TV Shows Watched: The Rings of Power: S2E5 (Amazon) with audio description, Kite Man: Hell Yeah! S1E10 (MAX) with audio description, and The Daily Show (Tuesday’s Episode) (Paramount Plus) no audio description. As of when I looked, Seth’s Closer Look special wasn’t on Peacock, though I’ll be checking again today. And, Fight Night still doesn’t have audio description. lol.

Podcasts: The Dark Room- Alex and lee dropped a new episode y’all should check out. Ross Minor is the guest, and they talk all about accessibility in video games. As a former gamer who had all these friends I lost contact with when I couldn’t play anymore, I’m always keeping my ear to the ground, but listening to Ross talk about video game accessibility and the specifics was still quite illuminating. I haven’t touched a PlayStation controller since PS2, so I need Microsoft to step up. And despite their being a few Triple A titles available, they aren’t really the ones I’m interested in. One of the games I used to play a lot, Friday The 13th, has even shut down their servers so the game is unplayable now. An interesting fact, on Friday The 13th. if I can hop on GTA online and just blow things up, or somehow be useful in Call Of Duty, Overwatch, Battlefield, halo, or any FPS game. I’d love to play NBA2K again. I miss my massive Minecraft world, and to be fair, Minecraft has a screen reader, so there’s a fraction of accessibility. Low vision users I’m sure are helped, but I can’t see shit, and in game, it confusingly just gives me a number, like what quadrant or square I’m on, but in my inventory has no idea what is even in my hand. It’s all encouraging, and this episode was awesome. I’m glad people like Ross are out there focusing on video games, because if I was having to focus on movies, TV, and video games, plus work a normal job, I’d lose my mind.

Youtube: None

Movies: Napoleon: Directors Cut (Apple Plus) with audio description

Basically, my thoughts were on the new Dark Room podcast. But, secondarily, I’ll mention that I’ve heard other people recapping The Rings Of Power laughing at ‘Kevin” because that’s what his name sounds like to them, even without audio description. I think his name actually has a M where the V is, so Kemin, or something, but I noticed that even in the audio description it still sounds like Kevin. I’m glad both the blind and sighted communities can have fun with this.

On a personal note,today is the 7th anniversary of the death of my best friend, which is relevant, because people always ask me where Mac The Movieguy came from. My website could have a more obvious blind centric title now, or even just John Stark. But, I’ve held onto this name for years.

Probably close to 30 years ago, I was visiting my friend, as our moms were also friends. We used to live in the same town, but when I was 10, I moved across country to a small town in Missouri. He was in a bigger town, and he got everything before me. One visit, he found out I didn’t have an email. I didn’t have home internet. Back in the day, dial-up was expensive, and rural dial up was more so. I had a local library, and if i wanted to use the internet, they basically had just gotten the hook-up. But he took it upon himself to set me up with what he deemed to be a gangsta email address. MacdaddyNLS. The NLS part stood for No Limit Soldier, a rap label. It wasn’t;’t me. It reflected him. But, for probably a solid year, i told everyone my email was that, until I got my home email, courtesy of those AOl CD’s everyone got in the mail all the time.

Then, I had to choose a screen name for myself. Something that did represent me. but also, something that wouldn’t feel like I was tossing the other out the door. I kept the Mac part, and swapped the gangsta life for the movie nerd life. And it stuck. Every message board, video game, anything, it stuck. I have people who call me Mac as a nickname because of how they met me. So, that part, which I would have never thought to choose for myself, was given to me by someone else, who I’d been friends with since I was 4. Perhaps, prior to his death, I might have been more comfortable with changing it allá round, even though its been with me forever, but now it is a reminder of someone I can’t text or call, someone who meant a lot to me, and I can’t just walk away from that.

we were total opposites, but he’s also the reason my first R rated movie was Terminator 2. He’s the reason I got hooked onto Grand Theft Auto. So many roads lead to my oldest friend, who made a choice to leave this world. So today, I tell this story one more time, for anyone who has ever been affected by the loss of someone to suicide, or anyone who has ever dealt with depression. there are all these things that seem so big in a moment, and moments pass. moments come and go. If you find yourself in a moment you feel like you can’t get past, reach out for your best friend who you used to spend every Friday watching The X-Files with. So, I am, and always have been, Mac The Movieguy, because I can’t imagine being not.