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." 

Edward's December 2019 Mix

It’s been a strange month. Christmas hit 60 degrees. It was like being in Texas. I got some decent time off from work. This month ended a year long of PC gaming with a final tally of 7 games completed which is an all time low. It’s okay though, other diversions, other interests. I’ve been indulging my guitar habit much more. This is probably a good thing. I’ve been trying to sell stuff on eBay, but it’s not going well. I think eBay’s best days are behind us. Now they collect sales tax (which isn’t their fault, I get that, it’s compulsory) but I just don’t get paying sales tax on other people’s junk that’s already had sales tax collected on it by people who have official retail merchant numbers. It doesn’t make sense to me. I took advantage of the Steam Sale this year and picked up a few games. And I took a long overdue trip to visit my brother out of state. Compared to last month with a missing phone and strange debit card issues, I have to say this month was a success.
   
1.      Dungeon Siege II on PC: Goodness gracious, I’m so ready for this game to be over with! Supposedly a 20-30 hour hack n’slash Action RPG, and here at 80 plus hours I’m feeling like it’s on par with a Witcher game. I do declare! My trusty sorcerer is now at level 41 and able to cook his enemies with a single snap of the fingers. It’s been a fun ride, it’s just been an incredibly long one. I’m in the last act of the final chapter. I’ll be glad to put this one on the shelf.   

2.     Cock Robin  on CD:  I discovered this band back in 1985, having just got out of the Navy. The band was helmed by Peter Kingsbery who studied classical guitar in Austin, TX. His counterpart was a gorgeous girl named Anna LaCazio who was of Chinese and Italian descent. The song that caught my attention was “When Your Heart is Weak” though they had other hits, none of them charted big in the USA. Kingsbery, however, moved to France and became a big success there. I’m surprised the band didn’t fare better. Kingsbery’s vocals were a powerhouse right up there with Bryan Ferry or Morrissey. 

3.  The Meg on 4K Blu Ray: I was disappointed in this. It was typical summer popcorn movie fare concerning the discovery of a megalodon , a prehistoric shark of gargantuan proportions. Jason Statham arrives to save the day like a superhero. And we have Rainn Wilson, who looks like he’s on a field trip from The Office. The movie paced well, and had a surprising twist or two, and for CGI the effects were good, but I think the writing suffered. This is what happens when you have a slew of people writing the screenplay. One of the writers feels he or she has to make a change simply to justify the paycheck. The best screenplays always have a single writer. For comparison, watch this, and then watch Jaws based on Peter Benchley’s novel. I think you’ll agree. They just don’t make them like they used to. 

4.  Railway Empire on PC:  Sid Meier’s Railroad Tycoon was the third PC game I ever purchased way back in the last century, 1990 to be exact. I’ve played every iteration of this noble series since. 2003 was a big highlight with Railroad Tycoon 3. And then 2006 gave us Sid Meier’s Railroads! which turned the series (albeit fun) into more of a beer and pretzels type casual game. Unfortunately, Sid Meier will no longer be making railroad tycoon games. But that’s okay. I discovered Kalypso’s Railway Empire. If you’ve ever played any of the Tropico games, you’ll see how the German based developer puts a lot of love into their games despite not having Activision, EA or Bethesda type budgets. This is truly one of my dawn games, meaning regardless of when I begin a game, the sun is always popping up and birds are singing when I quit. Railway Empire deals with early railroading, 1830 to the 1870s. It’s basically a marriage of Railroad Tycoon 3 with its serious tendencies and Sid Meier’s Railroads! with its cartoon antics. The art style is colorful and gorgeous, and there is a mode in which you can hop aboard one of your locomotives and check out the view from your cab at the wondrous rail line you’ve created. With this, who needs a sprawling electric train set in their basement?

5.  The Right Stuff  on Blu Ray: This movie has become a quiet classic, taking a year just to develop the script, and Dennis Quaid simply proclaiming,  “This is a great American film”.  I had known about Tom Wolfe’s venerable novel, but I had never seen the movie. The movie is about the Mercury Space program headed by NASA in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This movie has what would now be considered an all star cast, but who were nobodys when the film came out in 1983. (Oddly these nobodys were selected because of budgetary constraints.) This was one of Dennis Quaid’s first appearances. He and Scott Glenn took their roles so seriously, they both bought new Corvettes like the real astronauts they depicted did.  I looked for inaccuracies and anachronisms and I couldn’t find any. It was a movie superbly done, even to the point of being filmed only at sunrise and sunset to get the best lighting, but the real star here is the transfer to Blu Ray. The colors popped and the whole movie exuded a Technicolor kind of feel as if it really had been made in the time period it depicted. Bill Conti was rushed to make the soundtrack, and still managed to earn an Academy Award, along with the movie’s three other Academy Awards. 

