Yes, but episodes of what?

I don’t watch TV like most people. In fact, I sort of don’t watch TV at all. I mean, I watch shows, but I watch them exclusively through DVDs or Netflix. I guess most hipsters are the same way. But for me, it’s not because I’m too good for cable, but rather that I’m just too lazy to remember schedules and make sure I’m around when things are on.

Also I generally just watch the same things over and over again. I’ve watched the entire series of Futurama and Arrested Development at least three times each, and for the past few years I’ve had what’s become sort of a ritual of watching every streamable season of American Dad! every summer. Other than that, I basically just try to keep tabs on when new seasons of old favourites become available (Trailer Park Boys, Criminal Minds, Big Bang Theory, etc). I don’t follow most popular shows. I barely ever start watching a new show.

So you can probably guess that since I’m writing a blog post about it, I’ve started watching something new.

This one is called Episodes. The premise is that a couple of British TV writers move to LA to shoot a pilot for an American version of their hit show. It’s a pretty interesting premise, I think. Their plans hit a massive snag when the lead role of the show is given to Matt LeBlanc.

And now you see what really pulled me in.

Matt plays a (hopefully) fictional version of himself, and he ends up causing many headaches for the main characters, Sean and Beverly. The couple quickly lose creative control of the show to Matt and network meddling, and things spiral out of control fairly quickly.

It’s not terribly funny at the start. In fact, I’d go so far to say that the first episode is fairly dull. I think I laughed once? But it does get much better! That first episode sets up the premise really well and introduces a handful of key themes of the show. Which, I suppose is really the point. I found that I got attached to most of the characters fairly quickly, and by the end of season one I was enjoying the drama as much as I was the comedy.

I think that what I like about this show is that it’s another one where every character is fundamentally broken in some way. It’s a lot like Arrested Development in that way, only there are more sympathetic characters in Episodes. It’s a little more down-to-earth when there’s a mix of characters that you can honestly relate to and ones that ones that you just want to slap for being such assholes.

I also appreciate the look behind the curtain of how things work at a television network, even if it is exaggerated to some degree. The “office politics” angle sort of reminds me of Better Off Ted, but the humour is a little darker and more subtle.

Anyway, I burned through the first season in only two days (not an impressive feat; it’s only seven episodes), despite the first episode being slow and not overly funny. Like I said, it got better, and I’m now facing the difficult decision to go ahead and binge on the next two seasons right away, or leave them on the back burner for a while to enjoy later.

If you’re interested at all, the first three seasons are available on Netflix, and season four just finished airing in March. It wouldn’t get my highest recommendation, but Episodes is definitely worth checking out.

The ones which will be avenging again

I had the joy of seeing The Avengers: Age of Ultron on the weekend. General consensus seems to be that it’s somewhere between Not Good and Not As Good As The First. I don’t know about that. I thought it was pretty darn great.

Maybe it’s just because it’s been so long since I’ve been to a theatre.

Let’s be honest here though, The Avengers is a tough act to follow. Captain America: The Winter Soldier was even better, though less of a magnificent spectacle and more just a darn good movie. Guardians of the Galaxy was wonderful in every way. I can see how maybe the bar had been pushed up a little too high.

There’s nothing wrong with Age of Ultron though! It had plenty of action, plenty of great one-liners, and a boatload of character development. I keep hearing that people (nerd people) think it’s very obvious that a ton of the movie was cut for time, but it didn’t seem that obvious to me. I think maybe the only thing that left me wondering was the whole plot behind Ultron. His motivation didn’t make a whole lot of sense and I’m not sure what his endgame was. Also, what the heck was Thanos trying to accomplish?

Anyway, it is really just setting the scene for the next slew of movies, whatever those are. I don’t really keep up with what’s going to be happening in the future, but I’ve known for a while that the Infinity Gems are a thing. That’s only because I had a minor fascination with Marvel Super Heroes: War of the Gems as a kid. It’s like, oh hey I’ll finally understand what that was all about. Except without Spider-Man or Wolverine. Or Iron Man or Hulk, possibly. Oh, right. Spoilers.

