2016 Xmas Gift Roundup!

Oh my, has yet another year passed already? Well, I guess three years if you’re just going by the last time I wrote one of these things. Remember how it used to be an annual tradition? Did I write this exact same intro paragraph last time? Ehh, I’ve already recycled the idea and the banner, might as well re-use some of the text as well.

I think that, for the most part, I stopped doing these because I began to feel embarrassed about all of the stuff I get for Xmas. I mean, it’s not like it’s all that excessive (especially with my lack of wife), but it’s easy to look at these articles and think to myself “gee, I sure am spoiled, aren’t I?” Maybe next year will be the year I finally act on my desire to volunteer somewhere and help those less fortunate.

But probably not. That would also require leaving the house, and my incredible selfishness is a defining character trait.

Continue reading 2016 Xmas Gift Roundup!

Resistant to assimilation

In the everlasting search for a healthy and also delicious fast-food joint, I tried out a new place last week. It’s the most pretentious gosh-darned mall food place I’ve ever seen -so pretentious that it’s physically painful to be inside the restaurant- but I decided to giv’er a go anyhow.

Turns out, they make a damn good burrito. I’m talking top-tier. I’ve already made two return trips because uuuunnnnhhhhh it’s so goooooood (also, only a five-minute walk from work). And normally I buy lunch like once a month.

What really bothers me is that I’ve already told almost literally everyone I know how much I’ve been enjoying this place. Like you do. But I just came to the realization that I’ve become a walking advertisement for this place with a corporate image that I just can’t stand. It’s just so pompous that I wish their food was terrible.

So I’m not going to tell you what the place is called. No more free advertisement from me! Just know, that somewhere out there, is a cloying hippie restaurant that sells amazing burritos. Also other stuff, but I’m more of a ‘go with what you know’ kind of dude.

Yep. That’s the post. Hope you hadn’t planned anything important for those three minutes.

Glub glub!

In the late days of September, I download a free app called Plant Nanny. While it was not a game, it was an attempt to gamify water. Specifically, drinking enough water throughout the day. I tried to keep with it for a while, but near the end of November I got to the point where I just didn’t care anymore. Which is sad, because in doing so I sentenced a bunch adorable virtual plants to their deaths.

screen568x568The idea of the app is that for every glass of water you drink a day, you give your plant a drink of water as well. It has a little experience bar, and when the bar fills, the plant grows a bit. After a few stages of growth, the plant will reach its final stage, you put it out in the garden and plant a new… plant. Fully grown plants will also drop a seed every 20 hours, which is not for planting, but rather is currency to buy exciting new species of plants. And so the cycle continues.

The first thing I learned from this app is that I don’t drink anywhere near enough water. I found myself struggling to try to fit in so many cups of water a day. Fortunately, Plant Nanny has a helpful reminder feature that sends a notification to your phone every two hours (between 8AM and 10PM, so as not to disturb your sleep). In reality, the annoyance of that constant reminder was part of Plant Nanny’s downfall.

The second thing that I learned is that when I do drink enough water, I have to pee all the damn time. Which, you know, makes perfect sense, but was still annoying. I won’t get into details about my bathroom habits, but let’s just say that a number of people have commented on how seldom I seem to use the toilet.

Anyway, despite the positive feedback loop of growing cute little plants and the fact that it was ostensibly having a positive impact on my health, I just couldn’t be bothered with it anymore. The reminders became grating, and I started to feel like I really just didn’t want to ingest that much water every day. I still think the thing’s calculations are off and it was telling me to drink way more than necessary. But I’m too lazy to actually do the math so we’ll never know for sure.

So now I’m back to drinking like half a cup of water a day. It’s probably not great for my body, but I don’t feel any different either way. You were cute, Plant Nanny, but in the end, I just didn’t care enough to keep it up. Like with pretty much everything else in my life.

DOOK-DOOK-DOOK

I have spent nearly six months with the video file of The Babadook on my computer, and yet I have not watched it. I wanted to watch it, but after doing a Google search and being terrified for weeks upon weeks by the images it produced, I could not bear to watch the movie.

But last weekend, I finally did it. I was actually settling in to watch a different movie, but then I was like “you know what, I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna watch The Babadook.”

Turns out, it wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought, and I would up absolutely loving it.

In fact, I liked it so much that I’ve been strongly considering watching it again. Maybe a third time. Maybe it’ll become my favourite movie.

Now, don’t get me wrong. The Babadook is still pretty terrifying. Just not in the way that I’d imagined. It’s more of a self-reflective, thoughtful kind of horror. Which may not make a lot of sense if you haven’t seen the film. I can’t even relate it to anything because it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I got the same feeling of dread from it as I did from It Follows, but really the only other thing the two films have in common is that they’re great.

I really don’t want to say much else about it, because it’s definitely worth watching. Just thinking about it makes me wish I could be watching it again right now. Maybe I will…

mister-babadook

I Am the Bored Thing That Watched This Movie

I’ve watched a lot of Netflix Original shows, and most of them have been very good. Some not-so-great, but for the most part, it’s been above average. I watched my very first Netflix Original movie last week. It was… hmmm, what’s the best way to describe it… awful.

pthingI Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House sounds an awful lot like the kind of movie that I would like from its description. Have a gander:

A nervous nurse who scares easily finds herself caring for an ailing horror novelist while living in a house with hidden secrets.

