majestic

I haven't watched the episode yet, but read the spoiler. I expected nothing, and yet, I was still disappointed. Unbelievable.

My great-grandmother used to tell tales of how it was being caught between the Wehrmacht, the Red Army and Tito's Partisans way back in World War 2. My grandmother and her brother (the latter who is still alive) also told tales of their wonderful childhood. Starvation, death camps, watching former neighbours shooting each other because they were the wrong ethnicity. People losing their livelihood and their life's work over being not German enough, or too German... fun stuff, all in all. Special military operations certainly bring out the best in people.

Great, now I'll have even worse nightmares, because right now I'm imagining a scene like Salma Hayek's snake dance in From Dusk Till Dawn, except with giant, oversized, eight-legged, eight-eyed freaks spewn forth by the final circle of hell.

It's probably pretty hilarious too with the voice actor gang consisting of DIO, Toya, Allen and Prince Dios. That seems like a dream combination for just that sort of nonsense. Also, yeah, okay, I wasn't sure with the tag. I can't even disagree in general. It's not just your brain*, there really is a whole lot of flat guitar playing in a lot of music, some even to the point of me not being actively able to make out the guitar track in the music, even though it's there - why else have a guitarist around. They surely don't pay a guitarist to pretend to play, I mean, that would be weird. I get paying people to sing lip sync like what was that, Milli Vanilli, but yeah, mockup guitarists would be weird. In this case though, well, dunno, it's probably too easy to win me over with good singing - or rather singing I would consider to be good, that's not really entirely objective. Well, there are objective ways to measure singing quality based on technique and breath support, but that's something else. As such I don't have any issues listening to Evanescence, even though the band is just, let's say terrible. I would not turn off Creed when it's on, but I would actively attempt to get rid of Metallica, and anyone noticing that would spell an instant loss of all metal credibility. *For me that's by far and large saxophones and (short form, by far and large) trumpets. The former makes me tune out, and the latter actually makes me irascible. I also really, really don't like it when music feels like it's everyone doing their own thing and there's a distinct lack of melody and harmony - or in other words, that's a whole lot of deliberate breaks where there should be none in terms of pattern prediction. It's doubly bad when this brain dissonance is caused by vocals. That pretty much kills all of jazz, with very, very few exceptions. That's not to say everything needs to be perfectly melodical or easy listening. Some groups I enjoy listening to employ quick timing switches from a base 6/8 time signature to an irregular 5/8 and 7/8 and it doesn't feel wrong. Hard to describe. A decent example is Frank Sinatra's Come Fly With Me. Ugh. Can't cope. Impossible.

A while back a new neighbour moved in. Mostly she's the quiet and reserved type. Actually, most of the time you barely notice that someone new is around. Might also be because she apparently works night shifts and doesn't come out of her living place all day long. Just every now and then, at night, she leaves and you can catch a glimpse or two. I managed to snag two pictures, with relatively bad image quality because, uhm, well, it was night, my iPhone camera is pretty bad (I still got a first generation iPhone SE) and quite frankly, she gives me the creeps so I'm sure as hell not going any nearer than I was when taking the pictures. To say she's hideous would be an understatement, so really, if I hadn't walk by her door to get to mine I'd totally not even go anywhere near where she could show up. Hence, the images are in spoiler tags. Don't complain if you click on them and have a heart attack or scream like Prince John when he goes to visit Latrine in Mel Brook's Men in Tights. She also has the nasty habit of just throwing her leftovers out the door. Sheesh, who does that? Saw her today, not looking forward to the inevitable nightmares that will follow.

Just in case: Bishounen is a tag for the aesthetics of the male characters, not necessarily the target demographic. It just means pretty boy (bishoujo meaning pretty girl). I mean, yeah, literally it means pretty youth because technically shounen means something like "few of years" or "little years", but it at some point came to refer to boys instead of being gender neutral. *shrug* Yue from CCS is the most bishounen character ever, probably. edit: Might as well post a picture for everyone who hasn't (and never will) watch the show. Blasphemy, how could you not like a song performed by not one but four really good vocal... eh, okay. That answers that. Okay, in all fairness, it's probably not the strongest of the Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles songs, but I really like the live performance. Definitely a case where seeing them on stage having fun enhances the experience a good deal. Unlike, uhm, that µ's thing that just gets worse when being subjected to the video instead of just the audio.

Not talking about edge issues that happen once every blue moon, that's fine. Specifically, it's a product (well, service) that a branch provides to its customers that has very little to do with what our system was created for, and they come with issues every time. Square peg, round hole and all that. We try to be as accomodating as possible, but there are limits to what we can do without negatively affecting the system for everyone else.

What? Of course there would be evil, western, capitalist rhetoric. There was plenty of that in Nazi Germany.

