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jasongoldtrap · 3 years

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The Corkscrew

By Jason Goldtrap

March 9, 2021

When I was growing up in the 70s and 80s, my hometown, Nashville, Tennessee, had a musical theme park called Opryland USA. Aside from the standard thrill rides, the park was noted for dozens of shows featuring Country, Rock, Gospel, Bluegrass and Broadway. The king of the attractions was the Wabash Cannonball.

Named after the song popularized by Roy Acuff, the Wabash Cannonball was a corkscrew roller coaster. Ten models were built by Arrow Dynamics, the first one debuting at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, California in 1975. Opryland USA opened their coaster that same year in the State Fair section.

My parents loved roller coasters, and still do though time has tempered active involvement in the subject. As a family we all loved going to the park. I would ride all the rides along with them except for one: the Wabash Cannonball.

From my perspective it was just too intimidating. Even today, I still get fearful around roller coasters which is part of their appeal. I pictured myself flying out of the seat and rocketing into the ground.

As a little kid, with mommy around, I had an excuse to sit this one out. That changed as I matured.

Thirteen-years-old, going to the park for the first time without parents. Lots of running, drinking far too much Orange Fanta, two cardboard containers of popcorn, playing video games that I could already play at the skate center and, well, bodily noises offered for amusement rather than necessity. We could ride the Flume Zoom as many times as we wanted. We'd rear-end antique cars on the guided track where you could press the hammer down with speeds up to 7 mph.

Inevitably though, someone would suggest my foil, the Wabash Cannonball. "Um.... I have to sit this one out." I would flood them with laughable excuses about not feeling well. And, eventually, they would give up coaxing me. I would sit on a bench beneath the second loop and try to wave. They would dart out of the station hyped up on adrenaline.

"Wanna ride again?"

"Yeah!"

I was silent.

They would race back to the station. I would people watch. Head to the petting zoo. Long for a square of Smoky Mountain cashew fudge which I could have eaten if I had not wasted $2 on Space Invaders and Pac-Man. On the third go around, one of the fellows would feel a tinge of sympathy for me and we would move on to the bumper cars or the spinning swings.

It went on like this for weeks until one day when my band of brothers ran into a similar sized group ....of girls.

"Hey Joan!"

"Michael. What are you doing here?"

"Having fun. Who are your friends?"

"Well you know me and Betty from school. This is Rhonda who goes to my church and my neighbor Melissa."

We exchanged pleasantries. Awkward silence seeking cues for conversation.

Michael stated, "We're about to ride the Wabash Cannonball. You wanna come with?"

Joan smiled and nodded. She received a tug from behind. "One second." The girls clutched together to analyze the situation and discuss limits to potential affection. She turned around and spoke for the other hens. "Sounds like fun... except Rhonda here is too scared to ride it."

I got a slap on the back. "Jason will ride with her." Suddenly, the world grew dim as if I was suddenly thrust across time and space. Frozen. Confused. Before my mouth could utter the words, "Well I..." The boys and girls began to pair up.

"Are you afraid of coasters too?"

I confidently shook my head, "No. Rhonda. Absolutely not."

"Let's go!"

We walked the seemingly 2,000 mile long trek from Doo Wah Ditty City to the State Fair. Not much on conversation. Occasional, stolen glances. Evaluation. Rehearsed lines. Hoping my voice won't squeak.

During the 30 minute wait in the sweltering sunshine I actually opened up to her a little. She told me of her life. She liked horses and even once rode an elephant at the Knoxville Zoo. We discussed our mutual fondness for Gatlinburg, Star Wars, volleyball and watermelon. We relaxed and became new friends.

And then it was our turn at the ride. We were too busy talking to realize that we had seats on the front row! I snapped my head to Chris. Hers to Joan. Was this a prank? Did they realize the enormous pressure we had been voluntarily pushed in to? She tried to communicate her concerns via telepathy which is common to females, especially in mating season.

Undaunted, I slid past my self built brick wall of trepidation and took my seat in the front car. She gave a coy smile and gracefully sat by my side. The train lurched forward. Jerk. It connected with chain. During the ascent I imagined a cartoonist scene in which the 85 foot peak of steal and bolts made sport of me with each half a foot rotation.

I prayed. Nothing too elaborate. Just a plea to not throw-up on her. I began to silently whisper "amen" when I felt a hand being delicately intertwined in mine.

The car gently rounded an elevated curve. Before I could say something clever we both began screaming as the floor escaped us as we hurled down at 48 miles per hour. Up a little. Another sharp banked turn followed by a nose dive. The first loop lay ahead. I was too distracted by the gravity of the moment by the hand holding to notice that this acceleration was slugging me into the first swirl. I was upside down and then once more.

"Ahhhhh! Ahhhhh! Ahhhhh! Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha. That was fun!"

I had stepped aboard a child but now I was a man!

We all clapped and begged for one more go around from the teenage thrill engineer. Maybe there was a lightning bolt from Heaven or she was too busy chatting with a co-worker to notice that she forgot the breaking switch. Jerk. Chain connection. We were going for a coveted and rare second ride!

This time my heart was thrilled and somewhat disappointed that Rhonda removed her hand to clap. And, once complete, did not return to my velvet fingers. But, that was ok. I was having fun.

As we got off the ride the coed group took a break from each other. The girls needed conversation and play-by-play analysis while the guys just pushed each other around.

Rhonda, from a distance, turned my way with a flirtatious grin before her visage lowered as she was told the real story of Jason Goldtrap: the dork. She even looked at her hand and wiped it on her Capri pants. I could see her guffaw, "He picks his nose in public?"

Reunion. We rode a few more rides but that was it for me and Rhonda. I talked to the other girls a little but there was no connection.

The speakers echoed. "Opryland USA will close in thirty minutes."

We disbanded and walked separately to the long line of station wagons. We were three years far from automotive liberation. I lost her in the dark.

I never heard from Rhonda. I never even considered calling her or asking Joan about her. We were two ships that passed in the night... and sunk.

That day I conquered one fear and, for one minute and 28 seconds felt invincible. That is part of the magic of a theme park. Escape. Innocent, affordable fun. Acceptable thrills mixed with surprising spurts of physiological growth.

In 1997, Opryland USA closed and replaced by a mall. I always feel sad for cities that lose their amusement parks. They are losing so much in the way of togetherness, family memories and funny and romantic tales to share with future grandchildren. You don't get that from a mall.

As far as I can tell, there is only one corkscrew roller coaster still in operation in America. It is named the Corkscrew and it's at Silverwood Theme Park in Athol, Idaho.

After the park closed the Wabash Cannonball was sold to Old Indiana Theme Park in Thorntown, Indiana but not reassembled. Sadly, it laid in an open field until it was finally scrapped in 2003.

Thanks to YouTube you can take one last ride. Enjoy.

https://youtu.be/OLtO06SC-Lc

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casquecest · 7 years

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I was tagged by the ineffable @beriala

RULES: Answer all questions, add one question of your own and tag as many people as there are questions.

1. COKE OR PEPSI: I tend to prefer Pepsi, but Coke outside of the US tastes so much better.

2. DISNEY OR DREAMWORKS: Disney. That’s my childhood, man.

3. COFFEE OR TEA: Tea, please

4. BOOKS OR MOVIES: It depends on my mood. I can take a book with my everywhere (and I often do), so books for convenience (and I can lose myself in them for hours, whereas I tend to get distracted very easily while watching movies).

5. WINDOWS OR MAC: Windows. I don’t find the interface on Macs to be terribly user-friendly (or it’s just because I’ve been using Windows since 1992).

6. DC OR MARVEL: I can only really judge by the movies, and the MCU sucked me in more than DC’s done in recent years =/.

7. XBOX OR PLAYSTATION: Nintendo NES. Or Wii Bowling. I love Wii Bowling (I do not often play video games).

8. DRAGON AGE OR MASS EFFECT: I am unfamiliar with both of these things outside of having heard their names before. I am old, and not current in the least.

9. NIGHT OWL OR EARLY RISE: Night owl.

10. CARDS OR CHESS: Cards, especially gin rummy or solitaire.

11. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA: VANILLA.

12. VANS OR CONVERSE: Converse.

13. LAVELLAN, TREVELYAN, CADASH OR ADAAR: I have no idea what any of these mean. They look like names of cities, but ones of which I’ve never heard. I assume they’re characters or alignments or something that are beyond my experience.

14. FLUFF OR ANGST: Angst.

15. BEACH OR FOREST: Beach!!

16. DOGS OR CATS: CATS. I cannot stand dogs. When people show me pictures of their dogs and are so enthusiastic about how ‘cute’ it is, I am left there with the most stupidly awkward, false smile on my face.

17. CLEAR SKIES OR RAIN: Sunny skies (unless the rain means a massive thunderstorm! I love when weather gets crazy bad).

18. COOKING OR EATING OUT: I’d love to cook, but I’m kind of awful at it (and cleaning up sucks). I like to pretend, though, after I’ve watched 384979 episodes of MasterChef in a row.

19. SPICY FOOD OR MILD FOOD: The spicier the better!

20. HALLOWEEN/SAMHAIN OR SOLSTICE/YULE/CHRISTMAS: I love both very much, but lately neither has really felt like they used to =(.

21. WOULD YOU RATHER FOREVER BE A LITTLE TOO COLD OR A LITTLE TOO HOT: Too warm. I can’t stand being cold - it takes me for ever to warm up again, and to have that feeling perpetually? No, thank you.

22. IF YOU COULD HAVE A SUPERPOWER, WHAT WOULD IT BE? I’d probably want to fly, but I don’t think it’s the most practical choice. Maybe something to do with the ability to alter perception (”Yes, this is totally a valid driver’s license,” “Of course I have permission to be here. Look at my clearance credentials”).

23. ANIMATION OR LIVE ACTION: It really depends, though I guess I lean more toward live action. I miss traditional animation.

24. PARAGON OR RENEGADE: Oh, Mama, I’m in fear for my life from the long arm of the law.

25. BATHS OR SHOWERS: If I had a wicked deep bathtub that made me feel like I was in a pool, I might prefer that, but for convenience and practicality, I definitely prefer showers (taking a shower or a bath is such a hassle in the first place. I hate the necessity of it).

26. TEAM CAP OR TEAM IRON MAN: I prefer Iron Man.

27. FANTASY OR SCI-FI: I think I lean more toward Sci-Fi.

28. DO YOU HAVE THREE OR FOUR FAVOURITE QUOTES? IF SO, WHAT ARE THEY:

“All your life you live so close to truth, it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye, and when something nudges it into outline it is like being ambushed by a grotesque.”

