Gorth

I played Borderlands 2 on repeat for years. Mostly coop with 2 friends. It was just awesome. Did some of the "raid bosses" too in the DLC. Some very nice, challenging fights for a little group. I think I got stuck in whatstsname OP3? I tried OP4 several times, but in the end I just couldn't be bothered to go through it again, just for the sake of leveling all the enemies up on a future play through. The Prequel was our preferred game after BL2. BL1 was Ok and BL3 was... I still never made it past level 2 on a character. After spending so much time with the characters in BL2 and the best villain I've ever met (Handsome Jack), the writing and characters in BL3 fell more flat on it's nose than a wet noodle on a Teflon plate.

I'd argue that sometimes any publicity is good publicity and stirring up a ****storm sometimes create even more interest for whatever they wanted to see buried. I.e. shooting yourself in the foot (regardless of intentions, good or bad).

Last step before the fully automated "Robocop"?

A somewhat older Rammstein song "Don't die before me" (2005 I think). A slightly "atypical" song for two reasons. It features a guest singer and she sings in English...

Maybe the time is just running out for rock and pop stars living in 56 room mansions at the beach? Hollywood actors too for that matter. The medieval scribes probably felt it the same way when Gutenberg came along and their livelihood slowly disappeared over the years. The printing press didn't have the artistry of a scribes calligraphy, but it was cheaper and made texts available to the masses. Lamplighters, Switchboard operators... professions come and go.

Yeah, no more Samantha Fox on page whatsitsname You mentioned Metallica, which is a bit ironical. The one time I finally spend many hundred dollars on tickets in Melbourne, they cancelled it (4 weeks before the concert) because Hetfield had to go back to rehab... Most of the live performances I've seen down here has indeed been established names (The Killers, Incubus, etc.). One band I'd love to see live is Rammstein. Last time they visited Madison Square Garden in the US, they sold out in 20 minutes and broke their website. This has been a pattern then last 10+ years for them... they go on world stadium tours and the stadiums are typically sold out in 10-20 minutes (and those tickets are NOT cheap). I.e. pretty hopeless to get tickets unless you're fast. Their Youtube videos... a few dozen official videos with between 50m-500m views each. No idea what they make from Youtube, but probably a few dollars. But, they are old. Not Rolling Stones old, but in their late fifties/early sixties by now. The last music I bought was the Chtulhu Christmas Carols boxed set... which again was a few years after I bought the Conan soundtrack. Probably 10+ years ago. I've been spoiled by the ease of finding a song on Youtube rather than the old "concept album" idea, where you either start programming your player or listen to all songs sequentially they way the producer intended.

No idea who put together this list. Maybe the best female black actors just aren't "celebrities" (Halle Berry was the only name I recognized too)? Plenty of outstanding male counter parts though, that also achieved fame. E.g. Samuel L. Jackson, Danny Glover, etc. Edit: How could I forget James Earl Jones aka "Thulsa Doom"???

No. Because you're not dealing with reasonable people. You're dealing with nationalists. Different rules apply. Yes, there are rules these people live by, but those rules make no sense to reasonable people.

Was the CCTV hooked up to the internet? You never know, some AI and facial recognition software combo may have identified you and your welding fetish

I think there are two religious holidays in Australia, Christmas and Easter. Then there is the secular stuff like the Melbourne Cup Horse racing (Victoria only), The Kings Birthday (this one was funny last year, because of the timing of her passing away), Labour Day for us hardworking blue collar developers and Anzac day where people get up at 5am and eat cookies. Oh and here in Brisbane we have The Ekka (an annual agricultural show day, not a statewide holiday, just a public holiday for people living in the greater Brisbane are). Australia day where we celebrate seizing the land from the Aborigines and try to kill them off. There are a bit mixed feelings about the latter holiday, so it might change in the future to become a more inclusive day on another date, suitable for all Australians, both old and new. South Australia has an Adelaide Cup day (similar to Victorias Melbourne Cup), Tasmania has a holiday called "Eight Hour Day" (no, I have no clue), Western Australia has nothing interesting and no idea about the territories (NT and ACT).

