Movies: Godzilla Minus Zero

Returning (human) characters have been rare in the Japanese Godzilla movies, mainly because the non-kaiju were so thinly drawn that no one cared whether they showed up again. Takashi Yamazaki's Godzilla Minus One changed that by focusing on several likable protagonists, including ex-kamikaze pilot Koichi and former IJN weapons engineer Noda, so it's nice to see them return in Godzilla Minus Zero:

Minus Zero is a direct sequel to Minus One, so much so that if you didn't see the first film, you will be pretty lost in terms of the character motivations and emotional stakes.  In this one, set in 1949, Japan has largely recovered from the war and Godzilla's first attack, but is now dealing with a new threat from beyond the stars: a shape-changing monster dubbed "Ghidorah."  It's no spoiler to tell you that Godzilla re-emerges and (of course) comes into conflict with Ghidorah.  Who will be the king of the monsters?  And will there be anyone (or anything) left standing after their fight?

Like its predecessor, Godzilla Minus Zero has been blessed with special effects that look way better than the film's budget (under $20 million). The plot of this movie isn't quite as strong, although I did like newcomer Murakami, a Hiroshima survivor whose arc is heavily inspired by past haunted scientists in the Godzilla franchise.  There's also a noticeable lack of monster fighting action, which is, of course, the main reason people watch these movies.

Rating: 7/10

Tech: 2024 Tesla Model 3 long-term review

It's been over two years and 40,000 miles since I bought my Tesla Model 3.  Overall, the car has been fantastic, but I thought I would recap the long-term maintenance and running costs you should expect if you pick one up.

Issues, both expected and unexpected

I knew going in that EVs don't require oil changes, 12-volt batteries, spark plugs, and numerous other items necessary for an ICE car. They do need tires just like any vehicle, though, and my Model 3's high torque and horsepower burned rubber worse than my old BMW.  Even after replacing two flat tires (at no additional cost thanks to Tesla's tire plan - do get the tire plan), the remaining tires were pretty much bald after only two years of use.

Another issue that came up was paint. Quality control at Tesla is much improved compared to the old days, but the company still uses really thin, crappy paint for some reason. The hood of my car showed significant road rash and paint chips after two years, much more so than a typical vehicle.

Every Tesla comes equipped with onboard cameras.  Normally these are maintenance-free, but if you use Full Self-Driving, you may have to get the front camera windshield area cleaned like I did (it was covered under warranty). Another warrantied repair was fixing the charging door's pressure-activation switch.

Range Report

After two years, I have noticed a little range degradation.  Tesla rates the Model 3 at 363 miles when new, but the total max range on my car is currently about 340 miles.  It's a subtle difference, and it's inconsequential except for long road trips, but it's there.

Speaking of road trips, my last one to Naples lasted over 300 miles, so I had to use some Tesla Superchargers to fill up during the trip (charge in the very early morning for the lowest rates).  The fast charging cost about 15 bucks total - still much cheaper than a gas car.

One thing I have learned: pretty much everything has an effect on your range.  Cold weather decreases it (the car expends energy just keeping the battery warm), hot weather decreases it (the car expends energy on A/C), and fast highway travel decreases it (thanks to air resistance, it costs 20-30% more energy per mile to travel at 80 mph versus 65 mph).  I've learned to use the onboard "Energy" app to get real-time information about how much electricity the car is consuming at any given time.

Music: Skeleton Sam’s Deadtime Stories

I've been curating my Halloween music playlist for over a decade now, and this year's update was easy due to the release of Skeleton Sam's Deadtime Stories, the annual Halloween album from the horror-pop collective LVCRFT:

LVCRFT, formed by songwriter/producers Evan “Kidd” Bogart, Amanda “MNDR” Warner, and Peter Wade, has become the world's leading purveyor of Halloween pop.  They're the spiritual successor to Bobby "Boris" Pickett and other novelty acts, and they've become so well known that they can recruit horror royalty to feature on their songs, like Roger L. Jackson (the voice of Scream's Ghostface), Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead's Ash), and Robert Englund and Heather Langenkamp (Nightmare of Elm Street's Freddy Kreuger and Nancy).

