LadyCrimson

^ Didn't help It: Chapter Two any. For that matter, length in terms of Dune into a mini-series supposedly didn't help tons either - I think it has more to do with direction and writers who know what to leave out and what not, and how to condense and write for flow/consistency, etc. Edit: also, I'd rather have a 3 hr 15min movie than part 1 and part 2, most of the time. Guys, I've read the book, I know. I'm just saying, maybe visual arts based on certain books should just stop trying to be movies in the old definition. Make them cinematically filmed TV series. If a company isn't willing to say yes to multiple films right off the bat, you run the risk of part2 never being made. Or waiting for years and years, ala Avatar because you're too afraid of making the uber famous director mad or something. It's just irritating.

Wait, Dune is a "Part 1?" Guess I'll be waiting even longer to watch it then. Reviews for it seem to be half "best thing since sliced bread" and half neutral to "a bit disappointing." Although I'm sure the visuals will be eyeball candy regardless. I wish they'd stop with the part 1, part 2 etc. of theater movies tho. Or at least film them all at once like LotR (and release them 6 months apart maybe). Just give in and turn them into cinematic 6 part miniseries on HBO/Max/Disney/whatever instead. I know, I know ... big screen. Pffft. I just need to get a 120+ inch capable 4k projector. They're only $3k-$7k or something, right? No problem.

Confirmation bias - where we like reviews that confirm our hopes or not-hopes. Hahaha. *wink But yeah, I think Chris Stuckman, while more jaded than in the past, is not quite completely jaded yet. I fully expect it to still be a "Marvel" movie. I'm just hoping it'll be a slightly less Marvel, Marvel movie is all. Anyway, I think many of us are fed up with giant CGI battles. I mean, I personally don't mind some flashy light/weapon effects and to me Matrix-1 bits are still fun today, but too much obvious green screen combat is ... too much obvious green screen. It still looks fake, especially when over-relied on, even if at the same time it can look cool sometimes. I read Ian McKellen hated filming with nothing but greenscreen/no other actors so dominantly re: The Hobbit (vs LoTR). When I watched IP man a while back (and that's not even a super old movie), that was so much better than most CGI-fest action movies... I'm also tired of "folding city/horizon" shots, ever since Inception (ala Dr. Strange).

YT reviewer I like said he's one of those a little tired/no longer enthused by action in Marvel movies at this point, but he really liked it in this one. With some action wide shots even. Also said it's a movie that finally made him think "maybe they could make a live action Dragonball movie good." But of course, he's not us. And yeah, that worries me too. What I also want is one that isn't too jokey, and maybe, just maybe, it won't be. Starts around 2:50 (no story spoilers in review - he does use trailer footage)

Samurai Warriors 5 - Tagged with (historical) action/hack n slash, supposedly even with some story. They had a demo, so I did no research and just downloaded. Used a controller. ...well, it's action. Seems mission based, so you enter a map, do rapid multiple fight/kill objectives against huge swarms of enemies and a boss or three or whatever, in a linear fashion, all with a big kill count record. Graphically I like the look. Lots of combat combo buttons to push to do fancy moves, if only I had them memorized. I suppose "story" is in cutscenes and dialogue/text bits, but rpg this isn't. Just a fighting gauntlet type? I think I shall pass.

Per usual, never heard of this one until you mentioned it. Looking at trailers I heard ... "turning into a cat." Hmm... I actually like the overall look/graphic style of the game more than that other cyberpunk game. Seems maybe it'll have more story-depth too, if you get what I mean. Double hmm...well, I'll wishlist it and see what some reviews (and you) say.

Spider-Man - I feel like 3 minutes is very long for a "teaser trailer." Shang-Chi Legend of the Ten Rings is probably the first Marvel movie in a while that I'm somewhat interested in seeing - just not enough to go to a theater. But Tony Leung!

It's not really news yet, but Norman Reedus apparently blurted out that Death Stranding 2 is in negotiations and he's excited about that. So...please have those negotiations finalize/not fall through, and if it comes to pass, ofc please be as interesting/good as the first one. Also, please be released before I'm 60. Thanks.

