Category: Media

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

Caravan Palace – <|°_°|> (aka Robot)

To enjoy Caravan Palace, you need first be able to enjoy a genre called “electroswing,” which is basically old-timey swing-era jazz songs smushed together with electronic sounds & modern production values. It’s not my tip-top favorite sound, but sometimes it suits my mood for a while.

To enjoy Caravan Palace’s third album, the one with the unfortunate name, you not only need to enjoy electroswing but also enjoy hip-hop stylings, because that’s what gets thrown into the mix for nearly all of the tracks on the record. I give the band credit: Trying to make another album just like either of the last two would’ve been a mistake, so points to them for striding confidently in a new direction.

The results are… hit-or-miss. I’m not big on hip-hop so it turns out I’m not a good judge of what you should like on the record. I just know that past the first track, “Lone Digger,” I found the rest of the album’s pieces landing somewhere between “decent background music” and “no, no, next track right now please.” If hip-hop production values aren’t your thing either, I’d say you should buy the lead track on its own and skip the rest of the album. Save a few dollars.

13 July, 2016
Hashtag Poke Mongo
With only a day (mostly) of Pokemon GO under my belt, I have some thoughts, presented in bullet point form… or Pokeball-point, if you prefer:
- Boy howdy is this a Niantic game or what. This is Ingress with a thick layer of Pokemon slathered on top. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but we should be clear that Pokemon GO is more the former than the latter, at least at this point.
- The in-camera effect is surprisingly effective! (Sorry. Couldn’t resist.) I mean, it’s far from perfect but if you’d shown me video of someone playing this game ten years ago, I’d have considered it nigh-unattainable science fiction. I won’t say it’s convincing, but it achieves the right level of immersion and that’s the key part of it, as far as the game is concerned.
- You have to either find out online how to capture a Pokemon with your Pokeball, or get lucky and figure it out, because nothing in the terse tutorial tells you to swipe to throw the ball.
- This is unlike a modern Pokemon game because so far as I can tell, you can’t trade and there are no battles of the type any Pokemon player has become accustomed to (hence nothing actually being “surprisingly effective”). It remains to be seen if this remains to be the case, and how much of a downside it’ll be.
- This looks very like an iteration of Ingress, where you have to team up to take key points on the map, etc, etc. Which is… what turned me off from Ingress because there was zero incentive for solo play and a huge requirement to form some kind of mid-to-large size team of fellow players. If solo play in Pokemon GO is similarly discouraged, I’m out.
- A “Pokestop” (low-key supply station) near my work is based on a window mural from an aquarium supply store. Too bad that store is gone, and what’s on that window now is the name of the insurance company at that location. There seems no way to report these inaccuracies, unlike in Ingress. Presumably that will be remedied at some point.
- I was a “smurf” in Ingress, I’ll probably be on the blue team in this game as well. Convince me otherwise if you can.
8 July, 2016
The Finished Product

It was pointed out (rightly) that I left off an important part of the build presentation: a picture of the completed model. Allow me to remedy that!

All things considered, it’s a neat little model. Not sure if I want to do another build like this one any time soon, though…

15 April, 2016
Starred Due Valley

Having wandered away from Guild Wars 2 lately, I dabbled with Diablo III for a while until someone sent me a gift on Steam: Stardew Valley.

You may have heard of it.

It’s really working for me. I can farm crops, I can raise animals, I can craft things, I can arrange my domain how I please, there are goals to meet (both “kill X in the mines for a reward” and “bring one each of all these things for a reward”), and some days it’s nice to just run around the farm cleaning up debris. And sometimes the game surprises you.

When life hands you giant melons, reach for your axe…

In the upper left corner you’ll note that I have a duck and a bunny, named Plucky and Harey respectively. (Chickens are named Henri, Etta, Clucky, and so forth.) I am bad at pet names, let’s be honest.

Now, I’m not min-maxing my gameplay. I’m just… having fun. If you’re a casual gamer, Stardew Valley may in fact be an ideal game for you. Possibly.

Of course, every now and then the game gives you the middle finger.

All that gold, no way to reach it because the only exits from my current square are up and out of the mine, or down to the next level…

If you’re on the fence about trying it out, get in touch. Maybe I could be convinced to send it as a gift. That’s how I got my copy, after all. (I turned around and bought copies for Kyla and my daughter, so paying it forward is accomplished.) It’s only $15, and money well spent.

2 April, 2016
Still Watching Anime: Snow White With The Red Hair

Just because i deleted the unused anime blog and just because I spent most of the last three years barely using my CrunchyRoll account doesn’t mean that I’m not still an anime fan.

For instance!

Starting up this month is the second batch of episodes for a delightful fluffy gem of a fantasy-romance show called Snow White With The Red Hair.

What’s it about, really? In short: A spunky redhead who wants to be an herbalist comes to the attention of a sleazy local prince who tries to force an indecent proposal on our heroine. She promptly cuts her hair and kites off through the forest toward a neighboring country. Along the way she runs into trouble and is saved by… the younger prince of that country. Sparks fly, adorableness commences, adventures are had, hearts and minds are won over, and so on.

Let’s be clear: This is fluffy stuff. Sometimes it almost looks like it might get a smidgen dark, but that’s been averted every time so far. It’s just that kind of show. Bad things do happen but the show doesn’t make a grimdark deal about it.

And you know what? I adore the show. It’s nice to get a relatively uncomplicated romance with two young, determined, smart, devoted people surrounded by similar smart and devoted mentors and minions. If Snow White can’t make you smile, you may need to consult your doctor about a heart replacement.

You’ll find it on Funimation‘s streaming service, which runs you something like five bucks a month. Honestly I’d say it’s worth it to be able to watch Snow White and Arslan alone, never mind whatever else is in their streaming catalog.

28 January, 2016
The Riveting Adventure Of The Grey Quaggan

Kyla loves the Guild Wars 2 MMO game. I mean, I like it too, but she likes and plays the game far, far more than I do. Which is fine, it’s good to have something fun to do.

In the game, one of the fantastical races are called Quaggans. They’re sort of little aquatic blobs with funny voices. Kyla bought herself a purple plush one to add to the stuffed-critter menagerie in the apartment.

Guess who received a grey quaggan for Christmas?

So, last weekend she took the Amtrak Cascades northward to visit folks for a post-Christmas kind of thing, leaving me alone. Well, alone if you don’t count the new grey quaggan, along with all the other stuffed what-have-yous.

I took this as an opportunity to post a silly little photo series on Instagram, which I’ve replicated for posterity in this gallery. Enjoy, won’t you?

12 January, 2016