text:
A bit of followup silliness

In my previous post, I complained about the new Civilization board game and how it sexualized the female leaders and not the male leaders. This prompted Scott (a commenter) to make the following observation:

One bizzare sidenote, Catherine the Great’s cleavage stops midway up her chest. It looks really weird, like her breasts are somehow fused together. Does the artist even know what breasts look like? Just another example of the absurdity. Probably more a result of lazy artists than anything.

Also, if they had drawn Lincoln thrusting his junk out, I would buy this game today. If we’re gonna have ridiculous sexualized depictions, let’s make it equal and have some fun with it!

And dammit. I could not get the vision of a junk-thrusting Abraham Lincoln out of my head. I mentioned this to my husband, who elevated the concept to a new level of terrifying by suggesting that he cover his junk suggestively with his stovepipe hat – with no pants of course. And then I really had to draw it.

So I suppose you can blame Scott for this monstrosity:

I’m so sorry. I had no choice. NO CHOICE AT ALL.

To the folks at Fantasy Flight Games, I have designed this specifically for the next edition of the Civilization board game. You may use it royalty free. You’re welcome.

Fantasy Flight fail: Descent and (the new version of) Civilization the board game

I know it doesn’t get a lot of space here, but I happen to be a huge lover of board games. The more complicated, the better! The kinds of games I like to play tend to have lots of pieces and moving parts. So it shouldn’t be too surprising, given my previously stated interest in fantasy-themed roleplaying games, that I loves me some Descent.

Descent is a competitive dungeon-crawl board game in which one player plays the Overlord and the other players play heroes. The players are trying to defeat the dungeon while the Overlord is trying to kill them all until they lose. It’s a fantastic game that’s very high-crunch and very finely balanced – no mean feat when you consider all the possible ability permutations that both sides have to work with. Over the past few years, I have played a few hundred hours of Descent, so I think that I can state unequivocally that I’m a huge fan. The dungeon setup is fun, the abilities are fun, the competition is fun – it’s a fun game all around. The only part that isn’t fun is character creation.

See, Descent has pre-made characters that the players choose randomly at the start of a new game. But the odds are pretty overwhelming that when we’re drawing characters, I won’t get to play a female character. (I’ll disclaim at this point that we don’t have all the expansions. We own and use the base game, Well of Darkness, and Road to Legend.) See, out of the 23 possible characters I have to pick from, only seven heroes are women:

It might look ambiguous from the cropping in some of these portraits, so let me assure you that it’s quite clear when looking at the figures that only one of these characters (Tethrys) is wearing pants – and she has a ridiculous belly shirt. And of course we have stupid sexualized poses, like Astara thrusting out her ass while spell-casting and Red Scorpion managing to show off both her strangely pointed tits and ass at the same time. Thankfully, the fact that the figures are paint-able means that it’s possible to fix some of the more egregious aspects of these character designs. When painting our figures, my husband made sure to paint Astarra so that she’s actually wearing pants:

He also made her not white since all of the human heroes are so very, very white. But that’s an entirely different kettle of fail.

So, you know, not surprisingly my only options for female characters are sexualized Barbies in armored lingerie. Aggravating.

Even more aggravating is the fact that the two worst characters out of these 23 are not only female, but the least clothed females in the bunch – Lyssa and Red Scorpion. Even though the rules state that you have to play the hero you select, I’ve house-ruled that I am allowed to mulligan Lyssa and Red Scorpion since not only are they irritating to look at, but they’re also completely broken and useless in play.

Not surprisingly, the male characters enjoy a diversity of depictions that the women don’t get. And of course, the vast majority of them get to wear freaking clothes:

What’s interesting to note here is that there are quite a few non-humans tossed into the mix, which is not the case for the female characters. So apparently only men get to be awesome and bestial looking, or awesome and undead (whatever), because it’s too important that women look sexay to allow them to be anything other than human. Also, every single one of these characters has a great unique ability. Some of them aren’t necessarily my play style, but they’re all sufficiently rewarding that I wouldn’t mulligan any of them.

Now there are a few male characters that are scantily clad as the female heroes, but when you examine them, it becomes clear that you can’t exactly compare them with the unrealistic lingerie ninjas that the female heroes are depicted as:

First off, two of the four heroes are not human. The two non-humans are also pretty clearly not sexualized to the ridiculous extent that the female heroes are. They’re posed in such a way as to emphasize their muscle-y arms, and their poses show them poised on the brink of action. The only thing the female heroes are posed on the brink of is a pole-dancing routine. And while I’ll give Fantasy Flight props for actually depicting nipple on Runemaster Thorn (seriously, people, they exist), I wouldn’t call this a sexualized depiction either.

The only character that I think you could make a half-assed argument for being sexualized would be Nanok, and honestly this pose is way more about making him look tough and badass than it is about making him look sexay. Note that he’s not contorted into anatomically improbably positions, his anatomy is pretty well human normal, and he’s not thrusting his junk at the viewer.

All in all, as far as character design goes, the guys at Fantasy Flight get a big fat F from me for Descent. I know it comes as a shock, but they might want to remember that there are women who actually play this game. It would be appreciated if there could be some female heroes that aren’t ridiculous fantasy cheesecake in the future, rather than me having to choose between playing a character that doesn’t look like me or a character that does look like me, but pornified.

Civilization the board game (the new version)

This is a game I picked up more recently, and actually the reason I was prompted to write this post in the first place. We’d played the Eagle Games Civilization boardgame (not the original that came before that one) and were very disappointed in it. So when the new game came out and was well-reviewed, my husband asked me to pick up a copy at GenCon, which I did.

Part of the randomized setup for the Civ board game is choosing a leader, and I do have to at least acknowledge that the leaders are evenly split male/female. However, there’s a pretty big difference between how the male leaders are depicted and how the female leaders are depicted:

TOP: Cleopatra, Catherine the Great, and Wu Zetian BOTTOM: Caesar, Bismark, and Lincoln

How surprising. All of then are shown as being completely covered while all of them women have their breasts exposed. Yes, they’re at least posed as being strong and confident like their male counterparts and not like strippers like the Descent women, but that’s only a small mercy. All of the male leaders are wearing outfits true to their era, not distorted to emphasize secondary sex characteristics. But the female leaders have had their costumes distorted for the purposes of showing off their breasts.

Now I’ll admit that Wu Zetian is a bit ambiguous. When you look at paintings that purport to depict her, the height of the collar varies wildly. It’s entirely possible that her costume would have displayed that much cleavage. However, as Wu Zetian displays the least amount of breastage, I’m more concerned with Catherine and Cleopatra.

My husband was kind enough to do some digging for me and he discovered that the dress that Catherine is wearing is actually a formal dress version of a regimental uniform. When you look at the dress, it’s pretty clear that the collar is not that low. There’s just no way it would have exposed that much cleavage. Also, if you compare the portrait of Catherine with the photo of the dress, she’s wearing the dress with all of the buttons unbuttoned, which is clearly now how the dress is meant to be worn – not with how closely tailored the jacket is.

Now it’s true that when you look for pictures of Catherine the Great, you do see several that show her wearing very low-cut corsets. But none of them are so low that her breasts are on the verge of popping out of her corset. And anyhow, if they wanted to show Catherine in a cleavage-y corset they should have picked one of the many dresses she wore that showed actual cleavage rather than a regimental uniform that didn’t show any.

Cleopatra is even worse, what with her incredibly distorted anatomy. She’s got a severe case of Chest TARDIS, not to mention Invisible Corset Syndrome. (The only way to get a waist that small is with extreme corseting, only I definitely don’t see a corset…) Also, her boobs are gravity-defying and kind of freaky-looking. They’re round on the inside but not on the outside?

What’s even dumber is that if Fantasy Flight had wanted to depict her as being bare-breasted, they would have had a pretty strong historical record to point to for backup. Instead, they chose to cover her up with a metal bikini tube top, which is historically and culturally inaccurate, not to mention insanely stupid. Now I realize that this being North America, they couldn’t expect to sell a game with a bare-breasted woman as a possible leader. (As a friend of mine pointed out recently, we all know that the nipple is the evil part of the breast.) But they had a perfectly cleavage-y, non-breast-revealing option available to them which they decided to ditch so that they could make her more naked without being TOO naked.

So I guess it would be kind of a relief that the game itself was kind of disappointing, were it not for the game’s hefty price tag. Still, it makes me a little sad that as much as both of these games fail at depicting women, the game that fails less is the game that is less fun to play. Looks like I’ll just have to keep hoping for male characters next time I play Descent.

I happened to stumble across something in my internet travels that reminded me of an old post that I did about industry game artist Hyung Tae Kim – who gets paid a lot of money to draw freakishly distorted women with flopping distended lemons pinned to their chests, freakishly long legs, and lovingly detailed ladybits. For those of you who haven’t seen the old post, go take a look. (Linked to the blogger version since I still haven’t gone back and fixed the wacky image sizing problems that importing to wordpress caused…)

I kind of forgot about it for a while, but it looks like NCSoft – the publisher of Guild Wars – is picking up Blade and Soul – the MMO that HTK has been hired to design – for publication, formerly referred to by the code name “Project M”. I’ve been having trouble finding details, but I’m assuming this means it will be available for publication in North America, which is about a million different kinds of fucked up. I mean, Blade and Soul makes Tera look like they’re not even trying:

So I’ve pretty much promised myself that if I find out that any of my friends express a desire to play this game, I will either stop talking to them or smack them repeatedly in the head until they come to their senses. Seriously, every female model has lovingly modeled cameltoe, which is just… disturbing. And about every third screen shot I found makes sure to show it off.