If for some reason you have any doubts about Age of Ultron, let me tease you with this tender morsel: at one point, Hulk bites the head off od a robot.

So yeah, you should totes check it out.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up – April 2015

We’re going to mix things up a little this month. I’ve decided that the Game Over section should get first billing, and then have a rundown of what I’m currently playing. I think that putting the focus on my “accomplishments” for the month is a little more interesting. And when I say more interesting, I mean that for myself when I look back on these, not for you reading it right now.

Originally the idea of this feature was to keep track of what I was playing and encourage me to leave fewer games sitting half-done. That hasn’t been the case at all, as you’ll see if you look back at how many Now Playing entries just vanished and never showed up in Game Over. I still just start games on a whim and let them wither and die when something new comes along.

~ Game Over ~

Shadow of the Colossus HD (PS3) – If you’d told me that I could like SotC even more than I already did, I’d have said it wasn’t possible. But then I played it in 3D and here we are. Possibly the best (only?) reason to own a 3D-enabled TV.

BOXBOY! (3DS) – A brilliant little puzzle-platformer by HAL Laboratory. Not surprising, since everything they do is wonderful. The gameplay is incredibly thoughtful and satisfying, and you can dress up the main character, Qbby, as a rapper or a bunny or even a girl. Hooray!

Life is Strange: Episode 2 – Out of Time (PC) – I really liked Episode 1, and Ep.2 might have been even better. I don’t much care for hot button social commentary in my video games, but I think the “Internet Bullying/Slut-Shaming is Bad” theme was handled fairly well. I find myself caring about what happens to these characters, so… Good work, Dontnod. Keep it up. Continue reading Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up – April 2015

You can now write at me

Well, you always could. There’s a comments section below each post. But only spammers have used the feature over the last… woah, it’s been exactly two years since the last legitimate comment. Spooky.

Anyhow, I’ve put a link to the long-abandoned Torrential Coozy Forums on the left bar there. I beg you, please sign up and be my internet friend? Or not, whatever. It’s your choice. We actually just had a new member sign up in December, so technically the forums are more active than the blog comments! What even are you waiting for?

Here’s a special bonus even: sign up and I’ll write a big long blog post on the topic of your choosing. It’ll probably be boring as all heck if it’s not something I’m interested in, but I’ll do it!

(A more interesting alternative may be to join Talking Time, where I post quite often and there are a bunch of cool people.)

Migraine Watch: The Startening

I never had migraines as a kid, but they began in my early twenties, and have been happening somewhat regularly since then. They aren’t anywhere nearly as bad as they are for some people; they only last a day and only happen every six months or so. However, when I get one, I am generally rendered useless for the rest of the day.

In the interest of keeping data, I’ve decided to post notes every time I have a migraine. Each one is different, with varied effects (known as an “aura”) preceding and accompanying the main headache. I’m interested in seeing how many side-effects I can “collect,” so that’ll be kind of neat. I’d also like to see if I can nail down what triggers the migraines in the first place, and how/if I can prevent them.

Start: 4 PM, April 23/15

End: 12 PM, April 24/15

Aura: Mild loss of feeling in left hand (temporary, no tingle), dizziness, upset stomach after eating (persisted overnight)

Possible trigger(s): Stress, lack of sleep, poor eating

Medication: No-name ibuprofen pills, taken 2 hours after start (had none handy). total of 3 taken over the course of the migraine.

migraine

Starting small

I mentioned at some point before my world got blasted to heck that I wanted to read more. Indeed, I have not been doing so. Mostly for lack of motivation, but also because my Kobo’s screen has been cracking apart more and more even though I’ve barely touched the damn thing in months. It’s very distracting.

