Monday, April 22, 2013
Penny Arcade and Louis CK
In case you didn't read the title, this blog post is about Penny Arcade and Louis CK. Love them? Stay and read! Don't know them? Stay and read! Hate them? Well... you can do whatever, I guess. Maybe you'll start to like them after you read this... who knows. Anyways, we'll start with Penny Arcade.
Penny Arcade
So... Penny Arcade has been a webcomic for thousands of years, or maybe not quite that long, but it's been around for a very long time. It's a webcomic about a couple of gamers, doing gamer-ish things. The webcomic updates 3 times a week, all the time, and overall I'd say it was pretty funny.
I've started reading Penny Arcade quite a long time ago, but back then, or even up until recently, I didn't know that much about the creators! I knew the comic was based on them, and I think I've seen pictures of a guy that looks like Tycho, but I wasn't sure if I've ever seen Gabe - in any case, I didn't know much about them.
Fast forward to late 2012 - Penny Arcade started a Kickstarter to go "ad-free" for a year. I'm not going to talk about the Kickstarter much, but at the $1 reward level, Mike/Gabe will yell your name while chasing a duck, so... so that was the first Kickstarter I've ever backed, even if it's just $1 (at the time of this post, I've backed 3 things, for $1, $5, and $15).
Additionally, one of the Stretch Goals they had was, that they're going to start a Reality TV Show (on the Internet) called Strip Search, which would find the next big Web Comic Artist. So that was neat.
Anyway, back then (late 2012) I still didn't know that much about the creators of Penny Arcade. So let's jump forward a bit more, to Early 2013.
In Early 2013, Strip Search became a reality and the first show aired on the Penny Arcade website. Each Strip Search episode is 15-25 minutes long and it airs twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays. It plays similarly to other Reality TV shows (Master Chef, umm... Top Chef) where at the end of each "episode", the bottom two performers have to battle it out to avoid elimination.
^^ In this case, "episode" isn't episode - A reality TV show episode is an hour long, so in this case, every 3 episodes, a battle for elimination happens. Anyway, I didn't know what to expect, starting to watch the show, but I knew that I would support Penny Arcade so that I would at least watch a few episodes.
In any case, I am hooked now! I look forward to every Tuesday and Friday, and I have favorite people that I'm cheering on. For you Magic players, you probably know that they had a Magic-themed episode, where they had to design a skateboard featuring Chandra Nalaar.
Anyway, in the first episode, I saw the creators of Penny Arcade, and they appear every now and then, namely, at every elimination challenge - and watching them, I now know that much more about them - they're pretty cool people. So it turns out "Mike", the guy who I thought looked like Tycho, actually represents Gabe in the comic, and his friend Jerry, who is a bit chubby and shorter, represents Tycho, although he doesn't look like him.
Anyway, that's not the end of my Penny Arcade story - also in Early 2013, there was PAX East. I think I've always wanted to go to PAX, which is the Penny Arcade Expo, but I know that tickets get sold out fast, and also, it's in the U.S., so it's pretty far to go for just a convention. I know we have Anime North and some other conventions, and I already don't go to those, but I do want to one day go to some other ones... San Diego Comic-Con sounds like a fun one to go to, as well as E3. We should do that sometime; Comic-Con, E3, and PAX.
I'm not sure if it was new to this year, but since I started following Penny Arcade more closely, I knew that there was a livestream at PAX for some of the events - so during the PAX weekend, I followed the livestream and I managed to catch a Q&A with the Penny Arcade creators, and it was really good to watch - now I know even more about them! They're cool guys.
So that's funny - I've been reading Penny Arcade for over a decade, and just enjoying the comics... but I didn't know anything about the creators until up to maybe 6 months ago... and now that I know them, I'm getting more invested in what they do. So that's cool.
Also, Strip Search is awesome - I'm invested in that too. So on Mondays, I start the week and I'm anticipating Monday, because that's when I go to EDH, so I'm always looking forward to Mondays (stupid Saturdays and Sundays getting in the way :P just kidding) - and then I look forward to waking up the next day, because of Strip Search! YAY #TeamLexxy
Now, onto the next subject of this post, which is...
Louis C.K.
Okay, so Louis C. K. is a stand-up comedian - I first saw Louis CK (it's much easier to type Louis CK than it is to type Louis C. K. ) on Conan O'Brien - he did a pretty funny bit on airplanes... wait, let me see if I can find it on youtube... (hmm... 5 minutes, couldn't find it on youtube! strange!) - anyway, so he did a pretty funny thing about airplanes, and then he sat down with Conan and promoted the new movie, The Invention of Lying, with Ricky Gervais. I saw the movie, wasn't super amazing.
