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.

 

Edward's May 2026 Monthly Mix

 

As Gordon Gekko said in the movie Wall Street, greed is good. His remarkable speech about it in the movie garnered him an Academy Award. And what can I say? He’s right. Greed made this country. It’s all about the manifest destiny, baby. I’m aboard the Capitalism train for sure. But maybe we’ve reached our limit, or somebody has, anyway. Landlords intentionally making rent high so people can’t afford to save up for a house, and then homeowners profiteering on the price of said houses. (And then the whole issue of gas jacked up to five bucks a gallon just so people will dance in the streets when it drops to 4 dollars a gallon, ebullient because it’s suddenly so cheap.) I could go on lamenting the current rapacity, but I will instead wait for the bubble to burst and try to find peace in my music, movies, games and books. Have I succeeded this month? Read on and find out. 

Twister on 4K Blu Ray: I hadn’t seen this since watching it at the theater back in the last century (1996 to be exact.) The 4K transfer isn’t really all that, however, Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton’s interaction with each other is what makes this one compelling. The action is top notch despite the CGI effects being not so stellar. But of course, CGI was just coming into the mainstay at this point of cinema history. Philip Seymour Hoffman’s performance was a little over the top, as if he was trying too hard, but he exudes the nerdy grubbiness of an overweight storm chaser you’d expect. It’s a fun movie, but owning a Blu Ray version of this would have been sufficient. This simply is not a 4K reference movie. From what I’ve read, however, the Blu Ray version had very little clean up over the original DVD, so supposedly, this 4K is an improvement on that.  

 

 

Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald  by John U. Bacon: Have you ever read a book that changed your life? What I mean is, changed the way you look at the world or changed how you felt about something. This book which details the history of The Great Lakes, and its shipping, and the history of the freighter, Edmund Fitzgerald, did that for me. I had no idea that if you released all of the water in the Great Lakes, it would put North AND South America both 1 foot underwater! This book is a fascinating read on its subject matter. John U. Bacon is right up there with Stephen Ambrose and Erik Larson as far as historical storytellers. I simply could not put this book down. And now that I have, I feel suddenly smarter.

Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo:  Written in 1939 at the eve of World War II, this book took more centerstage during the Vietnam era. A true anti-war novel, this book concerns Joe Bonham, who loses his limbs and most of his face in a trench explosion during World War One. Having joined the army in the pursuit of glory and tradition, he ruminates the aftermath, lying on his back in bandages affixed with feeding tubes, of his life being forever static. This was a tough one. As graphic as it was, I found it hard to believe this was penned way back in 1939. Trumbo describes a rat picking and chewing at his wounds in one passage that made me more squeamish than I thought I could be. He explains the sensation of the rat’s whiskers brushing across his skin before the rat starts gnawing. Good stuff.

Mission Impossible: Season 7 on DVD: I’m on the final season with maybe ten more episodes to go. It’s a been a great run and this has become one of my favorite television shows of all time. I wouldn’t mind obtaining this set on Blu Ray and starting it all over again. Lalo Schifrin’s signature theme song was slightly changed in this last year, sounding a bit jazzier. Frankly, I wish they’d left it alone. Lynda Day George is absent on numerous of the beginning episodes due to maternity leave, and Greg “Barney” Morris now sports a moustache. The episodes have a bit more flamboyant style, as if they were created “movies of the week” that were popular in the early seventies. The producers realized at this point, they could make more money putting the series into syndication rather than keep making new episodes, so this was indeed, the final season. I’m actually kind of sad it’s all coming to an end. 

 

  

Vertical Horizon on CD:  A “quiet” release back in the last century, there I go again, sounding like an ancient, but yes, back in 1999 this band released a great CD emanating much of the current sound at the time. Regarded as “mini-van” music I had to access my online girlfriend ChatGPT about this one. It’s defined as family friendly Rugrats, Ed, Ed, and Eddie, Doug, Rugrats, Power Rangers kind of music and I get that.  Lead singer, founder, lead guitarist, Matt Scannell definitely put his heart into this one.

Middlemarch by George Eliot: George Eliot was a pseudonym for a woman who wrote as a man because she feared her stuff wouldn’t be published otherwise. I thoroughly enjoyed her Silas Marner and The Mill on the Floss. This, her supposed magnus opus has been declared one of the greatest novels in the English language. I didn't really get that. The plot line was thin enough to be portrayed as a high school stage play and the characters, though interesting were somewhat stuffy. I felt this could have been Eliot's first novel instead of her last. Still, like a member of the USMC, I can now say I’m one of the proud and the few. I’ve read this book. 

Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines:  on GoG: Like I’ve said before, I’d wanted to play this game simply because of the Ocean House Hotel, which is supposedly the ONE place most PC gamers have claimed as their most scary place they’ve experienced in PC gaming. I finally got to experience it. It was scary, yes. That scary? Not really, but it had a sense of eeriness to it. Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines follows a human who is killed and revived as a fledgling vampire. The game depicts the fledgling's journey through early 21st-century Los Angeles to uncover the truth behind a recently discovered relic that heralds the end of all vampires. The game was created with the Half Life 2 engine and was actually released one day before Half Life 2 hit the shelves.

Company of Heroes on PC: My desert island game, recently prompted to play by my good buddy, Vic Berwick. Released in 2006, the game still holds its own. Mods don’t work anymore. It seems Steam has put all of its assets into Company of Heroes 3, but you’d think since Steam took it over from Relic, they would assuage the bugs and the lags that plague the original game. I’ve been playing with my friend Vic Berwick and having good times. If you’re interested, hit us up. We always need more players. 

 

  

Elton John Madman Across the Water on vinyl: I probably talked about this before when I first got the album, but as time passes, I gave it a second listen. Man, this album sounds great! “Tiny Dancer” moved me to tears. I could literally hear the effort put into the song. Elton and Bernie must have sweated push ups doing this song. This may be the most “honest” song I’ve ever heard. Painfully so. “Holiday Inn” is a ballad engrossed in happiness but actually encompasses what it’s like to stay in hotel rooms while being a touring musician. Spoiler alert: it’s bleak. “Levon,” is a powerful ballad that would set the stage for Elton’s future album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road which is one of my favorite records of all time.