majestic

B-b-b-b-but if I wanted to post a human rights violation, I'd post this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWhT6oze9RI Yeah, it cannot be embedded, so just, like, click on it. A wonderful song by a group called HOMOFÜRST (literal translation either homo-prince or Prince of Homos, i.e. Prince of Gays). Anyway, this should be more your thing:

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Perfect bliss, and not even Scooter! Eh...

That was pretty much because Shady had Sisko as avatar at the time. Back in the days of yore when we shared pictures of ourselves on the forums (there was always some variation of a 'post your ugly mug' thread) I was always a little weirded out when people did not look like their avatars. Because that is clearly the reasonable thing to expect, that forum posters look like their chosen profile picture (bonus points on forums without custom avatars, like the old BIS board).

Yesterday, Kurz released a transcript of a phone call he had with Schmid two weeks after the police raids on the ÖVP's party headquarter. A call Kurz apparently recorded, where he asked Schmid what is going on and repeatedly states how he does not even know what the case is they are trying to make against him, and that he never, really never ordered anything untoward (he all but says pinky swear), and Schmid agrees. They both try to cast blame on their press agents and consulters. Apparently Kurz thinks this proves his innocence, because if he was the mastermind behind illegal financing of manipulated polls, he would not have to ask these questions, right? Right. Criminals of the world, take heed, this is the best line of defense ever. Can't wait for copycats trying to say that they cannot possibly have robbed the jewelry store even when caught with the jewelry because they called their mother and asked about the theft later.

Looks like the lettuce won! Well done, lettuce! Link-repost (probably):

Yes, but only one scene.

Well, that was one hell of an ending, and the absolutely stupidest... dumbest... whatever that was. The Boys already streched credulity by Homelander not just murdering everyone, but this is a damned sight dumberer, me thinking. Me like good things. Me like smash. Me will crush you, crush you to goo. Episode spent half its runtime on trying to inject drama into a foregone conclusion but forgetting the most important part about it: it only works if we have characters we like. Yes, I also already knew that Tyrion is going to survive the Battle of Blackwater, but the way there was at least entertaining. It ended up setting an impossible to pass bar within the series that the showrunners nevertheless tried to pass and invariably failed, but it was a fine episode. This? Seriously, nope.

Lord Christ, please free me from this mortal coil, this episode of House of the Dragon is so incredibly painful, and I am only through fifteen of its sixty minutes. Please just make it stop. Please.

Well... Jesus F*cking H. Christ.

What a glorious day this was. Looks like a key player of our former and 'somewhat' corrupt government has turned and made some sweeping statements during fifteen days of questioning in exchange for potentially becoming a crown witness (i.e. reduces sentences if their testimony turns out useful and sheds new light on complex cases). Hopefully this is the breakthrough that will cleanse our political landscape of a whole lot of filth. I am under no real illusions that many of them will go where they belong, namely jail, but at least there is a good chance they will be removed from any official posts now. I particularily want our President of the National Council gone. As president of the national council, it is his right and duty to preside over inquiry boards appointed by the national council. There currently is one of those working on the cases of corruption in our People's Party (ÖVP). Fun fact, the president of the board of inquiry and president of our national council, who is supposed to conduct the investigative work of the board on the topic of corruption in the ÖVP, is actually a member of... yes, right, the ÖVP. Because why not. I am certain there is no conflict of interest here. This is the sort of thing that would not be legal in any real nation on the planet. I mean, not even Trump could make that up. Thomas Schmid apparently decided to cooperate with the authorities after being asked by Kurz (our former chancellor) to basically fall on a sword for him. Kurz told him that he should take all the blame and insist that Kurz was not invovled in any illegal activity and basically forced him to resign a while back. See, this is the sort of thing you get for not learning from history. A huge number of Thomas Schmid's messages were uncovered on a backup, and the attorneys of the WKStA have been pouring over them for a while. In one of them he called himself Sebastian Kurz's praetorian guard. Kurz should have seen that one coming, the preatorian guards were rather infamous for making Emperors, but also very readily deposing of them. Also, to quote from the article: Sounds about right, huh? Guy must be right up Thiel's alley.

