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The goofiest secret handshake ever (Photo courtesy: machu picchu)
I did it, guys. I finally went and watched my netflix movie. It was…decidedly less awesome than I thought it would be.
Movies
Sound of My Voice – It’s not that Sound of My Voice is a bad movie. That’s not it at all…it’s more that I was expecting something a little creepier and a little headier than what I got in this. At least it was quick.
TV
The Amazing Race – It’s a rare thing to see a leg run as poorly as John and Jessica just did. First team ever to be eliminated while holding an express pass. Just…wow. So funny.
Archer – The coyote episode was great. “Coyote” is also Spanish for coyote. I found the next episode with the hotel a little less funny mostly because the Pam sex with a sandwich joke went on a touch too long.
Community – Still not doing it for me. Not really digging the new direction.
Parks and Recreation – Man do I love how cheekily Parks is able to mock real life politics. It’s not exactly subtle, but it’s still awesome.
Justified – Kind of an off season this year, no? Definitely digging the return of Limehouse.
Glee – Finally watched the episode where they stole Jonathan Coulton’s arrangement of “Baby Got Back”. Not only did they steal it: they sucked at it too. Was way more into the “Tell Him” number, although I would have preferred it with less aggressive choreography.
The Americans – Not sure if beating the hell out of your handler is ok. What was up with the creeper hitchhiking C plot?
Music
Lotta music this week.
First off: Hiatus Kaiyote “Nakamarra”
Who doesn’t love a little blue-eyed soul? These guys seem cool, but I haven’t listened to the rest of their album.
Mashing up Chrono Trigger and Jay-Z is a great idea. 2 Mello’s effort does not disappoint:
aivi & surrashu’s piano mixed with video game music is delightful:
You may remember Eirik Suhrke from his work on Spelunky. His Ridiculous Fishing soundtrack pulls from the same influences, but has a slightly different feel. Good stuff
Books
One Hundred Years of Solitude – I still feel like I’m missing something fundamental about this book with the whole translation thing, but I’m really enjoying this. It’s a beautiful piece of literature.
Video Games
SimCity – My time with it was shorter this week, but just long enough to be swamped with criminals from David’s friends towns.
Mass Effect 2 – Trying to bring my paragon up to ME3 so that I can play the new DLC with him too. I’m recruiting the second wave of guys and doing loyalty missions now.
Spelunky – I got to the City of Gold last week when I wasn’t recording. This week I’m gonna do it on camera.
Cabin pictures aren’t up on flickr yet, so here’s Eric’s home tree (Photo by DJOtaku)
The long drive from North Carolina is over and I had a lot of fun while I was with the family for Christmas. I hope all of you had a great holiday too.
The Dark Knight Rises – Watched it with my Dad over the holiday since he hadn’t seen it. I still think it’s a little bloated, but it was nice to see the same Nolan care for detail the second time through and know what was leading to what.
Juan de los muertos – Saw this with my old man too. I think he was unamused by the more crude bits of humor and the plot aimlessness, but I think he was entertained by the Cuban slang and the setting.
Happy Endings – The Jane-mas thing was hilarious, guys. I mean, Alex and her sexual present opening fetish? Max and his eggnog spraying everywhere? The final dance off?! This show is so brilliant.
Glee – Saw the pastiche episode that was trying to be like Love, Actually. I was pretty firmly unimpressed, but that’s not a surprise for me and Glee nowadays.
Eric gave me the Final Fantasy VI soundtrack for Christmas and it’s pretty boss. Here’s Terra’s Theme.
A Confederacy of Dunces – Ignatius has been fired from Levy Pants and is now in flux. I’m curious if that means we’ll be abandoning the Levy’s or not. I bet they’ll be involved later.
The Old Republic – Started the HK questline. Boy it’s not that interesting at all. Just a fetch quest across planets so far. Bummer…
999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors – Finished all but the True Ending. I’ve figured out a lot of details about Seven, Lotus, Snake, and Ace, but Clover, Santa, June, the Ninth Man remain enigmas. I’m really excited to see where this story goes because all the morphogenetics and information passing stuff seems crazy interesting.
