Happy New Year! (2011/12)

Happy New Year, everyone! Suzi and I just got back in from our Winter holidays getaway to San Diego, and I wanted to squeeze in one last post for the year. Though I had hoped to blog at least a little bit while we were gone, bringing my laptop computer along in anticipation of doing so, I never ended up even turning it on, largely due to not needing it enough to warrant paying for internet service at our Westin hotel. Regardless, I'll be sure to get back into the swing of things now that the new year is upon us and that I'm back home.

Anyway, I wish you the best end to 2011/start of 2012 possible, and I thank you for continuing to follow me on here all this time. See you in 2012!

Off To San Diego!

So, Suzi and I are going to be leaving first thing in the morning tomorrow (well, technically today) for our big(ger) Winter holidays trip out to the West coast, this time to San Diego. It's going to be one day shorter than our similar San Francisco trip of last year, but I'm pretty sure than San Diego is also a little less daunting in terms of sights to see, so I'm hoping three nights will feel just right. Our hotel will be right in the center of the action, and I've heard that the city is pretty walking-friendly, so we'll probably hang around the center of town for the better part of our time there. We ARE planning on spending a half day at the world-famous San Diego zoo though, which will be our first zoo visit together and should be a highlight of the trip. Also, the weather is supposed to be pretty nice the whole time, which was kinda the point heading out to (Southern)-Southern California.

Anyway, even though I'll be out of town, I'd ideally like to squeeze in enough posts to make one per day this month, though I guess it's not really necessary considering I've already met and exceeded my quota for the year. If not, happy New Year, and I'll see you in 2012! Thanks for continuing to check out the blog!

Dinner For Schmucks

Onto another RedBoxed comedy, the 2010 film featuring Paul Rudd and Steve Carell, where Rudd's character has to bring a complete idiot nutjob to a work party in order to get a promotion and ends up bringing the diorama-making Carell after hitting him with his car and discovering how odd he is. This leads to Carell's character virtually ruining EVERYTHING in Rudd's life before everything ends up getting resolved in the end (of course), and along the way we get to meet Zach Galifianakis' villain character.

Dinner For Schmucks looked alright from the trailers, and the premise seemed to have potential, but like at least one other Steve Carell film I've seen, the experience ends up being more uncomfortably frustrating than enjoyable. Easily the highlight of the film was Carell's "Mousterpieces," a collection of recreations of famous art scenes with dead mice...granted, the mice were fake in real life, but the designer behind the dioramas did an incredible job, especially with the touching opening title sequence.

In the end, I wouldn't recommend this film to anyone, though I'm sure it might be right up SOMEONE'S alley. I hate to say it, but as I see more and more Steve Carell films, I begin to like him less and less. Maybe he's just a lot better on TV?

Silversun Pickups - Swoon

Growing up, I was a huge Smashing Pumpkins fan. In fact, they were what really started steering me strongly in a rock direction with regards to my personal musical goals, and their music was the repertoire I used to learn how to play guitar. Years later, the Smashing Pumpkins are more-or-less dissolved, but occasionally you find a band that keeps their style very much alive, and arguably the foremost of these groups is L.A.'s Silversun Pickups, who share not only the Pumpkins' sound, but also a somewhat awkward frontman, a female bassist, an Asian member (the drummer as opposed to the Pumpkins' guitarist), and even their initials, leading some to think of the band as a really, really good originals-only tribute band of sorts (though I'm sure they hate the comparison...).

So, though I had checked out the Silversun Pickups' debut LP Carnavas and liked its lead single "Lazy Eye", I never liked it enough to buy it, but for some reason when I revisited their sophomore release Swoon earlier this year, it somehow resonated with me, so I picked it up. That said, it took me awhile to finally have the album grown on me, as my initial impressions were kinda so-so, my biggest complaints being its apparent sameness throughout and the singer's timbral resemblance to Coheed and Cambria's Claudio Sanchez (which I found irritating now despite liking it a good bit years ago). Once Swoon did warm on me though, I found myself often singing along and feeling very at home with the modern take on the Pumpkins' soundworld. I wouldn't say the album is perfect, but it's definitely strong enough to recommend, and I'm thinking about eventually returning to Carnavas to reconsider for purchase...

Highlights: "The Royal We"/"Growing Old Is Getting Old"/"Substitution"
Rating: 4/5

Storage Wars: Season 1

Anyone that's spent some time around me recently knows that my big TV obsession right now is A&E's Storage Wars, a reality show following four more-or-less professional storage unit auction patrons around a variety of storage unit locations scattered across Southern California. But let me take it back one step, as I was kinda shocked at the concept behind the show in the first place: basically, if someone has a storage locker and ends up going something like three months delinquent on payments, the storage unit place has the legal right to auction off the entire contents of the lockers to buyers willing to empty out the locker in a short amount of time, thereby freeing up the locker for a paying patron. Yeah, sounds a little crazy that this is even allowed, but I guess it's the only way that it all makes sense, right?

Anyway, the rules of a storage unit auction are simple: upon opening a storage locker for viewing and auction, the bidders have a certain amount of time to take a look at the unit as close as they like without stepping inside. This is easily the source of the fun, as the contents of most units are a bit hard to discern from a mere look-over from afar, so it really is kind of a gamble placing bets on what's inside. Apart from this, bidders must also consider whether they have the time, manpower, and shipping capabilities to quickly remove, organize, and eventually sell the contents, and obviously this ability varies greatly depending on the individual.

One of the four characters on the show, Dave Hester, is described as "The Mogul", and as such, runs a large thrift store with a sizable budget and plenty of manpower, making him able to buy out almost any of the others due to his vast resources. On the other end is Barry Weiss, "The Collector", who has large personal funds but generally doesn't buy units to make a profit and who has virtually no manpower beyond himself, so he's very limited in what he can reasonably buy. Still, Barry often finds some of the most interesting stuff, and he's easily the most likable of the characters. In between these two extremes are Darrell Sheets, "The Gambler", who has been in the industry a long time but only sells items via flea markets and the like, and Jarrod Schulz "The Young Gun", who, along with his wife Brandi Passante, runs a small thrift shop that can never really compete with Dave Hester's, often putting the two at odds. Each character has a different personality and bidding approach, and though Dave Hester is easily the bad guy of the group, they're all pretty likable.

