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Thanks, I hate it.

I spent half the day yesterday with my head in an oculus rift 2. I thought, well it's inexpensive enough for me not to worry about its service life and potential upgrades. This was my first delve into VR ever. It's alright. I mean, it's impressive for 5 minutes, and then you get used to it. I'm glad i didn't throw down serious money. I had fun in various shooters and demos and feel like I've had my fill for a while. No motion sickness, although as i sit at work, my brain is making the monitor in front of me look at bit like it's rendered in VR. So, who knows, maybe I'm passed out drunk somewhere with a VR headset on.

I guess it's kind of like what Jay from RLM said: if you liked it, you liked it and the little stuff often doesn't really end up mattering too much (but also, the inverse is true as well if you didn't like it). There are some things that are wrong with a 90s animated show called Escaflowne that @majesticand I watched semi-recently that would bother me/us in a different series, that I would gladly nitpick to death almost anywhere else...but the thing is, I super enjoyed that show because of other stuff and so almost everything I could nitpick melted and washed away like so much sea foam. Sure, there's still stuff I can think of that could've been improved to marginally increase my enjoyment, but I already thought it was a great show, and that almost never happens. Only about 30 items out of the 400+ movies/shows I've watched over the past ~6 years (since I started using a particular rating site to help me keep track of what I've seen and how I felt about it, because about six years ago is when I started taking a much bigger interest in cinema) have made me feel like they were actually great. That list of stuff I've seen doesn't include anything I feel like I haven't seen a significant sample of, so the veritable pile of things I've quickly discarded because I deemed they weren't quite to my taste aren't included there...which means "great" stuff is even rarer for me than those already grim numbers would suggest. If another show I've been trying to watch recently otherwise felt great, I probably wouldn't be nearly so intensely irritated by what I feel is gosh-awful music, because I would be much more occupied with the stuff I love rather than the few things I don't, right? Instead, it's hovering right around the danger zone for my brain where it starts to wander and automatically be hyper-critical about every little thing that I don't like...and if it gets any worse, all the stuff that I don't like will begin to feel like the end of the world and I'll just want to turn it off. I mean, I especially proved this true to and with myself recently via Stranger Things, which had a pretty clear delineation between the characters I enjoyed seeing and the ones that I didn't. The show was actually sitting a little below that danger zone for me by the end of the third episode, and then I just started...skipping the characters I didn't care about (which was made incredibly easy with the structure of this season and there being almost literally zero overlap between the separate groups of characters), and suddenly the show feels like an overall positive experience and I can forgive the smaller flaws that were remaining. At least for me, there are a lot of things that really feel like they matter a lot but...other shows that I like or even love that do similar things kind of prove that they sometimes don't, not really*. A lot of such issues actually almost seem more like a misdirection of negative feelings - just a symptom of the larger overall problem of a show/movie straight up not working for a pile of different reasons that we, as non-film critics, may have trouble precisely identifying and putting into words. It's a heck of a lot easier to just focus on the things that are clearly and obviously wrong to me...but really, if a show or movie didn't grab my brain, it just didn't. *Don't get me wrong, there are still some things that are genuine deal-breakers in of themselves that have an immediate and huge negative impact on something...but I don't think it's as much as some of us, myself chief among them, sometimes like to think. Also, a lot of stuff where that's the case is stuff I immediately stop watching within 5 minutes anyways because it's very clearly not for me, not stuff where I'm unsure if I like it or not as I continue to watch it.

