#NerdsUnite: I can haz funny (one nerds journey around the comedic circuit)

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Brandon. We started talking on the Facebook not too long ago, and lemme tell you, this guy can throw in quite the few kneeslappers in his emails. Yep, see Brandon is a comedian who is here today to tell you the real deal on what it's like being "on the circuit." I only have one more thing left to say ... HIT IT BRANDON!!! </editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @BrandonComedy

*This entire post is in reference to this blog ("A Girl Walks Into A Comedy Club")

To preface, I’m not “pro rape.” I think it is a deplorable and debasing act of inhumanity, and I hope that everyone who has been a victim of this crime gets the justice they so rightly deserve. That said; there is a growing legion of “P.C. Police” who complain about content they found disturbing at a comedy club. Comedians walk a high wire act when dealing with controversial subjects, and EVERYONE has some sort of trigger that they don’t want to hear a comedic take on, but to feel entitled enough to yell out to a performer DURING a show, because your specific trigger was hit is more offensive than any comedian could be. You have the right to be offended by something.  Who am I to tell you otherwise? But you do not have the right to interrupt a show because something didn’t resonate with you.

Let me tell you a little bit about my act. I hit on all sorts of taboo topics, and do so freely, because my job as a comedian gives me license to mine any comedic mine where funny might be found. Neither I nor any of my colleagues would ever tell a joke that didn’t get laughs and only served to hurt people. I currently have 0 rape jokes in my act; I personally can’t find a way to make them funny. Last week I closed with a bit about ejaculating on a woman with breast cancer.  Was it the most women positive joke? NOPE! But I can tell it without fear, because I know that as a comic, I’m not doing any jokes with the intention to harm, but to entertain.
Daniel Tosh has been doing the same type of act for over a decade. It has landed him a hit TV show, and 2 highly rated comedy specials (both of which feature rape jokes). You should be able to tell 3 minutes into his act that “oh hey this might get offensive, if I am a person of a particular sensibility, maybe I should leave, this might not be for me.” To stick around, and then feign offense when a topic personal to you gets hit is irresponsible, to yell back at the comic and then be offended when you’re “put in your place” is tragic. As a comic, you are trained to just get hecklers out of the way, not to stop your show and make apologies. If you can make a joke while doing it, no matter how crass and tasteless the joke, your comedic instinct is going to tell you to do it.

Walking into a comedy club, you should have certain expectations. You might think you’d like to see comedy that offends no one on any level, but I pose that comedy is not as effective if EVERYONE laughs at EVERY joke. I could be wrong, but every comic I’ve seen ever tells me I’m not. We all know what happens at comedy clubs. We all know that comedians push the line. To be offended at “edgy” material at a comedy club is almost the expectation today. You would have a better argument if you went to a jazz club and Dizzy Gillespie told you it would be funny if five dudes raped you (Dizzy Gillespie has been dead for almost 10 years, him telling you to get raped in 2012 is shocking for a number of reasons). You don’t get to be mad at Daniel Tosh, a man KNOWN for making declarative and inflammatory statements in a comedy club. He didn’t walk past you on the street and threaten you, and he only specifically addressed you when you attacked him.

Oh, and Dane Cook’s rape-joke-free woman’s rights progressive show you were going to see? Let’s not forget as recently as THIS YEAR, he got in hot water for similar comments.

If you can’t control your level of outrage, go see a funny movie. A comedy club isn’t a place for people to get upset whenever their niche issue gets mentioned. That being said; I’ll be at the Oklahoma City Loony Bin all this week.

#nerdsunite

click here to follow Brandon on twitter & don't miss his blog over yonder!

#ThatAwkwardMomentWhen: @BenSavage accuses your trivia team of cheating

Dude ... shit was about to go DOOOWWNNNN last night at our weekly trivia meet up over at @goalsportscafe. Here's what happened ...

Goal is a pretty popular sports bar on 3rd street co-owned by a who's who of Hollywood gods. On Tuesdays when we play trivia there will no doubt be some randomly awesome person someone at the table recognizes. Not a biggie, I've lived in LA for 8 years - but I gotta admit since trivia is my FAVORITE THING EVER it is a pretty nice touch to the week.

Every week there are three teams that battle it out for the grand prize. (There are on average about 7 or 8 teams, but every week it is Great Table Eight, Foxy Knoxy, and Talk Nerdy To Me, Lover fighting to the death.) Trivia, btw, is SUPPPPEERRRRRR competitive. I warn people before they give me a heads up that they are coming by that 1) they can't suck, and 2) they need to understand how HEATED this shit gets; we're NERDS!!!! Trivia is our JAMMM!!!!! 

