It’s been quite the eventful month for me. My oldest daughter came home for Christmas, and I got almost two weeks away from work (always a great thing!) I made my 2017 Reading Challenge on goodreads.com, and I finally beat XCom, a game I’ve been playing for two years now. I watched a lot of movies this month and pretty much stayed inside driven to do so by the arctic temperatures we’ve been having. I caught up on some old music, adding a few CDs to the collection. For a media fan like me, it’s been true nirvana. I had my first checkup since the upgrade with the third wire, and it seems my heart beat is still firing a tad too early. I’m beginning to wonder if they’ll ever get it entirely sorted out. They turned my pace up from 63 beats a minute to 70 bpm, thinking that might straighten it out. I suppose time will tell.
1. Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor on PC: I was long overdue for a return to my favorite RTS game of all time. Tales is the second (and last) expansion to the original game. It introduced new vehicles and armies to the long revered multiplayer game, but the single play story line was lackluster at best. I wouldn’t say the game was rushed out the door, but for a last grand hurrah for a great series it seems the story could have been written better. The story was a desultory of different units (on different sides) of the war. I finished it in 9 hours in what was basically one sitting. I can now comfortably move on to Company of Heroes 2 with pride in knowing I completed the original series. I have numerous friends who have Company of Heroes, yet not a single one of them have beat the original story line campaign. Tsk! Tsk! Tsk! It’s a shame because this is an RTS everybody should experience.
2. A Flock of Seagulls: The Best of on CD: I will always love this band until my last breath. November 1982. It was at a nightclub called Pinocchio's situated at 418 Murray Street in downtown Perth, WA. We had been to sea for a while (US Navy days) and I went into this wonderful dance club where the women seemed to outnumber the men 2 to 1, and the song, “I Ran” by A Flock of Seagulls began blasting out of their giant speakers as the MTV video played on their giant screens that adorned the walls. I fell in love. As soon as I could I bought The Seagulls’ debut album. Oddly, “I Ran” became a number one song in Australia. I’d never heard anything like it. I felt as if those months of disconnection at sea, and then pulling into port and hearing this album as if I’d come back twenty years into the future. I was a fan of their next two albums over the years, and I was quite surprised to stumble upon this collection of hits on a CD dated 1991 with no remastering. (You all know how I feel about “Loudness Wars” and remastering. Big no-no!) The CD album is crisp, pure, and sounds perfect.
3. Revenge of the Sith on Blu Ray: This, the third movie in the series, is probably the one that made the most impact on me. And not in a good way. This movie is dark. We see Anakin Skywalker butcher a nursery full of Jedi “youngling” children. Well, okay, we don’t SEE that, but you see the look in his eye and hear the lightsaber crack to life and you know through that very suggestion what is about to go down. And then we see Skywalker venture to another planet and brutally slay a group of pacifists on Emperor Palpatine’s order. I hate Darth Vader! There is nothing redeemable about him whatsoever. I used to feel sorry for him when he removed his mask and died in Return of the Jedi. But seeing his seduction and descent from the Jedis into the dark side of the Force, his cruelty and his anger just made me abhor him. Hayden Christensen, who portrays him does a less than stellar job of it, but I think he was hamstrung by the manner in which George Lucas directed him. The movie itself, on Blu Ray is beautiful on a 4K television. As I mentioned earlier, the movie is dark, and it ends on a note of hopelessness, but it’s an important movie in the series chronicling the transformation of Anakin Skywalker into the arch-villain, Darth Vader.
4. XCom on PC: I finally whipped it. The only way I could get through it was to take a few steps, get a lucky shot in and when the aliens took their shots at me and missed I’d quicksave! I can’t believe the game took me two years to beat (it’s unbelievable how time flies). I played it off and on sometimes taking long breaks from it just to get away from it. 118 hours for a game I should have beat in 40 hours. I just couldn’t find the “trigger” that began the end game. All I had to do was outfit one of my operatives with a psi ability helmet. But now the thing is done and I thought I’d be geared up for XCom 2. But nope. There is a decent expansion out for XCom entitled, “XCom Enemy Within.” I guess I’ll have to play that one next.
