A semi-autobiographical blog which give me the opportunity to vent, rant, and ultimately motivate myself into doing something with my copious amounts of free time. I will talk about whatever I want whenever I want.
Diablo II is one of my favorite games of all time. I have played the shit out of that game over the course of my life. The first Diablo came about in my formative computer gaming years, and I played it and loved it. So when Diablo III was officially in development, I was pretty stoked. I waited. And it got pushed back. And I waited some more. And it got pushed back. And just when I was about ready to forget about it, it got pushed back one final time. Then, it came out. And I bought it, got it shipped the day of, and have subsequently played the shit out of it. In that idea, I come to my definitive statement regarding the newest installment of one of my favorite franchises of all time: It still feels like Diablo, and I am having a blast playing it. There are changes, some of which I don't like, but overall, I really like it. So that's what I've been up to.
If you do not know Against Me!, they came out of the Gainsville in the late nineties and fucking rocked the shit out. Their most recognized album, Reinventing Axl Rose, has become a modern punk classic. They were one of the most recognized folk punk bands. I'm a huge fan or Reinventing Axl Rose, and I will admit, I was one of the people who has seen their recent major label transition (well, like 2005) as disheartening because it seemed to suck all the passion out of their music, catchy though their recent releases have been (you are probably familiar with "Thrash Unreal" if you don't listen to punk).
So, this is pretty big news. There are not a whole lot of transgender rock stars on the front lines of popular music, let alone one who will be undergoing transition as the public watches. I'll fucking admit, I know exactly zero transgender individuals, so my pronoun use may be offensive, but I'm not 100% certain of when to start using she instead of he. I realize the prudent thing to do may be to just refer to the individual in question by their desired gender as soon as they reveal their intent, but it just seems a little strange. So, regardless, and with apologies in case of offense, good for him. Take a personal event to begin with and magnify it to the extreme, and that's what Tom Gabel is going through. I wish him/her the best of luck.
