majestic

Cynical take: Either the US promised to not replace Leopard 2s with the Abrams or Sleepy Joe is perhaps walking back on his odd bit of Trumpist US car industry protectionism. It was not very popular with German car manufactures, and they pretty much run the country.

It is always a good sign when you notice the little things in movies, yes? Particularily the little things that were not intentional. Like the curious case of Padraic's moving pint: It really is a MYSTARY.

Well, as you all probably know, I sometimes can't help myself and go against my own good judgement, especially when I already posted about not wanting to go against my own good judgement, and so, of course, I just watched the first thirty minutes of The Banshees of Inisherin. 31:29, according to the player, minus the length of the SEARCHLIGHT intro sequence. Okay, so why am I stopping and bloody postin' 'bout it? First, and on the very bright side, the film gave me a hearty laugh when Siobhan said to Colm that her brother's always been dull, and I like watching Alastor Moody, so there's at least that. Colin Farrell is another matter, but this role seems to be made for him, as he's really convincing in it. I suppose that is... not exactly an endorsement of his acting skills as much as an insult, although I did like Phone Booth, and thought critics were overly harsh on it. I also really enjoyed Martin McDonagh's 7 Psychopaths, but that too was a film where Colin Farrell just worked by being himself. It was also carried by everyone else and it's incredibly funny meta commentary aspect, also a film that had Crewman #6 in it, and the archangel Gabriel*, and when was he not great in a movie? So, that still doesn't explain why I am posting now instead of watching the rest of the film before doing that. I feel like I've seen the entire movie by now. There's still over an hour left. An hour and twenty minutes, give or take ten minutes of credits. Why? Why is this so long for what little content it has? Is the film trying to make me sympathize with Colm even more than I already am? Please stop with the feckin' repetitions already, or I'll start rowin'. Bloody hell. Jesus. I'm going to call it a day, as we're creeping up on it being 1:30 am. I'll finish watching tomorrow. Well, today, more like, so. *The Prophecy's Gabriel, not Constantine's Tilda Swinton.

Epistory, the current free game on Epic. For those of you who don't know, it is a typing action adventure game, and that really is all there is to it. Words pop up on your screen, and you type them in to make them disappear. It features an adaptive difficulty, whatever that means. I suppose that means people who type less quickly will not be getting the really hard to type 'big' words to contend with. It does feature some more mechanics, you can and at times have to change the elements of your typed words, which has added special effects. Fire burns the next word after a while, ice freezes enemies, wind blows them away and lightning does area of effect damage, making the use of lightning whenever it is possible a slight no-brainer. Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis showing up? Well, zap the enemy next to it reading BUT, that's quicker. Okay, granted, Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis shows up as a solo enemy and you have to type that in before it kills you, but you get the general idea. Also, yes, Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is totally a word in the game that shows up. Not joking. Hilariously enough, for English speaking folk, the game has two difficulty modes. American and British English, so pick if you want extra vowels in your words or not. Anyway, doesn't really matter, as long as you're an avery typer you're not going to break any sweat. The words per minute calculation of the game is a little wonky, but it is a game, not a typing simulator, so there's downtime between words, some spawns are easier than others, and some go much faster down than others too, depending on your character upgrades and available elements. All in all it was a fun experience. Took me six hours to complete, and that's with running around the island several times to make sure I did not miss anything and looking for all the treasure, which was really pointless because there's a hard level cap you can easily reach without finding all overworld treasure chests. Game is perhaps a little bit to long for what it offers. It looks nice enough, and it's hard to argue with the price Epic's asking.

Well, looking at the track record of what you all agreed on being great and my reaction to it, I think I'll pass for now.

Episode 17 was probably the weakest of the series so far. Usagi is so heartbroken over Mamoru's whatever-she-will-turn-out-to-be ladyfriend* that she just forgets to go and help Rei with a fight, Makoto has nothing better to do than be off-screen afterwards and Ami is somewhere lost along the way, and all of this to force Minako to transform into Sailor Venus as part of this big reveal that I thought the girls were already aware of after Sailor V officially met them as Venus... I am a little confused here, but maybe the issue was the subtitles of the earlier episodes - we're talking fan translation here (I think, at least)**. PGSM does PGSM's version of the distracted boyfriend meme: Well, to be fair to the series, the series was shot in the years 2003 and 2004, and the stock photo the meme is based on is from 2015. On the bright side, Minako's transformation sequence is bloody bonkers. Pretty sure Rei figured out that Minako is terminally ill in this one. Oh, right, big spoiler. Woops. Sue me. I also found myself feeling bad for Usagi being all heartbroken and forlorn. Good job show, I just wish you did that with a better episode. *I spoilered myself: Yeah, so that is, uhm, dumb. **When Sailor V reveals herself to the other Sailor Guardians as Sailor Venus and their long lost princess, which we all know she is not, Usagi remarks in the next episode that they can all see Minako more often now, to which Luna says that she told them that she wants to continue to work alone. It is entirely possible, and quite likely given the setup, that Usagi was talking about Sailor V, not Minako, and the translator just put the wrong character name in the subtitles, or I got the wrong idea from the way they were written. Yeah, I am unsure of how much time and money they had for the casting of the series. As with everything else, that was probably "not much", why else would they have a really, really terrible plush Luna. I should also take into account that the girls were really young when they made this series (about their actual age in the manga, so 14 or 15). The problem is that bad direction can be directly observed by Usagi being pretty good in some scenes and wretched in others, while Ami is almost always Ami. On the other hand, the fighting scenes were probably choreographed and directed by someone else, and Ami is generally fine in those.

