Edward's Monthly Mix December 2025

 

One of the joys of owning a digital audio player is the tendency one gets to devoutly listen to albums. There is none of the skipping past songs or decision paralysis that comes with Spotify. And of course, my CD collection (of hundreds) gets to come along with me in my shirt pocket. Not to mention the audio quality VS streaming. I know, it sounds like a tangent. It’s not. Just my personal feeling. One thing, however, has incensed me this month, and that’s GoodReads newest policy: no more personal messages from member to member. Why? It’s like those stupid smartphone updates that etch up the complication of using your phone. And then I got a subscription renewal notice from PC Gamer Magazine. It’s always been $40 a year, and now suddenly, it’s $99! Been a subscriber for 30 years, and now I have to say goodbye. The only constant is change, yes, I get it. But why does every change have to go the wrong direction? Why can’t change be a good thing?

The Lord of the Rings – The Return of the King on 4k Blu-Ray: I finally watched the last of the trilogy, and whoah! What a movie to behold! Supposing the first movie was such the stately introduction to the series, and the second being one of the most battle heavy action-packed movies I’ve ever seen, the third one is the most graceful of the three. And oddly, having read the trilogy years ago, I don’t remember the ending being as sad in the book! The film garnered 1.1 billion dollars worldwide making it the highest grossing film of 2003, despite being released in December of that year. It also won 11 Academy Awards including Best Picture. I have to admit, it's probably the most stylish trilogy of films I’ve ever watched.

Coraline by Neil Gaiman: One of the best and most eerie children's stories I've read in a long time. Neil Gaiman has the ability to invoke distant memories of my own childhood and grace them over bittersweetness with his knack for extracting magic out of words. There is a picnic scene in this book that took me back to the school library in the first grade when I discovered reading, a love affair that has lasted throughout my lifetime. If you liked Clive Barker’s The Thief of Always, you’ll love this.

Lords of the Fallen on PC:  I can’t help but feel this game took a piece of me and claimed it for its own. Hacked or sawed flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone and kept it there in its deep dark fortress. I have no choice but to log my experience with the game, a cathartic expunge of the dark things swimming in my brain. Lords of the Fallen, which is impossible to not compare to Dark Souls, really does have its own signature flair in its carnival of dark fantasy horrors. Portraying a criminal released from a life sentence in the big house to rescue a kingdom from invading demon forces from another dimension. Deck 13, a German developer, produced this game as a double A title in the same vein as Dark Souls, basically a rip off, it was one of the first and one of the best to do so, with a better storyline and an easily followed plotline. People clamor about how easy the game is compared to Dark Souls, but that certainly was not my experience. It’s a 20 hour game, but it took me 100 hours to beat. There truly is nothing worse than totally sucking at a hobby you’re so passionate about. It’s about as bad as it gets. In typical fashion for ARPGs such as this, defeating bosses is all about patience, learning their attack moves, and timing your parries to stay alive long enough to beat them. Some bosses took me over a hundred attempts before I felled them like California Redwood trees.  But the boss fights are not what accounted for the excessive time spent in this game, it was the horrible mapping involved. I spent over ten hours looking for a simple lever which unlocked the other half of the map I needed to obtain to fight the next boss in succession. Speaking of bosses, the final boss did me in. I discovered I had the wrong build to take him on and oddly, there was no feasible way to respec my character. I ended up having to cheat him to beat him.

Tidings by William Wharton: I read William Wharton's A Midnight Clear years ago and was deeply moved by it. It had passages so wonderfully written, I wrote them down and keep them in a journal. (I wholeheartedly recommend the movie starring Ethan Hawke and Gary Sinese as well.) After that, Wharton became an author I filed away as "to read more of his stuff." And this, Tidings is the second book I've discovered from the author. It involves an American couple living in France, nearing middle age, they host a Christmas for their three adult children. Each child comes bearing an issue with life or love or an aspiration of some sort. Lor and Will, the hosting couple have a few misgivings and dilemmas this year, themselves. But old resentments and recent griefs are put asunder by unexpected miracles that brings the old magic of childhood. This book, as The Pittsburgh Press said, "is a modern Christmas fable."

