Empowerment

Everyone is called to do something with their lives. That calling is something innate, and cannot be unheard. Some call it your gut, some call it your destiny. I call it the Holy Spirit. But however you refer to it, and however you hear it, it holds such an influence on your lifetime outlook and overall happiness. Those who plod through life with chips on their shoulders, dead-end jobs and tense necks are simply those who are not heeding their call.

This is what I am called to do: write. With every word written here I am living my dream. Now… I am fully aware that the things I write about are obscure, edgy and maybe even shocking to some. Some people will take one look at my RuPaul’s Drag Race posts and damn me to hell. They’ll read what I’m saying toward people that use a Club for their car and call me a hateful, negative person. They’ll read my 7th gen gaming article and say ‘You’re so out of touch, what do you know?!’ Some readers will pass me by without a second glance.

I GET IT.

What they won’t get is that I’m giving a voice to people and things that haven’t had a voice before, or were unable to project. Drag Race is still a niche show with a limited audience, but now you, the reader, know about it if you didn’t before. If anything it raised awareness, and that’s all any classically trained PR guy like myself tries to accomplish. And be honest, when’s the last time you heard about The Club? Or even knew about a game called Burning Rangers?

Let’s be real: for this blog to turn into my livelihood it’s going to need that one person to view it, like what they read and want me on their team. You are my future ally, my future fanbase, my future employer. That is how this blog will become my career. And it’s going to happen. Hopefully sooner rather than later but it will happen. The Holy Spirit does not lie. 

So if you’re one of those people who are judging me purely by my critiques of drag queens and old video games, you’re not someone I want to be involved with. There’s a lot more that I like to write about that you will never know.

And for those who are enjoying what they’ve been reading so far, drop me a personal line. Let me know what you have to offer, or what you’d like me to write about. Tell me how you can put me on the map and how together we can make our impact on the world. This very moment is when it all begins. The call to action.

Don’t get defensive about your dreams. Learn how to empower them. And love doing what you do.

Forgotten Gaming - Burning Rangers

Name- Burning Rangers
Platform- Sega Saturn
Developer- Sonic Team
Released- May 1998
ESRB Rating- ...seriously?

The Sega Saturn is seen by some as Sega’s greatest console. Others see it as Sega’s worst, and the rest see it as ‘the Sega what??’. The Saturn was the perfect representative for the darkest, most confused era of Sega’s history, and only at the tail end of its brief life did its finest games see release. Games like Panzer Dragoon Saga, Radiant Silvergun (which is where ‘Warning: No Refuge’ comes from), House of the Dead… and Burning Rangers.

Burning Rangers was one of the five (!) titles released domestically for the Sega Saturn in 1998. Created by Sonic Team, this adventure/firefighting hybrid pushed the Saturn beyond its own technical limits. Though the graphics look inexcusably crunchy by today’s standards, realize that the Saturn wasn’t even designed to handle 3D worlds and transparency effects. Somehow Sonic Team turned it out, and in those respects Burning Rangers looks remarkable and showcases the best visuals Sega’s 32-bit console has to offer.

The graphics are astounding and horrible at the same time.

So what’s this game all about? Sonic Team takes us to a space-age future where fire is one of the only natural hazards remaining, and the Burning Rangers are a team of neo-firefighters sent to extinguish flames and rescue trapped civilians. Playing as either Shou or Tillis, the game takes place over four scenarios (levels) connected by a loose storyline. You extinguish fires with your water gun, gather crystals (akin to Sonic the Hedgehog’s rings), rescue victims and destroy the boss in the heart of each level.

Here’s where things get interesting. There is no in-game map of these sprawling locations, and after clearing each stage once they can be repeated but in a randomized layout. Victim locations, backdrafts and certain hallways will mix up each time you play the stage, bringing the replay value from nonexistent to nearly infinite. In lieu of a map system your character gets voice navigation from BR leader Chris. Though Chris will generally point you in the right direction, Burning Rangers is a game designed to be explored and get lost in. After all, there’s no way to put out all the fires and locate all the victims besides randomly running into them.

The jetpack worn by your character was meant to reference the silhouette of an angel.

While you’re getting lost in blackout hallways and water channels, don’t forget that the stage is constantly on fire. There’s a ‘limit’ to how much fire the stage can handle, and by extinguishing fires that percentage will stay low. Once the limit passes an increment of 20, back-to-back explosions permanently damage the stage, allowing less margins for error as you press on.

And that’s about it, really. At the end of each stage you are ranked based on how many victims you rescued, damage you sustained, the time taken, and how low you kept the fire limit. As you rescue victims, they will send you emails (gotta love the 90s) that can be viewed from the main menu. These emails can be nothing but odd banter to unlockables and passwords that force custom stage layouts.

