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It's not looking good. If a proper fatigue sets in on the Ukraine question, Russia will eventually score at least some kind of victory, and will ultimately perhaps swallow even the whole of Ukraine. That will be a lesson for all autocrats everywhere: simply be persistent and ruthless, and "the west" will give up. Now, there is no question that "the west" is, in many ways, very weak, although it is quite strong in other ways. And the more one looks into the near history of the Ukraine conflict, the more obvious it becomes that Putin was justified in regarding the west as weaklings and idiots (I mean, everything from Syria to Trump and beyond). The question is manifold and complicated, but I think there's definitely one significant contributing factor: when life gets too easy, a lot of people will become uninterested, unengaged, complacent, uneducated, very easily shaken and lazy.

Finished Solasta: Palace of Ice It was fun with a few more enemies, some choices that matter, and a superfluous cold mechanic. The story was fun. I enjoyed it. Also, as Annie the rogue would put it: Because there are choices, the ending also changes a bit based on those (mainly who rules the Snow Alliance at the end). There are a couple obviously wrong choice (at least one anyway). But some choices I would have expected to show up in the ending slides but didn't.

Once the Chronosphere is ready, we will win

Been going through some of the Prime catalogue since I've got a free month. The Boys S3- liked it pretty well overall, quite a lot more than S2. Mostly because I think I've accepted that the main plot progress is going to be glacial and there are going to be... clichés: ie have to make Stormfront worse than Homelander, have to make [S3 antagonist] worse than Homelander as a way to put the Big Confrontation off. Also, lots of [currentyear] allusions. Did you know both Donald Trump and Homelander could shoot someone and their approval ratings would go up? Not exactly subtle social commentary, but then can't really expect that from a show that has octopus sexy times and a guy with a bigger dong than any Vietnamese financial institution wandering around. At least it's fairly even handed given that there's the homicidal AOC analogue as well. Rings of Power- well, I didn't hate it. The problems are myriad though. Some I suspect are Exec Interference/ Focus Group based- the Mystery Plot doesn't work here and didn't work in WoT S1 either. Others... is Galadriel 4000, or 14? It's often shot like an adaptation of a stage play. There's some truly awful CGI (wtf was that Elven ship G jumped off of? I might be able to do better than that, and I have the artistic talent of asphalt), the scale is at times ridiculous, the dialogue is a bad combination of stagey and stilted and the overall plot is disjointed and tries to set up confliction that cannot actually occur. And 2 episodes into Picard S3. I've skipped S2 as everyone says it's crap. Now this, I like, so far. Not quite unreservedly, but fairly close. Did you know that this season's showrunner also ran 12 Monkeys (TV)? It's pretty subtle but I caught on after the actor for Shaw, the reference to James Cole and a drug called Splinter...

We finished cleaning out our old house yesterday and gave the keys back to the landlord. There was an awkward moment where he asked us if we were going to clean the fridge. I told him he needs to have a cleaning crew come in. He acted put out. I just ignored it, but I was trying hard not to roll my eyes. We lived there for 5 years, we aren't going to scrub it down for you. He needs to paint it and clean it. We paid his mortgage and took good care of the property, but we are moving on. I'm excited not to have to worry about a landlord anymore. Now it's time to unpack the new place.

Iron Oath is releasing version 1.0. It sounds like a good Battle Brothers type game, so I'm picking it up. It's quite a good price. https://www.gog.com/game/the_iron_oath

The Talos Principle 2 I didn't get to explore New Jerusalem in the demo, so I took a couple of hours to explore the place; not every nook and cranny, mind you, but enough to get an idea of the layout. I have a feeling I'll be back here for some puzzles closer to the end. Oh, and there's an entire shrine dedicated to cats with a boatload of cat pictures. But, off to the island I go. The game has a photomode with all the usual sliders and filters and frames and a lot of poses.

Both, actually. I watched the Director's Cut version first, but liked the theatrical better. Besides the obvious issue of the Director's Cut having VHS/workprint-quality footage that makes for a rough consistent cinematic experience, probably my single biggest issue with The Exorcist III is that I...just couldn't quite believe Brad Dourif, and the Director's Cut seemed to mainly restore scenes for and focus on him more. Brad Dourif is great, but there's something about him in this role that oozes comedic silliness for me, so his scenes were probably the toughest part of the film, and the Director's Cut adds even more and the quality is just not great. Watching the Director's Cut first may have actually helped the theatrical indirectly in a way, because whatever scenes might have been missing, I could kind of mentally fill in myself if I needed to, and instead it focused on more of what I liked, which was Kinderman and his turmoils. Halloween sucks monkey butt (and I didn't like Little Trouble in Big China, or They Live), but I was being perhaps a little unkind: I did like Assault on Precinct 13. I should watch Starman or Christine next, I'll probably like those.