Vampire The Masquerade – Bloodlines on PC: I’m still making my way through this very famous action RPG. I did make it through the Ocean House Hotel which many claim to be one of the scariest in-game places. It was quite the eerie location, for sure. There aren’t jump scares per se, but there is that ever present sense of dread, like bad things are about to go down. I’m seeing this is a game that should have gotten more credit than it got. I’m glad I finally got around to playing it. I think it will go down in gaming history as an important game.  

Bozz Scaggs Lowdown on CD: Ever since high school, I liked the song “Lido Shuffle.” It was a song that if ever present on the radio, it remained until the song’s end. It has a great synthesizer solo that still puts a smile on my face to this day. The only other song I remembered from this album was “Lowdown,” but other than that, this album is sort of meh, despite being nominated (but not earning) a Grammy. The album not only produced two top hits (the aforementioned), it also is partially responsible for spawning the group Toto. Seems three of the founding members were handpicked to play on this album, and afterwards, Columbia Records, liked the result and offered these three members a contract without auditions, hence the birth of Toto. Also, I was not aware Boz Scaggs was once a part of the Steve Miller Band.

Edward's November 2025 Monthly Mix

 

 

 

Radiohead's grammy award winning OK Computer is one of my favorite albums of all time. I frequently have it on autorepeat. I was elated when my guitar teacher, Michael Stevens, selected it for me to learn. It's given me a new respect for the band and the intricacies of their songs. Give "Let Down" a good listen and you'll see what I mean. This month also saw me returning to a game I played heavily over a decade ago. Playing it now makes me wonder why I ever left it in the first place. The only con being, now I'm not playing anything else. My backlog continues to grow. Winter is upon us, it's time to stay indoors. Maybe it's a good time to work on the backlog anyway.  

 

Expo: Magic of the White City on DVD: Narrated by Gene Wilder, this is the story of the 1893 Columbian Exposition, aka The Chicago World’s Fair. It’s hard to believe the effect this spectacular event had on the entire United States after its showcase ended. Cracker Jacks, Juicy Fruit gum and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and the advent of the Ferris Wheel amongst other things. The event took over half a year to build and ran for six months straight. This documentary details the planning, construction and summarizes what a visit to the fair would be like. There’s never been another spectacle like it since, nor will there probably ever be again.

Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt: Being a kid who grew up in rentals and houses with wheels,  I lacked for wants much more than I did for needs and I complained a lot. After reading this bleak memoir about a boy in early twentieth century Irish slums, I have to wonder now what, if anything, did I really have to complain about? The book is as much of a recounting of the boy's life as it is story of his downtrodden mother and her hard life as seen through his eyes. I'm not often affected by a book like this, but after reading it, I visited Google Earth to see the actual Irish neighborhood where all of this occurred. I thought Dickens' London underbelly was bad!  

Guild Wars 2 on PC: Released in 2012, this remains one of the most popular MMOs out there, and it’s enjoying a huge resurgence right now. I revisited it and now I can’t stop playing it. It’s the friendliest MMO I’ve ever experienced. You’ll get no, “Hey, you need to “git gud,” or
“learn to play” here. It’s the type of game you can leave for three years and come back to and not feel like you’ve missed out on anything. The game has it all: open world player VS environment, player VS player, word VS world, and staged meta events open to all players. Loot showers are steady rewards for anything you do, and the base game is free. I encourage you all to try the game out; you won’t be disappointed.  

 

Bite by Richard Laymon: You’ve seen me say it before, but a year or so ago I didn’t even know who this guy was, and now I’ve read two of his books and am working on this one, a third book. This one concerns a girl who enlists the aid of an old friend, a guy who crushed on her in high school, to get rid of a vampire who’s been pestering her. The two of them accomplish the deed, but that’s where the problems arise when they try to dispose of the body. It turns into a road trip with a maniac threatening to expose their dastardly deed, and the distraught couple begin to wonder if unwanted passenger is more dangerous than the vampire was. Laymon has a gift for plot motion and characterization.

