Fez

Cont'd. Still waiting on an AAA game to draw me in since Elden Ring. I tried out the demo for Square's The DioField Chronicle, which is $60 but sure isn't AAA. The gameplay is surprisingly easy-to-follow for me, considering its basically an RTS and I'm rubbish at those. But that's probably because it's so simplified that it might as well be a mobile game. At least in the demo each battle consisting of fighting multiple waves of small groups of enemies, rushing them with your troops, activating abilities on cooldown, and very rarely avoiding a telegraphed AOE attack. It's not awful, but nothing special either, at least in the demo. And unfortunately the writing is extremely 'meh', with a very generic backdrop and characters with almost no personality. The graphics are entirely forgettable, except the character portraits which are really neat-looking paintings. Voice acting is solid, except that outside of the main story quests there are dialog "barks" instead of the full lines being recorded. That's not uncommon in lower budget games, but usually those "barks" are the first line of the dialog. Here they are entirely unrelated to what the text boxes are actually saying and its just distracting. Music is generically fine. Overall this a $20 game masquerading at a $60 price point with nothing to justify it beyond corporate greed. Even for people who really like the genre I would highly recommend waiting for a sale.

A well done episode I thought, with better writing than the previous ones. Although it also felt too slow moving in terms of plot advancement. But a fun watch nonetheless.

I think a lot of folks are forgetting/not caring about asking for the vax card. When I got the new booster, the pharmacist never asked to see it (which is good, because when I got the first booster, they used a sticker that covered two slots on it). If you're in the US and your state is like my state, you can go to the state's department of health website and look yourself up (I think I just needed my SSN to confirm my identity) and see your full COVID vaccine history.

I assume to add tension for everyone who doesn't know the story. "Viserys could drop dead at any moment!" Anyway, I thought the episode was kinda slow and Daemon had a bit too much superhero-y bullshit at the end. But there was some good stuff in it too. 7/10 I guess.

It's already available. I literally just got the new booster (plus my flu shot) at my local CVS and am doing the 15 minute observation period to make sure there's no reaction. When I went online yesterday to make the appointment there were no slots left for yesterday but were plenty for today. Seems to be a steady stream of people to get it, but no backed up line.

I haven't rewatched GoT since it aired, so maybe my memory's at fault. But IIRC the show never says that The Night's King is The Great Other, right? So, while it would probably be tough to naturally introduce, they could potentially have Snow be all about another, much larger invasion by the Others/White Walkers. It wouldn't solve the problems of S8; but there's no way to do that without just redoing the season, which would never happen. But it would let The Long Night finally be shown as the true threat it is; which, based on how HotD so directly mentioned it as well, seems much more integral to the long-term underlying lore necessary for an extended franchise than how quickly Dany goes mad (which I assume is GRRM's plan for her and not a D&D invention; since it'd would've been a fine plot point with better pacing and set-up).

If true, I wonder if the show really is just clean-up for GoT S8 rather than trying to be it's own thing.

I'll be curious to see if that changes some going forward. Ryan Condal, the co-showrunner, wrote the first two episodes. But per IDMB, he only has 4 writing credits for the whole season; with the other 6 episodes having other writers. Which, if accurate, is a pretty big shift from GoT, where D&D wrote 7.5 of the 10 episodes (and GRRM wrote one of the others) of the first season. Showrunning is about a lot more than just writing. If the non-Condal penned episodes feel noticeably better written (though I'll say that despite the lack of humor I do like the writing thus far), I wonder if there will be even more of a shift in season 2. With Condal focusing even more on the other responsibilities and figuring out the overall story structure, and leaving the actual script writing to others.

IIRC, in the previous scene when her father sends her away from the small council he says that the choice is hers. Since he's the king, that's presumably the end of it.

Yeah, I think so. Taking the specific egg he did only makes sense to me if he was trying to deliberately provoke Viserys. And since he seems to clearly still love his brother, to me this provocation only makes sense as a way to try to get a meeting with him (as opposed to setting up an assassination attempt or rebellion). Gotta make use of the guy's retainer in-between Warhammer 40K: Old Valyria edition commissions for the King; otherwise it's just wasted money

My guess is he wanted the King to come so that he could speak one-on-one with him again. And/or he wanted to kill Hightower if he came instead (which I think would've happened if Rhaenyra hadn't shown up). Yeah. Anyone who thinks Benioff is a simple hack needs to read his novels and short stories; he's a legit talented writer in his own right. There's a reason HBO wanted to work with him and had reached out about what ideas he might have for a show before the GoT stuff came together. It sure seems like burnout got to him eventually, but there's a lot of great stuff in the early seasons that was all him (/and Weiss, I don't know as much about his talent); like the Cersei/Robert conversation in S1.

