Four Letter Words (A Story I Wrote)

I've often heard of swear words being refereed to as "four letter words." Often times things like "some people don't like four letter words" or "you shouldn't use four letter words" will be said. Now, anyone who has read basically anything I've wrote on here knows I have no predilections about swearing, but every time I hear this I think about how difficult it would be to communicate without four letter words. So I'm going to try and write a story for you all with no four letter words.

Four Letter Words
Clerance awoke startled by the blare of his clock and rolled out of bed. He walked to the table covered by payments due and overdue. He sighed deeply not pleased by his situation or how he meant to fix it. He strode towards the cabinet in the corner and opened it slowly. There on the third shelf sat his piece. He got it as a bit of security since he was fully aware of the things people did in his neighborhood. Ideally of course, he wouldn't be living where he was, but things sadly did not often end up in their ideal fashion, as had so often happened to Clerance. He reached forth and wrapped his fingers one by one around the weapon. He brought it up looking along the sights for a moment before slipping it in the waistband of his pants and pulling his shirt out to attempt to conceal it. He stepped out of his house, peered at his lifeless grass, turned and walked to his old car, climbed in, and pulled out before driving off.

It was a quick drive to his destination. He sighed deeply as he looked at the building he'd arrived at. He checked to ensure he still had the gun at the ready and got out of his car. He caught the handle as the person behind him released it and stepped inside glancing around for a moment. He paused for a moment questioning if he had the conviction for the thing he was about to do. He moved quick, drawing the weapon and firing twice in the air to scare everyone present. He grabbed a nearby woman and placed the barrel against her temple. "Do as I say, or she'll be killed!" The woman froze in horror unable to think. Everyone was paying attention to Clerance now. "Empty all the registers! Now! Put the money in a bag!" He aimed the gun at one of the clerks, the weakest looking of the bunch. "You! Do it! Everyone but him, be still!" He promptly returned the gun to be aimed at his unfortunate hostage. Clerance glanced around constantly. Every passing second caused him further concern. The clerk seemed to be trying to complete his mission but he fumbled the bag a couple times and spilled the money meaning he had to pause and recollect all the bills. As the bag dropped again, hitting noisily against the floor, Clerance shouted in anger and fired at the clerk. The bullet struck his shoulder and he hit the floor screaming. Clerance pushed the woman he'd grabbed earlier and snatched the bag taking a second to swipe some of the spilled money inside. He slipped the strap on one of his shoulders and bolted to the entrance.

He barreled through the double doors and found seven police officers weapons drawn and aimed right at him. One of the officers shouted at him and Clerance dropped his gun and the bag knowing he had failed. He slowly kneeled and brought his hand behind himself letting the cop there secure the cuffs on his wrists. He allowed himself to be shoved into the backseat of the car without giving any struggle.

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This was a particularly interesting thing to write and if you ever thing that four letter words are not important I'd challenge you to do something similar and realize how very often they are used. The answer, is a fucking lot.

New Constantine Show

 
I'm doing a hell of a lot of these new show spot lights recently. Well what can I say, I've been watching a lot of new shows recently.

So John Constantine here is an exorcist/demon hunter. One night some years ago in the UK, he really fucked his job up and got a young girl killed and sentence to damnation. Understandably, he's upset about this. He was spending time in a psych hospital trying to deal with his issues when an old friend of his called him out of his retirement.

The plot of the first episode sends him to the U.S. to save the daughter of an old friend. For some reason this daughter is being targeted by a demon who would like to see her dead. Constantine shows up, along with his taxi driver friend (who is surprisingly resilient) and of course sorts this demon out.

What I like most about this show is the main character's attitude. His speech is quite thoroughly revealing of his British roots, both in terminology he uses, and his accent. I do like his style though, sort of like "Fine I guess I'll go out and fight the demons of the underworld. Someone has to." Though he does have some motivation hinted at other than trying to deal with his guilt for failing the little girl.

So far I'm interested. I am very curious to learn more about the taxi driver as he's very clearly not a standard human. I do think the daughter will be an important character as well. I would expect something of a begrudging devil slaying duo of her and Constantine.

So I'll be watching at least one or two more episodes. Hopefully this turns out well. I have no idea if this is a faithful to the original story telling or not. A. I haven't seen enough to know. B. I never read this comic series so I'd have no way of knowing anyway.