I think it was, and the base point is simply because it ties in to nuTrek. I'm not going to pretend otherwise, Picard lost me directly after the opening scene because it was a load of horse manure, and it only went downhill from there. The first episode wasn't over, and any goodwill I might have mustered because it has Patrick Stewart in it all but evaporated. Not only does it follow the nonsense established in Star Trek 2009, it tried to remake Star Trek's Federation into Trump's America because someone probably told them that Star Trek used to be brainy entertainment, not terribly acted and directed character drama with bad writing and stupid action scenes. Ultimately, nothing good can follow from such a rotten basis, and in the end all I did was nitpick everything about the show, much like @Bartimaeus talked about in the earlier post here. I should have the good sense to just stop watching in any such cases, but I don't. Granted, that's a point I can give you. Star Trek Picard sure was never boring. I wish it would have been, then we'd just have a lower end episode of Star Trek: TNG or one of the lower end episodes of TOS. Alas, it was worse, it was infuriating from start to finish, poorly plotted, terribly paced, and - the worst offense - utterly stupid. I don't entirely know why, but it is what it is: If things don't make sense within an established universe, for me, at least, everything falls apart. I've already said after the first few episodes that Discovery suffered from being tied to the brand name, and Picard does so as well, although of course you can't have Picard without Star Trek, so that's entirely moot. Back then I couldn't have known that the first season of Discovery would end up being its best, and that the show will continue on to be terrible in every which way. You curiously forgot to mention an uppity kid saving the ship ten times over which is about a hundred times more annoying than Worf being bad at his job to demonstrate to the audience how dangerous a situation is, or the writers not really knowing what to do with Deanna other than putting her in revealing clothing. The fact that these points don't bother me speaks to a the strength of the series, even with it's less than stellar (nicely put) opening seasons. Not that it's fair to compare a show that has 178 episodes to one that hopefully won't exceed 30, but who knows how long this will keep on going. Although Patrick Stewart sure looks like he's ready to call it quits. The thing is, even if you just take the first season of TNG, with it's Wesley focused offerings born out of the writing strike or the episodes with the laughably terrible racist subtones, it's still better than anything in Star Trek: Picard. Troi undergoes command training for a promotion, by the way. Just to nitpick a little. That's why she needs to learn the important lesson of being able to send people to death if it saves others. Still, even if we accept the point that TNG had lots of out of character moments, the characters, on average, where somewhat consistent. The Picard characters barely resemble their originals, and yes, while people change, if you want me to accept that change, then it needs to be shown, or at least properly explained. Picard having a sad because the Federation does something the Federation would never in a million years actually do, namely abandon people in need over political quibbling, well, I'm sorry, that might be an explanation, but it is a poor one, and you can't expect me not to be soured on the entire premise just because of it. In particular this one is even worse, because in itself it is based on Jar Jar Abram's utterly stupid idea that the Romulan Empire would be incapable of evacuating Romulus on their own or notice that their sun will go supernova, which just happens to be a stellar event millions of years in the making. It would be a stretch to accept that premise in the dumbest of sci-fi shlock, but there it would be at least appropriate. If Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog can show the proper transformation of Billy from a goofy but entirely misunderstood 'villain' to Dr. Horrible, member of the Evil Leage of Evil in 45 minutes of runtime in a garage project because everyone invovled was bored out of their minds during another writers strike, then for crying out loud, at least do something to justify the god damned premise. Something that's not basically screaming 'WE WANT TO BE RELEVANT TO CURRENT EVENTS SEE HOW INTELLIGENT OUR ENTERTAINMENT IS' in the dumbest way possible. Much like The Last Jedi wanted to yell WE DON'T CARE ABOUT STAR WARS as loudly as possible. Well, mission accomplished. So do I. The themes are there, they're just built on a foundation so rotten that I just don't care what they were trying to do. It's funny because this discussion is a reverse of what I sometimes do, most recently when talking about either Bubble with @Lexx or about In This Corner Of The World with @Bartimaeus. Rafi should not even be a problem in