LadyCrimson

The hubster got his 2nd shot yesterday. He's had no ill effects at all. I got my 2nd shot 4-5 hours ago. So far nothing, not even the early sore arm I had from the first one. Hopefully I'll be like hubby. Guess we got the good shipment of Pfizer. Or a placebo. Who knows. Also finally ran around to Verizon storefronts trying to get my mobile phone 'net access to work again. Went to the 3rd party store I bought it from, then the "official, not 3rd party" place. Both changed sim cards, restarted 'net access or something etc. First place, it didn't work. 2nd place, it eventually worked. Maybe the 2nd guy had magic sim-card fingers. Whatever, I can lurk on the forums while out and about again.

I've been on a martial arts movie thing. The more modern ones, like 2000 and later. Hand to hand, sword, polearms, etc. sequences (am not, however, into USA-style punching/boxing, blargh). In the mood for such visual mayhem I guess. Anyway ... trying to make a habit of exercising my arms etc. when I watch (not just pedaling) because my arms have always been kinda weaksauce and even worse now. I use a long heavy metal pole (maybe four feet long/) and do various arm exercises with it while standing. Maybe I should take up long stick/polearm fighting classes! ...nah, I'd probably just hurt myself. *looks up some millions view YT video on some bo staff techniques ... yup, I'd hurt myself. *

Army of the Dead - it should be noted that while I've liked a few comedic zombies movies, the original Night of the Living Dead, and (some seasons of) The Walking Dead, as well as demon-zombies like Evil Dead etc, I am not a huge general zombie person/fan. --First intro/set up scene was pretty decent. --The stuff shown during the opening credits was decent, although it also made me wish Tarantino was directing... --The rest feels like a Z version merging of Aliens and something like Ocean's Eleven. Very much so. --Definitely could have trimmed at least 15 minutes and no one would notice. --the daughter was annoying and outside of the parent/child aspect, her subplot could have been removed, honestly --They tried for a tad more characterization then is usual for Z flicks but imo those scenes went on too long and largely just slows the pacing of the film. --a few Z kill scenes here and there were great, far as those things go. --Could've used more twisted humor ... or the opposite, more serious pathos where I might've cared. --Nice cinematography/visuals, looked great on the OLED So to sum up ... if you dislike all zombie movies, nothing here to change your mind. If you love zombie chaos, there's some of that but you may find yourself fast forwarding a little bit through "character" scenes. And after the opening credits, it takes 20+ minutes to get to the main Vegas city part of the movie. Overall ... for a Z flick, it's ok. Maybe a B- at best.

Hubby's away, so I'm going to jack up the volume and watch Army of the Dead. I hear it might be a C+ to B movie. I'll report back in 90 min....wait, it's 2.5 hours long?! ....brunch first then. I'll report in a few hours.

I'm going to comment here since it's a series of movies even if I saw it on Netflix: After rewatching IP Man, I then watched the 2nd and 3rd sequel. I suddenly realized Donnie Yen was one of the guys in the movie Hero. Looks quite different. For somewhat more recent martial arts/fighting movies, I think I like this series the best that I've seen (not that I've seen tons of them). I mean, the plot/conflicts and such is typical, and each successive film is a little lesser and lesser, but those choreographed fight scenes are so good/fun. Donnie Yen is awesome. That is all.

I love Martin and Short but I'm still not going to go back and deal with Hulu's horrible (console) app user interface. I've seen a few other shows (The Kominsky Method is one) that appear to be filled with notable older actors, and they all seem ... possibly lightly amusing but of overall dubious quality/interest, at least to me personally. The glut of things to watch being made these days ... it's no wonder most of them never find much of an audience. If Cheers was made/released today, I bet it would never have become so popular/watched (in terms of ppl even realizing it existed to turn on, perhaps, hahaha) I watched a ... gothic horror/romance? ... called Crimson Peak, because it had Tom Hiddleston. Nice scenery/camerawork and atmosphere, and I liked seeing Jim Beaver as the father, but once it arrived at the spooky mansion my interest faded fast. Not sure why ... too predictable, or I didn't like the female lead chr all that much, perhaps.

Death Stranding - 63GB Borderlands 3 - 121GB (incl. some DLC) FFXV Windows Edition - 172GB (incl. the 60+GB "4k pack") ...worth it to me. But yeah...I have a habit of keeping fave games installed "forever." 2nd game SSD now required to keep O/S SSD non-cluttered. That ME rework tho - that's 120GB for all three games+all DLC, right? It's not just one game install, technically. Not that I'm buying it, either.

But do you have one of those smexy cowboy duster coats to go with it?

