Bartimaeus

The wonderful difference is that Sinema can be replaced, while Manchin absolutely cannot be. No other Democrat in West Virginia has a chance of winning a senatorial seat, so Democrats should thank their stars that they have him so they could at least be able to appoint federal judges. Sinema, on the other hand...we'll see what happens - not sure whether she's on track to getting successfully primaried in 2024 or not.

I do absolutely want to see the filibuster reformed - it's only in pretty recent history that this silly "I declare filibuster" system has been around, and I think it's high time we at least go back to when you actually had to filibuster. The country didn't burn down back then, and it won't now...probably. I also do not in any way share your apparently ironclad optimism regarding who would or wouldn't vote for it - abortion is a very powerful wedge issue that I can't see any Republicans besides maybe Susan Collins doing anything but possibly abstaining about.

And it doesn't matter so long as they hold that the filibuster shouldn't be eliminated/reformed - it'll never come to a vote in the first place until that happens, and there's no reason to expect that it will at this point.

If Congress had 60 Democratic senators that could all agree to do that, I suppose they could. Or they could get about 52 and eliminate or at least reform the filibuster and do it, but I'm not sure how many people want that. The chances of Democrats ever having the senators required to do that, particularly at the same time they hold the presidency and House of Representatives...is not great.

I think we could agree that the top ten or so, which are generally the rare combinations of elite athletes and proven football talent that teams bank on being guaranteed good players (and yet, still surprisingly sometimes are not), are a little different from the ensuing ~250 dart throws that is the rest of the draft. The fact that Vegas has a good pulse on those doesn't really invalidate the rest of the draft being a series of unpredictable unknowns. I actually went ahead and went searching for team brass' reactions about Cole Strange being drafted where he was - the GM and head coach of the Rams openly laughed at the Patriots and thought Mr. Strange might still be there in the third or fourth round; the head coach of their divisional rival the 49ers said (while sitting right beside the GM) that they viewed him as being a first-rounder and that it was an example of the media not being in sync with the reality of what the actual teams were thinking. It only takes exactly one GM that thinks the same way as you to swoop in and take the guy you think will be great for you to lose that opportunity forever - all the thumb-twiddling in being concerned about "value" and what you "expected" other teams to do but didn't won't ever change that. It'd be awesome if we had the actual draft boards of teams after the fact - certainly much more interesting than what we get. As it is, the entire process is effectively a nebulous pile of baloney because we're never given enough information to reach informed conclusions about what happened. Teams probably don't want any part of their evaluation process to be revealed to other teams though, so it'll probably never change.

Mike's speech towards the end of the Picard episode 6/7/8/9 video about the show basically being the dead body in Stand by Me was pretty sad.

Something a friend linked me: With an emphasis on shoujo-y characters instead of seinen-y action, it could be great. Unfortunately, my bet is that with actual adult characters, it would probably go the latter's way... (e): Princess Tutu, episode 8 finally. Probably my second favorite episode so far, and it seemed like we finally moved the story along in a way that wasn't essentially a repeat of an earlier episode. I don't hate repetition, but since I'm still not exactly in love with the show, it's more noticeable here that most of the episodes have been structured the exact same way over and over.

It's difficult for me to see it that way when the goals and draft boards of the other GMs are completely unknown. It may be declared by the media that a guy should go in the fourth round, and so you may have "over drafted" him by getting him in the second, but there may have well been ten other GMs that would've picked him between the time you chose him and your draft pick in the next round. The inverse of this situation happens probably even more, where guys that were supposed to go much higher per the media inexplicably went several rounds lower - they immediately declare "WHAT A GREAT VALUE FOR [TEAM]!". What, because none of the actual GMs valued him as much as you guys did? With no way to determine what the GMs were going to do, it's all a load of nonsense to try to figure out whether a guy was under or over drafted. The media will have their fun with it and declare winners and losers, and that's fine, but again, really, the only draft grade that matters is three years later when you have to look back and see what that draft actually ended up giving you, . Of course, that approach is probably too results-driven - it may not be the GM's fault that freak injuries and/or bad coaching ruined prospects, but ultimately, it is the benchmark by which these guys are judged.

