It’s been awhile, again. As you know I got laid off back in October 2018–I’m still hunting for a job. The whole ordeal is strange, to say the least. I’ve been doing all sorts of job interviews, and even went to Bozeman, Montana for one.
My life feels as if I hit a pause button as time keeps going by. I’ve been active during this time indulging in my various hobbies. So this will probably be a bit of a “longer” post.
What I’ve been up to
As I talked about in “I Think I Have Too Many Hobbies and Not Enough Money,” I have about a billion different interests. In the last threeish months I’ve gone through my cycles fairly quickly. Guns, video games, music, anime, and even knife making (on pause as well).
On top of that I’ve fallen back into watching movies most days of the week with my dad. Back in high school we would watch a lot of movies together after I was diagnosed with depression and spent time in the hospital.
Westerns
So back in November Red Dead Redemption 2 came out, and if you know me I freaking loved the first one. It’s what sparked my love for Westerns. The story of Arthur Morgan’s path to (possible) redemption was an interesting exploration into the art of introspection. Throughout the story you have Arthur questioning his own deeds as a bandit. While he stays a bandit, he does push for the “honor among thieves” line of thinking. Also John Marston is awesome.
ANYWAYS, Red Dead Redemption 2 kicked me back into my love for Westerns. Hell, the game had absolutely no bearing on me buying three guns….
I finally got my hands on a reproduction Single Action Army in .45 Colt, and man is it awesome; I also grabbed a sporterized Danish M-1867 Rolling Block from 1872 and one of the first 10,000 Browning Auto-5s to be brought to the States. They’re all pretty awesome.
By the way, you should watch The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, it’s essentially what you would get if they made Red Dead into a movie.
Movies and Such
As I previously mentioned, I’ve been watching A LOT of movies with my dad. It’s to the point that I pretty much forget half of what I’ve seen. It also made me realize just how much Neflix sucks. Most of its originals are bad to put it nicely. I think this article sums up how they’re basically just made for T.V. movies–similar to early HBO offerings. Amazon Prime isn’t too far behind, but at least you aren’t paying extra for it.
However, there is another streaming service called Shudder that I’ve fallen in love with. It’s cheap and it has a bunch of weird horror and thriller films. It also has a ton of absolutely horrible movies but that’s just a big part of horror as a genre.
However, there have been a few movies that stuck out between the three services and one plane ride for me (ignore the ratings): Blade of the Immortal, Beyond the Black Rainbow, The Void, The Collector, and Errementari: The Blacksmith and the Devil.
While they aren’t really “MASTERPIECES,” they’re all enjoyable in their own right. Some are long and drawn out, but very well done.
Blade of the Immortal, The Void, and The Collector all can get pretty danged graphic. The first more so calls back the stylized violence of Akira Kurosawa’s work; hell the intro feels like you’re actually watching one of his samurai films. The latter two are horror films. Beyond the Black Rainbow is a slow moving artsy film (kind of like a Kubrick film), but its good. Errementari is about a blacksmith who has a demon/devil in captivity and is just good fun.
Japanese Stuff
In the meantime I started to learn Japanese. I’m still at the beginning of kanji, but it’s fun. One day I would like to work a few years overseas, be it teaching or writing or editing or whatever or something else.
As part of the All Japanese All The Time (AJATT) Method, I’ve been mostly listening to a good deal of Japanese music (mostly indie rock). However, there is one band I’ve really taken a liking to: Passepied. Their album 演出家出演 (Enshutsu-ka shutsuen), AKA Director who Appeared, is without a doubt one of my favorite albums. Anime has also come back into my life; you need to watch Mob Psycho 100 and Made in Abyss.
If you made it far, thank you for reading. My life may be “slow” right now, but it’s easy to get distracted. I hope to be here more often.
