Parks and Recreation's Genre-Bending Final Hours

When I watched the season finale of Parks and Recreation’s sixth season, I was caught off guard. For a moment, we’re transported into the future of Leslie Knope’s career and the parks service powerhouse she built in her humble Indiana hometown. It’s clear there’s a lot on her plate. I assumed it was a one-off thing, and that Season 7 would be the build-up to that conclusion. I assumed wrongly.

Season 7 is a bizarre capstone to NBC’s sitcom about local government. It’s a show that borrows some of the cinéma vérité elements of NBC’s previous hit, The Office, but never quite commits itself to the mockumentary premise. Parks and Rec rises above its predecessor with a superior cast and a sense of humor that takes less pleasure in the misfortune of its characters. Let it never be said that Parks and Rec overstayed its welcome. It went out with an absurdly strong final season, one whose success hinged on more than a happy ending.

For the first six seasons, Parks and Recreation is fairly conventional as far as sitcoms go. It doesn’t do anything too ambitious, and it sticks to its strengths: its outrageous characters and sharp writing. But then Season 7 comes along and jumps us forward a couple years to 2017. And, because it’s the future, the series adds a dash of science fiction to the mix.

They don’t go overboard with the advancement of technology. We don’t have flying cars or advanced robotics, but we do have more sophisticated personal technology like hologram-producing phones and tablets. Current events are amusing little reminders that say, “Hey guys, we’re in the future,” but nothing too outrageous. Except maybe that bit about the Cubs winning the World Series. The show even makes a commentary on the proliferation of intrusive technology mining personal data. Nothing groundbreaking, but a chilling tone for an otherwise cheerful series. And yet, it all still seems to fit.

The speculative fiction never goes overboard because Parks and Recreation isn’t a scifi show. It’s always been a show about an ambitious public servant, her eclectic colleagues, and their Midwestern town. But for a whole season, it dreams about what could have been. It’s probably best that they left it for its last season and a single season at that. I can see the future trope running out of steam beyond the scope of a season. But a great deal of attention should be paid to Parks and Recreation’s bold move. The writers should be applauded for successfully shoehorning another genre into its series late into the game.

Knowing XCOM's Unknown Enemy

XCOM: you're pure evil.

As of this writing, I've been avoiding playng XCOM: Enemy Unknown for a month in spite of how well I've been doing. My soldiers have advanced armor and weapons making them well equipped to face the alien threat. Yet, I'm terrified of going back. Even more so than the Gamecube remake of Resident Evil and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. And yet, the game isn't even a horror game, at least in the traditional since. Humanity suffers some gut-wrenching atrocities at the hands of the game's extraterrestrial invaders, but that's not what makes the game so horrific. It's the legitimate sense of dread the game fosters as things progress.

The game is all about escalation on a grand scale. Aliens come and terrorize the populace. Earth responds with clandestine task force XCOM. Aliens respond in kind with bigger baddies. XCOM's troops get bigger and badder. And so on.

It took me a couple of playthroughs to fully realize that formula. After suffering a total squad wipe during a key mission, I knew I had to reexamine my strategy, or rather, lack thereof. Sure, I built up my base and researched, but I didn't research enough technologies at a fast enough pace. Earth was surely doomed. So, like any self-respecting game player, I quit and deleted my save. I couldn't bear to watch the end. It's hard enough watching soldiers die.

For the blissfully ignorant, when your soldiers fall on the field of battle in XCOM, they die for good. Your heavy weapons specialist who survived seven sorties and achieved the rank of major might have plenty of kills under his belt, but if he gets flanked, it'll end poorly for him. "Permadeath" isn't even the game's worst cruelty. Your soldiers all have names. If they survive long enough, they'll get nicknames too. Camaraderie is simulated in the most subtle of ways and quickly exploited when the game's base provides you with a soldiers' memorial.

It's strange. The game allows for little room for the soldiers to show much personality. And yet, just by giving them names and nicknames, it makes them seem more human. XCOM is not a forgiving game. It will not hold your hand, and if you try to reach your hand out to it, it'll likely just bite it clean off. It's a game that sheds any associations of "joy" with the word "game," and I can't help but respect the hell out of the game for it. But it's respect in the same way that you respect a beast or a dictator. Respect out of fear because you never know when tragedy will befall you, but you know well enough that it's coming. Never a matter of if. Always when.

Mannish: The Knights of the 21st Century

I’ve already come to terms with the fact that I’m not classically masculine. I don’t watch football on the regular, I barely understand my own car, and I cannot maintain composure if an insect buzzes past me, regardless if it’s armed with a stinger or not. I’m something of a centrist on the spectrum of femininity and masculinity with a slight lean to the latter—if you subscribe to such binaries. I am biologically male and I own a John Woo movie on DVD. I’d say I’m plenty masculine.

