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Wonder when they'll ask serious questions about the US blowing up boats in the Caribbean. Hah, right. American pols caring about brown people dying

Wrapped up with Control. Again I got the bug where I couldn't upgrade all my weapons even though I did all the quests, ie. missing one endless potential. Not that it matters as I am not fussed about finding all the secrets, just the interesting ones. Probably going to play Alan Wake 2 next, but I kind of don't want to have epic store...

Ultimately it always boils down to Us vs Them, and Israel is incontrovertibly Us so far as the vast majority of political elites in the west are concerned. For that, Ukraine doesn't matter, at all. Whatever Israel has done previous* criticism has been extremely muted, if present at all. If it weren't Russia, it would be China, if it weren't China it would be someone else. As an obese former flying ace with a penchant for women's clothing observed, it's easy, effective and extremely tempting to use fear to manipulate the population wherever you are. Elites always need enemies and if one is not apparent it will be invented. (Dunno how successful the UK government has been. Designating Palestinian Action as big t Terrorist and having Brave Bobbies regularly arresting 80 year old grannies among the thousands of others for literally holding signs has been an international embarrassment moderated only slightly by the domestic media not being able to say outright how stupid it was because, of course, that would be... Supporting Terrorism. Now, just imagine if it was Russia doing... actually you don't have to imagine, because Russia has an equivalent law and we've seen the media reaction to them using it the same way) *excluding 1956, but that was mostly the US/ USSR wanting to make sure Britain and France were permanently Broken as world powers, Israel's invasion of Egypt was pretty much an afterthought and it was only the US part of the west objecting.

That depends way too much on your class and your choice of weapons. I played a mage and thought the 2-handed playstyle was slow, unresponsive and not fun to play, so I switched to dagger/orb Spellblade and never looked back, stacking burn, shock and arcane bombs while zipping around the battlefield was very satisfying. Rounded the build out with some burst damage attacks, and it was a hoot and a half to play. At least it was for me, but I like high dps glass cannon characters whose only defense is high mobility and good cooldown management. There's a reason I tend to play sorcerers in Diablo IV and used the Stinger in Everspace 2. But yeah, game is definitely too long. The mage's ranged playstyle with the staff and the entire Control tree is probably also a leftover from the days where you were supposed to have actual players keeping the attention of the enemies, instead of semi-braindead AI companions. Probably. You have your home base to upgrade your gear, and the Crossroads were most likely meant as a lobby of sorts where you could pick where you want to go and check for groups. Most likely the entire reason why you have to reach everything through the Crossroads and not have a more connected game world like in the other games. Pretty standard for the live service game they were going for before pivoting to a single player experience. All the level designs - especially the much maligned city maps - are also left from it being supposed to be a co-op crawl through dungeons, rather than exploring traditional RGP areas. Game's pretty decent for its chaotic development. Certainly better than the negativity heaped on it, but also not great by any means.

No, I just gave up and spam positivity everywhere. I blame it on too much Scooter.

Probably has to do with the imminent release of Bloodlines 2.

It's still sunny in Seattle. In October. This never used to happen. October was always cold and grey. Anyway, time for my morning walk.

In turn, I was being satirical. I tend to assume nothing coming from that man is serious until it is implemented. But his frequently undiplomatic utterances still have negative impacts on our foreign relations.

Im going Linux whenever they decide to force always online for logins, which might be soon.

Win11 is ok-ish most of the time if you change some config stuff first (like bringing back the original right-click menu and changing explorer tree view). However, it's still a terrible experience compared to 10 or 7.

Think I have gone as far as I can in D4. Playing WoW for Legion remix, is fun to make the game an ARPG or more so. Though the speed focus does make me lament the rush players are in constantly.

Win11 at work is strange, right click menu needs time to load.

Probably true, amazing people have such faith in Trump and Qatar. Then again some people will watch you load a gun in front of them but won't assume you fire until you pull the trigger. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjr034p5prlo Hamas refuses, last I checked.

