Of course This Old House has a YouTube channel, but why did it take me so long to discover it? I grew up watching it, re-discovered the This Old House hour once I became a home owner, and one time I saw Tom Silva in the Boston airport. It was late though and he had on sunglasses inside. Didn’t seem like he wanted to be bothered, so I didn’t.
I am subbed and now getting regular bite sized clips of TOH goodness. You should too.
A good “who done it” movie or show is right up our alley. A show that feels very inspired by Knives Out and Glass Onion, all the better. A cast full of odd ball characters played by actors and comedians that we already like, sold friend. I’d watch watch a few more series of Uzo Aduba as Detective Cordelia Cupp, solving a new mystery every season.
Another game enters the Best Games of the 2020’s today, and a just sequel without many new ideas falls off.
Bionic Bay (2025) goes on as #36
I saw this game pitched as a Limbo-like, but after playing it I’d say that is disingenuous. It has so much more going for it as a creative and challenging platformer. While being set in a quiet alien world that is equal parts eerie and beautiful.
It’s mechanics and puzzles have a healthy dash of Portal. You are introduced to a basic mechanic like swapping yourself with an object you tag and then slowly bend your mind around it in creative ways. Then another mechanic like slowing down time. Now you’ve got them both down. So combine them and nail the timing because things going to move quick.
Spider-Man 2 (2023) is off the list. As a sequel to two amazing games, Spider-Man 1 and Miles Morales (#24), it didn’t bring enough to the table to make it stand out. Good game that rested too much on it laurels.
We have a “J” on the board and it’s a 5 out of 5. We are slowly working our way through the Richmond alphabet and our most recent find was JewFro. A restaurant focused on Jewish and African culinary fusion. That is a pretty lofty scope, there is literally a whole lot of Africa, but they nail it.
The menu when we went in April was a fixed four course meal for $65 a person. Three choices in each course and every dish we picked was excellent. Specifically the lamb loin I had for my main is the best lamb I have ever had. Hard to top that. Plus good cocktails to boot. That same menu concept rotates every month too, so a return trip would be rewarded with a whole new experience.
This show came along as a recommendation from a friend and the trailer was compelling enough to give it a try. Glad I did and then fell head over heels for it. My wife and I watched all eight episodes in three nights. It is a good combo of humor, action, and just enough drama to keep the story moving along.
Watching this unlocked some long dusty part of my brain that really liked the American Ninja 1 and AM 2 back in the late 80’s. This show is way and I mean way better. They are only linked through ninjas of course, but I’d forgotten all about it.
Another great game enters the Best Games of the 2020’s today, and we bid farewell to a modern throw back to the arcade beat’em up.
Blue Prince (2025) goes on as #13
I love a good escape room and a good board game. What about both? This game took our house by storm. The rare game that I pitched my wife on and she stuck around for. She stuck around for the combination of strategically managing probabilities, testing theories, and pulling every thread till we could solve it’s core puzzle.
What pushes me away from most puzzle games is either my dumb brain or single dependencies for progress. See The Witness or Outer Wilds. Blue Prince is the perfect balance of learning something new, setting it aside, and progressing toward the next bit. Stumped by a puzzle, don’t give up, move on to learn more. That puzzle might make sense in three hours. If you wrote it down in your notebook of course.
TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge (2022) is off the list. My wife, youngest, and I had a blast with this game playing couch co-op. It was a fun and well crafted homage to the 90’s arcade games of my youth.
This little and cheap electric truck made the rounds over the weekend, after it was revealed by it’s Michigan based start up. Cheap is an understatement if it can actually stick the landing on it’s $20K price point. And the barebones to hobbyist modular design approach is compelling. Color me interested enough to pay attention, but not get on the wait list just yet.
Also side note, it is little, but not as little as the video would have you believe. The host showing it off later on reveals he is 6’10”. I feel like you have to get that out up front. I thought this thing was built for people under 5’10” at first.
Earlier this month a new record dropped from Teen Mortgage. A stand out group in my continuous rediscovery of rock and punk since a long hiatus in my youth.
Another game enters the Best Games of the 2020’s today, and we say “toodaloo” to an inspired take on the modern search action genre.
Split Fiction (2025) goes on as #38
Everybody loved It Takes Two, I’m more of a Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons man myself. Well, actually I didn’t find anyone to play it with and was jealous of all the people that did. So when their next game was announced I was paying attention.
Split Fiction mostly reminds me of Wario Party. But wrapped in a narrative, and fun art, and spectacle, but the mini games are longer, and creatively thoughtful about how two people will do them together. So not Wario Party, but you get it. It is at it’s best when everything it’s doing is in service of asynchronous cooperative game play that changes just often enough to not get stale.
It does that 9 times out of 10, and that 10th time is when it over stays it’s welcome. Either a mechanic or mini game just stops clicking and you get to look around at the set dressing that is holding everything up and question it. But not for long, because you’ve just been whisked into a side story where you are pig that does big farts. Now we are back to the fun and your doing it with a friend.
Metroid Dread (2021) is off the list. My entire run of this game was a week at the beach for Thanksgiving. It had my full attention and was a great modern take on the genre it inspired. But when I got back to regular life I never went back to it.
Holy shit did the new season drop with a banger. Hour plus episode, with three contestants I love, left to their own devices for a year to complete a series of challenges. The behind the scenes that came out the following week is an excellent 40 minutes companion piece. Apparently the first edit was over 2 hours, not gonna lie, I’d watch that.
Dropout continues to be worth every penny I pay for it. Killer D&D + improve comedy, there isn’t another service out there offering such a concentrated dose of goodness for your cash.
180 Lunches 