Edward's April 2020 Mix

This has been another month straight out of the Twilight Zone. Each day is another train car passing the station, a bevy of silhouetted passengers under florescent lights speeding by. I’ve lost track of days and dates. Spring has become a tantalizing Red Delicious apple with a worm burrowed inside. I’m reminded of my heart mishap where I was out of commission for seven weeks. I was in stasis while the world continued to spin around me. It was as if I were standing at the bottom of an escalator, reluctant to catch the right step emerging out of the floor. And this time the escalator is just stopped. I haven’t been standing there, however. This has been quite the busy month.   

1.   Persuader (Jack Reacher #7)  by Lee Child:  Jack Reacher books are a guilty pleasure for me. Beach reads for guys I guess you could call them. Child might not be Hemingway or McCullers but he does put words together in a compelling and graceful way. And I’ve talked about the character, Jack Reacher, enough times in previous posts that you know how I feel about him. He’s basically an American superhero sans the cape and the armor. He’s like David Banner in the old television Hulk series, with never a need to transform into the bulky green alter ego. This novel has our hero going undercover to flush out an ex Army Intelligence officer who was responsible for the deaths of two of Reacher’s prior associates. This is the second Reacher novel in which the perspective is told in the first person, so we all go along for the ride inside Reacher’s head. And man, what a ride. 

2.     Splinter Cell: Conviction on PC: If you were to miss playing through Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell series it would be mighty remiss of you. I remember 2003 when the first game came out, the lighting effects blowing me away. Sam Fisher, the agent superstar of the series never seems to age, but he sure has gotten meaner. There’s not much stealth in this one, and there’s no knocking out the bad guys. Shoot, even to “interrogate” someone involves slamming their heads against porcelain restroom sinks and knocking teeth out. Fisher is on a vendetta to put the hurt on the guys who have kidnapped a family member. I’m “borrowing” this from my own review of the game on Steam, but I've played every Splinter Cell game from this one back, and I have to admit this one is probably the most violent and frenetic one I’ve played. Michael Ironside returns as the voice of Fisher, which seems to be a role he was born to be cast in. The visual style of the game is superb, especially the in-game GUI which highlights mission objectives. There is a welcome desaturation of the screen to signify when Fisher can't be seen by patrolling guards and security cameras. Speaking of guards, the guards in this game say things that had me laughing out loud, the threats they call out to Fisher, whom they know is hiding in the shadows but can't locate him. I haven't found guards so hilarious since Fox Interactive's delightful No One Lives Forever and that game was trying to be funny.

3.   Aerosmith Get Your Wings  on CD: My guitar mentor , Michael Stevens, taught me “Train Kept A Rollin’” which is one of the coolest songs I’ve ever heard in my five decades of rock music listening. The original song hatched by The Yardbirds (pun intended) was pretty darn good, but I have to admit the Aerosmith version sounds much better in my opinion. Joe Perry has always exuded a flair all his own (of course, as did Jimmy Page). I’m drawn to Perry simply because he’s a lefty who learned to play right handed. It’s kind of a sad story. His parents bought him his first acoustic guitar as a kid. The guitar came with an instructional 45rpm record. The instructor on the record explained the plectrum should be held in the right hand, so Perry doing as he was told followed suit. When he learned to play that way he never changed. This album, their second, bleeds their original sound, much like their eponymous first album. It spawned three singles, but none of them hit the singles charts.  As it turns out, this pointed out by my music maven brother, Robert Burton, the song “Train Kept A Rollin’” has some interesting history to it. Get Your Wings album producer, Jack Douglas wanted to mesh some live recording with the studio song. The famous session guitarist, Steve Hunter (from Decatur, IL) was in another studio at the recording center. Douglas asked him to supply a solo for the song. Hunter obliged by playing the dastardly good beginning solo in the song. It’s meshed together so nicely I couldn’t tell it wasn’t Joe Perry slinging both solos out. 