Seriously, I'm obsessed with this show. Suzi and I have literally watched all of Season One's nineteen episodes (either via actual TV or streaming Netflix), and though Season 2 is currently airing and would be easy enough to watch the occasional episode, we've basically sworn off doing so until it comes out on Netflix so that we can watch the whole thing together from start to finish. Granted, it probably won't be all that different from any given episode on Season One, but still...we're hooked. Check it out if you're into this brand of reality show...you won't be disappointed!

Portal 2

2011 has been a slow year for my video gaming, so when I took a handful of games in to be traded at GameStop (as I blogged about in an earlier post), I knew I needed to pick up a new game that would have both Game Of The Year potential AND be fairly quick to finish, as I didn't have a lot of great games for this year and was running out of time to experience them. So I went with the full-length follow-up to The Orange Box's breakout arcade-length hit puzzle game Portal, which this time around had a critically-acclaimed co-op campaign in addition to the much longer, story-driven single player campaign. Granted, I'm not really much of a co-op/online player (though I did manage to squeeze a little bit of it in with my buddy Erich), so what I was really shooting for was the single-player campaign.

If you don't know, the Portal franchise is a first-person shooter puzzle game which uses a gun that creates both ends to a portal that transports you from any solid non-metallic surface to another, allowing for lots of perplexing spacial scenarios. Unlike the first game, Portal 2 has both a number of the expected test chambers AND tons of areas outside the chambers (usually to connect different story elements), and though these did make sense within the new larger storyline, I have to admit that they kind of watered down the experience for me, as I REALLY loved the whole test-chamber-only aesthetic of the original game, which only featured an out-of-chamber experience at the very end, functioning as a big surprise.

That said, the test chamber areas of Portal 2 (I believe there were three main sections) were quite good, with a handful of new mechanics to offer new challenges, but they still couldn't really compete with the pristine, white-walled test rooms of the first game for me, at least on an aesthetic level. As the critics have noted, one of the strongest features of the game is its witty scriptwriting and its incredible voice-acting, all of which really sold the story element of a game that most people probably assumed couldn't have been all that plot-driven. Still, I just don't think any amount of witty banter the second time around could have exceeded my enjoyment it gave me the first time around, when it was fresh and totally unexpected.

So, bottom line: while Portal 2 really was a great game and they really did do an amazing job fleshing the game mechanics and story out into a feature-length title, the experience just couldn't stand up to the brief but wonderful time I had with its predecessor. Yes, Portal 2 will end up on my Top 5 list this year, but that's probably more due to the lack of competition than how much it truly resonated with me. I don't really get why video game critics love it so much (unless of course it's the co-op mode...), but it's definitely worth playing (but not until after you've played the first).

Coldplay - Mylo Xyloto

If you had asked me to list five bands/artists whose careers have had a singleminded creative trajectory over the course of their numerous albums, often to a fault, one of the first bands that probably would have come to mind for me would be Coldplay, whose style with their first four albums didn't veer much AT ALL. Yes, 2008's Viva La Vida did seem to be a positive step in the right direction for the oh-so-popular British alternative rock group, but nothing on offer there can compare with the unexpected step forward they made with this year's supposed concept album Mylo Xyloto. In addition to their preference for melancholic, lilting, and vaguely-folky (albeit of the British persuasion) approach, the new LP features LOTS of synthesizers, a handful of R&B beats, a sample or two, and even a guest appearance by Rihanna (which is admittedly a tad out of place), so though the Coldplay everyone has come to know over the past ten years is still present here, the instrumentation is a good bit different, and to me at least, it's a very welcome change.

I refer to the album as a "supposed" concept album because I had literally NO IDEA this was the case until I had read its Wikipedia production notes while preparing for my HiFi review. Rather, while the musical style is consistent throughout (this IS still Coldplay, after all), the lyrics didn't seem to point to any greater unifying message, and the only element that seemed at all to tie it all together was the occasional synthesized instrumental interlude connecting a track or two. Still, the lack of an apparent concept doesn't bother me in the slightest, so if that's what Coldplay has to shoot for to grow as a band, so be it. Anyway, you should definitely check out Mylo Xyloto if you were getting tired of Coldplay's routine sound, even if you didn't find them all that appealing before!

Highlights: "Hurts Like Heaven"/"Charlie Brown"/"Us Against The World"
Rating: 4/5

Whole World Improv Theatre

Though I've been a fairly avid supporter of Dad's Garage improv, as you've likely seen in numerous blog posts (especially last year), that troupe only represents ONE of Atlanta's improv theatres, the other big competitor being Whole World Improv Theatre in Midtown (Dad's Garage is in Inman Park). Other than simply going with what's familiar, the main thing that had kept me from finally checking out Whole World all these years was its price: on the average night of regular improv, Whole World is roughly TWICE that of Dad's Garage... But, Scoutmob was offering a half-off deal for Whole World up until late November, so Suzi and I took what might have been the last available night to use it as an opportunity to finally check out the venue (well, I'm pretty sure Suzi had already been).

My first thought about the experience had nothing to do with the troupe or the improv itself, but rather their parking situation. Though they are admittedly in a much less parking-friendly spot in town, you'd think such an expensive ticket would at least grant you free parking... Unfortunately, the primary lot they suggest you park in costs something like three to five bucks, but whatever. Initial impressions walking into the venue were that it was a good deal cleaner, better-designed, and overall more-professional than that of Dad's Garage, both in the bar/lounge area and the stage/seating. They even had a movie playing on flatscreen TVs while you waited (in this case, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, which Suzi and I actually enjoyed talking about with the sound more-or-less off).

All this said, the show itself really was no better than those at Dad's Garage, at least on this particular night. I say this because I've found that improv experiences are often highly inconsistent in quality from one night to the next, even with the same improvisers...but that said, it doesn't take long to figure out who the strongest amongst them are: the two guys of whom this was true at Whole World (I can't figure out which ones they were from the site alone) easily surpassed the others, especially when doing skits with accents and/or impressions. Also, the keyboardist was pretty good and was generally a lot cooler than the ones I've seen at Dad's Garage.

