Author: silentfuzzle

M3gan 2.0

The creators of M3gan are totally Portal and Portal 2 fans. I had a feeling when I watched M3gan, but after watching the sequel M3gan 2.0, I’m convinced.

The robot villain-turned-ally M3gan has a distortion in her robot voice that’s very reminiscent of the voice of GlaDOS, the robot villain-turned-ally of the Portal video game series. M3gan’s character arc from M3gan to M3gan 2.0 matches GlaDOS’s from Portal to Portal 2, and M3gan singing pop songs inappropriately matches GlaDOS unexpectedly singing the closing theme to both Portal games.

As for the movie itself, it’s great and about as good as I remember M3gan being. Among other satisfying action, comedy, and storytelling beats M3gan 2.0 features, the villain printer company Xenox having super advanced AI is hilarious.

Expedition Unknown (Seasons 1-16)

Occasionally, host Josh Gates portrays himself as a dumb, annoying American in a foreign country. Overall, however, his bits are charming–he once realized he didn’t have physical currency to buy ice cream and helped sell ice cream to make up for it–and he comes across as a genuinely enthusiastic archeologist.

Tracking Tasmania’s Tiger (S4 E9)

Cryptids are animals frequently seen but not yet proven to exist. I knew there was a word that encompassed Big Foot, the Mothman, the Chupacabra, and the like.

Viking Secrets (S5 E1)

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are derived from Odin’s Day (Woden’s Day), Thor’s Day, and Freya’s Day.

The Secret, Cracking the Secret, The Secret Solved (S5 E4, S7 E9, S7 E12)

In these episodes, Josh Gates follows clues to real-world buried treasure as depicted in the The Secret: A Treasure Hunt. This book, published in 1982 by Byron Preiss, contains twelve paintings, each depicting clues corresponding to locations across North America in which Preiss buried a box holding a ceramic key. Each key corresponds to a gemstone that Preiss would award to the finder. Only two keys were found before Preiss died in a car crash in 2005, taking the locations of the remaining keys with him.

Josh Gates follows modern enthusiasts of The Secret, who believe they’ve cracked the clues to the remaining boxes. Adding to the difficulty of following the clues, however, is the changes to the cities and landscapes that have occurred in the nearly 40 years since the book was published. Despite this, Josh and his fellow treasure hunters find a key! The Secret is one of Expedition Unknown‘s more fascinating stories and with an amazing conclusion. More often, Josh finds little to advance the mystery he attempts to solve by the end of an episode.

I wonder if Ernest Cline took inspiration from The Secret when he wrote Ready Player One? The characters’ fascination with the 80’s makes it seem plausible.

The Hunt for the Golden Owl (S6 E9)

In this hunt very similar to The Secret, a book On the Trail of the Golden Owl by Max Valentin provides eleven clues to the location of a golden owl worth half a million dollars and hidden somewhere in France.

Escaping the Rock (S10 E7)

Expedition Unknown made it all the way to episodes that premiered in 2022 without mentioning COVID-19! This episode contained the first obvious signs: Josh making inappropriate video calls to interviewees that he would usually visit in person.

I was on the fence about COVID-19’s affect on Deadliest Catch. On one hand, the show documents one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, so why would the people willing to do it care about a flu virus? On the other hand, the ship captains and some of the crew have extremely unhealthy habits, so I understand their concern. It’s nice that Expedition Unknown let COVID-19 affect the show as little as possible, given how ridiculous that would look juxtaposed with the adventurous and dangerous risks they take on a per episode basis.

Chasing the Mysteries of Moses (S10 E12)

One of the show’s interviewees explains the origins of the modern alphabet: ancient semitic graffiti inspired by ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. Wanting to write something themselves, the semitic graffiti artists drew a rough depiction of an ox on top of a house. The ox upside down creates the shape of an “A.” The word for ox and house to the semitic people was “alpha” and “bet.” Crazy!

