COVID-19: Sharing Entertainment

Being stuck at home in self-isolation has been an interesting experience so far. One week in, I’ve had to adapt to working from home, something which my dogs have come to absolutely adore.

Need something to help you pass the time? I figured it might be an interesting idea to share some of the things that I’ve been doing to occupy my time and keep me entertained. Other than my collection of movies and Netflix, as well as reading books, I’ve leaned pretty heavily into YouTube and Twitch. The following are some of my regular haunts on those services.

YouTube is an endless cavalcade of content. Here are some of the channels that have kept me busy:

  • Linus Tech Tips – If you’re a tech geek in any way shape or form you’re probably already subscribed to LTT. If not, you really should be.
  • Gamers Nexus – If you prefer a more low level view of computer and gaming tech, GN is the channel for you.
  • Bon Appetit – The antics of the staff of the test kitchen always make me smile. Brad’s It’s Alive series is a riot, and Claire’s Gourmet Makes series might have you trying to make homemade versions of your favorite snacks.
  • JayzTwoCents – Jayz always has an interesting perspective on computer and gaming tech, and lately has been renovating his own gamer cave at at home.

There’s a lot of Twitch channels around, but here are some of the ones I have on regular rotation:

  • Hungry – 24/7 cooking shows! There’s a nice mix of old and new, and different cooking styles that there’s always something on worth watching.
  • Giant Bomb – The GB crew are working from home, and doing a lot of game streaming these days. Tune in to watch a great variety of game streaming.
  • OuterHeaven – If you like Metal Gear games this is the channel for you. The group live streams the entire series of games.

For books, I’ve finally got around to starting up Altered Carbon and I have to say that so far it’s significantly better than the show. There’s much more depth to the story and characters, which obviously a book will be able to communicate better anyway.

I’m really curious what other sources of entertainment folks are using. Do you have any channel recommendations to share, perhaps some good books or shows to binge? Feel free to comment below!

Stay safe everyone!

Revisiting: Altered Carbon

With Season 2 of Altered Carbon releasing on Netflix, I figured recently I should revisit the first season. My initial viewing of Altered Carbon was not very positive, so I figured maybe a second viewing might improve my opinion of it.

I’m a big cyberpunk nut; I love William Gibson novels and Blade Runner is one of my all-time favorite film series, so when Altered Carbon was announced I was fast to dive into it. At the time of my initial watch, I had not read any of the original books (though I am currently starting out on the first of the three novels). While it had the production values indicating Netflix was hurling buckets of money their way, something about the story just never clicked with me.

There seemed to be critical pieces of information that weren’t being given out. Now I’m not a fan of blatant long form exposition in media, I prefer the “show don’t tell” approach where the viewer has to exercise the brain in their skull. But things just sort of happen in Altered Carbon that could stand for further, or better, exposition to flesh out the world more. When that doesn’t happen, my brain starts churning on why that is, inevitably landing on there being an issue with the writing.

One example of this is the relationship with the main character, Takeshi Kovacs, and his protege Quellcrist Falconer (I’m not shitting you with that name, it’s like it’s right out of a Hunger Games novel). It felt like it was forced, and had come out of nowhere; after reading up about it after my initial watch I found out it wasn’t in the novels at all. There’s a lot of that with Altered Carbon Season 1, and the show suffered for it.

Exposition also seemed amateurish sometimes. They were light on details that could have benefited the audience, and when they did dish out details it was just someone speaking details that are clearly only meant to be directed at the audience. There are ways of doing that well, for instance having the main character be in a fish out of water type of situation so there is a context for exposition that seems natural. There’s a bit of that in Altered Carbon, but it’s handled badly.

Revisiting Altered Carbon again was a much better experience than the first time through, since you come to it with context for the convoluted twists the show attempts to serve up. I don’t mind plot twists but with this show you see them happen and just end up thinking “well I guess this is the path we’re taking then” rather than there being any genuine intrigue. It all seems a bit too “Blade Runner Lite”.

Character wise the main characters of Kovacs and his police shadow Ortega are well handled by their respective actors. I also continued to enjoy the character of Poe, the artificial intelligence-based hotel, another item that is apparently only an inspiration from the novels, but a well implemented one.

I suppose the best thing I can say is that it’s a worthy revisit before watching Altered Carbon Season 2, especially if it’s been a while since you’ve seen it. For new viewers, there’s definitely something there in the series — I’m just not sure it’s getting the right screenwriting team to bring it forward from the books.

So I’m Playing Destiny 2 Again

I know I posted a while back that I was putting down Destiny 2. At the time I was refusing to spend the full price of the Forsaken expansion along with the absurd cost of a season pass in order to reasonably progress my character. At the time, most activities that would actually provide you with gear to progress your character was locked behind those paywalls.

With the release of Shadowkeep at a reasonable cost, Forsaken’s price reduction, everything now being available on Steam, and Bungie divesting itself away from the shitshow that is Activision, I figured now is as good a time as any to jump back in.

Since Shadowkeep came out, I’ve been playing the game pretty much exclusively, and I feel that this is the game that Destiny 2 should have been when it first released. I went from having a couple of quests to fiddle about with to having pages and pages of things to do. It is literally too much to handle in a single day, which means there is such a huge variety of activities that there is always something to do.

I have no idea if Bungie can keep up this kind of pace going forward, but so far things are interesting and I’ve got a hell of a lot to do. Since most of Destiny 2 can be experienced for no cost whatsoever thanks to its free to play offering, anyone can jump in and see if it’s worth your time to buy into the latest content.

I don’t feel bad about supporting Bungie now that it’s self-publishing. If they can continue producing quality content (while no doubt also developing a follow-up title), I’ll keep coming back to take in the sights and shoot things.