Bartimaeus

RIP #1 seed dreams for the Cowboys.

Midnight Mass, episode 6. I can't give this a stronger recommendation if you are at all into... It's a "mere" seven episodes long and it's on Netflix, and it is...uh, really something. (e): Episode 7.

Aaron Rodgers: I have a fractured toe. The internet: COVID TOE, COVID TOE, COVID TOE! Aaron Rodgers:

Not too dissimilar to what some other oldheads have expressed, e.g. Hayao Miyazaki. The industry is in a bad place...but it's only in a bad place because of its audience and what they want and it being financially unwise to not cater to them. And financially exploitable subcultures being what they are, things are not likely to change anytime soon...which is good for my watchlist remaining thankfully short, but not so good for quality entertainment and ideas being told. "But wait a minute, what about the films themselves? Supporting the industry is great and all, but couldn't Anno have made good Evangelion films AND helped the industry?" My question exactly, Mr. Video Guy...my question exactly, .

For a few moments there, I wondered if I had forgotten the entirety of the Wheel of TIme and what it was about, because I could not for the life of me remember there being any dragons in Wheel of Time, much less how my favorite character from the books could possibly be one. It took me a few moments to remember...well, you know, the Dragon. On a side-note, according to some Wheel of Time wiki I just looked at, there apparently already existed a counterpart term for a female Dragon, which is "Amaresu", .

When I watch something like Violet Evergarden...or any of about ten other anime movies I gave anywhere between 2-5 minutes to before being like "oh, it's one of THOSE"...I usually stop watching because the show/movie is practically screaming at me how I should feel about it right off the bat, without even barely introducing me to the setting, plot, or characters. Slow and soft piano music, the most pathetic-looking characters, monologues that go on and on to try to explain their whole sorry existence, meandering and wistful scenes that aren't really about anything or don't go anywhere that are simply there to help "set the mood" as it were... For me, sadness, drama, or really any attempts at eliciting genuine feelings from the viewer are something that have to be earned, and that's usually done best when properly contrasting them. If you want me to feel sad for a character, it will enormously help if I see them in the proper element first, see what they're like when they're in a good place, how they normally act and the things they're interested in, perhaps I'll even genuinely like the character right off the bat and form an instant connection with them, etc. Framing matters, and I will appreciate their personal circumstances much more than if you just tell me to be sad for them. If the first scene of A New Hope was with Luke's aunt and uncle being murdered, if Steven Universe immediately started out with him trying to repair a completely broken family, if Xiaolang was fumbling about like a babbling baboon trying to explain his feelings for Sakura from the first or second episode, if Mima...well, you get the idea, . Miyu, the show where she is the protagonist (and not the OVA where she is not), is not initially tragic hardly at all...for Miyu herself. It eventually starts going that way for both Miyu and her friends as well as Reiha, but it does not start out that way. The things that are happening to the other characters that flit in and out of the show in order to form each episode's plots? Sure, but they're not one of our protagonists - heck, they're not really even side characters, they're simply problems for our protagonist(s) to solve. We're not really supposed to form meaningful attachments to them, and that's fine, that's the anti-magical girl nature of the show at work, just the same as it is in Sailor Moon and introducing random victims of the week every episode (although Miyu does try a little harder to actually make characters out of most of them, as opposed to just literal random victims of happenstance as was typical to occur in Sailor Moon). Occasionally, someone in particular may strike a chord in us and we'll form an instant connection with them, but besides that, tragedy that happens to other characters that the viewer is not really supposed to care about to begin with because they're not our characters...well, yeah, obviously, that's a pretty different kind of tragedy, more conceptual in nature than personal, from a film telling me with every single ounce of its being that I need to be sad for a character I was just introduced to seconds ago, isn't it? Framing, as always, matters. Miyu made friends and did silly girl stuff with them in between performing her duties. Miyu was not personally affected by the job she had to do or how she was performing at her job...initially. That would eventually change, in small ways at first but much bigger ones later, but at first she was just doing the job she had to do to the best of her abilities and it seemed to work out more or less and be at least sufficient...and by the time that was no longer the case, well, for all the show's unrealized potential and flaws, I thought that was fine - one of the more interesting aspects of the show, even, because I had started to have my own doubts before then. That's perfectly fair, and I wouldn't have any issue with you rating StrikerS higher than Miyu to begin with anyways. Opinions are opinions - what will or won't appeal and work for each of us is...more difficult to prognosticate for some than others, but by no means ever a guarantee regardless of whom or what you're talking about. Even for the most predictable of people, you can "guarantee" that they will or won't like something...and you may be right in that specific instance, but you would do well to remember the times you thought similar things about other items where you were wrong, because there are sure to be some. Some people love hot dogs, and say it's their favorite food in the world. I, of course, hate hot dogs...but I also think the majority of "haute cuisine" is a hilarious joke much more contemptible than any normal mediocre food. Then again, I have a fairly cold and utilitarian outlook on food in general, because I would instantly give up ever eating if I ever could, even if it meant I never could eat again, so probably don't ask me about food, . I took one look at it when you had been talking about it and was basically "I hate silly stupid fun". That was the end of that consideration, . I almost added on to my previous post that I'd be willing to watch a few, but then I remembered that I got like halfway through an episode of both Clannad and Steins;Gate before I wanted to rip my hair out in annoyance, frustration, and just general dissatisfaction with everything, and suddenly that seemed like a pretty tall order... Glad things will hopefully get a little back to normal for you in regards to work schedule and personal time. Even this still sounds horrifically complicated to just learning another Latin language. I took some French way back and remember literally almost nothing of it now (probably because I wasn't really trying to learn it at the time, same story as is usual for me with most "forced" education, unfortunately - I tend to learn things for just long enough for them to serve their purpose and then they vacate the premises that is my brain immediately after, and I never had that good of a grasp of it to begin with anyways), and that seems just terrible in comparison. I already only just barely understand English as it is... A few of my favorite movies were made with less than a million dollars for the entire budget...but look and provide an experience better than your average 200 million dollar blockbuster...for me. Heck, I even kind of enjoyed a weird French movie called Jeanne Dielman which was a three and a half hour long film that was simply the most utterly boring footage of a woman doing her daily housework. Stylishly filmed, but utterly drab in what occurred. Who in their right mind would even find that enjoyable? I guess this guy, to an extent at least. I'll give Thunder Road a shot sometime, it sounds like it could be interesting.