4.  Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman on Kindle: This had been on my GoodReads.com To Read list for ages. And being typical of me to read two books (sometimes more) at the same time, one a physical print book and the other being electronically on my Kindle, I thought a nice long fantasy during these crazy days would be apt. The novel concerns a young businessman named Richard Mayhew, a guy heavily involved in his work and his engagement to a girl he considers out of his league. All of this changes when he is inadvertently whisked away to an alternate version of London, a parallel city that resides below the traditional London, a city that has fallen through the cracks. Gaiman’s mystical city beneath the city, intertwined by the sewer systems of above ground London is reminiscent of a bleak nightmare Charles Dickens would have put on paper about the back alleys and byways of his own Victorian era London. I’m not that far into the story, but what I like about Richard Mayhew is how reluctant he is to be an adventurer. This isn’t a guy sitting down to play Advanced Dungeons & Dragons with his mates, or fire up the computer for a bout of Baldur’s Gate. This is a guy who’s living a nightmare and just wants things to return to normal.  
  
5. Vangelis Soil Festivities on CD:  This was released in 1984 by Vangelis simply because “he wanted to make music, not sell a million albums.” Vangelis states it’s a concept album giving a soundtrack to the nature at our feet, the life processes taking place on the Earth surface. The songs on the album are titled, “Movements” and begins with the comforting sound of a rainstorm, which signals nurturing of life on the planet. The music continues, growing ominously dark, perhaps signifying the struggle for survival. This is a great ambient album perfect for sleeping or reading or writing (I’m listening to it as I write this.) I will never understand the connection, but Vangelis just has a way of connecting to my very soul when it comes to music. 

6.  Sid Meier’s Pirates! on PC: For all my gaming buddies, Sid Meier, needs no introduction. For the rest of you, he’s considered a gaming god. Anything he creates on the gaming front is lauded as exhibit A in many a divorce court. I’ve always been a fan of his Railroad games, but before those he created a little gem called Pirates! This game is a complete remastering of the original 1987 game. Firing up the game and creating a pirate you can swear allegiance to Spain, France, Holland or England and steal treasures for your country, harassing each country’s foes. Or you can simply become a pirate and terrorize them all. Or you can make it your vendetta to cash in on the bounty of every pirate in the game. The game covers a lot of ground: overrunning fort settlements, participating in ballroom dances with esteemed governor’s daughters in hopes she’ll give you information such as where bounties are hiding or a piece of a hidden treasure map. You battle other pirate fleets and victoriously take their ships and their cargoes, cashing them in for yourself. Occurring aroung the Caribbean and the Florida keys, all that’s missing is the smell of sunscreen and a Pina Coloda.  

7. Company of Heroes on PC: I’ve mentioned it before. This is one of my castaway tropical island games. I’ve played the game extensively since it came out in 2006. I introduced a friend of mine from work to the game. And to my chagrin, we played five games straight and he slaughtered me all five games. Should I even be admitting this to anybody? Despite my tragic losses, this is one RTS I still have fun with even when I lose. The game’s sound design won all kinds of crazy awards when it was released. The first time you hear the grinding squeaky sounds of a German King Tiger tank, lumbering into your base like some prehistoric monster, or the eruption and landfall of American artillery, you’ll understand why it got those awards. The game is fourteen years old, and if you log on right now there are always people to play with. That is a lot to be said for this venerable real time strategy game. 

8. Mad Max: Fury Road on Blu Ray: This makes the third time I’ve watched this movie. The first two times I watched it I remember thinking it was one of the best action movies I’d ever seen. But now I doubt I’ll watch it again. I don’t know if I’m just Mad Maxed out or if I noticed certain stand out things this time I’d not noticed before. In movies as of late there seems to be a Hollywood agenda to push feminism. Women should have the same opportunities as men. I just don’t like the push. It’s odd that I didn’t notice it in the movie before, but it’s actually Mad Max as the secondary character to Charlize Theron’s “Furiousa.” The actual plot of the movie is a feminist revolt. At its essence the movie is one long vehicle chase. But it’s the style of the movie that does it for me. The whole movie has an American western flair to it. There is even tribute paid to Chuck Jones and his wonderful Roadrunner cartoons. It’s been called one of the greatest action movies ever. I made that call and for once I wasn’t wrong. 

