Edward's July 2026 Monthly Mix

 

  

Quite the busy month. I became a grandfather again, this time to a granddaughter, my first. Given that I've had two daughters, I'm not a stranger to fatherhood, but the birth of this one, I don't know, man. It really hit me with intensity. Could it be because she has the same piano fingers as me (nobody else in the family has them?) Maybe it's simply because she's my first granddaughter. Anyway, I shall look at the world entirely different now, probably for the rest of my days since she is here. The world has become crazy and my sensitivities are perhaps a bit more brazen because of this birth, kind of like maybe a chipped tooth down to the nerve would feel like while walking outside on the coldest day in winter. I want to protect her but I am only one man. Stephen King was right, this world doesn't love you, but it doesn't hate you either. I wish I could live long enough to see my granddaughter become old and gray. I want to be her steadfast companion, always there to protect. And that's the great tragedy, that I can't.  

 

Saboteur: A movie that perhaps would seem contrived by today’s standards, but I’m sure enthralled audiences when it released in 1942. The “saboteurs,” noble looking people enmeshed in big money high society who are truly evil. Looking back, it’s almost prophetic in that despite the almost melodramatic tone of this movie, there are people in high power who hate this country and want to see it fail. In typical Hitchcock ingenuity, the famed director did numerous unusual techniques for the time in making the film. He shot extensive on-location shots which Hollywood rarely did at the time, and he incorporated the shootout scene between the saboteur and the police within a movie theater depicting a movie involving a shoot out which inevitably makes the audience more involved than something like 3D effects would do later on. Oddly, the fight for democracy against those who would oppose it occurs on the torch of the Statue of Liberty. This movie contains similarities to Hitchcock’s North by Northwest which was filmed twenty years later. When questioned if Northwest was perhaps a remake of Saboteur, the master of suspense said yes. This 4K presentation results in some clean up that supposedly even plagued the blu-ray version. The whites are bold and the blacks are deep and pristine. This is the version to own.  

 

 

Forza Horizon 3 on PC: I’m making good progress in this open world racing/driving sim that depicts the whole of Australia. I wasn’t sure of what to do to see the end credits roll. As it turns out, you grow certain festival points on the map by procuring fans. Gain enough fans and it notches up the size of your festival. Get them all to level five and you beat the game. Sounds easy enough, right? Wrong! It’s taking forever to accomplish enough tasks to gain enough fans. However, the variety of cars in the game and the unlimited upgrades one can acquire make this game a blast. The graphics look amazing for a game that came out in 2016 and features HDR. It’s no wonder PC Gamer gave the game a 92. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Between Planets by Robert Heinlein: This was a part of Heinlein’s juvenile series written in the 1940s and 1950s. Oddly, it seems a bit more mature for such an audience as there are some violent interludes here including a man being shot in the face, described graphically. The story concerns a youth named Don who was born on a spaceship in trajectory between Venus (where his mother was born) and Earth (where his father was born) and as the boy is at university on Earth. Venus and Earth go to war against each other. In light of this war, Don simply wants to reunite with his parents who are scientists living on Mars. Don becomes proactive in the war, all the while shedding his boyhood and becoming a young man. Like other books in Heinlein’s juvenile series, this story moves fast and makes for fun reading.  

Rush Permanent Waves on FLAC: Lying in bed one night, listening to the radio and trying to fall asleep because I had school the next morning, “The Spirit of Radio” came on. I’d never heard anything so cool before. Not only did the song make me an instant fan of the band, it also made Alex Lifeson my favorite guitarist from that point on. The album was a perfect segue of the works before it: Hemispheres, A Farewell to Kings and 2112 into what would be their next album after this one, Moving Pictures. Loudwire.com just listed their top 11 prog albums of the 1980s. Rush’s Moving Pictures was listed as number 1 (is that a surprise?) but Permanent Waves placed 5^th, and they said the same thing I stated here: Permanent Waves continued at the exact point Hemispheres left off.  