Street Fighter x Mega Man – Beat Chun Li, but couldn’t manage the other levels quite yet. A pretty neat little game, but the lack of even a password system makes it a little tough to deal with.
Hotline Miami – The hospital escape and the police station assault levels were not fun and kind of freaky/weird to play. I think I’m getting close to the end, but I also need to go back and get the rest of the password glowy pixels.
Nintendo Land – Played so much of that with the family. Mario Chase is really fun with a lot of folks and I even managed to beat Donkey Kong. Love it.
Pac-Man CE DX – I’ve said so much about how amazing this game is. Do I need to say more? Man do I love eating those long ghost chains…
Spelunky – Played some with David. That was lots of fun as we quickly did tremendous damage to each other. Good times.
Don’t blink. Blink and you’re dead. (Picture courtesy Rich Ford)
I got to share my favorite episode of Doctor Who with Min today. I’d forgotten how eerie and excellent that episode was. I mean, I literally shouted out loud in fear when one of the angels popped into view. Freaky stuff. Love that ep.
Not this week.
Breaking Bad – I don’t know why I had such a long gap before where I wasn’t watching this, but these past few episodes have been brilliant. Walter White is absolutely fascinating in his almost impotent villainy. I love how addicted he is to power and how much pride he has. Just brilliant stuff.
The Amazing Race – Up to the finale on the current season and that’s been pretty exciting. I’m glad the twins didn’t get eliminated as they’re the funniest. On the S1 DVDs things are getting interesting. Team Guido is hilariously evil. It’s awesome.
Parks and Recreation – Episodes revolving around Jerry are usually pretty awesome and this one did not disappoint. Tammy 2’s ridiculous brand of evil sluttiness was gross AND hilarious. Not an easy bar to hit.
The Mindy Project – It seems like every week I’m saying, “The net critics don’t like this, but I find it funny.” Copy-paste that here.
New Girl – Another one that all the internet hated, but I thought was hilarious. The bathtub crashing through the ceiling and the Remy three-way callbacks? Brilliant.
Doctor Who – Started Min off with “Blink”, but then I took him back to “Rose” to show a more typical episode. It’s still mostly introducing stuff, but I think his interest in piqued.
Happy Endings – Man did Rob Corddry get away with saying some filthy things on network tv. Also the Penny thing was fairly predictable from her. Alex continues to be hilarious as always.
Glee – A week where I didn’t want to just turn off the show for being aggressively stupid? Wow! That first Rachel number was stunningly good.
The League – Odd pacing and dropping of plot points make me think that there are big things afoot for the finale. Totally dug the lucha libre bit.
Childrens Hospital – Madonna episode: meh. Chief episode: better.
NTSF:SD:SUV:: – I don’t think they did enough with the found footage conceit, but Alphonse’s creepy Christmas song was amazing.
Saturday Night Live – I didn’t get past weekend update, but Jamie Foxx was doing his thing ok. He seemed less comfortable that I thought he’d be considering how good he is in other stuff. Maybe live isn’t his thing?
Just go listen to more Frank Ocean. Channel Orange is Awesome.
A Confederacy of Dunces – At around the 100 page mark. I feel like I’ve met all the principals and now it’s time to see where this farce is headed.
The Revolution was Televised – Finished the chapters on The Sopranos and The Wire and I’m working on Deadwood. This tv backstory stuff is fascinating and I’m really digging all the analysis.
Sleeping Dogs – I like Wei Shen and I like the undercover cop conceit. It remains to be seen how deep the story gets and if it’ll allow for character depth or go the GTA IV route where, regardless of how serious the main guy claims to be, every one else is a cartoon.
The Old Republic – Just got Vette, but we sadly haven’t had much interaction at all. Seems like a dropped ball so far, but, then again, my character has only just gotten license to head to Dromund Kaas.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown – A power issue (perhaps related to SLI-ing my cards) caused save file corruption on my main game. I might have to restart and that’s heartbreaking. We’ll see if the forums come through for me or not.
FTL – I’m getting much better at this game, but I still haven’t gotten the hang of Mantis B. Racking up wins with other ships though.
