Maedhros

Watched a couple of episodes of S2 Witcher. A clear step up in quality from the first season, but I'm a bit annoyed with all the unnecessary changes from the books. I'm not a book purist (omitting Tom Bombadil in Lotr was the right move!), but I dislike when they change things for no apparent reason.

I had corona and my 5 days of isolation recently ended. No symptoms at all, and I only took the test because there was an outbreak in my son's kindergarten and he had to get tested (so I randomly took the test too since I was at the test station in the first place). Didn't infect anyone (as far as I know), everyone I've hung out with are testing negative, including my girlfriend.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/07/kellogg-strike-workers-pay “While certainly not the result we had hoped for, we must take the necessary steps to ensure business continuity,” said Chris Hood, president of Kellogg North America. “We have an obligation to our customers and consumers to continue to provide the cereals that they know and love.” Obligations to your customers, but not to your workers. Corporate greed ftw.

A monologue is when you're speaking at people, instead of with them. It's a prolonged talk by a single speaker, hence "mono". It's not because there aren't any other people around.

I ended up not liking Midnight Mass, despite a promising start. It just tries way too hard to be meaningful, and does it in the least subtle way with the infamous monologues. The only one that worked was the first one, when two characters who clearly care for each other talk about death.

Train to Busan. Korean Zombie film. Somehow the very predictable character arc of the tropey "busy father/working father" worked for me, and helped lift the film up from being a bang average zombie flick to....slightly above average zombie flick. 6/10

I had really low expectations with Wheel of Time, and that helped. It's a mess, but I think it's the kind of show that will get better with time. The actors are doing fine, but everyone else need to step up their game. I hope they get some more talented people to do the effects, editing and costumes among other things in season 2. It looks expensive, yet somehow still really bad despite the beautiful locations. Too shiny, colorful and clean. The music is also dissapointingly dull.

I think he's regressed a bit. I loved Arrival, liked Blade Runner and found Dune to be quite dull. For me his films are very lacking in "joy", for lack of a better word. Everything is very cold and humourless. It's something he has in common with Christopher Nolan.

Kotor 2. Only Korriban and the droid planet remaining before Malachor V. My last playthrough I stopped at the droid planet - found it very boring. Anyone know if it's possible to just skip it despite having the mod installed?

Arcane on Netflix was pretty good!

Watched Shang-Chi too. Same formula as always. Meh out of 10.

From what I read, it was Ingtar, not Agelmar.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/11/success/portugal-employer-contact-law/index.html In Portugal, it's now illegal for your boss to call you outside work hours.

Double post

@BruceVC Nordic food culture is bad, especially in my country where frozen pizzas are everyone's favorite meals. However, Nordic food can be insanely good when done by people in-the-know. Especially sea food. If I had the choice to go to a top 10 Scandinavian, or a top 10 German/Austrian restaurant I'd recommend the former any day of the week, because of the sea food. Edit: I'm saving up to go to Restaurant Under myself, in the south of the country. The ambience is pretty sick:

^ Looks much better than the first season.

Strange, I guess it depends on where you live? I could read the article fine, but the WSJ link was blocked for me.

More like workers of the US losing ground. Hopefully one day you'll join the civilized world when it comes to worker rights. Edit: Link that doesn't require subscription: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-27/democrats-drop-paid-family-leave-from-biden-economic-plan

I hope SOME legislative accomplishments are at hand, for the American people. It's about time you get some federally mandated worker rights over there, so it's not just based on who your employer is. Paid holidays, paid lunch breaks, paid parental leave, and more should be some of the goals to work towards: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-far-behind-the-us-is-in-offering-worker-protections-2019-7?r=US&IR=T#the-us-doesnt-guarantee-pay-after-getting-laid-off-7

Basically how I felt. It's all very dour too.

Considering how much we differed on The Wailing I'm surprised our tastes align so much! 12 Angry Men, Parasite, and Fellowship of the Ring (by far the best of the three Lotr films) are possibly in my top 10 as well. I like all the other films here too, but I've yet to see The Thing. It always creeped me out when I was younger so I never got around to fully watch it. I struggle with a top 10 list because it'd change so much depending on the criteria. I get so much pure enjoyment out of certain films, but are they meaningful enough to be in a top 10 list? Some films are also incredible as movie theatre experiences, but rather bland on the homescreen. So a spontaneous top 10 list without much consideration it is: The Twilight Samurai Manchester by the Sea Silence In Bruges The Act of Killing Das Leben Der Anderen Alien Children of Men Mulholland Drive The Royal Tenenbaums

Check out In the Loop (same director) if you liked The Death of Stalin.

@Bartimaeus My wife (at the time of watching it) disliked The Wailing too, and couldn't for the life of her understand why I loved it so much. For me it's one of the most atmospheric films I've seen these last years. Loved the rather slow pace, and that it still managed to deliver tension, unease and mystery throughout.