Bartimaeus

Hey, I needed a crying Minako, so that's what I got. You remember when I said "maybe you shouldn't watch Crystal because it might ruin the original show for you", but then you said don't worry, that just couldn't happen? I think we overlooked the possibility of you ruining the show for OTHER people as a result of watching Crystal... That's one interpretation, and I think I initially tried to think a similar thing for a while, but at one point, there's a sudden cut straight into Kyoko's crotch when she's in the middle of an emotional episode and that was when I literally said "oh screw you, Madoka" out-loud; I was officially done from that point on. Some of the weirder sudden cuts to different points of view or looking super close up at a character's hands or lap is one thing, but that was my breaking point. I'm sorry, but proper framing (in both a literal camera sense in film/imagery as well as in a less literal more writing/thematic sense) is ultra important in pretty much all entertainment mediums, and Madoka repeatedly failed over and over to my standards. Well, enough whinging about Madoka - like I said before, literally almost absolutely nothing about that show worked for me, it is what it is. And here I felt like the fool for watching just the first one, . More Paranoia Agent: episodes 6 and 7. Thankfully, the bizarre nonsense from episode 5 did not continue. However, I'm starting to have trouble following this show's plot and themes in a coherent fashion, and I noticed that I completely misunderstood a major part of episode 6 for like...a solid fifteen, twenty minutes. I'm starting to get the feeling that I might need to bring out the old fan wiki to figure out what the hell this show was supposed to be about when I've finished it, .

The question most important to me: will there be an LTSC or equivalent version of Windows 11? At this point, I don't think I'll run anything that isn't LTSC on my personal devices due to how ridiculously pushy Microsoft has gotten about stupid crap in the non-LTSC versions. I did hear they're releasing another (final?) LTSC branch of Windows 10 sometime later this year, and it's about time too, since the last one was in late 2018. Hoping they didn't do anything dumb with that...

Sailor...Boob Anus? Why must you hurt me so much? Reminds me of how in Madoka Magica, a character like Mami or Kyoko would be in the middle of talking about something, possibly while they're even outright emotional about something personal, while the camera's either on their face or zoomed out on their entire person, and then suddenly it would shift down or in on to their chest or even a close-up of their crotch while they're still in the middle of talking. If you've ever seen Lindsay Ellis' Transformers video, where she talks about how Megan Fox's character actually having a lot of different stuff (motivations, personal issues, conflicts, etc.) going on and yet the camera and scene framing completely undercutting all of it by focusing solely on her body, I got serious vibes of that while watching Madoka, which felt all the more incongruous when we would also spend a solid five minutes at times just listening to characters stand around and do nothing but cry about their feelings. I can only assume that the phenomenon is much worse and more inexplicable and embarrassing in other explicitly pathetic stuff. If you must have fan service, I would greatly appreciate not being so obvious about it - especially when it serves literally absolutely no purpose at all for the scene. Incredibly random bulls-eye zoom-ins and pan-downs in the middle of characters talking are not exactly what I have in mind - makes Sailor Moon's few sketchier moments look positively dignified in comparison.

I don't know what I expected.

mfw I mention love live one time and majestic immediately watches an episode, thereby guaranteeing that he will the entire series consisting of four seasons and a couple of movies due to his OCD-ness I do believe mistakes have been made

this show sounds really annoying every time you mention something about it paranoia agent episode 5, what in the world is happening to this show, literally everything's gone completely off the rails and I'm not sure that I like it; I can only assume that this is going somewhere It's solid and sweet enough, but probably not as interesting as the stuff you've been watching lately. tbf I have no idea what that show is about, it just seems ludicrously terrible from what little I've seen of how it's presented

Honestly, I wouldn't be too upset with any of the four remaining teams winning. The Clippers are the most "constructed"/non-homegrown team, but they're not exactly a superteam; of the four teams, the Bucks have been the most recent to win it already, which was 50 years ago in 1971. It's a good field of teams left.

Well, that's a downer. I hope she was a lot older than she sounded in Cardcaptor...and nope, she was like 18 when Cardcaptor ran, and just 41 when she passed. People need to stop dying in their 40s! Except Madoka's Japanese voice-acting sucked too, and it was really more Heidi and Sakura that finally did me in in that regard, . Clear Card sure sounds disappointing...yet the fact remains, it is still not Sailor Moon Crystal, and that is a fact worth celebrating indeed!

Millennium Actress (2001) by Satoshi Kon. I was supposed to be watching Paranoia Agent, but somehow this happened instead. This is my second time watching it - the first time, I watched it in English, which even at the time of watching it, I knew was merely okay-ish at best. The main problem with that dub was that contrary to what one might consider to be ideal, the lady voicing the titular character was simply not a good choice (but the other characters were mostly fine). I liked it, but did not love it then, and had some big problems with really investing into a main story that was being let down by a less-than-great voice actress. A couple of years later now and armed with the awesome power of being more okay with Japanese voice-acting when done right...dang. I, uh, don't remember it being quite this engrossing, and it was like I was watching it for the first time again. What an odd hybridization of a serious drama and a bunch of silly comedy happening outside of the drama that works so well. Well, that's all I'll say about that, I gotta watch an episode or two of Paranoia Agent while I can. Why, oh why did Satoshi Kon have to die so young? And his next movie was to about androids with them starring as the main characters (Dreaming Machine)...could've finally been the android-related media that I've always longed for. (e): Oh, also, the animation was a lot prettier than I remember it being, but again, it's been two years since I watched it and was exposed to other...more ungood animation styles.

