A Few Things That Are Making Me Happy Right Now

I've been a little bummed the last couple days, so I figured today I'd write briefly about a few different things that I've liked lately in an effort to cheer up.

First up, Muse has a new album coming out in just a week.  I love this band!  I was able to see them perform twice the last time they toured and I'm hoping they'll announce the dates for the US part of their upcoming tour soon.  Right now you can listen to all of The 2nd Law online, just go here and click on the link to be directed to the local stream.

In other music news, another band I really like, Billy Talent, released their fourth album earlier this month.  Titled Dead Silence, I think this might be their best album yet.  A little before the album came out, the band had it streaming on their Facebook page, but I think that's been taken down.  However, you can still stream a few of their songs from the audio player on their website here, including the first single off of the album, Viking Death Match, as well as some songs from earlier albums.

Turning to the local music scene, an area band that I think is pretty great is Kaboombox.  Check out their Facebook page and click on their band profile to hear a few of their songs. 

Moving on from music, I've gotten totally hooked on the tv show Fringe.  This show's pretty fantastic.  I had tried watching it when it first started to air, but the pilot episode really grossed me out.  A friend eventually convinced me to give it another shot and I'm glad he did!  The pilot still grossed me out on rewatch, but I stuck with it and have been rewarded with a show with a complex and engaging plot and interesting characters.  I just wish that Netflix had the episodes streaming, rather than having to wait for the discs one at a time.

A couple weeks ago I finished reading China Mieville's newest book, Railsea.  This is his second novel targeted toward young adults and has parallels to Moby Dick, except with a giant ivory mole and trains rather than a white whale and ships.  Kind of awesome.

Finally, I'll be heading up to Central New York for about a week starting this Saturday.  Technically it's for work, but since I'm driving myself, there will be a lot of fun wedged in there as well.  So far plans include a trip to the Thousand Islands and a visit to Boldt Castle, a hike around Ausable Chasm, a visit with the grandfolks, picking up some cider from Burrville, and at least one trip to Stefano's Pizzeria.  And, if there's time, maybe a winery or two (or maybe even more).  Plus, New York in the beginning of October?  Soooooooo pretty!  I'll have to bring my camera.

Well, I feel better now.  Stay tuned for pictures of the wonderfulness that is NNY in the fall!  (at least if I remember my camera and then remember to actually take pictures)

Limbo

Since it's still been ridiculously hot and humid out, I finally made my way through a third game that I got through the Humble Indie Bundle.  This time, I played through a puzzle platformer game called Limbo, by the company Playdead. 

Seems peaceful enough.  I'm sure nothing bad will happen...

In Limbo, you control a boy who is trying to find his sister in a world where everything and everyone is trying to kill him.  You start out in a forest, which seems peaceful enough until you start coming across bear traps, spikes, and.... this:

I sure do hope those are just oddly shaped tree branches!

Just in case what that is isn't entirely clear, here's a shot from just a little further on:

Gaaaaaah!

But it's not like it could get any worse, like, say, the spider wraps you up in silk and then you have to try and bounce away from it on a rolling boulder that could crush you if you make a wrong move.

Nonononononononononono!!!

Eventually, you travel out of the forest and into more industrial-type zones that have machines, saws, and guns that all, of course, are out to kill you.

Every single one of those letters wants me dead.

As you could probably have guessed from the screenshots up there, the game is entirely in black and white, which is surprisingly effective.  It leaves things to the imagination which really enhances the creepiness of the game.  There's also a distinct lack of music; there are a few musical cues (which you really only notice if you're really listening for them), but most of the sound comes from whatever is taking place on screen. 

Limbo is definitely an interesting game, and one I definitely recommend to people who like puzzle games, with a couple of caveats.  If you only like games that have clear stories, you might not appreciate this one very much.  That first sentence in the second paragraph above is really the only plot you ever get.  Also, if you don't like puzzles that require precise timing, you'll become really frustrated with this game around halfway through.  I haaaaaaate timing puzzles since I'm so bad at them, and they become more common as you progress.  One of the really nice things about Limbo, though, is it saves your progress as soon as you get through a puzzle, so you never have to go back too far if you die.  And you will die.  Lots and lots and lots of times.  The boy has no special powers to survive this world.  Fall too far?  Dead.  Get into water that's too deep?  Dead (guess he never learned how to swim).  Step in a bear trap, crushed by a box, cut into bits by a buzzsaw, electrocuted, impaled by a spider leg, forced by a mind-controlling slug to walk off a cliff... it goes on and on (and is another reason to appreciate the monochrome nature of the game).

If you're interested in checking the game out, you can buy it for $9.99 for the PC or Mac directly from the game's website, from Steam, the XBox 360, or the Playstation 3.  And if you're someone who likes special editions of things, you can pick that up from Amazon for $24.99.