For me, a 5/10 is "poor", 6/10 is "alright", 7/10 is "good", 8/10 is "great", 9/10 is "fantastic", and "10/10" would be perfect. And with my 75% subjective/25% objective rule, if you thought something was truly objectively trash but you love it anyways, 7 to maybe 7.5 is about the highest that I'd ever give it. From the sounds of it, you don't think it's particularly close to trash, but you also didn't quite love it, so maybe 7/10 is just about right. I give out 6-7/10s pretty easily - as long as I mostly enjoyed it and it wasn't actually badly made, it's not too difficult to get that 6 or 7. 8 and above is what's difficult, because an 8 is supposed to be "great", and what is "great" does not come around very often in my eyes. I think I've said this before, but when I watch RLM videos about movies/shows, I evaluate not just whether they liked it, but what they actually say about it. They may call something fantastic, one of their all-time favorites, one of the best things they've seen in years, etc., but I may very well know right off the bat from what they actually say about it that it doesn't appeal to me at all and there's almost zero chance of me enjoying it, so I don't care about it at all, and just watch their video for entertainment. On the other hand, they may say they simply liked something and get just a few sentences into actually talking about it before I close the video because I already know I want to watch it before they really go in-depth into it, and I'll watch the rest of the video after I've seen it. In a way, the same kind of process applies to your posts when you talk about a show like Nanoha - it's not just whether you or somebody else likes it (even if I implicitly trust the judgement of the person talking about it!), the specific things mentioned about it are what actually informs me whether I think I'd enjoy or hate it. It's a style and artistry thing. Miyu is a bit dark and definitely tragic, but it isn't really over-dramatic in your typical ANIME DRAMA fashion. The show isn't constantly trying to hammer into me the idea that Miyu's circumstances sure are the Big Sad, or that she's this totally normal and relatable character, or heck, that we should even necessarily be rooting for her at all times. Miyu was a show where one moment, she expressed concern because she heard a woman's scream far off in the distance, and literally the next moment she smiled and basically said "all is right with the world" because her fears were apparently assuaged when she then saw a dude jump off like a fourth floor balcony to his death. It was a show where I initially strongly disliked one of the secondary "protagonists" in Reiha, that I actually then started to like when she instead became a primary antagonist because I, like her, started to question Miyu and her methods and what she had been taught and thought that hey, maybe Reiha actually has a point here (even if I don't necessarily agree with her entire outlook either) and also, what she has personally had to deal with has kind of been a rough deal as well. It's a dark but soft and grounded anti-magical girl show at its core, with some unusual interfacing of smaller, nicer character moments and dark ideas and themes. It wasn't a perfect show by any means, but it's the only one of its type and it worked for me. But most importantly (), it's a show where the promotional posters look more like... ...instead of... The style, the artistry, the intended tone, the appeal, the...everything is, uh, a little different, to say the least. As always, I'm a big believer in shows/movies being what they're selling themselves in at least tone, style, and intended audience, and Miyu literally immediately interested me based off of what it was selling itself as soon as I saw it and and it held up its end of the bargain, and Nanoha...would likely do the same, except in the exact opposite way since very little about it, except for the good things you've had to say about its general writing quality, is even kind of appealing to me. Between... 1. The mentioned fan service... 2. Too much action... 3. Over-dramatic action... 4. Lack of (or way too "big" i.e. not grounded, not relatable, not interesting, or not even funny) character stuff... 5. "Epic" story stuff... (note: this is what I love about Miyu and Sakura over e.g. Sailor Moon - grounded and low-key stories that are incredibly personal to our characters instead of generic END OF THE WORLD-type nonsense that I usually just want to get over with as soon as humanly possible...if you want an epic, world-ending plot, you're going to have to really build up to it and get me into it a la Steven Universe...which of course, had its own problems in the ultimate execution of it, but at least still did a good job of getting there over the course of many seasons) 6. The general aesthetic...and holy crap, kill these character designs with fire, ye gods it's so incredibly bad - I know even newer anime gets so much worse than this, but man... 7. idk probably other things I just don't see it working out in any way for me. I like things to be done in a particular way, I want things to look a certain way that fit the tone and (non-visual) style of the show, certain styles of voice direction make my skin crawl, I want all the elements of a show to marry each other and form their own specific and cohesive style, and I just...you know, as always, I'm very particular. And I've always said that I experience what I hate much more strongly than what I like, so if even one element is misused or out of place in a major way, or something does the complete opposite of appealing to me (especially something fundamental that you would notice in a new show right off the bat that's going to be constantly there!), the entire house of cards collapses before it's even been built and there's virtually no hope for me to like it. Now, the chances of a show having such incredibly terrible music that I immediately hate the show in question are pretty low, especially because music tastes are malleable to a degree and different styles are appropriate for different shows...pointless and inappropriate nudity and/or fan service that involves the main characters that I'm supposed to like and take seriously, on the other hand? Yeah, that could do it, .

