Category: Media

This is a container category for media reviews and related drivel.

Garbage – Let All That We Imagine Be The Light

The title? Makes me wonder if someone in the band has been reading Japanese light novels lately, going by sheer length alone. The music? Very, very solid, the product of a band doing what they want to be doing in this moment to the best of their ability.

I bounced off of most of the previous full Garbage album, No Gods No Masters, so I went into Let All That We Imagine Be The Light with considerable trepidation. Not many of my most recent new music purchases have panned out terribly well. (Note the lack of reviews here since, oh, 2023…) For instance: The less said about Apocalyptica’s recent attempt to return to the well bearing the sign “Metallica songs to cover,” the better.

If you’ve ever liked a Garbage album then I have an easy time recommending this one to you. It’s ten songs of varying but mostly average length with dense, almost crunchy at times, production values and Shirley Manson in what could best be described as “having run out of fucks to give but not to say” mode.

Seriously, if f-bombs are going to bother you, this may not be the best music purchase option.

Every song on here is at least good, and a few are marvelous. The high point for me is “Radical,” which also happens to serve as the title track (after a fashion). I considered it just-okay on first listen, bumped it up to pretty-good a couple of listens later, and at this point (a week after initial purchase) I’ve locked in a 5-star rating and I don’t see that going anywhere any time soon, given that parts of it have been in the earworm rotation of my psyche for days now.

With that said… not that I know anything about what satisfies pop sensibilities nowadays but I don’t see anything on the album becoming wildly popular outside of the band’s existing fanbase. There are no “club hits” hiding in the track list, there are no barn-burners or simple anthems for folks to nod & sing along with. This is meaty & meaningful stuff that you’ve kinda gotta be in the mood for going in.

Still, it’s a pretty damned good record overall, and I’m glad to have it in the library.

6 June, 2025
Spring Anime 2025: A Mixed Bag of Nuts

I’m keeping up with a handful of shows this season, albeit with varying degrees of enthusiasm ranging from “I can’t wait for the next episode” to “well, I might as well see how this reaches a conclusion.” With a month and some-odd left to go in most of these show’s runs, it’s time for some thoughts.

(Note that I’m leaving out the long-running, continuing Apothecary Diaries, which remains one of the finest shows of this decade and looks destined for all-time-classic status. We love Maomao in this household.)

Let’s get into specifics.
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22 May, 2025
Random Bits: Mid-May 2025

I haven’t had enough to say about any specific thing to flesh out an entire post… though I suppose I could go back to my pre-Twitter use of this site to simply post very short status updates and minor thoughts… maybe. We’ll see. In the meantime, here are a few tidbits from my recent life:
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19 May, 2025
State of Play: May 2025

It’s been a little bit since the last one of these. So, what am I playing lately? Here’s a hint:

I mean, I also play some other games. Let’s catch up.
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10 May, 2025
Is A Hot Dog A Sandwich?

Let me muddle this age-old question somewhat by presenting today’s lunch result:

This is what happens when it’s lunchtime, you’re down to the last of the Zenners franks, the last slice of provolone, and you have no hot dog buns. Grab a bagel! Slice the frank lengthwise and make a sandwich out of it! Ahaha, I am clever. I know this because Vyx said so when I showed her the picture.

30 April, 2025
Last Epoch

So there I was, feeling like I needed to play something different. I can only do so much Warframe space ninja action at a time before I need something slightly lower paced. I’m at a tedious and frustrating part of my solo Satisfactory game and don’t want to hit burnout while also running a weekly co-op session for some coworkers. What else is on offer? Is it time to go shopping?

I very nearly wound up buying Baldur’s Gate 3 but decided that “try a D&D game again” probably wouldn’t pan out any better than any of the previous few times, such as when I spent a few hours with Solasta. While researching BG3, however, I bumped into mention of something else: A Diablo type game (of which there are, admittedly, quite a few) that isn’t by Blizzard and isn’t a Path of Exile game and isn’t part of the now-cursed Torchlight franchise, nor is it spawned from or closely related to Titan Quest/Grim Dawn. (OK, yes, I’ve clearly tried a few of these over the years. There’s an itch which needs scratching.) After reading a couple of reviews, I decided to use the last of the “gift card” money in my Steam wallet to pick up…

Last Epoch.

That certainly is a distinctive type of game interface, isn’t it? I have loot drops filtered so the lowest-tiers of rarity appear just as bits of light without the name cards to reduce visual clutter.
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28 April, 2025