I always make the excuse I'm bad at blogging and social media. It just requires me to be more consistent about it. I can set schedules on my phone to remind me that I should publish a blog every week. That's what I'm going to have to do. I've been learning Spanish and Japanese with a refresher in German on Duolingo for the past 100 days, and it's not become a healthy habit. They say it's 30 days to make something a habit, but my brain is not wired to work that way. I only do the Duolingo thing because it pops up on my phone at 7am every morning. I expect that at any time, I'm going to just swipe away the Duolingo thing and go about my day. There have been a few times where I've come close, but instead, I hit remind me later. And what does that say if the only reason I started on a task to better myself, learning Spanish and Japanese, was to give my brain some much-needed learning? No one forced me; I recently added French into the mix, and I can't wait to upset multiple people with how bad my French, Spanish, and Japanese are. It's not like I'm going to use them in my day-to-day life. I only know one person who speaks fluent Spanish, and we do not talk on a daily basis. I don't know anyone who speaks French. I took German in college and high school and just want a refresher. As for Japanese, I have a friend who's learning it with me, but we don't really speak Japanese to each other. Just silly stuff like "Nani?". You know, typical anime crap. I like to learn, and that might be the only habit that's stuck in my childhood. From documentaries on serial killers, true crime, and lore drops on Warhammer 40k. I watch videos about finance and crypto markets. But none of that will really ever go into my writing; at least, I don't think it will. Oh, and leveling up in video games. Just sitting there grinding Albinaurics in Palace Overlook in Elden Ring for an hour or two while I talk to friends on Discord. It's not like I need to kill those frog people things... and they're only dropping like 6,000 runes. I just do it. I certainly didn't need to be level 333 to beat Elden Ring for the third time, but I was. I was 111 for the Ranni achievement and 222 for the Frenzied Flame achievement, and I only did the normal one because that was all that stopped me from playing a game. I could have put that time into Editing, a task I don't like. It's way more fun to write. But again, that's a habit I have to get into. So, the habits I've got to improve on are Social Media engagement, Blogging, and Editing. In some of those, I have tools to help. For social media, I use Buffer to post to the vast majority of my feeds with a single click. It makes it so much easier to go to one site, write it up, and then push a button to schedule them all. For Editing, I primarily use Grammarly to catch mistakes. I've been working on my latest of many novels, I Am Not a Kobold, and editing them chapter by chapter after I finish the next chapter. For instance, I just finished chapter 9, and I have been going back through chapters 1 through 5 so far. Reviewing what's going on, expanding in areas, clarifying in others. There are tons of AI tools I could be using to help with my grammar, I'm sure. Gods know there's tons of AI for writing. I've tried more than a few of them, and they all have certain flaws in them. I only use Grammarly to avoid the 50 dollars an hour for a professional. I'm not made of money. I wish I was, but I have a nine-to-five job to pay for my house, and that takes precedence. I don't really know what this blog post was supposed to be. It just goes to show I'm not a professional writer who can look at a blank page and say, "This is my blog." I originally was going to talk about Elden Ring and its lore, but then I was like, I can talk about mental help. So, just expect weird blog posts until I have an idea of what is going on. It's like the Livejournal era all over again. Incorrigibly yours, J. E. Flint

Like a lot of people I went to see Age of Ultron opening weekend. I’m not going to be blasting the film, but I will put out there point blank that one of the best movies I’ve ever seen was Iron Man and I only gave it four out of five stars. I’m a notoriously harsh critic, just ask my friends. And this post is probably not going to earn me any cred with most people because I’m going to bash icons in it, and I won’t give away spoilers while doing so. First off, from a fangirl perspective Ultron was the wrong choice to have for a 2nd movie villain. I wish that in the marvel movies they’d sat down and planned and made better use of their villains. A few devious lines of dialogue some nearly off camera shots of Kang the Conqueror would have been a true treat for those fans who know about the avengers and set us up for Avengers 3. Now that said Ultron is a big villain in the Avengers continuity and has been fought multiple times. The image I’m using for this is part of the Annihilation Conquest, it’s a cool picture. But he’s certainly not the baddest villain they could be fighting. On an aside I’m honestly going to be disappointed when Thanos gets taken apart by the Guardians of the Galaxy, which I have issues with the portrayal of those characters in the movie to begin with. I honestly don’t know who I would have picked for a follow up villain and I’m glad it wasn’t Loki. I don’t want them going back to the well to often with him. The reason I don’t believe Ultron should have been the second villain is simple, build up. He comes out of left field in this and just sorta acts like a wrecking ball with a snarky attitude. I instantly began to dislike Ultron in the movie when he started to be jokey. You pull me out of the movie when a character who is normally