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Season 5, y'all! (Photo courtesy Roman Skrada)
Mad Men is BACK…but shhhh! I haven’t seen the premiere yet. Trying to finish S4 first and I’ve got about three episodes to burn through. I’ll get it tonight. Don’t worry.
Movies
Was supposed to watch one, but…didn’t get around to it.
TV
Persona 4: The Animation – This show continues to be awesome. The Nanako stuff was really emotionally tough to watch, wow.
Archer – Oh man, the space stuff was so great. This show is so zany and awesome.
New Girl – I haven’t been able to enjoy this show as much since I started watching Happy Endings. That show just seems to do the same thing a lot better.
Fashion Police – My girlfriend makes me watch this. It was great when it was a half hour…now it’s always an hour long. At least Joan Rivers is kind of funny.
Community – Back to weird for Community. The impersonator stuff was hilariously odd. I wonder what they’re setting up with all the Dark Abed and Chang stuff.
Happy Endings – This week’s episode was weaker, but I went through the whole series with Min again. Can’t wait to catch the first half of S2 because the show is a lot better in S2. Not that it was bad in S1, but they’re a lot crazier and funnier in S2.
Justified – the old lady with the milkshake was awesome. The animosity toward the outsiders is pretty amazing. The standoff between Quarles and Raylan was great. Loved when the bartender got into it too.
Up All Night – The Chris on the show thing was pretty obvious, but it had its funny moments.
Mad Men – S4 was pretty great, wasn’t it? Just saw “The Beautiful Girls”. An astounding episode. The scene in “The Summer Man” where Joan tells off the men with respect to Vietnam gives me chills every time.
Music
La Vida Boheme – Check it out.
Books
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – If I don’t finish this book this week I’m burning it.
Video Games
Mass Effect 3 – Still enjoying the multiplayer, but I want to unlock some Krogans and Asari already!
New Super Mario Bros. Wii – Still pretty brilliant. The Yoshi level was fun since Min and I were antagonizing each other a bit.
Super Street Fighter IV – Min and I fought for a long while. Lots of fun playing one of the sharpest fighting games out there. Reminded me how out of practice I was.
I appreciate Min's patience playing RHF with me all weekend. We did get some great laughs out of it, particularly during this game, Ringside. (Photo courtesy Wiiloveit.com Images)
Guess what, guys? I like Rhythm Heaven Fever. It’s totally the best thing out there. I only wish I had more restraint so that I wouldn’t be done with it already!
Hanna – A violent, modern fairy tale. Hanna was a really interesting movie that I thought had to be directed by a continental European. I give myself partial credit since the director was British. A lot of neat imagery and very stylized storytelling.
The Walking Dead – I’m a little behind the curve (I always am with TWD since it airs on Sunday and I usually don’t watch it until Monday or Tuesday, but that scene in “Nebraska” in the bar with the two other survivors was chilling and awesome. Best scene the show has done yet.
Portlandia – Only saw the Mixology episode, but it was pretty funny. The best bit was the way that Fred and Andy Sandberg interacted. I also dug the diner scene.
New Girl – “Why do you have so many condoms?!” Pretty funny episode of New Girl. It still feels like a real work in progress as they try and iron out all the kinks and get it to a consistent place.
Parks and Recreation – Adam Scott gets this week’s Dan Mesa Award for Acting Excellence for all the background reaction shots every time a cop passed by. Great acting.
Archer – I was really excited for this episode, but it wasn’t as good as it could have been. It didn’t really pick up until the second half when the rest of the cast showed up. The fake accents were hilarious.
Life’s Too Short – Oh god, that Liam Neeson bit was brilliant. On the flipside, I’m not sure how I feel about Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant writing alternate versions of themselves, but only when they’re praising themselves. The whole “Why can Ricky do it?” thing was the only eye-rolling part of the episode. Otherwise I like them as openly hating Warwick Davis. Great debut, Min and I were rolling with laughter.