The Hunt for Petra’s Lost Tombs, Petra’s Secret’s Revealed (S14 E1-2)

Another of Expedition Unknown‘s more interesting stories, this pair of episodes explores ancient Nabataean ruins, much of them carved in stone. The Nabataeans knew how to control water in the desert, their ancient settlements featuring stone and ceramic plumbing and water ways. They also had the technology to carve grand buildings out of solid stone cliff faces. Despite their achievements, we know almost nothing about them, including the purpose of their most impressive buildings. They existed within a few centuries of 0 AD.

The Man-Eating Lions of Kenya (S15 E2)

I thought there was nothing to learn about two lions, called the Ghost and the Darkness by those tormented by them, that killed as many as 130 people over 100 years ago and that Josh Gates had no business investigating whatever he was investigating, but this episode was surprisingly interesting. Josh and the investigators he accompanied analyzed the skulls and DNA of the lions and discovered they were brothers with genetic tooth problems. Jammed into a hole in one of the lion’s teeth was also hundreds of hairs, revealing what the lion ate and how its diet changed over time. Humans proved easy prey and soft food for lions with sore teeth.

Vanderbilt’s Lost Steamship (S16 E6)

Josh and the investigators actually found the ship wreck! Usually, Josh finds a different ship or a different airplane crash. Or it starts raining, and the crew’s plans are ruined forever.

Frankenstein

I listened to the original Frankenstein by Mary Shelley on Audible. It was interesting.

After discovering the “epistolary novel” in Who Was Jane Austen? Sorting Fact from Fiction, I was eager to read one of the classics for an example of one. Frankenstein is told through the narrator Robert Walton, a sea captain on an Arctic expedition. The introduction of the novel is a series of letters Walton writes to his sister. The rest of the novel is a novel that Walton writes for his sister, relating the story Frankenstein tells him, the story Frankenstein’s monster tells him, and Walton’s own experiences of the two.

In some ways, Frankenstein seems like a deeply flawed novel, at least by modern standards. Arguably, Walton is discardable, and his presence negates the need for Frankenstein and his monster to ever interact or make peace with one another by telling each other their story. Walton serves as the link to reader in telling the two stories.

The melodramatic writing could also be seen as a problem. Today, melodramatic writing is mocked and discouraged, but Victor isn’t shy about telling the reader/Walton repeatedly how dearly he loves his dear friend Henry and his dear childhood friend Elizabeth and how wretched he is without them. His monster is equally verbose is recounting his wretchedness. Both of them go into detail about how pitiable they are, Victor suffering from mental breakdowns and the deaths of his closest friends and family and the monster lamenting what an outcast he is. While Frankenstein (2025) suggests that Victor is the asshole playing the victim, both of them put on quite the pity party for themselves in the book. Walton himself also tells his sister repeatedly how much he pities Victor and wants to help him. The book ends with Victor dying and the monster proclaiming he will burn himself to death on a pyre. It’s such a bleak book with such a bleak ending it’s laughable.

Perhaps its flaws are why Frankenstein has been adapted so many times and in so many different ways. When I think of “Frankenstein,” I think of the image of Victor screaming with maniacal enthusiasm, “It’s alive!” something I can’t imagine the Victor in the book ever doing. Mary Shelley never even says that electricity resurrected the monster, but that’s primarily how adaptations portray it. To name some other changes adaptations have made

  • Frankenstein is a mad scientist and the bad guy.
  • The monster is a mindless beast and the bad guy.
  • Frankenstein actually creates a bride for the monster.
  • The monster falls in love with Elizabeth.
  • Robert Walton is discarded as a narrator.
  • The monster is called Frankenstein.

It’s as if everyone who made an adaptation of Frankenstein saw the seed of a great idea but poorly executed and proceeded to bring what they saw to light. It’s kind of amazing how many different great ideas people imagined from the same source material.

Eragon

I reread Eragon by Christopher Paolini (for at least the third time since it was release in 2002) in preparation to read the latest novel related to the Inheritance Cycle Murtagh. Reading it more than 20 years later, the writing has qualities that feel rushed and amateurish. Dialogue and actions for multiple characters are sometimes crammed into single paragraphs for example. A lot of traveling, training, and other things can happen in a few paragraphs. Scenes can end and focus can change quite abruptly as well.

