Author: Podcast Rob

Yes, it’s true.

I’m weening myself off slowly… (slowly…)  but… it’s hard.

So, I was always a “Hey, let’s look at Steam and see what free games they have!” and, truth be told, a lot of it is the Valorant/Paladins/Apex type of games that.. I’ll be honest..   I fucking suck at.

But Epic Games… (~shakes fist at sky~ DAMN YOU EPIC GAAAAAAAAMES!) they pump out a new free game every Thursday, and, over the pandemic, there were times where it was a new one almost every 24 hours.

I JUST got in to Red Dead Redemption II (Which wasn’t free, but got on super deep sale) and.. I finally decided to sit down and dig through games I got through Epic but haven’t played yet… so, here are some of the ones out of the over 100 I have on EPIC that I haven’t played but am eager to get in to…

ABZU – I tried 5 minutes of it.. and the game is beautiful.  I get the sense it’s going to be super short… but the visuals alone are worth checking out.

Vampyr – I loved Bloodlines from WoD, and am eagerly waiting for Bloodlines 2 to finish.. until then, this game has some great reviews and I’m hoping to relive some of the feel I got from Bloodlines to hold me over till the sequel.

Obduction – It’s from the creators of Myst, which means I’m already sold

Shadow of the Tomb Raider – I never played TR on the original PlayStation systems, but did pick up Tomb Raider (2013) on Steam and really enjoyed it.  If it’s anything like it.. I’m looking forward to finally tucking in to it.

Games I HAVE gotten to play…

Saints Row The Third : Remastered – It’s GTAV with more camp, sarcasm and gratuitous.. well.. everything, and I’m having a blast with it so far.

Control – I’ve heard nothing but amazing things about this game, and even though I’m only about 3 hours in, I am absolutely loving everything about it.

Elite Dangerous – Friends of mine introduced me to this game through VR a few years ago and.. this game is simply stunning.  It looked great on my old RX 580 gpu, it looks AMAZING on a RTX 3060.  If you check it out, be prepared to lose large chunks of your life to it.

Shadowrun Returns – Not gonna lie, I loved/hated “Shadowrun” on the Super Nintendo.  This has the same feel, but so much smoother and…just.. better overall.  I’m a sucker for the world of Shadowrun, and I really need to make time to get back in to this one.

What free games are YOU looking forward to checking out?  What have you played you enjoyed?  Let us know!

ALSO

Livestream For The Cure 6 is May 19th-21st!  9am-Midnight each day!  100% of all donations go to The Cancer Research Institute, and this year we’re shooting for $20,000.  Please come join us and a whole host of other amazing content creators from around the world to help make a world immune to cancer.

Follow at @livestream4cure on Twitter and @Livestreamforthecure on Facebook for more details.  For those looking to donate, the early donations link is currently OPEN and can be found here…   https://fundraise.cancerresearch.org/fundraiser/3744472

– PCR

James and I are, once again, honored and thrilled to be involved in this year’s Livestream For The Cure.  Mark your calendars and join us, it’s always an amazing time for a phenomenal cause!

And now…a message from Nicholas Haskins…

Hello one and all!

The page at the Cancer Research Institute site is now live. Early donations can be made up to and through the event on this page. Please share this with anyone you know who might be able to help spread the word. 

https://fundraise.cancerresearch.org/fundraiser/3744472

100% of proceeds go to the Cancer Research Institute and immunotherapy research, training the body’s immune system to fight against all forms of cancer. The donations are tax deductible. This year for the Livestream for the Cure we’re aiming for our biggest goal ever of $20,000, and we need your help to do it. Together, we can make a difference.

Together, we can ignite the spark of hope in a future immune to cancer. Please, help us fight for that future. The biggest question we always get about the event is, “How can I help?” Not everyone can donate,  but everyone can help to share the event on social media and spread the word so we can have a great shot of hitting our goal.

Please join us for the live event at https://twitch.tv/livestreamforthecure. We’ll be live May 19th – 21st from 9 AM to Midnight each day fighting for a future where cancer is a distant memory. I’ll be joined by creator partners from around the world, who are coming together to help put an end to cancer in our lifetime.Follow the event on Facebook @LivestreamForTheCure.

Follow us on Instagram @LivestreamForTheCure.

Follow the event on Twitter @Livestream4Cure

Thank you so much for fighting alongside me. Let’s work together for a better world. Let’s work for a future without cancer.

Nicholas Haskins
Livestream for the Cure

Yes, it’s a terrible joke….

…but not as terrible as seeing between the veil and dealing with The Old Ones and the Elder Gods and non-euclidian geometry….

