“Halfway through typing those I sort of lost all enthusiasm for and confidence in the idea but didn’t want to delete any of it in case it triggered some kind of gnawing, existential dread about my writing and I stopped blogging for another 2 months. So, in the interest of maintaining momentum you got to read that utterly useless bit… and this bit explaining it. You’re welcome?”
Well, that’s an upsetting thing to read nearly 2 years later…
Greetings from my hovel on the shores of the Bow.
I have had an urge to watch some old slashers what I haven’t seen before. I decided to give “Slaughter High” from 1986 a shot. It’s supposed to be a comedy. It’s neither a very good slasher nor a remotely funny comedy. There’s a kill with a lawn-tractor that was kind of cool, but overall, a big ol’ dudski.
The abrupt transition to fall weather definitely has me in the Halloween mood early this year.
After an unplanned summer hiatus I have returned.
Greetings once more from my hovel on the shores of the bow.
Clearly I couldn’t be assed to write anything here what with my summer being just jam packed with such exciting activites as sitting in this basement watching movies and trying to prevent the tiny anarchists who live in my house from doing grievous bodily harm to themselves and each other. Every day is an adventure.
I binged all 4 of the Michael Winterbottom Rob Brydon/Steve Coogan “The Trip” movies in the last 24 hours. At a time when one cannot go out it was great fun to watch these two travel around picturesque locations and bicker in duelling impressions of 1970s film and tv performers. I’ve heard the quadrilogy compared to the Linklater Before trilogy and I can see the similarities. These are much funnier and probably not trying as hard to say something prescient about relationships (though a more convincing and relatable dude-friendship is hard to think of on sceen). My favorite of the 4 is probably the first, but Trip to Greece is a pretty close second. For no reason other than I just thought of doing it I now present to you my suggested pairings for The Trip movies with the Before movies.
The Trip and Before Sunrise.
The Trip to Spain and Before Sunset
The Trip to Italy and Before Midnight
Halfway through typing those I sort of lost all enthusiasm for and confidence in the idea but didn’t want to delete any of it in case it triggered some kind of gnawing, existential dread about my writing and I stopped blogging for another 2 months. So, in the interest of maintaining momentum you got to read that utterly useless bit… and this bit explaining it. You’re welcome?
Glad to be back.
Lunchtime doubly so.
Greetings once again from my hovel on the shores of the Bow.
Yeah. I said “tomorrow” last time. I forgot. I’m trying, but you may have noticed, time has ceased to have any meaning.
So. Books. I finished THE LADY OF THE LAKE, Andrezj Sapkowski. The final book in the Witcher series. (Well, there is a standalone novel that takes place before the others that I’ll get to at some point). It gets weird. In a good way, but it’s definitely quite different from the other books in the series. I would be lying if I said it was my favorite in the series (in fact, it’s probably ranked at the bottom) but it was very good and was a fitting end to the series. I guess I should probably finally play The Witcher 3 now.
I am about halfway through The Silmarillion. I never would have expected to like it this much? It’s extremely dense but I’m finding it a very enjoyable. This epic, mythic history of a fantasy world is pretty neat. (There are definite chunks of Judeo-Christian analogues that pop up, but I’m just doing my best to ignore it and enjoy the elves.)
Currently Reading: A FEAST FOR CROWS, George R.R. Martin
Ugh. 9 days since last blog? Not cool. I didn’t intend for this happen. Just like it was easy to keep blogging every day (even if I had nothing particularly notable to talk about) when I had momentum behind it’s become all too easy to be swept up in the momentum of inaction. Hopefully that changes today.
So, what’s been going on? Well, for starters the new game from Sucker Punch came out. GHOST OF TSUSHIMA. I’d been eagerly awaiting this game since I first saw it announced at E3 2017 (I think it was 2017? the year when herded a bunch of games journalists through a weird stage show with folk music..). Now I’m deep into the game and I’m absolutely loving it. It’s the most I’ve enjoyed a game in a while. It’s exactly the kind of game I wanted at this time. It’s not ambitious or ground-breaking in ANY way. It does precisely NOTHING new and pretty much lives by a design philosophy that peaked around the time of something like Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood… BUT, it feels like the most perfectly executed version of “one of those” I’ve ever played. It’s a big open world, scavenger hunty collectathon checklist, but with a good story AND a feudal Japan samurai setting. It’s pretty much crack to me. I’ve probably played close to 15 hours and am still fairly early in the story since I’m just spending all my time exploring the map and doing side quests. I am so happy it turned out how I hoped.
Ok. Let’s agree to meet back here again tomorrow and I can talk about books or something.
Currently Reading: FEAST FOR CROWS, George R.R. Martin
I’ve been on a Fantasy kick.
I’m even reading the Silmarillion. I’m enjoying it immensely. It’s an absolute SLOG to read and it is the most “homework” like thing I’ve read for pleasure in a long time, but I love all the world-buildy, fiddly-ass bullshit of it. It also really lays out on front-street a lot of the stuff I find very frustrating and problematic about The Lord of the Rings mythology, though. I like that story and find the universe and it’s myth very interesting and borderline fun to read about, but for a guy who spent some time in his day fighting fascism he sure has a lot of it in his mythos. Any time there are “favored” or “chosen” races you should have klaxons going off.
