LadyCrimson

I was in no way suggesting CC shouldn't exist, only that I wish they would always have/use the options (as example) English English (CC) But as mentioned by someone already, this would likely end up with an unwieldy extra cost to time and cash which companies would often like to avoid I assume. I have no clue how subtitles are programmed, but maybe one could do some kind of programming which utilizes the CC subtitles (vs. separate translation) under "English, non CC" that just removes (again, re Netflix's seeming way of doing things) anything in brackets [ leaves rustling ]. I don't know if that's actually possible however. And even if it is/was, there'd have to be some standard (always using brackets, if that isn't standard). Subtitle options have become better - at least on major streaming services - over time but they're still lacking in the options area. I've noticed many, if not all, K-drama's, for example (US-Netflix anyway) have "English" but no CC version at all. Or other (to the US) foreign may have a CC but it's only in the "native" language vs. a common local (English). Edit: Netflix has been including "Audio Description" (verbal narration) on some titles lately, (for sight impaired?) too. I checked it out once, seems pretty effective.

Also - I watched most of Cabinet of Curiosities. I skipped Dreams in the Witch House and the Viewing because by then it was late and I was hunting for the Andrew Lincoln episode (which, ofc, was the last one...). My general viewpoint on the show is: well produced, lots of familiar/actor power, good acting and some interesting writing at times. Worth checking out. I didn't find it unsettling/suspenseful or super attention grabbing at all, at most a little weird (in a good way) here and there but I'm definitely very over-exposed to "horror" stories so that's just a me thing by now. The most fun thing, as with all anthologies, is how many different viewpoints there are on "the best episode/s" of the series. My favorite of the six I watched would be The Autopsy. The rest were decent to ok, with most of my personal pleasure coming from seeing some familiar faces again, more than anything else.

I don't like CC being used as general subtitles either, since I also find stuff like "door creaking", "leaves rustling" and "kettle whistling" visually distracting, since my auto-response is to glance at any text on-screen so it's hard to ignore it. I get the saving costs aspect tho. On the flip side, I also don't like "fan subtitles" where they "asterisk*-describe too many cultural explanations to the tune of long paragraphs that covers half the screen/requires pausing to even read it all anyway. Brief tidbits of extra info is cool/interesting at times, but some get carried away is all.

"Open the door! Now! Open the door!" ... "What? Oh, that's it, just wanted the door open." Yes, definitely a cat, all right.

The "expression" on kitty's face while on the motorbike cracked me up. OwlKitty rules. Now they need to post up the making-of video.

I still have never watched the last ... two? three? episodes of The Sandman, but I'd heard about the extra episode and that it had ... cats. So I watched that, recently. I very much enjoyed the animation section, not only the cats (haha) but the little story it was sharing, and the animation style. Then the live-actor story began, and while that was watchable/all right, I spent it mostly wishing the whole episode had stuck to the animation. Although I did enjoy seeing Derek Jacobi, because he's awesome.

Since it is on Netflix, it's the same director as RRR ( S. S. Rajamouli ), and often mentioned around the 'net, I watched Bahubali pt 1 (or Baahubli). It's a 2015 film, with part2 being from 2017. (Edit: fantasy/mythology/action) You can see the director's (or general Tollywood?) same penchant for full framing, action style, and love of slo mo/speed up etc. - as well as a similar "pacing issue", only more extensive. The first 10-15 minutes or so I liked quite a bit, but then it rather dragged for a while. I found I didn't care all that much about the characters. That last third or so was a long "what happened in the past" with a giant battle of armies type scenario. Anyway, the action and general visual style were still a lot of fun, if obviously a little lower budget but the pacing, for my tastes, was hard to get past. Maybe I would've liked it better if I hadn't seen RRR first. Or maybe the story/mythology didn't resonate enough for myself, in this one. It wasn't terrible or anything, but I FFWD'd a fair bit in the middle. I'll watch part2 over the weekend, maybe.

I'm sure many (many, many) videos have referred to this general topic (lack of experienced writers, differences between tv writing and series formats today vs. in the past) in some fashion, since half of YouTube these days seems filled with angry "Why TV/films/games/whatever suck". I appreciated Escapist's non-ranting version.

