New Music: Lost without End

 

A blues song that encapsulates the saying "down and out." You've been down and out if you've tried to rip a bush out of a McDonald's parking lot, or woken up in a ditch with a trash panda as your sole companion. One of those two statements is a true story... I wrote this in about twenty minutes, just in the spur of the moment. Sometimes songs just fall out of the ether.

Video Game Review: Sunset Overdrive

 

Sunset Overdrive is an irreverent open-world action game developed by Insomniac before they were purchased by Sony. It was originally released in 2014 for the X Box One, but a PC port came out in 2018, which is the version I've been playing through Game Pass. You play as some poor smuck who ends up in the middle of a mutant apocalypse after a bunch of amped-up concert goers consume an energy beverage called Overcharge. The game has a Warped Tour vibe, with a punk soundtrack and juvenile humor, and a story that's really just background for mutant-bashing. What Sunset Overdrive really excels at is movement. Your character can grind on narrow surfaces, bounce on cars and overhangs, wall-run on the side of buildings, and dash in mid-air. Doing all this generates Style, which is necessary to unlock Overdrives, which are combat and movement upgrades used to upgrade and customize your character. Once you get the hang of movement, just moving your character through the environment is an absolute thrill. Insomniac are great at this; Spider-man is fun just swinging around New York, and you can see a lot of that sort of consideration in Sunset Overdrive. The arsenal is also a hoot. You'll get a rocket launcher that shoots explosive teddy bears; a shotgun that can light mutants on fire; a roman candle missile launcher, and a stun gun that shoots disks that electrocute enemies. Fighting mutants and scabs (your garden variety apocalyptic raider) while bouncing on cop cars like a punked-out Mario is great fun.

The quest design is somewhat repetitive, which is one of my criticisms of the game. You'll encounter various factions, all of which are pretty loony (a group of LARPers who are divorced from reality; a power-hungry boy scout leader), and you'll have to do some busy work for them, which will involve fetching an item while killing mutants. Still, Sunset Overdrive has a good sense of humor, and one of its running gags is that if your character dies, he comes back in some ridiculous way, like in a rocket or out of a portal. Mario-like noises beep when you pick up a health item, and the bouncing sound when jumping off of a car hood is a comical boing.

Performance leaves a little to be desired. Despite being an older game, there's some stuttering as you move around the world, likely due to assets being loaded on the fly. Given that I'm running Sunset Overdrive on a Ryzen 7 5800x, an eight-core CPU leagues beyond the humble X Box One, I'm assuming that the porting process was not perfect. Graphically, it's stylized enough to not look too dated, and you can see the roots of Spider-man in this engine.

Sunset Overdrive reminds me of games like Just Cause. The whole point of gameplay is to have fun moving around the world while causing destruction, and anyone who's a fan of Insomniac's work should definitely check it out. Here are a few screenshots below:

  

Weightlifting: 150 lbs Press for 9

 

Another press PR in two weeks. I haven't regularly military pressed for almost a year, yet I'm hitting PRs in a lift that I've always struggled with. My theory is that you're better off bench pressing than utilizing the strict press as your main press, because the weights are a lot heavier, allowing you to strengthen your triceps, which then carries over to other pressing movements. The front delts just don't seem to be much of a factor; either bench pressing is enough for them, or they aren't the limiting factor in the military press. Other than light front raises, I haven't done much for my front delts besides bench pressing.