6.  Saboteur on DVD: This was Alfred Hitchcock’s first time to use an all American cast in a film, and in typical suspenseful Hitchcock fashion we have a movie about an innocent man who finds himself at the wrong place at the wrong time and suddenly in a world of hurt. When our protagonist seeks refuge with a blind man and his dog in a cabin, heavy rain outside and a warm fire crackling in the fireplace, the movie takes a breather and we get a wonderfully touching scene that almost moves into the territory of real literature. Hitchcock had a genuine fear of heights, even to the point where if he saw a construction worker high atop a city building it would make him queasy. Strangely, that fear has managed to work its way into several of his films, Vertigo, North by Northwest (featuring one of the villains falling from Mt. Rushmore) and in this one, we get to see The Statue of Liberty take center stage causing the demise of one of the villains.  

7. Terraria on Nintendo Switch Lite:  I recently picked up a Nintendo Switch Lite because it hosts a bevy of indie PC games I’ll never play on PC. I booted up Terraria which is a Minecraft  type game where your goal is to simply stay alive. You start with hardly anything and have to build tools and collect resources to build a house to avoid the different entities out to get you. And night brings zombies! The thing is, instructions are minimal. It’s all about the trial and error. I died. A lot. I finally built a house, but now I’m afraid to venture out of it. I guess the game-play really is the thing because this game has 2D graphics and I still get totally immersed in its world. 

8. Night Gallery Season One on DVD:  I just wrapped up the first season of this supernatural horror series that came out in 1970. I can see why the show eventually failed. Some of the stories are just downright absurd. Perhaps the best one so far is, “They’re Tearing Down Tim Leary’s Bar.” It’s about a man putting his job in peril because of his drinking. He stumbles about living in a confused state, his way being clouded by his drunk excursions and his memories of the better days he had in the past. The episode won an Emmy Award. If you can track it down, watch it for this episode alone. 

9. Northern Exposure: Season Five on DVD: Each episode is still an enjoyable 47 minute trip into the 1990s with some of my favorite television characters. The series seems to have lost some of its profundity it exuded in the earlier seasons, but I’m still never bored by the antics of the citizens of Cicely, Alaska. Maurice Minnifield has grown into my favorite character. He’s always looking for a way to turn something into coin or bask in his former fame as an astronaut who once walked on the moon. There is an episode in which he’s awarded a lifelike replica of himself in the form of a wax statue. He shows it off like a beloved twin brother, but is eventually repulsed by its silence and everlasting gape. It’s hauled to the local dump with little fanfare, two stiff legs sticking out of the back of a camper shell. It’s one of the funniest episodes I’ve seen in the series yet.

Edward's November 2019 Mix

It’s been a bizarre month. My mobile phone died. So, I did what I always do: buy a new one on eBay. The seller sent me a phone set up for the wrong network and then wanted me to try all kinds of things to get to work on the correct network. I went to two Sprint stores and one local phone repair center. No joy. I was finally refunded my money. I then tried to purchase a phone on the Sprint site and my bank suspended my debit card. When I talked to them about it they stated it was standard procedure. They don’t trust mobile phone websites. Go figure. I got the card reinstated, and made another attempt. Sprint sent me a text message for identification verification. Being that my phone was bricked there was no way I could receive the text. I called their tech support and was told they couldn’t help me. What? I ended up having to make the purchase in a Sprint store. I’m finally connected again. I’ll tell you, it was like being alone in outer space without a phone. Is such a dependency a good thing or a bad thing? To combat the frustration I listened to a lot of music and discovered a few new bands. Maybe something good does come out of everything.  

1.      Stranger than Fiction on Blu Ray: One of the best role casted movies I’ve ever seen. And no, I’m not so much a Will Ferrell fan, but I have to admit the guy was endearing and graceful in this film. A modern fable about a man buried in the mundane routine of his work days as an IRS auditor who suddenly discovers he’s actually a character in a fiction book.  Realizing he’s going to be killed off in the book he embarks on an adventure to find the real life author writing the book. Emma Thompson (little known fun fact: started out as a stand up comedian) plays the author. She cites a line from her own book, and I’m paraphrasing here, but I’ll never forget it: “ We must remember the nuances, anomalies and subtleties which we assume only accessorizes our lives, in fact, are here for a much larger and nobler cause. They are here to save our lives.” 

2.     Fender Mirror Image Delay Effect Pedal: Found this brand new at a bargain price at a local music store. It seems Fender released a whole arsenal of effect pedals, everything from distortion to reverb and chorus pedals. They even released a distortion pedal for acoustic guitars. This Mirror Image pedal is a delay pedal that even had my wife proclaiming how interesting it sounded. (She never comments on my playing. I think she just quietly tolerates it.) Imagine playing your guitar in the Grand Canyon during sunrise. This pedal is the sound of that. 