I don’t remember watching the Eragon movie multiple times, but for some reason, reading this book reminded me so much of it. Perhaps that’s only because of my ruthless mocking and criticism of it. I distinctly remember my brother screaming, “Murtagh, I’m on fire!” in response to a prison scene where a flaming Urgal (or was it just a person?) smashed through a flimsy wooden jail that was somehow sturdy enough to imprison Murtagh. I also remember how Saphira flew away as a baby and returned as a full grown dragon capable of fluent telepathic speech.

I suppose I don’t blame the movie’s creators for not emphasizing the injury Durza gives the protagonist Eragon at the end. This injury serves as a major obstacle for Eragon in the sequel Eldest, but Eragon does end rather abruptly, placing more emphasis on a memory/nightmare montage Eragon has than his grievous injury. Eragon doesn’t even see the end of the last battle.

Still, they screwed themselves, dooming the Eldest movie to never be created. Although, an Eragon TV series is in development for Disney+ now. We’ll see if it actually manifests (which would be neat), but that’s another reason to reread the Inheritance Cycle.

Who Was Jane Austen? Sorting Fact from Fiction

Following how much I liked Pride and Prejudice, I listened to Who Was Jane Austen? Sorting Fact from Fiction, a series of essays written and narrated by Stephanie Insley Hershinow.

What I found most interesting was that Pride and Prejudice may have originally been written as an epistolary, a series of letters exchanged between characters. I’d never heard the term before. This theory makes a lot of sense considering how much of Pride and Prejudice focuses on reading and writing letters. Epistolary novels were common at the time, Frankenstein and Dracula being late examples, but when I think about the concept of them now, they seem much more rare and experimental. House of Leaves actually fits the extended definition of an epistolary: collections of any type of documents. Perhaps the letters, in-depth movie analyses, lists, and editor footnotes that compose House of Leaves aren’t so experimental after all, although people in the 18th century would probably shocked by the bizarre formatting and content.

Jane Austen was among authors who moved away from the epistolary format at the start of the 18th century. Perhaps she could be considered an experimental writer!

Shipwreck: How a Captain, Company, and Culture Sank the SS El Faro

Shipwreck: How a Captain, Company, and Culture Sank the SS El Faro features re-enactments of the crew transcript from the ship SS El Faro’s final hours alongside the narrator Maeve McGoran’s investigation and commentary on what lead to the ship’s demise. Factors such as the crew’s inability to question their captain due to the ship’s culture, pressure from the company to deliver supplies on time, and inaccurate weather information resulted in the captain and crew steering the ship directly into a hurricane with confidence that they were avoiding it. All 33 crew members died. Only one body was found briefly before the Coast Guard abandoned it due to its state of decay and the need to seek survivors at the time. Even knowing the outcome from the beginning, this audiobook was deeply disturbing to listen to. It seems like required listening for any ship captain, but the narrator claims nothing has changed about maritime culture since the incident occurred.

As a fan of Deadliest Catch, I’d like to think my favorite ship captains would never take the risks or have the ego the captain of the El Faro did. Enough ships have sunk and lost crew members been commemorated in the course of the series’ twenty seasons that I’d hope everyone would be cautious… but then, I remember all the risks they have taken. Captain Phil Harris threw a blood clot and later had a stroke while confidently captaining his ship. Captain Sig Hansen has operated his ship through numerous heart attack-like symptoms and complications, including while delirious. Captain Keith Colburn has also captained his ship through heart attack- and stroke-like symptoms. I guess the best I can hope for is that they remain reasonable enough to not steer their ships into hurricanes or that their crew members are headstrong enough to reason with their captains’ egos when necessary.

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery contains its share of ruthless mockery of Catholicism but also a refreshingly optimistic view of it. The murder victim of this who-done-it, Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, runs his church like a cult and shamelessly confesses his numerous sexual sins to his new assistant pastor, the protagonist Jud. Meanwhile, Jud is a devoted servant of God who genuinely wants to realign the Monsignor’s flock. He begins to doubt his abilities and mission, however, when no one seems interested in his teachings and he finds himself the primary suspect in Jefferson’s murder.

