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I laid new flooring in the master bathroom. Note to self; buy kneepads. My knees are sore! Anywho, it was my first try at laying flooring and it was easier than I thought it would be. Turned out awesome and my wife is much pleased.

FInished Bioshock Infinite. Visually, very pretty. Thematically, incoherent mess where creators use that gimmick of theirs as banal "a wizard did it" because nobody told them that no plot twist is better than stupid plot twist. Did the DLCs too, they didn't make much sense either, also made exaggerated caricatures out of already not exactly subtle original Bioshock's characters. Were surprisingly bleak and dark though, which was nice, and second one reminded me I still have DIshonored 2 to play, which was also nice. Now off to do Minerva's Den from Bioshock 2 and I am so glad to be able to save whenever I want to and not when the bloody game allows me to.

Give this man a job in HR!

Oh yeah, that’s why the Russian officials tried to do such a show, that the shells did not fly from Russian occupied territories but from Ukraine, but just before the impact, it did 180, to falsely frame them, right? https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-official-tells-inspectors-rocket-uturned-before-hitting-ukraine-plant-2022-9?op=1

Hey, my Gedonia character is at maximum level, kills even the most frightening enemies in seconds and has still yet to complete the main quest in the second zone.

That's 6. Funnily enough, the Japanese don't seem to consider the FF-series a typical JRPG. For them Dragon Quest is more that. For FF, I remember reading they think there's more melodrama and everyone looks like a rock star.

@Mamoulian War Have you told people about the Ancient Enemy giveaway yet?

'cause in our head, everything has a 1960s or 70s movie soundtrack accompaniment. HA! Good Fun!

Took my son to the aquarium for the first time and he really liked it but got freaked out when trying to feed the stingrays. He pulled his hand back too quickly and scared them and he got splashed. Also mowed the back yard and now about to go eat some marinated red and green chili pork tacos.

Tried to leave it until release or at least more beta patches but Going to try play hereticus this time

I have one just for you:

Pretty long and busy day today But allow me to remedy myself Ancient Enemy giveaway on GOG started today! This one is again needed to put into the cart and “pay” 0.00 of currency to acquire it https://www.gog.com/game/ancient_enemy?source=news

Stray Gods demo So, it turns out that this is a musical, as in a good chunk of the story is done in song. I mean, it's in the title, or, rather, subtitle, but I didn't really pay attention to that, I downloaded the demo because the art style looked great. The singing was performed well enough and there's an audience for musicals, I'm just not a member of said audience. The art style is great, though. It's not fully animated, but rather a series of stills, sort of like a comic book, but not arranged into panels like in a comic book. It's got Greek Gods in it, so if you're into musicals and Greek mythology (with a modern twist, I guess) then this might be up your alley.

Got a little carried away with exploring in Gedonia and completely forgot about the main story. I increased my reputation with the Mage Academy, visited the main city, became the new champion of the arena and got some pretty good equipment. Unfortunately, I had to let the dog go to hire the warrior companion and deal with the most difficult enemies so far: the rats in the sewer.

Speaking of Diablo 4, while Blizzard introduced a debuff on overlevelled players in PVP areas, it does not work properly. The logical conclusion: high level players ganking lowbies on lower difficulties. For anyone who does not know, PVP in D4 consists of playing in a PVP area, collecting Seeds of Hatred that are purified into Red Dust (the PVP currency) in an event that is broadcast through the zone and marked on the map. Just spent an hour protecting others from gankers. The only problem is that years of playing ARPGs conditioned players to click on anything with a red health bar, so there was some unfortunate collateral damage. I doubt it is ever not going to be funny to see Bully McAssface explode, spilling all their ill gotten seeds on the ground.

I also saw these reports this morning. Classic Putin. Prig is such a complete idiot (and soon to be a dead idiot).

Yeah, I initially wrote the question in a much different manner, but I decided it'd be best to be as least toxic/snippy as possible. You know, in the hopes that it gets answered! Making an actually funny/clever meme would've been difficult enough even before you constrained it to such a basic/cookie-cutter template, so that surely did not help. I could see maybe children/young teens who are excited for upcoming games deciding to do some in that vein, but the fact that literally nobody has kind of ties in to my question of us just being too old for this silliness.

When I saw that the only meme I had in mind was something about balance and Sawyer, but it seems like Obsidian is going more for references to their games rather than references to Obsidian/it's notable staff.

As we're all sliding to that point...

Just glimpsed through a new report written by a correspondent in China. Two new things for me, the first of which I hadn't even thought of: 1) China is really quite worried about any potential lack of stability in Russia, and did not like Prigozhin's little party trick at all, 2) People within the Chinese army are quite frustrated with Russia and absolutely shocked by how poor the Russian army has turned out to be -- and, by extension, there is now a growing worry about how good the Chinese army actually is.

