Media Diet: June 2025

Posted on by Eric F. Savage
This entry is part 4 of 5 in the series Media Diet

Books

Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell (Audiobook) – A fairly lightweight blend of monsters and romance, two genres I rarely read, but it was well-written and enjoyable except for the saccharine ending/epilogue.

DragonLance Tales, Volumes 1-3 (The Magic of Krynn, Love and War Kender, Gully Dwarves, and Gnomes ) edited by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman – A re-read from many years ago. I always enjoy visiting Krynn and these stories add color to the world and well-known characters. These were all pretty good, but none of these stories really stood out to me as especially bad or great.

Movies

Jaws – Probably the first time I’ve watched the whole thing since forever ago. It holds up fairly well after 50 years and the well-executed simplicity is in stark contrast to modern movies that feel like they often struggle under the weight of self-inflicted complexity. The Wikipedia page has a lot of details on how difficult the production was, even Spielberg tried to get out of directing it.

Pacific Rim – A favorite of mine and another rewatch, but this time with my son, who is finally old enough to enjoy these types of movies, and he loved it. The level of detail in Del Toro’s movies make them very rewatchable, and Djawadi’s soundtrack is a gem on its own.

Games

Oddsparks: An Automation Adventure – In Progress – If Nintendo made a factory game it would look a lot like this with cute characters and a pretty gentle learning curve. Within the genre it has some interesting ideas, especially around logistics that require and reward thinking and tinkering.

Tower Wizard – Completed – A short (~6 hours) “clicker” that is well-structured. It strikes a good balance between allowing idleness but not requiring it. Fun and definitely worth the few bucks it cost.

Music

Stephen Wilson Jr. – A discovery in the gap since my last post, but Wilson blends outlaw country and 90s alternative with a massive amount of talent to create a lot of great songs. His cover of Stand By Me is nothing short of epic.

Also, since my last update, I’ve started taking guitar lessons with my son! It’s been a fun experience so far.

Sports

Red Sox – This year’s team is interesting in that they appear to be a much better team than last year, but the results don’t back that up. They have a remote chance at the postseason if they can avoid more losing streaks, but given their feast-or-famine rhythm so far that seems unlikely.

In Progress

The Naming Song by Jedediah Berry

Murderbot, Season 1

Lego Masters, Season 5

Media Diet: April 2023

Posted on by Eric F. Savage
This entry is part 4 of 5 in the series Media Diet

Books

Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson – A decent, light fantasy story set in an interesting world. I haven’t read Sanderson since Mistborn (and haven’t gotten to where he took over Wheel of Time yet) but my assessment of him as a someone in the model of Stephen King (prolific, reliable, mild) holds up.

Movies

Morbius – Wasted opportunity.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie – Exceeded my high expectations.

Games

Dyson Sphere Program (continued) – I’ve keep chipping away at this, going far beyond I have in the past and chipping away at achievements. The end game isn’t terribly strong, but in the game’s defense, they haven’t finished it yet. I’d love to see them close the loop with technology and development and bring it around to where you’re working towards some kind of infinite loop or singularity.

Television

Slow Horses, Season 1 – I generally favor single-threaded stories that focus on craft, details, and execution rather than checking every box, and this show was very much that. Despite being slightly awkward and somewhat slow for a spy “thriller”, I enjoyed it.

Mayor of Kingstown, Season 2 – The first season was kind of a mess, but hinted at a clearer “now that we got that settled (with copious violence of course, because Taylor Sheridan)” second season. Instead, it just got messier. This is a world that is both implausibly violent and implausibly ordered, and draws a connection between those two things that feels more like fascist fantasy than storytelling. I bailed after a few episodes.

The Mandalorian, Season 3 – A disappointing but fortunately conclusive end to arcs started in prior seasons. The charm and adventure of the earlier episodic stories was forgotten in service to a grand arc that it was hard to really care about.

Sports

Red Sox – Expectations are low this year for the Red Sox for a number of reasons, so it was fun to watch them outperform for most of April.

Boston Bruins (playoffs) – I’m not a hockey fan, but my son is interested in playing, so I figured I’ll get interested in watching. To my untrained eye, the heavily-favorited and record-breaking Bruins just didn’t look like a better team than the bottom-seeded Florida Panthers that they ended up losing to, but I at least got a sense of hockey’s unique flavor of drama and tension.

In Progress

Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan – Grind. Grind. Grind

Media Diet: March 2023

Posted on by Eric F. Savage
This entry is part 3 of 5 in the series Media Diet

I spent more time on fitness this month than I have in a long time, and that left less room for media, which is fine by me!

