majestic

Yay, the first patch day of the year. Granted... not much to do other than shutting down batch processing which can be timed and then turning it back on when the Windows updates are through, but meh. I don't mind spoilers that much, even though I remember them, or rather, make no active effort to not remember them. Either the plot twist or development is good enough to work on its own even when you know it is coming or it's not worth getting upset over. If someone told me, before watching Star Trek TNG, that Tasha Yar would die in die first season, well, that's that. It was a completely pointless and random death in one of the episodes that only happened due to Denise Crosby wanting to get out of the show. Having it spoiled as meaningless as the death of her character is. As someone who read the books before the show was even as much as an idea at HBO (well except the fifth one, that came out while the show was already running) I knew all the major plot points already. Well, at least until the show overtook the books, "coincidentally" a point where the quality of the writing took a turn for the worse. That did not change my enjoyment of the show. Hell, sometimes casting choices are a spoiler. When I see Michelle Rodriguez in a movie it's a surprise if her character survives (or a deliberate deconstruction like in Machete ).

I'm currently taking a break from the Dune series and reading Lord of the Rings. This is a sort-of re-read, I've read the books two times before. Once in a newer German translation, once in the original language and now in the original German translation from the 60ies by Margaret Carroux (who worked on the books together with Tolkien, actually). As weird as that may sound (if nothing else, Tolkien was a master of English, obviously), that might just be my favorite version of the books so far, although I just started with Return of the King, so I can't be completely certain yet. There's just something about the language that makes German feel better suited to the sort of medieval fantasy setting and mythology that Tolkien wrote the Lord of the Rings to be. This of course is purely subjective, but it also extends to the movies and the German dubs. I usually don't watch dubs any more unless there's no other way (i.e. no subtitles if the movie isn't in a language I understand) except for the Lord of the Rings films. It just feels that much better. Okay, no, I also think that certain other films benefitted from rewritten dialogues. The German version of Dungeons and Dragons is still a terrible film, but the dialogue isn't nearly as bad as the original one is, and the dub of Mel Brook's Men in Tights is a good deal funnier than the original. At least I think so. I found it somewhat strange when I first got online and started talking about films to see that Men in Tights wasn't universally considered to be the funniest Mel Brooks film. Well... until I saw the original. Yikes.

So how much of the show was spoiled for you already? I mean... talk about the show was so ubiquitous that it was impossible to avoid spoilers even if you tried. Heh.

So, are you a management consultant or did you just have positive experiences with them? I'm honestly curious, no more jokes.

The music used in this video drove me nuts. Or at least finding out what it was did*. Spin and Burst from on of the Naruto movies, but the section used sounds like lifted directly from a metal cover version of Ultravox's Hymn. Like Lunatica's (which is what I was thinking of): *Well not really, Shazam told me after five seconds that it was the Baruto OST, but holy hell, finding out that it reminded me of Lunatica's version of Hymn took me a while to figure out. Scrolled through my music right now and randomly clicked on the Lunatica and tried Hymn. Good grief, I hate having a piece of music stuck in my head without finding out what it is.

Oh, wow, I can say I know Kylie Minogue from her duet with Nick Cave. Couldn't get that out of my head, you know? Missed her going over the list three times. Guess I'm getting old(ish). Anyway, having a big hit isn't exaclty a requirement for me knowing something. Especially not this year where my exposure to regular radio was essentially zero and me never really klicking on "trending" links on any social media platforms. My taste in music comes down to certain parts of metal and a certain appreciation for a genre that is both very local and essentially has been somewhat dead for a while now (there are newer groups and artists, but most I don't like). Take this for instance: Just in case you're wondering, yes, that's actually a happy birthday song for a cemetary.

I like looking at your album lists and grinning like an idiot every time I recognize an artist or group. This one? Yeah. Never heard anything from them. Or even of them. At all. Just realised that's a lie. I know who Miles Davis is. Damn you, Miles Davis! Just how did he bring out a new album, he's been dead for a while now. Someone needed some royalties, huh?

Get on a bike, drive at full speed towards a flat obstacle, then shortly before you hit it do a hard left or right and press the space bar. That'll slide you onto the obstacle and ideally catapult you high in the sky. Falling through the floor is a bit trickier, but you can try in the scrapyards outside the city, it's easy to make your car roll over on all the trash. Heh.

