Raithe

Picked up the horse lords dlc at half price on Steam, and have taken the plunge back into CK2. Of course, for some reason I've started trying to reunite the Roman Empire...

Fiddlesticks! I thought I was beginning at the beginning as Dickens suggests, i'll have to stop watching the series until i've seen that now, the slightly autistic side of me will allow nothing else. Thank you for the notification however, i'm enjoying this series rather too much i'd say, quite enthralled. The Gathering was done as a "pre-pilot" kind of thing to check for interest and it's more of a tv-movie. It's actually set a year before season 1 starts and covers the station finally going "fully" online with the Ambassadors all arriving. They changed some of the cast between that and season 1, and there are plot reasons given in season 1 - possibly odd notes you'll have discovered by now. One thing to note is that some of the special effects, makeup and costuming are slightly different. The Minbari are noticeably a lot more "alien" looking in The Gathering than they decided to go with. However, it really does establish some of the characters. Plus, just "beep beep" for the ending.

But seriously, it's worth it for G'Kar and Londo over that whole arc. Plus while some characters get to deliver lines that are oh-so overblown and space opera camp in some ways, they are also utterly brilliant with the delivery. "No boom today? Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow." "Would you prefer to be conscious or unconscious during the mating? I would prefer conscious, but I don't know what your .. pleasure threshold is." "What do you want, you moon-faced assassin of joy?" "The last time I gave an interview they told me to just relax and say what I really felt. Ten minutes after the broadcast I got transferred to an outpost so far off the starmaps you couldn't find it with a hunting dog and an ouiji board." "Don't sweat it. Just be that charming, effervescent commander we've all come to know and love. What's the worst that could happen? They fire you, ship you off to the Rim and I get promoted to Commander. I don't see a problem here." "No. We have to stay here and there's a simple reason why. Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe and Lao-Tzu, Einstein, Morobuto, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes .. and all of this .. all of this was for nothing unless we go to the stars." "With luck, they may never find you, but if they do, you will know pain .." ".. and you will know fear .." ".. and then you will die. Have a pleasant flight." "Ivanova is always right. I will listen to Ivanova. I will not ignore Ivanova's recommendations. Ivanova is God. And if this ever happens again, Ivanova will personally rip your lungs out. Babylon Control out. [sigh] Civilians. [Looking up] Just kidding about the God part -- no offense." "No regrets then?" "A few. But just a few. You?" "Oh, enough to fill a lifetime. So much has been lost, so much forgotten. So much pain, so much blood. And for what, I wonder. The past tempts us, the present confuses us, and the future frightens us. And our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast terrible inbetween. But there is still time to seize that one last fragile moment. To choose something better, to make a difference, as you say. And I intend to do just that." "I apologize. I'm .. sorry. I'm sorry we had to defend ourselves against an unwarranted attack. I'm sorry that your crew was stupid enough to fire on a station filled with a quarter million civilians, including your own people. And I'm sorry I waited as long as I did before I blew them all straight to hell. .. As with everything else, it's the thought that counts." "So, Doctor, who died?" "What are you talking about?" "Among my people this is how we celebrate state funerals. Our marriage ceremonies are solemn, sober, moments of reflection, also regret, disagreement, argument and mutual recrimination. Once you know it can't get any worse you can relax and enjoy the marriage. But to start with something like this.. No, it is a very bad sign for the future."

It's all about the music... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE05d0QyaZc

Reddit - I set up my raspberry pi to automatically tweet...

Just keep watching

Stealth is a lot more viable, but at the same time, you end up losing a whole hunk of xp for not murderising all those Trinity soldiers lurking around. The tombs are a lot better than on the island, as mentioned they are much more that expansive, larger puzzles. And they make sense for the environment/story side of everything in the game. The challenges (note, challenges, not challenge tombs) are.. yes, nonsensical in some ways - Cut down Flags, burn propaganda posters, shoot bullseyes that no-one else knows about.... Plus a pain in that you might encounter them but be told "you can't do this because you don't have x piece of equipment yet", so you have to kind of remember all the locations of things you couldn't do so you can try coming back when you have more gear unlocked. The animal hunting is sort of useful, but at the same time seems less bountiful or needed compared to the first game. The game does look very pretty. The switch between snow filled Siberian mountains and wilderness, and the hidden valley of forests and all both look great.

From what I understand this is going to be a two-pronged thing, first I've heard mention that in some form or another Lucifer is going to start "catching" mortality or some such, and two, Amenidiel (the angry angel dude) is going to be manipulating things as a way of pressuring/forcing Lucifer back to Hell. But I think a lot of people are just going to watch it to see how amusingly snarky/smarmy Lucifer gets rather than any actual plot strengths.

The point where you really remember why it's fine to hate auto-save/auto-checkpoint games. When you've spent hours playing through a game, get to the end sequence, face the final "boss", then as the big cinematic wrap sequence starts to tell you just how the story ends.... The cat startles you, your thumb accidentally hits the spacebar which skips the whole movie. Then the game auto-saves. Leaving you with no clue of what the hell just happened to tie things up, and there's no option to reload from before. Time to hunt up youtube endings I guess.

I've been idling my way through Rise of the Tomb Raider (pc) and generally enjoying it. It has much more of an archaeological / exploration bent, even if it does get a little murder festy in some ways. The mechanics are tweaked a bit better than Tomb Raider, and the graphics certainly keep things looking nice. There are more in the way of tombs and interesting caves and background to dabble in and all seem to have one specific form of platform style puzzle. The figure out ways to get from A to B, along with right shift of gears, or getting water levels to drop/rise, etc. Storywise, there were a few obvious beats, or I'm fairly good at going "that's going to be the twist" in advance. And actually I'm getting a similar vibe to the Tomb Raider reboot in sequence of events and specific notes on the delivery. Although one thing that's a bit off-putting is that it drops you in at the start with a big bad organisation and references to earlier things, that get no real explanation. I'm wondering if there's other media bits that tie in to what's happening.

Now that's a new one to me. I guess you can lump me with the rest of the non-Americans who caught the original incident and subsequent fallout, and just use it for pop-culture snerk humour ever since.

<whistles innocently>

MSN - Japan introduces negative interest rate to boost economy

Being amused by Lara's amazing living ponytail in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Seriously, they've put plenty of physics into how her hair blows and twists around when running, jumping, supposed to be in wind etc... But the thing magically animates even in the middle of caves with no wind. it bobs and twists, and curls around like some tentacle. I can't quite decide whether it amuses more than it distracts. And to be fair, I picked up the game because I had like a 25% voucher off and just thought what the heck.

So that begs the question, since I posted it, should I automatically "like" the same picture that Woldan posted?

RockPaperShotgun - Rise of the Tomb Raider PC Review

For the completely random... And idle moments of creativity: Draw your own Nebula