Cadence of Hyrule. It's Crypt of the NecroDancer, which I like, combined with A Link to the Past, which I dislike. However, it's a case of taking the things I like about both games and combining them to make something I enjoy a lot more than A Link to the Past but which isn't nearly as brutally difficult as Crypt of the NecroDancer (the latter of which I last played when I was fruitlessly trying to win a game using the character where if you miss a beat, you immediately die; I gave that about 300 tries before I realized I was realistically simply not good enough and probably never would be). It's about a 6-8 long game and I finished it in a couple of days, which is rare for me.

I had watched the first one for the first time not too long before the second one came out, and though I didn't love the first one, I did like it and certainly thought it was unique and enjoyable enough. I watched the second and...I guess I must not have gotten it, because I spent the majority of the time either frustrated, bored, or simply laughing at it, none of which were exactly positive feelings. It was decidedly not for me.

Yeah, I prefer spoiler tags that simply blank out the text until you mouse over them a la Steam. ...Plus, that seems like it'd probably cause less problems than basically having a collapsing quote box like it currently is, given the forum's issues with...that. It's...difficult to envision myself ever enjoying Nanoha. I mean, I know I'm the one that prognosticated it actually being alright, but I meant for other more general viewers - i.e. not me. To me, it looks like the kind of show where they took Sailor Moon, got rid of all the things I really liked, and amped up most of the things I either was ambivalent about or outright disliked. Combine that with the style of the show (in a multitude of ways) being not even remotely close to appealing, and eh... I think there's a much better chance I enjoy K-On than Nanoha, .

