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Get well soon in advance!

There is a 48 hour giveaway for Iris and the giant. Don't know it. It's free.

The spontaneous combustion bit.

Despite having an instant damage component, Death of 1000 Cuts does not break charm.

Good thing you're not Gorgon.

Won't retirement just give him more time to post here all day?

Hah, I never thought Star Trek Picard could be this self-reflective. Episode opens with a shrink talking to Picard about his claustrophobia (I kid you not!) and Picard eventually replies by calling this line of questioning absurd. Absurd, yes. All of it.

I somehow acquired the habit of grimacing at work when I'm displeased with something. That will be a problem when I stop wearing masks.

Started Solasta: Lost Valley. With the classic team of half-elf Paladin, half-orc Rogue, and two half-orc Barbarians. Seems decent so far. One place had a big performance hit due to some graphics, not sure which, and one minor quest bugged out somehow, but mostly it's been good. Also seems like the warnings of "you can choose this skill/language for your character, but it's not used in Crown of the Magister" really do apply only to Crown of the Magister, and not to Lost Valley.

Here are a couple of upcoming games I've following. Would be interested in people's thoughts: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1579340/Survive_the_Fall/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1478850/Vendir_Plague_of_Lies/

More info about Moskva by BBC Russia. The information by the Russian MoD, that they rescued all 510 sailors are most likely false. What a surprise 🤷‍♂️ https://t.me/bbcrussian/26888 Google translated: "Maritime security of Ukraine: the crew of "Moscow" was not evacuated due to a storm The Russian military failed to evacuate the crew of the sunken cruiser "Moskva", said Natalya Gumenyuk, spokeswoman for the Ukrainian border guard maritime guard. "The hit led to the detonation of the ammunition - and the struggle for survivability began. We watched how other ships tried to provide assistance, but even the forces of nature were on the side of Ukraine. Because the storm did not allow either to carry out a calm rescue operation or to evacuate the crew. Defeats so serious that the combat capability of the ship has been lost," she said. The night before, the Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed that the cruiser had sunk. Representatives of the Ukrainian authorities reported that the Moskva cruiser was attacked by Ukrainian Neptune missiles. Russia does not recognize this. According to the statement of the Russian Ministry of Defense, the crew of the cruiser was evacuated to the ships of the Black Sea Fleet in the area. The department did not mention the dead or wounded. On Friday, Russian news agencies, citing sources, reported that the crew of the Moskva cruiser had been delivered to Sevastopol. At the same time, the interlocutors of the agencies did not specify how many people were on the cruiser when the fire started there, and how many sailors were evacuated."

I think the expectation is that they will return home after the conflict is over.

A very interesting read : https://www.sott.net/article/466340-Retired-Swiss-Military-Intelligence-Officer-Is-it-Possible-to-Actually-Know-What-Has-Been-And-is-Going-on-in-Ukraine

Fine with me as long as the shuts the service down afterwards.

The sinking of the Moskva represents symbolically the entire Russian military campaign Putins War has shown us the true nature of the Russian army. The Russians are excellent at bombing cities to the ground from miles away using missiles and killing thousands of civilians , mass rape and executing unarmed people But normal combat strategy and adhering to the Geneva Convention they are terrible as they lack the training and discipline

oh dayumn i always assumed it mattered. so even in the cases where i had the cruel option locked, i still got it? i just never checked lol

I'm guessing none of the recent arrivals of blue-eyed, blonde beauties will be sent to Rwanda In fact there doesn't seem to be any refugee crisis hysteria at all funny that

A coincidence I say! Or as typical Russian troll would say, All must me properly investigated first to draw proper conclusion! 🤣

This is now the second Russian ship to have a spontaneous fire, which caused ammo to cook off, which caused the complete loss of the vessel. Weird.

Well considering that the Russians also dug trenches in Red Forest, and got destroyed 15 times in a row at Kherson Airport, well, I think inventing some new words is already due, and attacking Odessa by sea would be now just another jewel in the crown of stupid decisions already made by their commanders

I think 12?

Answering to all of you at once this time 😄 Yeah the ship sunk. It was confirmed by Russian RIA Novosti and TASS. The reason why it sunk in the end was, that after the explosions (my take would be it was really from Neptunes, because, when was the last time Russians told truth?), The Russian navy tried to save the ship by towing it to Crimea, (un)fortunately there was really ****ty weather on Black Sea, and the ship just sunk with all of the military equipment while being towed. https://t.me/tass_agency/127473 Google translate: The cruiser Moskva sank while being towed in a storm, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

What episode are you up to? IWD 2 portraits was were it's at. I still use them to this day.

