Bartimaeus

Power's been on and off all night, big blizzard for two days now. Was outside for like 40 minutes at about 4:30 AM when suddenly the power kicked back on, and wow, it's hard to really get a feel for light pollution until something like that happens. The transition from being outside for that long with only having that weird kind of snowfall light diffusion (where there's no apparent source of light yet everything has this kind of unnatural glow to it, almost like you'd see in video games in "dark" areas that aren't actually nearly as dark as they should be) to all the lights in your area suddenly roaring back on all at once makes it feel like you went from early morning straight to mid-day. Light pollution's no joke...and I barely live by anyone!

Yeah, it's not like I can't understand how one might like and certainly respect it more than disposable yarbage like Maverick...but it failed to appeal to me on pretty much every level, which doesn't necessarily make it contemptible trash - it does, however, mean that I really didn't like it. I've always touted the 75/25 rule: 75% subjective "how much did this appeal to me and how much did I enjoy it" vs. 25% objective "how well was this made". Being really great on the objective side can help me appreciate something I'd otherwise be fairly neutral on, but if you're completely failing on the other side, it's just not gonna do you much good in the grand scheme of things. I can't sit through and pretend to enjoy a film that was perfectly made if I hate everything about it.

Almost everything about The Northman felt bad to me, so that rating is honestly at least a little kind. Characters and performances that I didn't like, a story and themes that I didn't like, even visuals that I often thought were ugly and didn't like. At least Maverick had some pretty neat plane footage and plane action, which is something even with all of its other maladies. If it hadn't been for liking The Witch and The Lighthouse as much as I did, I would've have stopped watching within the first fifteen minutes...but I didn't, and that was obviously a big mistake, and also plays somewhat into how miserable the experience was. I expected Maverick to be utterly terrible, but it had very mild entertainment value; I thought The Northman would be good, and it had pretty negative entertainment value that I forced myself through, and as you know, I am quite famously bad at and very miserable when forcing myself through hours of something I am not having a good time with. Whoops.

I edited that in after the fact just for you, but it's true! Maverick got a 5.5/10 while Pinocchio got a 6/10. Other films this year: Everything Everywhere All at Once (8.5/10) The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (7/10) Barbarian (7/10) Watcher (6.5/10) Nope (6/10) Death on the Nile (5/10) The Northman (4.5/10) You could do worse than a 6/10, . Overall, 2022 wasn't too bad of a year for films for me.

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022). It's all well made as you might expect, and the fascist Italy setting is used to some effect...but did I enjoy it? Eh, kind of, I guess. Out of the 2022 films I've seen, at least I liked it slightly more than Top Gun: Maverick, .

still not as bad as the one time I tried to post a 400 MB one and dropbox and imgur both exploded trying to host it the power to make high quality, correct FPS gifs in but a few seconds is one that requires great responsibility which I do not and will not exercise whatsoever I need me some of that for my messed up neck and shoulders

At least it wasn't stolen? In the states, you would have to specifically get signed/verified delivery (i.e. face-to-face, make sure you're actually home) for them to bother with that, otherwise they just drop it on your front porch or whatever and you hope somebody doesn't take it, particularly if you have no idea if something was delivered and you only check hours later. Usually you only get that service for extra money or on high value items.

it's only 81 MB (instead of 3) to do it properly, I don't see what the big deal is

If you check, Katphood actually visited two weeks ago, so he was still kicking at least then - last time I checked, it was a hell of a lot longer than that, I think a couple of months at least. So a little bit of good news: look at all them post likes he handed out! Of course, with how things are going there, a lot can happen in two weeks...

I had a brain fart - for some reason, I was imagining that the Cowboys would become the #2 seed if the Vikings were to fall out of it, but of course, duh, Eagles are division winners, so Cowboys would just be a wild card, thus denying us a Packers-Cowboys playoff rematch in the event of the Packers magically making it, . By the way...Jalen Hurts seems like he's gonna be MVP, .

Forget Singin' in the Rain, we're onto benchmarking in the rain. Bizarrely no musical numbers, though - somewhat disappointing for long term fans of the franchise. (e): While I wouldn't ever buy something as ridiculous as the 7900 XTX, I am curious to see how the rest of the series shakes out. Perhaps it's time to finally upgrade...

I'm not expecting to love it even though I know KP said it was great, purely on the basis that I have not particularly enjoyed the couple of other things I've watched by del Toro. I'll give it a try, but... It's really awful.

As difficult as it is to believe, the Packers still somehow have a route to the playoffs...if they win out. If they win out, it's not *that* unlikely they could make it, but it is pursuant to a few different requirements. I do not believe this will happen for the simple reason that the idea of the Packers winning out is ludicrous and the most unlikely thing to happen out of everything, but: Again, requires the Packers to win out, and they have the Rams, Dolphins, Vikings, and Lions left to play. However, it is a pretty possible path. Give me that little bit of hopium, at least to care enough to keep tuning in, .

Seems to me the only team that has looked consistently good the entire season is the Eagles...and maybe the Chiefs. I've seen too much ugly, inconsistent football from everyone else. Great teams losing games is perfectly normal over a 16...17 game season, but I'm not seeing very many great teams even with that in mind.

