Al.

"The smell is becoming an issue"

Ah yeh I have one of those jobbies and I used it for this a few times until the time the reservoir filled up and then it just sprays the water it sucked up all over you. Probably as it is being used horizontally not vertically which it really is intended for.  TBH it takes a minute to mop up the excess and let it dry out. In the scope of annoying daily chores it is really nothing but you know... robots!

It was on the list of fancy Star Trek-esque things we had in mind for the new place but we've not succumb yet to it (this years bonus went on smart blinds for the house).  How good is the mop?  Could it actually suck up a fair amount of water before needing dealing with?  I know the fancier ones have docks they live in and empty themselves into.  I've an open shower area that doesn't quite keep all the water in the cubicle so being able to send my robopal to clean up my mess each time might justify the purchase.

For counterbalance I watched all of these (except for the new Ant Man) and they all went in one ear and out the other in such a way as to not make me compelled to give them write ups.  None were bad none were good.. just.. happening with little emotional impact (yes even Black Panther 2 which seemed far too long and had that Iron Man 2 thing of having too much spent introducing other characters we'll see more interesting stories with later) .  3/5 for all of them.

It is the same as every Half Life game in that regards... ie you will go into a room and there's a chance a headcrab is going to fling itself at you.   

I actually wouldn't care too much except I've had some problems with loading new levels and loading saves where it just hangs.  It only impacts this game and Googling finds nothing useful about it.  It means there's a chance if I die I've to kill the entire game and reload it from scratch which is getting very frustrating.   Games hanging in VR are particular awful as the visuals just breakdown into a blur in your vision.  I broke through the cranky jump scare filled hotel to get into some open areas versus combine guards and was starting to enjoy the game again when I got blindsided by a stupid tripwire mine and the game crashed when I tried to load the save.    I am determined to eventually finish this but it is very trying right now!

 

 

I'm continuing on with Alyx but the grotty claustrophobic hotels with jump scares are getting to me. I just got an achievement which is effectively one anyone who would get this far in the game would get and it only has a 38% owner rate.   Basically the majority of people have not gotten this far into the game.

The weekly doling out of episodes is making me want to play the game again.  I remember settings and sequences vaguely and I am unsure if they're speedrunning them in the show or if they're yet to happen or I've misremembered them. Things resolve a lot quicker in the show from my memory.

I don't think Paxlovid ever made it over here... Certainly not for common or garden infections.  Maybe you can get prescribed it for high risk or similar but I've not heard of it being a general tool your average person can grab outside of the US. I'd heard it was near useless for the newer variants but I've not kept up.

I find it odd you went straight and solely for ibuprofen.  Paracetamol (acetaminophen) is more common here unless you've an injury.  Ibuprofen should be taken on a full stomach so it's a bit inconvenient at times with general sickness.  I'd often alternate with paracetamol in the morning, Ibuprofen after food.

I've no idea what a neti pot is but I'm going to assume it is colonic irrigation to keep myself amused.

I am curious what the recovery time would have been without the more exotic interventions but you do whatever works for you. Glad to hear you're bouncing back.

WRT the just generally ignoring Covid from everyone I suspect it is a belief that they're immune after a previous infection regardless of how recent.  Still a lot of people thinking it is a one and done and subsequent incredibly Covid like symptoms they've had have been a bad cold (I'm still unsure if I got #2 in Nov. Self tests never spotted it but I at least heavily entertained the possibility).

Almost time for Covid's third year birthday (well the global shutdowns birthday more correctly). I guess it'll be into Dinosaurs, Trucks and Space.

I asked ChatGPT to write it a card:

 

Wishing you a day that's full of spreading and replicating, just like you! You're getting more efficient and better at what you do every day, and it's amazing to see you spread your influence.

 

I hope your birthday is as wonderful as the cells you invade and multiply in. Maybe you'll get to replicate and infect more cells, or float around in the air and spread to new hosts.

 

No matter what you do, just know that you're powerful and have a big impact. Keep spreading your influence and growing stronger every day.

 

Have a happy, healthy birthday and an even more incredible year ahead!

 

I do like the feature that shows how long it was since the last post.   Also the ability to copy and paste images direct in without finnicky uploading to another site.   Truly it feels like we're in the late 2000's.

The Slavoury Cinema Club (but this time its slaver as in drool)

All I was doing was keeping the memory of the Hoskins, Devito, Egg thing alive long enough for technology to finally catch up.  I can die happy now.

Depends how you define tech skills.   I would say the difference between generations that was wildly interpreted as "tech skills" is more an understanding that something is possible and not afraid to learn a new UI.  As soon as setting a clock wasn't twisting a winder it was just relegated into "near witchcraft" for our parents.  The kids understood there was obviously going to be a method to make it work and found it.  Similarly there are a lot of low level "good with computers" kids who know to check in settings etc. with no real understanding of how a computer works.   Maybe we should just call these "user skills" than "tech skills".    The jump to "tech skills" is understanding the fundamentals and for some of us growing up that was forced upon us by necessity.   We all needed to know how to unload a driver in autoexec.bat to get a game to work and over time we figured out (usually with lots of trial and error) what things did and put bits of info together to understand the why and be able to become the people who came up with the solutions.  The path that is really closed to the new generation is the one carved by necessity.   There's so much computing power and everything handed on a plate there's no real need to dive much beyond the settings screens.

