Netflix's Castlevania season 1 flash review

Visuals and setting:

Fluid animation and nice twilight atmosphere. The setting is supposed to be Eastern Europe but I would have liked them to incorporate more from Castlevania II including the outdoors, town structures and names. The retaking of Alucard's coat, sword and after-shadows from Symphony of the Night are a nice touch. It is surprising the use of foul language and crude tastes for this, up till now, pure series. It is quite gory as well. 

Storyline:

Somewhat slow although it picks up at the fourth episode. It is a reimagining of Castlevania III , and as such it kind of works. I was really worried at the way they portrayed the Catholic Church, but the small gesture that Trevor makes in the fourth episode while asking for the holy water, makes it alright I guess.

Voice acting:

Below average for the English version except for Trevor, which is good.

Music:

A missed opportunity in my opinion. It might be atmospheric and composed specifically for the series, but it is kind of bland and doesn't retake any themes from the videogame series. You won't find me putting it on a personal playlist or getting the vinyl. 

Could be better

Ps: Retweeted this yesterday: Mondo will release Rondo of Blood and music-wise that is something to look forward to.

Hoarding Stuff

We've talked previously about how material objects can distract one from one's purpose in life.  In light of this, collecting, while fun, can be quite deleterious to one's financial and moral being. If you are about to start a collection or have been on the first stages of major accumulation, these two titles might set you away from the death trap.

The first one is Alan Zweig's 2000 documentary Vinyl. In it he shows his and other's fondness for vinyl record collecting. It starts fine and all: as with other documentaries one kind of expects to get an inside view of a respectable interest. However, unintendedly it seems, it quite soon takes an uncomfortable turn. Instead of finding lovable, interesting interviewees, we get a whole lot of scary persons in one way or other. It starts with the man with the red shirt and doesn't let go. There are shut-ins, the man who hits the ceiling when the Zweig steps on his collection, the one who claims he's got every record in existence, and even Zweig himself making this one autobiographical if anything. The three freakiest moments are his dog, his disposal (and filming) of some of his old records on the street and the time he invites a female friend over to show her his records. This last one is so awkward that one feels sorry for the girl.

The other one is Frost's book Stuff.  In it he describes various cases of hoarding and tries to make sense psychologically of it and come up with treatments which result various degrees of success. There's the perennial goat-paths, the woman who collects pets, the one who cannot stop treating herself with clothes, the man who collects literal junk, the brothers who've got the money to accumulate actual treasures and descriptions some forced clean-outs. Irene, from the first chapter is quite charming. Definitely worth reading if you know someone with this problem.

Now, if you ever feel like beginning large-scale collecting, watch and read these two and they might scare you enough to make you desist from your project before you harm your family and loved ones.

Persuasion in the Bible

Not all ideas that we have turn out to be great. Some, in fact, turn out to be very misguided and even wrong. I had one of those when I thought about reading through the whole Bible and gathering all the quotes I could find that dealt with persuasion, no matter how inconsequential. At the time (2012) I was reading books and influence and I was taken by the way Moses could stop God from smiting the Israelites when they complained too much or how Abraham negotiated his way into saving Sodom and Gomorrah (to no avail, as it turns out) and at the same time without incurring in God's anger.

The second half of the project was to match each instance with one of Cialdini's four principles of persuasion: reciprocation, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, and authority.

I made my way all into Esdras in 2012, but then stopped the project for whatever reason. I didn't retake it because I decided that the Bible shouldn't be read in that way. However, for what it's worth, and a  community service, here's the raw data that I gathered with some annotations; it might come handy to someone someday: