ThaOGDreamWeaver

Just to say: Yes to everything @Saikochoro / @DougGraves/ @Darmian said. If I had a third spot to offer, it would be a tie between Dr. Strange and Shang-Chi. Honourable mention to all the D+ series - and five out of seven series of Agents Of Shield - for astonishing levels of bravery with their properties. And of course, bringing us the Ship of Theseus beat, that song, Rogers:The Musical, Pizza Dog, trained commando ferrets, nonchalant Phil one-liners, EVIL FITZ, Morbius, Richard E Grant in a Kermit suit, Ultimate Strange and... SuperPeggy. Who we stan till death and will fight for. It doesn't all work all the time for everybody, natch, but it's great to watch them have the freedom to play. Still not wholly sure what all the Captain Marvel hate's about. Maybe it's because I'm an 80s kid and was getting all the references. OrI like watching Jude Law trying an "actually..." and getting punched into a mountain. Or I like playing chaotic blasters. Or that it shows the origin of the best-damn-hands-down-character in the whole MCU...

Life finds a way.

Just popping in to say thanks to the CoH community - looks like I can run CoH on a base model M1 without a discrete or branded GPU. Excellent. 2015-era Mac Pro is having severe battery issues and work were considering whether it needed refitting or getting a new unit.

Leaving first reply open: I dislike flashbacks because they disrupt the flow of a story, and at worst they fall prey to lazy writing - whenever you want to fill in someone's backstory, just warp back in time. BOBF was skating close to that sometimes, though it was mostly interesting stuff: as a show where Bob is reflecting on his life and slightly softening outlook on the worlds, it also kinda sorta makes sense. Just a lot of it. The worst recent offender being Witcher S1, which they had the good sense to nod at in S2 and promise to never do again. On with the wild speculation and whinging...

"...why do they always have to go bigger?" What we know so far:

TMBG - Science Is Real

Freezepop - Science Genius Girl

Animaniacs - The Presidents

Tom Lehrer - The Elements

Reply to m'learned coll Techwright:

Iron Maiden - Aces High

Pearl Jam - Given To Fly

Jeff & Mychael Danna - Sacrifice (Death Of A Pegasus) - Onward OST

Steve Miller Band - Jet Airliner

..and there was only one choice for me: @Renergy: Not everybody embraces the art of chaos like I do, so I try and keep it tidy: plus stacked AOEs in a small area can be fun.

So, our grand finale: Overall: glitchy but I liked it.

Full trailer just dropped. Bowie! Tentacles! (careful now) Digital hairball / vomit noises that are so real, you'll sit bolt upright with carpet cleaner in your hand! Possible Disney crossover guest appearance/design recycling: miniature CyBugs from Wreck-It Ralph Taika Waititi is listed on IMDB as being in this, is joking about being the lead, and has played at least one insane dictator before... Zurg? ...or is it everyone's other favourite purple, monologue-addict galactic overlord, James Brolin? As an 80s' kid, the creepy Kitty Ruxpin toy/companion is on point (no, never had one, and even if we could have afforded one they still weirded me out at the time.) Still being slightly cagey about the plot, but given what we know about warp-speed slingshots around the sun and how well those usually go... ...it's gonna be whales.

Free bonus thing: James Gunn's Instagram has been 90% Cena playing piano for the last couple of days. And he ain't bad.

I've had fun rebuilding PowerStar as Energy/Martial/Elec rather than pure Energy/Energy/Energy over the last few weeks. Some tips from that experience so far: Sudden Acc KB>KD is your friend on powers like Explosive Blast... ...though I keep Torrent with KB increased as an "argh get away" / corner sweeping power. I also use the Devastation Hold proc on single-target attacks which helps keep things tidy. For any power without KD, consider adding the Overwhelming Force set too (they are Unique, useful, and if you've not got billions of Inf sitting around or Merits to blow, the Summer Blockbuster event is a quick and hilarious way to earn them. Plus many shiny badgies, and confusing other players by calling them Hardison.) Infiltration has been a fun recent addition - a little bit of speed, a little bit of jump, enough extra Stealth to get you through most missions more or less intact. For getting around I used temp jetpacks until I had a spare power slot for Fly. Embrace the chaos.

Jimmy Buffett - Wings

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Learning To Fly

Holy Modal Rounders - If You Wanna Be A Bird

"There are many ways to judge someone you like, but one I like is the size of their... bookshelf." My current read is the biography of the Ghostess With The Mostest, the woman who made the Hollywood Hills green... with envy, one of my personal style and sass icons - Cassandra Peterson. Yours Cruelly, Elvira starts with a bang - no, not that kind, though there's plenty enough action later on if that's what you're looking for - as a down-on-her-luck standup comedienne takes her first vacation in years. And is considering quitting and getting that regular job. Settling down. Settling for... normal. Naturally, at this point she gets a frantic call back to LA to audition as, of all things, a late-night horror host. Despite things going somewhat tits up at the tryout, she gets the gig through sheer force of personality, great lines and snappy comebacks - and the rest is herstory. We then rewind and walk through a rural childhood (with one early near-death experience), time as a Vegas showgirl, joining the legendary Groundlings comedy squad along with the likes of Paul Reubens and Phil Hartman, and then getting that role-of-a-lifetime. It is funny as hell, yes. There's a few naughty bits. And of course, things haven't been easy. You may need tissues. For tears, sweetheart. Genuinely. Not least for the descriptions of when she runs into Teresa "T" Wierson, her life partner of the last 20-odd years (and who has iron self-control: resisting running around screaming "I'm Elvira's girlfriend" must have required superhuman effort.) It's... yeah. Right in the feels. On a similar icon note: I've also recently finished Keith Richards' autobiography, Life (and as he says, he remembers everything.) To give you a bit of a flavour: you again start at a midpoint with a typically Keef story - the Stones being hauled into a scary damn rural Southern courtroom on a drug charge. But for some reason, the judge seems to be missing. And things start to go the way you'd imagine a life seemingly that charmed and/or ridiculous is (still) going. Is Keef a nerd? In the sense that he is absolutely passionate about music over anything and everything else... hell yeah. Final recommendation isn't an autobiography, but oddly works like one. Jerry Seinfeld's Is This Anything? is a complete collection of every gag he wrote for gig use from being a mop-headed wannabe in the 70s through to the COVID era when, well, laughs got a bit muffled for a while. Open any random page and... [flips] I got death, gambling, and sandwich bags. (Those are not part of the same bit, btw, but I think there's something in that.) As well as reading and watching his craft grow, you get to see how his life and public and private obsessions change over the years - though I'm trying not to analyse (as Barry Cryer said: dissecting comedy is like dissecting frogs: only weirdos get laughs out of it and the frog dies). But I am learning. So what have you got on your reading pile right now? Em x

Re Mr. Vee's comment: often the student trains the master.

The Specials - (Livin' In A) Ghost Town