LadyCrimson

^ I'm always at least a bit curious about a Cumberbatch movie. Then I saw Sam Raimi was directing. Curious immediately went to "interested". At least a little bit.

I have a new drone pet. I shall name it ... HumVee. Mostly it's for carrying more stuff and it has a light, but it can heal you a bit in a fashion if you want it to. Occasionally gets in your way visually but eh, as a major stuff-picker-upper, I like it. I don't use the vehicles (they also have more inventory space, but you can't take those into a dungeon) but I'll use this little guy.

On a non "LC is a phone/tech idiot" note: --new interior doors (the original ones were made of hollow cardboard I swear) and some minor home fixes should be done today --but the bits o' cheap carpet we want done won't be installed until mid-Jan., unless someone else cancels. Everyone is too busy apparently. Which doesn't help my packing motivation. Good thing I already did all that cleaning/tossing a year or so ago. I don't think I have all that much "stuff" anymore. At least not in terms of packing. With hubby's van, the fact we don't have a set rush-date to be out of the first house plus more than one round trip is not too bad, not sure we even need a moving truck.

Alan Tudyk is awesome. I saw freebie minutes or 1st episode (I forget) back when but I don't have/get anything that streams it so I haven't seen the rest. That show/role seemed perfect for him.

So I had hubby call my phone and asked him to answer it. He took my phone and made this long swiping motion over it and it worked. I was all ...I swear I never "swiped" to answer it before. One of those many phone updates must have made it mandatory or something. ...I'm old and tapping a button looking circle just makes sense to me, swiping over a "button" never crossed my mind. Stupid touchscreens.

I met a boar that was apparently the reincarnation of Moses.

My Android A51 phone annoys me in two ways: --on a full charge it loses maybe 70% of that in less than 18 hours when it's off/standby. I don't let anything run in background, close anything before powering off/stand by, I've uninstalled everything it will let me uninstall, etc. I finally had to put it in that ultra power saving mode which means you have no background pic, most phone features, and access to only eight apps at a time (4 mandatory, you get to pick/exchange the other 4). Then it lasts for 2-3 days. eg, all he O/S and stupid fancy apps they insist you need suck up power like no tomorrow. --Lately I cannot seem to answer the phone. Hubby calls me, the little menu opens, I madly touch what looks like the right button to answer, then madly touch every inch of the screen and nothing. So I have to keep calling him back. I don't understand it at all. It wasn't like that at first. Edit: this started before I put it in ultra-power saving so pretty sure it's not related to that either - and the touchscreen is fine, if I browse the web/use the camera etc. it responds just fine

Still just waiting for the Gong Yoo (and other ensemble cast) netflix show. Tried a fantasy film that I thought was going to be some kind of Chinese or other action fantasy (Yin Yang Master?) but suddenly there were lots of Rocket looking and other animated walks-on-two-legs animal based creatures everywhere alongside human wizards. A little too weird for me. Turned it off. If you looked at my "personalized" Netflix recommends categories, you'd think they were an all S. Korean/East Asian streaming service. Oh, and the occasional 1980's show for nostalgia's sake. Knight Rider ftw!

Small YouTuber makes a viral video so maybe it appeared in all your YT recommendation lists already. I have never been a big sealife, seafood, shellfish fan (alive or as food). But watching this I felt like cheering the lobster on. Satisfying watch, for some reason. He got a lucky break and instead of becoming dinner he's a well taken care of pet. Go Leon!

Here is your regularly scheduled tagline ... "Bah humbug." ...but yeah, no plans. That's just how hubby and I roll. 25 years ago there were family xmas dinners but eh not for years and we probably wouldn't go even there were.

I think Jim Carrey was playing a chr. named Jim Carrey since teenage years, to cope with a lot of "stuff" and it all came to a head a period of a time ago. eg, depression and stress-pressure coping tactics. It gave us a (sometimes) very funny man but ... sometimes such comes to bite you in the butt eventually, even if temporarily. Of course, that's all my personal conjecture and I could be full of it. Not like I know the man.