In the end, though I had a good time that night, this one experience wasn't enough to overcome the pull of saving a few bucks at Dad's Garage, so unless they drop their prices or start offering coupons like Scoutmob more regularly, I'll probably just keep my patronage elsewhere. Glad we finally tried it out though!

Modern Family: Season 2

I've already written about my initial love for the hit TV series Modern Family, so I'll just spend this time talking a bit about Season 2, which was easily every bit as good, if not a little too similar (honestly, I'm having a hard time remembering which episodes belong to which season!). The bottom line is that Modern Family is just a fantastic show, and though I haven't seen any of the current Season 3 episodes, I have no worries that it too will retain the high standards set by both of its predecessors.

Regarding Season 2 in particular, I know I could go back and revisit each of its 24 episodes via the Wikipedia plot summaries and then list my Top 5 or so, but honestly, that seems a little tedious. Just know that I loved Season 2 and highly recommend everyone check out all of Modern Family's episodes. Like I said in my last post on the show, each episode is truly episodic, leaving one with little reason to watch it in order, especially regarding Season 2 which, unlike Season 1, didn't even have a true ending so-to-speak, but I suppose there might be an allusion or two to a previous episode that COULD make doing so worthwhile.

Anyway, just check out Modern Family! So glad Suzi got me hooked on it! Can't wait for Season 3 to hit DVD!

Swan Coach House Show

Time for the last of Suzi's art shows for the year, this one at the Swan Coach House and only a couple weeks after her Kibbee show. I'm not sure if the following is the name/concept for every show at this particular gallery every year, but I know that Suzi's event was called Little Things Mean A Lot and evidently only featured smaller pieces, most likely to maximize the number of contributing artists considering how small the gallery's main room itself was. Overall, this was one of the swankiest of Suzi's shows I've been to thus far, as it was largely attended by older, old money Buckhead types, so all of Suzi's friends that went got a bit more dressed up than usual, including myself. Unlike Suzi's last show, Suzi wasn't nervous about this one, as she was really confident about the three gem pieces she did (which were honestly some of her best work I've seen!), so she invited a number of her friends in addition to her parents, making this my third/fourth time seeing her mom/dad, respectively. Overall, the event was pretty cool (though parking was tough!), it was nice having all of Suzi's friends there, and things once again went well with Suzi's parents.

After the show, most of the non-parents went out to the nearby (and really chic!) Buckhead Bottle Bar for some delicious food, drinks, and company. While there, some giant Turkish guy heckled me a little bit (still not sure why, as I was dressed pretty conservatively, especially for me!), and I spilt some pizza sauce on my clothes, but other than this, it was a really fun time! Once again, Suzi art show nights proved to be one of the most memorable and fun things we do as a couple, leaving me feeling really proud and excited to have a girlfriend who gets to partake in them. =)

New X-Men: Ultimate Collection Vol.3

New X-Men: Ultimate Collection Vol.3 is the third and final installment in the Grant Morrison run of the series, and therefore represents the conclusion of the same for me, which began as a gift from Dave in the first volume and continued as a gift from Suzi with the second, but considering I was all pumped up to see how the story arc unfolded, I decided to just go ahead and buy the last volume for myself so as to not have to wait until I had another gift receiving opportunity. =)

Similar to previous installments, volume three can be split into a few smaller story arcs, all of which have a sense of forward momentum towards reaching the larger arc's climax and resolution. The first arc concerns Wolverine, Cyclops, and the recent addition to the team (via the Weapon X program) Fantomex as they hunt down the most recent Weapon X abomination, Weapon XV. This story is mainly a diversion before the bigger arc's big climax occurring in the following storyline... Here, it's revealed that the sun-wielding supermutant Xorn has actually been Magneto in disguise this whole time, who has been covertly training his group of misfit X-Men for a coup of the Xavier Institute and the world at large, with plans to turn the magnetic poles upside down and kill all the humans (typical Magneto stuff, really). The final story arc follows the future aftermath of everything that ends up taking place, where Beast has morphed into the world's supervillain after going crazy (and taking the drug "kick"), and future versions of a number of current mutants have to save the day, most notably Jean Grey's Phoenix, but also including Cassandra Nova of all people, who is now good.

Overall, I have mixed feelings about the final installment of the series. On one hand, everything does really come to a close and feels significantly climactic, and the Xorn/Magneto revelation really was a powerful surprise (and minor letdown, as I liked Xorn in-and-of himself), but the bookending story arcs don't make a whole lot of sense... The Weapon XV story was kinda random and wasn't very well explained (in fact, I'm still not sure if it had more to do with the Magneto story than it first appeared), and the whole future storyline was a bit too convoluted and hypothetical for me (as it never ends up happening...), and as such, was a perplexing denouement to both the third volume and the series as a whole. But whatever...I still enjoyed this collection of X-Men stories more than perhaps any other superhero/mutant comics I've read before, and I'm really glad Dave got me started on it. Good stuff. Sorry for the spoilers if you end up checking it out!

The Thin Blue Line

Being the big Philip Glass fan I was throughout my college years (especially undergrad), I tried very hard to see as many films featuring Glass' music as possible, including such uncommonly watched films as Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters, Bent, and his new version of Cocteau's Belle et la Bête, but one film that I even had the soundtrack too but somehow couldn't manage to find (in the somewhat pre-Amazon era) was Errol Morris' 1988 documentary The Thin Blue Line. Well, seeing as I recently found it on streaming Netflix and that I've grown much more into documentaries over the past year, I figured now was a good time to finally sit down and watch it.

The Thin Blue Line presents the varying viewpoints surrounding the case of a Dallas police officer who was gunned down at night in 1976 by (most-likely) one of two men who were in the car the cop had pulled over. The first was the teen David Harris, who had a criminal record but was too young to get life, and the second, Randall Adams, who ended up doing time even though the evidence pointed towards his innocence. The film has a very direct way of relaying the information, basically in the form of interviews with absolutely no narrative voice-over to guide your opinions, and as such, it really does feel like you're figuring the whole thing out for yourself. That said, so many other crime shows have been based off this model that it's difficult to realize how original this film actually was at the time.

