Keyrock

Holy $#!+, are the Lions going to do this? Edit: Nope. Well, the silver lining is that I am now completely free to do whatever I want 2 Sundays from now. I hate both teams, so I have zero compulsion to watch The Big Game.

Wait, am I going to get a love story for Ichiban's pet crawdad, Nancy?

Pickle soup

For me Steam didn't crash but sometimes the screenshot pop-up window would take like 5 minutes to actually display the pictures and sometimes it would never display the pictures... Maybe I just didn't wait long enough. I could close the window, though, and Steam would be fine. I don't bother with that stupid window any more, though. I just made a folder ~/Pictures/Screenshots (I'm a Linux weirdo, that's a Linux path) and set Steam to put all screenshots there instead of the dumb folder buried DEEP within the file structure where you need to figure out the AppID number of the game, it's not hard to find, but, it was just dumb and tedious if I ever needed to find screenshots manually. Now I open up my file manager and I'm there in 2 clicks. The only issue I had was with LaD:IW the in-game pictures you take using the camera app are not technically screenshots, there's no way to get those uncompressed AFAIK and they're saved to a different folder, similarly buried DEEP within the file structure. I solved that issue by creating a symlink to the folder in ~/Pictures/Screenshots and now I can get to that folder in 3 clicks.

One of the gags with the dating app is Ichiban getting a really mundane, not in any way sexy picture from his potential date and going all "AWOOOOOOGA!" Edit: Not all of the dates are jokes, though, you do actually get real dates with the app with cheesecake shots and cringe "romantic" dialogue. @BruceVCwould love it! There's the possibility that there is a sidestory in there if I go deep enough into the mini-game, RGG likes to do that some times. I'll probably go through this mini-game to the end to see if it has a sidestory... And for the cheesecake.

Hangin' with the boys: The photo app has your usual assortment of filters and such. There's, of course, karaoke: Works extra well with Kiryu's grizzled boy band member on a re-reunion tour look. There's a dating app mini-game: So far the 2 "hot dates" I got turned out to be a fat neckbeard guy and a homeless dude.

It's looking like this is the last season of Monument Mythos. On the one hand, I'll be sad to see it go. On the other hand, everything has to end at some point and ending it while it's still great and moving on to something else is probably better than dragging it out for too long and letting it devolve into tired trash. I'll be interested to see what Mister Manticore comes up with next.

The Tribunal is Vivec, Almalexia, and Sotha Sil. I don't know what you s'wits are talking about.

Na zdrowie!

The MSony consoles are effectively x86 PCs. I feel like any remaining wall is artificial.

I started Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, the game is awesome so far. Anyway, typically in a story you'd have the main protagonist hit their lowest point much later than this, in a standard 3 act movie it would be at the end of act 2, but I'm at the beginning of the game and my dude That's a fate worse than death. I'm pretty sure I know where this is going, not the details, I mean, but the main overarching plot that's going to get mostly lost in the shuffle while other stuff, probably murders, betrayals, revenge, that sort of thing, happens, and then comes back at the very end. I guess I'll find out in roughly 100 hours.

Ijincho Isezaki, a fictional district in Yokohama.

Why is Jesse Faden T-posing in the 4th picture? I think one of the many things that make Like a Dragon so great is how well written and likable the protagonists are. I've said this before and I know it's blasphemous, but Ichiban is a better main protagonist than Kiryu. I mean, I like Kiryu and all, but my man is so ****ing stoic that he looks at Seneca the Younger and thinks "Pfft, amateur." Ichiban is much easier to relate to. He's kind-hearted, excitable, emotional, awkward at times, and really nervous around women. He's like a regular good dude that just happens to be really really good at punching people. Speaking of being nervous around women, he finally musters up the courage to ask out my girl Saeko (this is very early in the game, it's not much of a spoiler) and of course Adachi and Nanba decide to help him out by giving him questionable advice.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth While it's not pushing any graphical boundaries, it is a good looking game. It runs like a champ too. Even without any upscaling tech, I can get a playable framerate at 4K at max settings, minus motion blur, but that's not for performance reasons, motion blur is the first thing I turn off in any game. This is my first time trying out FSR3 Frame Generation and it's quite impressive. At quality setting (the highest besides native) I've never seen the game dip below my TV's 120 MHz max. In fact, it's generally in the 140s according to the Steam FPS display. I don't have DLSS3 Frame Generation to compare to, but I'm super happy with the performance and image quality. I don't have a Steam Deck, but I assume this would run buttery smooth on a Steam Deck. Right now I'm still in the familiar confines of Isezaki Ijincho, I guess the real test will be when I get to Honolulu. What would a Yakuza... Err, Like a Dragon game be without the UFO Catcher? Aww yeah, I got me a black Oinklet. I stashed the Oinklet in my item box, I don't know if I will lose the possessions I have on me when I go to Honolulu. I'm also curious whether the item box will be shared between both parties, the one in Honolulu and the one in Japan. I'm guessing yes. Right now I'm still in the mostly on-rails tutorial/prologue. I don't know when I'm going to get transported to Honolulu so I'm taking my sweet ass time exploring everything that's not invisible walled off, looking for secrets and such. I guess the party in Japan will be able to come back here, but I'm not taking any chances.