Mary Poppins on Blu Ray: I found this on Blu Ray recently and decided to give it a rewatch over the double disk DVD collector set I’ve owned for years. Nominated for 13 Academy Awards, it ended up winning 5 of them including Best Actress, Best Visual Effects and Best Song. The making of the movie met with some impedance in the guise of P.L. Travers, herself, the author of the books the movie was based on. She insisted on being a creative consultant which was a condition upon which the movie was made and was nitpicky over everything that went into the film. (Oddly, the film was nominated for a Best Writing Award, despite Travers’ niggling.) She did not think Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke (who was picked because of his performances on The Dick Van Dyke Show) were suitable for the parts and did not want them cast. The Blu Ray version is the one to have with its impeccably good color transfer and crispness and the sound mix which is probably the best I’ve ever heard in a Disney film. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Beaches Blame My Ex on Amazon Music: Not sure how this group popped up on my Amazon Music (or was it Sirius XM?), but I am pleasantly amazed. An all-girl band, this quad rocks! Starting out as a punk rock-ish type band, with this album, their second release, they traded the edgier riffs for more reverb and it paid off in record sales and sold out shows. Their song lyrics are original and ostensibly come from life experience and their music is catchy. Reminiscent of the 80s mixed with a tinge of the early aughts, give this a listen and you might find yourself a new pet owner, the recipient of an ear worm, the good kind.

 

 

Edward's Monthly Mix October 2025

 

Halloween is always fitting for a viewing of The Creature from the Black Lagoon. And despite the price of candy exorbitating (yeah, I know, it’s not a word, but I just made it one) due to tariffs, people spent a record number on candy this year. It just goes to show, tradition dies hard. Good luck trying to kill the spirit of a holiday in America. Halloween is the one time of year when death takes center stage in the West. Skeletons hang from doors, jack o’ lanterns grin from porch banisters, and giant grim reapers show up in the seasonal aisle at Home Depot. For a few weeks, the thing we spend the rest of the year avoiding becomes incredibly visible. Speaking of incredible, it was an incredible busy month this month in my monthly mix world. Oh boy, that’s a tongue twister.

The Creature From the Black Lagoon on Blu Ray: I had a wonderful opportunity this month to revisit this classic, albeit in 3D. My sister has the setup, the glasses and the player. It was exciting to see the creature reach out with those oversized claws right into your face, or watch scuba equipped scientists swim toward you with their spear guns looking like they were going to poke your eyes out! I had no idea, the original movie was actually shot in 3D, and was released that way in limited venues. The 3D fad quickly died out about the same time this movie was made, hence, its rarity as a fully 3D feature. I took my grandson with me to my sister’s to watch it and now he’s obsessed. He wants all things Creature from the Black Lagoon. Oddly, I was the same way when I watched the movie for the first time when I was about twelve years old. Shoot, I wanted to grow up to be a professional scuba diver! Incidentally, in 2009 I got to meet Ricou Browning, who played the creature in the underwater scenes. He was white headed and aged, but short and quite powerfully built.

Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas by Tom Robbins: Reading a Tom Robbins novel is not only like taking a walking tour through a Richard Scarry Busytown book, but also a wonderful trip into the imagination (not to mention a little sidetrip into a dictionary or two.) His love for words, much like Robert Frost , utilizes delightfully clever metaphors and glimmery erudite usage that makes reading one of his books a true literary adventure. This book was no different. Robbins' main character is a woman and he does a fine job of writing the book through "her" eyes. And her cohort, Larry Diamond, flamboyantly confident despite bearing a debilitating affliction, were both memorable though hardly believable characters. Not the best Tom Robbins book I've read, but a jolly fun read.

Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines on PC: Released in 2007, here is a super little known fact for you. It was made in the Half Life Source engine and was released one day before Half Life, so it actually beat one of the most popular storied shooters out the door. Unfortunately, it was also buggy and rushed to fruition. It has since been patched up (mostly by fans) and is now a quite playable game. It’s dated, granted, but still a fun game. I’m in the front part of the game, but I wish I had played it earlier.

Borderlands on Steam: Randy Pitchford catches a lot of flak. He’s a wiseacre accused of possessing child pornography (for which he was not only exonerated, but countersued for the slander—and good for him!) and he’s personally impelled me to write him a letter (via Computer Gaming World Magazine accusing him of ageism. And he’s the scapegoat for the new Borderlands 4, despite, its system requirements, being a good game. Still, I find myself going back to the OG, and oddly, getting back into it for the sake of my old buddy, Vic Berwick (who quickly decided it was not his kind of game). Cartoony graphics based on a Mad Max motif make this a scratch itch game that’s funnier than it has any right to be. Thanks to my buddy, Garrett Thrasher, I’ll be able to get through it for a third time.

Lost in Space Season 3 on Blu Ray: I’m finally on the final season of my favorite television season of all time. This was the series that cleared the streets when I was a kid. Unfortunately, the show was on its way out this season, unbeknownst to the cast and crew. It had become campy and competitive with other network television shows (e.g. Batman) and obviously lost the race. I see now, the show’s campiness is what led to its demise. At this point, it was turning into a Saturday morning children’s show produced by Irwin Allen instead of Sid and Marty Kroft. There was a cool upgrade to the third season in that John Williams changed the theme music to make it more upbeat and adventurous, introducing the countdown pictogram of each cast member. Lost in Space being more of a storytelling platform where Star Trek was more of a philosophizing one prompted Gene Rodenberry to say it best: "That show accomplishes what it sets out to do. Star Trek is not the same thing". 

 

 

Little Nightmares on Steam:  Trying to get as many games knocked out as I can this year, I thought I would try to complete a simple little game. Little Nightmares came up in my list and I was like, why not? It’s a platformer, which I typically suck at. But I weathered on, despite the fact that it’s a 6 hour game that took me 11 hours to beat. Not sure I’ll ever play Little Nightmares 2, but it was an interesting game. The graphics and the music were interesting to say the least. I suppose the only thing keeping me going on was the fact that it was a 6 hour game. Go me! 

 

 

Paul Lynde’s Halloween Special ’76 on Youtube: Halloween 1976 I turned 14 years old. It was an important year. It was our Bicentennial, our 200^th year of declaration of freedom from the old motherland. Variety shows were still hip, The Carol Burnett Show anyone? My friend, Jeri Bragg, turned me onto this show and brought it to my attention that you could watch it in its entirety on YouTube. Talk about bringing back memories! We have Paul Lynde accompanied by Margaret Hamilton (reprising the role that made her by far the most famous) hosting a small array of television guests including Florence Henderson and Tim Conway. And no worries, Jeri, I won't forget Donny and Marie Osmond. LOL!) Of course, the main draw for me was KISS! They sang “Detroit Rock City,” (though it was obviously dubbed and sans Ace’s great solo) it was still fun to watch despite Peter’s lack of visibility tucked behind a drum set (although he got his comeuppance when he performed “Beth” on a piano.) Seeing them perform was cool, especially when Gene Simmons snuck in a very prominent fire blow. 

 

 

Secret Level Season One on Amazon Prime: My buddy, Vic Berwick, turned me onto this one. I was reluctant at first because . . . anime? But it really wasn’t, not at all. It’s rather CGI. And it’s all done in environments created from our favorite video games. I was flabbergasted by what I saw, and the good part? Each episode is 7-10 minutes long. What’s not to like about that? Not to mention the guest stars such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Keanu Reeves. If you want to see what your new 8K TV can do, watch this show.