Arrow Review

 
So I recently started watching this show. And while I haven't seen all of it that there is yet, I feel like I've seen enough to know how I feel about it. It's fuckin cool.

So the basic premise here is that the fellow there front and center is a billionaire named Oliver Queen. One day Oliver leaves to go on a cruise for a while with his dad, his girlfriend's sister (you dog), and at least one other guy who.... I'm not sure who it was. Things don't go quite as planned and the boat ends up sinking. Oliver winds up drifting to an island where he remains for five years before finally being rescued by a passing boat.

However, he doesn't come back to his home quite the same as he left it. He comes back harder, and with a mission. His father game him a book with a list of names of people in the city. The people in this book are not good people and Oliver has sworn a vow to take them down and revive his city from the poor state it's been in as a result of them.

In order to do this he covers himself in his green outfit seen above and begins hunting down the people in his list, literally crossing them off one at a time.

I feel like I already gave this away, but I like it. And it's not just cause he shares my fondness for this color. I do think it's very well made. I like the characters. Oliver/hood is played with with the character doing a very good job of being both a billionaire playboy and a violent vigilante hellbent on taking down everyone who is hurting his city. Unable to do everything by him he does a sort of sidekick-esq individual. This person is Mr. Diggle (left of Oliver in the picture) often referred to as "Dig" or "Digs". Diggle was originally hired to be Oliver's bodyguard, and quit before coming back to do something sort of similar but much more dangerous. Oliver's younger sister, best friend, and the ex-girlfriend who he cheated on also play important roles (respectively far left, right, and far right.) As with most shows more characters do show up and become relevant as you get further into the show. I suppose one mild criticism I have is that some of the villains are sort of bland and illogical and almost unrealistic in their behavior. Sort of like stock characters, villainous just for the sake of having someone villainous for Oliver to fight. Though even the episodes with such enemies are good. Some of the villains are interesting though; I do quite like the one who intentionally hired 25 goons, because he knew that Oliver carried 24 arrows with him when he put on his outfit.

One more thing I do feel like is worth bringing up is that the show does have a tendency to jump around a lot. Often there will be two of three events occurring at once, (or one or two current events and a flashback) all of them being interwoven with a clip of one then another then another. So if you really hate it when shows do that, you're probably not gonna like this show. Personally I don't care.

The one thing that shows like to do that pisses me off the most are super needless flashbacks. Like you'll see a guy walking down the street for a minute. Then it will flash to six months ago and the guy will be like, burying a body. Then it'll cut back to him walking down the street and the guy he buried shows up. And I'm always like... why the fuck was the first minute of him walking down the street important? It fucking didn't need to be there. There was zero point for that. Could have started with him burying the guy then said six months later, would have been the same information presented far less stupidly. But I digress.

The third season just started recently so you can watch it if you would like, alternatively if you have Netflix the first 2 seasons are available there, which is where I've been watching it. It is one of those shows that you could probably watch any random episode and not be too horribly confused, but I personally always prefer to watch things from the start like you're supposed to. And there are plot lines that run for multiple episodes and characters that come and go so if you have seen everything up to that point then you'll be assured to have the proper history, though the "previously on Arrow" bit will usually mention the super important things that you need to know for the episode.

All in all I like it I think it's pretty good. If it sounds interesting definitely give it a try, even if super hero stuff isn't your jam you might try checking it out, and if you think that goody two shoes heroes are lame, Oliver is not a goody two shoes by any means. He is violent, he is mean, the show can be in your face, and people do die. And none too rarely either.

9 arrows planted into hearts out of 10

New Flash Show

 
So apparently right around now is a popular time for shows about comic book heros and not really heros. We've got Gotham and Flash starting up, and Arrow is starting season 3 (By the way I started watching the first season of Arrow, and while the back story is a bit strange and confusing at times, it's pretty fuckin cool)

So the Flash is the fastest man alive. His girlfriend really wishes he wasn't. Alright then, obligatory sex joke out of the way. So I tried the first episode of this a few days ago and I thought I'd talk to you guys about it, cause that's what I do here.

