Books: Dungeon Crawler Carl

Whenever I have insomnia, I usually do some light reading to ease my mind.  I try not to take on anything too challenging or deep; ideally the book should have some humor and zaniness to help me relax.  Dungeon Crawler Carl, a LitRPG series by Matt Dinniman, fits the bill perfectly.  

In the eponymous first novel, Carl is a fairly average ex-Coast Guardsman in the midst of a depressing breakup with his girlfriend.  When he follows her spoiled show cat Donut outside, he is swept up in a sudden alien invasion that transforms the entire Earth into a giant, multi-level fantasy-themed dungeon, all for a deadly reality show broadcast around the galaxy. 

It's not the world's most original premise (the book can be very accurately described as "Sword Art Online plus The Hunger Games plus The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"), but Dinniman has a breezy first-person style and a knack for drawing likable characters. The series must have struck a chord with fantasy fans, because the books are usually hard to borrow from the library and there's a TV series in the works.

Miscellany: CountyComm Embassy Pen review - The Really Non-Tactical Tactical Pen

For years, my CRKT Williams Tactical Pen passed through airport security without any issue, but nowadays TSA agents know all about these so-called "tactical pens" and won't let them through. Before I caught on to the tightening security, I had to leave several fine pens behind, including the aforementioned Williams Pen and a Tuff Writer ballpoint that the company doesn't even make any more.

I've pivoted to carrying good solid pens, like the Embassy Pen from CountyComm, with no "tactical" features whatsoever.  It's just a pen - there's no glass breaker, no "DNA catcher," nothing about it that could even be remotely construed as a weapon. You unscrew the cap and you can write with it. That's it:

Still, the Embassy Pen is a very solid hunk of metal (mine is the discontinued 2-ounce titanium version, an ideal balance between strength and weight), and it would serve about as well as an improvised weapon as anything else...just don't call it "tactical."

Books: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

I've vowed never to start reading A Song of Ice and Fire unless George R. R. Martin finishes it before he dies (which is looking increasingly unlikely), but I did pick up A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, an anthology of the three previously published novellas in Martin's Tales of Dunk and Egg series. 

Tales of Dunk and Egg predates A Song of Ice and Fire by 90 years, so it is not beholden to the crippling demands of continuity.  Freed of having to follow the thousands of pages in the main saga, Martin focuses the story on his two likable protagonists: Dunk, a lowly but honorable hedge knight scraping around for a living in the backwaters of Westeros, and Egg, his precocious but loyal young squire.  The stakes are small (the second novella is all about a dispute over riparian rights), but it's nice to root for some "good guys" in Martin's otherwise amoral universe.

Tech: Unicorn Overlord

I remember reading about Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen in Nintendo Power magazine back in the '90s. At the time, Ogre Battle was one of the only Japanese strategy RPGs out there, and it was a huge step up in complexity from the battle systems of other 16-bit RPGs.  Instead of controlling a handful of characters, you managed an entire army, and factors like the day/night cycle, terrain, and even moral alignment affected the outcome of battles. 

Ogre Battle became a classic, and the developers made several sequels (Square Enix eventually bought their studio), but true strategy RPGs are still hard to find nowadays.  Vanillaware's Unicorn Overlord is one of the best ones in years:

There's a lot of strategy goodness here - your army consists of up to ten units of five characters each, and there are dozens of classes to choose from.  The start of the game features standard fighters, archers, and knights, but in the back half, you'll recruit and battle against elves, werewolves, and angels.  Most importantly, while battles between units run automatically with no opportunity for player input, you can tweak the individual tactics of each character beforehand, a la Final Fantasy XII's "gambit" system.  That can lead to powerful combos, like having some of your characters buff the initiative of your glass cannon so she can nuke the enemy unit before they have a chance to respond.