Anyway, I bought a new Story Bundle and figured that I ought to at least start paging through a few books from previous bundles that I’ve purchased and subsequently ignored. My first choice was The Kosher Guide to Imaginary Animals.

kosherguide

While they are not strictly “imaginary” I’ve always been fascinated by cryptids. I own more than a couple paperback bestiaries of unseen animals, and of course I was interested in checking out another. I didn’t really expect that the title was exactly what the book is about: whether certain fantastical species would be okay for Jewish peoples to eat or not.

Yeah. See, I don’t really have “taste” in literature.

Anyway, it was a fairly good read. Very short, and not nearly comprehensive enough, but entertaining. Each beast is given a short (and often goofy) description and then there’s a little banter between the authors on why it’s kosher or not. It’s not hilarious by any stretch, but I chuckled a few times. It’s certainly not meant to be informative, either. There are a couple of monsters I’ve never heard of included in here, but the amount of background for any of them is very slim.

Of course, the point of the book is not to give you a detailed bio and history of each cryptid, but simply to let you know if you can be Jewish and eat them. Even on that note, it’s not entirely fulfilling, as more than a few verdicts are left with a question mark.

Anyhow, it’s not a bad book, and it’s not like it’ll even take you long to get through it if you’re not enjoying it. Pop over to the website and consider picking up a copy. I liked it, but I can’t guarantee that anyone who is not me would.

Oh hey, and it’s given me a blog post to file under “cryptozoology.” So that’s cool.

What even is a moo-vee?

Hey so I used the “film” tag for the first time in forever on that previous post. Yes, sir, I sure haven’t written about anything but video games in way too long. Chalk it up partly to me not having much interest in writing much of anything for the last few months. I just haven’t had the motivation to do much lately.

As far as movies go, I’ve watched a grand total of two films since D-Day 2015. One of those was my umpteen-hundredth viewing of The Goonies. Because I can always enjoy The Goonies.

The second movie that I watched, I came across while idly poking around on Netflix. It’s called The Notebook, and it’s the exact opposite of The Notebook that you’re thinking of. You may recall that I read and thoroughly enjoyed the book that this movie is based on, and I was downright thrilled to see that it has been made into a film. I’ve been toying with the idea of re-reading the whole trilogy, and watching the movie version of the first part has only made me want to read it again even more.

notebookposterSee, the thing is that the movie version is… I don’t know, kind of dull? While it’s very true to the book and the acting is really great, it just seemed sort of insubstantial. One of those movies where it felt like nothing was ever happening, even though things were, in fact, happening. It could of course just be that it’s not the kind of movie that I’d normally watch. As a drama, I typically would have stayed far away from it. Especially since it’s about kids dealing with a troubled life during World War II. Maybe I just don’t know how to value movies that aren’t full of one-liners and superheroes.

I don’t know if I can truly even recommend it. If you’re read the book, you’ve gotten the significantly better experience already. If you haven’t read the book, you’ll probably just be puzzled and bored. I mean, if you’re into indie dramas you’ll probably get more out of it than the average person, but it still seems like a tough sell to me. I can’t remember for the life of me if there’s even one character with a proper given name.

Anyhow, I did enjoy it on some level. Maybe just for filling in some little gaps that my imagination left blank while I was reading the book. I like the story and the characters, and I guess it’s nice to actually see them doing their things. Mostly though, I’m kind of hoping that the next two books, The Proof and The Third Lie, get made into movies as well, as that’s when the plot really gets going. Anyway, I probably just ought to go read them all again. I recommend you do so as well. Fantastic books.

Forever Rumblin’

A couple months ago, Nintendo rolled out their first freemium Pokémon game for 3DS, Pokémon Shuffle. I’m told that it’s the average mobile F2P match-em-up, but with Squirtles and Lucarios instead of candy beans or whatever. I played the crap out of it, in fact I continue to play a little bit each day, and I still haven’t spent a single cent on it. It helps that it is fairly regularly updated with new content and competitions.