Overall, I did like the film, but it's kinda slow and definitely seems a bit dated. Also, my appreciation of Glass' film score is underwritten by two factors: first, some of the themes from the movie actually originated from other places in his œuvre (if nothing else "Metamorphosis 2"), and second, the soundtrack version that I had owned for years is strange for a soundtrack in that it actually contained the voice dialogue from the film, so I had already kinda "seen" the film before actually seeing it. Granted, it's a lot harder to follow the story when you can only hear voices, unable to identify who's who, but I still kinda knew the gist of it going in. Anyway, check The Thin Blue Line out if you're a big fan of documentaries and want to see a fairly influential one, but otherwise, I'd say just skip it for more modern stuff.

Green/Ashe-ville Weekend w/Suzi

Onto the second most recent trip Suzi and I have taken lately, our kinda random trip to both Greenville, SC and Asheville, NC. The initial reason for the trip was to join Suzi's college friend Angela for her big 11/11/11 party she had been planning on FOR YEARS, but as fate would have it, the real occasion for the party was Angela and her husband Christopher's baby shower for their newborn girl, Nora. So, though Angela had stuff planned for our first night up and the first half of the next day, we decided to make the most of our drive up to Greenville by pushing onward another hour or so to the hippie town of Asheville, which I hadn't yet been to (though Suzi had). While we were only in town for under 24 hours, we still got a good feel for it.

Note: due to privacy issues, I'm going to temporarily stop posting public links to my Facebook albums on this blog, so if you're one of the few people who reads this blog and isn't my friend on Facebook, contact me and I can send you a link (assuming I know you, of course!).

Anyway, the trip was kinda a strange one for me. First off, we had already been to Greenville this year, so even though it was nice catching up with Angela & friends and Jaclyn & Ryan, it was also a bit too much of the same to really standout as a unique trip. Easily the most memorable part of the Greenville portion was the dinner at Angela's parents' house on Saturday, which was quite pleasant (especially the food, which was honestly our best meal of the whole trip). Second, we didn't really stay in particularly memorable hotels (they were just basic suburban type hotels), so that didn't really stand out. Third, I was kinda under the weather for the Asheville part of the trip, and this affected my mood a good bit.

And lastly, Asheville was kinda dead when we were there (although it WAS busy enough Saturday night), so our day there on Sunday was kinda uneventful. I could definitely see that the city was different from most other towns in the Southeast, and as such, I could see why so many people love it, but I think we just caught it at an unfortunately uneventful time to give me the best first impression. I WOULD like to go back for the annual big synthesizer music festival MoogFest when it happens next Summer though, as I'm sure that would be a much more favorable opportunity for a visit.

In the end, while I'm glad we got to see Suzi's friends and Jaclyn & Ryan, I could have done without the Asheville part this time around, saving it for another time, but naturally we couldn't have known that going in, and we did have some highlights there (most notably the art gallery walk on Sunday and Suzi picking up an amazing jacket at a boutique), so I'm still glad we got to go. =)

South Park: Season 7

As I had been pulling for, I did manage to squeeze one more South Park season in this year (albeit about a month ago), but though I'm still finding myself with just the right amount of time to watch some more TV shows during daily meals, I'm hesitant to start another season, as I know I won't be able to finish it by year's end. As you may recall, my recent review of Season VI technically constituted my second time seeing that whole season, as I had originally watched it back in 2009 but failed to blog about it then, but this viewing of Season VII was entirely new. Sure, I might have seen an episode or two on TV at one point, but overall, it was a new experience for me, and I have to say I was very pleased. As before, here are my four favorite episodes, each with a brief description:

Krazy Kripples:
In the rare episode not focusing on the four principal characters, Timmy (the retarded kid in the wheelchair) and Jimmy (the stuttering aspiring comedian on crutches) end up forming a club called "the Crips", eventually being told that there is already a group called The Crips in Denver, which they then go seek out in an attempt to join. A bunch of misunderstandings later, and you've got a pretty awesome story. Oh, and Christopher Reaves fuels his healing by sucking out the stem cells from live babies. Brilliant stuff.

South Park Is Gay!:
After becoming fascinated with Queer Eye For The Straight Guy, all the men in South Park (except Kyle) become metrosexual, at first to the delight of the women in their lives, but eventually to their chagrin. Meanwhile, Mr. Garrison, Mr. Slave, and Kyle head to NYC to track down and kill the Queer Eye guys, who then turn out to be a race of crab people trying to take over the world by effeminizing all the men. Eventually the women kill the Queer Eye crabs, but then the TV execs push the Latin fad again, which is just as quickly adopted...

Grey Dawn:
The basic premise: old people are nightmares behind the wheel and have been killing people in accidents left and right, which then prompts South Park officials to force old people to give up their licenses. Then the AARP comes to town and takes over with force, at least until the town's Country Kitchen Buffet is boarded up (being their only source of food). Super funny episode, especially considering I generally agree that old people shouldn't be allowed to drive (unfortunately, our public transportation system couldn't really handle the increased demand, so it'll never happen).

All About Mormons:
As the episode that started this year's breakout Broadway hit, The Book Of Mormon, this was South Park's first (and possibly only?) time pointing out all of the absurdities of the faith, giving us a flashback retelling of the Joseph Smith story and his new religion. Like Trey and Matt are fond of doing though, they end the episode from another perspective, pointing out the positive effects of Mormonism despite its clearly absurd background.

Overall, this was a fantastic season, and once again, I'm really looking forward to its successor. In general, I feel that South Park is one of those rare TV franchises that somehow manages to improve year after year, and I think it's fair to say that Season VII retained this distinction. So glad Netflix has the entire South Park library on streaming!

Animal Farm

Anyone who knows me well is probably aware that I'm not much of a reader, especially outside of music-related books and graphic novels, but since moving home from Europe, I HAVE read the occasional book on religion or politics, plus one (just one) piece of fiction (a Mass Effect novel, of all things). See, fiction has never really been my thing, even all the way back to high school...I've always just preferred nonfiction and how-to books, possibly because I generally relegated my escapist needs to the world of cinema. Well, I've recently broken this trend, even if only a bit, by reading (yes, for the first time) George Orwell's classic political allegory Animal Farm. Now, though I'm kinda making a big deal about reading my first well-respected novel since high school (no, Star Wars, Mass Effect, and Magic: The Gathering, you don't count), Animal Farm isn't exactly a stretch for me, both in its political theory subject matter and its brevity (at just over one hundred pages), but hey, it still counts, right?

