Bartimaeus

Giants won the 2011 Super Bowl with a 9-7 record and a negative point differential... It was always my hope that some garbage 7-9 team would fall backwards into the playoffs and win the Super Bowl, but I guess I'll have to settle for 8-9.

For some reason, I don't ever remember you mentioning being a Packers fan. Yeah...between Rodgers breathing in his own fumes too much, the refereeing issue that the NFL appears to just want to get worse, the stupid schedule and playoff changes, the absurd commercial time, and probably other issues I can't think off the top of my head...it's not a good product. I deliberately pirate almost all of my NFL games these days in order to not support the NFL at this point, even though I have access to local Fox, CBS, and NBC channels so I could watch them legitimately...but I pretty much only watch Packers games at this point, and heck, I didn't even watch today's game at all. I've always maintained that I am a player-first guy. I'm not fanatically loyal to the team above else, I recognize that each player is his own person with different desires and ambitions and struggles and... But for that same reason, when I'm no longer connecting with the players, I'm not connecting with the team as much either, .

What's been the final straw for you? I haven't really been feeling it myself as of late, but probably more related to Rodgers being an antivax moron than anything else.

I thought I remembered scientists actually finding (or creating?) a non-carbon-based microbe, but it turns out the time I had heard about this occurring was, firstly, overstated to begin with (the actual claim by those whom "discovered" it wasn't that it was not carbon-based but rather that it could substitute phosphorous with arsenic, of all things, as a valid substitute to sustain itself/growth), and secondly, it was later tested by others and consequently debunked. Thanks for nothing, GFAJ-1.

Packers now hold the tiebreakers for the rest of the season against the Cardinals, Buccaneers, and Rams (...as well as a resurgent 49ers, if they're able to rattle off a few wins against their divisional opponents)...but not the Cowboys. But the Cowboys are currently 1.5 games behind and seem too inconsistent to likely pose a challenge for the top seed, so what really matters is that the Packers finish with record tied for the best in the conference. We have vs. Bears, @Ravens, vs. Browns, vs. Vikings, @Lions to finish the season. I like the odds to finish at 13-4. However, the Cardinals only have 2 losses and have @Bears, vs. Rams, @Lions, vs. Colts, @Cowboys, and vs. Seahawks to finish the season, and I'd say it's about equally likely they finish at either 14-3 or 13-4, probably more likely the latter assuming Kyler Murray returns next week. I have no clue who is going to win MVP. I genuinely don't think anybody really stands out this year. I think the closest right now are Brady, Rodgers, and Murray. Murray has been out too many weeks, but maybe with the lack of strong competition, he still has a chance if he gets back and continues to play great. Brady has kind of great numbers but too many dad-gummed turnovers and some head-scratching plays that have lead directly to bad losses. Rodgers won last year (which usually depresses any possible campaign for a repeat unless they're head and shoulders above the competition) and while his numbers and efficiency are good, they would not normally even be a Second Team All-Pro kind of year most years over the last decade...but this does not appear to be most years, because he's been the most efficient QB this year outside of Murray. I really don't know how this is going to end - kind of weak cases all around. @Amentep Your Falcons are still tied for the 7th seed with the Vikings... Weird year for the NFC and AFC, which have the opposite problems these two conferences usually have. NFC for the past 15-20 years or so have been a dogfight with lots of instability and lack of consistent top seeds (Packers and Seahawks have been the closest thing to "stability" over that time, I think, but they've by no means dominated their divisions like Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, and Patrick Mahomes generally have in the AFC), while the AFC was always very top-heavy with the same teams competing for the top seeds. This year, it's been the opposite with just a very few teams vying for the crown in the NFC while the top seeded team in the AFC has changed more times than I could count and it could go to just about anyone. With the Titans losing to the Patriots, Ravens are now at the top of the AFC, and Patriots are #2 right now!

