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Everyone needs cardio buddies to make it more enjoyable to knock out the miles. My running group gets me out of bed very early, but I'm always happy I did. I don't know that I'd call my Cycling group buddies. They are all jerks and my entire purpose in life is to not let them ditch me too early into the ride.

Old thread (where we left off) Finally got past the point where my body hurts, waking up in the middle of the night with belly cramps, just to get cramps in all the back muscles when trying to straighten out the belly muscles The joy of pushing yourself a bit harder at the gym and doing things you normally never do...

Scandinavians (actually, most Nordic people as far as I know)... personal space is a real thing.

Yes, not realistic. Even the most enthusiastic people about it would eventually get tired of doing it. Unless they had some way to drug everyone or poison the atmosphere, I guess.

Funny thing is that'd pretty likely be a red card, in rugby. (I really wish they'd card people for faking injury after doing a bad foul too. Yellow card for the foul, yellow card for the fake injury. Oh well, even while I'm technically English them losing is great for the memes and means I can make interminable jokes about losing by boundary countback to all my relatives who were all 'rules are rules' over a certain Cricket result)

To England Even better was the Arsenal player missing the losing penalty

Motivation is where you find it!

I'm really enjoying Assassin's Creed Rogue. All I wanted this game to be is Black Flag 2, and that's exactly what it is. All the Abstergo stuff sucks, but that's par for the course for AssCreed and is only a small bother that occasionally interrupts my pirate power fantasy.

No they got in about 8 o’clock last night and left about 8 o’clock this morning. They couldn’t get gone fast enough. I had to insist on making them breakfast. They said they would get something on the road. Whatever.

I bought a Boston Butt to cook in the smoker today. I expected I’d have folks here to feed it to. Thought it would make for a nice dinner. But turns out they had other plans. Looks like I will be eating smoked pork this week. All week.

OH NO!!!!!!!!!!!!

@majestic Kill la Kill sure was a ride wasn't it? I remember watching it a few years ago and thinking that it was really good or borderline perv, and now I think it's both.

