Christmas whiskey. First time having Knob Creek. It’s super sharp, especially with ice. I’ve gone through most of the bottle by now and I’m regretting drinking it with ice so often… Including this time. I had a taste as soon as I poured it and I thought the whiskey had aged since I last had it. Now its settled and it tastes like the other times. For a brief second there it was more bold and full bodied with a slightly peat ending. Almost Dark Horse like (my absolute favorite). I’ll have to remember that next pour.

It came with a custom glass! Which has fast become a favorite of mine. Fat bottom glass make my rockin world go round. source: https://saturdayxiii.tumblr.com/post/181884034944

My weekend was made a whole lot better by discovering AntsCanada on YouTube.

I know what you’re thinking. More “bugs vs bugs” on youtube, or maybe you started a video and rolled your eyes at the typical: Title of the video says this happens, thumbnail shows this happening, youtuber’s intro is “You’ll never guess what happens in this video!!! Please like and subscribe!”. I know, I was there. I didn’t want to watch 25 minutes of prolonged drama, I just wanted to see the titled content and get out; but AC non-family, I promise that AntsCanada is so much more than it appears.

I never intended to watch a full video, but every time I did. Although the scripted tone of the episodes make the poetically chosen words seem insincere, the drama is real, and Mikey Busto’s house-consuming passion is very evident.

Fantastic animals, with creative stories, beautiful macro cinematography, ingenious vivarium designs, and rarely filmed insect habits make this a must see channel.

source: https://saturdayxiii.tumblr.com/post/181828065794

I wanted to try out Red Crimes: Hidden Murders because it was produced by Discovery Channel’s forensic mystery channel thing; Identification Discovery, advertised somewhat real forensics, and it has very pretty artwork.

So I did, and unfortunately I have nothing special to report.  It’s a typical freemium game in the most generic way. I played until the first criminal was arrested.  That’s as far as I could get after exhausting all my energy and gold points, which took about an hour and a half.  Not the worst demo.  Energy charges at 1 per 3 minutes, and you need 16 to play the next mini game.  However, running out of energy isn’t the only concern.  There are timers all over the place that they want you to pay “gold” to skip.  As usual you can watch a video ad to get gold, but a 30 second ad gets you a whopping 3 pieces.  Can’t do anything with that.

I’m not going to do the math, but I guestimate that this game costs just over $0.50 an hour to play with minimal interruptions.  If the levels get harder it will likely get more expensive.  Is it worth it?

Not as it is.  I’m going to assume that I played as much as the developers wanted to give as a demo and it all felt very tutorial-ish.  Even after the main character stopped narrating my every move the mini games remained mindlessly simple.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the developers kept the game design open to be an idle clicker, which unfortunately might have been the more engaging game play choice.

“Gameplay” has you upgrade your police station, so far that just means reskinning the walls; having your police force patrol areas of the town for cash (?!); solving cases via hidden object, drag-to-reveal or collect, and puzzle-piece-match mini games to ultimately reclaim that area of town so you can buy visual upgrades for it. 

I can’t vouch for any accuracy in the forensics because it’s so limited by the simplistic game mechanics.  Some levels even have you hand off an object for another character to work on while you wait (or pay) for the level to complete without doing anything.  Definitely not compelling compared to actual 100% free games of the same genre on the Play store.

There’s an over arching story, which does the job well enough, but the cookie cutter characters don’t seem to have any real stakes in it.  

While the artwork is pretty, you’ve seen all the good stuff already in the advertising.  There’s no variation or animation of the characters in game.

So the game is pretty sub par unless you’re really desperate, or this really hits a specific niche for you.  Overall it really doesn’t feel like the developers want you to play their game.  All the dollar signs around the wait times feel like a warning rather than an invitation.

source: https://saturdayxiii.tumblr.com/post/181467903259

Oh, why does the excellent youtube game documentarian take months, years even, between videos? He does his own amazing soundtracks and sells them on the side. What a fucking inspiration.

source: https://saturdayxiii.tumblr.com/post/181063263064

Went to NN’s final show.  It was great.  Not sure if I’ve ever gotten “in to it” so hard at a concert before.  Probably was because of the great company of my best friend and my girlfriend.  

NN hadn’t changed at all since my girlfriend and I saw them while on our first concert date (excluding the concert we decided to start dating at).  She doesn’t remember them. source: https://saturdayxiii.tumblr.com/post/181058091284