Game On: Week of February 24

My recent column reviewing a host of PlayStation Vita games: FIFA Soccer, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Wipeout 2048 and Hot Shots Golf: World International. Thanks to the Ventura County Star for publishing.

Pick 'Em Champ

I would be remiss if I missed the opportunity to briefly gloat about a championship I recently won. Sure, I may have failed miserably in one of my fantasy football leagues, and come in second in another. But, I did find success in another fantasy football league, though of a slightly different variety.

Instead of being wickedly good at a team vs. team fantasy football matchup this season, I did quite well in the Pick 'Em league I was in. In this league, you pick the winner of each game every week against the spread. Adding a layer of difficulty to the action is having to wager confidence points on each game as well (for example, if there are 16 games per week, I feel lousy about Pick A so I'll only wager 1 point on it, while I feel really good about Pick B so I'll wager 16 points on it). It isn't the most complicated system, but makes for some tricky and nervous decisions when ranking your picks.
This was even more frustrating when I discovered three weeks into the season that the league takes the confidence wagering more seriously than it does your ability to pick more games correctly. It sucked being in fourth place just because some bastard went 6-10 but ranked those six wins better than I did while I went 11-5, which I think it way more impressive. If I were in Vegas, they would pay me based on my win/loss record, not whether I felt particularly good about any of them or not.

No matter, I focused in on that aspect as week and by Week 7 I was in the lead and never relinquished it. A few teams made a push and I squandered a big lead by having two awful weeks toward the end of the season, but alas I was not to be denied. I finished 138-119, meaning I picked 54% of the games correctly, which according to many gambling sites means I would have made a pretty penny had money actually been on the line. It wasn't, sadly, but I can proudly claim myself champion of a fantasy league for the fourth year in a row. I rule.

Friday Funnies

For whatever reason, the cable movie lords decided to put Boogie Nights back in their rotation, which meant the wife and I watched it about seven times over the course of the weekend. And no scene quite captures the majesty of the film as when Dirk and Reed snort probably a oil drum's worth of cocaine and sing the song from Transformers: The Movie.

Game On: Week of Feb. 17

My recent column reviewing The Darkness II and UFC Undisputed 3. Thanks to the Detroit News for publishing.

What I've Read (sorta): Dead Zero

This was a leftover from the holiday drive from Kentucky. I was going through the iPod and realized I left about 7 hours left on the audiobook. So after closing out the unfortunate Guinness book, I strapped on the chesticles (hey, it's Kelly's term not mine) and got through the rest of Stephen Hunter's continuation of the Bob Lee Swagger saga.

Gotta say, though, I wish I had stopped where I had originally left off. Look, I'm never going to hate on a Bob Lee Swagger novel. That character has been with me longer than most friends I have. But this was one of the weaker outings in the franchise, and I have a sneaking suspicion and I can see where this thread is heading that Hunter started in the final third of the book. These stories have generally lacked crazy plot twists and instead relied on good page-turning action and witty writing. This was not that book.

Instead it was a bunch of rather ridiculous gotcha moments and bizarro set pieces that make no narrative sense of warp the sense of space and time that is rather akin to the stuff you saw in Enemy of the State where Will Smith somehow ran from Georgetown to Dupont Circle in about 11 seconds. Anyway, the point is that leaps of logic were taken and missed terribly.

Hunter has another new novel out, and it's all focused on the secondary character from this novel, so I'm a little worried about what this means for my hero Bob Lee. I'm sure I'll check it out eventually but I'm not sure how excited I am about getting familiar with this new guy who may be a badass but isn't Bob Lee.

Remains of the (Squirrel) Day

Our happy little neighborhood is quickly becoming wild kingdom. We've dealt with a bunch of squirrels with no problems, even when they sit on the deck and taunt our dog Oliver and scurry away before he can get to them. Raccoons have recently made their way to our area and have setup base camps in our neighbor's tree as well as a tree a few house down the block. And two weeks ago the neighborhood "celebrated" the birth of a new litter of baby foxes from the fox family that has resided in the area for years.

This has created a nightly menagerie of animal sounds that is driving Oliver insane, and subsequently means he spends all night pacing around the house defending our land while keeping us from getting more than 15 minutes of uninterrupted sleep.

