LadyCrimson

Breaking Bad: Yup....I think Walt at least wants to be back on the track of "breaking good" (well, not good, but at least not doing anymore bad) but, of course, I'm sure life won't let him. But we'll have to wait until the next 8 episodes next summer to find out. Damn AMC for splitting it up. The last episode of this year was deliberately slow paced, with lots of subtle details/references if you catch them, but the last 5 seconds had you going "omg, finally that" with all kinds of theoretical possibilities flying through your mind. Loved it. Wanna know what happens next now. It's been interesting how time has sped up for season 5. The first 4 seasons appear to take place in approx a year's span, while Season5 seems to be covering almost a year on its own. And oh Jessie, how you've gone from a chr. that annoyed me most of the time to one that breaks my heart .... brilliant.

Dear Clint Eastwood: I'll always love you as an actor and director. I'm looking forward to your new movie. But while I know your little speech was supposed to be a light-hearted, political-poke adlib performance - seriously, what were you thinking? From legendary The Man With No Name to The Nutty Old Guy Talking to Empty Chair, in 10 minutes.

Wow, was that in 2000? Pretty sure I still have it around somewhere. Didn't play it much. Google search says you can get it to run on Win7, btw. I wouldn't know, not having it. But doesn't that make it that much better for GOG to update it? Don't know if it makes it better, but I'd have no objection to them acquiring it. I've bought a few games from them that I can still run via my discs on at least XP ... but I buy them anyway to support GoG or because I just feel like having a digital version that runs on Win7 and doesn't need a CD in a drive (or CD swapping...) to play it ...

Just squeaking by as a (US) summer release. I'm liking the graphical look of Divinity:Original Sin quite a bit. Crossing fingers for the gameplay...

Battleship. Yes, I knew going in it was going to be terrible, but I figured it would at least have some fun action scenes or something. I was wrong. Film lacked narrative focus of any kind and even the action stuff felt kinda unimpressive. Altho, the bit where they tried to make it like the board game was slightly amusing. Wanted to be some alien-invasion epic ala ID4 I guess, but total fail. Even Transformers was actually better. It was, however, kinda funny seeing "Todd" from Breaking Bad in there. I've never seen or heard of Friday Night Lights until I looked up Todd from B.Bad, so I guess that's where Taylor Kitsch comes from too. Poor Taylor. Hope he finds some better (or at least more popular) movies to be in or his career is going to go nowhere fast.

Winter's coming again and I still needed to configure a better rainy weather hut for my 1 outdoor cat. I had just set up, near the sliding glass door, this tall, covered plastic litter pan (with foam/pads inside) for him to stay out of the wind/cold when he wants. He loves the thing, don't ask me why. But it isn't terribly waterproof because it has cat-litter-pan ventilation holes and no eaves. Looked at a lot of these fancy and/or "cutesy" premade cat huts - refuse to pay $200 for a prebuilt outdoor cat shelter "house" that doesn't even look that watertight or durable. So I bought a giant, long, plastic storage bin, a hacksaw and some heavy duty scissors to cut out an opening on one end and just plopped it on top of the litterpan bed he already likes so much...plus the extra length in front should act as a roof/eave to keep driving rain out of the actual sleeping pan. $27. I rule.

Wow, was that in 2000? Pretty sure I still have it around somewhere. Didn't play it much. Google search says you can get it to run on Win7, btw. I can't think of too many for myself, personally, that either can't be made/forced to run on Win7 or XP or aren't already out in some updated version somewhere. I was never into "platformer" style games and most other older games I don't have much desire to try/replay at this point. I did notice that GoG recently got Tombraider 1-3, however...I might get those.

Yeah, that's kinda what I meant. More like...say...during an attempt to save someone else that he remembers he cares about (besides himself) even if he doesn't absolutely have to. Doesn't erase what he's become/what he's done by any means, but that sort of smidgen of emotional redemption. But could also just be a defiant Butch Cassidy-Sundance Kid moment. Watched Side by Side, the documentary about celluloid film vs. digital (in terms of movie shooting format) with Keanu Reeves narrating and interviewing a bunch of famous people on the topic. I don't think Reeves makes an awesome interviewer, but it's an interesting topic and what the interviewees have to say was even more so. I liked it quite a bit.

