I don’t know about being the most beloved, but it was very nice.

Took an overnight train to Boston to catch a game in Fenway and that was pretty awesome. Check another ballpark off my list!

Movies

Not this week.

TV

The Amazing Race – Almost done with the finale. I was pretty bummed to see Joey and Meghan go, but it’s still been a pretty fun season.

Parks and Recreation – I really enjoyed the putt putt episode. Amy Poehler does a good frustrated even if it all seemed a little incidental and a little overdone. It was pleasant.

Music

FZ: Side F (and Side Z, with a slight helping of E). Decent remix albums of Fez music. Here’s Side Z.

Books

Friday Night Lights Companion: Love, Loss, and Football in Dillon, Texas – Finished out these essays and I rather enjoyed them. Uneven in quality, sometimes, it was still a pretty great little observation of a great show.

Video Games

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box – Got some time during the train rides to get a little further in the game. I’m at the weird phantom vampire city now and I have no idea where this game is headed.

Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask – Bonus puzzles have been stacking up, so I pushed through a few just to pass some time before my train got back to Baltimore because my allergies were killing me.

Poker Night 2 – Still haven’t finished that last unlock. So close! Also have to make it to a million in winnings.

Monaco: What’s Yours is Mine – What a neat little narrative. I’m interested in seeing how the epilogue plays out since it looks like competitive multiplayer.

My mom’s dog is so cool! I miss hanging out with her.

After a long, tough week in Florida and a long, busy week in MD I’m looking forward to a little downtime…

Movies

Iron Man 3 – A new director means a brand new feel for the movie. Stark isn’t in the suit that much and it just all feels…different, but that’s not bad! I really loved the movie. Good times.

TV

The Americans – Caught another episode of this with Katie. Fell asleep partway through, but it’s not the show’s fault. Still loads of fun and addictive to watch.

Music

How about some classic salsa? Take it, Celia

Books

A Friday Night Lights Companion: Love, Loss, and Football in Dillon, Texas – The essays vary in quality, but it makes me want to rewatch the show so much!

Video Games

Monaco: What’s Yours is Mine – This game is bananas. Getting three people together and watching the chaos…so fun! Reminds me of Bonanza Bros.

Tomb Raider – Finished the game. I won’t spoil too much since I know some of my readers watch the LPs I do, but maybe next week or in a deeper post.

Nothing says “I’m in Florida” like Zephyrhills water. It’s not the best stuff, but I miss it some days.

Not a lot of stuff going on this week because I went home to see my family.

Movies

Oz the Great and Powerful – Not my favorite movie, but it was passable. It was fun to see Zach Braff again, but the movie was decidedly low stakes and, I think, hamstrung by having to set up The Wizard of Oz

TV

Oddly enough…nope. Mostly watched baseball.

Music

I’ve already posted Vampire Weekend’s “Diane Young”, haven’t I? I don’t care. I love this song. Can’t wait for the new album.

Books

One Hundred Years of Solitude – One of my favorite lines from the last bit of the book: “…they were all identical, sons of the same bitch”. Marquez’ epic novel was incredibly entertaining, beautiful, and amazing. Quite possibly the best book, pound for pound, that I’ve ever read. Just gorgeous, detailed, irrelevant, and damn near perfect. I don’t love what happened to all the Buendias, but it was amazing to read about.

A Friday Night Lights Companion: Love, Loss, and Football in Dillon, Texas – If you’ve never seen Friday Night Lights then you might not understand why someone would read a book of essays talking about how awesome the show it. It’s a good show.

Video Games

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box – Just a puzzle or two as I met up with Flora. I need to sit down and crank through this game.

Poker Night 2 – Far better than Poker Night in structure, dialogue, and design, but it’s a bummer that you can’t change the poker AI difficultly or the frequency of comments. On the plus side, no more luck-based achievements. Take that straight flush or four of a kind achievements!

I couldn’t really think of a new, appropriate photo for today so here’s a picture of dogs in my family

Nothing really big going on this week. Played a lot of Tomb Raider and edited a bunch of episodes to prep for some dry times ahead.

Movies

Not quite this week. Hopefully this one, but I’ll also be fairly busy.

TV

Parks and Recreation – The most reliable Parks and Rec laughs for me nowadays come from the way everyone (Leslie included) mistreats Jerry. Top notch pair of episodes this week, guys.

The Mindy Project – The Santa Fe episode was pretty good. Not amazing, but I laughed.

Community – So tired of the Chang stuff. Don’t really care…The episode itself was passable. I chuckled a few times.

The Amazing Race – Man, I was so worried about Joey and Meghan getting eliminated in Switzerland. So glad that didn’t happen. S3 is shaping up to be fairly interesting too, so I dig that.

The Americans – So far they’re doing a pretty good job of ramping everything up, but I think the FBI stuff feels a little thinner without a partner.

