Hurlshort

I've been working my way through Star Wars content for the last year. I watched Clone Wars, then Bad Batch, and now I'm on Rebels. I just finished Rebels season 2, and it ended on a very high note. I decided to take a break from the animated stuff and watch some live action, but I'm trying to stay in chronological order, so I gave The Acolyte a try. It is set about a century before anything else. The first 4 episodes are bad. Bad acting, pacing, etc. I ended up fast forwarding through a good chunk of dialogue. It's still fun to look at, as is most Star Wars stuff for me. It also has Manny from the Good Place. I kept expecting him to throw a molotov ****tail and talk about Blake Bortles. He's the best actor in the bunch by a mile. In episode 5 it suddenly got good. Granted episode 5 was all action, but: So it ended better than it started, which is actually how I feel most of the Star Wars content is. Other than Bad batch, the animated stuff was all pretty tough in the first season. So I guess it is a shame it got canned, but not really. There are plenty of other things to watch.

I read that there will be an MMA fight on the White House lawn, and I did a double take when I saw that it was ABC news and not the Onion.

Hammerheads are really not dangerous to humans. Great whites, on the other hand, will bite you in half. When I swim in the ocean and I get separated from my group, every time my hand passes in front of my eyes on the downstroke, I get freaked out. What was that?!? Oh it's just my hand. There it is again!?! Oh, still my hand.

I've definitely learned the importance of spare sets of equipment in this game. I used to just recycle everything, now I've got a couple sets of extra gear.

So true to the book. Although I expect the sentient research ship in season 2 will challenge that.

Funcom just announced that they are increasing the PvE sections of the deep desert, making the past tier of the game more friendly to solo and non pvp players.

Dia de los muertos.

Whoa. That was different than expected.

They do get to see the numbers on this stuff though, and a lot of times the argument is not enough players utilize certain features to justify putting them in future games. That's just my guess. I mean, the idea that you can take a perk to be sneaky, but your knees crack when you stand up is still pretty creative.

I wonder if Obsidian even has a say in localization now? I'd imagine the publisher is calling those shots.

I'm guessing I'll spend the end game building the perfect base, rather than anything PvP. There seems to be a tremendous amount of content to stay busy outside of the deep desert, where PvP takes place. But the online thing is a concern. I would also prefer solo/private servers where I could just do my own thing. I'm holding out hope that they will get there eventually. They did that for Conan Exiles, after all. They know they can make a lot of money just by selling new skins and art assets to us folks who just want to build in the desert. I've has very little interaction with other players other than seeing all of their bases scattered around. It is kind of neat seeing all of this stuff pop up, then watching it erode as people move on to different areas.

I've hit level 35 in Dune. That seems like a lot, but I still feel like I suck a bit. I soloed a research station today and died about 5 times. But now I have a shield generator and I think that might help. Or it might make me worm food. Who knows? Anyways, my base is gorgeous and I have a nice little terrarium with Muad'ib in it.

I don't post about politics very often, but I will say I love my state of California. The Trump administration has been lashing out at my state for the better part of a decade. It doesn't bother me, because I'm very comfortable in what California is. It's the 4th largest economy in the world. We have amazing cities, national parks, beaches, and mountains. We have incredible diversity. I can find a good restaurant/food truck for every imaginable cuisine. We have all the schools. I mean, just incredible universities that cover every possible field of study. So watching a sitting President attempt to wage war against my state is sickening. This is the same President that had no problem pardoning the people who stormed the Capitol building. He is actively working against the Governor. I'm at a loss. On Saturday Trump is staging a birthday parade that is going to look like North Korea.

It finally happened. I got eaten ny a sandworm. I was moving a bunch of stuff to a new base, and I was motorbiking across a big swath of desert. I had to swerve wide to avoid quicksand, and it put me on a bad path with a worm. He ate me whole. I woke up naked and back at my new base. Now I'm running around trying to rebuild me life. 10/10 - would become worm food again

"illegal migrants" is such a loaded term. Immigration in the US is a mess because we change the laws and procedures all the time. It's a broken system, and instead of fixing the system, the Trump administration is going after the victims of the broken system. So yeah, ICE is in the wrong.

Imperial IPA's should taste almost like a scotch. Bit of a burn, but also sweet.

I've been watching Angel Reese on this Reebok show on Netflix. Shaq and AI bought Reebok, and she is the new star. It is awesome.

Huh. I don't know that I trust Owlcat to write a good Expanse game. But the gameplay looks interesting as a departure for them.

I mean it doesn't really matter, unless you are a Tesla shareholder or something. It is, of course, super newsworthy because everybody loves a reality TV spat. Our lives are not actually going to be affected by a lover's spat between the richest guy in the world and the POTUS. The recent jobs report is more important, of course. It's just not as entertaining. Meanwhile we are already watching the Trump administration walk back stuff. Sure, they aren't going to admit it. They'll spin it as if they are always winning. But they did finally bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the US. There are a bunch of transgender soldiers opting to fight the ban on them in the military. There seems to be about a million court cases moving forward against all of this. That doesn't actually happen in a real oligarchy. Justice may move slow, and it may suck for a few years as all of this dust settles, but I'm pretty confident in the courts and institutions like Harvard holding their ground. I'll also back career soldiers against a temporary ****stirrer like Hegseth.

My daughter graduated from High School and is heading of to SFSU in the fall. It has gone by way too fast!

Speaking of which, Xenonauts 2 is super close to being done.

Considering what a monster BG3 was, I don't think Obsidian is interested in such a massive game. It seems like they are sticking to mid-sized games to minimize risks. They want to be open for another 100 years, they said.

Tyranny 2 is off the table because believe it is owned by Paradox. PoE3 seems unlikely because of sales numbers of PoE2, although it could be a small team working on it. A NWN product would be interesting. I'm not sure how much name recognition the IP still has. Also I'm not sure what the relationship with WotC and Microsoft is at this point. They own a lot of IP's already, so I doubt they want to deal with rights they don't own. I'm also not sure that Obsidian is really an isometric developer anymore. I think anything they do will be FPS or 3rd person. Unless it is a smaller team, aka Pentiment and Tyranny.

Dune: Awakening - I built a cozy starter home on a desert bluff. My swordmaster kneed some folks and is off to a good start. Although I've almost died a few times, which is more than I did in the beta. Got super close to getting eaten by a worm and then almost dehydrated to death. I think I'm probably just rushing more, since I've done this part already. Game is running well and my server isn't too crowded. Full release will be interesting.

I'd buy a Tony Hawk Obsidian game for sure.