Monthly Update: July 2014

I know I usually put these out on the first Monday or Friday of the new month, but I decided to make an executive decision to post this today, the last day of June and looking forward to the first and last July of 2014.  

Woooooooo!  I just finished Bioshock 2 and by "finished," I mean that I saw the end cinematic after going through the game.  I just started the Minerva's Den DLC so I have not finished-finished, but you get the picture.  I may or may not write up an article about the game as it is five years old and there are literally dozens of reviews for the game out there in Internetland.  So in the meantime, I will simply say that I thoroughly enjoyed my time back in Rapture and I look forward to seeing what new places will be explored in the DLC.

I think I am also very close to finishing Mirror's Edge as well but there might end up being ten more hours of running my ass off (figuratively speaking since running is achieved by pushing down the W key) followed by confusingly looking around a rooftop wondering where to go next.  While being shot at by the Blues.

In the wake of finishing Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, I decided to plunk Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy back into my 3DS, having been probably a year or so since I last played the game.  I did this partly because, again, I had not played it in a while, but also to decide how I would feel about the sequel that is coming out on September 16, 2014.  All of my same potential fears for the release of the game and the announced 221 songs from the existing series and now including music from Final Fantasy Tactics (no word if the FFT Advance games will be included), Advent Children: Final Fantasy VII et cetera.  I am really just hoping that the game is similar yet different enough from the first game that I will not feel ripped off by already having access to half of the songs in the sequel; obviously I expect some repetition, but variation would be gladly accepted.  In other news, I should probably play/finish one of those other 3/DS games that I have/have not finished/played yet.       /

Steam's Summer 2014 Sale ended yesterday and I am proud to say that I was able to restrain myself.  I did purchase a couple of games but in total, I spent less than $15, which could mean that I now have 15 more games, but in truth the count only went up by four, one of which was the absurdly yet accurately titled Goat Simulator.  I am not entirely sure what I am expecting this game to be, either from what I have already heard about the game and from what the trailer told me, but I anticipate to be entertained.  At least it will still be a better love story than Twilight.  Yes, I just jumped on that train.

In the book front, because last week I talked a bit about books and my reading plans for the rest of the year, I began The Poetic Edda, translated by Lee M. Hollander to cover the "Poetry Collection" tile for BINGO.  Sure, it's not your normal collection of poetry to Tennyson, Plath or Wordsworth, but it is still poetry and it is a book that I have had on the shelf and have been meaning to read for a while.  Additionally, last week I also started reading Shadow Star by Chris Claremont and George Lucas, which is the third part in trilogy of books that takes place after the events in the film Willow.  Without going into a review of the entire series right now, I will post something later in the month (?), but I will say that the world from Willow has been greatly expanded, but at a cost.

Lastly, I finally got around to playing Settlers of Catan last week with Conklederp, Chreekat, Chreekat's Mom and her friend.  I know what you are thinking and believe you me, I thought the exact same thing.  And no, I did not win.  I had too much wheat and not enough wood.  Never enough wood.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
The Day Is Much Too Late

[Insert Appropriate Season] Reading BINGO

I love reading.

I've realized that it's something that I don't talk a lot about here considering how much I think that I read.

First off, I'm not a speed reader.  Since my early years in college, I realized that I read, on average, about one page every two minutes with a mass market paperback sized book.  With some books (A Storm of Swords, The Stand, Mort) I can manage about one and-a-half minute per page.  And often enough, every time I finish a book I have somewhat of a hard time deciding what next to read.  Granted I have no shortage of books that I haven't read, but it's like when you (used to) walk into a movie rental store with a general idea, but once you see the stacks of movies lined up, your mind goes blank and you all of a sudden don't know what kind of film you want to watch.

This summer (and probably longer) I found something that will help with my dilemma (which is a word that I cannot spell without help).  My friend Megan over at TheWhynottBlog, via the Books on the Nightstand podcast started doing a Summer Reading Bingo project that started back on June 1st.

Now I don't plan on approaching this the same way that Megan is, but instead I'll be running my own BINGO game.  I went to the BotN page for my own BINGO card and after hitting the refresh link twice I had a card that I was happy with that included the following 24 (out of a possible 48) categories:

• B
• Reread something
• With a number in the title
• Nonfiction
• That you saw someone else reading
• An audiobook
• I
• Has been on your TBR for longer than two years
• Science Fiction
• Recommended by a family member
• Published in 2014
• Set in another country
• N
• Fantasy
• That you think you will dislike
• FREE SQUARE
• Poetry Collection
• Six words or more in the title
• G
• That you chose because of the cover
• Part of a series
• Longer than 500 pages
• Graphic novel
• With a child on the cover
• O
• By an author who shares your first name
• Found in a used bookstore
• With a red cover
• Thriller/Suspense
• With a one-word title

Megans plan is to act as BINGO Master (if that's actually a name) and she'll pull a category from the master list every week although being able to read a book a week is not a requirement (it was a requirement for the "Film as Narrative" class I took during summer school in college).  The goal is to acquire a BINGO by August 31st, allowing enough time to read at least 4-5 books.

 After the BINGO occurs though, I'll probably just go for blackout at that point as I'm looking forward to deciding which books will fill that particular category.  I'm trying really hard not to pick out which book will fill which category before I pick but it's hard not looking at a category like "Fantasy" and not immediately thinking of something by C.S. Lewis, Terry Pratchett or J.R.R. Tolkien.  Oh, and I should also say that with the exception of the "Reread something" tile, everything that I read with be something that I have not read before, hence one of the whole reasons for doing this.

When I first started as in a week ago, I was reading Jam by Yahtzee Croshaw (post coming soon) and The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. So I just picked The World Without Us to fill the FREE SQUARE space.  The tiles that Megan has chosen (as of 6/27/2014) have been "Poetry Collection," "Audio Book," "Recommend by BotNS" and "Science Fiction."  So it looks like I am going to have to find a collection of poetry, although I do have a collection of H.P. Lovecraft's poetry contained within a larger volume of his collected works.  That will suit just fine.

As is the case with standard BINGO, since my card does not contain the "Recommended by BotNS," once I reach that category, I'll skip it and go to "Audio Book," of which I have a pretty nice selection from a past Humble Audio Book Bundle a while back.  "Science Fiction" will also be an interesting choice since I have some modern SciFi that I haven't read as well as some that were considered SciFi when they were written back in the early 20th century.  It will be interesting to see when I know I will get BINGO and how long it will take me to read all the necessary books to do so.

So go and visit The Whynott Blog for Summer Book BINGO and for other book related bloggings as you're more likely to find a greater variety of books than what I would be able to give you.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

I Feel Our Need To Feed Goes On