Music: Golden

Ever since 2018's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Sony Pictures Animation has been on a hot streak, putting out great films even as its competitors (Pixar, DreamWorks) and its parent company (Sony Pictures) have fallen onto hard times. But while The Mitchells vs. the Machines and Across the Spider-Verse were excellent, they were also pretty easy to market.  Not so with KPop Demon Hunters, a full-blown musical about a K-pop girl group that also secretly battles demons who steal people's souls.

Naturally, such films rise and fall on the strength of their soundtracks, and KPop Demon Hunters is stuffed full of bangers, including "Golden." Performed by real Korean-American artists Ejae, Audrey Nuna, and Rei Ami, the track manages to capture the trappings of a traditional K-pop song while containing lyrics about the deeper themes of the film.

Miscellany: Mountainsmith Dry Kick waterproof fanny pack review

My friends and I went kayaking over the Independence Day weekend, and I carried our phones and other valuables in Mountainsmith's Dry Kick, a fanny pack variation on the traditional dry bag.

As a pure fanny pack, the Dry Kick leaves a lot to be desired.  There is zero padding on the bag, so it's not well-suited for long hikes. There's no organization, either; the interior pocket is one big bulbous space, and the front pocket is too small and flat to carry anything beyond a set of keys. Finally, only the interior pocket of the bag is actually waterproof.  The front pocket will withstand rain and light splashes, but not immersion.

That said, the Dry Kick succeeded in its primary mission. We encountered plenty of water during our kayak trip, but the main pocket stayed bone dry throughout.  The fanny pack form factor was also useful, in that the hip strap made it much less likely to be lost than a regular dry bag, and allowed taking items in and out with both hands while on the move.

Tech: Nintendo Switch 2 review

The first Nintendo Switch was a "bet the company" moment.  After the failure of the Wii U, Nintendo risked combining its portable and home console lines into one expensive, do-it-all hybrid machine.  Fortunately, the gamble paid off, and the Switch became one of the top 3 bestselling consoles of all time.

The Switch 2 is a gamble of a different sort.  Unlike Nintendo's previous consoles, which introduced new controllers, new features, and even all-new layouts (the DS), the Switch 2 is a straightforward sequel that gives you more of everything you loved and hated about the old Switch, at an even higher asking price ($450).  Is it worth the coin?

Like with most things, it depends on what you want.  The Switch 2 is a generational leap in power over the Switch; it's as fast or faster than a PS4, plus it supports Nvidia's DLSS upscaling.  The upshot is that the system can actually play current-generation games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Split Fiction, albeit with lower framerates and fewer effects than the PS5 and Series X. This was simply not the case back when the original Switch launched in 2017.

However, if you already have those consoles (or a high-powered PC) and you don't need the versatility of a portable system, the Switch 2 makes much less sense. Then the only attraction of the system is the ability to play Nintendo's exclusive first-party games. While that's nothing to sneeze at, given that the big "N" is the home of Mario, Zelda, and Metroid, it's a big investment for a system that you might ultimately end up playing four or five (great) games on.

Books: Thunder at the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments that Redeemed America

For Juneteenth this year, I read Thunder at the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments that Redeemed America by Douglas Egerton.  The book is an epic and exhaustive look at the men of the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantry and 5th Massachusetts Cavalry, some of the Union's first African-American regiments, whose service paved the way for thousands of black soldiers in the fight to end slavery.

Most probably know about the 54th Massachusetts from the classic 1989 film Glory, but nearly all the black men in that movie (including main characters played by Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman) were composites or totally fictional.  Thunder at the Gates explores the real history using hundreds of primary sources, and it's more fascinating than anything a screenwriter could put together. You'll meet the multilingual world traveler Nicholas Said, the sons of famous freedman and author Frederick Douglass, and many more interesting men, in campaigns that stretch far beyond the Battle of Fort Wagner that served as the climax to the film.