Unicorn Overlord's main weakness is its story; you're playing the same blue-haired earnest swordsman you've played in umpteen Fire Emblem games.  While there are some choices to be made (you can recruit or execute certain characters along the way), there aren't any big twists or memorable moments.  The overworld sidequests are also boring and repetitive, though they do provide your brain some "down time" between number crunching and theorycrafting.  If you can deal with those flaws, then this is a must-play for strategy gamers,

Rating: 85/100

Sports: Alysa Liu

I like figure skating as much as the next guy, which means I really only pay attention to it during the Winter Olympics. Luckily, me and everyone around the world were treated to a joyous show by American Alysa Liu, whose gold medal after an incredibly unusual two-year break from skating made for the feel-good story of this year's Games:

Guns: Rangemaster Defensive Shotgun with Tom Givens - class review and report

No matter how much experience with guns you have, it's good to stay in shape.  That's why I took a one-day introductory Defensive Shotgun course with Tom Givens's company, Rangemaster, to polish up my skills with the old Tacticool Remington 870 Wingmaster.  Note that the course is aimed at using a shotgun for home defense, and not for law enforcement or military purposes.

As most firearms classes do, Tom started with lecture.  He talked about the history of the shotgun, the types of shotguns and ammo typically used for self-defense, and the proper stance and technique needed for firing the darn thing.  Every student got a course packet and the lecture was in a comfortable, unintimidating classroom setting with a big TV screen for a visual aid.

After a quick lunch, we moved to the range for the entire afternoon.  Tom took us from the absolute basics (safely loading and shooting one shell, step by step) to drills involving multiple shots and loading under stress.  This was still a beginner-level one-day course, though, so we didn't do anything like slug changeovers, use cover, or move while shooting.

The class went through about 100 rounds of birdshot and 20 rounds of buckshot (the latter used mostly for a patterning test at various distances). The gentleman I was shooting with was pretty experienced, so our target was one ragged hole at the end of the drills (not counting the holes made by the wads).

Despite the entry-level nature of the course, I did learn a few things about myself and my gun. The Esstac shotgun cards I used as a sidesaddle worked like a charm. But the Magpul polymer MLOK rail section I had attached to the foreend broke during a string of fire (see picture below comparing the broken polymer rail to a new metal one), leading to my weaponlight wobbling all over the place. My eyes found the simple bead sight of my shotgun well enough in the daylight, but a ghost ring would probably be better at night. Finally, the Federal Flite Control 8-pellet 00 buckshot patterned fine out of my barrel, though I still prefer the 9-pellet load.

Bottom line - if you want to use a shotgun for home defense and you've never received formal instruction in its use, you should probably sign up for a class with a reputable instructor like Tom Givens.  And even if you've used a shotgun for decades, it's always good to go back to the fundamentals once in awhile.

Movies: 2026 Oscar Roundup

I'm from a family of cinephiles, so I've seen quite a few of the movies nominated for this year's Academy Awards.  While nothing truly stood head-and-shoulders above the crowd this year, there were some decent films and performances that you may want to check out:

Blue Moon

The latest collaboration between Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon is a slice-of-life biopic following lyricist Lorenz Hart, the former songwriting colleague of Richard Rodgers.  The whole movie takes place on the opening night of Oklahoma!, Rodgers' first collaboration with new partner Oscar Hammerstein, with Hart being the odd man out. Hawke turns in a career-best performance as Hart, playing him as a complex bon vivant whose closeted homosexuality and tragic alcoholism help to humanize an irascible character at a low point in life.  Rating: 7/10

Marty Supreme

The Safdie brothers released dueling movies this year, the first since they ended their directing partnership in 2024.  Benny's film, The Smashing Machine, bombed at the box office and was largely shut out at the Oscars, while Josh's movie, Marty Supreme, got nine nominations, including Best Actor for Timothée Chalamet.  Chalamet plays Marty, a semiprofessional table tennis player who dreams of winning the world championship in Tokyo - the only problem is getting there.  Marty Supreme features the same sort of anxiety-filled hustling and brinkmanship as 2019's Uncut Gems, but some absurd plot points and an overlong 150-minute runtime drag the film down. Rating: 7/10

Sentimental Value (Affeksjonsverdi)