	1RM	2RM	3RM	4RM	5RM	6RM	7RM	8RM	9RM	10RM	12RM
Low Bar Squat	415	380	365	350	360		340	320		315	275
High Bar Squat	390	365	350	345	340		315	320		300
High Bar Squat (Paused)	365		315	300	275
High Bar Squat (No Belt)	365	335	325	325	330			285	295	250
Front Squat	315	300	300	275	270	265	245	225	215	225
Bench Press	315	290	280	275	270	260	255	250	245	235	225
Bench Press (Paused)	300	280	270	260	250	240	245	235	230	225
Overhead Press	195	185	175	170	170	160	155	150	150	145	135
Deadlift	510	470	455	425	425	415	410	390	405	360
Deadlift (No Belt)	460		450			400	405		365	340
Sumo Deadlift	455	435	435	420	410					315
LB SQ no belt	380	350	345	330	335	315	315	300	295	275	275
Push Press	230	205	205	195	185
Barbell Rows	315	305	295		275						225
Close Grip	295	280	270	265	255	250	245	240	235	240	225
Clean and Push Press	205	175	185		160

The Esteemed Critic Reviews Chinatown; The Blues Brothers

 

Chinatown, the 1974 film directed by Roman Polanski, is a neo-noir featuring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway in their prime. Often considered one of the greatest movies of all time, the Critic found it rather captivating, if a bit of a bummer. Polanski is a filmmaker I have shied away from, due to his past as a sex offender, and although there is plenty to like in his direction (this movie looks real despite being noir; the shadows and rain don't swallow everything) it is Nicholson who steals the show. I know Jack mainly from fare like Batman and The Departed where he more or less played Jack Nicholson the movie star rather than a character in a film. This is not so in Chinatown; Nicholson's Jake Gittes is a man who has been burned, and who will stop at nothing to figure out what exactly is going on with Dunaway's Evelyn Mulwray, whose husband has been found drowned. The plot concerns water rights, and while that sounds boring, the pacing and beauty of the film ensures Chinatown stays captivating. There's some graphic violence, and Nicholson spends half the movie with a huge bandage on his nose, which is perhaps an intentional commentary on Hollywood's obsession with looks. A movie worth seeing.

For a fellow of a certain age, The Blues Brothers is the ultimate good-time flick. Showcasing a who's-who of blues and rhythm greats, including James Brown, Aretha Franklin, John Lee Hooker, and Cab Calloway, Blues Brothers follows petty criminals and musicians Jake and Elwood Blues as they attempt to get their band back together for one last gig to save the orphanage that raised them. Jake and Elwood are more myths than characters, with Belushi's role played straight-faced with barely an eyebrow raised, but they move from one set-piece to the next with an almost surrealist glee. From a car chase through a shopping mall to a bad gig at a country bar, this is a movie with no fat, all killer, no filler. One has to wonder at the number of cop cars totaled--this ain't CGI, folks, they really did all this shit--and contemplate whether we've lost something in this era of greenscreens. Could you make a movie like this today? Hell no! And that's why The Blues Brothers is worthy of being considered amongst the greatest films of all time.

Donald Trump the Person Is Not Donald Trump the God-King

 

How they see him.

The reality.

While dropping my kid off at school, I noticed two bumper stickers on the car in front of me. One sticker had Trump's visage with the phrase "Miss me yet?" while the other proclaimed "Believe that there is still good in the world." I almost pulled out my phone to take a picture, but alas, I did not. I have never seen a better example of double-think. It is almost unimaginable to visualize the amount of cognitive dissonance someone would have to possess to believe in both Donald Trump and hope. You can only believe in both if you have conjured up a version of Donald Trump so divorced from reality that he doesn't resemble in the slightest the real-world person. Let's examine some of Trump's bonafides:

-.He has declared bankruptcy six times.

- Trump has been accused of sexual assault numerous times and been convicted of sexually abusing E. Jean Caroll in civil court.

- He has a long history of racist comments and actions.

- He's currently spending a lot of time in court, having been indicted four times for business fraud in New York, election interference in Georgia, for stealing classified documents, and for attempting to steal the 2020 Presidential election.

-  Trump has a long history of saying and doing stupid things, including looking directly into a solar eclipse and proclaiming himself a stable genius.

- He was best buddies with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

- Oh yeah, he also politicized the Covid-19 pandemic, downplaying its effects and criticizing mitigating precautions, leading to the deaths of over a million people.