“We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.”

"Good morning. Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world, and you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. Mankind, that word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences any more. We will be united in our common interest. Perhaps it's fate that today is the 4th of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom. Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution, but from annihilation. We're fighting for our right to live, to exist; and should we win the day, the 4th of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice, 'We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on, we're going to survive.' Today we celebrate our independence day!"

29. YOUTUBE OR NETFLIX: Generally Netflix. Or Hulu.

30. HARRY POTTER OR PERCY JACKSON: Harry Potter.

31. WHEN YOU FEEL ACCOMPLISHED: When I actually get up and do something.

32. STAR WARS OR STAR TREK: Star Wars.

33. PAPERBACK BOOKS OR HARDBACK BOOKS: Paperback. Far more convenient, and I feel less bad writing in the margins.

34. HANDWRITING OR TYPING: I use handwriting far more often.

35. VELVET OR SATIN: Neither. Both strike me as being a bit tacky.

36. VIDEO GAMES OR MOVIES: Movies.

37. WOULD YOU RATHER BE THE DRAGON OR OWN THE DRAGON? I enjoy being human, and I would not want that responsibility. And the fire hazard alone puts me off.

38. SUNRISE OR SUNSET: Sunset

39. WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE SONG? It depends on my mood, to be honest.

40. HORROR MOVIES YES OR NO: YESSSSSS

41. LONG HAIR OR SHORT HAIR: I tend to keep mine relatively short. I need to get it cut again, actually.

42. OPERA OR THEATRE: “Um it’s theatER not theatRE” In the US, ‘theater’ may be the more common/preferred spelling, but that doesn’t make 'theatre’ incorrect. I prefer the theatRE (both the venue, art form, and the spelling).

43. ASSUMING THE MULTIVERSE THEORY IS TRUE AND EVERY STORY EVER TOLD HAS REALLY HAPPENED SOMEWHERE, WHICH ONE OF THE MOVIE/BOOK/TV SHOW/GAME/ETC WORLDS WOULD YOU PICK TO TRAVEL TO FIRST? I’d be down for bopping about time and space in a TARDIS.

44: IF YOU HAD TO EAT ONLY ONE THING FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE WHAT WOULD IT BE? Soup.

45: OLDER GUYS OR YOUNG GUYS? Generally older.

46: IF YOU COULD HAVE A NIGHT WITH ANY FICTIONAL CHARACTER DOING WHATEVER YOU WANTED … WHO? CASTIEL. I would just want to know about everything.

47: SINGING OR DANCING? Singing!

48: WOULD YOU RATHER LOSE YOUR VISION FOR A WEEK, OR YOUR HEARING FOR A YEAR? Vision. I could use it to catch up on sleep.

49: WARRIOR OR MAGE? Mage.

ALTERNATIVE NUMBERS 45-50

45. What instrument would you like to learn? I’d love to pick up violin again. I wish I hadn’t dropped it after those mandatory lessons in 4th grade.

46. If you had to be an animal for the rest of your life, what would you be? A human.

47. What toppings do you put on pancakes? Just maple syrup, no butter.

48. How do you take your coffee? Usually black (adding milk and sugar makes me feel shitty the rest of the day, but, for whatever reason, if I get a regular at Dunkie’s, I’m good).

49. What is your dream job? Being paid to travel, working in diplomacy and international relations.

50. If you had infinite amount of money what’s the first thing you’d do? Get a small house near the Harbor that has enough outdoor space I could have bees.

51. Favorite television show? Supernatural takes up more of my time and I’m more heavily invested in it than I am any other show at the moment.

#This is me #beriala #meme

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jess-goes-travelling · 7 years

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Alrighty - I really narrowed myself down to 10 photos so I don’t bombard you. But like any normal human, I was excited to be here, I was back to being 7, getting Sleeping Beauty on VHS, the one Disney Movie I had wanted for the whole year! I won’t lie, I almost wet myself at some point cause I was trying to fit everything else in and forgot about my bladder. So ... in order:

1. Me having a freakout, I’M AT ANAHEIM’S DISNEY! 2. It’s a small world - had to, and each of us understood different languages, though mine was oh so basic. 3. Flynn Rider’s wanted sign - cause why not! 4. These sneaky four were having an argument while people waited for photos! 5. STAR WARS ... did you see my shirt, I was more than excited. 6. An arcade type thing ... don’t worry, I was aiming for a high corner at the back! 7. Captain Jack Sparrow, I was ecstatic one this ride, the only one I wanted to do right from the beginning. 8. Rocky Mountain at sunset 9. The Electrical Parade ... we were told it wasn’t anything to fuss over - it was! 10. Can you tell I like my pirates?

That day was just one big adventure. Celeste and I were hyped and Fran was sick as a dog. I drove us out to Anaheim, luckily we could check in to our room early. Celeste and I left Fran there, booked ourselves on the 10am bus to Disney and went to Denny’s for breakfast. It took forever and we got back JUST IN TIME for our bus. Fran stayed behind for an hour nap and met us just after we’d walked to the end of main street, I was sat with the kids watching Mary Poppins and Bert dance with musicians behind them while Celeste went to get Fran. We then helped a fam take their picture and they took one for us before heading for the Snow White ride. Peter Pan next, and all the while I was busy planning how I would do this if i were a parent, which lead to me parenting the girls and organising us as best I could (which went out the window when you’re with a 30 year old and a twenty something girl). Then I went to Mad Hatter’s shop and bought myself a hat, once done we trekked it out to It’s A Small World, the line was long and I had a child that was more than happy to keep leaning against my legs while in the queue, but hey, what’s Disney for? Then STAR WARS! So good, i lost the girls the moment I stepped inside the museum like setup. I enjoyed looking at the models and reading the design notes and watching the interviews with everyone from way behind the scenes. Seems everyone is just as excited and in awe of working for Disney as I’m sure we all would be. We waited for a grand total of two minutes for the Buzz Lightyear Laser ride till the girls decided it was lunch time. I said I wasn’t leaving, so they nipped off and got hot dogs, bringing them back to the queue. I was up against Fran in the laser pod, we have to shoot all the alien invaders with the laser guns we have, while the pod spins about and whizzes by them all, I aced it - 141300 to 26700!!!!

We walked behind Maleficent for a while then headed in to ToonTown where Celeste and I went on the Wile E Coyote ride leaving Fran to queue for a pic with Minnie. Once we were off the ride, I joined Fran and got to meet Minnie Mouse then we sped through to meet Mickey!!!!! Incredible how those people stay in that to meet how many people, I’d like to know if they smile in the suit or are just stonefaced the whole time. Met some princesses and got photos with them - Cinderella, Ariel and Snow White. We stopped for a few selfies then went to one of the cafes and got almost front row seats to the 4pm Parade. That was sweet, glad I didn’t miss that, I liked that everyone had their own songs as they came past. The girls wanted more to eat even though we’d said we’d wait, I think Celeste could see how annoyed I was getting with all the stops for food, so she came with me to Pirates of the Caribbean ... GAH!!!! I wanna have my wedding reception in the restaurant there. We got out and Fran was in line to the Haunted Mansion, we joined her, even though I was shitting myself before getting to the ride, once inside, it’s not all that scary. We went on the jungle river cruise, that was filled with sarcasm and Dad jokes, brilliant. Then (yes I know it’s my hundredth then... but it’s Disney) we had a little shoot up at one of the stands in the Western land, stayed there for a long queue for Rocky Mountain. When we finally got to a member of staff, we ... well the girls, asked if we’d make it to the ride and off by the time the light parade started, he said hell no that we had another 20mins of waiting in front of us (which is what I had been saying). It was by now 2000 in the evening and Fran was tired. So we all went on the ride, hopped off and Fran went back to find the bus to get a lift back to the hotel. Celeste and I stayed on at the park. We went on the carousel, Mad Hatter’s Tea Cups, went into the lego store, I built myself an evil R2 unit. Then we had dinner, I had a kids meal, as I’ve said many times, I’m a child. Then there was the Electrical Light parade, and we sat on the curb of Main Street for it, by now I was freezing and it was 2230 and I had sunburn and only Tshirt and Shorts to keep me warm... silly Jessie.

After the parade ended, Celeste and I ran back to the bus as it was the last for the hotel. And that was my day at Disneyland - AMAZING!

#disneyland #anaheim #omg #every childs dream #fuck yeah #cliche travel blog #dreams do come true #USAgetsWild

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instantdeerlover · 4 years

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24 LA Restaurants Where You Can Actually Find Parking (1) added to Google Docs

24 LA Restaurants Where You Can Actually Find Parking (1)

As a resident of Los Angeles, you spend more time in your car than you do on the couch, at your office, or with your supposed “loved ones” - combined. Which means the second thing you think about after you get in said car (after “How can I avoid the 405 today?”) is “What’s the parking situation like where I’m going?”

And while this is the city of valet, you don’t always want to pay $12 for someone else to take your keys and leave your car exactly where you put it. These are our favorite restaurants with easy, relatively inexpensive parking - whether that involves a strip mall lot, metered street spots, or neighborhoods that won’t tow you after 6pm. Because maybe Joni Mitchell got it wrong - sometimes, paradise is the parking lot.

the spots Hotville Chicken $ $ $ $ American , Southern in Baldwin Hills $$$$ 4070 Marlton Ave Not

Rated

Yet

The Sistine Chapel. Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.” Dev Patel’s perfect, symmetrical face. And… the parking structure at Hotville Chicken? With two levels, endless spots, and square-footage nearing the length of a football field, this architectural masterpiece is exactly what we mean when we say “easy, relatively inexpensive parking.” Especially because, in this instance, “inexpensive” actually means “free.” And if all of that wasn’t enough, it definitely doesn’t hurt that Hotville is certified hot chicken royalty (the owner is related to the owner of Prince’s in Nashville) that’s also serving some of the best mac and cheese around.

M. Georgina $ $ $ $ American in Downtown LA $$$$ 777 S Alameda St Ste 114 7.9 /10

There aren’t many good things that we can say about The Row DTLA, the massive, industrial outdoor mall that M. Georgina is located in. It feels like someone took an old clothing factory and turned it into a dystopian playground for luxury fashion brands. We once dropped our phone here and it cracked. Late-stage capitalism. Yet, despite all of that - the parking is magnificent. Maybe it was a gross miscalculation, or blind optimism, or perhaps just Icarus-level hubris, but whoever designed this place built a true palace of parking. Ten floors and hundreds of spots, most of which have never been christened with the presence of a vehicle. Anyway, the first two hours are always free here, with or without validation.