Clearly this is not a game aimed at women, or anyone who sees women as anything other than pieces of meat.

And you know, whatever. Once upon a time I would have ranted and raved, but really -what else is there that I can say? Hey, look. It’s yet another game coming out of Korea that treats women even more like shit than North American-developed games do, and yet tons of North American dudes are falling over themselves to play this game when it’s released. I’ve kind of lost my ability to be surprised at this shit anymore.

So instead, I thought I’d take a look at the incredibly fucked-up anatomy of the Blade and Soul character models to point out just how freakishly inhuman these women are. Now last time I took on HTK, I got many, many comments along the lines of OMG ITS JUST THE STYLE WTF U DON’T KNOW WHAT UR TALKING ABOUT or U R JUST JEALOUS HTK IS MORE AWSUM THAN U!!!1!eleventy1!! And, yes, I’m aware that HTK is not illustrating using a North American style. However, there’s a huge difference between even vanilla “anime” style and the distorted freak-shows that HTK creates.

To whit: Here is a Blade and Soul character model with almost no foreshortening:

Oh my god, people. I swear if I could punch HTK through the internet, right now I would. I realize that the model had to be created by the game studio, but this is pretty faithful to the proportions that HTK uses in all of his illustrations. Now, the many and varied ways the figure is distorted can be a little confusing, so first of all let’s start with vertical proportions:

For those of you who have seen me do these posts before, I hope you’ll remember me pointing out that the average human is around 7 heads tall, plus or minus half a head. Now, it’s pretty common for comic book artists and many video game studios to use 8 heads as a standard female proportion to give characters a more “statuesque” look. (Again, I prefer that women look like actual women and not goddamn statues, but that’s just me.) But this freak of nature here is 9 heads tall. NINE. That’s not even remotely possible in nature. Furthermore, she’s more than half leg. Really – check this out:

If you take her legs and add one head height to them, you have a normal human being. (And now I’m thinking about just a head prancing around on bizarrely stretch legs and it’s kind of freaking me out. Brr.) So first things, first, let’s take Gumbi here and correct her vertical proportions a little:

Now, yes. This does create a few more problems that it solves, particularly with the torso. But notice how when you look at the legs, they look a lot more like human legs? Now it doesn’t completely solve things, because you still have some fundamental proportions problems:

(Let’s just take it as given that the boobs are fucking terrible and move on to less obvious things.)

So you have the problem that her torso has been shrunk in order to make her legs as long as possible. This has resulted in her having a microscopic rib cage and a waist only just wider than her head. Now there’s nothing wrong with having your shoulders be narrower than your hips, or vice versa. But there’s just no freaking way that you’re going to get this much of an hourglass figure without enough corseting to cause internal bleeding in the unprepared.

Her legs are also a huge problem, even after one adjusts for their impossible length. The way HTK draws his women (and the way the model is constructed), the hips and ass are so exaggerated that the legs become cylinders that are tacked on to the front of the hips. Which is so very wrong and not how real people actually work. The hips and buttocks are not separate from the legs – they are part of them. And legs aren’t cylinders pinned on to the front end of the lower torso. They attach, via the hips, on the sides of your body, like so:

So with all of this in mind, what would a corrected figure in the same pose look like? Well, let’s take a look:

(Looking at this now I think the hips might be a little off. Drawing on top of HTK’s super-distorted figure was really hard; it kept throwing me off and I kept having to make corrections to my corrections.)

When you have the corrections on top of the original lines of the figure, you can really see how exaggerated the figure is from the waist down. Aside from the shortening of the torso and the clearly problematic breasts, the torso is actually far more normally proportioned than the legs. The legs are where most of the problems are: they’ve been elongated unnaturally and the hips and buttocks have been stretched horizontally to ridiculous proportions until the torso and lower body look like they should belong to two different figures.

And you know what, having hips this wide and curvaceous? Not necessarily wrong. But it is wrong on a body with a torso this compacted and waifish. You’ll see hips this wide on full-figured women, sure. But not on freakish HTK women without even enough space in their torsos to keep all their internal organs, much less space for them to eat meals that don’t come through a straw.

The thing that makes all of this the most disturbing is that all of these problematic distortions were an obvious, conscious choice. Because here’s the thing – HTK’s understanding of human anatomy is quite clear from the rendering of musculature in his illustrations. I can’t speak to the understanding of the people working from his illustrations, but I can definitely state that HTK understands just what he’s doing when he mutilates these poor women’s bodies.

Someone please explain to me why we’re paying this man the big bucks?

Why I don’t want Shelly Mazzanoble to represent female D&D players

[I’ve been promising to write this post for quite a while, and it’s long. Super-long. Like, the longest thing I’ve ever posted. You’ve been warned!]

I’ve wanted to write for a while about Shelly Mazzanoble and the problems I have with Wizards’ choice to promote her as presenting a female perspective of D&D players. Wizards first started promoting her back in 2007 or so when she published “Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress” – a (supposed) guide to getting into D&D from a female perspective. Here’s what I had to say about it at the time on an indie tabletop forum:

Honestly? The book made me want to scrub my brain with Lysol. It’s one of the most sexist things I’ve read in a long time, and by sexist I mean ‘using women to reinforce stereotypes about women’. (Not all sexism is perpetrated by men. Not by a long shot. A lot of it is perpetuated by women.)

But ultimately, I’m glad I read it, even if it did provoke me into screaming “WHAT THE F*CK????” at it a couple times. I found it an instructive lesson on the mainstream view of women and gaming, which doesn’t much resemble (if at all) the view of women and gaming held over here in Indie Land.

Well, it seems that my adverse reaction to the book wasn’t a commonly held one – or at least not commonly held among the demographic that Wizards was targeting – since they subsequently gave Shelly Mazzanoble a column in their monthly Dragon Magazine called “Confessions of a Full-Time Wizard”. So I decided to dig up all of the columns from 2010 and see how they compared to the book.

[side note]

I wasn’t exactly filled with confidence when I saw the title image that is used with every column (though admittedly, it might not be fair to hold the art direction against Shelly. I desperately hope that she didn’t see and approve this.)

(presumeably) Tabitha Sparkles – Shelly Mazzanoble’s tiefling wizard (about whom she writes most frequently)

[/side note]

After reading all of the columns, I was just as irritated and infuriated as I remember being after reading the book. Shelly’s column is billed as a “lifestyle” column, a view into a female experience of D&D. But the problem is that in almost every column she portrays herself as a combination of all of the negative stereotypes about female tabletop gamers and/or women ever, and it makes me cringe because omigod I don’t want THIS AWFUL STEREOTYPE to represent me as a female gamer.

To break this out a little, here are the stereotypes that pop up most frequently in Shelly’s columns:

  • Women are insecure, neurotic, and occasionally irrational
  • Women are fashion and/or beauty obsessed
  • (when talking about player error) D&D has numbers and math is haaaaaarrrrrd!
  • (when talking about player success) Oh yeah! *tee hee!*
  • Women are incapable of taking the game seriously or being dedicated to the game.

Now the “D&D is haaard” stereotype is, in my books, the worst, because that stereotype underlies these themes – which are rife throughout Shelly’s columns:

  • Women can’t make decisions or perform complex tasks without someone’s help (read: a man)
  • Women shouldn’t try for system mastery. They should stick to the basics and let other players (read: male players) worry about min-maxing and system mastery.

Now I realize that all of this is some pretty harsh criticism, so here’s where the wordiness comes in. I’ve picked out columns that I felt were particularly egregious and selected quotes (so… many… quotes…) to help illustrate my points. For those of you playing along at home, the columns I selected were April 2010, May 2010, June 2010, July 2010, October 2010, and December 2010.

In Shelly’s words (many, many of them)

Women are insecure, neurotic, and occasionally irrational

You mean my sub-par D&D proficiencies are that obvious? Suddenly I feel like those people who order “Flab-Be-Gone” or face-freezing lotion from late-night infomercials. Oh please, let this work! (April 2010, Confessions of an Overwhelmed Duckling)

“Something’s different about me,” I told my boss.
She spun around in her chair. “You’re not wearing heels? You forgot your gym clothes? You finally stood up to your cat?”
“No.” Like I’d ever stand up to Zelda. “Something… bigger. I’m not nervous about DMing.” (July 2010, Canine Encounters Part 2)

“Congratulations,” Greg said about thirty minutes into our game. “You’ve managed to cover just about every perceived female psychosis.” To be clear, I wasn’t experiencing those psychoses. My newest Gamma World character was. (October 2010, Last of the Mojitas)

What if I make a fool of myself? Now, these guys were not serious or jerks, but they did appear to be good at roleplaying. And I’m the new girl here. I’ve got to join them or beat it. (October 2010, Last of the Mojitas)

Honestly, I wasn’t sure what was up with Mojita other than she obviously didn’t want to be a cockroach. Or gelatinous. Or committed to one emotion. (October 2010, Last of the Mojitas)

“It’s true what they say about cockroaches,” Josh said. “They can survive anything.”

That proves to be true of the whole game. We defeated the glow dragons, Mojita defeated her agoraphobia, and I defeated my irrational fear of roleplaying. (October 2010, Last of the Mojitas)

Look, magazines, I don’t pay you to make me feel bad! My cat does that for free. (December 2010, Arcana Lang Syne)

The thing that really bothers me about this is that almost every one of Shelly’s columns seems to follow the same formula, and that always starts with Shelly being adorably and/or humorously insecure about some facet of playing D&D. This then leads into neurotic and sometimes irrational attempts to wrestle with the insecurity in which a humorous result is achieved and a lesson of some sort is said to have been learned. Only it’s not learned, because the same insecurities pop up again and again and again.

