Keyrock

It could be argued that this doesn't warrant its own thread, but it doesn't really fit into any existing thread. Also, I just really wanted to use that thread title because I'm juvenile like that. Worth it, in my opinion.

My biggest takeaway from MI7 is that Hayley Atwell should be getting a lot more leading roles than she has been. She was Peggy Carter in Captain America and the Agent Carter show and then... What has she done since then? She should be an A-list Hollywood actor, she should be on the Jennifer Lawrence level, she's really good. I hope it's not too late for her, she's around 40, I think, and after a certain age the roles for women in Hollywood get rather narrow. It would be nice to see her be the lead in a few big blockbusters before she's relegated to just playing witches.

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Pt 1 - My first trip to a movie theater post pandemic. I don't know if I'll go again any time soon because $#!+'s expensive and I have a pretty good setup at home, but I don't regret going today because the movie was awesome. This might be the best of the MI movies, which is impressive given that they've mostly been good to great. You know, Tom Cruise is a weird dude, he clearly has quite the ego, I mean he got a hilariously giant gold medal from Scientology, but God bless him for making these movies. God bless him for still making old skool action movies with real stunts in real locations. If there was any question of whether Tom Cruise could still do this at age 60, the answer is a resounding yes. Dude is still a fantastic action man and he delivers the goods here. This crazy mother****er jumped a motorcycle off a mountain. He didn't jump a motorcycle into a foam pit in front of a green screen, he jumped a motorcycle off a mountain, potentially multiple times (I don't know how many takes they did). The movie is quite long, roughly 2 hours and 40 minutes, but it didn't feel 2 hours and 40 minutes, it felt more like and hour and 45 minutes. It never dragged, it was always engaging, thrilling and spectacular at times. There were some really great action sequences. There was a really long car chase that managed to be simultaneously comical and adrenaline pumping. There were great fight scenes that felt visceral. And don't you worry, there was plenty of Tom Cruise running. You always have to have Tom Cruise running. It seems like they may be setting up Hayley Atwell as Tom Cruise's replacement, or for a spinoff. I'm all for it, she was terrific as Grace. I would be totally down for her to be action woman. She was everything you would want in a leading action star; charming, witty, resourceful, even vulnerable at times, and it doesn't hurt that she's rather attractive. I would also welcome a prequel of sorts about her exploits as an international thief. My only complaint is that Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames weren't in the movie enough, especially Ving Rhames. But, that's a small complaint in an otherwise terrific action movie.

I also started over because, like the dumbass I am, I forgot to make my own merc and was just rolling with the hired mercs. I was very early into the game (just liberated Ernie) so rather than wasting precious time to wait for my created merc to meet up with my squad I just started over. Here's my merc: They didn't give me enough characters to call him "Death Wish" or even "Deathwish", so he's "Dethwish". That's the most Charles Bronson of the available faces I could find. My team is the same as before: Blood, Dr. Q, and Vicki. They worked really well previously so if it ain't broke don't fix it. Everyone on my team has high agility so that I can sneak around and set up nasty ambushes. Blood is particularly great at stealth kills with his throwing knives. I can sometimes take several goons out before battle begins, which is obviously of great advantage.