I love me some Lovecraft.  Yes, Howard Philip was an amazingly troubled individual whose views on politics, class, and race were questionable, but this blog isn’t here to dissect the man.. more the medium of his works.

I recently watched “Color Out Of Space” and… two things struck me…

1) Nicholas Cage will say “yes” to anything.

2) Lovecraftian movies just… aren’t that great.

The closest thing I’ve seen to a TRUE “Lovecraftian Movie” was “In the Mouth of Madness”.  It conveyed not only the weird waking-dream-slash-blurring-the-line-of-perceived-reality-and-what-really-the-fuck-might-be-going-on but the slowly seeping in horror/madness of many of Lovecraft’s works.

Unfortunately, movies like “From Beyond”, “Dagon”, and “The Void” are the usual offerings which either feel like they’re dancing around the edges of the story, or diving in with such gusto that a 5 page short story is turned into a 2 hour movie adding so much more than the original story did, that it’s just as ‘different’ but from the other side of the coin.

I think the problem with many Lovecraft translations stems from the fact that, through writings and notes… Lovecraft himself stated he wasn’t very good at writing action sequences.. so he largely avoided them… which.. makes for slow-paced movies.  Also, his descriptions were either fringe and minimal to let your imagination fill in the blanks (which oft-times can be far more horrifying) , or such a psychedelic fever-dream of description that it’s not something that translates well to film.

I know Alan Moore often complained that he wished people would stop making movies out of his works as they were intended to best be told correctly on in the medium he presented them in (I think he’s wrong…), but from what we’ve seen in movie adaptations from the works of H.P. Lovecraft…  Moore might be right.  Just.. not about his own works.

– PCR

Hey guys, Rob here….

The title basically says it all.  These are movies that.. in some way… enticed us into watching them, either by clever trailers, word of mouth, or sheer morbid curiosity… only to leave us far stupider than when we went in.

This list is FAR from all inclusive, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on YOUR entries to this list…

Let’s get to it!

Sausage Party
I mean, they let us know who and what this movie was right in the trailer right?  Anthropomorphic food trying to find the meaning of their existence, all the while filling the screen with a level of perverseness that would make the cast of Porky’s blush.  And yet…  even knowing what we were getting ourselves into..  this movie left us feeling mentally regressed.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
Let’s take a beloved horror movie franchise, reboot it, and suck every last ounce of what made it great out of it!  A lot of people thought Jackie Earle Haley would make a great Freddy Krueger (myself included) but this horrible vision made me feel as if I lost 1/3 of my brain cells.

Any Adam Sandler Movie
Ok, I take that back.  Waterboy was fun as hell, and The Longest Yard, while a husk of the original, had enough cameos to make it fun to watch.  Happy Gilmore and The Wedding Singer can be exempt as well…but those were in “The Before Times”  Anything even REMOTELY recent?  Nah fam.  I mean.. good on him for being able to play exactly ONE type of character and building an entire career on it, but Ernest did it first.

Malignant
Ok, I came to this bandwagon late, and had ignored any and all hype about it.  That being said… JESUS this movie is not at all good.  From the forced attempt to make an ‘iconic’ weapon, to the hilariously horrible CGI of Maddy’s face in the fight in the police station, this entire movie is a spot-fest of “What the fuck am I watching… and why am I still watching it?”

What movies made YOU dumber?  Let us know!

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@STSTCast on Twitter
– PCR

Hey all, PCR here.

A great disturbance was felt through The Force recently when Microsoft announced they were buying Activision/Blizzard in an all cash deal.  As a (former) long time World of Warcraft and Hearthstone player, I have a bit of a soft spot for Blizzard…  I met many amazing friends, some of which have become “in person” amazing friends I’ve had for years… and, (as one of those friends said recently) “I don’t regret one minute of the time I played.. but I also don’t regret the day I walked away”.

I have far less history with Microsoft (gaming).  I don’t have GamePass, and as far as consoles go, I had an OG XBox and a Series S (both of which I sold).

That said, this merger COULD be good for gaming, it could also be bad.

Here’s my thoughts…

Pros : With chip shortages still making consoles amazingly hard to find, this is going to get a LOT more games into a LOT more hands quicker.

: The offerings on GamePass are about to get a LOT more interesting and varied.

: Microsoft could do a lot to mitigate thoughts they’re becoming (more) of the “all-controlling, evil empire” by cleaning house at Activision and removing the personnel and other elements that plagued the company over the recent years

Cons : There’s ZERO guarantee Microsoft will clean house from problematic elements of Activision, which could/would be seen as rewarding that kind of behavior/environment as long as bottom line numbers are met.

