LadyCrimson

Beauty: Beast: You're a bobblehead on the "overworld" map bits. Also, I like my hat. "Well that's rather random."

I want to do this/have a car set-up like this. Hubby can just sit in the back.

Too true, these days.

I think fireworks can be pretty and I don't mind a singular show - I'll climb a hill to see a good city-done one - but I'll never get the obsession some have with them as celebratory thingies. I mean, different strokes and all that but doesn't do much for me. Especially ones that are largely just noise makers. And yeah, we get the constant for a week random pops and bangs as well, and then sometimes for a few days after the 4th too, no matter what apt./house/year. Cats don't like them either. Last night I did sorta feel like I was in the middle of a battleground, noise and smoke - not seriously, but you know what I mean - which was a bit surreal. Just not a common thing on that level in the West Bay Area vs here I guess. Edit: at least these guys were early do-ers and it was pretty much over at/before 10pm.

For some reason, recently, every time I turn off the TV, when I turn it back on, the PC doesn't always re-detect it as a 2nd monitor. Reinsert cable repeatedly, turn TV on/off, turn PC on/off, eventually one of those things work, but never know which one. Probably (hopefully it's just) the HDMI cable and not the plug itself - the weight of the cable might be a problem, hmm, pffft, annoying. Also, our new neighborhood apparently all love fireworks. I guess they're not illegal in this county (not sure if they're still illegal down south either, I don't keep up with such things). So around 9pm last night we had a very impressive 30 minute+ fireworks lightshow in the backyard. Two direct neighbors shooting off mega rounds of large sized blooming rockets in the air, plus other neighbors further away you could still see. It almost felt like they were competing to see who had the bestest. The noise was very loud and the smoke/smell overpowering. Hubby watered our dry, brown lawns for the first time (we were warned by one neighbor that this happens) just before, just in case. It was quite the display for neighbor fireworks, something I haven't seen since I was small kid in these parts. I took some video but I'm too lazy to upload it.

Tiny Tina Wonderlands - TLDR: If you liked/loved BL2 but were lukewarm or cool towards BL3, you might like TTW more. I created 5 of the 4 starting classes and played them through the early main quests (doesn't take too long), so these are early impressions. Overall for myself, I like it quite a bit more than BL3. BL3 left me feeling meh even from the start, and so far at least TTW is more "fun"/interesting as a BL game, early on. We shall see! Possible pro's: --the rpg stats (creating a character, getting 1 additional pt. each level up, separate from skill points), give character progression a better feel and the (eventual, so I hear) dual-classing sounds great/fun. --Casting spells is very fun. You will still be mostly guns - but I love it. The spells (and action skills) feel more powerful then in previous games. Feels like they're mostly worth using/building for vs. forgetting they exist half the time. --Melee power/potential has been boosted even more, across all classes. --plenty of things to search for/collect to gain boosts of stuff, vs. rush through the main quest, if that matters to you. Find all the gold dice to increase an area's loot-chance. Find poetry, find orbs, etc. --the "overworld" aspect is interesting with its own mini-quests/objectives. The random encounters on it are annoying but a lot of the time you can outwalk the trigger-npc to avoid the forces-you-in portal from materializing. Possible con's: --the "overworld" might, instead, annoy some. You can avoid/ignore it, for the most part, in favor of sticking to the normal campaign, although the entrance to the main town seems to be from there so I don't think you can avoid it completely. --inventory management (as always) plus some overlong npc dialogues, can disrupt the action pacing a bit and is always a bit taxing. --I hear the campaign is shorter than BL3 and it has no new game+/TVHM) - so max clvl is going to be lowish. There is a small end-game loop but one isn't likely to get 100's of hours out of endless replay. Most might try one or two dual-combo playthrus then stop. --if you can't stand Borderlands OTP non-stop jokes style and also can't tune such out, it's even more rapid fire and constant than ever. Just sayin'.

Hubby: "What's with all these ***** choices, I just want to get in the game, not think about choices!" Me: "Ohhh, a chr. editor in Borderlands!" ...you have to divvy up 10 stat points in creation, too (int, wisdom, str, etc). I bet he had fun with that. HAHA.

Bleach, Jujustu Kaisen (only since I just watched it ), One Punch Man, Attack on Titan. I initially thought the volleyball was basketball in a couple of those microsecond clips but I guess not. I (think) recognize some other faces here and there but I couldn't tell you what they were from or even if I watched any of whatever it is at some point. May just have seen commentators, VA-related or other type of clips.

Hubby's got an extra long weekend and we're contemplating buying/playing Tiny Tina's Wonderlands during it. A game I'll likely find a bit annoying/disappointing and wouldn't care to buy/play it solo, but where playing it with your spouse might make it relatively awesome despite that. At least it's several bucks cheaper for its Steam-release intro period. Also: Hubby drives/runs down to the other house to do some junk-yarding/deal with a neighbor/fence issue: I expected him to be gone overnight. Hubby calls me same afternoon: "I'm done, want to come home, leaving now." - eg he finished quickly and just wanted to get back vs. waiting until morning/better traffic to drive. Hubby later that evening: "Home is where the wife is." "Growing old together" ... yeah, I, at least, am loving it.