Ramen Tatsunoya $$$$ 3440 W Sunset Blvd

Located on that perpetually congested stretch of Sunset Blvd. that’s also home to Mh Zh, Night + Market Song, and not a single parking structure, trying to find a spot around Ramen Tatsunoya is like setting a social media limit for yourself on your phone - useless, disappointing, and at some point, you’ll take a good, hard look in the mirror and ask “How did we get here?” That is, unless you know about their secret lot - head to the back of the restaurant and save the emergency Skype session with your therapist for another day.

House of Pies $ $ $ $ Dessert in Los Feliz $$$$ 1869 N Vermont Ave 6.8 /10

Anyone who’s ever driven past the House of Pies knows about their parking lot. Bathed in the omnipresent glow of a neon sign, its mere existence is enough to qualify it for this guide, given the neighborhood’s lack of street parking and collection of residents that can and will call the Parking Violations Bureau if your car is ever found outside of their house. But like a Penn & Teller magic trick, or your partner insisting that “It’s fine” after a tense interaction, this preliminary lot is nothing but clever misdirection. The real action is behind the restaurant, where, amongst the dumpsters and Juuling teens, lies an extra 6-8 spots.

Biriyani Kabob House $ $ $ $ Indian , Bangladeshi , Pakistani in Koreatown $$$$ 3525 W 3rd St 8.4 /10

In the interest of not relying too heavily on exaggerated statements, we’ll state this plainly - Koreatown’s parking situation is one of the worst in the city, borders on sadistic, and under the Geneva Conventions, should not exist. Luckily, we have Biriyani Kabob House to save us - although the parking lot in front of this Pakistani/Bangladeshi restaurant is small, rest assured, if you eat a meal here, it will be free and it will be protected under the watchful eye of a very attentive parking attendant.

Bar Avalon $ $ $ $ American , Mediterranean in Echo Park $$$$ 2112 W Sunset Blvd 8.2 /10

We could spend a thousand years and all of the money in the world and still not understand why more people aren’t talking about Bar Avalon. From their incredibly affordable wine selection (glasses start at just $5) to some of the best roast chicken we’ve had in our entire lives, everything about this Echo Park restaurant feels like discovering the “motherlode” cheat in The Sims. So much so that their parking lot, which is completely free and somehow always full of spots, almost feels like overkill. Almost.

BCD Tofu House $ $ $ $ Korean in Koreatown $$$$ 3575 Wilshire Blvd 7.4 /10

BCD, the 24-hour soon tofu restaurant that’s served everyone from Academy Award winner Bong Joon Ho to hungover food writers eating “breakfast” at 4pm, has two locations in Ktown, but the one on Wilshire Blvd. has its own private parking lot. Which is obviously a crucial distinction, because while a good scream in the car can be quite car-thartic, there’s nothing relaxing about circling the block for 30 minutes while yelling Selina Meyer-level expletives at total strangers.

Broad Street Oyster Co. $ $ $ $ American , Seafood in Malibu $$$$ 23359 Pacific Coast Hwy 8.6 /10

Unless you’re EGOT-winner and Malibu resident Barbra Streisand, getting to this seafood destination is no short trek. So obviously, the last thing you want to do is spend even more time in your car looking for parking. And while there are plenty of places along the PCH without lots that are more than happy to have you leave your Toyota Corolla by the ocean then run across the longest state route in California (cough cough, @ Neptune’s Net), Broad Street’s shopping-plaza location means ample parking. Which, in turn means more quality time with their amazing hot lobster roll.

King's Hawaiian Bakery $$$$ 2808 Sepulveda Blvd

King’s has two locations in the South Bay, but our favorite, and the one we navigate to whenever we have a hard day at work and/or we remember how bad they made Chris Messina look in Birds of Prey, is their Torrance outpost. Partly because of the on-site bakery (where they make one of the best haupia cakes outside of the 808), but mostly because of their glorious on-site parking. Expansive, free, and most importantly, in range of their wifi, much like the breadsticks policy at a certain beloved Italian-American restaurant chain, the possibilities here are endless.

Borneo Kalimantan Cuisine $ $ $ $ Indonesian in Alhambra $$$$ 19 S Garfield Ave 8.1 /10

Borneo Kalimantan Cuisine is one of the greatest places to eat in Alhambra. Their menu is filled with incredible Indonesian/Singaporean dishes like laksa mee (spicy curry noodle soup) and nasi campur kalimantan (a mixed plate served with Chinese sausage, BBQ pork, and fried chicken over rice). The roti prata comes with a side of curry and is grilled and flipped to doughy perfection. But best of all? They’re located right next to the First Street Parking Facility, which comes with four hours of free parking, and is perhaps the first parking structure in history to be rated five stars on Google.

Dollar Hits $ $ $ $ Filipino in Historic Filipinotown $$$$ 2422 W Temple St Not

Rated

Yet

Like the scene in A Star Is Born where Ally performs “Shallow” for the first time (and Lady Gaga performs the worst delivery of the word “typewriter” ever recorded), Dollar Hits is a party that takes place in a parking lot. So leave your car in any one of the spaces out front, then head over to the communal grills at this street-food spot in Historic Filipinotown, where you’ll find delicious $1 sticks of BBQ chicken, pork intestine, and fried chicken head.

Jakob Layman Bäco Mercat $ $ $ $ Spanish in Downtown LA $$$$ 408 S. Main St. 8.5 /10

Downtown LA is an extremely difficult place to park, so a meal there usually requires either an Uber, a Metro ride, or worse - paying to valet. But Bäco Mercat, the Mediterranean-ish spot just at the edge of the Historic Core, is different. One block east, towards the Arts District, is a mostly-deserted stretch of Los Angeles St. that always has spots available. The meters are $2 per hour, unlike other parts of DTLA where you’ll end up spending $20 at a meter to park for an afternoon, and it’s free after 8pm.

Joy $ $ $ $ Taiwanese in Highland Park $$$$ 5100 York Blvd 8.0 /10

This casual spot is a great place for a weeknight meal - it’s hard to go wrong with anything on the Taiwanese menu, but we would circle many blocks just to eat their house-baked scallion bread. But we don’t have to, because of how easy parking is in Highland Park. It’s free (and easy to find) on residential streets throughout most of the neighborhood. And in busier areas - off York or Figueroa - there are plenty of cheap parking lots, so we have more money for dan dan noodles.

All Time $ $ $ $ American in Los Feliz $$$$ 2040 Hillhurst Ave 8.9 /10

Los Feliz is definitely not known for having plentiful parking. So we’re not sure why there are always spots open near All Time. We won’t question it, though, because we would walk much, much farther than half a block for one of the best restaurants on the Eastside. There are usually spots on Hillhurst (especially across the street, by the Albertsons), and the surrounding residential neighborhood doesn’t have any parking restrictions.

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plus more restaurant intel you won't find anywhere else. ATL ATX BOS CHI LDN LA MIA NYC PHL SF SEA DC Subscribe Smart move. Excellent information will arrive in your inbox soon. Do you have friends and family who also eat food? Enter their emails below and we’ll make sure they’re eating well. (Don’t worry, we won’t subscribe them to our newsletter - they can do that themselves.) Help Your Friends No Thanks Well done. You’re a good person. All good. We still like you. Want to quickly find restaurants on the go? Download The Infatuation app. Tumbi $ $ $ $ Indian in Santa Monica $$$$ 115 Santa Monica Blvd 8.2 /10

There are a lot of things to hate about the area surrounding the Third Street Promenade. Tumbi, a great Indian spot, is not one of them. And, surprisingly, neither is its parking situation. There are huge public lots throughout downtown Santa Monica that never fill up, and are free for 90 minutes. They also have normal-sized parking spaces, so you won’t add to the mural of scratches on your front bumper pulling into them.

Jakob Layman Margot $ $ $ $ Spanish , Mediterranean , Italian in Culver City $$$$ 8820 Washington Blvd 7.4 /10

Just like that time someone told us they saw Tom Cruise at Vons, when we heard Margot offered free valet, we didn’t believe it (Tom seems like more of an Erewhon guy) - but it’s true. The rooftop restaurant at the Platform validates your parking, though maybe it’s not such a smart idea to drive, because in addition to some good pasta, this Culver City spot has some of the best cocktails on the Westside.

Pasta Sisters Culver City $ $ $ $ Pasta , Italian in Culver City $$$$ 3280 Helms Ave 8.3 /10

The original Pasta Sisters in Pico-Arlington is almost perfect, except that getting a spot in the tiny strip mall parking lot can lead to a battle royale-style showdown. But they’ve opened a second location in the Helms Bakery complex in Culver City with a parking situation that changes that. There’s plenty of inexpensive street parking you can generally drive right into, as well as a couple of lots. Turn into Hutchison Ave. from Washington and you’ll find the small free one inside the complex.

Jakob Layman Rossoblu $ $ $ $ Italian in Downtown LA $$$$ 1124 San Julian St 9.2 /10

The Arts District is home to endless circling around the block and overpriced parking lots once you give up, but its next-door neighbor (the Fashion District) has a dream parking situation. It’s a part of Downtown that almost completely empties out at night, so when you’re eating at Rossoblu you’ll be able to get a street spot and put the money you saved towards an extra bowl of pasta. That’s a win-win.

Holly Liss Guelaguetza $ $ $ $ Mexican in Koreatown $$$$ 3014 W. Olympic Blvd. 8.6 /10

Guelaguetza does have a parking lot behind the restaurant, although it’s one of those valet lots where you pay someone too much money to park your car in a space five feet away. But Guelaguetza also has that rarest of things - easy street parking in Koreatown. Just turn off of Olympic and onto one of the side streets (try Irolo), and you should be able to find a spot easily before making the quick walk towards the best mole in town.

Holly Liss Sushi Fumi $ $ $ $ Sushi in West Hollywood $$$$ 359 N LA Cienega Blvd 8.5 /10

You may already know that parking on this part of La Cienega in West Hollywood is pretty easy, with drive-in metered spots often available right out the front of Sushi Fumi (and you only have to pay until 8pm). But there is another option - the secret lot in the back. Just turn into the alley next to the strip club two doors down (identifiable by the “Girls Girls Girls” sign), and you’ll find a bunch of free spots that no one seems to know about. If only we could say the same thing about Fumi itself.

