Someone once told me the Chinese have a most interesting statement they
oft cite to an enemy: “May you live in interesting times.” It looks like those
interesting times are upon us in the guise of North Korea’s deranged dictator,
Kim Jong-Un, with all his porcine gracelessness. The interesting part however, is how he’s become China’s embarrassment.
The threat of a nuclear emblazoned WWIII looms. I’m working many 12-14 hour
days as of late. And yet, it’s a been a great month for my Monthly Mix. Best of all? I’m now one of the self chosen
few who walk the earth. I defeated Dark Souls!
1.
Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition on
PC: I finally did it. It took me 168 hours and I had leveled up to level 108?
Yet I accomplished an almost insurmountable challenge in beating this game. It
was an amazing feat, watching my character start out as a level 1/1 wimp and
grow into a man fashioned by his environment into a bold, august, stoic killing
machine. Fighting the brothers, Smough & Ornstein and defeating them, I
swear earned me real life fortitude. And the environment of Dark
Souls, sheesh, it’s like winter afternoons when it’s freezing outside,
yet you see the sun setting through the naked tree branches. And you know you
have school or work the next day, and that feeling of depression sets in. The
whole world of this game was like that for me. And now it’s behind me, and
oddly I feel a bittersweet melancholy that the experience is over. No small
wonder I found my eyes welling over as I read through the end credits.
2.
A Song of Fire & Ice: Clash of Kings (Book
2) by George R.R. Martin: I have a friend who is the biggest fan of this
beloved genre, and he refuses to delve into this series because of the length
of the books (tomes?) I can relate, the depth of the books are intimidating,
but I was seduced into it. I have no regrets. Martin, pulls no punches, he
kills his mains off with the best of them, and often just when you find
yourself getting attached. Martin’s writing is proof that magic does indeed
exist. The characters in this book are so plentiful I find myself constantly
thumbing through the appendix at the family tree section to determine who is
who, and jarring my memory of who they were and how they came into play from
the first book. If you’re a fan of The Lord of the Rings or T.H. White’s
celebrated The Once and Future King, you
owe it to yourself.
3.
Rise of Nations: The Extended Edition on
PC: Back in 2003 I had an interest in Age of Empires, but I didn’t like
the restraint of only playing in one age. I had been playing a lot of Empire
Earth but was hungry for something more. I stumbled upon Big Huge Games’
Rise
of Nations and never looked
back. I used to play with my longtime RL friend, Vic Berwick, and lo and behold
those days are upon us again. Steam has released an updated version of this
wonderful old game. Vic and I played our first game in over a decade, and not
surprising, our game was a draw. This, my friends, a testament as to how well
and thorough our battles were against each other. If you like Real Time
Strategy with a slice of Risk style board gaming thrown in for
good measure, you might want to check this game out, and then hit me up on
Steam. I’ll take the world out from under you.
4.
Kings of
Leon Walls on CD: I was cruising down a US Indiana
highway in a company car at the mercy of the radio stations, and a certain song
came on that I couldn’t shake from my brain. All I could do was hang onto the
chorus of the lyrics and commit it to memory. To my benefit I was able to
conjure that chorus and through the lyrics discovered the song was called “Find
Me” and the band was Kings of Leon. And so began a hardcore listen on Spotify
and YouTube. The following week I went to three different stores to find the
album “Walls” sold out everywhere. I snagged a copy from eBay, and boy am I
glad I did. This is a superb album from this quad of southern boys raised in a
strict Pentecostal environment. Caleb Followill, who looks like a lovechild of
Kevin Costner and Christian Slater, has an amazing singing voice. And the band’s
sound is remeniscient of the mid 90’s stuff I used to love in Texas and the
great indie stuff that came out during the RIAA/big record moguls/Napster
explosion (and incineration. Check out the songs, “Find me,” and “Walls.” You’ll
like them. Promise.
5.
James Seven on
CD: It’s been a while, and I’d forgotten how good England’s James sounded. And once again,
listening to it a few times over reminded me of how much I really dug this
album. The Album is a smorgasbord of delectable slices of jazz, alternative 90’s
and soulful vocals. I suppose James is a band I’ve always liked, but when asked
who my favorite bands were, they just never came to mind. Yet, I could listen
to them all day long. And who can forget the X-Files season 3 episode
in which Jack Black opens an episode by playing James’ “Ring the Bells” on a
jukebox before being killed? That song is on this particular album, but it
lacks the musical grace of the live version depicted in the X-Files
episode. I had to search and high and low to find the live version. I
found it on a Greenpeace concert album.
6.
Hell on Wheels: Season 5 on Netflix:
Well, it’s getting down to the nitty gritty in AMC’s original hard western set amongst the creation of the Union Pacific Railroad pre-1870. I watch these
episodes while spinning on the exercise bike, and let me tell you, I’ve never
enjoyed exercising more. Cullen Bohanan gets himself in more messes while
trying to do the right thing more than any other television character I’ve come
to know. Now he’s becoming involved with a Chinese girl who is posing as a boy
(to escape the attention of a Chinese warlord demanding her hand in marriage.)
And his association with President Ulysses Grant has forced him into a stance of
propriety far flung from his beginnings of the show as a Civil War criminal out
for revenge against the Northern Army vigilantes who butchered his family. I’ll
hate to see this season, the finale one, end.
7.
Fahrenheit 451 on Blu-Ray: An out
and out ripoff of an Alfred Hitchcock film. By golly, even the film’s score is
done by Bernard Herman. Don’t get me wrong, though. This movie is an homage to
Hitchcock in the best of ways. I loved the book, years ago, and honestly, I
didn’t know this movie existed. It’s done quite well, set in a future where
having books is a crime against the state. If ownership is found out firemen
are sent to your house to take care of it. But instead of fighting fires, they
burn houses that have books in them. It’s the colorful cast of characters and
the aforementioned score by Herman that really drove the film for me. I watched
an interview afterwards by Ray Bradbury who adamantly approved the film and
admitted after watching the final scenes still finds it tearful. (As did I.) He
said, “If you have a good film with a bad ending it becomes a bad film, but if
you have a mediocre film with a beautiful ending it becomes a beautiful film.”
Truer words were never spoken, Mr. Bradbury. This particular edition is
beautifully rendered on Blu-Ray. The stark colors, especially the blacks and
reds stand out magnificently.
8.
Player Uknown’s Battlegrounds on Steam: And the award
for the stupidest title for a game this year (thus far) . . . (drum roll please . . ) goes to THIS
game! The game is still Early Access and it’s truly an alpha, the optimization
is crap, it lags from time to time, there are frequent crashes. The graphics
look like mud hand scooped from a sewer after a hard rain, and at $30 it’s not
the cheapest EA game out there, but you know what? The play’s the thing. It’s a
simple concept. You parachute into island villages along with a hundred other
guys with nothing but the clothes on your back. You pick up guns/loot from houses
and shacks and then it becomes a free for all death match. Last man standing
wins the game. I watched my buddy, Dillon Gard, stream it on his Steam
broadcast and I was hooked. And now I’ve turned two other friends onto it .
.and now the four of us play together! It’s like selling Amway, only tons more
fun! Pick the game up, and we’ll play. But it’s a sleep-killer. You’ve been
warned.