I think it matters a lot what the political elites and the establishment do. In central Europe there has been a tendency of going after pro Palestinian political protest, not as explicit as in the US, but I would say the German and UK governments in particular have been successful at casting doubt and marginalising the movement. the central European powers are pinned down by a sort of existential dread caused by shifting geopolitical realities, and they are afraid to isolate Israel. And doubtless the immigration and the right wing surge also plays a role. It's they don't want to give ground to right wing populists by assuming a traditionally left wing stance on Israel/Palestine.

I'm in ep 6 or 7 now as well. I'm a bit torn on it. On the one hand I would keep watching, but on the other I don't really like the story. I don't hate it, but it's also not something that really, totally, absolutely makes me want to keep watching. Guess deep down I just want more of Uncontrollably Fond, or hell, even Doona.

Windows 11 is great, you shouldn't have have any issues and the upgrade from 10 is online and works well and its free

really dread the day one would be forced to switch to windows 11 should never moved on from xp

made chicken soup. we don't have a recipe for chicken soup but we do have a process with multi variations/options. however, we did learn that skimp on carrot is an auto fail. only had three mediumish carrots and we used 1.5 for the stock, which were a mistake. am recognizing, belated, that more carrot is essential for our chicken soup regardless o' customization. unlike many folks, we break down the chicken before boiling. is so much easier to work with smaller pieces as 'posed to a whole chicken carcass, particularly once the chicken is cooked and falling apart, so we always break down the chicken as a first step. also, we often put the chicken pieces in an oven set for convection or in an air fryer for ~20 minutes just to create a bit o' browning o' the bird. am not trying to cook the chicken with the 20 minutes o' browning, but a little color adds depth o' flavour to our soup and am preferring to do the chicken browning in the oven as 'posed to browning in the dutch oven/stock pot we will be boiling the chicken. try and brown the pieces o' a whole chicken in a dutch oven involves avoiding overcrowding, occasional flipping o' pieces and potential greasy splatter. 'course as often as not, we simply cover the the chicken pieces with a few litres o' cold water and then boil for a couple hours to produce the stock for our soup as well as to cook the chicken. to the water and chicken am adding... whatever. couple bay leaves, a bunch o' pepper corns, crushed garlic cloves, carrots, onion, and celery is the most common additions, but no salt. we ordinary make salt free stock nowadays and then add salt later in the cooking process. the thing is, what genuine goes into the stock is gonna be determined by the sad looking veggies in our fridge am trying to use before they become compost material... sans stuff such as bell pepper. ick. am also typical avoiding adding older mushrooms to a stock but not 'cause o' flavour concerns but rather for aesthetic reasons: old mushrooms will make for a kinda fugly grey-brown stock which tastes ok but appears less appealing. curious, our recent soup used only those ingredients we earlier identified as "common additions." while am making stock/cooking chicken, we do periodic skimming with a slotted spoon to remove scum, but am suspecting doing so is unnecessary save for if you want a prettier stock. meh. am no longer so precious as to worry overmuch about whether or not our stock is the ideal hue or perfect clear, which is why after 1.5-2 hours o' simmering, we pull our chicken pieces outta the cooking pot and then strain the stock with a fine mesh colander, but we don't go to any extreme effort to make our stock a clear and perfect amber. ... can make this a two-day thing where you chill the resulting stock and cooked chicken in the fridge and then finish day two, but am old and lazy so... because our chicken is already broken down, am able to make quick work o' separating the meat from the carcass and skin. we give the chicken meat a rough chop, and we save the bones and skin, which am typically throwing in the air fryer and browning once more before we then freeze. the frozen bones and skin is utilized when we eventual need make stock sans chicken soup. to our strained stock, which we return to the dutch oven/stock pot in which we made the stock, we add veggies and salt. chances are we don't need much pepper as we used a fair amount o' peppercorns when making the stock. for our most recent soup we had on hand a couple smallish turnips, a couple largeish parsnips, onion, celery and not enough carrot. boil and simmer the vegetables (this is also when we add pasta if am making a chicken "noodle" soup. we were gonna add datteri baresi pasta 'cause we were gifted excellent datteri pasta a few months back, but we decided at the last minute that we would skip the carbs,) until they is tender and then return the cooked chicken back to the pot as well as the chosen chopped herbage, which for Gromnir were italian parsley and dill. when returning the chicken and adding herbs, you might consider stirring in as little as a quarter teaspoon of tumeric as this will give you the vibrant yellow hue often associated with deli-style or canned chicken soup. *shrug* regardless, simmer until the chicken is warmed through. salt-to-taste and then plate and serve. one decent sized chicken and an equal weight o' veggies is gonna result in a rather copious amount o' chicken soup that refrigerates for days but freezes for months. 'course if you don't have enough carrot for the soup, that means you will potential need suffer the same minor disappointment... for months. good soup, but just shy o' greatness for want o' one large carrot? le sigh. HA! Good Fun!

