LadyCrimson

Finally, I don't have to play that "find the fave Pentatonix in the song/video" game (not that I don't still love the group minus Avi, too). That beautiful, deep voice all by itself. And so far I love his style. I could lie in a grassy field or a forest and listen to it on headphones for a few hours...

I could watch this all day on loop.

I just now noticed this Amazon customer product question + replies. Which for some reason made me chuckle. Love the internet.

Shadow was probably the first Steam game I ever bothered to refund. It should be noted this isn't because I thought it "sucked" - per usual, I'm not willing to judge based on less than 2 hrs. But early on it felt focused more on flash than gameplay, I didn't like the controls, jumping/other mechanics (felt inconsistent), or the gameplay camera. I even disliked the main menu. Anyway I decided it wasn't even a "maybe one rainy day" so I refunded. I was also a big fan of the original TR series but every game or reboot beyond the original series I've liked less and less - Shadow was the first one I tried since maybe ... (looks up a list) ... Anniversary, I think.

Wasn't a huge Rush person, outside of those few earlyish hits, but another one of those "my childhood past is dying" reminders. RIP :(

That might explain a lot. Rented Ad Astra. It's not an action movie, just saying. One of those films that has a slow deliberate pace most of the time. Psychological chr. study mostly, maybe. Some long sequences that felt more like an excuse to pad runtime then anything else, although you could make up reasons for them to exist. Still, it didn't make me fall asleep - to the contrary I remained quite interested throughout. Also watched the S. Korean films Along with the Gods and the sequel The Last 49 Days. Fantasy action re: 7 trials to reincarnation. Action stuff is fun/great, the rest felt like a high budget TV show but is pretty entertaining. Cast for both films was very fun.

The Travolta movie The Fanatic is on Amazon Prime. Heard it's maybe funny-bad, which always piques my curiosity. I'm around 15 minutes past the start credits and I'm already like "wtf." The dialogue lines, what. is this. Travolta is in full blown overact mode. He's no rainman. Well...at least the stream looks great on the 4k TV. Good if you're sleepy and need to take a nap. :P

I went on Amazon thinking maybe I'd finally buy Aliens on blu-ray (I have the extended on DVD already). Didn't find a version of it that I liked but ... everything was so cheap since the last time I looked for movie stuff (I guess 'cause of 4k discs now?). I never bought many blurays to begin with since I mostly stream things these days. But now I wonder if it's time for a 4k bluray player. Didn't see tons of 4k discs I'd want to buy but there were some. Or are they going to have 8k before long. Edit: yup...8k tv's are on the horizon. No 8k content yet tho. I want that LG OLED 75" 8k TV anyway. Haha.

"This announcement has nothing to do with platforms or digital stores." "We will talk about this later." ...just stop pretending, you'll make it Epic exclusive as soon as it's near finished and people have already gotten excited. ...at any rate, I never did play these games. I bought them and got a couple hours into Pripyat. At the time I liked it/seemed decent, but (per usual) didn't end up committing/returning. Still, I'll be curious what a # 2 will end up being like.

I watched that Doom: Annihilation movie via Netflix. At least, if you count watching the little preview images flash by as you FFWD, watching. Actually, the first 10 minutes gives you a tiny hope it'll be watchable despite the TV look and budget, but it falls apart rapidly. That said, in terms of being "Doom," there's a few minor things about it that could be said to much better than that other Doom movie with Mr. Rock. Also, I discovered that linguist guy Erik Singer who does occasional videos for Wired, where he analyzes/comments on actors accent attempts. Watched all in one afternoon. He's low-key and great at speaking/explaining. Occasionally funny, sometimes informative, always interesting. In case you're like me and never know about these things until years later, he's the "Movie Accent Expert" in this playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLibNZv5Zd0dzmgAyav3R8SfXc-64Oly_k

Hubby started getting mild constant tinnitus this past year. Can't be sure how severe it is for him but he says most of the time he can ignore it even tho it's always there, only occasionally getting loud enough to be a big issue. I told him to stop using headphones - which means I now get to listen all his "how to" YT videos at loud volumes because he's also become harder of hearing in general. For him that (maybe?) could've sped up or caused it to begin with if he was using headphones at higher and higher volumes, without thinking, to compensate... I've also told him to use something over his ears when using power tools and the like but I don't think he does, still.

After forever, Nvidia's finally ticked me off a bit with their new "d/l Control Panel from Windows Store" shenanigans. As well as (this is only important to me personally ) making the Ansel config tools/options only available through Experience (*waves a watch* you will love Experience, you will use Experience) vs. a separate outside utility. You can avoid the former for the moment in a couple ways (like disconnecting 'net cable upon a wipe/new driver install) but who knows how long that'll be the case. I may buy one of the new consoles when they come out and just hang up (new release) PC gaming/all software entirely. Then my PC should last until the parts actually rust out because everything I already have works fine with old drivers/builds and doesn't need any "updating". Rant rant. Ok I feel better now.

