majestic

Neighbor told my mother that I dumped some trash next to the trash bin today, so she actually went there, picked up the trash and threw it into the bin and asked me what the hell I was thinking. I haven't even been close to the trash area of our appartment building in over a week (more like two) as I don't really have an awful lot of trash to dispose of - and I wouldn't buy half liter bottles of soft drinks, which was apparently what the trash consisted of mostly. Stupid ass drunk probably left it there himself, or else lord knows what or who he saw in his stupor.

Obligatory Prometheus + Alien: Covenant post:

Watched the first two episodes. The orphanage has a punishment for wrongdoing that consists of being hung naked from the ceiling, and Riko, the main character, is of course an apparently regular victim. Her voice is also really grating, but that's something very subjective. Somewhat strange exposition dump at the end of the first episode that's basically the Cliff Notes for the book What Happened In This Episode For Dummies. Riko being in an orphanage also necessitates an exposition moment with soft piano music about her missing (presumed dead) mother and her last adventure in the titular Abyss, but to the credit of the series that happens only in the middle of the second episode, not immediately right at the start, and the scene didn't feel emotionally manipulative, it's more like Shinji and Gendo when they talk about his mother (in terms of mood, not in terms of quality). Other than that, nothing much happened yet, except: Uhm. So... well, at least none of the characters are inherently loathsome. Riko's stuck with a sort of shouneny drive and ambition to outdo her legendary mother. Not sure, that's about all I can say after two episodes. It's not bad by any means and it looks better than it has any right to, even with the character models being weird. The punishment meted out to unruly orphans makes me question our poster's assessment about the children being tortured for reasons inherent to the world they live in and not just for random cruelty. That's just pointlessly cruel for cruelty's sake - or to animate naked children. Either way is, let's say, a tad weird. Have an animated gif of the scene: Still not as bad as Nanoha's burnt off clothes-tentacle rape transformation or the girl bashing her bullies' heads into lockers. Which I'll just link here too, because why not. For everyone who missed it when we talked about it. It's time coded, but feel free to watch all of it! Anyway, still, the first two episodes were okay. Kinda afraid that Riko will end up naked some more.

Like I said, I have no excuse for this one.

Yeah, not the biggest fan of compilation movies, but hey... they can't be any worse than Nanoha's. Funny how everything doesn't seem so bad when put next to the Nanoha franchise's really, really god damned awful entries. edit: Guess having a magical girl transformation sequence that burns off the girl's clothes and leaves a smoke/shadow entity that continues on to sexually assault her is hard to beat by anything that's not explicit hentai. The hell. Heh. Mission accomplished. Beats that pointless 10 page reply to Bruce.

All right guys, I'm switching Strike Witches with Made in Abyss, if that isn't better than crotch shots of 13 year old girls wearing only underpants I'm going to make you lot watch a 10 hour loop of Nanoha's two minutes of lolicon content.

Out government just removed the COVID-19 quarantine in favor of mandating FFP2 masks if you're infected, have no symptoms and want to leave home. Technically that means you're allowed to sit in a pub as long as you wear a mask, but you're not allowed to drink anything. Bet you the owners are going to be as happy about someone sitting there with a mask on as every other guest. Not entirely against dropping the quarantine, but as always, the implemented solution has... rather curious peculiarities. The change was made primarily to get symptomless infected back into the workforce in some way.

Surly there must be a curriculum for that ?

https://screenrant.com/mass-effect-3-everyone-dies-kill-squadmates-renegade/

Played and finished The Bard's Tale: Tales of the Unknown. The remastered version, I mean. Even with the revamped character progression and the added option the game runs a little too long and overstays its welcome at the end. It became much more enjoyable after I stopped bravely facing every enemy I ran across and just ran from fights tha would be too long drawn out or flat out annoying, like having multiple groups of spellcasters at high ranges. Why bother, just run, the next fight is just around the corner anyway. All in all, for an almost fourty years old game, that was pretty good. Well, with the added quality of life from the remastered version. I'd be much less positive if I had to draw my own maps. While modern gaming sure feels like it has lost a certain charm (and perhaps it just doesn't feel like it), some things are best left in the past - although I'm willing to admit that might be just a matter of having much less spare time. Drawing dungeon maps was a nice part of the immersion back when Eye of the Beholder was new, but after a hard day's work, I'm not really in the mood to fight monsters and the game. Not sure if I want to immediately continue on to BT2.

Caught up on The Boys. Expectations can really make a major difference in enjoyment. Based on earlier comments I expected season two to be not really great and season three to be fantastic, and found it was the other way around for me. Season three managed a very impressive feat: It feels like the writers crammed everything but the kitchen sink of contemporary issues into it, but it still feels like it is running on a treadmill for most of its runtime. Dunno. Didn't like Kimiko's musical interludes, nor Black Noir's cartoons, also didn't like Seth Rogen's cameo and I'm not sure what I expected from Herogasm, but certainly not the tame little episode that it actually ended up being. Soldier Boy was mostly meh, as was the resolution at the end of the season. Hughie and Starlight have a conflict is also really getting old, as is the on and off infighting with Butcher. Guess my opinion would be better if I hadn't binged seasons two and three back to back. It just makes it way too obvious how everything stays just the same in just the right way to keep on churning out seasons. Not entirely sure if that's the fault of the comics as I don't know them. So no commentary on the adaptation. The pacing problem might be there too, I don't know.

