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Sazae-san, episode 1. I did it! I watched an episode of the longest running show in history...well, the longest running scripted (or animated) show in history anyway. There have been at least 8,540 episodes of Sazae-san since it started in 1969...but uh, there is only about one episode that is English-subtitled, so I guess that ends my viewing of Sazae-san. It's basically an every-day family/slice-of-life show focused around the different members of a family, with the titular character, Sazae, being the mom. Shockingly...or probably not, I thought it was pretty good and would happily watch more if I had anymore to watch, but I don't. It was quite charming and surprisingly tight/well edited - the latter of which in my experience is a rarity for 1960s anime shows, even right at the end of the decade. I think the funniest part was during the final segment when the grandfather was on his "deathbed" (not really, he just wasn't feeling well after a pretty rough day) with all the womenfolk doddering over him at home, and Sazae started to look up his symptoms in a medical book...and promptly reached the conclusion that he must have cancer, sending everyone into a panic. I wasn't expecting the old "look your symptoms up online and WebMD will for sure tell you that you have cancer" to be a meme all the way back in 1969, but it seems the more things change, the more things stay the same. Fun fact: the original voice actress for the main character has stayed the same since 1969, which means she's been voicing the character for 55 years now, and she is now...84 years old. Talk about a job to last you a lifetime. "Although the series is now long-running, Katō would later recall in 2009 that she initially thought it would last only three months." Whoops.

Frieren 27 The second test is over, but Serie is displeased with so many people succeeding, thanks to Frieren’s power. She will personally proctor the third test. Quentin Tarantino is a special guest and plays one of the first class mages. Meanwhile, Stark is still “learning” from the mysterious old man he never saw before. And Fern has had a disagreement with Frieren. The participants that were eliminated are in a bad mood. Richter tries to work in his shop, but keeps being reminded of the test by visitors like Denken, who tries to cheer him up, Laufen, still eating cookies and following Denken, and Frieren, who wants Fern’s staff fixed. Lawine, for once, was feeling so bad she didn’t fight with Kanne. We also learn that one of the first class mages actually noticed Frieren was suppressing her mana and that the “long time” it would take to master that is actually “just” a century or two. Humans and their limited views, right? And, apparently, Serie is also suppressing her already insane level mana. The third test is an interview with Serie. Many fail right away, like Kanne, who is scared of Serie’s mana and can’t imagine herself as a first class mage. In fact, this last part seems to be the common reason for the failure. Frieren, too, fails because of this, but in her case she can’t see herself as a first class mage because she was sure Serie would fail her. She informs Serie that Fern won’t fail, that the age of humans has come and Fern will surprise her. That does happen, when Fern notices a minor fluctuation in Serie’s mana, evidence of it being supressed. Not even the oldest first class mage was able to sense it. She also declines becoming Serie’s apprentice.

I'm going fighter and using a mage pawn (heal bot). Also plan to go just my character and pawn in hopes that the XP bonus for a smaller party is in DD2 like the first game.

Frank Herbert on Dune in an interview with Charles Platt: The first book is a classical hero's journey, indeed, but even then Paul has visions of what his jihad will cause. It becomes much clearer with Dune Messiah.

Right now I'm leaning toward starting as a thief with either a fighter or a mage as my main pawn. As far as advanced vocations go, I'll cross that bridge once I start unlocking them.

I'm hyped but I wish they'd let us see more classes. I got the feeling Ranger is gonna be the advanced for the archer, but I'm interested in what they do for the thief's advanced vocation. Also Trickster and Warfarer don't follow the standard color mapping of hybrid vocations (they don't use two of the base colors bisected like the mystic spearhand or magic archer) so maybe there's more of them than the six hybrids we'd normally expect.

I dunno, maybe Lynch understood Dune better than all of us and Kyle MacLaughlin's Paul Atreidis is a villain. While I haven't read the books but from what I've seen Space Lawrence of Arabia who manipulates the religious beliefs of a colonized people in order to take revenge and seize power certainly is a legit read on Paul and is undoubtedly villainous. That's certainly a more interesting story than the conventional heroes journey. Timothee Chamalet (I don't know if I mispelled it and I don't care tbh) looks like a grown up starving Victorian child. I would have cast Kristen Stewart or Lakeith Stanfield as Paul Atreidis.