Finished Jujutsu Kaisen - still liked it. It's Shonen but bit less of that pre-teen boi flavor, and the few female chrs. they focus on are strong chrs. too. No cliffhanger ending but definitely needs that 2nd season. Based on some manga details they could probably (for my interests anyway) finish up some main threads in 1-2 seasons and then leave it alone. I also forgot ... I watched another short anime on Netflix a bit ago - Vampire in the Garden. I liked that one a fair bit too, for the more touching/story/chr. oriented anime, albeit still supernatural.

Current US politics:

Half-way through Jujutsu Kaisen (via HBOmax). Took a couple episodes for me to "get into" it but I like it a fair bit now. It's weird/dark/violent but has the usual bits of silliness, conspiracy, and pathos - I also like that it so far often focuses on individuals (or maybe two chrs) at a time vs. constant almost forced multi-group dynamics (eg, I'm tired of the "must be equal male/female group" so they can pair off, thing in movies/games/series). I guess I like action, occasional absurdity and male perspective/camaraderie/chrs most often. And of course, I often like the mentor or morally grey/anti-hero chrs. more than main leads. And sadly, those often get killed off, or just sorta disappear from screen. Hm, maybe that's why I lose interest in a lot of series after the first 2-3 seasons. HAH. "Supporting character syndrome" or something. At any rate, it's ofc nothing deep but it's fun enough. Action sequences look great too. They'll make a season 2, I hear.

10:30AM --- outside in the shade: 100F/37.77C --- inside majority of home: 79F/26.11C --- inside my "room cave": 72F/22.22C --- *stares at electric bill* .... WORTH IT! Ow, ugh. At least here "it's a dry heat." Humidity can make even moderate heat temps intolerable. Which is why I will never move to anything tropical. Vacation is fine. Moving to such a place ... heck no. Anyway...it's fine in the house, I just like to observe/marvel/complain. I was wondering if it would reach 110F yesterday, but only got to 109. Got two large bowls of water in the yard for birdies. The bluebirds like to sit in them, it's cute.

4:30pm. That's in the shade. I'm not putting that thing in the direct sun, it might melt. 42.22222 for you C people. I expect it to get a tad higher before dusk comes around.

I discovered Discovery+ (available going thru Prime, my preference), which bundles a whole lot of channel programming into one monthly fee. A lot of the lifestyle reality stuff I watched when I wanted to turn off my brain (or background/fall asleep stuff), when we had cable - HGTV, Science, TLC, Trvl, Foodnetwork, ID (real crime), etc. Ad and ad-free subs. So I don't have to have a sub to all those separately anymore like a long time ago, which I refused to do. Perfect when it's too hot to do anything but slouch, brain-dead, on a couch/bed all day with A/C on. Score!

I like the way the cat, after finishing, turns and looks up at the dog as if to say "thanks for waiting/letting me go first." Although it does make me wonder, since the video mentions "cats", why there aren't more water bowls...

So this guy's reaction to PoE's passive tree is exactly what I mean. Even if in the end it's not as complicated as it "looks," I don't have the patience/dedication for that anymore (I used to). Although one of the issues with PoE in particular was they were constantly erasing/resetting your tree for patches/updates (with a single free respec given) so you'd have to "start all over" for newly added nodes/tree redesigns, and/or remember the pathing of what dozens of nodes you liked every few/several months. And while there were respecs, getting them was grindingly difficult. Anyway, yeah, not doing that anymore.

^ Yeah ... hubby said "it's supposed to get hot again this week." ...a bit of an understatement. I'm going to be grumpy again.

2.5 episodes of Spriggan - ok, figured out that it seems kinda episodic (even tho there aren't many episodes). Tech that is too high-powered/dangerous for mere humanity at this time, and groups trying to grab it and/or protect it each episode (well, what I watched anyway). Got it. I started out liking the style because it reminded me a little more of "older" anime in some ways, but the writing, editing, and chrs. started to weigh it down. Probably won't finish it. Also, the ...digital? cgi? ... animation didn't work for me here. Either because budget or style, dunno. Where despite all the image clarity, it looks too sterile and clean, both graphically and re: motion, if that makes any sense. I have issues with that fairly frequently re: modern animation more and more often. I find it distracting, like an animation version of uncanny valley.

Saw "Spiderhead" via Netflix. It stars Chris Hemsworth and Miles Teller, how terrible could it be? ...turns out, pretty terrible. I mean, once again, the idea/concept isn't awful, but the execution is rather ludicrous, especially the ending stuff. Read any negative review of it, I'd probably largely agree.

Yup, totally me in games nowadays. Where you spend more time doing all this than playing...

^ That eating contest episode of Champloo is so funny.... ...I watched about 20 minutes of the first episode of Spriggan on Netflix and felt like I had no clue what was going on. But in that way where I'm not sure if it's simply my sluggish brain and maybe if I can get past a hurdle I'll find it interesting. I like the style enough so I'll keep watching and will hopefully stop scratching my head.

Yeah I did the same w/Google on the tablet and got that pic in the first few pages too. Which just goes to show how terrible Google has become for actually useful results, sometimes. >.> Also agree that his beard isn't that bad - it's not that non-typical really - it's just something about the way he uses his face that turns it into "weird."