Bartimaeus

I played about an hour of it a couple of weeks back and thought it seemed very promising with both interesting and entertaining writing, hope to get back to it soon - had the complete opposite feeling in my initial impressions of Pillars of Eternity and Torment: Tides of Numenera, and I tried to stick with Pillars of Eternity and ended up hating it, so I'm hoping that my intuition is correct again here.

Naturally, literally just a couple of days after Bernie takes a projected lead in Iowa for the first time a couple of weeks before the primary (with Elizabeth Warren in second), a story leaks about how he claimed a woman would not be capable of becoming president directly to Elizabeth Warren. Ignoring that he asked Elizabeth Warren to enter the 2016 race (before he did so himself when she declined), ignoring that he campaigned for Hillary in 2016 after he was defeated, ignoring that he has been saying publicly for 30 years now that a woman absolutely could and should become president. What a dirty bit - politics are so fun.

Seems like every time a wildcard team has a big upset win in the first round, they get absolutely crushed in the second week. ...was what I was going to say until this Titans-Ravens game happened.

Summarized on reddit: "US kills Soleimani after Iranian-backed militias try to pull off Benghazi 2.0. Iran's response? (1) January 7: During the funeral for Soleimani, in the midst of burning American flags and speakers touting the impending destruction of the United States of America, a panic-driven stampede kills 56 people and injures 200 in Kerman. (2) January 8: Iran's "hell on Earth" response against the U.S. (Operation Martyr Soleimani) is ultimately a very mild airstrike against U.S. bases with no casualties. Even radical Iranians are left confused at the extremely tepid "retaliation." The Ayatollah's threat of Washington in flames winds up being the most anti-climactic moment in world history since the end of Kill Bill Volume 2. (3) January 8: After Rouhani condemned the U.S. for its downing of Iran Air Flight 655 on January 6, Iran goes oopsie daisy and shoots down a plane - Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 - killing 176 people, 147 of whom were Iranians, in the process. (4) January 8: After the airplane goes down, Iran gets extra silly, immediately puts out a statement within 30 minutes of the crash that says, "It was a technical issue. Nothing to see here. Move along now" which immediately makes everyone twice as skeptical. (5) January 9: The U.S. ultimately responds by announcing even tougher economic sanctions against Iran...and Tehran doesn't respond, ending the 3 day brawl with an embarrassed Iran, 200+ dead Iranians, 0 killed by the U.S., and now Iran can no longer crow about Iran Air Flight 655 for another 3 decades without reminding their own citizens they killed 176 innocent people, mostly Iranians, due to a freak accident while trying to make a flex on the world stage." I, uh, guess Trump wins this one? Somewhat accidentally? Alright, I guess. Still bad to murder people in other people's airports, especially after asking them to come into talks with you, but this was an incredibly weak response. Maybe there's something to the "lunatic leader is intimidating" factor...

Poe's Law, man.

@Mannock I don't know about you, but even though the Packers should be favored in pretty much every matchup besides QB, I'm still having PTSD flashbacks to that 2014 NFCCG. @Injuries: One thing I'd like to see is the cap being adjusted for time lost to injuries. Something with a lot of conditions like if a guy is injured pre-season (or near the end of a season) and loses the entire ensuing regular season, don't count his salary against the cap at all, while maybe if they're lost for the season mid-season, count the games lost only half against the cap (half is better than nothing, but it's "only" half to reduce gaming the system which I'm sure teams would do with minor injuries if they got the full number back), etc. The cap is so, so important to constructing a football team that having a couple of key injuries can absolutely cripple a team, so it'd be nice to make the team's job a little easier on this front in at least regards to injuries.

Good job, Guard Dog. You really blew it for the rest of us!

That's one of very few teams I didn't want to see him go to. Oh well!

Thought the Vikings were going to lose handily, wanted the Vikings to win, I am pleasantly surprised. Packers may no longer be the worst 13-3 team, especially seeing as we beat the Vikings twice. Also think we have a much better chance of beating the Eagles/Seahawks than the Saints...but also, I don't think the Vikings have much of a chance against the 49ers, who we match up horribly against, so that's not great.

