This might be another new record, this one, conversely, for
the smallest mix I’ve created. It’s been an odd month. My Blackstar amp has
been in the shop getting a tube replacement. I resorted to buying an old
cheapie at a local guitar store. It worked, but sheesh, I felt like a high
school kid with a cheap Crate amp pilfered from a $100 guitar/amp kit. After
two and a half weeks I finally got my amp back, and boy howdy! Truly a
testament to the old adage, you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.
It’s been some really long hours at work (including Saturdays.) It’s another
year in which we had no autumn. Beautiful fall foliage worthy of calendars and
post cards. I think they’ve become a thing of the past, in Indiana, anyway.
1.
Alien
Covenant on 4K Blu Ray: Ridley Scott returning to the roots of the
series. That’s how I’d best describe this one. The movie exudes the same kind
of stressful intensified suspense that defined the original Alien
(1979). It basically reveals how/where the original alien comes from in
what is technically the second half of the movie Alien Prometheus. Scott
covered all of the bases in his usual obsessive style. He story boarded each and
every scene. He wrote a page long character sketch for each character in the
movie which was so well received, all of the actors took them and used them to
flesh out the characters they were portraying. He’s been called a visionary,
and you can see it in the very beginning when the spaceship Covenant unfurls solar “sails” to
extract light from nearby suns to recharge the ship’s power cells. NASA is actually
working on this technology as you are reading this. Scott said in an interview
he was inspired by several sources in the making of this movie, including John
Williams’ original score from which he uses small snippets and the great
comedic actor, Slim Pickens, which he used as inspiration for Danny McBride’s
character, Tennessee, right down to
the cowboy hat. The hat alluded to Pickens’ character as the pilot in Dr.
Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. I thought this was a really well done
movie. The only thing I found incredulous is the amount of f bombs dropped. I
mean, yeah, I get it. Everybody thinks it’s cool to adjectivize every single
noun on the planet with the f word these days. I think the word is an affront
to the eloquence of our language. I would hope in two centuries the word will
have fallen into disuse.
2.
Steel Division on PC: This had been
sitting in my Steam library for the better part of a year. I was getting burned
out on my old favorite Company of Heroes so I thought I’d
tackle it. Think Company of Heroes only
at a platoon level instead of squad level. Eugen Games used satellite
topography to depict Normandy, France and they nailed it beautifully.
Hedgerows, buildings and trees all come into play. The units are authentic (and
behave accordingly.) You expend “playing cards” to build your armies to go into
battle. There are three phases each lasting ten minutes. It’s critical you
balance which units are on the field in a given phase. It starts out well enough,
but eventually there’s a lot going on. It can get overwhelming. I’m playing the
American campaign now (there are only four missions per campaign. I’m told
skirmish and multiplayer is where this game shines.) And admittedly, it was
relatively easy, and just challenging enough to be fun. The last mission has
shut me down. I’ve watched YouTube videos
to try to get through it. And hopefully I will. I’ll just keep slogging through
it until I do.
3.
Sanford & Son: Season 3 on DVD: A carry over from
last month, I’m about 2/3 of the way through this one. The Quincy Jones theme
song still takes me back to my childhood. Everything Redd Foxx says still sends
me into guffaws. Supposedly Norman Lear developed this on NBC as an answer to
CBS’s “All in the Family.” Redd Foxx made $19,000 an episode, not bad
money, especially for the early 1970s. The show had high ratings clear up until
the end of its sixth and final season (in which ratings began to decline.) I
was a child of television, meaning, I watched a lot of it as a kid. I remember
getting on the school bus and the first thing out of my mouth to one of my
friends would be, “Hey, did you see so and so last night on TV?” I think we
were all like that at the time, and what’s funny is, there were only six or seven
channels on television at the time. Yet, television meant so much more. Today,
it seems almost mind numbing. I don’t watch network television and haven’t for
years simply because of television advertising. I find them repulsive.
(Definitely a topic for another discussion.) But Sanford & Son will
always hold a place in my heart as the first adult comedy I took interest in as
a kid. It made Friday night fun before the late night horror movies.
4.
A Million Little Pieces by James
Fey: I’m still quite engaged in this notorious novel by James Fey. His
description of life inside of a high dollar rehabilitation center is as
effective of a dissuasion as the old 80’s
TV commercial of an egg being cracked open and dropped into a sizzling skillet
with the monotonic voice guy saying, “This is your brain on drugs. Any
questions?” Actually, Fey does offer glimmers of hope in a character named
Leonard who has mafia ties and generally seems to care for Fey’s well being,
and a girl, a former crack addict that Fey has become smitten with. Fey is a
tough character in this book, his parents come to visit him and all he does
(albeit unintentionally) is say things that shatter their hearts, and he
becomes so angry he pulls his toe nails out by hand for the sake of the pain.
It seems to be the only thing real that he can truly feel. One moment I love
this guy, and in the next I find him disgusting.
5.
Dungeon Siege II on PC: I’m still
hacking my way through this hack and slash action RPG. It’s fun, despite its
now muddy graphics. My party is all comprised of high 20 something level
characters. I rarely die now even when surrounded by high level foes. Composed
of 4 “Acts” I’m currently in Act 3 and it’s moving quickly. This isn’t the most
novel ARPG I’ve played (so far that honor goes to The Incredible Adventures of Van
Helsing. Though not as frustrating as the first game of the series, Dungeon
Siege, this game is fraught with difficulties in trying to find key
locations even though it includes a hotkey accessible full scale map. It doesn’t
help that I’m such a completionist probably to an extent that borders masochism.
6.
Rod Serling’s Night Gallery Season
One on DVD: Debuting in 1970, I remember living in an old decaying apartment
house at the time. I was nine years old. I was supposed to be in bed but I
would sneak up to the doorway of our sleeping room and watch this show as my
mother would sit closer to the television (unknowingly that I was behind her in
the doorway.) The episodes would creep me out and I’d crawl into bed, my mind lingering
on the horrors I’d just witnessed. The opening theme music (which will go down
in history as one of the first television series to use electronic music in its
opening) along with the myriad of creepy faces always gave me the willies. It’s
odd watching this now. I wouldn’t say it’s cheesy, not at all. The show took
itself seriously, but it was just a stifled product of its time.