Persona 4: The Animation – Speaking of rolling with laughter, how about that Nanako and Dojima episode where she claimed he didn’t love her? Nanako is one of the saddest/most tragic characters in Persona history, and that’s saying something. The next episode about the Cultural Fair was super hilarious. I think they go to the Amagi inn next week, so we should have even more laughs.
Breaking Bad – For some reason the pro/con list about whether to murder a man was hilarious to me. Despite the comedy/drama line, I think it’s fair to compare this to Weeds. It’s interesting how Weeds never dealt with the decision to become a drug dealer at all. Breaking Bad is (almost) agonizingly slow at deciding whether or not Walter wants to cook meth. I mean, it’s being very interesting about it, so I can’t complain too much. It made sense for a man with a death wish to try and make some cash that way, but now that he’s supposed to start treatment…will the money be enough to motivate him? (Of course it will)
I spent this week listening to The Weeknd again. You should too.
EDIT: Oh, I also watched the Grammys. They were cool.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – I’m starting to worry that this is going to become a prominent tag on my cloud if I don’t finish it soon. It’s picking up in pace, so I’m reading it a little faster.
Saints Row: The Third – Beat it. What a wild and awesome game. Loads of good times. I heartily recommend it to everyone.
Rhythm Heaven Fever – AH! SO AWESOME! AHHHHH! Seriously though, this game is amazing. The games are all much better than the DS ones, somehow, and the music is generally pretty solid too. I was surprised how much I liked the book cheerleaders one. When that gets complicated it’s fun. Gotta go back and master the tap dancers too, I like those guys and I like when they shoot confetti.
The Old Republic – Been a while, but I got to log back in for my alt and to raid. Min and I are being held back by the lack of a legacy system announcement. We really need to know since we have so many alts!
Final Fantasy XIII-2 – There will be a first impressions post later, but I do actually like it even though it has a bad case of the anime bullshits.
26! (Photo courtesy DJOtaku)
Everything’s all creaky and sore and old, but just because I’m 26 and old doesn’t mean you guys don’t get to find out what I’ve been doing.
Drive – Finally got around to catching this movie. Min was accurate in calling it more of an art movie than an action movie. Ryan Gosling’s pure rage and “coolness” bordered on psychopathic and I actually sympathized with Albert Brooks’ villain character. This movie is not for the faint of stomach. Lots of brutal violence. Has an 80s ambiance too that’s reinforced by the synth-heavy (and awesome) chillwave soundtrack
Moneyball – David got me this (THANKS DAVID!) and I love it. Started watching it because Min had never seen it and Tiffany needed something to help her fall asleep. Min liked it and it helped Tiffany fall asleep, which is great because otherwise she might have noticed me start to tear up. Sports movies are the best/worst. They really get me.
Homeland – How I managed to put off watching the last three episodes of this season until last week is baffling. This show is the best new thing to come out this year. Great, tense drama. Amazing show.
Samurai Champloo – The last fun episodes before the finale are about as bizarre as television gets. Weird space zombies, bizarre baseball episodes. This show really just throws everything serious out the window before its end. I hope the last three episodes are cool. I’ll miss this show. It’s been a good journey.
Justified – Everyone and everything in this show is so badass and awesome. I love it. Can’t wait to see more gunslinging.
New Girl – The whole Jess/Julia contrast is really interesting. I really like Lizzy Caplan. Hopefully the show doesn’t just get rid of her. The cumrudgeon in her personality contrasts quite nicely with Deschanell.
Glee – If there were ever an artist that could match the awesomeness levels of the Madonna episode, Michael Jackson would be it…except he wasn’t. Meh storytelling combined with odd song selection (“Scream” with Artie as MJ and Mike Chang as Janet? What?) made for a stronger episode than usual, but not up to par with what the King of Pop deserves.
Persona 4: The Animation – I wish I hadn’t waited so long to see these episodes. The hilarity of Yu Narukami and the Persona 4 series is amazing. This show does a great job of capturing the events of P4.
Parks and Recreation – One of my favorite episodes of the season. Oren is always hilarious as were all the weird suitors they chose for Ann. The Ron Swanson runner where he was loving the scavenger hunt was amazing. Perfectly acted by Nick Offerman.