the Star Trek setting, at least not when she's a Federation citizen. We've left that sort of stuff long behind us. That may or may not be a constraint in the setting for the writers, but it's not one that's hard to work around. There's a reason for all those forehead aliens in the Star Trek universe. None of these people should get any sort of command spot like they do in season two, by the way, minor spoiler, sorry. They should be locked away for being dangerous nutjobs, much like Janeway, but we're not complaining about Voyager here. I don't even want to talk about Space Legolas. Nothing about the Borg plot makes sense, so I don't really blame you there. It's an entirely superflous element in a series that already has an issue with tying plot points together in a timely and satisfying manner, and nobody on the writing team and nobody of the producers or editors or whatever else were on set checking what is going on had the good sense to tell them to streamline the storyline into something that's at least not resolved in a serioulsy dumb way in the last second, and what do you know, because it was so great, they get to do exactly that in season two as well. Heh. In season two everyone is working again. They sure earned being back in Star Fleet. Hey, even Space Legolas gets to be in Starfleet because he joined the 1.5 year short course. Oh, by the way, want to guess how relevant Rafi's open issue with her son is to anything? You're allowed one guess with no lifelines. That's putting it mildly, I thought I was going crazy after the first four episodes because I didn't just not hate it, I actually enjoyed watching The Vision of Escaflowne even though Van starts out as the worst sort of dork possible and it has cat girls. The example from Jay is funny because unless I remember wrong, he said that during their Skyfall review, a movie I hated so much I wanted to throw the Blu Ray into the trash. At least I stopped wasting money on theater tickets after A Quantum of Solace, a dumpster fire of a film that rivals Star Trek: Into Derpness. But yeah, it is definitely easier to overlook the less well made parts if the rest is good enough. However, as is the case with pretty much all of nuTrek except for Strange New Worlds (caveat, I haven't watched the most recent episode yet, but it is called Spock Amok, which makes me hate the episode even before watching it, so that one's working from a whole lot of baggage just from the title alone), and Strange New World is only fine for now, and I'm sure if it keeps sticking to the formula of having to have at least 5 minutes of AWESOME COMBAT AKSHUN per episode, I'm eventually going to grow bored of it, and from that, the resentment I harbored for the first episode will creep back in. Regarding nuTrek, it might seem completely silly, but back in 2009 directly after Spock's opening narration, I was sitting in the theater, and looked at the friend I was watching the film with and said: "I already hate this." That was just right after the first two or so minutes, and the rest of the film did nothing to change my mind. It didn't even try. Pretty much. The easiest thing to point out is writing quality from a standpoint that is almost objectively measurable, when character motivations make no sense, plots are left open or resolved in poor, unsatisfying manners, then that's somewhat easy to point out. Even so, and this goes hand in hand with the above points made by @Amentep, TNG had its fair share of bad writing and episodes that did not truly make sense or repeated plot points that came before, or tried to ape the original series for no reason and ended up not working. These episode are, however, weighed against the average quality of the episodes, and that comes out positive for the show. It doesn't for something like Picard, arguably of course also because once a bad TNG episode it is over, it is over. The rotten foundation Picard is built on doesn't go away after an episode. It permeates everything. The actual nitpicking then follows as an extention of being unsatisfied with the series. There's a rushed plot resolution for Allen in The Vision of Escaflowne as well, and the ending could have done with more of a setup, but the series was cut down a third of its runtime. Still, it ended up not mattering too much. Picard on the other hand had this abortive Borg plot, and here I am complaining about it. Discovery worked in a similar way for me to a point where I started complaining every time the writers thought it was a good idea to give distances and they were hilariously inaccurate. Like putting a Klingon fleet at the Federation's doorstep and being close to winning the war, with coordinates somewhere in the Oort cloud. That's the Federation's back yard and the Soviets are storming Berlin. Steiner ain't going to stop that no matter what. Guess someone told them to not always just use light years for some reason, and so they started using astronomical units and got that wrong too. Yay. Forum almost killed my post. Yay!