3.      Deaf Center “Pale Ravine” on CD: A wonderment of atmospheric soundscapes and ethereal instrumentation perfectly coalesced. One Amazon reviewer likened this music to the soundtrack of old grainy black & white 8mm films. I could easily see it. The band, comprised of two gentlemen from Norway, create some of the most achingly beautiful ambient music I’ve ever heard. Look up “Path to Lucy” on YouTube. You’ll be converted. What’s amazing is I paid 8 bucks for this CD a month ago, and now there are only 3 available on Amazon selling for an exorbitant $182.10. How did this music get so expensive so quickly? 

4.   Jeff Pierce “To The Shores of Heaven“ on CD: Pretty much to guitar what John Serrie is to keyboards when it comes to space music/new age music.  Pierce is a one man show, using numerous guitar effects, especially reverb and delay to make amazing soundscapes.  Take a drive on a late night Interstate highway under the stars, when it’s just you and the 18 wheelers and the lights of the dashboard. Chances are this music will take you to places in your mind you’ve never been. “Sudden Light” is the one to sample via lookup.

5.   Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit on PC:  Finally beat this on Steam. As I’ve mentioned before this is old by today’s standards, released in 2010. There’s no storyline, but there is a conflict as old as literature. True man vs man and machine vs machine. There are two sides to the game, the first half played as an illegal street racer trying to outsmart the cops. And the second half in which you are one of the cops trying to take down the street racers. Some of the exotic police cruisers are downright comical in their luxuriance. When was the last time you saw a Lamborghinni Countach decked out in police markings? Still the game was fun, and challenging enough I had plenty of do-overs.  

6.   The War on Drugs “Lost in the Dream” on CD: I never would have discovered this band without my friend Cary Gillaspy posting one of their videos on my Facebook wall. It was a love at first listen. I immediately purchased the CD. It’s a mishmash of so much good music. Try this one for size: A spoonful of Bob Dylan mingled with a dash of Bruce Springsteen. And I swear I can hear A Flock of Seagulls in the shadows (others state they can hear Dire Straits.)  This is like a return to the 1980s for me. I’m amazed I had never heard of this band before. Carey, thank you.   

7.   Twelve Monkeys on Blu Ray: I hold a few film directors in high esteem. Ridley Scott, James Cameron, Christopher Nolan (some of his films, not all). Ever since my old friend, Vic Berwick introduced me to The Adventures of Baron Munchausen I’ve added Terry Gilliam to that list. The bespoke film, Munchausen almost killed it for Gilliam in Hollywood being the film was the most expensive ever made to date completely lacking any computer generated special effects. Hollywood lost money and all trust in Gilliam making money making films was pulled. However, when Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt signed on to make Twelve Monkeys, the Hollywood execs took another look. Financing was granted along with some restrictions, but Gilliam’s maxim is “I have to start small because the film will get big.” And this movie was no exception. Set slightly in the future from 1990, the film concerns a man sent into the future to get a sample of  a virus that will annihilate Earth’s population in 1996. Somewhat convoluted, it’s a movie you will want to pause for bathroom breaks because if not, you’ll come back lost. The transfer to Blu Ray (from DVD) is gorgeous.

8. Dungeon Siege II on PC: My Grand Sorcerer is level 33 now and I’m 2/3 into Chapter 2 of a game with 3 chapters. It’s a mouse click festival, hacking and slashing in its purest form, but it never gets old. I still wrestle with trying find goal locations, but mowing down monsters on the way to them is never a waste of time. It all adds up to leveling up. Despite its muddy graphics, once I cut the lights and don the headphones I still get lost in the game’s world. This is every bit as immersive for me as good music or an enjoyable novel.

 9. David Copperfield  by Charles Dickens: Weighing in at 940 pages I’m only on page 150 and I already never want this novel to end. My goal was to knock out 18 books this year,  but reading this I doubt I get it done. It’s okay though, it’ll be worth it to lose the goal over this novel. Remember the 90s movie, Matilda and how the titular little girl told her teacher she could read Dickens everyday?  Well, little sister I’m with you. Granted I’ve met with one or two Dickens novels I found dry and dreary, but I think this one more than makes up. The tale concerns a boy, David Copperfield, who’s lost his father. He lives with his mother in a small cottage near a lighthouse.  His world is less than idyllic, but he’s a happy boy. One day his mother meets a charming gentleman named Edward Murdstone.  Charming, to her, that is. Murdstone feels threatened by the boy’s relationship with his mother and schemes. He has little Copperfield sent off to a boarding school filled with harsh taskmasters.  And so our story begins.