Although again, I didn't follow this draft whatsoever, I remember from years past that there are always at least a few media-declared "reach" or "bad value" choices in each draft - always because the particular guy drafted was placed much lower through the media-declared "consensus". Oof, you drafted a guy in the first round that we all placed in the third or fourth at best...what a bunch of bozos you all are! The most famous examples of these are probably a couple of the Seahawks' early 2010s drafts...which were dunked on by pretty much everyone in the media at the time, but they ended up being decent in hindsight, seeing as a number of those players (e.g. Russell Wilson, Bruce Irvin, Bobby Wagner, KJ Wright, and Richard Sherman) were pretty key guys that got them to two Super Bowls. There's also something to be said for the fact that while the media may have universally drafted a guy only within a certain range, GMs' livelihoods actually depend on them making the correct decisions, while nobody will remember what any of the draft mocking media clowns put which guy where a week later because nothing that they think matters. Without knowing where all 32 GMs would have drafted a player, it's pretty much impossible to tell whether they were "overdrafted" or not - maybe that guy would've actually lasted to the third or fourth round, maybe he would've gone in another handful of picks to another team that also thought surprisingly highly of him. As always, the best time to judge a draft is three seasons later after it's occurred - it's usually pretty easy to score worthless victories right after the draft has happened, but for some reason, there's a lot less teams able to claim they did great three years later.

My previous PC only had 16 GB for many years until I found and installed a dupe of its memory kit, but before then I remember my PC basically imploding when I would use Photoshop on high resolution images combined with having a browser open. Admittedly, I've had my pagefile disabled for nearly a decade now, which definitely played into it (that's a real "for better and for worse" kind of tweak...), but still - stuff can be pretty memory hungry.

Not quite the right shades of purple or (to a lesser extent) green, even if you assume this is for Rebuild, but I guess it's not the worst thing in the world. (e): That or the pictures aren't right - that's certainly possible too, but the green is a little too neon and the purple is pretty clearly too deep and vibrant. Looks like a very slightly off-brand Unit-01. Someone might've just jacked up the contrast and vibrancy on the photos, though.

You're just afraid of a repeat of Madoka, aren't ya?

From what I saw, it seemed like there were also no QBs this year, which probably also put a dent in interest.

I remember playing Last Light and right off the bat, Khan was some preachy crack-smoking hippie instead of the thoughtful old man he was in the first game and thinking "well, this isn't going to go well". Then Anna was introduced and I thought "this is going to be the worst forced love interest in gaming history"...and a few hours of playing later, it pretty much was, and that's when I quit. Glad to hear Exodus is maybe better, .

I didn't watch any of the draft, I didn't read any pre/post-draft analysis, I didn't engage with anyone while the draft was going on outside of liking Keyrock's post about it. It's a new me this year...well, it's a new me that will still probably end up watching games via illegal streaming, but still, it's a new me.

Like the Clouds, Like the Wind (1990). A cute and fun albeit pretty ridiculous film about the death of Japan's China's emperor and the women fated to become the new emperor's wives. Hmm. My only real complaint was that it was too short at about an hour fifteen - it could've easily been half an hour to an entire hour longer to really flesh out the story and more of the colorful characters (especially considering the final act, which just suddenly arrives and takes a...different turn from the rest of the film). Recommended well enough to @majestic, I enjoyed it. Episode 3 of stupid dumb Weiss Kreuz: the first six or seven minutes of this episode were a "masterclass" in storytelling. I've debated trying both Gundams and Macross, but every time I really start to consider it, I can't help but feel that it will be totally boring to me given that I need certain kinds of characters to be able to watch long shows that the 80s just don't typically have. @Sarex All the screenshots I see for this look like this: How obnoxious! That, or the people posting screenshots of it are obnoxious by trying to wow me with stupid particle spam. @majestic In the past, I have had cases of me thinking that I didn't like a singer because their instrumentals were so bad that I couldn't get a good feel for the singer by themselves. While I may forgive instrumentals I don't love, instrumentals that actually hurt my ears/brain make it so it doesn't really matter, sadly. Also, screw trumpets.

Feel bad for the Nuggets - pretty terrible how certain injuries to key players can ruin two entire seasons. Also, that comment about offensive fouls being called didn't age particularly well, and it seems like they went back to calling them like they used to be after a couple of months.

I'm normally cool with spiders, but if it's going to eventually grow into that big one, uh...yeah, I don't know, that's less than ideal.