IIRC, my first and only playthrough took me just a little over 40 hours, but I did and got everything except for the howlongtobeat places a "completionist" run at 70 hours, "main + extras" at 43 hours, and a "main story only" at 29 hours, and overall average at 45 hours. So 40-50 seems about right to me unless you were doing as little as possible, especially since the other person I asked was in late 40s as well. I got really, really bored of parrying, running around, and having kind of poor weapon damage on the exact same weapon the entire game. There was a critical lack of variety in attacks and in how you could approach or fight bosses. Worse, the game does almost nothing to reward you for exploring because there are literally almost no items except for worthless consumables to pick up, so going out of your way to explore really just makes you find more incredibly dull regular enemies or annoying bosses to fight. The entire game flow of Sekiro did not feel rewarding or satisfying to me, and I should've made the correct decision of simply speeding through it as fast as possible.

All of his girlfriends, past and present AFAIK, have been absolute quacks. There's a reason he associates with them. Yeah, he's a dummy, and he's just the type to keep poking the bear and then be like "y garbage media say bad headlines about me???".

Samurai Champloo, episode 20. Well, no way I could've predicted that...I guess outside of the one masked guy saying something in passing. Bastard show. Episode 21.

Correct. If the game had been half as long as it was, it probably would've left a much more positive final impression. A game that forces you into pretty much exactly one play-style the entire game from beginning to end with endless humanoid mini/bosses that all play out so similarly in a 40-50 hour-long game...the last ten hours or so of the game I just wanted it to be over because I couldn't stand the dull repetition any longer.

Yeah, that was pretty wack reading that right after I wrote it. Lmao, who in their right mind would ever think I would've tolerated that? ...Not you, as it turns out. Yeah, I'm definitely not ever learning Japanese. Not that I would ever have a reason to...

It was especially poignant for me, given my family history of alcohol abuse and consequent hatred of irresponsible users of alcohol. It's kind of an inverted situation, though, because by deliberately starting out that way, you're supposed to at least gain an initial distaste for that main character right off the bat.... And I didn't even get to the bad parts, you say...truly, I was spared a terrible fate. Wikipedia tells me that's a "mere" 46 characters... Good luck!

The three people I personally know, as well as myself, that have played and beat Sekiro all had a "it's different from Dark Souls but it's great" reaction to the first 5-10 hours. May that continue to be true for you for the rest of the game...

If you enjoy the quality and quantity of dialogue, that should be enough to at least enjoy the rest of the show...I think. The general reception seems to either be "I would have loved EVEN MORE dialogue" or "I'm falling asleep because there's too much dialogue". I was, obviously, in the former camp. Not really spoilers, more thoughts on you vs. me approaching the show:

1. What was the awful bit of dialogue and animation at the end? ...That doesn't really matter, but boy was that a terrible way to end the video. 2. Does anyone know any information about whether the controller part of the Steam Deck is easily repairable/replaceable? I have no faith in controllers anymore, all of them break so quickly, so it would seem folly to invest in a device where the controller is literally directly married to it. ESPECIALLY given that it's Valve, who abandons much of their hardware anyways.

Yeah, that sounds like it would have been a better way to start off the series: doing something normal instead of getting smashed with character exposition, . Yeah, that one was more InsaneCommander's fault, IIRC, since he said "I'm going to post spoilery gifs until you watch it!", so I just figured screw it, just on the off-hand chance I even sort of like it, I guess I should try one episode to get it over with. Samurai Champloo, episode 17. Not sure why Fuu screamed so incredibly loudly at a barely seen shadow, given everything else she's seen by this point. What did she think she saw that would warrant that? Otherwise, pretty good episode (although the way the Okuru scene ended was a little...much). Episode 18. "Being able to read one [Japanese letter] is more than enough." @majestic would beg to differ, I think. As would the teacher beating the crap out of Mugen every time he reads something wrong. That's one way to motivate someone to learn Japanese. Episode 19. This guy feels like he came out of JoJo's.

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.