Burning Rangers was no doubt a novel gaming concept, but it was far from a perfect one. The lack of a map system hurts this game badly, as Chris’ voice commands were as accurate as Apple Maps. As her commands were only to help you get through the level, you would have to personally go out of your way to find victims and additional fires (with her constantly chirping in saying ‘You’re going the wrong way, come back!’). Not to mention if you were to make a detour, there’s no guarantee you’d find anything. It’s extremely easy to get turned around even if you’re following Chris’ directions exactly, as many of the corridors look the same. Vague navigation, reused graphics, stage randomization and overall darkness are some of the biggest complaints gamers have for Burning Rangers.

Another oddity we are presented with is the English translation. It’s clear that Sonic Team didn’t  have the resources for good-quality localization, and many of the victim emails and dialogue come off stilted and unnatural. One of the Burning Rangers is referred to as ‘Lead Phoenix’ but the characters call him ‘Reed Phoenix’. As one of the senior members, it makes sense for him to be the Lead… or maybe his first name really is Reed… ugh >_<

But as unpolished as the translations and the gameplay are, Burning Rangers excels in the music department. As games like Sonic Adventure would soon follow, Burning Rangers features a handful of vocal themes that are as campy and terrible as they are fun and catchy. Besides songs like ‘We Are Burning Rangers’ and ‘I Just Smile,’ though, most of the game’s soundtrack is quiet and moody, allowing the sound effects to take center stage. You’ll hear lots of explosions, and lots of crystal chimes. The game also features several anime cutscenes that are painfully dubbed but are of otherwise high quality.

Hyper Jetpack Stylized Boxart, GO!!

As one of the Saturn’s swan songs, Burning Rangers had a limited print run and only survived on store shelves briefly until the Sega Dreamcast took over in 1999. Nowadays, though the Japanese version is much cheaper and easier to find on eBay, the North American version is much rarer and goes for at least $100. Due to the game’s heavy reliance on English, spoken and written, importing to cut costs is not the wisest decision.

Burning Rangers is ambitious yet imperfect, and outside of some cameos here and there has never seen a sequel or even an Xbox Live/PSN re-release. In many cases it was forgotten before it even hit the shelves 15 years ago, and that’s truly a shame. An HD coat of paint and a map system are all Burning Rangers needs to join its fellow Sega re-releases on today’s consoles.

The Club

Does anyone remember The Club? Not the song, not the movie, not even the Sega video game, but the anti-theft steering wheel lock. This thing was mad popular in the 90s, especially in urban areas. It was a long metal rod with hooks on each end, usually coated in a bright-colored plastic to draw attention to itself (and its patents pending no less). It would hook across a steering wheel and lock into place with a key. The idea was if it was installed correctly, its protruding length and shape would prevent the wheel from turning all the way around, rendering it unable to be stolen and effectively driven away. 

Just look at this thing.

Every time you wanted to drive your clubbed car, you would have to unlock it, retract it and throw it on the passenger-side floor. And being a giant metal rod, this thing was pretty heavy. Not to mention you would have an extra key on your keyring now that you’d have to lug around and remember you even have. If someone needed to drive your car you had better remembered to give them your Club key!

Again this was most popular in areas that required you to feel that your car could be jacked at a moment’s notice. Stopping at CVS for that toilet plunger you thought you had when you needed it? Don’t forget to install your Club! Need to change your parking spot so the metermaid doesn’t get on your ass? Unhook, drive 10 feet, park then rehook! After a while it almost becomes second nature, until you realize what the hell you’re actually doing.

What gets me the most is the pompousness of it: a large day-glo eyesore that attracted attention more than it tried to deter it. It screams, “I know you want to steal my car but I’m going to make it difficult for you to do it!” Note I said difficult and not impossible, because hacking a Club is as easy as picking a lock. And since they already picked the lock of the car door to get in, the thieves are already halfway there. Back to the pompousness though. Not only is the car owner begging to get broken into by installing that wretched thing on his wheel, but he’s actually making us believe that his car is one we want to break into. As if he’s got the most desirable car in the world, he already made the decision for us that we want to steal it, and he’s already got that circumvented via a long red stick. What an ass.

So what put this 90s relic in my head, you ask? I parked next to a car last week that had a Club in the ‘steal me!’ position and the memories flooded in. Memories of my beloved deceased grandparents who Clubbed their ’92 Mercury Grand Marquis every time they parked without fail. They were lifelong Brooklyn residents and Grandpa drove until his death in 1999. 90s era, check. Sketchy neighborhood, check. Yep, they qualified to be in the Club. And for whatever reason, while Grandma still drove into the 2000s, she stopped using it. Maybe because it was getting too heavy for her to keep bothering with. Or maybe she had one too many keys on her keyring and something had to go. Or maybe she realized just how useless it was.