@Gorth No, the MS sign-in hasn't always been there. I log in every single time, the white bar is very eye-catching and I only noticed it yesterday. Er...or maybe the day or two before....or last month. Um...anyway, it was pretty recent/not always there. @Gfted1 You could try hanging a couple of these or similar wasp traps in the vicinity of the feeder. Maybe they'd go for them instead. I tried one once. They actually work fairly well - at least, there were a lot of dead wasps in them later. @Bartimaeus I have Racing, Fighting, and Massively Multiplayer on my exclusions, too. Most of the rest of mine are Turn Based variations + Platformer. Don't have Sports excluded tho, they rarely recommend those to me and I just ignore the few that pop up. I semi-rely on the fact they're like Amazon/Netflix and will use your Games Library and Watch list categories as references too.

^ We have to knock down a few small new wasp nests from the house eaves every Spring. They don't swarm here or anything but there are plenty around. They like to cut the grass. Also...was trying to go through Steam filters/games etc. and I noticed this. ...to be fair, I play Offline so I probably had more like 10-15 hours played. Mostly tho ... jeez, has it been that long? ...also, today I spent four hours adjusting Steam search term exclusions (I wish they allowed more than 10) and manually "ignored" about 400 games and finally most of the front page recommended listings are at least much closer to the genres/games that I might actually be interested in.

Good thing I have the TOS on DVD then. The original ones, not the digitally enhanced ones. Nothing "wrong" with the enhanced backdrops/planets and all that but ... I like having the original versions. Edit: I didn't like the changes to the outside ship view and credits that much tho... Only have season 5, 6 and 7 of TNG on DVD tho (the rest were on VHS, which I probably still have some of but threw most away because too bulky). There's a few episodes here and there from the earlier seasons (Q episodes, Borg episodes, maybe some Data episodes) that I dearly love but I never felt like buying the entire season/s again on DVD just to have them. Note: to this day when I'm feeling kinda down I sometimes rewatch "Spock's Brain" - never fails to make me laugh hysterically.

Found this: Which led me to the original: I'm not sure which one I like better. Those kids are awesome tho, either way.

Hubby's sis and her husband were over yesterday. He's recently been able to walk without a walker/cane again and seems fairly well with few (visible) side effects (he had a massive stroke a while back, was pretty bad, they're in their early/mid 60's). Hopefully that continues. Myself, still doing well/feeling good. Just relaxing and keeping busy here and there. Find myself growing ever more greedy re: wanting to be with/do things with the hubster. Feels weirdly like when you first start a relationship and you spend all your time together, right - then after years together you're not doing that constantly ... now I'm back to wanting to be by his side all the time. Maybe it's driving him nuts for all I know. Like I said, greedy. Time could be short or long, never know. Don't want to miss any time.

I liked the weird animated-comic netflix version series, mostly because of Kenjiro Tsuda VA ... but live action mini-sodes with him? EVEN BETTER. The episodes are again very short (6 minutes?) so an easy watch. Just short bits of the character re: household tasks/advice. Like I'm sure for many of his legions of fans ... if one could marry a voice, I would marry his. Also, cat.

Re: air quality - "It's hot in the house this afternoon, I'll open the back/front doors." ---10 minutes later--- *wheeze, sneeze* "Never mind." ...I still have the air filter units I bought last major fires. Developed the habit of having the bigger one in living room and the little one in my PC room on 24/7 and while indoors I allergy sniffle/sneeze a lot less (even before all the recent fires I mean). Must be doing something re: float-y dust at least. So I tell myself. The filter sure gets dirty after 3-4 months, at any rate. >.>

Patron: mods/Workshop patched in. Auto-dock trading patched in. Increased warehouse/storage capacities. Other things. Only mod I tried (ppl are not making a lot of them) is one that increased storage and dock-trading capacity to ... absurd .... levels, so I could have just two docks instead of, oh, say, 10. All those small changes make the game more long-term fun to mess around with, but then I quickly ran into the issue where you start to see mild FPS drops (10 or so loss) after 500-600 total population. I expected such but not at that lowish point. I think by 2000-2500 it might fall into single digit fps and game would crawl long before you fill out the whole map (well, at least if you're buying a lot of resources vs. producing them yourself...) It's definitely CPU bound in this way. Changing resolution or graphic settings does not improve much or at all. Game is largely single-core bound (one always at 70%-99% with all others and threads being only lightly hit or occasionally very brief spikes on them, but all the heavy work is single-core. They should reduce some of the non-essential children/teen/adult walkers. There's a ton of them mindlessly walking the same paths around houses like ants on a highway, increasing with population hikes. Just show the ones traveling to/for an actual job.