Federal Banana Republic of Austria The article quotes the press conferences wrong, for some reason. They really did say nothing left to find. Which implies something different than the translated "nothing will be found", of course. Anyway, there are no English links to the case brought forth by Die Tagespresse, but apparently I was wrong as the case was not dismissed (it was actually accepted), but Die Tagespresse chose to withdraw the action.

Not really on topic, but we recently had our own version of The Onion sue a politician of one of our ruling parties over lost business and unfair competition due to him saying things so far out of touch with reality that there is no way for them to to keep up. Not unexpectedly, the case was summarily dismissed, but it made for funny (funny in the sense of 'neigbour rings your doorbell at 3 am to tell you to hold his salt for a bit because the fishes in the aquarium are after it' funny, not 'ha ha' funny, because they were right) headlines. One of the things they said, publicy and at an official press conference no less, was that the state attorneys need not bother to send the police to raid their party's headquarter, because, to quote, "there is nothing left to find", a day or two before said raid happened. Oh how I wish I would be making this up. Alas. Funny thing though, the police really did not find anything of note. Makes one wonder why, does it not?

Indeed. With any weapon you can hold before Use Any Item. Thieves can use staves, therefore they can backstab with the Staff of Ram, which yes, is the weapon giving one most damage in a single backstab. Does not need a weapon you can stab with, just needs to be on the thief's weapon list. .p edit: Specifically, the weapon needs the 'usable by thieves' flag to be able to backstab, since Carsomyr is a Paladin only two handed sword, it does not work. Neither does Staff of the Magi because its use is limited to mages, even though staves can usually be used to backstab.

I was on board with my dream where you looked like Avery Brooks and were a meth dealer, but sect leader is a little too far. I'm out.

That is one part, the other is the idea of Carsomyr in the hands of a single class thief, desperately trying to hit for the dispel effect while Irenicus wipes the floor with the party at the Tree of Life (or the 'buggy' improved Bhaalspawns from Ascension). Thieves can't even backstab with it (unless the EE messed up something fierce). it's like, dead weight, except for that magic resistance. I know stuffing Carsomyr in the hands of some character with UAI was a fairly popular thing to do back in the days of yore when Throne of Bhaal was new, but it did not make sense back then, and it still does not now. Even if we are talking about a Fighter/Thief, one is much better served by dual wielding Foebane and the Scarlet Ninja-To (which, outside of cheesing a Kensai base and using consumables is actually a really nice application of Use Any Item), but at least you could conceivably do something useful with it.

Never mind.

Quoted for truth, and true for much of the entertainment industry too, and it includes video game developers and artists. Not that long ago there was an article about Blizzard paying their teams so little (note: for they area the company resides in, and compared to their profits, not in absolute numbers) that they basically had to share appartments because they could otherwise not afford them, and we're talking about an industry giant that sees insane revenue from existing IPs that barely any other company on the planet can claim to have, and they can get away with it because they are Blizzard, and people topple over each other to work for them. It really is a disgrace, but exists in all sort of industries. When one looks at a certain major supermarket player here, for instance, one would find a corporation that could raise each of their employee's annual income by 10,000$ (which would amount to a 30 to 40% increase for cashiers) and cut sales prices by 10%, and would still be left with a nine figure profit per year after any and all investments they deemed necessary for expansion. They do not, of course, because they do not have to. There are only two major companies who split the non-discount market amongst themselves, and as a result our grocery prices are roughly 30 to 50% higher than in comparable areas in the European Union (particularily compared to Germany). It is pointed out regularily by employee and labour interest groups, but nothing really changes, and any and all inquiries into their market position come back with 'no evidence for price gouging or rigging can be found', which is also true for gas stations, who all seem to miraculously have the same prices in our little corner of the world. Granted, one will not find evidence of price-rigging when prices are set automatically by machine learning algorithms based on real time telemetry. There is no need to rig a price, or talk to the competition. That just happens automatically. That said, and in light of the posts by the usual clowns here, I want to reiterate that I do not have any issue with her demanding better pay for VAs, but simply the way she expresses herself: spur of the moment videos or not, that is just not any way one talks about her colleagues, particularily not when they are Jennifer Hale, a high profile industry veteran who is still part of SAG-AFTRA and in the past has taken the side of smaller VAs.