That’s not to say it’s not okay to be insecure about stuff. Heck, no one is the perfect gamer, and D&D is a tough system to master. Some insecurity is justified – especially as a woman in a predominantly male environment. It’s the fact that at no point does Shelly ever express confidence about anything pertaining to D&D that bothers me. The tone, too, bothers me. If these insecurities were addressed in a genuine way, it wouldn’t be so bothersome. But these are clearly stereotypes being played for laughs.

Women are fashion and/or beauty obsessed

I must confess. Sometimes I’m a bit insecure. And no, not in the predictable “does this belt of vigor make my butt look fat?” way. (April 2010, Confessions of an Overwhelmed Duckling)

At least I’m doing something right. The book recommends you, “shop for particularly utilitarian or extraordinary flamboyant clothing”. Finally! My work as Player-in-Chief has paid off. It then goes on to say, “Come up with a couple of interesting possessions to wear or carry”. This must be a nod to Tabby getting a new outfit or accessory every time we finish an adventure. She’s been dressed by the best – bracers by Hershey, robes by Cote D’Or, feather boa by… well… someone’s Halloween costume. (April 2010, Confessions of an Overwhelmed Duckling)

Out of ten questions I scored three points each under ranger, rogue, and wizard, and one point under paladin. (How did that get in there?) For the record, question four about my wardrobe didn’t have any appropriate answers. A taxidermy shop? Maybe R&D should have consulted me before coming up with these answers. (April 2010, Confessions of an Overwhelmed Duckling)

Ah yes, one of my greatest regrets. I’ve clearly leveled up my shopping skills since then.  (May 2010, An Overwhelmed Duckling Part 2)

“Tabby knows what that is!” I shouted. I rolled a 2. “15?”

“Tabitha thinks this stone might be amethyst.” New DM says. “Maybe rose quartz. Real good for preventing intoxication and looks nice with jewel tones and Bermuda shorts.”

“What? Tabby would never say that,” I argued. Not only did I fail my Arcana check, but Tabitha failed her fashion check. Bermuda shorts? (May 2010, An Overwhelmed Duckling Part 2)

Once I had my villain and a little information about his habit and habitat, New DM suggested I go back to the setting of my previous adventure, the one I ran my group through when I first tried my hand at dungeon mastering (with disasterous results, I reminded New DM.)

“Ah, you’re an old hand at it now,” he smiled.

I looked sheepishly down at my hands. Yeah, I could use a manicure, I guess.  (June 2010, Canine Encounters)

What’s with the high-pressure minion sales pitch? Where am I, the Nordstrom shoe department? (July 2010, Canine Encounters Part 2)

Later at home, I moved the dog-eared Nordstrom catalogs, Lucky Magazines, and Sephora shopping bags off the dining room tables and laid out my dungeon tiles, difficult terrain, and traps. (July 2010, Canine Encounters Part 2)

Welcome to the world, Mojita Especiala, a lime green gelatinous cockroach. She’s not so much cockroach as she is gelatinous. Her blobby being was forced into a roach-shaped bundt cake pan which doubles as armor. It’s like squeezing into a pair of skinny jeans after a long workout. “Very painful,” I explained. Not to mention humiliating should someone be in the locker room with you. (October 2010, Last of the Mojitas)

The end of another year is upon us. I know this not because the calendar tells me so. It’s because my magazine subscriptions are yelling at me to clean this! Cleanse that! Change everything! Hey Shape, I already work out six days a week. And yeah, Lucky, I’d love to revamp my entire wardrobe to include the 379 “key pieces every woman should own”. Sorry Elle Decor – I don’t have a crawl space that I can make over into a reading room. I don’t even have room to read. (December 2010, Arcana Lang Syne)

The sheer number of fashion and/or beauty-related examples really says everything for me. You know what? There are lots of women who have interests that aren’t fashion. But even if you are a woman that does love fashion, I’m pretty sure that not everything in your life ever comes back to fashion. Seriously.

Of course, there was a metric shit-ton of fashion references in the book as well, which makes me think that this is just a cynical attempt by marketing bots that want to appeal to women outside their “core market”. But let me say that as someone who is female, I am probably outside that core market, and this does not appeal to me at all. I find this one-sided depiction of Shelly-the-character as a shallow, fashion-obsessed maniac who relates everything in her life to clothes or beauty to be insulting.

Oh yeah! *tee hee!*

Hmm. When did I get wizard’s escape? Oh yeah, I have a shield. I double-checked to make sure this character sheet said “Tabitha Sparkles”. (April 2010, Confessions of an Overwhelmed Duckling)

“When Herteus gets to here,” Chris said, pointing to the square I just passed through, “a large green blob falls from the ceiling and tries to attack”. Hmm. Didn’t I just approve some banner ads that mentioned something about wearing protective headgear? (May 2010, An Overwhelmed Duckling Part 2)

Ten minutes later, I hadn’t finished my cup of peas, but my unaligned female elf thief was in my arsenal. Holy moley, I did it! I made a character using a book and a pencil. (December 2010, Arcana Lang Syne)

The use of cutesy ‘oh yeah, I knew that’ or ‘oh yeah, I should have known that’ can die now and forever and never come back. Ever. I mean, seriously. Don’t be proud of being able to create a character from scratch. It just means that you are literate and don’t have any learning difficulties that would prevent you from teaching yourself complex tasks from a book.

D&D has numbers and math is haaaaaarrrrrd!

Instead of saying, “Sorry guys, I must have been out sick the day we covered force fields,” she may have been able to offer up some knowledge that would have helped the party in a skill challenge. Ugh. I hope they don’t read this. (April 2010, Confessions of an Overwhelmed Duckling)

A long time ago, Tabitha went and got herself all multiclassed as a warlock. Oh, I never mentioned that? Well that’s probably because I have no idea what to do with her fancy warlock sophistication. (April 2010, Confessions of an Overwhelmed Duckling)

“I know,” he said, rolling his eyes like he did last Tuesday when I insisted that Tabby was bending over to pick up a penny when that minion’s arrow came at her. “What kind of encounter?”

“How about a good encounter?” I said, not sure of what my choices were. I didn’t want it to suck. “And one that won’t give me an ulcer trying to figure out how to run it.” I still have anxiety dreams over the last one. (June 2010, Canine Enounters)

“Every encounter should be a free-standing adventure,” he said. “You want to include as much for the players to do as you’re comfortable running.”

Again, I suggested just one monster… a big, slow, lazy monster. “I can handle sitting back and substracting a few hitpoints here and there,” I said. (June 2010, Canine Enounters)

With my two gargoyles, remaining minions, and one dragon waiting in the wings, I realized the importance of placement. I was kind of throwing minions out there willy nilly and kept forgetting the gargoyles could make better distance by air than ground. Aeon had a minion and a gargoyle marked. Anwar was bloodied, and I was overlooking opportunity attacks at every corner. Dungeon Masters have a lot to keep track of! (July 2010, Canine Encounters Part 2)

What’s so hard about a little roleplaying? But it was too late. Panic moved in and tossed reason’s possesions to the curb. The guys were chattering back and forth, in character, with Greg interjecting important plot developments or story elements or Alpha Mutation cards now and again. It was only a matter of time before they discovered the new girl! Was it too late to remember an appointment with my therapist? Was it too late to make one? (October 2010, Last of the Mojitas)

I caved to my basic instinct. “Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

“Are you crying?” Greg asked.

And… scene!

Okay, back up. I wasn’t crying. But Mojita was. Way to go, Instinct. (October 2010, Last of the Mojitas)

“I know, but if you really want a female wizard named Berry White, then it’s time for you to make one,” he said. “Before our first encounter.”

Ha! That’s crazy talk! “You mean, like with this book? And a pencil? Right! I actually want to play this season, so I think I’ll just stick to the gender-confused wizard Chuck misnamed.” (December 2010, Arcana Lang Syne)

As a child, my father railed against “helpless female syndrome” and abjured me to never pretend to be helpless just because I felt it was expected of me. And that’s the feeling I get when I read this. Shelly expresses insecurity about system mastery, about playing her character right, about making good choices for character advancement, about creating encounters, about just creating a character, about roleplaying – about EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING to do with D&D is painted as this herculean task and it is just SO AMAZING when the people around her manage to do these things and do them well.

There’s no shame in genuinely needing help, but this just smacks of deliberate obtuseness.

Women are incapable of taking the game seriously or being dedicated to the game.

And he failed his first two death saves. “Oh no,” I croaked over the lump in my throat. “He hasn’t even had his first haircut yet!” (May 2010, An Overwhelmed Duckling Part 2)

If I don’t learn how to write an encounter, I’m going to use this space to psychoanalyze each and every Real Housewife of NewYork, which may be fun but probably not appropriate for Dragon Magazine. (June 2010, Canine Encounters)

“Wait a minute. I don’t know if I can kill a dragon,” I told New DM. “Dragons are animals too. I’ll feel bad.”

“Didn’t a dragon kill your beloved barbarian minotaur?” New DM asked. “What was his stupid name?”

