majestic

What? The first Tremors at least is a really good, well crafted film. It might be considered a guilty pleasure but it's nowhere in the same ballpark as trash like Sharknado. 🤯

I'd give that particular trophy to Goldman-Sachs but yes, the DB isn't that far behind. Much of the very deserved reputation inextricably linked to Josef Ackermann, someone who paid his way to freedom. Should be behind bars somewhere for the rest of his life. Makes me wonder if lynch mobs are really always a bad idea (they are and I'm not really serious). And Bruce wonders why the world doesn't like bankers.

Killed all the pasts in Enter The Gungeon, includig the two unlockable characters. Time to start working on that final stage.

Man, lots of chaos just a few kilometers away. Some sort of terrorist attack that apparently started near or at the headquarters of the Jewish Community of Vienna. Luckily "only" one confirmed dead and several wounded so far. Could have been far worse considering there were automatic weapons involved and a LOT of people were on the streets, a warm night one day before the nightly corona curfew begins and all bars and restaurants have to close. edit: Well, there are two confirmed dead people, but one of them is one of the terrorists, so that doesn't really count. Guy was wearing a suicide vest that didn't go off (or remained unused, who knows).

Wow, that took me a lot longer than I'd care to admit. Not bad, not bad at all.

You could probably hug some of our Greek members in lieu of the real person. It's probably even older than that but the earliest recordings we still have go back to Homer. Have to admit I do prefer the darker variants. Especially when they're just finished and still hot and all creamy. It's not really easy to get your hands on those unless you leave nearby a butcher's shop that sells them fresh out of the boiler, so you can kind of do the next best thing by simply heating them up in water. Similar to this: Don't get me wrong, I also love them roasted with some, well, roasted potatoes and fresh horseradish (and maybe some spicy mustard), but there's something to be said for simply heating them up and enjoying them. Of course they're also great just cold. Man... I'm hungry now. Damn.

My car has three settings (comfort, neutral, sport) for the amount of resistance you want to get from your steering wheel. Unlike the other settings (transmission, "enhanced" or reduced engine noise) you can choose from I never quite understood what that one is for, but I guess I'm beginning to now.

No, I just don't like murderous Antifa and BLM Nazis! R00fles! I mean, yeah, sure sarcasm. Has Volo been gone too long now?

Wait, that's not right. Antifa and BLM murder people every day, not to mention that socialist incited civil war that's been going on in the US.

Anyway, sorry if this turns out to be a double post, but usually posting one of these takes time and there might be a reply or two in the meantime. Discovery S03E03. Again, unmarked spoilers. If anyone actually cares then simply scroll by. The beginning of this episode sums up the entire absurdity of both the show as a whole and the premise of the third season so far in two neat sentences in a dialogue between Beka Valentine, Tyr Anasazi and yeah wait, that falls flat because Stamets isn't really Harper... uhm. So yeah, anyway, Burnham, Stamets and Georgiou have the following exact conversation right after the episode begins. This is not a paraphrase by the way, I'm transcribing verbatim from the episode that's running in my Netflix tab right now. Just for the sake of being entirely accurate. So, yes, well, there you have it. Even the people writing this trash know it is trash and make fun of it. At least I hope that was what it was, because if that wasn't intentional lampshade hanging on the writer's part then they should all be fired. No, scratch that, they should all be fired anyway. As for the rest of the episode, well, the writers exercise their complete inability to gauge distances in space yet again. Discovery flies to Earth because an Admiral Tal sent a message twelve years ago inviting all Federation starships to join him. Discovery jumps to Saturn which is "outside" of Earth's "scanning range" to pretend to have hobbled home after The Burn at sublight speed. So there you have it. Saturn is a planet that's visible from Earth with nothing but the naked eye. A starship appearing in an instant near it would alert Earth immediately (well with an 80 minutes delay) even today, let alone in a future where people have FTL scanners. But nah, Earth's scanning range is so limited that they don't even know that the space pirates they're fighting with launch from Titan and they're all surprised when they find out that Hallig/Todd (actually his character's name in Discovery is Wen), their leader, is human too. Not that I mind, I really enjoy seeing Christopher Heyerdahl no matter where he shows up. Anyway, following The Burn Earth by the looks of it turned into... I don't know. Whatever the Federation turned into in Star Trek Picard, just only with one planet. Oh, and there's a new Wesley on Discovery now. Her* name is Adira and even though she's 16 she's part of an United Earth Defense something task force that's inspecting Discovery. She immediately knows that Stamet's spore drive thing is not what he claims to be and even sabotages Discovery without being noticed. Tilly is positively wired about an engineering wunderkind like that showing up, upstaging her, coz she's super nerdy but boy oh boy is she better than her. In a funny "twist" she's simply a human with a Trill symbiont. Phew. So no, sorry, no wunderkind, just a medical marvel. Well I guess it's a good thing Trill symbionts learned to deal with human hosts in the past one thousand years. Oh, and right, and she's actually human. For a moment I thought she could be J'naii, but that would require some sort of continuity beyond knowing that Trills sometimes have symbionts and that they carry all their previous memories with them and casting a non-binary actor in a (somewhat enforced) unigender species role would probably cause a crapstorm these days. Assuming anyone on Twatter who participates in manurestorms remembers a Star Trek TNG episode from almost two decades ago. *I know that the actor considers themself (theirself?) simply non-binary, but Adira is referred to as her by other Discovery characters. So I'm going ot use that when referring to Adira. On a more funny note I think if Luzianus were still around he'd rejoice, Blu del Barrio looks a bit like his pictures of DA:I's Cassandra. However, this is time at least Discovery tried to be Star Trek in some ways. The setting is ludicrous and the fact that Earth can't scan past Saturn is moronic beyond belief but at least they made peace between the United Earth Directorate Defense and the outpost on Titan. You know, like they're supposed to in a Trek show. Even if Georgiou beats up Hallig and says "diplomacy is so slow" just for some giggles. Actually I'm surprised to be somewhat pleased with how that episode turned out. Surprising. I'm sure they come up with something really stupid next week to alleviate me of that feeling. Because I don't want it.

