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Over the past few months two of my chickens have gone to the great barnyard in the sky. Natural causes I presume. I didn’t eat them even though that was kind of why I bought them. So that left me down to four. Duke and his three wives. So to replenish the number I let a clutch of eggs going to hatch. Two weeks ago I had five peeping yellow chicks. This morning is the first time I’ve seen them come out of the house following their mother around. They are extremely cute.

I'm trying to read more manga, but sometimes you get really into one and the translations just stop so yeah. At least it's consistent with anime just stopping when they outpace the manga lmao. To be fair, I rented a ton of horror movies and anime from Blockbuster and remeber maybe 10% of them (I believe I may have mentioned one to you that I've been looking for, something about goblins and nuns and an anti-christ pope). The ones that left the biggest impression on me were Vampire Hunter D and Berserk, the latter of which I got out of order and kinda stumbled in on the Eclipse which was absolutely terrifying to 13 year old me. When I was real young and didn't have cable, I would watch DBZ early in the morning and Digimon on Saturdays. I didn't think of them as anime until I was around 12 or 13, come to think of it I didn't really think about movies and TV in terms of genre back then. Weird.

Marvels Avengers is free to play for the weekend. I got through the first level/tutorial. If I were to parody AAA gaming, I might end up using this game as a template. The first thing I saw after I started the game was a tutorial on how to use their store. When I actually started the campaign, I immediately got a popup of like a half dozen in-game currencies or crafting materials I know nothing about. Then it's following markers, watching cutscenes that are trying way too hard, and doing QTEs for a while. Then the explosions. It's... I don't know what it is. There's a logic to it. Let players try out all the characters before they have to pick one. But if I were to take that as a vertical slice, I'd never pick it up again. Even giving it benefit of the doubt that was some early development stuff they were too rushed to revise, I am not picking it up again. Thor just beats some guys up in a small arena. Then Iron Man does an on rails auto-target shooting sequence... and beats guys up in an arena. Hulk's turn to do linear platforming before he's tossed into an arena. Cap's turn is just more arena. Ending up lastly on Black Widow, who is now left with the boss fight. All the while the game keeps flashing messages telling you to use your cool moves that really aren't. I have 50 minutes in the game and I want them back.

y'know, the thing is, unlike a few other members o' Congress, stefanik is not an idiot. with complete awareness she is misrepresenting, she says anyway, and while most o' us will channel the picard facepalm or other meme dujour in response to this bit o' utter nonsense, 1/3 o' the country is cheering her for her willingness to speak truth. mighta' ordinary put the tweet in the politics thread, but our basement for stoopid were exceeded. HA! Good Fun!

Chibi.....Chibi? I vaguely remember watching an OVA, is there some dude wearing a mask in it? PORANARUFU and KACKYOIN under the sea, their hands signing.

Yeah, my experiences with ASUS is that there's always one or two little things that make me sigh and say "God dammit ASUS you were so close to having a truly great product." In the case of the Strix G15 Advantage I got there are 2 issues, luckily I can rectify 1 and bypass the other: 1) They used RAM with some downright dismal secondary timings. Ryzen CPUs are especially sensitive to RAM speed and timings. 2) They routed the Radeon 6800M through the iGPU in the Ryzen 5900HX, which costs some performance. Here's a video about it: The RAM I can swap, I'll keep an eye out for a good deal. I mainly output to a monitor in my truck anyway, but my current monitor doesn't have USB-C, so I use HDMI. Unfortunately, unlike the USB-C, which goes directly to the 6800M, HDMI does still route through the iGPU. My monitor is ancient (close to 8 yrs) and I had every intention of replacing it anyway since it's starting to light bleed pretty bad along the bottom, especially the corners, plus I want to get a monitor that does 100+ MHz and has freesync. I'll just have to make sure the new monitor has USB-C, which is fairly standard for any decent brand these days. Even with the issues the G15 was a great value and is a beastly performer. It will be that much better once I get the issues sorted. It looks great and actually has a touchpad that's not complete garbage.

There's a lull in news about good/interesting games to talk about, and vacuums always demand to be filled.

And that's a wrap for the series, guess it's the special then the movie.

