YouTube Obsession

Two funny comedians show you videos on their phone. That’s the pitch for the web show Dark Web hosted by Paul Scheer and Rob Huebel.

Its a simple set-up and they’re always introducing new bits, feels like a new show every episode. Great internet content.

Watching

Review 28 Years Later and don’t mention giant zombie dong challenge.

It is a known fact that I am a big Danny Boyle fan and 28 Years Later is a just another banger in a long line of bangers. I love that Boyle is not afraid to jolt the viewer with illogical camera movements, bizarre cuts and splices of anachronistic scenes just to evoke feelings. Alex Garland’s writing is going to be decisive because it’s unique structure is unlike other horror movies. And you really don’t need to have seen the other 2 films, though I highly recommend them all.

This truly is Boyle’s Mad Max: Fury Road as the film introduces a world that seems bigger than the one shown on screen.

~~~!!SPOLERS!!~~~

The movie’s 3 act structure is almost 3 different movies. The first act presents a more more traditional man-escorts-child movie a la The Road with exciting action and regular zombie fare. The second act switches gear into a more somber, inverted exploration of act one where the child becomes the parent to a mother. SenorJefeSi on Letterboxd phrases this tonal switch perfectly:

The third act is a casting off of these tropes and ends with a literal troupe of Jimmy Savile’s going Ong Bak on a bunch of zombies. The last 10 minutes of 28 Years Later had me laughing so hard, smiling from ear to ear and actually excited for a sequel. This movie wants you to feel a lot of emotions; Terror, joy, triumph, melancholy and wonder.

It also puts emphasis on the concept of Memento Mori. The purpose of a Memento Mori in the old days was to shake a person from the routine of corporeal life. This world is fleeting and fragile only God’s kingdom was eternal. This movie is doing the same, it is shaking us from the expected tropes of a traditional horror zombie movie, even intentionally some of the tropes 28 Days Later created.

Essentially, the movie is about human interaction with death. How we revere it, revile it, ignore it and even revel in it.

Reading

I couldn’t help myself. Once a copy of Original Sin (The most pretentious title ever) by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson became available at my library, I had to give it a read.

Mainly because I do love a messy political gossip book a la The Big Break or Tired of Winning and partly because I am a hater. Watching the democrats fail in their gerontocratic struggle to maintain power is a very cathartic.

Though not the central thesis of the book, what becomes clear while reading is that a lot of the posturing and virtue signaling politicians do is just for other politicians and legacy press. I mean, I’ve always known that politics is about who you know and what you can do for others but it is obvious that few politicians actually believe in anything. They are far more concerned with how their peers will perceive them than the views of their constituents.

In my opinion, every politician should be mortified by the weight of their obligation. Horrified to misrepresent the will of the people for fear that they will be hung from an overpass.

Playing

Steam Summer Sale is going on right now and I did pick up a lot of games I’ve been meaning to put on my gaming-log (Despite there being just so many porn games on the sale page, this is not a penis joke). I’m sure I’ll get to them all eventually.¹

I have started King Arthur: Knights Tale and I am really enjoying it. It may have the most generic title a game could have but it’s hardly a generic game. Despite it’s heraldry, it’s a very grim-dark medieval setting that rewards playing as an evil dude. Usually when morality systems are in games I always think I’ll do a pure evil run but I’m too nice to follow through² . But not in Knight’s Tale, you get great rewards for being an asshole and the story/world support being a tyrant.

It’s XCOM-style tactics combat is fun and streamlined but surprisingly deep. It’s overworld management deep but is far less stressful than it’s contemporaries. The same can be said for the campaign, it’s linear instead of the nerve wracking open-world choices to be made in games like XCOM or Xenonaughts where one wrong move could kill your game 5 hours later. I personally don’t need every game to be ball-kickingly complex.

It’s been a fun, chill playthrough and at $13 during the sale I fully recommend.

Other Notables

** God I love when tech bros get owned like this.

** FuckLAPD.com

** Fun little video from IGN featuring my favorite 40k lore creator Arbiter Ian

1  Looks at 4yo unplayed copy of Project Zomboid.

2  Mass Effect 2 is the only other game I’ve ever enjoyed a pure evil run because the writing is so good the renegade options.