Watery, itchy eyes; sinus drainage; sneezing/coughing. I either have the worst allergies of my life, or I have a cold. If I'm having bad allergies, how did they get this bad? Is it time for me to consider moving to the desert? If I have a cold, "Friend" Ken gave it to me. I told him two weeks ago when he was coughing in my car that if he got me sick I was going to be very angry at him, and I am a man of my word. Better hope it's allergies, Ken.

UPDATE: Good news! Ken has kindly apologized for any role he may have played in my illness. Better news! After adding parosmia to my list of symptoms, I gave myself an OTC COVID test, and it came out negative. So probably just run-of-the-mill sinusitis, then. Great. I feel better already.

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Because Cam asked for it: here's CeCe's new playmate, Cydney!

Cyd is pushing five months and, as you can see, she is still a fluffy puppy with a personality to match. I'd've mentioned her sooner, but I was supposed to be keeping her a secret so that Mom didn't get too mad at her sister for helping her ex-husband get another dog. Oops.

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Seeing that this blog doubles as my personal diary, I feel I need to make note of the passing of Friend Michael, killed too young by cancer.

Rummaging around my archives for a pic of Mike to commemorate the sad occasion, I found this, taken (probably by James) in the parking lot of Medieval Times in Lawrenceville in June 2013.

Talking comic books and acting like big dorks. Yeah, I think pretty accurately encapsulates our three decade friendship.

Thanks for the good times, Mike.

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Today, while paying a visit to an ailing friend, I crossed paths with former bar trivia teammate Rachel, who I have known casually for many years, and Rachel said, "Whenever I see you, you don't look like you've aged. You look like you have been 35 for 15 years."

Which, I mean, she was lying. I'm bald. creaky, and look like an overfilled water balloon. Rachel was just saying something obsequiously flattering to fill the silence during an otherwise awkward social moment. Hollow and meaningless, it was manners as defense mechanism.

But now I'll take a bullet for that delightful woman.

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Over the weekend, a friend asked what I would do if I suddenly came into ten million dollars, no strings attached. My glib answer at the time was to refuse it. "What am I going to spend it on, art supplies?"

In hindsight I realize that when he asked the question, he knew something I didn't: a mutual friend had just received about the worst diagnosis a doctor can give. If there's anything money definitely can't buy, it's enough time.

As a wise general once said: "a death mark's not an easy thing to live with." But really, that's what we do every day. Life, by definition, is "the brief and futile struggle against inevitability." Not thinking about that truism is a psychological defense mechanism, a survival tactic. Skiing provides a good metaphor: look at the trees and you'll hit them, so we focus on the space in between instead. That's how we get by.

Being forced to look at the trees (memento mori as those pesky Romans say) is a good prompt to re-evaluate my current life choices. If I knew the end was near, would I be doing something differently? Are there experiences I'm missing? I have to say that even after some introspection, I can't really think of anything meaningful to me that I'm not already doing, that I've postponed, that I've sacrificed. I'm really lucky in that way, and I know it.

On the other other hand though, it's possible I'm wrong about why my friend was asking about the money. If he was actually thinking about giving me $10,000,000? Yes, please. I'll think of something to do with it. I'd hate for my obituary to say I passed up a fortune just because I aspire to nothing more than sitting with my dogs and playing video games.

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121/2553. Saturday Night (2024)
Just like Unfrosted, I very much enjoyed this obviously fictionalized semi-historical story, an "inspired by true events" tale of the first Saturday Night Live episode determined to squeeze in as much of the early show's lore as it can manage. Think of it as a worthwhile celebration of the founding of an American institution.

122/2554. The Willoughbys (2020)
A Netflix suggestion I'd never heard of. It has the feel of a film adapted from a children's book, though as I learned, the source is a YA novel, not an illustrated art book. It's cute.

123/2555. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
This story has exposition, rising action, and then the animated equivalent of an escape from Cloud City. I've often defended Empire Strikes Back as having the best world-building of any Star Wars film, but maybe I've been overly kind to its ending. This film has a similar structure (with a somewhat stupider set of villains), and I found the lack of any plot resolution very, very irritating.

124/2556. The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)
A triumph of style over substance, by which I specifically mean plot and art design over characterization. The entire human race faces extinction, and all the potential victims are kept at such arm's length from the audience, it's hard to give a shit that their pocket universe is set to be pruned by a purple giant who eats babies. It's a crime that FF are presented as icons, not the endearingly dysfunctional family of charismatic, relatable people that sold bunches of comics in the 1960s.

125/2557. 'G' Men (1935)
The film that gave FBI agents their nickname is worth watching only because Jimmy Cagney (as a former gangster turned federal policeman) is always worth watching.