You could basically add the entire Deadtime Stories album to the playlist, but I forced myself to stick to a few standouts, such as the catchy title track, "Deadtime Stories":

Tech: Forbidden Solitaire review

Back in the '90s, one of the biggest PC games around was Solitaire, as Microsoft included it with every Windows installation. The decade also saw the rise of surreal, CD-ROM-based FMV puzzle titles, like Myst and The 7th Guest.  Forbidden Solitaire imagines a world where those two things collided in "a cryptic 1995 CD-ROM that should have never existed"...

A joint effort from indie studios Grey Alien Games and Night Signal Entertainment, Forbidden Solitaire presents a retro horror-fantasy version of solitaire, complete with playable "joker" abilities and card debuffs that would be at home in Balatro or Slay the Spire. The metafictional premise of the game is that it was shelved after parent protests and the mysterious death of its developer. As you flip cards to clear the screen and battle eldritch monsters, you'll experience otherworldly sights and sounds. But it's only a game...right?

Forbidden Solitaire absolutely nails the look and feel of a '90s CD-ROM game, and the solitaire gameplay is as addicting as it ever was.  The story, while predictable, has a good sense of rising tension, and there are fun audio and video interludes to reward you for progressing.  I have to ding it for having shallow gameplay (unlike Balatro and Slay the Spire, there's no deckbuilding element, plus you almost always have enough money to purchase all the upgrades from the shop).  However, if you're looking for 5 to 6 hours of casual card fun and '90s nostalgia, you should pick this up.

Rating: 83/100

Miscellany: Microtech Combat Troodon Gen III review

Like many knife companies, Microtech constantly updates its product lineup, and in recent years it has introduced "Gen III" versions of its flagship automatic, the Combat Troodon:

The upgrades to the Gen III Combat Troodon from the older model are major, so much so that it is essentially a brand-new knife.  The new "dual fuel drivetrain" makes the blade much easier to fire and retract, yet the action is no less safe (the button still requires about an inch of travel). The sides of the handle are smoother, and the pocket clip has a ceramic ball, so the knife is easier to draw from the pocket.  Finally, the glass breaker at the end of the knife is radically smaller and shorter, which I think is appropriate for a feature that 99% of people will never use.

Downsides? Well, this is (still) a spendy knife (street prices in the high $400s for most variants), so it's out of reach for a lot of people. It's also (still) relatively large, heavy, and intimidating for an EDC piece - I would not whip this out in the middle of a library to cut a loose thread. All that being said, I think the Gen III positives vastly outweigh the negatives, so if you're in the market for an American-made automatic, it's a strong option.

Guns: D-Dey Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) class notes

I'm not sure if D-Dey Response Group is still offering Tactical Combat Casualty Care (or if they are even still offering classes in Florida, period), but I definitely learned a lot when I took TCCC in August 2022 with instructor Dan Hudnet.

Day 1 consisted of lecture and demos at D-Dey's indoor facility in Stuart, FL, and Day 2 featured live-fire shooting and simulated casualty care at OK Corral Gun Club.

DAY 1 NOTES

First Care Under Fire

• Can they walk? Have them apply stopgap treatment on themselves
• Don't get shot applying care to someone else - may only be able to apply critical items like a tourniquet (TQ)

Then Tactical Field Care (not actively under fire)

Then Tactical Evac Care (get to higher level of care)

MARCH algorithm - Massive bleeding, Airway, Respiratory, Circulation, Head/Hypothermia

Massive Bleeding

Old protocol was to put fluids (IV) into people - that has changed

Video example

Traffic stop where a cop is shot and his partner applies TQ to his arm

Takeaways

• Use cover! often the casualty can get up and relocate.
• Neutralize the threat first

TQ comparison

CAT is good, but needs 5" minimum limb

SOF-T is good, but less convenient for self-application

Other (worse) options: RATs, SWAT-T, improvised

1) Stopgap - apply direct pressure however you can

2) Apply TQ "high and tight"

Video example

officer shoots suspect, applies TQ to suspect's leg

Video example

hotel lobby - victim bleeding out

Self-application practice drill on arms and legs

CAT Tip - Trace the velcro all the way around - if it fails, the TQ needs to be reapplied

Internal bleeding can swell the appendage

Watch for both entrance and exit wounds

Junctional Bleeding / Woundpacking tips

Celox Rapid Z fold gauze

1) Start the "powerball" - a wad of gauze - helps protect your hands from sharp bones