Man, Kevin can’t catch a break. “Yes, but still. This is my dragon.” (June 2010, Canine Encounters)

“What if the dragon is susceptible to tickling, and if the adventurers tickle him he laughs so hard he spits out puppies? Unharmed, of course.”

New DM shook his head, then started mumbling things like help me, please make it stop, I don’t think we’re in D&D anymore.  (June 2010, Canine Encounters)

“But you get a mutation card.” Greg handed me a deck to choose from. I drew mind trick, which would grant me a bonus to an Interaction check. Helpful, if only the glow dragons understood us. Not one to let things go to waste, I decided to use it on Viktor to make him believe he’s in love with Mojita.

“Um…” Viktor said. “You are the color of spring, Mojita.” (October 2010, Last of the Mojitas)

“Ah, an eladrin wizard!” I said. “I shall love you and keep you and call you Berry White.”

“It’s Berrian,” Chuck said. “I named him. I should know.”

“Trust me. It’s Berry White,” I said, explaining once again that in addition to my role as Player-in-Chief, Zelda’s lackey, and most recently “sado maso cookiest” due to my unloading thirty-seven tons of holiday cookies on R&D, I am also the Pre-Generated Character Whisperer.

“I’m like that guy, John Edward, who allows dead people to communicate with their loved ones through him. Sara: someone whose name begins with a D, always smelled like ham and used to favor plaid shirts wants you to check behind the refrigerator. Does this make sense? I know what the pre-gens want. They speak through me.” (December 2010, Arcana Lang Syne)

Everyone is familiar with the unflattering stereotype of the woman who’s only there because her male S.O. is there. The woman who does stupid shit like name her warhorse Fluffy (I’ll admit it, guilty once upon a time), constantly looks at her watch, gets distracted frequently and can’t stay focused on the game. This is like that, only minus the male S.O.

Women shouldn’t try for system mastery. They should stick to the basics and let other players (read: male players) worry about min-maxing and system mastery.

I want to help the party solve puzzles and reap rewards. And yet sometimes I choose to have Tabitha cast scorching burst because I know she’s good at it. I can attack and roll damage without once referencing my character sheet. (April 2010, Confessions of an Overwhelmed Duckling)

Maybe Tabby should ditch her dreams of becoming a warlock and concentrate on becoming a really good wizard. (April 2010) (April 2010, Confessions of an Overwhelmed Duckling)

“It could run away,” New DM suggested. “Or negotiate.”

Yeah, but that would involve roleplaying, and we all know I’m not the best negotiator. I guess I could just pretend this is a game of make-believe and no dragons were hurt in the process.  (June 2010, Canine Encounters)

Then it hit me. The talking. And not just the “What are you having for dinner tonight” or “Would you rather have eyes in the back of your head or a giant lizard tail” table talking I’m used to. This was relevant talking. Like important to the game talking. This was – gasp! – roleplaying!

I know what you’re thinking: “This is D&D, you big dummy!” But maybe you don’t remember my irrational fear of roleplaying and playing D&D with people who are: 1. Too serious. 2. Jerks. 3. Really good at roleplaying.

This is why I usually create characters that are too sullen or naive or too apathetic to talk to strangers. (October 2010, Last of the Mojitas)

This makes me so very angry. Shelly Mazzanoble is presented as a very prominently female voice, one of the only female voices to come out of Wizards. And she constantly presents herself as this stereotyped caricature of a woman who is insecure and thinks D&D is hard and this roleplaying stuff is pretty scary. And you know what? That could be okay if she managed to soldier on and find a way to succeed despite her many insecurities. I could roll my eyes and move on with my life if it didn’t constantly lead to the conclusion that she should just stick to the basics and let other people worry about achieving system mastery. That system mastery is for other people and is too lofty a goal for poor little Shelly to achieve.

This makes me want to hit things, because this shit is insidious and toxic and just reinforces stereotypes of female gamer behavior. This more than anything says that when it comes to gaming, women are never going to be more than second class citizens because gaming is just too hard for our little female brains. And. Gah. This is so wrong. Being a dude does not automatically confer superior powers of mathematics and gaming. It just doesn’t. Like, times a million.

Women can’t make decisions or perform complex tasks without someone’s help (read: a man)

“Don’t you remember?” she went on. “We took you and your brother to Florida for spring break when you guys were in high school and Dad put a $100 gift card in your Easter Basket. You were so overwhelmed by what to buy you never spent it.” (May 2010, An Overwhelmed Duckling Part 2)

New DM has exacted the ultimate revenge! “He’s on vacation?” I whined. “He’s supposed to be helping me with my encounter!” Technically he did help, as you might remember from last month’s column. But that was a month ago. You can’t expect me to remember everything he said about traps and tactics. I can’t even find my notes. (July 2010, Canine Encounters Part 2)

I’m pretty sure they won’t love it, but if Chris Perkins, Dungeon Master to the Stars, says to do it, I’ll consider it. My number one priority is not to overwhelm myself.  (July 2010, Canine Encounters Part 2)

Once Chuck even helped me weigh the pros and cons of cognac leather versus mahogany suede when I found myself in a winter boot conundrum. (His arguments for both were so well articulated, I ended up buying both pairs.) (October 2010, Last of the Mojitas)

“Have you become so reliant on the Character Builder that you forgot how to roll up a character the old fashioned way?”

“That’s nuts,” I said in my defense. “Everyone knows I rely on Marty to roll up my characters.”

And I didn’t forget. It’s quite possible I never knew. The last character I rolled up the “old fashioned way” was Astrid, my 3.5 elf sorceress, and really my old DM did most of the work. (December 2010, Arcana Lang Syne)

Getting men to either perform complex tasks she should be doing or to make decisions for her is another theme that is super-prevalent in Shelly’s columns, which – again – makes me want to punch something. In a year’s worth of columns, not once did Shelly write about turning to a female to bail her out of whatever tempest in a teacup she’d created for herself.

She’s essentially handed over all agency to the men in her life and doesn’t even bat an eyelash at it, seeming to take for granted that of course these men should drop everything and roll her a character, or write an encounter for her, or whatever it is that she’s supposed to be doing. And it’s demeaning for everyone involved. It’s demeaning for Shelly-the-character to be completely dependent on men for everything. But it’s also demeaning for the men, who I’m sure have better things to do with their life than babysit someone who could learn to do all this stuff if she exerted herself.

This is so messed up it deserves a special mention:

This doesn’t actually relate to any of the above stereotypes, but it was so messed up that I had to specifically call it out. In a column in which Shelly angsts about preparing an encounter for her group, she ends with this paragraph:

I’d love to tell you, but I’m much too busy gathering up Dungeon Tiles and minis. And maybe creating some special actions for my monsters to appease Bart. And possibly a skill challenge for Kierin. Maybe a puppy for Laura and a chocolate torte for Hilary.

My jaw literally dropped when I read this because I could not believe what I was reading. The BOYS get skill challenges and monsters – stuff that engages them with the system. And the GIRLS get puppies and chocolate. Because all that stupid system stuff wouldn’t be rewarding for them, since they’re – you know – GIRLS. Which deserves a special mention and a particularly loud “…the FUCK???”.

Argh. So angry.

In summary: some closing notes (or – tl;dr)

(This is dragging on way too long, so I’ll keep this brief.) I will give Shelly one thing. There is a certain level of craft to these columns. If one can speak of comic timing in writing, then Shelly’s timing is good and her jokes are always well-delivered, even if I hate the content.

Now do I think that Shelly Mazzanoble is all of these stereotypes? No. I think that Shelly is being used by Wizards to try to broaden their appeal to women. Only their marketing department doesn’t really understand how to speak to women without being off-putting, insulting, and patronizing. So as a result, you get Shelly-the-character’s Fluffy Adventures in D&D is Also For Girls Land.

This pisses me off. It pisses me off because I don’t want the neurotic, fashion-obsessed, passive, please-decide-things-for-me, d&d-has-numbers-and-is-haaaaaard character she portrays herself as to represent me as a female player. In her columns, Shelly frequently refers to herself as Player In Chief. This implies that she is somehow representing players of D&D, which is what I am violently against. I desperately, vehemently, passionately want to be disassociated from pretty much everything Shelly’s columns say about women. Shelly-the-character doesn’t represent me or any of the women I know who play D&D, or even any of the women I know who play roleplaying games that aren’t D&D. Not at all.

Yes I know it’s been forever

Seriously, my next post is killing me. I’ve already put six hours into this thing and I’ve got maybe another hour to go. I just wanted to let everyone know that I’m not dead and I’m not slacking. I’m just working on something that I was putting off because I knew it was going to be tedious. (And I was right.)

I hope to have it up tomorrow.

In the mean time – hey look! EA realized that women actually play their games! OMG!

(Seriously this is great and really encouraging, and holy crap that girl is awesome. But still – I find the narrative of the EA execs being surprised at the news that women like sports games to be really disingenuous. But whatever, it’s a totally awesome step in the right direction.)

Dead Island shitstorm: even if it was a “private joke”, it’s still not okay

So there’s been a bit of a controversy surrounding the accidental release of a debug build of Dead Island on Steam and the discovery of a skill called “Feminist Whore” buried in the code of said test build. I’m not going to waste too much space summarizing the incident, so if you have managed to avoid the internet shitstorm thus far, the Escapist has a pretty good summary of what exactly happened. Go read it. I’ll wait.

… okay. Amusingly, I’m feeling a bit vindicated about some stuff I said about Dead Island after watching the E3 pre-release trailer. It seems that  my belief that the game was a cynical attempt to package a healthy dose of T&A along with good old fashioned zombie killing might have some grounds after all. But this isn’t about saying I told you so.