My Facebook friend Seth had messaged me a few weeks back and we had arranged to kick it on Tuesday. Because I had been traveling I haven't been able to make it to trivia for the last two weeks so I suggested meeting up over at Goal and playing with us.

::it is now last night::

I see Seth walk in, and he joins our table with over half of our team already there.

After a few minutes of catching up the rest of our team arrives, and Steve (our host) begins trivia.

The first round finishes and all of the tables are then introduced. As usual, our top three tables are there, but when we all look over at Great Table Eight - we spot some familiar faces.

Is that Lance Bass? asked one teammate

Yep, Julie confirmed.

And that's Ben Savage at the table too, I reply back quietly.

Whoodathunk in my 90s teen idol days that those two would EVER kick it.

We continue playing - again amused, but barely caring seeing as we were about to TAKE THEM DOWN!!!

During round two, I carefully remind our new teammate that he and his friend have to keep cell phones away. I knew they weren't cheating since I was sitting next to them and could see their screens, but I didn't want any of the other teams to think otherwise.

FTR, I would KILL a teammate if they EVER cheated at trivia. I'm absolutely absolutely absolutely not even kidding in saying that - I would not only turn in our sheet and forfeit the round, but I would kindly ask the teammate to leave. I do NOT cheat at things in life - even in school growing up!! I DIDN'T FREAKING HAVE TO CHEAT!! I worked my BUTT off for my grades, and took an ENORMOUS amount of pride in my academics.

Trivia is an extension of my youth. Where else in my day to day life could I ever pull out some 6th grade history lessons?

A few more rounds go by, and the tension is on as team TNTML is trailing greatly.

Somewhere during the "identify these actors who have won oscars and golden raspberries" handout round, I see Ben Savage (who was directly in my eye line) jerk suddenly.

I then look over and see that our new teammate was on his phone.

I ask him politely again to put it away (which again, he was texting, I could see his screen).

I then lip read Ben say to his team that we were cheating.

<tangent> I've been lip reading since I was about 4. I never missed a beat growing up, and my parents were never able to talk about things in front of me without me connecting the dots. Instead of actually leaving the room though, they would just mouth things to each other figuring since I couldn't hear that I couldn't figure it out.

Wrong.

In those moments, (which happened almost every night) I inadvertantly taught myself how to lip read. I didn't tell my parents until I was about 10 what I was doing (I think I realized I could use it to manipulate even at that age) - but yeah, I'm hella good at lip reading. </tangent>

I genuinely don't use the skill unless it is needed - but I KNEW what he was saying and I immediately got defensive knowing the truth, and knowing nerd code of ethics that cheating at trivia is a BIG no no.

Ben then goes up to the host and again, I lip read that he tells Steve that we are cheating.

At this point ... I am pissed.

I get it, he saw the screen lit - but we play EVERY WEEK!!! We would never EVER accuse them of cheating ESPECIALLY if they had a new teammate who might not have paid attention to the rules enough.

Either way, when it came to handing in the paper I ask to be let out of the booth so I could talk to Steve.

I run up ...

I just want you to know, I say, that we would never ... EVER cheat at trivia. I would legit skin a teammate ALIVE if they cheated, I reaffirm.

Steve looks down at me (he is a very tall human being) and says I know you wouldn't.

He's a friend of mine in town visiting, and you know how nerds can be with shiny things. I'm sure he just saw his phone go off and answered without thinking. I've made sure though that ALL phones will be put away until the end of the game.

Steve then places his hand on my shoulder and says, I know.

I then go back to the table and we continue on to the next round.

Around the third or fourth question I hear Ben shout out something about "cheaters" directed at our table.

I contain my anger and finish the round, which was one of the last.

After the game, we cheered on the winning team (we lost, they won) - congratulating them, and I got out of the booth to talk to Ben.

Hi Ben, I say walking right up to him.

I'm Jen, and I just wanted to let you know that I would never ... EVER let a teammate cheat. I was sitting right next to him and he ABSOLUTELY wasn't cheating.

Ben then stares back at me four eyes to four eyes and denies ever saying that we cheated.

I didn't say anything, he replies back sheepishly.

I saw you - I saw everything go down, I press on. It's fine, I get it - but I just want you to know nerdo y nerdo that I would NEVER stand for that.

He then tries to walk away claiming he knew "nothing" about it.

I genuinely wasn't trying to rip him a new one, I have nothing against the kid, but I'm not gonna lie it was pretty douchey.

Steve then walks by and asks if everything was okay ...

It's fine, I reply. I'll just take this to twitter.

The night ended a few minutes later as we all walked out and headed to our respected vehicles. Only in LA would something like this happen, I thought.

Oh goodness gracious do I heart you Hollywood.

See you next week .... Ben.

