So here we are! As threatened/promised over a year ago, I’m moving off WordPress. Matt Mullenweg has not gotten particularly more relaxed about anything; last week he decided to tell a CSS framework to change names because their current name is similar to his company name. Given that the CSS framework is named Automatic, similar to Mullenweg’s company name, you can sort of see it, but really? No. They already added a disclaimer on their Web site, and “automatic” is a very generic term. I have still had enough of Mullenweg. Time to move.

November is unthemed this year: one noir collection but otherwise not heavy on the femmes fatale and criminal sorts. It’s also nicely varied, with one blockbuster of a collection and a fair amount of other cool stuff. Actually two blockbuster collections now that I think about it.

The news broke today that the performative anti-gay, anti-abortion activists Mayday USA are suing Seattle for imaginary free speech violations. Well that’s fun. I’m not about to waste the research effort I did just because the Seattle Times had to close their comment section, so here we go! One paragraph summary: they’re a bunch of New Apostolic Reformation assholes who came to Seattle this summer to fire up controversy and got what they wanted – counter-protesters, arrests, and a lot of free publicity. So it goes. Now they’re suing because the publicity is fading and the grift is based on constant weeping and wailing.

Well holy crap, that’s a year’s worth of these. I’m certainly not blogging like I used to but the monthly commitment is working out! And what a good lineup for my 12th month. The top line collections rotate around two unquestionable masters, and the good programming doesn’t end there. We’ll eat well in September. Let’s get to it.

It’s with some sadness that I decided it was time to turn off comments on this blog. I’ve enjoyed many of them over the years, even the guy who implied I was jury tampering. However, two changes have affected my desire to keep running them: First, I want to get off WordPress thanks to the dubious lawsuits and Internet fights that have been churning along for months now. This is not a stable platform any more. That’ll be easier if I just have to preserve old comments and I don’t try and add a comment section to a static page blog. ...

Hey, I’m using the year in the titles now! Shows I didn’t have much confidence that I’d keep this going a year ago. Well, a big raspberry to younger me. We’re getting spooky again, of course, with a lineup that is varied both in types of horror and in quality. I think we have another contender for worst movie to ever play on the Channel – read on to find out which one.

Welcome back to my read-through of Dark Inheritance, a mostly forgotten child of the D20 boom! Find all the entries in the series here. The first chapter after the introduction is a big old lore dump. This matches general expectations at the time, although you know there’s gonna be more lore integrated into the mechanics, and it’s also probably smart for the modern world but occult setting. It’s only 20 pages long, which probably helps explain why it was an impulse purchase for me way back when – I skimmed this quickly in the dealer’s hall.

Well that was an excellent week. Some vacations are a great way to disconnect from work while not being at all relaxing; this was one of those. I came back tired and a bit uncomfortable from a week of trying to navigate diabetes plus campus area quick food plus short blocks of time between movies. Informative on my current physical limits, though, and it was a shining Fantasia in terms of movies. We hope to go back next year, although in the process of going through this blog and tagging all my old Fantasia entries, I’ve found out how often I said that only to hit blockers. 30th anniversary, though! ...

Midway through my week in Montreal for Fantasia Festival, and boy is my ass tired. Losing weight is excellent, it’s just that I don’t have as much padding as I used to and Concordia University lecture hall chairs were not completely designed for two hour stretches. Worth it, though. This is not my look at the full festival — that’ll come next week. Instead, I’ve been spending time thinking about why I cherish this festival so much. ...

What a fun lineup. I think the Channel’s really nailing the summer feel this year. As always, there’s a palpable absence of Boston Crime collections, but I imagine they’re just waiting for the fall to get into that one.