9. Assassin’s Creed on PC: I’d been putting playing this game off for a very long time. I’d heard the terrible stories of how wonky the controls were, and they were right. I’m using an Xbox controller, and it’s still tedious.  I remember the game looking gorgeous when it released and it still doesn’t look bad. The sweeping vistas of Jerusalem are nothing short of breathtaking.  The game concerns a young man who discovers, actually, it is discovered for him that he is the descendent of an assassin who lived during the Renaissance Era. The ancestral assassin seriously shook up the world of the Templars. And now you are being coerced into being transported through time via a weird DNA strand/time continuum thingie to finish what your ancestor started. Yes, it’s hokey, but it sets up the premise of the game. What I really want to do is play all of the cooler newer games in the series, but me, being that purist that I am, have to muddle through this one first.  

10. Van Halen Fair Warning on CD: When I was in high school I worshiped Van Halen. I loved their first two albums and when their third album, Women and Children First came out, I enjoyed the ride, settling into the groove of knowing Van Halen was my favorite rock band. When Fair Warning came out in the spring of my senior year it seemed a departure from their previous albums, but I was okay with that. I would soon graduate and leave for the Navy. In a way it was exciting to see Van Halen go through this change; I felt I could personally relate. I gave the album a thorough listen this month for the first time since probably 1981. Yes, it had been that long. Esquire magazine stated Fair Warning is an album every man should own. There are some remarkable songs on it, my two favorites being, “Unchained,” and “Hear About it Later.” Both of these are the band at their best, but the remaining songs, despite Eddie’s usual guitar prowess,  seems to me as if David Lee Roth is trying just a little too hard. What seemed effortless on the band’s first three albums, seemed almost laborious when it came to Roth’s vocals. Not surprisingly, I became more disinterested with the band with each successive album after. 

11. Black Hawk Down on 4K Blu Ray: This is probably the fourth time I’ve seen this movie. It’s a movie I’ve always been excited about ever since reading Mark Bowden’s Pulitzer Prize winning Black Hawk Down and playing the Novalogic game of the same title that came out in 2003. What usually happens on a repeated viewing of a movie is the detection of details I had missed in previous viewings. This time was no exception. I didn’t realize much of the mission-turned-into-disaster included a fierce rivalry between the US Army’s Airborne Rangers and Delta Force operatives. Another interesting note, this was Tom Hardy’s first onscreen presence. The 4K treatment is a noticeable improvement over Blu Ray. I’ve said it before, but this movie illustrates modern day Middle Eastern type CQB as good as any movie of its type I’ve seen.

Edward's March 2020 Mix

 
This singular month of March 2020 will be one for the history books. This is one your kiddos will tell their grandchildren about. The novel virus COVID-19 has intruded upon us like invaders from Mars wanting to conquer Earth. The world has become like so many science fiction movies or Stephen King stories. For lack of a better way to put it, it’s unbelievable. Being holed up for two weeks at home seems like a grand idea, but in reality it’s Christmas break in The Twilight Zone. I’m not complaining. It was a wonderful chance to get in some quality gaming time not to mention the books I read, the music I listened to and the movies I watched. 

1.   Light in August by William Faulkner:  I’m still engrossed in this gritty muddy work of great American literature by Faulkner. The novel centers around Joe Christmas, a drifter at odds within himself because he’s of mixed race. He’s a rough man who’s running from a ghastly crime he’s committed. I couldn’t stand him until the backstory reveals he was plucked from a foster home by a stern religious man who whips him daily for not being able to remember verses from a catechism. My favorite writer, Carson McCullers who left her native Columbus, GA and settled in New York once said she conducted visits to her old south to “renew her sense of horror.” I get that with this novel.

Faulkner’s brilliance in descriptive writing comes through here in which we get a description of the stern religious man’s wife: “It was as though instead of having been subtly slain and corrupted by the ruthless and bigoted man beyond his intending and her knowing, she had been hammered stubbornly thinner and thinner like some passive and dully malleable metal, into an attenuation of dumb hopes and frustrated desires . . .”  

