Youtube Channels worth checking out - Beyond Science

Even though I have a ton of school-learnin in the hard sciences, I'm still a sucker for all those conspiracy and "Ancient Mystery"-style documentaries. You know, Egyptian Pyramid powerplants, Atlantis, Oak Island hidden treasure, Hitler escaping to Argentina conspiracies, Underground Hidden Military UFO bases, Aliens building Stonehenge stuff, and so on. Basically any and all of those terrible reality-style History Channel shows of late. Makes for particularly great brain food for Call of Cthulhu adventures!

Yup, I agree that's definitely an Elder Thing on that Mesopotamian cylinder seal.

But sometimes you don't have time for a full episode of 'Missing in Alaska' or 'Ancient Aliens,' and you go onto Youtube to find something else to whet the pseudoscience wonderment palette about aliens or bigfoot. But Youtube is a minefield if you aren't looking for things that are just a little so far out there that you can't even suspend disbelief long enough to enjoy it (e.g. the "I psychically talk to Pletians from Sirius, and they confirm our president is a Muslim Reptilian!" stuff).

Well, there's a Youtube channel hosted by Mike Chen called "Beyond Science" I recently discovered, and I'm really enjoying it. In his videos, Mike matter-of-factually presents weird and interesting phenomena from around the world, in entertaining 10-minute videos. His videos are well-edited, move quickly from one topic to the next, and he's an engaging speaker who doesn't waste your time with needless exposition. Its good stuff if you want to take a short break from thinking about those daily TPS reports and want to ponder ancient underwater cities for a few minutes.

Beyond Science: one of the few 'mysterious phenomenon' indy channels on Youtube I actually recommend checking out!

If anyone has come across any similar Youtube channels they want to share, throw it in the comments. I'd love to check it out!

Hyperborean Adventures Kickstarter!

Batton down the Hatches, Adventurers! For the time has finally arrived for the long-awaited (by me at least) the Hyperborean Adventure Three-Pack!

Just look at the epic titles to these three adventures!

FORGOTTEN FANE OF THE COILED GODDESS!

GHOST SHIP OF THE DESERT DUNES!

BENEATH THE COMET!

New Video by MC Frontalot! - Start Over

I a fan of the NerdCore Hip-Hop, and therefore I follow the doings of the godfather therein, the most honorable MC Frontalot. And Good news! Today he released a new video for his song: Start Over.
Where he nerds up the Little Red Riding Hood story. Check it!


Even more better news! He put said song itself up for the download on the interwebs for free: Clickz heer!

Sweet Finds: The DM's Craft

I recently stumbled upon a site that definitely deserves a mention, and have been spending hours watching the associated Youtube Channel and learning new techniques. The DM's Craft is a forum/video site hosted by DM Scotty, and it covers all things crafty about D&D. DM Scotty gives tutorial videos about how to make various projects that are loaded with good tips and how-to's in a very professional-looking presentation. Its great if you're getting started crafting or, like me, want to improve your skills.

Nerds in Vegas

Las Vegas. The mere mention of the city will summon half-grins and bro-tacular high-fives from most of your muggle coworkers. Its a name that is synonymous with drinking too many oversized daiquiris and losing all your gold pieces. But there is a more interesting and rewarding Vegas behind the fist-bumps, penny slots, and poorly told lies about meeting up with strippers. A Vegas for the comic book collector, the Renaissance Faire enthusiast, and the D&D player. What I'm talking about is...

Nerd Vegas!

 

Tron 2.0 on Steam!

It finally happened! An excellent old-school PC game (a game you've likely never heard of) just got released on Steam and is now playable on all computers. This is one of my favorite PC games of all time, and I group it on my mental PC gaming mantle alongside Baulder's Gate, Thief, and Fallout. It is the only first-person action RPG that actually brings the Grid to life. That game is Tron 2.0.

Tyrion Lannistoraptor

I just dropped in to share with you this book cover for an upcoming novel. I saw it and couldn't help but be intrigued...

Rarely does a book cover align with my interests with such laser precision. I mean, is there a Knight? Check. Is there a Velociraptor? Check. (or maybe thats a Utahraptor? Not sure. Its pretty big though. Would need to see the ankle-talons.)

It even has a quote by George R.R. Martin:
-"It's like a cross between Jurassic Park and Game of Thrones."

What more does one need? (Other than maybe a flying saucer in there too.)

Available July 2015.

Sweet Terrain Finds - Buus's GM Screen

One thing I like to do during mindless internet surfing is to peruse other people's various miniature terrain building projects for sweet ideas. Sometimes I find things that are so awesome and inspiring that they demand I do my part to shout-out and bandwidth-boost them to more of the internet, because everyone's got to see this.

Here's a DM screen Copenhagen-based artist Buus built and posted on r/terrainbuilding that I absolutely had to share with everyone, because it is so incredible. And in a move of gentlemanly charity, he actually put notes into pics of various steps into an album on how he modeled it up as he went.


       Its hard to believe most of this is actually cardboard. And those faces are modeled out of greenstuff and sculpy. I would've thought they were cut up plastic molds of faces from halloween decorations or something they are so good. But nope, all original. Amazing.

 And even cooler is that it is functional as well as beautiful. Two dice towers are built into the thing. The tower on the left makes the dice roll out the front (where the two mouths with lava are) so players can see, and the tower on the right makes the dice roll behind the screen (for the DM only).

I definitely suggest you check out Buss's imgur album and Facebook page to check out his step-by-step pics, and to see more pretty close-up pics of the finished project. If seeing how this thing goes from cut up cardboard scraps to a majestic mountain of death doesn't inspire you to pick up the hot glue gun and static grass, I don't think anything would.