honored to offer this unique experience to Shanghainese consumers and travelers to this amazing city.”

P.F. Chang’s plans to open six to eight restaurants in the U.S., and an additional 12-15 restaurants globally in 2018.

CMA Wins Organic Certification

Chicago Meat Authority (CMA)  is certified to begin producing cuts of pork with the option to produce other meats such as beef and poultry for customers who want organic products.

Chicago Meat Authority has been certified by MOSA as a handler under the USDA National Organic Program. As a handler, CMA is required to have a program in place to ensure that organic products remain pure and are not cross-contacted with non-organic products or prohibited substances.

“We are delighted to provide the organic option to our customers,” said Lisa Rabe, director of technical assurance at CMA. “Our customers are requesting organic meats and clean labeling. We are looking at ways to provide all these potential items in the coming months. We are testing different marinations and other quality control options to satisfy all of our customers’ needs.”

As a certified handler, CMA stores organic raw material and finished products separately from non-organic products in keeping with the company’s rigorous quality control procedures. All procedures and processes are monitored and verified to ensure that all requirements are followed.

CMA currently has been certified to produce organic pork butts and picnics. To produce beef and poultry, MOSA can amend CMA’s certification to include those proteins and any other pork products the company wants to produce.

Products are certified USDA organic when they are produced using exclusively organic methods containing only organic ingredients. The organic requirements include the collection of information on the history of every animal including the breed history, veterinary care and feed plus the animals must be raised on certified organic land that is not subject to most synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, sewage sludge or genetic engineering for at least three years and animals must have outdoor access.

Organic farms tend to be smaller than so-called factory farms and farmers and ranchers have to manage their herds for longer times before slaughter because they do not use synthetic growth hormones or antibiotics. While all of these factors add to the cost of each product produced, consumers have shown a willingness to pay a premium for food that is grown and produced according to the USDA National Organic Program.

Since 1990, the Midwest Organic Services Association says the organic food industry has grown by more than 20% per year. In 2014, organic sales reached $39 billion and represented five percent of all food sold in the United States. Americans increasingly are showing more of an awareness and interest in adding organic food to their diets. Approximately 70 percent buy organic food occasionally and nearly 25 percent buy some organic food every week.

Chicago Meat Authority began in 1990, encompasses 80,000 square feet and produces sales of $125 million per year. The company sells to the hotel, restaurant and institutional markets in addition to meat purveyors and multi-unit regional and national chains. CMA also specializes in custom cuts for further processors including grinding operations, deli manufacturers and the meat snacks market. The company employs 200 specialty butchers who customize meat for selective chefs.

City Harvest Commemorates 35th Anniversary

This year, City Harvest commemorates a major milestone: 35 years of fighting hunger and food insecurity across New York’s five boroughs. The organization rescues nutritious food that would otherwise go to waste, and redirects it to help feed the nearly 1.3 million New Yorkers, including one in five children, who struggle daily to put meals on their tables.

Since December 1982, the organization has rescued and delivered more than 600 million pounds of food, and this year alone, will rescue 59 million pounds of food, delivering it to 500 soup kitchens, food pantries and other community food programs across the five boroughs. By redirecting nutritious food from farms, grocers, restaurants, manufacturers and farmers’ markets to New Yorkers in need, City Harvest has created an unprecedented way to address food waste and hunger. This “neighbor-helping-neighbor” model has been replicated across the country and around the world, from Houston, Texas to Athens, Greece.  

City Harvest’s work has always focused on serving vulnerable populations through pioneering solutions that also foster community engagement. When its first Executive Director Helen verDuin Palit was eating a potato skins appetizer at a local restaurant, she saw the practical value discarded potato insides could have in the soup kitchen where she was volunteering at the time. After speaking with the chef, verDuin Palit got the restaurant to donate 30 gallons of cooked potatoes. In that defining moment, City Harvest—not to mention the simple but revolutionary idea of food rescue—was born.