People getting let go when there's a merger or acquisition of a large corporation is fairly standard as there are bound to be redundant positions. 1900 is kind of a lot, though. I don't think redundant positions can account for all of that. Trimming the fat, I guess.

Doesn't matter to me, since I can count the amount of games I've done NG+ in on one hand and have multiple fingers left over, but it's still a scummy move to lock NG+ behind a paywall. Dammit SEGA, I thought you were better than th... Haha, just kidding, I knew SEGA wasn't better than that. Seems like a fantastic game otherwise, though. I'll find out soon enough. /rubs hands together

Yeah, you can just murder them in front of everybody and show the writ to get guards off your back, but I think you get more faction reputation and a better reward if you're either stealthy and no one sees you or you make it look like self-defense. You can cast a dominate spell and lead them away, cast frenzy or taunt them to get them to attack you, use a strong enough chameleon or invisibility and snipe them from afar where no one can see you. There's a bunch of different ways to go about it depending on your skills if you want maximum reward for the assassination. I'm going to set Morrowind aside again because Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth drops today, but when I come back I have a plan. I have quite a bit of moon sugar on me and the Tamriel_Rebuilt mod vastly increases the amount of available vendors and thus the amount of Khajit vendors that will buy moon sugar. Hence, I will larp 19th century Britain and start an addiction epidemic in a foreign country. Hey, if these s'wits can't exercise a bit of self-control, that's their problem. There's coin to be made. Too bad I'm not playing an alchemist; while you can't brew skooma in the vanilla game, there is a mod for that. Skooma is where the real money is at.

For me Control was all about the story and lore, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The combat was forgettable. It wasn't bad, or anything, it was just... There. I wound up finding a Seafarer's Ring which gives me permanent water walking, so what better time to test whether I can go to and from the Morrowind mainland without fast travel? I set out from Andothren and walked right across the water to Ebonheart. I don't remember if I ever tested what happens if you try to walk or swim off the edge of the map in the vanilla game. I assume there's an invisible wall. Either way, there's no invisible wall with the mod to stop me getting to the mainland or back. I'll have to try it with Solstheim next time I'm in that neck of the woods. Anyway, since I was back in Vvardenfell and near Vivec, I took the opportunity to ingrate myself to the Morag Tong. I got my first assignment, a Dunmer hanging out at a club in the Hlaalu canton. Since I'm not really equipped to use a command spell to lure my target away to a secluded location, my move is typically to taunt them until they attack me first. Unfortunately, this fella wouldn't even talk to me. Then my memory came back of how I did this before, many years ago. Imagine you're hanging out at a club and this big Nord woman walks up to you and starts undressing. That will get your attention, it sure got his. Once I was able to talk to him I taunted him until he attacked me and then I "defended myself" and fulfilled the writ of execution. Picture yourself as one of the other patrons of that club watching a butt nekkid Nord woman hurling a string of obscenities at a guy. Typical Tirdas, amirite?

The Prophecy 3 (2000) - The angel civil war intensifies. It's nearly impossible to talk about the plot without spoilers so I'll get everything else out of the way first. This is easily the weakest of the 3 movies, but if you've seen the first 2 then you might as well see how it ends... Well, there are Prophecy movies after this, but... Oof. You know what, forget I said that last part, it ends here. Do yourself a favor and just stop after this one. There's a significant dropoff in acting here compared to the first 2. Christopher Walken is still delightful, he always is, and there are some other solid actors, most notably Steve Hytner, but the 2 main characters are... They're not completely terrible, but... It's especially apparent when they're in a scene with Christopher Walken, the chasm in acting skill is rather wide. The ending devolves into schlock, but doesn't go far enough to make it really fun goofy schlock.