2) Pack the wound - "Which way is the blood flowing?" - Got to kill the source

3) MAINTAIN PRESSURE

ETB - use the clips - do not trust the velcro

Airways

• head tilt, jaw thrust
• NPA - be sure to lubricate
• If you hear snoring, etc., don't force it
• If resistance is met, use a back and forth motion - rotate/saw
• To size airway - measure from nostrils to the bottom of jawline/earlobes
• DO NOT USE IF they're bleeding from back of the head, or if there's facial trauma
• Lube can dry out - can use spit or blood to lube
• Just need to lube the tip
• Apply beveled edge to septum
• Work it in little by little
• No force
• Make sure curve is the right way
• If you do one side, might as well do two

Recovery Position

• Only if you have to leave someone
• Turn patient to their left side

Respiration (the "box")

• Chest seal- pull half off - do not let it stick to itself

Video Example - Afghanistan SF soldier shot - chest seal applied to back

Circulation

• Shock is from inadequate blood to the body
• leads to altered mental state
• alertness/attentiveness down
• body will compensate for a little while...until it doesn't

Head injury/Hypothermia

• Head injury is beyond the scope of the course - even fire rescue can't do much
• Passive warming/thermal blanket
• Active warming/ready heat
• Hypothermia directly affects clotting ability

For bowel hit - wet pack with abdominal bandage - do not use Celox

Trach demo

Burns/splints/bandage demo

Burns

• liquid - hose it off
• dry - wipe off as much as possible (water might make it worse)
• Irrigate
• Burntec dressing
• Burn is gonna be wet and oozing

Impaled objects - leave in unless airway affected

DAY 2 NOTES

My Equipment - P365 in PHLster Skeleton with single mag pouch and LTC TQ holder

Safety briefing

Pork butt demo

- Tiny exit wound from ball ammo (entrance would may be small and not bleeding much)

- JHP - bigger hole

- bone hit - fragments

- 5.56 entrance holes are tiny, but the round causes huge damage

- 00 buck and slugs - catastrophic damage

Shooting - 2-shot warmup plus TQ

2 shots -> TQ -> 2 shots

1 handed manipulations

- Still push into it

- Arms first

- can use shoe to rack

Shooting from back

- TQs on legs

- now being interrupted

- Keep eyes downrange as much as possible

Drag the body drill

- Use the "groucho walk"

- Cover + TQ + body drag

Team drill (pairs)

- simple commands

- watch for exit wounds

- wounds are not always "front and back"

A Way-Too-Early Halloween at Shangrila Towers, Part 4 - Halloween Horror Nights 35

Spooky Season seems to come around sooner and sooner each year, and I am leaning into the madness with a series of Halloween-themed blog posts well in advance of the big night. Let's cap this early celebration of All Hallows' Eve off with a September trip to Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights:

I heard good things about HHN this year, so the guys and I schlepped off to Universal Studios Orlando for another trek into the night:

There wasn't much of an overarching theme for HHN 35, but there were some houses that are unlikely to ever be repeated. Ozzy Osbourne: Prince of Darkness is a tribute to the late rocker filled with scenes inspired by his songs (yes, there is a "crazy train") - if any HHN house could be called "touching," this one would be it.  Other probable one-offs include Sinners, based on Ryan Coogler's hit 2025 movie, and Evil Dead Burn, which began development before the movie even started filming, thanks to some help from Warner Bros.  My favorite of the night was actually the Hellraiser house, which did a fine job of realizing Clive Barker's nightmarish vision.

Aside from the houses, this year's live show (Nightmare Fuel: Blood Noir) was pretty good, with more plot than usual and fewer momentum-killing interludes for vaudeville illusions (there was still a sword swallower, though). The scarezones were largely misses, sadly - while I liked the Killer Klowns from Outer Space elements in Downtown Clowntown, let's hope the hamhanded attempt to appeal to the young'uns with Fornitemares is not the start of a trend. 

As usual, we finished the evening with a quick trip to the merch store, and so ended another Halloween Horror Nights...

