majestic

On the bright side, the film can't get any worse than Quantum of Solace or Skyfall. That's physically impossible.

X-Files had a small revival with two new seasons airing in 2016 and 2018, in case you missed it. Had some pretty good episodes. Well worth watching for old fans of the series, probably no real appeal for new viewers. The overarching storyline remains silly and pointless, as it was beyond season six (or probably earlier, depending on how much you liked the alien rebellion).

Repeated application of blunt force trauma to the head for liking Picard.

More and more I am finding that Satisfactory is the perfect game to wind down for a software developer working at a supply chain management company. The game is fun and all, but uh, yeah, like... feels a "bit" like work.

You guys should really go through the romance. Top tier, that romance, really.

Face tanking any lair bosses on Torment IV isn't really an option as sorcerer, even with full barrier. The barb that I played initially could tank a lot more, having both fortify and barrier through boss powers, but I found the damage wanting and being in melee range of many of the bosses wasn't my idea of a fun time on Torment IV. The earthquakes also made boss abilities really hard to see. Duriel just has eleventy billion and a half hitpoints, but the fight is a pretty easy snoozefest. The Andariel fight on the other hand is complete chaos, and that final phase doesn't look like it was ever designed to last as long as it did in this season - if you can't burst her down quickly enough or deal with the supressor field totems (or whatever they are) fast enough you WILL die. I'd rather fight Lilith. Lilith can randomly create patterns that can't be avoided too, but at least if you play through the rest of the encounter well enough that doesn't instantly kill you at the very end of the fight.

Wasn't it fun to fight hit point sponge Ladder bosses with their own boss abilities which almost never fit into any character build? The difference is ludicrous. My sorcerer could reliably kill Belial in under five seconds on Torment IV. Equipping the Lilith boss power for the season journey? Oh, have fun fighting 15+ minutes because suddenly your damage potential is down in a ditch. The absolute dumbest thing was fighting Andariel with her own boss power, which activates after standing still for a second, which is pretty hard to do when the entire screen is full of moving one-hit kill zones during her last phase, but you need to damage enemies with your boss powers because all the other damage boosting effects procc from damaging enemies with your equipped main boss power. This was easily the least fun season since the first one, although that was by far and large my own fault for not switching characters. Barbarians were really, really bad in season one. Learned my lesson though - haven't played anything but FOTM OP builds since.

I was disappointed with both Odyssey and Breath of the Wild. Both games seem to have been designed as a case study for what one could do with a hybrid portable console. Play somewhat longer sessions at home when docked (i.e. Zelda's "larger" dungeons or Odyssey's "larger", more linear levels) and do busywork while on public transport, like getting a Korok seed or two, doing a small puzzle shrine or getting one of the myriad moons. Ultimately both ended up being weaker entries in their franchises, although Breath of the Wild still has the distinction of having really, really good exploration mechanics. That's just not something I care a whole lot for. Edit: That Donkey Kong game made me realize that I would really love a Blast Corps remake, or at least another game like it.

Probably like this:

Color me surprised by that. Seems to be a fan favorite on the other hand, so it'll be in every game from now on.

Uh, halp?

Which takes all of five minutes. Well, maybe fifteen, which is the average length of a cup. The actual cups aren't open world either, they're standard Mario Kart fare, with a mix of new and reused track designs. It's pretty fun so far, then again, I pretty much just ignore the free roaming part entirely. As far as Mario Karts go it's a good entry, but I don't see it being as legendary as the N64 or Game Cube / Wii version, but it might be too early to call. If you don't like Mario Kart as a franchise then this certainly isn't the entry that is going to change your mind. There probably will never be such an entry, there's only a limited amount of gameplay you can change in a kart racer with silly power ups, unlike the variation that is possible from other Nintendo franchises. From a techincal point of view the frame rate and smootheness of the game are what stand out the most. It just plays really well, even with double the amount of racers on a track.

Rooting for Ubisoft.

I'll just leave this here. It was posted some years ago, but it fits too well.

The bigliest bigly winning tariff of all time.

My mother recently won a gift basket. She gave me the bottle of craft beer that was in it, because she doesn't drink beer at all. It was a 8.2 vol% Imperial IPA. I don't like IPAs (slight understatement), and I generally dislike stronger beers, but I gave it a shot anyway. It took one sip to realize that calling it bottled sewage would be an insult to sewage, and I ended up pouring it out. The label said the "beer" actually won the best in show award for Imperial IPAs at the Craft Beer Rising London 2016. I don't even want to know how the bad ones are.

So, Lies of P: Overture is not on Game Pass, unlike the base game. That's not a big issue (for me, plenty of people seem to be disappointed online though - I kinda understand that, but since Lies of P became a surprise hit it is simple business sense to sell the DLC to everyone who wants to play) since the base game is well worth buying anyway, but somehow Microsoft can't into math: I'm beginning to understand some of the bugs in Windows.

We have always been at war with Eastasia. It's 41 years late, but it's here.

Switch 2 arrived today (still thinking Nintendo should have called it the Super Nintendo Switch). The old USB-C charger of the Switch is not compatible with the new dock. It'll load the console when docked, but you'll not get an image on the TV. The console will very happily tell you that it needs the new charger when you put it into the dock after it's done setting everything up, but not during the initial dock setup. Nintendo doing Nintendo things, I suppose. Played like ten minutes of Mario Kart World. The gameplay's pretty slow at 50cc and pretty easy, my mother was able to win her first race without knowing the track. I know it's not uncommon to just win 50cc races for regular players, but my mother has Parkinson's and recently had surgery on her left hand to fix some nerve damage that made her not feel much of anything with it. In light of that I think it's fair to say with some confidence that the game's easy mode is really, really easy this time around. Bundled game is just a download code though. I mean that's fine for me, but it might annoy others.

Indeed, this is something the likes of which the world has never seen the likes of which. Honsetly not sure what all the fuzz is about. Pretty tame compared to the Korean brawls.

So, like, quick note for those who don't know since 'tis the season and all that: The Wikimedia Foundation is sitting on assets worth so much that their dividends and interest alone would pay for Wikipedia's independence and operating costs. Indefinitely. Meanwhile, the donations are used to grow these assets, lobbying work and for the way above average salaries of its employees. Don't get suckered into donating to the Wikimedia Foundation by their call to action language. I'm not saying they're completely bad guys, but these calls for donations are highly disingenuous.

Hope it'll be called USNS Covfefe.

My nephew has badgered me into playing Satisfactory. At least he's the one having fun building the factory while I'm mostly off killing stuff, doing research and crafting equipment. The factory's a jumbled mess of conveyor belts and pipelines and storage containers. Pretty much what you'd expect from a 12 year old.