Spaceman

I ended up watching Spaceman on the recommendation of a friend of mine.  Since I quite enjoyed the last movie he suggested (Six-String Samurai, which I may or may not end up writing about sometime in the future), I figured I'd add this one to the Netflix queue as well.

Written, directed, and produced by Scott Dikkers (former editor-in-chief of The Onion), Spaceman is about a man who was abducted by aliens when he was a young boy and returns to Earth twenty-five years later trained to kill and follow orders.  Spaceman has trouble adjusting to life back on Earth and tries to get a job with the FBI and then the army with no success.  He eventually winds up working for a supermarket until he attacks a shoplifter.  Eventually, Spaceman ends up trying to get a job for the Mob.  There's also a romance subplot between Spaceman and his neighbor, Sue.

Ok, so this movie is terrible.  I think it had a budget of about $20, it seemed like every bit of dialog was recorded after the filming and dubbed in rather haphazardly, the picture quality was pretty atrocious (especially on an HDTV), and the acting was... not that great for the most part.  HOWEVER: It was incredibly entertaining!  Spaceman gets into all sorts of poorly choreographed fights that are kind of hilarious.  I think the best was when he blinded a guy using two forks and it looked like the "blood" was actually barbecue sauce.  We are also treated to a cleaning/home improvement montage that includes Spaceman going to the library to research some home improvement ideas.  Any book that promotes library usage is OK in my book!

Bottom line: if you like campy movies, give Spaceman a shot.  Just make sure your expectations are set less "Citizen Kane" on the movie-greatness scale, and more "Plan 9 From Outer Space".  Have any suggestions for other movies I should try?

Bastion

I mentioned last time that I got the latest Humble Indie Bundle and Psychonauts certainly wasn't the only game in the bundle.  Another one of the many games that I got is Bastion, the first game from developer Supergiant Games.

Bastion is an action role-playing game in which your character, known only as "The Kid", awakens after "The Calamity", an event which has destroyed the world, Caelondia.  He makes his way to the Bastion, the place where people were supposed to gather if there was trouble.  As the Kid wanders around, the ground forms paths to follow and a voice narrates all of his actions.  Eventually he makes it to the Bastion, which is also in ruins, and meets another survivor, Rucks, who also happens to be the narrator.  Rucks tell the Kid that he needs to travel to different parts of Caelondia and collect the cores that power it to repair the Bastion which can somehow repair what the Calamity has done to Caelondia.  During his journey, the Kid finds two more survivors and learns about how the Calamity came to have happened.

Taking on some Squirts

Bastion is a pretty neat game and a lot of fun to play.  The story is engaging and the way it unfolds, mostly via the narration that goes on during the regular gameplay, keeps the action moving forward.  The gameplay is pretty simple and linear, but you've got enough options with weapons and buffs to keep things interesting.  Bastion is also fairly short, which keeps the story from getting bogged down and boring, though there are enough optional things to explore as well as a new game+ mode to make playing through more than once appealing.  The two things that really make this game standout, though, are its music and its narration.  The soundtrack was composed by Darren Korb and fits the game absolutely perfectly (you can check it out here; and really you should since it's pretty great) and Logan Cunningham does a phenomenal job with the over three thousand lines of narration, not all of which you'd even hear on your first play-through.  You can check that out in Bastion's game trailers, which you can find here.

So, if this sounds like something you'd like to play, you can purchase Bastion for the PC (Steam has it for $14.99 regularly though at the moment I'm writing this it's on sale for $3.74), Mac for $18.99, or Xbox 360 for 1,200 Microsoft points.  I definitely recommend it and I look forward to seeing what Supergiant comes up with next.

Psychonauts

Several weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to take advantage of the latest Humble Indie Bundle which featured a whole lot of fantastic independent games.  One of those games was Psychonauts, made by Double Fine, which I think might actually be one of the best games I've ever played. 

Psychonauts is an action-adventure platformer game in which you control Raz, a young psychic who's run away from home (which happens to be the circus) to sneak into a summer camp that trains other young psychics.  Throughout the game Raz gains different psychic abilities, such as pyrokinesis, levitation, and invisibility, and goes inside the minds of several other characters.  Each of these mental worlds is very unique.  I think my favorite one of these was Lungfishopolis, an homage to giant-monster movies like Godzilla.

The main thing that really stands out to me about this game is the amount of detail and care that went into it.  All of the dialog is completely voice acted, and voice acted well (which is definitely not always the case in games) and even minor characters have interesting personalities and backgrounds.  In addition, some of the powers you gain are usable on other characters and pretty much all of them have different reactions.  Plus, it looks fantastic.