I've rewatched "RRR" three times (well, 90% of it, I skip a few scenes here and there). I've decided that whoever is the team largely responsible for it (director, writers, cgi-effects house? etc) should now be the ones responsible for any attempt at turning video games or anime into "live action" versions. ... ok that's hyperbole, but I bet they'd have a high chance of making a good one if they tried. I've read that India may have largely decided to (mostly) abandon DVD-sale/releases in favor of streaming, which is making it difficult for me to find/watch other, recent-ish films from there, since the streaming services I use don't have many. Shades of the early days of getting into k-dramas/access....

Re: cozy games - I guess for myself it's mostly that I like games with "cozy elements". I mean, I would consider 7 Days to Die with zombies turned off or at least settings turned down or modded to be a very minimal threat to be quite "cozy", with most goals largely self-created vs. game driven, which is why I return to it periodically. And while I don't mind there being combat, I don't want to have to be razor focused or super precise all the time or in a state of constant stressed anticipation. Something very one specific "thing" focused, like "Power Wash Simulator" is probably not my bag of tea however, unless it's 99 cents. I did love the original RCT, except overall I was terrible at creating/building impressive original coasters, and using the pre-made ones became limiting/dull after a while. So more a limit/frustration of my game-engineering capability.

Am I correct in the assumption that the power draw would likely be moderately less than 300w etc. for actual gaming? While modern games do hit more than single core these days they are not typically anywhere near "full bore" across all of them. Thus making the mega power load and cooling mostly a concern for those that want to heavily use certain work programs and the like?

Yes, I would like more "cozy" games, please. Although...I've had enough of "cutesy farming sims" already. But stuff that's more about escapism, cats, exploration, sim-elements, cats, design efficiency, not too complex...anything but pure combat power-fantasy. Edit: oh, and not MT-filled phone/mobile. (vid has language - it's Zero P after all)

I'll admit, maybe 1/3 of this goes right over my head, but I still laughed/found it interesting. I've watched quite a few of this lady's vids, I like her.

There are four Indian language versions: Telugu, Tamil, Hindi, and Kannada, and Telugu would be the "original". There's a reason the title card on Netflix is "RRR - Hindi". Because of hubby I tried "pure Eng. dub" first, but that meant the song lyrics weren't subtitled, that sort of thing. But the Eng. subtitles titled everything and often was quite different from the actual spoken English lines - a common dub/sub type issue ofc, but still distracting to me w/multi-language films and blanket subtitles. Anyway, Telugu and Hindi versions sound/lip sync pretty different, based on trailers and clips at least, even if the lead actors did their own post-dubbing.

Gedonia - I found the spot for the player house. Near a castled town. But I ran out of gold. Anyway, that's how you get a "stash" - purchase and plonk down some chests in your house, or anywhere. Backpack is decent size (3 pages) but chest stash is always handy. Can also place crafting stations and the like within that circle. I think you can build up to three-story, but ... need more gold! Forgot to mention, the game has a simple modding editor/Steam Workshop capability. Add your own caves/bosses or chests or even basic towns or quests, I think, to the map if you feel like it for some reason. So that's a bonus.

Watched "RRR". I ... enjoyed it a lot. Is it over the top, often ludicrous, absurd etc. Yes. And it was awesome. The main nitpick I'd have is with pacing - three hours is a bit too long, there are lots of places where time or maybe story elements could have been shortened a bit to make it 15-20 minutes shorter for better pacing. The other nitpick is not the film's fault but Netflix's. They did not have the original language as an option and the subtitling vs. singing vs. Eng./non-Eng. dialogues seemed a bit erratic depending what you want/chose, even the full Eng. dub (I tried all the available options). I think the main actors did their own language dubs, so tonally it was fine, but it was still quite distracting/discordant at times. If the blu-ray has the original language on it I might buy it.