126/2558. Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
Friend James described this movie as "2% fight in a minivan in a forest and 98% not worth watching." I might adjust those odds slightly in the minivan's favor, but only slightly. It really is just a bunch of nostalgic fan service for preexisting Marvel stans. (And seriously, you'll never convince me that anyone has ever really liked Gambit.)

More to come.

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I got into a polite disagreement about the relative merits of Breakfast at Tiffany's with Friend Ken, who admitted he has never much enjoyed movies from the late 50s through early 70s. Breakfast at Tiffany's aside, my uncultured friend is not entirely wrong. Obviously things did start to go a bit stale as the American Studio System died a slow death, but that doesn't mean there weren't movies worth watching in the 1960s. For example:

1960: Inherit the Wind with Tracy and Kelly taking turns stealing scenes. The Apartment deserves its Oscar for its sharp script, but I still prefer to watch (and listen to) The Magnificent Seven.

1961: Judgment at Nuremberg is still topical, as evidenced by the fact they just revisited it. I'm particularly fond of Murder, She Said, a fantastic whodunnit with a great theme. Of course, I hear Breakfast at Tiffany's is also pretty good.

1962: To Kill a Mockingbird. If you don't like that, we can't be friends (although I cannot tell you how many times I've watched The Music Man and Gypsy).

1963: Lilies of the Field has Poitier at his best, but I'm a sucker for Charade (which is not a Hitchcock film; his 1963 effort is The Birds which I also like very much).

1964: The Umbrellas of Cherborg is simply brilliant (best movie of the decade?), and if you like musicals, also A Hard Day's Night. Everyone has already seen Goldfinger, right? The template for all action spy movies to come.

1965: Bunny Lake is Missing. Yes, it's a lesser Otto Preminger film, but I'll take lesser Preminger over the likes of The Sound of Music and Doctor Zhivago any day.

1966: A Man for All Seasons won Oscar for a reason, but the tide is turning from the hackneyed films of yesteryear and there are a bunch of films from '66 that have entered enduring classic status, including Batman and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

1967: Hotel. I just love it. Actually, there's a lot to love about '67. I'm especially partial to In the Heat of the Night and the original Peter Cook/Dudley Moore Bedazzled, but you could throw a dart at most movies released this year and not come out too badly.

1968: The Phantom Tollbooth, because I grew up with it and was idly thinking about Subtraction Stew just yesterday. And while this is the year of Bullitt which stands up really well as an action film, I'd recommend The Swimmer as a hidden gem.

1969: Putney Swope is well outside the envelope of what came before it, but so are so many of the films of the year. I've seen quite a few movies from '69, when the cultural turmoil of the decade really starts to creep into almost everything, and I don't enjoy most of them, including the ones you're probably thinking of. I did, however, enjoy If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium and Z.

That's nothing like a complete list of worthwhile '60s movies, but the only way to find out what you'll really like is to start watching. Good luck, Ken.

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Netflix month continues!

116/2548. The Electric State (2025)
The amazing CGI visuals might actually be the film's core weakness because the shallow plot and cliched characters (and disinterested actors) just aren't strong enough to support the emotional weight inspired by the shattered remnants of a world destroyed by consumer culture. It very much feels that the creators never fully bought into the End Times Capitalism their film visualized. I must mention that the robot's Alamo, an abandoned shopping mall in the middle of what is supposed to be the Sonoran Desert, was fittingly filmed in the now-demolished North Dekalb Mall where I shopped and worked throughout the 1990s.

117/2549. The Happytime Murders (2018)
Contemporary reviews for this film weren't kind, but as a fan of buddy-cop crime movies, SNL-style humor, and Muppets, I was fully on board. Comedy is always very subjectively received, but I think it works.

118/2550. Unfrosted (2024)
Normally, I'm no fan of historical fiction, but hysterical fiction, sure. Recommended by friend Randy (who was always a Seinfeld fan), this fictional history of the creation of the Pop Tart is, I'm happy to report, a darn funny movie, especially if you are already familiar with the history of the era. And what a cast!

119/2551. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024)
This one put me to sleep. Not that it's bad, but I felt it was a little slow to develop in obvious directions. I certainly enjoyed the original shorts, but none of the longer films has held my attention long. Maybe I've seen all the Wallace & Gromit I need to see.

120/2552. Fixed (2025)
Okay, full disclosure: I've never been as admiring of Genndy Tartakovsky's animation as many of my art school peers. I was encouraged by the cast, but this is like a dumber, less self-aware or artistically engaging Fritz the Cat. I did not finish it and would encourage no one else to start it.

