I'm not sure if anything that is happening on this site is working, so I'm going to try something a bit different this week. Try and spark something.

 

It's a Grab Bag!

 

I'm going to post some stuff about stuff I like! Generally, if this idea sticks and doesn't suck, it'll be more of a “Things I Liked This Week or Month” sort of thing, but for now, I'm reaching back a little further here. So there are no parameters. Here we go!

 

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Sports!

 

The NHL season is wrapping up and the Chicago Blackhawks are teetering. They're currently in third place in the Western Conference, with the Nashville Predators and the St. Louis Blues (booooooooooooooo) ahead of them. The Minnesota Wild (boooooooooo) are right behind the Hawks and the way the schedule works out, the Hawks and Wild have been trading spots in the standings lately. This, of course, has led to a lot of texts from Wild fans. You see, if you weren't aware, the Hawks have bounced the Wild from the playoffs the last two years. This has lead to a bit of a complex for Wild fans. Two years ago, the Hawks beat them in the first round, last year, they beat them in the second (after the Wild beat a horribly over rated, incredibly lucky Avalanche team). So now that the Wild are playing well, folks are sure coming out of the woodwork. Forget about the fact that the Hawks are stalling because they were in the midst of Patrick Kane's best season ever, but then he broke his collarbone. Forget about the fact that the Hawks lead the league in shots per game, yet have gone completely dry these last few weeks (meaning, of course, that they're still possessing the puck and still getting shots. It'll go in eventually). Most importantly, forget about the Wild grinding their new goalie (surprising world beater Devan Dubnyk) into the ground. The only thing you need to know is this a Minnesota sports team. You will be let down eventually. Come at me, Wild fans.

 

Baseball is about to start and the Mariners don't look awful! They have a good pitching staff and added Nelson Cruz's PEDs to an already-better-than-since-2001 M's lineup. I'm excited. I don't usually get too into baseball, but the last few years I've been a real scoreboard watcher. The M's play on the west coast, obviously, and staying up that late is impossible. The one thing my child will know about sports: football, pick whatever team you want (except the Steelers), but every other sport, pick a team in your time zone or on the east coast. Otherwise you're staying up until midnight to watch a 1-0 M's game. It is not a glamorous life. Anyway, my step father put some dough down on them to win it all this year, so expect them to make it to game 7 of the World Series and lose by 60.

 

The Browns are kind of making me want to die and I don't want to talk about them. Dwayne Bowe said he's going to have a season “like 2010 again” where he caught 15 touchdowns. Mr. Bowe, who is going to throw those TDs to you?

 

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Gaming stuff!

 

I've been playing a lot of Battlefield: Hardline lately. It's very fun. It's Battlefield, but more paced like Call of Duty. Personally, I'm more fond of the long matches, the vast battlefields, the big teams, but this has been a nice change of pace after playing way too much Battlefield 4.

 

Valiant Hearts was one of the PS4's free games this month and it was incredible. Hopefully you got a chance to download it because, if you didn't and you're reading this now, it's too late. But it is a very good game that is worth full price. It's not really a gameplay focused game, but the story is beautiful, the history behind it is very interesting and the art style is absolutely impeccable.

 

But if you're looking for an excellent downloadable game (and I believe a PC game, too?), you're looking for Surgeon Simulator! It is incredible. The gist of the game is you are a left hand and you are performing very difficult surgeries... as just a left hand. The controls are brutal and initially I thought you had to try very, very hard to be a good surgeon, but you are much better off just diving in headfirst and making it rain. For instance, the first surgery is a heart transplant. The first time I fired it up, I was very delicate. I'm staring at these ribs thinking, “Alright, I'm going to use this saw to saw through the bone”. Great idea, but when you hit flesh, it's a god damn bloodbath. Good luck stopping that. So what do you do instead? Grab a hammer and shatter those ribs! There's much less residual damage if you just pound away, apparently!

 

It only gets more ludicrous. You have to do brain transplants and eye transplants where you stab the old eyeballs with a scalpel, pull them out, knock the patient upside the head until his eyeballs pop out, then cut them off. Throw some new eyeballs in (including an 8 ball and a smiley face) and you're good to go! In fact, with all surgeries you remove the offending organ, toss the new one in and you've succeeded. You start in an operating room, simple enough (not really), then move onto a corridor where you run along with the patient on the gurney and your necessary tools just fly by. You better hope you can grab them in time. After that, you do all the same surgeries in an ambulance, complete with brutal bumps, sharp turns and an open door that will let anything you need fly out. I've currently reached space surgeon, where, you guessed it, all your tools and everything else fly around in zero gravity. Fun game! Check it out!

 

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Various forms of other entertainment!

 

You should watch Sirens on USA. The first season is on Netflix and it is awesome. The second season is currently airing, but I believe it's almost over. Impractical Jokers is also very, very fun.

 

I've been reading Scalped by Jason Aaron lately. I got the last 3 trades on Saturday and I very much look forward to finishing the story. It takes place on an Indian Reservation and it's about a Native American FBI agent coming home to confront some corruption on the rez. There's waaaaaayyyyy more to it than that, but I'm trying not to lose your interest, even though you're probably no longer reading this. If you are, email me at thruby@yahoo.com and I'll send you 5 dollars. Seriously. Southern Bastards (also written by Jason Aaron) and Men of Wrath (also ALSO Jason Aaron) are fantastic as well.

 

Eric Powell's The Goon is by far my favorite comic ever and it seems to be coming to an end. It's very sad to me that he's finished what he wants to do with the Goon, but I'm just glad he'll be writing more stuff. He's one of the best in the business and if you've never read anything by him, I suggest fixing that very quickly. If you're looking for a cool place to start, although not necessarily the beginning, pick up The Goon Volume 6: Chinatown. It sets up a lot of stuff beautifully. But if you start from the beginning, the payoff of volume 6 is way better. But you should totally read his stuff. All of it. He's written some stuff that's changed my life.

 

As far as “real” books go, I recently finished Undeniable by Bill Nye. It's about evolution and it's very good. I've been reading Cosmos by Carl Sagan and Unweaving the Rainbow by Richard Dawkins. Cosmos is good so far, but i've been too into comics lately to keep pounding away; Dawkins is very dry and it makes it tough sometimes, but I enjoy his wit and his intellect.

 

That's enough outta me. Have a really great week. I really hope to see you back on next Wednesday, but I understand.