These two probably could have used the travelling skills of the TARDIS to get them to Paris…but then the movie would have been rather short! Love the choice of costume here – it looks super comfortable for a Con.
Geek Market, Coffee, and Blush
Geek Market
Good News! JenEric-Designs will be at this weekends Geek Market. It’s at the Sportsplex from Friday to Sunday.
We will be sharing booth 707 with the awesome Renaissance Press!
Coffee
We went all out for this event and we have 6 flavours available! (Cinnamon, Coconut, Peanut Butter, Black Cherry, Chocolate, and Unflavoured.)
DECAF
Due to popular demand we’ve also added 2 decaf flavours. (Peanut Butter, and Cinnamon.)
Blush
Please help make this sexual health trivia game happen by backing our kickstarter!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1357195744/blush
The Blush Kickstarter is soooo close to funded and we only have until Sunday at Midnight to make this thing a reality.
Come see us or Renaissance, this weekend, and pledge to the kickstarter! (We’ll make sure you can pledge.)
See you this weekend!
Éric
Blush: FAQ
There are only four days left in our Kickstarter campaign. We are close. SO close! You only have until midnight on Sunday April 10th to pledge, so PLEASE go and support our Kickstarter!
This past week has been rather… Surprising? Unique? Crazy? I’m going to go with all of the above.
For those of you who don’t know me, I’m a shy person. You’re my friend? I’ll blabber on about whatever comes into my head. You’re alone and I’m alone and we’re complete strangers? No problem striking up a conversation. You’re wearing something geeky? I will talk to you whether you’re in a group or not. Put me in front of a group? No way. I will blush (no pun intended), stammer, forget the thread of conversation (or presentation), and generally be very uncomfortable and awkward.
And this past week has been pushing my boundaries. I’ve had two “print” interviews, one by phone for an article for Apt 613, and one in person for an article for the Metro. And I was interviewed on CBC Radio with my dad for the segment All in a Day. You have no idea how grateful I was that my dad was there. As much as I was able to convince myself that it was simply another one-on-one conversation with Alan Neal (who was super awesome, and a great interviewer), I still had problems getting my words out in the order I wanted them, and forming sentences that actually made sense. My dad, on the other hand, was brilliant. Not only did he get the conversation around to the game (the whole point, really), but he was funny and intelligent the entire time. So glad he was invited, and agreed to join me.
One thing that I have noticed, throughout these three interviews, is that I am asked a variation of the same main questions, although the written words are extremely varied. So I thought I would write down some of the most frequently asked questions, and answer them.
What was the reason behind this game? How did it come to be?
The game started out as a project for my Adolescence class at the University of Ottawa. The project was very open-ended; we had to research a topic that was related to adolescents. After a very brief brainstorming session, and a class on Human Sexuality later that week, I realized that the most obvious choice for my topic was adolescent sexuality. You can read my paper here. This was possibly the easiest paper I have ever written in my entire life (to date). The words came easily, I would get to a point that needed proof, the studies that provided the proof were easily found, and I was done in a matter of days.
As my research found that parents and their kids had a better relationship, built on trust and mutual respect, if they spent time playing games together, I decided to expand my project (with the professor’s permission) into a physical game that taught the facts of sexuality, sexual health, and identity. The original concept was very Trivial Pursuit-esque, with a board game and pieces, dice, and collecting parts to win. It was a huge undertaking, and would be very expensive to produce. I also didn’t particularly like how similar it was to Trivial Pursuit, but I couldn’t think of another way of formatting it. (I got 100% on the project, and my professor made me promise to develop it.)
Fast forward 8 years, and I was having a conversation with one of the founders of Renaissance Press about projects that we were particularly proud of in school. Blush was obviously one of those, and they asked to borrow the prototype. When they brought it back with a contract, and an idea of how to make the rules different, I was in shock. Definitely changed my life! I started the anonymous question box and this portion of the blog at that point.
What are the rules for playing the game?
Each player takes a turn asking a question and reading the four possible answers out loud. Other players then vote for the answer they think is the right one, their voting cards face down. They flip the card over al at the same time once everyone has voted. Correct answers get a point token. Next player clockwise reads the next question, and so on. First player to get to ‘x’ points (decided at the beginning of the game) wins.