Now, a lot of people have said a lot of things in response to this. Some people have professed horror that this could have ever happened. Many others have tried to dismiss the incident with a wide variety of justifications – from ‘it was a joke’ to ‘I wasn’t offended’ to ‘you feminists have no sense of humor’ to ‘it’s not sexist it’s just code’. And Jim Sterling, that bastion of civil behavior and tireless supporter of feminism, responded (somewhat predictably) with:

That’s definitely the kind of thing you want to make sure you take out, because I can tell you from firsthand experience that pissing off the more radical of feminists is way more trouble than it’s worth.

(emphasis mine)

Now I could take on Jim Sterling’s response. It seems to me that there are a lot of reasons for being upset about this incident, not the least of which is the base level of misogyny and sexism still present in the gaming industry. But you know what? I’ve devoted more space here to Jim Sterling than I really care to, and I don’t have anything to say about him that I haven’t said previously. So if this isn’t about saying ‘I told you so’, neither is it about Jim Sterling’s problematic understanding of why this should be a Big Fucking Deal.

It’s not even about the responses of those who have tried to handwave or otherwise justify this incident as not being a big deal. I could have written about that, but Tracey John already beat me to the punch with a well-written post about why misogyny in code is still misogyny. I don’t really have anything to say that she hasn’t said already. And over on VG24/7 Brenna Hiller did a wonderful post on how this incident plays into the sexism in the hobby as a whole.

So what am I adding here?

“Feminist Whore” is not a joke

This about the idea that “Feminist Whore” was a “private joke”, a joke shared in the office that is only offensive in the context of being shared with the world. I’ve seen that in more than a few places. Heck, the Escapist’s summary ended by saying that they hoped this was nothing more than an in-joke. And Techland’s official response, too, plays on this idea (again, emphasis mine):

It has come to our attention that one of Dead Island’s leftover debug files contains a highly inappropriate internal script name of one of the character skills. This has been inexcusably overlooked and released with the game. The line in question was something a programmer considered a private joke. The skill naturaly [sic] has a completely different in-game name and the script reference was also changed…

Here’s the thing I can’t get past. I can’t conceive of a situation that is not rampantly inappropriate in which an office in-joke that would cause a coder to implement “Feminist Whore” as a skill name in a debug build. Now that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t an office in-joke anyway, but the thing that concerns me is this: we can’t know the environment in which this “joke” was conceived, but we know that misogyny is very prevalent in the game industry and that harassment is a very real and ever-present phenomenon.

Seriously, go read that last link. Go read it now. If the sorts of “jokes” that happen in game studios can include employees wearing shirts that say ‘dead girls can’t say no’ and women being interrupted during meetings by male employees telling them to make them a sandwich, I don’t see why we should assume that this joke is benign. In an environment where jokes that trivialize sexual harassment, assault, and rape are considered funny, why should we assume that this anonymous coder is an anomaly?

Furthermore, the studios are responsible for creating the work environment in which this coder was working, an environment in which he had the idea that “Feminist Whore” was appropriate to implement in a debug build. So I don’t think we should be so quick to absolve the studio of responsibility, even if they claim ignorance of this “joke” up to this point.

I don’t know the makeup of Techland or Deep Silver. I don’t know if there are female employees who worked on this game. But if there are, I hope to god that this wasn’t something that they had to deal with as an office “joke”, because that would really break my heart.

New Liara Figure: DO NOT WANT

Or – An Open Letter to BioWare – Why this blatant pandering to the (straight) male portion of your audience represents a betrayal of your female fans.

(I realize the second title isn’t as catchy.)

Dear BioWare,

I think it’s no secret that I’m a huge fan, and that I’m slightly obsessed with the Mass Effect series. I’ve been a fan since the Baldur’s Gate days, but I think you guys really found your voice with the KOTOR series and have continued to hone your craft more and more with each game. Dragon Age: Origins snags the honor of the first PC game that made me cry, and I am so in love with the Mass Effect series that I’ve finished 3 games of ME1 and 2 games of ME2 and I cannot freaking wait for ME3. (Seriously. Hurry up, please.)

One of my favorite things from Mass Effect 2 (that wasn’t FemShep) was the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC. At the time, here’s what I had to say about Liara:

Okay. So I’ll confess that Liara wasn’t exactly my favorite character in the first Mass Effect. … But I couldn’t escape the feeling that she was a bit fetishized for male audiences since her innocence and youth were constantly played up and the dialogue between her and Shepard is decidedly awkward in many places.

So I was definitely pleasantly surprised at the transition Liara had apparently undergone between the first Mass Effect and ME2. Rather than being some awkward innocent pining after Shepard, Liara had come into her own as an independent character with her own goals – goals that didn’t necessarily align with Shepard’s. That was great in and of itself – it’s always refreshing to encounter female characters who have goals of their own rather than just being like I WANT WHATEVER THE HERO WANTS TEE HEE.

Even now that the afterglow of having finished my first ME2 playthrough has faded (at least as much as it’s ever going to), the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC remains one of my favorite parts of the game. Liara is an awesome, competent, not-sexualized female character who has her own agenda – which is exactly what I have been asking for by writing this blog. I can’t emphasize how important the not-sexualized aspect of that is, either. See, Liara should look like this:

See? Awesome sci-fi female character in a non-sexualized pose displaying emotion that’s not OH GOD PLZ SAVE ME HALP or I AM TEH SEX.

But that doesn’t mean that she shouldn’t also look like this:

Again, awesome. Again, non-sexualized. Competent? Definitely. Badass? Yup. This, too, is acceptable.

But not this. Never ever this:

Seriously, what the hell is it? What is this pose? Her back is arched, her ass is thrust out, and she’s squeezing her tits together to make her cleavage look huge – none of which, I might add, will help you aim better. In fact, I’m going to go on a limb and say that it would present a bit of a handicap.

Honestly, let’s do a little comparison between Liara in the game and this b.s. Liara statue:

Let’s review. You didn’t do so hot when it came to female crew in Mass Effect 2. There was Miranda of the ridiculous ass cleavage, Jack of the absurd leather nipple-strap, and Samara the Space MILF. Besides Tali, Liara was the only female who wasn’t Shepard who got to wear some damn clothes without having to fork out extra cash for a DLC that would fix their various wardrobe issues.

So what happened? Were your male fans upset that Liara wasn’t sexy enough? Because I just don’t understand this blatant pandering. Even after you said that FemShep would only be on the collector’s edition cover of ME3, I was still encouraged and elated that you were making such a step at all. You’ve been talking with your fans this time around – letting us choose the FemShep we wanted on the cover, promising a FemShep trailer… It made me think that you were maybe, finally turning over a new leaf.

And then this. I feel upset. I feel angry. I feel betrayed.

I mean, come ON! You guys aren’t Atlus, here.

You said on your facebook page that you wanted to know what we thought of this statue? Well comments are closed, otherwise I would have commented, but I hate it. I hate the design, I hate the concept, I hate everything it represents.

I think the most upsetting part of all is that I can’t refuse to vote with my dollar because there’s nothing else to vote for. This kind of pandering is the sort of bullshit that tells us female fans that we do not count, that we are not welcome. This Others us, pushes us to the margins. And I can’t even ‘take my ball and go home’, because there’s nothing to go home TO. As angry as you make me, as upset as I am with you, you’re the folks who make games that insult me the least.

So, come on, BioWare. I don’t want to be this angry with you. You guys are masters of your craft. The art, the writing, the game play – you guys are industry leaders in all of these things. When are you going to see that you don’t need bullshit sexism to push your titles? Your games sell because they’re good games, and anyone who says that they’re not going to buy ME3 if it doesn’t have enough hawt T&A in it is lying. Anyone who has played ME1 and ME2 is going to buy ME3 because we know it will be awesome and we want more Shepard.

Please, I implore you, if you sell a Liara statue – make it something true to the design and the character that you created, not this dumbed down, sexualized version of an awesome character just so you can make a quick few bucks. BioWare, you’re so much better than this.


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Brunch is an easy-to-use and blazing fast JavaScript build tool.

My involvement in Brunch includes:

As an example here, we’ve collaborated with Gosha to bring 8 solid @brunch releases since Nov’ 15. Helped real-world apps a lot! (Tweet)

Paul Miller, Hell Yeah

Technology behind

If you need an MVP or a custom app built for your business or an idea, there's a chance I could help you with that. Tell me about your situation and let's take it from here.

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Call Me CRAZY – Again!

Yesterday and today found me deeply entrenched in a NEW project: attempt to clean out the bedroom closet (this is in the room middle son will be taking). Youngest son asked me yesterday: “Has that closet EVER been cleaned out?” Good question – husband answered: “It was clean when we moved in!” (in 1979!) We have a small house and all our 3 closets are filled to the brim with STUFF. This particular closet was filled with old toys & games! I know, about a year ago, I took some of the ‘stuff’ out and donated it to Purple Heart – this time I’m going to TRY to weed out what we won’t use and keep what we will. I will include photos for you; let’s just say there were games I don’t EVER remember having, some doubles, some I remember buying and the boys didn’t like at all, etc. There was also about 4 sets of double bed sheets (from when we had a double bed!) and tons of plastic trucks (most of which were cheap plastic and got broken being shoved back in the closet – those went out with the garbage today!)

THE closet still with some ‘stuff’ that needs going through.

