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SWEAR TO ME!
Smaller audience and better preparation allowed Min and I to finally see The Dark Knight Rises this weekend. Along the way we decided that we were going to become professional blackjack players*. Can’t wait to start my new career!
Movies
Man on the Moon – I pretty much associate this movie with Eric because I remember him renting it or going to see it in the theaters or something. Odd that this sticks out in my head, but it does. I haven’t seen enough footage of the real Andy Kaufman to know if Carrey does a good job emulating him, but it seemed not like Carrey and I dug that. Decent movie.
The Dark Knight Rises – It’s hard to live up to the best superhero movie ever, but TDKR makes a strong effort. It’s a different kind of movie, for sure, and its perhaps too sprawling for its own good, but it’s a good ending to the trilogy. Worth seeing, even if the Bane voice is just so stupid. Honestly, it’s dumber than Bale’s Batman voice.
TV
The League – Turned this on to have something on in the background forgetting that I hadn’t seen the first two episodes of the second season. It’s a pretty dumb show, but it makes me laugh pretty consistently so I’d recommend it.
Breaking Bad – The polar opposite of The League. I definitely enjoy the show, but I’ve yet to see the true greatness that makes fans froth at the mouth for this show. Highlight of S2 so far has been Tuco’s uncle. Great old man character and the bell dings were chilling and kind of awesome. Great to see the affection for his insane nephew from the otherwise senile-seeming old man.
Music
Go check out the Humble Music Bundle. Bunch of albums for like $8.
Books
1Q84 – Was not expecting the Aomame pregnancy. This book is in full on mystery mode to me. I have no idea where anything is going.
Video Games
Greed Corp – Played a game with Eric. Like the risk/reward that permeates the game, but don’t love most of the mechanics. Maybe I’d come to appreciate it with more rounds? Not sure.
Puzzle Agent – What a delightful little game! Had lots of fun just blowing through the puzzles and laughing at all the weird characters of this tiny town. Might pick up the sequel when I finish with a few more games.
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion – Played a big, multi-star map with Min that went really well. I enjoy the deliberate pace of this game and I also love just sending huge fleets of doom to crush my enemies.
Spelunky – I came so close to making it to the City of Gold, guys. I promise it exists! I PROMISE! I’ll make it there some day…
Saints Row: The Third – Played a little of the alien movie xpack. Fun. Had a game-crashing bug keep me from finishing it, but I’ll get around to it.
The Old Republic – David started a free trial and I’ve been having a blast playing with him. It even inspired me to level up my Bounty Hunter some. I’m playing a totally cocky, darkside-leaning Jedi Knight and I think it’s very interesting to see how NPCs lightly chastise me. Hopefully they start to genuinely fear Cornell Threepwood by the end of his story. That’s an intimidating name, right?
May Payne 3 – Gritty. The shooting bits are tough too and the checkpointing can leave you in a bad way with no painkillers to help. I’m stuck in a particularly brutal firefight right now. I dig the weird presentation bits, but I need to give the game more time.
BIT.TRIP.RUNNER – I was having fun with this until I hit 1-14 and replayed that level for damn near an hour. Then the boss was annoying too. Not a terrible rhythm-ish game, but starting over from the beginning every time is a little brutal.
Sonic Generations – It’s pretty much the same thing with every modern Sonic game. You play the first level and you think, hey, this isn’t so bad! Then the Sonic Team starts introducing more terrible ideas in each subsequent level. By level three I realize that Sonic truly is a dead franchise.
*Not actually true
Not a lot of new info for series stalwarts, but there’s an interesting tidbit or two nestled deep within this video.
Nick Offerman, Megan Mullaly, and Alison Brie getting high, showing no footage, and doing very little relevant to the movie they’re in? I’m in, guys. I’m gonna see this movie.
This feature was pretty awesome last time Jimmy Kimmel did it. I’m a fan of these. Hope they keep doing them.
“Hey Dan, are you still gonna buy tickets in advance?”“Naw, that won’t be necessary” (Photo by Wonderful Malaysia & Veelzijdig Maleisie)
I was supposed to see The Dark Knight Rises with Min. We were pretty excited about it too, but I was a real dummy and I didn’t get tickets days in advance. Whoops. Maybe this week.