I sometimes wonder if my phone has a finite amount of "block this caller". I instantly block any number that shows up as "scam likely" and if some rando number calls and doesnt leave a message...blocked. Theres got to be a couple hundred Ive blocked.

They presumably would have every other piece of information (name, address, CC number), but the telephone number is the dealbreaker.

Is anyone playing Return to Moria? I'd love a solid Conan Exiles type game in Middle Earth, but I don't trust reviews and can't tell if this game is good or bad. Apparently they are working on a Shire version too.

Not sure that I want to be at a party where the lead Do is into castration...

But I didn't say that. I said that our international organizations, such as the UN, are useless in stopping things like this. I did not say they are useless because they cannot stop things like this.

Ghostwire Tokyo - --Installed. Oh it has Ansel! Wait and its own photomode on top. which does not play well with Ansel/Ansel doesn't seem to work quite properly. Ok, their more limited photomode it is. --Performance - get rid of all the blur: turn off chromatic aberration, DoF, sharpened my TV a little. On my rig I seem to manage what I might call default/High 4k with reflection-ray tracing on medium (kept the RT shadows off) and DLSS at Quality while maintaining 60fps. Still looks good, and with the tight mega-city/often rainy environment, all the reflections do add some atmosphere. If no RT/no DLSS, hovers close to 60. --Tutorial phase: on rails, invisible walls and "don't go into the fog!" until you do initial tasks. --magic finger casting combat, using a controller, while simple aim and shoot spell, feels weird. Like latency or something about button mashing timing I'm unclear on. ---visuals: so far looks nice, not cutting edge but atmospheric and nice, but most of the attention is in the city details. Rendered cutscenes, human chr. faces can often look comically bad. ---I like the Japanese VA for the whatever it is giving your chr. powers (like a ghost possession?) Tutorial phase is far as I got. Mostly I'm in it for the city (and eventually, rooftop?) wandering and photomode. I heard the "true open wandering" is semi-limited until you finish story or something.

I'm more partial to Heaven's Gate. I mean, look at this guy: That looks like a dude that knew how to party.

I dunno, I think being a white collar worker is a lot scarier to kids than a devil. Well or it should be.

New DLC for Underrail has just been released, and it is pretty cheap https://www.gog.com/game/underrail_heavy_duty

For some reason the game always chooses these two to have the banter:

I have played for about 15 minutes so I pretty much know everything about the game. I remember everyone looking the same, and even though graphics aren't important, art style is, so I didn't get far. I believe the only thing I did was head to some outpost where I was killed very quickly. It seemed like one of those games that I was just too dumb (or lazy) to figure out.

This game is super chill. Awesome aesthetic. The game is visually striking. Oh and you can play with the little pet you have on your shoulder.

I'll just come out and say that collective punishment, killing civilians/non-combatants, cutting off access food and (clean)water to civilians/non-combatants, cutting off power and internet to civilians/non-combatants, and specifically targeting journalists are horrific things that can't be justified. Call me crazy, but when I see over 3000 children dead in three weeks I can't help but think that's ****ed and needs to stop. When I see certain world leaders at best voicing some mealy mouthed concerns while still supporting (both politically and materially) killing 1000 kids a week I can't help but think the rules based international order applies different rules to different people.

God of War and Uncharted collection is comming to GOG

JuiceMedia's take on where humanity is headed...

Solar desalination device produces drinking water at high rate (interestingengineering.com)

https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/games/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2/news/welcome-to-the-chinese-room Somehow mixed messages. As a Nosferatu, I guess (played a Toreador), the experience was to hide in the sewers until no one is watching, because of the possible Masquerade violations.

So I am very good at grounded blocking, and a month ago roughly, I had fought 2 wolf spiders with an ant club, with each wolf spider only hitting me one time each fight, every other attack I had parried. But I noticed after I killed the second wolf spider, I quite literally broke my block, like sometimes it'd work, but even on different worlds and saves it would do that, I am not sure how to fix this glitch, but it makes grounded unplayable due to me not being able to block enemy attacks. I can't really provide pictures or videos, unless I am requested to.