I did my part in picking the Patriots!

Yeah, I kind of just assume it's all hack fraudulence until proven otherwise. There's been too much time in between this one and the last (and also I didn't think either Clear Sky or Call of Pripyat were nearly as good or interesting as Shadow of Chernobyl), plus the developer had been completely dissolved for a time, plus now there's an engine change, etc. Expecting nothing with a project like this simply makes the most sense.

I'm not too bothered by the tinnitus itself - only once in a while does it get extreme enough to really get to me (like, maybe 2-3 times a year, which really isn't bad at all - it used to be worse and more frequent when I was a kid/teen, but slowly got better over time). The misophonia, on the other hand, is triggered by a lot of different things, but that's why I always keep sound dampening earplugs near or on me, .

@Azdeus My father had tinnitus going back to a head injury in his early 20s, as well as severe misophonia of many things, including the tinnitus. Both were always much worse when he drank. I've had tinnitus and misophonia since I was a kid as well, but 'unfortunately' won't ever discover if it has the same effect on me.

Two of the Vikings' top 3 CBs will be out against the Saints...against Drew Brees...in the dome. And the last one standing is Xavier Rhodes who has been notably trash this year. I'm just not feeling it for the Vikings, unfortunately.

I always hedge my bets with pick'em: if there's a matchup that I really want to go a certain way but the odds are against it, I always pick against the team I want to win so that if they win, I'll be happy that I was wrong, while if they lose, I at least have the consolation prize of being right. So with that said, Patriots over Titans, .

...followed up with Aaron Rodgers and the offense looking like absolute utter garbage against the 32nd passing defense. Nice! (e): As is a yearly tradition, I have passed away during an insanely needlessly anxiety-inducing Packers victory. RIP Bartimaeus. Worst top 2, possible 1 seed team I can remember seeing, but we *do* have a bye week.

I'm going to call them Holland even harder now.

you clearly have no appreciation for #girlbosses

Somebody didn't split the thread properly...

Okay, I am a big fat liar hypocrite. My buddy was rewatching all the Star Wars in preparation of this pile of crap coming out, and I somehow managed to convince him that watching the Holiday Special was integral for bridging the gap between A New Hope and Empire. Unfortunately, he made it a requirement that I had to sit through it with him. Suffice to say, Star Wars has always been a total sham. What an uncomfortable viewing experience. (e): Here's some images from it that I took for all of you: Yes, that is Boba Fett riding a dinosaur. Yes, he really did debut in the Holiday Special.

Even though the Packers turned it over like three times plus another recovered fumble or two, that was a surprisingly complete game and victory by the Packers against a playoff team they'd never beat on the road in their stadium before. All but secured a bye week now.

Haven't there been offensive line injuries as well? My hope is that the Packers win tonight, the Seahawks somehow just barely beat the 49ers next week, and the Packers become the most fraudulent 13-3 #1 seed in NFL history.

Didn't play either it or the first. Never thought it looked like a game I would enjoy the gameplay mechanics of - had a huge amount of trouble with Neverwinter Nights 1/2 as it was, even though I'm a huge BG/PST nerd (the switch from 2D to 3D was not kind on CRPGs in either gameplay or verisimilitude for me, even when I was trying to play them in the mid-2000s). @injurai Characters acting like actual grounded people is definitely something that tends to be missing in "epic" series, whether it be games or movies. Characters being perfect is not good - characters being "cool" all the time is not good, either. I don't want characters that are total clowns (prequels, anyone?), but most of my favorite characters from any type of media have flaws, make mistakes, attempt to learn from those mistakes, occasionally reflect upon themselves and their behavior and the way they perceive the world, have rare character moments define, evolve, and fit them, but also occasionally suffer setbacks that lower them. People live and breathe, and tend to experience a wide variety of emotions when placed into unusual or dangerous circumstances - candid, human moments make the great moments, whatever form they may take for a given character, all the more special while also making the character (and the work as a whole) more believable and relatable.