Music

FZ: Side F – Disasterpeace’s collaboration remix album has some interesting tracks and interesting interpretations going on. Neat album for sure.

Books

Not this week either.

Video Games

DmC Devil May Cry – I’m really suspicious of Vergil. I think he’s a bad guy. Poor Kat. Still enjoying the game and I’m digging all the new weapons too.

Tomb Raider – I feel like I’m getting reasonably close to the endgame. There’s a lot more gun battle sections and that’s kind of boring, but at least the plot’s also moving along nicely. Still haven’t run into the Oni again, but the way they’re all hyping it up we’re gonna have a fun confrontation.

If you’re thinking this movie looks to be overstuffed…it most definitely is. (Photo by Han Cinema)

I actually had a really busy week considering how little media I consumed Mon-Wed. So much baseball too…

Movies

The Thieves – I enjoyed The Thieves, but it had a fundamental issue of elevating every single subplot to maximum import. It was just a little too overcrowded and it wanted to have its cake and eat it too. Still a pretty fun movie. I’m also a big fan of how Korean movies just blend in multiple languages seamlessly. There was Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and English all represented in the movie.

TV

The Amazing Race – Burned through the rest of S3 and, damn, Flo was edited to be really shrill. I’m still glad that she won over Terri and Ian, but Ken and Gerard would have been super fun.

New Girl – Gotta say that they’re doing everything they can to really make Nick and Jess awkward. It’s funny, but tough to watch sometimes. Their characterization of Winston and Schmidt is a little inconsistent though…

Archer – The Sea Tunt episodes lacked some of the oomph of the space station ones from last year, but it was still a fairly hilarious hour of television. The wait for new Archer always feels so long!

Community – The puppets all sounded muffled, but I enjoyed that episode a little more than the dance one. Well…except for the Brie Larson part. I love that girl. She was adorable in the episode.

Music

I don’t have anything really new, so how about my favorite song by The Clash?

Books

Nope. Sorry!

Video Games

Poker Night at the Inventory – Those Four of a Kind and Straight Flush achievements are, well, luck-based. So frustrating! Pumped for the sequel!

Digital: A Love Story – A quick little quasi-visual novel. It’s best quality is how well it emulates the old BBS internet and net behavior in general.

don’t take it personally, babe, it just ain’t your story – More conventional as a visual novel. Mostly interesting for how accurately it captures high school drama, high school social media behavior, and as a parable about privacy and sharing in the modern world.

Tomb Raider – The shooty bits are coming a bit more frequently. Good thing I’m so great at them, right? …Right?

DmC Devil May Cry – Spending time away from character action games makes them tough to play. I forgot how much I enjoyed that game. Gonna have to go back to it. It’s also great since I don’t film it and I don’t have to worry about casting at the same time or editing.

PS:

There’s such a thing as being too into a player, I think…

Broke the seal on baseball season this week by attending my first game. Marlins at Nats. Of course Miami lost, but it’s the experience that makes it all feel right.

Movies

Looper – Best line: “I don’t want to talk about time travel shit. Because if we talk about it, then we’re gonna be here all day, drawing diagrams with straws.” What a brilliantly done movie. Just such a tightly constructed plot. Lots of fun. I really dug it.

Rust and Bone – A little less dramatic than I thought it would be. Probably a result of one plot element too many. We didn’t need Ali’s son along with Stéphanie’s struggles from losing her legs. The prosthetics also put a fairly tight bow on the whole “no legs” situation.

TV

The Americans – I felt like the show was asking us to take too far a leap to mourn Amador so soon into the season. The dude was neat/funny, but he didn’t really have time to capture our hearts, not to mention he was kind of crude. I dunno. Still enjoying the show.

The Amazing Race – The second Botswana episode was great. Speeding tickets, car accidents, etc. Lots of excitement. Bummer to lose Pam and Winnie though. Also fun to see S3 progress alright. Having the Harvard lawyers lose because they didn’t properly read the fine print…well that’s brilliant, isn’t it?

Music

Caught up on an old episode of Alt.Latino where they mentioned a fantastic album by the Giles Peterson’s Havana Cultura Band plus people like Danay Suarez and Silvito El Libre. Good times and good music. Seriously. Listen to it.

Books

So busy with work and baseball that I did not manage any reading. Whoops.

Video Games

Harmoknight – Completed the main campaign. Gotta say that I don’t really dig the boss battles, but that’s kind of minor. Otherwise the game is pretty fun. Worth $15? Maybe just barely.

Tomb Raider – The supernatural element that always mars these video game narratives (can you say zombies or blue guys in Uncharted games?!) have shown up, but I thankfully haven’t had to fight them yet. The shotgun feels pretty nice though.

Everyone loves to mock it, but it’s home.

It’s that time of year again, everyone. Baseball season has begun anew!