Though my grandparents were (barely) justified in using it then, no one is justified in using it now. When I saw that recent Club I was in one of the richest towns in the state, with certainly no danger of theft. Oh, and that car I saw it in? A beat-up Cadillac nearly as old as I am. Who the hell would want to steal that? Half of the trouble in using a Club is you have to have a car that’s actually worth something on the black market, or at least the Kelley Blue Book. You want to Club your 2013 BMW, or your Viper or any other desired car brand (I’m not really familiar with them). But even then you shouldn’t want to do it. They are far from foolproof, they’re cumbersome, and their relevance in society died along with the VHS tape.

The Seventh Generation May Ruin the Game Industry

If attitudes don’t change, the PS3 and Xbox 360 will lead the industry to a second crash. Let me explain.

First of all let’s remember why the industry collapsed in 1983. It was an over-saturation of the market, with too many companies selling their own consoles, but all with the same primitive technology. It’s no secret that early consoles had very rough capabilities, graphics and sound, people knew this even back during their heyday. But by 1983 the tech stalled at this level, the rose-colored glasses came off, and people realized how crappy the hardware was. It didn’t stop software from flying out of inexperienced, upstart game studios at rapier speed, often producing more cartridges than there were consoles to play them on. The think tank also ran dry at this time, resulting in genuinely bad games, and LOTS of them: both lots of individual titles and lots of physical copies. Customers responded to this by not buying these games or the consoles to play them on, resulting in the invention of the video game bargain bin. You had Atari 2600s mixed with Atari 5200s mixed with ColecoVisions mixed with Intellivisions mixed with Odyssey2s (and that’s just naming a few) which all played different-but-equally-subpar versions of popular arcade games. As arcade tech advanced, consoles did not, showing the potential of video games but also showing just how weak these consoles were.

This poor man's Pac-Man wasn't fooling anyone.

Then Nintendo came over in 1985 and turned the home gaming market back into hearts and flowers (yeah right), but more on them another day.

This second crash will not be history repeating itself, as the gaming landscape is practically the opposite from the 80s. Instead of having many consoles playing different-but-equal games, we have only two consoles that play identical games. (I am deliberately leaving Nintendo out of all of this, they will have their own post at a later date.) Not only is it dysfunctional enough to have two different companies and consoles that do and play the same fucking things, but it has been this way for quite a few years now. It’s a checks-and-balances system of sorts that is staving off monopolies and keeping harmony. But yeah, it’s still a pretty toxic dichotomy.

We’ve been trained as game consumers to expect consoles and games in cyclical generations that last about 4-5 years, with the new generation bringing better graphics and ideas than the last. With the seventh generation beginning in 2005 for the Xbox 360 and 2006 for the PS3, we expected Sony and Microsoft to unveil and sell their new consoles by around 2010, 2011 the latest. But they didn’t. Sony and Microsoft both declared their consoles to be active and relevant for 10 years since their debut, and the 2010/2011 timeframe was used instead to launch add-ons for their consoles, designed to tide us over and open the doors for further innovation with the current technology. Both add-ons came in the form of motion control (PlayStation Move and Kinect) and both initially sold strong but diminished into ridicule. With the wow-factor gone, both have been the target of complaints: Kinect for simply not working as well as it should, and Move for winding up what it was pitched not to be: a shoehorned gimmick over-relying on brand recognition. Games optimized for Move/Kinect came out either half-baked, derivative of older Wii games, or worst of all, better executed on the traditional controllers. As developers took the hint, fewer and fewer games came out that required or even used the Move/Kinect, with devs regarding them as a failed liaison for bringing new ideas to the table.

Thing 1 and Thing 2.

Both Microsoft and (especially) Sony also tried to invigorate and capitalize on 3D gaming at this time, which of course never got off the ground due to the cost, glasses and discomfort of current 3DTVs. (Also notice that 3D movie releases are starting to cool down in 2013… maybe we can get back to the world before Avatar ever existed and lit studios on fire to 3D-ify everything.)

The Move, Kinect, and 3D did not keep gamers satisfied, and the awkwardness of 2010-2011 left them with all this extra crap for their consoles while they continued to ask “When is the next generation?” Sony and Microsoft’s answer to this question was (and continues to be) silence. Even as of this day, neither company has announced or even entertained the notion of successors to the PS3 and 360. We are just so trained as consumers to expect a major console release every few years, though few of us can come up with things we’d like to see in a new console that can’t be done now. Even major sites like IGN have declared 2013 as the last year of the 360, assuming that a new console is sure to be announced this year. The consumers and media are fed up with waiting for something new, and it will directly force Microsoft and Sony to come up with a console to whet the demand, even though it will be going against their business timelines. 