Online. Physical media is way behind and I tend to get impatient. I wasn't really scared of Vampire Hunter D, I was used to horror movies at that point and I don't think it ever went too out of bonds compared to that. Berserk on the other hand.....the Eclipse is still probably one of the most disturbing events I've seen in fiction. The children's entertainment in my childhood was not good except for memes, like A Cruel Arthur's Thesis. Now a days kids can see stuff like Steven Universe but have to take that with Uncle Grandpa.

The regular enclosure they spend most of their time in is pretty good sized. But I do let them out to range around. But when they’re out and around I’m out there with them. I’ve been in a battle of wits against the coyotes to keep them out for years. Ended up building a roof over the enclosure. Just four removable wood frames with a field wire fence stretched over it. A sufficiently motivated bird of prey could probably get through it as long as they’re medium sized or smaller. But it hasn’t happened yet. But you’re not kidding though the mortality rate of baby chickens is pretty appalling. That’s why none of them get names until they’re at least six months old. There were seven eggs but two of them were duds.

I watched a ton of anime as a kid too, but when I started watching Bleach and finishing all the anime that was available at the time my impatience led me to the manga and it kind of spiraled from there. As time went on I read more and more manga and watched less and less anime, it was simply boring to watch an anime I already read in the manga. Physical media or online? Was just thinking about it when reading Bartimaeus's post. I never did find it that scary, although I don't remember how young I was when I first watched it.

I watched a lot of anime as a kid without knowing it was anime - just really anything that was on TV. Which, as it turns out, was actually quite a lot. Took a very long break after Sailor Moon (not Sailor Moon's fault). Only just recently started again with the Sailor Moon rewatch. Regarding comics, I also barely had any exposure, unless you want to count me browsing through my father's Disney comic collection (there's a fairly long running series of German comics based on licensed Disney works from all around Europe). All of which I did before going to school at all. Come to think of it, I have no idea where those books are. Some of them were in fairly good condition, they should be worth something at least.

Can't entirely blame you, it was a bit all over the place...

Yeah, I think I already watched the OVA like 15 years ago before Blockbuster disappeared. I remember next to nothing about it lmao.

Larva, her slave demon that's behind her in the poster I included in my previous post about the OVA? There's also been a couple of other demons who have had masks associated with them, including one that was Majora's Mask-esque and whose entire being was infused into its mask. It's weird and different, but not bad at all. The OVA was an especially strange watch with some digestibility and pacing oddities, but kept our interest long enough to finish its short run. The show in comparison has been a little more normal and definitely more focused and direct, but that's not entirely unwelcome after the quirkier OVA. Both the show and the OVA would probably have looked awesome in HD, but sadly, DVD only.

The Stardust Crusaders, walking like Egyptians. DIO, his world cruel.

Pics plz.

More Vampire Princess Miyu...(1997) this time - a 26 episode show was made ten years after the original OVA, although it doesn't really look or feel like it, since art style, designs, sound effects are remarkably faithful to the original 1988 OVA (they even brought back Miyu's unique action sound effects, which is nice - very much feels like it was made with the original OVA strongly in mind). Three episodes into this one, feels like it has a lot more room to breathe without trying to cover some major story arc in such a short amount of time like the original OVA had to. It's also focused way more on Miyu herself and she is consistently the protagonist, which is nice. Oddly, it seems like this show takes place before the OVA - she seems younger and kinder in personality/perspective, and she's even still attending school (and has a few human friends!). So...kind of different from the OVA, but lots of similarities...enjoying it so far.

On August 1, 1981 MTV went live. And it was awesome. I was a kid and we had just gotten a satellite dish and it was the greatest TV channel I’ve ever seen. Boy that didn’t last. Well anyway, happy birthday to MTV. I don’t know what the M even stands for anymore. It sure ain’t music. Mediocrity maybe. But hey, we will always have memories of the 80s.

