Ian Simmons launched Kicking the Seat in 2009, one week after seeing Nora Ephron’s Julie & Julia. His wife proposed blogging as a healthier outlet for his anger than red-faced, twenty-minute tirades (Ian is no longer allowed to drive home from the movies).
The Kicking the Seat Podcast followed three years later and, despite its “undiscovered gem” status, Ian thoroughly enjoys hosting film critic discussions, creating themed shows, and interviewing such luminaries as Gaspar Noé, Rachel Brosnahan, Amy Seimetz, and Richard Dreyfuss.
Ian is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association. He also has a family, a day job, and conflicted feelings about referring to himself in the third person.
Jax froze. He didn't turn around. He looked at the monitor, his heart hammering against his ribs. In the digital reflection, the figure reached out a hand toward Jax’s shoulder. But when Jax looked at his actual shoulder in the real world, there was nothing there—just the chill of the AC.
The forums called it the "impossible engine." Rumor had it that Umbra was a hyper-realistic simulation developed by a rogue AI researcher before he vanished. There was no official site, no Steam page, and certainly no buy button. There was only the "Umbra Free Download"—a legendary link that supposedly appeared on dead-end servers for only seconds at a time. Umbra Free Download
As the progress bar crept forward, his room grew unusually cold. The fans on his high-end rig didn't spin up; they went silent. When the download hit 100%, his monitors didn't show a title screen. They showed his own room, rendered in terrifyingly perfect detail, viewed from the perspective of his webcam. On the screen, a figure stood behind him. Jax froze
Then, a text box appeared on the screen, flickering like a dying candle: In the digital reflection, the figure reached out
In the neon-soaked back alleys of the digital underground, "Umbra" wasn't just a game—it was a ghost story.
Jax, a data-hoarder with more curiosity than caution, found the link on a Tuesday at 3:00 AM. It was a simple, nameless .exe hosted on a server that didn't have an IP address. He clicked.