Tag Archives: sports

Golf with Your Friends

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So here’s an idea that I think should have happened a long time ago, but either never did until now, or else I never noticed. Mini-golf, right? People have made video games about mini golf that defy, if not physics herself, at least what a non-billionaire could spend on fancy courses. But if anyone has made the video game equivalent of that, and also you and your friends are the only people at the course and you’re drinking and playing hurry up golf where you’re all just constantly hitting the ball as fast or as slow as you want (but there’s a timer) and if your strokes happen to run afoul of each other as you play, oh well it happens!

That stopped being a sentence at some point. But my point is, if anyone ever made the video game equivalent of that before now, I missed it. Golf with Your Friends is exactly that, by which I mean, yes, it’s what I just described, but also, it’s exactly what it calls itself. At least, it’s that for me, when I get together with my friends of a Tuesday night and play things for a few hours.

A plus, would putt again.

Cars

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The boy has been watching Cars practically nonstop for the past four months. (Six?) But I didn’t ever sit down and watch it myself until this week. Common wisdom is that it’s a ripoff of Doc Hollywood, which would be easier to comment on if I, uh, remembered almost anything about that movie. I mean, the broad strokes, yes, in that a hotshot racecar|doctor learns that small town life is worthwhile and also falls in love. But I think I should be able to speak at a little more depth than that, to confirm or deny.

Anyway, at the end of the day, Pixar or not, it’s a kid movie, and unless maybe if you also are really into stock car racing (which I am not), it does not surpass its origins in the way that, say, parts of Up did. But it’s good enough to watch when his eyes light up like that, even if I think he should be watching Star Wars instead.

Siu lam juk kau

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After a long, long time, I’ve started watching Netflix stuff again. Which is nice, because it means I get to spend my money a little better and also because I might get to see the final season of Alias sometime this year and also also because every so often I get some random movie or other into the queue, something I missed theatrically and then nearly forgot about and would never have heard from again, but for those fine people. (The ones at Netflix, you see.)

In this case, I get to be the last person in America to see Shaolin Soccer, despite that I had heard about it in 2001 when you could only get it via illegal download. Sure, it’s a ridiculous movie that you’ve seen a million times before. An underdog coach gets a chance to redeem himself by defeating his longtime rival, but only if he can whip his scrappy players into shape in time for the big game! (Or maybe the lead player is the one who’s redeeming himself against the longtime rival. Either way.) So yeah, of course you’ve seen it.

But, have you seen it with tai chi sticky buns? Or with a cunning plan to repopularize kung fu via lounge singing? Or with a nemesis who looks suspiciously like Takeshi Kaga? I am willing to bet that you have not, outside of this movie, which admittedly you have almost certainly seen. Perhaps it’s worth another look, though? ‘Cause, let’s be clear here, there’s something really cool about a movie that not only uses the over-the-top magic-laden version of kung fu to play a game of soccer, but does so in the same script that pauses long enough to make fun of wirework in Chinese cinema.