What are you talking about, Dune (1984) was directed by Alan Smithee and written by Judas Booth. Well, at least the version broadcast on TV. Heh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18HF6jWRIBM Holy smokes, if this winds up being anywhere near as good as it looks... I mean, they kinda cheated by having Ian McShane voice the trailer, he's automatically going to make whatever is happening on screen seem better. Still, the combat looks freakin' awesome. We're gonna find out in a week's time, I guess.

I'm sure both France and Germany will fight to the last Ukrainian! (nobody, including themselves, really knows what the UK intends to do these days)

Mostly of interest to people Down Under I think... elections coming up in Tasmania

Look at this tech forward guy with his fancy CDs, I still have a couple of drawers stuffed full of cassettes. Aaaaanyway, speaking of nineties. Here be a song that I think a lot of people born in the nineties have to thank for their existence, kind of like Hotel California and seventies.

1 - That Crow remake looks like it's tossing anything that made the original at least a little impactful, outside of fun/otp violence/mayhem, away. Zero interest. 2 - never really noticed/thought about it before, but Kyle MacLachlan's chin does seem like it has extraextra bone protrusion or something. Certain lighting/shadowing makes it really stand out. The guy in the new movies is a little less "weird", but it seems to still be fairly prominent/deep dent between chin and lower lip. Maybe it's considered a requirement for the role.

Dune... . . . . . . . . . ...(1984), by David Lynch. What a weird, clunky, messy film. It's like David Lynch couldn't make the narrative Lynchian enough, so he decided to Lynch it up in other ways. But it was vaguely entertaining somehow (sometimes in unintentional ways...), so I guess you could do worse than watch this nonsense. I assume it's probably for the best that I'm pretty much not at all familiar with the Dune books - while some of the sets certainly look cool enough, I can't think the film quite captures the spirit of whatever the heck the books were supposed to be about. Kyle MacLachlan has the most unsightly chin - a chin I daresay made for a villain of some nature, and certainly not a messiah.

Good news everyone, Israel is planning on putting the 1.2 (or 1.4 depending on source) million people in Rafah into 'Humanitarian Islands*'. How can anyone object to that? Sadly some do though, as with the latest incident of a Jollycopter donating Rainbow Projectiles to another group of 'people' waiting for 'aid' to be 'delivered'. They should be thanking the IDF for trying to do its bit to prevent obesity and overpopulation... *some might think there's a preexisting term for Concentrating civilian population into Camps, but I can't quite put my finger on what that term is.

I haven't played that since initial release/purchase period, although it's still installed/been updated etc. I enjoyed it a fair bit but after figuring out how it worked/mastering efficiency (a me thing), which didn't take too long, it was limited and didn't find it super replayable (limited maps/no map generator or editor). I think it does have a map editor now. Maybe it's time to try it again. ============= My biggest irritation with (most) modern 3d/more AI city-builders is drastically decreasing performance vs. population/size of cities (huge fps drops over time or AI glitches starting). Limits designs/expansion re: map sizes even w/beast PC's. Often CPU limitation. Some newer ones it starts to occur even at just 400-500pop depending on one's rig. Where in old ones like C3/Pharaoh it's essentially just limited by map size (even back on pc's of that day). 8000+ pop. in C3 is nothing, good luck getting that in most modern ones. Yes I know, most people probably don't care about filling up entire maps, trying to squeeze just one more little city block in that corner over there. But doesn't mean it's not an irritating gameplay limitation. Not that it stops me from buying/trying, mind. 😛

Here’s that Pallegina build.

The original had a sense of style and emotion to it. I'm not really picking up either vibe from that trailer. Plus, Michael Wincott was a most excellently drippingly evil villain.

Like I often mention its always good to have breaks from playing the same type of genre That way I never get bored and I miss my favorite genre which is fantasy RPG

Condolences, Katphood.

Condolences, Katphood.

What a beautiful black cat. Sorry for your loss.

I play quite a fair bit, I love it. Dirt Rally, Elite Dangerous, Half Life Alyx, Sairento, Beat Saber, Fallout, Skyrim and such. I've got me a HTC Vive Pro. From what I remember PSVR 2 is a pretty decent kit

As an aside....., since @Bartimaeus was talking about chins in the movie thread I can't help but think of Tarantino's massive chin. It could be used as a diving board, which he would probably enjoy.

Frieren has created some weird and sometimes outright scary subcultures on the internet. The Ubel Armpit fanboys are legion and disturbing at times 😂 Sadly, embedding not allowed for this video https://youtu.be/8KkyNQpgbhA?si=EojIN7_VsVv5ffeS

One of the guys goes by the name White Rex.