deanb

I've been playing a bunch of The Division lately, but might have burnt myself out on it. I'd played the beta ages back n was intrigued but not enough to pick it up. and iirc when it launched it had a bunch of issues, which I'm guessing they've mostly fixed. Not entirely sure what's been dragging me to it apart from I guess being able to switch my mind off while playing. The mission levels are all over the place, maybe it's just that I super suck but I feel if I'm level 15 I shouldn't be struggling with a lvl 12 mission. Likely down to lower levelled weapons but it can be a pain to pay to get new weapons each level, especially with the huge disparity between cost/value/damage on the different rarities. Going off the raw stats a lvl 5 blue had done me better than any greys or green up to lvl 11. It's also a total PITA to go from a safe house to a mission and have to have all the firefights, especially when they're not the mission you're heading towards. And the spacing between safehouses is a pain and also some are locked out but it doesn't really let you know why or why not, so if I do trek to a safe house figuring it's closer for fast travel to some of your missions you'll sometimes find you're locked out. Then get shot n revived at your last safe house 3km away. Fun. Wait yeah I think I talked myself out of continuing this game. I think I need something more like Far Cry (for one it has cars in it, which'd be nice in Division I think. Like even basic motorbikes or something). Currently figuring something else 'light' to play. I feel I probably should bite the bullet and finish off Persona 5 before I forget how to play and what the story was (I'm on the boat, and I feel that's like minutes from the ending).

Alita: Battle Angel It looked great, was pretty fun, but was just way too fractured into clear "arcs" that mangas do that meant it felt like it had 20 beginning, middle and ends and means that it kinda ends on a silly cliffhanger than sucks all the joy out and makes you go "oh I guess there's a t least two more films to go". A shame because visually it was fab, both in the CGI work on Alita herself but also the general aesthetic it had going on. Sort of a creole city. Also was fun that cos many are cyborgs you don't get a full awareness of who the actors are but enough to kinda go "I know them but not 100% sure where from".

Got one of these Adruino electronic kit thingies from Wish. Only had a minor tinker with it, but absolutely amazed with the amount of stuff that came in it considering it was like £17. I remember in school having to pay like 50p a pop for the LEDs used in craft projects and here there's like a trillion of them never mind the LCD displays, USB connectors, and the fecking arduino as well. Even if I get bored with it it's all fairly simple fare and breadboard stuff so quite reusable so I can easily pass along to younger siblings. Also been buying up nerdy cufflinks from Wish cos my mum got me some shirts that use cufflinks. So far gotten Jedi Order ones and today got Iron Man mask ones.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/02/15/upshot/british-irish-dialect-quiz.html British dialect quiz. Which I know dialect/accent aren't one and the same but it does really exemplify the whole "no such thing as british accent" type stuff. Here's mine: Which is kinda accurate given where I grew up and have lived (and people I've lived with) in adulthood.

Okay this is a hell of a premise. I'm up for this. And Frozen 2

Some good advertising

Could be fun. Kinda feels that it might be the original movie but stretched out, rather than a4242dding in too much new. Though the "half-drunk" gag was good. And Matt Berry is...well Matt Berry. He's always cool.

This is something I do think about. Like if you've not got an arm, why replace it with an arm when you can...well as the lass says get a tentacle instead. Or retractable sword blades. Defo been a noticeable improvement in bionics over the last decade or so.

Mortal Engines A film with an interesting premise (not that it does much to mull on the "predator cities" and scavenging), and some great visuals (I'd love to explore London in some kind of Dishonored like game). But ultimately I feel way too many moving parts that get in the way of each other. And Hugo Weaving is an absolutely terrible choice in that he just so outshines everyone in the film. I think maybe this would work well as a TV show, as most books would, with time to properly explore the 'conspiracy' of the energy project (which that thread went kinda nowhere), some proper world building, explore the "killer robot that helps a girl" stuff, and spend a bit more time in the other towns and cities. Also what the hell was up with the I'd maybe watch it with my younger siblings (I believe the books are YA), and not terrible but for myself I'd more want it for the wallpapers. In more "I recognise them from TV!" one of the chinese wall pilots is the Martian lass from The Expanse. Also one of the leaders of the chinese forces is the guy who gets cut to ribbons in the Matrix sequels.

Bet before playing the video you can remember the sound.

Hotel Artemis A decent idea poorly executed. Mainly an issue of unnecessary plot elements as "character building" that ultimately didn't wholly matter. The big one I'd feel is the nurses social anxiety/agoraphobia. And the weird subplot with the son, which was sort of of no consequence at all really in how events play out yet there's frequent flashbacks. Dave Bautista was pretty damn great though. Also the main guy is guy and I like to think since it's set in near future and it has the back story of the main guy "getting out the game" and his sort of thing around sorta backup plans n shit that they're just the same guy. (p.s this clips features a B99 spoiler from S5) Ultimately if you've a lazy sunday and want some background viewing give it a shot. Mainly if you're a Bautista fan.

Might be GPU fucked.

Seems something that might interest folks what with it being Mads. For the most part seems a bit of an uninspired movie, but likely a fun watch nonetheless.

So the official Queen channel has like a near hour long segment of Queen bits from 70's (as the title kinda says). Wonder if it's to do with BoRha?

Alex Ross being the guy behind art of Kingdom Come and Marvels. Two pretty good comic books.

So a heads up but the Nintendo Switch logo goes more kind of "click" and in red than "swoosh" in blue. So I think this might be for PS4. for some stupid ass reason, not sure why the PS4 version would need/want a remaster/re-release or whatever they're planning.

My Xmas Haul off family was: And sort of RDR2. It's a gift I got my sister but with a kind of shared ownership thing. For myself I got: I'd borrowed a mates account, and figured it'd be rude to not get it myself since getting a fair bit of use out of it. Quite the family hit, even if it's the most singleplayer of my VR games. Got this on Steam. Have 1 & 2 on my PS4 but laptop is more likely to have around so I'd be able to pull it out, hook up to a big screen n play away. And Heat Signature since I kinda like Tom Francis stuff.

It's one of those things where I think the law is needed, though also needs to be enforced. But my cynical self feels that many of the super awkward big ole full screen pop-ups and buried menu options like in the Kotaku option above (and Polygon/Vox are far worse) is a kind of "make people hate this and associate it with GDPR and then GDPR can be revoked n we can run all of our tracking cookies again n wooh loads of ads to plaster everywhere". For the most part an adblocker deals with most of the cookies and the pop-ups.

(I'll be honest mainly just Spidey-Bells n just for silly novelty.)

See this one I'm much for. Thor Ragnarok has shown they're a pretty dang cool team.