TWIM 4/22/14

Brick Mansions

RIP Paul Walker. In one of his final starring roles Walker plays an undercover Detroit cop looking to take down a crime lord in what looks to be Paul Walker’s specialty, a fun bad movie.

Tunes

Kelis

I am not going to promote this bitch’s new album by any means, but seeing her name on the list of new albums reminded me of something. I am a pasty Irish asshole that tends to burn in the hot summer sun resulting in a Kool-Aid man type look. This year thanks to a chick I have recently been talking to, decided to go tanning. It is something I have done before and while I will continue to defend it without sounding like a loser, isn’t it worth $60 a year to not have a bunch of assholes slap you on the back while you have a sunburn? Anyway, the other day I was laying in the tanning bed, something that should be relaxing and mentally soothing to some extent, Kelis’ “My Milkshake Brings All the Boys to the Yard” song came on and I feel like I turned a shade of red that the sun and Kool-Aid guy don’t have shit on. The tanning salon should play nothing but classical music so you can lay there and just relax a bit. It should be therapeutic to some extent. Instead there are teenage chicks selecting the music and while you lay there in what should be a relaxing few minutes you are thrust into a club like environment while being encased in a hot box. It makes absolutely no sense to me. But I guess that’s what I get for going tanning.

Since I’ve Last Written

Anchorman 2

I first fired this up late one night and fell asleep after about 20 minutes. The next day I told AP3 not to get his hopes up because it might be worse than what we have all heard. But out of respect for the first one I gave it another shot. Yes there are a lot of annoying/dumb parts and forced jokes, but I honestly enjoyed this flick. Once again there are some great one liners worth repeating. Maybe it helps that I watched the extended version off the Blu Ray disc but I really do recommend it if you are a fan of the first one. Don’t expect the same or better but expect a little lower quality version of the first, which is still worth watching. Also they do that move that a lot of sequels do where they try and recreate some scenes from the successful first film and this does fall into that trap a few times. They do try the big fight scene in this one and the cast that is included is absolutely astounding. There are seven big time names that show up out of nowhere that are all funny. Again don’t expect anything great, but after the reviews it has gotten I know I was pleasantly surprised and if you were a fan of the first I think you will be too.

NASCAR 14

I have been addicted to this game. If you have played any of the other years it is more of the same but as a NASCAR fan I love it. It might help if I had one of those steering wheels but I do enjoy the challenge. It is very difficult to drive smoothly because of the joystick on the controller. You can’t really hold a steady turn but instead have to sort of jerk the car around the corners, which is what makes it so difficult to race in traffic. That does sort of eliminate any chances of winning any restrictor plate races, but I have surprised myself a few times in races I didn’t think I would have any chance of doing well in. For instance in years past, road courses felt impossible to me. I typically try and race relatively clean and not just diving into corners and using other cars to help me turn, but on road courses I just chalked up as impossible so I would do whatever I could to give myself a chance. But in this years’ game, I went into Sonoma qualifying dead last and nearly falling a lap down. However, I started to get the hang of the track. I run the tracks at 60% of the race length and I make the fuel burn at 2x the normal rate, while keeping tire wear normal. That forces you to make pit stops but helps eliminate you from blowing tires when you don’t totally know what you are doing. I wound up getting a handle on the track and raced back to the front in a clean fashion to win the race. I feel like a nerd/loser saying it, but it legitimately feels good to win a race under those circumstances and I can’t recommend this game enough to all other NASCAR fans that play video games.