Level 5: Southern Mexico/Part 4: Land of the Dead

I made some headway in Tomb Raider: Underworld this weekend! :D

When I got the game a couple of months ago, I got stuck early on in the room with the Krakken. (Level 2 of 8) With the Tomb Raider games, I'm used to going into a room and, pretty much, just hopping around and climbing things until I finish the level. I usually solve the puzzles without any help. But that Krakken room just stumped me.

So I took a break from the game for a month or so, and replayed Anniversary or Legends whenever I found myself in a Tomb-Raider mood.

But last week I finally broke down and got some help from Tomb Raider Chronicles, and then...

I am currently on the last part of Level 5!!! :D

It's seriously crazy!!! :D

I got past this one problem (the problem was that I was supposed to go into a different room first, not the Krakken room) and I leaped ahead 3 levels!

I'm stuck again, so I headed back to Tomb Raider Chronicles to figure out what I'm doing wrong. (It can't be going to another room or finding another concealed place; I've exhausted every visible possibility.)

I think I should complete this game before too long! :) (I am a simple man, and I have simple pleasures, lol.)

A two-day investigation got rained out this weekend.

Which is fine. I was excited to discover that I could be helpful the very next week after I missed the previous weekend's investigation, one the one hand, but we're supposed to investigate next Friday and Saturday, so it's not like I have to wait a whole month or anything to get back in the saddle.

Plus, Austin NEEDED that rain!!! OMG we needed that rain!

So instead of investigating, I read some more of Brad Steiger's Shadow World, which is a great book, and Steiger is a great writer! :) He's been researching claims of the paranormal for 5 decades now! And what's cool about his writing is that he's clearly got a very sort of wide perspective of all this stuff, as well as a practical attitude about it.

Very illuminating!

We (Brian and me, not that empirical "We") also got Steiger's Beyond Shadow World, which is kind of a polar oposite to what he's talking to in Shadow World. In Shadow World, Steiger is kind of warning us about the "extra-dimensional" perils out there that a consientious investigator should not be incautious of. (I'm just 3 chapters or so into the book, but that seems to be what it's about.) In Beyond Shadow World Steiger relates his experiences with the extra-demensional beings that actually help us along this journey we know as physical reality.

I've always been a spiritual cat, so I actually have had more (a lot more, I'm thankful to say) experience with divine oddness than I do with the malicious sort. So I'm looking forward to Beyond Shadow World quite a bit! :)

I also did some writing on a personal project I'm working on, too! Not much, but I'm happy with what I've got so far. (In case you're keeping track, the last solo (that is, non-collaborative) project I may have reported working has morphed -- again -- into something else, and this is what I worked on this weekend.)

Finally, because of the rain, I was able to spend an inordinate amount of time revisiting a section of my childhood (1982 & '83) watching Tales of the Gold Monkey!!! :D

As an adult, I have been able to re-watch several of my favorite childhood TV shows thanks to the miracle of DVD. The greatest American Hero, The A-Team, 21 Jump Street, and the outcome is always predictable: The shows just aren't nearly as good as I remember them, lol.

On a couple of occasions, I've even been able to re-watch shows that, for whatever ineffable reason, that weren't released on DVD, thanks to die-hard fans/entrepreneurs who create websites and cobble together collections of the best possible quality they can manage. (One such collection is The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley. Which is still cute, if not the comedic genius I recall from my teens.)

I am happy to announce that Tales of the Gold Monkey is actually just as good as I remember!!! :D

I mean, it has its technical flaws. Due to budget constraints, for instance, the producers were forced to use stock footage that would be replaced with CGI nowadays. But the sets, costumes, cinematography are all great.

And, most importantly, the stories are great fun!

It's like (for me, anyway) rewatching Star trek: The Next Generation in that any flaws in the acting or dated technology are easy to overlook because you're really drawn into the story!

I seriously can't imagine why ABC canced Gold Monkey. Unless it was just too expensive to continue. But if that were the case, why didn't they try to make some of that money back by releasing it in syndication and, now, DVD?

I don't get it. It's a great show! I mean, maybe not The Twilight Zone great, but definitely high-quality for its time and enjoyable even today!

But, I've got it now, so I can watch each episode as much as I want! :D

And the quality of some of the episodes is surprisingly good! Like, you can tell that many of the episodes were transfered from VHS, but there are a few episodes that seem to be transfered from professional-grade Beta (like the stuff we still use here at work)!

Speaking of work...

It might be a good idea for me to get back to it. ;)