majestic

Bibi's flight to Saudia Arabia seems to have been a signal to Biden as well. Also hilarious how all of a sudden Isreal removed Saudi Arabia from the corona travel restriction list immediately after he went there. On the bright side, Isreal is maybe looking at the fourth general election in a row. Where's the popcorn at?

Well, what do you know. I figured it out. Turns out I actually really know the guy from... like 25 years and what looks like 150 pounds ago. Wouldn't have recognized him, but yeah, mom immediately knew who I was talking about.

Ensign Tilly is going to be the new First Officer on Discovery. 's all I have to say about this one. Oh, wait, I guess it's sort of confirmed that Discovery is playing in the same timeline as Star Trek Picard. Because the Romulan Qapla' Oonah thingie is back. Or still there, more like.

I just had a run-in with a friend of my neighbor. Greeted me, asked me how I am, long time no see and all that. Baffled as I was I played along, said I'm fine considering the circumstances and bid him farewell. Of course I have no idea who the hell that guy was. He noticed too because that's what he said to the neighbor once I closed the door. Neighbor also wondered how he would know me, but the two left and I could no longer follow the conversation from behind the door. I also call the neighbor just neighbor because I have no idea what his name is. My parents used to be prominent public figures before retiring, being involved in municipal politics so I'm used to being greeted by people I don't know asking me to convey their best wishes and greetings to mom and dad, but that was different. If I had to guess I'd say he mistook me for my brother. He's more widely known and was a member of our (volunteer) firefighters before moving to another city, and even if I can't for the life of me see it because he looks completely NOT like me there's supposedly some family resemblance. Gotta ask the neighbor next time I see him. Or my parents. Maybe they know.

Just to post something contrarian or potentially unliked... that tweet isn't entirely right in my opinion but why would JMS be objective here, I'm not even sure I am. The actors were fine in their roles, but except for Andreas Katsulas, who conveyed such a tremendous range of emotion through a face covered far and large by a prosthetic, and the endearing Stephen Furst I wouldn't actually call them at all remarkable. I liked Andrea Thompson for what little she was on the show, but even there I'm not certain I'm mixing my enjoyment of the character with her ability as an actress (plus she's leaps and bounds ahead of Patricia Tallmann, so that contrast once Talia Winters was writen out really hits you hard). Or in other words, Babylon 5 had remarkable casting and a set of remarkable characters, not a remarkable cast per se. I mean, just in which world would anyone argue that Bruce Boxleitner or Mira Furlan are great actors? One of the episodes just before the end of the Vorlon-Shadow conflict even had a scene where a guest starring Bryon Cranston made it painfully obvious just how terrible the two sometimes (always?) were. It worked on the strength of the writing and plotting of the show in the first four seasons. I offer the the rushed ending of season four and the fiasco of season five as proof. Oh, and this is by no means a dig on Babylon 5. I loved the show. I find I enjoy it less with every time I rewatch it, so I stopped doing that, but this really is because once the mystery's stripped away and the pretty painting peels off there's some rust shining through. Was still a remarkable show and a boon to all of television, paving the way for serialized sci-fi drama.

You know what Bruce? It is unreasonably cruel. I'm a bit of a hyprocrite because that doesn't stop me from going to Hungary every now and then to buy goose liver spread where the, let's be fully cynical here, production of the liver isn't done under any better circumstances, but unlike having a problem with meat on moral grounds in general (which is a ridiculous stance to have for an omnivorous species in my opinion), having a problem with Foie Gras on moral grounds is absolutely justified.

It's just weird coming from a Xi and Putin fanboy like you.

Started a new game of Drakensang, I figured it's going to be worth the 3 bucks. Can't say that I ever was a fan of Das Schwarze Auge but perhaps I'll overcome my inertia and invest the time needed to learn - and appreciate? - a different RPG system. I find the lack of grimdark and cynicism in the game world very refreshing. The writing's hilarious so far (at least in the original German).

Vienna has vineyards within its city limits, so you should be good. If you can get past all the travel restrictions, curfews, lockdowns and the common tourist traps, that is. The first few of those should go hopefully go away soon but the traps... yeah, I guess they'll remain.

I remembered this thread after a new website with aerial pictures of Vienna went online. Like with Keyrock there's really no point in posting pictures of the 'burbs here, but the city's quite nice to look at I guess: If you're intrested you can look at the rest.

It's not just that. I don't feel as if I have a lot to say about Pillars of Eternity for instance. I argued a bit against a couple of religious nutjobs that believed Obsidian were pushing a massive atheist, uhm, agenda with the ending of Pillars, but that was about it. Not sure what changed, back on Interplay I was the most active poster in the Infinity Engine forums. By a lot. It's not like I can't talk about specific games for hours on end, but there's something about newer Obsidian games that makes me... not want to, and I can't figure out why.