Which is the greater monument: the movie or the…monument? (Photo by MarkusR)
Four score and seven seconds ago I started trying to come up with a clever line to write here. As you can see, I failed.
Lincoln – I’ve talked to lots of people about this movie and it’s one I feel better about recommending the more I think about it. Sure, Lincoln himself may or may not have been as epic a figure as the movie makes him out to be (dude is like a god in this picture), but the political intrigue and heist-like nature of the vote makes for good cinema. Now if only it didn’t feel quite so awkward to have all these great white men saving black men…
The Amazing Race – Watched Abby and Ryan get eliminated from their race in Amsterdam. That was brutal to see them so badly screwed over by flight issues, but they were pretty unpleasant, so…Having enemies makes for good reality tv, right? Now what do we have…I also watched the first three episodes of the first season. Holy cow are there plenty of highly unlikeable folks in that…
New Girl – Sure seems like a lot of shows are addressing the late pregnancy thing. I wonder why that’s all in the zeitgeist right now…or maybe I’m just of an age where I notice it more?
Parks and Recreation – The sight gag with the balloon Leslie and Ben was brilliant. I really love Eagleton episodes.
The League – Not the most exciting or adventurous episode, but I definitely dug the way the guy in the wheelchair was obsessed with his legs.
Homeland – Didn’t see last night’s, but the one where they took down the terrorist cell at the cafe had me thinking that the show was playing its hand too early. I can’t even imagine what the next three episodes will bring for the show, especially now that they’ve revealed that the CIA’s end goal is to murder Brody once his usefulness is up.
The Mindy Project – I really do think this show is on the upswing. Mindy Kaling is probably the funniest person on screen most of the time and the Morgan and Danny characters are also very funny. The rest of the cast is still growing on me.
Glee – I found myself saying (multiple times, mind you), “This is the dumbest shit I’ve ever seen” during the past two week’s episodes. Guys, “Gangnam Style” is played out and, worse, Marley’s got to be some kind of idiot to think that her body is getting bigger in the span of days. It’s dumb and it feels like a setup for all those “very special” episodes Ryan Murphy loves to do on Glee. NTSF:SD:SUV:: – Alan Tudyk, Alison Brie, and Jake Johnson? Fantastic two episodes. I loved ’em.
Childrens Hospital – Wow, I really didn’t remember the 28 Days Later amnesia spoof. My memory of this show is apparently very vague.
How I Met Your Mother – I dug the dance sequence in the S7 opener. Glad Netflix finally has it.
Been listening to a lot of Channel Orange. “Bad Religion” is one of my favorite tracks
Frank Ocean’s pretty good. Check him out.
The Revolution Was Televised – Alan Sepinwall’s book on the way that tv’s been changing and evolving has been pretty interesting so far. I’m still in the proto-stages where he talks about the precursor shows and the first real new drama, Oz. Seems very cool.
A Confederacy of Dunces – Ignatius is growing on me. I dig the way that he’s sabotaging Levy Pants.
Nintendo Land – Played for hours at Ian/Morghan’s place. Hadn’t realized that the coop games require Wii Motion Plus, but I forgot my adapters. The other games were super fun though. Definitely a great multi game. Hopefully I get to play some with Eric and Danielle too, but there’s always Christmas.
Donkey Kong Country Returns – I don’t think it’s as good as the old SNES games, but it’s got some nostalgic music and I’ll keep checking it out.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown – Got back into the recording game. Lots of fun even though my rust caused some terrible performance.
FTL: Faster Than Light – I nearly killed David with laughter over my terrible Mantis B gameplay. Lots of fun.
New Super Mario Bros. U – Acorn Plains was too easy and they sure seem to distribute a ton of item blocks, but I’ve been having lots of fun playing with Min. We’ve quickly gotten back into our wii habits. Lots of fun.
Sleeping Dogs – I didn’t realize that my files had been corrupted, but that provided about an hour of frustration until I tried that and realized I had to redownload files. So far it seems pretty cool. Can’t wait to see how the story develops.