For the record, I do not really disagree with her take that she's most likely worth more than the offer she got (unless Bayonetta's lines in the game are doable in a single recording session), and that the offer may as well have been an intentional insult to make her quit or get good value out of her in an exploitative manner. It is all the rest of what she says that smells like hurt ivory tower ego much more than glorious champion of exploited labour.

You really need to get out of California at some point in your life. Five second google, from https://www.nurses.co.uk/ Again with the average, not the median, but what can you do. For the record, our nurse average monthly income before taxes is roughly 2000€, there are some better paid outliers, but in general they're not paid all that well, and certainly not anywhere close to six figures. It was her who brought up nurses in particular, which was my point. She feels badly treated and the offer was insulting to her, that is fine. Putting herself in the same position as a nurse waiting in line at a food bank because runaway energy prices and inflation killed their income after turning down a relatively quick 4000$ contract? Nope. Average income for voice actors isn't all that great, by the way. US union rates for audiobook narrators, for instance, are in the ballpark of 250$ per completed hour (and maybe optional royalties per sale). That is probably a lot less than top-shelf non-union narrators make, of course, but it is a decent ballpark. For what it is worth, I think Jennifer Hale is still a member of SAG-AFTRA, so she charges union rates too. Month? How much dialogue does Bayonetta have in the new game, as much as the entirety of A Song of Ice and Fire has by now?

Caveat: Most of those were made before 2.0, and as you already noticed, a few things changed. Playful Darkness never before had an issue with being afraid, Boon Companion is probably still inconsistent and wonky, now Oracle merged spellbooks no longer enjoy the CL boost that a Cleric would get. Who knows what else is going to change until such a time you up the difficulty level.

https://www.ign.com/articles/bayonetta-voice-actor-hellena-taylor-says-she-didnt-reprise-the-role-in-bayonetta-3-as-she-was-only-offered-4000 Above quote from the IGN article, taken from a video of hers, apparently. Cannot afford to run a car right now, is afraid that she might end up on the street, but does not take a 4000$ contract and whatever she may or may not make from promotions, i.e. the later complained about possibility that Jennifer Hale could strut around pretending to be Bayonetta. Sounds legit. Even if she would spend a month in the voice booth and have no time to voice something else (now, my experience is limited, but something tells me this is not the case). Time for some google-fu. https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/averageweeklyearningsingreatbritain/july2022 Sadly that's average income, not median, which would be a better figure to compare. She really is a right champion of the little people, is she not? Yeah, something tells me the 'new girl' doing the Bayonetta voice acting does not need to sign Bayonetta merch and most certainly does not need to pretend to be Bayonetta. Now for the conclusion, at a first glance, 4000$ for a somewhat iconic voice role for a 450m$ franchise does sound insulting. On the other hand, we're talking about the English dub of a Japanese game, and one where the second entry was considered a financial failure which was actually cancelled and only released because Nintendo picked it up for its ill-fated Wii U. It did have a stronger Switch re-release, but that came bundled with the original Bayonetta. Between writing directly to Hideki Kamiya, which he probably appreciated very much, Japanese (corporate) culture being what it is, the jabs at Jennifer Hale and the woe is me call to boycott the game, I shall be honest: this does not a good case make. Especially for a woman who has a handful of voice acting and acting credits to her name, and let us face it, at the end of the day, she is Bayonetta, not Commander Shepard. Well, but it worked, she has got the Twatteria raging for fair wages for her. Because, you know, that poor nurse at the food bank probably needs to put two in months worth of back breaking, physically and mentally exhausting work to earn that kind of money, while Ms. Taylor's work is sitting in a recording booth, wearing her pajamas and sipping on some coffee (paraphrased quote by Mark Hamill on why he does more voice acting than regular acting). Or not, because Jennifer Hale seemed to have no problems with whatever Plantium offered her. Which likely is more than what Ms. Taylor would have earned, but how much we will probably never know. I will agree that the offer is low and she probably has a point insofar as that her voice is probably worth more for Bayonetta 3, however, time and sales will tell. On the other hand, she went to an audition, got an offer, and was unhappy with it. The rest? The rest smells like hurt ego.

Yeah, if your Elrond could just move to Stranger Things and reasonably replace Steve Harrison, there's something very wrong.