   

2.     Vangelis “Heaven and Hell” on CD: I have an extensive Vangelis collection, but this one was missing from my library. I found it for el cheapo on eBay and couldn’t pass it up. Recorded in 1975 long before his seminal Chariots of Fire and BladeRunner scores, this is still reminiscent of a cheesy late ‘70s science fiction soundtrack. And then there is the section in Part 1 where the warbly glaring synthesizers give way to a beautiful piano and majestic string synths. My eyes began to well up immediately. This was the section used in television Nova’s wonderful Cosmos series hosted by Carl Sagan. It was the perfect choice because this album has sections that are wonderfully appropriate for musical accompaniment to the origins of the universe.  

3.   Jack Reacher: Never Go Back on 4K Blu Ray: Jack Reacher is as close to a superhero as you can get without treading upon the territory of Marvel or DC comics. In a way he’s better than those superheroes because he’s truly believable, just a seemingly average joe trying to find his place in the world after a career in the US Army. Unfortunately, trouble always seems to find him. Suddenly, he’s doing his thing, not withholding to any laws but his own justice. Reacher is depicted much different in the book series, of which I’m a huge fan, than he is by Tom Cruise in the movies. Still, Cruise does a good job of bringing Lee Child’s character to life. This particular movie has Reacher who is used to being alone suddenly eschewing that “aloneness” to protect a teenage girl who could potentially be his daughter. Cruise puts his everything into his movies, (he even did his own driving stunts in this film) and his love for what he does shows. One of the actresses on the set stated in an interview, “It would be Monday morning 6:00a.m. and we’re all still kind of groggy trying to get into the swing, and Tom would show up on the set and start yelling, ‘Hey, guess what we’re getting to do? We’re making a movie!’” She said he was always an inspiration to all.   

4.  Magician by Raymond E. Feist: My friend, David Tidwell, got me fascinated with this book when he described being on forced marches while deployed to the Middle East during Operation Desert Storm, and having this novel ensconced in the side pocket of his battle fatigues. He would look forward to break times where he could plop down on his pack and break out the book, instantly being teleported to another world (probably a much better one than the real one he was currently existing in.) And so, I started this tome and found myself complaining to Dave that I just couldn't get into it. Then something took hold. The characters sucked me in and I got hooked. I now see why Raymond Feist's Betrayal at Krondor series went on to become a best selling RPG series on PC in addition to the great novels Feist penned. Perhaps not quite as deep as a George R. R. Martin Song of Fire & Ice novel, but venerable nonetheless and every bit as engaging. This indoctrination into the Riftwar Saga novels makes me want to play an old school RPG and delve into the second book of The Riftwar Saga.


5. The Smashing Pumpkins “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness” on CD:  This was The Smashing Pumpkins’ third studio album. It was described by the band as a teen angst message to 14-24 year olds. Declared a concept album by frontman, Billy Corgan, he said it was Pink Floyd’s “Wall” album for Generation X. That’s kind of a bold statement, but then perhaps proved to be true. The album spawned six singles and became a diamond album by the RIAA (Ten million albums sold) not to mention seven Grammy nominations (of which it scored one single award for Best Hard Rock Performance with Vocal for "Bullet with Butterfly Wings.” (That had to hurt.) Personally, I think these are good Pumpkins’ songs. Most of the songs have a “samey” sound to them, but I could put the discs on auto-repeat and not be bored.    

6.  The Hurricane Heist on 4K Blu Ray: A typical popcorn summer blockbuster movie to liven up your big screen 4K TV and give your Home Theater surround sound a good workout. The movie certainly didn’t fail at that task. Not quite an epic roller coaster ride, but the movie was full of great action sequences. Friends betraying friends, good guys who are actually bad guys, and bro moments galore. Interestingly, the two main characters hail from the UK and Australia, yet they pull off Alabama accents fairly well. Still, it begs the question, are we running out of young American male actors? The transition from Blu Ray to 4K Blu Ray is subtle at best. I didn’t compare the two, myself, but this, according to the experts at blu-ray.com. Rob Cohen, the film’s director gives an interview on the disc lamenting the state of the movie industry and a short bleak history of movie making in the past four decades. It’s well worth watching. 