That's the whole point why I'm using an Xbox controller and my Nintendo Pro. I have really long fingers and my thumbs constantly get tangled up while using a Dual Shock controller. If I don't want to "angle" my thumbs all the time on most modern controllers that means my thumbs are resting on the thumbstick halfway between the tips and my hand. So kind of in the middle of my thumbs. They're close to touching even on an Xbox gamepad. I press the A + B buttons the same way. The only exception was the original XBox controller. But that thing was just uncomfortable to hold and way too heavy. To be honest the best gamepad I've ever used was the Gamecube one. The button and thumbstick spacing was really good, it was comfortable enough to hold, light and pretty robust. There's an adaptor for the Switch and new versions that can be used on the PC but... it's probably not worth the hassle (plus only Smash Bros is really officially supported on the Switch, I think).

Happy Thanksgiving guys.

Heresy, even.

I'm reasonably certain that was roughly 5 kilograms of pork belly, and it was indeed for the extended family. Served with marinated red cabbage and bread dumplings. Maybe I'll upload some more pictures later, but I try to avoid duplicates, a picture of some earlier pork belly with similar sides (just with green instead of red cabbage) is a few pages back somewhere.

Why, no, he didn't leave. @ComradeMaster and @StupidSeal are both still around. I'm reasonably certain that both are SonicMage117, but StupidSeal more so than ComradeMaster.

Mmmm pork belly.

That depends entirely on your controller and the game, and the API used. Most games (on Windows) use DirectInput or XInput and some controllers come without support for one or the other, or should work but often don't - that's why it's such a hassle to get the DS3 to work on a PC (although I to this day don't know why anyone would want their thumbs killed by that D-"pad" or the horrible analog stick placements, but to each their own) and the Nintendo Pro has some issues as well. That's why you need to use some form of third party software to map inputs and translat them into someting the game understands. Steam handles that when it is running. If Outer Worlds supports your controller when Galaxy is running but not when it isn't then Galaxy does the same thing as Steam. I'm pretty sure it didn't in the past though. At least not with my Nintendo Pro. The actual solution to that problem is getting an XBox Elite. That works with virtually everyone just out of the box. With or without third party software.

Bloody freebooters, what happened to the time when women had to bring a sacrifice to the temple after being unclean for a week? Leviticus 15:29-30 Women here have campaigned to have sanitary products except from VAT, or at least reduced VAT (other items considerd basic necessities like food, water and energy have reduced VAT) to no avail for a while now - let alone them being freely available if you can't afford your own.

My favorite Moon Logic puzzle was in Dragon Sphere. For those that don't know, it's a game set in a medieval high fantasy setting. At one point in the game you encounter a door you walk through. It teleports you into a room where you're instantly burned to a cinder. A reload later you're trying to figure out how to get past the door. It's the only door left, no matter where else you go, it's clearly the only way forward. So, what to do?

To post a bit more on topic: I think I came back after Sarge posted in one of our BIS/Interplay diaspora forums that tarna had died. My account still worked, so I logged on to pay my respects. Stuck around, unlike way back when. Why? That's a good question. I was on the verge of saying because all the other places died off, but that would come out wrong. It's not like I'm here because this is a leftover and there's no place else to return to (although Gorth inadvertently killed off the Winterwind forums with a post I think Josan misunderstood a bit in a rather emotional moment). It felt a bit like going home for the first time in years. Like all the other threads of this kind this one made me browse through files that I've kept for 15+ years. Like tarna's MtG card, from a time when he ran his own forum (tarna's Coffee Shop) and was active at Ashford City. 'Twas tarna talking about Andy (the quote on the card, I mean), one of the more persistent trolls of our age, in a thread long, long gone now where he claimed that Viet Nam is actually spelled Veit Nam and everyone's just getting it wrong all the time. Funny, I remember that thread clearly as if it happened yesterday, but I can't for the life of me remember what Andy's full user name was. It wasn't just Andy, I think. Or was it? Does anyone of you know? Guess TNO was right. Time does indeed lay waste to all things.

I want royalties for that thread title. Gorth knows what I'm talking about. I'm not sure that scene is bad as much as it is badly executed. Although that might be the same. The intention was, I guess, to show Neo finally becoming the Übermensch. He rejects Smith's proposed reasons, his own, everything, and finally says: Because I choose to. Then he plays Jesus in Gethsemane and wins in the only way possible, by taking himself out of the equation that Smith is supposed to balance. No, wait, you're right. Terrible movie(s), terrible scene. Leave it to the Wachowski brothers (or were they sisters at this point already?) to mess up a Cyberpunkish sci-fi thriller by creating two sequels filled with philosophical and religious allegory to the point where it becomes a confused mess of nonsense.

Mmmmm...

If someone is wondering where the weekly rip of Discovery is, well... I watched the current episode and it was such a nothingburger it's not even worth mentioning. Burnham decides to violate a direct order and now she's no longer first officer. Again. Because it's not like this is essentially the way this show started. Right? Except this time she's in luck and with the Federation being unable to be picky she's not going to prison (whether or not she actually started a war this time remains to be seen...). edit: Oh, right, the reason she violated the order was because the burn might not have been instant but originated somewhere. What a suspenseful turn of events there.

I think that's Magnum already, no?