I haven't read the source material this show's based on, but I would think that there are more powerful Houses out there than the Hightowers who also have eligible daughters. Seems like a Lannister or someone on that level would be the smarter move if he diddn't want to marry a little kid.

Had the biggest grin on my facing hearing that opening theme again. Overall, I thought the episode was mostly solid table-setting; reminiscent of the early episodes of the early seasons of GoT. The Dragonstone bridge scene was fantastic though, and elevates the episode from an 8/10 to 9/10 IMO.

Shrimp. I forgot the exact size. But it's the pack I get at whole foods and is good for two-to-three dinners if I cook it all with pasta and some sauce, maybe throw some veggies in there too. Used to $8.99, now it's $13.99

Thanks for the suggestions. I decided to start by buying the first trade collection of Montress, by Marjorie Liu. Partially because it was only $9, so a low investment if I'm not a fan. But mostly because the artwork looks simply amazing. Even if the writing's not good I can at least look at it all. My big issue with Sandman for instance was that I simply didn't like how it looked; which meant that even though I've loved almost all of Neil Gaiman's writing I couldn't get into it there.

I've been thinking about trying to give comics/graphic novels another shot as an entertainment medium. I read the recent Harley Quinn spin-off issues based on the animated show. And they weren't great, but they weren't terrible either; and they got me interested in trying something more again. The problem is, it seems hard to find one that interests me. I don't care about superheroes, I prefer epic/sweeping stories to more personal ones, and I'd ideally like one with a strong female protagonist, though that's not an absolute requirement. So far I've got: Saga; Monstress; Red Sonja (the new Dan Abnett run, I like him from his 40k work); Nocterra On my list. Does anyone have any thoughts on these? I should note, I have previously tried Sandman and Fables years ago and didn't like either one. And considering how well-regarded they are in the field that would seem to suggest comics just aren't for me. Which is maybe true. But I have read Jeff Smith's Bone omnibus and I really liked it a lot, so I think there must be something else for me.

Glad to be back in Westeros. Wasn't a perfect 10, there weren't enough actors I really enjoyed to latch on to, but just something about seeing that production design again gets me right in the feels.

Crazy footage

Apparently the big thing this time (and one of the reasons the movie took so long to make) is that all the underwater scenes are based on real underwater motion capture. Which has never happened before, Cameron's people invented the tech that made it possible. Now whether this will translate into underwater scenes that look nothing like anything we've seen before I can't say. But the hope would be that it does; because otherwise, what was the point?

Oh for sure. Definitely not trying to get my head past my skis here. And I am trying to keep my aims appropriately modest. Not like I'm shooting for The New Yorker or anything (also, I don't want to write the kind of thing they'd accept). But I'm sure there's still a ton of competition (the magazine I'm looking at does a quarterly call for open submissions of short stories that fit a theme—which I've tried to hit), and that's even assuming what I've got is any good in the first place. Which, after an appropriate amount of editing, I'm hoping will be.

Well, guess I was feeling inspired. I focused on writing instead of playing video games last night, and did some more today during some quiet moments and have ended up with a complete 3,900 word short story. Now comes the hard part, editing. I hate doing it in my professional, research writing, and I'm sure I'll hate it just as much in fiction writing. And I know I need a lot of editing. Too many repeated phrases, overly similar sentence structures, and bland descriptions. But at least the bones of it all are in place. Also, I need to make sure I haven't subconsciously plagiarized anyone. I don't think I have, but that the trouble with a subconscious. Lastly, no idea if the story is any good at all. But at minimum I already feel proud for at least having done this much.

I've been feeling creatively bankrupt recently and thought I might try my hand at writing something. I've never really done creative writing, except a couple short things in school way back when. But a novel is way too much for me to bite off, I know that. I thought I might try my hand at getting a short story (sub 5k words) published in a magazine. If I can manage that, maybe I'd do something more. Just as something fun to do on the side. I've got a magazine picked out and their next open submission period is in 38 days. Time to see if I can come up with something.

I wouldn't worry too much Scot. Pelosi has no reason to listen to the likes of Tom Cotton, and the article has quotes from plenty of House Republicans who want to pass the bill. The bigger issue is if House Democratic leadership decides it looks "frivolous" to vote on a bill like this while there's issues like Ukraine and inflation dominating the news.

Lol at this one: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/paulmcleod/daylight-saving-time-senate Turns out while is bipartisan support in the senate for permanent DST, probably enough to overcome a filibuster, there are opponents (most notably Tom Cotton). But there was apparently a whole lot of communication breakdowns and a lot of senators on both sides had no idea Rubio was about too ask for unanimous consent to pass the bill. So it was by accident, rather than intentional, that this happened. And now those senators who were caught off guard are apparently now lobbying the House to not vote on the bill.

Yeah, I mean this. I started high school at 730, my "lunch" period started at 1030, and I was done at 2:10pm. Which seems a terrible way to do things.