Norway's entry in this year's race for Best International Film is a gentle family drama from Joachim Trier. Stellan Skarsgård stars as a famous film director coming to terms with his two estranged daughters, played by Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, after the death of their mother.  This is one of those movies that has "Oscar Bait" written all over it - a respected veteran actor looking for his first Oscar, a respected director looking for his first Oscar, and a plot about the importance of filmmaking.  I just wish it were a little more tightly edited. Rating: 7/10

Song Sung Blue

The Kate Hudson-aissance is upon us, with her luminous comeback performance in Song Sung Blue opposite Hugh Jackman. Based on the real-life escapades of Milwaukee husband-and-wife Neil Diamond tribute band "Lightning and Thunder" (Mike and Claire Sardina), this is a "feel-good" movie that trades emotional complexity for (pretty good) musical performances. But Hudson channels all the charm she brought to the screen as Penny Lane in 2000's Almost Famous, and you can't help but fall in love.  She has a decent shot at Best Actress this year. Rating: 7/10

Tech: Ball x Pit review

Roguelite "bullet heaven" games were popularized by 2022's mind-numbingly addictive Vampire Survivors, and ever since, indie developers have taken turns putting their own spin on the genre. The latest (and ballsiest) iteration? Ball x Pit, a Survivors-like from Kenny Sun that blends waves of enemies and power-ups with the block-busting action of Breakout and Arkanoid:

Like most of these games, there's little story to speak of: the city of Ballbylon sank into the earth in a great catastrophe, and you guide adventurers into the giant pit, seeking riches in the ruins. Your only defense against hordes of block-like enemies are the balls launched from your character, which carom around the playfield causing damage along the way. There are dozens of special balls for you to discover - fire, lightning, etc. - which can be evolved and fused to create devastating, screen-clearing combinations.

Ball x Pit is a fun timewaster, especially in portable form on the Switch 2. The gameplay is pretty simple (your only controls are move, aim, and fire) but the wide variety of characters and enemy types spices things up.  One character launches balls from the back of the playfield, another uses a giant shield to deflect balls Arkanoid-style, and still another turns Ball x Pit into a turn-based strategy game. My only gripes are that there's not much depth here, and there's a lot of grinding required to get all the characters and levels (including a somewhat tedious city-building minigame that I would have been glad to skip).

Rating: 80/100

Guns: Low recoil buckshot patterning

I have a shotgun class coming up later this month, so I've been testing out some budget low recoil 00 buckshot options.

While all of the loads cycled fine in my tacticool Remington 870 Wingmaster, none of the patterns were tight enough to be safe past 10-15 yards. Here are some typical patterns from 10 yards for each load:

PMC "One-Shot" Low Velocity Buckshot:

Fiocchi Exacta low recoil buckshot:

Rio Royal Buck low velocity:

 

I hate to sound like a commercial, but if you own a shotgun and think you might use it for anything beyond across-the-room distances, you need to stoke it with something like Flite Control or Versatite.

Food: Dry January (and Beyond)

Rates of alcoholism for lawyers are much higher than for the general population, and while I'm nowhere near having any kind of problem, I did notice that I was drinking most days of the week without even realizing it.  That, coupled with the latest scientific evidence that no amount of alcohol is "safe," has made me consciously reduce my alcohol consumption over the last few months.

The effects have been noticeable and immediate: I've lost weight, ran my fastest 5k and half-marathon times in years, and have slept deeper and longer (I've also mostly quit caffeine, too).

Going from 1-2 drinks a day to 1-2 drinks a week can be an adjustment, but thankfully, there are lots of non-alcoholic options nowadays.  While NA wine is still pretty terrible, the NA beers are close enough to the real thing that most casual drinkers (like me) won't mind the difference, especially at a meal or a party. 

Common NA beers that I can recommend are Heineken 0.0 (which is what you'll find in most restaurants and bars), Guiness 0, Blue Moon NA, and most of the Athletic and Partake brews. I hate the "hop water" or "hoppy refresher"-type concoctions (too thin and watery), and for similar reasons, I didn't like the beers I've tried from Clausthaler, BrewDog, or CERIA.

If you're embarking on Dry January (or beyond), I wish you the best!