28Apr2017 1500: Automancy

Oh boy, it's been almost four years since I last gushed over The Fast and The Furious! Unless you've seen me in person. I will gush at any moment over FnF. And the world at large just continues to agree with me. $900 million goddamn dollars in two weeks!

I found F8, the exquisitely-titled The Fate of the Furious, to be a noticeable downturn from the glorious stretch that was 5-6-7. F8 relies heavily on hacker shenanigans of the Swordfish variety. I have a hard time getting past that in any medium. But the most interesting use of that hacking -- a perfect foil to our lovable crew of gearheads -- is used in one expensive scene and then never mentioned again. In a series where they've squared off against drug dealers, evil dojos, and international super-soldiers, F8 sets them up against a hacker that basically wields car-magic to animate and enslave self-driving cars. "Cipher" is a dreadlocked member of the recent crop of Bad Boss Witches. When she brings the streets of New York to life to battle our heroes, that is a car-based challenge worthy of their efforts. That is an escalation of car-stakes and a callback to the chip-hacking shenanigans of FnF6. Telecarnesis. Automancy. She is the evil Witch-Queen of Carpathia and I expect nanobots will create an army of zombie cars...in the next movie. In this movie it happens once and is dropped in favor of missiles or nukes or some shit that is difficult to battle with cars. If FnF6 was a kung-fu movie and FnF7 was the Avengers, F8 straddles an uncomfortable line between Winter Soldier and World War Z.

I'm also tickled that they're still dedicated to a complete lack of numbering scheme, pulling off a truly excellent pun for F8. When they put this series to bed in 2021 the list will look something like this:

The Fast and the Furious (but not that one)
2 Fast 2 Furious
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
Fast and Furious
Fast Five
Fast and Furious 6
Furious 7
The Fate of the Furious
Fast and Furious: Tokyu Apocalypse
Fast X Furious

18Apr2017 1800: Reapril Showers

Early and light post this week, as ma bud's coming to town tonight and we will be heads down over each and every board game in all of our collections. I just needed to pop in and give you the red-alert notice that you should immediately drop whatever you're doing in your life and go watch Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return. I didn't much like the movie version and RiffTrax never felt right to me. But this weekend I was agape as MST3K was actually back. From moment one they hit the skits, the songs, the movies...it is a slavish recreation of everything that made the original great staffed entirely by people who adored the original. It shouldn't be this effective nearly twenty years(!) after the show ended. It shouldn't have worked.

And, if you were still wondering how long it took The Mexican Runner to be told there was a map: 74 hours and 40 minutes. The series is only(!) 86 hours long, so this one piece of information must kick the progress into lightspeed.

12Apr2017 2000: Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday to my youngest brother, today this very day! We had a minor¹ family get-together last weekend and celebrated our growing coterie of April Boyz, but today is more important than all the other days. Today is the day he was born while Gramma Cos watched the rest of us and I snuck down to play Nintendo in the middle of the night and tried to sneak back to bed but I'm pretty sure she saw me but she played it cool and let me pretend to get away with it. And then the next day I had a baby brother! I think that's why I still play video games.

06Apr2017 2100: Adulting Intensifies

This week I'd like to talk about Zelda: Breath of the Wild. But I can't because I've barely played it because I've been adulting so hard in my condo. Cabin fever led to spring cleaning led to ditching my ugly old blinds

for completely new curtains

and a new stepstool to install them and a new sink

which needed new cutoff valves underneath and a bigger hole cut in the countertop which meant new laminate router bits. I've been squeezing in thirty minutes of moblin hunting at the end of the day but I haven't taken a weekend to just sit down and cuddle with Zelda yet.

¹Family get-togethers

minor: 4 growlers or less
major: 4-10 growlers
reunion: 10+ growlers and/or 3+ trips to liquor store