Some vague ramblings, senseless and aimless as a colorless moth
Alright, got another one o’ these ready to go.
I think I’m gonna make sunday my usual upload day, get on more of a regular schedule. I was so eager for the first one, I didn’t even think about it. I’m on vacation this coming week, so I’ll probably go and record several episodes, so I can have a buffer and actually get them out consistently on time! What a concept!
Continue reading “Let’s Play FFT 02 – Ancient Magicks”Oh man, it has been far too long.
I can only beg your forgiveness, shipmates. I have been overwhelmed with stress in my life in recent months, and thus have not found the fortitude to continue this project, preferring to distract myself with video games and movies and other amusements. But now, many things have been resolved, and I may once again take to the sea and do some deep thinking about whales.
Continue reading “Chapter 129: The Cabin”What’s my line here? Ah yes: let’s get back to it.
Well, I missed a couple weeks again, so it goes. I’ve been busy and exhausted, mentally and physically, the past couple weekends. I desperately need a vacation, to tend to business in my apartment, and in my own mind and body. I’ve got one scheduled in a couple weeks, right after Metaphor comes out, hopefully I can regenerate myself somewhat.
Continue reading “Chapter 125: The Log and Line”The pieces are starting to fall into place.
It’s funny, so much of this book is either vague and philosophical, blowing out its themes to a vast scope, or extremely mundane and specific, that one quite forgets that there’s an actual plot going on, and certain things must be set up for it to conclude. Not that we’re ever going to fully get away from Ishmael’s philosophical reveries, of course. Yet, this is one such chapter, containing a pivotal development that will resonate with the inevitable end of this tale.
Continue reading “Chapter 110: Queequeg in his Coffin”Guhh, it’s hot.
The one bad thing about living in this apartment, rather than at my parents’ place in West Seattle, is that it gets hotter and stays hot longer. We always had a nice breeze coming off the water, but now I’m inland! A who two or three miles from the Salish Sea, probably! Merely on a river valley… alas! Anyway, I’ll go turn my fan on and we can get to the business at hand.
Continue reading “Chapter 102: A Bower in the Arascides”
Ahhh, nice to be back. It’s been far too long since I really had time to sit down and work on this blog or read this book. I’ve been much too busy and not quite comfortable enough with my new surroundings and situation, but now… it is Time.
Let us see, where ever did I leave off in this magnificent tome… ah yes, the aftermath of The Pequod‘s encounter with a vast school of whales. We encountered an exciting new phenomenon… which means it’s time for Old Ishmael to regale us with some more whale facts!
Alright! Time to dig into some race “science”!
Ah, it’s been a little while, and this is not exactly an ideal chapter to come back with, though it is an interesting one. I’ve been having a bit of a depressive episode and lost myself in Final Fantasy XIV for a couple weeks, due to… *gestures broadly at the world*. As I sit here, the world outside my window blanketed with poisonous fog and haunted by the specter of a deadly virus, it feels somewhat frivolous to write about some 150-year-old book about whales. And yet, I shall, since I don’t really have anything better to do with my time. Continue reading “Chapter 79: The Prairie”
So, there’s been a bit of Discourse going on lately in certain circles of the internet, which I happen to find myself in, regarding good ol’ Dungeons & Dragons.
Particularly, a description of orcs from the 5th edition rulebook has caught a lot of flak for being, um, pretty damn racist. There have also been people coming out and just saying that D&D has always been a racist and colonialist game anyway, so this is nothing surprising. Continue reading “Dungeons & Dragons & Colonialism”
Okay, I’ve been dragging my feet with this one, but I guess I just have to bite the gamey whale steak and get it over with.
This chapter is… difficult to talk about, as a person who likes this book and wants to convince other people to read it. As I’ve mentioned before, this is a book from pre-civil war America, so there are certain subjects that are not going to handled as, uh, delicately as you would hope, particularly anything involving black people. I’ve touched on it a couple times already, but this is where it’s really unavoidable, because we have a whole heaping helping of dialog with a black character, who is of course speaking in a dialect that Melville has painstakingly replicated in the text for our… enjoyment. Continue reading “Chapter 64: Stubb’s Supper”
Here we go! Time to go kill a god damned sea monster!
Or, make an attempt, at any rate. It’s really a very difficult thing, taking down such a large and powerful creature. Of course, we humans have made our bones on taking down things much larger and more powerful than ourselves. Perhaps the whale itself is not always the biggest obstacle, though. Continue reading “Chapter 48: The First Lowering”
The Beige Moth 