So the justification for Flash having his powers this time is perhaps a little convoluted but try and stick with me. When he was a kid there was some strange.... thing that happened in his house that resulted in the death of his mother, and the (incorrect) sentencing of his father for murder. Fast forward a bunch of years and the soon-to-be Flash is really excited about going to the unveiling and activation of a new particle accelerator. Unsurprisingly things go tits up and the accelerator explodes. However, as opposed to just killing anyone nearby, the explosion causes the release of a strange form of radiation into the city during a thunderstorm. Our boy flash is hit by a lightning bolt from this storm and winds up in a coma. Nine months later he wakes up and finds himself capable of running at superhuman speeds. He wasn't the only one changed that night though, and not everyone who got powers was as kind-hearted as him. Many of the "metahumans" as they are called are using their new found powers to hurt others. Naturally goody two shoes Flash vows to use his power to fight these people.

So then, what did I think of it? It was alright. I'll probably watch at least a couple more episodes. So far the show seems well done, which is good. Thankfully they got the one thing that really really needed to be right correct; the effects of him running look totally fine.

I'll be honest I don't thing I'm gonna love it, but so far it looks like it's pretty decent.
Th-th-th-th-that's all folks.

My favorite YouTube Personalities

So this is a bit of an unorthadox post maybe. But fuck it I don't care. YouTube is media, so I'll review it if I want to. So there. All of the people I'm going to talk about are let's players / do gaming related content. Why? Because that's the kind of stuff I watch on YouTube. That and ASMR stuff. Note: These are in no particular order.

1. Gopher

So this guy isn't for everyone. Gopher takes things slowly and often times in a non-optimal fashion. And lots of people seem to get really fucking angry if someone does anything in any way less than the best possible way ever. Because all YouTube comments are 100% perfect at everything they ever do right? Right? Of course they are.

Gopher is most well known for his Skyrim content, in particular his "Skyrim Mod Sanctuary" which is a series he does with fair regularity. If you couldn't guess based upon the name, the series talks about available mods for Skyrim. And to his credit he always explains to you how to install the mods if you're interested in them. Seriously all the credit I can give to this guy for that. I wouldn't have modded Skyrim or Fallout: NV without him, and I totally love my mods for both of those games. So yeah if you wanan know how to mod those games, but don't think you're up the task yourself (which is totally fine, no need to feel stupid for it) he has lots of helpful videos.

In addition to teaching you how to mod games he also does let's plays of games. Primarily he does RPGs which is probably unsurprising. He's played two different characters in Skyrim, a playthrough of Fallout 3, one of Fallout:NV (Currently still on going), and he's recently started a playthrough of the new Wasteland 2. And these RPG playthoughs often lead him to do things in a way that isn't always 100% optimal for his character. This often happens when he's doing some roleplaying and does something that he either doesn't know isn't the best thing, or does something he knows isn't the best but is what the character would do. Or of course there exists the possibility that he just does something for fun, cause ya know he's playing a game, a thing (usually) with the main, if not only, purpose of being fun. In addition the RPGs Gopher also tends to like horror and horror-esq games. He's played both Amnesia games, Outlast, and both Metro games.

Recently-ish Gopher has also began streaming games and him modding games on Twitch. He streams Fridays, I believe Sundays, and I wanna say Tuesdays but don't quote me on that. Thankfully Gopher understands that not everyone can always make the streams so he uploads VODs of (I believe) everything he streams. The primary game he streams at the moment is XCOM. He's currently trying to fight his way through the mean ass long war mod for that game. However, if you hate XCOM don't fret. He does stream other stuff too.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/GophersVids
YouTube livestream VODs: https://www.youtube.com/user/GopherLiveVids
Twitch page where he streams: http://www.twitch.tv/gophergaming

2. Northernlion

Northernlion has the largest channel of the people I'm gonna talk about. Northernlion is at this point probably still most well known for being the The Binding of Isaac guy on YouTube. That game (and a much smaller bump earlier on from super meat boy) has made his channel. And I'm cool with that. He in fact still makes videos of it almost every single day. He's almost 1000 episode deep into his lets play at this point, and is in fact currently doing two series of it. One of the current release of the game, and one series of the community remix mod for it.