Apparently, zombies don't like (or couldn't catch) pet bunnies. And while it was cute and all, standing there looking around, I whacked it and ate it myself. Survival, baby! See that shard of broken glass in my hand? You can eat it to kill yourself. Which is darkly funny. (it's really a mechanic they added long ago, in case you get stuck in terrain or something, since death=respawn....I've never had that glitch tho and never bothered carrying glass around. Inventory space is tight, man.

On a lighter/less grump note - my husband turned 55 this year and is still the bestest husband in the world, the most handsome adorable dork, who makes me giggle the mostest, who will appear and stand in the doorway, then randomly start doing a silent little dancing shuffle jig for me because he sees I'm feeling down and he knows such makes me laugh. I chose well. Time to make some lunch!

I think I finally generated the "perfect" single-giant city 7 Days map. So I've been farting around in it for the last couple days. I've decided I like the motorcycle better than the 4x4 truck. Easier to drive around. Weirdly it doesn't feel as fast as you'd expect. But the extra storage access is nice for looting runs ... when you're not cheating with debug mode and just teleporting yourself around the map, that is. The game could really use ... less types of loot, tho. There are so many different items that it's kind of a looting and storage nightmare after a while. And I like loot management. But it's so much more than it was many Alpha's ago. Even trying to limit yourself a bit, you end up with 20-30+ storage chests in your base like some kind of deranged uber prep-hoarder.

It was really almost more like a spam server attack. Wasn't 20-30 spams a day or something. More like ... it took 15-30 minutes to download all the emails off the server every time I would check for new mail. And that was only what was getting through after my webhost banned some non-US IP's first. Is it likely to happen again? Possibly not. But it makes you paranoid. I don't register to things so fleetingly, either, hentai or otherwise. Nor do I like just making a new account if I forget the old one. All those emails are for things I use frequently or at least want/need a perm. email for. Like Steam that makes me email validate every single time I login via web browser instead of their client. Remember those early 'net days when most people probably used the same password for almost everything? Now you have complicated random symbols and capital letters and whatever and some people have thousands of passwords and a password manager. To me separating email/registration so severely is kinda like that. I didn't always, but now I do.

No. Yeah, I do the same/similar. I have four domains I pay for, although only two are active on hosted servers, ones I've had for years and years. Dunno if you remember when I used to host a little Kotor2 image gallery for this forums users? I still use that domain. These days I keep paying for it largely to host my game screenshots and not much else. I tried using imgur (hey, another registration! altho that type I understand more) for a while but eh, being my own image (or file) host is usually better. (Long-winded-ness starts here, skip if you want) Anyway I used to have three emails I'd use for only online registration purposes (family/home emails do not use the same domain). One finally got on a mega-spam list - email server was spammed so fiercely it nearly choked. So I deleted those and created ... let's see ... at the moment it's 45+ email addresses. Only a few of those are gamestore/company related, mostly it's all stuff like banks, hospital, DMV (US dept. of motor vehicles), game forums, Netflix/online TV, etc. All those emails give me a sense of control/organization but doesn't reduce anything. I certainly don't want create ever more for every small thing I could do online. If I did that I'd have 300 email accounts. Outside of Amazon I rarely buy anything online because that means I'd have to make yet another email. Disney+? CBS online? Photography outlet? Movie ticket buying? Register with every game company? I've tried to be with-it (edit: even finally bought a cellphone! That I never use). But nah. I've had enough. I feel like game companies take advantage of people's hobby addictions to produce this registration culture. It's (kind of) the digital version of when people sitting at a table would ask if you wanted to fill out a form to register for a prize raffle or something, as you walked by to enter the show (or whatever), which you knew was just a bid to get your information - except now you can't continue through the door to see the show if you say no and keep on walking. To repeat myself:

Every time RDR2 goes on sale on PC I think about buying it, then remember it wants a 3rd party account/signup. So I go "nope, still not in the mood for that." It's why I'm not getting the Mass Effect remaster either. Remember when games didn't need you to register for anything and you weren't bombarded with sales pitches? You just saw something on the shelf, bought it, installed, played? Those were good times. And no, it's not about muh privacy - it's games, not my medical records. I'm just tired of everything (not just game services btw) being attached to a registration process and/or constant sales and "club" messages re: the "benefits" in some pre-play UI or in my email or text msg inbox or .... Maybe one day I will just give in to it all, but so far I'm still ... Get off my lawn, companies. I'm more likely to quit gaming/the 'net at this point.