Sunday morning brought us a new gift of the season. Oliver went outside and came up on the deck with a dead squirrel in his mouth. Fabulous. Scared the wife at an early hour and she was completely unprepared. Luckily it was clear he hadn't killed it himself (most likely I'm guessing Momma Fox was getting food for the cubs), but that didn't stop him from enjoying whatever morsels were left over. Again, fabulous. We thought we had solved the problem and removed everything up until a few hours later when Oliver threw up some remains (including a squirrel foot) onto the comforter in the guest bedroom. Thanks, pal, and happy Sunday!

I'm not enjoying the wild kingdom phase of our neighborhood. Then again, it's probably better than some of my DC friends who have homeless guys crapping in the alley outside their apartments. So life is at least interesting for everyone.

Game On: Week of Feb. 10

My recent column reviewing Resident Evil: Revelations and SoulCalibur V. Thanks to the Ventura County Star for publishing.

My Movie Challenge

After a strong start, we haven't kept up a torrid pace to knocking movies off the AFI 100 list. But we did manage to take two off.

It's a Wonderful Life (1942): I could not believe it when the wife told me she hadn't seen this movie from start to finish. We've probably watched A Christmas Story 11,000 times over the years during the Christmas season, but she'd never seen this Jimmy Stewart classic. It's always amazing to watch this and remember how hot Donna Reed was. Stunning lady. If there is someone else besides the wife who hasn't seen this movie yet, just know it's a holiday classic that is must-watch status. Even though it has some cheese ball moments (including some of the hammiest "we're drunk" scenes from guys who are not even remotely intoxicated), there is still some great stuff to think about in this movie. Themes of appreciating what you have, knowing what's important versus what isn't, and don't ever wander across a bridge during a snowstorm are all touched upon. I'm not saying you have to watch this movie instead of seeing Ralphie shoot his eye out, but you could do much, much worse.

Yankee Doodle Dandy (1946): This was a rare one on the list that neither of us had seen. Which is only shocking because it has a lot of singing and dancing, something that I think was drilled into my wife from the moment she exited the birth canal. Ok, maybe that was a little strong. But in any case, it was weird to see that she hadn't at least seen it. I thought it was fiction at first, but learned it's actually the true biographical story of George Cohan, a vaudeville actor who ends up being the biggest badass in Broadway history. This movie charts his life beginning with his family and then making a name for himself. There are about 18 musical numbers in this movie, many of which are war songs that the wife's grandfather absolutely loves and has on CDs that he plays in the house when people are around. Good stuff. I'm not sure if they play this movie during 4th of July or Memorial Day weekends, but they should; it's very patriotic stuff. I'm honestly not sure if I'll ever watch this again because it wasn't the greatest movie I've ever seen (probably why it was the last movie to make the cut on the list), but hey, it did make the list so it means it had to be watched.

What I've Read: The Search for God and Guinness

My sister, bless her heart, keeps trying to get me books that she thinks I'll like. Now, to her credit, she got this one half-right. Looking at the title, the Guinness part is right up my alley. In the beer world, no pint gets me close to sheer happiness than Sir Arthur Guinness' finest. It's the God part ... notsomuch.

She's tried getting me books before, and we saw how unfortunate that turned out. And with this one, I'm worried there is a creepy trend. Both her attempts at literary gold struck out because they both ventured into some heavy religious territory that I want no part of.

There are red flags all over the place warning her that this may not be the best choice. For one, it say God above Guinness in the title, which should be a pretty clear indicator of the focus. Second, the author is a well-known evangelist, so that also was a sign. And third, it said God before Guinness in the title.

I'll take a moment away from my sister's selection capabilities and turn to the book itself. It's split between the history of the famous beer brand and the history of the family that created it and their religious bent. The beer parts were cool, I suppose. I learned a bit more than I did on the brewery tour in Dublin. The family history part was nice, in the sense that this was a rich family who spent a considerable fortune on the poor and needy around Ireland and Britain, so their faith helped turn their riches into good works for those in need.

What sucks most is that Mansfield does less research on this book than I did on my high school book reports (and half those books I never even read). Too many of his statements are questionable at best, starting with, "We can assume ..." or "He probably thought …" and he makes making massive presumptions of a person's thought process or actions without a lick of fact to back it up. When that's not happening, he takes a lot of liberties with quoting constantly from all sorts of letters and crap that don't exactly add much depth but sure do pad out the page count. Further, if there are 30 photos in the book, 27 of them are pictures taken within the last three years on the brewery tour, and maybe 3 of historical note. Dan, Luke and I took better pics of Guinness on our iPhones. It just all comes across as rather lazy. All of this is to say that there this would be fine if this were a book of fiction, not a piece of historical nonfiction that it actually is.