Luv2Eat Thai Bistro $ $ $ $ Thai in Hollywood $$$$ 6660 W. Sunset Blvd. 8.7 /10

Strip mall parking lots are good in theory, but in practice are always full and/or impossible to get in and out of. The strip mall that’s home to Luv2Eat is neither of those things. Which means you can pull in, park, and be at a table ordering your jade noodles and papaya salad in record time.

Salt's Cure $ $ $ $ American in Hollywood $$$$ 1155 Highland Ave. 7.9 /10

Salt’s Cure is a Hollywood go-to, mostly because eating here is just easy. Most nights of the week you can walk in and grab a table, and eat some fantastic food without having to deal with any hassle. Even better, there’s almost always street parking on Highland, or you can go down one of the side streets where there are no time or permit restrictions.

LA Guide: The Meet In The Middle Guide: Where To Eat When You’re Coming From Opposite Sides Of Town Read Jakob Layman Commerson $ $ $ $ American , Seafood in Mid-Wilshire $$$$ 788 S La Brea Ave. 7.9 /10

Commerson’s location in a huge mixed-user at La Brea and Wilshire has its downsides. Mostly, the subway construction and the terrible traffic it causes. Also, there’s only so much personality a restaurant in a giant mixed-user can have. But Commerson has upsides, too - the mostly seafood menu includes a shrimp and chorizo burger that’s worth the trip, and they’ll validate your parking for the garage in the building.

Holly Liss ASAP Phorage $ $ $ $ Vietnamese in Playa Del Rey $$$$ 303 Culver Blvd 8.2 /10

You’ll inevitably drive straight past ASAP Phorage on your first visit. It’s hidden at the back of a convenience store, so you might reach the ocean at the end of the street while you search for it. Turn around, look for the sign that says Gordon’s Market, and turn straight into the lot. If there aren’t any available seats inside, you have our permission to eat your noodle soup in your car.

via The Infatuation Feed https://www.theinfatuation.com/los-angeles/guides/restaurants-with-easy-parking Nhà hàng Hương Sen chuyên buffet hải sản cao cấp✅ Tổ chức tiệc cưới✅ Hội nghị, hội thảo✅ Tiệc lưu động✅ Sự kiện mang tầm cỡ quốc gia 52 Phố Miếu Đầm, Mễ Trì, Nam Từ Liêm, Hà Nội http://huongsen.vn/ 0904988999 http://huongsen.vn/to-chuc-tiec-hoi-nghi/ https://trello.com/userhuongsen

Created March 7, 2020 at 01:23AM /huong sen View Google Doc Nhà hàng Hương Sen chuyên buffet hải sản cao cấp✅ Tổ chức tiệc cưới✅ Hội nghị, hội thảo✅ Tiệc lưu động✅ Sự kiện mang tầm cỡ quốc gia 52 Phố Miếu Đầm, Mễ Trì, Nam Từ Liêm, Hà Nội http://huongsen.vn/ 0904988999 http://huongsen.vn/to-chuc-tiec-hoi-nghi/ https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xa6sRugRZk4MDSyctcqusGYBv1lXYkrF

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mmeaninglessnamee · 4 years

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Best Things 2019 list

Welcome to my best of the year list, where you get ambushed by Anime at every turn because I refuse to make a separate anime-related category because all movies are films. [Pronounce this line very snobbily]

If you’ve never read one of my best-of-the-year lists, I don’t blame you, they are usually full of garbage except for this one which you should care deeply about. Anyway, this is the best things I first experienced on the past year, which often has a lot of things that didn’t come out this year, because I inevitably miss some things and there was a lot of good media from before I was born.

Anyway, on to the list! The one thing a year I actually use Tumblr to post!

Best Movies:

There’s only two movies that make this list entirely on their own merits this year. Last year I had a top ten, but I watched significantly more movies in 2018 than this year.

Angel’s Egg

Angel’s Egg is art-house anime at its peak. There’s not so much a story here as an uneasy feeling, symbolism, and probably 30 lines of dialogue total and an extremely limited color palette. You could interpret it as about becoming disillusioned with religion, or the complete opposite and see it as a lost, obsessed soul being redeemed. Or something completely different. It’s art for art’s sake.

I inevitably have anime on my best-of lists each year, and I try to not have it over-represent the scope of things I watched each year. But I’ve seen a lot less anime than other genres I like, so there’s a huge amount of really good anime I’ve never seen. I can watch 10 anime movies in a year and they can all be pretty good because there’s just a lot of good ones from a 50-year period that I haven’t seen, while I’ve seen most good sci-fi movies and a lot of the “classics” films and pretty much left with just watching new ones that have come out recently. And it’s not like I’m not watching western animated movies, there’s just not a lot that I would put on a best-of list. While last year had Isle of Dogs and Spiderverse, this year had some forgettable sequels. Anyway, that was a long aside to start this list, but I would love to get more good entries in my favorites every year. I can only hope Star Trek directed by Tarintino actually happens.

Synechdoche, New York

– ultimately will probably never make an all-time favorites list from me, but still a very good piece of filmmaking. It’s extremely dense with layered symbolism and tons of rewatchability. Yet, I don’t really feel the need to rewatch it. It’s very good, but not the kind of good that I feel the need to sing the praises of. If you like extremely well-planned, detailed filmmaking, there are many more-glowing reviews out there for it. This is a huge favorite among film critics, and I can respect why, but I am not a film critic. I don’t get burnt out watching bad movies because I don’t watch movies I don’t think I’ll like, unless they are into “so bad it’s good” territory.

Speaking of the act of watching movies: Best theater experience: Promare

Surprise, it’s Anime again! This movie wasn’t an all-time great, but it was big and stupid and exciting, and I got to see it in a packed theater with tons of Studio Trigger fans who cheered for every reference and visual nod. And the references were great, although they sometimes were a reminder that other similar plots were done better than they were in Promare. But Promare was definitely done gayer than any of the previous shows it took its style from.

That’s all for movies. I did not watch nearly as many that I loves as last year

Best short film:

There were no short films I loved this year. I saw some decent ones, and there’s always some interesting animation from short films, but there weren’t any that stuck out as much as anything last year.

A special mention goes to Age of Sail from John Kahrs with Chromosphere and Evil Eye pictures.( This was distributed by Google Spotlight Stories, so you can easily find it online.) This story had good enough characters that at the end I was left wanting more to their stories, and the visual style was memorable as well.

Best Shows:

The Good Place

I have a lot of things to say about The Good Place, but I really don’t want to spoil the show if you haven’t seen it, so I’ll try to be brief because most of the longwinded things I could say about it have to do with its reveals and plot progression.

What I will say is that one of the great things about The Good Place is that anything could happen, and suddenly, not just in a finale at the end of a season. But what initially got me to watch the show is its strong premise. Elenore wakes up to find out she is dead, but is in The Good Place. The only problem is that she was an awful person who doesn’t deserve to be there. So, she tries to learn to be a good person before she is found out so that she can stay. The show has a lot to say about ethics, morals, and what it means to be “good”, but it’s also primarily a comedy so it’s usually not very heavy-handed about anything.

The final season of The Good Place aired in 2019, but I’m not actually caught up on it yet so I don’t know what the ending is, just that it ended.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumia

I like shows that are constantly surprising and unpredictable. I just said the same thing about The Good Place. Haruhi has a lot of faults, but makes up for them by being not just unpredictable but also very novel or sometimes just bizarre in its presentation. It has the same sense that anything could happen to suddenly change the story that The Good Place has, but in intentionally confusing ways. The two most interesting attributes of the show aren’t even its characters or premise, but two series of episodes: the first season episode order and the Endless Eight. The first 13 episodes of the show were initially broadcast completely out of order, and they are better that way. The first episode is entirely a bad student film that doesn’t even properly introduce any characters, and its backstory isn’t covered until the second season. But it’s an amazing introduction to the series. The series overall doesn’t have amazing visuals beyond some strange framing choices, but this episode also has lots of little details to sell that it’s a bad film, like camera shake and shots that aren’t entirely in focus.

The Endless Eight is the same episode eight times in a row. It’s was actually one of my favorite parts of the series, although I can see why people would loath it, especially if you were watching the show when it aired and had to wait a whole week to see the same thing happen again and again.

There’s also a silly dance with the ending theme. Every fad needs a stupid dance to go with it.

And then there’s the movie, the Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumia, which caps off the series, or at least the anime’s run, and is nearly 3 hours long. It’s actually the second-longest animated film ever made, trailing the extended cut of Final Yamato, a space opera from the 80’s, by one minute. The movie caps off the whole series, reincorporating many events that already happened in the series and showing some characters in a new light. Before the movie, I had no idea why there was an alternate-universe spinoff series about a normal version of one of the main characters, but now I completely understand it. Although the erratic pacing of the whole series may turn people off, and it is far from perfect and filled with enough cliché moments to fill a uh, something large, the moments where the story hits hard are extremely memorable.

Best web original programming:

“4K cab view - Geibi Line Hiroshima Station to Fukuen Line Fuchū Station, Japan”

Let me try to explain why a 4-hour video of railroad tracks is amazing.

1: I like trains 2: It’s really relaxing to just look at the scenery going by

3: I think that this specific video is good rather than just the large amount of transport cab-view videos in general because it’s long enough to be an experience, not just a video. That might sound corny, but you really go on a journey with this video, from city to countryside, and perhaps more strikingly from pre-dawn early morning to full daylight. I did not sit and watch this all at once, but I certainly could.

Best Music Videos:

OK Go Music Videos

Do you like cool ideas for music videos? OK Go has cool ideas for music videos, to the point that the videos are better than the music. You may remember their original hit which was a dance on treadmills. They have only got more elaborate since, with a rube Goldberg machine, a super-slow-mo video, hundreds of choreographed dancers, a car used as an instrument, and my favorite: a video shot in zero-g. To make things even better, most of their videos are in a single take which just makes them all the more impressive.

BEASTARS Opening

Opening themes to anime are basically just short music videos. Usually they aren’t too special, but I also think the vast majority of anime shows themselves are nothing special either, so that’s not saying much. However, sometime you get something really good like the Beastars OP, which in addition to having a jazzy song uses stop-motion animation for its visuals. Stop motion animation is always cool. I think it’s also thematically appropriate for a 3-D animated show to have an intro using the oldest form of 3-D animation.

And since we’re on Music Videos, let’s just go right into the next main section: Music.