: Could create a far bigger ‘Exclusively on…’ rift in the gaming industry.

: WIll Microsoft having that kind of control in the gaming industry stifle developers?

There’s a LOT that’s unknown, and I am far from having professional insight in the gaming community, but it will be interesting to see how this affects the overall landscape of gaming/cloud gaming.

What do YOU think?

Hey Somethings!

The holidays have come and gone, James and I are rested up, and it’s time to get back to it!

This week’s blog touches a bit on some of my most enjoyable things from the end of 2021!

For starters, I got a new job.  Pay’s MUCH more than my previous job.  Feels like it’s even less stressful so… bonus all around!

I also did a fair amount of gaming towards the end of the year.  Forza Horizon 5 dropped and, while the launch was buggy, I still immensely enjoy the game and play it daily.  The big ‘sleeper hit’ for me was Inscryption.  Is it a deck building card/video game? Yes.  Is it SOOO much more than that? Yeeesssssssssssssss.  Can I say more without spoiling a lot of things for those who haven’t played?  Nooooooo.  What I CAN say, if you’ve listened to us, and you enjoy our style.. you get a good sense of the type of people we are and the things we enjoy.  If THAT entertains you, check out Inscryption… you won’t be disappointed.

For Christmas I set myself up with HBO Max and started going through a BUNCH of stuff I never got to see in theaters.  While “Matrix Resurrections” is the big one, I won’t discuss that here as we have an episode coming out about it in the very near future.  Besides Matrix, I also powered through “Godzilla vs Kong”, “Mortal Kombat”, “The Suicide Squad” and “Suicide Squad”.  All of them.. solidly “meh” to be honest, with the exception of “The Suicide Squad” (the most recent one).  Cena’s deadpan delivery as Peacemaker and Dastmalchian’s Polka Dot Man definitely elevated it above “meh” into ‘enjoyable’.

For TV?  End of 2021 brought us Hawkeye (which I loved, ranks 2nd tied with “WandaVision” for me in MCU D+ TV) and The Book of Boba Fett.  At the time of writing this, only the first episode has dropped so far but damn was it good and I loved how they connected it in to the greater Star Wars story and history.

We’ve got a bunch of new episodes lined up and we’re back to blogs every Friday.. stick with us!  2022 is going to be great!

– PCR

I know it’s supposed to be Hatton’s week but…

….I GOT THINGS TO SAY!

SO… I just finished watching Season 8 of “The Blacklist” on Netflix, and was shocked at the ending.

SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT YET!
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I HATE that we were led along for 8 years of this show to finally see the payoff of Keen finding out who Reddington is (and who he is to her) and this is what happens.  Sure the ‘plan’ was to kill Reddington (which I never believed was going to happen) but I *didn’t* think we’d end up seeing Keen get killed.  I understand actress Megan Boone was off to do other things… but damn if this doesn’t feel like a punch in the dick.

Having been a fan of LOST, I suppose one should never let their guard down on things like this… but I honestly feel, as much as I love Spader’s portrayal, that the show has probably gone on for too long (and is still going…)

With that in mind… here as some shows that are still trucking along that I feel have overstayed their welcome.

The Walking Dead – I honestly couldn’t care any less about anyone left on this show.  I keep watching because I’m pot committed and want to just finish it out.  I know it only has one season left, but 11 seasons was probably 3 or 4 too many.

The Blacklist – See the above rant.  The last few seasons felt like the show was getting cramps trying to tie itself into knots of double-crossing and betrayal which felt effortless in the first few seasons.  I will say, I will completely miss Amir Arison as Agent Mojtabai…he’s been chewing up every scene he’s been in lately.

Pawn Stars – Ok, look.. it was fun and interesting in the beginning when it was about the ‘stuff’, but now the show is different.  It’s “Kardashians at the pawn shop” kind of vibe now that everyone knows is amazingly fake and staged and should have been left on the shelf years ago.

Great British Bake-Off – Yep, I’ll catch flack for this, but I gave up on this show 3/4 of the way last season.  Too many things are a “thing” now… (the “Hollywood Handshake” being one of my biggest ‘ugh’ things).  Also, my pet peeve on long-running reality shows of this type.  Sure, the first season was “the 12 best amateur bakers in the country”… what’s the tag line now?  “12 of the top 145 best amateur bakers…”.  Sure the specials are kinda quaint, but this show hasn’t been the same since Mary, Sue and Mel left.. and it never will be again.

Hit us up on the Twitter @STSTCast and let us know what shows YOU think have been around too long!

– PCR

Hey Somethings!  PCR here.