Team Fortress 2 – Got rolled in a few rounds with Lee. Lots of fun, but I was doing pretty poorly.
The Old Republic – Started working on my Sith Warrior because I was thinking the Vette relationship would be neat. Locking quick bars for F2P for non-subscribers is weak, by the way. Bad move, guys.
To the Moon – A quick four hour game/interactive fiction. I was led to believe that it was more incredible than it was, but perhaps that’s just in the pre-Walking Dead world of games. The story is good, mind you, and quite funny in places, but it’s not going to win any awards or terribly surprise you. Not a terrible way to spend four hours, but I wouldn’t expect anything mind-blowing.
This bag houses my new Wii U. It also has a picture of YOSHI OMG!
Guys, I got a Wii U in NY this weekend. I know what you’re thinking, stupid gimmick system, right? Maybe, but I don’t feel like it is yet. I’m having tons of fun with it so far, just gotta sink more time into the multiplayer with friends this weekend.
Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva – Not gonna win any awards, but it was inoffensive and funny in some pretty ridiculous ways. Min and I had fun watching it.
The Mindy Project – A lot of people give this show grief, but I find Mindy consistently funny and pretty sharply funny most of the time. She’s still got that awkward funny down pat too. The bit with Ed Helms was cringe-worthy.
Childrens Hospital – Newsreaders episodes tend to be pretty funny, but this one didn’t have the same oomph as last season’s with all the spinoffs.
Homeland – Marathon catch-up and, holy cow, what’s going on?! Can’t wait to see the reunion with Abu Nazir, but the Gettysburg shootout seemed way implausible.
New Girl – I was not expecting a Parent Trap. Pretty strong episode what with all the Nick hitting on Jess’ mom thing. Guess what, guys? Winston still does nothing.
Happy Endings – The Native American trials thing with Dave? Uncontrollable laughter. Holy cow I loved it.
Glee – I like Grease so I didn’t mind this at all. Wasn’t amazing, but it wasn’t offensively bad either.
Lot of Black Friday sales up, but here’s one for the hearts of my readers.
It makes my heart swell even though I’m not literally from Latin America. It’s a beautiful song.
A Confederacy of Dunces – Slow progress. Still under 100 pages.
The Walking Dead – What a gut punch. Holy cow. I was so glad I played the finale alone because I was on the verge of tears the whole time. Strong, strong game of the year contender for me.
Dark Souls – Finally put some time into this sucker. Hey, it’s pretty awesome. I was feeling really stressed about every decision and expecting death around every corner, but that’s the real joy of the game. My other favorite thing was how sparse everything was. I was just in a place and exploring it was up to me. No quest markers, no waypoints, just loneliness and wandering. In Skyrim that’s boring because it’s a boring place and the combat isn’t fun. In Dark Souls I’m just on edge and tense and confused and I like it.
New Super Mario Bros. U – I tried out the boost mode while Min and Lee played the game. Trying to save folks (and/or impede them) is way cooler than I thought it would be. Can’t wait to mess with them some more.
Nintendo Land – Here’s one that I thought would be an unfun mess. So far I tried the F-Zero, Donkey Kong, Yoshi, and Ninja games. The only one I didn’t really care for was the Ninja one, but that’s just because I don’t love light gun shooters. Donkey Kong was, by far, my favorite. I loved the little ghosts for the times. Wasn’t expecting that at all. Super fun and super cool. Can’t wait to try the asynchronous multiplayer games with people since I forgot to take wiimotes to NY with me.
I’m gonna wreck it! (Picture courtesy: Italia Film Middle East)
Had me a long weekend and I managed to get back into the movie mood. Too bad none of them were quite as good as I was hoping.
Wreck-It Ralph – Not as good as I thought it would be. I mean, it’s still a decent caliber movie, but it doesn’t soar to the heights of, say, WALL-E. I felt like the video game worlds they invented ultimately weren’t that interesting, but it was otherwise pretty good.
Flight – More about alcoholism and addiction than I thought it would be. I also found the decision to come clean at the end to not make sense. I didn’t think he would have felt guilty enough or ready to admit his problem based on the entire movie before it.