How old would you recommend the kids to be to play this game?
The redesigned questions complement the new Ontario sex education curriculum, so you could play portions of the game with your kids as early as Grade 1. As parents, you are allowed to take out the cards that are too advanced for them (recommended), and reinsert them as your child grows up. To play the game as a whole, without removing cards, age 12-13 is an approximate. If you feel they’re ready earlier, that’s fine too!
I read something the other day that fits in well here. “What age do you think kids should know about sex? Remove two years, and that’s much more likely.”
If you’re a parent with an infant, and you’re not sure whether you’ll use the game, I can see where you’re coming from. My first child is due in September, and Grade 1 feels INCREDIBLY far away. However, Blush doesn’t expire! And in the meantime, you can play it with your friends, even as a drinking game. (Be prepared to get drunk very quickly if you do, though. The questions can be harder than you think!) This goes for people without children as well. How well do you remember your own sex ed classes? Do you think you know everything?
There were lots of other questions that I was asked multiple times, but this post is getting a little long, so I will leave you with a question that I wish I HAD been asked, because I think it’s a rather important one:
What qualifies YOU to write this game? Why should we trust your facts?
My educational background has provided me with thorough researching skills (1), an understanding of human sexuality (2), and the knowledge of how to teach through different methods (3).
- BSc in Biochemistry and Chemistry
- BA Soc[ial Science] Major Psychology (with a focus on Human Sexuality) Minor Biology
- BEd I/S Chemistry and Math
I have been extremely thorough with my research into this game, and will go over the questions again with a fine-tooth comb before it is published. My publisher, Renaissance Press, has already edited the questions, as well as sent them off to UofT’s Sexual Health Centre, to have a second pair of eyes look at the questions.
I feel as though all of my educational and personal background has led to this game. It is a major part of me, and with your help, will come into this world before my first-born child!
Sexism in Gaming
Yesterday I read an Tumblr post that made me deeply uncomfortable. Go read the article but be warned it’s disturbing.
Ok if you don’t want to read it it’s an account of how abhorrently women are treated in the gaming community; specifically tabletop, Pen & Paper, and miniatures/strategy. Not just heckling or general sexism but multiple forms of assault.
It made me sick to my stomach and a little part of me was glad I’d never experienced it. (In case you’re just tuning in; I’m a thirty-something, white, cis, male.) As I sat there thinking how it might turn me off gaming completely, and how sad that would be, I remembered a game I ran once.
It was the mid-2000s and Lost was every geek’s favourite show. Narnia had burst onto the big screen and I was running a game for three other guys. They were my first gaming group and they had a strict no girls policy.
The game was set on an Island (of course) and had Halflings that rode polar bears into battle (what game doesn’t). The overall theme of the game was racism, I’d based the story vaguely on the real life story of boxer Rubin “The Hurricane” Carter. (I was listening to a lot of Bob Dylan at the time.) Only he was a Halfling Colosseum fighter.
The group was ridiculously cautious. They’d spend 20-40 minutes per decision trying to plan for every contingency. (Probably my fault, a polar bear had killed their character in the jungle when they’d foolishly run ahead alone.)
After several sessions of them literally doing nothing and then getting pissed that I wasn’t moving the story along fast enough I introduced a new character; an impulsive human female Ninja, with shady motives. The idea was to have a character that could move the plot forward without a player fearing for their characters’ lives.
I’d done it early with an, “enemy of my enemy” style bad guy and they’d followed him straight into a trap. They still liked him afterwards.
They hated the Ninja from the start. At first I thought it was the impulsiveness (ten years later I think it was the gender). It wasn’t too bad at the beginning but when I started having her assert opinions like, “You’ve been arguing about going through this door for 30 minutes, I’m sure they’ve heard you.” Or “Shut up and stab something.” They started to verbally abuse her both in game and out of game and she was renamed, “The Bitch”.
At one point, in the middle of a puzzle, I tried to give them a hint through the Ninja. One of the players told her to shut up and let them work. I snapped and asked through the character, “What the hell is your problem? I’ve saved your life, fought monsters beside you but you still treat me like shit.”
