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So last night the three of us including Bane, Nate from Mountain West Paranormal, and the 14 year old engineering genius Jayden traveled from the Salt Lake Valley down to Pleasant Grove, UT to have the chance at a real scifi space mission. 
The Alpine School district is home to the Christa Mcauliffe Space Education Center.  They run space flight simulators for the kids to teach them about space flight as well as with private parties.  Author Jaleta Clegg is one of the many amazing people that work at this center and since meeting her she has always talked about this space camp/flight simulator she helps run.  Well last night we had the chance to fly a mission for the USS Odyssey.  Malak to command of the ship as its Captain, A Guy Named Joe was Number one.  I was at the Helm and running communications, Nate was tatical, Jayden was our engineer, and Bane did the scanners and everything else he could to help including transporter controls!
We had a great time flying the Odyssey through the mission, some of us were flying all over the place like a crazy mad scientist!  Others were overwhelmed with the responsibility of command!  In the end though we were floating in space with no Impulse or warp engines,  No Weapons,  Shields on Full, and infected with an Alien virus.  Thanks to the mad last second and I do mean last second, Bane literally transported an active torpedo in our ship that was one second from blowing up over to the enemy ship to save the day and defeat the eveil ghost ship!
At the end of the day we were able to say we hadn't died and defeated the mission.  If you haven't done this before and you are a huge Star Wars or Star Trek Geek you have to try this out!!
 
 
This morning something amazing happened that at this moment I can't announce yet.  However I was thinking that wow!  We are a year and a half old and look at everything we have accomplished.  Back in December of 2008 when Malak and I sat down deciding to do a podcast based on a geek show we made some basic goals. 

1.      Learn how to do a podcast.

2.      Publish our podcasts.

3.      Get a website.

4.      Get on-air on a radio station.

We then jokingly set up the goal of interviewing Tracy Hickman and RA Salvatore.  Both amazing fantasy authors, which have made huge impacts on our lives both with gaming and reading.  For those of you that have been following since the beginning we have had our bumps and bruises along the way.  We have lost our hosting for our podcast and we went to a CON with no experience in interviewing people.  So we were able to get our first three goals out of the way and put out fifteen podcasts and then got online with CONDuit a large CON based in Salt Lake City.  CONDuit really changed our lives and the direction of the show in May of 2009.  We were pretty much the newbies on the block but everyone treated us like friends.  They sat us down with our very first interview.  Up until this point the podcast had always just been Malak and I.  So here enters in Howard Tayler.   Author and Illustrator of Schlock Mercenary and we knew nothing about him and boy did he let us have it!  Now don’t get me wrong Howard wasn’t rude in any way but he seemed a bit put our or annoyed that we didn’t know who he was.  After that we did an interview with Dan Wells a great guy that was a friend of Howard’s.  They do a radio show Writing Excuses and he said he enjoyed interviewing with us and they would do a plug for us.  Little did we know that this would be the catalyst that changed our fate forever.

You know how you watch a movie and there is that one pivotal moment in the movie that forever changes what happens from that point on? This was that moment.  We went in to this panel for writing excuses thinking that this would help get our name out there.  Well then that moment struck and the guys at writing excuses had forgotten their recording equipment.  We offered to help out since we had all of our equipment on hand at our table.  We rushed back got all of our equipment and the rest is history.  After that panel we had tons of interviews and we really grew stronger in our interviewing skills.  Then form there we were approached to do a live internet radio show.  Two months later we were live on-air with UtahFM.

Since then we have had many great experiences and met many great and talented people.  We have interviewed L.E. Modesitt Jr., John Brown, Dan Wells, Clint Johnson, Dan Willis, Larry Correia, Paul Genesse, Howard Tayler, Sandra Tayler, Jaleta Clegg,  B.C. Hailes, and Brandon Sanderson to name a few.  And finally after all this time in May of this year we interviewed Tracy Hickman a dream come true to be sure!  That interview will be posted as a podcast later today.

And now today I spoke with RA Salvatore and Bob gladly agreed to interview on our show.  We are now in the works of arranging an interview with WotC. 

Malak and I are ecstatic!  This last year has been a dream come true and has really helped to fuel our passion and desire for the show.  We want to thank all of our listeners new and old.  Please tell your friends and family about us!  We want to thank everyone that has given us a portion of their time to sit down and interview with us.  We are very excited for the upcoming GeeX Expo at the South Towne Expo Center in Sandy, UT and the upcoming to air interviews.  Brandon Sanderson’s Way of Kings book release party and the many more things we have coming in the future.

Who know what the next year will bring but if anything it will be a fun and wild ride!! 

-Revan
 
 
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I just recently finished reading John Brown’s novel Servant of a Dark God.  The cover art for this book is amazing and immediately demands your attention. The book is a good sized read roughly 492 pages.  From the start John begins to unfold the elements of the world around you progress deeper and deeper into the book.

 

Servant of a Dark God is about a land which is ruled by the Divines, magic exists and is tightly controlled. Only the Divines are allowed to wield the knowledge of Fire. 'Fire' consists of the spirit and life of a person and is the direct fuel for magic. Anyone who attempts to use Fire other than the Divines are labeled as 'sleth' or 'soul-eaters--dreaded figures thought to steal and consume the Fire of others.  