Flesh and blood Donald Trump is a narcissist, a failed business man, a corrupt President with blood on his hands. He is a stupid, stupid person with almost no redeeming qualities, yet he just won the Iowa caucus with 52 percent of the vote. What are Republican voters thinking? Do they actually like the fascism that Trump is selling?

Do they even care?

MAGA Republicans (all Republicans, in other words) live in a media bubble of Fox News, Facebook posts, and real-world groupthink. None of the media they consume reports on Trump's many crimes and failings. If they hear about something, they dismiss it as partisan or untrue. They refuse to contemplate Trump the person because facts have no place in the argument for them. They have faith in Donald Trump the Messiah, Trump the God-King. He is a religious figure to them. This is Trump with Rambo's body, Trump the wall-builder, Trump the virtuous, bowing his head in piety as he sits in church with his family.

 Jesus loves corrupt businessmen and pussy-grabbers, it says so in the Bible.

We're talking about a man whose own charity was a scam, a man who reportedly called dead veterans "losers" and "suckers." This is a guy who often mused what it would be like to have sex with his own daughter, who bragged on record to Billy Bush that he liked to "grab them (women) by the pussy." When Trump said that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York and not lose any voters, he's admitting that he understands the duality of his nature. His voters see him like they see Jesus. Donald Trump the God-King is God's vessel that will bring back America's Golden Age, when there were no transgenders or gays, when women stayed home and made perfect white babies while the men fucked around at the office, getting loaded and going to strip clubs after work. None of this shit makes any sense; the irony that the man least suited to be the avatar of Jesus Christ on Earth is embraced by 99 percent of evangelicals is incomprehensible only if you think that evangelicals believe any of the shit they spew. Likewise, the MAGA faithful choose to hold two opposing truths in their minds. Belief doesn't necessarily have to have logical consistency. Faith is not about evidence or truth. Faith is about believing in something or someone no matter what your eyes or other senses tell you. Faith is hope.

Suddenly the two bumper stickers make more sense. The problem is that Donald Trump the person is not Donald Trump the God-King, and no amount of emotional reasoning or faith will make Trump into the messiah they want him to be. Donald Trump the person has vowed to be a dictator on day one and to seek revenge on those who wronged him. Look no further than the human and economic ravage Trump wrought through his mishandling of the pandemic for ample evidence of his incapacity to govern, or his many attacks on our democratic institutions for what he will do if given a second chance. Remember: Jesus may love you, but Trump doesn't care if you die in the snow, as long as you vote for him.

 

Behold, the God-Emperor of Arrakis.

Weightlifting: Press 135 for 12

 

The overhead press used to be my favorite lift. However, years of stalling, as well as shoulder pain, led to my abandonment of it in favor of the bench press. Now I'm rotating it back in, pressing every Monday, utilizing my PR approach. Hopefully my shoulder will hold up.

	1RM	2RM	3RM	4RM	5RM	6RM	7RM	8RM	9RM	10RM	12RM
Low Bar Squat	415	380	365	350	360		340	320		315
High Bar Squat	390	365	350	345	340		315	320		300
High Bar Squat (Paused)	365		315	300	275
High Bar Squat (No Belt)	365	335	325	325	330			285	295	250
Front Squat	315	300	300	275	270	255	245	225	215	225
Bench Press	315	290	280	275	270	260	255	250	245	235	225
Bench Press (Paused)	300	280	270	260	250	240	245	235	230	225
Overhead Press	195	185	175	170	170	160	155	150	140	145	135
Deadlift	510	470	455	425	425	415	410	390	405	360
Deadlift (No Belt)	460		450			400	405		365	340
Sumo Deadlift	455	435	435	420	410					315
LB SQ no belt	380	350	345	330	335	315	315	300	295	275	275
Push Press	230	205	205	195	185
Barbell Rows	315	305	295		275
Close Grip	295	280	270	265	255	250	245	240	235	240	225
Clean and Push Press	205	175	185		160