Somehow January is over half over and we’re definitely into 2022 now. Still, 17 days in and I don’t have a ton of desire to do a whole lot of anything new and constructive.
Gaming wise, I’m still poking at some old games that I’ve previously put some time into, still earning those leftover achievements. After playing through Star Wars Episode I Racer, I’ve continued with the racing games, specifically two very different ones.
The first is Art of Rally, a stylish, top-down racing game that takes you on a journey through the history of rally racing. I know very little of rally racing, other than it looks cool. Art of Rally is also cool but more so because of its stylish visuals and outstanding synth soundtrack. The main game is seasons of time trials, where you are trying to get the quickest route completion. I guess this is accurate to rally racing, although now in later “seasons” it’s been a bit tiring as there are lots of stages (routes) and I’m just racing against the clock, so its not as exhilarating as racing against other drivers. There is a bit more to the game too, with a series of levels to explore and test drive your cars in and get collectibles. All in all, I think its cool but 10 hours in, its starting to wear thin (I’m going to stick it out though as I’m over 75% done).
The other racer I’ve been putting time into is a kart racer from two gens ago, Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed. When it originally came out (almost a decade ago), I thought it was the top of the kart racing pile but when Mario Kart 8 came out two years later, I thought it had been surpassed. The more I replay Transformed, the more I think that assessment was wrong and Transformed is the king of karts. The courses are better, the progression is better, and the game is just more deep (with a full on campaign as well as GPs). It is kind of awesome.
On the viewing front, I started a pair of series this past week. Gordon Ramsay’s new cooking competition show, Next Level Chef, and a Philadelphia based comedy, Abbott Elementary. Next Level Chef is a fun watch, and it seems someone really liked the functional concept of the Spanish sci-fi film The Platform. Three teams of chef’s work in three separate kitchens layered on top of each other. The top kitchen has the best of everything and the first choice of ingredients with the bottom kitchen having barely working equipment and the leftovers of the ingredients. Ramsay has actually been pretty restrained, which is nice because he’s an amazing chef and an even better mentor so its nice to see him not calling people idiot sandwiches (as funny as that is). Abbott Elementary is a faux-documentary style comedy show (think The Office or Parks & Rec) that focuses on the teachers of an elementary school in Philadelphia. My mother worked for the School District of Philadelphia for 30+ years as a teacher and principal and my wife currently works for them as a teaching mentor and curriculum specialist. I’ve found the show to be quite funny and pretty true to life (albeit very sensationalized) of how schools here operate.
I also watched a trio of films, including two documentaries. Closed For Storm is about the abandoned amusement park in New Orleans that closed for Hurricane Katrina and never reopened becoming a blight on the cityscape for 15 years since. The history of the park and the footage of the abandoned park is great but I didn’t really care about the political shit show surrounding doing something with the land and that is about half the doc. Jasper Mall is another doc, this one about a dying mall in Alabama. It would be easy to just chalk it up to a small town mall failing but this is happening to malls all across the country and its just a depressing look at America. The final film I took a look at was Dirty Harry, the 1971 Clint Eastwood action/noir film. I’ve seen it previously but so long ago that I had forgotten most of it, besides the famous line. I didn’t love it but it holds up pretty well.
In books, I’m plugging away slowly at the third mainline Star Wars High Republic novel. It’s been excellent, I just haven’t felt like actually sitting down for more than a few minutes at a time to read.
This coming week, I have quite a bit to work on including some research for a new podcast I’ll be producing. But, that’s it for me. Entering the new week, how was your past week?
Musings of a Grouch 
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