Last Minute (Seriously Last Minute!) Holiday Gift Ideas

Posted on by Puja B. Canta

These are gifts everyone will like that you can get right now (like seriously, this instant) or even after you’ve hopped out of the car or jumped off the plane. Good luck, my fellow princes of procrastination, you kings of last minute gifting!

Cider House Rules: "Good night you Princes of Maine, you Kings of New England."

I’m ranking these by ease-of-access.

#1 Digital Copies of Video Games

I’m old school… I thought I was buying a copy of a game to send to my sister that would arrive in a plastic box and a tight wad of folded instructions inside to show her what to do after the CD installed on her computer and the game finished downloading gigs upon gigs of updates.

Cue Godvoice: “How wrong the 90s child was.”

Digital copies of online games like Cuphead, and certainly other digital games you can find in online stores, can be downloaded by you or your gift recipient in minutes. Then, once you have the game code, you can share it. The game may have an obvious ‘buy as gift’ option, or you may need to email it once you’ve received it after checkout. By the way, don’t make the same mistake I did… if you’re a n00b to this mysterious practice, don’t click through all the different windows after you buy a game until you accidentally redeem the code and claim it for yourself. Get the code, get it to the person you love.

Continue reading Last Minute (Seriously Last Minute!) Holiday Gift Ideas

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Sword-Chucks… That’s Right. Sword-Chucks

Posted on by Puja B. Canta

Today’s quote is…

“I’d be like Bruce Lee meets Musashi! Only better! God, I’m so brilliant!” – Fighter McWarrior

Sword. Chucks. You know, like nun-chucks, but all sword? Eyup… that’s what he just said.

Red and white warrior Fighter sprite!Red and white warrior Fighter sprite!Red and white warrior Fighter sprite!Red and white warrior Fighter sprite!Red and white warrior Fighter sprite!Red and white warrior Fighter sprite!

 

 

These days, I am very proud to say that I was there when the amazing 8-Bit Theater webcomic (I consider it the king of webcomics… well, granddaddy king) introduced the idea of sword-chucks. I laughed like a madwoman when the overly-typical melee character, named Fighter of course, announced that it would probably be a good idea. Probably?!

Sword-chucks, yo! Two swords attached by chains at the hilt as Fighter looks on...

Ahhh, 8-Bit Theater. A truly exceptional rabbit hole to find on the internet. What-it-is? A very, very good parody of  Final Fantasy and many other 8-bit video games. But 8-Bit Theater isn’t just that. I loved the dark humor and blatant slapping around Brian Clevinger did of his own characters (I think I enjoyed Red Mage’s horribly embarassing misadventures with 20-sided die the best). And other than being straight up, effing funny… this webcomic had a pretty great plot.

Continue reading Sword-Chucks… That’s Right. Sword-Chucks

Yandere Simulator: Yes, I Went There Too

Posted on by Puja B. Canta

I hope you’re ready, senpai. Our next rabbit hole involves a simulated Japanese high school and lots of juicy, yummy… murder.

So, the Senpai Notice Me music vid I mentioned last time caused me to dig a little further and find out what was actually behind all that dark hilarity. Why did it seem to feature a Japanese school girl running around taking out all the rivals for the boy she liked? And everyone was smiling about that? And it was a kinda cute & catchy, though creepy, tune? But this had to be a parody of a nice, wholesome senpai-related video game, right?

yandere-simulator-600-1906683
By ZeroAbsolu on zerochan.net

Um, no… Love Sick: Yandere Simulator is an actual computer game about a teen school girl who decides to take out all the rivals for her beloved senpai’s heart. Using murder. And other elimination methods. Yandere Simulator also has a GIANT following (and growing) eventhough it hasn’t even been completed yet. That’s very hard for me to wrap my mind around, but it sounds like that’s becoming more and more common these days for video games.

Yandere Simulator turned out to be another great online discovery that sucked me in, similar to the Ace Attorney games that I haven’t yet been able to play yet, becaaause… the fandom. Is. Hilarious. There is so much to be entertained by, and the game’s creator is fascinating, even inspiring. If you like video games and you like stories about the underdog punching corporate in-the-fayce, then read on.

Continue reading Yandere Simulator: Yes, I Went There Too

Rad, Borrowed, Bad: Senpai Notice My Shoelaces?

Posted on by Puja B. Canta

Alrightykins… (Does anyone else but me say that??) I needed a break after the intense Ace Attorney week. Now I’m back with more things that I’ve discovered after going down various wonderful rabbit holes on the internet: Princess Bride references, another awesome Random Encounters music vid, a strangely unique anime find, and fall shoelace styles abound.

By the way, later this month, I’ll be talking about Japanese-themed trends and trendsetters thanks to some particularly fascinating experiences I’ve had recently and some excellent articles I’ve come across: my take on Uniqlo; a beginner’s guide to Harajuku; a look at Yoshiji Yamamoto… but before all that, I’ll fill you in on a really popular computer game set up like a Japanese high school dating sim gone horribly wrong. No, I’m not going to tell you the name of it so you can Google it and spoil the surprise. 🙂 So tune in again in the coming weeks…

Anyway, on with the show! Here’s something old school, rad, borrowed and bad for you to enjoy rite nao.

Old School: My name is Inigo Montoya… prepare to… line??

If you’re a big Princess Bride fan, then you know how this ends, “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” But the other day I was reminded that some years ago, one of my favorite YouTube celebs, Liam Kyle Sullivan, and his friends, they took it all to a whole new level. You know, what if during film shoot, Mandy Pantinkin didn’t quite get the iconic line that’s been everywhere, even on t-shirts, since.

Rad: Boy Meets Boy?

Picture this. Sicily, 1927. You’re sitting there, you’re minding your own business and then suddenly YouTube decides that you need to watch something called ‘The High School Life of a Fudanshi.’* You have no idea what a fudanshi is. But it sounds Japanese, and you’re a geek and you like anime so you’re like, “Hey, why not?” The subtitle ‘Boy Meets Boy’ even sounds progressive. Perhaps it’ll be enlightening… in the end, I laughed. My. Arse off.

Continue reading Rad, Borrowed, Bad: Senpai Notice My Shoelaces?

I. Am. Here.

Posted on by Puja B. Canta

Today’s quote…

“I wasn’t actually expected to live until I was 40… Truly soak that in for a moment and grasp the magnitude of what that means to be told something like that, to feel that as a person, to live that as a person, and then actually to defy those odds and still be here.

So here I am, actually 48 hours out from a birthday that I wasn’t sure I was going to make… I wasn’t expected to live, until now.”

– Natalie M. Lue, The Baggage Reclaim Sessions

For the self-improvement geeks out there… My favorite blogger, and possibly favorite person of all time, NML, says that a lot can change in a very short period of time. Let her tell you, in her own voice, about her phoenix-like comeback. (I’ll admit that her British accent and 90s jokes make it eeeeven better.)

If you’re hungry for even more solid, down-to-Earth advice on dating, friendship, family and office drama, and on self-empowerment and healing, Nat’s also got about 1,500 brilliant blog posts that tackle some of the seriousest sugar-honey-iced-tea that we all deal with in life, over on Baggage Reclaim. And she always does it with her own sassy, savvy, laugh-out-loud flair.