I'm not using him as damage dealer. Usually I summon Concelhaut's Draining Touch and then the Essential Phantom, then do cast Misama of Dull-Mindedness on the enemies (followed by other CC/debuff. most often Ryngrim's Enervating Terror because it's supereffective and targets Will which Misama just lowered by 40 points...). That way the Phantom can do some nice melee damage while Aloth casts his CC/debuff stuff. Especially the combo of Draining Touch (targets Will defense instead of Deflection) + Miasma is pretty satisfying. If I give Aloth some engagement gear (for example Kapana Taga for the offhand +2 and Reckless Brigandine +1) the Phantom will also have 3 engagement slots. If you then cast Ryngrim's Enervating Terror on the enemies they will not only be taken out temporarily due to the terrify effect, they will also suffer -50 Will (Misama + Terrify) which makes the Phantom crit a lot with Draining Touch AND they will disengage the Phantom often which leads to nasty disengagement attacks from the Phantom. Takes some casting time but can be very effective. Not against all enemies (there's enough with resistance to Resolve afflictions) - but a Wizard is so versatile you can do something else which is also good in those cases. Once Aloth gets Caedebald's Blackbow I nowadays retrain him as Blackbow user. He and his Phantom can wreak havoc on enemy groups with lowish Fortitude (Blackbow targets Fortitude instead of Deflection) because two Blackbows will hit up to 4 enemies with terrify (12 m jumping projectiles). Even on graze... Of course he will still cast other spells then - unless I feel like using Citzal's Martial Power with the Blackbow (e.g. against single strong targets).

The only thing I don’t like is to stay shifted and don’t use weapons and armors. But is an interesting build

This sounds perfect! I've seen discussion about Grave Calling combo before but never really put 2 and 2 together to apply this to my character but it might just the line I needed for Black. I've also tried a Blood Mage/Bleak Walker as another alternative, and I really like the black knight flavor but tbh the necromancy of Black mana is too iconic to not summon skeletons aha. Sounds perfect! It seems like Barbarians proc it best with carnage, but I imagine Bloodmages can proc it as well through just auto-attack or spells no? I think the bloodmage mechanic of life for spells is also perfectly on brand. Otherwise, I've seen a build from patch 2.1 using Soulblade or Streetfighter which also are Black aligned subclasses. ------ So overall, after all this wonderful discussion, I'm so far thinking of restarting again with this party: WHITE - Herald (Shieldbearer/Troubadour) as the most team oriented tank variant. BLUE - Wizard (Illusionist) for access to transmutation, illusion, and evocation. BLACK - Loremaster (Bloodmage/Beckoner) for damage and summons. RED - Brute (Barbarian/Devoted) for melee aoe damage. GREEN - Beastmaster (Shifter/Stalker) for additional melee as well as support.

More or less. Skeletons are not the best summons, but the mere fact that they give you more "bodies" can be exploited in various fashions. For example, Single Class Paladin gets a passive that grant +2 zeal on downed ally, which synergizes extremely well with skeletons. Beckoner is a plus to have even more numbers and because his summons are easier to be killed (they only have 1/4 health), which generates a ton of on-death effects. Killing "1/4 health" skeleton with grave calling to generate foe-only chillfog (with this character or another) is a well-known combo. Combos based on on-death effects is one of the most "MTG black" thing I can imagine in PoE2.

I'm already looking forward to the inevitable moment where Underrail kicks you in the crotch again.

As mentioned previously (at least I think I mentioned it), the latest Honest Government Ads take on the Australian governments handling of the situation in Australia

Thanks everyone, but against your recomendations I will play with a specialized Wizard. It will be a Loremaster , and this is my ideas: Conjurer : hybrid, using spells and conjuring weapons, while the chanter side will be providing buffs. Little use of invocations, probably no summons. Illusionist/Enchanter: melee mage, maybe pair with skald. Evoker: caster, chanter side focusing on summons. I know a vanilla mage can perform all of this, but this is what I want to try now. Another day I will try this sorcerer build, looks interesting.

When it's about caster/caster I really like to use a Psion. An Ultimate finisher used Troubadour/Psion but I have no doubt that you can absolutely solo with Bloodmage/Psion or whatever Wizard/Psion if you want to use Empower in every fight with Sasha's Singing Scimitar (the Psion side). Edit: what was I writing in the last sentence? I totally confused Troubadour with Psion, sorry. Forget that.

Pretty fun read so far, can't get over reading about some people I've known (albeit on IRC). Shame none of the pre-Alpha crew.

Violet Evergarden ep 8 + 9. Wow. If the last episode was a kick in the feels, this was the feels getting an asswhooping. I think there were bits shown of this before, but putting them together just hits entirely different.

JA2 1.13 is a huge improvement and doesnt really change the game, so I think you should use it. Just stability and quality of life fixes. I am on my 3rd playthrough of Underrail, and this time it is going much better. My first crossbow guy got stuck in some vents and was overmatched. My 2nd pistoleer petered out in Core City. But now I am a psionic master and I think I might actually get through the game.

