Words On Wednesday

Fireball is weird. Not the whisky itself, but rather the culture around it. The legend of Fireball Cinnamon Whisky (or “Dr. McGillicuddy’s Fireball Whisky” as it was originally known) begins in Canada. It seems to have been a mostly local beverage until closer to 2007 when it was rebranded as the Fireball that we know today. The spike in sales and expansion from small town secret to global hit appears to have happened somewhere between 2011 and 2013. It’s amazing what good marketing can accomplish. My first exposure to Fireball was probably around 2010 or 2011 in the early days of its remarkable growth. A friend and classmate absolutely loved Fireball, second only to Southern Comfort. (Or maybe Fireball and then SoCo? I actually don’t know which she preferred between the two.) As I have discussed before , I bought a bottle of Southern Comfort on her recommendation and absolutely hated it. Hence, I decided that anything Megan liked, I would probably hate. I wrote off Fireball as ...

“ Metroid ” is an action-adventure game released on the Japanese Famicom and North American NES in 1986. Spawning a series that now spans more than three decades, the game was certainly good enough to generate a sequel or 13. Does the original hold up to the test of time, or have sequels improved on the concept to the degree that the first game has lost its luster? Story - 7/10 The story of Metroid is shallow, but motivational nonetheless. Samus Aran is a bounty hunter sent to destroy the parasitic metroids before space pirates can use them for destruction. (S)he must explore the depths of the planet Zebes (which I’ve always pronounced like the city of Thebes, Greece ), gathering suit upgrades and weapons, and defeating powerful monsters. Ultimately, Samus destroys Mother Brain and (nearly) wipes out the metroid population. After the player manages to escape the exploding planet, it is revealed that -gasp- Samus is female. As the only real character with any sort of backg...

It’s been quite a few weeks (months, actually) since I last posted about Runescape. Since that time, I’ve accomplished quite a bit and gotten banned again. Without further ado, an update on the current state of my Runescape account. To follow up with the final thoughts of my most recent post , I did manage to get the remainder of the golem outfit pieces and combine them into a full Magic golem outfit. Between Trahaearn hour Harmonized runite mining and Seren stone daily challenges, I did a lot of mining. Since level 99 mining yields double Gemstone golem fragments, I was getting roughly 200 fragments every 5 minutes. I already had several pieces of the outfit, and more than enough fragments to finish it out. The only missing requirement was level 20 invention. I got that pretty quickly after getting 99 fletching, but unfortunately before I discovered that you can disassemble noted items. That’s right, I disassembled loads of unnoted unstrung maple shieldbows, 28 at a time, all the...

I figured Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” would be fitting as the first reoccurring Book Report post, being the first book that I’ve read (listened to) in a long time. Considering this single novel is the basis and origin of most modern vampire lore, I’ve always been interested it. I remember playing Castlevania as a kid, even though I knew nothing of the novel then. Basically any modern representation of vampires uses Stoker’s work in some form or another as reference material. Source: https://audiobookstore.com/audiobooks/dracula.aspx My first exposure to the actual text of “Dracula” was in a “Topics in Language and Literature” class at Upstate. The class was a neat fusion of literature and technology, and easily the most interesting English class I’ve ever taken. For one assignment, we had to “not read” a Victorian novel . In short, it was an exploration to  learn about a novel of our choice without actually reading it. For the assignment, all we had to actually read was the fi...

I frequently have gun envy, but I’m really eyeing the 9mm or .40 caliber carbine from Hi-Point. Now before you start pointing your finger and pitching a fit about how awful they are, hear me out. There is a reason why I’m interested in a gun with such a bad reputation. Source: https://www.academy.com/shop/pdp/hi-point-firearms-995ts-carbine-9mm-semiautomatic-rifle-113885116 I didn’t even know Hi-Point made a carbine until I came across a meme that a friend of mine recently posted on Facebook. I’ve long heard the echo chamber about how bad Hi-Point guns are. Unreliable, ugly, bulky, inaccurate, and any number of other adjectives that people use to hate on firearms. Honestly, though, I feel like most of these tales are exaggeration and hearsay. Most shooters that I know don’t own a Hi-Point, and few if any have ever even shot one. But oh, “those things are just awful” they say. Are they really? Source:  https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=429538197575166&i...