Sometimes I dream of having to go to my finals while not being prepared at all. I wake up, then confusedly think to myself that I better begin to study lest that nightmare becomes reality, before slowly realizing that I already took them a long time ago. The really silly part about these nightmares? I took the exams unprepared, and I was not scared at the time. Why would my brain tell me to be now, over two decades later? Sounds like too much BRUNO. Appropriately, this post was eaten by the void. Less appropriately, it came back into being even without saving it first.

I don't think so. Naru doesn't interact much with anyone but Usagi in the anime. The idea isn't bad, actually, as Ami is envious of Naru's seemingly effortless way to be friends with Usagi, but Ami's actress is really limited, either by the direction or her ability (probably both), Usagi only works if she's not told to overexaggerate her expressions and mannerisms in an anime-esque manner, which she sadly always is when she's with Naru, and Naru's acting is about as limited as Ami's, but her expressions are a tad better. I can't really fault the writing (unlike when Mamoru suddenly shows up with a girl to hurt Usagi with no prior setup, and since he's an orphan with no relatives, he can't well have a sister - and even if she is his sister, it's still bad writing). The setup is there, from the episode where Ami spends time with Naru and Usagi, to the way she does not want Naru to see the effects of Kunzite's attack on Usagi, it also makes sense that Ami would be envious of Usagi's other friends for how easy it all seems to be for them. Basically, it is not working as well as it should because it is an anime adapation, the direction is not good for these scenes and the actresses involved seem to not be up to the material they are given. It is not made better by the constant reminder that Sailor Moon S's episode where Ami feels like she's not really part of the team is one of the top episodes of the original anime. I'm not sure I should be complaining about the acting in a shoestring budget TV show, but the biggest issue is that none of the three are able to properly sell it. I don't know if the episodes have different directors, but there are things that work really well. Usagi and Makoto work when paired together, as does Minako, as long as one likes super serious Minako - although to be fair, Usagi manages to bring out Minako's silly side, but Minako was in something like three episodes so far.

PGSM is currently trying to add some conflict between Naru and Ami, and it's not really working too well. I wonder if that is what will cause Ami to become DARK MERCURY. In other news, I've been playing Wolcen instead of watching anything. Edit: Uh, apparently not, and Mamoru suddenly has a girlfriend. This is going places with no real setup for dramatic effect. Nope. You can do that better, show. Try harder next time.

Aaaaaaaaaand this is why one does not simply buy cards from Moria:

Well that is better than what it the forum software usually did in that case. Not post, kill your text and call it a day. The prime reason why I CTRL + A; CTRL + C every post. Even the shorter ones nowadays.

Hello, this is customer service, how can I help you?

Found a bunch of bold faced lies on Wikipedia:

Is there a trailer? There was a teaser like a year ago, and it broke me. Please tell me it's just the teaser, not an actual trail... never mind. IT IS GOING TO BE JUST LIKE JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK APOKOLIPS! Well, somewhere in the afterlife, Seiya's original voice actress is facepalming. Well, at least the trailer is absolutely gorgeous... not. And, supreme lol at the fandom gobbling up two movie releases within a month to rake in some extra sweet cash. Can it get any more cashgrabby than that? At least Anno spent years working on his terrible remake/soft reboot/alternate timeline versions of NGE. This here? Animated one movie, sell it as two. Well, f*ck you too.

All I know of the Canadian law enforcement comes from Due South, so why are they having APCs and not white dogs?

Fixed that for you.

Guess that explains why/how my mother's credit card was hacked recently. The bank called and cancelled the transactions on their own (go decent customer service) and sent a replacement card. Good job, Peter Thiel & Elon Musk brainchild company.

Some of my favorite TV shows were anthologies (Outer Limits) and mostly episodic (X-Files, Andromeda was sort of a hybrid where the episodic content contained a clue or two or a storyline beat in between) in addition to the animes, that's fine. I just didn't really enjoy the episodic parts of Cowboy Bebop all that much, with or without Faye. Oh, you don't even have the annoying kid the other character on the crew yet, do you? I hope you keep watching to at least the episode with the space monster, because I'd like your opinion on that one. I'd rank it amongst the worst episodes of anything I've ever been subjected to.

Do something fun, like COBOL.

I don't think it works that way.

Good news then, because Breaking Bad starts off as character driven black comedy in the first season and then becomes an angry dark drama. One might actually think the parallels are intentional. Although, well, even at the beginning Breaking Bad had much bleaker moments than the initial Better Call Saul episodes.

Great news, now please kindly send me your billing address so I can bill you for my time spent testing, the time for writing the bill and the time for this joke post.

After, like, the first four or five episodes of Noir, I thought Noir was rather like that episode from Cowboy Bebop too, particularily when they get to the church/catacombs early on, but Noir turned out to be a little on the, uhm, let's be kind and say underwhelming side. (am I really fixed?.) ".".." "move " "(dir c:\\windows"); True, but then - I feel like I enjoyed the first few standalone episodes less than you did. That episode was such a nice contrast to the... boredom of the rest.

From what I remember I found that episode to be fantastic because it had character-driven elements for a change. I desperately wanted the series to continue like that, but it's back to episodic stuff until the midpoint of the series. However, I have to say, that shootout in the cathedral was amongst the best looking animation I've seen. Everyone on the creative team sure knew how to set a scene and write more interesting takes on the characters, the question is, why didn't they do that more often?