Saturday Morning Brain Drain [1/4/23]

1/4/23 Elliecoo 37
Image via The Guardian

Happy April Fools’ Day! Let us all be foolish together!

What I Watched: Beyond Paradise, which I know @MegMegMcGee mentioned in a past Brain Drain. Here’s the deal: if you like Midsomer Murders, Madame Blanc, Death in Paradise, or Murder She Wrote, you will like this show. Here is the  Season One Review:

Seeking a quieter life away from the stress of the city, Humphrey (Marshall) has taken a job as a Detective Inspector in fiancée Martha’s (Bretton) hometown. However, they soon find that country life is anything but peaceful and Humphrey can’t help but be distracted by the town’s surprisingly high crime rate with a new, and very different, case challenging him and the team each week. And trailers:

Season One Trailer One

Behind the Scenes

What I Read: The five-book series The Adventures of a Xeno-Archaeologist by Jenny Schwartz. Good stuff: excellent world-building, aliens, royal feuds, true love, precocious orphans, etc., easy reads for escapism. Here is the blurb from book one:

Nora Devi is a xeno-archaeologist with a complicated past. She has buried more secrets than she’s dug up. Widowed in the recently ended twelve year war between Capitoline and Palantine, she now makes a living as an independent tagger in border space. Captain Liam Kimani could be credited with ending the latest royal war. Instead, he’s blamed for it. Dirty commoners aren’t meant to lay their hands on royalty. He has no regrets. When Liam and his crew of the battlecruiser RC Genghis Khan are exiled to Capitoline’s border they discover that life in unexplored space can be more dangerous than war, and that their best chance of survival lies with a mysterious, elusive tagger. The only problem is that Nora’s secrets might destroy the precarious stability of the entire Human Sector.

What I Listened To: Tramhaus – The Goat; Jean Dawson – Pirate Radio; Ellroy – It’s Not You; and King Tuff – Smalltown Stardust.

Thank you for playing Brain Drain! How are you, dear hearts? Darling DeadSplinterites, what is up with you? Please do share your status!

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About Elliecoo 563 Articles
Four dogs, one partner. The dogs win.

37 Comments

  1. i watched kill boksoon

    killing is easy…parenting is hard….i dunno if thats true as i havent tried killing anyone yet….but i agree with the latter part

    its a fun watch but its korean wierd…jumps about in ways my european brain doesnt really apreciate….i probably need more practice

    its harder to follow than my usual hollywood fare is all im saying

    reading : leviathan falls….. 2 chapters in….in 2 weeks…i really need to stop staying up late

    and listening to : son mieux

    chillout disco from the hague…oh yeah

    pretty much every song ive heard from them has been good tho…this ones just the most disco ive heard

  2. What I watched:  Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.  Like many of the other post-Endgame movies, this one was subpar.  The story was all over the place, the writing was really very bad, and the acting wasn’t really that good either which was the biggest surprise of all.

    What I listened to:  So, I’m switching from the best engineered albums of all time, to the best engineered singles of all time.  This is a much shorter list because I’m only including songs that are exquisitely engineered that happen to be included on otherwise mediocre sounding albums.  So, I won’t be rehashing any material that I’ve covered previously.  First up is Horsehead by The Black Crowes.  This is off their generally crummy By Your Side album, released in 1999.  Horsehead is a much harder sound than the Crowes are typically known for, but they definitely did the right thing with this song, which was to go at it full tilt.  Sonically, this song is a tsunami of sound that gets in your face and stays there for the full 4 minutes.  The things that really stand out on this track are the drums.  The snare is meaty, not ringing or hollow, the kick is a solid thud, the toms are tuned just right and the cymbals aren’t harsh.  Drums are notoriously difficult to record correctly because you’ve got so many different tonal aspects to the instrument and the typical microphone setup involves an overhead stereo pair in addition to the individual mics on each drum and cymbal, so if just one part doesn’t sound right it will stick out like a sore thumb.  Rich Alvey did great work putting this recording together.

    The best way to listen to this song (as with most audiophile-quality songs) is under a great pair of headphones, but also to turn it up as loudly as you can stand it–and then just a tick more than that.

     

    • I remember when Kate Hudson married Chris Robinson in a classic actress/model and rock n’ roller relationship. I like some Black Crows back in the day.