I'm not going to break down the plot and everything for you guys, because most of you probably read this book back in high school (or possibly even middle school!), which is really a testament to how successfully integrated into our Western way of thinking Orwell's ideas eventually became. On the flip side of this, I almost wonder how many students reading the novella back in high school really grasped what the book was about...I mean, I'm sure it was discussed in class and all, but I can tell you right now that my grasp of Stalinism and political history was pretty loose at best back then, and even now I'm certainly no expert on these subjects. Still, the book is well-written, gets to the point nicely without beating you too hard over the head with it, and the plot itself is interesting enough to make for a good read regardless of the depth of the subject matter. After finishing the book, I went back and read the handful of commentaries that were included with the Centennial Edition that I bought, all of which were certainly enlightening considering I wasn't entirely sure about all of the allegorical details during my initial reading.

Anyway, the whole experience proved to be quite fun (certainly a whole lot better than I had made reading fiction out to be all these years!), and I've added a couple other novels to my reading wishlist, though I'll probably still lean heavily on nonfiction regardless. Glad I stuck my toe in the pool, so to speak...let's just see if I eventually dive in, or just retreat to my lawn chair... ;)

Bon Iver - Bon Iver

2011 has been a year of musical surprises for me, especially considering how disappointingly mediocre the first half of the year was with regards to my listening regimen, with the biggest surprise of all being that I ended up finding something to love about artists who are usually considered to be generally folky. Well, the last and most recent entry into this surprising trend for me was Wisconsin's soft-voiced indie folk singer Bon Iver (Justin Vernon), who released his eponymous sophomore album this year to much critical acclaim. The news here though is that Vernon has eschewed the quiet, stripped down aesthetic that garnered him so much praise on his debut album For Emma, Forever Ago in favor of a much more fleshed out and atmospheric take on his style, largely via extensive use of synthesizer pads and electric guitars. While this evolution of his style might not resonate quite as well with fans of his first album, they'd have to be pretty stylistically picky if they couldn't appreciate the artistry on offer here, as this is easily one of the most beautiful and pristine albums I've heard in a long time. Don't let the new textural complexity fool you though, Bon Iver's songwriting itself is just as resolute in its simplicity and sense of calm wonder...

Though the listener might not be in a mood for such a chill and muted listening experience at any given time, there aren't really any weak parts to this LP, and it all flows nicely from one track to the other. In fact, I probably wouldn't have minded if it had been a little bit longer, though I'm certainly a big advocate for knowing when to cut yourself off. While the synth patches used on the album ARE a big reason why I feel this album to be a big step forward for Bon Iver, there's nothing new or fresh about them, and I'd almost be surprised if any of the pads were freshly designed for the album. Granted, it doesn't really matter to me how innovative the synth work is, especially when the songwriting is as stellar as it is here. In the end, I couldn't really recommend the new Bon Iver more, and I hope you get a chance to check it out, especially if you're a fan of understated music.

Highlights: "Minnesota, WI"/"Hinnom, TX"/"Beth/Rest"
Rating: 5/5

Æon Flux (Film)

Having watched the entirety of the Æon Flux TV series earlier this year, I was eager to follow it up with the live-action film adaptation released in 2005, but seeing as it wasn't available on streaming Netflix until recently, I had to wait half a year or so. For the record, I HAD seen the film version back when it was released in the theatre, but at the time I was going off my very hazy memory of the TV show from actually catching it on TV years before, so I had little to compare the film to and ended up assuming it was FAR inferior to the show.

Well, in revisiting it now, I have to say I actually liked the film quite a bit. You could argue that this is due to my low expectations from my first viewing, because it's fairly clear the film doesn't really live up to the show in terms of its oddness, art direction, or the realization of the world of Bregna (at least not entirely)... BUT, taken as a separate entity inspired-by (but not tied to) the original franchise, I think the film manages to hit most of the right notes you'd expect from a Sci-Fi action film: the world is still quite fantastic, the action is up-to-snuff, and the acting and plot are honestly quite a bit above average for a typical action flick, so it's really not so bad at all. The plot offers something of a separate timeline diversion from the real series, where the seemingly evil actions of the ruling class eventually become explained as good in light of the post-apocalyptic conditions the utopian society is living under, all of which I found quite interesting and a bit unpredictable. That said, easily my favorite part was the relationship between Charlize Theron's Æon and Marton Csokas' Trevor Goodchild, both script-wise and regarding their onscreen chemistry, which leaves me wondering why I haven't seen Csokas' work more often.

In general, I don't think the film version of Æon Flux deserved either my negative initial review or those of the critics (it holds a 36% on Metacritic!), but this reaction DOES make sense in regard to how highly regarded and beloved the original show was. Glad I gave it a second chance!

Kibbee Show 2011

Easily one of Suzi's biggest stressors this year was preparing for the art show she was a part of at the local Kibbee Gallery, which itself was a part of November's edition of the monthly Ponce Crush art stroll, so it's no big surprise that we ended up making a night of the whole thing when it finally arrived. In addition to all the potential anxieties, that night was set to be my second time seeing Suzi's parents (though I had seen just her dad one additional time in between), which as you may know is kinda a big deal itself. All this said, the night went very smoothly: the parent meet-up was totally fine (in fact, I'd say it went better than expected), Suzi's show was great and thus all of her stress was finally over with, and we enjoyed hanging out with Suzi's friend Cassy at the show and afterwards.