Taken – For how much the internet just adores this movie I thought it would be much better than it is. Just kind of goes and then it’s done. Not a terrible way to spend 90 minutes, but it’s not gonna warrant a second viewing from me.
Casino Royale – Preparing for Skyfall by watching my favorite Bond movie…in Spanish! I don’t like the dub voices, but I like some of the translations.
New Girl – I found the punch to the face and the facepalming hilarious. Nick continues to knock it out of the park this season and, like I say every week, this show has no idea what to do with Winston.
The Mindy Project – I like this show more than a lot of the critics do. Sure, it’s not blowing the socks off of network comedies, but it’s sharp and witty and I love Mindy Kaling’s delivery.
Key & Peele – Some great sketches in the pair of episodes I watched, but the most recent one was a little weak with its material. That Michael Jackson one was fantastic.
The League – I really liked the episode where Ruxin did poorly on the Wonderlic and started acting dumb for the rest of the episode.
Childrens Hospital – It’s really hard to compare episodes to A Year in the Life, but I do love me some Nick Offerman as Chance Briggs.
NTSF:SD:SUV:: – The infomercial was pretty funny, if not a little predictable.
Saturday Night Live – The Anne Hathaway sketches started out pretty weak, but then they really picked up near the end. That Homeland sketch was brilliant.
The Amazing Race – Can’t believe that a team stole money from another team (essentially) and that the same team managed to lose their passports. To be continueds are unsatisfying, but I’m so hooked for next week!
Happy Endings – Finished my catchup of S2. Wore me out a little, but ABC knew that it might so they didn’t air one this past week. Thanks, guys!
Community – Watched “Remedial Chaos Theory” again with Min. Brilliant and classic episode. ROXANNE!
Parks and Recreation – I’m getting a little tired of the endless repeat of Chris Traeger stories. Come up with something new, writers!
The Daily Show – Long string of episodes to try and get current. I’m still prior to the third debate and the election. Just gotta keep plugging away.
Cowboy Bebop – Just a few dinnertime episodes with Min. Managed to not sing along with “Tank!” once. I’m super proud of myself.
The Thick of It – Not having subtitles available makes this…tough to watch on top of the sometimes impenetrable British political system, but it’s usually very acerbic and very funny and very profane.
EDIT: Glee – Forgot about this one. Wow, this show is…mostly not good. They really tried to rewrite history by claiming that Finn was some kind of super motivator. I don’t buy it. He’s doofy and kind of dumb…kind of like Mr. Shue! I find that I only care for Marley when she’s singing (she looks so happy and smiley when she does), but the rest of the new kids are just noise.
Still loving this Geko Jones track that I rediscovered:
And also listening to lots of Stevie Wonder:
A Confederacy of Dunces – Got a few pages in here and there. Ignatius’ character has become a real archetype for the nerdy, put upon character of the modern sitcom. The dude who thinks that the rest of the world is going to hell, but not him.
Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box – Very little game time in lieu of tv and pokemon.
Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask – Daily Puzzles! Love just popping in to solve them here and there.
Pokemon White Version 2 – Lost my Nuzlocke challenge against Colriss on the Plasma Cruiser. Built up a new team of six and I’m at Victory Road now.
Hotline Miami – This game is just violent, fast, and fun. If you watch my youtube page, there should be some new episodes of Dan Plays starting tonight.
FTL: Faster Than Light – Got some really fun episodes recorded while unlocking a bunch of new ships. Can’t wait to start trying them out!
XCOM: Enemy Unknown – After a three week hiatus to let my backlog catch up (not quite caught up still), I finally jumped back in because David and Min were playing Ironman Classic games of their own. So epic and so fun and I filmed an exciting episode out of it. Very cool and very fun.
I love a capella so there was zero chance I wouldn’t see this (Photo courtesy lissamabcd)
Thanks to the long weekend this is posting a little later than usual. I also jammed a ton of TV in this week thanks to all that extra time.
The Guard – Irish movie about an Irish policeman who is one of those curmudgeonly old man types. Funny, but ultimately not that substantive. Worth seeing if you’ve got a free afternoon.