Music:

Gregory and the Hawk

Gregory and the Hawk is an indie folk artist with a weird name. She sings sweet-sounding songs about troubled lives, and I like how her music sounds. It definitely won’t strike a chord with everyone though.

Not much to say about her, I just like it. Her best song is “Oats We Sow”.

Mariko Goto / Midori

This isn’t anime music. Mariko Goto didn’t appeal to me because she made music for some anime that I liked. I just feel like my best-of lists get heavy with anime-related things a lot for reasons I already discussed that back in the movies section. Anyway, Mariko Goto’s music is weird. This also includes the work of the band Midori, which she was a part of.

Midori was a jazz-punk-fusion band. That probably doesn’t bring any particular sound to your mind, but I can’t describe it well either. Mariko as a solo artist is also kind of the same genre, except sometimes. Many songs never quite find themselves coming to rest, either on a major key or sometimes even all on the same beat, while Mariko does a kind of overly-cutesy screech over the instrumentals. I would describe some of their music as sounding like a waking dream you would have while trying to rest with a fever.

I would say her best songs are “Swing”(with Midori), “Drone”, and “@HφU☆少女。。”(however you pronounce this mess) and best overall album is “299792458”

Angelique Kidjo – Remain in Light (Album cover)

A.K. is a Beninese music artist. She did a full cover album of Remain in Light, one of my favorite albums by one of my favorite bands. Talking Heads were one of the first mainstream rock bands to use (or depending on who you ask, steal) African polyrhythms extensively, and now Kidjo has taken them back. I have heard a lot of good covers from this album, most notably another entire-album cover by Phish, but this is the best one by far.

Her other, original work is okay too, but wouldn’t get on my best-of lists by themselves. Remain in Light was released in 2018, but I didn’t hear it until this year. Here’s some more music from 2018 that I didn’t hear until this year:

Revue Starlight soundtrack

Revue Starlight was a pretty good anime that aired last year. But wait, aren’t we past the audiovisual media section? Yeah, we are, because Starlight had some problems in my opinion. The soundtrack, both the original songs and the background score, were not one of the problems. The soundtrack was the best part of the show, which is why I’m putting it on my best music list. The genre is best described as modern classical. Most of the orchestration is a traditional string orchestra, but with different songs having distinct accents, like mechanical distortion, a heavy electric bass line, more traditional Japanese strings and woodwinds, or a screaming guitar solo. I think some of the songs are actually better absent of the show, because especially some of the revue songs were not used particularly well. My favorite song from the show, A Song or the Blooming of Flowers, especially got shafted in the anime by having characters talking over most of it and having a rather lackluster fight. The best pieces from the score however, Rondo Rondo Rondo and the transformation theme, were used well. But it baffles me that someone decided that songs with thematic lyrics should be spoken over with dialogue saying basically the same thing thematically as the lyrics.

The Protomen

The Protomen have a lot of musical talent and I really like how they sound… on their second album. Their first album blows. Also all of their original music is based on made-up backstory to the MegaMan video game franchise. You gotta write about something I guess. Like I said, I really like some of their tracks, but I’m really not sure if I recommend they entirely.

Of Monsters and Men – all the tracks that didn’t get radio play

Of Monsters and Men is a pretty good band. I had already heard all their songs that were widely popular (so pretty much just Little Talks) so those don’t count for being something new I heard this year. But I also don’t really care for Wars, their new song that has got radio play this year. But I really like most of the rest of their tracks, and I also love the aesthetic of the visualizers for My Head is an Animal.

And here’s some individual songs where I didn’t like the artist’s whole catalogue but I liked certain songs.

God Knows – Aya Hirano

This is a rock song from The Meloncholy of Haruhi Suzumia. (oh no we’re back to anime) Haruhi is not a music show, but it nevertheless has a music episode out of nowhere. As in two of the characters perform this song in the show with no build up to it and with one of them never having shown any musical skill, so of course she can absolutely shred on guitar. This song basically got me to actually watch the show now on my favorites list even though I knew it was just a one-off in a single episode, so I think that’s a pretty solid statement for being one of the best songs I heard this year. Aya Hirano produced some other music as well, but I don’t like anything that I’ve heard as much, which might just be God Knows having the benefit of context. Since Haruhi, she’s performed with the stage theater company that inspired the anime Revue Starlight, the music from which was also just on this list. Everything’s connected!

Girls Dead Monster

Speaking of anime music, GirlDeMo is also anime-related music. GirlDeMo is the band in the anime Angel Beats, but they also produced some real albums with additional music, not just the songs used in Angel Beats. Unlike the Revue Starlight soundtrack, this isn’t a bright spot of an okay show, it’s on this list as a stand-alone because I really like female-lead rock music. Not every song is a masterpiece, but I like some of them enough to put them on this list. Best tracks: Crow Song (this was in the first ep. of Angel Beats) and Little Braver (was not in the show, but is coincidentally the only GirlDeMo song I’ve found a Clone Hero beatmap for, so someone else has good taste as well.) Also an honorable mention to the rock cover of the Angel Beats opening theme which is performed in-universe at the start of an episode.

I think that’s all the things related to anime on this list now. There’s a lot of anime with some very good high points, but yet very few that overall come all together to make a full package that’s good all the way through. Just having one aspect of something that people like a lot is better than nothing though, but that’s why it got spread all across this list instead of being confined to movies and shows, it spreads like a sickness across the land, creeping up and night and stifling life.

Speaking of creeping up at night and stifling life:

LEATHER TEETH – Carpenter Brut

This song is a piece of heavy horror electronica, and it slaps hard. Slashes hard? The music video is about a slasher-movie serial killer, but the track has plenty of atmosphere on its own. The rest of the album is also good, but does not reach the peak of the title track. They all have very high amount of violence and sex in their videos though, so beware who you watch them around. One of them has a YouTube-friendly version where all the gore is left intact but the nudity is censored with lots of guns.

Curses – The Crane Wives

This is a good song, but I don’t like most of The Crane Wives’ catalogue as much as this one song. That’s all I have to say about this one.

The chorus is really catchy, or maybe just the singer’s smoky delivery is inherently memorable.

I Am The Antichrist To You – Kishi Bashi

This is a surprisingly slow, melancholy song, from the title you would probably expect some heavy metal. This song is carried by the vocals.

Borodin – Polovstian Dances from Prince Igor (Choral version)

Here’s something not even remotely contemporary. Did you know that this piece was originally written to have lyrics? I didn’t. Did you know that this piece is AMAZING with vocals added to it? Now you do.

Arriving Somewhere But Not Here by Porcupine Tree

This was probably the best prog-rock song I heard all year. Yeah, that’s all for this one.

Dream Sweet in Sea Major

Joe Hawley, Allison Hanna and Bora Karaca are three people I have never heard of who make very strange alternative music that sounds like it belongs playing on a phonograph, except when it abruptly shifts to some other various genre. This song got the YouTube algorithm blessing, but the band the artists are a part of, Tally Hall, apparently has some amount of online following. I’d never heard of them. The side project that produced the album “Hawaii Part II” that this song is from has an entirely Japanese name for some reason. (None of the members are Japanese) I guess if you’re making a weird side project, make it as weird as you want.

Did you know Rob Cantor (who wrote Running for your life from Shia LeBeouf) is part of Tally Hall? Now you do. He didn’t work on this song, but looking up stuff about this song was a huge rabbit hole.

25 Color Twilight from City Connection from Voez

The rhythm game Voez has some good music. I put Night Keepers, the most-featured artist, on my list last year. This particular song is a reimagining of the main theme of City Connection, a NES game where you run away from the cops with a bunch of paint dripping out the back of your car. Why? Because. I’ve played it and didn’t think it was very fun, but anyway this song is great.

HM: Aqualung – Pressure Suit

HM: Heart of Glass - Blondie

HM: Locomotive Breath – Jethro Tull

These songs aren’t Honorable Mentions because I only kind-of like them, they are HMs because I had heard them before but only really listened to them a lot this year.

Locomotive Breath is just a good song that always leaves me wanting more at the end of it. So I listen to it again and again.

Heart of Glass is just really really catchy and I love how it draws attention to its own skipped beat in the chorus. There are lots of songs that skip a beat to smooth over a song transition, but this song skips a beat to become rougher.

Pressure Suit has a story to it. I first saw the song’s music video on an MTV-style channel on a TV at a college campus cafeteria. I was in middle school at the time. The video was very memorable to me, and the TV had subtitles on it so I remembered the chorus lyrics, but there was no audio. Amazingly, I remembered this and found the song much later, and even more surprisingly actually liked it.

Games:

The Beatles Rock Band

Since we’re coming off music, it only makes sense to start with a music game. Remember Guitar Hero? The series is still going with Guitar Hero Live, but it really died out years ago. Despite that, it’s still great fun, and the popularity of Clone Hero shows that people still love the idea. Most of the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games really emphasized the aesthetic of grunge and heavy metal, and had some face-melting solos and heavily technical songs. The Beatles Rock Band has neither of those things, which is a lot of why I like it. I mean, I also like The Beatles, but that’s kind of assumed since I liked a game that’s entirely their music. Even on expert mode, this game is laid back and relaxed, with some of the songs have videos that travel from the studio to psychedelic landscapes. I never owned this game when it came out, but now I bought it for $3.

Celeste

The last section to write. I have so much to say about how good Celeste is.

Celeste is by far the best game I played this year. I have a hard time loving 2-D platformers because they so often feel slippery and imprecise but demand perfection from the player. Old Mario games are icons of the genre. Mario slides off everything and needs momentum to get anywhere off a jump. Meat Boy is a game with death everywhere for the slightest mistake, but by design you slide up walls while having to be very deliberate with your jumps to get the correct arc and height. Celeste improved the controls and feel of the game to the point that it feels perfectly precise, and mistakes you make are your own, not Madeline sliding a little bit too far or a jump having to have too exact an angle. Just a single linear dash in the air opens up so many possibilities for design, but the biggest aspect is wall climbing. You can just hold on a wall for a second or climb up over the top of a ledge instead of having to be constantly jumping, and this makes long sections without ground or with difficult timing feel much more manageable.

Also the game has a strong emotional story, which is now commonplace in well-received indie games but is still a rarity in platformers. Go rescue the damsel, the end. In Celeste, you’re only fighting against nature and yourself.