Seeing as Kibbee was only a third of the art venues on the schedule for the evening, we decided to eventually head over to another gallery within easiest walking distance, Young Blood, where we checked out their Day Of The Dead-themed show, including a live band and a whole bunch of small decorated coffins designed by a large number of local artists. From there, we headed over to Richard Blais' new inventive gourmet restaurant, HD-1 (or, the Haut Doggery), which serves upscale hotdogs (amongst other things), and it was delicious, though I was sad to learn that they didn't have an upscale version of a Chicago Dog : ( , but that's probably just because it's ALREADY gourmet as it is! Finally, we headed over to Smith's Olde Bar to meet up with our friends Randy and Lindsay while they were watching the tail end of the Alabama vs. LSU game (I think...don't really care), which was fun despite all the drunk Alabama fans.

Overall, it was a really fun night, amounting to the perfect stress sink for Suzi after all that worrying about her show. Personally, I always end up having fun at Suzi's art events regardless of how stressed she is leading up to them, as they're always unique and sometimes end up being big nights out like this one, so while I certainly don't wish any more stress on my baby, I do hope the shows keep coming... : )

Away We Go

Just because Juno was kinda cute doesn't mean every film that slaps on an indie-tastic art scheme to its advertising and a peaceful indie-folk song to its trailer is going to turn out good. But, that's kinda what Suzi and I were assuming with 2009's Away We Go, which follows John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph's soon-to-be-parent characters on a road trip in search for a new place to start their family.

 Yeah, the film kinda looks and sounds like a grown-up Juno, but apart from some superficial similarities, it's an entirely inferior animal: gone is the clever script-writing, comedic presence (I question whether this film is actually a comedy at all), and endearing performances, and even the potentially weighty subject matter fails to make an impact, as the characters and their situation are hard to give a shit about. Add to this one of the longest, most-boring final scenes to any movie I've seen in recent memory, and you've got a real stinker on your hands folks. Yeah, on the surface it's fine, but once you find yourself at the tail end of the movie, I can almost guarantee you're going to be wanting your time back...

Revisited: Moby - Last Night

As what probably amounts to Moby's danciest album in a long time, I was eager to pick up 2008's Last Night shortly after it came out, and though I did like it back then, it didn't do as much for me at the time as it did upon revisiting it now, as my goal in listening to dance music then was to find upbeat tracks to DJ with, whereas now I'm really just looking for a good personal listening experience. To be fair, this album really was a much better candidate for eligible dance tracks than pretty much any other recent Moby album, and I did end up using a couple for DJing, but I seem to remember the album as a little disappointing, largely for its greater number of down-tempo "filler tracks" than I was hoping for. Well today, those filler tracks ended up being some of my favorites, though I've still listed the three strongest DJing tracks below as highlights, maybe due to my past assessment of the album.

Though this album really was a departure for Moby given his huge hits from the previous few albums, all of which seemed to feature some old black lady singing a sad blues song set to an anachronistic electronic accompaniment, some of this style does manage to work its way into Last Night, and I'm generally totally fine with it. The rest of the quieter tracks are nicely balanced by the album's more high energy moments, adding up to that rare dance album that stands out for its cohesiveness and stylistic direction. Still, the album doesn't really get me crazy excited, so I've given it a respectable 3/5 and would definitely recommend checking it out if you're looking for a well-conceived electronic album that hits a variety of moods.

Familiarity: Moderate
Highlights: "I Love To Move In Here"/"Everyday It's 1989"/"Disco Lies"
Rating: 3/5

Halloween 2011

Halloween this year was an even more low-key affair than last year's: while Suzi and I were initially planning on going as a pair of lumberjacks, possibly to The Graveyard for an Andrew W.K.-hosted party (albeit, just the two of us with strangers), we had a harder time finding my outfit parts than expected, especially considering I wasn't entirely pumped about Halloween this year in general, so we basically just decided the day-of (well, the Saturday before, since actual Halloween was on a weeknight) that we were just gonna stay at home and have a chill night in. So, we ordered Domino's delivery to my condo for our first time and settled in with Saw II.

So, no costumes, no parties, no friends, no stress. Just a horror movie, some delivery, and my baby. It was kinda perfect... Maybe next year we'll go big, but going small was really just as nice. =)

The Rum Diary

Looking for something to go see on a random night, Suzi suggested we go check out the new Hunter S. Thompson flick, The Rum Diary. Like the critically-acclaimed Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas before it (which I have yet to sit down and watch), The Rum Diary  again stars Johnny Depp in the quasi-autbiographical lead role, so considering its legacy, it was reasonable to expect this film to be of a similar calibre. That said, I personally wasn't very taken with the trailer itself, especially considering how far down the shitter Johnny Depp's career has gone lately, but I was willing to suspend this fear this one time...

Unfortunately, the movie turned out to be pretty mediocre, and that's really at best. The film follows Hunter S. Thompson's early days as a journalist in Puerto Rico in the fifties, most notably his attempts to bust a corrupt real-estate deal, meanwhile living a supposedly debaucherous, rum-fueled lifestyle that barely manifests itself in the film (short of one somewhat-notable scene), despite everyone's expectations from the previous film.  The real clincher here is that the plot never really climaxes or resolves...sure, there are films that can pull this off just fine, but not The Rum Diary. Instead, we're left with a boring ending where the bad guy ends up never being confronted and Johnny Depp ends up kinda shrugging it off with a big "eh, whatever", moving back to New York. Stupid ending. Sure, it was nice having Giovanni Ribisi and Aaron Eckhart along for the ride, but even their contributions didn't amount to much.

Overall, I would say you should avoid The Rum Diary, even if you're generally a fan of the cast and Hunter S. Thompson, and especially if you're expecting it to be as striking as Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, which Suzi assures me is definitely not the case...

Seagate/Toshiba Hard Drive Debacle

Long post here, so let's get it over with! I've already acknowledged that I had some serious hard drive issues about a month ago, and though it looked bleak at first, things have more-or-less fully resolved themselves since then.

 Here's the deal: knowing that my old Macbook was having some trouble "breathing" these days and that I really needed to make sure to backup all my data on a regular basis, I decided to go buy a new, larger external hard drive, this time a 750GB drive by Seagate. Well, for whatever reason, as soon as I installed it, the clock started ticking (figuratively-speaking) on my old Toshiba drive (which was something like 150GB). At first, file transfer between the two seemed fine, but I soon started seeing error messages saying that some of the files on the old drive had been corrupted, and eventually, my computer stopped recognizing the existence of my old drive AT ALL, leading me to think it was utterly dead, and causing me to start looking into paying for some expensive data recovery.