Last week, the second free-to-play Pokémon spinoff came out: Pokémon Rumble World. Like the previous games in the Rumble series, it’s a fairly shallow action game that has you punch your way through scores of toy Pokémon and hoping to maybe take some home with you at the end of each stage. It’s good, simple fun, and World is the best incarnation of it yet.

pkmnrw

For starters, it’s not the “keep giving us money and we’ll let you play more than five rounds a day” kind of F2P model. No, it’s more like you get the game for free, and then you can give up some bucks to unlock more content within it. And that content is all either permanent upgrades or new stages, too. Also, there’s a hard limit on how much money you can spend on the game (about $35), so it’s more like you’re buying a full game bit-by-bit instead of paying it all up front.

This is a pretty great model. Especially since the premium currency (pokédiamonds) are easy enough to come by for free in-game. There are daily challenges that reward skilled players with pretty decent payouts of pokédiamonds, streetpass milestones that award bunches of pokédiamonds, and if you streetpass people or have 3DS friends that are playing the game, their Miis can pop in and sometimes give you a diamond.

So there are two way you can play: take it slow and unlock everything for free, or pony up and have all of the game’s content delivered to you as soon as possible. Not too shabby. If you hit the spending limit, the game even gives you 20 free pokédiamonds every day to fritter away on the usual silly freemium things, like reviving if you’re defeated in a stage, or being able to play a stage again without waiting for the time limit to expire.

The only thing I really don’t like about Rumble World is that adding a specific monster to your stable requires a massive amount of luck. For one, simply getting a defeated Pokémon to join you is random, nothing you can really do about it. Not every Pokémon assigned to a stage appears every time you play that stage, which complicates things further. Worst of all, each world is divided into several areas, each with a pre-set Pokémon loadout, and you get to play one stage per visit to a world, and even then it’s picked randomly.

Certain Pokémon seem to only appear in the “FEVER!” version of each stage, which, as far as I can tell, comes about totally randomly. Like everything else. Needless to say, there are a lot of RNGs working against you if you’re trying to catch ’em all. It’s very much a “hope for the best” kind of situation.

On the upside, it’s still pretty fun to just carve your way through the stages, bopping Pokémon left and right. The way that the game mechanics and pokémon moves and strength levels work, it gives you lots of opportunities to play as monsters that otherwise amount to useless data. For example, I’ve been playing as a really strong Durant lately, and Durant is a Pokémon that has gotten exactly zero respect from me previous to this game. I use it because it’s quick, strong, and has a really efficient Bite attack. Contrast with Golbat, a Pokémon I normally love, but whose Acrobatics attack is really unwieldy in Rumble World, making it difficult to use effectively.

Certainly, Pokémon Rumble World is not a deep game, but it’s a decent way to kill some time now and then. And who doesn’t love the adorable little toy versions of Pokémon? So yeah, I’d recommend it. Besides, it’s free. What do you have to lose?

Retrospective: Mega Man Battle Network 4

You know how every once in a while I talk about how something in my environment triggers a loosely-related memory? I had a really strong one of those yesterday. I was listening to Firehouse at work, and for whatever reason, it brought up memories of Mega Man Battle Network 4.

If you’ve actually paid attention to my ramblings over the last however many years, you know that Battle Network 4 and I have a rocky relationship. In fact, I might even say that I hate it. It is, by a wide margin, the worst in its series. And that’s mostly because it’s overdesigned and padded all to heck. However, when we started out, MMBN4 and I got along fairly well.

mmbn4covers

The Mega Man Battle Network series was an annual release for the first six years of the Game Boy Advance’s lifespan. I got in on the second installment (which many rightly consider to be the best), and lured the eldest of my brothers into its grips before long. From that point on, we would eagerly await the release of the newest entry each year and spend the summer playing through together.

Continue reading Retrospective: Mega Man Battle Network 4