Anyway, it turns out, Louis CK is my favorite stand-up comedian. To be honest, I don't really follow stand-up comedians, but for the most part, Louis CK doesn't disappoint, while other comedians, I dunno... they're not as relatable, or their jokes seem more forced, or they're weirdly offensive or something.
That said, a lot of what Louis CK says is a bit offensive, or at least, he says it with such realism to the point that it's a bit offensive. Maybe my definition of offensive is a bit wrong... maybe the word I'm looking for is "crude". He also swears. Anyway, the reason why he's my second part of my blog post is because he recently did another live stand-up show, it's on HBO now and there are clips of it on youtube, and it was pretty good - I've been listening to a few clips of his from his new show many times recently, and I find it quite funny.
As I said, his clips can be offensive/crude, but I wanted to post at least one clip... probably the least offensive clip, while still getting a good amount of humor in it. So as I thought about writing this post, I thought about which clip to show, and I ended up with this one:
I skipped the first little bit in case it's a bit offensive/crude. I mean, it's not racist or anti-gay or anything, but it might be a bit sexual in nature, heh. How offensive can the first 57 seconds be? But the rest of the clip is almost pg-friendly. I recommend you watch it! Then if you like, you can click on the youtube user's name to see about 5 more clips, or you can just see the clips on the side.
(I like the clip about Divorce, and then the last one that I watch most often is called "Of Course, but Maybe", linked below)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkjmzEEQUlE - This one is a bit crude, and it deals with dying and death... but the last point... makes you think... hmmmmmmmmm... but of course not. Of course not.
Anyway, that's the end of that entry. I posted twice in March, I guess I can do it in April too, although I only have 8 days left. I went to a party on Saturday, it was fun, but I probably wouldn't post much about it here. Duy's birthday is coming up, as well as the next set's pre-release.
Oh yeah, TOJAM is coming up! We missed the last two, but this time, we registered super early. Duy and I are going, Isaque didn't sign up in time. It's coming up in two weeks, the weekend of the 3rd to the Cinqo. The theme this time is "Uncooperative". It's going to be super fun, but it would've been more fun if we had more people than just Duy and I. Oh well!
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In case you didn't read the title, this blog post is about Penny Arcade and Louis CK. Love them? Stay and read! Don't know them? Stay and read! Hate them? Well... you can do whatever, I guess. Maybe you'll start to like them after you read this... who knows. Anyways, we'll start with Penny Arcade.
Penny Arcade
So... Penny Arcade has been a webcomic for thousands of years, or maybe not quite that long, but it's been around for a very long time. It's a webcomic about a couple of gamers, doing gamer-ish things. The webcomic updates 3 times a week, all the time, and overall I'd say it was pretty funny.
I've started reading Penny Arcade quite a long time ago, but back then, or even up until recently, I didn't know that much about the creators! I knew the comic was based on them, and I think I've seen pictures of a guy that looks like Tycho, but I wasn't sure if I've ever seen Gabe - in any case, I didn't know much about them.
Fast forward to late 2012 - Penny Arcade started a Kickstarter to go "ad-free" for a year. I'm not going to talk about the Kickstarter much, but at the $1 reward level, Mike/Gabe will yell your name while chasing a duck, so... so that was the first Kickstarter I've ever backed, even if it's just $1 (at the time of this post, I've backed 3 things, for $1, $5, and $15).
Additionally, one of the Stretch Goals they had was, that they're going to start a Reality TV Show (on the Internet) called Strip Search, which would find the next big Web Comic Artist. So that was neat.
Anyway, back then (late 2012) I still didn't know that much about the creators of Penny Arcade. So let's jump forward a bit more, to Early 2013.
In Early 2013, Strip Search became a reality and the first show aired on the Penny Arcade website. Each Strip Search episode is 15-25 minutes long and it airs twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays. It plays similarly to other Reality TV shows (Master Chef, umm... Top Chef) where at the end of each "episode", the bottom two performers have to battle it out to avoid elimination.
^^ In this case, "episode" isn't episode - A reality TV show episode is an hour long, so in this case, every 3 episodes, a battle for elimination happens. Anyway, I didn't know what to expect, starting to watch the show, but I knew that I would support Penny Arcade so that I would at least watch a few episodes.
In any case, I am hooked now! I look forward to every Tuesday and Friday, and I have favorite people that I'm cheering on. For you Magic players, you probably know that they had a Magic-themed episode, where they had to design a skateboard featuring Chandra Nalaar.