But something tells me I’m not manly enough for the Knights of the 21st Century, a "Christian Men's Ministry and Fellowship." In a blurb on their front page, the Knights set the scene:

Knights brandished swords against evil in medieval times to bring freedom to their land. Times have not changed, but the roundtables have been empty for centuries. Across the nation different Knights men's ministry groups are forming around new roundtables as a result of this innovative and life-changing men's ministry series. They are learning a new way to fight for their women, children, God and country. Men can choose to ignore the holy war that is going on in our nation and our world, or they can join a roundtable in the fight for God and freedom. 

I want to point out my favorite sentiment from this passage: “Men can choose to ignore the holy war that is going on in our nation and our world.” A “holy war”? Who are the combatants? Manly men versus the sissies? Nothing points to anything specific, so let’s dig deeper.

On their “What We Believe” page, the Knights declare, “We believe that not only are men extremely valuable, but they also love metaphors and stories.” What? “Valuable” as opposed to what? The wording suggests that men aren’t valued, but they give no reason as to why they should be valued. Is society as a whole devaluing men? Because, HA HA NOPE. Are they valuable because they know how to use jumper cables or build a deck? I don’t disagree necessarily; men should be valued, but also should women and those who don’t identify as either. Basically what I’m saying is value ascribed by gender expectations is a load of horseshit. But maybe I’m too quick to judge. Let’s read on!

On this same page is a small panel in the corner titled “Changing The Culture” that pretends to go into more detail:

Our culture has a male identity crisis. How can we reach young men and boys? What could it be like if every young man went through a ceremony on the way to manhood? Would they be more likely to participate in the church of the future? 

This is an advert for Bull, “a one year program for fathers and sons or group of males” that “can help a young male achieve manhood.” Here is the poster image for the program:

A quick Google search convinced me that, yes, a male elephant is called a bull, but after I quelled that concern, I took to seeing the two names attached: Mitchell P. Davis, B.A., and Roy Smith, M.Div., Ph.D. Roy Smith looks he might have an impressive resume, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone tag their bachelor’s degree on their name like a Ph.D. I could be wrong, but I feel like that goes against some sort of convention. Did Mr. Davis feel inadequate? That doesn’t seem manly.

But I’ll tell you what is manly: that “Manhood Resources” page. How do I know that this page is dripping with testosterone? Look at that "Additional Manhood Resources” image. LOOK AT IT. You have a hammer, a glove, some nails—that’s a man’s toolbox right there. Wait, is that a paintbrush? For an artiste? GET THAT SHIT OUT OF HERE.

The testimonials page I think was made when they thought they’d have a lot more feedback, but right now it only hosts three accounts. There’s a link to “Read More,” but clicking it just brings you to the top of the page. Jim Andreadis confesses to once being a “spandex male.” In fact, he is credited as “Jim Andreadis, Former spandex male.” I didn’t know what a spandex male was, and Googling that just brought up images of banana hammocks and websites on which to buy banana hammocks. My guess is that it’s their way of saying “homo” while still maintaining an air of political correctness.

So one doesn’t get overloaded by the shower of masculinity that is this website, there’s “A Woman’s Appeal,” in which a woman named Ruthie Davis warns: “Your women need you to be better than what you are.” Again, the inadequacies are not detailed here. We are not told in what areas the men are lacking in their manliness. In fact, it just sounds like it’s not an issue of being shitty men but shitty people. But somehow masculinity plays a role in this.

My weak man heart can’t handle much more, so I’ll end with “The Knight’s Code of Honor,” a five-point dedication. This is where they lay it all out, so I’ll get some answers finally. The first two points of the Code are dedicated to females:

To the women who have longed for a world filled with knights, may they not be disappointed. May all women feel safe, respected and loved by the men around them. 

Safe from what? The big scary world? Do women need that burly man in their lives to protect them from the metaphorical dragons out there? To the Knights, women are all damsels in distress who need a daily dose of heroic manliness.

To our daughters, may they recognize the difference between a male and a man, and may they find the latter. 

Yes. One is biological and the other is a societal construct. NEXT.

To our sons, may they see our knighthood, go on their own personal quest and take the journey of manhood further than we have before them. 

Here I realize my biggest issue with the organization. They focus a lot on the word “manhood” which is also the Harlequin romance buzzword for “penis.” So you can imagine my immature reaction to most of what they say on this site.

To the men who brought honor before us, we join you. To the males who brought disappointment, we offer healing. 

“Disappointment” is yet another instance of vagueness, but given the religious focus of the organization, I doubt this is talking about bedroom disappointment.

To the world in which we find ourselves, may you discover renewed hope, the courage to change and the difference true manhood brings. 

Hahaha, manhood.