I found myself free of distractions by my computer over the weekend, and in the vicinity of a smart TV, so I... forced myself to binge-finish Kill la Kill. That sounds like I didn't like it, but that's not the case. Kill la Kill was great, but it's an unabating assault on one's senses. The show alone is enough to give you sensory overload, and couple that with having to read subtitles for characters that talk with what feels like a thousand words per minute (especially Mako when she gets going) it becomes quite tiring to watch. It's something similar that makes my going through JoJo's bizarre adventure quite slow. I enjoy watching it and laugh like an idiot at the shenanigans. However, more than one or two episodes a day is kind of hard to do. For JoJo's, that's not sensory overload, but the same thing that happened to me when I watched Way of the Househusband. There's something about the combination of overly dramatic Japanese, reading subtitles and the a mix of barely animated, almost still parts and over the top action pieces, that makes me weary while watching, regardless of of much I like the content. When you find yourself writing... anything, I guess, be it TV, film or animation scripts, music, lyrics or novels, you can do many things within the genre you've picked. Play the established tropes straight, like many do, subvert them, create a deconstruction, or you can do a parody. Sometimes works contain elements from more than one of these, and often, I've noticed, the fandumb and critics alike use the terminology wrong. Kill la Kill, interestingly enough, completes a final element within anime that I haven't seen yet - namely the latter. Although, in all fairness, when you look at anime that plays tropes straight, like Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura, that only has limited applicability when you are the very shows that establish the tropes, in the case of modern Maho Shojo (and Kill la Kill is, at the end of the day, a Maho Shojo anime, the main protagonist and antagonist and the secondary ones - they're all magical girls, some of which have transformation sequences, coupled with a fighting anime). The difference between subversions and deconstructions isn't an actually easy one. A deconstruction of mecha anime, for instance, would be Neon Genesis Evangelion insofar as it seeks to shine a light on what would happen if you applied this storytelling device or convention to real life. The mech piloting is still there. The mechs are there, even if they get a tinge of a subversion later by turning out to be grown from a giant alien entity, rather than constructed, but that's only a minor element. A deconstruction, by its nature, doesn't do anything to acknowledge prior works with the same tropes, it is a type of reading in the work itself. When you contrast this with Puella Magi Madoka Magica's Kyubey, this does nothing of the sort. It doesn't explore the question of what would happen if magical, wish granting and power giving animals were real, it takes the benevolent magical animal companion trope (like Luna, Artemis and Kero) and subverts the expectations (as loaded as that term nowadays is) of the viewers by not being what is expected of it. Kyubey is cute and fuzzy, but not nice. Not that Madoka doesn't have deconstructive elements too, it's just that the subversion is a much stronger element in it (Mami is the most clearly deconstructive element, I'd say - accepting the fact that nobody would care for an orphan, but that's an entirely different rabbit hole to go down). Kill la Kill, on the other hand, is a parody by way of turning tropes to OVER NINE THOUSAND so they become a ridiculous mockery of themselves, and that former Gainax members are part of it really shows, too. It all begins with Ryuko, a girl looking for the murderer of her father. The only clue she has is her only possession. Half a scissor she uses to fight. Through some shenanigans she ends up finding her late father's final piece of work, a school uniform with magical powers that consumed Ryuko's blood in exchange for power. Right from the start this shows how the parody through crassness works. Her transformation ends with her wearing a ridiculous stripper outfit that barely covers anything, which makes Mako, a girl in the family she stays with, call her an exhibitionist all the time, with Ryuko saying that she isn't. She ends up at the academy that Satsuki runs with an iron fist. A vertiable fascist paradise where the unwashed masses are ruled over by people who have had life fibers (special threads granting magical powers) worked into their school uniforms. Regular students have normal school uniforms, the others have ranked power levels. One star uniforms are worn by the unnamed and faceless masses of the party (sort of, they're just better students here) that lord over students with no stars. Two star uniforms are for the leaders of club activities and finally there are the three star uniforms worn by the student council. They effectively run the school - that itself is making a mockery of the absurdely powerful student council trope that many animes playing at school employ. In time, Ryuko realizes that there's more going on, and that her teacher who claims to be working for an organisation called Nudist Beach actually meant that, and isn't just a creep that undresses at every opportunity (though of course, he is that too). There's a resistance against the life fiber clothing - and it's of course people who go skinny dipping. What else? There are 25 episodes. Well, 24 plus an OVA, but Netflix lists that as the 25th episode. Pretty much worth a watch if you like parodies. One of the biggest laughs was when Ryuko and Satsuki talked to each other while fighting. There's this massive whirlwind of fighting chaos in the middle of the screen, with the faces of the two on each sides, just talking as if nothing else was going on: Time coded. Obvious spoiler warning. Hidden underneath all that are actually certain themes, talk about fashion, individuality vs. collectivism and a number of other things. Phew, that's enough for now.

Maybe they're out of practice?

While children in Skyrim have unique backstories, once they are adopted they become generic girls boys. A bit of a missed opportunity. The gender difference is in a few chat lines how they feel about different homes. Girls get scared of the swamp, boys feel cold in the snow. Girls think places are so beautiful. If asked what a present they would like, girls want a dress or a doll, boys a wooden sword or sweets. Both will be happy with any of the gifts though. It is funny how RNG then creates personality just by being RNG. Sofia has never practiced sword fighting. Lucia practices daily. As a matter of fact, sword fighting has become her main thing. Sofia is the one who sometimes practices music And she does more chores around the house, while her sister apparently doesn't have time because she needs to practice sword fighting. And while I am busy decorating the new house I am building: I may have to rethink the decorations, because someone seems very interested in Meridia's sword Dawnbreaker... Which kinda reminds me Sofia is "sweeping" the basement suspiciously close to where the Enchanting and Alchemy tables are...