Lungs started inexplicably hurting yesterday, and I just woke up now with a terrible raspy cough and a headache, and now my lungs feel like agony. If I didn't have the vaccine, I'd probably assume I had covid right now...but hopefully it's something else that'll pass quickly. No fever, so I'm not sure what's going on. Miiight have to go in if I start feeling any worse. I've been meaning to do it for years. What a gosh danged hassle. At the very least, nothing had trouble communicating with protonmail, every re-activation message and "this is your new email address" message seems to have gotten through, so that's promising. Hope all goes well re: weather - I remember that the last Texas freeze wasn't so great.

I think it plays off well with his counterpart, Akane... Pretty sure that's just robo-Sauron, . I haven't, but it's looow on the list of priorities, especially because the more I see of it, the more it seems to have that sort of...faux dramatic tone to it, where the content of the show should dictate that the tone be a little lighter and display a greater range, but instead it's always somewhere in between super serious and a sort of meandering wistfulness kind of feeling (which usually annoys the hell out of me anytime I see it happen, and which I ran into with a movie I tried out recently called The Place Promised in Our Early Days and gave up after being super annoyed for 20 minutes). The top priority right now is to actually finish Paranoia Agent, so I'm really kind of screwing up by watching anything else at all right now, and I've tried out a few other shows I haven't mentioned at all here (e.g. the Big O, which I dropped after a single episode when I realized it *super* was not for me; I'm always bamboozled by the inclusion of androids as a major part of a show/movie because I love the idea of them so much, and then it literally never works out how I want it to, ). So I really oughtta work on that before anything else.

Dear lord. ...Well, actually, that was pretty much my reaction to the series as well - the discourse around that series/shows was so freaking awful that it's difficult to see how it could ever appeal or work for me, and I definitely don't want to be a part of that hot mess of people talking about it. Realistically, I'm sure there's something to it that one could appreciate if I ever really sat down and read/watched it, but like...I gots better things to do that appeal to me a lot more anyways. Plus, everyone's mad at GRRM for never finishing the book series and everyone's mad at the show for the lousy last season (and really, the last few from what I heard would be more accurate), so screw it. Non-kids comedy...interesting way to put it. I wouldn't necessarily call it that because of all the baggage associated with labelling something as a "comedy", but I get what you mean, and I think it makes sense. @majestic Not really a spoiler on Ranma, but more a comment on a general character mannerism that I appreciate in it:

Understandable - I've made the same kinds of decisions on stuff because of not enjoying the discourse on it. Rarely, I change my mind and eventually own up to it because I then understand what they were talking about and realize the discourse wasn't nearly as stupid as I once thought; more often, when I change my mind I tell absolutely nobody precisely because I do not want to become a part of the discourse which is still utterly stupid, . Yeah, I have absolutely zero patience for driving, usually makes me want to curl up and die. It's also not great on me physically given my neck and shoulder issues. A real pro-tip from me to all of you is to never break your neck, because things will never go back to normal once you do, even years later.

I've slowly been in the process of moving away from using Google email to protonmail. Seems like that's been a fortuitous call, given that this morning Google decided to lock me out of my account. Try to log in, the password is correct but they want to "confirm it's [me]". They ask me what my recovery email address is, I type in the correct email address. Not good enough: they want to send me a confirmation code to that same recovery email address; I get that email on the recovery account and type it in. Still not good enough, please enter a phone number to receive a text message with a verification code. I get the code, I type it in, get "we can't verify it's you, try again later". What a great system we have where you setup these different recovery and authentication options and then Google just arbitrarily decides they're not good enough anymore even though nothing's changed. I'm still logged in at a different location, thankfully, so now I'm in the process of moving my remaining stuff over to the protonmail account. This is exactly what I want to spend my morning doing, thanks Google. I already had so many reasons to want to move away from Google, but literally no longer being able to use my email address has jumped right to the top of the list. And it's not like there are any actual humans to talk to resolve this sort of thing at Google...everything is automated, so if the automated systems don't work, please proceed to lay down and die. (e): Oh, also, I can't log in at all through Firefox anymore - I only get to the "type in your email address" bit of the login address, hit enter, and they don't even ask for a password, they just say my browser is insecure and I should try using something else...like Chrome, perhaps? At first, I thought it was because my version of Firefox is one version behind, but I think it's actually because of one of my privacy add-ons (possibly my canvas spoofer) is interfering with their authentication process. I use an insanely long randomly-generated unique password - frig off and let me log in, Google.

Doc Rivers playoff teams, everyone.