This week’s blog, I’m taking a slight detour.

As has been our pattern, we’re taking December off from recording and releasing new episodes due to the holidays.  Now, fear not, we have some things in store… but I wanted to look to the future, and to get our listener’s thoughts on things.

We’re pretty happy with the shows and the formats that we have, we feel it gives us a chance to stretch our legs at times while still giving you all something we’re proud of and we feel is in our wheelhouse.

All that said, are there things you’d like to hear us talk about?  Topics, ideas, show styles…

As much as Hatton and I enjoy listening to the sound of our own voices, we want YOU to enjoy listening to the sound of our voices even more.

Let us know over at somethingsomethingcast@gmail.com, over on Twitter @STSTCast, or join our Facebook at facebook.com/SomethingSomethingCast.

While your at it, heading over to iTunes and leaving us a review would be an amazing thing to do for us!

– PCR

Hey Somethings… PCR here.

I know a while ago I gave you my thoughts on AHS : Double Feature and.. at the time, it was rather rosy and hopeful…

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

I have no idea who pitched Season 10, or who OK’d it, but whoever pitched it needs a raise, and whoever OK’d it needs to be fired.  If you can pitch something that turned out like Season 10 did, and can get people to buy into it.. you need to be doing/selling/pitching bigger things than a season of a TV series that.. at this point.. may have gone on too long.

Don’t get me wrong, Red Tide had a lot that I liked (as noted in my previous blog) but they way it was ended was waaaaayy too rushed.  A majority of AHS seasons have been 10 or more episodes, and I think Red Tide could have been a much better story had they given it a full 10.  I know that cancels the whole ‘Double Feature’ vibe they were going for…but when it was done as shitty as this was, things need to be rethought.

That being said, I was really digging the thought and concept of Death Valley…until I found out it was only 4 episodes.

In my opinion, AHS needs to take a long, hard look at itself in the mirror and figure out what worked and what didn’t over the 10 seasons it’s been on.  My biggest fear is that “American Horror StorieS” have given them the idea that they can tell short, non-connected stories that are just as entertaining as their full seasons…and it’s my belief that that kind of thinking is what got us Double Feature.

I can’t even call Double Feature my least favorite season because, to be honest, it didn’t feel like an actual season.

Whatever you call it, and whatever you thought of it…this is one “Double Feature” I wish I had walked out of.

Before I get into this week’s topic – let me just say that this post includes some spoilers for Halloween Kills.  If you haven’t seen it and you don’t want to have some of it spoiled for you – I suggest you skip this one.

Are they gone?

Ok, good.  We didn’t want them here anyway.

I didn’t want to review Halloween Kills as much as I wanted to talk about what it did right and wrong. You see, the 2018 relaunch/new timeline/thing was, quite literally, the best Halloween movie I have ever seen.  Of course it is hard to compare it to the 70’s original, but that movie defined the tropes of the ‘unkillable monster kills kids’ genre, but with that said, it did what no other Halloween movie had done other than the original… it engaged me.

Now, I love slasher flicks, obviously – but the reason you just don’t see that many is because the genre is stale with a rare exception (See: Terrifier, The Strangers) and there doesn’t feel like much more you can staple on to the old classics of Jason and Michael. But Halloween turns itself around. It isn’t a movie about a monster hunting a woman – it is about a woman who is prepared to kill the monster. It’s Laurie Strode’s movie. She isn’t the final girl – she is the protagonist.

Halloween Kills, as the middle chapter of the preordained trilogy, had hard shoes to fill.  How do you keep the two away from each other so you can get to the actual really real final showdown, but also continue to try and turn the genre on its head?

You show what the PTSD of this monster caused to the town, the collective character of Haddonfield.  With literal pitchforks in hand, this is a story of a hundred people who think they are just like Laurie Strode. They feel guilt about surviving, fear over Myers’ inevitable return, pain at what they’ve lost… and collectively they try and face Michael — and inevitably, they fail.  It really is a brilliant concept, and I bet a few passes around with great writers could have evolved it into a movie just as strong as 2018’s was, but it can’t help but lean into its tropes, bury itself like a hatchet into the skulls of its viewer, and misses every mark along the way.

Somehow, the first film subverts its tropes and has ascended to easily the greatest slasher film of the last decade – and yet, even with a brilliant take on a sequel, the most recent film can’t help but feel like it has taken a step right back into what made people bored with the slasher genre to begin with.

I hope the final act continues the trend of giving us a different story than the one we expect. We’ve seen slashers die before, hell, we’ve seen Michael Myers die a couple of times.. the key is to make us still surprised by the idea.