DS9 is leaving Netflix so I guess I can cancel Netflix now

good rule of thumb is to treat celebrity trials like vampires. such trials and vampires is soul sucking curses and an invitation renders you powerless. HA! Good Fun!

This is evolutionary. We are hard-wired for dangers, both perceived and real. This is seen both in individuals and communities, and it's very hard if not impossible to bypass. It's good to be aware of it, though. So, bad news or a bad experience will provoke a stronger reaction than good news or a good experience of equal "size". Anyone will know this from their own life, although measuring that "size" requires special equipment. But everyone knows it is the bad stuff people react so strongly to and come back to, in their inner life, and brood upon.

Looks pretty dope.

Not really related to video game news, but rather something I posted about in here previously: startpage.com is a Netherlands-based search engine that serves up Google search results (including even with respect to Google's specific search operators), but minus the whole Google part of the equation. I only learned this because I was screwing around with the Vivaldi browser today, which comes with like ten different search engines, and seeing which, if any, did what I wanted...and was surprised to see that Startpage did, and I went to go figure out why. Well, that's apparently because they just piggyback off of Google's own search results. I might have to make a permanent switch.

Well, I would argue that Russia violated the US's red line by invading Ukraine in the first place. Everyone always loves to talk about other countries' red lines that the US is supposed to respect, but it's somehow always okay for everyone else in the world to ignore US red lines and interests. I don't care for Biden at all as president, but on the issue of US support for Ukraine in this war I have only praise for Biden so far. I'm all for the US (and any other country that will join us in this) to totally stick it to Putin's Russia. The Russians will huff and puff, but like every other coward ever in world history, they don't have the guts to go beyond their silly empty rhetoric about "world war iii."

And as everyone gets ready for Vader to re-appear on the Kenobi mini-series... The vital point to remember:

I'll try to keep this succinct, and I'm really sorry for bothering you guys with this. I can't pick between a Priest of Eothas or a Priest of Magran. I get to Nekataka, do a couple minor side quests and start second guessing myself. Eothas : My main issue is that my character is basically a rehash of Eder so it feels like any unique perspective of the story would already be covered by him. The few class lines I've seen seem to imply that the character is fanatical about Eothas, which he isn't. I like that I can play this character without the reputation indicators because Shady and Cruel are easy to avoid (although there were some quests in PoE1 that sorta required Deceptive to be completed, which sucked). I feel I'm free to make whatever decision I want regarding the main plot - I don't exactly know what happens, but I don't feel like I would be railroaded into a specific decision by the green man or the other gods. I can more or less be a "godless" priest. Magran : Spicier. Can still be a benevolent character, but with a bit of kick to him when someone deserves it. Lots of Magran themed gear and fire keywords. But sometimes being a generous or helpful magranite just seems like I'm playing it wrong/metagaming, and I would definitely need the reputation indicators to avoid diplomatic and passionate options. I'll need to pump up Intimidate for dialogue, which might conflict with my "generally good" persona. I'm also going to run into the problem of asking "What would Magran do" in a lot of situations. Unlike Eothas, she's there and she's popular, so I'm worried I'll get to a point where I'll feel like I have to do what she says as opposed to doing what I feel is best. And as a side note, getting Torrent of Flame at 7 instead of Storm of Holy Fire or Cleaning Flame is kinda mean. So I guess the questions would be : is there any merit to RPing a priest of Eothas if I'm just going to be like Eder? Is playing a good priest of magran an oxymoron, or will I just be giving myself severe cognitive dissonance trying to justify it?

Nope. I tried what I could but it all failed. I haven't found any logical explanation for it. If anyone find a solution, I'll be happy to incorporate it in my mod.

Jax composing lyrics for his upcoming black metal album.

Warhammer 2022 goodies for free on GOG. Including Warhammer 40K: Chaos Gate. Old school WH Xcom-like. I can only recommend it https://www.gog.com/en/game/warhammer_skulls_2022_digital_goodie_pack