I have a memory foam mattress, medium firm, and I love it. There's no chance I ever go back to box spring. I don't know what the expected lifetime of a memory foam mattress is, but I've had it for over a decade and it's still great. Sleeping well is no small matter so don't compromise on a mattress. Get the one that feels best for you even if it hurts your bank account. That's better than hurting your body. There are few investments more important.

Xbox Series X

I raided a Dwemer ruin in the far western reaches of the Morrowind mainland. This one was larger and more intact than previous ruins I'd entered. At first I had the usual assortment of spider centurions and relatively easy to handle sword or polearm centurions to deal with and found some gems and baubles for my trouble, but as I got deeper I started running into some beefier boys that I had to be far more careful with. I made my way through a really neat maze of dropping down into cisterns, swimming through underwater tunnels, and levitating up shafts to get to a really deep area. Eventually I found a well furnished room occupied by a Dunmer, so I walked toward him to find out if he's hos... Oh! He's definitely hostile, he's blasting me with spells left and right... And I'm dead. Good thing I saved not far back. I was determined to get whatever was in that room so next I attempted the age old strategy of letting him see me then ducking around a corner to lure him into melee, which did allow me to smash him with my mace, but it also left him far too much room to employ the age old strategy of casting spells while backpedalling. And I'm dead again. I decided to give the Amulet of Shadows a shot, but that didn't work either. He could see through the strong chameleon effect, the room was too well lit and he was staring right at the archway to get into the room. I had to figure out a way to get the jump on him if I was to outDPS him. Luckily, I had a potion of invisibility for just such an occasion and it allowed me to get right up to him unseen and position myself in such a way that he didn't have much room to back up. Even then, it took me 2 tries to beat him, and just barely the second time. I had to use everything at my disposal. I used a fortify attack potion in addition to the invisibility. I managed to disrupt some of his spell casting, turns out it's hard to concentrate when a big angry Nord woman is going to town on you with a mace. He was chugging healing and magicka recovery potions, I was chugging healing potions, it was looking really dicey there as I just couldn't go through his HP quick enough. The turning point came when he ran out of magicka and had to resort to physical combat. Still, he put up one hell of a fight, but he couldn't match my DPS in melee, smashing people with a mace is my specialty. I burned through a good chunk of my resources that battle but it was well worth it. The reason he was so hard for me to kill was that he was wearing a full set of dreugh armor, minus the helmet. Which is to say, I am now wearing a full set of dreugh armor, helmet included, since I already had one and was, in fact, wearing it during the fight. Well, except the boots. I already had ebony boots which are even better than the already great dreugh boots. He had some other nice valuables on him or in the room, but I couldn't carry everything even with my 70+ strength, so I had to pick and choose what to take with me. I don't remember coming across more than one piece of ebony armor in the vanilla game, so those boots might be it, but it's also possible that the Tamriel_Rebuilt mod added more pieces of ebony armor. The dream would be a full set. Needless to say, any time I encounter ebony armor of a type I don't already have, I'm going to acquire it one way or another. Even if I don't, I'm in really good shape in terms of armor with what I currently have, especially once I enchant some of it. /looks at Enchant skill... 24. Okay, I gotta work on that.

I've been buying movies I enjoy on blu-ray or dvd while we still can, while physical media is still a thing, before the dystopian future where we own nothing and we will supposedly be happy arrives.

I ran across a skeleton on the road next to a dead body. I got my mace ready, but then the skeleton didn't attack me as I approached, so I cautiously went up to it and, lo and behold, it spoke. Turns out it was a mage trying out a new illusion spell and things went sideways. It turned his clothes, skin, and organs invisible, but the skeleton stayed visible, and worse yet the spell is not wearing off. The dead body was some poor sod he tried to wave down for help that had a heart attack when he saw a talking skeleton waving and coming at him. I decided to help the guy out and he asked me to first get him a shovel so that he could properly bury the guy. When I returned with a shovel a pair of Hlaalu guards were there. Luckily, I managed to talk them down. There's more to the quest but I'll leave it at that.

75/25 I'd do it.