 

The novel largely follows Talen, but the book doesn’t completely follow any specific protagonist. The story is instead the story of two families in particular. Therefore, if Talen's an irritating protagonist (he did start out a little immature and annoying), the reader can look forward not only to his maturation (he does eventually), but also the thoughts and motivations of many other characters.

 

Brown's novel is unlike any story you have read before.  There are some traditional fantasy elements here and there, but I felt like I was embarking on a new adventure. And thus, I want to say first that I truly enjoyed my adventure.  John Brown's immense attention to detail is astounding. His world is immense and detailed--almost dauntingly so. It did take me awhile to pick up the exact structure of the government and whatnot (which was easier after I conceded and made liberal use of the 'Terms and People's section in the back of the book).

 

I found myself enjoying the book quite a lot and am looking forward to reading the next in the series: CURSE OF A DARK GOD.  So if you are looking for a great read, a new and interesting world to explore where the magic of the land is far different than any other fantasy book out there, a book with rich vibrant characters you will find yourself hoping against all odds for.  Then this book is for you! 

 

-Revan
 
 
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As rumored in various radio media yesterday, 101.9 The End has dumped its DJs and gone, as they say, "jockless" for the first time since its inception in 1996.

As reported by All Access, this means no more Jimmy Chunga and ... who else was on The End? Since I never changed my radio preset when they switched from 107.5 years ago, have no idea. Also, AA says The End's bold new automated format will now "focus largely on ‘90s music." Great--how many stations do we have in Salt Lake already doing that? Gotta love radio consultants.
 
 
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It has been six months since officially Dungeon Crawlers Radio took the air waves of UtahFM.  Now we were completely excited to get any time slot we could get our hands on and of course as newbies to the station we got one of the crappiest time slots ever.  Now this was nothing against UtahFM at all.  We were the new guys on the block and the programming department couldn’t just give us any pick of the available time slots.  Like most radio stations the new guy gets the crappy late night shifts. 

So here we are six months later and our show is going strong.  Our numbers have increased and we are getting more and more popular.  Through a little manipulation and some elbow grease we are moving to a new time slot. 

We will still be on Monday nights we will just be on a little earlier.  Dungeon Crawlers Radio will now air from 6:00 to 9:00pm right after Portia Early’s Unsigned and Uncensored. 

Thank you to everyone that has listened to our show live and our podcasts.  Tell your friends, tell the geeks in your family, and be sure to tune in to the new and improved 3 hour long show of Dungeon Crawlers Radio!!  
 
 
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What could be better that watching a group of Jedi charging into battle with lightsabers lit locked in battle against a Sith Lord?

How about lightsaber wielding acrobatic Jedi and Sith Lord Squirrels!!!

The Image above is of course totally photo shopped but it was completely hilarious!!

 
 
 
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I recently read the article by Stephen Johnson of G4TV about the recently crown Miss America, Caressa Cameron from Virginia.  Ms. Cameron used the competition as a platform to speak out against video games.  She actually suggested parents should: "Take away the TV, take away the video games, set some standards for our children." She went on to suggest kids should be outside, "playing imaginary games with sticks in the street like I most of us did when we were little."

While Miss America's advice is relatively sensible, consider the source. Is Cameron suggesting that little girls should be discouraged from playing video games in favor of participating in beauty pageants?  In order to be a pageant queen like Cameron, you'd have to devote a considerable amount of time to all the skills needed for Miss America-hood. Like wearing a sparkly dress; and waving and walking at the same time. All that is time when you're not "playing imaginary games with sticks."

So Cameron is suggesting it's better for girls to bleach their teeth, scrub their personalities, and starve themselves to earn the right to parade around in front of America and Rush Limbaugh (a Miss America judge) in order to be rated and evaluated like heads of cattle than it is to play video games. I’d rather see my daughter taking out noobs with headshots in MW2 than teetering around on too-high high heels and being evaluated for her looks by old men.

Now as for the fact that for some reasons video games continue to get the bad wrap of teaching children bad values, whatever happened to the parent actually taking responsibility for their lack of parenting?  I have seen many individuals that have happily let their child play video games for hours on end just to get the child out of their hair.  What is that teaching kids?  Video games have some value to them.  Right now my kids are playing video games that are teaching them, math, spelling, problem solving skills, and so forth.  I am glad they love playing the games because since doing so their school desire to do their work has increased because they are learning in a fun way.  Now are they monitor as to how much time they spend playing those games of course!  Are they encouraged to play outside and have some good old fashion fun?  Yes!  So I really think that Ms. Cameron needs to pull her head out of the bucket and stick to world peace or something like that because she clearly doesn’t understand the world of gaming.
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Do you remember the old childhood days sitting in fronto fthe TV watching Sesame Street on PBS?  Do you remember when you'd see a wall, table, or desk with a plate of cookies on it you knew who was going to soon appear!  Out of now where Cookie Monster would lurk up from no where see the plate of cookies and just devour them in seconds, with bits of cookies flying everywhere!  What happened to Cookie Monster?  Now he is on some agenda that cookies are only sometimes food?  He loves fruits and vegetables?  What happened to our favorite monster?  Are we so afraid of obesity in our children that we have to change charcters like cookie monster?  Now that he doesn't always eat cookies is he still Cookie Monster?  Check out this clip from the Colbert Report.