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RIP Prince (1958-2016)

The world is a little less funky today.
Based on the amount of people who have been contacting me today about the news, I must be a known Prince fan.
9 year old me adored the Batman (1989) soundtrack, even though at the time that’s all I knew of him. I still grin ear to ear when I see Joker cue one of his henchmen to throw on some Prince while they deface the museum in that movie. My eventual love for Prince came later.
Prince was pure fucking talent, which came hand in hand with its share of eccentricities. The man was so prolific that I haven’t heard his entire published catalog yet, and I’m sure a substantial amount of what has been released was for his own pure amusement. I swear some of his songs are jokes we just don’t get, but I’m sure they kept Prince giggling behind some purple velvet curtains.
Whole tours where you only perform instrumentals and no hits? Concert venues announced two days in advance? Three shows in one night? Who does that?! Prince.
Due to his YouTube allergies and his on-again-off again relationship with social media, I think the bulk of his fanbase are old fans. Which is a real shame. Maybe the mystery was worth more than the album sales to him, and it’s not like he had trouble selling out venues.
I’ll leave you now with a few photos. You’ll see my Prince costume from 2009 and the Prince/Chappelle pin I currently wear on my winter coat. You’ll also see a grainy photo of the Prince symbol stage from when I saw him in 2011 in Montreal. That concert was drenched in funkiness, and it was an all out dance party. I’ll post a few videos in the comments too, but who knows if I’ll find working clips or ones that will stick around for very long.
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Finished: Mad Max (XB1)

Mad Max

Mad Max (XB1). Bought it during a Games for Gold sale after reading some positive comments and it turned out to be a fantastic game. Yes, it can get very grindy/repetitive if you’re a completist, but it sure is a lot of fun. My playthrough totaled 64 hours, I maxed out Max’s stats and his main car and by the time the credits rolled I was still having fun. I will note that I don’t enjoy racing games so I avoided all the optional races, hated the few mandatory ones, but LOVED the convoy chases. Definitely recommended if you’d like a mix of Arkham Knight, Shadow of Mordor, and set in an a well-executed Mad Max world.

Mad Max (2)

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Exploding Kittens

2016-01-23 21.27.46
The kittens. They explode.

I picked up Exploding Kittens (NSFW Edition) during a Lightning Deal on Amazon over the Christmas holidays, but only got a chance to try it out this weekend. As stated on the box itself, it’s quick to learn and quick to play. It’s actually incredibly fun. I was knocked out of my first two games on my first draw each time, and it just made me want to play more.

Cheap, cute, fun.

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Finished: Fallout 4 (XB1)

Fallout 4
While I pondered, weak and weary.
  • Duration: 108 hours
  • Level: 60
  • Achievements: 42 (83%)

What a game. Despite some forum concerns about the lack of real depth in your choices when compared to Fallout: NV, I was very happy with Fallout 4. I preferred the perk systems from the previous games instead of seeing everything laid out in front of me, but I’m so happy to see equipment repair banished. Weight concerns are still a major pain in the ass, though. I would have loved a hotkey to “Send to companion” when I was carrying too much cargo. It got irritating having to strike up a conversation every time I needed to pass off some heavy gear mid-quest to my companion to trudge on. Torchlight’s feature of sending your pet to the closest town to sell gear for you would have been cool too.

Fallout 4 (4)
Furry convention.

While I loved the legendary drops, I found that I had been using mostly the same weapons and armor for about the last 20 levels. Nothing got better in terms of the additional legendary benefits, and since my modding perks were maxed out that hinged on whether I’d move to a new piece of gear.

Fallout 4 (3)
Sadly, his only purpose was being awesome.

I’m sure I’ll revisit the Commonwealth, especially when the DLC finally arrives. I have a few behemoths and many bobbleheads left to hunt and while I ran out of new quests as I played, there are large chunks of the Commonwealth I haven’t even touched yet. I’m sure just wandering into a few buildings will bring me more unexpected adventures.

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RIP David Bowie (1947-2016)

Today is an incredibly sad day, but it makes me happy to see so many tributes in the media and from friends. With such a lengthy and diverse career, it’s hard to find someone who doesn’t like at least one Bowie tune.

I had the absolute pleasure of seeing Bowie live in 2002, and to this day it’s one of the top experiences of my life. He opened with Life on Mars and the crowd just adored him.

I may not have loved all his work, and his endless album reissues hurt my wallet immensely, but he will always be the coolest fucker on the planet and an artist I admire.

I’ll post three songs for you. One of the first songs that got me into him, a song/video that will always make me smile, and finally a performance I just started enjoying.

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1630 Christmas kms

My listening material for my highway driving this Christmas.

Great, great choices to keep me mentally stimulated through 1600km worth of winter driving.

The Nerdist podcasts are always good, but the standout interviews this time around were of David Spade and Bruce Campbell. David Spade is always funny, but Bruce Campbell was surprisingly hilarious. He had a lot of great stories regarding his own celebrity encounters as a fan and had a wealth of old impressions.

Serial is off to a good start but definitely has a different vibe than the first season. This one is dealing with a US solder’s capture by the Taliban in Afghanistan, while the previous season was about a murder in Baltimore.

Born Standing Up was my first Audiobook experience, which was due to David Spade and Chris Hardwick’s recommendation during their Nerdist podcast. Despite being over 4 hours long it was awesome from start to finish and made my solo driving time a delight. Narrated by Steve Martin himself, the book describes the honing of his craft, his strive for success and his desire to retire from standup comedy after he achieved it. I’ll even admit to tearing up at one point when he talks about the death of his father. Elegantly written and perfectly narrated by the man himself, even going so far as delivering some of his bits as he did them on stage.

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Steam Sale Winter 2015!

Steam-Sale
Such deals. So Steam.

Here’s what I’ve picked up so far:

I’m sure I’ll add a few more games before the sale ends. A friend of mine gifted me some Steam dollarydoos, so half of them were free!

Update 2016-01-06: I apparently played it conservative and didn’t buy any more games during the Steam sale.

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Finished: Massive Chalice

Finished Massive Chalice over the weekend. I bought it during a Humble Bundle store sale while it was in early access, knowing it would hit 1.0 on June 1st. Then I found out it was part of the Games with Gold program for June, so I ended up playing that version instead.

I really enjoyed it. You could call it XCOM Light, and I thought the element of maintaining traits through bloodlines was pretty interesting. I didn’t pay attention to the fine tuning of stats and traits through marriage as much as was probably intended because of limited options at the start of the game, which ended up being a habit I kept up throughout. I also made the mistake of setting up too many families to breed Caberjacks, which I ended up loving over any other class as I went along anyways.

Old age was an interesting twist as well. While I was used to character permadeath in XCOM that could be brought on by a botched maneuver, I became very conscious of the ticking clock of time every time I brought my seasoned Vanguards out for another mission. You never knew when they would have their last, and when there were Wrinklers involved that could snatch away 5 years of their lives with every hit it just made every move that much more important.

I think the main complaints about this game were simply that it wasn’t as XCOM as XCOM, but I think anyone who liked XCOM or wanted an interesting take on the turn-based strategy genre should give it a try.