In 2000, my friend Gareth Hanrahan came across a new role-playing game. He was not pleased. His review of that game has gone down in international role-playing history as one of the funniest things ever written on the subject. It's also a very handy Guide To How Not To Write A Roleplaying Game ( Read more... )

This is what it looks like:

I’m not your typical LA girl. I am from [somewhere with a cooler climate] but I moved here for the sunshine and my career. I like [some combination of the following]: hiking, yoga, Runyon Canyon, social cause X, reading [Sedaris / Palahniuk / Murakami], listening to [Radiohead / Muse / Mumford and Sons / The XX], farmer ( Read more... )

An (increasingly detailed) occasional series of things I hate. You should hate them too.

• "I've never had any complaints LOL!" Well of course not; they're not going to tell you, are they?
• "Of course I know! I just want to see if you know." You don't know, so shut up. Idiot.
• People who don't understand the concept of a hypothetical question. Yes, I know ( Read more... )

Review of Chapter One, Part One: Sophoclean Irony

It's full of interesting ideas, and I'm very much in favour of the pro-feminist hippie message, but he's wrong about a lot of stuff. Not wrong "in my opinion"; just wrong. Despite the fact that he's clearly making an effort to be as vague as possible, perhaps not having enough conviction in his own ( Read more... )

An (increasingly detailed) occasional series of things I hate. You should hate them too.

• "Honestly, I just think blah blah." If you have to pre-label it as honesty, I will immediately disregard everything else you say. It's for your own good.

 
• People who introduce me to their children (or friends) who turn out to be retarded, but who gave me no heads ( Read more... )

An (increasingly detailed) occasional series of things I hate. You should hate them too.

• Seeing or hearing the phrase "thumbs up for" when I'm trying to watch a YouTube. It's the YouTube equivalent of sticking a laugh-track on a sitcom. I don't need you to tell me when you're being entertaining. Just take care of your own shit, YouTube guy, and I' ( Read more... )

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(Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love My One Year Of Gender/Media/Social/Cultural Studies)I don't like being told how to feel. This is why I don't like laugh tracks on sitcoms; I'll decide what's funny - not you. I also don't like seeing words taken on a journey to remove them as far as possible from their meaning. For instance, I have read ( Read more... )

We have a dog. It's not my dog; I didn't even want it. I consider it a crime against animals to have a dog in an apartment, and we live in an apartment. Our apartment isn't huge either. I don't want to sleep on the mattress because it gets too hot and sometimes it feels wet because I sweat so much in those sleepless nights that invariably occur ( Read more... )

Graham Linehan is responsible for some of the best things on British television. He co-wrote the entire Father Ted series, which is the funniest thing involving Irish people that we'll probably ever see (apart from Crystal Swing). He was responsible for making the first series of Black Books by far the best. Fans don't like to admit it, but the ( Read more... )