The bed covered in sheet sets & ‘stuff’

The corner filled with ‘stuff’ to go to Purple Heart (and there’s more)

This is SOME of the games – just some! Pile on chair are ‘going’ to our local freecycle (I hope someone wants them!) Pile on right are keepers – so far.

There was a large LEGO container filled with tiny plastic army men and their jeeps/trucks/tanks, etc. (Freecycle), quite a few metal trucks & airplanes – those are being stored – it’s amazing the stuff we accumulate throughout our lives! I’ve told you before – we’re PackRats! It REALLY shows when you start plowing through closets! (not sure if I’m going to have the energy to attack the other two closets or not – we’ll see . . . that’s in the FAR future, if I do!) I texted my oldest son to ask if he wants his old roller blades – he texted back: “Send picture” – he doesn’t even remember them! He’s the only son who took up that sport. There are some games I’m anxious to try on my grandson-I’m pretty sure he will be thrilled with most of them. There’s Clue, Jr., Clue, Sorry, Don’t Break the Ice, Jumanji, Forbidden Bridge, Parcheesi (don’t remember how to play that), Snakes & Ladders (older kids version of Shoots ‘n Ladders – had 2 copies of Shoots, etc.) – should be fun. Oldest son asked if I could watch grandson in the morning Thursday so we’ll see!

Had ‘fun’ yesterday attempting to get back ‘ON’ our local Freecycle; I hadn’t been using it for a good year and then they decided to change sites. I did about everything I could think of to get back on – it kept ‘looping’ me back to the log in information. Finally, out of desperation, I wrote Freecycle.Org and asked them for help – they said it sounded like I had an old ‘cookie’ in my files (from when I was a member years ago) and then explained how to clear it. In the meantime a friend who’s a moderator for that group sent me an email ‘invite’ and now we’re ‘good to go’ again. Yay! Am hoping to get rid of most of this ‘stuff’ through them. There’s also an older model 22″RCA color TV that I purchased for middle son one of the times he moved (no remote – he lost it . . . and he never actually USED the tv! they will need a universal remote). Hoping someone will want it – I know it works – just need it out of the room for the space when son moves back. Yep, guess you could call our house: JUNK IS US!  (there’s also my collection of recipe books – that will be hard to give up but I NEVER use them! Ugh!)

Here’s a dish I’m going to try for this Saturday (Sunday School Class picnic)

Spaghetti/Chicken/Bacon dish

12 oz spaghetti, cooked/drained
3 C. cooked/chopped chicken
6 slices bacon, cooked/crumbled
1 1/2 C. shredded Cheddar cheese
1 can cream of chicken soup
2 C. chicken stock
salt/pepper, to taste

Preheat oven 350 degrees F.
In large bowl stir chicken, spaghetti,
soup, chicken stock, some bacon,
1 C. cheese & salt/pepper. Pour into
greased 9 X 13″ pan. Bake, covered,
20 minutes. Uncover & top with 1/2 C.
cheese, rest of bacon & bake 10
minutes more.

Also going to try this one for the picnic:

Coconut Cream Poke Cake

1 (15.25 oz) box white cake mix
3 large eggs
1 C. milk
1/2 C. vegetable oil
1 small (3.4 oz) box coconut cream
instant pudding mix
1 tsp. vanilla
1 (15 oz) can cream of coconut*
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed
1 (8 oz) tub Cool Whip, thawed
sweetened coconut flakes

Preheat oven 350 degrees F.
Spray 9 X 13″ pan with nonstick spray.
Mix together cake mix, eggs, milk, oil,
instant pudding & vanilla until smooth;
pour into prepared pan. Bake 32-35
minutes until toothpick inserted into
center comes out clean. Mix cream of
coconut & sweetened cond. milk in
medium bowl. Poke holes in hot cake
with round end of a wooden spoon &
slowly pour this mixture over the cake,
trying to fill the holes. Let cake cool
completely. When cake is fully cooled,
top with Cool Whip & sprinkle with
desired amount of sweetened coconut
flakes. Refrigerate at least 8 hours before
serving. (it’s even better the next day-
if you can wait that long!)

*this is found in the mixed drinks/alcohol aisle

Chicken Peppers Taquitos

3 C. shredded, cooked chicken
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
2 T. hot sauce
1 C. shredded Cheddar cheese
2 (4.5 oz, ea) cans green chiles
16 (6 inch) flour tortillas
1 C. vegetable oil, for frying
salsa – for dipping

Mix cooked, shredded chicken
with cheeses, hot sauce & chiles.
Working with one flour tortilla
at a time, place a few tablespoons
of chicken mixture in center of
tortilla & roll up tightly. Add oil
to large skillet over medium heat.
Once oil is hot, add about four
taquitos to pan, seam sides
down. Cook 2-3 minutes per side
flipping once. Once cooked transfer
to a paper-towel lined plate. You can
also place them in a pan & keep them
warm in a 250 degrees F. oven while
frying the rest. Makes 16

Baked Squash Casserole

4 C. yellow squash, peeled/
cut up into chunks
1 medium purple onion, cut up
35 Ritz crackers, crushed
1 C. Cheddar cheese, shredded
2 eggs
3/4 C. milk
1/2 C. butter, melted
salt/pepper, to taste

Preheat oven 400 degrees F.
Lightly steam squash & onion in a
steamer basket about 5 minutes;
drain; set aside. In medium bowl
combine cracker crumbs & cheese.
In large bowl add drained squash &
onion; gently fold in half of cracker/
cheese mixture. In small bowl whisk
together egg & milk; add to squash
mixture. Add half of melted butter
to squash mixture; season with
salt/pepper. Spread squash mixture
in 9 X 13″ baking pan; top with
remaining crackers & pour remaining
butter over dish. Bake 25 minutes
until lightly browned.

(recipe: Courtney Luper-Facebook)

Crockpot Cheesy Potatoes & Bacon

1 (32 oz) bag frozen Southern-style diced
hash browns
8-10 slices bacon, cooked/crumbled
1/2 C. butter, melted
1 onion, chopped medium
8 oz. sour cream
1 tsp. Cajun seasoning
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 can cream of chicken soup
2 C. shredded Cheddar cheese

(chopped chives – optional)

In large bowl mix soup, hash browns,
melted butter, onion, sour cream, bacon,
cajun seasoning, garlic powder, pepper &
1 C. shredded cheese. Place ingredients
in crockpot, top with other 1 C. cheese.
Cook on Low 3-4 hours. (You can also
place some of the cooked,crumbled bacon
on top before serving.

(recipe: Crockpot Moms)

Strawberry Bread

2 C. fresh strawberries
3 1/8 C. flour
2 C. granulated sugar
1 T. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 1/4 C. vegetable oil
4 eggs, beaten
1 1/4 C. chopped pecans

Preheat oven 350 degrees F.
Grease & flour two 9 X 5″ loaf
pans. Slice strawberries & place in
medium bowl; sprinkle lightly with
sugar & set aside. Combine flour, sugar,
cinnamon, salt & baking soda in large
bowl; mix well. Blend oil & eggs into
strawberries; add strawberry mixture
to flour mixture, blending until dry
ingredients are just moistened. Stir in
pecans; divide batter into both pans.
Bake 45-50 minutes until toothpick
inserted into center comes out clean.
Let cool in pans on wire rack 10 minutes.
Turn loaves out of pans & allow to cool
before slicing. Makes 2 loaves

That Good Salad
(poster said people always
ask for this salad by this name!)

3/4 C. canola oil
1/4 C. lemon juice
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
2 bunches (1 lb ea) romaine,
2 C. chopped tomatoes
1 C. (4 oz) shredded Swiss cheese
2/3 C. slivered almonds, toasted
1/2 C. grated Parmesan cheese
8 strips bacon, cooked/crumbled
1 C. Caesar salad croutons

In a jar with tight-fitting lid, combine
oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt/pepper.
Cover & shake well; chill.
In large serving bowl toss romaine,
tomatoes, Swiss cheese, almonds,
Parmesan cheese & bacon. Shake
dressing; pour over salad & toss.
Add croutons & serve immediately.
Serves 14

Charleston Cheese Dip

1/2 C. mayonnaise
1 (8 oz) pkg. cream cheese, softened
1 c. grated sharp Cheddar cheese
1/2 C. Monterrey Jack cheese, shredded
2 green onions, finely chopped
1 dash cayenne pepper
8 butter crackers, crushed (like Ritz)
8 slices bacon, cooked/crumbled

Serving: corn chips, crackers or bagel

Preheat oven 350 degrees F.
In medium bowl mix mayonnaise, cream
cheese, Cheddar cheese, Monterrey Jack
cheese, green onions & cayenne pepper.
Transfer to shallow baking dish (like 9″
pie plate). Top mixture with cracker crumbs &
bake until heated through, about 15 minutes.
Remove pan from oven; top with bacon. Serve
immediately with suggested servings.
Makes 10 servings.

Banana Bread Brownies

1 1/2 C. sugar
1 C. sour cream
1/2 C. butter, softened
2 eggs
3-4 ripe bananas, mashed
2 tsp. vanilla
2 C. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 C. chopped nuts

Brown Butter Frosting:
1/2 C. butter
4 C. powdered sugar
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
3 T. milk

Preheat oven 375 degrees F.
Grease & flour 15 X 10″ jelly roll
pan. In large bowl beat sugar,
sour cream, butter & eggs until
creamy. Blend in bananas & vanilla.
Add flour, baking soda, salt & blend
1 minute; stir in nuts. Spread batter
evenly in pan. Bake 20-25 minutes
until golden brown.