The Pathfinder by James Fennimore Cooper: Book 3 of Cooper’s famous Leatherstocking Tales. Perhaps the strangest thing about this series is the manner in which they were written. The books were written way out of synch of their chronological order. Of course, The Last of the Mohicans is regarded as Cooper’s magnus opus, (and I’m sure you remember the excellent movie starring Daniel Day Lewis). The Pathfinder continues the adventures of Natty Bumppo as he boards a small warship on Lake Ontario and falls in love. Passages are bittersweet in which Natty confesses to the object of his ardor, that he would rather give up scouting and deer slaying and his life among the forests, which he considers a majestic existence, to come home to a fire in the hearth and this woman who he would love beyond measure. It is true, Cooper is guilty of verbiage, but the man is a good writer. I can see why these books were popular entertainment in their day.

Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines:  on GoG: After ten months of using walkthroughs and cheats, I can finally notch my belt. I saw it through to the end. Released as an action RPG, the game fits the bill, however, the last ¼ of the game is very combat heavy. And some of those bosses, whew! There’s no way I could have gotten through without cheats. Still, the storyline is exceptional, and the same old adage of “you are the chosen one,” works. This game released in 2004 in the wake of The X Files and Deus Ex which you can easily see traces of in the game’s environment. I’m glad the game is finally over, but you know what? I’m going to miss the world it took me to. I doubt I’ll ever replay it, though I have Steam friends who have played for hundreds of hours. But hey, there’s always Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines 2, right?

 

 

 

Edward's June 2026 Monthly Mix

 

There is an old saying concerning the logic of Daylight Savings Time adopted in 1918. It’s like trying to cut off one end of a blanket because it’s too long, and then sew it back on the other end because it’s too short. Makes a lot of sense, eh? Working third shift is sort of like that for me. It’s almost a never ending The Twilight Zone episode. Thursday night is my Friday work day, so I work all night, come home, and knowing I don’t have to work Friday night, I stay up. I mean, who can sleep with all of that adrenaline flowing, knowing I’m off for two days! And then Sunday, the train crashes into a wall. I’ve caught up my sleep, I’ve got a day with the familia, and then when the day is over, guess what? I have to go to work. Strange state of existence, let me tell you. Latching onto great books, games, and losing myself in my guitar, these are the components of the ever-steady clock on the mantle across the room on the psychiatrist’s couch. These things give me comfort.

Sacrament by Clive Barker: Clive Barker has always taken me to strange places. This book, no exception. Bleak, depressing, yet sad and beautiful. I've not read anything quite like this. Barker writes about a man whose alternate lifestyle and life choices has taken him into harm's way. Despite my conservative upbringings, this man's lifestyle is not one which I condone, but through Barker's writing I've never been so moved before to feel sympathy and compassion to this man coming to terms with what and who he is, impelled by a horrible wrong in the world he's compelled to set right. Remember being a kid and looking out the window at 6pm, middle of winter, nasty outside, dark already, and you know you have school tomorrow? This whole book was that feeling.

Railroad Corporation on PC:  I’m a sucker for railroad strategy games, ever since Sid Meier released his venerable Railroad Tycoon back in 1990. (The boxed game still sits proudly on my shelf.) Mr. Meier released three more games in the series over the years and each one cost me many days and nights of joyous play. He’s since hanged his hate, but others followed his wake, attempting to emulate what he did so incredibly well. Railroad Corporation is a contender. It’s brutally difficult. I’ve had to watch numerous YouTube Let’s Plays just to conquer each scenario and it’s still frustrating enough that I took a six month break from the game. I recently returned, however, to discover I’m on the last scenario. I’m up against a single robber baron and I have to buy him completely out and take over the whole map to beat the game. A dozen hours into the game, geographically, I’m doing pretty well. But he’s still 20 million in stock shares ahead of me. I keep expanding and raising the value of my shares, but he then does the same. I was about to give up, but then I realized early on, I had purchased twenty million of my own stock. I sold them and surpassed him in value. I was able to then buy him out and win the game out. Talk about suddenly feeling smart!  