Hehe. Indeed. Thanks for all the replies. Sounds like at least there's no serious tech problems so that's something. There's always been the game here and there with Uplay and Origin I might've been interested in but just didn't want to install yet another "thing" only for a single "could be fun" game or two. Especially as software trends in general is something I dislike more all the time/want to avoid installing anything, really. Haven't even used GoG's launcher. Hard to make up my mind is all.

Does anyone here have Origin launcher installed and/or in one's opinion, is there any major reason to avoid using it, whether technical or "moralistic?" eg, "moral" like how I don't want to use Epic until they stop certain practices. I'm slightly interested in that Jedi game plus I'm currently curious about a technical/performance aspect to Origin version of FFXV vs Steam's. I probably wouldn't use Origin much overall.

Hey, remember the Y2K "crisis?" That was 20 years ago! Happy New Year!

When you can't sleep you do stupid things. *crawls back under her fan-nerd rock* ... no, I don't expect anyone to watch 5 minutes. Maybe not even 30 seconds.

It's old news, but ... Paul Rudd can do no wrong. (King of Wishful Thinking is still my fave tho) Edit: I can't believe he's 50.

We were going to see the Star Wars movie this morning but I was too sleepy. My PC case made noises again after several hours so now the case-side is technically off, just lightly leaning against the rest of the case. I used painters tape to "seal off" the gap openings re; dust. The entire HDD holder (detachable modular component thingie) is a cheap piece of plastic **** that likely can't handle the weight and vibration of 2 (or maybe even 1) HDD's. Maybe I should just go all 4TB sata SSD's for storage/image and video writing even if they might not last as long and say screw HDD's entirely. I could buy 6 of such SSD's, toss in two and have two sets of spares until/if I ever build yet another rig. Edit: holy crow, 4TB samsung Pro sata ssd's are like $1k. I have moolah but I'm not that crazy. Never mind. Maybe in a year or two.

Rented John Wick 3. That early knife fight scene had me rolling. The rest of the film could have sucked and I wouldn't have minded because of that scene. Luckily, the rest of the film didn't suck. The first film is probably still the best one but at least this 3rd entry had great fight sequences and some moments of hilarity (not much plot or sense but...). And Fishburne's little speech at one point? Top cheese, man, top cheese. (edit - can't wait for the 4th to see Fishburne and Reeves take down "the Table" - give me more cheese!)

After stuffing some case edges with paper my PC case was mostly quiet for a while but this morning started up with that annoying slight hum/vibration noise again. Fiddled around a bit. Took off the side-case cover again (this makes the noises stop). Finally noticed the removable box that holds the HDD's in place, its press tabs to release/lock disks are super flush with edge of the case. Hm. Maybe they're touching the (rather poorly fitting I might add) clear plastic part of the case cover. Found a very thin piece of styrofoam sheet packing. Taped it to that corner of the sidecase cover. Put cover back on. It's quiet again. Or at least, a lot quieter. Main hum is gone and while HDD's still make bit o' noise when file accessing (slightly more than if the cover is completely off, I mean) it's not clunky/vibrate-y sounding like before. What a crappy case and HHD holder design. I mean I like the case for some other reasons (size, cable management etc) but ... pffft.

Rented "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood." Strange movie. Lots of fantastic and/or hilarious moments and bits. Brad Pitt just gets more and more awesome as he ages (that and the roles he chooses). But overall for this specific movie the lack of ... plot? story? not sure how to describe? ... made it not a favorite. Maybe I just didn't like/care about any chr. but Brad Pitt's - vs. liking all the chrs. in Pulp Fiction, say. Regardless, still lots of things to admire/like in it, don't regret seeing it.

Making a whole cross-rib beef roast in the slow cooker. Just the roast in there with a smidgen of water on the bottom (will add tiny whole potatoes later). Never done that before, outside of a corned beef brisket which is different to me than a fresh roast. Hoping it will come out somewhat sliceable vs. insta-shredded, since strings around it. That's always been my thing re: beef in a slow-cooker. I feel like it's always a beef-stew texture/flavor which I'm not all that into. We shall see. (hubby would eat it either way) It just sounded easier to clean the crock-pot bowl than a slotted roasting pan top ...

I'm intrigued by the method of filming/superimposing the VR game + player. Much more interesting than just seeing the VR graphics itself. I want to beatsaber to My Sharona! It's cool too how while the movements everyone does are similar different people can have different movement styles. Like this guy with all his major arm twirling and drumming. And when the music turned to that meme girl-swinging-onion song at around 1:50, I lol'd.

Watched a 2nd episode of The Witcher. I just can't get into it. Again, it's not terrible/don't hate it. Just doesn't do anything for me and half the time I feel like I have no idea what's going on/why I should care. Whether this is because I miss a word or sentence here and there or because I'm not familiar with the "world" I don't know. Lost in Space is available now tho, so I'll be spending the next days/week watching that instead.

... Happy Holidays.