February is the only month that can go without once having a full moon. I just know it’s typically an incredibly cold month in my neck of the woods, this year, though, not really. One dump of snow and lots of warm weather. Here I am again talking about the weather. What was that Oscar Wilde quote? Something about talking about the weather? Oh yeah, “Talking about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.” Well, guess what. That’s wrong. Wilde never said that. He said this: “Inconsistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.” It defies me how something like that could be so misconstrued. Anyway, I got to a lot of stuff in this, the shortest month of the year. Enjoy!
Enlist on PC: EA’s wonderful Battlefield 1942 will always hold a special place in my heart. I’ve longed for something similar ever since EA shut down the last of their servers where this special game lived. It was my first exposure to 32 vs 32 man battles involving ships, planes, tanks and boots on the ground grunts, and I lost many weekend nights to it, each battle creating its own story, absolutely no narrative needed. I will never forget shooting a plane out of the sky with a tank, talk about a lucky shot. Then suddenly seeing a parachute blossom, firing my turret machine gun, trying to pluck the guy out of the sky, and missing. He steered his chute to land on my tank and then knifed me to death. I think I must have fallen out of my chair with laughter. And now, I can somewhat live those days again with Gaijin’s Enlisted. But it’s even better with updated graphics and a choice of a multitude of armies. It’s utter chaos, men, screaming, hot lead flying unabashed, and those same Battlefield stories being created. It’s a bit of a grind, but the game itself is free. Grab some friends to play with, and you’ll be entertained all night long.
Rocket Fighter by Mano Ziegler: Mano Ziegler's account of his days as an air combat trainer and warrior in Germany's bizarre rocket powered aircraft program is so amazingly narrated, you can't help but to think of the Luftwaffe as home to the "good guys." German airmen, despite fighting for an ignoble cause, took to the skies with chivalry, and determination, and many of them a certain grace respected by combat pilots from all sides. But the real hero of this story is the ME-163 Rocket Fighter itself. As Ziegler himself said, "We had failed to achieve our aim, but the fame of this fantastic warplane was not to rest on her successes. The number of victory stripes that bedecked her fuselage were small, but she had opened a new era in flying. A mettlesome creature as gentle as a dove one moment and a fiend at others, she was unique." (Plagiarized from my own review on GoodReads.) Truly a great book.
Northern Exposure – Season Six on DVD: I’ve always been slow when it comes to watching television series. I rarely binge watch anything. It’s taken me a decade to do it, but I finally finished all of Northern Exposure. I’ve always likened it to a more grown up version of Mayberry and Sheriff Andy Taylor’s stomping grounds, with just as much of a compelling and colorful cast of characters. The last of the episodes though made me realize it was time for the show to come to its fruition. Dr. Joel Fleischman had already departed the show, and romantic interests had come full circle and we realized who was going to end up with who. Still, this was a fun series of comedy mingled with heart warming antics. I will never forget “Chris in the morning” and the illuminating passages he would read on his radio show, or the literary quotes he would spew. It was a good run, and I’m glad I got to take it all in. Good news: I just heard it’s about to stream online for the first time.
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng: Kind of a Leave it to Beaver story in an alternate universe, Celeste Ng is a remarkable writer. This book had me captivated from the first sentence. Ng's writing is ambitious and almost magical. As one reviewer said, "Ng is a powerful and poignant writer whose detail to attention is pitch perfect." I couldn't have said it better myself. I was tingling as I got to the last sentence. Here is a snippet of her incredible writing in this scene in which a girl who has just come home from school opens the door into the kitchen where her mother is sitting with a friend who has just lost a baby: “What happened?” she whispered, though she already knew. She had never heard an adult cry like that, with such an animal sound. Recklessly, as if there were nothing more to be lost. For years afterward, she would sometimes wake in the night, heart thumping, thinking she’d heard that agonizing cry again.” Rarely am I ever affected by a book in such a manner. It goes without saying, I'll be reading Celeste Ng's debut novel, and I am eagerly awaiting her next.
Batman: Arkham Asylum on PC: Slowly progressing in this fine action-adventure game made by Rocksteady back in 2009. I’d actually finished it once, but reading Evan Lahti talk about it again in a PC Gamer Magazine, made me want to revisit it. Lahti described the game’s setting as being the central character in the game, and he nailed it. Arkham Asylum looks like a place you’d want to go trick or treating at every night. Cutting the lights and donning the cans, it’s a lush eerie world I lose myself into. It’s precisely why Evan Lahti occasionally returns to it. The game is a bit hard to find my way around in at times, but hey I finished it once, right? I’m just about to fight Killer Croc. Wish me luck.
The Lumineers Cleopatra on Amazon Music: Sirius XM introduced me to this band, and my first thought was, “goodness gracious, where have you boys been all my life?” Part folksy, part alternative, and all very good, it was love at first listen. Their sound reminds me of warm yellow light spilling onto honey colored wood floors in a brew pub on a rainy Saturday afternoon. Hailing from Denver, Colorado, their music is mostly a few guitars and a piano, beautifully accompanied by the soulful singing of Wesley Schultz. I recommend you check out the song, “Angela.”
iRacing on PC: Imagine online racing where griefing, cheating, and bad sportsmanship simply doesn’t exist. David Kaemmer was the creator of Electronic Arts’ wonderful little gem, Indianapolis 500: The Simulation back in 1989. (Interestingly, he was also a former classmate of mine. We both graduated the same high school.) He went on to found Papyrus entertainment software that gave us the best NASCAR games of the 1990s and the venerable Grand Prix Legends that was notoriously difficult because of its level of realism. Then he created iRacing, an always online pay to play racing venue used by professional racers the world over. Always curious, I bought a 3 month subscription and joined the Rookie series., I’ve never experienced such adrenaline fueled racing online before, nor have I ever had so much fun online racing (and this comes with over 30 years’ experience.) I graduated to a D Class license which gave me the opportunity to really peek under the covers. I didn’t like what I saw. I wanted to go the IndyCar oval route. In order to do so, I have to obtain a C Class license and I have to buy tracks and cars in addition to the monthly fee I pay. It’s unnecessarily expensive and you never get to keep what you buy; you’re merely renting it. I cancelled. But hey, curiosity sated, and now I know.
