majestic

Eh, he'd probably die to a random Ferocious Smilodon somewhere.

No, but I'm not that far in yet. The encounter design is beginning to delete my fun though. I just picked "normal" and figured I could faceroll my way through and built a more role-playing appropriate character, which is by far and large a first time for me anyway, and... well, that escalated quickly. Still playing on normal, but I've made adjustments to my dear companions. Poor Ember is no longer a saintly healer type but a mean fire based whirlwind of annihilation that can kill people by making them fall asleep. Seelah got a wolf to ride into battle because the only other alternative would have been to make a bard out of her. Instead, the wolf sort of tanks while she's on it pretending to be more than a semi-decent buff bot (she still doesn't do much whenever she's not smiting someone). Is it really that hard to come up with decent companions? I mean, decent is all that should be needed for "normal", but eh, whatever. It's okay, I'm back to min-maxing. Can't help my choice of Mythic Path and main character, but meh, maybe next time. Looks like it didn't. The last episode ended with them performing at the final preliminaries, the next episode is new year's celebrations and they won the prelims, but we didn't get to see any of that. We're also back to some serious stretching during idol practice, that makes sure to accentuate the... attributes of everyone. Yay. What? Why would you skip the vote for the preliminaries? That's instant tension. I'm honestly baffled by the creative choice here, never mind the dip in quality and the comeback of that sweet, sweet fanservice.

Indeed.

Uhm, the EU is the third largest buyer of US liquid natural gas, and both Juncker and Trump were working hard on increasing the volume a ways back. There's no landing terminal for cargo ships carrying liquified natural gas in Germany, but there are several close by, so they're used instead. NS2 is just far more economically feasible since it takes a rather large amount of energy to liquify natural gas and it is not subject to the problem that caused LNG imports to surge as alternative (i.e. the Ukranian/Russian dispute over prices, among other things, like gas being stolen by the Ukraine). Or was the question about how the gas actually comes to Europe, well, cargo ships. Which explains why US gas prices simply aren't competitive compared to a pipeline. Most rooms have more than one corner, there's plenty of space around. Germany had a political initiative to build liquid natural gas landing terminals a while back after the first time tensions between Ukraine and Russia killed their gas deliveries in the middle of the winter. I'm not entirely certain how far along that is, or if it hasn't been benched yet. A lot was placating Trump until someone with a little more sense becomes president. Not that I doubt that Juncker meant what he said, he was probably drunk out of his mind and high on the money in his pockets, but that's the sad reality of the political landscape these days.

Not sure if this should go into funney or music...

Yes, and that's why whenever someone says Nord Stream 2 makes Germany Russia's bitch what they actually mean is "We're annoyed that they're cutting out our bitches' ability to influence German/Yuropean energy prices." and "We're annoyed that we can't sell overpriced liquid natural gas to Yurop." I believe the right answer to that is: Go QQ in a corner. edit: It also needs to be mentioned that Germany's been buying Russian natural gas as far back as the Cold War, and Russia never once failed to deliver, regardless of tensions or changes of leadership. The only time there was an issue it was with the transit in Ukraine. Russia's been really compliant... ask Iran if the same can be said about Western nations. In some other news, we might see our first ever communist mayor here. Ah, the tears of conservatives, what a sweet treat. Priceless right wing reactions all around.

I ike how Rich thinks everyone is going to hate him for ranking Halloween so low, when in reality he reveals himself as a hack fraud right off the bat, and Jay isn't much better. How can you not like Dark Star?

Ended up watching two more episodes of Love Live!, and they were a marked change from the earlier two. No stupid jokes that fell flat, just a neat continuation of the five minutes of the low point weight loss episode that I complained about last time. Never thought I'd say this, but the two episodes were really good. Actually the only reason why I watched two instead of trying to sleep already is because I wanted... oh boy. I wanted to watch the next one. There are some backstory reveals for Nozomi the Boob Fondler (but no actual fondling going on). Everyone works on a new song, then they give up for a bit, then everyone visits Nozomi and they come up with an idea anyway. Next episode has Honoka acting all responsible as student council president for a change, almost missing the final preliminary round for Love Live!. Near the end of that episode they recycled a K-On! joke, with Honoka crying and being all snotty, just like Yui does. They also were really light on the fanservice. Still... help me guys, my brain might finally be rotting away here. No, in all seriousness, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Last season also had an episode or two that were good, in a sea of mediocrity (and some really bad fanservice) - and the animation still sucks, as does the art - especially the character designs. I mean, sure, they make it to the preliminaries and proceed to sing this travesty: But hey, while the music in this is never really going to be good, compared to the A-RISE songs and whatever the hell "Dancing Stars On Me" was, this is actually... tolerable.