Sure, it’s a bit generic, but they wouldn’t want to spoil anything, right? Well, the thing is that there’s not a whole lot to spoil. The entire plot is about a girl who is afraid of ghost stories reading a ghost story, and then learning that it’s actually true and the ghost lives in the house she’s currently occupying. Maybe I’m being a little reductive with that summary, but that’s the gist of it.

The hugest thing I disliked about the film is that it is nearly 90% voice-over narration. Though I guess it can’t be helped when your movie has a grand total of three characters, and one has dementia and another is on screen for about four minutes total. But yeah, too much narration drives me bonkers. It’s just so boring to watch something while a disembodied voice tells you what you’re watching.

Anyway, the story is a very slow burn, and there is basically zero payoff. The climax comes out of nowhere and is over so quickly that you’re just like “wait, this is what I’ve been waiting for?” and then you have to sit through another seven minutes of epilogue in sheer frustration.

Do you want to know what happens? The girl hears a mysterious knocking inside the house, goes downstairs to investigate, and then dies of fright upon seeing -that’s right, just seeing– a ghost. A ghost that, by all intents and purposes, she should know is in the house. It is literally spelled out for her over the course of the film. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m terrified of ghosts, but I can’t imagine that I would keel over if I were to simply catch a glimpse of one. I’d be pretty amazed, actually, because ghosts aren’t real.

Also in this scene is a very bad digital effect of the ghost marching across the kitchen. What makes it so terrible is that due to plot, her legs are on backwards, and this gives the illusion that she’s a marionette or something, gambolling along so unnaturally. This could be frightening, maybe, if they had done it right (though I can’t quite conceive of how that would be done). But the net result here is that it looks like something out of a children’s program, and completely dissolves any tension that maybe have existed, further reducing the effectiveness of that big, final “scare.”

Do I regret watching this movie? It’s hard to say. I do love watching terrible movies, but this one was mostly just boring. I can’t get excited about any of its terribleness. There was nothing so corny that made me giggle. It’s the kind of bad movie that How Did This Get Made? would pass on. So, yeah. Maybe I would like to have my 87 minutes back, but on the other hand, I now have this little gem in my pocket as a short conversation piece.

Late to yet another party

Netflix has been consistently trying to get me to watch Pacific Heat over the last couple of weeks, popping it into nearly every category as I browse for things to watch. So, I figured, okay. It looks almost exactly like Archer, so I’ll give it a try.

When I finished watching the first episode, I decided that my joke line about the show would be “imagine if Archer wasn’t funny” and I figured that was gold.

Then I Googled Pacific Heat and that was the summary of nearly every result on the first page. It’s even the headline of AV Club’s review. So much for that hilarious little nugget.

I guess, if you were going to take anything away from this post, it’s that you shouldn’t watch Pacific Heat. It’s terrible. I was going to say that it’s even worse than Brickleberry, but AV Club beat me to that as well. Geez.

A Whiff o’ the Irish

I bought this deodorant some time ago in a moment of desperation. The store I was at did not have my usual brand, and I didn’t feel like travelling farther to get the right kind. Days later, I ended up purchasing the correct deodorant as well.

Yesterday, I ran out of the normal deodorant again, and had to use this back up stick. The memories of why I haven’t been using it came rushing back to me before long.

The Irish Spring Speed Stick smelled nice in the store. Also it was cheap. Sure. Great! But what I could not have hoped to realize in the store is that the scent is very powerful and I would be smelling it constantly, all day long. After a couple hours, the smell becomes significantly less pleasant. So I guess I had better quit being so lazy and go pick up some of the good stuff tonight.

And that’s my story for today. Are you dissatisfied? Would you have preferred yet another post about video games? I’m trying to diversify here!

Wherein I played The Cat Lady

Yes, you read the title of this post correctly. I purchased and played a video game called The Cat Lady. It didn’t even come in a bundle. This may come as a bit of a surprise to any who don’t know the game, as I am famously known as “the guy who doesn’t like cats” and that often puts me at odds with cat people (to be fair, they’re pretty weird).

For the record, it’s not so much that I don’t like cats as a species. Mostly it’s that I can’t stand their lack of respect for my personal space. If I want you in my lap, I’ll let you know. That goes the same for any animal (though human ladies are always welcome).

Anyway. A video game. The Cat Lady. The description on the Steam store sold me pretty well, although in retrospect, I think that I was expecting a completely different game. Let’s have a look, yeah?

The Cat Lady follows Susan Ashworth, a lonely 40-year old on the verge of suicide. She has no family, no friends and no hope for a better future. One day she discovers that five strangers will come along and change everything…

What I thought would happen is that you’d watch Susan be depressed for a bit and then five people would happen along and teach her about how to live and love again. Or something like that. But the game is billed as a psychological horror game, so I knew something was off about my interpretation. And lo, it certainly was!

The first thing wrong with this description is that Susan is not on the verge of suicide. The game opens with her actually committing suicide. And the five strangers that “come along and change everything” is somewhat misrepresenting the case. After taking her own life, Susan is given the opportunity to be revived and become immortal if she agrees to seek out and kill five psychopaths.

Continue reading Wherein I played The Cat Lady