John Lee Hooker and Roy Rogers - Terraplane Blues
Blind Willie McTell - Statesboro Blues
The Roots ft. Mos Def - Double Trouble
MC Shan - Kill That Noise
Kassav - Oh Madiana

I'm following The International, which is leading to a lot of Dota 2. Of my Steam backlog, I'm enjoying Unity of Command (which led me to frustratedly yell "Why is Stalingrad so hard?!!" at my screen and then pause in self-awareness) and Shadowrun Returns. My drop-in game these days is One Finger Death Punch, which is…

I've only dabbled, but I was generally shocked at how much effort the game expects. I literally had to spend 20 minutes figuring out how to read musical notations to finish a puzzle. And another puzzle required an hour of wandering around trying to find specific locations.

Yah, after watching two TI4 games at the end of the day, it seems natural to grab a game of Dota since you're already in the client. I've played sooooo much Dota 2 the past month or so because of all the hype around The International.

The last book in particular is hundreds of pages of exhaustingly intense war, with seemingly dozens of named characters (men who are confused by women and women who smooth their skirts anxiously) dying quick and unceremonious deaths. There are only a few character scenes that really stand out emotionally and…

More than decent. It had the benefit of survivor interviews to ground it. As a BBC production, that lent itself to a European centric show, but you also ended up with things like the interview with the blue collar guy in the London pub who recalls that the antiaircraft crews would fire into the air, knowing that they…

It is worth it. In particular, Ethiopia turned out some amazing funk in the 1970s. My favorite Ethiopian laid back jam is Teredtchewalehu by Alemayehu Eshete (https://www.youtube.com/wat…

That's crazy. You've been allowed to amaze me

Seconding - Whedon is just great at telling ensemble stories that manage to keep multiple storylines in the air. IMO, this is best seen in short-form serial formats, such as television. He also has a talent for witty dialogue and creating a really strong through line to propel the story. I'm not a comics guy, but…

Aliens.

"bleak hours of extinction and drowning polar bears" can be read to be separate things that are both true. We're probably looking at loss of 30% of polar bears in the next 50 years due to loss of sea ice habitat, but they have in the past 600,000 years and _probably_ will again crossbreed with brown bears to be more…

Oh man, Le Guin may be my favorite living writer. The Left Hand of Darkness is amazing, and set in the same universe as The Dispossessed. I really recommend the short story The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. There's a a paragraph in there that may be among the best written in the past 50 years. (You'll notice it.)

"Why Does The Sun? (The Sun Is A Mass of Incandescent Gas)" is diabolical in its ear-worminess.

Listening to "Black Boys on Mopeds" still makes me want to storm the barricades.

I'm really nervous as to if they can pull this off, since so much of the novel is in the form of journal entries. If they can figure out how to convey all that inner turmoil on screen, I agree this might be great. I recommend Silence to basically everyone.

I stumbled onto the documentary Double Dare last year. The almost nonchalant way Bell approached high falls and fight scenes blew me away.

Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) wins this theme. The scene where the dude runs naked across the ice to escape the guys who want to murder him is the coldest thing I've ever seen.

Astral Weeks is so transcendent it makes me feel like a different version of myself.

If i was to name 'movie with the most beautiful actress in the most irresistible performance', Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday would be it. She makes Gregory Peck, working at a high level of Gregory Peck-ness, feel like a secondary character.

Ooooooh… Recettear. That hits my action RPG and sim management buttons so hard that I totally forget that I hate cutesy anime. Such a great game!