    • I wanted to like that Dr Strange movie more, but they did my girl Wanda way too dirty after all her growth in Wanda/Vision.

      Also, completely not anyone’s fault with the movie itself, but I watched it right when the Supreme Court was like fuck you women, you don’t get rights to your own body. So the plot of these adults chasing down a young woman and trying to take away her powers from her, only to have some dude at the end by like hey girl, you should have bodily autonomy, really didn’t hit well with me.

  3. I watched Perry Mason without knowing what it was supposed to be.  I thought the whole series would be about him as a PI and wondered why they needed to give him such a dark backstory.  The character reminded me a lot of Philip Marlowe.  It would have worked well without being someone’s origin story.  Once he became a lawyer it was okay.  Will try the 2nd season eventually.

  4. @Elliecoo Another great set of tunes 🙂

    I watched Lackadaisy as recommended by @farscythe on yesterday’s Happy Hour. I enjoyed, the artwork is beautiful.

     

    I read The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse by Charlie Macksey. I bought it as a gift for someone who’s struggling a little. There’s nothing in it that’s groundbreaking but it’s presented so simply and in such a gentle, quiet manner. It’s a lovely book. Those of you with Apple TV may have seen the short film.

    I haven’t listened to anything new. I’ve spent most of my time this week on my Switch and plan on doing that today as well. 🎮

     

     

     

  6. I watched This is the End.  It was meh, had some funny moments and all the stars pretty much play themselves partying.   Spoiler coming…if you ever want to see your favorite or least favorite star get killed, this is the movie for you!

    and I have been listening to Pigeons Playing Ping Pong which I think @butcherbakertoiletrymaker may enjoy if he doesn’t already listen to them.  I am pretty sure that some of the members are part of Here Come the Mummies.  Some very serious funk!

  7. Saw the Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves  movie last night! It was very fun. Chris Pine has great presence for comedy when writers give him space for it. Just don’t think too hard about some plot elements, like *hey our protagonists are just gonna go on a quest walking to wherever!* — remind yourself of how the games go and how you just roll with it.

    Chris Pine is the best Chris of the white Chris quartet, this is just facts.

    • I can’t wait to watch it! It’s playing on IMAX in Seattle. My husband and I were just talking about the logistics of watching it…came to the conclusion that either he watches it on his own while I corral the kids while managing the baby’s feed/nap schedule at the Science Center or we wait until we can rent it. We’ve opted to wait.

      I agree, Chris Pine is the best Chris! He was allowed to be somewhat funny in Star Trek.

  8. I also watched the Waco special on Netflix, and it’s just really interesting to me how much the conversation about Waco completely ignores what a psychopath David Koresh was and how much he abused his own followers. Hey it’s a younger white man with his guns and Jesus and he’s just a good fella don’t you know except for the evil US govt oversight coming after him and his mostly white followers. Completely agree that the ATF and the FBI fucked up, not excusing what they did, but it’s just interesting how the narrative conveniently skips over his villainous stuff. That Waco drama series a few years ago did that too, I was like huh we’re just not gonna have him rape children? “Marry” a 14 yr old? Etc, etc.

  9. I watched The Night Agent (RIP mentioned it last week). It was a not as exciting The Recruit but still bingeable. There were a lot of “that’s not how the government/FBI works” moments that drove the plot. So suspend your disbelief while watching.

    I finished the second book in the Leviathan/Expanse series. The authors are very good at ending each chapter with a cliffhanger. Cycling through different characters’ POV keeps me hooked and eagerly burning through the chapters. I’m hoping for an Amos POV chapter but it might be better not to know what’s going on inside his head.

    I tried watching Shadow and Bone S2. I just can’t with all the glaring/resting bitch faces/this is me being serious acting. Other than the charming gun slinger, the casting is horrible and so is the writing. The costumes and setting are +A.

    • Uh oh…no second try at Shadow and Bone for me, then. I didn’t make it through one episode. I am in the middle of the Night Agent as per the SplinterRIP suggestion. I agree with your synopsis. I find (so far) the bad couple to be almost cartoon!like, or searching for their Austin Powers sequal.

      • They are so random! I kept wondering why they got so much non plot related airtime. It felt forced. Were they just time filler? Same goes for the secret service guy fresh out of rehab.

        Oh and lol to the casting of older white men who all look the same. I couldn’t tell who was the VP, head of CIA, or  head of SS.

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