We also need to discuss game developers’ roles in all this. The 2010-2011 awkwardness also affected the state of game development, as developers are continuing to play it safe and release sequels to established franchises. Very few ‘new games’ have come out since 2011. Those that have, and have sold well, are playing off tropes already defined to be big sellers (i.e. they’re all first or third-person shooters). ‘New games’ that are actually original have sold like lead balloons in comparison, and as the economy continues to be crappy, game studios are now closing rapidly, including those that introduced these original new games. Many major developers are announcing that they are no longer making new games for the 7th generation, declaring it is hard for new IPs to find an audience and sell well at the (presumed) end of a generation, further perpetuating the notion that the generation should have ended years ago. This is leading to a retardation of new ideas in the industry and making these past few years effectively very boring and slow-selling. Indie developers have taken this opportunity to fill the originality gap, but they are simply not big enough or organized to truly turn things around. However it’s my opinion that if it wasn’t for indie devs stepping up to the plate, the industry would have already crashed years ago.

Guy With a Gun + Numbered Sequel = UGH.

Microsoft and Sony are adamant that their consoles still have the legs to continue into the mid-2010s. And I agree with them completely. The Xbox 360 and PS3 were and still are very powerful machines. Graphics are unrivaled and photorealistic when they need to be. Sound of course is as good as it will ever get. Their controllers are essentially the same and have been adopted as the de facto industry standard. Most importantly, both consoles have online networks that have branched into other media playback, so these devices can do much more than play games. A lot of these online extensions (games, movies, etc) come at a price, resulting in gamers paying hundreds and hundreds for access to things they don’t physically, tangibly own (and essentially can’t hold onto or take with them). To use this content as if it was truly theirs, they must be married to their console.

The above scenario sounds very definitive, and that’s because it is. With the seventh generation, home game media has plateaued. Despite two consoles doing it slightly their own way, the essence is the same. Gamers have invested years of gameplay and more money than they want to admit into their console of choice. And as much as they clamor for a new console, the harsh reality is they don’t want to give up on the level of content, comfort, control and familiarity their PS3 or 360 has given them. They have everything already and yet they want more. Unfortunately there is not much more to give them.

The challenge for Sony and Microsoft is to come up with something that gives them everything gamers already have combined with something so new and revolutionary (but not gimmicky) that they will need this new 8th generation console, and it’ll be worth abandoning or painfully transferring their old stuff over to it. These new consoles will wind up controlling and playing the same way as the 7th gen, probably just with faster processors. The graphics won’t even be better. The 360 and PS3 are capable of 1080p HD graphics, which is the highest quality current mainstream TVs can even show. Even if the graphics are better on nextgen consoles it will be very hard to prove this, and this will hurt the new generation badly.

We are also trained to look for dramatically improved graphics from one generation to the next. As much as graphics don’t make the game, unfortunately graphics make the sale for new consoles. How are kids going to convince Mom to get the new console without literally showing her how much better it is? The 8th generation will be the first generation to not show a marked graphical improvement. Simply put, it will look the same as the 7th gen. It will likely play the same as the 7th gen. For all intents and purposes it will still be the 7th gen, except it will be on a console that was conceived more recently. In that case, will there really be an 8th generation?

This is where the crash will come in, and there are two possible scenarios. In the first scenario, Sony and Microsoft will begrudgingly launch their successor consoles years earlier than they intended to. Though they might have improvements under the hood, at face value they will just be spruced up versions of the PS3 and 360 but with new names. Once the whining gamers finally get the consoles they’ve wanted so badly, they’ll quickly realize they are not that much better than their former consoles. 8th gen consoles will be returned, unsold, or generally unused while the 7th gen consoles will continue to be played, forcing Microsoft and Sony to take a major loss for their new consoles, or even worse, deactivate Xbox Live and the PSN from the 7th gen consoles in an attempt to force everyone to the new consoles. Of course that won’t be taken well by consumers, sparking all kinds of drama that will diminish interest in home consoles altogether.

Not feeling that one? Then try this scenario: Microsoft and Sony stick to their guns and do not release their successor consoles until their current ones have officially run their course. So 2015 and 2016 roll around and the new guys come out. But by this time it is too late. For the past 5-6 years gamers have had to deal with the borefest that has been uninspired sequels, GOTY re-releases and on-disc DLC from lazy developers that interest has already waned for the new generation. The indie scene remains just that, and eventually dies out along with the hipster fad. Gamers just don’t care anymore and are trained to be satisfied with the lack of originality and fun that games were designed to give. Also, since so many more years have passed, that much more time and money has been invested in Xbox Live and PSN that gamers are too grounded to want to move on. The 8th gen consoles flop and gaming continues to stall in the 7th generation as it already has now.

There's no escaping these black holes.