Gedonia - Pros (at least in my opinion) ---rather charming to explore around. Nothing special, but still charming enough. ---there's an alchemy pot for respec talent tree pts but you cannot respect attribute/chr. points. Thus you actually have to replay if you want to try multiple min/max type builds, if that's your thing. ---skill trees are totally up to you/build your own class, altho attribute points affect what you can do/how good you are, beyond just dialogue or quest options. Example, 0 INT means no crafting, 0 Agility means no Dodge mechanic for u. The layout/structure of the talent/skill trees remind me a little of Grim Dawn. A little. ---There's an option to turn off enemy respawning, which I'm using. It's nice to not have to fight/avoid anything just to go "back" long distances. I may turn it on and off periodically, dunno. ---the usual skills like alchemy, cooking, weapon/outfit crafting, ingredient collectables and nodes. ---one magic tree eventually gets Flying. I...must...have...it... Cons ---combat, especially melee, feels clunky and a little unresponsive or with little "impact" feel. It works but... ---companion/summon AI follow is glitchy at times. There's a button combo to teleport them back to you and I find I have to do it constantly to make them effective. Creep up to enemy, hit those buttons to make them appear next to you so they start a fight, then use a bow myself. Twice they've gotten totally stuck but an exit/reload fixes it. ---the horse riding is clunky, no surprise. I prefer walking but default walking is pretty slow and I don't have 10000 staminia potions yet, so the horse is useful for long treks to towns or whtaever. ---one of those games where if you explore/battle randomly, a lot, early on, you start getting rep with factions that you know nothing about or whether the rep is something you even want. I would guess it doesn't matter tons tho, outside of when you finally choose a faction. Initial summary: ----reminds me a little of a cross between Elder Scrolls and an ARPG like Grim Dawn or Torchlight, perhaps ---there's a plot but don't know much about it yet. Good light fun if you like such gameplay, probably decent replay value if you like trying different builds/options. ---for a one-man developer, not a bad game for the low price. eg, so far I like it.

...during chr. creation, you start with 1 pt in each attribute (re-assignable) and some extra - there are none for leveling up or (I think) on gear either. Choose wisely? Hm. So....strength? agility? I don't need any of that. Not sure what max spell summon count is yet. I have two here early on. I think it might depend on mana available/skill pts + gear Anyway, short take - Gedonia is not "deep" and its combat is clunky (if you're no agility/strength, bow seems better than melee early on by far) but I'm finding it light fun/absorbing enough. I could see getting rather absorbed with it once you get past any clunkiness.

I've never bought a FE/direct from Nvidia before - would the "buy now" link on their site just take you to a retail affiliate (eg, newegg) like it does with the partner cards listed there? I noticed on Amazon some 4090 Asus cards going for $2500-$3500-ish US - that's gotta be a "scalper" price, right? Absurd.

When you're randomly rewatching clips of Soylent Green (I've only seen it in full once) and suddenly realize the older woman (head librarian? elder of some sort?) is T'Pau from ST:OS "Amok Time." I can't recall if I noticed this the first time I saw the movie. If I did, I totally forgot, and got to experience the sensation of "whoah, that's ---" again. The side benefit of an aging/poor memory? If only that worked for something wholesale, like ... a game.

It's out of early access, so for $12 (slight sale) I bought Gedonia. It looks like an old school flavor (late 90's/early 2000's I mean) open world RPG with lots of exploring and simple quests, factions (where your stats/build affect options available). And there's a house somewhere you can make yours, or something. The voice acting is supposed to be often pretty bad and there may be some bugs/performance hitching but I think I can handle that. I would like some "old school-ish" rpg/arpg gameplay, vs. the modern stuff, so am willing to try.

Apparently, at least at the moment, because the FE does so well itself, there doesn't seem to be much reason to buy a partner version of the 4090. Especially for any inflated price point. Plus the partner versions are often physically even bigger. Although I'm sure there will be some who think the very minor benefits is still something they covet, as always. EVGA seems to have made a good decision.

Speaking of dragons, a while back I seem to recall Warner Bro's getting the rights to Anne McCaffrey's Dragons of Pern at some point (dunno if they're still the holders). But there has been silence re: products. Seems like that would be ripe for an Amazon/HBO/Disney/whatever streaming series at this point (tech and cgi being what they are now). I would watch that. Or try to anyway, not sure how it would translate to screen, even if done "well." Pern dragons/that world still hold a fave dragons spot for me. Early teenage reader nostalgia probably. Now I want to re-read the "Dragonriders trilogy."

It is confirmed. I still loathe airports.

When I have a little spare time I've been making my way through the YouTube channel Dust, which features short sci-fi films, usually in the 6-12 min. range. Wouldn't surprise me if someone's mentioned it here before but it's a nice way to see both maybe some newer and some older ones you may have missed or never heard of (most of the time I never hear of/see short films). Some you may like, some may make you go "meh" but it's always interesting to browse 'em, when you're not in the mood for long time commitment. There was one for horror themed shorts as well but I forget the name of the channel...