5. Beneath the Planet of the Apes on Blu Ray: Made a few short years after the original movie, this film takes us on a rescue of our original protagonist, Taylor, and his crew propelled through time and lost, unknowingly having landed back on Earth and unaware until the final riveting scene in the original movie. Taylor, played so well by Charleton Heston doesn’t make an appearance until the last quarter of the film. The lead man in this vehicle is James Franciscus who plays Brent and does a remarkable job. Surprisingly Nova (always pleasant to look at) makes a return. This Blu Ray transfer does a nice job, surpassing the old late night telecasts I watched of the movie years ago.
6. Rush: A Farewell to Kings on CD: I managed to snag a “pre-Loudness Wars” edition CD on eBay. I think this album marked a departure for Rush. It was their migration from the really heavy “Caress of Steel” stuff to more musically articulate numbers. If you love Alex Lifeson’s guitar solo in “Closer to the Heart” you know what I’m talking about. I simply can’t stop listening to this CD on auto repeat. Although the album “Hemispheres” was released after this one and “Permanent Waves” after, this album perfectly segues into “Permanent Waves,” which is every bit as musically articulate (and sways far more into the territory of philosophy.)
7. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene: (shamelessly plagiarized from my own review on goodreads.com) “For me one of the most true and moving novels of my time, in anybody's language." -- William Faulkner. I have to agree with the venerable Mr. Faulkner. Greene's characterizations in this novel, his ability to create a character who commits adultery with a woman married to his friend, and which causes our main character to grow to both pity and hate the woman's husband is done quite well. Greene creates a character we grow to be come repulsed by, yet can't help but feel sorry for. And the wife, Sarah, is simply seeking a love her husband cannot give her. She is perhaps the most pitiful character in the book.
This book was made into a movie, but so much of it is simply feeling and thoughts I don't see how it could be effectively made into a film. Greene's capturing of wartime England, the dismal weather and the pubs, the loneliness after being spurned by the woman he has the affair with simply because her guilt is all consuming (which causes our main character to hate the woman's husband even more) and the final tone of the book, that of redemption and forgiveness and the abandoning of faith, is penned so elegantly and sad in this novel. I'm honestly surprised I haven't read any of Graham Greene's works before, but that will change after reading this book.
8. Bullit on Blu Ray: Made quite famous by the chase scene involving Steve McQueen in a 1968 Ford Mustang Fastback and the bad guys in a black 1970 Dodge Challenger, it was the impetus causing me to pick this one up. The story line was a tad confusing and somewhat disjointed, but the movie was a nice little trip in a time machine that crash landed in the year 1970. McQueen was his usual suave, king of cool guy of few words, more reactionary than proactive. The transfer to Blu Ray was accurate with smooth colors and pristine visuals, but be warned this wasn’t a 1950’s Technicolor rendition, nor was it meant to be.
9. Brian Eno: Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks on CD: This album crafted by Brian Eno and Danielle Lanois is one of the great atmospheric albums of all time. The thing is, you’ve probably heard cuts from it and never realized. Just look up “An Ending (Ascent)” on YouTube. Remember that beautiful song from the soundtrack of the zombie movie, “28 Days Later?” I’ve had friends tell me they want this one played at their funeral. It’s such a majestic piece that firmly belongs to this collection of other soulful ambient tunes.
10. Planet Coaster on PC: The annual Steam Winter sale presented itself, and I couldn’t resist. If you enjoyed any of the Chris Sawyer Rollercoaster sim games you’ll love this one. As a matter of fact, it’s a perfect homage to those games of yore, albeit with revamped sound and graphics. You have control over everything, from individual ride ticket prices to how much salt and ketchup you want to put on your customers’ sandwiches (the more condiments, the more people get thirsty which drives them to buy soft drinks.) The tools included to build roller coasters are a real joy to play with. It’s a game that disguises itself as a time robber, one of my so called, “dawn games.” It doesn’t matter what time you start. It will be dawn when you finally close out for the night.
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