Brilliant game. (Photo by Eddie Shannon)

Thanks to a snowstorm Katie, Min, Lee, and I got to play some Left 4 Dead. I’d forgotten how sharp that game’s design was!

Movies

Nein.

TV

The Amazing Race – I was spot on with my predictions last week. Super fun episode and, surprisingly, Tim and Marie ended up my favorite racers by the end.

The Daily Show – Watched a few eps here and there, but the white/black Santa bit was…HILARIOUS. Definitely watch the opening 10 mins or so of the Evangeline Lilly episode. So hilarious.

Plays of the Month: April – We had to start somewhere. I was hoping for more Marlins/Orioles highlights, but it was still loads of fun. Under 60 days to pitchers and catchers!

Community – Saw a season 5 trailer and decided that I should actually watch the last two episodes of season 4. I didn’t really enjoy the retcon of the way the characters were all related, but at least it was funny enough. The finale was a little silly (it’s all a dream, seriously?), but I like where it sets up the show to go in S5. Plus darkest timeline Annie…wow…

Homeland – I’m baffled by how much critics seem to love the finale of S3. I thought it was kind of safe and convenient and every happy outcome that you’d expect happened. It felt too happy. Plus Carrie is a terrible employee of the CIA and shouldn’t be a station chief. I also would have liked to see the rest of the Brodys and how they reacted to Nick being on tv as a propaganda tool and his execution. Anyway, I found the season to be vastly inferior to the first and normally inferior to the second.

Project Runway: All-Stars – It feels weird that I recognize so many of these designers. As I’ve said before, still a decent show. Plus it teaches me a little more about fashion.

Music

I like Straight No Chaser’s version of the “12 Days of Christmas”

Books

Well Played 1.0: Video Games, Value, and Meaning – I finished the Super Mario Bros. section, but I found it to be a little to simplistic. It was covering stuff that I already knew too well. The Advance Wars section is more interesting and I’m appreciating some of the game design stuff I’m learning, but I’m hoping things get more in depth, a la David Sirlin’s writing about game systems.

Video Games

Super Mario 3D World – Just a few mins of this. Really excited to get down with it in Florida.

Rayman Legends – A few levels of this too. I liked the more complicated Murphy wheels.

Left 4 Dead – Kate got her first games in and she loved it. Makes me really happy because I’d talked up how good it was before. I hope she continues to love it and digs part 2 as well.

XCOM: Enemy Within – New game seems to be going better, but I’m losing some good men. I’m hoping for better luck on the council missions, because they’re really tough.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies – I’m pretty sure I mentioned that I beat case 3, right? Well case 4 involves…ASTRONAUTS! So cool. I wish I hadn’t seen a spoiler about the culprit, but it’s still been an interesting case so far and I’m a long way from that spoiler.

Rock Band 3 – Busted out this bad boy once again to play with Katie and Min. She dug drumming and I started to recover my strumming abilities. Just gotta start singing too next time. Our new band is awesome

Spelunky – I got cocky about beating David’s score and then…I died. Goddammit…

This is it! The final season of Lost! With so few episodes left, surely the producers behind Lost are dishing out answers like crazy, right?

Well, kind of. Some pretty significant questions have been answered, like who/what the smoke monster is and what the significance of the numbers is, but the big ones probably won’t really be answered until we get to the finale. Why is the Man in Black imprisoned on the island? Who is Jacob, really?

Some random thoughts about this season:

– The show keeps artfully dodging the answer to the question, “What is the name of The Man in Black (AKA Smokey)?” This has GOT to be important to either the mythology behind the show or the characters within the show.
– Smokey sure has been accessing a lot of thoughts/memories from John Locke, whose form he is stuck in. Some have theorized that the Locke in the flash sideways is actually Smokey, but the only time he’s seemed Smokey-like to me was when he suggested to Ben that he take over as principal.
– Why does Widmore need Jin? It’s got to be more than simply denying Smokey access to one of the candidates. I wonder if he’s still in partnership with Sun.
– Welcome back Des (FINALLY!). I was going to headline this post with a sexy picture of Evangeline Lily, but instead opted for Des since he was this week’s cliffhanger.
– “Ab Aeterno” answered a lot of questions about who Richard Alpert was and why he was on the island, but, more importantly to me, it muddied the waters as to what exactly is going on with Jacob. Why are the instructions to kill Jacob and Smokey word for word identical? Why wasn’t Jacob his usual stoic self this time? I think there’s more to it than Jacob = good Smokey = bad. That’s just too easy.
– The whole “Sun can’t speak English anymore” plot development is kind of stupid. I don’t really like it. Too convenient. Some are theorizing that this sets up why Sun doesn’t speak English in her flash sideways, but I pose this question to you: Why can’t she understand English in sideways world? Theory. Destroyed.
– I’m totally digging Terry O’Quinn’s acting as Smokey. He’s doing an absolutely brilliant job being manipulative and seeming like he knows what’s going on like Smokey. His scene this week where he told Claire that she could kill Kate once they were leaving the island: chilling.
– Claire as Rousseau was cool for a bit, but now I’m concerned because Sayid has become a boring character ever since he caught the “disease” and can’t feel emotion. I thought that maybe a spark of emotion could be seen in his face when he saw Desmond at the end of this last episode, but I could have misread that. I still have faith that Desmond’s “Brotha” powers will save Sayid.
– Weak flash sideways so far: Sun/Jin and Sawyer.
– Strong flash sideways so far: Jack, Kate/Claire, Locke
– OK ones: Ben, Sayid
– I’m loving that Hurley is taking a more important role this season. He’s still comic relief a lot of the time, but he’s also been very important.
– Miles is still my favorite character. So snarky and funny. Fat Hurley jokes aren’t as funny.
– My coworkers keep wondering why Lapidus is still around. It’s kind of obvious, he’s there to fly Ajira 316 away from the island at the end of the show.
– Will we finally find out who Juliet shot in season 5 when they were randomly being shot at in the outrigger? It could be one of Jacob’s crew, but, now that I think about it, I think it could be one of Widmore’s. I have no idea why I don’t think it’s one of Smokey’s
– Zoe looks like a cross between Liz Lemon and Laura Roslin. It’s uncanny.
– If they make Sawyer and Kate get together in any universe I will be annoyed that they’re throwing away the whole Juliet thing. I was annoyed that they used her in that way in Season 5 anyway, but I want them to be honest with it.
– I bet we see Libby in next week’s episode.

That’s about it for now.