Books

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky – I wanted to like this book more than I did because it was innovative (spiders as main characters?!) but it took a bit of an effort to finish it. The writing is dry and heavy, sometimes boring, the characters were pretty shallow, and the ending was a poor return on the time invested.

Games

Dyson Sphere Program (replay)– In what has become an annual tradition, I played through one of my all-time favorite games for the third time, which is probably a record for me. There weren’t a lot of improvements over last year, just some tweaks, but each time I’ve gone further and faster. If they release the big “combat” update this year I may not wait until next year to do it again.

Television

Ted Lasso, Season 2 – It’s always great to see a good show get better, and Lasso did just that. With one exception (Episode 9, which completely missed it’s mark) it was improved and refined. The excellent casting paid off as previously lesser characters stepped up and new characters fit in seamlessly.

Sports

World Baseball Classic – This is the first time I’ve watched any serious amount of the WBC, in large part thanks to friendly time-zones, and it was fantastic. I’d love to see better pitching, most of the MLB’s top players weren’t allowed to participate, but it was still great baseball.

Red Sox (Spring Training) – Prior to the WBC, I also watched more of this than perhaps I ever have, and it was nice in a very casual way. I’m not terribly hopeful of the Red Sox chances this year, but I’m generally more excited about baseball than I have been in many years.

In Progress

Didn’t finish these in March so I’ll update when I do.

  • Mandalorian, Season 3
  • Crossroads of Twilight
  • Mayor of Kingstown

Upcoming

Some things I’m hoping to read/watch/play soon:

  • Succession, Season 3
  • Ted Lasso, Season 3 

Media Diet: February 2023

Posted on by Eric F. Savage
This entry is part 2 of 5 in the series Media Diet

Books

Ghost Pirate Gambit by Jessie Kwak – A fun space heist book. Nothing terribly surprising or disappointing, just a nice easy reading adventure.

Winter’s Heart by Robert Jordan – I suffered through this one in service of trying to complete the series. Way too many characters and way too little story.

Movies

Ant-Man: Quantumania – OK

Bullet Train – A hyperviolent but well-built and fun “on a train” movie.

Games

Stacklands – A great little village builder for only $5. It lets you play enough cards that it gets unwieldy, but I suspect that’s not an accident and wants you to adapt your play style to desired tidiness.

Sons of the Forest – A popular survival craft game that just couldn’t get me interested enough to deal with the lack of guidance. Personally I find games that think it’s fun to figure out how to play rarely deliver, so I returned it after 2 hours.

Television

1923, Season 1 – A stunted epic that lacks the grace of 1888 and the spirit of Yellowstone. For a show with a scheduled two season run, it also didn’t end as far a long as I’d hoped, so the next season will likely feel a little rushed and end in a violent spectacle.

Ted Lasso, Season 1 – A good show that is trying to do a “meaningful” comedy but just missing the mark. The foundation is good though, and it is pleasantly more like a tightly-edited hour-long show than a half-hour show.

Upcoming

Some things I’m hoping to read/watch/play soon:

  • Mandalorian, Season 3
  • Children of Time
  • Succession, Season 3

52 Word Review: Ant-Man: Quantumania

Posted on by Eric F. Savage

A decent but not completely satisfying superhero movie with a promising and novel villain but lacking superheroism. Thankfully lacking in multiverse nonsense (mostly), the interesting Star Wars vs. Saga setting felt wasted on a tropey and predictable story. Majors’ second turn as Kang was good but Rudd brought little new to Ant-Man.

Media Diet: January 2023

Posted on by Eric F. Savage
This entry is part 1 of 5 in the series Media Diet

Inspired by Kottke’s media diet posts, I’m going to try and collect my own thoughts here. Also, the holidays is always a good time to catch up on watching/reading so there’s quite a bit to cover here!

Books

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers – A light second book in the series, I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first, which wasn’t amazing, but left the reader with some nice thoughts to dwell on. This book hinted that it was trying to do that again, but didn’t manage to pull it off.

So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport – I’ve resolved to read more non-fiction this year, and enjoyed this one. It’s very typical in the thesis/data/example mixture but is short and well-paced and makes a good case, especially to someone early in their career.

Kindred by Octavia Butler – My second reading of Butler after being disappointed in Xenogenesis, and I enjoyed this much more. Excellent prose and pacing, a single-threaded story that doesn’t lose track of itself, time-travel book that doesn’t get lost in the details, just a solid book all around. It certainly could have dug a little deeper on the hypothetical social issues or the other characters, but then it would have been a different book and been far less likely to pull it all off.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis. – A decent fantasy adventure. Not quite as charming as other entries in the series, but also somewhat (though not entirely) less allegorical.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis. – Underwhelming though satisfactorily final conclusion to the series. It started with a lot of promise but quickly stumbled into a predictable and rushed dash to wrap things up.