Anyway, in the first episode, I saw the creators of Penny Arcade, and they appear every now and then, namely, at every elimination challenge - and watching them, I now know that much more about them - they're pretty cool people. So it turns out "Mike", the guy who I thought looked like Tycho, actually represents Gabe in the comic, and his friend Jerry, who is a bit chubby and shorter, represents Tycho, although he doesn't look like him.
Anyway, that's not the end of my Penny Arcade story - also in Early 2013, there was PAX East. I think I've always wanted to go to PAX, which is the Penny Arcade Expo, but I know that tickets get sold out fast, and also, it's in the U.S., so it's pretty far to go for just a convention. I know we have Anime North and some other conventions, and I already don't go to those, but I do want to one day go to some other ones... San Diego Comic-Con sounds like a fun one to go to, as well as E3. We should do that sometime; Comic-Con, E3, and PAX.
I'm not sure if it was new to this year, but since I started following Penny Arcade more closely, I knew that there was a livestream at PAX for some of the events - so during the PAX weekend, I followed the livestream and I managed to catch a Q&A with the Penny Arcade creators, and it was really good to watch - now I know even more about them! They're cool guys.
So that's funny - I've been reading Penny Arcade for over a decade, and just enjoying the comics... but I didn't know anything about the creators until up to maybe 6 months ago... and now that I know them, I'm getting more invested in what they do. So that's cool.
Also, Strip Search is awesome - I'm invested in that too. So on Mondays, I start the week and I'm anticipating Monday, because that's when I go to EDH, so I'm always looking forward to Mondays (stupid Saturdays and Sundays getting in the way :P just kidding) - and then I look forward to waking up the next day, because of Strip Search! YAY #TeamLexxy
Now, onto the next subject of this post, which is...
Louis C.K.
Okay, so Louis C. K. is a stand-up comedian - I first saw Louis CK (it's much easier to type Louis CK than it is to type Louis C. K. ) on Conan O'Brien - he did a pretty funny bit on airplanes... wait, let me see if I can find it on youtube... (hmm... 5 minutes, couldn't find it on youtube! strange!) - anyway, so he did a pretty funny thing about airplanes, and then he sat down with Conan and promoted the new movie, The Invention of Lying, with Ricky Gervais. I saw the movie, wasn't super amazing.
Anyway, it turns out, Louis CK is my favorite stand-up comedian. To be honest, I don't really follow stand-up comedians, but for the most part, Louis CK doesn't disappoint, while other comedians, I dunno... they're not as relatable, or their jokes seem more forced, or they're weirdly offensive or something.
That said, a lot of what Louis CK says is a bit offensive, or at least, he says it with such realism to the point that it's a bit offensive. Maybe my definition of offensive is a bit wrong... maybe the word I'm looking for is "crude". He also swears. Anyway, the reason why he's my second part of my blog post is because he recently did another live stand-up show, it's on HBO now and there are clips of it on youtube, and it was pretty good - I've been listening to a few clips of his from his new show many times recently, and I find it quite funny.
As I said, his clips can be offensive/crude, but I wanted to post at least one clip... probably the least offensive clip, while still getting a good amount of humor in it. So as I thought about writing this post, I thought about which clip to show, and I ended up with this one:
I skipped the first little bit in case it's a bit offensive/crude. I mean, it's not racist or anti-gay or anything, but it might be a bit sexual in nature, heh. How offensive can the first 57 seconds be? But the rest of the clip is almost pg-friendly. I recommend you watch it! Then if you like, you can click on the youtube user's name to see about 5 more clips, or you can just see the clips on the side.
(I like the clip about Divorce, and then the last one that I watch most often is called "Of Course, but Maybe", linked below)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkjmzEEQUlE - This one is a bit crude, and it deals with dying and death... but the last point... makes you think... hmmmmmmmmm... but of course not. Of course not.
Anyway, that's the end of that entry. I posted twice in March, I guess I can do it in April too, although I only have 8 days left. I went to a party on Saturday, it was fun, but I probably wouldn't post much about it here. Duy's birthday is coming up, as well as the next set's pre-release.
Oh yeah, TOJAM is coming up! We missed the last two, but this time, we registered super early. Duy and I are going, Isaque didn't sign up in time. It's coming up in two weeks, the weekend of the 3rd to the Cinqo. The theme this time is "Uncooperative". It's going to be super fun, but it would've been more fun if we had more people than just Duy and I. Oh well!
Oh yeah, TOJAM is coming up! We missed the last two, but this time, we registered super early. Duy and I are going, Isaque didn't sign up in time. It's coming up in two weeks, the weekend of the 3rd to the Cinqo. The theme this time is "Uncooperative". It's going to be super fun, but it would've been more fun if we had more people than just Duy and I. Oh well!