Tensura Nikki episode 23.5 & 24... (all hail our new slime overlord) The end of episode 23 is sort of foreshadowing something or rather someone, observing Rimuru from afar, careful not to be seen. She looks like some kind of knight. Judging by her facial expression, she's no fan of slimes... or maybe Rimuru in particular. Episode 24 is a flashback episode, showing an encounter Shizu had in the past with a mysterious stranger... It begins with a desperate woman performing a summoning, seeking vengeance (I presumed at whoever killed her companions aka the corpses strewn around her). How does the saying go, careful what you wish for?... sacrificing her life and her soul, she enters a contract with the summoned demon... A quick location change and we follow Shizu, who is headed towards the capital of Filtwood, a realm neighbouring The Great Jura Forest (I saw a map in one episode, the world looks like a single, giant continent with Jura in the middle and various mountain ranges, swamps, kingdoms etc. surrounding it. A call has gone out for heroes to fight a demon that has recently been revived. She joins a large gathering of local heroes, fighters, adventurers etc. who all answered the summons. Of course it was a trap and the local army blocks all exits from the great hall. Claiming (falsely) that one or more of them are demons in disguise after killing one of them and putting on a big light show, making it look like the deceased was possessed by a demon, the lords of the place tells them, nobody can leave until all demons are killed. What nobody knew was, there was a real demon among them. The one summoned at the beginning of the episode... Shizu confronts him, suspecting he plans to kill everyone, guards, adventurers, servants, the lot, and wont have none of it. The demon doesn't really want to talk about himself... And Shizu doesn't really want to let him leave... After a bit of fighting, the demon loses his right arm. Deciding to call it a draw (yeah, sounds familiar), he turns into a black cloud and evaporates away. A bit of exposition follows with further flashbacks, Shizu thinking about some details the Demon Lord 'Leon' told her about the nature of different types of demons, including "Primogenitors" , known by their signature colours rather than names (Noir, Blanc and Rouge) Yeah, not suspicious at all... the king is sitting to the right, his advisor to the left... and mysterious guy who appeared as a simple lackey until now in the middle. Smells fishy... The guy in the middle is an arch demon. He proceeds to knock the stuffing out of Shizu and starts choking her Darth Vader style while telling her, she's going to be a sacrifice in a ritual. Rescue arrives from an unexpected side when the one armed demon from before returns... He pulps the brain of the advisor (splattering it out over his seat), by jamming a metal rod through his skull, then proceeds to remove the kings head and finally turns his attention to the arch demon... adding "A lower demon like you can't..." to the list of last words. The arch demon now gets to occupy the position formerly held by Shizu... being choked to death (and that by one armed demon) All's good that ends good or something... at least for now. Off to watch something else for a while

The whole thing just felt like a train wreck. Winners were declared, but nobody won. I'm not sure any useful conclusions can be drawn, other than some people should pick more suitable partners. I tried not to follow it too closely.

Assuming that Flim-Flam is with them, then the Scooby gang is hunting for the thirteen ghosts released from Vincent Price Van Ghoul's Chest of Demons. Otherwise, someone was probably hedging their bets to end the haunting whichever way it turned out.