Artemis City Shuffle by Jessie Kwak – A fun, short and sweet intro to the series. Seems optional but if the rest of the series is similar it should be a fun ride.

Movies

Black Adam – Meh.

Pale Blue Eye – Decent.

Glass Onion – OK.

Games

Marvel Snap (mobile/Steam) – I started playing this a few months ago and it’s a solid addition to the digital card game genre. Fast-paced, highly variable but deep enough to stay interesting even after hundreds of games. The progression mechanism still feels a little rough but the game itself is fantastic. The meta is pretty good for a card game, I regularly see an assortment of decks, but it is has converged on a few mechanics, so hopefully they’ll stay ahead of that. They recently tuned (nerfed) a card that risked tanking the game (Leader) which was nice to see, so hopefully they’ll also tune a few of the dumber locations (District X) and keep the game fresh.

Dwarf Fortress (Steam) – I’ve only logged a few hours on the new version, but I played it years ago in the text-based interface. It’s a great game if you’re looking to be rewarding for committing to a long learning curve (which I’m not, at the moment), and the new graphical UI makes it much more appealing by shorting that curve.

Outpath: First Journey (Steam) – A demo for a future game, it feels promising as a blend of casual/survival/crafting genres. The low-res graphics are tiresome, the novelty of retro “8 bit” graphics has long passed, and requires a level of expertise to pull off these days, and this game lacks that.

Television

Yellowstone (Season 5, Part 1) – This show has always been kind of dumb but also kind of fun, albeit in a lazily violent way. Lately it’s been trying to be less dumb and as a side effect is becoming less fun. It’s safe to say that politics and intrigue are not Sheridan’s strong suit. The barometer of the show has always been Rip, and he’s transitioned very rapidly from a skilled gangster enforcer to … a dad.

Andor (Season 1) – An exceedingly well-constructed show, with several story arcs in series as well as an overarching one. The heist was cliché but sets everything else up and we get a whole bunch of new and detailed perspectives on the Empire and Rebellion that add more details to Star Wars canon than anything else since the movies.

Jack Ryan (Season 3) – Despite a credible star and decent marketing, I feel like this show always flies under the radar. It’s a good spy/action thriller that doesn’t necessarily stay true to Tom Clancy canon, but certainly does to the spirit of his books. I lump this in with the Mission Impossible movies as engaging, well-crafted , brain-not-quite-off action thrillers.

Podcasts

The Rest is History is a recent discovery and highly recommended. Their recent episodes on the origins of Nazism show how so many factors, some outside Germany and others even before it existed, played into such a terrible event.

Hardcore History is also always highly recommended. Similar to the The Rest is History’s series but in far more detail, “Supernova in the East” covers what led Japan into World War II. It filled in a lot of gaps in my knowledge and presented a far more complete picture than most Americans (and possibly Japanese) students would get at school.

Upcoming

Some things I’m hoping to read/watch/play soon:

  • Bullet Train
  • Winter’s Heart
  • Ghost Pirate Gambit

52 Word Review: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Posted on by Eric F. Savage

Another Rian Johnson movie that falls short of its astronomical opinion of itself, Glass Onion was still somewhat entertaining. The charismatic cast, good scenery and pacing and interesting premise were held back by pedestrian writing, shallow “I’m so quirky!” characters and an ending that ran out of gas long before the credits.

EFS Baseball Hall of Fame, Part 1

Posted on by Eric F. Savage

Greatness in sports is an evergreen source of fun, research and debate for most fans, and the recent election of (IMO) borderline third baseman Scott Rolen to baseball’s hall of fame has sparked predictably lively discussions.

In my previous post I mentioned that I wanted a tiered Hall of Fame, so I’ve decided to start one. Bill Simmons did something similar a while back with his Hall of Fame Pyramid for Basketball, but I think I’d like mine to be more inclusive than just 96 players. Here are my rules:

  1. The player must be retired for 5 years, which is the same as the official baseball hall of fame.
  2. The player must have appeared in 1,000 games, or pitched in at least 200 games (this is currently about 3,700 players)
  3. Players who are selected are placed in Tier 1, the Hall of Stars. The target is about 10%. Players who are borderline may be deferred and will be re-evaluated in the future.
  4. For every 3 spots in tier 1, a spot will open in tier 2, the Hall of Fame. New tiers will be created with this ratio. This means based on currently eligible players that there will be 6 tiers.

I don’t have any magic numbers like 500 Home Runs or 300 Wins, although I’ll be surprised if anyone who hit those marks doesn’t at least make Tier 1. I am going to make non-scientific affordances to players who lost time to injury or military service.