Raar!  I am the mighty Goggalor!

Oh, hi there, Linda!

It's challenging, too.  Especially if you're looking to get all the collectible things in the game.  For the most part, though, it's not too hard.  At least until you get to the Meat Circus.

Yup, it's exactly what it sounds like.

Though from what I understand, the version I have is actually easier than the original release was, for which I am grateful.  Cuz yeah, that Meat Circus is a giant pain.  It would also probably have been easier if I'd used a game controller rather than the keyboard and mouse to play. 

Really, the only thing I don't like about this game is that there isn't a sequel.  There's been fairly recent talk about one, but who knows if or when it'll actually happen.  In the meantime, though, Double Fine had a ridiculously successful Kickstarter campaign to fund a new adventure game, so at least I have that to be incredibly excited about.

If you're at all interested in getting Psychonauts, you can buy it from Steam (for the PC or Mac) or GOG (PC) for $9.99 and for the XBox 360 for 800 Microsoft points.

Immobility

It's summer.  Since I live in southeastern Virginia, that means it's about 5,000 degrees with 100% humidity all day, every day for the next few months.  As a result of this and my apartment not having any central air conditioning, I'm a little bit reluctant to spend any more time in my un-air-conditioned kitchen than is absolutely necessary.  So, less baking, more reviewing things that happen to catch my attention!

One such attention-catching thing is Brian Evenson's book, Immobility.  It's a post-apocalyptic novel set in an unspecified time in the future.  Josef Horkai is woken up from cryogenic storage to find that he's paralyzed from the waist down and has no memory of his past.  The one who revives him tells him that he's needed to go on a mission to retrieve something that was stolen and he's sent out into the wasteland with two "mules" (two identical men in hazard suits) to carry him to where the object is and back again.  During this mission, Horkai struggles to make sense of his situation and understand just who he is and who he can trust.

I really liked this book.  Post-apocalyptic stories usually strike me as interesting and I was not disappointed with this novel.  It's a quick read (253 pages) and is tightly focused.  The novel lacks a lot of world-building details, such as just how the world ended up an irradiated wasteland, among other things, but those details aren't really important to the story, which is focused on Horkai's inner struggles.  And like many books with this kind of setting, it wasn't exactly a cheerful read (though I was no where near as depressed as I was when I finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy).  So, if you like these kinds of stories I definitely recommend giving this book a read!

Maple!

Do you ever find yourself in possession of too much maple syrup?

Ah, no.  That doesn't count as "too much".

You just can't possibly make any more pancakes, french toast, or waffles?

Getting closer, but still not there.

It's not like it's going to go bad, but you feel like you really ought to do something with it?

Theeeere we go.  What "too much" officially looks like.

Never fear!  I'm here to help!  Perhaps the simplest thing you can do with your overabundance of maple syrup is to turn it into maple cream.  All you need to do is boil it.  I also recommend you get yourself a candy thermometer. 

Start out by pouring a couple cups of syrup into a big pot.  Don't fill your pot more than halfway.  I really can't stress that enough.  You'll see why in a bit.

Even this was pushing it.

Turn your heat onto medium-low heat and let it do its thing.  But keep your eye on it!

Oh don't mind me; I'm just innocently bubbling away!

Eventually, it'll really get going.  This is fine, just keep your eye on it!

Bubblebubblebubblebubblebubblebubblebubble...

Turn your back for even an instant, though, and you'll regret it!

BBBBUUUUBBBBBBLLLLLEEEE!!!

If you can, try to avoid having your pot look like this last picture.  Try to get the syrup to 235 degrees and then turn off the heat.  If you end up getting the syrup too hot, it'll still be ok, and I'll go into that in a bit.

Leave your super duper hot syrup alone until the temperature cools down a bit.  It doesn't really matter just how much, just enough so that you aren't worried about burning yourself horribly when we start this next fun part: stirring the bejeebus out of it.

I'm sure this isn't going to get incredibly old incredibly fast.

See how it's about the same color as when it went into the pot, only opaque?  Well, keep on stirring and eventually it'll get lighter.

Still not done, though.

If you're like me, you'll decide pretty soon you've had enough of this "stirring by hand" crap and break out the beaters.  Go ahead!  It works like a charm!

Hurray for modern technology!

And...that's it, really.  Once it's all nice and light in color and thickened, you're done.  Just pour it into some kind of container(s), and you're finished! 

I said earlier that if you ended up boiling it to a higher temperature than 235 degrees, that it would still be ok.  That's true, except now instead of maple cream, you'll have maple candy.  The only real difference is that the maple cream is spreadable and the maple candy is definitely not.  Either way, now you've got yourself some delicious concentrated sugar!  Enjoy!