It’s been a while, I know. Just letting you know I’m alive and that, while I haven’t had anything particularly good to say since December, I’m still around. Here’s some of the stuff that’s been keeping me busy:

1. Every Game Ever

I have restarted the Every Game Ever blog with multiple writers. Now, instead of just me writing about seven SNES games a week (exhausting), I write about one a week and four others do the same. Oh, and I edit their work, too (also exhausting). For those unaware, it’s an exhaustive (ha) blog attempting to “review” (to comic effect) every SNES game ever.

2. My Sucky Job

My job has been in crisis mode for the past while, and they recently turned it up to 11 with a “we’re probably going to lay you off unless the impossible happens” demand. I’ve been spending a lot of time learning about employment insurance, and budgeting whether or not I’ll be able to subsist on what amounts to very little money per month. I think I can do it, which is a relief, but now it looks like they might not even layme off, which is confusing. They still haven’t given me written two weeks’, so that’s… I can’t decide if it’s good or bad. I’d love an excuse to not work here anymore…

3. “A Fistful Of Tokens” Podcast

I’ve also been editting the first episode of a podcast that was worked on by myself, Scott, Angus, and Travis (who has no web presence… in 2009. And he’s an English Master’s graduate. Someone please tell him the face of writing today so he can catch up with the world). It exists now in its editted form. All I need to do is sort out the hosting and the RSS and all of the stuff I can’t be bothered to sort out. The show exists as a sort of videogame-related version of the BBC5 panel show Fighting Talk, where questions of the industry are asked and the pundits get points for witty, insightful or downright hilarious responses. There’s also a lot of noise in the recording, particularly on my end, so I’m going to try to find a solution to that too.

4. Books!

I’ve also got an unread book pile that is menacing over me from my shelf. I am convinced that, despite my attempts to tame it of late, it will consume me. I’m curently reading Lawrence Lessig‘s Remix, which is a thoughtful look into the success of “hybrid economies” on the Internet (which, boiled down to the barest terms, is a commercial site that fosters a sharing community among its members, like craigslist) as well as the music/film/television/etc industry’s backwards-facing stance on copyright (for a hilarious dose of irony, check out Lessig’s blog right now: he has a CC license on a segment he shot with Stephen Colbert, and asked his readers to “remix” the segment: the segment was taken down due to a “copyright violation,” claimed by Viacom. THAT is too funny). I’m also reading Jimmy Corrigan: Smartest Kid On Earth which is a fantastic book. A fantastic book with pictures. I don’t want to call it a graphic novel because I think the author himself, Chris Ware, recoils from the term (or so the little cartoon on the back of the book would imply), and rightly so; I’ve never seen a graphic novel deliver this level of richness of character, bleakness of setting, or realness of conversational flow. I’ve also got about six books on my “borrowed books that I feel guilty about not having read yet” pile, and another six on my “books I bought but haven’t read because there are still books in the other pile” pile.

5. Procrastinating on playing games to play… other games!

Gamewise, my attempts to sit down with Far Cry 2 and Dead Space and Fallout 3 (all of which I intend to actually let soak in at some point; they’re still borign to me, but I’ve barely otuched them. I need to immerse) have been stymied by the release of Crayon Physics Deluxe (post upcoming, surely), Steam’s $4.99 sale of the entire X-Com catalogue (now, sadly, back to $14.99 but still a great deal — post ALSO upcoming, surely), and the release of the 9.2.0 patch of Football Manager 2009 which actually makes the game playable (if you’re going to flame me on playing an excel-sheet-game, stay tuned because SURPRISE! POST INCOMING!).

6. Making a game!

Cikro is also “hard at work” (that term is subjective, right?) on its first videogame. The tentative title is Malmö. Brush up on your Swedish, because due to a coworker of mine who speaks the language, parts of the game will be presented in the tongue of ABBA and Mats Sundin.

7. Secret blog!

There’s also another somewhat comedic blog that I’ve started and will be contributing to in the near future but I’m keeping that one under my hat. The only hint I’ll give is that it’s related to both breasts and eggs. But not chickens. Well, not really.

8. Cover band?

I’m signed up to be the lead singer in a cover band next month. I don’t know if that’s happening, but if it is, I don’t ANY of the songs I’m supposed to cover. Hmm.

9. The Wire & True Blood

I’m also staring at The Wire (the TV series), trying to will myself to watch it. I’m on season 2, and it’s VERRRRY difficult, but I can’t watch the (apparently amazing) seasons 3-5 without enduring 2. I watched True Blood, though, which was schlocky (not s1ocki, unfortunately) and fun enough.

10. P&P RPGs

Been playing D&D at my buddy Angus’s (different Angus than above — yes, I know and hang out with TWO Anguses). He might run Vampire The Masquerade. I am conflicted because I think vampires are dumb, but I think acting like an ass with your friends is the best thing ever.

11. Catching up on blogs superior to my own

I’m trying to catch up on the past year of all of the blogs listed here. This might take a while.