pretty straight laced becomes a jokester. What has happened to Hollywood where the smooth sophisticated villain is now seen as being unworthy of their time? My only complaint about Daredevil is Kingpin and how he stutters through his lines and generally acts like he doesn’t want to be there. Just my opinion but the only thing the Kingpin teaches me as he is now is dude has an impressive temper and he’s somewhat capable of planning. Ultron who should be this force to be reckoned with comes off as half cocked and perhaps a little bit insane. Which kudos for making him seem insane, insanity is a very hard thing to hit for bad guys. You either get lame attempts like Heath Ledger’s Joker, deal with it he was a terrible Joker and only got vaulted into super stardom because he died, or you get jokes like when Gollum had his heart to heart. All in all the movie isn’t terrible. It’s perhaps pretty tight, except that it suffers from the fact that because Marvel has announced which sequels are coming out you know whose not dying. Oh no they killed someone within five minutes of the movie and over the top foreshadowed that someone’s going to die, but it’s not that person!, that it’s sort of laughable. RDJ and Evans are coming back for respective movies, Thor’s going to have a new movie. The only characters not mentioned in having direct movies are Widow, Hawkeye and Hulk. And thank god we’re not getting another hulk movie. It’s the friggin’ Hulk. He’s a boring character with little to no character growth nine times out of ten. Let him sit on the back of the bus like he did in this movie and lets give more time to… I don’t… the guy who was playing Galaga. In my heart I’m calling that guy Eric O’Grady for he shall always be an irredeemable ant-man to me. So why should we care that Ultron’s going to destroy everything we’ve built in the previous movies? Good question, I can’t answer that because I know even before going to the movie that Ultron is going to be defeated. I don’t have to give you spoilers. If you’re paying attention to the marvel release schedule you already know Ultron is a stop gap. The best you can hope for is that he’s a good villain. And AoU doesn’t really let most people down on that. His styling is cool, his voice is awesome but for me he’s not as menacing as he could be. He’s like Cobra Commander. You know he’s trying, but you’re just not expecting much out of him. I mean he is a world class buffoon, Destro told me so and how do you argue with a man whose face is metal? Without giving any spoilers away the Age of Ultron is a good popcorn movie, and for the casual marvel fan it’s good. But for the fangirl in me it’s not quite there yet. Now don’t get me wrong. I loved Loki in the first Avengers. But Loki has always been a character about mischief and I expect a certain amount of levity. Whedon’s terrible on the whole for story development, but credit where credit is due, man is great at snappy one liners. I could be wrong, it’s been known to happen. But I keep expecting the Marvel Cinematic Universe to unravel. Comic books can make great movies but they have to be done just right. And I suspect we’re about to watch DC try this and flop because they’re not approaching it as what you need to do to make these series work. Same with Sony and spider-man. When you’ve got a comic book you have to walk that fine balancing line of movie and comic book story. For instance everyone was clamoring for Venom in the 3rd spider-man movie. Less is more. Dropout Sandman, tease the black Venom suit. Make James Franco, so good, into the movie villain. Have him use the power of media, his money and his supervillain go get’em attitude to really put the screws to Petey. Pete kills Harry in his new emo suit and then in the 4th movie… and only then when this new black suited spider-man has gone too far do you reveal that Pete’s no longer in control. You make the entire fourth movie about Venom. Now back to AoU. It’s a good movie, you should see it. But it’s only a good movie. It’s not great its story doesn’t really do anything but move from point A to point B. Heck there’s a number of fights I couldn’t watch because it was just left right left right drop the mike, of course that could have been because I had some idiot teens trying and failing to MST3k the movie, and it’s off to the next scene. On the whole I don’t believe you’ll be disappointed. As for me, I’ll probably see it again if my friends ask to go see it again but I won’t go out of my way to rewatch it. So at best it’s a solid 3. At worst it’s a 2.5 out of five. Incorrigibly yours, J.E. Flint

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I’ve never understood the appeal of the masses had with Cthulhu. I really don’t see how he became such a popular icon for nerds and horror types. I fell into reading H.P. Lovecraft by sheer accident. I picked up the Robert E Howard Conan novels and backed my way into H.P. Lovecraft that way. The thought of an ancient, powerful sleeping monsters in the depth has been around for centuries like the Kraken, Leviathan, The Bloop or cuttlefish. Supposedly scientists known more about what’s going on in space than what’s happening in our own oceans. Personally I think we know the same amount on both sea and space. NOAA says 95% of the sea is unexplored. And frankly we only have theories and conjectures on space. Which is important to note when dealing with Cthulhu. H.P. Lovecraft says that Cthulhu is a priest for dark gods(Great Old Ones) who are from a time and place outside our comprehension. Which in a horror story is always a nice creepy element. The unknown is what scares people. And there’s a lot to be scared of under the sea. The problem