I went to the shooting range this morning for the first time in a while. I decided to do a bit of an experiment and try a variety of ammo to see how they compare. I tried Sellier & Bellot 180 grain full metal jacket (this is what I have been mostly using for target practice), Freedom Munitions 180 grain round nose flat point (full metal jacket), Nosler Defense 200 grain bonded jacketed hollow point, and Underwood Ammo 155 grain TAC-XP (jacketed hollow point). What I found was that unsurprisingly the Underwood ammo was loaded the hottest of the 4 (Underwood is one of the few ammo manufacturers that still loads 10mm Auto as hot as it was originally when it first released in the early 80s), the Freedom ammo was also loaded quite hot, the S&B was a little bit weaker, and the Nosler was significantly lighter shooting than the other 3. However, I was really impressed by how accurate the Nosler ammo was. It's not specifically labeled as match grade, but I could probably competition shoot with this ammo. It's very consistent. My conclusions are as follows: * I will continue to use the S&B as my primary target shooting ammo. It's (relatively) inexpensive and reliable. * The Nosler ammo will be my home defense ammo, as it was before. it's the weakest of the 4, but it's still plenty powerful enough to drop a person. A heavy slow moving bullet is great for soft, fleshy targets. * The Underwood ammo will be my going deep into the wilderness ammo. If you told me that I was going to have to defend myself from an unspecified threat and all I had was my Glock 40 and ammo of my choice, this is what I would choose as my ammo. This ammo is expensive but it is STOUT and is rated at 1400 fps muzzle velocity (probably slightly higher from my Glock 40 because of the 6" barrel where as I believe the velocity rating is based on a standard full size pistol, which typically has a 5" barrel). 1400 fps is very high velocity for a handgun round and it's well known that velocity defeats armor. The reason I bring this up is that you need to think of a bear as an armored target. Unless you are an incredible shot or really really lucky and put a bullet into the bear's eye, you are most likely shooting it somewhere in the torso where you have to penetrate the thick hide and a layer of fat that, in the case of a black bear, which is what we have round here, would typically be 3" to 7" thick, depending on the age of the bear and how well fed it is. In the case of a brown bear the layer of fat could get into double digits inches thickness. If I were somewhere with brown bears I might opt for some of Underwood's even lighter and higher velocity rounds. I believe they make a 135 grain that's rated for 1600 fps, which is extremely high velocity for a handgun round. As it stands the 155 grain TAC-XP ammo strikes a good balance of bullet weight and velocity that should be perfect in case I need to defend myself from a black bear. It would obviously absolutely massacre a wolf, deer, coyote, or anything else I would typically encounter in this part of the country.

Right now I'm playing on default settings (First Blood difficulty with no game rules active). In a future playthrough I may do Commando difficulty with the Dead is Dead rule.

Story time with Baphomet is a step in a more wholesome direction.

Starcraft Immortal. You all have phones, don't you?

Obligatory

Jagged Alliance 3 I decided to start with Dr. Q, Vicki, and Blood: A fairly expensive team to begin with, hopefully that doesn't bite me in the ass. I wanted high agility stats on everyone so that I could be stealthy. First impression is positive, definitely captures the JA vibe. I like Blood, I'm glad I hired him. With the burn on her face, she's got secretly a villain written all over her, the only bigger giveaway would have been a pinky ring. That may seem too trope-y, but if there's one thing JA has always been, it's trope-y. I guess I'll find out eventually if she turns out to be a secret villain.

I meant no disrespect. That is a fabulous pompadour. As a balding man, I'm jealous. If I still had the hair on my head to pull off an anime pompadour, I'd probably go for something like this:

It should be a 4K powerhouse. Hopefully it delivers for your needs.

While I would summarize this review for the tl;dw crowd as "mixed bag", I do like what I see and hear here. The fact that the game is hard and unforgiving is a plus in my book, Jagged Alliance is supposed to be hard and unforgiving. I can see how a nigh overwhelming amount of systems can be daunting to newcomers, but I'm not a newcomer, I want maximum tactical control, even if that amount of control comes at the price of not being newbie friendly and cluttered UI. Releases tomorrow.

Is that a movie poster or a hair product ad?

Were they Amazon they would have delivered the weapons by drone. Come to think of it, maybe that's what that Kremlin drone "attack" was, an errant Amazon delivery drone

Civilians are mostly the ones that get hurt by cluster munitions one way or the other, hence why they're banned by a lot of nations. Cluster munitions are virtually useless against anything decently armored and a percentage of the bomblets don't go off on impact creating a very unpleasant surprise for some unlucky family to drive over with their minivan.

Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch

If it's Tom Cruise flying it then a F-14 would dominate the skies today.

Yes, I am aware that the US did not sign the treaty outlawing cluster munitions. My point was that the Biden Administration themselves condemned the use of cluster munitions earlier and are now shipping them to Ukraine. Though, to be fair, after fact checking myself, the exact language was potentially a war crime. So I will amend my previous statement to the Biden Administration is by its own definition complicit in potentially a war crime. Here's the quote, by the way, from last year. First the question a reporter asked: And here's the reply from White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki:

I'm going to wait for Beamdog's enhanced edition remaster with (even more) poorly written additional content in 10 years.

Biden Administration: "The use of cluster munitions is reprehensible and a war crime." Also Biden Administration: /sends cluster munitions to Ukraine So, by the Biden Administration's own definition, the Biden Administration is now complicit in a war crime. And yes I'm aware the Russians have used them too, that also makes them war criminals, by the Biden Administration's definition, but in no way absolves the Biden Administration of, by their own definition, being complicit in a war crime.

Project director describes Clockwork Revolution as love child of Arcanum and VtM: Bloodlines