Do you at least have the excuse of half your team being dead? Packers are missing so many starters...LT #1, LG #1, C #1, RB #1, WR #3, EDGE #1, EDGE #2, EDGE #4, CB #1...feels so much like we're going to just cruise to a #2/#3 seed and then get blown out at some point during the playoffs because the number of injuries we've had is simply unsustainable.

Can't say I'd be too mad if the Chiefs gave us back the #1 seed. (e): Although the Cardinals are currently beating the Seahawks even without Kyler Murray, so probably not. (e): Yeah, guess I'll take the #2 back, at least. Chiefs are good again, I guess!

It always looks like this, and...I just can't tell what I'm looking at. It almost looks like an impossible object. On a side-note, Minako doesn't use her compact to transform into Sailor Venus, she has a pen for that. Yes, she uses her compact to transform into everything BUT Sailor Venus - don't ask me.

Midnight Mass, episode 4. Holy crap on so many levels. First it was existential terror, then a profound sadness, then a little hope...and then something else. The show is getting to me, that's for sure.

Yeah, I'll get to trying it out...eventually. Once Sakura and Samurai Champloo is done, I think the one I want to get to next is actually Serial Experiments Lain, but there's also Future Boy Conan which just came out...ergh, there's just too much stuff.

Okko's Inn (2018). It was alright - didn't really grab me, but didn't really lose me either. Basically a kids movie about a little girl who loses both her parents in a car accident and goes to stay with her grandma who's an innkeeper and learns how to move on and adapt to her new circumstances, essentially. Inoffensive and struck a balance between silly and more solemn...it was alright.

Everyone seems to think the prosecution was either hilariously or willfully incompetent, combined with going for too high of charges where lesser ones would have been significantly easier. Gromnir could probably tell us whether that was actually the case or not.

Samurai Champloo, episode 16, possible major story spoilers:

Midnight Mass spoilers:

The thought did cross my mind, but from previous discussions we had on favorite movies and such, I think the proper conclusion was that Hurlshot is simply infinitely more forgiving of everything that I cannot stand...that, and my favorite movies were generally way too dark and stressful for him, as he tends to prefer more fun and carefree stuff. And so if he cannot stand it for reasons outside of that, well...well, I certainly don't think I could, that's for sure. The good news is I was not invested in enjoying the show at all to begin with - while I did enjoy the books way back when I read them, I have such an extreme skepticism for adaptations in general combined with a specific distaste for all the promotional materials that I saw for this show, so I am not phased at all if it does indeed stink. If nothing else, I now share the same extreme skepticism of anything half-decent coming out of Amazon's Lord of the Rings. By the way, I did watch the next episode of Midnight Mass. Uh...yeah, that was pretty wack.

If you're saying it wasn't good, it must be apocalyptically bad, and for that reason, I am out. ...Isn't the innkeeper supposed to be skinny? Wait, maybe it depends on which innkeeper it is. Maybe the one I'm thinking of is much later, I remember Rand and...Perrin or Mat having a run-in with a not so great skinny innkeeper...never trust a skinny innkeeper, I recall.

I'm still on 88.0.1, which was the last version before the UI went to absolute garbage. Apparently it's up to version 95 now? They sure went through those quickly, considering 88 came out in March of this year.

Have to do it by the direct image link, not its presentation page (or whatever you want to call it), like so: https://i.imgur.com/OTEAXrh.png

For this very specific context, for this very specific phrase, I have fixed that for you, . I'm sorry, Hurlshot, but these constant "IT'S FOR THE KEEDS" defenses of stuff...there are things that are made for teens or even children older than 5 that we watch as adults for the first time and hold up well, or that we even unabashedly love. I'm pretty sure Discovery isn't even made for children or teens, it's just dog crap, that's all, and it's O.K. to call it like it is. Well, it's not okay for majestic who has OCD that forces him to continue looking at, smelling, and tasting the dog crap, but for the rest of us, it's O.K. Pour one out for @majestic, he's the real victim here.