Kung Fu Hustle is GOD TIER. I can't recommend it enough. I'm watching Forbidden Door 2: Rasslin Boogaloo. Awesome show so far, as expected. Props to the folks in Toronto tonight, a hot crowd makes a big difference for a wrestling show and these fans are going NUCLEAR. It will never happen, definitely not while Vince is alive, but a WWE, AEW, NJPW, and Stardom supershow would be the greatest thing ever. Edit: Orange Cassidy vs Katsuyori Shibata vs Zack Sabre Jr vs Daniel Garcia was so ****ing awesome that I had to put a pillow on my lap to hide my erection. Edit 2: Holy **** what a fantastic show that was. The only criticism I have is that it was too long, 5 hours is a bit much. Now that I'm done complaining about too much of a good thing, holy smokes that main event. Bryan Danielson vs Kazuchika Okada, talk about a dream match. The ending was stunning.

I think that the puzzle or stealth elements don't work well with more active action platforming. E.g. Guacamelee is an excellent platformer/metroidvania, but has no puzzles or stealth. Same for Celeste (the game is very impressive, but I don't think I would be able to play it without the Assist Mode). The Last Hero of Nostalgaia. It is a purposefully junky Souls-like. Some systems are simpler, some are more intricate. The location design feels a bit linear (the path forward, a dead end, a shortcut), but nice otherwise - there are reasons to return to the previously visited areas, but I have not unlocked the fast travel system yet (if it is present in the game). The second boss battle was ridiculous (might have something to do with me trying to use a new sword and repeatedly misjudging the attack range) - several very different stages, including a group, and the save point was far. Edit. Reached the Wilds (woods). The place is a labyrinth and it is connected to the previously-visited areas.

I do think it's credible, although you didn't ask me. Apparently, though, there's also this, whether it has meaning or not:

Cyber Knights: Flashpoint demo Character customization is locked in the demo but you can choose from 1 of 4 presets. I went with wastelander. In the tradition of XCOM, at one point I missed 5 of 7 "70% chance to hit" attacks. Base management is mostly locked in the demo as is the market. The game's not going to win any awards for graphics, but it was the political machinations, trying to navigate a web of backstabbing and deception, that I really liked in Star Traders: Frontiers, and, from the bit I played in the demo, Cyber Knights: Flashpoint seems to have that in spades and will let you make choices that can take you down very different paths, for good or bad.

FF7 was fine, I finished it and had a reasonably good time doing so despite it being the horrible PC port. But it never was enough to make me curious about playing any other games in the franchise, and when reviews of the next game came out saying it was clearly not as good, that was pretty much it for me. Well, until I played FF14 for a bit, but being an MMO that doesn't really count. That, and the storytelling pretty much devolved into standard single-player game fare almost immediately. The game teases you with freedom to be your own person for what, 10-20 levels, and then you're just forcibly recruited into the standard good guys club where you're nothing but a pawn following orders for the rest of the game. Blergh. It was the same feeling I had in my extremely brief time with Secret World, in their silence, the player character ends up feeling like a doormat.

I don't drive[*] but I get your point. [*] True story: the only time in my life that I've driven a car was in New Zealand, when I was in car with a woman I'd only met a couple of hours earlier. Upon learning that my driving experience was at zero, she promptly stopped the vehicle and made me drive for a while (we were on a secluded country road near Motueka). It immediately struck me that something interesting might happen if I told her that I'd never had sex before, either, but since I was going to have to get along with her for at least two weeks, I couldn't really risk it, even as a joke.

Yeah. His de facto amnesty for a treasonous act almost certainly spells serious weakness and vulnerability.

Whenever Billy Idol's Rebel Yell comes on the Oldies radio station I have on in my car, I have to pull over out of traffic so I can go nuts.

What a disappointment. I was so excited about the prospect of political chaos in Russia. I suspect Prig learned that as much as generals in the Russian military may dislike/disagree with Putin, they were surely not going to throw their lot in with him. But I do feel this increases the odds that someone within the regime/military with more credibility and standing will look to dipose Putin in the near future. Prig has been gutted like a fish here, but Putin has also been exposed as being weak and vulnerable.

Have The Black Hole on in the background as part of my lazy Sunday. Has some amazing visuals for it's time, and surprisingly dark for a 79' Disney film.

Oh god, I didn't mean to start one of those threads, again.

I mentioned our Hollywood sign hike, but we also visited the new Mario World, went to the Academy of Motion Pictures Museum, and went to a extremely good Crab house is Korea Town while we were in LA this last week. Here are some pics:

Covers, eh? One of my favorites.