Archer – So many callbacks to other episodes! Archer continues to have an exceptionally strong third season. I was surprised at how great it was.
Up All Night – The starfuckers line was the best of the episode. Show is finding its legs, for sure. I’m happy with it.
Rodrigo y Gabriela – Their new CD, Area 52, is amazing. Check it out if you can. It’s their old stuff, but with a full Cuban orchestra thrown in for good measure. Fun stuff.
Nope
The Old Republic – Finding time to play alts with Min has really slowed me down. We are making great raid progress though. On to Hard Modes!
Cave Story + – When I defeat you, Monster X, you will know my wrath. I hate you so much.
Ghost Trick – Getting close to the end and the puzzles are only getting more and more devious. Gotta figure out how to save this dude’s life!
EDIT: Rayman: Origins – Totally forgot that Min and I beat the prestige level. So awesome. Great game.
Movies are back! (Photo courtesy adonismens)
My brief movie vacation wasn’t willingly imposed, guys. I was just waiting for Netflix to finally send one of the movies at the top of my queue to me. Let’s see if they can keep this up…
Our Idiot Brother – Paul Rudd was surprisingly good in this. This movie is not laugh out loud funny, but it’s pretty great in a low key laughs kind of way. Rudd’s three sisters, Emily Mortimer, Zooey Deschanel, and Elizabeth Banks, all play troubled/damaged women who could all use a little folksy advice from their too trusting, semi-naive brother. It’s better than it sounds plus it features Rashida Jones in dorky glasses playing a lesbian in a relationship with Zooey Deschanel. Pretty good stuff! Only nitpick is that Emily Mortimer’s American accent is a little thin. It wouldn’t make sense for her to be English, but it wasn’t as natural as it could be.
Glee – Sectionals! I like that music gets most of the focus for this episode because that’s the only good part about Glee right now. At least we’re done with all of the storylines going into the Christmas episode and the rest of the season in January/February
New Girl – Would this show be half as funny without Schmidt? Gotta admit, I don’t love the stupid way Jess acts around sex. She’s not coming off as “adorkable” (shoot me for typing that), she’s coming off as idiotic.
Up All Night – Best line: “Ga-goosh? Oh, I’m sorry, is that a penis sound?” It may not be the best show on TV or the funniest, but it’s got solid construction and the principals make me laugh when they interact with each other. Sounds like what you want from a comedy, right?
Community – Great skewering of Glee. I mean, the ridiculous focus on regionals? Brilliant. Mr. Rad? HILARIOUS. The best number of the night for sheer ridiculousness was the Annie regressive sexpot role. Just hilarious.
Parks and Recreation – Great episode, but it was pretty unfocused. Upon second watching I actually dug that about it even more. The marshmallow Ron Swanson was the best.
Persona 4: The Animation – Rise and Teddy persona episodes! Not as hilarious as the camping or Kanji episodes, but still good. I guess next week is the DQ homage dungeon, but I wish they’d slow down a bit and do some more social link stuff. Childrens Hospital – Party Down AND the return of Dr. Jewy McJewJew! Why isn’t Lizzy Caplan in more things?
So much stupid dubstep this week! If it didn’t have wobble bass I didn’t want to listen to it for the start of the week. I spent the weekend listening to Janelle Monáe and The Root’s new album, Undun.
Undun is quite good and Amazon was selling it for super cheap. Unfortunately it’s a little on the short side, but it’s still worth the money.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (AKA Men Who Hate Women) – I started this book like a year ago. I pick it up and read a few pages here or there. The Swedish movie was good enough and close enough that I feel like I got the gist of it already, which makes this read a slog because the writing is kind of dull. Dunno if I’ll finish it this year, haha. I’ll definitely see the new movie when it comes out, though.
Expect this section to dwindle to OMG THE OLD REPUBLIC! next week because that’ll probably be all I do.
The Binding of Isaac – All I’ve got left to do is beat Sheol game as ??? (and then a few no damage runs that will be near impossible). It’s been a lot of fun and I think this game is spectacular. I don’t think we’ll be getting any more add-ons, but man was it the best $5 I’ve spent in a while.