7. F.E.A.R. 3 on PC: The original F.E.A.R. was lauded for its AI back in 2005. A challenging AI coupled with a creepy ghost girl stolen right out of the movie Ring, what was there not to like? The horrors continued with F.EA.R. 2. F.E.A.R. 3 tried to carry the torch, but turned into more of an action game. I still encountered moments of dread as I played it, but the fall out of my chair shock moments especially apparent in the first game had become a thing of the past. Still, it had some great set pieces. I won’t soon forget the airport. As a matter of fact after beating this game I may not look at airports the same way again.  

8. The Complete Guitar Encyclopedia by Nick Freeth: This is a pretty inclusive guitar book covering every aspect from the history of famous guitar brands, to guitar gods (and how to play like them) to how to clean your guitar or set up a pedal board. It’s a thick and beautiful volume filled with some fantastic close up pictures of guitars and the players who made them famous. Included with each guitarist profile is a short discography of their venerable works. Whether you’re just starting out playing or you’re a gigging veteran this is a book that will make you want to pick up your guitar. 

9. Night Gallery: Season Two on DVD: Television sure has come a long way since the early 1970s when this series made its appearance. I remember being enthralled as a nine year old kid watching these episodes, sneaking up to lean against the doorway when I should have been in bed, being sleepy the next day at school, but thinking it was worth it. In truth, these episodes were as campy as a Saturday morning Sid & Marty Kroft kid’s vehicle. But the shows took themselves seriously, and to an impressionable boy like me, that’s all that mattered. These shows are fun to watch now because I took them so seriously as a kid, not to mention the sense of nostalgia that accompanies each episode: elongated cars that looked like road boats, leisure suits, paneled walls, and bushy sideburns. I’m not so sure I’d really like to go back in time.  

10. Tammar “Visits” on CD: Take a hint of The Smithereens, add a pinch of The Stone Roses, and mix in a dash of Joy Division and you have Tammar. Hailing from Bloomington, Indiana, this was a Pandora discovery, and boy am I glad I found them! Great writing music, great driving music, and even music to simply slip the earbuds in with and lie down and let your thoughts go. The band’s music conjures up images of 1970s movie scenes depicting families on a Mediterranean shore, windswept blond hair and turtleneck pullovers all shot on yellow grained film stock. Wes Anderson would do well to use Tammar to create the OST for his next film. Go to YouTube and listen to “Yung Jun.” You can thank me later. 

11. Pillars of Eternity on PC: Is there a more perfect time to begin an old school hardcore RPG than when being imposed upon with a self-quarantine? Backed by 77,000 Kickstarters, this game has all of the trimmings of an old D&D style dungeon crawler, only upgraded with a more user friendly UI and better graphics. I’m playing a road roughened Ranger named Edward Wanderlust, accompanied by a pet wolf named Boris. It seems I came out of a mysterious comatose type sleep as a “Watcher,” the ability to see souls wandering the earth and communicate with them. This in addition to stumbling into a village in which a mad king has decorated a town concentric oak tree like a Christmas Tree with hanging bodies in the belief that everybody in town is a heretic. I’m early into the game, level 4 so far, but I have the feeling I’m going to be called on to save the world, typical RPG fare. This is not Diablo III. You can’t buff up before fights, and you must rest after each battle to restore health, stamina and endurance. This is D&D mechanics at its finest.

Edward's February 2020 Mix

Our strange winter (or lack thereof) continues on. I’ve been looking at new PCs. My I7-3770K still runs full steam; at six years old, she’s getting ancient, but she’s still quite the goodie. And I’ve done something I never thought I’d do this month. I’m playing my first console game since my bout with a NES 8 bit system back in 1989. That ended abruptly when I was exposed to a Commodore 64. I procured a bank loan for my first PC (with a whalloping 12 mHz 286 processor) and never looked back.   

1.      House of  Wax on Blu-Ray: I first saw this in its original 3-D grandeur in a stately old movie theater in downtown San Diego, California. I remember seeing it alone and wanting to cling to every cinematic moment. It made me never want to leave the theater. Now, to own this movie for my very own and being able to lose myself in its magic is a testament to why I love movies so much. When I was a kid at the mercy of a rabbit ear antennaed TV festooned with tin foil that pulled in six channels I never dreamed I would someday own movies. Boy, what a movie to own! Vincent Price is nothing less than spectacular in his role as Henry Jarrod, a wax sculptor who loses his museum in a tragic fire in which he is horribly burned. He rebuilds his museum completing his figures by murdering people and covering their corpses with wax. Despite his mad intentions, he’s very much a sympathetic character. The movie uses a 1950s style “Technicolor” type film that looks warm and rich on a big screen, and looks marvelous on a big screen TV as well. The Blu-Ray treatment is well defined. This is a movie well worth adding to your horror collection.  
    