Hey, it's fine, not every book you read is going to be a winner. I'm just not sure I can trust something from my sister unless she starts being more clear about her intentions, or at the very least taking the time to read the dust jacket and deciphering what the hell she's getting me. But I love her for trying. I think that'll save this post from her scorn. Yeah, that'll do it.

Friday Funnies

If there is one thing the wife can attest to, it's my unbridled love for animal humor in movies. And nothing says this as strongly as when Ricky Bobby tried to face his fear and get back behind the wheel of a car.



The wife was lucky when we went to see this movie, because there was only a handful of people in the theater. This meant she was only 34% embarrassed when I cried and rolled around on the floor in laughter. It was pretty shameful, but dammit, I love some animal humor.

Game On: Week of February 3

My recent column reviewing Final Fantasy XII-2 and NFL Blitz. Thanks to the Ventura County Star for publishing.

What I've Read: In the Garden of Beasts

Erik Larson has not disappointed me as a writer yet, so digesting every word of his newest book was an easy assignment for me. He's written fantastic books like Thunderstruck and Devil in the White City, so if you haven't read those yet you just haven't experienced compelling writing that is all nonfiction but reads like the best page-turners you can find.

There's a whole cable channel dedicated to Nazi Germany; at least, it seems the History Channel is only concerned with that time in history. Fair enough, I suppose, considering there's a ton to talk about and plenty of footage to show. Oddly enough, Larson's book details a period of time just before World War II began that I had no idea would be this cool. This is about the man (and his family) who was made ambassador to Germany during and the one year he spent in the position and how it affected him, his daughter and what they experienced just before, during and after Hitler consolidated his power in Germany.

It seems like most of the books and movies and whatnot all deal with everything after Hitler began his march across Europe and invading nations. This book is about a college professor who becomes ambassador because no one else wants the job, and then he spends a year getting backstabbed, railroaded and (honestly) dicked around with by Nazi officials at every turn. It's clear early on that the pressure is on Dodd to wrangler debt payments from Germany, something Germany has no intention of doing, and that U.S. officials could care less about the problem Nazis are causing the Jews (and some of this is because at the time the U.S. was not exactly treating Jews perfectly, either).

While Dodd is having his troubles, the book spends the rest of the time following his daughter and her social life. She is, well, quite the hussy it seems. She dates a ton of guys, marries a few and cheats on every one of them at some point. And it's not just with random guys. She parties with journalists, dates a Russian intelligence officer (a precursor to the KGB) and even has lunch with Hitler. Pretty crazy, and that doesn't include the recruitment by the KGB that would eventually take place and other details that I'll let you discover when you read it yourself.

It's another stellar effort from Larson, and it's a shame he is such a stickler for detailed research because the bummer for it is that it takes a long time for another of his books to be released.

Trailer Love

The last time a trailer for a TV show got me jacked up and excited, I was crushed by the massively disappointing "The Killing." And I'm not going back to it, either. But that was a show on AMC, and before that, I cannot remember the last time a major network show got me this excited and scared at the same time. Obviously looks like a promising idea of a show, and the trailer is pitch-perfect. But I have to remember that this is NBC, where shows go to die. So here's hoping that I get to see more than three episodes of this before it gets canceled due to bad ratings, and that it also has a more satisfying first season ending than The Killing. If I were a betting man (and I am), I wouldn't take bets on either of those happening, sadly.

But for just over 4 minutes, I have to admit to being greatly intrigued. I'm not saying smash hit here. Just intriguing. Isaacs is a guy I've liked in a bunch of smaller roles, and BD Wong has always been a favorite since his early days in SVU.

Friday Funnies

I shall certainly celebrate the return of Ferris Bueller this Super Bowl weekend, even if there's about 30 ways I would make that commercial better and more like the movie while continuing to celebrate a car I will never want to own. But it does give me the opportunity to declare my unbridled love for Ferris Bueller's Day Off, still the greatest John Hughes movie in my opinion (next to Weird Science ... everyone else can take their Breakfast Club and shove it).

Game On: Week of January 27

My recent column reviewing The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 — Defiance. Thanks to the Seattle Times for publishing.