Civilization V – This game is the most addictive and awesome games out there. I played about 17 hours of it this weekend and I’ve got 40 turns to finish before tomorrow (assuming I get into the early access for TOR tomorrow). Gonna be a long night, folks!
Happy Birthday Eric! (Photo courtesy djotaku)
It’s my brother’s birthday today so let’s celebrate by telling you everything I’ve been up to this past week. I didn’t say it would be a good celebration, guys.
No movies again! I want to get The Muppets in soon. Maybe when I go home for Christmas.
Samurai Champloo – Clip episodes (except for the Community one) are tremendously unsatisfying. The show has entered its “serious about our protagonists backstories” phase. I’m cool with it so far so long as I can keep listening to that ending theme, “Shiki no Uta”.
Chrono Trigger Endurance Run – Giant Bomb has made me a very happy man by returning to the ER. So far Ryan and Patrick have made some hilarious errors, but they’re going strong in the future.
Childrens Hospital – Night Shift was a meh episode. The stuff with the porno was pretty funny. The one about Chet was much funnier.
The Walking Dead – Heavy episode, but really good. I liked it. It’s a good thing that Shane is still around.
Homeland – Poor Dan. Witnessing shit is pretty dangerous. Don’t witness shit.
New Girl – Best line of the night: “Even if they sound like a guy made of bells…falling down stairs…that are also made of bells.” How great is Max Greenfield as Schmidt on this show? Did they know he would be the best part of the show when they cast it, because he totally is.
Glee – That was pretty shitty the way Puck told off Quinn. The story this episode was pretty terrible and not too fun. Musical numbers didn’t really make up for it. This show is so uneven.
The Wire – Got one episode in season 1 left. I’d forgotten about a few of the tiny plot points in this first season that get resolved all the way in S4 or S5.
EDIT: Persona 4: The Animation – The school camping trip episode was AWESOME. Love those setpiece moments in the game and they translate well to the anime. Mixing in the Konishi story was smart too. Can’t wait for the true craziness of Rise’s dungeon to start next episode. Teddy’s insanity is coming too, guys!
So much wobble bass!
So little reading!
The Binding of Isaac – Almost died on the first level with ???. He’s tough, but I did finally beat It Lives… with him. Started beating Sheol now. Got it done with Isaac, Maggie, and Cain, but things will be getting harder now. Fetus in a Jar and Brimstone are vital for beating Lucifer.
The Old Republic – Got in a few hours in the beta before they closed it down on Monday. My mind is consumed with excitement for my Sith Inquisitor come ~15 Dec. Can’t wait!
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword – Beat the second temple and moved out to the desert. The time travel thing is suuuuper cool. I love it.
Gears of War 3 – Finally got that four-player achievement. All I was missing was the prologue chapter, but that’s done now!
Civilization V – This game consumes your life. It’s ridiculous. Started a new game yesterday at 2200 and, in what felt like an hour, it was 0240 when I quit this morning. Love this game.
The more things change the more things stay the same.
This was a really video game and TV heavy weekend. Two big “Sky” games in Skyrim and Skyward Sword hit and I put in pretty good time with both.
Wow, I’m surprised I didn’t get one in this week again.
Fringe – My momentum has slowed somewhat on the show thanks to all the new games, but it’s still lots of stupid fun.
Samurai Champloo – Funny episode about westerners being accepted in Japan. They seemed to imply that they might be there already, but are they really? The gay jokes were also a little too much, but the beat boxing was anachronistic and awesome.
Homeland – Suuuuper tense. We’re only in episode 10 and they already showed us who the terrorist is. Where do we go for the last three eps? Will it just turn into 24?
The Walking Dead – Line of the night: “You see eleven condoms, I see eleven minutes of my life I’m never getting back.” I like Maggie and Glenn and Daryl. They’re really killing Andrea with her subplots this season, but I still like her as a character too.