I didn’t intend for this to be such a long piece; really, I just wanted to round up everything I’m doing at the moment. Apparently I’m doing A LOT.

First, films!

5. All The Boys Love Mandy Lane

Of my top five movies this year, four were at the Fantasia Film Festival. This is probably because most of the movies I actually bothered to go see were at Fantasia. As such, a bunch of these probably didn’t even come out in 2008, but I think their Canadian premieres were in 2008, so that counts, right? Anyway, this is an AMAZING teen-slasher movie that starts with all of the grinning spookiness of the genre, and, at some point, warps into something really twisted and actually creepy. Highly recommended.

4. 4bia

Actually an anthology of sorts, 4bia is four short horror films by four Thai directors. Each one, however, plays out entirely differently; in fact, I’d say each fits into one of the horror subgenres that are actually relevant these days. The first plays out like an asian horror flick, but in thirty minutes. What makes it really crazy is that there’s no spoken lines, and (almost) the entire thing is shot inside a tiny Bangkok apartment. The second is a creepy black-magic-revenge story with buckets of gore, a huge departure from the previous one. The third, and audience favourite, is more of a ghost-comedy (if that makes ANY sense). And, the last one (my least favourite but that’s not saying much) feels like a Thai episode of Tales From The Crypt, about a mummified royal being returned to her country on a plane. All four are SO good, and they’re all bite-sized!

3. The Dark Knight

A no-brainer. Heath Ledger was a terrifying monster. What can I say? I never expected a cape film to be this good. It was. You’ve probably seen it, so I’ll shut up about it. But… wow.

2. [●REC]

A lot of horror this year, not because I’m a horror buff, but because I didn’t go see much else this year. [●REC] was astounding, though. If possible, make sure you don’t even see the commercial spots for the American Quarantine because it seems like a shot-for-shot remake (I didn’t see it, I heard it was bad) and it spoils a lot of the best moments. Just see [●REC]. I don’t think a movie has ever scared me more. All I’ll say to avoid spoiling things is that they completely SHATTER every idea I ever had about timing in horror movies. Best zombie movie of the decade, I reckon. Beats 28, Dawn remake, or whatever else. SEE THIS…

1. Let The Right One In

…But not before you see THIS. Best vampire movie of… well, EVER; this Swedish movie doesn’t patronize you by explaining for the fiftieth time all of the rules vampires need to follow. It’s not really a horror film as much as it is kind of an awkward kid-romance movie. Every character in this movie is intensely hug-worthy (thanks, Lyndsay, for pointing this out; Oskar really DOES look huggable) and an intriguing human being (or not, in one case). It’s a hard movie to explain, but see it.

Now, music!

5. Amadou & Mariam – Welcome to Mali

I’ll be honest– I wouldn’t have checked this out if not for Metacritic. I’m glad I did, though; at once bleak and exuberant, the album really jsut gets under my skin and makes me want to do everything in my life with even a sliver of the vigour they bring to their music.

4. Portishead – Third

Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much other than disappointment with this record. It was, what, eight years since the last album, or something? Plus, plenty of other bands have been making “combacks” recently and just proving to us that aging makes you lame. Portishead bucked the trend and made the perfect followup after such a long hiatus.

3. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes

Aside from a few expections (three, to be precise: Joanna Newsom, Grizzly Bear, and Final Fantasy), the whole alt/freak/whatever folk scene has been at best uninteresting and at worst repulsive to me. This year, I added Fleet Foxes to my list of loved bands that get labelled as such, though. The EP is good, but the full-length is just astounding.

2. Zazen Boys – Zazen Boys IV

I can’t believe it took me until Zazen Boys IV to listen to Zazen Boys. I’m glad I did, though. Weekend is an amazing single, but it’s not even close to the highlight of the album. Honnoji is probably my favourite track (although practically every track is astounding). I wondered whatever happened to math rock that wasn’t boring; apparently it just moved to Japan.

1. Love Is All – A Hundred Things Keep Me Up At Night

I don’t even know what to say. I saw them in Manhattan, then I saw them in Montreal. I can’t stop listening to their music. The songs are sorrowful and lonely, but also noisy and fast and cathartic and exhilarating. I still can’t stop listening to this over and over and over. I’m as smitten with this album as one can possibly be with something that isn’t a person (or, uh… tangible, really).

These fellas are Zazen Boys, and they are great. I can’t believe it took me this long to post it; I was planning on doing it two weeks ago, but just kept forgetting.

Hopefully I’ll post something of a bit more worth in the near future, but sadly, my workplace is on complete lockdown, since profits have fallen 30% in the past two months due to the economic crisis. If we aren’t making more money on Friday than we were on Monday, layoffs, yo. It’s so bad that the boss decided that it’s “casual week” because, hey, if people are going to be working 16 hour days to fix this nightmare, they might as well be comfortable.

What’s even better: their Youtube channel is filled with videos of them doing dorky lipsyncs to all their new songs– in their Hallowe’en costumes. This is precisely as magical as it sounds. One of the examples is below; if you like it, check out their albums. You will not be disappointed.