More to come.

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In the Year of the Pandemic, 2020, "friend" Keith gifted me a copy of the video game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt for PC. Keith likes it very, very much. I did not like either the first or second Witcher games, and after playing for a grand total of 6 hours, I decided I liked The Witcher 3 just as little. This is how I summed up that first experience for him back then:

So far there's only 1) a lot of talking with a bunch of characters who are all fucking assholes I want to kill (especially protagonist Geralt), and 2) me getting my ass handed to me (which isn't entirely unsatisfying because it means Gerald has died too).

Sounds like I had fun, no? But for various reasons, including a new and deep appreciation for another game from the same studio, Cyberpunk 2077, and the lingering doubt that I hadn't given it a fair enough shake the first time around, I decided I'd try Witcher 3 again on the Xbox this past week. My mistake. I made it a full 8 hours this time.

If you're unfamiliar, the game is 33% guiding your obtuse horse through bleak war-ravaged countryside modeled on the original Grimm brothers fairy tales (you know, the ones where witches pick their teeth with the bones of sugar-glazed abandoned children), 33% talking to assholes, and 33% being ambushed combat. I'll admit up front that even on the console I'm still bad at the combat. Very bad. Literally every type of enemy I have encountered in the game has killed me at least once. Some of them have killed me three, four, or more times. I'd finally had enough when the game sent me to a cave to be ambushed by a little goblin and his evil magic shadow... who together proceeded to kill me eight times in a row. With enough effort, I'm sure I could find the right tactics to eventually kill him (just like I eventually survived the mob of bandits who ambushed and killed me nine times in a row) and be rewarded with information on how to make killing him easier in future encounters. But I could get as much enjoyment from slamming my fingers in a car door, and I certainly don't look forward to whatever trick the game is planning to use to kill me next.

The only up side to this is that it appears to be a shared experience; if you Google reviews of this game, they will universally mention the lackluster and frustrating combat mechanics. That's definitely a feature, not a bug.

So if you're not supposed to play this "adventure" game for the killing, what's left? Those same reviews, including Keith's, universally applaud the storytelling. I cannot agree. Maybe I've never gotten deep enough into Geralt's quest to piss off everyone he meets, but I cannot buy in. Granted, this is a common Walter problem, especially with movies; I don't like spending any time with unpleasant characters. Does the story get great if I make it to the end? Sadly, like the number of licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, I'll never know.

Related side note: The characters most relevant to the story are all physically attractive (compared to most NPCs, who look like lepers who bathe in pig shit). And the cutscenes are frequently constructed with a pornographer's eye for finding ways to show these attractive characters naked. (I've never seen so many bare breasts in a video game that wasn't specifically about bare breasts.) Therefore, I'm suspicious that many of these glowing story reviews are influenced by something other than shallow characterization and the repetitive "fetch quest" plotting.

Now, I've been playing video games since before the country's first pandemic (1981's "Pac-Man Fever") which means I've played a lot of games. Maybe I'm getting soft in my old age, but with so many games available, I don't understand why anyone would spend the time to get better at this one. Keith, I don't know who hurt you badly enough that you find this kind of torture entertaining (you do know that the Internet is full of naked tits on demand, right?), but I'm done with The Witcher no matter how many they make.

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Recent circumstances conspired to take away my TCM but grant me a month of Netflix access. So, at the recommendation of Friend Ken, I started at the top:

104/2536. KPop Demon Hunters (2025)
If you wondered why Google reported that 6 of the top 10 Halloween costumes for 2025 were characters from this movie, the answer is simple: it's good. Very good. So good, in fact, I cannot believe that Sony and Netflix didn't negotiate a more traditional box office release. The creators learned all the right lessons from George Lucas's usual box of tricks, taking inspiration from a bunch of long pre-existing concepts and designs, blending them into a story of good versus evil in a lived-in world, and pouring the results into a time-tested, character-first dramatic format that is comfortable and rewarding to viewers. For extra Star Wars vibes: like Fox in '77, Netflix seemed totally unprepared for the flood of demands for kids' merchandise. History may not repeat itself, but it sure as hell stutters.

As amazing as John Williams is, what Star Wars does not have is pop songs. It's no accident that the Kpop soundtrack has had a very catchy (and plot advancing) song from the fictional Huntr/x at the top of the Billboard global charts for 15 weeks and counting. A song, I'll point out, that has a one-word title:

Golden

Kudos to all involved; I hope you like printing money. (Count me in for a Derpy Tiger Funko Pop! figure, if ya'll can ever actually get them to market.)

More to come.

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