Whenever I have time, I’m going to pick 10 players at random and research if they should be accepted.

Howie Fox (1944-1954) – Not Accepted. A very average starting pitcher who spent most of his career with the Cincinnati Reds.

Erv Palica (1947-1956) – Not Accepted. A slightly below average utility pitcher who spent most of his career with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Johnny Lanning (1936-1947) – Not Accepted. A slightly above average utility pitcher who played for the Boston Bees (Braves) and Pittsburgh Pirates.

Mark Sweeney (1995-2008) – Not Accepted. A below average utility fielder and frequent pinch hitter who played for a number of teams.

Greg Minton (1975-1990) – Not Accepted. An above average relief pitcher who played for the San Francisco Giants and California Angels. 1-time All star. Notable achievement: 2691?3 consecutive innings without giving up a home run.

Dick Radatz (1962-1969) – Deferred. An above average relief pitcher/closer who had several great years for the Red Sox at the beginning of his career, becoming the first pitcher in history to have consecutive 20-save seasons, but struggled after that. Member of the Red Sox Hall of Fame.

Frank Francisco (2004-2014) – Not Accepted. A slightly above average relief pitcher who played for the Texas Rangers and several other teams.

George Kell (1943-1957) – Accepted. A 10x All Star contact-hitting, excellent-fielding third baseman who played for a number of teams. Elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1983.

Greg Vaughn (1989-2003) – Deferred. A power-hitting left fielder and 4-time All Star who played for the Milwaukee Brewers and other teams. Probably not going to be accepted, he was an average fielder with a lot of strikeouts, but I’m not sure yet where the line is so we’ll revisit.

Cookie Lavagetto (1934-1941, 1946-1947) – Deferred. A 4-time All Star infielder with the Brooklyn Dodgers and Pittsburgh pirates. An average fielder and average hitter, though above average for his position. He missed 4 full seasons to WWII service, which probably wouldn’t have made a big difference, but we’ll come back to Cookie again.

Baseball Hall of Fame 2023

Posted on by Eric F. Savage

I posted a hypothetical hall of fame ballot way back in 2007 and decided to do this year’s version before they announce the result. There are 28 players on the list, half of them for the first time.

Scott Rolen – Almost
Todd Helton – No
Billy Wagner – No
Andruw Jones – No
Gary Sheffield – No
Alex Rodriguez – Yes
Jeff Kent – Almost
Manny Ramirez – Yes
Omar Vizquel – No
Andy Pettitte – No
Jimmy Rollins – No
Bobby Abreu – No
Mark Buehrle – No
Torii Hunter – No
Carlos Beltrán – Almost
John Lackey – No
Jered Weaver – No
Jacoby Ellsbury – No
Matt Cain – No
Jhonny Peralta – No
Jayson Werth – No
J.J. Hardy – No
Mike Napoli – No
Bronson Arroyo – No
R.A. Dickey – No
Francisco Rodríguez – No
Andre Ethier – No
Huston Street – No

Also, Fred McGriff was elected by one of the committees this year. To me McGriff represents possibly the best example of the “small hall” versus “big hall” points of view. The small hall thinks admission should be only for those whose greatness is beyond a shadow of a doubt, wheras the large hall thinks admission is a good capstone for a career full of solid contributions. There have been a little over 20,000 players to play major league baseball, and 270 are in the Hall of Fame, so about 1.35%, though if you filter out the number who only played a few games or even a single season, we’re probably in the 2-3% range. The small hall crowd thinks this should probably be closer to 1%, the large hall is probably more like 5%.

If forced to choose, I would probably land on the small hall side. I look at players like McGriff and Andrew Jones and think they were fantastic players that I would have loved to have on my team, but am I going to reminisce about how dominant they were? No. I’d actually like to see a tiered system where it’s not all or nothing, but we can give these players a more visible place in history while also recognizing those we felt we were lucky to see play, but that’s a post for another day.

The Yeses

As mentioned in 2007, steroids is still a factor, and in 16 years little progress has been made in how to handle that. My only two votes on this years ballots both had suspensions for PEDs late in a career that would have been automatic HoF status up to that point, but they will likely never get in from the writers’ voting as a result of the suspensions.

The Almosts

  • Carlos Beltrán might make it eventually after a long and solid career, but is likely in the penalty box for the Astros cheating scandal, so we’ll think about him next year.
  • Scott Rolen and Jeff Kent were great all-around players but I’d put them in the same tier as McGrifff.
  • Todd Helton played half his games in a hitter’s wonderland and put together a few great seasons and a few good ones, but not enough to make the cut for me.