On What Horror Is (I ain’t afraid of no ghosts)

Horror is never really about the monsters in the dark. The monsters are creatures or beings that can be opposed. That’s traditional narrative conflict—protagonist versus antagonist. That can be exciting. Certainly it can be spectacle. But it isn’t horror. Horror is the darkness that conceals the monsters. It’s the uncertainty. The hidden truth. The realization […]

Il dolce far Minecraft (how I’ve elevated doing nothing to an artform)

This morning I caught a segment on Good Morning America about the Italian art of doing nothing — il dolce far niente, “the sweetness of doing nothing.” The idea is to turn off the screens, sit quietly, and let your body and mind unwind for fifteen minutes to an hour. It’s mindfulness, essentially, but with […]

Looking Forward (February 2026): First Brain Inventory Since 2025

This is the quadmonthly happiness report for February 2026. Our belief here at FirewaterCorp is that happiness is defined as always having something to look forward to. In our world, choices in entertainment play a huge role in this pursuit. Our company motto is “Read. Play. Watch. Listen.” And then, of course: “Write About It.” […]

10-List: Firewater’s Favorite Video Game Franchises

I’m an older gamer. We exist—get over it. I’ve been playing video games since the very beginning—starting in arcades, bars, movie theaters, and the corners of family-owned grocery stores where cabinet games first started popping up. My uncle, who’s three years older than me and got just about everything he ever asked for, had one […]

Halo: Season 1 – a review

I’ve never played a Halo game, but watching Season 1 of the Paramount+ series, I kept thinking: This feels a lot like Mass Effect. Master Chief John-117 (Pablo Schreiber) could easily be Commander Shepard’s armored cousin—stoic, hyper-competent, caught between alien threats and questionable military orders. The UNSC fills the role of the Systems Alliance: an […]

10-List: Firewater’s Favorite Video Games of the 1970s & ’80s

I am an OG gamer. I made my bones in the video game arcades of the 1970s and ’80s. My jeans pockets jingled with quarters (or tokens, in some arcades). A lot of Styx, Foreigner, Boston and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts played on the jukebox. These were all cabinet-style games, by the way. I […]

Mass Effect: You’re Not the Only One With . . .

I’m terrible at taking hints. Just ask my wife. She spent years thinking I was faking it every time she passive-aggressively asked me to do something without actually asking me to do something. The truth is, I make a conscious effort not to read hidden meanings or ulterior motives into what people say. Because when […]

Minecraft Memories

No, this isn’t about the movie. No offense to Jack Black and Jason Momoa, but I currently have no plans to ever watch A Minecraft Movie. I don’t think this movie was made for me. Oh, I have nothing against the game Minecraft. I’ve played the game for over a decade now. I played last […]

Assassin’s Creed: Mirage — a video game review (Platinum Trophy #8)

On February 22, 2025, I earned Playstation Platinum Trophy #8 for collecting all the in-game trophies for the video game Assassin’s Creed: Mirage. The last time I published a platinum trophy post was in 2022, and the time before that was in 2019. Maybe these things are on a three-year cycle. Since I began playing […]

Looking Forward (June 2025): Your Perspective is My Reality

This is the quadmonthly happiness report for June 2025. Our belief here at FirewaterCorp is that happiness is defined as always having something to look forward to. In our world, choices in entertainment play a huge role in this pursuit. Our company motto is “Read. Play. Watch. Listen.” And then, of course: “Write About It.” […]

Mafia: Definitive Edition — a video game review

I went about this completely ass-backwards. If you’re familiar with me at all, either in person or through my writing, this fact should come as no surprise. I played Mafia III first. An amazing game set in a video-game version of New Orleans during the 1960s, and featuring a black protagonist—your player character—during a time […]

Fallout: Season 1 (Prime Video) — a review

There’s something that I have to explain to you before we get to all the rest of this stuff. As far as the video games go, I consider myself to be—at best—a casual Fallout fan. I remember playing Fallout New Vegas and liking it for the most part. Some of the RPG aspects of the […]

Looking Forward (October 2024): What Was, What Is, and What Shall Be

This is the quadmonthly happiness report for October 2024. Our belief here at FirewaterCorp is that happiness is defined as always having something to look forward to. In our world, choices in entertainment play a huge role in this pursuit. Our company motto is “Read. Play. Watch. Listen.” And then, of course: “Write About It.” […]

Star Trek: Resurgence — a video game review (ish?)