Dark Matter might be the best trash sci-fi show ever made, and I say that intending it as nothing but a compliment. It certainly scratched the itch left by the more fun Stargate shows or maybe Andromeda. I might be one of the few people who actually liked Universe but for pure, silly sci-fi fun you can't beat SG1 or Atlantis.

Well that one's certainly a drag... uhm...

Fixed that for you.

Oh, we have something like that too. It's called Schöberl and is, essentially, biscuit without sugar and it comes in many variants. Mostly used with vegetable or beef broth.

It sure isn't here, but good to know other people of fine taste exist as well. Gotta ask what kind of dumplings though. I have a hard time coming up with any that wouldn't be better in a more savory beef broth. Heh.

Nah. Everything that I cook looks suspiciously like take out or instant noodles/ramen. My mother made that.

Time for more pictures. Chicken soup: And yes, that actually is rice in the soup. Might seem strange at first, but try it before you knock it. Beats noodles, egg puffs or anything else in chicken soup any day of the week. Rice must be boiled in the soup (obviously) until nice and soft for maximum flavor. You really need to pay attention that you don't accidentially make risotto, the rice is going absorb on a lot of soup. Put too much in and you might as well end with soupy rice insteady of ricey soup. And... some Chicken paprikash. Oh, yes, the colour is off because we do not add sour cream. Makes it look a lot more like goulash with chicken (which it isn't). You don't make goulash with chicken stock and usually with a lot more onions. Heh.

Come guys, support Romancelvania, I know you want it. Who doesn't want a Metroidvania romance game? Bruce, this is just for you I guess.

Ugh. As if the dub alone wouldn't be terrible enough they've really mangled the episodes. But it's hilarious to see the season one ending that originally was a two parter being just one episode. Heh. They are a lot less, uhm, let's say childish than the first season, you won't be getting super silly episodes about Usagi trying to lose weight and the bad guys draining energy from teenage girls with an unhealthy body image. It will even take the occasional dip into darker territory once Sailor Saturn shows up. It does stay very Sailor Moon at its core, but the later seasons are noticably different from the first. Like Harry Potter films when looking at the first two and then the third. Plus I really want to know if you hate Chibiusa or not. That's all I can say without spoiling too much. Or, well, at the very least that is what I remember. It's been a while since I've watched the show but I started with season two and was really surprised at just how different the first season was when I caught a rerun. Ah, the joys of regular TV. Heh.

I'm really curious what you will think of the later seasons.

That scene managed something very impressive. It took a joke that always makes me smile because I usually enjoy old, worn out jokes no matter how cliché they have become and made me facepalm. So Stamets is in the Jeffries tube, lying on the floor bleeding out while trying to fix the ship and Dr. Culber comes to them and he's supportive of his husband and says something like: "You need to fix this so I can get you out of there and kill you." Ha ha. Nah, that situation is way too dumb for that Hugh. Sorry. Oh, and cleaning blood. Jesus. Engineering Lady talks about someone cleaning the floor and he says "I'm called Dean by the way" and she looks at him and goes "I already forgot that" and I figured... yeah, I already forgot your name or that you even were on the Discovery. I'll probably remember Dean. Eh, I hope his name is Dean. Otherwise that would make my point fall on its nose a little bit.

Rich brings up a good point when talking about The Next Phase there. You could tear that episode apart with nitpicks... just like the Discovery episodes. But it's in service of a good, fun story and a nice episode in a setting that usually makes sense and isn't stupid as hell and therefore the occasional conceptual problem gets a pass. That Ro or La Forge should not be able to breathe or could potentially just fall through the floor is true. Does it really matter? No. Is it distracting? No... Is it distracting that Michael Burnham can fight an opponent twice her size in hand to hand combat being injured and win without breaking much of a sweat? Oh, why, it is. As is having a walking to the trading outpost montage when Book has personal transporters. Bah.

Are the Anthem servers still up and running?

