VIDEO GAME: Nintendo Badge Arcade (2015)

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Nintendo Badge Arcade Year: 2015 Rating: E Time Played: 6,490 minutes / 108.17 hours Don't let the enormous amount of playtime fool you. Free games on the Nintendo 3DS (like Pokémon Shuffle, Pokémon Rumble World, and Pokémon Picross) rewarded playing regularly, and this one certainly tried its hardest to get me to pay for more playtime. I get why people lose a ton of money on actual claw machines, since this game is basically a digital version of these devices. The desire to collect all the "badges" from each machine kept me playing for a long time—well after the game itself had stopped being updated. The enticement of free plays each day made me value the occasional bonus tries that I'd get for playing the practice machine in the lobby. The problem was, even with extra plays, there were some machines that had badges arranged in such a way that it couldn't be cleared without purchasing more tries. When the extra free tries dried up...
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MOVIE: The Shining (1980)

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The Shining Year: 1980 Rating: R Length: 146 minutes / 2.43 hours Stanley Kubrick is one of those directors who can make a great movie in any genre. From science fiction like 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) to political satire in Dr. Strangelove (1964) to historic epics in Spartacus (1960), it's no wonder that he could excel in horror with The Shining (1980). The descent into madness in an isolated mountain hotel was done with such expert craft that this film stands as a pinnacle of the genre even today. It might not be an exact representation of the Stephen King novel, but it works well for the big screen. Kubrick succeeds in the emotions of unease here through clever application of cinematography and sound design. The audience gets the full experience. We're along for the ride down at Danny's (Danny Lloyd) level. We feel small and insignificant in the vast open spaces of the hotel and its nearby hedge maze. The building insanity in...
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BOOK: Rogue Protocol (2018)

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Rogue Protocol Year: 2018 Author: Martha Wells Length: 226 minutes / 3.77 hours By this point in the Murderbot Diaries series, I'm used to the short length of these stories. I appreciate that there's still an overarching plot that the books are driving toward, but the bite-size adventures of the sentient AI robot are also entertaining by themselves. Now that the series is in a good groove by book three, I was glad to see the introduction of a foil to compare and contrast the main character's interactions with the humans. The rogue SecUnit continues to find himself deeper into the shady dealings of humans, but with each interaction, he's finding it harder to hide who he is and what he's doing. That these "missions" he gives himself are a significant amount of effort for someone who would much rather be lazy and just watch vids all day seems contradictory until you realize that it's great character development—even if it's subtle. Raising the stakes with...
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MOVIE: Tangled (2010)

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TangledYear: 2010Rating: PGLength: 100 minutes / 1.67 hours Tangled (2010) is one of those movies that hit me at a vulnerable time in my life. Shortly after I bought it on Blu-Ray, I ended up watching it at least once for ten days straight. I had the soundtrack memorized and I still cry at the pivotal scenes. I danced to the lantern song at my wedding as the first dance with my wife. Clearly, I'm going to give this movie full marks here, but even over a decade later, I think it holds up. After college, I moved out of my home state and was finally living on my own. Even with a good job and a handful of new friends, I related to Rapunzel's (Mandy Moore) first song of the movie: When Does My Life Begin? There were societal expectations that I didn't feel like I met, so seeing Flynn Rider (Zachary Levi) grow to accept non-toxic masculine traits—thanks in part...
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VIDEO GAME: Super Mario 3D Land (2011)

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Super Mario 3D Land Year: 2011 Rating: E Time Played: 676 minutes / 11.27 hours There are few certainties in this life, but one of them is that Nintendo usually releases a Mario game to show off their new hardware. It might not be right at the launch, but it's usually within the first few years—like Super Mario Odyssey. The Mario game that rolled out alongside the Nintendo 3DS was none other than Super Mario 3D Land. While it showed off the capabilities of the 3D screen that doesn't need special glasses, its levels rehashed a lot of what had already been done in Mario games before. Sure, the 3D effect in this game is quite striking. For handheld hardware, the game looks gorgeous. The thing is, it added nothing to the gameplay other than a third dimension to the visuals. And it's not like its predecessor, the Nintendo DS, couldn't also handle some level of 3D Mario platformer since it had Super Mario 64...
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MOVIE: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Mutant Mayhem (2023)

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem Year: 2023 Rating: PG Length: 99 minutes / 1.65 hours I don't have a lot of nostalgia for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Sure, I played the arcade game quite a few times and saw some episodes of the original TV show—it just wasn't one of those franchises that stuck with me through the years. With this in mind, what made me watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023)? Honestly, I'm intrigued by the new wave of stylized animated films, and this movie fits the bill. I'm glad I gave it a chance. Of the four words that make up this franchise, the one I felt was never accurately represented was the first one: Teenage. Most of the iterations of these four mutated reptiles I've seen focus on the "Ninja" part of their background. Here, these characters truly feel like teenagers, and the choice to make them closer to 13 than 19 was a refreshing take on the franchise....
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BOOK: I Am Not Okay With This (2018)

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I Am Not Okay With This Year: 2018 Author: Charles Forsman Length: 160 pages I'm open to a lot of visual styles for graphic novels. It can be what elevates a mediocre story to something profound, but it can also tonally clash with the message and leave a muddled mess. Storytelling in this format is a challenge to pull off and few have been able to do so successfully. I Am Not Okay With This unfortunately falls into the other camp here. Even if this were just a novel without the "graphic" part, there's not much to recommend it. Filled with cliches about what it's like to be a teenage girl, I Am Not Okay With This suffers from the "men writing women" trope. None of the interactions felt believable or realistic. Instead, they seemed forced through what a man thought these interactions should be based on minimal or merely pop culture research. None of it had the feel of anyone who has lived as...
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MOVIE: Ocean’s Eleven (2001)

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Ocean's ElevenYear: 2001Rating: PG-13Length: 116 minutes / 1.93 hours While I usually agree with people who say that remakes are worse than the originals, Ocean's Eleven (2001) is an exception. Not only did it bring the same amount of star power that made the original stand out, but it had a heist that was much more entertaining and compelling than its predecessor. Having re-watched it recently, I found it still stands up over 20 years later, even if it's starting to show its early-2000 edges. I still think it's a classic that works because of its complexity and scale. It's impressive how there are so many big names in this movie, yet they all have their room to shine. There's a reason many of them are still making great movies today, and their talent is on full display here. And perhaps the collective charisma of this all-star cast makes the heist they pull off so thrilling. Sure, I already knew how they...
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VIDEO GAME: VirtuaCreature (2021)

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VirtuaCreature Year: 2021 Rating: E Time Played: 41.3 hours Back in the ‘90s, the digital pet craze led by the Tamagotchi toys taught kids how to take care of a pixelated animal. These pets needed basic things like food, entertainment, and attention or their mood would deteriorate. They could even “die,” which was a threat that kept kids playing with them regularly throughout the day. While this fad has since faded away, there are still remnants of these digital pets around today. One such example is the game VirtuaCreature—a hybrid between Tamagotchi and Pokémon. The simple graphics of VirtuaCreature brought the vibe of Tamagotchi to my computer and Steam Deck. There is also the option to battle these creatures in a rock-paper-scissors style battle that pulls at least a limited influence from Pokémon. These creatures evolve given enough experience through training and battling, but they also have a mood that can sour if you let them get too hungry/full or lose too many battles. It...
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