Also the soundtrack is beautiful, ranging from apprehensive to reflective and tense to triumphant. First Steps is a great, memorable introductory theme. Capping things off, Reach for the Summit drives you to have to finish the game. And the b-sides remixes are nice reinterpretations of the tracks to match the reinterpretations of the levels they accompany.

Also, I’m using “Also” to start another point too much, so let’s also talk about some other games.

Quiplash

It’s a great party game that you can play with people who aren’t gamers!

The Jackbox Party Packs overall are great party games, and Quiplash is the best for people for whom the hardest part of the game will be correctly operating their phone to connect to the Jackbox server. Take this to holiday gatherings and play with family.

Ultra Fight da! Kyanta 2

The only fighting game that came out this year that I actually like. It’s extreme kusoge. Technically it came out last year on itch.io and I did play it back then, but it came to Steam and got more popular and people ran tournaments for it starting this year.

You have teams of up to three characters, groove selection per character, parries, walk-through crossups, normals with free air movement , extremely high damage and ridiculous supers, roman cancels, and all sorts of other character-specific degeneracy like jumping lows or unblockable projectiles that hit both players, and that all adds up to a very fun game.

Oh yeah, and it looks like it was made in Microsoft Paint.

Tetris

Tetris has been around for decades, but there’s always new ways to reinvent the game and I want to talk about 3 different ones I got into this year.

First, Puyo Puyo Tetris. It’s three games in one, and pretty much the standard for competitive modern tetris. Or modern Puyo. Or Swap Mode, which forces you to play both games alternating every 30 seconds, which is where the game really shines.

Then, there’s tetris effect, which is the best single-player tetris game around, at least the best available to buy normally. The Tetris the Grandmaster series is also great but only on arcade boards. Tetris Effect is the only tetris game where the graphics and soundtrack actually matter, because it’s a visual masterpiece and great game experience. However, it has no direct multiplayer at all.

Finally, if you really want multiplayer tetris but beating up to three other people at once in Puyo Puyo Tetris isn’t enough, there’s Tetris 99, the tetris battle-royale game. Because there’s basically no downtime in matches and you can start a new match almost immediately, it’s easy to play one more match for hours in this game.

These three games together are just many facets of one great game: Tetris

I also played a Tetris The Grandmaster arcade board for the first time this year. That’s another good tetris game, but even better was its full name: Tetris The Grandmaster 3: Terror Instinct. And VideoGameDunkey did a video on Tetris this year, that was great too. Tetris.

HM: Defunct

This game is great. However, it’s an HM because it’s only about an hour long with not a huge amount of extra stuff to do. But the replay value is still very high, because mastering time attacks or just moving with style is very fun. I’ve considered doing speedruns of this game, but only actually did a full (20-minute) run once.

HM: Catherine Classic

This is an HM because I have played the game before on PS3. I’ve entered tournaments for Catherine. But I never played the story mode or actually owned the game until it came to PC. This is a very unique puzzle game that is worth your time, and a type of story about actual long-term relationships that games don’t tell often. Yes, the story has character portrayals that are problematic, but most of the time that’s the point; most of the characters are kind-of awful and are unable to move beyond their past relationship issues.

Books and other writing:

The Hero with 1000 Faces (1949)

This book is all about heroic myth around the world, and more specifically about how many myths worldwide have significant similarities. If you want a really in-depth look at the Hero’s Journey, this is your book.

This book is very well-known among writers and very easy to use to compare different works. George Lucas said it influenced Star Wars, so that’s something.

Mimusubi (Blog)

This is a blog by and Englishman who lives in Japan and works for a national Shinto organization. It is all about Shinto as a religion and its place in modern Japanese society. It’s an interesting read, although it ended up being entirely useless related to the research I was doing when I found it initially. I don’t frequently read blogs, so this is a weird entry on my best-of-the-year list.

Best Theater:

‘Romeos and Juliets’ by the machine lifeforms in the amusement park from Nier Automata So, I didn’t actually go to any plays and only one concert this year so I don’t have much to say about live performances, but this bizarre identity crisis misinterpretation of Romeo and Juliet is certainly entertaining (although quite short). And like all good stories within stories, it just maybe has a lot more to do with the overall plot than you would think.

This is really just another alternate way of putting in an Honorable Mention for Nier Automata, which is a good game, but I just have a lot of problems with the gameplay part of it that keeps it off my best games list. The ending is extremely strong, but it took me 30 hours to get there and its hard to ignore that significant portion of the game, especially when the actual gameplay part was often the least-interesting aspect.

Sorry if anyone was actually watching this for theater recommendations. Since I like things that are about theater so much (see Revue Starlight also being on my best-of list), you think I would actually get to more live theater like I have previous years. The one thing I went to was a performance of Dvorak’s New World Symphony, but again, I have nothing to say about that, I’d heard the piece before so it can’t even go in “best music” since it wasn’t a mind-blowing performance. I don’t know, maybe I should have just removed this section. If you want recommendations, watch Avenue Q I guess.

Best Credits Sequence:

Here, I found an award to give Nier: Automata.

Best Memes:

SA2 Realtime Fandub by SnapCube

I’ve come to make an announcement: Here’s one final thing from this list that was from 2018 but I didn’t find until a year later, but this one didn’t really blow up until then. Eggman pissing on the moon is the single biggest highlight of this hour-long epic, but it’s hilarious the whole way through and endlessly rewatchable. Sonic Adventure 2 is a perfect source for parody for so many reasons, but the improvised character dynamics here really highlight how absurd so much of the story is. Why is NASA there? Why is the camera zooming in? This is a must-watch if you loved SA2’s corniness, as long as you don’t mind some characters swearing like wounded sailors.

Places I discovered I want to visit:

Museum Meiji-mura

Here’s a new section for this year’s list that I probably won’t repeat!

A long time ago, in a country far, far away, Frank Lloyd Wright designed a hotel. Unfortunately, the hotel was in Tokyo, Japan. It survived the 1923 Tokyo Earthquake and World War Two, but did not survive the economic realities of being a low-rise structure in downtown Tokyo, one of the densest cities on the planet. It was replaced by a much larger hotel in the 70’s.

But, the entrance building was saved and rebuilt in Museum Meiji-mura, near Nagoya, and I absolutely want to visit there if I ever go to Japan, because it’s a large collection of architecturally historic buildings from Japan, and as a student of Architecture, that would be really cool to go see.

That’s all for my list this year. I’m planning on making a video version of the list this year, but that won’t be done for a while.

#best of 2019

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swipestream · 5 years

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Sensor Sweep: Windy City Pulp Show, King Arthur, Star Wars Target Audience, Model T in Combat

Conventions (DMR Books): The 19th annual Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention took place this past weekend in Lombard, IL. It was a three-day affair, but unfortunately I was only able to attend for part of the day on Saturday. Five hours may seem like a good amount of time, but it wasn’t nearly enough to take in all the event had to offer.

Doug Ellis and Deb Fulton were gracious enough to share some of their table space with me so I could peddle DMR releases.

Anthologies (Tip the Wink): This nineteen story anthology is edited by one of Baen’s best, Hank Davis. Though the book is pretty new, the stories range from as early as the Thirties all the way to now. So I think it qualifies as a Friday Forgotten Book for it’s contents. For the most part, this is the kind of science fiction I grew up on and still love.

�� Fiction (Old Style Tales): Doyle’s final great horror story is truly a worthy swan song – a tale who’s science fiction maintains a level of effective awe in spite of having been categorically disproven by aviators a mere decade after being written. And indeed the tale is science fiction, fitting snuggly on a shelf between the speculative horror of H. G. Wells which preceded it and the cosmic terror of H. P. Lovecraft which succeeded it.e cosmic terror of H. P. Lovecraft which succeeded it.

Myth (Men of the West): Of all these Latin chroniclers by far the most important was Geoffrey of Monmouth, Bishop of St. Asaph, who finished his “History of the Britons” about 1147. Geoffrey, as has been said, is not a real historian, but something much more interesting. He introduced to the world the story of King Arthur, which at once became the source and centre of hundreds of French romances, in verse or prose, and of poetry down to Tennyson and William Morris. To Geoffrey, or to later English chroniclers who had read Geoffrey, Shakespeare owed the stories of his plays, “Cymbeline” and “King Lear”.

Authors (DMR Books): James Branch Cabell, who was born on April 14, 1879–just over one hundred forty years ago–has slipped into genteel literary obscurity. An author once praised and befriended by the likes of Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sinclair Lewis, JBC had his entire fantasy epic, known as “The Biography of the Life of Manuel,” printed in a uniform hardcover eighteen-volume set at the height of his popularity in the 1920s and early ’30s. He was, by far, the preeminent American literary fantasist of that era. And yet, he is barely known outside hardcore literary fantasy circles now.

Cinema (Rough Edges): I didn’t mean to write about two Raoul Walsh movies in a row, but that’s the way it’s worked out after last week’s post on DESPERATE JOURNEY. COLORADO TERRITORY is a Western remake from 1949 of the Humphrey Bogart classic HIGH SIERRA, also directed by Walsh eight years earlier in 1941. Both are based on the novel HIGH SIERRA by W.R. Burnett. In COLORADO TERRITORY, Joel McCrea plays outlaw Wes McQueen, in prison for robbing banks and trains, who is broken out so he can take part in a payroll heist from a train in Colorado.

Popular Culture (Jon Mollison): Long time genre fans expect to see the usual Boomer perspectives. Naturally, his version of the story of science fiction begins and ends with the era of the Boomers. To be fair, he is a film guy making a film about film people, so it’s no surprise that his documentary would ignore the foundational stories of the genre. It does start with HG Wells, but then skips straight past four decades of science fiction to land on rubber monster B-movies. The usual Big Pub diversity hires get trotted out to offer Narrative Approved talking points about how the genre has matured under the careful guidance of perverts like Arthur C. Clarke without a mention of giants like Howard and Burroughs and Lovecraft and Merritt and the rest of the True Golden Age writers.

Star Wars (Kairos): Two cultural observations that have repeatedly been made on this blog are that Star Wars has been weaponized against its original fans and that decadent Westerners are perverting normal pious sentiment by investing it in corporate pop culture products. Now a viral video has surfaced that documents the unholy confluence of both phenomena. Watch only if you haven’t eaten recently.

Cinema (Mystery File): I’ve spoken often and highly of Fredric Brown;s classic mystery novel of strip-clubs and theology, The Screaming Mimi (Dutton, 1949) and recently betook myself to watching both film versions of it, side-by-side and back-to-back, through the miracle of VCRm watching a chunk of one, then the other, than back again…

Pulps (John C. Wright): So what, exactly, makes the weird tales and fantastic stories of that day and age so “problematic”?

