I just watched... Baccano!

Yavar Ahmad enjoys talking a lot and writing a lot, without really using his mind.

Italian for 'ruckus' or 'chaos' 

                All in all, I’d have to say that Baccano! is the single most enjoyable thing I have ever experienced, and this enjoyment is boosted even further by the fact that it’s pretty damn re-watchable. It might not be the most incredibly dramatic and hair-in-your-pants-erect suspenseful, but it’s a ridiculously good watch worthy of the time of anyone ready to stomach the violence and capable of not taking an all-scouring eyeglass of extreme seriousness over everything in existence.

I just watched... Pulp Fiction

A ballad of foot massages, metric systems and other stuff.

                Tarantino has always been in a bit of an odd spot for me. If were to spontaneously materialise a list of things that, by all means, I should have experienced because they seem right up my alley then Tarantino would be up on that list, alongside things like Platinum Games and Monty Python. But now, thanks to the perchance of fate I have been able to finally watch Pulp Fiction, which many claim is his magnum opus. Of course, I don’t know if I can agree or disagree with that considering the fact that I just mentioned that is the fact that I haven’t really seen his other movies, with the only other Tarantino movie I’ve seen being Inglorious Basterds, I can’t really pass judgement whether it is HIS magnum opus.

I just watched... Mushishi

How often have you seen human creativity blossom?

                Episodic series are always an oddity when it comes to your personal motivation to watch it. Your mind has a tendency to frolic between extreme motivation to watch another episode and nil motivation to watch anything at all, like a frog hopping around on a pogo stick while overdosing on sugary treats. See, episodic series are akin to movies in the fact that they tend to start off and stop, just like a movie, but in every episode. This leads to a curiously strong dosage of excessive start and stop, as it occurs in every single episode owing to each one holding its own independent story.

I just watched... Grave of the Fireflies

Home Sweet Home

                Now I’m not a very metaphysical man, but if I were to get down and biblical I’d say that I really like the concept of the Seven Sins. Not because of what they are, but because of what they represent in mankind. You see, the catch of the Sins, is that yes, they are sins, but an inescapable truth is that all humans bear the Sins in some shape or form, which places our existence into a somewhat paradoxical plane as we try to avoid the Sins while being unable to change the fact that the Sins exist within us, that we are the Sins.

I am playing... Dark Souls 2 - Impressions thus far

I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so pleased and disappointed by something at the same time.

Still used to this.

                I’ve always been a cynic about many things, but I’m also an optimist about many things. This has always left in a bit of a conundrum about many things, like if something tragic happens I don’t know if I should stand sullenly in a corner going “I knew things weren’t going to end well” or to go on a march declaring “We shall overcome.” I suppose in reality I’m the kind of person who believes that ultimately we are all going to go up in flames and slowly be reduced to ash, but it’ll be more interesting to burn while dancing rather than sitting sullenly in a corner going “I knew this was all going to happen” while my spleen spontaneously combusts.

I just watched... Pan's Labyrinth

Some things say more than they say.

                Guillermo del Toro originally put himself on my small map of ‘directors whose movies I’ve really got to watch because their movies are interesting, innovative or just plain good, especially when compared to the typical standard of most movies which are like articles which are incapable of keeping a logical word count for each sentence in order to keep them from getting out of hand and making readers lose all semblances of sanity and devolve into dictionary and prime grammar hungering zombies’, which aren’t as great in number as I might hope.

I just played... Path of Exile

Of sprawling forests, sprawling caves, sprawling dungeons and sprawling ability trees.

Always online can be annoying, but it's a fair trade off for the fact that the game is free.

                Path of Exile is a strange game that seems to defy all conventions of existing. Yes, it’s a free to play game, in the truest sense, akin to Valve’s Dota 2. The only difference here is that ‘Valve’ is a company automatically synonymous with several beloved titles, great love for quality and lots and lots of money. On the other hands ‘Grinding Gear Games’ is a company that is a bit of a blank slate and one that’ll make you think of the numerous RPGs in which you, well… grinded for gear. Which is a bit of a nice move since Path of Exile is modelled after Diablo and Diablo 2, both games in which grinding for great gear and hunting for epic loot formed an important part of the experience.

I just watched... Kino's Journey

Have you ever wanted to just take your sentient motorbike and go on a journey?

                Kino’s Journey is definitely an odd show, but what’s not odd about it is that it can easily, truly be defined as a ‘philosophical’ series. And the issue with anything ‘philosophical’ is that it immediately falls into one of two categories: pretentious or non-pretentious. It’s very easy for a story to swing a big question around itself, like a briefcase filled with smaller briefcases filled with dead whales, to the extent that the story begins to, like a briefcase filled with smaller briefcases filled with dead whales, repel you.

I just watched... Battle Royale

Sometimes, I can’t help but wonder why there aren’t more movies involving children killing children.

                Well, perhaps the above statement is a bit of a paradox because of the bit of a paradox that intermingles with the kind of movies that have children spill the blood of other children, and that’s the fact that there movies typically cannot be seen by children because they are possibly too graphic and ‘traumatic’ for children. So that bit of a paradox exists in the fact that the very actors acting in the film, present in all the scenes with blood and murder and the blood of children and the murder of children, isn’t legally able to actually see the movie. A bit of a conundrum, really.

The Sunday Hardcore #2 - Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition

Sometimes, you just learn how bad you actually are at a game. 

And so it begins.

"What is this series?" you ask with sly little smile on your lips.

I answer:

This is a weekly series in which I take a game and attempt a hardcore run of it.