@Bartimaeus There's Splatoon, which is about the most kid-friendly competitive shooter imaginable and Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, which is in the Mario Universe, but doesn't star Mario, and is an adorable puzzle game. That's all I got off the top of my head. Back on the hardware side of things, I see a lot of people are disappointed by the Switch OLED, and I get it. I imagine they fell hook, line, and sinker for the rumors of a powerful new processor that would output at 4K. I never believed it; I thought it might have a slightly more powerful processor to help with a few of the games that struggle to maintain a steady framerate, but not a 4K-capable processor. It's certainly not worth upgrading from a vanilla Switch, but then mid-cycle upgrades never are IMHO, unless you can sell your old unit for enough to recoup most of its initial cost. For someone like me, though, who doesn't have a Switch yet, I might as well get the new model with the bigger and better screen, especially since I'll probably use it in handheld mode at least half the time.

@Gorth I know I can count on you to support England today, I know you wont turn your back on the Empire and how much you have benefitted on a personal level, even self-identifying anarchists can be magnanimous Gorthfuscious ....and I am sure you are not upset about Denmark losing to England right ? Go England !!!

Can’t do a longer reply at the moment because typing on the phone is horrible but that’s a great question. One that the creative team also could not answer I guess, because that’s exactly what is missing from Clear Card. There is a certain magic to some entertainment that sometimes strikes gold for me an CCS sits very high on that list. Very, very high. It’s episodes also do that with much higher consistency than Sailor Moon or X-Files did, although both ran more than twice as long, so there was of course more potential for misses, but CCS still has 70 episodes, and most of them are really really REALLY good. Funny how, for me, Meiling went from “can you please write her out of the show” to someone whose mere presence made Clear Card better, and her voice actor is really a big part of this too. There is an upcoming episode where Sakura’s class is doing a Sleeping Beauty play and Meiling is the evil witch who curses the princess. It’s like her VA was born for that role.

Feathers drop fairly regularly on my game and I always find fireflies at the water near the bee hive, just got to clear the area of mossies first

Okay got it, so the Gold Coast is the place to be ....I understand and support your endorsement

Cardcaptor Sakura, Episode 38, Sakura's Fun Strawberry Picking Adventure! One thing I've noticed with watching something subbed like this is that it's a bit more work to watch than something dubbed. I didn't have as much of a problem with it in JoJo's because...there's not really all that much dialogue and much of the dialogue that's in it doesn't matter too much, but for a show like Cardcaptor Sakura where my eyes and brain have to be a hundred percent glued to it, it's a bit of a different matter, .

Not quite, The Gold Coast is a bit further south (where all the drugs, gambling dens and prostitutes are). I live closer to Brisbane. I usually go there three times a week, making one of days fall on the weekend. On workdays… we’ll I don’t really have to be anywhere before 9am (working from home) so I catch a shower and still get like 5 hours of sleep

Okay I can now comment with conviction that Sunless Sea is fun and offers a real entertainment factor The key to this for me was understanding the gaming mechanics and accepting outcomes like death are part of the game. But in summary you can gain money, which is critical to survival to buy fuel and goods, by just visiting unusual islands and then reporting this to the Admiralty in London. This is a just one way you survive in the game around increasing your revenue stream And then combat is necessary and once you understand how that works it is also fun. The writing has levels of complexity and humor and I appreciate that So its a perfect distraction for the next 2 weeks while I focus on RL pressures

No real program per se. Just rotating around the gym using the machinery and the weights. Swapping between two exercises at a time. Do 15 lifts/pushes/pulls here, next machine. 15. then back to first. Rinse and repeat 5 times. Then move on to the next two exercises and repeat. What caught me off guard the most is, I've never really done sit a lot of ups before. Nor the opposite (i.e. bending your back backwards). Being a 24/7 gym, I go there at night so I have it all for myself. Nobody else around at 2-3am Edit: In the past, I mostly did cardio in the gym, but I have a "gym grade" exercise bike at home now. Complete with heart rate monitor and everything else. Edit2: My problem with cardio is, it's so frigging boring. With an exercise bike at home, I can at least put a laptop on a table in front of it and show some movies, making it all feel less mind numbing.