I'm currently thinking about trying this silly Star Trek: Picard 'absolute candor' thing. I'd say by the end of the week I'd no longer have a job and my family would stop talking to me, but at least I'd be left in peace and all by myself. It is so incredibly tiresome to pretend to care about anyone else's ridiculous sensitivities. No, user, I don't want to spend an hour working on an issue that is only an issue because you can't stick to the defined process and that branches with a hundred times your workload have no issues with. No, user, if you print a picking list and change the storage location afterwards, it is not going to automatically update itself on the paper. No, this is not complicated. No, user, if you print a picking list after removing a package from storage it will not have a storage location printed on it. The package is no longer on hand. No, the system can't know you did not intend to remove it from storage unless you tell it so. No, this is not complicated. No, user, I don't want to listen to you griping about software not doing exactly what you want it to do when it was not developed specifically for your needs. Just deal with the fact that your use case is an edge case that barely fits into the entire concept in the first place. No, customer, I don't want to call you, you have an insignificant amount of shipments and make up less than 0.001% of all revenue, me talking to you about issues that are demonstrably on your or your IT service provider's end on the phone costs the company more than we make off of you in a month. No, dear colleague, I don't want to make time to go to a COVID-19 antigen test because you invited me to your marriage ceremony. I don't want to go in the first place and only agreed because you'd be a prissy bitch about it if I'd decline. No, dad, I already spend half of my time at work reading and writing emails, I don't want to be your secretary just because 'I type a lot faster' than you do. *sigh*

As long as it's not the Techno-Necromancers from Alpha Centauri...

Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE (2005) - S01E03 - The Sword that destroys Evil It's been a while since I started this, and with a whole lot still open, this is as good a place as any to start. It sure feels extremely weird to see Shaoran, Sakura, Arashi, Sorata (these two are from -X-) and Kaito (Clear Card) in some other anime where they play similar characters. Generally, I'm not sure what to think of these shared universes, however in this particular case it was just a bad idea. I'm sorry, but using Sakura and Shaoran in anything but Cardcaptor Sakura is just a bad idea. Clear Card was a bad idea, and that was a sequel. Anyway, what else can I say about this. It's not terrible, but it's also not very ineresting. Yet, I hope, at least. One thing that is great is the music. This is part of a concert that's also available on YouTube, and part of the encore. They all just disappear at the regular end of the setlist, then and come back in their band-shirts instead of wearing their normal stage clothes. I don't know why, for some reason this never fails to entertain me. Although there's quite frankly nothing less I expect from a Yuki Kajiura soundtrack. It's also really great to see Fiction Junction performing on stage without it being equal parts hilarious and making you feel ashamed for liking anime. Unlike, let's say, a certain amount of other performances. If you think I'm going to link one of those now, then you're right! Alas, my go-to one has disappeared, probably got copyright struck from YouTube. A pity, but this will serve as a decent replacement. Actually, an even worse one. Frighteningly worse. Oh dear. When something makes you want the "Dancing stars on me" video back, then that's saying a lot, huh? There's a nice flashback in the episode with the scene where Tomoyo banishes one of the characters of the show for being a total shounen moron who says he doesn't care who lives or dies, he just wants to become more powerful. On the one hand, that's great, on the other, we're now stuck with him in the party, and even though he continuously grumbles about not wanting to be part of the team and leaving at the first chance, I'm afraid we'll not be rid of him that easily, huh?

Well, there's a slight upside to taking extended walks when you're not that far away from a national park. When I was little it was possible to ice skate here in winter. Goes on for a bit beyond the bend. While they're not on the picture, there are several white lilac shrubs lining the way further into the park, the air is heavily fragrant with their scent. Not the worst way to spend some time walking.

Obviously I wouldn't show my male chicken to anyone, so you just got to trust me on this! Eh. That went terrible really quickly.

What if the government would mandate to be always against what the government mandates? Let me guess, this came up?

Guess it beats Russian missiles having a malfunction in their guidance system and hitting a Polish airfield in response to Poland accidentially losing a hundred tanks.

It's as good as any explanation I can give. It just feels weird to not have the Y axis inverted. I think it is early flight and space sims that are more or less the reason for this, because it is linked to directly controlling the camera with the mouse. I played these games with a mix of keyboard, mouse and joystick, depending on the input devices I had at the time. I usually invert just the Y axis on third person games too, except for a small subset of them. Everspace, for instance, I've just always played with both regular X and Y axes. That's doubly weird at a first glance because it's a third person space sim roguelite game (it does have a first person mode, but I think that's borderline unplayable, the game is balanced for you to see projectiles flying towards you from behind, you just can't react quickly enough in first person mode if something sneaks up on you and you can't gauge the direction the shots are coming from when they just hit you - and the game most certainly expects you to react to that information). I actually didn't notice that I'm playing without inverted Y axis, and when I found out I tried to invert it and noticed that it feels wrong. I think this is because it has an unlocked crosshair with auto-tracking main guns and only indirectly steers the camera when going outside of a certain dead zone. It basically doesn't feel like playing a shooter because I just move the mouse pointer across the screen in the same way I'd do with any regular software. It's more like scrolling up, down, left and right. On the other hand, I now know why games have the option to invert the X axis too. Never understood that, but moving the camera instead of looking around makes sense. Someone from my class in junior high used inverted X and Y axes for everything, including regular Windows usage. That is madness. He actually did that by turning the mouse around. He had his thumb and ring finger on the buttons and moved it with the index and middle finger. It looked weird, not to mention painful to hold the fingers like that, but he was as accurate with it as anyone.