Don’t worry, because the future is not completely dark! The change is simple and needs to be put into place now. All we need to do to have a future of original, engrossing, and most importantly fun video games is change our attitude. This applies to gamers, developers, everyone. We need to embrace the 7th generation and respect it as an era that is truly different from generations past. It does not have to follow the cycle we are used to, and realize that we’ve invested too much in it to throw it to the wind in favor of an eventual 8th generation. Devs: you need to continue your support and interest in making ‘new games’ for the PS3 and 360, and the claims that you can’t because the hardware isn’t strong enough is bullshit. Gamers: be happy with what you have. It’s been going well since 2005/6 so why the urge to get rid of it? Games look great, sound great, and (with proper dev support) play great. We have it all, we just don’t realize it. We are so down pat with the ins and outs of our consoles, now is the time to own it! The devs can make the best games they possibly can since they are so familiar with the technology, and we can play them better than ever as we are so familiar with the control. That is where the possibilities and the fun are endless and can soon become timeless.

It’s similar to the automotive industry. Cars have remained mostly the same for decades because they are as good as they can possibly get. The cars we have now (i.e. 7th gen consoles) look and drive their best, and are equipped as well as we need them to be. Would we like cars that can fly out of traffic jams (8th gen consoles)? Sure, but we’re not going to stop enjoying cars and sprucing them up as nicely as we can until that day. We are content with what we have and what we can make of it.

Stop pining for the next generation of video gaming. We might not even need it.

RuPaul's Drag Race Season 5 Contestant Lowdown

I’ll be the first to admit it, I neglected and failed my blog for the Allstars season of RuPaul's Drag Race (www.wnrallstars.blogspot.com). Honestly that blog was meant to be a pilot experiment with Blogspot in general, and without W:NR Allstars there would be no W:NR Forever as you see it. I would like to complete it… someday… as long as they keep the episodes viewable on logotv.com. Ideally I wanted to update it in realtime as the season was active, in order to make it more fun and interactive, but it’s over now and honestly it doesn’t matter when I finish it.

So will I make a more concerted effort with Season 5? Will I even do a commentary blog for Season 5 at all? I don’t know. In all honesty I might do it purely on the runway, lip-sync and elimination, as that’s the part of the show I enjoy the most and have the most to say about.

Season 5 begins on January 28, 2013, so we still have a while before the madness begins for the fifth time (sixth if you count Allstars). Drag Race is a show that I really, really enjoy (and the only reality show I follow religiously), and although it’s beginning to show a little more of a scripted side, I still love being completely ignorant about it. I don’t follow speculation rumors or suspicious future-sight tweets, and for this season especially I’m going in very cold. I haven’t watched any of the contestant bio videos or season previews. All I know is the contestants’ names and stock photos. So let’s go through them.

Alaska Thunderfuck. How’s that for a name to start off the list! The show is only referring to her as ‘Alaska’ presumably so they don’t have to blur her last name in the graphics and keep bleeping out the last syllable. That said, Drag Race fans should be vaguely familiar with Alaska. Besides being the boyfriend of Season 4 winner Sharon Needles (and making a cameo during a video message to Sharon), Alaska has auditioned for the show since Season 1, and has been featured in the audition tape compilations for every season. For a queen already famous for never being good enough, and Sharon also frequently mentioning this even to RuPaul himself, the fact that Alaska is finally here is slightly odd. What happened to make the 5th time the charm? Snarky queens will probably crucify her for not deserving to be there, saying Ru gave her a break to shut her up (and that Sharon had something to do with it).

I however am willing to give Alaska an honest chance. Contestants in inter-season relationships have a history of doing well, and no one complained when Manila Luzon made it on Season 3 after her bf Sahara Davenport was on Season 2. (Rest in peace, Sahara.) It’s going to be an uphill road for Alaska, but I think she’ll stick around for a bit. Anyone who can bend their waist like that is bound to give some interesting runway.

Alyssa Edwards. Welcome to the fish market, boys! I definitely have a soft spot for the pretty queens of Drag Race, and Alyssa fits that bill so far. (In the drag world, fish = believable woman. Figure it out.) Anyway… long dark hair and olive skin are definitely turn-ons for me, so I’m already interested in what she has to offer. Time will tell if she has a lot of class or a lot of sass, but by the picture we can tell she’s got a lot of ass.

Coco Montrese. And here begins the Parade of the Busted. I hate to be critical =P, but… First off is that forehead. Either Coco needs to start the wig lower on her head or wear bangs, and the headpiece isn’t helping. Second is an issue in the dress design: compare her forearms to the rest of her. Finally, full-on face pics are rarely flattering. The more I look at her, the more I see the daughter of Dida Ritz and Lashauwn Beyond. Now in her defense, these stock photos either bring out the best in a queen (Delta Work, Chad Michaels) or the worst (Latrice Royale, Mariah). So let’s do Coco an favor and just call this a one-off really bad picture.