2.     Back to the Future III on Blu-Ray: I finally watched the last of this great series. I’d heard it wasn’t as good as the others. (Are sequels and sequels of sequels ever?) But I didn’t think it was bad. If you want bad sequels, watch The Toxic Avenger. There was a lot of love put into this movie, right down to the town of Hill Valley itself. None of it was built up falsefronts. Every building was a standalone building. There’s a line in the film in which Doc Brown doesn’t believe that Ronald Reagan (who was a movie actor in his time) is the current President. Rumor has it during Reagan’s own personal screening of this movie in the White House during his tenure, he laughed so hard at that line he had the reel played back so he could watch it again. Cute. And Bob Gale, the movie’s writer knew they had a hit when the movie was satired on the cover of Mad magazine.
   
3.  3 Doors Down “The Greatest Hits”  on CD: This is a band with members from a town right out of William Faulkner’s fictitious Yoknapatawpha County. Escatawpa is where this band hails from. They were childhood friends who played together. When they released the song “Kryptonite,” they became world renown. I always had a fondness for them, but there were too many songs I didn’t particularly care for to warrant buying a single album. This album is the perfect cure for that. It really does have all of their best songs on it. I admire their belief in God and family, in guns and black and white values. They performed at President Trump’s inauguration and caught a lot of flack for it. They rebounded by saying they were just honoring their values. These are guys who frequently perform for the soldiers in the Middle East. 

4.  David Copperfield  by Charles Dickens:  Oh, where to start? I got engrossed in this book from the beginning, but somewhat lost my way. David Copperfield is a likeable character, someone I grew to have a real attachment to. But the book is little more than a long series of discourses. The action is simply Copperfield leaving a houseful of people engaged in conversation to ambulate to another houseful of people to talk some more. Where the book grabbed hold of me again and refused to let go was the character development. The zany cast of characters (who can forget Uriah Heep?) is what won me over through to the end. Much like Dickens's venerable Great Expectations, this novel has introduced me to characters I will remember for the rest of my life. Dickens's powers of description are brilliant at times. His descriptions of cold and rainy London and the summertime fields and glens as seen by Copperfield and the description of Copperfield's lonely but cozy sleeping rooms are so real as to invoke a new affiliation with the phrase "virtual reality."  I was moved to happy tears in the final page. But then it may have been a moment of catharsis at having finally finished this 950 page novel. (Disclaimer: This was plagiarized from my own review of this novel on my GoodReads.com account.)


5.  Red Dead Redemption on PS3: I have preached the sin and abomination of playing console games for years. Of course I started with an original NES 8 bit back in 1989, but after getting the chance to play on a Commodore 64, I ridded myself of my Nintendo and never looked back. Oddly, Rockstar Games released Red Dead Redemption II. What’s a gamer to do? I had never played the first one (which was only released on console.) We had a PlayStation 3 here, so I figured, why not? I bought the Game of the Year Edition for super cheap, and I can’t lie: I’ve been enjoying the heck out of it! I’m only four hours in, but I’m just a recovered outlaw, trying to be a good guy, redeeming myself in the eyes of the law. But in truth, I’m a wild west klutz, I make Don Knotts in The Shakiest Gun in the West look like a superhero.

6.  Light in August by William Faulkner:  I’ve always regarded William Faulkner as the southern country cousin of Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck. He writes about the clay and dirt and the hot Mississippi sun quite like no other, creating garish and stark word pictures complete with characters so well described you’d swear they walked out of a painting onto the pages of his books. He makes up words such as “mileconsuming chatter,” “manlooking shoes,” and “squatting in a ditchbank,” and contextually, the words fit right into where Faulkner places them. I’ve only started this book, but it just feels like a slow easy ride atop a mule wagon on a sultry summer day, much like the scenes depicted in the book.  