The best thing about winter - even "sea-level California winter" - is that your GPU temp while playing video games stays below 60C all the time without any effort. Assuming one hasn't jacked up house-heating ofc. Anyway ... it's a crisp cool morning, hubby should be driving home this afternoon and I am currently puttering about in 7 Days to Die, generate map after map, just because I can/it passes the time. Oh and it's more fun than doing something productive, like ... cleaning or packing.

32GB is no longer excessive ... I need moah RAM.

I bet if we quote for a project like that it'd be more like $40k. I mean yeah, depends what company you're talking to etc but still... People try to rip us off all the time because we're from the SFBay Area/Peninsula, therefore we must be billionaires. There was this Sacramento chimney inspector, and he said ours was not safe (too many flue cracks, smoke would back up into the house). He said he could fix it directly or via putting in an insert sleeve for $30,000 or so. Hubby lul'd.

Some of his points have been a point for ages, but I do agree with the concept that tv streaming "killing" DVD sales - which used to be a way for films to make up costs after theater release results - could be a major factor re: budget risk taking from studios. Among other things, ofc.

Hubby's left for the other house and I'm not going (nothing for me to do up there now, atm, since I'm not a handyman type, so I'd just be sitting around bored). So that means I'll be alone for a few days. PARTY! ...or more likely, just fluffing around like usual and feeling a little lonely at night. Days are fine but nights w/out hubby's snores are weird. Maybe I'll order some fave comfort foods that hubby doesn't like.

7 Days to Die's alpha20 is out in "experimental" release. So I've been mucking about with that a little bit. The new map generator is much faster and they changed the way the maps are formed - plus you have more options when creating - but generating one sucks of system RAM like no tomorrow. The 10k sized map (9-10 min. to generate) ends up crashing the game half the time for me. 6k and 8k work fine but I have to exit the game after its made and restart to load/play it or it'll crash because the 20gb+ ram isn't initially released and trying to load the game on top. I'll stick to 6k maps (3.5 minutes to generate). I feel bad for anyone with less than 32ram, although maybe they'll improve that aspect later. Anyway, the new buildings are awesome, the way they do roads is much better/improved and a lot of textures have improved. So graphically it's a bit nicer looking, performance has increased a fair bit despite that. That all said ... despite numerous gameplay changes, it's still the same basic game and I still play it the same basic way. It's just...prettier. Although, at least they made food very slightly harder to keep up in the first early days of a save because they changed farming a lot.

Is it weird when you want to be warm-ish but hate the overall house to be warm and just want constant spot heating like heating pads on your feet/lap? ...older I get the more I mentally dislike "cold" but I also still can't stand feeling like my face is too warm/I'm breathing heated air. Like when ppl run a car heater at high blast the whole way, or ppl who have the house air-forced heater jacked to 80F constantly where when you stand up you feel like the top half of the house is awash with hot air. It's not so hot you're sweating or anything but the face/air ... can't take it. My face has to be "cold." But the rest of me wants to be "comfy/mildly warm/don't need extra clothes."

I keep meaning to try watching that Netflix modern-western with Benedict Cumberbatch in it ... Power of the Dog or something like that ... that's getting general rave reviews for some reason, but then I just keep watching soap opera melodrama kdrama's instead. Also, after Breaking Bad and Fargo series, I have a difficult time watching Jessie Plemons. Because of those roles, his face just instantly annoys me.

This is why I get so annoyed that consoles still want to make 500GB their default storage solution. I wouldn't say I rely on them heavily because I like to avoid major spoilers, but looking for a gameplay video or two is the first thing I do these days. Mostly to skim through the first couple hours of gameplay quickly in order to find out if the basic gameplay mechanics may be something I can't stand - often those dev. descriptions and Steam "user" tags don't really tell me much in that regard, since stuff like "RPG" "Action" "Open World" "Souls-Like" "Survival" and anything else have become so generically used they mean almost nothing.

Cat that has trained an entire apt. complex to do its bidding.