DIABLO 3 IMPRESSIONS: ULTIMATE EVIL EDITION

Recently Diablo 3 came to consoles yet again in a bigger and badder way with the ULTIMATE EVIL EDITION, a version of the game that now includes the Reaper of Souls add-on that all us cool PC gamers have been playing for months. Now console gamers can enjoy the fifth and final act of the game’s single player storyline, as well as the madness of the Adventure Mode. Not only that, but those lucky sods with their PS4s and their XBones can rip and tear across Sanctuary as well.

Given that Sam and I have been playing Diablo 3 on the Xbox 360 with a copy rented from Redbox, we haven’t progressed far in the past year. There’s the occasional weekend that comes up when we decide to put our free time to the lazy art of sitting on the couch and mashing buttons, so we haven’t gotten to the point where we can reap (har har) the benefits of the ULTIMATE EVIL EDITION. Neither of us wanted to make a new character (sorry Crusader), and since the game was nice enough to detect the old save file, we’re still dawdling in the desert. For those of you without a frame of reference for where that means we’re at in the game, I’ll help clarify: Not. That. Close.

It was good to get some time in with the ULTIMATE EVIL EDITION, even though the game is identical to what we’ve been playing in months past given our progress in the game. We didn’t reach the end of Act IV to lift up our arms and cry for just one more act. Everything is exactly as it was in the past: we’re still a barbarian and a wizard desperately trying to avoid getting eaten by the minions of hell.

The controls are the same, especially that nifty console-only feature of rolling to evade incoming blasts of eldritch energy that the PC players should be totes jelly of. Menus are still navigated with the weird radial that remains far inferior to the menus navigated via the mouse on the PC, but that doesn’t render the game unplayable. The ULTIMATE EVIL EDITION provides more of the entertainment that Sam and I enjoy together when our weekends overlap, and doesn’t do much more than that except extend the shelf life of its content.

It’s still good fun, so now we ask ourselves: Do we go ahead and save our money for a copy of our own so we longer have to depend on its availability at the local Redbox? Now looms the prospect of finally upgrading to the newest generation of console babies, which means the possibility of losing our progress, especially when it’s the PS4 I’m eyeing and not the Xbox One (sorry Microsoft). Whether or not this will actually happen is still up in the air as the “how” is a puzzle unto itself, but if/when it happens, the adventures of Hogoth the Barbarian and Demena the Wizard will end abruptly. Or just get rebooted if we’re feeling nostalgic.

The Best Taco and Burrito I Ever Had

Dallas is known for many things—Cowboys, Lee Harvey Oswald, and oil—but something that everyone forgot to mention to me was the food. My first meal in Texas was In-N-Out Burger, which also happened to be my first In-N-Out Burger experience. But even that pilgrimage didn’t prepare me for the meal that would change my life forever.

Nestled under the construction of an interstate overpass sits a little gas station called Fuel City. Within Fuel City is a little taco shop that you’ll find listed on Urbanspoon as “Fuel City Tacos.” I figured from its 94% rating that it had to be at least okay, and so we ventured the 2 miles between our very trendy-looking hotel to Fuel City, adorned with a raptor statue and inaccessible swimming pool. There’s seating outside, but most people just take their bounties home. At first glance, the place seems confusing: gas station, car wash, and tacos. But after one bite of their tacos, everything just seems to make sense.

You have five options for your taco: picadillo, chicken fajita, beef fajita, barbacoa, and pastor. Also, you’re not limited to just a taco. You can have a burrito as well. I got the barbacoa burrito and a pastor taco. My total? $6 tops. The tacos are only $1.40 a piece and the burrito’s $4.50. To help you picture the burrito, imagine the last burrito you got from Chipotle. Okay, now half the price and double the quality. This was easily the best burrito I’ve had that I can remember, and at least the best value.

I don’t usually get all the toppings on a burrito, but something in the air told me that it was a good idea. First bite had a spiciness I did not expect, but I welcomed it. It was a hearty burrito, one that I lament that I may never have again unless I return to Dallas. But I have no regrets. Even the spicy pastor taco that did a hatchet job on my stomach was worth the religious experience of eating Fuel City tacos.

Sounds pretty good, right? So good there must be a catch? None. The experience is akin to getting a taco from a food truck, but there is no food truck. Just a building with windows for you to order your tacos. We didn’t even wait that long, maybe five minutes. And we still saw several people coming in and out with nondescript plastic bags toting their culinary treasures. The food won’t break the bank—maybe your stomach. In fact, it’s almost as cheap as Taco Bell and it seems reasonable that the tacos would be made from actual meat.

Fuel City Tacos are the now the standard by which I measure all other tacos, fast food or not. It is a high bar for other restaurants to reach, but don’t think for a second I’ve turned into a taco snob. There may be another taco to usurp this throne, and I welcome the challengers who lay down their gauntlets. Especially if they do so for free.