Movies

Ruby Sparks – Way darker than I expected it to be, but, then again, I always expected it to be skewering the manic pixie dream girl trope. Well acted and quick. I dug it more than 500 Days

TV

30 Clubs in 30 Days – Watched the Orioles breakdown with Katie. Pretty fun. I think the team will exceed expectations this year too.

The Amazing Race – Oh man did I mainline episodes of this show. Finished watching S2 this week and loved Danny and Oswald and hated Wil and Tara like everyone else. Also saw the Botswana episode of the current season and rather enjoyed it as well.

Happy Endings – They came back hitting the wordplay jokes (seemingly) harder than ever. Good, if not quite as strong episodes.

Archer – The Vatican City episode was ridiculously good, guys. Pam getting stuck by the heroin needle was pretty funny. They’re just making everyone field agents now, huh? I doubt we’ll ever see Cheryl in the field, but with all of this going on now, who knows?

The Daily Show – I really dug the strong indictment of the President on veteran issues. It’s not common for Stewart to be so hard on Obama, so it’s good to see it happen every once in a while.

New Girl – I’m not sure that the Nick Kroll stuff (or any of the family stuff, really) worked, but it was a decent episode.

Music

This isn’t the first time I’ve put a Disasterpiece track on here. Enjoy it!

Books

One Hundred Years of Solitude – Still making progress on this guy and still loving it. Truly epic. I’m at the part where the fruit company is there and I’m wondering what’s gonna come of that.

Video Games

Mass Effect 3 – Got through all the required missions and did the Javik one as well because having him come along makes the game infinitely better.

Bioshock Infinite – Has a lot of the same issues as Bioshock. Really pretty and I’m interested in seeing where it goes, but I’m not impressed yet.

Dead Space 3 – Co-op time with David. Man do I love playing co-op games with him. It’s so much better than randos and we’re able to get some fantastic jokes in.

Remember when this blog first started and all I did on it was post Metal Gear trailers and talk about how good Metal Gear was?

That time seems to be coming back…

This trailer looks…amazing. It’s also far better to play as Big Boss than Solid Snake. Could be an interesting game.

PS: I also dig the Garbage song that plays throughout.

It really should be a snow day today, but circumstances conspire against me… (Photo by Hobbes vs Boyle)

It’s cold and snowy and I hate it, but this should (hopefully) be winter’s last hurrah before spring and baseball season.

Movies

Silver Linings Playbook – You know? I actually enjoyed this movie a lot more on second viewing. The acting is all quite good. Definitely one you should see if you have yet to catch it.

TV

The Americans – Mole spotting and infidelity ahoy these past two episodes. Still rather intriguing. Definitely not the best show on tv, but definitely fun and worth watching.

Archer – Haven’t managed to watch the most recent episode yet, but the tower one and the coyote one were both superb. Just super funny stuff.

Girls – This year’s finale was messy and kind of rushed feeling. I like that they’re all back where they were (under different circumstances) from last year, but I also didn’t love how much it felt like a happy ending when, based on what we know about these people, it really shouldn’t be.

The Amazing Race – The Vietnam leg was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. That pro-Socialism song is something I want in my music library, seriously. The Botswana leg was cool too. I have no idea why anyone would opt to do a task where you have to make fire with sticks. Too. Hard.

Happy Endings – Watched the kickball episode to prep Katie for kickball last week. Still super funny. Yippie Ki Yay Mother Failure!

Community – Really not enjoying the new show. :sigh:. This is like the eighth time that Jeff and Pierce have a moment. Also the show is way sappier this year.

New Girl – Do not like the Jess and Nick storyline at all. I was really hoping that she wouldn’t date any of her roommates. It’d be better if they weren’t stretching it out so much too. Oh well…

Glee – Slowly pushing through my backlog. Boring ballads between Jake and Marley are boring. Really…At least the show has a few good numbers tucked in there.

Music

PHOX – Fairly typical indie rock stuff, but that’s not all that bad.

Books

One Hundred Years of Solitude – There are these details in this book that are so random, but so perfect in conveying the magical tone of this work. It’s just absolutely brilliant and I love it. Feels like an epic tale.

Video Games

Mass Effect 2 – Cruised through my corrected Paragon playthrough to prepare for ME3 and the Citadel DLC. That game…still not as good as the others. I don’t know if it’s the way that it tries too hard to be “cool” and “mature” or something, but it gets on my nerves.

Spelunky – Played some multiplayer with Min. Good times. Look forward to the episode next week.

New Super Mario Bros. U – Min and I pushed through another world. Things are getting complicated, but we’re making our way to Bowser without playing too poorly.

Professional Baseball Spirits 2013 – The new edition is here! Can’t wait to get all the translation stuff in order and get my Carp season underway

Mass Effect 3 – Got to where you can save and exit, but really excited to get this paragon game in. I do wish my paragon Shepard was female because Hale is so much better than anything else, but I’ll make do.