Not yet, but its not for a lack of trying... Seriously though, I was expecting a real train wreck, but it wasn't really that. Definitely some of the same structural problems that Discovery has; I can only assume the writers rooms are struggling to come to terms with long form episodic television. And it wasn't boring which is about the only problem I can't forgive in a movie or TV show. Can't really talk about Picard-Q since I've only seen season one. Not trying to change your opinion, but a lot of what you talk about really didn't bother me, to whit - I just got through watching all of TNG, the series that conveniently has Data relearn the exact same thing about humans a few times; that has Picard endanger himself and his ship just to communicate with an alien for the first time; who has experienced another lifetime and become more spiritual, who Q challenges to represent the best of humanity....and who also wants to let a planet die because of a whack interpretation of the Prime Directive; where Worf manages to be totally security minded and yet he also keeps his position as head of security despite being quite possibly the least effective member of the crew with just about everyone waltzing in and out of the Enterprise (and not all of them had superior tech); where the ship's counselor often blatantly disregards obvious signs of people in psychological trouble or gives specious (and perhaps dangerous) advice and also has to take bridge crew training despite being part of the bridge crew for a plot point that goes nowhere. Out of character is kind of their brand. Moreover, I understand where they're coming from within the context of the show (whether they justify how they got there is another thing entirely). The characters are all 'lost' in a way. Each of the characters have trusted someone or something and had that trust violated (Picard and Starfleet, Rafi and Picard, Rios and his Captain/Starfleet, Soji and her first romance, Jurati and Oh, Elinor and Picard, Seven and that lady on the Star Wars planet). So it makes sense that Picard at the start of the show isn't the Picard from "All Good Things..." or "Nemesis". And it makes sense why this group is the one that gets together thematically (and why Laris and her husband don't make sense to join Picard). To my mind, then, the problem with the end isn't Mass Effect Reaper\Synthetic-Cthulu in a Portal, but the fact that they don't really follow through with the theme about misplaced trust and recovery. I feel that they wanted to have the tie in to Discovery (which is why the Synthetics-from-Beyond seem to mirror the Control Ship from S2), but that misses the thematic point that I see in the show's narrative, and its why much of the conclusion isn't satisfactory from a thematic position, in my opinion, even though it wraps up the story nicely in a strictly plotting way. Because they never come back to the theme of trust, completely. This is why Seven of Sparta as a final confrontation doesn't feel satisfactory because the characters had never met to that point; the better confrontation between Romulan-Tal-Shiar-Sister would have been Romulan-Tal-Shiar-Brother affirming his choice to trust the right people (Soji) over the wrong (his sister, the Zhat Vas).* Its why its unsatisfying that Sutra never gets a comeuppance, really, for pushing her people (who trusted her) to side with what she thought was right by killing one of their own (who also trusted her). Its why, thematically, the call that Sutra put out should have never been answered, because in the end the Zhat Vash should have been shown to have spent centuries trusting in the truth of a message that had long ago become irrelevant as time swept away those long gone players from the board rather than trusting the things and people they saw before them. Its why the show needed to have some resolution for Sutra violating the trust of the people she led. Its why Riker's return to help Picard in the end should have shown the triumph of putting trust in the right people to defeat the misplaced trust Starfleet has had in Oh. Without these thematic elements satisfied, the team's 'return to adventure' scene doesn't feel earned, really. So don't get me wrong, I think the end is a mess. I totally get why people would dislike it. But I think at an entertainment level, its fine; but not everyone is going to be able to just ignore such problems. As an aside, I don't think they were dumping the Borg to necessarily kill them (although it would, probably, kill most of the xBs) but to delay the return to operation of the Borg Cube. Unless I missed a bit of dialogue where they specifically said they were terminating them (and of course, we don't know if the Romulans put in a fail safe that would ensure if the stasis pods were blown the Borg would be killed, so I guess even then, we just don't have enough information because they spent 100000% of the time on the borg cube with the sappy Soji/Romulan-dude romance). EDIT: To follow through on my thought, Data put the ultimate trust in Picard and was rewarded for that trust; that's what made those scenes work - they actually thematically fit the show. *Seven killing Romulan Zhat Vas lady is very much a direct 1-to-1 plot element; Lady kills Hugh, Seven kills Lady. Its supposed to elicit an emotive reaction of "hell yeah!" from the audience, but it can't because the confrontation isn't earned. So I understand the temptation to go with it from a plot standpoint, but its a good example of where I think the writers were struggling with long form television. It makes sense from a plotting level and maybe even an episode level, but its missed the overarching story themes and I feel like that's a re-occuring problem with the new ST shows I've seen -along with structurally wasting time on things that aren't ultimately important (Soji's time on the Borg cube could have been halved, and the Klingon stuff in S1 Discovery ultimately isn't very important to the show for how much time is spent on it).

Nah, their would be no Western alliance or anti-Russian sentiment to the degree we seeing it if Putin hadn't invaded Ukraine. Its not hatred that has united the West but the constant attempts of Putin to ignore the sovereignty of former Soviet states and his attempts to recreate the Soviet borders and that objective has now led to an invasion on the border of the EU which automatically means the West will be " involved ". This is about safety and security for the West and its allies....its not about hatred that caused the initial Western response And its absolutely a war between 2 nations because its all caused by one thing, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Thats what caused it. The West is providing the financial and logistical support to Ukraine but their are no NATO forces in Ukraine or US soldiers and until that happens its not a war between NATO member states and Russia And something else, Putin has no agency or authority to tell any other country who they should or shouldn't politically or economically align with. Ukraine is an independent country and its important to accept and respect the fact that this means they get to decide their own future....Putin doesnt get to decide that

The truth has never been spoken this loudly. I f-ing applaud this guy.

Go bigger.