Yeah, I've only seen the Home Alones out of that list too...and A Christmas Story which was not on it. Growing up (i.e. 20-15 years ago), Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Matrix, and some other completely non-Christmas-related films were my family's Christmas movies.

Second grade might be a little on the young side, yeah. It's also a pretty heavy movie when you look past all the silliness, particularly with respect to what she and her sister have gone through in their lives. Hopefully someday there'll be some kind of catharsis for all that, buuut probably not right this moment. It helps when there are other things you like that you can focus on so those kinds of issues don't seem quite so pressing or noticeable. I didn't really have that here, though - live action musicals just ain't my thing by and large, so it felt like they were shoving it in my face just about near constantly past the first fifteen minutes or so of the film.

I'm not normally one for demanding that which is old to kowtow to modern sensibilities or anything like that, but man, it was just so uncomfortable. Nightmare Before Christmas is my niece's favorite film as of the past year or so, so I've gotten plenty of that, believe you me...and you know what, Little Shop of Horrors is fine, too - whatever issues I had with it weren't to do with the musical numbers. But...for the most part, I just don't really enjoy unnaturally choreographed live action stuff, be it musicals like Singin' in the Rain or Star Wars prequel lightsabre fights. Something about it kind of acts like a drill into my brain and I just want it to stop. Special shout-outs to Make 'Em Laugh and Beautiful Girl especially for making me want to die; Fit as a Fiddle was my favorite, and that was the very first one, so it was all downhill from there. I thought watching it with my niece would make the film more tolerable because I already had a feeling it wouldn't be for me, but there were the other problems that stopped that from happening.

Definitely do not watch this if you do not like musicals. I can be kind of wishy-washy with them, and it tends to be easier for me to do animated musicals as opposed to live action (...in fact, it may be that the only live action musical I like is The Sound of Music). Singin' in the Rain's musical numbers did not get it right for me at all, as I'd say it was 1/3rd okay, 1/3rd ugh, and 1/3rd concentrated pain. The positive takeaway that I have from this movie is from the main character starting out as a lowly stuntman in Hollywood before becoming a star: my niece loves that kind of silliness. I told her that was actually a real job that people do in order to film some of the crazier stuff you can see "actors" do in movies and TV, and that there's a real talent in learning to avoid getting seriously hurt for it, and she seemed to really like the idea. So at least there was that.

Alright guys, I've never seen Singin' in the Rain (1952) before, and I was trying to watch it with my older niece because she likes musicals and I figured this was a good way to strike it off my list of "top films of all time" "classics" to watch. We got halfway through it before pausing it for unrelated reasons, and it's just...an absolute horror show of sexist trope after sexist trope, and it is physically hurting me to sit through it with her. She's blissfully unaware for the most part and is appropriately laughing at all the silly stuff and I guess that's fine, but like...for those of you who have watched it, is this just a product of its time and that's the way it is, or does it eventually shift gears, or...something? Woof, it is not good.

Using a shield can make a lot of sense if either... A. You're just not that great at reacting quickly or consistently getting your timing windows down. It's okay to not be great at soulslike games and the skills they require - do your best with the tools the game gives you. B. You're facing an enemy whose moveset you either don't know, can't seem to understand, or which has some kind of unusual advantage that makes it difficult to avoid without a shield. If you've played PVP, you should know that B comes into play when you're fighting another player whose weapon you don't really have great familiarity with, particularly if said weapon has quick strikes that are difficult to react in time to (I know, for example in DS1, my most favored weapon the Great/Lifehunt Scythe had the sprinting light attack that was very difficult to effectively counter without a shield because when another player is sprinting straight into you, it can be difficult to read if or when exactly they're going to attack and the scythe's sprinting light attack goes off unusually quickly for a heavy weapon - was always my favorite for scoring quick and cheap hits with virtually no chance of reprisal, particularly because even if it's blocked, the Great/Lifehunt Scythe still builds up bleed out).

Yeah, that's how I felt going into it, particularly knowing Tim Burton was involved. My thinking was "this show is probably going to focus on all the wrong things while ignoring what I like most...I guess I'll give it maybe ten minutes to convince me otherwise - it's a murderous goth girl protagonist, I have to at least give it a try". Uh, oops.

I would agree that the show had some weaknesses. The thing that bothered me the most for like the first half of the show is that...

Still haven't ever played the Bloodborne DLC. Someday, the game will either be on PC or on emulator - I'm willing to wait however long it takes.

Wednesday, the end. Yeah, so it's really like...just a more differenter and lower scale Harry Potter with a little Sherlock Holmes mixed in (the good Sherlock Holmes, not that revolting Martin Freeman and whateverhisface swill). Again, not at all a bad thing, I actually quite enjoyed it, even with all of its goofiness. I pretty famously don't much go for this kind of thing, so it may or may not be saying something that I did in this case, I don't know - your mileage may vary. It's a recommendation from me if it seems like something that could potentially interest you, though.

The human garbage dumpster known as Senator Krysten Sinema has left the Democrat party following Warnock's win in Georgia, .