Danger 5 is an interesting show, not sure how I came across it on Youtube.

Tried to order Amazon Fresh. They now keep tossing up a page before checkout re: "give us mobile number so driver can text you if a substitution needs to be made." I tried checking "don't substitute" on all items. Still wants it, can't get past that requirement page. FU. So long, Amazon Fresh. Back to hoofing it to the store.

It would be very hard to disagree with this, I'd say. However, needs to stop is easy to say. There are no checks in place to make this kind of thing stop. I think both Ukraine and now Gaza are excellent demonstrations of how our potentially superb international organizations like the UN are just great for flower arrangement and stuff, but when the going gets tough, they're useless. The needs to stop is somewhat equivalent to how an international body condemns or strongly condemns and in very dire situations even unequivocally condemns something that's not a good thing to do in front of the children, but in truth, it means nothing. Back in the 1980s, there was an overlong but wonderfully conceived sketch on Finnish TV. The Soviet Union had yet again breached Finnish airspace. Finland sent two diplomats on a mission to Moscow, to deal with the question. These guys went to see the Soviet big guy who heard them and then said, "So what?". The Finnish diplomats reiterated their message and made it extremely clear that the Finns were absolutely outraged about the Soviet Union's disregard for everything that's good and decent and nice and wholesome. Again, the Soviet big guy listened to them and then said, "Ok, but so what?". The Finnish diplomats huffed and puffed and said they were fart-sucking angry and outraged and whatnot and so on. Again, the Soviet big guy listened to them and then said, "Yeah, so what?". The Finnish diplomats looked at each other, looked at each other again and were silent for a while. That's where we're at. It's awful, I agree, and what Israel is doing is several times more cruel and devastating than what Russia has been doing, especially when it comes to the children. But Israel doesn't care one bit. And it needing to stop doesn't actually change anything.

Sign of times when crazy dude on the corner wasn't preaching but was screaming unit phrases from Starcraft.

Halloween (1978). Every time I watch another John Carpenter film, it seems more and more of a miracle that I like The Thing so much.

Welp https://www.ign.com/articles/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2-reveals-its-main-character-phyre-the-elder-kindred They're going the Mass Effect route of a set but customizable PC with their own background and history. Also, 4 clans in the base game with a supposed day 1 DLC adding a fifth and plans for a future sixth. I'm already down on the game so this doesn't move the needle for me. Will probably wait to see if anyone here gets it and see how they feel about it. PS, how does a thinblood end up in the head of an elder?

More children have been killed by the IDF in three weeks than in all other conflicts combined since 2019, per Save the Children. IDF attack on Reuters reporter in Lebanon was deliberate and followed established pattern, per RSF. Also deliberate campaign to target journalists- and their families- in Gaza. IDF says to evacuate along road, sticks tank there and fires at civilian vehicles, geoconfirmed by BBC. Not surprising they wanted to keep the phone/ internet blackout going really. Guess we won't get the moral outrage for the brown people with funny religions though, unlike similar events in Ukraine which got played over and over. More likely to get told how sad it made the Israeli crew feel, how they were forced into it and how that makes it a Hamas war crime. IDF is most moral army in the world and everyone should unite to fight the barbarians, says modern day Gaiseric.

I don't think sales are an indicator of quality, most Bethesda games sell extremely well but they're half-baked piles of **** that crash every 15 minutes. Sales matter for a business perspective but on our end as players it seems weird to be obsessing over them, the experience you had playing a game isn't going to be impacted by how many other people bought it. Unfortunately for BG3 enjoyers, it selling well isn't going to necessarily mean that you get more BG3s. As much as I'd like to see Sawyer's PoE3, a AAA Pathfinder game, a AAA Shadowrun, etc. I think "Star Trek with a crew that ****s" or "LotR with waifus" is as likely a beeg studio response to BG3, perhaps moreso. I think we're going to see a BG4, whether by Larian or someone else. I'd hope that if Larian doesn't do it that we'd get something similar to Kotor 2 (but finished properly) or NWN2....MotB, but we won't know until it's out.

The new season of Goblin Slayer had such a drop in quality. Strange considering the popularity of the show.

Only in Australia... go big or go home