Egerton does a great job of portraying the complex racial and political attitudes of the time - not only the internal divisions of the Union (which of course included border states where slavery was still legal) but among the abolitionists themselves (the desire to end slavery did not necessarily entail an egalitarian view of race relations). It's a little much for a casual reader (the constant asides and quotes make for a meandering narrative), but it's a comprehensive account of a pivotal moment in American history.

Tech: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 review

Ever since I saw the previews for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, I knew it would be a game to watch. After all, how many stylish, mid-budget JRPGs do you see nowadays? And how many are debut titles from a small French developer?

Clair Obscur's plot is part Final Fantasy X, part Logan's Run: every year, the godlike Paintress paints an ever-decreasing number on a distant skyscraper-sized Monolith, and everyone who is that age or older gets erased, Thanos-style. Every year, Expeditions are sent to the Monolith to defeat the Paintress and end the cycle, but none have ever succeeded...or even returned alive.  You are the latest group to attempt the impossible - Expedition 33.

It's a wonderful setup for an adventure, and Clair Obscur delivers, sending the titular Expedition through surreal landscapes full of nightmarish enemies straight out of a FromSoftware title. You'll combat them in old-school JRPG fashion (a line of your characters standing across a line of enemies, with everyone taking turns whacking each other), except that you can, and frequently must, dodge and parry enemy attacks in real-time (this is not a game for people who hate QTEs).

That would be reason enough to play the game, but Clair Obscur is also unique in that it is not Japanese, but French - very French. The game employs a Belle Époque aesthetic that is rarely seen in video games, and an awesome soundtrack from Lorien Testard, featuring (French) singer Alice Duport-Percier:

Downsides? Well, while Clair Obscur's core gameplay is quite fun, that's all there is; there are no puzzles or minigames to break up the cycle of dungeon running, combat, and cutscenes.  Overall, though, this was a great game, and an easy recommendation for anyone who grew up in the glory days of the JRPG.

Rating: 90/100

Movies: Sinners

Sinners is director Ryan Coogler's first film not based on either real events (Fruitvale Station) or existing IP (Creed, Black Panther). I liked the movie overall, and it almost pains me to embed the trailer, since the less you know about it going in, the better:

Sinners has the same basic premise as one of my favorite flicks, From Dusk till Dawn, though Coogler is not (yet) as good an action director as Robert Rodriguez, or as good a screenwriter as Quentin Tarantino.  In both films, two criminal brothers (played by Michael B. Jordan) spend a night in a club besieged by vampires - bullets don't do much, but stakes and sunlight seem to work. Can they survive until dawn?

It's a great premise, but Sinners takes a long time to get going, and lacks the pacing, tension, and go-for-broke insanity of Rodriguez and Tarantino's classic. The cast is uniformly excellent, but they just don't have interesting things to do, aside from the musical numbers.

Musical numbers?! Yup, the trailer omits how critically important music is to the story, specifically old-school Delta blues and (amazingly) Irish folk songs. One of the main characters is played by newcomer Miles Caton, and the movie's worth watching for his musical performance alone:

Rating: 7/10

Guns: Advantage Arms .22 GLOCK Conversion Kit review - Training Day

Introduction

Nowadays, Glock makes a .22 LR handgun (the G44), but for many decades, if you wanted rimfire practice with the Glock platform, you had to make do with conversion kits made by third parties.  One of the best of the bunch is the subject of today's review, the Advantage Arms .22 kit, which are still sold from their website for under $300 shipped (more if you need an optic cut).

Consisting of a conversion slide and a magazine, the Advantage Arms kit is a piece of cake to install (just field strip and switch out the slide/mag - no other parts have to be swapped), and it promises to give you inexpensive practice with .22 rimfire ammunition.  But does it?

First Impressions

Advantage Arms has been making conversions since 1997, so their Glock kit is a pretty mature product. I ordered one for the Gen 4 G19, and I found the overall fit and finish to be fairly decent - nothing "garage table gunsmith" about it. Sadly, the kit comes with just one magazine, but it does ship in a padded soft case that you can take to the range.