Detox Icunt. Detox has two things in common with Alaska: Drag Race diehards should be vaguely familiar with her, and her last name is not being mentioned on the show due to a bad word in it. Detox made her debut in the Drag Race universe (kinda) as one of the stars of last season contestant Willam’s music video ‘Chow Down (at Chick-fil-A)’. I wonder if any of the other contestants will throw flak on her for that while they’re murdering Alaska? As for Detox’s picture, here’s an example of when full-on face isn’t such a bad choice. Unfinished right eyebrow and weird high-heel optical illusion aside, Detox looks like she’ll be the Raven of the season, a strong-minded performer with a severity that keeps other queens in check. And don’t worry, she wears wigs and looks great in them (citation: Chow Down).

Honey Mahogany. Throw another fish on the ice. Honey’s looking pretty good here, despite being upstaged by her harp. I guess I have a chance here to voice something about skin tone. Whoever’s doing the filtering for these photos has a tendency to mix up the colors of these contestants. Find any other screen grab of Honey and you’ll see she’s like 50x darker than the picture above. Then take the stock photo of Carmen Carrera for example and you’ll notice that she’s like 50x lighter in real life. I know makeup has a lot to do with it but there’s a limit. Not sure what kind of game they’re trying to play here, but it’s not necessary.

Ivy Winters. Wow, there’s some extra tartar sauce on this Filet-O-Fish! (Ok I'm done, no more fish puns.) Ivy probably has the most put-together look of all the queens we’ve seen so far. And extra credit for the flaming torch! Dare I suggest she’s trained in the circus arts like our favorite loudmouth Shannel? (Eh, they probably photoshopped the fire in there while they were altering everyone’s skin tone…) I really don’t have a critique for Ms Winters, other than her name makes me feel she should be dark-haired for some reason. Her makeup, hair and body control are all top class. I’m putting money on her to win, place or show.

Jade Jolie. Ok whoa whoa whoa. Drag Race already has a Jade, and now we have another? Since the show’s messed around with contestant names twice already they should just refer to her as Jolie, which honestly matches her better than Jade does. Or at least that’s what I’m going to do. As for her picture I’m a little torn. Everything looks on par (especially the contour of the dress!) but when I get to her face I kinda go from O_O to 0_o. Call me a heartless bitch but Jolie looks like Ivy’s slightly uglier sister. Hopefully I can blame that on the stock photo retoucher and she winds up looking gorgeous on the runway. Yes, let’s hope for that.

Jinkx Monsoon. Clearly this one’s been taking notes from the Gospel according to Tammie Brown. Take the headliner from the Chuckle Hut, dress him in drag, misspell his name and pop some smelling salts under his nose and you have Jinkx Monsoon. Campy queens have rarely done well in Drag Races past, and by the stock photo alone Jinkx has a lot to prove. He should’ve based his first name off the Pokémon (he wouldn’t be the first racer to do that), because ‘Jynx Monsoon’ writes out miles better.

Lineysha Sparx. The drag names continue to take a nosedive with the worst one yet. First of all I think this is the first time a queen voluntarily showed off a look without wearing heels (or shoes in general). Second, what the hell is she wearing? (Or not wearing?) She must be the most clothed naked queen we’ve seen in a while. It might be the lack of footwear but I’m not feeling this one in the slightest. This look might have worked for the Glamazon persona of Season 4 but as it stands Lineysha is no Season 5 goddess.

Monica Beverly Hillz. Proof that there is such a thing as showing too much leg. And I take it back, this is the worst name so far. There’s too much to it and the misspelling comes off as desperate. This is also the point in the contestant lowdowns where they all start to blend together, literally. The contestants all start looking the same shade of bronze and the names keep getting dumber. I bet she’s like 4 feet tall but it’s illusioned by her shoes, ‘legs 4 dayz’ and the subtle upward angle of the camera (look closely). You can tell I’ve got nothing good to say about Monica so far.

Penny Tration. Look everyone, it’s Lady Bunny’s niece! Besides that resemblance and a name that channels a lowbrow porn star too closely, I’m loving this contestant. After this deluge we’ve had of uninspired men in makeup, this is how you do it properly. She looks like she may be the older one of the group, which has shown to be neither a good or bad omen in seasons past. She also looks like she may be the big girl of the group, since everyone so far has been stick thin. As long as campiness doesn’t overtake her (as it already has with her name), Penny is going to be a really fun one to watch.

Roxxxy Andrews. I hope she knows she’s supposed to be wearing a dress and not a hospital gown. No surprise what she’s trying to serve up here, but it looks like they airbrushed out her crack so the whole thing comes off very odd. Judging by the deceptive cloth draping and angling she may be another plus-sized racer, so Penny might have some competition. Everything about this queen is very confusing. Find the back to your dress, chop some Xs off of your name, and then we’ll talk, Ms Andrews.

