It’s ridiculous how much quality television is out there. There are so many options, streaming services, and so many ways to watch. Not to mention all the spoilers and never-ending water cooler talk. How do these TV people expect us to live? At this point, we are all one great show away from becoming shut ins, strapping ourselves into virtual reality helmets and catching up on reruns of The Grinder.

Some shows I liked but did not include are Documentary Now! and Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp. Here are some other shows I wish I had watched or watched more of: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Mr. Robot, and Fargo. There’s little doubt in my mind Fargo is likely the best show on TV. That being said, consider this the “All the Best Show that Aren’t Fargo” list and enjoy.

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In the words of the immortal songsmith James Blunt, “You’re Beautiful. You’re Beautiful. You’re beautiful, it’s true.” And by “You’re” I am referring to 2015. Thanks to my newfound relationship with Spotify, my ears took quite a trip through the various trends and styles of 2015. From the hipster R&B of The Weeknd, to socially conscious hip-hop from Kendrick Lamar and Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment to Grammy darling Adele, there was a lot to take in. I felt good about straying from my comfort zone. Sure, it didn’t always pan out (cough, cough, Mumford and Sons) but it was a journey I’d gladly take again. If not for the surprises for the lasting musical memories.

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Another year, another strong desire to have more time to listen to all the great music that came out. It’s 2016 now, far later than people thought the concept of an “album” would last. We’re in the playlists and singles era, after all. The music industry is continuing to change, with Apple finally taking iTunes into the streaming world and Rdio going out of business. Oh Rdio, I’ll miss you most of all.

When it came to making this list, over the course of the day I Was able to narrow down an overwhelming list of well-liked albums to 18 I really wanted on my list. Since Colin pretty much always goes before me, I did have the advantage of bumping the latest albums from Hop Along, Sleater-Kinney, Courtney Barnett, and Beach Slang – all of whom might have placed fairly highly on my list had he not already written about them better than I can. Also I’m going to guess John will feature I Love You, Honeybear and Carrie & Lowell, so I decided not to worry about them.

The final two casualties were the goofy collaboration between Franz Ferdinand and Sparks, FFS, and the new Go! Team album, which maybe isn’t as good as I think it is as someone who got way into that band this year. Please consider those above albums as fully recommended as the 10 below.
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That’s right everybody, it’s that time of year again.  No, not Christmastime, you dummies.  That shit has come and gone, which of course leads us to the all-encompassingly depressing month that is January.  Luckily, we here at Mildly Pleased take a bit longer than most pop culture sites to get around to seeing/hearing everything that came out in a given year, because as you may know, we do this for free (which also explains why we have lived to see 2016, unlike several great pop culture sites that folded last year).  And therefore, we will begin unleashing our top ten albums, TV shows, and movies, as well as a podcast commemorating the year in mild pleasure in the coming weeks.

But as for 2015 in music, overall I’d say it was just an ok year for me.  If anything, it was a year where I probably felt myself becoming a little less open-minded towards the kinds of music I was seeking out.  Which might be a sign of me getting older, or might be a sign of me having lived with my own personal tastes long enough to know that if it doesn’t have guitars or a real drummer on it, I probably won’t like it.  So here are the albums that measured up to my ever-narrowing standard of what good music is… Continue reading →

With great success comes responsibility. It also means being f*cking rich! But Poon didn’t amass their great fortune overnight. It took years and years of selling out. In Poon’s forty something years of existence, they made everything from toys to fruit snacks, to interactive love dolls. Here’s a list of the group’s most sought after items.

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I’ve been accused of being obsessed with the new. Mostly this is in regard to how I am always trying out new albums on Rdio, to the point that it seems like I never go back and listen to anything more than a year old. It’s a fair accusation, I mean I really don’t spend much time at all listening to classic rock or catching up on movies from the fifties or marathoning important TV shows (that aren’t made by Joss Whedon or part of the Star Trek universe). Video games are a little different. While I still have a vast backlog of games that I’ll probably never catch up with, games are such a heavy time investment that I will go back for them. Last year I went back and played a lot of 2013’s Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate and 2009’s Dragon Age: Origins, among countless other old PC games that I picked up on sale and dipped my toes into.

My point is that unless this is your job, it’s really hard to try to play every game that matters. I don’t know how people do it, because I don’t have an especially busy social life and I still would be exhausted to try to get more than a couple of hours of gaming in on a weekday. So yeah, even though it’s almost February I still have barely touched Divinity: Original Sin, I’m still shooting my way through the early stages of Far Cry 4, and while I own Alien: Isolation, I’ve never even booted it up. Will I get to these games? I hope so. I hope I get to play them and many other great games of 2014 that I didn’t try out yet. Until that time, however, here are the 10 games I liked the most that I actually played last year.
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