Paranormal is an Egyptian web series that’s currently being distributed as a Netflix Original, and it’s available both in subbed and dubbed version via streaming. The first season includes six episodes, and I really hope we will get a second season, because this is the most fun I had in a long time with a supernatural themed series.
Category Archives: Armchair adventuring
Life coaching
A friend was told she should get into life coaching – because it’s a growing field, and there’s money in it. So she suggested I should look into it too. Because the situation’s still precarious, and we’re all racking our brains for ways to make ends meet come 2021.
And so I looked online, trying to find an answer to the basic question: what the heck is life coaching?
According to Wikipedia
Life coaching is the process of helping people identify and achieve personal goals through developing skills and attitudes that lead to self-empowerment. Life coaching generally deals with issues such as work–life balance and career changes, and often occurs outside the workplace setting.
Get into it a little deeper, and it’s basically, you tell me what you want, we talk about how you think ypou might get it, I encourage you on and work as a sounding board.
Continue readingWarming up for the new Lupin
We’re snowbound – this morning my brother walked through the snow to the post office only to be told that all the systems were down because, you know, snow. Snow equals no internet services. No post office, no bank. So we inventoried our supplies, decided we can hold on, and set out to see how we’ll spend the next weeks.
Cold.
Snow.
Soft lockdown.
The village looking like a ghost-town.
133 years in scarlet
It was on the first of December 1887, in Beaton’s Christmas Annual, that Sherlock Holmes made his debut with A Study in Scarlet, changing the history of popular literature forever.
I will refrain from talking about how Holmes was a central character in the building of my growth as a reader, as you can probably find other Holmes-related posts linked below through WordPress’ handy algorithm.
To celebrate the birthday, anyway, and to start the Christmas season in the right mood, here’s the BBC 1968 adaptation of A Study in Scarlet, featuring Peter Cushing as Holmes.
Enjoy!
Imperial plots: Devin Madson’s “In Shadow We Fall”
After too many weeks during which writing had felt like a lost art to me, writing a 3000-words historical article in one afternoon was a great way to clean the rust off the engines, and show I can still do it, and it’s fun. So while new projects shift and move around, I decided to celebrate my renewed energies, and bought myself an ebook.
One of the best things of the last few years is the increasing number of fantasies being published that break away from the standard European model, roughly Tolkienesque or Howardian, and choose an Eastern setting.
And I will not be the one that complains – first, because as an Orientalist Anonymous, I have always loved Eastern fantasies and have written some myself (and I hope to write more), but also, variety is always a sign of good health – and if the field is in good health, we have all reason to be happy.
Continue readingBack to the Tablelands for the holidays
This morning, after a somewhat surreal misadventure with the local bus service – about which I’ll post, maybe, another day – I went and dug out my one-volume Italian edition of Troy Denning’s Prism Pentad – the five novels set in the old AD&D setting known as Dark Sun. The thing is like a dictionary, a small-print, bullet-proof hardback that weights two kilograms, and that will make reading in bed a health hazard.
The reason I decided to go back to Dark Sun is somehow connected with a future writing project (remember what I told you? Announce you’ll write your own things, and new gigs pop up like that) , but as I am doing research and taking notes, I thought I might one day set up a game, to have a little fun with my friends.
Continue readingDark and hopeless: Pale Flower (1964)
Despite the fact that I co-host a podcast about horror movies, I am not a huge horror fan – a lot of the horror movies I like are old and quite tame by today’s standards. If there is a movie genre I can claim to be a true aficionado of, is certainly noir. And the opportunity of watching an old noir I have so far missed is always a cause for celebration. The British Criterion Collection often helps me celebrate.
So last week I caught Pale Flower, a Japanese noir directed in 1964 by Masahiro Shinoda, and that is probably the bleakest, most nihilistic noir movie I’ve seen in a long time. And it is also beautiful to behold.
Continue reading
Karavansara 