TheOtherTed

There's a reason I associate this clip with Xmas... Regardless, enjoy the holidays, stay safe, and stay sane.

Not so controversial. As much as I love the books, I warn potential new readers about two issues. The first is that so much of the work can be summed up by a tour guide saying "...and we're walking, and we're walking..." The second is that The Return of the King has at least one too many endings for comfort. As for the problem of things happening off-scene and never satisfactorily explained, I hadn't considered it before. My immediate take is that it reminds the reader that things are happening in the story outside the narration, which, IMO, adds to the world-building. My second take is that "The Hobbit" movie trilogy was made worse by having Galadriel, Elrond, and the Wizards take on The Necromancer one by one like it was some kind of rap battle. If I ever watch it again, I may have to mute it and play "The Real Slim Shady" just to get through it.

I've been playing Fallout 4 on and off since it's release, and I almost always do the Arlen Glass mission, in no small part because he's a random and quirky dude. Never gave it (or him) much more thought when I completed the quest. Last night, I got sent to rescue a settler from some building in Boston that I had apparently never visited before. Didn't connect the name of the place with anything, until I suddenly started finding security notifications and angry warnings about Arlen Glass, Turns out that... In any case, A.G. got the last laugh. Sort of. He got ghoulified when the bombs fell, and survived 200 years of post-war devastation to finally perfect his craft - with the help of the Sole Survivor. Sadly, we never see the result. So how have old and comfortable games hit you in the face with something random?

For my brothers and sisters who grew up south of the Mason-Dixon line.

I read The First Men in the Moon for the first time about two years ago. Definitely a fun sci-fi travelogue, even if everything about it is pure fantasy. On the spectrum from Jonathan Swift to Arthur C. Clarke, Wells leans a bit to the former IMO, and Verne to the latter. Wells isn't too fussed about the science, but Verne really gets into it - to the point that he practically explains in the book why From the Earth to the Moon couldn't actually work, then gives an unsatisfying reason as to why they should try it anyway. Take that with a grain of salt, though. I haven't read it in mumbledy-mumble years, so I could just be making stuff up.

I haven't read it, but I have to confess that the last book I'd read (in order of publication) was "Around the World in 80 Days" (1873). In contrast, MotW was published the year before his death (1904), and he wasn't in top form health-wise. That said, even in his best years he wasn't exactly afraid of plot holes that one could drive a truck through - "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" and "From the Earth to the Moon" both challenged my suspension of disbelief long before I'd even heard the phrase "suspension of disbelief." Also, I found "Paris in the Twentieth Century" (written in 1863, revealed in... 1989?) to be, well, kind of meh, BTW, thanks for the (unintended?) heads-up that he published about a million billion books that I'd never seen or heard of. Gotta get cracking if I'm going to recover my Verne cred.

Back during the COVID lockdowns of aught 20, EWF, more than anything else (except maybe swamp rock), helped me actually work from home by distracting the most distractable part of my brain. Could barely tolerate EWF before, and now they've got a valued place in my youtube playlist. The following song, in particular, I often kept on a recurring loop. I don't remember even hearing it before the world had changed.

As I read this, I had a flashback to both "The Tick" live action series (with maybe a touch of "The Boys") - specifically about needing a license to practice super-heroing and having to answer to some oversight agency. I guess we all have that already (as do super villains, because even Lex Lurhor washes his hands in the lavatory), but it might be fun to take the whole "life of a normie" idea in random directions.

I didn't see it in the notes either - maybe it's always been there and I just ignored it - but it seems like nearly every dialogue menu in my latest playthrough has a "Detect Thoughts" option and a semi-random skill option in addition to the usual CHA-based skill options. "Detect Thoughts" is INT-based (for some reason), and INT also helps with a lot of other common checks (History, Religion, Nature, Arcana, etc). Since I tend to boost the INT of my rogues and rangers to 12 (or 14 if I can), that means I don't have to rely on CHA nearly as much. I still save-scum like nobody's business, but that's more due to the uniform distribution of the RNG than the lack of dialogue options.

I like it, but I get what the OP means about "slow" and "complicated." I find it slow because of the amount of walking time required to be "rewarded" by multi-level dialogue, and complicated because it has all the crunchiness of actual D&D (punishing RNG, a bajillion spells for every spell-caster as well as half a bajillion spell-like effects for non-casters). Regardless, I still give it about 90 minutes of my time nearly every day. Not exactly a ringing recommendation, but it satisfies an itch. On the plus side, I recently discovered that the dreaded Patch 6 that nearly killed my interest altogether has been modified by extra options for non-charisma characters.

My grammar sense is tingling. In addition, I was "meh" when I first heard about the show, and I'm even more "meh" now. I'll likely watch an episode or three out of curiosity.

I'll admit, I had to reflect on that one for a hot minute.

Right? Might as well call 'em Daleks at this point.

Well, I mean, she does actually giggle, so that's... something. I guess.

I suppose some of it could be chalked up to slow motion takes, especially early on, but at the 38 second mark where Helm raises his hammer, it's more noticeable, and, once seen, cannot be unseen. Granted, It could be a side effect of using a 12-year old monitor with a three-year old computer, or it could just be crappy vision on my part. I'm an old man; my legs are grey, my ears are gnarled, my eyes are old and bent.