The use of lazy racial stereotypes, did you say? This generation has just as many or worse ones, merely with the polarities reversed. See the last decade of Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who and Marvel comics franchises, for examples.

The portrayal of women as weak damsels in distress? I will happily compare any number of Martian princesses or pirate queens from the pulp era to the teen bimbos routinely chopped up in the torture porn flicks of this generation, and let the matter of malign portrayals of women speak for itself.

Fiction (Nerds on Earth): Howard Andrew Jones (who we’ve interviewed not once, but twice!) strikes that balance masterfully in For the Killing of Kings, the first book of an expected series. The book drops the reader right at the moment when a scandal in the Allied Realms begins. This controversy involves the legendary weapon of the most famous commander of the vaunted Altenerai Corps, N’lahr. Jones doesn’t even let two pages pass before the reader is invited into the discovery that something is wrong with this magic-infused sword, and it is that problem that carries the book’s action from start to finish.

History (Black Gate): Enter the Western Frontier Force, a hastily assembled group of men from all parts of the empire that included two of the war’s many innovations. The first was the Light Car Patrol, made up of Model T Fords that had been stripped of all excess weight (even the hood and doors) so they could run over soft sand. Many came equipped with a machine gun. Heavier and slower were the armored cars, built on the large Rolls Royce chassis and sporting a turret and machine gun.

Westerns (Tainted Archive): Geographically and historically the concept of “The West” is very loosely defined, when associated with the literary and film genre of the western. With the possible exception of the Eastern Seaboard almost every part of the USA had been called “The West” at some stage in the country’s history.

Authors (John C. Wright): Gene Wolfe passed at his Peoria home from cardiovascular disease on April 14, 2019 at the age of 87.

This man is one of two authors who I was able to read with undiminished pleasure as a child, youth, man and master.

I met him only briefly at science fiction conventions, and was truly impressed by his courtesy and kindness. We shared a love of GK Chesterton. I never told him how I cherished his work, and how important his writings were to me.

Authors (Rich Horton): Gene Wolfe died yesterday, April 14, 2019 (Palm Sunday!) His loss strikes me hard, as hard as the death last year of Ursula K. Le Guin. Some while I ago I wrote that Gene Wolfe was the best writer the SF field has ever produced. Keeping in mind that comparisons of the very best writers are pointless — each is brilliant in their own way — I’d say that now I’d add Le Guin and John Crowley and make a trinity of great SF writers, but the point stands — Wolfe’s work was tremendous, deep, moving, intellectually and emotionally involving, ambiguous in the best of ways, such that rereading him is ever rewarding, always resolving previous questions while opening up new ones.

Cartoons (Wasteland and Sky): One small loss of the modern age I’ve always been interested in is the death of the Saturday morning cartoon.

For over half a century they have lingered in the memories of just about everyone alive in the western world as part of some long ago age that will never return. But nobody talks about them beyond nostalgic musings. The problem with that is they require a deeper look than that. I don’t think it’s clear exactly why they do not exist anymore, and it is important why they do not.

Fiction (Tip the Wink): It’s the stories, not the book, that are forgotten here. From the publisher’s website:

“Known best for his work on Popular Publications’ The Spider, pulp scribe Norvell Page proved he was no slouch when it came to penning gangster and G-man epics! This book collects all eleven stories Page wrote for “Ace G-Man Stories” between 1936 and 1939, which are reprinted here for the first time!”

RPG (Modiphius): Horrors of the Hyborian Age is the definitive guide to the monstrous creatures inhabiting the dark tombs, ruined cities, forgotten grottos, dense jungles, and sinister forests of Conan’s world. This collection of beasts, monsters, undead, weird races, and mutants are ready to pit their savagery against the swords and bravery of the heroes of the Hyborian Age.

Drawn from the pages of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories, this roster also includes creatures and alien horrors from H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, to which Howard inextricably bound his Hyborian Age. Other entries are original, chosen carefully to reflect the tone and dangers of Conan’s world.

Sensor Sweep: Windy City Pulp Show, King Arthur, Star Wars Target Audience, Model T in Combat published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

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cebeavers · 14 years

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Carowinds 2010

July 24, 2010 CoasterStock

I’ve been to Carowinds already a bunch this year. Not that I’m complaining, but with CoasterStock coming, and me having not spent a full day there, I really didn’t know if I’d want to be at the park from before opening to after close, especially since I’m not a morning person.

I slept a bit later than I’d intended, and I missed my exit because I wasn’t paying attention, so I got to the park later than I meant to, but it wasn’t a big deal. The only morning ERT I wanted was on Afterburn. When I got to the park, that’s where I headed first (Well, 2nd, I had to make a potty stop). Rode in the 2nd row and the ride was really good. Once I got off I headed out to find Gator and Jill. I ran into them close to Afterburn, so we went back for 2 rides in the front. The ride is so different front to back. It rides very intense (but not really rough) in the back, and I can’t take much of it. This early, and this hot, I wanted nothing to do with the back. But I can power ride in the front all day.

We walked over to the Flyers. Can’t remember if they rode that or not, but I knew I wasn’t going to be in the mood for spinning with it this early and this hot out. Once we made it to Intimidator, though, we got in line to wait for the park to open. We were on about the 3rd train of the day, near the front, and the ride was great as usual.

We headed over to Boo Blasters and did that next since they were having the tournament. I sucked with my score of 450, but whatever. I’m glad the mist was on. Is it me, or did the ride open with just a set of eyes and a mouth projected into the mist? I seem to recall that and not Boocifer, which is there now. Glad they got that back to working; it really does make a difference in the ride.

So next we went over to Thunder Road. My last ride on the blue train was pretty rough, so I wasn’t looking forward to it. Jill and I sat in the very front with minimal wait. We asked to race, but the guy running the silver side didn’t race. The ride wasn’t quite as bad as my July 4th visit, but it was jackhammering in all of the non-refurbished sections. We headed over to the silver side and got the ops to race it. Rode in the front with Bill and the ride was actually very good.

Next we headed over towards Ricochet, with a stop for water first. Bill decided he wanted to do Goldrusher, and since I hadn’t ridden it in quite a while, I got on with them. Boy, are those trains uncomfortable. However, the ride was actually the best ride I’ve ever had on Goldrusher. It seems really fast and fun. We got in line for Ricochet, which was about a 10 minute wait. Good ride, not overly braked. I still freak out on wild mice. I thought we were going to eat at the picnic area in the back near Afterburn, so we headed there, and I was wrong. We ran into some other geeks after looking at a map, and led them to the right pavilion. The lunch ‘mix-up’ or whatever of hot dogs and chicken was fine. I was hungry and really didn’t care what was to eat. I know that there were some vegetarian issues that cropped up, so I’m sure that the park will be able to fix that next year.

Lunch was fine; listening to the guy from B&M answer questions was interesting. Jill & Bill left to go nap at their hotel after he finished. I’d planned to head into Charlotte to wander around, but it was too hot. After Jerry Helms got up and started to talk, I heard him say he’d worked at Star Trek The Experience in Vegas, so once he was finished and I had gotten more to drink in my new Intimidator cup, I asked him about it and told him how much I enjoyed it.

He got there in 2005 when it was still under Paramount and took over as General Manager with the intent of turning the property around. I must say, it was a great experience when we went. He asked if I got to do the backstage tour, but it didn’t start until after we went. He said it really took off, and mentioned that he felt that if the last Trek movie had came out earlier as they intended, that he thinks people would have been more willing to re-up the contract.

I visited twice under his leadership, and I have to say, he ran the place great. He mentioned how they upped the food quality, and we did eat there on my 2nd visit, and were highly impressed by the food (and I was there with a chef, who heaped praise upon our lunch). Plus the staff at Quark’s were very happy and loved working there, so I’d say that Mr. Helms must have been quite popular. I’m personally glad he’s at Carowinds. He did mention that Intimidator wasn’t intended to go where it is in the park, but he lobbied to put it up front. Definitely the best decision, and what better billboard for the park that a huge red coaster facing the highway?

After lunch I went to my car to get my swimming trunks. Paid for a locker (man I wish I’d have gotten one in Boomerang Bay!) and changed clothes, then headed to the newer wave pool. I spent about 3 hours between wave pools; the kinds play area, and even took a turn on the lazy river. The older wave pool was actually too warm, so I headed back to the newer one. I hadn’t been to the water park since 1998 here. I think they need a couple of newer slides, but otherwise it’s very nice.

I left the park around 3:30 and headed over to Plaza Fiesta. I hadn’t been since they changed it over. I hung out there for a while and enjoyed being indoors. Then I sat in my car and tried to nap for about 30 minutes, but as soon as I fell asleep, thunder started rolling in and woke me up. I ended up going over to the park and heading in to dinner.

I must say, dinner was very good. The chicken and prime rib was much better than I’d expected. Nice job Carowinds staff! I had done the construction tour for ACE so I opted out of the backstage Intimidator tour. Jill, Bill, and I instead went over to ride some more. We hit up Gr8 Skate, they rode the flyers again, and we planned on riding Woodstock Express, but the line was long. Instead we headed over to Hurler, but because of lightening in the area, we stood in the station for a while to see if it cleared up. It didn’t, so we headed to the theater for Snoopy Rocks on Ice, which was a decent show. Jill & Bill headed out to ride, and I ran to the restroom before heading back for Q&A and Park Jeopardy. Both were fun and informative and we got to watch the 3 videos, 1 that the staff made, and the other 2 that were in the contest. Once it was time for ERT on Intimidator, we all headed over and waited for the park to clear and for them to get the ride ready. And get it ready they did. ERT was great, they had the 2nd trim basically off (I think at one point I felt it hit slightly), and much airtime was to be had. The crew was riding, the marketing team was there, everyone was having fun, all three trains were running, and it was just a lot of fun. Plus did I mention the ride was just really incredible? I like that they had a sign on one of the maintenance boxes as you leave the station showing that the 2nd trim was turned off. Nice touch. CoasterStock, aside from the heat, was great. I really enjoyed it and after hearing that the park has plans to expand and really become a resort destination in the coming years, I really have confidence that Carowinds will grow and that they have a good foundation for a great management team. Everyone was a class act all day and went out of their way to make 120 coaster geeks happy, and I didn’t hear any major complaints, outside of the heat. Still not sure why they had the heat on all day in July.

