LadyCrimson

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.

If he could, he'd have printed 3 of them by now - one for the master bedroom and two for the garage. He has a fan-heater unit in the garage along with a large heated rubber foot mat thingie - I keep telling him to get one of those uber radiant heat lamps like warehouses install on their ceilings - but he hasn't yet.

Comcast Business in my area has been pretty stable re: outages. They still throttle, however. ComcastTV I could do without tho, as I've probably previously said. Especially since it feels like their billing cycle system works out to 15-16 months per year vs. an actual 12. Never tried to figure out if it's really true, but it sure feels that way. ======= Our in-wall heater broke - pilot light refuses to stay lit. You light it, turn a valve back, it goes out again. So most of the time it's been 50F-55F in the entire house the past few days, instead of just my office/gaming room. If you're dressed no big deal but a bit chilly if you're not under blankets for this aging Californian who dislike clothes. Late afternoon enough sun on the roof brings it up to around 65F. But mostly, it's the hubster who's whining since he's one of those that puts on a jacket at the slightest sign of a breeze or cloud. He tried to figure it out/fix it but while he could probably juryrig a lightsaber in the garage, finicky gas furnaces aren't his area...haha. Anyway, power company came out, looked at it for 30 minutes, said "this valve thingie here is probably broken" then further went on that "they're not allowed to fix anything much these days" and to get a contractor. Guess everyone gets sued too often. All righty then.

Hahaha.....why most English teachers didn't like me. I was always of the blue line.

Does having liked/enjoyed something really need justification? We all do it, but I'll never understand it. People are strange.

Awoke at 9am. Housework/beef roast in the oven. Internet surfed. Laundry washing. Old photo albums glanced through. Laundry drying. Old files on the PC browsed. Raked the yard. Don't feel like gaming. More old files on the PC browsed. 4:20pm, dinner's in an hour or so, not quite sure what to do now. Later: probably some movies.

Sifting thru old screenshot folders - I don't even recall how I did this. Some pose mod I guess... He was easy to make fun of. Some weather/sky/storm mod? And this is the problem: every time I think about replaying NV, I remember how many mods I had installed (both others and my own-made) and how long it would take to figure out what's what for a new game and I end up going "nah." :/

Maybe I'm missing something, but somehow highlighting an area and going "click" doesn't feel like painting. Might have made more sense as photography. But it looks pretty and reminds me a bit of the old Myst/Riven concepts. Whether I'd like it or not depends on how well the exploration/crafting is handled. Is there enough to keep my attention or is it going to feel too empty for my liking etc.

I can understand wanting to type a little less letters in text, but what is the obsession with initial abbreviations overall. Always makes me think of Robin Williams line in Good Morning Vietnam making fun of such. It gets a bit ridiculous after a while. :D

Yeah, that's why I don't watch the prime-time network broadcasts anymore. Just saw the end of the biathlon on NBCSN (not SH, the cable guide has a typo I guess...). They still have annoying announcers but at least they don't do that commercial-ly editing/cutaway stuff much since they're not trying to squeeze it all into prime-time slots. At least I have a mute button.

Hahaha! Many US sports announcers are another reason I don't watch sports as much. Never shut up for a second and most of what they say is inane babble.

I still have to remind myself that here, most of the time PoE doesn't mean Path of Exile.

Used to love winter olympics. Don't like the way/style it's broadcasted anymore, typically. But I'll watch a bit now and then. NBCSH seems to have it on 24/7 with some segments supposedly live. Speed skating, ski jumping are my faves with figure skating and luge being sometimes interesting.

(Single-player) Daily Timed Hunt, Jan. 30th - worth 500QP. Most Dailies are 50-100QP so players might average 500-700QP a week. It's 850QP to buy a single Vexxos (a limit-break magic making item that also sells for 500k gil). Player wants 80 Vexxo's. Would take 2 years doing it "legit" via the Daily Hunt. Or... Player can repeatedly turn back the PS4 clock back to Jan. 30th to exploit the game and do only that one specific Hunt 3 or 4 times a day or every other day, which means it might only take 2 months instead. Guess what this Player is doing. Two years, **** that.