I’m toying with the idea of diving too deep into Elder Scrolls lore videos now too… I don’t have the time or patience to actually PLAY any of those games, (the few times I’ve played Skyrim I got bored after about 25 minutes) but I love complicated fantasy universes. I don’t play World of Warcraft anymore, but I sure like reading books and encyclopedias about its universe. I should really read the 2 Song of Ice and Fire books I haven’t gotten to yet so I can pick up all the maps and encyclopedias and whatnot that surround them and not risk spoilage.
Currently Playing: “Fantasy” Mariah Carey.
Currently Reading: THE SILMARILLION, J.R.R. Tolkien
It’s been a minute!
That was unintentional. I am cross with myself as I had until recently been very good about maintaining a daily schedule on this here blog. Well, what’s done is done. Time to shake off the complacency and get back to (work)daily blogging. Give these ol’ fingers a stretch. I’m sure lots of good stuff has been happening.
I started watching Attack on Titan. I’m nearly finished the first season and I absolutely love it. I haven’t been this thrilled and entertained by a series since maybe the miniseries pilot of Battlestar Galaactica or the first season or two of Homeland? It’s not that it’s necessarily the greatest show I’ve ever seen, but the action is exciting and relentless, the characters are engaging and the ending of each episode always leaves me desperate to watch the next one. “Just one more episode” led me to binge the first 19 episodes in 2 days. I hope the series sustains that level of hype.
I’ve been watching a YouTube channel that produced extremely detailed and lengthy (and tremendously well produced) videos about the DUNE novels. Each video basically retells and summarizes each of the novels in the original Frank Herbert series (I see there are also some videos on the extended universe by his son, but I’m a lot less interested in those). I’m reminded how much I liked those novels and perhaps am due to reread the whole series? Just as soon as I finish the 3 or 4 epic fantasy series I just loaded onto my phone… (so 2026).
Speaking of fantasy novels, I finished BLOODY ROSE by Nicholas Eames in a day and a half. I just devoured it. It’s an absolute delight. The second in THE BAND series it follows the band FABLE on their adventures through the arena circuit, on a quest to kill a giant monster and ultimately into a battle for the fate of the entire world. I loved the way it built on the first novel KINGS OF THE WYLD while being a very stand good stand-alone novel itself. The characters and situations were equally exciting and hilarious. I’m amazed how well Eames balances the tones and the mixture of epic sword & sorcery drama and very funny (and reference/easter egg laden) comedy. I highly recommend both books.
That’ll do for today I reckon. See you on the far side of the weekend.
Currently Playing: Phish Jams Compilation 2011-2015
Currently Reading: THE LADY OF THE LAKE, Andrezj Sapkowski
Crazy hectic workweek going on with a special event so likely to be light on the blog side this week.
That said, I do have one or two things worth mentioning.
I played a bit of the free-to-play tier of the new Trackmania and apart from a weird glitch that caused all my times to get erased for the hour I’d been playing I had a great time. Assuming I can get the technical issue sorted out I plan to get into it a lot more.
Second, I am reading (playing?) the Fate/Stay Night visual novel for the first time. I don’t know how long it’ll take me, and I’m very early in the first route right now but I’m intrigued and planning to do more each night before bed so maybe in 100 hours or so I’ll have a clue! This is either going to open me up to previously undreamed of levels of anime geekery OR it’s the biggest mistake ever… possibly both.
I’ve been staring at this blank screen trying to think of anything interesting to write about, but I went to bed at 8 last night and the only anime I’m right in the middle of is dogshit and I don’t want to think about it let alone write about it. So instead here is a sketch from The Birthday Boys, my favorite sketch comedy show of all time.
I have now bought Minecraft on 5 different platforms despite not actually liking MInecraft very much. The tiny anarchists who live in my house are obsessed with it and the only way to get any reading done during the hours they’re awake is to put them in front of Minecraft. They keep witnessing things on YouTube that require specific versions of the game hence why I now own it on PS4, XBOX, Switch, Android and PC…
The larger of the tiny anarchists wishes to play on some server operated by a streamer he likes, the streamer in question is actually tolerable and actually appropriate for his eyes so I have relented and will allow him to play online (under my supervision). I’ve all but disallowed all online games in the house for tiny anarchists. The internet is a wretched dumpster fire and the longer I can keep these tiny anarchists who are my charges from being singed the better, but I realize I can only keep them cloistered offline for so long and better they learn how to behave sooner than later. Still, I am not feeling awesome about the whole thing.
I really need some annoying, loud YouTubers to stream shit like Jazz Jackrabbit…
Currently Playing: Ennio Morricone – “Original Score from The Mercenary”
Currently Reading: MIYAZAKIWORLD, Susan Napier
joezone 