#Carowinds #Charlotte #North Carolina #CoasterStock #2010

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wbwest · 7 years

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New Post has been published on WilliamBruceWest.com

New Post has been published on http://www.williambrucewest.com/2017/03/10/west-week-ever-pop-culture-review-31017/

West Week Ever: Pop Culture In Review - 3/10/17

In movie news, a lot is going on with the Deadpool sequel. At the beginning of the week, it was reported that David Harbour of Netflix’s Stranger Things was being sought after for the role of Cable. While fans have wanted a bigger name, like Ron Perlman, Harbour is definitely gonna be cheaper, fitting right in with the movie’s budget. Meanwhile, it was reported that actress/singer Janelle Monae was the studio’s frontrunner for the role of Domino. Yesterday, however, Ryan Reynolds tweeted the above image, confirming that Atlanta‘s Zazie Beetz had gotten the role. I swear, with Donald Glover off Lando-ing in the Han Solo movie, and Zazie in Deadpool 2, Atlanta ain’t ever coming back. It’s already “on hiatus”, and I fear that it’s gonna be like Curb Your Enthusiasm – something Glover comes back to when he gets bored and has the time to do it. So, look for Atlanta season 2 in 2025.

In other movie news, the Valiant comic universe is getting closer to the big screen, as Dave Wilson has been tapped to direct the Bloodshot movie. Wilson comes from Blur Studio, known mainly for video game trailers, and co-founded by Deadpool director Tim Miller. If you don’t know anything about Bloodshot, you’re not alone. He looks like some kind of albino madman. From what I’ve read, he’s basically a zombie soldier who’s animated by nanites. I’ve never read a Bloodshot comic, though, so what do I know? Here’s where it gets interesting: there’s currently a webseries being made by Bat in the Sun called Ninjak vs The Valiant Universe. Starring Michael Rowe (Deadshot from the Arrowverse), the webseries pits the character of Ninjak against other characters in the Valiant Universe – where Bloodshot just happens to be portrayed by original Green Ranger, Jason David Frank. Now, JDF used to go to all of his convention appearances promoting the Power Rangers brand, but lately has been doing it dressed as Bloodshot. This project isn’t big enough to warrant that kind of dedication. No, I’m convinced he’s lobbying for the role in the big screen film. This is like when Sean Young used to go out in public dressed as Catwoman just so she’d get the role in Batman Returns. I don’t know whether to be impressed or saddened. I mean, he’s lobbying hard, but there’s no way he gets that role.

Though the news got sort of lost in the cycle last week, Nickelodeon announced that the new season of the 3D Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, premiering March 19th, would be its last. After five years, the show is ditching its serialized approach and is rebranding into an anthology format with the new title Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Once the series ends, a new 2D cartoon, Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, is slated to premiere in 2018.

In other TV news, folks are wondering if Glenn Howerton is leaving It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. The show aired its 12th season finale this week, where we learned that Dennis had a son from a layover in North Dakota. At the end of the episode, he decides that he can’t carry on as he’d been doing the past 12 years, and that he needed to leave and go be with his son. This episode aired the same day it was reported that Howerton and Patton Oswalt had been cast as leads in an NBC pilot where Howerton plays an Ivy League professor who loses out on his dream job, and ends up teaching high school science. Currently known as AP Bio, the series is produced by Seth Meyers and Lorne Michaels, so I think it’s likely it’ll be picked up. Now, Kaitlin Olson currently juggles working on Sunny and The Mick, but Howerton has a bigger role on Sunny, as he also writes and produces. In an interview with Uproxx, though, Howerton said that he wasn’t sure if he was coming back. He said the decision doesn’t have anything to do with his relationships with the other cast members. Sunny still has two seasons ahead of it, but even Danny DeVito recently mentioned that he might be done soon, too. The show really matured this season, as a lot of plotlines came full circle. I don’t even know what they’ll do with 20 more episodes (their seasons tend to be 10 episodes long), but I definitely don’t know how they’d do it without the character of Dennis.

In comic news, Marvel announced that Astonishing X-Men would be returning in July, written by Charles Soule, with art by…unknown at the moment. If you remember, Astonishing X-Men debuted as a miniseries during the “Age of Apocalypse” story in the mid 90s, but its claim to fame was the ongoing series written by Joss Whedon in the early ’00s. This incarnation of the team stars Old Man Logan, Archangel, Rogue, Gambit, Mystique, Psylocke, Bishop, and Fantomex. This, combined with the previously announced X-Men Gold, just proves that Marvel is trying to initiate a 1991-style refresh of the X-Men franchise, and I am here for it! This Astonishing team is basically a refresh of the 90s Blue Team from “adjectiveless” X-Men, while the team in X-Men Gold is pretty much a refresh of the 90s Gold Team from Uncanny X-Men. I love the Old Man Logan character, though I fear he’s approaching typical Wolverine levels of overexposure. Meanwhile, it’ll be interesting to see how Bishop redeems himself considering he spent the bulk of the last Cable series trying to kill a little girl. And it’ll be an interesting dynamic between mother and daughter Mystique and Rogue, as well as starcrossed lovers Rogue and Gambit. I still hate Fantomex, though, and I wish Marvel would stop trying to make him “happen”. Anyway, I don’t get excited for much, comic-wise, but I’m really looking forward to this book.

In sports news, Jay Cutler was cut from the Chicago Bears after 8 seasons. Now, if you know anything about me, you know I don’t give a shit about sports. Still, there’s a funny anecdote here. You see, when Lindsay and I first started dating, Cutler was the starting quarterback of her beloved Denver Broncos. She bought me my first NFL jersey, which happened to be a Cutler jersey. After all, there was no way he was going anywhere, right? Well, he got cut after that season, and I couldn’t really wear the jersey anymore. He ended up going to the Bears, who had the same color scheme. I thought that meant I could still wear the jersey, but apparently that doesn’t fly with sports fans. Anyway, he’s also married to Kristin Cavallari of Laguna Beach/The Hills fame, so I guess there’s your pop culture connection to justify my mention of him.

Things You Might Have Missed This Week

Director Joe Carnahan has exited the third Bad Boys film, Bad Boys For Life. Maybe I’ll get around to finally watching the first two before this thing gets made.

Jason Isaacs was cast as Captain Lorca in Star Trek: Discovery. I…don’t know who that is, so it’s done nothing to get me excited about this show.

It was a week packed with renewals, as One Day At A Time was renewed by Netflix, Riverdale was renewed by The CW, and Baskets was renewed by FX. I pretty much only have interest in one of those shows. Can you guess which one?

Emma Dumont was cast as Polaris in Fox’s untitled mutant series, which will be interesting since she’s Magneto’s daughter and all…

The embargo for reviews of Netflix’s Iron Fist was lifted, and they weren’t pretty. It seems the problems are with the structure and not necessarily the casting, so it looks like the folks lobbying for an Asian American lead dodged a bullet there.

Who knew Josh Radnor had been working since How I Met Your Mother ended? Well, he’s not anymore, as his PBS series Mercy Street was canceled yesterday.

Now, I know Logan had a great week. It came out to rave reviews, and it opened to $238 million worldwide. Still, I kinda got things off schedule. You see, it got the West Week Ever last week before it had even performed. I don’t really want to start this trend of the same thing getting the WWE two weeks in a row just because I just had to see it opening night, hours before pushing “Publish” on the next post. So, yeah, Logan had a great week, but it was the best thing I experienced last week. Now, I’m gonna talk about the best thing I experienced this week.

Since its debut in 2015, I’ve been a big fan of the FXX series Man Seeking Woman. Starring Jay Baruchel (you know who he is, even if you don’t know his name), it follows Josh Greenberg, a down on his luck Millennial who tries to navigate the waters of modern day dating. Like a less contrived version of How I Met Your Mother, the first two seasons saw Josh go on date after date, trying to find The One, but always coming up short. That all changed this season, however, as he met Lucy. He meets Lucy in the season premiere, marries her in the season finale, and their courtship fills out the middle. Lucy’s not only perfect for him, but she also helped the show take on a new direction. We started seeing things from a female perspective, as the show became as much about her as it was about Josh. We got to see her deal with having to give up her fun party life to settle down. We see her deal with the temptation of another possible suitor. But in the end, she chose Josh. This season, it was as much Man Seeking Woman as it was Woman Seeking Man.

This week saw the season finale of the show and, as I mentioned, it focused on Josh and Lucy’s wedding. The show hasn’t been picked up for a fourth season yet, and I’m hoping it doesn’t. As much as I’ve loved it, it has served its purpose. Over the course of 30 episodes, it set forth a goal and it achieved it. Sure, there are a lot of shows that evolved past their initial concept (looking at you, Cougar Town), and I’m sure the show could keep going as we see Josh and Lucy navigate married life, have a kid, etc. But I think I like it where things ended up. We don’t have to see all of that to know it happens, and I don’t think the show as a whole would be any stronger if we did see all that. Instead of overstaying its welcome, I’d prefer it take the British approach of “less is more”. Three seasons is a good run, and it did what it set out to do. It found Josh a woman. Now, if they did want to continue the show in some capacity, I would love if they flipped it to Woman Seeking Man. You see, every season, there’s one episode that stars Josh’s sister, Liz, as we get to see her life in contrast to Josh’s. While Josh is an unlucky in love office manager who lacks ambition, Liz is a driven workaholic attorney – who also happens to be unlucky in love. The Liz episodes tend to be the strongest of an already strong season, and it’d be great to see more focus on her. Josh and Lucy could still pop up as supporting characters, but the focus would now be on Liz.

With all of this gushing, I haven’t really explained what’s so great about the show. After all, it probably sounds like a run of the mill sitcom, but it’s far, far from that. There’s a streak of absurdity to the show that really lends to its tone. For example, in the pilot, Josh’s girlfriend, Maggie, leaves him to date Adolf Hitler. Last season, Liz had an affair with Santa Claus, while Josh dates a girl whose ex-boyfriend was Jesus Christ. Yeah, it’s not your run of the mill comedy. You’ve got to see it to fully experience it, but I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

The season finale ends with a scene that brings the show full circle to the pilot. If there is another season, I hope they don’t fuck it up. If there isn’t, though, I love what they did, and how they did it. Everything was wrapped up with a nice bow, and it’s a strong series from beginning to end. That’s why Man Seeking Woman had the West Week Ever.

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instantdeerlover · 4 years

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24 LA Restaurants Where You Can Actually Find Parking added to Google Docs

24 LA Restaurants Where You Can Actually Find Parking