In addition to his Issac content he also does play other games. He's currently doing a series on Prison Architect that I've been enjoying immensely despite his constant mis-steps. He's also doing a series of Europe Universalis 4 with three other guys. He also has a series of Gauntlet that he's doing with a couple of other guys. He also frequently will do "let's look at"s of games. These are exactly what you'd expect something called "let's look at" to be. He discusses a newly released game going over it's core concept so you can see if you're interested in it or not.

Now one thing about NL is that he's very much so not a pro at the games he plays. Even Issac which he's been playing for literally years, he still isn't perfect at. So again, if you're one of those people who is gonna get really super fuckin pissed off at the person playing the game not being the best person ever, then you probably won't wanna watch it. Of course if you are one of those people then you're probably just mad all the time at everything. Sounds shitty. Ever considered not being needlessly pissed off at someone on the internet playing a game to entertain you for free? Just a thought.

NL also does stream on Twitch. He does a show called the Northernlion live super show (or NLSS) three times a week; Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. He also streams games on Sunday where he plays with his subscribers. The NLSS will usually have Nick (aka RockLeeSmile) on it as well and the two make a good pair. Occasionally other people will be on stream as well. The VODs from this are uploaded onto NL's YouTube channel a few days after the show and I always enjoy watching them.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/Northernlion
Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/Northernlion

3. Baer (Yes that's spelled like that)
 
Hey look all the people I'm talking about are animal themed personas. No that wasn't planned. It just worked out that way. In truth the only one of them who even really acknowledges his animalistic name is Baer.

So Baer does lots of let's plays. He's currently running series on Cook, Serve, Delicious!, The Long Dark, Lethal League, and Nuclear Throne. The only one of these I'm not keeping up with is The Long Dark, just cause I don't really care for that game.

Like the other people I discussed Baer also streams on Twitch. He streams.... all the fuckin time. Seriously dude streams a lot. I don't actually watch his streams. Not that I have anything against them, but I just really don't go actually go on Twitch much. Though I have been watching Guardsmanbob stream Hearthstone a fair bit recently, but that's really just cause Ive been sort of obsessed with Heartstone and his stream is the most pleasant and reliable for that game. And the dude has nice music choices. Sorry, meant to be talking about Baer.

Yeah Bear's definitely a cool dude and he does cool stuff. I've been seriously enjoying his Cook, Serve, Delicious! stuff despite the fact I feel like I really wouldn't like to play that game.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/BaerTaffy
Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/baertaffy

So those are my top 3 favorite YouTubers currently. There are other people I do watch but these three certainly have my attention held the best.

Oh and if anybody was wondering wtf ASMR was from earlier I suppose I can explain that real quick. It stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. Now those are a bunch of big words that essentially mean a pleasant tingling feeling felt in the scalp or upper back. I don't tend to get those tingles very often but I watch these videos for relaxation and to help me sleep sometimes. It's a thing that if you'd explained it to me a couple years ago I would have thought was super bizarre but I now enjoy quite thoroughly. Might be worth looking into sometime if you're interested. Maybe it won't be for you, but maybe it will. What have you got to lose?

Aziz Ansari

 This guy is one brilliant bastard. If you don't know who he is, and if you haven't yet enjoyed his work, you should fix that.

Aziz here is a comedian. And he's very talented at his job. So far he's released 3 comedy specials (that I know of). In chronological order they are Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening, Dangerously Delicious, and Buried Alive. Buried Alive is a Netflix original comedy special, so if you wish to see this legally you will need Netflix, but seriously if you don't have netflix, you should consider getting it. Netflix is fuckin awesome.

In case you happen to need some incentive to think that Aziz will be funny click this link: Jizz everywhere joke Yes that does say "Jizz everywhere joke". No I didn't mistype that.

As far as which one of his specials is the best.... that's a tough call. I do really like them all. I tend to recall his middle one the least. There is a bit more audience participation in the third special than the first two so if you really hate that then you might not care for that one.

Not too much more to say about this guy. He's fuckin hilarious. If you haven't watched his stuff and you like laughing (ya know like a normal human) then you should definitely look into his stuff.

Wait! There is one more thing to say about Aziz. Aziz has the only joke ever that's funnier after it's explained. This joke is in the first special. You'll know it when you hear it. Cause he'll say something and you'll be like what? And then he explains it and it's like "I get it!" And then you laugh. Cause you weren't supposed to get it.

10 great bits out of 10