Widening The Wire

So word is that HBO’s masterpiece The Wire is getting remastered and re-aired here in the coming weeks in glorious high-definition. Most of those who’ve seen the show swear by it being one of the most important programs on television, and even though I haven’t finished my way through the series, I have to agree. Its character development and complex storyline makes for some compelling storytelling, and I lament the fact that there will probably not be anything like soon.

You may be asking, “If it’s so good, why haven’t you finished it?” I have a confession to make. I’m not proud of it, and I’m almost positive it makes me a lesser human being for it. I haven’t finished watching The Wire because it’s not in widescreen.

I know. It’s a terrible reason, especially given the show’s quality. But that is the long and short of it. It wouldn’t be as troublesome if I were watching it on a 4:3 aspect ratio TV because then I wouldn’t have those columns of blackness on each side of the screen. Somehow those black bars are enough to bar me from still watching the program.

In a way, the show’s aspect ratio makes it feel like a relic from a past age like black-and-white TV. That wasn’t all that long ago, but given the meteoric rise of technology in the past twenty years, monochrome feels like it’s reserved for the old or artistic. I hate that I have that attitude towards it, but that’s how I see it. And that’s not to say I haven’t watched shows and movies in grayscale. But to be dumped into an era in which you are deeply immersed in Technicolor is to be spoiled, and boy am I spoiled.

Now you can watch syndicated episodes of Seinfeld that are themselves widescreen. Seinfeld is in widescreen. The Wire was not. The fact that this is a true statement is criminal. You can have those ridiculous black bars on either side of Jerry’s apartment. You don’t need all that space to point and laugh at Kramer’s antics. But The Wire needs that wider screen. It needs to be more cinematic because, despite the show’s episodic structure, it is above the form of its medium. The show doesn’t quite have the cinematography that screams, “SHOW MORE OF ME,” but it is a piece of sophisticated programming that raised the bar for other television shows. It’s time that HBO gave The Wire the treatment it deserves, and time that I give it the attention that I need to. 

Late to the Party: Far Cry 3

I’ve been stumbling through Far Cry 3 for the past month or so after picking it up off the ground during a robbery masquerading as a Steam summer sale. First-person shooters have become less my thing recently, so I thought a game in which you don’t just run and gun might make for a comfortable change of pace.

I was incorrect.

Let me be clear: Far Cry 3 is not a bad game. The voice acting’s sprinkled with a liberal dash of meh, but the gunplay is entertaining and the experience system adds a reasonable amount of RPG number crunching to distract you from the fact that your main objective is force-feeding bullets to red-shirted men with strange accents. Good old family-friendly fun.

There are, however, two tiers of leveling. The first tier is that familiar sort of progress in which you do cool things and you get points for it, and then you spend those points to do even cooler things. Simple, elegant, and hard to beat.

The second tier, on the other hand, really wants to emphasize the fact that you’re on a tropical island trying to survive. You don’t have to manage hunger or thirst or any of that finicky crap, but you do have to hunt and skin animals if you want to carry more than one gun, a handful of loot, and $1000. It’s gross, and it’s also hella boring. Hunting in Far Cry 3 is the sort of activity you’d expect in an MMO like World of Warcraft. You go up to the friendly looking gnome and he tells you that, “Hey, guy, I need, like, five wolf pelts. I’d get them myself but I have to stand here and tell some other dope my sob story. Do this for me and get Generic Item of the Mundane.” Since nothing’s ever easy, you have to do it because for whatever stupid reason, you need that item.

Far Cry 3 falls into that very trap, but without the pseudo-social environment of World of Warcraft. You’re not playing Far Cry 3 with anybody—shut up, I know there’s a cooperative option—you’re doing this solo. Man versus the Wilderness. And somehow, it’s really boring. “Killing wild pigs to make a bigger wallet” was a design choice that an actual person came up with and said, “Players will love it.” Or maybe they just said, “Players will tolerate it.” Because it’s this same process that allows you to carry more than one gun.

I spent more time killing goats to make a bigger rucksack just to carry all the junk I pick up than I have fighting pirates which is supposed to be the meat and potatoes of this game. The amount of goats killed would flag my character as a Satanist. Lo and behold, I’ve had to upgrade it a second time within a half hour. And guess what? Now it’s nearly filled to the brim with old syringes, multicolored leaves, single playing cards, and other bits of useless trash that somehow take up an equal amount of volume in my rucksack made of dingoes.

All I ask is for an easy way. The major theme of the game’s “plot” is the walking the path of the warrior, so I get that the game is supposed to be an arduous climb. But why must the fun play second fiddle to the grind? Why can’t I just pay for a new backpack with $500 in blood-soaked cash from my handmade pig wallet? Real RPGs let me do that.