No, I haven't forgotten JoJo

After a bit of a break, I found a new series to watch. It's not completed yet, so just like Mieruko-chan it may come back and bit me when I wait for more episodes Anyway, a series called Jigokuraku ("Hells Paradise"). Only seen first two episodes. Lots of gore and chopping of heads. Set in a pseudo feudal Japan, ruled by a Shogun and people lose their heads faster than Russians fall out of windows. The protagonist was raised a someones pet killer-for-hire, working for the local towns leader. Getting married to a woman he doesn't realize he loves, he ends up getting ostracized and sentenced to death. Dying is a bit tricky for him, because he realizes a few seconds before finally dying, that he still has something live for. An emissary from the Shogun is searching around for people sentenced to death, who will undertake a risky mission for him to a newly discovered land, rumoured to be in possession of an elixir of immortality, something the Shogun would like to get his hand on. A few dozen convicts are assembled in the Shoguns courtyard and he tells the gathered convicts, that they are too many (and for his own amusement, arranges an impromptu "battle royale", leaving 10 survivors, who will travel by boat to the island. 10 armed "executioners" accompanies them, to make sure they don't get funny ideas. Episode 2 ends with the protagonist having flashbacks to his wife and what in retrospect was something good in his life, that he didn't appreciate when they still were together.

The F16 were good planes (I'm old enough to remember a lot of controversy around their acquisition). No noticeable accidents and they've seen a bit of actions too, participating in Ex-Yugoslavia, Libya and Iraq (sitting it out in Afghanistan iirc, that mostly infantry and AFV combat) The Danish government also decided to send 100 slightly older Leopard 1 (probably still a lot better than the Russian Sardine Cans) as well as a handful Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. Denmark is known for it's effective recycling policies. Suddenly raising the retirement age for military hardware Edit: Luckily the Nordic countries have decided on a "unified command" when it comes to their airforces (not at least because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine), so the Swedish airforce can cover Danish airspace because the Danish airforce always seems to be eager to fight everywhere else but in the Danish airspace... https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2023/03/24/nordic-countries-move-toward-linking-their-air-forces-250-planes/

Never say never...

I know Denmark has/had a number of F16 jets that were due to be scrapped and /or replaced by F35's starting in 2024... looks like some of them might find a new home. Maybe it's related? https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/denmark-open-delivering-f-16-fighter-jets-ukraine-minister-2023-02-24/

That's a long distance away to smash it with a wrench!

Ooh... Kraken Black Rum... any Kraken Black Rum

I currently have a bottle of Absolute Vodka in the cupboard. I'm not a big vodka drinker, but it's Ok for mixing with orange juice or whatever. Ironically, there is one vodka I really do like (just like Roku Gin is the one gin I really like as is) and that is a domestic product made in South Australia (St. Agnes Silver). Sadly it's impossible to get outside South Australia unless you order it online and have it shipped to you. The St. Agnes distillery also makes a Brandy that is as good as any good Cognac. Same deal though, you have to pay for shipping to get it . Not so much an issue for the Brandy, when you pay close to $1000 AUD for a 40y old Brandy, the shipping is trivial

My favourite Faeroese songbird strikes again I haven't seen the movie, but what an interesting soundtrack. Sounds like an extended version of another of her songs 'Trollabundin' or the latter sounds like a condensed version of the soundtrack

Sometimes Games Workshop release "freebies" on Youtube to advertise their subscription channel. No, not going to subscribe, but some of them are pretty good quality (considering many of those started as fan made projects that either got cease and desists or got bought outright from their creators)

The worst is Wikipedia... the number of open tabs just keep exploding. Every time you try to close a tab, you've open 2-3 new ones with new subjects to read

RTS games suck... all of them. Even Dawn of War games despite being set in the 40k setting. I make a bi-annual exception for Age of Empires 2, because it's so slow it might as well have been turn based, so the RTS aspect is less noticeable.

The only thing that really, really bothered me when I upgraded my Windows 10 to Windows 11 (to shut up the constant nag screen) was that my Kaspersky Internet Security (KIS) (yeah, I know, Putin knows what is my PC now, right? Probably no worse than the CIA or Xi snooping on my criticism) suddenly started blocking everything. The weather gadget, Steam updates, EA App, in game store in Guild Wars 2... long list of things that made me turn it off every time I needed to do something. Lots of googling eventually led me to a page on their support forums where a 12 month long back and forth had been going on regarding a similar issue. Turned out the fix was to disable KIS's "Self Defense" mode, stop KIS, delete all contents of the Report folder in the programdata folder, start KIS, enable Self Defense mode again and everything was back to working perfectly fine Talk about obscure causes and effects...

Wouldn't it be a weird world if Moscow ended up with German peacekeeper forces patrolling the streets in a collapsed Russian Federation?

For added excitement, why doesn't Nato offer Taiwan membership of the club? I know it's slightly tangential, but one of the Youtube channels I watch regularly (they usually did history/historic battles like War of the Roses, WWI, The Punic Wars etc.) has been making a series of videos where the Ukraine war gets covered in the same style as the historical documentaries. If curious, check out Kings and Generals on Youtube.