Serena ChaCha. Ok now I’m starting to lose track. Here’s yet another bronzed one with a mediocre name and nothing terribly interesting to note. Her look is coming off a little Indian (Hindu) to me, I hope that’s what she was going for. I guess this gives me an opportunity to mention that the theme for the Season 5 stock photos is ‘goddess’. Season 4 had a space-age theme going, Season 1’s was actual drag racing, Season 2 didn’t really have a theme but everyone wore black, and Season 3 didn’t have a theme either but they mostly wore silver. BUT… the theme for Season 3’s final challenge was indeed Greek goddess. For same, RuPaul, for repeating a female trope so soon! Anyway, yeah, ChaCha, whatever.

Vivienne Pinay. Bringing up the rear is the semi-obligatory Asian queen. Although you’re probably assuming me to write Vivienne off as another bronzed, hollow contestant, I’m actually a little intrigued. This is one of the better pictures of the list, the dress is simple but effective and everything else comes together into a nice little package. Shoes are perfect, hair is appropriate, face seems blended enough and even her prop isn’t overzealous (looking at you there, Honey Mahogany). I’m putting a side bet on Ms Pinay.

And there we have it! All 14 contestants of the fifth season, which may be a record. Of course someone from seasons past can pull a Shangela and become a surprise 15th contestant. Interesting (but pointless) to note is that this is the first season where every contestant has a last name, although Alaska and Detox will only be mentioned by their first. 

This is also the first season where all the contestants go by completely made up drag names. In past seasons there was always at least one contestant who went by his given name (Chad Michaels) or a derivative of his name (Nina Flowers > Jorge Flores).

Judging by their photos and my comments alone, here are my picks:

> Alyssa Edwards
> Honey Mahogany
> Ivy Winters
> Jade Jolie
> Penny Tration
> Vivienne Pinay

Wildcards would be Alaska, Detox, and definitely Jinkx Monsoon.

As for music, I can’t think of a recent worthy song Ru can use as the season’s theme that hasn’t been used already. The unofficial theme of each season is the RuPaul song that is played during the runway segments and that has a music video made for it in the season’s finale. Season 4 used ‘Glamazon’ from Ru’s Glamazon album, and Allstars used a sublime remix of ‘Sexy Drag Queen’ from the Glamazon remix album, leaving Season 5 with little to pick from. We might hear a new song entirely, which is exciting. Personally I’d love to hear the Sexy Drag Queen remix reused. Yeah it’s a lazy move but have you heard the elegant simplicity of that mix?! ("dootdoot 'doot-swift' remix." YouTube it. NOW.)

Again, future W:NR updates regarding Drag Race might just be of the runway segments. If they are you can definitely expect lots of pictures and commentary either praising the racers to the moon or tearing them apart. I’m excited! You should be too!

W:NR, Powered by Nespresso

This is an introductory post mainly to show how and what these posts will be like. Whenever things pop in my head I’ll write about them. It can be anything from a rant, a review, an appreciation, an analysis of society… probably all of those at once. But it won’t be a dumb statement like “I like food” just to add to the post count. I’ll try to post as often as possible but I really can’t commit to a schedule. As of now this blog is not paying me a dime, so I’m not under a contractual obligation to do this at any rate. I might post several times in a single day if I’m on a roll, since different topics will get their own posts (as opposed to a giant daily post). Other times a few days might go by without an update, either because I have a life, I can’t get to my MacBook or iPad (yeah I’m an Apple drone), or I’ll simply have nothing to say. Like I said these posts have to have a level of quality.

Sooo yeah, enough housekeeping. Let’s talk about coffee. Coffee is one of the most popular drinks worldwide, has been around for centuries (millennia?), and generates billions in revenue. Some of our biggest food companies rely on it as their lifeblood: Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts I’m looking at you. (Anyone else find it odd that the flagship product of Dunkin Donuts is coffee?) So you would think that this lucrative and venerable beverage tastes delicious, right? DEAD WRONG. Coffee has to be the worst tasting drink that we willfully ingest, second only to liquid medicine (especially Biaxin). Proof of this is in coffee’s inseparable partners, cream and sugar. Without these friends, coffee wouldn’t be nearly as popular today as it is. Coffee also has a myriad of variations (mostly including cream and sugar) which are all designed to make it more palatable. None of this would be needed if coffee tasted good in the first place, and I know there are some masochists out there that enjoy coffee as black as their men, but they are a small percentage. The majority has spoken that coffee tastes like hell, so why do we drink it?!

It’s not for the caffeine, I’ll tell you that right now. If caffeine was the spark behind the coffee craze, people would have dropped the coffee itself and capitalized on the caffeine alone a long time ago. Caffeine is a readily available drug, commonly found in tablet form in any pharmacy. You can pop a caffeine pill in 5 seconds and there’s your cup of coffee, quick and easy. I take caffeine pills myself and it’s always reacted to negatively by others, saying I’m addicted or it’s unhealthy. That is not true in the slightest, if anything it’s the same thing as having a cup of coffee but without the extra sugar in my system and without the stains to brush off my teeth, not to mention all the time saved by sipping the piping hot beverage. In today’s fast-paced lifestyle, I’m surprised people still have time for coffee, even the ones who commute around with their to-go cups.

