riding the echo down

Movies: Sinners is now on Max/HBO/whatever we're calling it these days, so we watched that last night. A rewatch for Scott, as he saw it in the theatre; I don't go to the movies much these days (spoiled to pause and such) and also, I wasn't sure how gory it was going to be. There's obviously some due to the nature of the movie, but nothing beyond what I could handle.

I thought it was a very well-done movie. Diverse casting is important, so while obviously Black and white folks lived in Mississippi during that time, so did Native American and Asian folks, so it was good to see that recognized. The music was really good; I had not heard of Miles Caton before, but that VOICE - I hope we see more great things from him. (I know this was his first movie, but I also had not heard of him as a musician, either; more's the pity). Michael B. Jordan playing two roles in this movie was great - I know eye candy is not the point here, but it is a bonus (that man is hot, what can I say?)

The end was a little at sea, I think, but overall, I'm really glad that I watched it and I thought it was a interesting take on the vampire genre.

Television/Streaming: last episode of these series of Taskmaster. Will miss them. As I've said every week, they were a fun group.

Books: I finished The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag, the second Flavia de Luce novel. Flavia in any other book I think would annoy me to no end, but here she is endearing. I can't explain it. It does take a bit to get to the mystery here, but honestly, I feel like in these books the mystery is secondary to the characters' interactions with each other and Bishop's Lacey as a whole. I will pick up the third one.

I tried picking up various versions of the travels of Ibn Batuta, which has been on my list for a while, but one was super old, so wouldn't have any footnotes on what the modern names of the countries or cities are, and the other, also on Hoopla, had footnotes that weren't linked properly (so when you clicked on them, they took you to the title page). Maddening. I have given up. Hah.

I am now reading The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings for book club. We really thought her debut novel, Lakewood, was well done, so we're excited for this one, which is about witches.

Games: haven't been out much so my Pikmin are languishing a bit. Need to plant some flowers today.

Played some more Super Puzzle Platformer Deluxe; am trying to unlock all the levels.

Mostly it's been Virtue's Last Reward, of which I've gotten one of the "official" endings so far. Also have hit some game overs (you lose and are stuck forever) and two that are "to be continued . . . " which I suppose I can go back to after gleaning other information. What I like about this sequel over its predecessor is that you don't have to replay rooms you already played, and you can see the options you already have chosen from the decision tree and can jump back through those at any time if need be. You do occasionally get information that is repeated, especially in the early part of a playthrough - however, you can also fast-forward through the dialogue, which is also helpful.

There was one glitch I found last night, however; normally, you can save right when you get into a room, which is what I was intending to do before dinner and pick up escaping it later. However, the "save" option was greyed out, so I had to play through the entire thing before it would let me save. Very annoying.

Playing it in a world that recently went through a pandemic does hit a little different (the game was released in 2012, and you are playing in the "future" of 2028).

I also started Witchy Life Story on PC, which was part of a cozy bundle of games I got a year or two ago. You play a teen witch who visits the village of Floria to help them with their annual festival (your grandma was going to go, but she sent you instead, I'm guessing to prove yourself). You make potions and interact with villagers. You have a crow familiar that brings you shiny things. It's cute. You can also pick your pronouns and there are some bigger body types to choose from when you create your character.