Ranma's more...inappropriate than I might like, but at the very least the inappropriateness is used for good and humorous effect. My brain's just been too foggy to appreciate Sakura right now, but I'll get back to it sooner or later. It's not like I wasn't still loving it the last episode I watched - honestly, I went through the same thing with Sailor Moon (and many other shows), I occasionally need breaks for one reason or another (whether because of real life stuff, different interests suddenly taking precedence, a temporary change of pace making it better when I come back to it, whatever). I rather like Ranma so far, so you can consider it a sort of semi-recommendation until I watch more and figure out what the rest of the series is going to be like. Like I said, apparently the show was cancelled for being...like it is, and I like what it is right now, so that could be quite bad news for me, . Yeah, I was terribly disappointed too.

The downfall of traditional movie posters is pretty despicable. There are many older movies whose conceptual poster(s) gave off such specific vibes and themes that they immediately interested me in watching them, and they were very often surprisingly accurate and true to that, making the artistry even more impressive. Sadly, even on the rare occasion I see art in a poster for something new(er), the artistry seems to simply no longer be there as it used to be. Oh well.

Like a third of the time, it looks like they have it and could go the distance; one of the other thirds they look like they're an 8th seed that only just barely qualified off of a play-in game; the last third they don't even look like a professional basketball team. I don't know exactly what I'm watching, but it surely does not inspire confidence.

It honestly does, especially past the first...3 or so episodes? There was some stuff I liked in those early episodes, but it was probably like 25% stuff I liked 75% stuff I didn't (...very roughly); the last few episodes, in comparison, were more like...maybe 90% stuff I liked, 10% stuff I didn't? Much better second half than first half. Was excited at the idea of a second season until my inner pessimism automatically kicked in - it will be trash until it's demonstrated that it's not, . And yeah, the animation does...mostly look terrible. It has a few good points, but it's not much. The key thing for me was that I didn't hate how literally *all* of the characters looked, just...some of them. Oh, okay. So I'm one hundred percent going to hate the titular character. Yes, that is indeed a very different way to interpret that! The concept art doesn't look bad. Less sold on the art for the show overall, from the clip you showed me, particularly given the show's crassness, but I watched the following trailer and got a better idea of what you mean... ...But this trailer was positively awful and did the opposite of making me want to watch the show. You win some, you lose some. Question for anyone who's watched Ranma 1/2 (@Amentep?): does the show radically change after the first 18 episodes (i.e. the "first" season)? From what I saw online, basically the show was a complete ratings failures and was effectively cancelled in the middle of the first season (those first 18 episodes), and they ended up overhauling and retooling the show for a second season, and that's what succeeded. What I want to know is what exactly this "retooling" entails, because I'm about halfway through this "first season" and it's been extremely character relationship-driven and very humorous while the fighting and normal shonen stuff has really taken a bit of a back seat to those elements. In other words, although I have had a couple of issues with it, this first season (so far) has completely kicked Yu Yu Hakusho's butt and dragged its sorry corpse out to the dumpster and then incinerated it, and I guess I'm wondering if all that's going to be thrown into the garbage in another 9 episodes or so. Also, out of town for the next couple of days, don't expect any immediate replies/reactions if you reply to this any of you, .

how in the absolute hell did the jazz lose to the clippers these past two games

When you can and do animate like that, who cares what the content is? Any and all objections are automatically overruled, . Yeah, I'll also be surprised if I like Devilman Crybaby, and also, good to know - I shouldn't expect to enjoy Akira either, . That crap has looked terrible since like the 90s when they started experimenting with it (e.g. Beauty and the Beast), still looks terrible today (...also, speaking of western animation, Invincible did it as well, as it was the most jarring part of an already not very appealing animation style). Yeah, I definitely don't expect that. I just need...different styles than what we've currently got today. Might have to wait a decade or two for some other styles that I like better to become "in", I guess. Oh well, there's plenty of 80s/90s stuff to check out anyways.

The close-up character animation of Violet Evergreen (the show, but also the character) still makes me want to barf, particularly when it's showing characters' faces... From what I've seen of your screenshots, the general but not strict rules with the show seem to be that up close = bad / far away = good and inside = bad / outside = good. Follow only one of these rules and you may have a nice-looking scene...or you might not; fail to follow both and it's sure to be just horrid, .

Should've already had the series well-wrapped up if the team hadn't completely lost its mind and imploded in all three away games. ...Will this be the opposite of the Mavericks/Clippers series where the away team won each game up until the very last?

Ilsa, the Wicked Warden AKA The Mad Butcher has a legit (German) Blu-ray release at the very least (legit as in actually being an HD transfer), but I don't see anything for the other three. Doesn't 100% mean it won't be, but I'd be surprised if it was.

I saw a show called Eden on Netflix that showed art like this for the preview..: Then I turned on the show for a minute and it looks like this: I feel kind of bamboozled. Not everything can look like Hilda, I guess. I almost watched another Sakura episode for the first time in over a week yesterday, but then I fell asleep before starting it instead. RIP.