It seems this month was a month of extremes. We had a massive snowstorm that killed two days of work. (I’m not complaining!) And I picked up a new guitar amp which breathed new life into my playing. My reading is suffering, and I have no idea why. My Goodreads.com goal is 20 books this year, but at this rate I won’t make it. I’m reading three books currently, maybe that’s part of the problem.
1. Battlefield Bad Company 2 on PC: EA’s venerable Battlefield 2 will live in my heart all the rest of my days. And I wouldn’t call Battlefield Bad Company 2 a close second, but it is a second. With EA releasing multiple Battlefield games at such a frequent pace one can barely keep up with active servers, it is nice to know that BFBC2 which released in 2010 still has active servers. There aren’t many, but the players who play the game are diehards. I’m proud to be one of them. Laying claim to some of the best sniping mechanics in any multi-play shooter, this is a game that despite my aging reflexes I’m quite good at. The map designs are superb and the sound design is stellar. The game frequently goes on sale on Steam for less than $5.00. It’s worth it.
2. Star
Trek: The Next Generation Season 5 on Blu Ray: Continuing on with the voyages
of the stars
hip Enterprise this season has some of the best episodes I’ve
seen. We see Counselor Troi’s mother Lwaxana, one of the most annoying people
in the universe teach Worf’s son, Alexander, about the seriousness of
adulthood, despite her eternal capriciousness and hedonism as she prepares to
wed a man she’s never met. Then in a wonderful touch of sensitivity we see
Alexander reel her back in to her senses with the realization that sometimes we
must give in to being capricious. And in this season we also see Worf in a role
as a father trying to do the right thing with his son. But who can forget, The Perfect
Mate? Kamala is an empathic
mesomorph who can be what any man wants her to be. She has been groomed to be
basically a mail order bride to the leader of a planet who has been at war with
her home planet for generations. She is to be the ultimate peace offering, but
Picard suggests to her she has value in and of herself, and he is the first man
to tell her this. So, she starts falling for him. It’s a must see episode.
Well, like all of them. And then there is I, Cyborg.
3. Fender Champion 40 Guitar Amplifier: I love my Blackstar amp. It definitely has that warm fuzzy Marshall vibe to it. It’s a hybrid tube amp, no wonder. But it’s given me some troubles. I’ve had it for about two years and I’ve already had to have the tubes replaced in it TWICE! While awaiting repairs this last time, I picked up a Fender Champion 40, basically a 40-watt practice amp. It has a nice mixture of effects and voices. I didn’t think I’d fall in love with this thing so quickly, but since I’ve had it I’ve not turned on my Blackstar. That can’t be good! Not to mention, my pedal board affixed to my Blackstar. With the effects produced by the Fender I’ve not needed the pedals. The Chorus and Reverb are satiny smooth. And the voices really do honor the gamut from metal to 1960s beach style guitar. This amp makes practice more compelling. I’m glad I found it.
4. Limitless on DVD: I was recommended to watch this movie because the main character was a failed writer named Eddie. Ha! Eddie finds a pill that allows him to access all facets of his brain, able to conjure up every memory he’s ever had and able to utilize far more than the 10% we supposedly use of our brains. When he goes to get more of the pills, he finds the man who gave him the wonderful drug a victim of a homicide. Eddie takes the man’s stash of pills and uses them to change his life, playing the stock market and becoming a sensation that puts him on the front page of USA Today. Suddenly hedge investors take an interest in him, but so do the people who murdered his source for the pills. A fast paced action movie worth a watch. Bradley Cooper does the role justice and becomes a guy we root for despite his less than noble intentions.
5. Loverboy Classics on CD: Sixteen of their greatest hits digitally remastered. Released in 1994 and surprisingly a decent score on my favorite “loudness wars” site that shows the dynamic range for each song in the remastering process. Despite this, I wasn’t impressed with the album, and don’t get me wrong. It’s certainly not the album. It’s the band itself. I guess I’ve simply outgrown Loverboy. When I was a teenager hanging out at the local pizzeria with its arcade games, me and my friends thrived on this band (along with Van Halen and Rush, of course.) But listening to some of these songs after so many years, I don’t know. I can’t put my finger (or rather my ear) on it. It just doesn’t appeal to me. Still, this is a valuable CD to have in the collection because it really does hold true to its word. These truly are their greatest hits. No omissions.
6. Come Dancing with the Kinks: The Best of the Kinks 1977-1986 on CD: A really good greatest hits album. And a great score on the loudness wars site. Great dynamic range across the whole album. To my surprise this album exceeded my expectations. I actually listened to it multiple times in a row. I rarely ever do that with any album, maybe a song or two on auto repeat a few times, but rarely a whole album. Though they weren’t as innovative as The Beatles or as popular as The Rolling Stones or The Who, these rockers were an original part of the British Invasion. I guess I never appreciated the band until now, but hey, better late than never, yeah?
7. Grid Autosport on PC: I’ve always loved the Codemasters “sim-cade” racing games. And I’ve played every Grid game up to this one (and they’ve since released another one.) This one makes me wish Steam really did have a neutral rating on its review system rather than a positive and a negative. The graphics are glitzy and quite functional for a game released in 2014. Metacritic gave the game a score of 78/100. Personally, I feel the AI is way too aggressive, aggressive to the point of feeling like it’s succumbed to the “rubber band” physics EA is notorious for in its racing games. It’s frustrating to see a car tumble end over end in a crash, and then moments later come up behind you full force. And then there’s the career mode which I typically enjoy in racing games, but I’m 60 hours into this game and still have two more disciplines to unlock. I will stay the course to see it through but I’m going to be glad when the ride is over.
8. Kings of Leon “Mechanical Bull” on CD: I discovered this band one summer night a few years back while taking a company car on a required road trip. It was a song off of their “Walls” album and the in the following days I sought the CD everywhere, but nobody had it. I finally had to order it online. I stumbled across this CD at Half Price Books and was elated to find it sounds every bit as good as “Walls.” Kings of Leon is a great southern band with just enough twang and lyrical prose to make you think of outdoor parties, multi colored plastic hanging lights, swatting mosquitoes, and the tartness of an ice cold beer. The band’s guitarist, Matthew Followill is quite the talent, with his crunchy Gibson LP chops, and his ability to reverb like Daniel Lanois.
