Chapter 41.5: Yes, Please, I’d Like Some More

Quickly, before I hit the sack: Delgado and Wagner? Yes, nicely done Omar et al. Now we need a catcher. I can even tolerate having Kaz Matsui start the season at second, though it’s not my preference. But we need a catcher. Ramon Castro is not the full-time answer.

The gift of Evil

I recently picked up the from a local EB. Wow. I was eyeing a huge Japanese Biohazard book a little while ago that collected everything you could ever want to know about Resident Evil, but it was very expensive ($40+, even more since I would have to import it).

To my surprise, Brady Games went and translated the whole damn thing so I had to get it. Resident Evil Archives is a very reasonable $30 and it’s massive. The title should really be the Umbrella archives since it only covers RE material related to that storyline. That means no RE4. Still, almost everything else is in there and all really good stuff.

And of course, lots of great views of the character costumes. Even all the art from the scrapped RE 1.5. Sweet.

Makes quite a nice gift. I should have thought of that before I bought it. Could have gotten it from Santa.

Chapter 41.4: Exposing My Ignorance

Ok, there’s lots of ignorance to expose, I admit. This particular example is in regard to my appalling lack of understanding of ancient Roman history. I’ve been watching the HBO series “Rome” and have enjoyed it for the most part. It’s not “Six Feet Under” or “The Sopranos” in terms of the writing or the acting, but enjoyable nonetheless, despite some incredibly gory moments. (The fight scene from last week was perhaps the most grisly television fight I’ve ever seen.)

My point in bringing this up at all is I spent the entire season anticipating the murder of Julius Caesar. And it arrived without much premonition; there was no “Beware the Ides of March” announcement. It passed without a word between Brutus and Caesar at that crucial final moment; no spoken “Et tu, Brute.” Yet, the phrase “Thus always to tyrants,” the same words spoken in Latin by John Wilkes Booth after he shot Abraham Lincoln, arose from the Senate floor after Caesar died. I suspect I’ve been lulled into false knowledge – that perhaps those scenes were created by William Shakespeare rather than drawn from Roman historians. I do not know; perhaps I’ll read more about it.

One other point: after the dismembering and decapitations from the previous episode, the stabbings by the senators upon the body of Caesar looked more like bee stings in comparison. Deadly ones, I’ll grant (and some laudable Foley artistry throughout the series, I might add), but I found the contrast quite interesting. Overall, not quite the death or the drama I expected, but I don’t feel I completely wasted my Sunday evenings for the past three months.