majestic

There's some more information on the Kickstarter page.

Nah, it's all good. We're just the same bunch of old white cis men who also caused the new Ghost Busters so much trouble because we can't git with the times, 'n all. At least she looked better than the poor Twi'Leks last season. I've seen better Twi'Leks than that from amateur cosplayers. I'm not sure what you mean to be honest. Can you be somewhat specific? Because most of the things that appear have some sort of canon counterpart (except for the Dark Troopers so far and the wet noodle HK-series here, but even HK droids have shown up in the new canon as well). It's possible I missed something and I wouldn't put it past Dave Filloni to do that, so I'm geniuinely curious.

This is still the best Picard song: Make it so!

I've seen that video of Traust before. What's up with the weird bondage ritual?

Oh, yes, because her mother explained to her that this is just going to be about politics and then set her up for this heartfelt speech that convinced the Vulcan president while the Romulans were immediately on board based on pure logic and science and the political "convenience" of no longer carrying the burden of potentially messing up the galaxy or the entire universe maybe. I mean, what range had The Burn exactly? That was the part that would have made perfect sense if they had addressed it in a similar way the Trill symbiote commission was shown to withhold knowledge from the general public to not cause societal unrest in DS9. The set up was not bad, the execution was. The Vululans should have told Michael that they know that they weren't the cause of the burn but that the political quagmire they're in forces them to let everyone else believe in their guilt. Which would have made the president's decision to unilaterally (probably, right?) part with the secret knowledge and risk its exposure to the public all the more poignant. Or Michael could have rightly argued that the truth will come out eventually anyway now that she has proof of the burn's origin, and it not being Ni'Var or SB-19. Cold "logic" would dictate that they start preparing for that eventuality. This being Discovery though we'll probably never see Ni'Var again, let alone any problems from the inevitable finding of the burn's point of origin. Well on the other hand, given that every planet is so far away from each other in this version of the galaxy that you can't even scan from Earth to Saturn perhaps that knowledge will take centuries to arrive at Vulululand?

Well at least Proto-Wesley is Discovery's first officer now, just to remind us that Neo-Wesley isn't going to out-wesley Proto-Wesley too soon. Or, in other words, just like with everything else they did on the show so far they did not think this through. At some point in time they came up with the idea of having Michael* go against orders again - because she's always right, of course, and always the best choice to go on the away mission regardless of the mission profile - so they needed her to be replaced as first officer only to notice that they actually don't have anyone that could become first officer on the existing crew roster. So instead of assigning a suitable candidate from Starfleet (remember the time when Riker made Commander Shelby his first officer because promotion from within the ranks of the Enterprise was unsuitable at the time?) they give it to the only other semi-developed character they have that can be taken out of her current position without being missed too much. Stamets can't, still being the only one that can use the Spore drive. Georgiou obviously can't (and wouldn't, at any rate), the only thing Detmer is outside of being there is the pilot, then there's the black guy on the bridge where I don't even know what his post is (in any other show he'd be the token black guy) and... oh, wait, perpetually angry engineering lady and Neo-Wesley Six with her Head-Baltar, both of which are absolute nutjobs that should be in the loony bin, not on a starship. The only other character they could have used as replacement first officer was written out a few episodes ago. *Also for those that didn't watch, in this episode Michael was assigned to a diplomatic mission to Vulcan Ni'Var where she challenged the Science Academy to Kali-Ma-Shakti-de, the Vulcan science version of a dance battle. She single-handedly out-sciences everyone present and her sweet dance moves impress the president of Ni'Var so much that they share secret research data with her that is considered a, uhm, societal taboo on Ni'Var. Because in the one hundred and twenty odd years since The Burn, nobody on Ni'Var managed to see what Michael did in a couple of Discovery episodes - that the Vulcans did indeed not cause the burn. Oh, yeah, that science experiment that the Vulcans thought caused the burn was to find an alternative to dilithium based warp drives. Okay so I complained about that dilithium isn't used for warp drives per se already, so let's not repeat that. However, so far every longer running Star Trek show has come up with numerous warp drive alternatives. Voyager alone brought scientific data on half a dozen projects home, of which the Quantum Slipstream was apparently adapted anyway, which makes no sense at all. Other things? Oh yes, the coaxial warp drive, Borg transwarp technology (how about that for a project, Seven of Nine, instead of becoming a cynical lone ranger?), TNG's warp catapults or soliton wave, Lt. Paris' infinity warp evolution chamber and these weird little subspace vortices from Voyager. A thousand years of progress and the Federation can't solve peak oil? Did the Koch brothers fund political campaigns against dilithium alternatives?

People with supressed or otherwise reduced immune response, pre-existing conditions or current / prior infections... also everyone who doesn't want to be microchipped by Bill Gates. I mean, c'mon, do you REALLY want to be vaccinated when the biggest proponent of vaccines is in favor of a drastic population reduction?

I'm pretty sure the height difference is from the retractable roller skates in Darth Vader's boots: Not sure if an obituary thread is appropirate for the funny, but anyway...

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.