I also watched the LD&R Vol. 2. Or tried to, I kept struggling to stay awake, honestly. None of the episodes gave me any sort of "wtf" or moments that make you go "hmmmmm." (good or bad) They were all just bland. I wasn't looking specifically for bizarre violence/titillation or weirdness simply for the sake of weirdness, if that makes sense, but none of the eight minisodes were compelling or intriguing. Mind, it's not that they were bad or anything ... but if something is going to be attention grabbing/memorable in 10 minutes, imo it has to have something that grabs your brain or eyes and shakes up expectations a little bit. Technically the animation of some was very well done. I did like the one re: the home robot vacuum unit because it made me humorously snort a bit. The one with the malfunctioning spaceship/home robot was ok but felt too random/pointless (might be a nice intro to a full length movie tho). The "giant on the beach" one was ... well I kept waiting for something interesting to occur but it never does so it just became a dull narration of ... humanities sometimes inhumane/uncaring/forgetful nature? I'm not sure? It's not like I loved all episodes from Vol1 equally - for me Vol1 was fairly uneven overall - but Vol1 did have some that were quite interesting/creative/fun or at least a 'wtf am I seeing' compelling kind of thing going on that Vol2 lacks. Perhaps having only 8 episodes is just too limiting too, because everyone has different tastes (I didn't care at all about the "whales" one, for example) and far fewer shorts = fewer chances that at least a few or several of them will hit for you personally, leading to a better overall impression.

Nothing special or big name brand, he's not the type for such, unless it became more than a temp. obsession/more than learning. Judging from the boxes he bought this set (maybe a few of the sets...): https://www.amazon.com/Ultra-Sharp-Diamond-Sharpening-Stone/dp/B01FPP46W2 As well as a Trend double-sided one (180/600) ... wouldn't surprise me if this one was recommended in some YT video, haha ... I also saw him using very fine grades of sheet sandpaper - I don't know why, probably he was just curious.

I asked hubby to clarify a bit and my mistake ... he said he "probably" wouldn't use it to hold sharpening stones, he just wanted a permanent clamp. eg, he got long-term side-tracked and I misunderstood his verbal babblings. I guess it's one of those "wood working bench vises". Larger than the typical table-surface mounted clamps. Hence, undertable mount. I don't know why he's making 3000000 wood support pieces/making it seem so complicated but that's hubby. I learned not to ask for reasons on anything he does long ago. I figure it's safer. ... hubby likes the journey more than the destination. Thus he will spend weeks/months trying to be a master blade sharpener, get semi-decent at it, then will probably ... never sharpen a knife again. Like how he had a ball making those 3D printers (vs. buying one to just plug in), but doesn't care about actually printing, so now they're sitting on a shelf somewhere. He got into computers for the same reason. "How do PC's work? I must study electricity/physics/whatever and make my own! ... what? Actually using computers? Pfft, boring, I'll be in my secret lab."

Hubby's still obsessed with learning how to become a master blade sharpener (video watching all week, practice, nicked fingers, trying to create/attach the perfect-est sharpening stone holder/clamp to his worktable...) ... that sharpening sound is kind of hypnotic, until its punctuated with a curse or two. Guess I'll make and test play some more 7 Days maps.

HBO Max - "Those Who Wish Me Dead" ...well, that's a stellar cast. I had to look up a couple of the "I know that face" folk but yeah, decent acting choices. Film kind of harkens back to 70's/80's and early 90's thriller/action I suppose. Boy on the run from assassins, forest fire backdrop, danger will robinson. I could've done without seeing Jolie's PTSD flashback bits over and over in the first 30 minutes, I got the point the first time. The young boy actor does well/isn't annoying. Jolie is Jolie. Medina Senghore as Jon Bernthal's wife is the standout in some ways. Anyway, a tad above average for such but not outstanding, entertaining enough while exercycling.

Re: hair - Still can't use a pair of scissors for more than a snip or two. Past few weeks I look in the mirror and have 70's flashbacks. Soon I'll be Cousin Itt from Adams Family, only greyer and a lot more scraggly.

....along with the husband*. *no offense to any of the tidy males out there.

Mobile phone 'net account access: --worked while getting vaccinated (week ago, more or less) --few days ago the signal seemed flaky while watching videos so I switched to home wi-fi --now it won't connect to it at all and I have the little "no access" icon at the top (only wi-fi works) --restarted/rebooted, put it in airlplane, restarted, turned off airplane, etc. --no I haven't dropped it (ever) or used it as a hammer What a piece of fragile expensive junk. Maybe the internal antenna got loose/broke. I guess I have to visit a verizon place and see if they can do something. Edit: or go back to not having one. I think I can live without texting hubby that "I'm done, I'll stand at the corner" if he needs to pick me up or something.

Rewatched Hachi A Dogs Tale. Cried like a baby again. Can't help it. Now rewatching IP Man. I think I remember liking it but I can barely remember now so thought I'd look at it again. Next morning edit: Yup, IP Man is great. Not just the fun choreographed fight scenes, but overall is a pretty good genre movie. I haven't watched the sequels.

Maybe they pulled a Kirk ("borrowing" clothes from clotheslines) more successfully than Kirk.