These two views create entertaining contrasting imagery. In one moment, Jud and detective Benoit Blanc are breaking into the dead Monsignor’s office and smashing a tiny Jesus statue with a statue of Jesus’ head in their search to treasure. In the next, Jud is selflessly listening to a woman talking through her unrelated personal problems and doubts. Jud’s brief foray into treasure hunting becomes background noise when he remembers what’s really important to him. While most of the film and its murder centers around the hunt for a lost treasure, in the end, Jud returns the treasure to God’s possession where it belongs.

The balance of mockery and praise of Catholicism is nice… and pretty funny.

Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad is one of the most well-constructed TV series I’ve ever seen. It follows Walter White on his rise from over-qualified high school chemistry teacher to methamphetamine drug lord. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend getting on Netflix and watching it before proceeding.

The series features many well-developed characters, but Skyler, Walter’s wife, in particular caught my interest. A fellow Breaking Bad fan, and the person who introduced me to the series almost a decade after its final episode aired, however, told me this was an odd choice. The wife of the shady protagonist in crime dramas like Breaking Bad (e.g. The Sopranos) tends to receive a lot of hate from viewers. They’re either submissive to whatever their criminal significant other wants them to do, making them seem weak or unrealistic to the audience, or they are antagonistic, making it natural for the audience to dislike them for getting in the “hero’s” way.

As Walter White’s wife, Skyler is no exception to the rule of being a commonly disliked character. She begins the series oblivious to Walter’s criminal activities. After she discovers them, she transitions between reluctantly or unwillingly supporting them, trying to separate herself and/or her kids from them, and finding herself hopelessly ensnared by them. Walter reasons that his actions are for the good of his family. He wants to provide them with wealth and safety for after he dies prematurely from terminal lung cancer. Skyler similarly reasons that her actions are for the good of her family. She hides Walter’s criminal activities partly to protect her son, who would be devastated to discover the father he admires is a criminal, and partly to protect her brother-in-law DEA agent Hank Shrader, who would be devastated to discover a criminal mastermind in his midst.

While Walter is willing to sell drugs and commit murder to provide for his family, Skyler is willing to go to equal extremes to protect them. She concocts a clever explanation for Walter’s wealth for her sister and brother-in-law. With her former career in accounting, she insists on overseeing Walter’s money-laundering operation to ensure no one discovers it. She pays most of Walter’s accumulated fortune to her former employer when she discovers he is at risk of being investigated for tax evasion. Fearing her household and money laundering business will also fall under this investigation, Skyler insists he use the money she forces on him to pay his bills and shutter his business, even sending goons to scare him into doing so. Unfortunately, she does this at a time when Walter needs his accumulated wealth most, unwittingly creating a seemingly insurmountable obstacle for him.

Admittedly, after watching the series a second time, Skyler is most interesting during this period of reluctant acceptance, which peaks in Season 4. Her prior period of revenge sex with her former boss in order to punish Walt for hiding his criminal activity and post period of deep depression and antagonism after she discovers Walt is not only a drug dealer but a murderer is less interesting. Perhaps this is because in both cases she reaches the contradictory conclusion that she must split her family apart for the good of the family.

Still, she was the character I didn’t know existed and yet needed for inspiration. I’d never watched a crime drama before and was unfamiliar with her archetype. It turns out I’ve been writing a novel with a loose crime drama sub-plot for over a decade, and the “crime boss’s” wife was my weakest character. Unknowingly following the trend of crime dramas, I’d never had a good idea of what to do with her to make her likeable or even interesting. Skyler made me wonder, “How far would this supporting character go to protect her family?” While I can’t say I’ve solved the problem of the “crime boss’s wife” archetype, finding an answer to this question resulted in a much more interesting character.

Mukbangs vs. Food Challenges

One of my goto commentators Sydney Watson recently commented on food eating content on YouTube, TikTok, and other platforms. Being a consumer of subcategories of such content, I wanted to share my thoughts.