Heat butter in large saucepan over
medium heat until boiling. Let butter
turn a delicate brown & remove from
heat immediately. Add powdered
sugar, vanilla & milk; whisk together
until smooth (it should be thicker
than a glaze but thinner than
frosting). Using a spatula, spread
over warm bars. (Frosting will be
easier to spread when bars are
still warm.

(recipe: Courtney Luper – Facebook)

Hope you have a great day – right
now it’s raining & chilly (70 degrees F).
Better get off here – hearing thunder.

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One CommentLeave a comment

  1. If you were not crazy before I’m sure you will be once you go through all those closets! good luck!

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My Nonprofit Reviews

alicat - charity reviews, charity ratings, best charities, best nonprofits, search nonprofits

322 profile views
1 reviews

Review for Metrohaven of Love, Inc., Dallas, TX, USA

Rating: 5 stars

This ministry is not just a program to IMPROVE people -- the people are getting set free from their pasts and becoming NEW CREATURES in CHRIST! The transforming power of God is on this place and they feel loved and accepted and are being renewed to go back out and live their lives as they were intended to. It is truly a miraculous place!

The kinds of staff and volunteers that I met were...

Completely selfless with no personal motivations, full of integrity and passion for the hurting.

How frequently have you been involved with the organization?

About every month

When was your last experience with this nonprofit?

Role:  Donor & Meet with the staff that ministers and counsels them.


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Perfect EDC Graduation Gift Ideas

Posted by BJ Minson on

As graduation day approaches, you may be keeping an eye out for the perfect graduation present for a friend and family member. Of course, you want to buy something useful that will be appreciated for years to come as well as remind the recipient of you when they use it. If you have a soon-to-be-graduate who appreciates being prepared at a moment’s notice and enjoys useful and tactical tools of the everyday carry variety, here’s a list of EDC gear suggestions that might also make the very best graduation gifts as well:

A Completely Customizable Carbon Fiber Belt

The most comfortable belt you’ll ever find also happens to be stylish and completely customizable. For a gift that is practical and cool, these Grip6 Carbon Fiber Belts come in a variety of colors in both buckles and straps. These minimalist belts are free from any holes or annoying flaps, they are interchangeable so one belt strap can be worn many different ways, and they hold tight all day long. As a graduation gift, the Grip6 belt buckles can include college logos so students can show their school pride wherever they go.

A Solid Knife

No EDC collection would be complete without a good knife and pocket knives make great graduation gifts. A sturdy knife can be used in countless situations on a day-to-day basis and is useful for any number of odd jobs, chores or hobbies. Look for a knife that is adaptable to many situations from cutting wood in the outdoors to opening packages to self-defense if needs be. If you have a graduate friend who appreciates camping and hiking in particular, pocket knives are great graduation gifts for him or her as well as being an essential addition to any cool EDC gear.

The Grid-It Organizer

For the graduate who is gearing up to head into the workplace, the Grid-It organizer is sleek and effortless and is able to carry everything including a laptop, various chargers and cords, glasses, pens, notebooks, small electronics and anything else that might be placed in a briefcase but minus the clutter.

An EDC-Friendly Water Bottle

Water bottles are not what they used to be. The new generation of water bottles are extremely well-insulated with easy to grip, ergonomic designs that hold plenty of water without being weighty. With so many of these water bottles available on the market today, promising to keep hot beverages hot and cold beverages cold for hours on end, they make a great gift idea for your graduate.

These are a few of our favorite EDC items that are also a good choice for any graduation gift. What do you think, are there any favorites you have that we missed?

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(Baby) Boy’s Hat

Yes – up 2-0! Beat L.A.! The Celts are lookin’ gooooood.

Hey Curtis, remember how I mentioned that I was working on a hat for baby G and it was comin’ out a little big. Ummm…..yah. It fits my mammoth 5-year-old. Here it is on the mammoth 3-year-old:

It’s a cute (and free) pattern, but dammit – all of my hats are comin’ out waaaaay too big lately. {sigh}  I’m not giving up!

About gumbygoogoo

I love Maine. I hate mosquitoes. I prefer the bottom half of a muffin to the top. Baseball yes. Boxing no. Oh, and I have 3 boys in middle school. This is my blog.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to (Baby) Boy’s Hat

  1. meg says:

    LOVE that hat!!!

  2. Ma says:

    How did I know you wouldn’t give up?
    It is a cute hat.

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District 41's Ban on The Perks of Being a Wallflower

"Those who seek to protect children from thoughtful artistic content may well instead 'protect' them from a full and complete education"–Julian Darius

perks1Two parents of a graduating Hadley student, Jen and Brian Bradfield, recently requested that The Perks of Being a Wallflower be banned from Hadley Junior High School for its upsetting sexual content. Their daughter found Perks  in a “literary classroom collection,” according to the Chicago Tribune.* It wasn’t required reading, or even in the main library. It was available for students to pick up and read (or not) as they chose.

The Bradfields object to the book because of its sexual content, including “bestiality, homosexuality, heterosexuality, oral sex for money.”** They decided their parental disapproval should apply to every single other Hadley student and requested that the book be banned from the junior high library. Although a committee that The Patch describes as “comprised of Hadley teachers and administrators, one parent and a district administrator” recommended the district keep the book–while increasing communication with parents about the book’s content–the Glen Ellyn School District 41 Board of Education voted 4-2 to ban the book.

The school board has changed members since the vote to ban Perks (my apologies for not having this info up on the site earlier; I wasn’t clear on the specifics of the term changes). Sam Black will be board president until 2015; according to The Glen Ellyn Patch, he “said while he’s reluctant to censor material, he agreed the issues addressed in the book have no place in a middle school.” John Kenwood, not present at the vote, will be vice president until 2015. Drew Ellis will still be on the board (he voted against keeping the book), as will Erica Nelson (who voted against the ban). I do not yet know how new members Dean Elger, Joe Bochenski, or Patrick Escalante feel about the ban.

Terra Costa Howard and Erica Nelson (the only women, interestingly) voted to keep Perks available at the school. Nelson told The Glen Ellyn Patch that “This book might not even be appropriate for someone in ninth or tenth depending on their maturity level, but it might be appropriate for somebody at the end of eighth grade (with a different maturity level),” while Terra Costa Howard, the mother of two young girls, offered another sane perspective: “The book was a suggestion (to my child) and she brought it home and we looked at it and talked about it, and she read it. …As a parent, that is my responsibility…We, as parents and as board members who have been around, cannot in today’s day in age put our heads under the sand and think our children don’t know, and are not exposed to, (these) things… We live in an age where these kids are exposed to things much sooner than we want them to be.” Sadly, Terra Costa Howard is no longer listed on the site as a board member.

Hadley teachers Kelly Coleman, Tina Booth, and Ali Tannenbaum have joined many parents and students speaking out against the vote, urging the board to “consider the freedom of speech and support the pursuit of knowledge,” according to the Trib. Literacy teacher Lynn Bruno has brought up the reality that most eighth graders have heard of blowjobs before, like it or not, and that books like Perks of Being a Wallflower are valuable because of the lessons students can learn from characters’ decisions in difficult situations.

Barbara Jones, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, told the Chicago Tribune that the board’s decision is “stunning. “We don’t understand how one parent can keep all these kids in the district from reading this book. Yes, the book has been challenged, but most good young adult novels get challenged because teens love them. ” She encourages parents to use books with difficult subject matter as a foundation for conversation. “Discussing the issues is what should happen, not banning.”

Superintendent Ann Riebock says that the school district is going to re-evaluate how it selects books.

*The information here was gleaned primarily from this Chicago Tribune article and this article from The Patch. To keep from being perksquoteiitedious, I’ve only mentioned the specific source when quoting directly; anything I don’t cite can probably still be found in those articles. Feel free to contact me if I’ve gotten things wrong.

**One must assume that if the Bradfields find both homosexuality and heterosexuality objectionable, they believe all YA characters in “appropriate” books must be bisexual or asexual. Or maybe Brian Bradfield listed his objection to homosexuality, then didn’t want to sound like a homophobe, and decided to throw in heterosexuality to round things out?

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Current Students, Seminars

Weiss-Livnat Seminar in Warsaw: Initiating Dialog Between Israeli, German, and Polish Students

Written by Devra Katz

Polin Museum

This past summer I had the privilege of participating in the Polin Meeting Point Summer Education School hosted at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland.  The program, a two-week seminar, invited students from Germany, Poland, and Israel to come together and, using various methodologies, explore issues related to post World War II reconstruction in Poland and Germany, and the emergence of Israeli statehood and citizenship.  This topic sparked very interesting and illuminating discussions among the students and brought to light issues of national narratives and identity politics in Poland, Germany, and Israel.

The program incorporated a multifaceted, interdisciplinary approach in order to engage participants and enhance the learning environment.  First and foremost, the seminar invited numerous prestigious scholars from Poland, Germany, and Israel to speak to the group.  Some of the best in their field, the guest scholars gave very interesting, informative, and engaging presentations which generated enlightening discussions that continued beyond the length of each session.  This approach and these lectures were some of the more special aspects of the program.  Through these discussions, our international group got the opportunity to really get to know one another and delve deeper into various narratives – personal, political, historical, and national – experienced by all the participants and their various home countries.

