LadyCrimson

So, I heard about a FFXV PC/Steam demo and went to check the game announcements. There's a demo all right, or will be on the 26th (tutorial and Chapt 1). Which will likely be a better "can I run it" barometer then the benchmark tool was. But...ROFL, also, this: omg, hahaha - the crossover madness continues. The Half-Life Festival won't be long behind, right? Although, whacking things in the game with the crowbar may be fun.

When you're down...you've got a friend... My favorite LinkStrike - it's amazing how many there are, but most will never see very many because of the gear requirements for them to proc. This one, Noct. must use a polearm+Ignis a polearm in his 2nd slot+random chance of occurring. (7 seconds) One of my fave in-store "new recipah" moments I've had. Not being close by is no deterrent, Ignis must have his say. (14 seconds)

Remember "Evolution of Dance?" It's rather like that. Except he's doing them out in public instead of on a stage. A bit uneven and a bit too long but I lol'd several times.

I envy you (and anyone else). Not that mine hurt all the time but they don't feel "normal" either. "Pinching/grip" strength is nearly gone, some days super hard to pull off things like yogurt foil tops or hold dishes w/out dropping them. Although most games don't require a lot from those two fingers, thankfully. Thumb just sits on the spacebar for example. But damnit, I'm going to keep gaming thru it until the fingers fall off.

I get it. I had a cheap boom box and later a car tape player that liked to "eat" tapes on a regular basis.

I apologize - just one more. This has now become my exercise video. Although it's a bit hard to aerobics-dance while laughing at the same time. (I also downloaded the "MMD" animation program - maybe I'll have the energy to do something with it one day)

Tried to watch the 1st episode of "Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict" - didn't make it past the 30 minute mark. I'm not sure if was cheese, the dated nature of the effects, the acting ... none of it was the worst but combined it left me yawning. I guess there's a couple of these Roddenberry post-passing series I never saw...

Interview re: modding tool possibilities for FFXV https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/02/20/final-fantasy-15-mod-support-essential/ ...all world npc's as cactuars is funny and all, but I need that dance mod. ...sadly initially it'll probably be mostly the usual reskins and other stuff I rarely care about. Just hope those tools will actually eventually let you do more than minor changes and level editing.

You can just click on "OK" for any of the survey parts. It won't complain if you don't enter any data. Just hit the buttons until the testing starts. Oh, ok. My first thought was some kind of mild profiling by zip code and 2nd thought was my own over-protective anal-retentive privacy concerns. :D

I got as far as "insert your zip code" and went "nah."

"We're a boy band? Ok, guys, let's go with that." :lol: HAHAHA.

Mmm, looks tasty. But not big enough. Why is it that in general I eat so little/feel full quickly but when it comes to certain foods (pizza, chinese, tacos, etc) I can, without thought/feeling full, eat like I'm prepping for an eating contest?

Today I'm lying on the couch listening to music at loud volumes. I might motivate to pick up a controller and add gaming to that mix. Might being the operative word. Sometimes you just/only want to groove.

I've always liked fast-paced action for my combat. Not usually the 1st person in yo-face bambambam shooter type, but still real-time, fast paced, chaotic. Having to make skill and attack decisions in split seconds. I don't even care if I'm not all that good at it, I just enjoy it. Too much order in combat feels unnatural to me, probably one reason I don't like turn-based in rpg's. I loved BG1 when I first played it. The real time with pause worked well for me and while that made combat easier to manage, it still felt frantic and chaotic because of giving all those commands to party members all the time. A lot of keyboarding kept the hands busy. Eventually I began playing BG1 without pausing, or at least as much as I could. I did the same with the Might and Magic action-rpg series, where instead of using the awkward pause system I ran around in real time, strafing with both melee and ranged attacks. Was mucho fun. Both it and BG1 (and the Diablo's...) taught me that I definitely like real-time over anything else. BG1 also gave me a healthy interest in knowing the backend of combat/weapon/dmg stats - the numbers and formulas, whatever they may be. As you might imagine, I'm not too much the stealthy type, although I don't mind playing that way for specific missions here and there. I don't really have a combat system/mechanics that I prefer - at least nothing I could define - only that the resulting combat feels visceral and more natural in speed and flow. That said, I *do* still like being able to pause in mid-combat, not to give commands but when my fingers or self need a breather for a second or two. My fave real-time-pause was probably Kotor2, tho. I'm not sure why. Pausing in it felt less disruptive for some reason. I don't remember. When I was playing PoE, I initially really liked the combat because it reminded me of BG1 somewhat. But by the end the constant maneuvering in extended fights wore me out and I was rather raging at the system. I don't even recall what exactly it was that wore me out about it, but it was there. :D

Yeah, that did that pretty recently - something about showing solidarity with gamespot and how between the two of them they're the biggest gaming destination or something. Whatever.