The Rising of the Shield Hero 2.8 and 2.9: Naofumi and his friends get back to civilization (in a hostile country) and sell magic potions to earn some money. They plan to use an artifact to transport themselves to another kingdom (which turns out to be a little hostile too), but end up in a trap and get separated from Raphtalia, who, despite having leveled up a few times, is still in infant form. Fishing Rod hero girl (what was her name again? Oh, Kizuna, I just saw in the screenshot below) introduces them to a rabbit-human mage (a boat hero, what is next, a barrel hero?) who can help them find Raphtalia. He creates a kind of familiar with Raphtalia's hair and Naofumi's blood and this creature can tell them where Raphtalia is. They go to yet another hostile country (what a nice world!) which turns out to be exactly where Filo was. Well, that problem was solved really fast. I guess they will find Raphtalia soon too, right in the next episode. Unlike what I thought, Filo didn't revert to an egg, but she is now a different type of bird and is being kept as a slave and somewhat of a circus attraction. They wait until nighttime to rescue her and Naofumi uses some kind of Ghost Rider's Penance Stare from his shield to make the slaver feel what he inflicted on Filo. Honestly, she was so traumatised that the guy didn't get a fraction of what he deserved. Damn it, even the normally calm and insecure green-haired girl Rishia (the screenshot saved me again) got pissed off with what was going on. I wished Jotaru would have come out of nowhere and Ora Ora that man into oblivion.

It’s very hard to completely avoid, because it was apparently the second most important event in the world (after the war in Ukraine). More important than what the Taliban is doing to women or starvation again becoming a thing in Ethiopia. Ironically I remember the couple from Australian headlines some years ago (2015 iirc) them being the couple of self entitled, unmitigated **** trying to smuggle their flea bags through customs, because bio security laws only applied to normal humans, not us. We’re celebrities after all. Since then, I’ve wished a pox upon both of them. No sympathy for whatever misery befalls either of them

Okay, this kind of startled and amused me. For various reasons I'm looking through some of my old WEG Star Wars books. And I found that in 1993 they published an adventure that contained an NPC by the name of... Mace Windu. Who was a.. Squib.

Also I would argue that unique one hander are a bit above two hander in PoE2. At least for melee. Although it is a very complex topic. Sabres and Flails for example have tons of options. Mowdyr is maybe the most well rounded unique... Not to mention Fists and Spirishift claws.

Did you cry butterfly tears too? That was by far and large, maybe not a joke, perhaps, but also not really a serious posting. Given your other reactions to Star Trek, and Discovery, I did not expect you to hate it, although in my own little world I don't quite understand how anyone can watch the entire first season an not feel at least a whole lot of disdain for the complete nonsense that was pulled out of Alex Kurtzman's arse, because while I thought that Discovery was just plain terrible, Star Trek: Picard redefined bad TV show writing. Everyone and their pet dog is out of character, then there's the ludicrous plot stolen straight from Mass Effect, an ending rivaling the nonsense happening at the end of the Mass Effect storyline, a mechanical space Cthulhu and a Borg plot that goes nowhere and has absolutely no point, and that is all simply something where we're not yet even looking at a complete disregard for Star Trek lore and canon, something that grinds my gears in particular. Borg do not die when exposed to the vaccuum of space, that was shown before, you absolute hack frauds, but we need to Seven of Nine to have a sad over something, and we had the idea to include the Borg in this show although we have no idea why they should be there, but fans like the Borg, so let's put the Borg in! They don't do anything, they have no point, there's nothing except the desire to have Seven of Nine yell THIS IS SPARTA at a Romulan and kick her down a shaft in a Borg cube that followed Star Wars' design philosophy of having absolutely unsecured yawning chasms. Someone should tell Alex Kurtzman that nobody forces him to set his storyline into an existing franchise if you don't like it, and they even wizened up a little by setting the second season in a parallel reality/alternative timeline. Which turned out to be hilariously terrible all on its own, with terrible writing to match, but at least Picard gets to tell flowery dialogue that used to be a joke on TNG played on the Ferengi, and now actually meant seriously, and Q just joins in. Welcome to the end of the road not taken, indeed. The road not taken. Except it never ends up being about a road not taken, that was just some flowery pseudo-cool dialogue thrown in there so Q can sound all mysterious and ominous, and then Picard doesn't borrow from Mass Effect, but from Tiberian Sun. The beauty of Star Trek is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen!