 At this point, I was under the impression that I had lost (amongst other things) all of my iTunes library, photo albums, and Ableton files (including the mc chris project), but I still had my Sibelius scores, recordings of my own music, and Word documents, so not everything was lost. To be fair, even the stuff that seemed utterly lost was at least partially recoverable: my music collection is mainly backed up as original hard copies (i.e. I actually buy CDs), and I had burned most of the downloaded tracks to CD at one point; almost all of my photos from the past few years had been stored on Facebook online (albeit at a lower resolution); and even my mc chris project had been partially stored on my computer's internal hard drive, though this didn't help a ton, as the original file with all the clips and fader automations was still lost.

 Anyway, somewhat on a whim, I decided to try the old hard drive out on my dad's PC, and to my surprise, I was able to recover ALL of my files! The only problem here was that the only way to move the files to my computer without using an online storage site would be to use my new hard drive, but it had been formatted to only work with Macs, so to this day the files still sit safely on my dad's computer. Technically, I was also able to recover a few more files directly off the old drive onto my Macbook, but I had to keep ejecting the drive every few minutes or so, as it seemed to be getting overheated. In the meantime, I took to the very time-consuming task of re-importing most of my music collection back into iTunes, which is fortunately also kinda fun for me, as it let me revisit my collection at large and refine my method of organizing the music, so there was a silver lining to that at least.

 As it turns out, now that I have a new computer with a terabyte worth of disk space, I've moved all of my files from my new external hard drive onto the computer (with tons of room to spare), and I plan on reformatting the drive so that it can work with both PC and Mac, allowing me to go grab the rest of my files off my dad's computer. Yes, the whole process has been stressful and tedious, but at least I didn't end up losing anything for real. I've learned my lesson though, and after I move the content from my dad's CPU to my new one, I'm going to once again reformat my Seagate drive so that it can work as a true automatic backup disk via the OSX's Time Machine feature, allowing me to save literally everything on my computer without having to keep an eye on it. Let's just hope something tragic doesn't happen before I get to that point! ;)

The Exorcist

The last movie I watched for Halloween was the classic possession film The Exorcist, and though I HAD seen perhaps the first thirty minutes or so back in high school, it had freaked me out too much then that I had avoided it all these years until now. So, I went into the whole experience expecting to once again be freaked out, and though the film certainly was affecting on some level, I was happy to find that I had blown the whole thing out of proportion all these years. That said, the movie was still extremely solid and definitely deserving of its infamous reputation, more for its subtlety and acting than for its scary bits. Sure, these days they could make it all look a bit more "realistic", but I'm actually kinda a fan of the old-school way of using real props instead of CG effects, because at least with the props you could tell that it was a real thing in the real world, even if it looked like someone made it.

Apart from all this, I don't really have too much to say about the film, especially considering you've probably all seen it already. I did thoroughly enjoy it and found myself surprised by how everything ends up turning out, as it didn't really follow the standard horror formula we tend to see in the theatre these days. The next question is whether or not I should check out the two sequels, as I have to imagine they're not as good as the original. I HAVE seen the 2004 prequel Exorcist: The Beginning back when I had just moved to IU, but though it did mess with me a bit, I don't remember it being as good as the original either (though I'd be open to rewatching it). Anyway, glad I finally watched The Exorcist. Definitely check it out if you still haven't!

iDistraction

It's going to be a little tough keeping up blogging regularly over the next few weeks, as I've got a lot of legitimate distractions going on (or coming up), the least of which certainly isn't that I just got a brand new computer, an Apple iMac desktop! I'll go into the whole reasons behind a new computer later in another post, but just suffice it to say that I've got a lot of stuff to acclimate myself to, in addition to the process of migrating my old files and such over to the new cpu. On top of all this, we're in the midst of Suzi birthday week, featuring the prep time getting ready for our annual big Suzi day (which was this past Saturday), the day itself, her actual birthday (which is today), and a party one of her friends is having Saturday. Then there's the fact that I'm behind on my HiFi reviews and that the mc chris Remix Wars project will be due in twelve days. And oh yeah, getting ready for Christmas stuff in general, Christmas itself, AND a three-night trip to San Diego with Suzi at the end of the month! Getting busy!

So, if I'm not as present on the blog, it's just because it's a stressful time of year. Things will certainly settle down by January, but I'd like to at least do a post a day for the rest of the month if possible. Thanks for sticking with me this year, and good luck with your holiday stuff too!

Crystal Fighters - Star Of Love

Occasionally you find an album that truly manages to defy strict classification, or at least merges multiple genres together so well that it's not clear which one is more accurate... Well, in a manner not unlike their Spanish via London background, newcomer Crystal Fighters' sound is an unexpected blend, at times feeling more like current indie rock and/or electronica, but then at others incorporating more-traditional Spanish folk-fusion and even Reggae elements, all seemingly effortlessly. I discovered the group via a single of their biggest hit to-date, the Summery "Plage", but it didn't take long to discover the band's stylistic depth and refreshingly original take on the "genre" (whatever it may be), so I ordered the CD as an import and have recently finished putting it through my weekly listening regimen.

The verdict: though the album is quite interesting and unique, the variety can at times be almost tedious, as some of the styles I'm much more into than others, leaving the album with an almost thrown-together feel (though you also get the sense that this couldn't be further from the truth on some level). I generally find the band is at its best when crafting its brand of electronic fusion, but even then there are tracks that just don't do anything for me. The folksier, more-Spanish-influenced tracks are generally pretty nice, but it's not exactly my genre of choice, so I'm kinda torn about them. Overall, I would definitely recommend at least a basic familiarization with Star Of Love's unique vibe, though I wouldn't be surprised if you ended up just cherry-picking the tracks that are more interesting to your sensibilities, whatever they may be. Definitely curious to see what Crystal Fighters' sophomore album might bring in the next couple years though...