Yeah, I took the presence of the tag to more mean "there are pretty boys in this show that are supposed to appeal to teenage girls". Combine it with the show putting the flower boys in DANGEROUS SITUATIONS where they have to RESCUE STRONG BUT VULNERABLE DAMSELS IN DISTRESS, and I do believe that is the idea, . Whereas in CCS, that's obviously not really the intent or situation...although it arguably kind of is to a degree in Escaflowne. I'll watch at least a couple more episodes to see if it continues to be inexplicably enjoyable to me. No, actually, it's just the style of music. I don't know how to explain it exactly because this is not really an area of forte for me since I've never liked it, but a whole lot of electric guitar-driven rock has a tendency to make my brain go numb - it sounds ear-thrashingly flat and dissonant to me. I weirdly don't have this particular instrumental issue with metal (although I don't like the vast majority of metal for other reasons), and I can jam out to Chuck Berry about as well as anybody, but more modern stuff just never really goes down well with me, I guess. We are all bioshounen on this blessed day.

This show is really bad, but hilarious because of strange animation/writing/scene timing decisions. I should not be laughing at people being horrifically maimed or straight up killed, but I've done it two episodes in a row now (heck, I did it several times in this second episode alone!). A little blind girl named Miyu lost her parents in an accident, and all she has left is her older brother...only, he's mysteriously stopped coming to visit her at the hospital as of late, and it's been distressing/depressing her. Meanwhile, one of the flower boys is at the same hospital because his younger sister was just crippled in a hit and run, and he happens to run into little Miyu while she's wandering around the hospital with only the feeling of the walls to guide her.

Enjoyed the first one, but the characters and story in Last Light made me quit because of how stupid and annoying everyone was. How does Exodus compare? I played through Everhood, a game that takes a number of major stylistic cues from Undertale while also doing its own thing in terms of gameplay. Very good game, but I didn't quite connect with the story or themes, not like I did with Undertale.

Weiss Kreuz, episode 1. This is probably the worst anime I've ever enjoyed watching the entire first episode of. Not in terms of art/animation, although the animation is quite poor on top of the DVD being a pretty bad scan as well...and it has one of the worst intro songs/videos I've heard. It starts off with some guys in a van being attacked intercut with our main character, one computer programmer Michiru, and her boyfriend having a short conversation... You know what, why don't I just post the clip? https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/0nvsf4ugqivymf3/mpc-hc64_uxY2RkGOZe.mp4 Okay, the unintentional comedy of that aside, Michiru absentmindedly picks up a data disk from the scene of the accident, and since it's the only thing she has to go off of, decides she has to figure out what's on it. But first, she has to spend some time being depressed about the death of her boyfriend, and visits a flower shop with her friend that is also a girl. The flower shop is run by...a group of four hotshot boys that a ton of other teenage girls are fangirling about? Huh, what's going on here? This is really weird. Oh, oh no... Tags: adventure, drama, shoujo, bishounen It gets better...the premise: So, from what I gather, this show seems like it's going to introduce a new main character that happens to be a girl each episode, a girl that this silly group of flower "assassins" will just happen to meet or be around so that she can rescued by them from perilous circumstances! I feel embarrassed for watching this to begin with, but I feel even more embarrassed that I actually enjoyed the episode. @majestic You really should've reversed those videos. I didn't like the first song, but then I started watching the second and I thought "actually, the previous one was a masterpiece". Also, I'm never going to watch that show, .

I'm using a left hand-only mouse for my right hand, so I'm not going to be throwing any stones about controls. Whatever works for somebody works, . I also can't play anything first person with a controller in the first place, because for some reason my brain breaks whenever I'm trying to operate two analogue sticks to do movement and aiming at the same time in first person. Joystick on the back of the head a la Sarex's image also makes sense, but really, it's more like I am the camera itself. In a sense, I'm actually controlling two characters at once: Interestingly, Super Mario 64's camera controls were always inverted with no option of changing it. It was one of the earliest games I played, so there's a good chance it's literally Mario's fault, .

I've heard of a small minority of people swearing by this, but I've never known exactly what it is that they played early on in their lives that caused them to do this (in your case, it's apparently flight sim games!). I play 3rd person games (e.g. Dark Souls) with both sticks inverted, but that's because my brain is, for whatever reason, attuned to think that I'm directly move the camera itself. Moving the camera left actually moves the camera left i.e. you can see more to the right, while non-inverted 3rd person controls are instead about what you can see, i.e. moving left makes the camera go right so you can see more to the left. That at least makes sense to me why some people prefer one over the other, but switching just the vertical axis in a first person game seems like madness to me - I'd prefer switching both over just one, I think.

No, it's just a little less annoying and heavy-handed than the other two hundred anime films that follow this particular formula. Guys, I don't know if you know this or not, but we don't need to start out every film with a barrage of flat expressions and piano music - I'm telling you, there's more to slice of life films than that! If Grave of the Fireflies could figure out how to do it, I'm sure the rest of you can as well.