Re: that Saints Row trailer - well, not that I'm a Saints Row person, and ofc, I can't judge a game from a trailer, but the trailer is certainly very generic feeling. Nothing that perks one's attention up noticeably at any rate. But the shirtless guy is kind of cute, and he likes kitty-ear helmets so that's maybe a ...

Headlines and YouTube: ...global warming apocalypse, air, water, fire, floods, rising seas, drought, we're all doomed! ...cute cat video ...is the US/world already a dystopia? we're all doomed! ...cute cat video ...homelessness grows / more Covid / the rich control everything / no trust / we're all doomed! ...probably time for another one of those ignorance is bliss "internet breaks."

I think my personal objection is less about realism vs. not as it is about graphical consistency. I'd rather have the graphics all look the same level of quality, no matter what that quality or art style is. What bugs me is because of reasons (performance I assume) , they always focus on player character faces/gear or certain other things (and lately, obsession with "realistic lighting") to look uber awesome, but then you stand that character next to something and ... it really stands out that one has so much more detail/fidelity than the other. Distracting. Probably one reason they like to blur backgrounds so much sometimes, which I also hate. Borderlands series, since they did all that cell shading or whatever, the look was consistent with everything. Or top-down isometric/3rd person/pulled back viewpoints look consistent because you weren't allowed a super close up view in the first place etc.

Don't think they found anything untoward in hubby's endoscopy. All these tests say he's perfectly healthy. Which means at this point they're probably going to tell him it's stress or all in his head. At least he's not feeling like it's getting worse. Maybe a little better, he can eat more, he's trying different things on his own. For myself ...I thought my fasting glucose had maybe plateaued, but I guess it just takes a while to purge the system. This week it suddenly started dropping to 80-85, vs. 100-110. Pulse rate no longer spikes like crazy at moderate activity anymore either like it has all the past year (this despite not increasing/still being lazy with exercise). I can dance all day again without even panting, all of a sudden. So, yay? Still waiting to do the lab tests tho, I want the A1C to reflect more current vs. 3-4 months ago...

Skyrim - I have the original release version and I think I'll keep it that.I do like fishing. But Skyrim: The Fishing Game isn't enough to make me install it again. Black Myth: Wukong - all the improvements in modern graphics and they still can't make rock/cliff or other similar textures that bear close inspection (they look great as distant mountains tho). I am still so often disappointed how a scenic/room/forest scene (or an enemy/monster) in a game looks so great overall but then you walk up close to stuff and it's a blurry or oddly abstract mess ... maybe when they get to all 8k textures, all the time. Edit: not a criticism of this single game, just what crosses my mind with any "graphic showcase" trailer

I liked other songs from Pyromania more, but this video is the one where Joe Elliot's professionally cut mutt-hair flips and lands around his face in a such a perfect way so as to give a gal a 4 minute crush. I did not have even a 4 minute crush on anyone in this band, nor was I a big listener of them, but I did like some of their songs.

Patron - waiting for the automated Trader function. Not sure how one could create a city build management game without being able to set automatic trade buy/sell limits etc. Having to constantly click 4+ harbors every few minutes (at high game speed) to sell goods ... not fun. Also needs economic rebalance because honestly by mid game all you need 4-6 harbors and 2-3 Tobacco farms or whatever and sell them constantly. No need for those Researches that ups taxes or markets or anything. They're already going to "nerf" Herbalist structure for this reason. Was looking at some other recent similar games and Kingdoms Reborn is interesting sounding. It has MP capability, but can play solo ... I think solo, there will be some (stupid) AI players, but I don't know how it works/what they're there for (trade? conflict? just to be in your way?). No actual combat but some kind of military points you might use to take over areas, maybe. World/map is huge and actually world-like, you get to pick your starting location when you start. The semi-random, periodic card system to be able to build stuff vs. more typical building list, tho... I'm not sure about that. It sounds weird. Also, Early Access. >.> Still ... sounds different/intriguing.

^ It's just a few pounds. Some people lose that coming out of the bathroom. >.> Mostly it's just interesting to me that this time it meant such a waist size loss. That doesn't typically happen with a few pounds. Frankly I don't even really know what I'm "supposed" to be. BMI says between 92-123 lbs. At 92 I'd be a literal walking skeleton likely dying in a hospital. 118-120 always felt "right". But then you just add 10 pounds and technically suddenly I'm "fat" or something. Pffft.