I have an admission. I've never finished Jagged Alliance 2, and indeed I've never even assaulted Meduna before. Well, at least I've finally begun addressing the latter point now. Just going through on Novice with as basic settings as possible as is my wont. It took a brief failure of a campaign and about 5-10 hours to even get comfortable with the interface again after maybe a decade-and-a-half since I last touched it. Sort of an honestman mode where I give myself leeway to figure out mechanics where I don't know how they work. Yeah, there's a fair bit to complain about the late-game design, but I'm having a good enough time. I'm playing with just the Strachiatella rewrite for a hopefully less buggy experience but with essentially vanilla gameplay as that's all the complexity I care to deal with. I'm not sure I'd ever want to deal with this inventory management hell again though, so I'm in a bit of a pickle for any hypothetical future run. I heard that 1.13 adds a feature to just sell stuff through the inventory screen instead of faffing about with shopkeepers (never mind the absurdity of how there are like two viable shopkeepers in the entire country), but the rest of it is ehhh, not what I want. (And yes, it's hard to stop myself from repairing that Steel Helmet so it will sell for $12 instead of $10 ...while I have $600k in the bank) _____________ Also went through Full Throttle Remastered in pseudo co-op over Steam Remote Play (I've played the original some twenty years ago but have very little memory of any puzzles). I think this approach has potential and we might try some more adventure games over the coming weeks.

I have the xm3s for over a year now. They really are phenomenal, the only issue I have with them is that they get uncomfortable after prolonged use, specifically on the headband and my ears get steamed too. Although I think that is just an issue with overear headphones.

--Glad you're ok/guy wasn't even crazier or something and it wasn't worse - hope you find/catch the dude, Azdeus. --hummingbirds: we have a large bush near the patio and some other fence-trees they like and they visit fairly regularly in summer. Sometimes they just sorta hover in the middle of the (empty air) yard staring at our house for what reason I do not know. My mother had potted fuchsia's hanging from the eaves and they loved those. They're fun to watch. --Been feeling great, keeping busy in my own little ways. Nothing exciting/report worthy, just ... not feeling bored. I think my attention span has gotten better again too. Life feels a little brighter, is all.

the covid vaccines, by their manufacturer's own admission, are like a resistance potion in DnD. they protect from covid for 1d6+3 months (without fully nullifying the effects) and then the protection is over

Key thing to note: He did his Star Wars training in jeans...

An Outbreak Of The Coronavirus Delta Variant Has Spread To 15 Chinese Cities Now we may see how efficacious (or not) the Sinovac and Sinopharm will prove to be. Then again they'll probably just hide the data.

ok, you know I don't have shots and I don't want them and government is trying to give out free stuff to convince our people to get vaccinated. This is first time I think they can provide something I am willing to sell my beliefs for

Apologies. I failed to stick with my own rule of not commenting on politics.

IMO, Tactician/Fury pales in comparison to Tactician/Wizard. My reasons for saying this are the following: 1. Wizards have far more versatile spell selection. You can also rely on grimoires for spells, which saves you from having to use ability points for spells. You can thus invest more points in passives and fighter abilities. 2. Chillfog is a much better spell than Sunbeam, and hence can be used far more reliably to proc brilliant. This is because its blind lasts a long time, and procs repeatedly, so if you miss on the first pulse you'll likely get them later without having to recast. Also, fewer enemies are immune to cold. With the fury, you'll be in trouble when you face foes that are healed by fire damage. 3. Later in the game, using Clear Out with Citzal's lance is a lot fun, when you feel like getting in some melee action. 4. Wizards can take advantage of a number of exploits, like Wall of Draining, to keep their buffs up. WoD with unbending trunk means virtual immortality. You don't have to use these exploits, but they're available if you need them.

Pictured: Screenshots from Star Trek Episode 1.23: A Taste of Armageddon Spock: [after hearing Anan 7 explain their system of computerised warfare] There is a certain scientific logic about it. Anan 7: I'm glad you approve. Spock: I do *not* approve. I *understand*.

We got stuffed lady bird/bug and stinkbug, now we need the stuff wolf spider, please.

Just quickly darted over to our next door neighbours (the bards college). When I returned Sofie had found and adopted a fox...

I have a feeling that my suggestion would be pretty polarizing for the player base. I'm sure there are lots of players out there who wouldn't want their base to change appearance without their control. And that's understandable. Freshening up with a repair tool might be an adequate compromise for those players.