I thought so too and then ran into two feathers in a single playthrough. Wasn't chasing them, just found them. Also found a horde of lightning bugs in the hedge.

A nation....in space! Realistically genocide (including population control and cultural erasure) would be a very intensive process in terms of manpower and resources. You'd pretty much need a massive efficiency booster (like robots, automation, etc.) along with the active participation of the people not being targeted (yet) to pull it off. It's realistic in the sense as most sci-fi stuff can be, but similarly unlikely to happen.

In honor of River the inspiration for Dogmeat 4, Xbox and Bethesda have donated $10,000 to the Montgomery county Humane Society there have also been a number of tributes on the Nexus page. I like the one that puts a statue at the red rocket where are you first meet Dogmeat. River was one mans dog. But in a way she had millions of friends she never met.

Cleaning/organized the house etc. again: "Wait, I thought I threw this original NES console away already? It's still here?" ....apparently NES has the power to deflect my intentions and then erase my memory. Maybe I should sell it. ....another beautiful day, if a little warm. Got a lot done this morning, time to huddle in the power-cooled media-cave to "play"

Finished season one of Ragnarok. Ends up being pretty good by that point, enough that I'll start the second season. :)

Basically my party in Solasta.

I could be insufferably cynical and say “I would rather see xxxx problem solved” but other then that all of that stuff looks good/great. Keep that coming and we might get somewhere.

I agree. No firefly so far and only two feathers. I run after the crow wait ages for a feather to drop and nothing happens. Hope they fix it. It's really preventing my development in the game.

Having the same issue with the game crashing at startup on both Steam and Windows versions and save files are definitely not the issue as I have no save files on the Windows version and it still will not launch without crashing but here is the thing this just started happening 2 days ago I was able to play the patch for a couple days and unlock a few achievements but now its just startup and crash every time.

That looks excellent, I cant wait. I am interested in seeing who the other aspiring Witchers are

i am rat but i also have this problem

Sasha's Singing Scimitar would be my go to for most chanters. You can empower to your heart's content and the action speed buff is awesome. Edit: or not empower w/ blood mage subclass. just the action speed and shock lash then.

"breadth & depth"

The water on this island is crystal clear. You could almost think it wasn't there.

I guess I'll be rooting for England to beat the Italian Diving Team in the final.

Me: "You are putting on a show just to welcome me to your city? You shouldn't have!" Local: "Its not a show. Its a beheading..." Me: "Dibs on looting the corpse!"

Happy anniversary, Obsidian ! I am looking forward to see your future games! (... The PoE1 part gave me goosebumps )

The Engrish in JoJo's is really hilarious at times.

We can only all hope Italy wins. England winning is far worse. Death to the English.

I figured out what bothers me the most about King Arthur: Knight's Tale (the turn based tactics game in Neocore's King Arthur game series). The premise of the game is that King Arthur and Sir Mordred fought in an epic final confrontation which left both dead. The dying King Arthur's was taken by ship to Avalon but it sunk in a storm. Something happened to Arthur, and now the land is twisted and grimdark and people rise from the dead. Most of the knights can't die. Or they do die, but then they get back up. So does Mordred. And you play Mordred freshly raised from the dead, tryign to figure out what is going on and how to stop it. On your way you collect a band of other knights, all basically dead and risen again and again and again. The reason they tag along with you is simple: they hope you aren't very good at the game and will let them die. Because in Knight's Tale death doesn't stick, unless you die during a mission with Mordred, since those have permadeath. A game who's main premise is that the characters can't die has permadeath as a main feature.