Netflix WITCHER

Posted on January 12, 2022 by J.L. Hilton

I love the WITCHER show but Netflix Geralt don’t use Igni or Aard even 1/5 as often as I did playing Witcher 3.

~ J.L. Hilton

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The value of happiness

Posted on January 2, 2022 by J.L. Hilton

At times it is difficult to see the value of my work as an author, artist and content creator. With the world so full of cruelty, ignorance, injustice and pain, the thought of writing a story, making jewelry or livestreaming a video game feels self-centered and indulgent.

I occasionally receive comments on my YouTube channel asking why I bother to make videos when I have so few views or subscribers. These comments echo the voice inside of my head that asks, “What’s the point of it all?”

This spectre of melancholy nihilism judges creativity to be a kind of privileged hubris, pursued by a lucky few who have time to build sand castles while storms rage and tides lash unrelenting upon the beaches of our lives.

But there’s a bible verse that says, “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms” (1 Peter 4:10). And while I’m not one for seeking solace in organized religion, I do believe there’s a valuable lesson in this passage.

Whichever gods you may or may not believe in, we all have gifts, and by the grace of human evolution or the Creator, or both, we have those gifts for the purpose of helping each other.

For many years, I had panic attacks, anxiety disorder, insomnia, and health issues. In the midst of sadness, despair and pain, I realized how very, very much it meant to me when someone made me smile, or when something gave me a reason to get up in the morning and get through the day.

I am so grateful to others who embraced their gifts and shared them with me. One laugh is a treasure worth more than jewels to someone who feels no cheer. A glimmer of hope is as precious as gold to someone hopeless.

My gifts do not bring me riches or fame but they are valuable if they can bring a smile to someone’s face, if they can help someone see a little bit of light in the dark or feel a little less sad and lonely. Those gifts are true magic and I shouldn’t doubt them.

This year, I want to believe in the value of happiness. I want to thank the people whose gifts make my life worth living, and remember that I, too, have a responsibility to share the gifts with which I’ve been blessed.

~ J.L. Hilton

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Uh… that’ll be a “no” for me, thanks

Posted on December 29, 2021 by J.L. Hilton

I’ve played so many video games, I know that when you start seeing mannequins, it’s never good news.

Photograph taken at a local warehouse that sells store fixtures.

~ J.L. Hilton

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Fallout 3 Holiday Special

Posted on December 24, 2021 by J.L. Hilton

Season’s greetings! 

In this very special video, my lone wanderer Charity plays Santa Claus and delivers holiday cheer to the children of the Capital Wasteland, while Fawkes plays Krampus. 

This turned out unintentionally hilarious due to the children’s cynical dialogue. Most of them just called her “weird” and walked away. Can’t say I blame them!  

Wherever you are in the world and whatever holidays you celebrate, I hope you are healthy and happy. Thank you so much for supporting my channel and joining me on my adventures. See you next year!

~ J.L. Hilton

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A gift for the lady who gives up everything

Posted on December 16, 2021 by J.L. Hilton

So what’s Aragorn supposed to get Arwen for Midwinter? She gave him the Evenstar necklace, a token of not only her love but her choice to leave her people and relinquish her immortality.

He’ll never find a gift that lives up to that. “Here, honey, I got you some mithril oven mitts”?

~ J.L. Hilton

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Movie Night: THE 13TH WARRIOR

Posted on December 12, 2021 by J.L. Hilton

I rewatched THE 13th WARRIOR last night, free with ads on YouTube. I loved this movie when it came out in 1999, and I still love it now, even though it’s considered a box office bomb.

I don’t think it bombed because no one went to see it. It debuted at #2 behind The Sixth Sense on its opening weekend, and took in $61 million at the box office. But extensive reshoots and a big marketing budget put a lot more pressure on this film to perform during a year when audiences were captivated by the likes of Star Wars: Phantom Menace, Sixth Sense, Toy Story 2, The Matrix and The Blair Witch Project. Tough acts to follow.

Released two years before Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone made fantasy the new hot trend, and twelve years before the Game of Thrones TV show and The Elders Scrolls V: Skyrim video game made bloody, violent fantasy all the rage, THE 13th WARRIOR was a little too early for the coming zeitgeist.

THE 13th WARRIOR also relied too much on star power. Just look at the original movie poster, pushing it as a collab between “the author of Jurassic Park” (Michael Crichton, who was retelling Beowulf), “the director of Die Hard” (John McTiernan) and leading actor Antonio Banderas, who was a rising star and Hollywood heartthrob after his appearance in movies such as Interview With the Vampire (1994), Desperado (1995) and The Mask of Zorro (1998).

But what does the poster actually convey about the movie itself? An eyeball and a Viking longboat? The tagline is “Fear Reigns.” OK? Even the movie posters and DVD box covers that show Banderas only feature him alone, holding a sword.

But if you’re into The Elder Scrolls video games, I highly recommend THE 13th WARRIOR, because this scenario will feel very familiar. It’s basically twelve Nords and one Redguard — played by Banderas with a curved sword, yes! curved swords! — fighting the Forsworn. Vladimir Kulich, who portrays their leader, Buliwyf, even went on to voice Ulfric Stormcloak in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

THE 13th WARRIOR also has a connection to God of War, when Atreus recites lines from the movie’s “Lo, there do I see my Mother” prayer at the beginning of the game. And Marvel’s Thor says it quietly while mourning in Thor: Ragnarok. Sean Kelly covered this in The Escapist.

Despite being considered a financial flop, THE 13th WARRIOR made ripples that we’re still feeling today and is totally worth a revisit.

~ J.L. Hilton

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Early celebrity crushes

Posted on December 11, 2021 by J.L. Hilton

In the ’70s and ’80s, while other girls were crushing on musicians like Shaun Cassidy and NKOTB, or “brat pack” stars like Rob Lowe and Emilio Estevez, my tastes were always a little more nerdy.

