MrNepathy's Blog

Star Wars Celebration V was in Orlando, in August. But I’m from Maryland so heat and humidity are quite familiar to me. Plus over the past few weeks it’s not like Milwaukee has been exactly Hoth. More like Dagobah, but without the Muppets. The touristy nature of Orlando, combined with the somewhat overwhelming weather conditions, kept some of my friends from wanting to attend. I, however, was eager to go, especially since Orlando is just two hours away from my brother’s place in Gainesville. See family, see my nephew close to his first birthday and see Obi Wan scarfing down a soft pretzel? Sold. (more…)

I like open world games where I can run around and cause chaos. Give me a city, a controller and an unsuspecting populace and that’s usually all it takes for me to have fun. Since I also like super beings, mixing the two should be a wonderful concept. A lot of people gave good reviews to Infamous, which I thought was serviceable but had flaws, such as repetitive missions (Wow, I have to go to the sewer, restore electricity, then gain a power and have to use that power to get out… Amazing that people always put powers in the exact place you’ll need them) and the less than stellar cut scenes. Prototype, which wasn’t as highly acclaimed, had similar flaws. After a few missions I stopped caring what the story was. In a very original twist, it was a government-sponsored genetic experiment that went horribly wrong. The powers were cool, but, it just couldn’t hold my interest. Both of those games are superior to Crackdown 2. Though both are older than Crackdown 2, they are also better looking games. (more…)

In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that I know Jonah Knight. His wife, Lisa, has been a friend of mine since high school. When asked about writing a review for his album, I was a little hesitant at first because it’s a little hard not to be biased. Or hard to be honest, if you’re timid. (more…)

In order to write a review of the album Ghosts Don’t Disappear by Jonah Knight, I’m going to start with a mini review of his previous album, Singer/Songfighter, because I listened to that one first. Singer/Songfighter is a mixture of song styles, some leaning towards acoustic and folk while others have a light punk sound. Some of those styles, particularly the acoustic ones, work better. They’re a bit like Obadiah Parker if you removed the piano, or Kings of Convenience in that the music skews towards the lighter tones. “Cameron’s Dog” and “Everything Will Be Fine” are where this style really clicks whereas “Calling” feels like an odd mixture of New Orleans style guitar and folk vocals. Stylistic experimentation within a single album is fairly common. Compare “Christians in Black” to “Like I Needed” by Rogue Wave from Asleep at Heaven’s Gate or “Devil” to “Dakota” from Stereophonics on Language, Sex, Violence, Other. (more…)

When I turned 35 I ran a mile faster than I had run it before. On my 36^th birthday I ran farther than I had run prior to that. On my 37^th birthday I tried to sleep late. I had more success with my plans at 35 and 36 because I woke up at just after five o’clock in the morning. Still I stayed in bed for a bit hoping that sleep would carry me back into the Fun House world of the subconscious, but there was no such luck. (more…)

“Atlanta,” she said as she hung up the phone. She said it in the same tone I imagine some captain had used to tell Robert E. Lee that Atlanta had fallen to Sherman: disgust peppered onto disbelief. The  single word held explanation, admission and defeat. It also birthed a slow, roiling chaos. (more…)

I was doing a seven-million-dollar bid at work and while on a conference call that was mostly about biking strategies followed by thirty seconds of, “oh by the way, bid like this…” when I heard reference to a bid we had just won through Bacon World. Bacon World is a big third party that controls quite a lot of business. Another analyst had done a bid through Bacon World for Chuck’s Waffle Hut. Chuck’s Waffle Hut is some company you’ve probably never heard of, but you all probably have waffles in your house. Maybe they’re not Chuck brand, but by the size of the business it’s safe to say Chuck moves a lot of waffles. (more…)

Normally I do a review in December for the year in pop culture, but as sometimes things get lost in the shuffle and we lose praise as time moves on, I thought I would do a “Year So Far” list. That’s what you’re reading now. Go. (more…)

Now before you all send me angry little comments defending your precious computers and telling me that computers save lives, make things more efficient, helped put humans on Jupiter and let you master rhubarb in Farmville, I’ll remind you that they also made Jar Jar possible. ‘Nuff said.

Well not really ‘nuff said because there are more paragraphs coming, and here they are. (more…)

Now I have been an Iron Man fan since before I was a teenager. For a while I bought the issues one at a time at the local 7-11 or at the comic book store. Eventually I subscribed to it back in the days when comic books arrived in brown paper sleeves in the mail. Though I read other comics on occasion, like Groo the Wanderer or The West Coast Avengers, Iron Man was my only subscription. I subscribed just in time to get issue 200 in the mail. That issue came out in 1985. So in reviewing Iron Man 2, there are two ways to look at it: as a film in general or a film about Tony Stark/Iron Man. (more…)