The majority of Sydney’s commentary focuses on her disgust with mukbangs, a subcategory of eating videos where the host simply eats in front of a camera without a particular goal. I agree. From what I know of mukbangs–which, admittedly, mostly come through Sydney’s video–mukbangs are boring and disgusting. My exposure to mukbangs prior to Sydney’s video was through Nikocado Avocado, who appeared as a guest on another channel I watch and then pulled an extreme weight loss stunt. I watched a couple of his videos after this stunt and, yeah, was mostly bored and disgusted by him and his guest Hungry Fat Chick. If Sydney’s montage of mukbang videos is any indication of what the subgenre is like, I have no interest in it. She somewhat lumps mukbangs into the same category as food challenge videos though, and here is where I have some disagreement.

Despite mukbangs and food challenges appearing to contain the same content, from what I see, they target different audiences and the creators employ different strategies. Some mukbangs focus on the hosts chatting with their audience or among themselves over a table of food that may or may not be entirely consumed. For example, the hosts may sample a fast food menu while hanging out with guests or the audience. These could be considered the wholesome type of mukbangs, bringing lonely people together over food. The more popular mukbangs, however, focus on extreme behaviors: eating large quantities of unhealthy food, lip smacking and chewing ASMR, moaning and excited reactions to the taste of food, eating messy food or eating messily, obese people shamelessly showing off their obesity, etc. These creators perhaps gain attention through shock value, appealing to food fetishes or ASMR niches, or affirming their viewers’ obesity.

In contrast, food challenge videos follow a common saying: “Shut up and eat.” Viewers generally aren’t interested in food reviews, chatting, long introductions, or long outros. Videos are often overlaid with music or narration to drown out the eater’s chewing sounds aside from the eater occasionally sharing satisfying crunches and “Mmm!”‘s. Even then, eaters often apologize for sharing crunching noises or showing off dripping food to the camera. While there are messy competitive eaters out there–and sometimes it’s necessary to meet a time limit–it’s actually not a recommended strategy to eat food messily. This can cause a disgust reaction and curb appetite. Viewers have also been known to criticize eaters for leaving so much as crumbs behind. Additionally, because organs can’t shift as easily when surrounded by fat, overweight eaters don’t have as large a capacity as eaters at a healthy weight. Most popular competitive eaters maintain their physique, creating an overlap between competitive eating and exercise enthusiasts rather than obesity advocates. Eaters often emphasize to their viewers that they maintain a strict exercise routine to maintain their weight but also encourage and model to their viewers not to be afraid of food. Even excessive eating can be worked or dieted off with discipline.

Sydney does briefly mention that she recognizes a difference between mukbangs and food challenges but goes on to complain that food challenges are still a waste of food. Even if someone successfully eats an impressive amount of food, no one needs to eat that much. This neglects that eaters who maintain their weight often eat less than they normally would in the days, weeks, and even months following challenges, ultimately canceling out the excess. These eaters also often enjoy exercise, sports, or weightlifting and need to consume more than the average 2,000 calories per day to maintain their performance anyway. I suppose you could consider their lifestyle or hobbies a waste, but its certainly healthier than the obese mukbangers Sydney criticizes for eating an excessive amount of food to feed their obesity.

Overall, I agree with Sydney’s assessment of mukbangs though with one other caveat…

Erik the Electric‘s significant other Kristie Barker technically makes mukbangs, and they’re great. She used to make fun shorts where, for example, she bought all the Crumbl Cookie flavors for the week or an assortment of candy from foreign countries, took a bite or two of each, and rated them. Her long form content usually features her and Erik sampling a variety of food and hanging out together in a fun place, Disney most often. Her mukbangs embody the feeling of hanging out and having fun. Kristie is a personal trainer and former bikini competitor. She’s highly disciplined with her normal, daily food consumption as demonstrated in her videos on the subject, but for viewers wanting to attain similar goals or physique as her, she advocates for also making healthy use of cheat days or cheat meals and practicing indulging in favorite foods with restraint. She’s often seen taking only a bite or two of tasty food or taking viewers along for her indulgent cheat days to demonstrate these ideals herself. Her bird-like eating in most videos might be considered a waste, but Erik is also often shown devouring the rest.