 

Aquarium by David Vann: Not sure how this book ended up on my To Be Read list on Goodreads, but it was a decent read. It tells the story of a twelve year old girl who walks to the city aquarium every day after school where her mother picks her up after work. One day at the aquarium, she befriends an old man who finds solace in seeing the fish. They become friends. He confesses something to her that changes her life forever, forever altering the relationship she has with her own mother. Like I said in my Goodreads review, “A woeful but wonderful tale of grief, loss, regret, self discovery, second chances, redemption, and new beginnings. Oh, and a misstep, god (sic) is spelled God.” When did this become a thing, lowercasing a proper name?

New Order: The Best of New Order on CD:  Look up the word evolution in the dictionary and you may not be surprised to find the band New Order’s picture accompanying the text. Born out of the ashes of lamentation, New Order came about after Ian Curtis’s suicidal death when the band was Joy Division. Curtis’s death occurred right when the band was about to hit greatness. The band members made an agreement that if any of them died, they would stop using the name Joy Division, so the band continued on with the new moniker, New Order. They left their post punk roots and branched out into one of the most recognizable alternative dance bands of all time. Their 1983 hit "Blue Monday” became the best-selling 12-inch single of all time and a popular club track. In the hazy days of my foolish youth, I burned many calories and intermingled with many members of the fairer sex to the tuneage of this song. This album is a compilation of all of their good stuff, and the title tells it all. Not a bad song on the mix. It’s a must own if you’re a fan of the band by any degree at all.

Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits: Thanks to the magnificent Michael Stevens, my esteemed guitar teacher, this is the latest song I’ve been working on. It’s a far cry from the fretboard acrobatics of Steve Stevens, and my first foray into thumb picking. The song is slow and winsome (and I’m told played at the funerals of military men.) It’s a poignant anti-war elegy that illustrates the futility of combat and the tragedy of human suffering. I did not know it was written by Mark Knopfler during the 1982 Falklands War. The lyrics are told from the perspective of a mortally wounded soldier lying on the battlefield, reflecting on the shared humanity of all combatants. My stepfather hates listening to me play guitar, he thinks it’s just noise. But this is a song even he can get into.

Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines:  on GoG: I’m about 2/3 of the way through it and 32 hours in. According to HowLongToBeat, it’s a 28 ½ hour game for the main story and the extras, and a 40 hour game if you’re a completionist. (Sometimes I am, and sometimes I’m not. For this game, nope, not even.) I’m ready for it to be over with. Who knows? Maybe I’m just weary of the dated 2004 graphics. It’s certainly not a bad game. I can see why it earned its cred, for sure. The writing is good and the storyline is compelling; I’ll give it that. And it is strange how you find a clue or an article that advances the plot, but then the story seems to go on and you begin to wonder, hey, am I going to use this thing after all? Should I sell it or ditch it from my inventory? But then, suddenly it comes into play. Such moments always make the game more fun to play. 

 

Borderlands on PC: I had been hankering for a good multiplayer shooter to play with some buddies, so I booted this one up a few months ago. I didn’t realize I’d already beaten twice before, and I didn’t realize making it to the ending of the game could be done so quickly. Still, a fun romp through a cell shaded Mad Max post-apocalyptic world. The antics of the baddies you have to fight are hilarious as is the banter they throw at you as they seek to end your life. I’ve beat Borderlands 2 as well, which was quite good. I have Borderlands 3 and I’m told it doesn’t quite hold up as well, but I’m looking forward to it regardless.

 

Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally: Given to me as a gift by my wife back in the 90s it’s embarrassing that I’m just now getting around to reading this. But maybe that’s a good thing. I had watched the movie when it was released and it was utterly heart breaking. So, maybe a long separation is a good thing because reading this, I’m rediscovering it all anew. I’m a hundred pages in, but Oskar Schindler is truly a compelling character. He’s flamboyantly confident, yet when accosted about his constant womanizing and shmoozing with German Nazi Party bigwigs he answers with complete innocence, as if there is true virtue in what he does. And ultimately, there was. He saved many Jews who would have met with horrible ends. Keneally may have done more “novelizing” in this book, than say, Stephen Ambrose or Erik Larson would have, but it’s a good read and very enlightening.