I may have to reassess where Foolish resides in the Superchunk pantheon. This CD pretty much took the direction set upon in Foolish and refined it with richer arrangements and better production. As I listen to this now, I’ll have to admit that it is a better record than its predecessor. My only complaint here is that I don’t understand why they don’t end the record with the track, “Here’s Where the Strings Come In.” From here on out, every Superchunk record after this more or less sounds the same with at least one punky song, a (relatively) quiet ballad, and a smattering keyboard drizzled throughout the record.
Another game that came bundled with my new video card. I had never played a game in this series because I assumed it was some sort of military sim. It is actually a third-person stealth game, and a very good one at that. While shooting everyone you see is always an option, you are mostly out-gunned and very vulnerable to attacks. I would usually opt to stay in the shadows, moving from cover to cover and performing knockout take-downs. This sort of game-play style is very satisfying to me, like when I play the spy in Team Fortress 2.
There is a story here too. It’s a ridiculous plot involving random terrorist attacks across the globe until the U.S. pulls its forces out of somewhere-else-o-stan. It’s not the most creative plot, but it gives you enough to go on and does a good job of setting up the main villain as your adversary.
I was surprised by how much I liked this one and I may go back and try some of the other games in the series.
The second singles collection from Superchunk is a bit more of a hodgepodge than the last. There are a few great songs but conspicuously missing is “Basement Life.”
Virginia Postrel is a great, thoughtful writer and, although I am not terribly interested in the topic of glamour, I enjoyed this book for the most part. It kinda skirts awfully close to the kinda stuff I was forced to read in art school, so I am hesitant to give it a full endorsement.
