Bartimaeus

It's less to do with however good Grim Dawn might be, more to do with that I am not, and have not been, interested in any ARPGs for many years now, so I'm not going to put any time into playing a new one. Path of Exile was the last one I put more than a couple of hours into (probably about a handful of years ago now) and I stopped playing it when I had a lagspike that killed my character on the (then) final boss of the game. Felt no urge to keep playing, and have never felt any urge to play any new ARPGs since. With D2, there's nothing new to learn, it's not complicated or particularly challenging, it's just a matter of playing an old game for a few days until I've had my fill.

Big Trouble in Little China (1986). This was the dumbest 80s action movie in the history of dumb 80s action movies, maybe ever. Everything everyone said and did in this movie seemed like it was written to be as dumb as humanly possible. It was somewhat amusing in a "what the hell is wrong with you" kind of way, I guess, but didn't do much for me beyond that.

Two things: 1. The forum software inexplicably loves to color-shift my avatars, and I have no idea why. It's not as noticeable with this one, but it was super noticeable with the previous one (to me, since I was very familiar with the previous image I had). 2. For some reason, the forum software would not accept this one in .png no matter what I did, so I actually had to save it in a .gif instead to avert some kind of inexplicable and unexplained error (and no, it wasn't due to the size, the limit of which is like 100 KB and mine was ~82 KB). So in conclusion...circle avatars and the whole avatar upload process is crap on here and the forum eating posts and really the whole post-submitting form is crap on here. I am trying to think of what got better on here since the forum upgrade...the easiness of embedding images and videos, I suppose? Of course, there have been many times where I *didn't* want to embed something and found it very difficult NOT to...so, really, all in all, it's been a bad deal. Curse the Obsidian forums!

Google says that's Justy Euki Tylor from The Irresponsible Captain Tylor. Right, then. Meanwhile, I can't figure out what KP's is from at a glance because approximately a billion different people have used it for their avatars across many different platforms and it's too much work to sort through that crap. I would also like to point out that I'm the only one that changed my avatar in good faith - the rest of these cretins did it just to troll you and/or simply follow the leader, @majestic, .

The one thing I appreciate about Last Tour is the fact that it's clearly a more toon-esque style, which naturally makes it less offensive to me than bad attempts at non-toon styles...even if I still don't like it. PSA: Circular avatars are still dumb. vs. Kind of makes it look like she's not wearing any clothes because it cuts out her shoulder - thanks, I hate it.

I looked at all of those, and I was like, "Yeah, thing is, I actually like Sakura: Clear Card more still..." Then I actually looked back up and was like "wait, actually, no I freaking don't, they look like horrific aliens". All of these look pretty bad to me, but if I had to pick one that looks the most terriblest, it is Love Live...followed by probably Crystal (especially if you're looking at season 1 Crystal which I don't think is the particular screenshot you included), then Clear Card, then...I guess Last Tour, then Blood-C. So I guess you're right.

Yeah, considering how wretched the trailer looked, it was surprisingly fine. Well, I'll disagree with you on the art style which I think is bordering on hideous, of course, but whatever, .

The excitement of a new ladder is literally the only draw to ever playing again for me, and that possibility will be gone soon once the original game dies what with D2:R and all. I'll probably never play an ARPG ever again, for a few different reasons. Trading was a disaster in that game until d2jsp came around. Can't imagine going back to in-game trading. Uber Diablo was added back in 2003 (1.10), while Pandemonium came in 2005 (1.11). But if you were using the ancient Guided Arrow bug, that was in 1.09 before either of those, .

