Things that happened at Flow: Someone held up an old rotary phone during Turnstile's set, and the audience cam held onto it for a surprisingly long time.

From Eden vol. 2

Back at it!

I visited the 2nd game store in the Norwegian Arctic, in Harstad. It's called Arctic Loot, and it's very sleek and modern.

A toilet sign at the Norwegian Andoya Space center where they launch smaller rockets.

I always try to visit local game stores when I travel and there's a particularly delightful one here in Tromso, called Tromso Bruktbokhandel. It's a small house absolutely crammed with books, games, etc. so it's difficult to move inside.

Blood on the Clocktower The physical production was top notch, very atmospheric and cool, helping establish the appropriate vibe of gothic paranoia.

Kapital! The boardgame's Finnish localization was extremely well done, referencing current political issues with a lot of verve and specificity.

Halo: Reach The game is about the fall of Reach, and the story ends with the player fighting endless waves of enemies. Eventually, they make a mistake and die. Roll credits.

Call of Duty: World At War I find it amazing that a big American military shooter can end the story with the player taking down the Nazi flag and proudly rising the flag of the Soviet Union at the Reichstag.

Brad Peyton: San Andreas The movie offers a very clean, well expressed articulation of the demand that masculinity makes on you to be the hero. If a man is not willing to be the hero, he's not a man at all. I've used it many times as an example when talking about masculinity, toxic or not.

The War of the Realms Malekith the Accursed is a cool villain, and the scenes where it's all about him work fine as Asgardian comics melodrama.

Ben Counter: Battle for the Abyss It was interesting to see the rare loyalist World Eater, without compromising the brutality of the chapter.

Zack Snyder: Man of Steel Some of those action shots where we suddenly zoom out and Superman is just a speck have an incredible sense of scale and momentum.

Gerard Bush & Christopher Renz: Antebellum Racist historical re-enactors kidnap Black people to play NPCs at their events. The movie is kind of terrible but the idea is novel.

Douglas Barr: The Mystery Cruise It's a Hallmark movie but I can't be all negative because for once, the very larplike murder mystery is depicted with a proper introductory workshop. None of the godawful onboarding design of Westworld to be found here!

David Cronenberg: The Shrouds The first half an hour when the movie showcases the business idea of real time corpse cameras for grieving families was interesting.

Gotham Knights Some of the supervillain bossfights, like with Mr. Freeze and Harley Quinn, managed to surpass the general mediocrity of the game and reach a manic intensity of their own.

Watch Dogs: Legion There were moments where the "everyone is a playable character" concept felt really cool.

The biggest Palestine flag I've ever seen at the Paris May Day parade

Not sure if it was the first, but I diligently hunted back issues of Action Force, as G.I. Joe was known in Finland. I read much of the story entirely out of joint, piece by piece as I found new issues in local used bookstores in Tampere and Helsinki.

The book Larppi eläytymisen taiteena by Kaisa Kangas is an excellent, accessible and thoughtful exploration of larp in Finland and the Nordics. It's meant for a general audience but I suspect there's a lot of new information even for experienced larpers.

Robots on surfboards... Supreme 80's cool.

Here's the cover:

Something new coming up...

I've seen wrestling shows from smaller, Nordic promotions before, but on Sunday I was at a big WWE event for the first time, Road to Royal Rumble at Royal Arena in Copenhagen. It was surprisingly different from the experience of seeing it on tv!

A selfie of sorts.

I've seen first reactions to the Vampire book Live from the Succubus Club so I think those who put in pre-orders have had their PDF versions. The idea for this book was based on some real "back to basics" thinking. Anne Rice. Leather pants. Red wine and murder ballads. Rock star vampires!

Amazing Commissar character power in Only War

Loved the arch vampire melodrama of the 2000 anime film Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust precisely because it's so different in style from any of my Vampire: The Masquerade work. It's fun to see cathedrals, immortal romance and high tragedy every once in a while.