Learn to embrace it, people.

Coffee connoisseurs will tell you they drink it due to enjoyment of the complicated flavors in the various roasts. Light roast, medium roast, French roast… some roasts with flowery accents, winey aftertastes, fruity tones… I’ll tell you now they are full of it. First of all it justifies my previous statement that anything added to coffee is to not make it taste as terrible. Second of all, these additions are barely noticeable (unless it’s a hazelnut roast for some reason). Do you know of anyone who can blindly taste-test a cup of coffee and discern the roast darkness and the added tones? Of course not, and the ones that do only know because they were told (or read) beforehand what to taste for. And like any good placebo, since they had the mental picture in their head to sense for a woody tone, they will taste a tree in their coffee.

But espresso… espresso is different.

Espresso (not expresso) is basically a very concentrated coffee, made by forcing hot water through grounds at high pressure. (To compare, regular coffee is hot water that simply drips through grounds). It’s all of the flavor, caffeine, and essence of a full-sized coffee in a little over 2 ounces of liquid. To translate for the college people reading, espresso is the Everclear of the coffee world. You can sip it slowly and enjoy all 2 ounces of it, or knock it back and shudder. Espresso is a hardcore black sludge that I’m pretty certain under the right conditions can strip the paint off a car. And if it doesn’t do that, in an emergency you could dump it in the gas tank to go those extra few miles to the nearest gas station. To the uninitiated, it’s a scary drink that is immediately drowned in milk, sugar and syrup to create cappuccinos and lattés. The taste is scary, the pompousness around it is scarier, and the look and sound of a commercial espresso machine is the scariest part of it all. I used to be one of these people, a slave to Starbucks’ $4+ drinks. But not since joining the world of Nespresso.

As much as they don’t want to admit it, Nespresso is to espresso what Keurig is to coffee. A further extension of Nescafé (extended from Nestlé), Nespresso is a capsule-based espresso machine. Fill it with water, drop in your color-coded 60¢ capsule, and press the button. In less than 30 seconds you’re treated to what sounds like a jet engine taking off as well as a cup of perfectly prepared and portioned espresso. The company created its own world of espresso blends, color-coded due to intensity and flavor infusions. However unlike water-diluted coffee, since espresso is so no-bullshit these flavors are actually discernible and play with the bitterness of the drink to take over your senses. Espresso also has a slightly oily texture to it (due to its forced and pure nature) so it envelops your tongue and lingers in your throat. Espresso only lasts about a minute if you really go slowly, but it’s an impression that stays with you.

Retail Price As Shown: $7.20 (plus tax).

Espresso also successfully marries the balance between coffee and time. Coffee takes a while to make and to drink, and popping a caffeine pill takes no time at all but carries a negative stigma. Espresso (or at least Nespresso) is quick to prepare and quick to drink. I don’t believe there is more caffeine in a cup of espresso than a cup of coffee, it’s just relative to the size of the drink. This rumor probably came from ill-informed people who made espresso and scoffed at its size, then continued to make enough to fill a coffee mug. If you were to drink a few of those you would probably die.

This whole first writing session has been powered by Nespresso, and unfortunately no I was not contacted by them to write this and sing their praises (in return for them making my checking account sing). But I would love if W:NR took that direction. Remember I’m doing all of this gratis for now, out of my interest and your pleasure. But companies heed: if you want me to talk about your thing (hopefully in a positive note), come say hi and we’ll arrange something. =)

It’s amazing that we are willing to spend hundreds of dollars on a machine that when it’s all said and done produces 2 ounces of black fluid. It’s kinda like that gum machine from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory that goes through all that trouble to make this little nothing of a gum, and then when you taste it, whoa.

Welcome!

Behold the long-awaited public installment of Warning: No Refuge. This latest (and more or less definitive) blog will finally transition W:NR from offline to online, starting as a humble Blogspot extension and hopefully becoming another cornerstone to the W:NR brand empire that I’d love to mainstream and become my livelihood: my life’s work and life’s dream. Though W:NR has its origins back in 2006, 2013 is the year it goes public, so people can actually read and enjoy what I’ve been keeping to myself all this time. I call this blog W:NR Forever because since this is going online, it will exist in some form and will be able to be circulated and saved to anything, forever. Almost makes me not want to do it…

W:NR is raw, real, uncut, unadulterated, headstrong, overconfident and definitely not always politically correct. You generally won’t find citations, apologies, or both sides of the story. It’s a little bit of Andy Rooney, George Carlin and Archie Bunker, it’s as intelligent as it is stupid, hilarious to some and offensive to others, and the ideas shared may be terrible or really be onto something, but at the end of the day it’s 100% André. 

Read on, sound off, and have a blast.