I am an older gamer who made his bones in the video game arcades during the 1980s. I never owned a home console until I purchased a Nintendo 64 in 1997. Since then, I’ve owned a Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3, and Playstation 4. I still play on the PS4. I’m considering buying a Playstation 5. […]

Space Invaders (Or, a brief digression about social biomes, video games, and The Ballad of Spike)

My personal coming-of-age story is set during an amazing time. I watched the original Star Wars at the Crown Cinema in Lancaster, South Carolina, in 1977. This was before it became Episode IV: A New Hope. It was the only Star Wars. The Empire Strikes Back, still my favorite Star Wars movie, wouldn’t come out […]

Looking Forward (October 2023 Update): The Noble Pursuit of Entertainment

This is the quadmonthly happiness report for October 2023. Our belief here at FirewaterCorp is that happiness is defined as always having something to look forward to. In our world, choices in entertainment play a huge role in this pursuit. Our company motto is “Read. Play. Watch. Listen.” And, then, of course: “Write About It.” […]

Looking Forward (June 2023 Update): The Sedentary Pursuit of Happiness

This is the quadmonthly happiness report for June 2023. Our belief here at FirewaterCorp is that happiness is defined as always having something to look forward to. In our world, choices in entertainment play a huge role in this pursuit. Our company motto is “Read. Play. Watch. Listen.” And, then, of course: “Write About It.” […]

Looking Forward (February 2023 Update): Music Soothes the Savage Beast

This is the quadmonthly happiness report for February 2023. Our belief here at FirewaterCorp is that happiness is defined as always having something to look forward to. In our world, choices in entertainment play a huge role in this pursuit. Our company motto is “Read. Play. Watch. Listen.” And then, of course: “Write About It.” […]

Looking Forward (October 2022 Update): How I Spent My Summer

This is the quadmonthly happiness report for October 2022. Our belief here at FirewaterCorp is that happiness is defined as always having something to look forward to. In our world, choices in entertainment play a huge role in this pursuit. Our company motto is “Read. Play. Watch. Listen.” And, then, of course: “Write About It.” […]

Looking Forward (June 2022 Update): Are You Not Entertained?

This is the quadmonthly happiness report for June 2022. Our belief here at FirewaterCorp is that happiness is defined as always having something to look forward to. In our world, choices in entertainment play a huge role in this pursuit. Our company motto is “Read. Play. Watch. Listen.” And, then, of course: “Write About It.” […]

Uncharted (2022) — a movie review (plus some stuff about cruise ships, the cubing prewriting process, and what pairs best with Good & Plenty licorice candy)

I watched the 2022 movie Uncharted, starring Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg, on board the Carnival cruise ship Vista, during a vacation cruise to ports in Belize, Honduras Bay and Cozumel in February of this year. The ship had an IMAX theater, and this was the only movie showing that I had any interest in. […]

Humblebrag About New Platinum Trophies (Plus: reviews of the video games Mass Effect: Legendary Edition and Far Cry Primal)

The last time I wrote about earning a platinum video game trophy was in December of 2019. That was for Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. Great game, and Platinum Trophy #5 for me. I’m going to play it again someday because I only skimmed the surface of all of the game’s content. I recommend the game to […]

Looking Forward (February 2022 Update): New Year, Same Pathology

This is the quadmonthly happiness report for February 2022. Our company motto is “Read. Play. Watch. Listen.” And, then, of course: “Write About It.” “Read” Since the October 2021 update, the following books were completed: Supernatural: Heart of the Dragon, by Keith R.A. DeCandido (urban fantasy/media tie-in) Big Damn Hero (Firefly #1), by James Lovegrove […]

Days Gone — a video game review

I almost didn’t write this review. I’ve made a big deal in the past about how I rarely write unfavorable reviews. It’s not that I don’t make entertainment choices that I later regret. I do. I don’t like every book or comic that I read. I certainly don’t like every movie or television series that […]

Far Cry: New Dawn — a video game review

Do you like video games? I do. I am a middle-aged man according to the kindest charts I’ve seen, but, physically, I’m beginning to feel pretty old. Mentally, I never progressed much past twelve-years-old, which is around the time I first began playing video games seriously. I made my gamer bones in the video arcades […]

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