Highlights: "Solar System"/"Xtatic Truth"/"I Love London"
Rating: 3/5

Magic: The Gathering - Duels Of The Planeswalkers 2012

Yes, it has a long name, and yes you're in for a nerdy post right now, but the XBLA version of the popular card game Magic: The Gathering, entitled Duels Of The Planeswalkers 2012 (DoTP), ended up being not only one of my best Xbox experiences this year, but also of all time, easily beating out virtually any other XBLA game and certainly some full-priced Xbox games as well. If you don't know, Magic: The Gathering is a collectible card game where each card has a function in a one-on-one wizard duel between two players, where each player builds his or her deck from their growing collection of cards, fine-tuning it until it is working at its highest level of efficiency and synergy. Though I haven't talked about it much on this blog, back when I was in Bloomington, my buddy Dave and I got REALLY heavily back into Magic, something we hadn't done since our youth (along with wrestling), and we amassed quite a new collection of cards... but since then I haven't had anyone to play, so I pretty much stopped playing...

Until, DoTP came around... As a video game version of the game, it's actually extremely faithful to the mechanics and spirit of the original, whereas a lot of video game adaptations of other types of games (for example, Warhammer 40,000 and other Games Workshop games) simply take the world and mythology and build a more typical modern video game out of it, leaving the gameplay mechanics behind. So, DoTP was exactly what I was looking for, as it really feels like you're playing the actual card game. Granted, there are some differences: first, you're playing a computer most of the time (if you forego online stuff, which seems to not allow head-to-head for some strange reason); second, the controls for the game are a little hard to get used to at first; and third, though you have a few options for deck-building, they're really pretty limited compared to the real game. Fortunately, the computer AI is extremely good, and I certainly lost plenty of games to it, even though it couldn't see which cards I was holding; I eventually ended up nailing the controls for the most part; and the lack of true strategic deck-building didn't really bother me considering I was happy enough playing a reasonable facsimile of the actual game at all.

I could write a ton more about this game, but I'm gonna try to wrap it up here, as the only person that really cares about the details is Dave, and I've already talked to him about it extensively. While DoTP IS most certainly my favorite XBLA game I've ever played thus far, it would only be fair to acknowledge that it only achieves this by standing on the shoulders of an already amazing and beloved (to me) card game, so had DoTP been a new IP (intellectual property) that I was altogether not familiar with, I still probably would have loved it, but not quite as dearly. Finally, though I beat all of the traditional one-on-one matches in the game and built up all ten decks' worth of bonus cards, I didn't make much headway in the frustrating 3-on-1 Archenemy mode, and I barely played online, so I've definitely got more stuff to do if I so desire. More likely though, I'll probably just buy the additional DLC (which features new decks, bonus cards, and matches) and continue playing the traditional one-on-one games it offers, but I'll be saving this for sometime in 2012, as I've got plenty of other stuff to squeeze in this year.

Saw I-III

The primary horror films Suzi and I watched for (or around) Halloween were the first three Saw films, or what I like to refer to as the "Saw Trilogy", as they were not only the original three, but were also much more related than their numerous (and unnecessary) successors. I had been trying to get Suzi to watch the first Saw film with me for awhile, as she had professed an interest in the quite-similar Hostel, so I was really glad when she finally agreed to it. And, as anyone who has seen the Saw films can attest to, it followed naturally that Suzi was going to be eager to see the sequels, so although we currently just finished the fourth film (the first outside my so-called "Saw Trilogy"), I thought I would briefly discuss the original three here, especially since I've already addressed the fourth and fifth films on this blog. We plan on finishing out the whole series (up to Saw: The Final Chapter) eventually, so expect to see more updates as we progress.

While the original three Saw films really are quite good, as the plot twists, character development, and (above all) traps are all very well done (easily establishing the series as the front-runner in this generation of American horror films), I have to admit that they've lost some of their weight over the years of rewatching them, especially with regards to how stomach-turning the traps actually are. I'm not sure if this means I've become increasingly desensitized to it all or if it's simply a matter of me knowing what's coming quite well, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't at least a little excited to see the newer (and presumably worse) films again, mostly because I either haven't seen them enough to remember what's coming next, or I haven't seen them at all and will truly be surprised.

Anyway, I definitely recommend at least the original trilogy to anyone out there who hasn't yet seen the films, and I hope to see Jigsaw's Tobin Bell in something other than a Saw film sometime in the near future, as he's easily the best actor in the franchise (let's just hope he hasn't been typecast too hard by all this...).

Andy's Farewell

As I've mentioned a couple times on my blog, my high school buddy Andy had been a Navy intelligence officer for something like the past six years following his years at Stanford, and though he completed his military commitment and reentered the civilian world looking to go to grad school last year, he recently ended up recommitting to the military for just short of a year on a reservist deployment for the Army (but technically on loan from the Navy), largely because he wanted time to improve his test scores for school applications, not wanting to just sit around all year doing some unfulfilling temporary job. The problem is that his deployment is out in Afghanistan, where he'll be helping train the Afghan military so that they can eventually become independent, and while this is certainly brave of him, it also worries me (and probably everyone else in his life), as this is not only the most dangerous military assignment he's thus far had (to our knowledge), but it's also kinda unnecessary considering he was officially out for good this time last year. Again, it's technically only a one-year commitment, so he's gonna be out-out again after his term is over, but it's still a tad worrying...

Anyway, as a kind of send off, Andy and I hung out a couple times before he left, with the big hangout being a night on the town with Suzi, amounting to the first real time the two of them were able to really chat for any length. We started out by having Andy drive down to Suzi's to meet us there, and then I drove the three of us to dinner at HobNob, followed by drinks at Bookhouse and then The Graveyard, and wrapped up with a little dessert at Happy Donuts. All-in-all, it was a really fun night, and Suzi and Andy got along really well, despite having totally different careers and backgrounds, largely due to them both having great senses of humor.

While I am being kept up-to-date with Andy's Afghanistan news via his occasional email blast to his friends and family, I hope I'll be able to chat a little more one-on-one with him on Facebook or possibly Skype, but I know they're keeping him really busy over there, so I'm not expecting too much. Just really looking forward to my buddy coming home safe and sound, but in the meantime, I'm sure he'll continue to be the exemplary open-minded and very capable soldier I've grown to respect him for. Thanks for your service, Andy. We need more people like you in our military.