A Way-Too-Early Halloween at Shangrila Towers, Part 3 - Incidents Around the House

Spooky Season seems to come around sooner and sooner each year, and I am leaning into the madness with a series of Halloween-themed blog posts well in advance of the big night. Today, let's look at a horror novel by Josh Malerman, author of Bird Box:

Malerman gives himself a very tough assignment in Incidents Around the House: the entire story is told from the first-person perspective of an 8-year old girl named Bela, as she and her family are haunted by a mysterious entity. Malerman's perspective experiment has problems (Bela's voice sometimes feels younger or older than she is, and her parents inexplicably start monologuing to her whenever they think she is asleep), but it's certainly the most clever thing about the book, which is otherwise a prototypical haunted house/boogeyman tale. 

There are some great jump scares, and Michigan is always a creepy place to be followed by a supernatural entity, but the book is about 100 pages too long.  By the third or fourth time Bela's family flees to a place of seeming safety, only to be scared away by some horrible incident, you'll start hoping the entity just finishes the job so you can read something else. I hope that the upcoming film adaptation Other Mommy cuts some of the narrative fat out.

A Way-Too-Early Halloween at Shangrila Towers, Part 2 - Hellraiser Trilogy retrospective

Spooky Season seems to come around sooner and sooner each year, and I am leaning into the madness with a series of Halloween-themed blog posts well in advance of the big night. 

In the run-up to Halloween Horror Nights, I decided to bone up on the media that the HHN houses were based on: I listened to some Ozzy Osbourne, watched Evil Dead Burn, and rewatched the first three Hellraiser movies (sorta - the third one wasn't readily available and isn't very good, see below)...

Hellraiser

Hellraiser's creator, Clive Barker, is one of the greatest horror writers of all time, and he also did a fine job directing the first entry in the long-running series:

Coming in at a lean 93 minutes, Hellraiser is the most focused and grounded of the movies. The plot centers around the Cotton family, including the perverted Frank, his wicked sister-in-law/lover Julia, and the final girl, Kirsty. While the film has a pretty loose plot, its visual design, especially that of the Cenobites, holds up well - even in a sea of '80s slasher villains, the iconic Hell Priest (a/k/a "Pinhead," a nickname Barker hates) stands out, although the real monsters of the story are the black-hearted human antagonists.

Rating: 8/10

Hellbound: Hellraiser II

The first sequel, and the last "good" Hellraiser movie, has a lot of similarities with A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors: a mental hospital setting, expanded lore, and a new deuteragonist that the original final girl assists.

The plot (never a strong point in the Hellraiser series) gets even messier here.  The second half of the movie sees the characters wander a dreamlike maze featuring all manner of barely connected vignettes, including a brief battle between the Cenobites and the true villain of the movie. The oddity wears a little thin after awhile, but if you want strange, unforgettable images, Hellrasier II delivers.

Rating: 7/10

Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth

This is the first of the movies filmed outside the UK, and it waters down the concept into something almost unrecognizable. I guess the mandate was to turn Pinhead into the next Jason or Freddy, because in this one, he starts to murder people indiscriminately.  Combine that with more comic creature design (the infamous CD Cenobite) and you have the beginning of a long, slow decline in quality.

Rating: 5/10

A Way-Too-Early Halloween at Shangrila Towers, Part 1 - Resident Evil (2026)

Spooky Season seems to come around sooner and sooner each year, and I am leaning into the madness with a series of Halloween-themed blog posts well in advance of the big night.  Today's entry is a review of Resident Evil, a high-profile horror movie that would normally release in October, but instead just released in theaters last weekend.

Zach Cregger's take on "Resident Evil" was controversial from the start.  When word got out that the film wouldn't use any of the characters or storylines from the long-running video game series, fans were rightfully skeptical of the whole project.  Was this just a Zach Cregger zombie movie with the "Resident Evil" name slapped on?

In some ways, the answer is no - Cregger's Resident Evil is perhaps the most faithful adaptation of the series ever, at least in terms of conveying what it's like to play a survival horror game.  The protagonist is a hapless everyman thrust into one gory predicament after another, and he struggles with all of the tropes of the series: limited ammunition, enemies that frustratingly won't stay down, and even a final act that takes place in a bioweapons lab and features a giant mutated monster.  It's a well-made, slick piece of entertainment that moves along briskly and features the gruesome creature design the series is known for.

It's a shame, then, that Resident Evil so often undermines its horror with humor.  I saw this same thing happen in Cregger's other big films, Barbarian and Weapons, and I was hoping he could tone it down given that he's adapting the OG horror videogame.  Comparing this to Resident Evil Requiem is like comparing an SNL parody to the real thing.

Rating: 6/10