Read a review of “Higher” by Chris Stapleton here, or listen to the same review here:
This past weekend my family and I visited the Strong Museum of Play. My daughter, an avid Barbie, collector was excited to see their Barbie display. I was excited to see the Peanuts display. My son was excited to see everything!
The first picture is from 2010 when we first visited the museum. The second picture is from when we visited it this past weekend.
Read a review of “Desert Dreaming” by Dustin Kensrue here.
Have you ever read the book “Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline? Oh boy, how this book became such a huge seller is a spectacular mystery when you consider how poorly written this book is. However, if you look at the show “The Big Bang Theory” you see a similar formula: create unlikable characters, sprinkle in pop culture references, and laugh the lead characters for liking said pop culture references. Wade Watts, the main character in “Ready Player One”, is an absolutely reprehensible character, and we are supposed to root for him because he’s the “hero”, and when his disgusting opinions, personality, and behavior get drawn into the spotlight Ernest Cline throws in a pop culture reference to distract you. As if a Voltron reference is going to fix everything…
Either way, Ready Player One is about playing an online virtual reality video game using an immersive rigs which allow you to feel, smell, hear, and see the action in the game. Cline goes overboard describing the increasingly complex, contradictory, and sometimes outright disgusting features of these rigs, but hey Voltron is a robot that forms from smaller lion robots.
You should check out the podcast “372 Pages We’ll Never Get Back”. The two host reviews books they probably are going to hate and make good hearted fun and jokes at the books expense. So far they have done all of Ernest Cline’s novel and it’s a lot of fun.
New to Claude-a-saurus Wrecks? Read this!
Read a review of “Dark Matter” by Pearl Jam here.
So, Pearl Jam is a band that I’ve identified before as being very important to me. Several years ago I attempted to review all eleven of Pearl Jam’s previous albums and I was surprised and how unimpressed an immemorable some of them were. Now I haven’t been listening to a lot of alternative rock or grunge lately. It’s been a lot of country music, some jazz, lots of podcasts, and classical piano music when I’m writing at work (it helps me focus). When I heard the first single “Dark Matter” I was mostly unimpressed. The first time that I attempted to listen to the album I wasn’t really impressed. It felt like typical Pearl Jam and it really didn’t distinguish itself from what they’ve already released.
My review at the time was this:
There is a new Pearl Jam album.
It isn’t bad but it really isn’t great either.
It just exists.
I’ll be honest. I didn’t finish the first listen through to the album. I shut it off and found something else to listen too. However, Pearl Jam is IMPORTANT to me so I knew I needed to listen to it again. So I listened to it again in a different environment at a different time and this time I actually enjoyed it. What has turned me off about Pearl Jam in the past has they have come off as unbelievably pretentious but it just doesn’t feel that way on this album.
I look forward to adding the physical media of this album to my collection.
Check out this review of “Change the Game” by Cody Jinks here.
WordPress informed that April 14th, 2023 is my THIRTEENTH ANNIVERSARY of creating a wordpress site. What a trip it has been! There has been such a huge variety of content posted on this site and I’m grateful for everyone that enjoys it.
This past Saturday I got to hang out with my friends Nate and Josh. We went to a small toy show held at a karate dojo. There were toys, comics, and records. Check out what I got.
My friends and I saw DUSTIN NICKERSON do a comedy show on Sunday night and it was awesome.
DUSTIN KENSRUE released a new album called “Desert Dreaming” and it’s awesome!
Three awesome albums in the past three weeks from Cody Jinks, Oliver Anthony, and Dustin Kensrue. Really good time to be listening.
This is a get well card for my friend dealing with a medical issue. Get well soon, brother. I’m praying for you everyday.
Easter Sunday, Oliver Anthony released an album titled “Hymnal Of A Troubled Man’s Mind”. SavingCountryMusic.com has already written a review of it and I felt it was very fair.
I’m writing this on March 31st and I am going to watch the live stream of Anthony’s concert with friends tonight.
On his most popular tune to date “Rich Men North of Richmond”, Anthony’s sincerity, heartfelt singing, and raw passion about the working man struggling to get by in a world that is systemically rigged against him and for men that are already rich really struck a chord with me. I hope that he continues to grow as a songwriter and expand his sound.
“The Seduction of the Innocent” was published by Frederic Wertham and lead to Senate hearings about comic books and their effect on children. At the time of the book’s publishing there were several titles and stories that contained adult situations and themes but were sold and marketed towards the same children buying super heroes and newspaper comic strip reprints. While Wertham’s disapproving eye did also glare at what he saw as inappropriate content in superhero comic books the main target of his ire and research seemed to the graphic horror and crime stories frequently published at the time.
Almost no problem has a single source that by its elimination or regulation automatically solves the problem, but a crowd sure loves to gang up on a convenient whipping boy. Comic books became that whipping boy.
Wertham was right that not every comic book title was kid friendly, but given that comics started as reprints of newspaper comic strip you can’t fault parents for thinking comics in general were safe for their child’s consumption. Even today you would think that Alphabet Inc’s (Google) kid focused app, YouTube Kids, has content that is safe for children to view; however, the content is all user generated and uploaded and YouTube relies on automated screening systems. To be blunt, there are malicious content creators that have slipped inappropriate content through YouTube’s censors and the threat of the punishment of losing their channel doesn’t deter them. You could say “well, the parents should be more involved”. In theory that’s a great idea but in reality there is too much access to electronics and too much content and its almost impossible to monitor and screen everything a child might come into contact with.
My opinion of what content is child friendly may differ wildly from another persons, but in general we need to protect our children which is what I believe was the point of Dr. Wertham’s research and the Senate hearings. To see Dav Pilkey (Dog Man, Captain Underpants) use one of his recent Cat Kid Comic Club books to mock Wertham while ignoring the fact that his own main audience is children and the Wertham was trying to protect children from malicious publishers makes Pilkey short sighted and petty.
Enough about that, let’s talk about music:
Check out Saving Country Music’s brutal takedown of Sam Hunt’s embarrassing attempt at trying to remain relevant by clicking this link here.
Cody Jinks has a new album called “Change the Game”. Can’t wait to talk about this in future weeks.
I’ve posted some new videos to YouTube recently. Check them out!
Read a review of “In Search of a Song” by Tom T. Hall here.
Recently I’ve been feeling depressed…
My wife and I went on a Caribbean Cruise together. My son was baptized and it was a believer baptism meaning that he chose to be baptized and pursued it with the Pastor himself. Two medical concerns for family members received miraculous answers to prayer.
It’s not the first time that I’ve had a series of very positive and good things happen in my life only to have them followed up with a period of depression. I’ve written about such things before. It feels like spiritual warfare. This winter has been tough. Several people in my family have had medical concerns. My parents are aging and concerns are popping up there. My son and I both had Covid and the flu in a three week period. The flu was the worst and really kicked my butt. The cruise, baptism, and answered prayers felt like a temporary reprieve from these problems. It’s easy to get a negative point of view and feel like you don’t matter to anyone.
Probably unsurprisingly I have to confess I have been very lax in my prayer and bible study life. Lax as in it’s almost non-existent. Previously if I didn’t say the Lord’s Prayer, at a minimum, I would not be able to fall asleep. Now, it honestly feels like I haven’t prayed other than a sporadic prayer here or there for the past few months.
I look at these pictures of my wife from the day of the cruise where we swam with dolphins and just hope that I make her as happy as she was when these photos were taken.
In conclusion, Nate’s reaction to the conversation in today’s comic I feel is pretty deserving. I would feel the same way if I had the same conversation he had with a friend.
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