Breaking Bad's final season (part 1...part2 next year, sigh) has been pretty awesome so far. A lot better than last year, imo, where it was kind of annoying/slow for many episodes until near the very end. Fun to speculate on how it will all end, especially with that Eps.1 future-opening. Only thing I'm pretty sure about (but not 100%) is that Walt's cancer will come back - but that could be too obvious, so maybe Vince G. will surprise us. Other than that .... sheesh I dunno. Will Walt find a smidgen of compassion/redemption at the end or has he gone so "Bad" that redemption is impossible? And Jessie? Oh man, the way he's gone from stupid/annoying to the awesome (but still kinda stupid) over the seasons is marvelous. Walt/Jessie combo are a great chr. pair arc. It's almost tragic. Also, from the most recent episode:

Pets are the awesome. There are so many moments when my cat/pet is what literally keeps me going, mood-wise. I'm trying to work up the motivation to go to the DMV. I'll probably put it off again...

From the What are you playing thread: Sweeping Wind has become the Frozen Orb for Monks. I've tried/used it for long periods, and it does help if your dps is still low (or enemies are weak), but a troublesome Inferno Elite mob is still going to feel like a troublesome mob. It just increases your overall dps, in a manner of speaking, so mobs die a little bit faster. I tend to prefer more panic button skills than overall blanket dps skills, at least in solo/Inferno. Playstyle. Keep in mind that a Monk doesn't require major dps numbers. What they do need is LoH, resists, and if you can get enough of it, dodge and life regen. Critical Hit Damage/Chance is, of course, nice for any chr, but for Monks, it's not nearly as huge a factor to their tanking survivability (especially solo). My overall build didn't change much...it looks like this now. http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#bUTXgQ!XUd!ZbYbac You can use Fist of Thunder instead of 100Fists, a lot of people prefer that one, but I'm still partial to 100Fists. Heh. I use Guardian Path passive since I dual wield (more/easier LoH that way) and the Dodge boost + speed boost from dual-wielding helps a lot. Shields are not "necessary"...again, playstyle. With the recent patch, 7-strike improved enough I used it over Blinding Flash, although to me it's kind of a toss up. 7-Strike does have the invulnerable aspect, but BF can be used more frequently. Oh...if you use a companion, mobs will all beeline for them when you 7-Strike, like you're suddenly invisible, so that can help get you unstuck too ... although this means sometimes the 7-strikes don't fully hit walking-away enemies, which can be annoying.

I think the game is fun as single-player action-rpg as you're learning the game. I mean, I spent quite a bit of time on it after all, even with the frustrations. It just doesn't have longevity. But if you have a couple friends to play with, that could make it last longer. Do play the demo....and keep in mind that Normal difficulty for most people is akin to super-super-easy. I know, right? It was bad before, but I swear since the patch it's even worse. If you spend tons of time looking, you can occasionally get a "steal" but overall it's crazy.

Wait, wait, wait .... Beckett, Gonzo, Crawford, Punto traded to the Dodgers? Holy heck, I didn't see that coming. Figured they'd pull back the waivers. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised...especially re: Beckett, but ... holy heck, I'm just floored. Well, at least that's one way to reboot a team. ....so now when the Dodgers play the Giants, I'm going to feel all kinds of weird. Hope Beckett/Gonzo don't go on a "happy to be traded" awesome streak and equal Dodgers beating Giants. For me it's akin to, but not quite as bad as if they went to the Yankees....

Indeed. The whole team in general has been on a tear. It's delicious. Today I woke up late and am still puttering around in my loungewear while muttering about the possible dire repercussions of Apple winning their lawsuit against Samsung.

I discovered they're making a game called Divinity:Original Sin (2013). I liked Divine Divinity a lot but never played the later ones. But this new one seems interesting because it's top-down perspective and has turn based combat. The video on their website makes it look "over-bright" (I might need sunglasses while playing) but I'm going to have to keep an eye on it.