That's the TV anime. The OVA was made by Triangle. The OVA is pretty much a loss at this point, but maybe the TV anime isn't so bad. Being made for TV might have curbed the, uhm, fanservice a little. One can hope, right? I haven't really watched much over the weekend either, but that's mostly Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous' fault. Next couple of weeks will be really busy at work too. Yay.

I see. You know, there's still a chance you're not going to like it all too much. I mean, your evil doppelgänger. The early episodes in particular. Heh. Watched the second episode of the Magic User's Club OVA. Making progress on all fronts here. If it weren't for the ridiculous ecchi elements, that episode would have been genuinely nice. Nothing great, but not bad either. It was coming along nicely until the big boobs lady from the intro turns out to be the magic club president's arch enemy, the manga club president. They're sharing a room at school and she's been creeping up on his space by moving the room divider. He's off to confront her but of course can't say a word because bewbies are distracting, and he ends up bewitching her, and a flower starts growing on her head. These things are frustrating, because I was on the verge of thinking that maybe this isn't as bad as it initially looked to be, and then it goes and turns into an animated American Pie with magic wands. The alien bell thing sends a probe to take readings of the weird flower, and it starts sprouting a dozen or so metal tentacles to take readings. Why? Well, because haha, this is a funny reference to tentacle porn. Wink wink, nudge nudge. Maybe this would be funny were I still 12 years old, alas, I'm turning 40 in a year. No, wait, even when I was 12 I didn't like that kind of joke. *sigh* Well, maybe Nadia is back on the list, assuming this lasts. I can deal with a six episode lull.

That link doesn't work for some reason (it always redirects to some, uhm, other picture). Was Star Wars'ed (fixed in editing ). But yes, the context the quote came up in applies in full for Love Live! and its fans, although K-On! and Love Live! share a writing credit to which the similarities can be traced back to, but writing decent or good episodes for one show doesn't mean you come up with good ones or good ideas for others. Just look at the Utena episodes and Sailor Stars, they shared like half the writers. Very much. K-On! has a few weird things* in its first season, but that's over fairly quickly, and in the second season it's finally put to rest when Mio knocks out Sawako. K-On! was genuinely funny at times, heartwarming at others, and very occasionally somewhat sad. It's something silly you turn on for a bit of a good time, nothing too serious. The biggest hurdles really are the weird things in the first season, and getting through Yui's and Ritsu's constant overacting phase. The show really improves its balance after a few episodes. Before K-On!, I didn't exactly enjoy Love Live!, but at least I didn't actively dislike it. It got some laughs here and there, and that episode where Kotori almost leaves for a different school has a very ripped-off-from-Sailor-Moon vibe, but it was a nice enough episode. Now... I don't know. Maybe the two episodes were just bad, but the feeling that I'm watching a worse version of something that I found genuinely funny and actually great at times (not often, but every now and then) is always there and doesn't seem to go away. edit: Love Live! is really strange. The last five minutes of the episode suddenly stop being about this ridiculous weight loss plot and become about Honoka, Kotori and Umi making a mistake with the student council budget requests and working hard to find a compromise. It had a funny joke, a fun ending and it led to some character growth. It's like a SuperS** episode that would be genuinely good if you'd just remove Pedosus from it. *That I mentioned already, anyway. Like Sawako pulling Mio's pants down for no reason (well, the "reason" is that she got dumped on Christmas). Wait a minute, let me check something. Nope. That epsiode was actually written by the series main writer, not the guy who later made Love Live!. **I just realized that you could just pronounce that Super-Ass and... yeah. SuperAss. I think that'll be the term for SuperS in the future.