Pitch Perfect – I loved most of the music in this movie and I always enjoy Anna Kendrick on the silver screen. Mostly I found myself impressed by how well she inhabited her role. The other two movies I saw her in, Up in the Air and 50/50, had her in a much more professional, trying to be respected role. Here she’s aged back to 18 and everything about her performance reflects that. Good, fun stuff. Go see it.
SNL Weekend Update Thursday – Kind of unnecessary. Barely any politics either.
Up All Night – Not digging the new setup. The new brother character is just not that interesting. I did laugh at the trapeze part in the most recent episode.
Glee – Knocking Tremé is not cool. “Celebrity Skin” not that good. The election episode was so boring. The breakup episode, on the other hand, had a lot more emotion and a lot more going for it. Dug it a lot more.
NTSF::SD:SUV: – The time slide episode was so good that everything afterwards has been a bit disappointing. The SDCC episode was meh as was the Dragon Shumway redux.
Childrens Hospital – Ladies Night! Man, Lake Bell is hot. This show is consistently hilarious/awesome.
Homeland – Danes seemed off early in the episode, but that’s probably intentional since her character is supposed to be off her rocker. Loved the way that Damian Lewis is playing this. As for the plot, this season is shaping up to be very cool. Liked the way they pulled Danes back in and I liked the father/daughter bonding over Islam.
Tremé – The included murder mystery doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the show, but everything else is going well. Nice and slow-paced.
Sherlock – That Reichenbach Falls episode was SO GOOD! I wonder if Moriarty is actually dead (Sherlock isn’t!). Hard to see where the next series goes from here, but that was astounding. It didn’t have the same pounding pressure as Moriarty’s time-limits from last series, but it was still quite tense and fun. Loved the part where Moriarty was pretending to be an actor.
Key & Peele – Not as good as the season premiere, but I really enjoyed that dubstep sketch. Also dug the Luther sketch and the concept of the guy who had to follow MLK’s speech was funny, but it wasn’t executed particularly well.
The Mindy Project – You know what? This show is a lot funnier than some critics are giving it credit. Mindy Kaling has a really sneaky sense of appalling humor that really works. I think this is my favorite new show I’ve seen (so far).
Four Weddings – Sometimes your girlfriend watches stuff that you don’t want to.
Giuliana and Bill – See above…The worst part here is that she thinks this show is dumb too! There just wasn’t anything else on worth watching.
Halloween Wars – Another Food network thing. This has got the Cupcake Wars crew, but they’re carving pumpkins and making Halloween scenes. It’s ok.
How I Met Your Mother – Caught the first two episodes of the season. I’m still kind of bummed that Victoria isn’t the mother. She was the original plan if the show had been canceled. I like her.
30 for 30 – “Broke” wasn’t as good as the other documentary I saw, but I still dug it. This series is worth checking out.
The Daily Show – I’m glad that Stewart went and eviscerated Obama for his debate performance because it was shameful. Not a bad week of episodes.
Parks & Recreation – Two words: Lucy Lawless. Please and thank you.
Saturday Night Live – A lot of bad sketches in this episode, but I did like the lesser known Bond girls one. Daniel Craig can do better? Was it the material?
The Pokemon Reorchestrated project is coming out with fully licensed reorchestrations of Pokemon game music. Pretty cool stuff, if you ask me.
After the Quake – Murakami really likes writing about Jehovah’s Witnesses. I really enjoyed “All God’s Children Can Dance”
New Super Mario Bros. 2 – I was wrong. There are way more hidden worlds than I realized and they’re pretty fun. Liking this game even more.
Theatrhythm Final Fantasy – I technically “beat” the game, but there’s tons more content to enjoy.
Professor Layton and the Last Specter – This series reminds me of Detective Conan. One of the puzzles really stumped me. I’m dumber than I thought I was, haha.
Pokemon White – Wanted to catch the last few legendaries I was dilly-dallying on. Got that done before 2 arrived.