The Dark Knight Rises
Breaking Bad – This show came back this week, but I’m still in season 2. All of the praise being heaped upon it reminded me that I should be watching, so I’ve started pushing through again.
The Bachelorette – I…ugh…:sigh:…Listen, I love spending time with Tiffany, but sometimes it’s tough. Guys, guess what? Emily picked Jef. Yes, he spells his name with one ‘f’. If I write more words about this my brain might explode.
1Q84 – Things are starting to heat up. Oddly enough that’s with both of the principals kind of locked into their locations. I might finish this week, but we’ll see.
Usher’s “Climax” is a great song.
Penny Arcade Ep 3 – Got to the bank, but things got super tough. Took a break.
Tropico 4 – Steam sale started and I got my hands on this as soon as I could. I love island management and the soundtrack is pretty sweet.
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion – Still the best 4X game I’ve ever played thanks to the time pressure of the RTS mechanics. Would love to play more multiplayer games with Min.
The Binding of Isaac – One more challenge left and it’s the hardest one. After that then it’s time to beat the game with all the characters again. Not looking forward to the ??? completion.
Spelunky – Keep getting frustratingly close to the City of Gold and then mucking it up. I’ll get it soon. Then I’ll make it to hell!
Some neat little tidbits I hadn’t seen or thought about before. Didn’t know that the Zelda timeline includes one where Link lost. Pretty crazy.
Did You Know Gaming? has also made a video about Pokemon that’s pretty cool too:
Reverse Enginears has produced yet another montage of games history, this time focused on PC games. You may have seen the console/arcade game one they did a while back (embedded below), but if you haven’t these are both fantastic.
Holy cow, is there another studio out there even approaching the natural and real-seeming performances that Naughty Dog is putting out? This looks fantastic.
When you go to a burlesque show you pretty much expect dudes with mustaches like this. Maybe knives too. (Photo by tmronin)
The Peepshow (not the NV one, but a different traveling troupe) was in Harrisburg this weekend and Tiffany and I were super thankful to have something to do around York. Seriously, guys. It’s kind of boring up there. Knife throwing, sword swallowing, nail pounding, and, naturally, burlesque dancing were on the menu. It was lots of fun. I think it was their last show of the summer, but if you see that they’re coming to a venue near you, definitely check it out.
The Amazing Spider-Man – I don’t understand why everyone’s so mad about this movie. Ok, so it’s a reboot ten years after the last one, but who cares? Garfield and Stone are both orders of magnitude better than Maguire and Dunst as is Martin Sheen as Uncle Ben. It’s a fun movie and I hope they make more of them.
MLB All-Star Game – The National League blew out the AL by getting to Verlander early. It was a pretty sweet game, but I couldn’t get a proper feed the way I wanted so it was the first one I’ve listened to and not watched in like three years
Louie – This show is so impressive. Check it out.
Futurama – The Richard Nixon presidential run is a perfect example of a Futurama episode that bores me to tears. Nixon is such a safe target for “satire”…I dunno, the whole episode was pretty lukewarm, but I did chuckle when Nixon was a giant robot monster destroying everything.
Fashion Police – It’s kind of cute how much Tiffany loves to watch this and gets bummed if she misses it. I can’t complain.
Boston is awesome, guys. Enough said.
1Q84 – I’m really worried that Murakami let Aomame pull the trigger. I’m deep in suspense wondering if she actually did it. On the other hand, I understand why Murakami might feel like that character has served her purpose.
Spelunky – Remains perfect, but my schedule this week has really kept me from playing all that much. Gotta keep at it!
Penny Arcade Ep3 – Sharp writing and sharper combat still. Got my second set of class pins and they’re really creative. I mean, I can be a Dinosorceror. That’s a class that transforms into a dinosaur!
If you’re like me or if you’re a member of my family, you’ve probably seen Mike Birbiglia’s Sleepwalk With Me tour. It was pretty great. Dude is seriously funny. Now it’s being turned into a movie and, I gotta say, I’m all in.
