Two terrible TV shows I felt compelled to watch last year

I watched both of these while I was on a longer research trip to Barcelona last Fall. I had a lot of free time on my hands, or at least that is my excuse for watching such terrible shows.

The first one I'll describe is the most terrible. It is "The Arrow". The acting is terrible, the writing is terrible and the characters are not likeable. While two of them are talking and the first is telling the other about some deep, emotional issue, the second will break off to answer a text. Didn't their mothers teach them any manners? The answer is no: in fact the mother of two of the characters behaved in exactly that way, too (until she died). Although it is a standard trope in the super hero genre to have characters make things worse by keeping secrets, these idiots just take things too far. Come on, just tell your father that your sister is dead rather than dress up in her hero costume and fight crime, without the assassin training she had. And yet, after all this, I felt compelled to watch it to the end of what was available on Netflix (to the end of season 3). I hope I can resist the temptation to watch season 4, which I see from web site has already begun.

The second terrible show is "Once Upon a Time".  I had watched the first three seasons previously, and the fourth while in Spain. The writing and acting are uneven and the characters also behave badly, but I actually quite like this show and will watch the next season (also already begun) on Netflix when it comes on. It has a certain charm. At its best, it reminds me of the book series, the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, by Patricia C Wrede (now that would make a good TV miniseries). At worst, Once Upon a Time reminds me of The Arrow.

The Mixed Tape

It is easy now to make a compilation of music to your own taste, making a playlist of digital tracks. This can be just a random jumble of songs you like, played back in a random order, or a set of music with a certain mood or theme. At its best it is a kind of art-form, a way to create a set of music that is greater than the sum of its parts, like the albums that you never want to play on shuffle or delete songs from.

In the early days, this was done with cassette tapes. There was a somewhat laborious process of recording songs from the radio, or vinyl, or other tapes in the right order on a blank cassette tape. I did not do much of this mixed tape construction, although I did enjoy the compilations I got from friends. I started getting in to it when digital music technology made it easy. 

Some of the fun in the old format was working with the limits of the tape size. I have two formats now that I build playlists in. With my iTunes library, I build playlists that fill a CD, so I can burn them for friends or for our car, which is just old enough to have a CD player but not a USB input. On Google Music, which I am still really enjoying, I use a different format - the "dozen track" format. I have a couple of recent ones I can link to, for those of you reading who are using that streaming service.

Brian's Google Dozen #3 [Psychedelic]

Brian's Google Dozen #4 [Classical Geek]

Brian's Christmas 2015 CD [CD format] 

These are fun to put together, I hope you enjoy them, too!

Recommendation: Burning Wheel

I was a gamer (role playing games and wargames, the hexagon map kind) as a kid. In terms of role playing games, I played Tunnels and Trolls, Dungeons and Dragons, Traveller (never did see how those rules could be playable), and GURPS. As an adult, I had many years playing Champions, a extension of the Hero system for the superhero genre. I have toyed on and off over the years developing my own system, with a combat component that can independently be for technical duels like the old Melee game, the precursor to GURPS. Cards are used to represent the characters and equipment, because I like the idea of the art and flavour text of cards from Magic the Gathering (which I still play regularly). Maybe someday I will "finish" that and it will be my ticket to fame and fortune.

In terms of games that motivated me to think about how to encourage good role-playing (collaborative story-telling in the framework of the game), I was really impressed by Burning Wheel. This is a fantasy system, but there is a sci-fi version called Burning Empires as well, in a universe similar to the one in the Firefly TV series. There is a free pdf download for Burning Wheel at the site link above, called "Hub and Spokes" if you want to check it out. If I were ever to game again (and I just need the time and the right group) I would try out this system.

Brian's Movie Pick from 2015: Ex_Machina

I am not a regular movie goer, but I see a few actually in theatres now because of the fancy theatre in East Lansing, where I visit every year for a month and have free time on my hands. That is where I saw Ex_Machina. I would have dismissed it as uninteresting, "male fantasy sex robots", but I had been told that is was more than that. There is a aspect of that in the movie, but put in suitable (squicky) context. It was a compelling movie and had an ending I had not expected.

Of course, it is also possible to see some first run movies soon after they end in theatres through purchase or rental on iTunes and other paid streaming services (or unpaid with some extra effort). Some appear quickly on monthly streaming services like Netflix. My #2 choice for 2105 was "The Man from UNCLE" that I saw that way, at my daughter's recommendation. That was a really enjoyable, witty film that has re-watchability.

The fancy East Lansing theatre is actually in nearby Okemos, Studio C!. I say it is fancy because you can pay extra to get reserved seating in large, reclining leather seats with meal and bar service. I have been in East Lansing every year for the past five years for a month working with a close colleague at Michigan State University. I am scheduled to go back there this year.

Recommendation: Path of Exile [game]

I went back briefly to the classic Blizzard games, World of Warcraft and Diablo 3. I was disappointed by the lack of choices in character development. There used to be skill trees that allowed for quite large changes in character play, but these are now limited to a few quite limited options (especially in WoW). My friend, Clint, recommended a Diablo-like game called Path of Exile, which I have been playing. I have lost some sleep because of it, since free time is limited because of work this term. There are a few things that are innovative about the game. There is a passive skill tree which does not let you down. I don't want to spoil your first view, so check it out yourself: at this link. Wow, eh? Active skills are done with items that fit into your equipment and can be combined in various ways. It is a nice system. It is a freeware game, and the great thing is that there is nothing you need to actually reasonably play the game (unlike most other cash grab "freemium" games). All the things you can buy are cosmetic add-ons. It is a very honest and refreshing approach and makes me like the game even more. Of course, I felt I had to send them some money, so I bought some extra storage space that I didn't really need.

More Manbroidery, and Massage Therapist Recommendation

I go to a massage therapist on and off. I first started going a few years ago when I had real, ongoing pain in my neck. This is the kind of thing that started happening when I crossed 50. I see Derek Wone at Rain City Massage Therapy. He has really helped me through several ongoing issues and I enjoy our conversations. I really recommend him if you are looking for a therapist, with the caveat that I have only ever been to see him, so I don't have a wide comparison sample.

There is always a question whether to give someone you pay a tip or a holiday present. I tip my hairdresser and give her a holiday present, but you wouldn't tip your doctor (sorry if that profession wanted to start a trend that way) because it would somehow be a professional insult. Students can't tip me because of professional integrity. Sometimes they give me presents after marks are posted, but I strongly discourage them, and sometimes have to refuse the gift if it is too extravagant.

So, the line I took with Derek is the middle one: no tipping but a holiday present. This year, it was a "vanity" gift, a T shirt I had embroidered, shown below. The raindrop thing is my attempt at their logo. He seemed to like it, or was at least polite.

Donations

Our family does some serious ongoing charitable donations, to MSF, Amnesty International, and World Vision. It is really my wife that was motivated to do these. I recently contributed to some less serious things. I now give a monthly donation to Wikipedia - I guess that is somewhat serious. I also support the Rachel and Miles Xplain the Xmen podcast, which discusses the many Xmen comic series published by Marvel. The show has been going on for two years and they have made it to the mid-80's in the series. I look forward to this every Monday. At my new rate of support through Patreon (a management portal for monthly donations) I will eventually be thanked at the end of one of the podcasts. I am looking forward to that! Finally, I gave a one time donation to Orgobyte, who ran a modded Minecraft server with the FTB Infinity (expert mode) pack. It was a hard but enjoyable pack, and the server had a good group of players.