Glee – Mash-ups! This is usually my favorite part of the season. A few notes:
– Singing a love song with your student’s mom is kind of weird. – “You look skinny like all the crops failed on your family’s farm.” How great is it that 1920s-era Irish jokes are apparently insults in Glee? – Dodgeball musical number…hilarious. This is what people point at when they say Glee is lame, but I dug it. Too bad they had that anti-dodgeball thing at the end. I didn’t play dodgeball in high school, but I loved it in elementary school. Tons of fun. – I like the costuming in the Hall & Oates number. Those mustaches! – Best line from Todd VanDerWerff’s The AV Club recap: “If the next week on is any indication, everybody’s going to learn about how Santana feels hurt by being outed by singing “I Kissed A Girl.” The model of restraint, this show.” – David especially likes to rib me about liking this show, but that Adele mash-up at the end (not sure how long this Hulu video will stick around, but it’s still here now) was everything great about this show. Killer number mixed in with all the emotions and feelings of the episode (this isn’t even the cut that showed in the episode, that was more intense). Numbers like this are what keeps me coming back to this show even when it’s monumentally stupid like it was in S2.
New Girl – Best lines: “I don’t want to hear, Schmidt, Schmidt, you’re using too much tarragon.” “Oh, I’ve had zero pumpkin ales.” SO MUCH BEST BUY PRODUCT PLACEMENT!
Parks and Rec – I don’t know why I wasn’t expecting the Leslie/Ben relationship subplot to go this way, but it’ll be interesting to see if this does actually cause a scandal. Pretty solid episode since you can’t go wrong having Ron Swanson interact with anyone.
Up All Night – I’m glad this show is getting rewarded with Thursday (even though it comes at the expense of Community, kind of) because it’s the strongest comedy I’ve seen that’s debuted this year. Great laughs with Will Arnett. Even Jennifer Hall got some fantastic laughs this episode.
Community – So they pretty much took the documentary episode from S2 and mixed it with the Jesus meta-contextual video episode from earlier and threw in a little Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse for good measure. Most of it really worked and I love the way that Dan Harmon constantly pokes the shippers in his audience.
The League – Jeff Goldblum was super funny as Ruxin’s hyper-critical father. I like that he took on some of Ruxin’s mannerisms too. That’s good acting.
Persona 4: The Animation – It kind of toes the line between outright offensive and kind of offensive, but anime isn’t well known for its sensitivity to homosexuality. Still, the last two episodes were riotously funny. The show seems to be moving so fast that I’m wondering how it will stretch to 24 episodes, but I guess there are lots of social links to explore.
The Wire – Went back to this to watch some commentaries and I’m loving it yet again. Just ponderous and slow and interesting as it gives you the perspectives of both the MCU and the drug dealers. Great stuff. The “fuck” investigation scene is still one of the best moments in TV history.
Skyward Sword came with an orchestrated retrospective on 25 years of Zelda. That CD is pretty awesome. Get your hands on it by buying a first run copy of Skyward Sword. Don’t come to me crying if you miss it.
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) – Podcasts and eating in the office killed some of my reading time on my nook, but I’ll probably get some time to finish this weekend with the holiday and all. Still very funny.
Skyrim – Sprawling and super involved, but I’m having a real hard time immersing myself in this. It’s just not working for me and my theory is that it’s an uncanny valley issue. Still, I’m enjoying playing it. I found myself fighting vampires last night and that was really cool.
The Binding of Isaac – Up to 9 Mom kills. Just one more and I unlock Sheol, the final dungeon. This $5 game gave me a ton of mileage.
Resident Evil 5 – David and I finally beat the game! Lots of fun, this was. Glad to play it again.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword – I was really not expecting to love this game as much as I have. It may be the best Zelda I’ve played since Wind Waker (ok, it’s only the second after WW, but still!). Lots of character and lots of fun. Those were things definitely missing from Twilight Princess and that’s what makes Zelda great.
Watched all of the 7 Minutes in Heaven clips that were out there. So funny! So awkward! So great!
Sorry, guys. No movies this week.
