Family Style Network

“A found family is every bit as beautiful as a born family. Even more so, perhaps. Stories are about choices, after all, and to choose to be family is as wonderful a story as can be told.” ― Dan Gemeinhart, The Midnight Children Life is funny, sometimes.  Every day starts to bleed into the next; monotony of the highest order.  Every day much the same as that which came before it.  You end up on auto-pilot.  You end up in a routine.  Your day to day consists of similar patterns, across the board.  In the best case scenario, you are at least content.  In the worst case scenario, you have relegated yourself to a position of unending misery that is simply your lot in life.  Some years back, I was in the latter category. I had dreams.  I had ambitions.  I had goals.  But somewhere along the line, my life took a hard turn in the opposite direction.  The car got parked, and someone else took the wheel and started driving, like a bat o...

TW: Mental Health, Addiction and Suicidal Ideation. "What's my drug of choice?  Well, what have you got? I don't go broke, and I do it a lot. I do it a lot!" - Junkhead by Alice In Chains Hi, my name is Uncle Tim, and I am an addict. Greetings and salutations Fam-bam (thank you Ma'am!). Shit, hows the above for a blog intro? Am I right? Your Uncle Tim celebrated a milestone 2 days ago, that being 1000 days sober. It was a relatively quiet affair, just like when I hit 2 years last September as I guess I'm still a little skittish when it comes to the energy I put towards it. I told a very small group of people, accepted their praise, best wishes, kind words and support etc and that's it. I set it aside, maybe compartmentalised it a little (I dunno!), and just moved forward with my day and my life. I haven't celebrated it, in all honesty, I don't know how to. I'm also trying to allow myself to be proud of myself but that too is something that does...

  Uncle Tim here 👽👋   Just thought I'd pop in and say hello or "How's it going?" (pronounced "Owzigowen" in Upside Down Talk.) It sure has been a while friends. "Where have I been hiding?" I hear none of you ask, well I've been lurking about on Discord, or working my little buns off but I've been about.  The last few months have been a very strange time for me and without going into too much detail here it has left me feeling quite flat, demotivated and relatively uninspired overall. My muse has been absent of late and that's ok, these things happen, and I always said from the get-go that there would be no timetable to this, it was more when I felt like writing something that I would. A couple of months ago we kicked off the ' 30 mins for 30 days Challenge ' again on the Discord which is where you set yourself a goal for the month and try to carve out 30 mins a day to work on it. The goal can be anything you want, there are no...

 It isn't very often that a movie franchise releases 4 really good movies. It's even more rare that the latest entry in the franchise is the best one made. John Wick 4 is that movie though. Not only the best movie of the series but one of the best action movies of all time. The John Wick series has come a long way since the first one in 2014. Each movie has upped the ante and scale in almost 10 years as a franchise. Carried by the duo of star Keanu Reeves and Director Chad Stahelski, Chapter 4 delivers everything fans have come to expect with one of the most indestructible action movie characters in recent movie history.  John Wick Chapter 4 is the longest of the series so far but in my opinion not a single moment was wasted and the 2 hour and 49 minute runtime blew by. The movie contains 2(!!!) 30 minute long action sequences that had me on the edge of my seat. Without getting into spoilers the sequences that take place in Osaka and Paris is some of the best fight scenes I...

 About fucking time!  I used to love In Flames. The run they had from 1995's "Subterranean" to 2006's " Come Clarity" is legendary. All those albums are incredible and if you haven't listened to them you should leave this review and go listen now. After 'Come Clarity" is when my interest started to fade. I don't blame the band for wanting to evolve and try new things, in fact, I'll never blame any band for that. The albums just started to become blander and blander to me. Whenever a new record got announced, I just found myself not caring at all. "Siren Charms" especially being a low point in my opinion for the band.  Then the singles started to roll out for "Foregone". All of a sudden I found myself getting excited again, Especially when "The Great Deceiver"" was released. The band I used to love was back, finally. I'm so fucking happy to say that the whole "Foregone" album is a great lis...

 This week's episode was a breather from all the darkness and heartbreak to establish the beginning of the relationship between Joel and Ellie. This connection will be key for the rest of the darkness and heartbreak to come for the rest of the season.  This episode gave us a lot of scenes that came directly from the game. Ellie looking at the porn magazine in the truck is shot for shot the same. Joel is frozen in fear when she asks "Why are the pages stuck together" this was a great moment of levity. Bella Ramsey continues to crush it as Ellie. Bella has locked into this character and it is a pleasure to see her continue developing her own spin while honoring Ashley Johnson's take in the games. Just cause the episode was a breather, doesn't mean it didn't have any action. Another scene from the game is when the truck crashes into the laundromat. One change is Ellie saves Joel from the last hunter instead of him killing each one. I'm curious what the payoff...

 This might sound like a fanboy opinion because I made it pretty clear in the first review of this show that I was a big fan of the video games but we really are in the midst of something special. This episode really cemented that idea for me. It is the biggest deviation from the games but it also confirmed some things for the fans of the games and gave newcomers 2 characters to fall in love with and that's what the games and show have always been about, Love.  We never got to meet Frank while he was alive in the games. You come across him and a suicide note while searching for supplies and that's it. You meet Bill and he helps you get into a vehicle so that the journey west can begin. There was a scene in the game where Bill mentions his partner, Frank and I always got the impression that he was more to Bill than just a business partner and now I have that feeling confirmed. Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett took the lead this week and gave us an instant classic of the series...