Ran

Larry King has passed away at the age of 87. He had contracted COVID-19 and had been hospitalized for about three weeks.

Patch notes, for those looking for them. I don't think I've run into any of those particular bugs. I did see someone else refer to having the Japantown gig involving Bugbear bugged for them (as I did in my first run through), but that one does not (yet) seem to be addressed as an issue. I'm not surprised by the list of things, and can only imagine that a lot of the memory improvements will both improve performance in some cases and also perhaps lead to fewer memory-related bugs (like models swapping).

Per the BBC and other sources, Mira Furlan died of complications from the West Nile Virus. Something like ~130 a year die from that in the US each year, so ... incredibly rare.

Hammerin' Hank gone to his reward. RIP. The true home run king. Another great gone. So it goes...

So tragic, far too early. She brought so much dignity to her role as Delenn. In the first season credits of B5, only Claudia Christian is among the living among the first five actors named. O'Hare, Doyle, Biggs, and now Furlan are gone. And there's Andreas Katsulas, of course, Stephen Furst, Jeff Conaway in later seasons... a cursed cast.

That's crazy. Never heard of that happening before without deliberate efforts to break out of barriered areas. Yeah, you definitely ended up accidentally triggering a mission intended for V. But it's genuinely amazing that they didn't lock down all but a tiny bit of the city so that you couldn't wander off. (BTW, that Bugbear mission was the one that completely bugged out the first run through I did -- I never got a call from Wakako, and though I could see enemies none of the doors would open. Managed to do it in my 2nd run through, though, which was cool.)

It's a Biden family bible dated from 1893, and which Biden and his son Beau used at their respective swearing-ins. Beau carried it up to the inaugural stage in 2013. Definitely a massive tome, though.

No.

CDPR's artists have posted a mass of concept art over at Artstation. Early character designs for Johnny, Evelyn, Meredith Stout, Panam, lots of environmental designs, gang and clothing designs, etc., etc. Pretty cool.

Hope he does the same with Michael Ellis. Or reassign him to a cushy job in Montana or something.

Also part of the ensemble Western miniseries, Godless, on Netflix, as a gunslinger with failing eyes. First saw him in Gareth Edward's indie film Monsters, and really took notice of him. His career's gone very well, and deservedly.

That's a weird one. Feels like the memory leak(s) they have not plugged yet may have somehow triggered something it shouldn't have, just as some of the graphical swaps that seem to happen (like cigarettes being rendered as guns, or -- in my most recent playthrough -- Mitch's holstered pistol being rendered as a half-eaten hamburger towards the end of the game.) Yeah, Rhino can get herself involved. Though, oddly, my first run I ended up beating her first, then did the mission and while I killed everyone else (including the weapon dealer who I accidentally shot in the course of fighting the Animals), Rhino just stayed where she was. Second time, same thing, fought and beat her, did the mission... but this time, she went and joined the Animals in fighting me. I suspect there's some sort of edge cases happening with the scripting that's leading to different results. In other news, discovered that you can get a free Shion Coyote

Dan Drezner's "Toddler-in-Chief" series has now hit its 2,600th post. About a month ago, he doubted he could hit 2,500 by the inauguration... and was around 2300 tweets or so. The pace has been utterly breathtaking:

Yes, watched in in the summer over here in Sweden, and I recall reviewing it in a past iteration of the Watched/Watching thread. Surprised that it didn't come out in the US at the same time, and indeed was held back for so many months. Wonder what the story is behind that.

Decided to watch this after hearing all of you raving about it. I watched the Karate Kid movies plenty of times as a kid, and I love my 80's nostalgia and music, but having this be a Youtube thing meant I never bothered. The move to Netflix was a big one for it, I think. In any case, absolutely loved the first season of it. Just a brilliant way to revisit these iconic 80s films, imagining how it all panned out 35 years later, fleshing out the characters. William Zabka reprising Johnny and infusing him with energy of Al Bundy or one of those characters from Springsteen's "Glory Days" was spot on. The writers have done a terrific job. Season 2 was also pretty good, I thought. The return of Kreese was handled well. Season 3 is where I found my binging speed slowing, to be honest. I think, as others remarked, certain characters had story lines that felt very thin (Robbie) and there was a disconnection from some stories I enjoyed it, but not as much as the prior seasons. I also feel that a 6 season plan feels ... long for this show, but maybe it can (for me) rebound with S4 and reveal some new way of going forward. Right now, it feels like S4 ought to be leading up to an ending, but who knows, they'll no doubt find some way to surprise us. Wonder if Robyn Lively will be making an appearance in S4? Had such a crush on her back in the day...