Discovery S03E02. Well that was... hum. The entire episode was so forgettable I have nothing much to say about the plot, but there are some points that drove me nuts - again. I am however willing to concede that I can no longer be objective about this and that no matter what this show would do I'd start nitpicking and not liking it. So take the griping with a grain of salt. Also, unmarked spoilers ahead. Not that it makes much of a difference. Some parts of the alpha quadrant have apparently devolved into a wild west style setting with extremely inefficient energy weapons (Georgiou takes multiple phaser blasts and can still literally kick ass afterwards). More talk about how dilithium is necessary for warp drives and that there's no warp without dilithium. I mean it's pointless to point out that dilithium in 'Trek is used as the matter/antimatter reaction equivalent of nuclear reaction control rods, not directly for the warp drive, because who cares at this point. They also keep talking about warp drives even though Courier Book blabbed something about the quantum slipstream drive in the first episode. But whatever, really. Oh, and a thousand years into the future nature has provided the 'Trek universe with an entirely new periodic table because Tilly scans for metals necessary to complete repairs and find many that she doesn't even know. It's also pointless to point out that 'Trek had at least in part a tradition of sticking with accepted real life scientific principles beyond what was necessary to make the setting work (i.e. FTL, artificial gravity and polarity Treknobabble). Who cares at this point that the only way you'd get really new and astonishing stable elements on the periodic table is to entirely rearrange the laws of physics. Well maybe that's what happened to the dilithium. Bet the hippies didn't expect the Age of Aquarius to look like that, ey? Honestly how hard is it to say that you've found compound materials or alloys you had no clue existed? Your high school physics so bad that the only thing you remember is the periodic table? Had a fun reaction to seeing the Discovery bridge crew as well. "Oh, yeah... huh, who's that? Oh, right. Oh, look, it's Lt. Barclay's really terrible replacement. Cyborg lady with the artificial brain. Who the hell is that guy, was he here before? Oh right and there's the weirdo engineer lady from the crashed ship from last time. Whatever her name is." In contrast I've been rewatching DS9 lately and I just saw Crossfire, which is an episode that's largely about Odo and Kira and Odo's feelings for her and how he gets friendzoned really bad. Nothing much happens in the epsiode (other than an attempt at the First Minister of Bajor's life) but it was still better than every episode of Picard and Discovery combined. It's 99% character interaction and 1% action, not the other way around. "For a minute there, I thought you were talking to me as a friend." The lost art of character development in action. A single scene in a regular episode that is somewhat unspectacular otherwise with heartfelt delivery between two actors that are mimically limited by their make up is so much better than anything nu Trek has come up with so far. Since this is a wild west episode it had to end with a traditional standoff when the bad guy shows up and tries to shake down the poor miners because they were trying to help the Discovery crew. They kill one of the miners with their super weird inefficient laser guns and want to rob Discovery's dilithium supply. Zareh is clearly attempting to impress Tilly with his aged Billy the Kid spiel. Saru immediately cows to Zareh (great name by the way), the assigned courier to this trade route and negotiates for... well their repaired communications thingie and maybe a hostage release. But there's no plan, no idea how to stop them, nothing. He's just really negotiating in earnest with a character he should by all means know will never stick to their deal. Then Georgiou shows up and kicks everyone's ass (after getting shot repeatedly with the really bad weapons). They then proceed to execute Zareh by exposure to the elements. I mean Saru doesn't kill him immediately like Georgiou wants to but then they kind of agree to let him leave during night time on foot on a planet where the ice comes alive at night and destroys everything on the surface. Sure, why not. They're even nice enogh to give him some supplies. Finally when the Discovery repairs kind of fail and the living ice threatens to crush everyone on board Michael shows up and tells them she's been waiting for them for a year. Uh, okay. Also the cyborg navigator keeps hearing telepathic interference after she's hit her head. Oh, right, you only know it is supposed to be telepathic interference when you turn on the closed captions, because they really say [Telepathic interference] in front of the subdued Audio the cyborg navigator (oh right, they got names last season, hers is Detmer) hears. Oh, right, lest I forget, there's this wonderful scene where Doctor Culbert makes wakes up Stamets and puts him in a regeneration thingy. Then Stamets leaves to help with repairs. He and weird crash engineering lady with spinal disc herniation sit next to a Jeffries tube. Engineering lady tells Stamets how to repair a broken whatever in the tube. Stamets argues that she should crawl in the tube and she says nah, back's damaged she can't move. They then talk about getting some help from someone else and Stamets flies into a testosterone filled stupidity where he can't have asking for help in front of a woman (or whatever) and crawls up the tube himself. What the hell guys. This is a repair job that's crucial to Discovery escaping the parasitic living ice that wants to cover everything at night (except for the mining outposts apparently), both people there are in no physical condition to do it and yet they don't call for help that is clearly available and able? This isn't Spock fixing the warp drive of the Enterprise and sacrificing himself to save the ship and the people on it. This is just unbelievable stupid. Unbelievably stupid like the entire show. Gah.

Of course they are, and it doesn't work. That was my entire point.