7. Dead Space 2 on PC: I finished this game, and to my chagrin had to dumb the final boss down from “normal” to casual. I really hate having to do that with a game, but when the developers make it so difficult the fun is sapped out it what else can you do? It certainly wasn’t a bad game, but I was glad when it was over. With ageism comes no-reflexism. It was a 20 hour game that took me 30 hours to beat. Being made to the tune of 120 million dollars, it’s one of the most expensive games ever made. The main star of it all was the Sprawl, the space station on which the game takes place. Well, that and the score by gaming composer extraordinaire, Jason Graves (he scored Far Cry Primal.) I’m told Dead Space 3 isn’t as fun to play, but me being the completionist I am, I’ll have to find out the hard way. 

8. Conflict: Denied Ops on PC: After only beating six games last year, I thought I’d try to make a jump-start of it this year and go a little faster.  Despite being a co-op online game with now dead servers, this game seemed to check off all of the bulletpoints: short (about six hours long), told a semi decent store involving two military “bros,” one a black man from the “’hood” and the other a redneck white guy seemingly raised by alligators in the Louisiana swamps, lots of red barrels to shoot at and crates to open. The Steam reviews are horrible, but at two hours in, I can’t complain too badly. It’s an action game for guys who like action games.

9. The Wrestler  on Blu-Ray: This low budget film was a sort of comeback for Hollywood brat packer, Mickey Rourke. The movie depicts a professional wrestler forced into retirement due to health reasons, and finding life outside the ring quite dispiriting. The term “washed up” comes to mind. And Rourke was the perfect guy for this role. You can’t help but feel sorry for him as he struggles in daily life, clinging to his glory days as a famous wrestler. He has an estranged daughter, whose relationship he keeps torpedoing despite his best intentions. His love interest works in a strip club with a “no dating customers policy.” Nothing seems to work out for him, but at the end of the day he remains true to himself. I always thought pro wrestling was fake. As it turns out, not completely. The matches are pre-determined. But the path to that win or loss is worked out by the wrestler’s themselves. And as one wrestler stated in the behind the scenes short, “You can’t fake smashing into a table from the second rope.”

Edward's January 2020 Mix

A rather odd winter has befallen. No snow and no Antarctica temperatures. I’m certainly not complaining. I finally beat Dungeon Siege II after 95 hours. But that’s the way I roll, beating 40 hour RPGs in 90 hours. Dungeon Siege II certainly isn’t a first. After saving my pennies I was finally able to score a Gibson Les Paul. I’ll keep practicing and hopefully develop enough mad skillz to do it justice. I became an official empty nester parent this month. I’m trying to get used to how quiet the house is. Coming home is like walking into a newly discovered ten thousand year old tomb. But you know what? I can crank the distortion on my amp and attempt to bellow out some tunes. I could get used to this. Okay, this is a first. As I was typing this, my monitor died. My beautiful 144hz 1440P 27” monitor gave up the ghost. I picked up an el cheapo at Best Buy. Now I’m the proud owner of a 1920x1080 25” It will have to do until an upgrade. I had to pick up something to be able to provide you with this most awesome reading material. Oh, how we suffer for our art!  

1.      Magic: The Gathering - Arena on PC: I read about this one a couple of issues ago in PC Gamer. The editors stated it was the best rendition of the game on PC yet. They were right. The game has an excellent tutorial and the art style and interface will make you feel right at home if you’re a veteran player. The AI is challenging enough, but playing online is where it’s at, of course. There are even ranked games, and best of all, the game is free. There’s no need to go to McDonald’s anymore to play or call your buddies who always have something else going on. Be forewarned: the game is chocolate crack. 
    
2.     Frampton Comes Alive!  on CD:  This album which sold 8 million records its first year and was the first album that sold one million cassette tapes spawned a few big radio hits that always takes me back to high school days. I can still listen to the elongated (13:46) “Do You Feel Like We Do” all the way through and hit the repeat button to hear it all over again. It was my first exposure to a guitar Talkbox. Peter Frampton seemed to harbor as much of a talent for it as he did playing his magnificent black Gibson Les Paul. This album is somewhat of a fabricated live album, but not in a bad way. It’s not a continuous recording of a single concert. The songs are all live, but they were recorded at concerts in San Francisco and New York City and meshed together in production. 

