Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Web Picks


Originally Appears in Issue 4

Declan Aylward is back with three more fantastic web sites for you to browse, proving once and for all he has infinitely more free time than you do.

I Hit It With My Axe

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/i-hit-it-with-my-axe

Porn stars, everybody likes porn stars; and Dungeons & Dragons, well, some people like that…mostly the same people that are big fans of porn stars.

That was probably the thinking behind Zak Sabbath’s latest idea I Hit It With My Axe. It’s a reality TV style web series debuting on The Escapist that follows the adventures of adult film stars Kimberley Kane, Satine Phoenix and Mandy Morbid, as well as an assortment of strippers, hair dressers and tattoos through their trials in D&D. The series features Zak Sabbath as the dungeon master and uses his special, rules-light version of the game, so it’s not too hard to follow for those of us who don’t have a maths degree or our own replica of the One Ring. D&D podcasts are all over the web, but very few offer any view of the action, and although the edited, reality TV style of the show breaks the flow a little, the visuals are well worth it. There’s also a lot of enjoyment in seeing stars we are more familiar with rolling around on each other rolling some dice instead. If you’re not familiar with the work of these talented young ladies, One More Robot knows you’ll google them right after reading this with all the privacy settings on your browser set to ‘wank’.

WWdN: In Exile

http://wilwheaton.typepad.com

Remember Wil Wheaton? That skinny little kid in the grey jumpsuit that pissed us all off so much in Star Trek: The Next Generation as Wesley Crusher? Well he’s got himself a blog, and quite a successful one too, if the nerdvine is to be believed. Wil Wheaton Dot Net: In Exile has existed at its current location for a while now, ever since an attempt to upgrade, a buggy program and an innocent reader leaving a comment conspired to work the blog’s last location into such a knot it would drive Popeye the Sailor to hard drugs. It may not seem like the most enticing option in the world, to read the scribblings of a guy who was the epitome of uncool in the 1980s, but grown up Wil really is worth giving a chance. He is still the epitome of uncool, of course, but a very witty and entertaining epitome, for all that.

The blog covers everything and anything, from musings on his past as a ‘teen heart throb’ (sniggers all round on that one) and updates on his current projects like The Big Bang Theory and Eureka to more esoteric ramblings about his all consuming love of certain Linux platforms. There is a charm about his writing, a sort of honest lack of self possession that makes you actually give a shit about the little stories in his life that he shares and that keeps you coming back for more. Oh, and he hates Wesley Crusher too!

The Guild

http://www.watchtheguild.com

One of the best things about the internet is how much power it puts into the hands of ordinary people; its ability to cut through the corporate structure that has grown up around so much of our entertainment media. Felicia Day’s sitcom web series about a group of social misfits whose only connection with each other is an online game makes for a fantastic example. The show began in 2007 and its first season was financed solely through PayPal donations made by viewers, with a tally on the website showing how much they needed to raise to make the next episode. The Guild is now into its third season and has had corporate sponsorship for a while now, but the do-it-yourself attitude and feel of the series has survived. The lovely Ms. Day, whose beauty famously inspired Penny Arcade’s Tycho to groom her like a unicorn, stars in the show as the healer Codex as well as writing the 3 to 8 minute long episodes. Visit the official website or check out iTunes or Xbox Live to follow the Knights of Good through their first real life meeting with each other, a romantic entanglement brought about by chronic misuse of emotes and other adventures of the socially inept.

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