“New York is a city that has so much, and it is unthinkable that so many of our neighbors do not have enough food for themselves and their families,” said current City Harvest Chief Executive Officer Jilly Stephens. “Nearly half of all households in our city don’t earn enough income to make ends meet. Many New Yorkers we serve have homes and jobs. In one of the most expensive cities in the country, it’s not easy to pay fixed expenses like rent, utilities, childcare, and transportation—and still have enough to put food on the table. City Harvest was founded by neighbors helping neighbors, and that principle will always remain at the heart of our mission.”

Adapting to and evolving with the needs of New York City’s diverse, ever-changing, and growing population has been central to City Harvest’s history—in good times, and in bad. From distributing hot meals to first responders in the weeks immediately following 9/11, to quickly delivering more than one million pounds of additional food when families were struggling during the 2008 financial collapse, to providing seven million pounds of relief food in response to Superstorm Sandy, City Harvest has helped New Yorkers through some of our darkest hours. The organization also stepped up to aid in hurricane relief efforts in Houston, Florida and Puerto Rico this past year, sending food and supplies to neighbors in need across the nation.

Through the Healthy Neighborhoods initiative, City Harvest has become a model for how to meet immediate food needs while also promoting wellness and the prevention of diet-related illnesses. The organization works hand-in-hand with communities in need through innovative programs such as Mobile Markets, which bring free, fresh fruits and vegetables to low-income communities, and nutrition education workshops, which help New Yorkers of all ages use fresh produce and create health-oriented dishes.

“Thanks to City Harvest, people in my neighborhood have access to fresh produce and food – especially fresh vegetables that they can’t afford in the supermarket,” said Belinda Ebanks, a participant in City Harvest’s Mobile Market in Queens. “City Harvest encourages people to eat fresh fruit and vegetables as opposed to canned, or not eating them at all. City Harvest means we have food to feed our families.”

As City Harvest marks 35 years, it is stronger than ever before, thanks to the support of thousands of volunteers, food donors, individual and corporate donors, restaurant and chef partners, soup kitchens, food pantries, and community partners who work together to ensure that all New Yorkers, no matter who they are or where they come from, have access to nutritious food.

Pizza Hut at 60, Delivering Chipotle and The Dapper Doughnut Debuts posted first on happyhourspecialsyum.blogspot.com

[infinitehouseofbooks]

5 YEARS OF INFINITE HOUSE OF BOOKS COUNTDOWN – JULY 2014 TO JANUARY 2015 RECAP

  INFINITE HOUSE OF BOOKS turns 5 years old in April of 2017. Due to a massive failure with the blog’s previous hosting provider, all blogs prior to February 2015 were lost. However, the administrator has the original assets on file and a calendar of  featured content. As a lead-up to the anniversary, features will be released on the fifth of each month that chronicle a period in the blog’s past and some of the highlights still worth noting today. This post is the sixth and final in the series. Enjoy!

In this period of time, both INFINITE HOUSE OF BOOKS and DISCOVER WORDS featured many books. The Summer of Pro Se author event, featuring authors from Pro Se Press, would dominate the summer lineup, though other authors would be featured. However, the unexpected crash of the blog that came in early 2015 meant the end for DISCOVER WORDS as an excerpt/spotlight only format, in that starting up two WordPress blogs from scratch would be prohibitive; ultimately, it changed into the current moniker for the YouTube video channel.

Here are some highlights from that time period.

July 2014: Six Guns and Spaceships (featuring an interview with contributor Philip Athans)

Available on Kindle and in print.

August 2014: Solomon’s Whisper

Still available in print and on Kindle.

September 2014: The Cottoncrest Curse

Still available in print, on Kindle, and for Audible.

October 2014: Rush of Shadows

Still available in print and on Kindle.

November 2014: Slouching Towards Camulodumum and Other Stories

This is still available in print and on Kindle.