Gear: Yeah, I didn't generally ever play anything that required gear because high-end builds didn't interest me that much. Exactly three characters really matter PvE in Diablo II: your generic Sorceress (early ladder do-it-all), a Hammerdin (later ladder magic/rune-finder), and a Smiterdin (Uber/Pandemonium-killer). Everything else is really just for PvP or for fun, because nothing else can really match those three's effectiveness for the jobs they do. Though there is something to be said for fun, of course, if you like a particular class' playstyle. But I'm not a huge fan of D2's janky PVP, so my experience with non-Sorceress/Paladin characters is admittedly a lot more limited - I've probably made exactly one "serious" attempt each at Barbarian, Druid, Necromancer, and Amazon...and never an Assassin because playing an Assassin is basically playing a worse Sorceress if you go the traps route OR a worse Barbarian if you go the martial route. One ladder, I finally did enough to slay Uber Diablo and Pandemonium, and I have never been particularly tempted to put that much work into another ladder since. If I ever play, it's just as a glass cannon sorceress built to boss-rush* that I play for the first week or two of ladder to make some quick early ladder money** and then I run out of steam and quit, . *One of my favorite strategies is using my horribly-equipped, too low-level sorceress to join nightmare and hell Baal run games (in nightmare, she'll usually be around level 55, in hell around level 70) to slay quest-bugged Andariel, Duriel, and Mephisto before the rest of the players are able to kill Baal, thereby repeatedly giving me quest boss drops every single time I kill them as well as not suffering from the no-drop mechanic*** without having to ever share drops, and then I'll just stay with the same group of Baal runners and keep doing it in new games. And the reason my sorceress is always horribly equipped is because I sell all of the good stuff I find (e.g. SoJs) to other players immediately as I get them because I don't need them. How I play Diablo 2 is probably a little different from most people, . **As a comparison point, and I just checked right now, and a Stone of Jordan now a few months into the current ladder is worth literally 1/100th of an SoJ a week into the ladder - makes no sense to even play right now. ***The no-drop mechanic being what determines when items drops - when you have only 1 player in a game, most of all drops are deleted before you can see them, hence the term "no-drop". With additional players in the game, the no-drop chance drops significantly, so it doesn't make much sense to ever magic-find in games that aren't at least mostly full...unless you're having a bot do it for you. Of course, more players makes it a lot more difficult...

12 Angry Men (1957). The entire movie takes place in one room, twelve jurors discussing the guilt of an accused murderer where all of the evidence is stacked up against the accused. What a great movie, especially because of but certainly not just for the time - it would be great even if it were made today, though stylistic differences as a result of being made today would probably make a much weaker film out of it. I can see why it's rated up there with the best of all time: it did everything perfectly right without going too strongly one way or the other and it concluded just as it should've if you have any belief in the core concepts of "innocent until proven guilty" and "beyond reasonable doubt". Characters, dialogue, themes, plot, filming, premise...this one absolutely goes into my small "favorites of all-time" pile.

Curses are super useful...though my favorite usage of curses is having either a Wand of Life Tap or a Wand of Lower Resistance on the weapon swap of a sorceress. Either one increases the effectiveness of a sorceress greatly - Life Tap makes it so your mercenary can tank just about endlessly unless they're truly outmatched, while Lower Resistance...yeah, lowers enemies' elemental resistances and makes them that much more vulnerable to sorceress' already overpowered spells, . Sadly, Decrepify (the slowing curse) can't spawn on items with charges, .

...The thought of which naturally made me go investigate to compare for this particular scene. Nope, that just won't do - I'd rather listen to the Japanese before that. This reminds me that I should investigate whether anyone ever created a hybrid of Death, because there was a DVD release of Death in the original English dub from way back when, but the BD was only released with the new English dub, and while Death is pretty dull, it is still semi-a part of the original show. Before Trump, even a far-right U.S. politician saying something like that publicly would be shocking. Maybe not quite so much anymore... Then again, we have a two party system that kind of requires everyone in the party to kowtow to the party line, which means politicians aren't usually elected on the basis of their virulent racism, which is not the case for a multi-party system with more radical parties.

Not sure, I can't watch the Netflix version because they redubbed it with an entire new cast. It's hard for me to even listen to the Japanese because of how weird and different it is, never mind an entire new English dub. What's up with this show and re-dubbing stuff? Even these "director's cut" versions of episodes are new recordings compared to what originally aired and have new scripts, at least for the English. Anyways, that was my first time seeing that "fun" sequence...I found the English much more brutal, but I would, wouldn't I?

Director's cut of episode 22 of Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Orson Welles' A Touch of Evil (1958). It's your old-timey crime thriller that's still pretty formulaic and boring even if it's slightly wacker than the usual fare for the time. The other choices were Citizen Kane (1941) or Curse of the Demon (1957), and I probably should've chosen one of those, especially as I'm not in any way partial to crime thrillers.

Packers' All-Pro LT, Pro Bowl LG, starting C, WR2, Pro Bowl OLB1, ILB2, All-Pro CB1, and CB2 all with injuries that have taken them out for games, and will be missing all but the CB2 @Bengals in an hour. This team is danged lucky to be 3-1 right now, and I think if we somehow win this one, I'll be a true believer...but I'm expecting a loss, because that is just too much to overcome. (e): Post-game:

I was actually told it was supposed to be like a semi-comedy after I watched it, which I still am not sure if is true at all, but I wish I had thought that going in because it may have made it far more enjoyable. Good choice of favorites re: The Thing, .