Well, ditch the cripple and get it over with. Actually, that clip should be enough of a demonstration, anyway.

Strike Witches, episode 2: I don't think I'm going to make a post every time I watch one of these episodes. Basically, what's currently shaping up to be a bit of a mindless but otherwise at least not terrible sci-fi alternate reality magical girl show is severely undermined by all the weird crotch shots. They don't even have the decency to stop it when Yoshika is crying at her father's grave. Well, not like I didn't know before, right? After some of the Nanoha stuff, all I can say is: Well, at least they're not nine. What a wonderful hobby I got here.

People who like Alien: Resurrection would ditch a cripple.

I once watched anime on behest of another, to serve the people of this thread in person. I found only chaos and insane stalker girls. Dead whispers. For twenty-four episodes I was confused. No more. I have gathered the will to watch under no name but my own. To champion the withered trhead and correct this blighted world. Beg that I succeed. For I have seen the future of anime, and it was empty! That said, inorder to stop myself from trying whatever kooky Isekai you guys want to watch, I instead watched: ストライクウィッチーズ (Strike Witches), episode 1 So, basically, this is an alternate reality magical girl show where instead of World War 2, an alien invasion happened in 1939, and the militaries of the world came together to create the 501st Joint Fighter Wing, colloquially known as Strike Witches, to fight the alien invaders. It is set apart from other sci-fi magical girl shows (read that as Nanoha, mostly, because there aren't that many of them, far as I know) by not having transformation sequences with nudity, instead the girls grow cat ears and a tail when using magic. That said, there's... very weird fanservice. Well, some is fairly regular, like girls in swimwear in the first episode (always a good sign, I guess), but uniforms of any sort apparently have neither skirts nor pants. The girls are basically wearing a shirt and some underwear, and as logically follows, there's a heavy focus on awkward crotch shots. Most of the time, I at least 'get' the fanservice. I don't particularily enjoy it, and it's often embarrassing, but at least I understand why it is there. This here? No idea how that's supposed to be appealing. So, for no reason what-so-ever, three quarters of the cast aren't wearing pants or skirts. I have no idea why. At least it doesn't have an super stupid slapstick to accompany it. Yet. Yeah, I basically have no excuse for this. There's any number of things I could have continued to watch but didn't. Not particularily in the mood or able to watch Texhnolyze at the moment. That's going way over my head right now, what with everything being a buzz. Currently alone at the office, my sleeping has been spotty and my weekend was filled with one giant social gathering, i.e. my wife and I invited friends and family to finally celebrate our wedding. That was, funnily enough, three years ago, but with the lockdowns it was more or less impossible until now. It's not all bad, because outside of the silly fanservice stuff this looks like it's the sort of goofy, mindless action shlock I can watch while being brain-afk.

The second one bothers me the most for some reason. It's just wrong. The others, uh, not so much. Where are the shiny spots on the faces?

The mining mini-game in ME2 brings out my inner child. I just keep wasting probes on Uranus and laugh at EDI's increasingly annoyed replies.

Unlike KP, I think self-harm is preferable to watching Alien Resurrection. I watched the film at the theater. They had what they called a 'quadruple feature' midnight premiere of the film, showing Alien, Aliens and Alien³ back to back before Alien: Resurrection at midnight. The evening was quite the experience. It's incredible how much your butt will start to hurt even in the most comfortable of seats after nine hours of sitting and staring at a screen. Of course I failed to learn from the experience and repeated the same mistake with Lord of the Rings later. That was one movie less, but even more runtime. Still remember that the cinema chain had a couples' special at the time, two large soft drinks and a bucket of popcorn. I went there with a friend, and he didn't want any popcorn, but the special was cheaper than two regular sized soft drinks and separate popcorn, so we went and bought the special. Priceless look from the clerk lady. Kinda looked like she was afraid of catching the gay. Yeah, maybe not everything was better in the 90ies. That's the sort of thing that would have been hurtful if we had been an actual couple. Anyway, evening came as close to a complete bust as possible. Watching the four films back to back just shows you how much the series became gradually worse for the wear. While I'd agree that Alien³ isn't as bad as it is made out to be, watching it almost directly after Alien is not ideal. I even dozed off in the middle of watching it, which is really odd when I normally can't even sleep with the TV on.

It is, except worse in every way, and Ripley is an alien/human hybrid for whatever reason. If you thought she overacted in Aliens, you're in for a treat in Resurrection.

Make sure to try the Imoen romance mod for BG2.

When we make jam, which is pretty much every year simply because we have a lot more fresh fruit and berries than we can eat, we just puree everything, then cook it with only a 1:2 ratio of fruit puree to sugar. The result is a very smooth jam that is easily spread on whatever you want it, with an incredible aroma and taste and a lot less cloying sweetness than the store-bought stuff. I just googled pictures of seedless raspberry jam, and that stuff looks like jelly good. Ugh. No thanks. It also most certainly doesn't get goopy, like, at all. There's just not enough added sugar in it. Well, maybe after a couple of years, but a little stirring will fix that. Needless to say, I also don't want chunks of fruit in my jam. That's just not my, uhm, jam. I know people who like that sort of stuff, but there's no accounting for taste, or something.

Getting back to politics, there's fun stuff going down in Italy. The cynic in me wants to call this the first of many dominoes falling the other way.