The Walking Dead – Glenn remains the best thing about this show. Getting the rope around the fat zombie, hooking up with Maggie, and overall being funny and awesome. That part where he tries to be all cool in front of Maggie was hilarious and understated.
Homeland – Terrorists attempting to kill terrorists! It’s exciting. Alcohol makes for very bad decisions. I really hate using polygraphs as a plot point. Don’t we already know that they’re unreliable. Man, this show is so good, though
Up All Night – Line of the week (I watched like three episodes this week): “It’s like hair coming out of hair!” (referring to the birth process. It’s as gross and awesome as you’d think). When Up All Night makes a masturbation joke I laugh. When 2 Broke Girls does it I cringe and feel grossed out. That’s pretty much all that needs to be said about which show is better/funnier.
2 Broke Girls – “What you need is a good nine inches” WTF? When this show tries to be edgy and funny I just get grossed out. I’m not bummed out about the fact that my DVR often doesn’t record this.
Fringe – Best line of the week: Referring to an experiment that will blow up a papaya named Mr. Papaya: “This is unpleasant because he is the friendliest of fruits”. Fringe is so schlocky and bad and awesome that I love it. I really dig having something X-Files-y in my life and they’re just now starting to hint about the multiverses. Can’t wait to see the alternate realities!
Glee – Meh. Ok episode, but I don’t really know West Side Story so a lot of the songs didn’t really appeal to me. Better quality than anything in S2 though.
New Girl – Kind of funny how poorly they all hit on Cece, but I really hope the “will they, won’t they” stays firmly in the “won’t they” phase (w.r.t. Nick and Jess).
Community – Great episode. They’ve gotten back to their stride. This was a totally awesome, non-gimmick episode. Good on you, Community.
Parks and Recreation – Model UN stuff was really funny. I could watch Aubrey Plaza in this role all day. April’s role has really grown and I love it
Prime Suspect – Great episode this week with the abusive mom. Chilling! This show is pretty good. I’m liking it a lot for a cop procedural.
Persona 4: The Animation – The Social Link episode was AWESOME. They’ve done a fantastic job of converting the game into the show. A lot of the interface stuff carries over and I’m a real sucker for that.
7 Minutes In Heaven – The clip above is of this show. They’re these brief interviews that are super hilarious and awkward. It’s hard to explain without watching them, but I love it.
Listened to a lot of my old Fall Out Boy tracks. Not the greatest band in the world, but their tunes are so catchy!
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) – Been learning a lot about how Mindy Kaling came to The Office and how her career path has gone. Pretty funny and still a good read.
Dungeon Defenders – Beat the game! Min, Jason, and Lee all helped me do it. Lots of fun.
The Binding of Isaac – I’m up to five mom kills, but the game has gotten much tougher (it specifically tells you it does after five kills). I’ll keep going because this is a fun little game to pop in and out of.
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception – Beat the game. Not as satisfying as U2 mostly because the Chloe/Elena subplot was better in 2, but still a fantastic game. A fine swan song for the series if this was the end. We’ll see what Naughty Dog does in the future.
Batman: Arkham City – Finished most of the sidequests. I suppose a second playthrough will earn me another trophy, but I’m not dying to do it.
Resident Evil 5 – Dave and I beat the Ouroboros boss of Chapter 5-1. We’re closing in on the endgame. I think he’ll like the ending. It’s still plenty of fun to play, except for that boss. I brought a rocket launcher to speed that up. He takes forever, but maybe I’m just doing it wrong, I dunno.
Ico – Got in about an hour of this. Absolutely beautiful game. The way Ico and Yorda interact is neat, if not a little awkwardly animated. The save points with the bench are so sweet and nice. I like this game a lot. It’s fantastic.
Metal Gear Solid 2 HD – Started the HD edition of this game. Dave is mad because I bought this and he got it for me for Christmas. My response: Why are you buying me Christmas presents already? It’s only November! Wait until December, dummy! Thanks for the thought, though. I would have really enjoyed it. I got three dog tags, but I don’t know if I’m gonna try to get the rest. It’s kind of tough and it would take forever.
