Tag: McKay natters about stuff

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Update and Hearthstone

McKay

I’ve just done a little update to our site to include “Herc’s Mercs: The Bigger They Come” on  our list of novellas, and I’ve got a separate page for it set up on our series list as well. I also updated the reviews page.

This weekend, I’ve got a lull that will allow me to (finally!) finish the Herc’s Mercs 2 edits, so I think we’ll be submitting that next week. We don’t have anything coming out in May, but we do have a short story coming out from Dreamspinner Press in June! We’re participating in the Daily Dose again this year, and our entry, “Changing the Things You Can”, will be available on June 1.

In other, non-writing related news, I’ve gotten really into playing Blizzard’s new online card game, Hearthstone. I’ve played Blizzard games for well over ten years, starting with the original Warcraft games, and I’ve played World of Warcraft since launch in 2004. I’m also playing Diablo III pretty regularly since the new expansion came out last month. But really, it’s Hearthstone that’s got me sucked in right now.

I’ve never been particularly interested in card games before. I never got into Magic or anything like that, but Hearthstone is proving to be a lot more fun than I expected! I haven’t really built a killer deck yet, but I’ve been having fun with my priest deck lately. I played it some last week because one of the daily quests was to win two games with either a priest or paladin deck.

I ended up in a game against a hunter that was going pretty bad for me. I was down to about five HP while he** was still hovering around 20 (you start with 30). His mistake was starting to toss the “well played” emote*** at me prematurely because he obviously thought he was going to smash my face in, especially when he brought out a Gruul that gets +1 health and +1 attack at the end of every turn.

The problem? I was at ten mana and had a mind control card in my hand (which costs ten mana). I mind controlled his Gruul away from him and whittled his health down to 14. He played a card with “taunt”, which means it acts like a shield; you can’t hit the player until that card is out of the way. At that point, I was still at 5 HP against his 14, and he started “well played”-ing me again because (I assume) he thought I wouldn’t be able to get through the taunt card and get to him before he got to me.

The problem? I had #2 of 2 mind control cards in my hand and the Gruul had gotten its +1/+1 up to where it had 14 attack. So I mind controlled his taunt card over to me and beat him with his own Gruul. (No, I didn’t get to keep it permanently.)

I think the moral of this story is not to be a dick and start “well played”-ing your opponent until you’ve actually won the game. Also, luck of the draw, man. Luck of the draw. That was my most epic win, even beating out the game where my opponent and I got each other down to 1 HP and I only won because they ran out of moves and it was my turn.

 

** I say “he” because the hunter avatar is a male character from Warcraft; I don’t know the actual gender of the player.

*** You’d think this would be a good thing, but I’ve read on the Blizzard forums where players are actually using the emote to be dicks and mock their opponent before demolishing them.

Diary

Must See TV

McKay

So the fall television schedule is starting up soon, and Ari and I have been deciding what we’re going to watch this season. Unsurprisingly, we end up watching a lot of the same shows, which makes things interesting when we’re in chat, watching the show together while living in separate states. It results in a lot of random “OMGWTF Did you see that??” and a gamut of emoticons. 😀

This week, season 4 of Haven begins on the SyFy channel. We’ve both been watching this series since the beginning and are still squeeful fangirls over it. It’s the only show I’ve seen where an OT3 (one true threesome) between the lead characters could actually work, because while Audrey is attracted to/cares for both Nathan and Duke and vice versa, there is something going on between Nathan and Duke as well. It’s like one minute, they’re both “I hate you so much” and the next, they’re all “OMG you’re in danger! I must save you, my woobie!” And they touch each other and get up in each other’s personal space in very non-platonic ways.

Above and beyond all that, the premise of the show is engaging, there’s an over-reaching story arc that is fascinating, and the monster of the week episodes are well-done. Haven has consistently remained on my must-see list for years, and that’s not easy to do.

Grimm will be starting up again next month, which has both me and Ari cheering because as much as we both love Nick and Monroe (such a woobie!), we are drawn to Captain Renard like moths to a flame because he’s one of those snarky, dark-haired, big-nosed antiheroes we so love. As with Haven, Grimm has an on-going arc with monster of the week type episodes. I always find it interesting to see how they’re going to incorporate new elements of fairy tales and folklore with the new creatures they introduce, and the makeup and SFX are amazingly well done. It’s rather like a police procedural meets Grimm’s fairy tales with political intrigue thrown in for good measure.

One of the new shows we’re looking forward to is Sleepy Hollow, which premieres next week. For one thing, both of us like the legend. For another, Ichabod is hot. For me personally, I’ll watch anything with Clancy Brown in it even if he only lasts five minutes, as the show’s trailer suggests. I’ve been in love with that man since seeing  Highlander back in the day. I’m hoping that a) it’s a good interpretation of the legend and b) Fox lets it last for more than one season if it is good.

One show that’s on my watch list but not Ari’s is Survivor, which I’ve been a fan of since season 1. This season brings back former participants — including Rupert, who has been one of my favorites since the Pearl Island season — paired off against their loved ones. It’s an interesting twist, although it could go horribly wrong. I hope relationships aren’t ruined over the course of the season, because this show can get brutal when people start getting caught up in the “outwit, outlast, outplay” mindset.

Then next month, I’ll start haunting (hee) TCM and AMC for classic horror movie marathons; I love it when I stumble across Hammer movie or Vincent Price marathons. I’ll also pull out my classic horror movie DVDs and watch those all month. I’m much more of a classic horror fan, meaning the 1920s-1970s. I especially avoid the modern slasher movies (Halloween, Friday the 13th, etc) and torture porn (Hostel, Saw, The Devil’s Rejects). Give me Christopher Lee grappling with Peter Cushing any day!

Which reminds me! I do plan to give Dracula a shot because it’s Dracula. ‘Nuff said. Vampires in general and Dracula in particular are my favorite horror icons, and I could write a whole post about the evolution of the vampire based on what it represents on a cultural level… but not today. Suffice to say, I’ll give anything about vampires and/or with “Dracula” in the title a fair shot. If it sucks (hee), I’ll complain bitterly about it and grab my Lugosi and Lee versions to soothe my soul.