My mind came up with a reply to that, something that would have went along the lines of expecting more from you than an out of context quote on a meme, but cutting you some slack because you pepper-poisoned yourself and are clearly not thinking straight yet. However... at the end of the Halloween episode, Honoka's sister finds a letter in Honoka's room. She started tidying up because she was looking for a manga volume, and her sister's shelf is a mess. That is a joke taken 1:1 from K-On!, and Yui's lost manga volume is actually in the club room at school. Because she's nosy, she reads what's on the page, and is shocked. Oh my, what an unexpected development, what could have happened? Has Honoka secretly kept failing exams? Did she get into trouble at school? Anything interesting? Well... Turns out at the start of the very next episode, Honoka's sister shows it to her mother, who reacts equally shocked that... (spoiler is more for effect than "spoiling" this) Yes, so that's all. Yeah. Trash. It's all trash.

Back to Love Live! to finish the second season, and then there's the movie. I think that'll be enough then, I'm going to try and pretend the spin-off animes don't exist. I don't expect that to work, but who knows. This, uhm, you know, before watching K-On!, Love Live! was just a strange anime that was incredibly popular for what I thought was no real reason. The fanservice is there, and it's plentiful, but not strong enough (really, not a single panty shot in one and a half seasons, what is this?). The singing isn't too good, the music isn't great and the jokes are okayish, with only the odd laugh out loud moment in between and some character drama every five episodes. I was made for Love Live!ing you baby, you were made to... never mind. Oh, I can't get enough! Please, put me out of my misery. Now... now this isn't just strange, it's... bad. It looks so much worse than K-On!, it sounds so much worse than K-On! and it sure is so much worse than K-On! in every other way too, and the comparison is always there because dear god everything was ripped off from K-On!, and no, this isn't even me doing my usual hyperbole for effect spiel. Love Live! is like a cheap Chinese knock-off of a superior product. Like these suspiciously similar TV movies that followed or even came out at the same as their blockbuster movie counterparts for a while back in the 90ies. Tried a bit of googling to see if anyone thinks the same things I do, and again, nope, of course not. I did find a reddit threat about Love Live! ripping off Glee, but what do I care about that? Search results then quickly go into general anime ripoffs, including Black Swan. However, there's one positive coming from that search: I just learned that Kyoto Animation is working on a third season for K-On! that should have released already but contracted COVID-19, like so many things. I sure hope that doesn't turn out to be like Clear Card. edit: I forgot to link a version of the song used in this episode. I'm continually amazed by the crowds here. How is this so popular? Although, loathe as I am to do this, I have to admit that's one hell of a catchy tune, which probably explains the popularity. I mean, there are droves of people flocking to Katy Perry, and her "music" is on a similar level of... suck. And on a similar level of catchy. Yeah. I guess that's it, huh?

Ah, okay.

Except nobody at all was suggesting that the US is a more repressive state than China, that's just Bruce being his disingenous self. Not being fine with giving our Corporate Overlords the ability to assume direct control over our computers (which is what Zoraptor expressed, in part) has nothing to do with approving repressive policies or genocide. Here's the one time the slippery slope argument makes sense, and nobody's using it because "China way worse" - which is really true, but by far and large also irrelevant to criticisms of US espionage and security equipment compromising backdoors. Like I said, I don't want Microsoft to be able to restrict what I can do on my computers. I also don't want to live in China, and I don't approve of their politics. These are not mutually exclusive. Also, wat, how are you of all people not concerned about the government's ability to spy on you willy nilly, or dicate what you can or cannot do on any electronic device you have? Do you trust them to not abuse the ability to do so? Bruce sure does. I don't... nobody should. Unless I misread you, then I apologize in advance.

Yeah, no, my bad. I thought Nestlé bought Ferrero, but that was only an offer, and Nestlé ended up selling part of their portfolio to Ferrero. Well, then it's only owned by a company running a massive marketing campaign making chocolate and sugar appear to be a healthy diet for children, and not a company actively killing African babies. That's a major improvement, but ultimately still not... ideal. Peanuts, hazelnuts, raisins and almonds are most common, but other varieties exist too. Dipped in Belgian chocolate and coated with shellac (both for protection and the glazy look, like with jelly beans). They look something like that: Kind of like M&Ms, only, uhm, good. On on topic news, I watched the first episode of Steins;Gate. I have on idea what the hell is going on. I don't think I've ever been as confused about what's going on in an anime, and that includes Revoltionary Girl Utena. And they microwave bananas.

