The 12 Posts of Christmas

Hi readers! This being my 12th post on this blog and now being the midpoint of December I've decided to spontaneously change it up a bit. 

Instead of one full post, you'll get twelve of the posts (the unposts? the non-posts?) that I never got around to. 

Bits and pieces of ideas that I didn't really flesh out. No Christmas dinner. Just a bunch of snacks.

 Bon appétit.

in no particular order:

1. Neil Breen

An absolutely fascinating one-off film maker. Sits at the highest throne of 'so-bad-it's good' cinema, surrounded by empty tuna cans and broken laptops. 

Seemingly utterly lacking self-awareness, he's managed to make five hilariously incompetent, narcissistic, deranged and incoherent films and I just want more!

2. Repeal of the Paramount Decrees

In 1948 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Paramount pictures in a landmark antitrust case.

As a result of this ruling it became illegal for film studios to own movie theatres, and to this day there has been a separation of the studios and theatres.
In 2022 the repeal of these decrees will come into effect, potentially paving the way for companies like Disney or Netflix to consolidate theatres under their own umbrellas.

3. I made my first video game!

I made a simple fighting game for a game-making course in school and it was a surprisingly fun and rewarding process. There was some tedious and tricky work involved, but I certainly gained more interest in the possibility of making more games in the future. 

Here's a link 

to a working version of the game on itch.io.

4. Parks and Recreation

Parks and Rec is one of the only tv-shows I've watched in the past year. The ensemble cast is great and the balance of humour with more dramatic story beats keeps me engaged.

 
The dialogue is consistently funny and the quirks of the different characters haven't gotten stale after 5 seasons. Honestly, all they need to do is have Aubrey Plaza look at the camera weird and instant funny is achieved.

5. Well There's Your Problem

This is a podcast about engineering disasters with episodes regularly running over 1.5 hrs in length. I've gotten into the habit of listening to it while working or playing games. The topics and stories they cover are often meticulously researched with tons of minutiae and background provided. For some reason my brain says I need this.

There is a deeply cynical and irreverent bent to the three hosts and their banter somehow softens the impact of recounting often quite harrowing and disturbing events.

6. Platform engagement metrics

A follow is not automatically an endorsement. Likes can be bought. Internet clout is somehow hot shit to marketers and increasingly to political decision makers. But these are just dumb little buttons we're clicking on websites and the signals we send by clicking them lack a lot of nuance.

 
In spite of this, we collectively seem to be prepared to give these signals a lot of weight and people analyse them like they were something objective.

7. Blender 3.0 is out of beta

First impression: Yay, it renders much faster now! I'm gonna save time.

 
5 min later: Proceed to cranking up the quality settings so high that it takes longer than it took before.

8. Dune

Production design! Sound design! Throat singing! Cool visuals! This movie kinda slaps! 

Am I gonna have to start reading these books now?

9. Brand New Cherry Flavor

This series took a few episodes to reveal to me its essence, but before it did I was sustained by the 90s aesthetic, an oppressive atmosphere and some gross-out body horror moments.

 
It has witchcraft. It has cats. It has vomiting.

10. Return of the Obra Dinn

This game is just so clever and unique in its presentation and the way it allows the player to piece together its story at their own pace is amazing. The expertly done voice acting and music in this game is pivotal to the experience.

11. Vladislav Delay - Rakka

Sasu Ripatti is a Finnish techno producer working under the moniker Vladislav Delay. This year he released an album called "Rakka" that was well received in the music press. 

It's an unfamiliar sonic landscape of abrasive and disjointed rhythms that breaks with a lot of techno's conventions in a way that was for me very inspiring.

12. Metaverse is not, and
will not be, a thing

Just imagine someone ranting about the metaverse being buzzwordy corporate fluff invented for boardroom meetings with clueless people who don't have enough actually knowledgeable people telling them that their ideas are dumb and shouldn't be listened to.