Sunday Suggestions: 08/09/2020

It’s that time of the week again! Welcome to another installment of Sunday Suggestions! This week, we’ll be covering the following suggestions:

Movie: Happy Gilmore
Book Series: Percy Jackson
Video Game: House Flipper
Jazz Artist: Arturo Sandoval

Movie
Happy Gilmore
Starring Adam Sandler, Christopher McDonald, Julie Bowen, France Bay, Carl Weathers, Allen Covert
Rated PG-13
Released in 1996
Purchased via Amazon Prime

Okay. I know. A lot of people have seen Happy Gilmore. Adam Sandler was more or less a household name in the 90’s, his comedies such as Wedding Singer, Billy Madison, and Waterboy (I know there are others, but those are the ones that immediately came to mind) were fantastic movies that really cemented his place in comedy. Adam was big on Saturday Night Live, but the movies really helped provide him a home for his comedic, slapstick style. Of all his movies, Happy Gilmore was always my favorite. We’ve been playing a lot of golf recently, trips to the driving range becoming more and more frequent each week. This got me in the mood to watch a few movies about golf, so I decided to delve back in to my childhood and watch good old Happy Gilmore. It has been long enough since I watched the movie that I still got a really good chuckle out of the film. While it follows Sandler’s typical slapstick comedy, it’s still good enough to warrant a few laughs and hit the heartstrings. For fans of golf, or even just fans of a good comedy, watch Happy Gilmore and enjoy the antics.

Book Series
Percy Jackson
Written by Rick Riordan
Published by Disney Hyperion, Miramax Books, and Penguin Books
Five Part Series
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure/Young Adult

I recently found myself in the need of a new book to read. After thinking and thinking, I couldn’t land on a single book to read, regardless of my expansive library. Then it struck me: What was a book I hadn’t read in a very long time that I could delve myself back into, essentially making it like a brand new reading experience again? I read the Percy Jackson books a long time ago, so I wanted to delve back in to help quell the anger and disappointment I had from watching the movies. For those of you that have never read the books, the differences between the movie(s) and the books are astronomical. The differences really help you realize how much lost potential occurred when they made the movies. So much information was lost in translation. The books follow a young man named Percy Jackson, a demigod, descendant of Poseidon. The Greek Gods do exist, and the world they live in is ripe with Greek lore. If you’ve seen the movies, you know that it takes place in modern day times and carries many themes that relate to the real world. The books were written for young adults, following the same reading level as the Hunger Games, Divergent, and Maze Runner series. It’s a simple read that falls behind fantasy epics like Wheel of Time or Game of Thrones, but it contains enough fun to help compensate for the lack of depth.

Video Game
House Flipper
No Voice Acting
Developed by Empyrean
Published by PlayWay S.A.
Released in 2018
Platforms: PC, PS4, XBox One, Nintendo Switch

Last week, I wrote about a game called Viscera Cleanup Detail, a game based on cleaning up a location in space after a sci-fi monster attack. The entire premise of the game is to cleanup blood, body parts, debris, bullet casings, and so forth. This week, I want to talk about a very similar game but with a much different theme. My fiancee is a ginormous fan of watching HGTV and TLC shows about fixing up houses. She is heavily into design and renovating houses. House Flipper is a game that follows the same premise as Viscera Cleanup Detail, however you’re main purpose in this game is to clean up rundown houses, install new furniture and appliances, and then resell the house for a profit. The options for redoing the inside of the house are basically limitless. You start out by doing side jobs of cleaning up houses, and then you start painting, doing demolition on walls, adding new walls, tiling walls and floors, and renovating. Eventually, you use your money to buy a house, completely change it from top to bottom, and then resell the house for a nice profit. It’s a relaxing game where you can put on some music or a movie and just fix up houses. Let your inner designer loose as you get the chance to step into the shoes of a house flipper and help renovate the house of someone’s dreams.

Jazz Artist
Arturo Sandoval
Instrument: Trumpet

I have been a longtime lover of Jazz. My first degree program in college was to be a professional trumpet player. My father first got me into the trumpet when I was in the fourth grade, and over time, I like to think I became pretty good at playing. When I abandoned the dream of becoming a professional trumpet player, I instead decided to just play casually, but that didn’t mean I would stop listening to my favorite artist. Arturo Sandoval is a Cuban-American trumpet player. He has been playing the trumpet professionally since 1977, achieving three Grammy’s during his time. He has collaborated with many different musicians over the years, performed the National Anthem at several professional sports events, and had a movie made about his life by HBO. He is a phenomenal trumpet player, able to adapt to a variety of musical styles. He is, and will most likely always be, my all time favorite Jazz musician and trumpet player.

Until next Sunday!