The answer was, “You’re an NPC.” (Non-Player Character) Which I would believe if they hadn’t had the epic bromance with the last NPC. Then the player added, “Plus I just don’t trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn’t die.”
The rest of the group burst into laughter as if it was the cleverest joke they’d ever heard.
If it sounds familiar, it’s a quote from South Park that specifically makes fun of a character for being sexist.
The game fizzled out shortly afterwards. It had made me deeply uncomfortable. At the time I thought it was because I was doing something wrong in running the game. I thought the hate and vehemence was aimed at me.
I’m sure some of it was aimed at me but most was aimed at the character who dared to be female and not be a love interest, damsel, or incompetent.
It’s the closest I’ve ever come to experiencing the sexism women deal with every day and it sucked. It’s nothing like the stories in the article but my experience does illustrate how deep seeded the sexism in gaming is, that a fictional character played by a man was treated poorly just because I wrote down F instead of M on the character sheet.
Since then I’ve played with dozens of people and have had great experiences. I’ve built up my own community of players that aren’t jackasses and I’ll re-post what I said on my facebook yesterday:
Let me be completely clear: Books End, FADDS, and any game I run is a safe space. If you EVER feel uncomfortable you let me know and it will be dealt with.
This sort of behaviour is unacceptable, deplorable, and will result in being permanantly banned. I also have no qualms with calling the police if things are bad enough.
Gaming is about having fun and imagining other worlds. It’s not exclusive to one gender, sex, race, class, ethnicity, language, etc… It’s meant to be shared and enjoyed by everyone.
Be Excellent to each other!
Éric
Knight America
This is a unique twist on Captain America’s costume, and I really like it! He definitely looks prepared for Civil War.
Wonder Woman
Anyone who knows me, knows that I love Wonder Woman. What did you think of her in Batman V Superman?
I adore this Wonder Woman costume! Great way to show her love of the character and make it her own!
Real Conspiracies
Now available for commission.
On Tuesday I talked about Conspiracy Theories. Today lets discuss real ones. The real conspiracies fuel our natural want to see patterns and be special.
Most of the real life conspiracies are based on not wanting to change the way we do things or products of advertising.
Take Multivitamins for example. They’re not bad for you but they’re not important. This is multivitamins and vitamin boosts. This doesn’t mean Folic Acid for pregnancy, vitamin D for SAD, or Iron for Anemia is bad. When recommended by a doctor they’re great.
Or take bottled water. Many people think it’s better than tap water and the companies selling them certainly want you to think that, but on average they’re not.
These are just a few examples of “real” conspiracies. They are not controlled by a giant body, but by people who want to be rich. There’s no giant Water Bottle Industry conspiracy to make our tap water less safe. That’s caused by human greed, poor management, poor regulation, and stupidity.
How to Avoid Being Duped
There are little conspiracies all over. From wanting the last cookie, to wanting you to BUY OUR COFFEE everyone has an angle or something they want from someone else.
If you want to test if a conspiracy is real or not remember to ask the most important question: Why?
Why would they perpetrate this hoax? Why would they control the world? Why would they try to control humanity with the contrails from planes?
From there, do your research and find out how it could be true. Apply the David Robert Grimes Method. It states that a conspiracy is less likely to succeed, the more people who are involved. Find credible sources and think critically.
Beware Buzzwords
Buzzwords are by far the most dangerous form of conspiracy. They sound good but are vague and never tell the whole truth. They are dangerous if you believe them unconditionally.
Some of the best examples of dangerous buzzwords are found in health. Superfoods, Toxins, Cleanse and Natural are some extremely common buzzwords that literally mean nothing.
A superfood isn’t from Krypton, but something that has higher than normal vitamin content. That’s it. It’s not a cure for cancer, not a cure for the common cold, not a cure for damage. Just a food that’s good for you.
A toxin is “a poisonous substance and especially one that is produced by a living thing” So unless you are eating jellyfish, the chances that your food is filled with toxins is highly unlikely. Everything that goes into your body might have poisons in it, probably in minute amounts. Nature has a way for you to detox that isn’t only free, but easy. It’s called your LIVER.