with Cthulhu is that his very presence will drive people insane. And there’s only so much insanity that you can read before you have to just shrug your shoulders and move on. Don’t get me wrong, I like reading H.P. Lovecraft and a few of the stories really did send a shiver down my spine. The language is hard to read, for me at times because of it’s blatant racism, but sadly that was the time. And that aside it’s best to ignore it. But the work of fiction is large and it’s loved by people and it keeps growing. Personally I’m more of a fan of Dagon and when I’ve traveled I’ve come across places where I get that “outsider vibe” as soon as you step in. Of course that could just be because of who I am and I always feel like I’m an outsider. So anyway, Cthulhu sits beneath the waves in a continent that may or may not be the city of Atlantis since it’s located in the pole of inaccessibility it’s hard to tell. And it’s not like there would be any cause for anyone to go looking for anything in that location, except for being a fan, so when Cthulhu does rise from his slumber he’ll wreck havoc on Coney Island. So problem solved right? Just keep Coney Island around until you can get him struck by lighting. Or just make sure never to raise Cthulhu from his sleep. I’m still not sure why Cthulhu has become pop culture icon that he is. I really don’t understand how things get popular. But this is one instance where I’m not terribly upset to see one of my favorite authors getting credit for his creation… Even if he happens to have died almost 80 years ago at this point. Just keep telling the story over and over, adding in new features and new ideas. I personally believe that The Call of Cthulhu is one of the major influences into the Urban Fantasy genre. Since it’s dealing with “modern” times and the supernatural. True it has a horror element and is told in a deliberately spooky manner but the idea of Urban Fantasy is a fantasy novel that is set in an urban setting and just because it’s now almost 100 years after the roaring 20’s when Lovecraft’s books took place it is still very much an urban setting. And there’s a lot of unexplained items out there. And you don’t have to be a skeptic about it but you don’t have to be a hard core believer that we’ve not found everything on our planet. We discover new species all the time. Whose to say that the bloop wasn’t Cthulhu? And I for one Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn when I Cthulhu. Incorrigibly yours, J. E. Flint

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My brother has challenged me to read the book series Malazan Book of the Fallen. See he knows I like to read books. He knows that I purchased a kindle so that I could slow down my reading speed to make books last me more than a few days. Well he’s been talking about this books series for better part of a few years now. Allow me to preface this, he doesn’t know why he’s reading these books. He’s been reading them, bought and read all the stuff, then moved onto the expanded/side stories, which is another 6 books. He describes these books as being a few thousand pages and each one has 24 chapters. So this sounds like it would be a serious undertaking. And I’m only reading these because he’s challenging me to do so. He’s given me some backstory for this story. All heresy, I’ve only got a bit of actual knowledge on this book series. Hell I guessed it was GURPS before he told me it was. That is not a good sign, in fact this is the sign of an amateur writer. How can I say that when I’m not a multi-national best selling author? Because I understand that a story should be run tightly and not require so many books. Robert Jordan died in his series, and it still didn’t end. When will authors learn we don’t want mega epic volumes? If you tell me there’s about 90,000 characters and they’re dying all the time in it and the writer can’t keep perspective and has to switch to progress the story and it also needs ten books to tell the story it makes me think the guy doesn’t know how to write. There are very few reasons you need a thousand pages and ten books to tell a story. And I suspect the reason is because the author likes to hear his own voice. And another thing I’ve noticed about GMs is that they try to stay faithful to their campaign that, and let’s be honest, they are the only ones who care about it. If your campaign setting was truly cool you would have written a story about it first and not subjected everyone to an celebratory wank at your campaign notes. So, here’s what I know about the series, based on listening to my brother. It sounds like it’s heavily influenced by Greek Mythology because there’s a lot of Gods in this series and they drop like flies. Meaning they’re only “Gods” because… reasons. The books take breaks between characters switching back and forth between them as the author gets bored of writing about one particular set of characters or realizes he needs to tell us how awesome/terrible a particular set piece is and can’t help but expand on this for a few thousand pages. His characters aren’t terribly interesting because you don’t get to spend much time with them before a person dies, or was dropped out of the campaign cause it was probably incredibly boring. Oh and because he needs explosions and stuff there’s guys who make TNT for some reasons… and then there’s the stereotypical land of the east. So, I’m going to read this series because my brother challenged me, then I’m going to see if my opinions have changed about it. They probably won’t but they might. I’m not an inflexible jerk. I can be swayed, but it’s hard. Incorrigibly yours, J. E. Flint

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