The 1978 TV movie Dr. Strange featured Peter Hooten as comic book sorcerer supreme Stephen Strange. I not only crushed on the main character, I loved everything about the movie and got into reading the comics soon after.

Then there’s Malcolm McDowell as author and time-traveler HG Wells in the 1979 movie Time After Time. Something about his intelligent but socially-awkward “man out of time” character falling for the sweet “modern woman” played by Mary Steenbergen just really appealed to me, even at such a young age. Science fiction with romance is still my favorite genre.

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century was a science fiction TV show that lasted two seasons, from 1979 to 1981. I could never decide who I liked more, the titular swashbuckling, hairy-chested Buck, or his silent feathery friend with a tragic backstory, Hawk. I wrote fan letters to both and received autographed pictures in return, which I put on my bedroom wall.

I first saw Rutger Hauer in the 1982 movie Blade Runner and became a lifelong fan. Roy Batty’s “Tears in rain” monologue deeply moved me then, and still does now.

When I got really into the 1985 movie Ladyhawke, my parents mistakenly thought I had a crush on Matthew Broderick, but no. I watched every Rutger Hauer movie I could get my hands on in our small-town video rental store, including Flesh+Blood, The Hitcher and The Blood of Heroes.

~ J.L. Hilton

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Movies: The Guns of Navarone

Posted on December 8, 2021 by J.L. Hilton

I recently watched The Guns of Navarone (1961), a movie that inspired the FALLOUT 3 Operation: Anchorage DLC (2009), specifically the “Guns of Anchorage” quest, and the original CASTLE WOLFENSTEIN (1981) video game by Silas Warner and Muse Software for the Apple ][ computer.

According to Digg, Warner mashed up the arcade game BERSERK and the oafish Nazis in The Guns Of Navarone to create a game of maze navigation with stealthy combat.

CASTLE WOLFENSTEIN was one of the first PC games I ever played, on a computer with a green screen monitor that belonged to one of my dad’s friends. It wasn’t until almost 40 years later that I played WOLFENSTEIN II: THE NEW COLOSSUS, and now here I am watching the movie that sparked it all.

Also, now I understand now why Jules said “You’re gettin’ ready to blow? … I’m the guns of Navarone!” in Pulp Fiction.

~ J.L. Hilton

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Skyrim Documentary: You’re Finally Awake

Posted on December 6, 2021 by J.L. Hilton
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I won the “Narrate Your Own Twilight Zone Competition 2021”

Posted on November 24, 2021 by J.L. Hilton

My entry “Memory Lane” tied for 1st place in the NARRATE YOUR OWN TWILIGHT ZONE COMPETITION 2021 sponsored by the Rod Serling Memorial Foundation!

Winning entries will be performed by actor and Rod Serling impersonator Stephen Dexter.

I only found out about the contest a week before the Halloween deadline. At the time, I was in the middle of running the Fallout Scavenger Hunt, participating in the “Falloween” (Fallout + Halloween) photo challenge and celebrating my favorite holiday and month of the year with my family.

To enter, I had to write an opening and closing narration for an imaginary episode of The Twilight Zone, in the style of Rod Serling.

These were the rules:

  • Maximum word count, excluding titles and labels: 150 words total, both narrations combined.
  • Maximum entries: 2 per person. (I only had time to write the one, “Memory Lane.”)
  • Title and Narrations only. Any additional content will be ignored.
  • Deadline: Halloween 2021 (October 31)

Entries were judged by Rod Serling Memorial Foundation board members, based on these criteria:

  • Originality
  • How easily we can imagine Rod speaking your words
  • How well your narrations suggest the imaginary episode

Twilight Zone marathons every Thanksgiving & Twilight Zone Magazine in the 1980s were a huge influence on my desire to become a writer and to write speculative fiction, and probably no small influence on my personality, if I’m being totally honest.

Though The Twilight Zone began more than ten years before I was born, I was such a big fan of the show that I had a Twilight Zone sign on my bedroom door. As a little joke, my dad took black electrician’s tape and covered the “Z” so it said “Twilight one” because I was such a weird, imaginative kid.

“The Night of the Meek” Christmas episode that originally aired December 23, 1960, starring Art Carney, is my favorite holiday program and I watch it every year.

But I never imagined I would someday be a small part of the Twilight Zone. What an incredible honor!

Rod Serling was the head writer for the original series but several episodes were written by Charles Beaumont, Richard Matheson and Earl Hamner Jr. Matheson wrote for many other TV shows and his books and stories have been made into the movies I Am Legend, What Dreams May Come, and one of my childhood favorites Somewhere in Time. Hamner went on to create the popular and long-running TV shows The Waltons and Falcon Crest. One 1962 episode, “I Sing the Body Electric,” was written by Ray Bradbury and became the basis for his 1969 short story of the same name.

There are several versions of The Twilight Zone, including the original TV show that aired from 1959 to 1964, Twilight Zone: The Movie produced by Steven Spielberg and John Landis in 1983, a revival of the TV series that ran from 1985 to 1989, a UPN series that ran from 2002-2003, and a series developed by Jordan Peele, Simon Kinberg and Marco Ramirez for CBS All Access that ran from 2019 to 2020.

I’m a fan of the original series and have only a vague memory of the ’80s movie and TV show. I haven’t seen the other versions but I highly recommend the older episodes. They used to be on Netflix but are now available on Hulu and Paramount+.

The Twilight Zone episodes typically include one or more elements of science fiction, fantasy, horror and supernatural, but at its heart it’s a show about the things that make us human, things like love, death, fear, humor, nostalgia, hubris, temptation, regret, good and evil.

~ J.L. Hilton

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