Gurren Lagann. It's pretty shounen stuff, but I'm enjoying it for what it is. BG2 portraits are bad. I think I used a mod, PaintBG or something, that had consistent style. When it comes to creating characters in (c)RPGs, I usually come up with a concept and see if I can make it fit the game mechanically then go into aesthetics. I'll usually use a preset as a base and then go from there.

I installed "Tunic" through gamepass - your ususal indie Zelda "inspired" with a touch of DarkSouls top down action metroidvania thingy. First impressions didn't thrill me - combat is just servicable, and game offers little direction (sort of - on that later). I got really annoyed when I read a sign, only to be greeted with made up alphabet. That made up alphabet also greets you in inventory, item descriptions etc. Pretencious right? Well, actually not. The guadance and tutorialization of that game is pretty unique - you can find individual manual pages in the world (like actual old-school manual). Those will include map areas (sometimes with what looks like penciled in notes), objective lists, and explanation of controls and individual mechanics, story summary. Those are also mostly written in made up gibbrish with occasional english words - plus hefty amount of pretty illustrations and button promts. I suspect that devs played original Zelda in Japanese and wanted to translate the experience of figuring things out through limited information. It really works. Everyonce I find myself stumped, only to study manual pages I found for a bit, only to figure out a new mechanic, or path I didn't notice before.

16K images possible in a browser yet? Hmm colors seem off

A Rare Planetary Alignment Is About to Happen. Here's How You Can See It (sciencealert.com)

is worth reading the follow-up post in the twitter link as it provides context. HA! Good Fun!

From the West's perspective the broad Russian plan to take Ukraine appears to have been defeated for the moment and their adventurism contained. I suspect the goal now is to deter future such wars of conquest by Putin, presumably making it sufficiently costly that Russia will settle for a stable compromise. The question in the aftermath is whether to continue the punitive economic sanctions in the hope of bringing down Putin's government. Such may require broader negotiations to settle. Additional negotiation leverage may be provided by a major commitment from the West to broadly implement clean energy programs and to encourage long-term economic and military development of Ukraine (as a deterrent).

That wouldn't surprise me. The Russian armed forces are apparently an extraordinarily vicious place for anyone to be in -- which partly explains the morale problems the invading army seems to have. Plenty of conscripts commit suicide because of the cruelty they are subjected to in the army. Russia is someting of a totalitarian state, and has been for quite some time. This nearly always means that all the institutions are very, very cruel. Schools, too, but the armed forces and prisons in particular. There's a delightful picture right there: this kind of stuff is what the Russians do to their own people, in times of peace.

As I said, I have not seen it, despite one of our journalists have provided the links to the material... And as monty said, I am not planning to watch it as well. The journalist has good enough resumé to believe him, what he said about the incident, without me needing to see such ****ing insane **** which this guy has done...

Reports on more atrocities committed by Russian army 😢. This time in the Kharkov Area. There is at least one positive note added to the report. Ukrainian army destroyed 2 BTGs, and 60 more survivors of these BTGs has surrendered on March 30. According to Ukrainian Attorney General, 1222 confirmed killed citizens in the Kyiv region during the Russian occupation https://t.me/ukrpravda_news/14017

Brisco County - EP9 Brisco For The Defense Brisco is pulled back into his old job as a lawyer when a friend is accused of murder. This is a good old fashioned murder mystery episode and not in any way related to the main story. Brisco and Socrates are the only regulars to appear. I'm always sad when Bowler doesn't appear, but it wouldn't have made sense for him to be there. This was sort of like an episode of Law & Order, except entertaining. The good thing about not having watched this show in nearly 30 years is that I had no recollection of who had done the deed. I thought I had the murderer figured out about halfway through. I was sort of right since said person wound up being an accomplice.

It feels like Im the only one around that still wears a mask in public (even my wife stopped wearing hers). Last weekend I was standing in the deli line, and nobody else was wearing a mask, and I couldnt help but wonder if they think I have a compromised immune system. Its a "muscle memory" for me that I have to break.

Updated Gaming Rig Intel i9 12900K Gigabyte Aorus Z690 64GB Corsair Vengeance 4000 Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti SoundBlaster AE-9 Samsung 980 Pro 2TB NVME Corsair RM850w