#thatisall

click the screen shot to read the comments on Facebook

Weird Al Says: #WTF

Within the next hour, you will shed 600,000 particles of skin.

This has been a moment of ... WTF?!

#Tonight: Beer + Boobs + Brains = @GoalSportsCafe

It's Tuesday nerderinos!

That means it's TRIVIA NIGHT AT GOAL!!!!

Come flex off those nerdy muscles with some random trivia - and it's SO GOOD AT GOAL!!!

Goal is located at 8334 West 3rd street in LA (zip code: 90048), and because you guys rock it so hardcore, the owners are also going to be giving us specials!!

Yep, we have $5 stellas, $5 vodka drinks and $5 appetizers.

So come on down tonight! Festivities start at 8:30!!!

Everyone in LA is invited. So come on down for all things awesome, and I can't WAAIIIITTTTT to kick it with you guys tonight.

Tweet me if you have any questions, problems, or whatevs - @JenFriel

SO MUCH FREAKING LOVE!!!!! See your faces tonight!!

#nerdsunite

#GameReview: Another Rome

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Sean. He has a really rad site called Violent Gamer, and he's here today to talk about some of the latest and greatest in the gaming industry. I only have one more thing left to say ... HIT IT SEAN !!</editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @violent_gamer

You know when something shows up in an upcoming magazine it is all but confirmed, like I talked about in my previous post about Rome II, but recently Creative Assembly has confirmed and revealed a great detail about Rome II. They did it all in anticipation of Rezzed, the new indie games show in England that is going to be on July 6th and 7th. There be a bit more coming from that show later in the week, but for now we have plenty to talk about with Rome II.

The Total War series, which Rome II is part of, are a series of real time strategy games that have taken PC gamers through many different war-like periods of history, like Medieval Europe, Colonial America, feudal Japan and more. The newest games in the series are Shogun 2, Empire and Medieval II. If you would like to know more about their newest game, Shogun 2, check out my review here, but for the rest of this I will be focusing on Rome II.

If you've played Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai then you may be able to guess where Creative Assembly (CA) was heading with navies. In Rome II navies will no longer be off on the side lines or supporting your troops with bombardment from off-map, they are now on the same battle map as the rest of your armies and will be integral part of attacking any city near the sea. They way they showed off this off was with a visual demo of the battle of Carthage. Presumably this was one of CA's historical scenarios, since it involved the  Carthaginians holding off a siege for two years and then finally falling to Roman might. Ships swarmed the harbor, legions rolled over the walls and through the streets, and Rome was victorious, but they used this battle to show off the new naval combat, the massive size of your armies and the way cities will be different than the first Rome: Total War.

Now for some general details on Rome II. They are going to have a larger map than the first Rome and it will encompass all of Europe and parts of Africa, but now they are going to expanding it farther to the east. You will apparently being able to play as any country or faction, which is similar to the first Rome. I'm hoping it will be like the first Rome in the sense that you have to destroy a country or win with certain countries in order to unlock more countries to play as. On the world map there will also be trigger-able events that will require the player to deal with something that doesn't merely involve military might. These events will have consequences and serious dilemma's, plus they will be trigger-able no matter what country you are playing as.

As you fight your way across the world, at least as the Romans, you will be thinking in grander strategy terms than any other Total War game. You will still have specific units that are better versus other types of units, like spears win against cavalry etc., but with Rome they are going for fewer battles, a bit less micromanagement and larger battles. Creative Assembly wants you thinking about leading legions, not groups of several hundred soldiers. Legions will be able to earn traits from combat and will feel more like unique units, which sounds a bit like how they handled armies in Shogun 2 multiplayer. All of this information so far is from Rock Paper Shotgun's preview of Rome II and much of it is yet to be proved, but there is more to go through and learn about Rome.

There is also an interview with the lead designer of Total War: Rome II, James Russell, that reveals quite a bit about all of that basic information. One of the first thing he talks about is how you still get the option of viewing a battle from many different angles. You can still zoom up to the shoulder of a soldier and watch him battle his way through hordes of enemies or you can zoom way out and view the whole spectacle in a strategic view. With terms of scale the amount of units in a battle will be similar to Fall of the Samurai, which was capped at about forty units. To make the battles bigger they are doing things like making larger units, like legions or boat groups that consist of several boat and not just one. The environments are also going to be very large in scale in order to make each battle feel epic. They don't want to just make more units and increase the amount of micromanaging you have to do.

Lastly I will leave you with this live-action trailer for Rome II that Creative Assembly put together. It isn't HBO's Rome, but it may just get you in the mood. Although, I will feel sorry for you if it does get you all excited for Rome II because it doesn't come out till late next year. Anyways, check that out and thanks for reading all of this.  Click here for the main website

#nerdsunite

click here to follow Sean on the twittah!