Words On Wednesday

There are few things as satisfyingly affordable as the humble hot dog from the Costco food court. For just a buck fifty, you get a quarter pound hot dog WITH condiments, AND a drink with FREE refills. After you drop a few hundred bucks on groceries, clothes, and random cool stuff you found, it is the economical and filling lunch that you need and deserve. I became a Costco member in September 2009, fresh out of high school. Roughly two years after the Costco opened in Spartanburg, word must have gotten around to my mother and she bought a membership (Anderson, 2007). To this day, Costco is the first stop on every grocery run and frequently where I get clothes and electronics. The prices are just too low for quality goods. Why would you go anywhere else? For numerous years, I never really bothered with the food court. I remember getting a salad one time in college, and I think I tried the acai fruit smoothie on the recommendation of one of the cart guys. Alas, it just wasn't a compe...

“ Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart ” is an action-adventure platformer released on the PS5 in 2021 and ported to Windows in 2023 by Nixxes Software. Although Ratchet & Clank isn't the sole reason I purchased a   Steam Deck , it was absolutely a   large influence   and it was undeniably the game I was MOST looking forward to playing. That situation gives this review gravitas that other reviews for other games I've played, both on the Steam Deck and on other platforms, certainly haven't had. I've tried to be careful to maintain a balance between unnecessarily critical for a game that I've wanted to play for so long and almost reverential for a series that I love so much. When I learned that Rift Apart was ported to PC, that would be my opportunity to play it without buying a PS5. I was already  considering  a Steam Deck, so that discovery clicked all the pieces into place. I WOULD get to play Rift Apart, and I WOULDN'T have to buy a whole console just for that ...

My kids have been reading the Wings of Fire series, so I decided to pick up the first book and see how it was. Dragons are cool and I like high fantasy, so it seemed like a decent option in the young adult fiction realm. The general premise as described by the prophecy itself is that five dragons of destiny will come forward to end the war. It's maybe a little cliché, but I think high fantasy gets a pass for that in a lot of cases. A group of unlikely heroes bands together to do something that seems impossible. It's a concept we've heard countless times before, and the quality of the work comes down to the execution. One curiosity with Sutherland's presentation is the anthropomorphism of dragons and the  zoomorphism  (I had to look that one up) of humans. The dragons talk in plain English, they have cultures in a complex and nuanced society, they ARE the main characters. Humans (or "scavengers" as they are called in this book) appear in some capacity, usually ...

“ Hitman: Absolution ” is a stealth game released on the most platforms in 2012. With a name like "Hitman," it's pretty clear what the game entails: you kill targets in creative ways and escape (ideally) undetected. As the fifth game in the franchise, one might expect the game to be immediately in line with its predecessors, but Absolution makes some polarizing changes to the Hitman formula. Story -2/10 I really hate to give such a low score, especially when previous Hitman games didn't really *have* much of a story, but it's just so heavy handed. To quote Family Guy, "it insists upon itself." The prequels didn't NEED a story. Give me a target and let me kill them however I can: gunshot, poison, or perhaps drop a chandelier on their head. Absolution has fairly lengthy cinematics before and after each mission, and they just feel forced and unnecessary. There's this big plot about a young girl and "The Agency," but I just don't care. ...

I've covered a lot of branded beer and spirits lately, but I wanted to try something new. I want to feature one cocktail per month; something seasonal or somehow themed around that month. For September, it had to be apple. Apple picking is a regular thing for my family. We go up to Sky Top Orchard each year to pick far more apples than we will eat, gorge on apple cider donuts, and pick up a jug of apple cider to take home with us. I've even discussed their  hard apple cider  before, and it's fine, but the non-alcoholic fresh apple cider is just amazing. When the idea for monthly cocktails occurred to me, September was an easy one because I knew it HAD to include apple cider somehow. Problem is, most of the cocktails I make are admittedly very low effort. A craft ice sphere in a mason jar, a shot or two of liquor, fill it the rest of the way up with some sort of mixer. Apple cider and liquor is great, don't get me wrong, but it's rather underwhelming. What could I do...