Crunchy is probably the wrong way to describe it, but I mean, cracking the outer chocolate layer that's kind of hard, only to get to a chewy gummy bear is... not an appealing idea. Oh... hmmm. Belgian chocolate dragees are to die for. They're also really on the upper end of empty calories... I avoid going near them, like, all the time. Heh. I like all sorts of ice cream, but chocolate is up there with my other favorites. Like mango and, uhm, nutella flavored ice. Which is... angelic. Really. Too bad its made with a product from the absolute worst of companies. Meh. Although, I'm guessing most "nutella" ice cream never saw any nutella, that's way too expensive.

Wouldn't call it interesting, but it's fine... mostly. I guess your company doesn't have an ISO 27001 certification?

Yeah, she keeps on shonen on... heh. I won't get better before the director change, I think, and it's unclear if it does afterwards. I'm always open to be surprised, of course. Yes, that's me grasping at straws here, 32 episodes left. Are you sure you didn't mix up worst and best here? It sure reads like you're a man of indistinguished taste, and that can't possibly be it. I don't know, I somehow expect chocolate covered gummy bears to be crunchy on the outside and chewy gummy on the inside, and that just... feels unpleasant in my mouth before even trying it. Taste might really be okay, not sure about the experience of eating it. What I also like is chocolate filled with fruit flavored sugar creme (marshmellowish fillings), like these: https://heindl.co.at/produkt/suesse-fruchtis/ - and yes, that's really very different from biting into a gummy bear, but eh, if I ever come across chocolate covered ones, I'll be sure to try them. Eh... but eating regular chocolate or stuff that's mostly chocolate, yeah, no. That's just not for me.

So close, and yet so far apart. I deal with the other ERP system Microsoft bought with the same company Gorth is talking about. Not sure if I want to talk about it (there's a rant about it from a year and a half ago, somewhere on this forum). Suffice it to say that some of the things it ships with out of the box are, and that's being nice, an insult. Some are downright insane. Although I can't reallly speak for the new 365'ed cloud version because we're not using that yet. @GorthDoes the new cloud version still use the same weirdo Pascalesque code the older versions did?

Well, that's more disturbing than Mari, unless that's not an actual gummy bear and just some chocolate with a jelly filling, because that's quite good... but it really just looks like a gummy bear dipped in chocolate.

Lady Asuka, episode 8: That's the first one I wasn't actively bored in, but Madame du Barry threatens to cut Lady Asuka's "pretty face" for not helping her get into Marie Antoinette's good graces now that the Louis XV is dying of smallpox. Lady Asuka just walks close enough to have the dagger actually cut her face, then Madame du Barry runs away. Asuka, we get it, you're not girly, please... Anyway, the rest of the episode was fine. The countess is banished to a cloister after the dying king wants absolution from a priest. Lady Asuka escorts her long enough to make sure that there's no ambush. Narrator lady helpfully spoils her fate: Execution in the trials following the revolution. It was... fine. No, really. No stupid action, some decent character interactions and the drama of the king dying and the sycophants all weasling over to the new king was enjoyable enough to watch. Next episode seems to have a hefty dose of sisterly love (of the "die you biatch" variety) between two side characters that so far had like five minutes of screentime. I'd be almost inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, but the preview already had whippings and fire, so that'll probably be boring again. edit: Right, chocolate, I don't really know. I don't eat enough of the stuff, only bits here and there, and that didn't have any adverse effects. I very much prefer gummy bears as my go-to unhealthy suger bomb snack stuff. edit 2: For some reason my typing skills seem to be slowly dying. How... unfortunate. edit 3: And those screenshots of Nadia look really, like bad. Really bad.

Have a cover, then! But KP surely you must see that this was for the good of the US ! Their's nothing wrong with that. Just imagine being abducted by unmarked vans like in China ! Those came off a long time ago for Captain Fascist here.

Then there's no Sailor Moon any more, which would be incredibly tragic, but it beats UseDroneToBlowUpMyWedding.exe by a long shot. Just a matter of perspecitve, I guess. When you're in the US and the only thing you need to worry about is NSA goons IM'ing themselves your nude pictures, perhaps that's a tad different from other locations on the planet. Maybe. But what do I know.

I'm not more concerned about an NSA backdoor than I am about a Chinese one. From an outsider's point of view, there is no difference at all.