Green Room - via Amazon Prime (Anton Yelchin, Patrick Stewart) Small little thriller/horror film where the actor names are the primary reason I turned it on. This one's actually fairly decent. I mean, nothing new, right, but entertaining enough. Seeing Anton still makes me sad, Patrick had some jolly fun playing the cold leader/owner of a neo-Nazi clubhouse. It's not horror in the sense of boogey-men, just a group of people get trapped into a bad criminal situation and trying to escape it. Anyway ... I liked it. Maybe a B+ from me.

At least it's not like GameFaqs, where every edit you do creates a copy of your last non-edited post that people can view by clicking the post number. So if you edit it three times people can go look at every single version of the post you created via multiple edits. ...that feature is what eventually led me to not care about people knowing how often I make little edits. Which I do a lot (edits). Not just for spelling, but wanting to change wording of a sentence here and there. It's my nature to want to correct and clarify. Why try and hide it. Edit away, and be proud! EditEdit: although, it would be nice if the "Edit" byline was in a somewhat smaller font size.

Tried 3 episodes of Altered Carbon. I didn't find the techno babble to be an issue - hardly noticed it at all actually - but I'm way too used to such maybe and let it just float over. Its look and atmosphere is interesting, just like Blade Runner. The prison-in-storage premise (minus the "stack/sleeve" concept) kept me thinking of Demolition Man, heh. But also like Blade Runner, it feels "cold" and leaves me a bit uncaring about any characters or what's going on with most characters. For me largely equals admiration of artistry without any core emotional resonance. It does keep you engaged while watching, mostly, but I have no "must watch" motivation to pick it up again, once I turn it off and sleep overnight. I might get around to it on a rainy day.

I Am Dragon (On Drakon) via Amazon Prime (subtitled) A fantasy/dragon rif on Beauty and the Beast. So basically a romance I suppose, only less mushy than some and not Disney-fied. Mostly a two actor show. Special effects are decent/adequate. Avoids too much cheese except towards the end perhaps. Not bad for what it is, I didn't turn it off anyway...the description made it sound lol'worthy and I clicked it out of curiosity, then enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Imdb's user average of 6.7/10 is probably fair for the genre. Edit: Oh, I also watched that new Cloverfield movie on Netflix. I didn't find it that horrible. It's full of sci-fi/horror cliches and is nothing special but it's not even close to being a "worst" of anything. it's watchable but mediocre. But when two previous (better) films build up a bit of mythos/anticipation about monsters and alien invasions I can understand why disappointment might be high. The last 5 second ending scene was pretty lol worthy tho.

Little Shop of Horrors (80's) is on amazon prime. I love love that movie! *turn volume up* My kind of musical.

I forgot to mention it before, but Benny's (Keyrock's kitty) fancy outfit made me immediately think of Alice in Wonderland. Just needs an actual card-face printed on it.

The continuing saga of the wall furnace: Hubby decided to repair the heater himself. Bought a pilot/valve unit/box. Not exactly the same so it sits a little different, apparently ours is old enough (maybe from the 60's?) the "standard" unit they sell has changed. So he rigged up some extras to make it connect together. I suggested if it's that old we should just buy an entire new furnace unit. He goes "it could come to that" and continued fiddling. I'm used to this attitude/stubborness of his so I just shrug. He got the heater working late last night. I get up this morning and he's all in my drowsy face saying his nose is too stuffy and asking if I smell gas. "Maybe a little?..." He has to rush out to a client so he points to a valve below the heater and says if I smell gas, to turn it upwards to shut the gas off and he'll test for leaks this evening. OK? The next couple hours the gas smell increases a bit. It's not really strong or anything, I doubt it's much, but I turned the valve. Dear Hubby, I know you like to fix things instead of buy new, but can we buy that new furnace now?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUkFRb0oByg

It helps. If you don't know why you like things, then it's harder to figure out what else you might like or to talk about it with other people. Oh I get that argument, which is valid enough to a certain point. I just mean - it's like wondering why you like beef over chicken. Is it important to know in great detail, or is the fact "I just like the way it tastes better, in most dishes" enough to go on? I could analyze all kinds of physical and psychological reasons why I grew up liking beef instead of chicken, but not many outside of culinary chefs do that - but then we make up for it by analyzing films, books, sports, etc. to death. Not sure what the difference is. I've never been a connoisseur of anything tho - I know my general tastes (which change from time to time and largely = "I find this boring and that not boring) which may help me decide whether to give a film a shot, and that's enough for me usually - I just go with the flow from there. Anyway, it's not a big deal, sometimes I just find the psychology of why humans tend to feel this need to quantify/isolate in depth even our casual entertainment (or anything, really), interesting. A side effect of our environmental/survival curiosity perhaps. Edit: My husband is very much not in this vein/has influenced me in this regard - 32 years of asking him "did you like/why do you like" and getting largely "yes/no, I dunno, does it matter" in response.