In a world where Glock makes a dedicated .22 pistol, is there any reason to use a kit like the Advantage Arms? Well, a conversion still allows you to take advantage of any work you've done to your centerfire frame, such as grip stippling, extended controls, flared magwells, and trigger jobs (within reason - aftermarket triggers may not work with the kit).  In my view, that's a lot simpler and cheaper than trying to modify a Glock 44 to be comparable to your carry gun.

Range Report

I have a specific progression I use when instructing a new or occasional shooter.  I first start them off with a Ring's Bluegun version of a GLOCK 19 to teach the Four Rules, grip, and sight alignment/sight picture (this part is actually best done off the firing line, away from any noise).  Then, when it's time to shoot, I hand them a G19 equipped with the Advantage Arms kit, which allows them to practice loading and trigger control without much recoil.  Finally, once they are comfortable and putting out good groups on target, I put on the 9mm G19 slide and have them go to work.

At the range, I found the conversion kit was mostly reliable, though it had its fair share of malfunctions (it's the nature of the beast when it comes to .22s).  Advantage Arms "highly recommend[s] Remington 'Golden Bullets' for everyday plinking and CCI MiniMags or Federal Automatch for better accuracy," and I found that advice to be generally correct, though the AutoMatch ran poorly in my particular kit and gun.  Here are some representative groups:

Winchester M-22 at 15 yards:

Federal bulk pack .22 at 10 yards

CCI Stingers at 15 yards:

Winchester bulk pack at 15 yards (this ammo did not run well):

Remington Golden Bullets at 15 yards - as Advantage Arms promised, reliability was good:

Federal AutoMatch at 15 yards - decent groups, bad reliability:

Conclusion

It's important to keep your expectations in check with an aftermarket .22 conversion, especially when the underlying 9mm pistol (a Gen 4 Glock) isn't exactly known for its accuracy. The Advantage Arms is not something I would use to hunt small game or shoot a target match unless I had no other options - it's just not accurate enough.  Nor would I ever use one for self-defense - setting aside the fact that it's a rimfire, it's not even as reliable as other .22s.  However, as a training aid, the Advantage Arms is a good kit and worth the money.

Tech: Shokz OpenRun Pro 2 headphones

The marathon has come and gone, but I'm still running for fun, and the best headphones I've found for the job are the Shokz OpenRun Pro 2s:

They're "hybrid" headphones - a combination of the bone conduction technology that Shokz is famous for, plus more conventional air conduction drivers that direct sound into your ears the old-fashioned way. That makes the OpenRun Pro 2s sound noticeably better than old Shokz models, yet they still allow you to hear everything around you...the rustle of trees in the wind, the roar of a crowd near the finish line, and (most importantly) that garbage truck coming up behind you.

Downsides? The sound quality still isn't as good as a traditional set of headphones, and yet the OpenRun Pro 2s are quite expensive - around $150.  If you just need something for working out inside, you can find better-sounding earbuds for a fraction of that cost.  However, after using these for hundreds and hundreds of miles of outdoor running, in all weather conditions, I do think they are worth the money.

Food: Tokyo Milk Cheese Factory cookies

Growing up in an Asian family means trying a lot of unique foods, like these cookies from Tokyo Milk Cheese Factory:

A friend of ours brought some home from Japan, and I tried the "Strawberry & Marscapone" flavor. They tasted...interesting.  Like eating a Captain's Wafer cheese cracker, but with a sweeter, more delicate flavor. It's not something I would ever seek out, but they were inoffensive enough, and made for a good after-dinner treat.

Music: Ralph Don't Tell

For this April 1st, a funny but poignant rendering of one of my favorite songs, "Tess Don't Tell":

Adam Schlesinger (October 31, 1967 – April 1, 2020)