majestic

I don't know. I never really read YA novels but we watched some pretty disturbing anime as children because every channel manager seemed to believe that all animation is for children. Not talking about the lighthearted depiction of brutality of, say, Tom and Jerry cartoons here, but something soul crushing like Dog of Flanders. I watched Niklaas doing hard labor day in and day out just to get by, having all his hopes and dreams crushed every other episode and then, finally, when it seems like things just might improve both he and his dog freeze to death. I think YA novel readers will be fine if they get some bleak grimdark. Times are going to change, look at the stuff that's on TV for children these days. *shrug*

Adopting a single policy that originated as a left wing idea but has long since moved to mainstream status idea doesn't invalidate the leaning of the entire platform. Not to mention one can easily right-wing benefits for having children in the same way our government is going to do: By replaying universal benefits with tax cuts that only fully affect rich families with children. I don't know if Poland had child benefits of a sort before the new program but it's basically something that (almost) every other party in Western and Central Europe that wasn't part of the soviet bloc adopted decades ago. Such benefits are a matter of fact policy for the entire political spectrum for us, it's not much of a surprise that no one would consider it a reason to claim any party is left-wing.

He also starred in an X-Files episode that really fit him to a tee titled Terms of Endearment. I remember it well since it came after How The Ghosts Stole Christmas which is probably one of the best bottle-episodes ever made and I thought they might still turn the ship around... but eh, the ship had long sailed off into the sunset at that point. Some silly critics complained about the plot but what the hell, you don't invite Ash to guest star on your show and then play it straight.

I had an incredibly stressful and crappy day at work so on my way home Ipicked up six bottles of Stiegl Paracelsus Organic Zwickl beer. That was pretty good. Also somewhat drunk now. It's been a long time since I got drunk. A couple years ago I would have shrugged off six 0.5l bottles of beers with no real issue but I am certainly a good deal sh*tfaced right now. It's kinda hard to type. Damn.

Well to be fair I doubt any of the Plinkett reviews will ever capture the magic of the prequel reviews (or technically the Star Trek ones which came first). I do agree with a lot of Mike's points though. Not much of a surprise as I walked out of the theatre hating the film.

It's finally here! In spaaaaaaaaaaaaaace!

So what did you end up watching and how did you like what you saw?

Oi, the remastered version's Berserker battle in Harkyn's is a one time event . Understandable given the XP changes.

Fake. the earth is flat. Don't believe the lies! Eh, pretty impressive picture there tho.

Messing around with The Bard's Tale remaster. No, scratch that. I intended to mess around a bit, rolled up a party and started to slowly make my way through Skara Brae. And lo and behold, 15 hours later I'm trudging through dungeons and grinding levels. Currently grinding my spellcasters up a bit after the first round of class changes. The automapping is a great addition, as is being able to save without going back to the Adventurer's Guild, and the lessened XP curve for all classes is a godsend too. All in all well worth its money. Well, it would have been, had I not gotten it through backing BT4.

Finished watching the first season of Disenchantment. I'm not sure what I expected but this is eight episodes of boredom with a semi-parodical outlook on medieval swords and sorcery fantasy where every last joke falls completely flat. The show got one very short laugh out of me during the Hansel and Gretel bit - and that was making fun of Germans which is very much not a fantasy thing. There's some nice meta irony in the final two episodes. The show becomes interesting the moment it stops trying to be funny and starts playing its setting completely straight, down to an incredibly obvious plot twist. On the technical side the animation and art style is very Matt Groening (and thus also something I don't care for much, but at least it is servicable) and the voice cast does a top notch job. Except for Merkimer maybe. I'm not sure casting Matt Berry was such a good idea. I kept switching back to IT Crowd - something that's actually funny - every time he appeared. In all fairness that's more of my own personal problem though.

Burn the heathen. Grab yor pitchforks and torches!

Some of the Soviet campaign videos were pretty cheesy in Red Alert, but yes, compared to Red Alert 2 and 3 it's really down to earth.

So +1 for the wedding band theory.

Well color me orange and call me sunkist, I find myself agreeing. edit: Edit to clarify I'm not agreeing with our pre-moderated Polish lovebunny.

Been listening a bit to Peter Cornelius - good vocalist, gifted guitar player (with a grammy nomniation to his name) and the heart of a poet.

Not really, the implication being that 70+% of all sexual assaults that actually happen aren't reported by the victim, not that 70+% of all women experience sexual assault. Unless we apply #metoo standards, in which case everyone in the history of ever was at some point a victim of sexual assault. Even I as the evil white cis male hetero guy that I am. I'm really hoping serious studies don't do that - because, let's face it, being whistled after is not the same as being dragged into a dark alley, beaten and violated no matter how much the Twatteria wants to show empathy and compassion by pretending their experiences were as harrowing.

Sure, I'm totally into lifting a block of Leberkäse whenever possible.

Semantics. SM made it sound like the accuser/victim has no credibility because they are prostitutes (because it is impossible to sexually assault a sex worker, right?) which is the point Tagaziel was making. You took it an ran with it to rant about Hillary in a bizarre show of irrelevant whataboutism. The entire debate is a fun excursion in false balance and false equivalence, and suddenly we're at a point where sex workes aren't allowed to be sexually assaulted because they give it up for cash, Stormy Daniels wants to make a quick buck that she apparently already got and paying 130 grand in hush money is the same as lying about getting a blowie from an intern. But it's the left that's triggered and hypocritical while the same evangelicals that were morally outraged by Clinton's affair now give The Donald a carte blanche because he's about to usher in the biblical apocalypse. I'd laugh my ass off if all that weren't actually happening right now. Played completely straight and taken seriously. Who knows, maybe the apocalypse is nigh and by the looks of it most of mankind actually deserves it.

Nah, MCA said Feargus twirled his moustache at Paradox, so that's pretty much out of the window.

Lay off the Mortal Kombat. Or are you going to pretend that's the arabic spelling?

You know, I wanna say it can't be any worse than Star Trek Nemesis but... recently I learned that it can always get much, much worse.

X-COM: Apocalypse is a nice game. And a great study in how you can tune combat for turn based or real time, and not both. Someone playing it in turn based mode is not going to have a lot of fun. It turns the weakest enemies into horrifying deathbringers and later on when you face a hundred enemies with your miniature squad you'll be pulling your hair out. I initially was disappointed with the game. Then I tried RT and everything went from there. Loved the fact that my end-game fleet could fly around trashing the city. :D

Covfefe!

Got around to playing and finishing Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link. I'll admit to cheesing Shadow Link, after that harrowing journey I just sat in the corner and kicked him in the head 'til he was dead. I also spent three hours grinding myself to max level in the experience frontloaded island dungeon (there's up to 270 easy experience in the first two screens) after getting my ass handed to myself by the first Blue Ironknuckle (funny how the boss version is easier than the normal ones). That made the rest of the game relatively smooth sailing. Except for excrutiatingly weird things like having to use the hammer on a forest tile to reveal a town and that final dungeon.