I suppose that very much depends on when and with what one started gaming. On the PC, for me that was Wing Commander and Red Baron, both games that came with an inverted Y axis by default because, well, WW1 flight sim and space sim. Mouse-look in first person games came way later, and by then equalling first person with inverted Y axis was so ingrained in my muscle memory that I'm not going to bother retraining that. The fact that every developer keeps adding invert options tells me that there's not too small a part of the player base still used to that. I spent more time reading my StarCraft manual over and over again than I spent actually playing StarCraft. The goods in the Wing Commander boxes were also fantastic. I get that today's mostly digital environment no longer allows for that outside of maybe collector's editions, but it was sure nice. The height of that was Command & Conquer when it came out, it even had a setup routine to match. Best installer ever made - can't recall any other instance where simply installing the game was immersive like that.

Sounds an awful lot like the way I played Eye of the Beholder. I had no idea how to play the game, so I kept clicking on my equipped weapons and then on the enemy, and thought it was normal gameplay to throw weapons at enemies until they died. I got pretty far, all things considered. Although, to be fair, it was all in English and I was nine or so, had no idea what I'm doing and no manual in sight either.

My parents had the bright idea to buy my nephew a train sim for Easter. He's been trying to get the train to move ahead for the better part of an hour. It's still not moving an inch. It's a simulation, all right. I'm not sure if he raised all the current collectors. He may or may not have turned on both engines and have them running in different directions. Hell, who knows, he probably tried pressing every button and moving every lever without knowing what they do. Reading the tutorial and doing things in order? Who cares about that? Drive, stupid train, DRIVE I SAY! MOVE IT! Also I have no idea how people can play first person games without inverting their Y-axis.

Are you growing soft?

Scholz, like every German chancellor before him in recent memory, is beholden to the powerful German industrial lobby, and facing an economic downturn in the middle of high inflation would be hugely unpopular. That's all there is to it. Natural gas is a major component of heavy industry (and agriculture, and a whole lot of other stuff besides heating), and Germany just won't work without it. Other nations around it also refused any gas embargo, it's just Germany that gets the flack for it. Why? Who knows. Hating on Germany is an ever popular activity and that the conservatives are now foaming at their mouthes is fun to see. I mean, how could he have denied them their god given right to rule? Putin doesn't need to have any dirt on Scholz. Also, decrying humanitarian aid to refugees is a little strange. That's just how the Dublin agreement is supposed to work. That one of the biggest crybabies about sticking to Dublin and not helping with the 2015 refugee crisis is now drowning in refugees would be delicious irony if it weren't for the suffering of innocent people (and we all love hypocritical winging, right? Right?). Make no mistake, Merkel would have waffled about just as much. Oh, and she'd have used more of her trademarked platitudes, like "We must not let ourselves be divided on this issue", the only difference is that she wouldn't have run afoul of Germany's very own dual Rupert Murdoch: Friede Springer and Liz Mohn, because she's friends with both. edit: Not a German, by the way. I also am highly biased against the CDU, if that wasn't obvious from prior posts, so if you find any polemics that you disagree with, feel free to do so. edit 2: The SPD has a whole lot of connections to Russia, that part is true, of course. However, you'll find plenty of parties in Europe, some that have ruled or are ruling at the moment, that do. Nobody refused Russian money until it became unpopular, and that was only a while ago. In France, 42% for Le Pen might not seem much, but given today's rather charged political climate and (understandable) anti-Russian sentiment, I think it is really telling that 42% of French voters still cast their lot in with someone with known Russian ties. Heck, Le Pen's party was basically bankrolled by the Russians.

I also could not recall anything about the crewmember I knew died in season two, other than the scene of her funeral being hilarious because everyone was acting so sad but for me, it was Tuesday...

I had to look up who 'Airiam' was. To provide context for this achievement, not that long ago I got a call at work - a question about a record a colleague of mine created 7 years ago. From the creation date alone I could tell which customer requested it and remembered enough about the corresponding e-mail that I received in CC to find it through a keyword search.

Seems like I forgot to mention last week's Picard thing. This just keeps getting worse, and it keeps meandering around, and it'll probably rush its conclusion. There's like what, two episodes left, and several plot threads still open. There's no way they will converge into a cohesive finale. There might be one, but certainly not for Picard's writing team.

Well, not sure if posting this is... interesting for anyone at all except myself, but one of our local musicians died today. Apparently an accident at home, which is more often than not code for suicide. A comedian and singer/songwriter, he was most widely known for making a local version of "Heartland Rock", also often covering Bruce Springsteen. It's a bit odd, one of those guys who were always there. Second generation to grow up with that music even. Just recently survived a bout with Corona too.