There are bits and sections of both that I liked more than the other. Both shows had pacing problems, FMA's beginning dragged a little whereas the political maneuvering in the middle section of Brotherhood was way too long for what little payoff it offered. The character development in FMA was a tad better for secondary characters, but that's probably because it had more time to kill as filler, at least until the point where the manga's author told the team to finish the story on their own. I didn't like the endings of either to be honest. FMA's ending was incredibly unsatisfying in the same way Lost's ending was, philosophically okay but really bad at tying up loose ends and Brotherhood's ending was just simply batsh*it insane in the way only Japanese manga/anime storylines can be. I grew up with anime, although at the time with a lot of the shows we had no idea that they were from Japan in the first place. We just watched cartoons on TV - a lot of the shows were animes. Sure some were clearly set in Japan (like Captain Tsuabasa or Attack No. 1) but others, like Dog of Flanders? In hindsight watching Dog of Flanders as a kid was perhaps not the best of ideas, but everything that was animated and fit for TV was simply rated for kids back then. It sometimes still is. I have a newer blu ray of Grave of the Fireflies, and it still reads FSK (our version of CARA) 6. Really? 6?

Yesterday I had a motorcycle accident in Cyberpunk 2077 that left me flying through the air for almost a minute, with a crash so hard it killed me instantly (well, duh). I immediately texted a friend of mine saying that CP reminded me of Stunts (aka 4D Sports Driving). Then we talked a bit about the good old times. Today I fell through the world exiting a car after it rolled over. Hilarious. If you care about driving mechanics and physics and you bought Cyberpunk 2077 then you're in luck, I have this bridge here I want to sell you. Slightly used.

I'm two episodes into Chibi-Usa showing up during Sailor Moon R. I'm not sure if it's me getting older or having seen the show already, but I don't hate her nearly as much as I did during the original run. On the other hand it's been only two episodes. Plenty of episodes with her left. Anyway, there's a reason I picked Sailor Moon R 15 (Episode 61, overall) to post now. It's the one where Mamoru breaks up with Usagi to prevent her death in the future (or his vision of it, anyway). It... yeah. As ridiculous as that might sound given the subject matter and the abject silliness of much the anime, even knowing how it will all turn out - which, realistically, you'd know even on a first time viewing unless you're so dense you'd sink in lead - I found myself feeling terrible for her in that scene where she enters the phone booth, sits down and cries. The setup and execution of this scene is simply flawless. Down to the incredibly in character and somewhat weird - I mean weird here when looking at it from the outside, it's really perfectly in character for Usagi - thing she says to herself in the phone booth: "Sorry mom, I can't bring him home any more" - referring to an earlier scene where her parents met him where her mother asked her to bring Mamoru home when Dad's away so they can talk. See Discovery writing team, emotional scenes work much better when you care about the characters. Even if they're usually silly and do ridiculous things like dressing up in sailor outfits to fight evil in the name of love and justice. Heh. Ah, anyway, a heartfelt thank you to @Bartimaeus for making me watch the anime again. I'm planning on watching Sailor Moon Crystal afterwards, I wonder if that will be like watching Full Metal Alchemist and later Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood.

They're always funny of course. Even consultants laugh at them, I bet. A sheep farmer is tending his flock when a city slicker rolls up in his BMW, hops out and asks, "Hey, if I tell you exactly how many sheep you have, can I take one?" The farmer nods, so the city slicker opens his laptop, calls up some satellite photos, runs some algorithms, and announces, "You have 1,432 sheep." Impressed, the farmer says, "You're right. Go ahead and take one." So the city slicker loads one of the animals into the backseat of the car. "Now," says the farmer, "I'll bet all my sheep against your car that I can tell you what you do for a living." A gaming sort, the city slicker says, "Sure." "You're a consultant," says the farmer. "Wow!" says the consultant. "How'd you know?" "Well," says the farmer, "you come from nowhere even though I never asked you to. You drive a flash car, and wear a smart suit. You told me something I already knew. And you don't know anything about my business. Now give me back my dog."

Consultants are like eunuchs. They "know" how...

I think Night City is getting to me. Silly broad just bumped into me and yelled "Are you blind?", so I pulled out my gun and blew her head clean off. Liking this a good deal more than The Witcher 3. Feels like the same game though. Cars even handle like Roach.