I remember trying that show a year or so back and thinking it felt really...off and kind of dissatisfying. Is the show a bit better than the first few episodes would indicate? I know it has a bit of a following...

Well, at least somebody liked it! I tried really hard to get it, but there was literally no atmosphere or tension at all for me, and I just couldn't get behind the way characters were acting or why certain scenes were filmed in the way they were (there was one scene pretty early on when the "stranger" was out eating raw deer in the woods that I think was supposed to be tense/scary, but between his ridiculous glowing eyes, the over-acting, holding on to shots that were at weird angles for way too long, and having it all happen out in the open in daylight...I genuinely was unsure if the scene was supposed to be comedic or not, and I really should've stopped watching there because it obviously was not). I don't know, film didn't work for me at all, guess it did for a lot of other people, though.

Cardcaptor Sakura, episode 57:

I have to be honest, I'm kind of feeling like Jack Nicholson myself right now for having had the wisdom to bow out within the first eleven minutes. Of course, this is just a couple of awful moments within an entirety of a...26 episode show(?), but you know, they'd be moments I'd have remembered and been like "ight imma head out" because of. Thanks for fixing the censoring so that I could properly understand what was censored, by the way, .

It's not until recently (within the past handful of years) that I've become much of a movie/TV-watcher at all, so that may also play a part into it. There was a good ten years or so where I almost completely ignored it as a medium, . So what I've watched and my sensibilities, as such, are probably different from most people even more because of that.

modern anime and shoving unnecessary stupid garbage in both of our faces: I'm usually in favor of slow, less action, more character stuff. So it's probably a good idea to start off a little more down-to-earth before flipping the bowl of cereal over.

Episode 1 of Blood-C. The intro is not great, especially the song, but also we have a clip of two girls rubbing their butts together in front of everyone else in a classroom, semi-naked zoom-ins on the butt, chest, and crotch of the main character. Good first impression so far. However... To open the episode, Saya, the main character, is a shrine maiden and meditating, saying she's so close to figuring out what "the light" is...and her father says her name from behind her, and she turns around and runs to him and falls flat on her face. Whoops. Her father says girls shouldn't smash their heads into things so often as she does, and she says she doesn't, really(!)...and he says yes, yes she does. Her mother was a shrine maiden as well, and apparently they look for the "light" in order to tell the future. Time for breakfast and off to school - she runs and falls on her face again, end scene. Saya is similar to Sakura in terms of character - she's a good athlete, her mom's dead, she's expressive and over-reactive yet also kind and restrained, loves her father, tries to do her best at what she's able but wants to do more if it's to help others, and even takes the time out of her day to pick up other people's trash on way to school when she's already running late...she's certifiably a good egg. Heck, she even has some similar speaking patterns to Sakura - if you heard her, you'd know what I mean. At school, there is a girl that is berating her for being too much of a clueless rube after she tries to explain why she's late, two twin girls that say everything in unison in a kind of fashion that is impossible, a lady teacher that makes not-particularly-mean jokes at her expense, and an angsty, bratty boy that that arrives even later than she does. Die, pond scum! ...Uh, anyways, man this animation leaves a lot to be desired, . Ah, things will never go back to the way they were in ye olden anime days. At school, there's a boy she seems to be friendly with that asks her out for a meal, but she sadly has to refuse because of her shrine maiden duties and for her father's sake. Time to go back home. She gets back home and her dad is waiting for her and urges her into the shrine, then suddenly hands her sword and tells her that she must slay a demon that's appeared nearby, and I guess she must've done this before because she doesn't question any of this and immediately goes off and does just that - that's the last handful of minutes of the episode. Huh, okay. In conclusion of this experiment, honestly, that wasn't bad and it wasn't at all like the trailer made me expect, which is kind of what I figured would be the case...although I must admit I had some doubts when I saw the intro video - it's like they stuck all the ecchi elements in just the intro...but I guess it is just the first episode.

The things I watch are generally very specific to my tastes and interests. If you were a regular visitor of the anime thread, you would have already been witness to a number of occasions where someone kindly took time and effort to really think about something to recommend me a show they love that is considered a classic among anime fans, and I would literally get ten minutes into it and be like "I hate this for the following two dozen reasons, this is clearly not going to work for me on any level, I am sorry thank you and good bye", . In other words, I'm very picky and I have to go through a whole process of determining whether I should watch something, because if I make a bad choice (or someone else forces a bad choice upon me), I'm going to be extremely unhappy about it. It doesn't help that in addition to being very picky, I experience things I don't like much more strongly than the things I do like.