Pokemon White Version 2 – The package here has gotten so much sharper from year to year, but the nearly identical mechanics keeps a lot of people away. I’m playing with a Nuzlocke Challenge: Defeated pokemon must be permanently retired, you can only catch the first pokemon you see in an area, and, one of my rules, you must use pots to heal. Only one pokemon center visit per town. So far I’ve lost a Patrat permanently in my gym battle with Roxie. Tragic stuff.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown – Just started it this morning. Played two missions. Loving it! Look for a Dan Plays series to start soon.
Ron Swanson and friends are back! (Photo by andyrama)
Not everything’s back yet, but TV! It’s back!
Cabin in the Woods – Watched about 20 mins while Scarlett was napping. I wonder what Danielle’s gonna end up thinking of the movie. I’m a huge fan. Love Fran Kranz
The Daily Show – The Romney gaffe-fest made for some interesting commentary this week. Love the bit about how being Latino would make everything easier. Yeah, try being a minority for real Romney…
Fashion Police – Thought it would be milder because it was being filmed in front of a live audience in NYC, but they didn’t hold back as much as I thought. Still happy to not have to see Giuliana Rancic. She’s a weak link on this show.
Project Runway – Designing for the Rockettes seems tough. Turns out I was right because everyone was really shitty at it. The pandering, “NY is Awesome!” design won because, duh, haven’t you ever seen this kind of thing before? How was Christopher the only one to think of that?
NTSF:SD:SUV – Robots! Bob Odenkirk! Decent ep.
Childrens Hospital – British episode! Absolutely brilliant. I’d watch that version every week too. Great writing.
SNL Weekend Update Thursday – It’s election season. Can’t pass up SNL mocking the election.
Up All Night – Lot of changes, wow. No more Ava show, new supporting character (Reagan’s kid brother), no more Missy (sad, but she belongs on the broader UAN from last year), new film stock or something (it looked really different), and a new direction for Chris. Talk about a massive retool. The show is, for all intents and purposes, a completely new animal. I’m not sure if this will benefit it…
Parks & Recreation – Loved all the DC stuff. Didn’t care so much for the Pawnee BBQ stuff. I could watch Aubrey Plaza be Aubrey Plaza all day long.
Glee – Is this season less bad than last year? I think it is so far. Will it remain so? Not sure…By the way, I bet Rachel hooks up with what’s-his-face next episode and Finn returns in E4.
SNL – Hypnotist sketch was hilarious! Liked Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s monologue too. The cold open and the Finer Things sketches left me a little cold.
Sherlock – When your series are only three episodes long, do you have to spend so much time reminding everyone of all the dynamics and situations? I love that these are little Sherlock movies since they’re 1.5 hrs long. If you took a shot every time Irene Adler said something along the lines of, “I know what they like,” you’d be dead by the midpoint…That character is just a little too much. Still, I found myself fascinated with the Holmes brother relationship and I rather enjoyed the first episode.
New Oneups disc. The PvZ track is solid
<a href="http://theoneups.bandcamp.com/album/intergalactic-continuum">Intergalactic Continuum by The OneUps</a>
Also this more experimental album by Sweet Valley is a rather fantastic/challenging listen:
<a href="http://sweetvalley.bandcamp.com/album/eternal-champ">Eternal Champ by Sweet Valley</a>
This week. For real. I’ve got a flight and everything.
FTL: Faster Than Light – Filmed a nearly two-hour episode on Sunday. Look forward to it by the end of the week. Still love this game. Can’t wait to try some new ships.
Mark of the Ninja – Still working on that S-Rank. It’s just perfunctory playing now. So close, about two levels left.
Borderlands 2 – It’s like Borderlands, but more. I like it, but it’s lonely without Min and Lee.
Torchlight 2 – Ok, to be completely honest, I didn’t actually play this. I just tried to create an account for an hour while chatting with Min and his cousin. That was arguably more fun.
Devil Survivor 2 – TRPGs get bogged down when you get stuck on an encounter. DS2 has a rather conventional (for SMT games) anti-grinding mechanic, so I’m at an impasse. I’ll break through on the flight, I bet.
Theatrhythm Final Fantasy – Everything I wanted it to be (and more!). Play with headphones because the music is incredible. I’ve been putting off getting to FF VI because I love that music so much.