That's making me sad. I mean I have no real intention of ever coming back - not to SWToR nor to any other MMO - but I really enjoyed my time playing it. The operations and even some of the flash points were among the best MMO content I've had the pleasure of being able to experience. If only a tiny fraction have cleared them in Nightmare Mode then nothing much has changed from the past. Not entire unexpected though, the player base probably hasn't grown too much, if at all, and the raiding scene was somewhat anemic even before SoR. Probably no way to pick up NiM operations now even if I wanted to. I remember we had a total of eight Conquerers of the Dread Fortress on the server (cross faction, even), and no Deposers (aaaand that's the reason the guild went kaboom). Had a good team going for a bit, lacked some DPS though. Had a good healing companion too. Really good. He had some family issues and couldn't play shortly before the reaslease of Dread Palace. Also a reason why we failed. Replacement was good, but... yeah. When he left after the guild drama I stuck around testing other healers for a bit, then left too. Massively increased project load at work helped with that decision too. I remember greenlighting a sorc heal for the main raid. Almost flunked him out after the first test run, but he did all right on the second (said I don't think he's a keeper but we should do a second run just in case). After I left, they raided together for a while, then the sorc left for Drop It Like It's Hoth. Not sure if DILIH is still a thing, but they were back then. Being the only guild to kill pre-nerf Dread Guards, as far as I know. Keeps popping up as a funny topic when talking with some of the guys I'm still in contact with from time to time, but it should showcase just how good of a healing partner the other guy was. The thing I miss most though was shooting people out of space in GSF. Feel like I've posted that before. Probably did. Twice. Or maybe more.

You tell me, enjoy working a second job? Heh.

Terrible advice, don't. It will suck out your soul until you're nothing but an empty husk full of hate and rage, and if you go beyond that you'll end up getting sick to the stomach when thinking about playing with other people. Or you might win the lottery and actually end up in the one raiding group on the planet where everything is happy-go-lucky, fun and joy and the people have the skill to raid. You just see a unicorn, the sasquatch, a yeti or perhaps discover the cure to old age and every disease. 's all equally likely I guess.

WL3's setting is great, the quests are rather entertaining, the overall storyline is somewhat, uhm, yeah, forgettable, and the only "unexpected" thing that happens in the end feels contrived and afterwards the game doesn't even pretend to acknowledge it. Did Bioware release any new operations or is it just the same they had for years now?

I thought items decayed after a certain amount of time has passed unless they are in a container related to quests. Anyway, lower the difficulty and don't worry. If you ever play the game again you'll steamroll over her anyway. In the EE it's bringing a sorcerer along, playing on Insane and reducing party size a bit. I mean... it's the EE's solution to everything. Nuke it, DoT it, help the whelp groups. Game just wasn't designed for her catching fireballs with her face. The best you could do in the original I think were Skull Traps, and that was a random scroll and you needed a caster high enough in level. 's not something you know on your first rodeo. Always thought that "Insane" difficulty on IWD was hilarious, making the game easier after the first cave with the Orcs instead of harder. Even without adding classes the game was never designed for.

For once and just because it's Christmas I didn't immediately watch Discovery and I missed the most stupid on the season? Man... well got something to look forward to tomorrow then.

For what it's worth, I won. I mean, survived until the very end. Not a single Last Christmas this year. But that's fairly easy when you're stuck at home and only going outside when you can't help it.

Minor thing that I just thought about regarding the timeline of The Mandalorian. Or rather, the age differences of the actors. Assuming she was a teenager during Clone Wars, and that's really a stretch (she clearly not much younger than her sister, and her sister was the accepted Duchess of Mandalore at the time) she should still be roughly five to ten years older than Boba Fett. Boba was born what, ~32 BBY? Well, "born" - cloned as it were. So that makes him ~41 during The Mandalorian. Bo-Katan has no real canon birthday (yet?) but if she was 18 during Clone Wars she's in her late 40ies, maybe early 50ies during the show. And that's a big if. So... in-universe Bo-Katan who looks barely any older than 30 (Kattee Sackhoff is 40) is 10+ years older than Din, who is 5 or 6 years older than Katee Sackhoff in real life, and roughly the same age as Boba Fett who essentially looks the 60 years Temuerra Morrison has right now. Uhm... yeah.

The same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie? The same procedure as every year, James! Well, not quite. Since we're going into another lockdown on December, 26th we will skip our traditional final family meal. Well, not skip. We'll deliver the food to everyone and then enjoy it at home, no visiting. New Year's party will fall flat probably, but not sure yet. You're allowed to have a single guest, but said guest is technically not allowed to violate the curfew for a mere visit.

Fixed that for you. It's so sad that HBO ran out of money and could never finish the series. Who knows, maybe Martin will actually finish the books at some point. Maybe in 20 years or so, assuming he lives that long.