Historic Warsaw

In addition to the scholarship, we spent a great deal of time touring historic Warsaw and many sites in the city relevant to World War II, the Holocaust, and the years following the war.  Among these sites were the former Warsaw ghetto, Paviak prison, the Jewish cemetery, various monuments around the city, the Jewish Historical Institute, and many more.  We were also given access to the museum’s archives and research facilities allowing us to engage relevant material and to search for documents relevant to family histories or other research projects.  Furthermore, the group spent two days visiting the city of Wroclaw, where a Polish graduate from the Weiss-Livnat program guided us through the city’s Jewish, pre-war, and post-war history.  During the program we participated in several workshops about oral history and completed final projects using oral history interviews we conducted during the seminar.  This very packed program made for a well rounded and insightful two weeks of study, participation in cross-cultural dialogue, and a unique opportunity to meet and work with peers in our respective fields from diverse backgrounds.

Paviak Prison

The various aspects of this program provided a wonderful platform to learn a great deal, experience post-war Poland first hand, meet great people from different countries, and foster relationships, both professional and personal, that have carried on beyond the scope of the seminar.  As a student in the Weiss-Livnat International MA in Holocaust Studies program, this is just one of the many opportunities I have been afforded to expand my education, travel to places significant to the subject of the Holocaust and to my research, and grow as a scholar and global citizen.

One of the primary purposes of the POLIN Meeting Point program was to initiate dialogue between German, Polish, and Israeli students and work to build relationships at the grassroots level between the three countries.  I am very grateful for having participated in the program and I feel that my anticipation and expectations for this seminar were truly surpassed.  Originally from the United States, I am also still learning the Israeli national narratives and sentiments, and participation in this program furthered my understanding of the society in which I live and the community in which I learn. My time as a student in the Weiss-Livnat program has been enriched by participating in partner programs such as the POLIN Meeting Point, and I am thankful for the contribution it has made to my education and life experiences.

Interested in applying for our MA in Holocaust Studies Program?  You can find the application and more information at our website


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TKO – Let It Roll (1979/2008 reissue)

TKO – Let It Roll (1979/2008 reissue, Tribunal/Divebomb Records)

  1. Let It Roll
  2. Ain’t No Way To Be
  3. Only Love
  4. Gutter Boy
  5. Kill The Pain
  6. Come A Day
  7. Rock ‘N Roll Again
  8. Bad Sister
  9. What In The World
  10. Introduction*
  11. Rock ‘N Roll Again*
  12. Bad Sister*
  13. What In The World*
  14. Gutter Boy*
  15. Kill The Pain*
  16. Only Love*
  17. Let It Roll*
  18. Ending Outro*

(* Bonus tracks are from a radio taping, KZOK FM Live In Studio Sessions – 1978)

Band Lineup:
Brad Sinsel – Vocals
Rick Pierce – Guitars
Tony Bortko – Guitars & Keyboards
Mark Seidenverg – Bass
Darryl Siguenza – Drums & Percussion

Producer: Mike Flicker

Total Time = 1:06:27

TKO MySpace page
Divebomb Records
Divebomb Records MySpace page
Tribunal Records

TKO is another one of those bands that I discovered during hours of reading Rock magazines when I was a kid. Somewhere along the line, I saw an ad for the band’s second album, IN YOUR FACE, and I thought it looked cool. The next time I went to the record store I checked it out and noticed that the band had another album which turned out to be LET IT ROLL. I dismissed LET IT ROLL based on two factors: the album cover was silly, it had these homemade Rock’em Sock’em Robots and the album was released in 1979! At the time I made this discovery it was mid to late ’84 and I was convinced that “new” Metal bands only released albums in the ’80s. Sounds dumb doesn’t it? Especially since I had albums by KISS, Van Halen, Aerosmith, and AC/DC that were all released in the ’70s! I never ended up buying either album but I did enjoy a dubbed cassette copy of IN YOUR FACE I acquired from a trader. Over the years, I was able to hear LET IT ROLL but I never actually owned a copy. Fast forward to the digital age and both LET IT ROLL and IN YOUR FACE have been reissued by various labels…..all unofficially. Tribunal/Divebomb Records has worked closely with lead singer Brad Sinsel to finally release both albums officially on CD.

The Music:
The reissue contains the official nine song album plus a radio broadcast from 1978 where the band runs through seven of the nine songs in their set. The album is not remastered, it is reissued. The master tapes have long been lost since TKO’s original label, Infinity Records, folded in 1979. The audio tracks provided to Tribunal/Divebomb were from Brad Sinsel himself and could be either a copy from the original studio sessions or taken from the original vinyl. Other reissues have used the original vinyl for mastering but without the band’s consent.

Hearing LET IT ROLL for the first time in many years it’s amazing to hear the similarities that TKO had with Aerosmith, Starz, The Who, and UFO. The album was recorded in 1978 and released in 1979 so that ’70s Hard Rock sound is there that has that “Rock ‘n Rollsy” sound that Aerosmith perfected. Brad Sinsel sounds a bit like Roger Daltrey on a number of songs and ‘Gutter Boy’ sounds like it could have been a Who song. I hear a UFO connection when the keyboards/organ are more prominent in the songs (Listen to ‘Rock ‘N Roll Again’) but the group I identify TKO with the most is Starz. They both have that same laid back vibe and Michael Lee Smith (Starz’ Lead singer) and Brad Sinsel have a similar cool delivery.

The bonus tracks are a radio broadcast from 1978 of the band doing a local showcase playing most of the album. This is live in the studio but the band runs through the set well and the songs sound close to the originals on the album. It’s a nice timepiece and gives you an idea of where TKO was as a live band and how the Rock scene was different back in the late 70s/early 80s: they played a new local band’s live showcase on the radio! Before they released an album! You would never hear something like that today.

The Package:
The first thing that Tribunal & Divebomb Records did right was get founding member Brad Sinsel involved in the project. For me, there is more credibility to a reissue project like this when the band is contacted for input and permission to re-release the material. Like I mentioned before, various labels over the years have released this album on CD but never with involvement from a founding member. The second thing they did right was get one of my favorite Rock writers, Martin Popoff from Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles, to write a quick band/album history. Add lyrics to all the songs, pictures of the original vinyl, and the bonus radio broadcast and you have a solid package that well worth buying.

Favorite Songs:
I like the whole album and picking a couple of favorites is tough. I’d probably have to choose ‘Gutter Boy’, ‘Rock ‘N Roll Again’, ‘Ain’t No Way To Be’ and ‘Let It Roll’. It’s an excellent album of strong songs…..I really do like them all.

9 comments on “TKO – Let It Roll (1979/2008 reissue)

  1. Wow, I am glad you shared the story about dissing this one in the 80’s because I did about the same thing. I was in an Ames department store around early 1985 and saw several copies of this on vinyl in the cut-out bin for like $1.99. I had heard of them and thought they were metal and felt I was going to get a bargain until I flipped it over and saw the year “1979” on the back . I thought “oh, it probably sounds like KISS-Dynasty or something” and I promptly put it back in the bin. I like this re-issue a lot too.

  2. I saw these guys open up for Angel at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago in the spring of 1979 and immediate;y went out and bought Let It Roll. From the opening of Rock n Roll Again through the set set that concluded with a blistering cover of Bowie’s Jean Genie I was hooked. When they came around later that summer with Heart, a group of us followed them through the Midwest, even leaving a couple of shows after TKO finished their set. A great, great band…Sinsel is oneof the best metal singers of all time and it’s a damn shame that more people didn’t get the chance to find out just how good they were.

  3. I saw these guys at a small southeastern Michigan venue sometime in ’79 and picked up Let It Roll at the meet ‘n’ greet afterwards…still have it, too. Always wondered over the years what happened to these guys.

  4. I bought “In Your Face” back in the Mid 80’s. I never heard of anything before or after. I have long lost the old cassette I had and can’t wait to find this reissue. Thanks for the post.

  5. I had just started driving with my own car” age17″ I drove to the HEADSHOP/RECORDSTORE in downtown Salem,Oregon and i had just walked thru the front doors when i noticed the counterperson was pulling out a never before herd album to play on the stores sound system.Well it wasn’t evan 15 seconds into the first song and i was hooked so i baught it took it home and played the hell out of it! but unfortunatly over the coarse of 30years to be exact i have the record cover but no Vinyl record inside. I am 47 years of age and still like listening to that great album. I always thought they where ahead of there time/\ Good Job:Mike Flicker

  6. Our guitarist’s brother in law was the lightman for these guys, and he turned us on to them. We played “Rock and Roll Again” in our cover-set before we went all-original, waaaaaaaaaaay back in 1981. Good times. Samson (Ridin’ w/ the Angels, Go to Hell), Girl, Accept (SOB), Trust (Anti-Social), Maiden (Murders in the Rue Morgue, Hallowed Be Thy Name), Sabbath (Mob Rules, Heaven & Hell, Sabra Cadabra), Holocaust (Death or Glory, Smokin’ Valves), G-Force (Dancin’), Angelwitch (Gorgon), Ozzy (Steal Away, Mr. Crowley, Flying High, Diary, SATO), MSG (Armed & Ready, Ready to Rock), Riot (not the Quiet one, Here We Go Again)) Demon (One Helluva Night!), Anvil (Metal on Metal), Trespass (Stormchild), Klaatu (Mr. Manson), Priest (many, Hellbent-Screaming era), Saxon (Freeway Mad, 20,000 Feet), UFO (Only You Can, Doctor Doctor)- good times indeed.

  7. Can’t imagine who created the CD… Thanks to James for having virgin copies of the vinyl and the soundboard tape.

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