Kirby’s Dream Collection (Kirby Super Star) – One of the best SNES memories that I’ve got is playing Kirby Super Star with David. This game still holds up. Min and I beat Spring Breeze and Dynablade, but I’m going all the way, man. Gonna get to the Boss Rush.
New Super Mario Bros. 2 – Why does everyone hate on this game so much? It’s more Mario. That’s fun, guys. Remember what fun was like? It’s playing Super Mario Bros.
The kind of result your can expect if you join my crew (Photo by hyperion327)
It was a really video game-y week with (nearly) finishing Mark of the Ninja and the Friday launch of FTL: Faster Than Light and I don’t think it’ll get any less video game-y with Borderlands 2 coming out tomorrow. I’m actually glad FTL didn’t come out until Friday because I would have gotten nothing done otherwise…
The Words – The movie tries to be poignant and interesting as it examines the consequences of decisions that none of the characters suffer very much for making. In fact, the framing device is clumsy and not nearly explored enough so no one cares that Quaid was really Cooper. No one understands why Olivia Wilde is so obsessed with Quaid either. Additionally, it suffers from that problem where this book, The Words, is supposedly an excellent piece of fiction, but the narration which is presumably prose coming straight out of the book is stunted, weak, and unimpressive.
Glee – Tiffany and I both agree that the new cast was just what this show needed to reinvigorate it. The new Puckerman is a really stupid conceit…I mean, I turned to Tiffany and said, “This guy is totally Puckerman” and then…SPOILER ALERT! He’s his half brother. They don’t reject any ideas in the Glee writer’s room, do they? Oh, the lunch lady stuff was dumb too.
Keeping Up With the Kardashians – I don’t want to talk about it…
Misc. HGTV Shows – Neat houses on display, but the renovations seem to cost way too much for any of them to be feasible.
Cupcake Wars – MLS Trophy thing. The green tea cupcake looked neat.
<a href="http://benprunty.bandcamp.com/album/ftl">FTL by Ben Prunty Music</a>
Ben Prunty’s soundtrack for FTL is pretty good. Check it out if you like synth-y, sci-fi space music.
Heathen yet again…
Mark of the Ninja – Almost done S-Ranking this game. Just need to finish it on NG+, but FTL is so much fun and Borderlands 2 comes out Tuesday…Maybe I’ll finish it while a Dan Plays episode is rendering.
FTL: Faster Than Light – A game with the perfect structure for recording and playing. I’m really loving the whole LP thing and this game is solid. Go get it at their site for DRM-free versions on every platform.
So sick of these trucks, but I've got my own move to think about soon... (Photo courtesy jojothree)
Every joint and muscle in my body is stiff, but I least I put in a nice, hard, honest day’s work, right? …RIGHT?!
Not this week. Sorry, folks.
Community – Who knows what the post-Dan Harmon era of Community will bring, but I thoroughly enjoyed his last season. A lot of experimentation and ambitious stories and episodes. I still love Community and I can’t wait to see it come back in the fall.
Glee – Skipped like three episodes and watched the finale with Tiffany. I hope we see less of the current seniors, but, then again, the rest of the cast is pretty nondescript/boring. Decent songs on the finale, but nothing mind blowing.
Mad Men – I can’t believe I let Diablo delay my Mad Men experience. The past two episodes (not counting the most current) were all fantastic and so great to watch. I really love this show. Too bad it’s almost done for the season!
Girls – This show is actually getting better and better as it progresses, which is quite the compliment since it started off so strong already. I’m quite fond of it.
Veep – Still my favorite comedy on television right now. Just amazingly hilarious.
Hannibal Buress – Got his standup album from last week, Animal Furnace. Dude is funny. Go check his stuff out.
Moe Berg: Athlete, Scholar, Spy – I love the concept of a gentle giant-type ballplayer. The fact that he was such an intellectual is astounding.
Diablo III – What else were you expecting? Still playing and still digging D3, especially when I have my brother or another friend to join in. Lost my first Hardcore character this weekend. May you rest in peace, Min the Barbarian.