Cleanses are a way to detox your body. As slang for “Stop eating unhealthily” it makes sense. Of course fake doctors and idiots have commercialised it into something that is dangerous. Let’s make something clear: You can’t eat unhealthily and then “cleanse” to make yourself healthy again. That’s not how our bodies work. These detox cleanse diets aren’t healthy. They are fads that stress your body more than they help. They are the emotionally crippled children of the weight loss fad diets. You don’t need to know the garcinia side effects. Eat healthy regularly and you’ll feel better. Don’t pretend you’re Bacchus and think eating only soup for a month will repair damage.
Natural is a word that has such a vague meaning that it could mean anything. Nightshade is completely natural, as is the box jellyfish, but eating them can hurt you. Using Natural as a word to mean safe is ignorant of how we live our lives and of science. I’ve seen Natural on everything from bacon to tomatoes. It literally means whatever the advertiser wants it to mean.
Conclusion
When you’re trying to figure out what’s real:
- Think critically about what you do and why you do it.
- If someone tells you you’re wrong, ask why.
- Do some research before you believe what your crazy (insert relative) tells you about a miracle product.
- Remember that we as a species are flawed.
For me I like to follow a few general rules:
- Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
- Occam’s Razor: The simplest answer is usually the right one.
And of course
- Murphy’s Law: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.
What are your least favourite Real Conspiracies?
Later Days,
Éric
Shanghai
I planned on doing my Geography assignment on Tuesday, to help give me inspiration for today’s post. The assignment is on China. However, it was not at all useful in helping to provide inspiration, as we simply had to regurgitate information provided to us in previous weeks, none of which was Fandom related.
So, I will be writing another mini post, (very mini this time, I’m afraid) on what happens in Shanghai if you don’t have a dinner companion.
I want to go to a Shanghai restaurant alone now.
Conspiracies
Watching the American elections and the rise to power of certain candidates it’s easy to believe that there’s more going on than we see. Maybe a shadowy organization that’s pulling the strings? Evil lizard overlords? Big Pharma? Big Oil? Big Publishing? Landru?
There have been more conspiracy theories than I can name but most of them take Occam’s Razor and toss it out the window. (Insert unshaved conspiracy nut joke here)
I LOVE conspiracy theories, not because I think they’re real but because they are entertaining stories. If you truly think that one organization has guided the history and politics of humanity for the past three hundred years, you have way more faith in humanity than I do. The problem with most of these grand conspiracy theories is the belief that we as a species are capable of keeping secrets.
Take the Moon Landing Hoax; in most variations they faked the moon landing by using Hollywood tricks. We’re talking about an industry that has trouble keeping its movie trailers from leaking. The idea that the proof has so perfectly been destroyed is ludicrous.
Not that I could convince anyone who believes in it. They will misconstrue and misunderstand to the point of believing whatever they want. There are people who believe that the world is flat. Despite all the evidence.
Why are Conspiracy Theories so compelling?
I’m not going into the pathology of mental health and conspiracy theories. That’s a whole other discussion.
I think the answer is simply patterns. We, as humans, are obsessed with patterns. We find them in everything, even when they don’t exist. Seeing shapes in clouds or bathroom tiles seems far off from thinking we live on a planet that’s 5000 years old, flat, and ruled by a secret society of atheistic Lizard-Men but it’s not as far as you think.
Think of the restaurant you dislike the most (no not the one with poor social values) but the one you’ve been to 2-3 times and had bad food or bad service every time. We all have one and we all avoid that restaurant because we assume that they’re always that bad. (I mean terrible not just bad.) We assume that everyone else is wrong when they say the restaurant is ok. So who’s wrong? If the restaurant is still in business there’s a good chance we are.
At this point we have to either accept that our 2-3 experiences are only a miniscule number in a larger series. If the restaurant is open 7 days a week and sees an average of 50 customers a day that’s 18,200 customers per year. So our 3 experiences represent 0.0016% of visits that year.
Or we can assume that it was purposefully done to us. The owners of the restaurant don’t like us.
In the science-ish conclusion we aren’t special, we’re a miniscule example. In the Conspiracy, we’re not only special but persecuted. Naturally, we would prefer to believe we’re important.
What are your favourite Conspiracies?
Later Days,
Éric