That's why Russia has stolen some 200,000 children from Ukraine during the war thus far. Literally kidnapped them, both from their parents as well as from orphanages, the most heinous human rights abuse they have committed of all. They have been taken away and placed in homes in faraway remote parts of Russia to be raised with indoctrination that they are Russian and not Ukrainian. International human rights lawyers have stated that such deportations and illegal "adoptions" are tantamount to genocide under international law, which is why Sec. Blinken said 'yes' in a recent interview when asked if what Russia is doing in Ukraine can be (legally) considered genocide. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-accuses-russia-forcibly-deporting-over-210000-children-2022-05-13/

Jason Momoa and Bruce Campbell on the same screen. Can humanity handle that much sex appeal?

Yoda's explanations in Empire and the whole point of being an enlightened, illuminated part of the force is completely moot when a baby of his species that's unable to talk or otherwise express anything is so powerful in the force it stops oncoming massive animals dead in their tracks and does whatever else is necessary from the little force user bugger. Hastly added explanation at the end of season two that he underwent training already doesn't help. So basically Yoda just told Luke a bunch of nonsense, because none of what he said is apparently a requirement for being able to lift X-Wings out of swamps. He was just born with that ability. /rant But hey, at least the series didn't resurrect Palpatine and took a major dump all over Vader's redemption. No, I didn't mean the fact that he just wears his helmet all the time, that's just silly, but then again, it's Star Wars, so a little base silly is fine. I mean close ups and long takes of Pedro Pascal wearing his helmet. These really don't work without facial expressions, but as I said, this is apparently a very me thing. Then there's also the little detail that the series tried hard not to be all about fanservice, but what fanservice does happen is even more ridiculous than the one in Rogue One. You're dead to me, old man.

Finally the best youtube channel, I follow, which covers the war for Ukraine, started to cover it in English. It is the channel of Austrian Army, so it is very professional, and neutral channel, which covers successes and failures of both sides equally. A lot of the info I have shared in the past, was based on their assessments. If you know German language, and want to have more detailed and unbiased look on what is going on, I really recommend to watch some of the past videos, as well. And another looks at why Russian Army under-performs so much, by another guy, which I find has very good research behind his videos. Beware, it is 1 hour long video

A review of the latest expansion for The Universe...

Despite my not really being that into the setting anymore, a 40k CRPG is always something that is rolling around in my head pretty often. Specifically this section of the intro before the "In the grim darkness of the far future, there is Only War" bit, always seems to me really ripe with unexplored potential subject matter: 40k narratives don't tend to focus in on the nitty gritty details of day to day life for very long. Which I kind of get. The fantasy of 40k is being the arm of the Imperium, carelessly weeding out corruption to prevent the forces of Chaos bleeding into reality. As opposed to something as mundane as an inquisitor looking into mutations among the population, and finding the most likely cause to be slurry from the massive factory seeping into the water supply of its workers. I have yet to get round to any of the Pathfinder games, but from reviews Owlcat seem like a good choice for making a CRPG based on an established licence.

2051 is 29 years away, so we've at least improved by a year on the 'in 30 years' estimates! This is the power of positive thinking at work.

My mom and stepdad have 2 pugs, I love pugs. They so cute, some people in my family dislike these dogs and think that they look like " fat hamsters "

Same mate... same. Assumptions and generalizations are two of humanity's failures. Something about our brains wanting to reduce the workload and stop rethinking things over and over leading to shortcuts based on small sample sizes or some such (too many years since I read up on it). Still, it's such a limitation of the use of human intellect, it's criminal

Our hometown Seattle Sounders became the first MLS team to win the CCL Championship, beating Liga MX side Pumas UNAM with a 5-2 aggregate. In so doing they set a CCL attendance record with 68,741 in attendance at Lumen field. I know it's not much by European standards, but it's still something for us. It's also an indication that the MLS team salaries are becoming competitive with the Liga MX teams, at least compared to where they were ten years ago. It should be interesting to see how well the revamped Leagues Cup goes in 2023. Leagues Cup