3.  Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation on Blu Ray: The Mission Impossible movies are always nothing short of a roller coaster ride. This one involves a group of former secret agents who have formed their own cabal and of course Tom Cruise and crew are being blamed for their shenanigans. Set pieces include Tom Cruise riding the wing of a transport plane from takeoff (in which he really did the stunt, truly death defying) and an underwater scene in which Cruise had to hold his breath for several minutes. Admittedly, the high point of the movie was what went on behind the scenes. Cruise co-produced it, stepping from behind the camera to take over and augment every scene how he saw fit to do so. Directed and written by Christopher McQuarrie, McQuarrie said the only thing Cruise cared about was making each scene breathless for the movie-going audience. I abhor Cruise’s politics and personal beliefs, but as an actor who puts so much effort in his movies as to perform his own stunts (and he’s older than I am!) I have to admit: I admire the guy.  

4.  The Witcher on Netflix:  As an avid fan of the game series (I picked up the original game in 2007 on day of release) I dismissed this series because of the casting. Placing Henry Cavill was a no-no in my book. The man was simply too young and too handsome. Geralt of Rivia, in the games was much older and more meaner looking than handsome. But hearing guys at work talk about how good it was, I had to check it out. Boy, was I wrong. Henry Cavill played the role with aplomb. And of course, now I want to replay the games. I’ll probably see Henry Cavill in my mind’s eye as Geralt from here on out which is not such a bad thing. The series touches upon many things in the books and the games. It’s a bit mature, but well worth watching if you enjoy fantasy set in medieval times.

5.  Home Alone on Blu Ray: A John Hughes classic film (are any of his films not classics?),  this is one I had never seen before. It was one of those movies I was quite familiar with, having been exposed to numerous scenes over the years and hearing how good it was from my parents. I could see this movie become a favorite Christmas movie for the multitudes. My own personal title is Elf. Like other Hughes films, this was made in Chicago, Illinois which made it special for me since I spent some of the best years of my boyhood in the prairie state. Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern are excellently cast in this slapstick comedy, basically a “family movie without the family” as the movie’s tagline described. The Blu Ray transfer is on point. If you’ve never seen this, you’re missing a gem, but that’s impossible because I’m the only person I know who had never seen this film.

6.  2018 Gibson Les Paul “Classic”: Saving and yearning for quite a while I was finally able to pick one up from Reverb.com. It wasn’t brand new, but the former owner who bought it new only had 3 hours play time on it. As I’ve said before, when you are a lefty the search is always treacherous and unfruitful. I got lucky with this one. Equipped with P90 pickups, it emanates total Angus Young AC/DC tone. I did find a minor quality control issue with it. Kudos to my friend Josh Query for remedying it for me. Weighing in at over ten lbs. it’s not light, but I’m loving the 1960s style smaller neck and the way it makes me feel I have to step up my game to do it justice when I play it. 

7. Dead Space 2 on PC: I finished the original game way back in 2011. I figured it was about time to knock out the next game in the series. The last game I played this scary was 2014’s venerable Alien Isolation which filled me with such a sense of dread I was just happy to finally get through it. This game runs a close second with each door sliding open and not knowing what’s in the room. There is nothing more terrorizing than being swarmed by necromorphs and having to stop to reload my weapons. This game offers such situations in spades. Taking place on a space station orbiting the planet Jupiter’s biggest moon, Titan, the game environment is so immersive it feels like a real place to me. When a game accomplishes this so well, there’s just no other place I’d rather be than at my computer. 

8. Guitar Gods by Rusty Cutchin: Basically a mini encyclopedia of some of the greatest guitarists in history. Loaned to me by my guitar mentor, Michael Stevens, this is a compelling book for a few reasons. It hosts a biography and photo of every guitarist I've ever known of, and it also lists the albums that made them famous. I've been jotting the albums down and listening to them on Spotify. I will never need a rock and roll appreciation class after this! Talk about an education. I may adopt this venue and call it my own, "Edward Burton Rock Appreciation 101."