If you plan to use Gambit effectively your focus should be to ensure you never miss/graze or else you won't get your resources back. You also want to have as much Guile as possible to have close to 100% Hit to Crit. With all that in mind, some key items are the Cap of the Laughingstock, Gauntlets of Accuracy/Gloves of the Dungeon Warden, Ajamuut's Stalking Cloak, Devil of Caroc Breastplate. For weapons the most effective combo, maybe not as sexy as two daggers/stilettos, is Scordeo's Edge & Rust's Poignard. For the other items you want more perception/intellect/beneficial effects duration - Whispers from the Depths ring gives Acute that stacks with other active intellect buffs (like from Ripple Sponge or Potion of Mental Prowess), Strand of Favor, Ooblit. For resting bonus probably the buff from The Abyss (25% beneficial effects duration) is the most useful for you (even more if you plan to use Scordeo's Edge with Blade Cascade).

That was never a serious idea from Trump and it was just him making his " normal " illogical and inane public statements which is just his random thoughts Its no different to invading Greenland and making Canada part of the US. Only people who want to outraged take those types of Trump comments seriously and certain MAGA cultists This Gaza plan is completed different, it involved meeting with Arab leaders and major planning from Witkoff and Kushner who both travelled extensively to the ME Its based on reasonable objectives implemented in obvious stages and both the Palestinians and Israel had to make concessions Here is a good link that summarizes how this peace plan was crafted and all the different considerations and people involved https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj3yke64vp6o @rjshae I think you will also find it interesting because its a good summary of all the events that led to the plan being implemented

In the end, Trump will get his Mediterranean resort. Just you watch...

Seems the most exciting prospect of this game coming out are all the inevitable exposé pieces that finally reveal just what the hell happened with this game's development.

Didn't take Israel very long to start abrogating the agreement. The Palestinians are meant to have 72 hours to return bodies (specref:part 4; and also the Hebrew text published in Israeli media), or give all the information they have on them and Israel is already refusing to open the Rafah crossing, halving the trucks allowed in and, quelle surprise, killing more civilians returning to their homes based on them not returning bodies. "Israel Agrees To Go Back To Killing Palestinians On Less Frequent Basis" indeed. Don't think Ukraine made any difference to be honest. You'd have hoped, if Europe's 'ideals' were actually ideals, that a campaign of indiscriminate bombing, collective punishment, mass destruction of civilian infrastructure, mass detention, mass torture, systematic sexual violence as part of that torture and mass starvation would garner some sort of functionally negative response whoever was carrying it out. There's no reason to think it wouldn't have got crickets without Ukraine, and several reasons to think Ukraine should have actually galvanised a response from them if only to avoid embarrassment at the obvious double standard. Id est: it was a highly embarrassing comparison having Ursula and Kaja (but notably, not Josep) burble on about the indiscriminate Russian bombing campaign in Ukraine while tacitly applauding/ being silent about Israel doing far worse in Gaza; or complaining about Putin and Lvova-Belova being accused genocide fugitives from justice who'd kidnapped (a few hundred, lest we forget) children while not even closing EU airspace to Netanyahu who'd outright killed far more than 10,000 Gazan children. It would have been far less embarrassing if they'd done the absolute bare minimum against Israel as well, but even that was too much. End result: there's yet another example of a double standard to be thrown in the faces of the Rules Based Order for the next 20 years.

try to rewatch carmilla and see it come out 11 year ago

Yeah, I feel good about skipping this one after all.