My New Year’s resolution is to eat more curry.

Happy New Year, folks! New year, new posts, new media. I’m super pumped for 2014! No real pictures to put up here

Movies

Not this week!

TV

The Twilight Zone – Somehow I had never seen an episode of The Twilight Zone. Not a one. Lucky for me Katie’s dad and his friend love watching the annual marathon on Syfy. I saw a classic episode or two and I wasn’t totally impressed with the quality of the acting in most episodes, but I was also really taken with the anthology style that’s missing in tv today. Very neat. Makes me want to finish Fringe.

Scandal – Saw the pilot episode with Katie and Kyla. It’s definitely got pilot awkardness syndrome and I wasn’t totally sold on the premise of the show, but it’s definitely got promise. I could see myself getting lost in this show.

Almost Human – The clone twist wasn’t super mind blowing, but I liked they way they integrated the hologram tech later in the episode and the further bonding of Kennex and Dorian. The Maldonado stuff fell a little more flat to me. Felt a little patronizing.

Justified – Season 5 of Justified started and I’m still not done with S4! I had about two episodes left and I watched about 1.25 of them. Love, love, love this show. I love it when people have long leisurely conversations, I love it when the shooting happens, and I love the setting.

Music

Inside joke time! “Marry Me” by Jason Derulo

Books

Well Played 1.0: Video Games Value and Meaning – I read almost all of the entries in the book, but one was meant to be in the perspective of a character in one of the games(?) and I skipped it because it was boring. The highlight for me was the section about The Secret of Monkey Island from the perspective of someone who grew up in Spain and played it in Spanish. I’m gonna read 2.0, but not for a while.

Machine of Death: A Collection of Stories About People Who Know How They Will Die – Speaking of anthologies, Machine of Death is dark and funny and it really makes a person think. Would you want to know the exact way you were gonna die? Would you become hopelessly fatalistic about your life or ignore it? Would you just avoid the machine completely?

Video Games

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies – Case 5 has turned into a completely different case. We’re gonna resolve the issues with Blackquill. I’m more excited for the killer whale one, but that’s because I accidentally spoiled the Phantom’s identity for myself like two months ago.

Bravely Default (Demo) – Another Squeenix RPG, but this one has JOBS! I love job systems. I’m already way down for this release in Feb. I think it’s super neat that the Demo has its own unique story to it.

Nintendo Land – Got a lot of Mario Chase and Luigi’s Ghost Mansion in with Katie and Kyla. Super fun. I know people think Nintendo’s lost it, but just watching people pick up and play their games almost without instruction tells me that their concepts and ideas are still top notch. I love asynchronous multiplayer.

Long Live the Queen – Premise: The Queen dies and you’ve got to survive to coronation. It’s pretty easy to get killed in this game. I’ve managed to beat it a few times without it, but it’s not easy. Mostly a visual novel with skill checking.

Cook, Serve, Delicious – Surprisingly addictive for a simple game. They nailed the sound effects and that’s what really makes the difference. Adding the different ingredients to the dishes just has a lot of pop. Feels great to play. I love it.

SteamWorld Dig – Kind of a Metroidvania mixed with something like Terraria or Minecraft (minus the crafting). It’s fun to figure out how to get to the various treasures and gems. I’m really enjoying it, but the gameplay loop is too addictive. It’s “one more turn”, of a sort, as you try to achieve your objectives and get lower and lower.

Portal 2 – Played the new multiplayer levels with David. By new I mean really old and that one DLC pack they released years ago. It’s got a little new story and it’s funny and neat, but the main draw, obviously, comes from the sweet puzzles. Really creative and I think it made Dave and I feel pretty smart.

Civilization 5 – The D-Bros game continues to go way in my favor as I stomp the Romans down. Persia might have to go next if I continue to maintain the advantage…

Don’t Starve – Played it for a while to get my steam cards. Pretty neat game, but I wish it had steam achievements. My second attempt is going well, but I can’t find any gold for a science machine, and that stinks. Those freaky frogs almost killed me too…

Weird to see Benedict Cumberbatch with a Southern accent (Photo courtesy touchedmuch)

It’s been a surprisingly movie-filled week! I don’t usually talk about the sporting events I watched here, but that was a hell of a Ravens game yesterday, wasn’t it!

Movies

12 Years a Slave – What an intense movie. Extremely well-acted and a brilliant counterpoint to Django Unchained. Where Django took revenge for slavery, 12 Years a Slave makes it a hell of a lot more personal and is that much better for it. The flick is tough to watch sometimes, but it’s the best movie I’ve seen this year (so far).

Little Big League – My favorite of the baseball movies that came out when I was a kid. Holds up remarkably well as an adult. I don’t know if Min liked it as much as Kate and I did, but it’s pretty solid.

Love Actually – I expected it to be good and romantic, but I really didn’t expect the nudity or the swearing. I thought it was tame and PG-13 type stuff, but I think it’s way more interesting this way in that it’s not sanitized or too safe. Good movie!

TV

Brooklyn Nine-Nine – Terry’s back in the field! Andre Braugher does deadpan so hilariously, but the popping and locking was even better.

The Mindy Project – Heck of a dance number in the middle of that episode.

The Amazing Race – So the finale for season 23 is on my DVR and I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS! I’m thinking that the Afghanimals might get eliminated and Jason and Amy might win. We’ll see!

Almost Human – I love sci-fi shows. Love ’em. I dig shows about robots too. This is the perfect match for me. It’s pretty much a police procedural in the future at this point, but that’s cool with me. Robots! With senses of humor!

Homeland – …I dunno. Everyone’s just so unprofessional and irrational in this show. I liked that the episode was an abbreviated retelling of the first two seasons, but I hate so much about this show this season and I really hope Brody either doesn’t make it out of Tehran…or he turns on the US and becomes the big bad for season 4.

Music

I really just love “Hannah Hunt” by Vampire Weekend. I’m sure I’ve posted it here before, but we’re doing it anyway!

Books

Well Played 1.0: Video Games, Value, and Meaning – Read the essay on Ico and I’m partway through the Super Mario Bros. one. Nothing groundbreaking yet, but I love reading this kind of stuff about games anyway, so I’m not too bothered by it.

Video Games

Super Mario 3D Land – Played the first level to activate SpotPass, but I’ve been focusing on beating Phoenix Wright first so that I can get to Zelda and finish Pokemon too. So many 3DS games!

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies – Case 3 is DONE! The culprit was who I thought it was (it was really kind of obvious, actually) and I wish that I hadn’t accidentally ended up spoiling the final culprit for myself, but Case 4 is certainly intriguing so far (astronaut defendant!)

Pokemon Y – Beat Lysandre (almost lost my Min pokemon to a Mega Gyarados. He held on with 3 HP) and I’m in some cave now. Gotta get the gyms and the elite 4 done, but I’m on the home stretch. Did lose my Pidgeotto, Sawyer. Replaced him with a Marowak.

XCOM: Enemy Within – I’m on my eighth save file trying to get it going right. Game 7 was going really well…until I failed the first part of Progeny and Daniel and David died. Then I completely wiped on Slingshot’s first mission, losing Katie, Molly, Lee, and Kunal. Another wipe meant I had to restart. MEC suits kick ass. Can’t wait to get it going again.