Words On Wednesday

As my first (and probably only) Thirsty Thursday Eve covering monthly discounted liquors from North Carolina, I thought it all too appropriate to pick the first style of alcohol that I ever reviewed here : spiced rum. Specifically, Admiral Nelson’s 70 proof spiced rum. Name:      Spiced Rum Source:      Admiral Nelson ABV:      35% Price:      $7.95 ($9.95) Volume:      750ml Price per oz:      $0.31 ($0.39) For a long time now, my approach to bottom shelf liquor has been, “just how bad can it be?” This cheap spiced rum surprised me, however. I’d genuinely say it’s good. It’s very smooth, even accounting for the small proof reduction. I try to base my judgement on smoothness from a standard 80 proof perspective, and adjust my expectations accordingly. This spiced rum is 70 proof, but it drinks more like a 40-ish proof liquor. It’s sweet and a little spicy. The flavor profile isn’t exactly dee...

I have been very out of touch with modern gaming lately, but holy crap am I hype about Metroid Dread. I love Metroid. I love the gameplay, the mythos, the characters. It’s easily one of the coolest intellectual properties that Nintendo has, and I really hate how it feels so neglected most of the time. Metroidvania games are probably my favorite genre. I just can’t get enough of that search-battle-upgrade cycle that allows you to delve ever deeper into curious alien environments. The Prime series is fun, but I have always preferred 2D side scroller Metroid games. I get the logic for why 3D games have been the more popular choice for developers lately. Originally, it was a technology limitation. 2D games are easier to make, and that was the only thing that consoles and handhelds could actually manage for a long time. Now that technology has evolved to easily handle 3D environments and navigation, why shouldn’t everything be 3D? But there’s a different style to 2D games. The way that you ...

Over the past few months, I’ve read a lot of books by the same author, frequently in the same series. Because of that, I’m experiencing a lot of book burnout. It probably started with Brandon Sanderson. I was flip flopping between his Mistborn and Stormlight Archive series. These books are long, with some very dense content. Mistborn books are around 20 hours of audio each, and Stormlight Archive books are roughly 50 hours each. They’re great, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a lot of material. I wanted to finish book 3 of Stormlight Archive before book 4 came out, and then I wanted to read book 4 while it was in that new release phase. After I finished book 3, I also read the final book in the Mistborn trilogy to wrap that up. I started book 4 within a few months, but goodness gracious, I was just so spent on it from the beginning. The characters and plot are interesting, but it’s so much. After reading about half of Rhythm of War (book 4 of Stormlight Archive), I just… stopped. The check...

The music died on July 1, 2021. Well, at least that’s when Spartanburg County Public Libraries stopped carrying music CDs in circulation. I know Don McLean was referring to February 3, 1959  when Buddy Holly and others died in a plane crash. I don’t mean to trivialize that event. But for me personally, it was a huge blow to my music consumption to hear that my local library wouldn’t have music on CD anymore. The lion’s share of music in my personal collection has come from the public library for a long time now. I would check out a music CD, bring it back to my desk at work, rip the album to my company-provided computer, and return the disc that afternoon or the next day. Was I supposed to be saving music from county-owned discs? Probably not, but I also wasn’t doing anything to profit off them, so I figured it wasn’t that bad. This process went on for several years. I started doing it some time in the late 2000s, but it really hit stride between 2012 and 2019 during my years at Q...