Read the original author interview below:

1. What initially got you interested in writing?

When I was a child, I enjoyed telling stories to my friends, including relating horror movie summaries to them. I also wrote stories, my own horror magazines, and even made my own comic book. It was written and drawn with ballpoint pin on stapled notebook paper. For my horror magazines, I cut up professional monster magazines for photos. Then I sold this one issue I’d made. No copies. I don’t think Xeroxes existed back then – we’re talking the late 1960s-early 1970s. My comic book was inspired by an older kid I looked up to:  Rick Gibson. He had made his own comic book, so I had to do my own as well. My superhero was “the Masked Marble.” Get it? I promised a follow-up issue featuring “Bug Versus the Man of Blood.”  Realizing that I could never write a story that could possibly live up to that plot description, I never made good on the promised comic, much to the disappointment of my readership, I’m sure. I did grow up to write real comics for Image (Heaven’s War and Lorna, Relic Wrangler).

  2. How did you decide to make the move into becoming a published author?

  I was excited by the short story magazine market that was alive and well in the not-yet-electronic media world that was the 1980s. I would have sold my first story to the venerable Weird Tales but they had already bought a long story that centered on a vampire, as did mine. They weren’t keen on following up with a similarly themed story so soon, so I was out of luck.

3.What do you want readers to take away from reading your works?

Among other things, I want them to have taken a trip to the world I’m presenting and met some characters whom they have come to care about, whose adventures they’ll reflect on afterwards. I’d like it to be just as though they’d made some friends they had to leave behind when their vacation was finished.

4.What do you find most rewarding about writing?

Getting an idea and developing it into a full story. The more off beat the idea, the better. I also like developing characters, coming to understand them psychologically, and hopefully creating some who are memorable. I also enjoy revision and making the prose more clear and vivid.

  5. What do you find most challenging about writing?

Revision and making the prose more clear and vivid.

  6. What advice would you give to people wanting to enter the field?

Don’t get in a hurry.

  7. Is there anything else besides writing you think people would find interesting about you?

I teach composition, literature, and film, and I am also a minor film historian. My area, though, is definitely at the fringe of Hollywood. Maybe I’m interviewing the director of what could have been  a ground breaking film that was never completed. Or researching the life of a mentally challenged sideshow performer who was living in poverty at the same time he was being featured in one of the “Head Movies” popular with the ‘60’s drug culture. I have a historical novel that I’ve written based on him.

  8. What are the best ways to connect with you, or find out more about your work?

Look me up on Facebook. I’m the Micah Harris with the wanted poster of “Killer Bob”  from Twin Peaks as his icon. Most of my books can be found in print and/or in digital copies on Amazon. Here are links to some of them:

  http://www.amazon.com/Slouching-Toward-Camulodunum-Other-Stories/dp/0981677010/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415573709&sr=1-2&keywords=micah+s.+harris

http://www.amazon.com/Frequency-Fear-Micah-S-Harris-ebook/dp/B00MVA2F5K/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415573709&sr=1-4&keywords=micah+s.+harris

http://www.amazon.com/Jim-Anthony-Super-Detective-Hunters-ebook/dp/B00EGS0BKG/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415573709&sr=1-5&keywords=micah+s.+harris

http://www.amazon.com/Heavens-War-TP-Micah-Harris/dp/1607068478/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415573709&sr=1-6&keywords=micah+s.+harris

December 2014: There are no surviving records of what features may have been run in December of 2014. The administrator does not recall any content that stood out as memorable. There may not have been anything.

  January 2015: From Newton, Einstein, to God

This is still available in print and on Kindle.

During January 2015, upgrades to the blogs altered them in a way that made them unusable and old backups unreliable. The blogs were relaunched without trying to rebuild the older content, bringing the readership to where it is today.

Join us April 5th as the celebration of FIVE years online gets underway!

5 YEARS OF INFINITE HOUSE OF BOOKS COUNTDOWN – JULY 2014 TO JANUARY 2015 RECAP was originally published on the Wordpress version of SHANNON MUIR'S INFINITE HOUSE OF BOOKS.