I have continued (for now) to ignore Guardians of the Galaxy in favor of Dysmantle - the latter has sucked me in quite a bit. It's not some uber game but it does hit all the little notes for obsessive but casual gameplay that I like, and is not a major enemy-fest like typical ARPG's. It's a great game for wasting 2-3 hours at a time with. What Dysmantle is not: --a base builder. There is no base building. --linear/concrete directives/goals outside of the loose "story" main quest --a true survival game, ala hunger, thirst, severe conditions you have to survive. Foods just gives you a perm. bonus first time you cook them, after that they heal HP if you cook at a stove vs. the camp/rest sites, so they are like after-combat heals. Heat/cold are a factor but you just craft and put on items to deal with it and that's it. --there are what I would call perks you can choose from that give bonuses, when you level, but there is no "chr. build" skills type stuff --there is no real penalty for dying repeatedly. At first you drop a corpse holding any loot, then later a perk makes even that not occur. What Dysmantle is: --a giant map you get to explore/expose at your leisure, looking for all the little things and doing the minor quests here and there. --the obsessive collector/hoarder dream. --things you can whack (and thus level of materials you can gather) depend on weapon type and weapon dmg (upgrading weapons is paramount) --most combat/enemies are easy, but the occasional "story" or side boss can be tough to do without dying if you're not stellar at dodging/strafing. --there are side quests/discoveries that include small tombs/puzzles or defensive challenges that are simple but often deadly. So far I've mostly avoided them, I'll go back to them later. There are these "timed loot boxes" scattered around that took me ages to figure out how to get them to open.... --a strange mixture of 98% casual/relaxing and 2% "wtf this is impossible, get the f outta here" Edit: I'm not sure it has much replay value, since it's not a randomized world, but the first time through it will take quite some time if you like it, a great time-waster, and well worth the $14 I spent ($20 if not on sale).

Aliens still has the "and then there were none" aspect. Well, almost. Also, watch the extended version if you want a little more chr. flavor to go with that all out action. Although it wasn't my personal fave thing because one: it makes the movie longer and two: I was not at all into that particular subplot of the film. But I can see why some would prefer it. The extended version of T2 was interesting with its little tidbits here and here, but not particularly needed. ....and I'm one of those few who still prefers the first Star Wars over Empire Strikes Back, even as an adult. Oh sure, I was surprised at Vader's reveal and cried at the end because of Han and Leia (I was like 11-12 or something) and Yoda was cool and all .. but I found/find Empire's pacing and its positioning as a "middle movie" a little dull. I felt Luke's tendency to be a whiny, sorta unlikable brat solidified even more, and it became ever more apparent that Mark Hamill is a limited live-action actor (Harrison Ford is much higher caliber and it showed even back then). Edit: actually, I would've been happy if the original Star Wars was all there was.

Dysmantle isn't a big screenshot game but... ...being a "survival" game the chr. has few hitpoints. You'll be dodge-rolling constantly. It's not difficult, but yeah, you can't tank/take a lot of hits at all. At least initially. Thus it's not a "horde" type game. One big or a few lesser enemies at a time (so far). Map space. You find/activate signal towers to expose a section of map. Some gates/easy entry points you have to do tasks before you open/use them. Eventually you can fast-travel between towers if you have materials to craft the thingie. The signal towers are also what keeps enemies from respawning if you upgrade them - so you can decide what sections you want to still respawn, or not. Digging for treasure. Fishing. There's no mechanic involved, just reel out and it auto-fishes. Each fishing spot is limited/runs out of fish. I think all of the materials/gatherables (like plants) are limited - they do not respawn (you can plant/farm a bit for some food items). Except deer for meat/hides. Not sure if enemy respawning keeps deer from respawning as well.

The mechanic was a little weird, especially in mouth-animation, but I kinda liked her in-game. Her role really wasn't that large and she wasn't a playable chr. The Adam Driver-ish lookin' dude with the panther was the best thing about DMC5. And PhotoMode. I guess that one guy's hoverboard like skill was ok. The gameplay itself was a pretty boring combat-fest overall, I never finished it. Edit: I'm not sure it's a game I'd want on some tiny screen, either. Altho for me that would be true of any visual-flashy game. It's like watching LotR on a 6" screen. What's the point.