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Cee-Lo Green recommended De La Soul Is Dead by De La Soul in Music (curated)

 
De La Soul Is Dead by De La Soul
De La Soul Is Dead by De La Soul
1991 | Alternative, Hip-hop, Rap
7.1 (8 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"I love Three Feet High And Rising as well - I could have taken up two slots! De La Soul are just one of my all time favourite groups, and happen to be personal friends of mine as well. Three Feet High... was a more manic album, there were all kind of little bits and pieces of things that I love, and songs like 'Can You Keep A Secret'. But De La Soul Is Dead was a reaffirmation; they were typecast as hippies and they resented that, similar to how the Goodie Mob were typecast as being country - we may have been Southern, but we weren't country. There's something defiant about it. This is when they were concentrated, and not random and manic like Three Feet..., which is great as well - but this is streamlined, but still just as alternative and experimental. And a lot more effective."

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Rev Run recommended Creed (2015) in Movies (curated)

 
Creed (2015)
Creed (2015)
2015 | Drama

"I don’t know if it’s too early to say it, but I’m really in love with Creed. It made me cry… It touched me when Rocky was talking to Adrian and Paulie at the graveyard and he said, “Everything’s good. Bills are paid.” And I was like, ‘Wow.’ I loved his peace and his contentment. At one moment, you wanna take over the world, and the next minute, you just want the essentials. Him reading the newspaper there at the graveyard — it just felt right to me that he was finally content. I like the entire Rocky franchise and this brought it full circle for me. I love the Philadelphia theme and the music from Meek Mill. And instead of climbing to the top of a mountain, Michael B. Jordan was running with the motorcycles. He was doing the new things Philadelphia people are doing."

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Josh Burns (166 KP) rated the PlayStation 4 version of Vampyr in Video Games

Jun 21, 2019  
Vampyr
Vampyr
2018 | Action, Role-Playing
Great story (2 more)
Great Atmosphere
Adaptive gameplay
Protect or Prey on the people of London in Vampyr
Vampyr is a mixed bag that may not be for everyone. It really depends on the types of games you like on this one (as with Until Dawn).
The game draws inspiration from a real epedemic called the Spanish Flu, which for whatever reason, gets way less attention than the Black Plague. You play as an esteemed doctor who gets turned into a vampire after returning to London from being in World War 1. The game just drips in atmosphere as you travel the nearly abandoned streets and docks. It channels gothic horror but with a tasteful dose of modern genre updates. It has a very good story that reminds of a bit of Mary Shelley's book Frankenstein in the fact that you do not like what you are, or what it has caused you to do.
Now, this game is largely what you make it to be. The people of London all have fleshed out backstories, personalities, and many offer side quests, trade options, or useful info on certain things. You can either bond with then and work to keep them healthy, or you can feed on them and grow stronger. Your choice on how you handle this can dramatically effect the game. You gain a large amount of experience from feeding on them, even more if you gain their trust first. If you take that route it can take the game from challanging to being easy. There is are a lot of options when leveling up, without feeding you will not be able to max everything out. Another thing that depends on play style, is that there is a ton of talking if you choose to help tje people and gain their trust. This isn't a requirement, however. So the game can be very deep and story driven with a lot of dialogue, or it can be more of an action game, depending on what you do.
On that note, as a pure action game, I'm not sure if it would hold up for most. The combat mechanics are quite basic, attack, dodge, and a few specials, and ranged attack with gun. It's fun enough when not taking the feeding route because you still have to be strategic but if you feed a lot and are extremely powerful, I don't see it being very fun.
The game also features light crafting in the form of upgrading weapons, making blood, stanima, and health injections (same as potions in most games) and medicine for the people. It's semi open and semi linear. You have a map that you can go anywhere on, but only in certain buildings and some streets are blocked off. In fact, navigation can be infuriating at times because of dead ends, doors that need to be unlocked from the other side, and objective markers sometimes being in the wrong spot on the map. I spent a half hour trying to get into a mansion before looking it up and finding out the marker was wrong and I was at the wrong building.
So in conclusion: if you like games like the 1st Mass Effect where story, characters and dialogue are the focus of the game with a healthy dose of combat that isn't amazing but gets the job done, then you'll love it. If you want to just run arpund and hack shit up, it might not be for you.
  