Am I the only one who thinks "melee wizards" aren't real melee? I mean, they're using this magical spell with weird claw mark visual effects (that has a bit of a bigger distance range than most actual swords/daggers/claws too) as well as supplemental things like hydra and freezing or whatever. Semantics, I know, but ... At any rate, it's the same as other melee's - high armor, highish dps, LoH, etc. There's several skillset varieties, the "tornadoes" aren't a must.

Watching those Gungam style vids made me go to YouTube to watch a whole bunch of dance fad or TV-show clips. Thanks a lot. Will Smith made me laugh once.

Happy B-Day. Sounds like a yummy dinner and something my hubs would like a lot. Sorry about the family stuff...seems weird that they're only voicing it now and sounds like it's a matter of different social expectations/styles. Hope it resolves for you/there's a solution soon. (Giants baseball) Pence's bunt was a thing of beauty, heh. I absolutely love that Scutaro seems to be doing so well for the Giants. And I love that my home team is giving me something to still cheer for when my Red Sox are trying to set a new record for finding ways to lose ... both on and off the field. I may be a RS fan, but man that Boston media ... they are nutso.

I don't think such builds are impossible, at least thru Act2/Inferno. They have some skills for stuff like that I think. Just depends on the gear check, which is the main problem (hard to find/buy that level of gear sometimes, especially certain classes). Act1/Inferno is so cake and pie now, if you have decent gear. Changed my mind a little. If you can farm Act3/4, the decent rare item ratio is a fair bit better. Not saying they're uber items, but if did a couple "runs" of something you might walk away with something sellable at least. But Act3, while a bit easier than before, is still too slow going for my Monk for MF'ing. So, MF'ing in later Inferno Acts feels better post-patch (Act1 still sucks item-wise most of the time and Act2 is somewhere in the middle). I haven't noticed much "rubber-banding" at all since the patch. I used to get it pretty frequently. Nice to have it be gone.

I played it for about 4 hours, doing 1 run of Act1/Inferno and 1 run of some Act2 areas. On that very limited reference, feels like blue/yellows drop a bit more noticeably from non-Elites but not much more noticeably from Elites. I did, however, have one Legendary drop in Act2 (BulKathos wedding band, sucks). Still get plenty of ilvl58 and below items in Inferno. Still get a lot of low dps items. Difficulty wise, since I don't do massive dps with the Monk, I'd say it feels a tad less difficult overall but it's still a major kiting game for melee. Not sure I like the boosted spell effect graphics, it makes it harder to see/visually distracting. Gems and tomes having a slightly lighter color blue text is actually more annoying for me to differentiate between blue magic items and ones I may not be interested in (gems/tomes)...I'd have preferred they made it a different color altogether, like a pale purple or something. Bottom line: slightly easier difficulty and a lot of pleasant non-combat game interface changes, but items still largely suck and it won't make a huge difference in how many "good" items you'll see. At least if you aren't going to play enough to get anywhere near the max Paragon level. I think I gained 1.6 Paragon levels in that 4 hours.

Go San Francisco Giants!

I think that's what so many are really annoyed with. Jay's attitude overall/the pattern...this isn't the first time he's massed the ire of the fanbase and each time it gets worse (the reaction). Well, that's better than nothing. I wish they'd put it up to 1000 tho. If tomes can go that high, I see no rational reason to not have gems do the same. I'm waiting for them to make MF apply to chests again. I still that was the dumbest thing ever. Walk up to a huge, glowy gold chest and not have your MF apply to it, where all that pops out is a few blues and a gem or two (95% of the time), just like any other lesser chest is just .... bah. The rest....should help with magic finding and other things (I like the AH search changes too) and it's a great list for sure, and if those things are the main things that annoyed you it'll be great. For me it's not enough I think. The area/levels, the dungeons, the game design (boring to repeat 100's of times, short, no reason/desire to replay/make new chrs etc)... it doesn't fix that.

I stayed up late enough for today to become yesterday, so tomorrow is now today.

Hunger Games. Not terrible, but I occasionally felt a bit lost in terms of chr. and environment set-up (haven't read the books). There was never any suspense/interest about the contest because 99% of the contestants were only shown in brief flashes so I felt nothing about them. Visually interesting at times, but failed to make me care about anything.