Gender and Character Customisation

Following the success of the Grand Theft Auto series (2004, 2008), the open-world sandbox crime genre of video games seemed an obvious path to financial success, and so many imitations were created. One such imitation was Saints Row (2006), a game that was not without its fans but, aside from a surprisingly high-profile voice cast (Saints Row 2006), didn't really stand out from the crowd. It was not until the release of the sequel that the series really found its footing and achieved cult status.

Ken Zucker, Transgenderism, Gender Identity

Gender identity is a tricky subject. Many people (I'm led to believe) have an innate sense of gender which may be in harmony or at odds with their physical sex. Not having such a sense myself I'm unable to imagine what that is like and must simply take it on trust that it is indeed a thing, in much the same way that a person blind from birth must simply accept that colours exist and the sky is blue – you say it and I accept that it is so, but it doesn't really mean anything to me.

Shadowrun Hong Kong

This is primarily a review of the latest Shadowrun game (released August 2015) but I'll also talk about about the entire Harebrained Schemes series (Shadowrun Returns/Dead Man's Switch, Dragonfall/Director's Cut, and Hong Kong/Extended Edition) as I want to contrast some of the changes in this game to the previous ones. I'll talk about the plot a bit later, but I'll warn you before I get there in case you don't want to hear any spoilers. First I'm going to start with my overall impression.

Phones are annoying

Someone has apparently accidentally set their phone to forward their calls to my number, so I've been getting phone calls all day. This would be annoying enough, but the people who've been calling are a pack of wankers.

What the hell is "bio cheese"?

Well, it's a vegan cheese substitute with an awful name. I've seen it in the shop near my house recently and today I decided to give it a go.

Why do men's rights activists oppose women's rights?

In her essay Fighting Bodies, Fighting Words, Sharon Marcus argues for a post-modernist view of “understanding rape to be a language” (Marcus 1992, p. 387), that it is the narrative of female victimhood and male aggression that makes women vulnerable to rape and is itself reinforced by rape and the way we think about it. The prevailing view of rape, she says, is that it cannot be prevented, “only postrape events offer possible occasions for intervention” (Marcus 1992, p. 388).

Mortal Kombat (2011)

I recently finished the 2011 Mortal Kombat sort-of reboot and I thought I'd tell you all about it, bekause it was pretty good. Mostly. But first I'm going to need you to open this link up in a background tab. Done that? OK then, read on.

Tim the Landlord

I ran into my old landlord, Tim, today. Not too surprising since he owns the flat opposite the one I now live in. He says he's moved back in there now, but that doesn't actually seem to be the case. I'll get to that later. Everything with him is just a little bit odd. But first let me take you back to our first meeting.

Best of 2015

Most people would limit lists such as these to things that were actually released in 2015, but I'm doing it a bit differently. These are my top 5 of each category that I watched/read/played this year, regardless of when they were actually published.

Unfinished story

This is supposed to be the opening chapter of a work of historical fiction for a class called "Writing the Past". I don't have any plans to continue it, and I don't know how the mystery would unfold or what the solution would end up being, because I only needed to write the one chapter.