Relative Strangers
Relative Strangers
Paula Garner | 2018 | Young Adult (YA)
10
9.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
I received this book from NetGalley and Candlewick Press in exchange for an honest review.

Relative Strangers is an amazing coming of age tale that tackles all the feelings that come with trying to figure out who you are, where you fit in, and unrequited love. Garner tackles important topics like alcoholism, addiction, loss of a parent, sexuality, and abandonment issues. It is a big challenge to stuff that many topics and issues into one book and Garner does it with finesse and grace; and most importantly not leaving any loose ends.
The whole story happens within the course of Jules’ senior year of high school. She discovers something about her past that her mother has kept a secret from her for her entire life. Through detective work, support from her friends, and Facebook, she finds the one person that might be can tell her everything that is missing from her history. Jules’ embarks on a quest to find herself, her past, and her way back to reconnecting emotionally with her mother.
Not only does Paula Garner write such a wonderful story but she creates characters that suck you into the intricate weavings of the story. You feel like you’re one of the girls. I felt like Jules, Gab, and Leila were some of my closest friends. I laughed with them, cried with them, and I cheered for them. One thing I often find difficult when you have so many characters is how to make them grow as the book goes on. Garner did this without making it feel forced. Each of the characters grew in their own way as they took on the rights of passage set in their paths.
Relative Strangers is a story that I think all people will be able to relate to in one way or another. I also think that it’s a great book for teens to read that teaches about appreciating and enjoying the relationships you have with the people around you. Garner kept the emotional twists coming, the pages turning, and the tears flowing well into the night. I highly recommend checking out this book if you’re into Contemporary Coming of Age stories.
  
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Daniel Rossen recommended track Little Church by Miles Davis in Live Evil by Miles Davis in Music (curated)

 
Live Evil by Miles Davis
Live Evil by Miles Davis
1970 | Jazz
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

Little Church by Miles Davis

(0 Ratings)

Track

"This is from Live-Evil, which is a really intense and brutal album, but ‘Little Church’ is a little three-minute moment that’s a really beautiful, otherworldly, disorientating and extremely contained song within a crazy, fiery record. “It’s amazing what this pulls off in three minutes. The lead is somebody whistling in combination with a trumpet, there’s this moving, really melodic bassline and a crazy organ sound swirling around the entire track to this beautiful, almost Brazilian chord progression, but there’s no rhythm whatsoever. It’s so unique and I’d never heard that kind of tonality or sensibility. “It probably relates more to the kind of songwriting that we do rather than jazz, it’s not really jazz, it’s closer to Brazilian music or like writing a ballad, but without words. It’s another one of those songs I’ve always come back to, I still refer and think back to it when we’re making records as an example of a certain kind of energy, vibe and intensity. “It sounds like it’s on another planet, I couldn’t have imagined hearing anything like this before I heard it and as soon as I did it transported me in a way that I’d never experienced, it was like entering a dream world. That’s something I always think of as a goal in making music, entering a landscape, a dream-like state or trance, like accessing something outside of your own reality. I love when music can do that, it feels like you’re entering another reality basically. “I first heard this when I was fourteen and when you’re that age the serotonin in your brain functions so differently, everything means so much more. Your brain chemistry changes over time, it’s still fun, but you’ve got to work a little harder to make it as fun as when you were younger, but because I still have that memory, I can kind of conjure the same serotonin rush it gave me as a kid. “You learn to appreciate other sides of music as you get older, you can access the same kind of stimulation without it being this overwhelming serotonin blast."

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    Fridge Pal

    Fridge Pal

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    Games

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