Airwaves is the one in Iceland. I've a few friends who went and it is meant to be pretty cool but the lineup was always a bit too light to justify the cost for me and I think I missed the optimal time to go as it is a bit young and dancy and I can't be described as either anymore.  

Speaking of light lineups the End of the Road lineup came out and I am not all that thrilled by it. https://endoftheroadfestival.com/line-up/music/ I know I could find some stuff in there I'd love but It was already on notice due to the closeness to my brother's wedding and I feel I can check out now and not have too much FOMO.  Also some real filler options for the headliners there in TYOL 2023.  

My brother also has managed to have his stag the weekend before Glastonbury at another music festival (Beyond the Pale which we did last year and is semi decent looking this year too) so Glastonbury is also in jeopardy for me too. 

I was finding it a lot harder to pull the trigger on the cost of this as it was.  Last time around coming out of the Covid drought really drove it through that barrier.  I feel a distinct lack of excitement about festivals this year overall.  Shitty lingering Brexit/Covid/recession vibes abound.

My advice on the graduation... go to the festival.  I missed an amazing Primavera and Glastonbury for conflicts and I'm still bitter. FWIW there's a Madrid Primavera shifted out a week you could try. I don't recommend Porto Primavera (lovely city though).

I'd recommend trying Glastonbury at least once anyway. There's a ticket resale in April.  Beyond that there's not much that would still appeal to me.  All the stuff that I went to in my 20s/30s really belongs there.  Roskilde is the one I regret not going to more in my youth.  A pure genre fest could be cool to try for the spectacle if you were feeling adventurous. Tomorrowland or Wacken.  If money/time was no object I'd be looking at Fuji Rock.  After that find bands you want to see and see what they're at.

 

I've watched the first 3 episodes and they're perfectly fine and watchable and I'll happily watch more but it is hardly groundbreaking. The design is mostly a good rendition of the games even if the buildings are so far gone they remind me more of the buildings in Nier, which is meant to be 100yrs after civilization ends.

If you've not watched it I'd recommend Station 11 which did a very good "pandemic" leads to apocalypse story in a way that touched on what if Covid had been slightly worse. The book came out in 2014 but they made the show post Covid and incorporated a lot from it. It has great spooky infected moments involving planes that meant when we saw a plane fall out of the sky in TLOU it just didn't hit that hard.

I also have no heartstrings to be pulled by the Ron Swanson side quest. It was FINE. Hardly the greatest TV episode or whatever the internet was frothing about.

The devil in me is looking forward to a line in a future episode where a scientist takes a look at Elle's blood and says "ho boy, this will also cure MS and being old... Not sure why I mention that or can tell from looking through a microscope but anyway..."

I'll probably put what might amount to spoilers for the Rings of Power in this post. I think I can trust the 4 people who read this site to at least have the self control to not read the topics on the things they don't want spoiled right?

The show was OK. I don't have any knowledge of the finer bits of Tolkien lore so I didn't really have any feelings when they showed whatever amounted to call backs to scribblings in a margin of a rejected manuscript or whatever they based this upon. I did like the design and world building and I liked how it was consistent to the movie. To my amateur eye the Balrog design was the same? I am sure they are based on the same source illustration so maybe that is all it is but its the same model right? Also they dragged up Howard Shore to do the title music at least so there is consistency there. I was also apparently the only person who didn't realise tall wizard guy was Gandalf. I just assumed that was going to be too obvious and that it would turn out to be the giant guy who kept bees in Two Towers or something. I liked action Galadriel. I hated Elrond, mostly because he seemed nothing like Hugo Weaving. Is he going to get his face UNSQUASHED at some point in the next 3000 years (it is unclear to me how much time is between this and the movies)?

What I didn't care for was the TV style structure. The 2 characters chatting to slowly reveal information that will be important in an episode or 2.. don't worry the recap will remind you so you know it is significant... happens all the bloody time. It seems odd that they spent so much time trying to ape the movies and then have TV 101 style writing. Mordor was created by a single guy getting through the army with the magic whatsit. Ok sure that is literally the plot of LOTR but they did flesh that out with 3 movies/books and not just have it happen off screen that this guy arrives at the mcguffin activating station off camera completely invalidating all the good guys actions for the past few episodes. Also there is the entire tricksy Sauron reveal where apparently he is just some lad on a boat and it is all Galadriel's fault? Is this cannon? Is this what Tolkien wrote or did they make this up themselves? Oh well. I will probably help Bezos spend all the money I gave him by watching Season 2 when it rolls around for the pretty pictures.

I've them downloaded but herself is not a huge fan of body horror style zombie gunk so I am unsure when I'll get to watch it. The internet seems to have a similar enough reaction to yourself and everyone won't shut up about Ep 3. As such I will have to hate on it obviously.

I played through the game (and wrote a bit here). No spoilers in the review but the existence of the Last of Us 2 will pretty much spoil the hook of the first game and I am guessing the show if it follows the same. Avoid knowing the Last of Us 2 exists if you intend to watch the show! It was near a decade after release so maybe it was more innovative when it came out but I didn't really think it was all that great. Good sure but I've watched stuff frothing over the story since I played it and I really feel like I missed something. It was about a month into lockdown so maybe I didn't think "worldwide plague causes people to act like douches" was an original premise at that point. I finished it though which is a good sign I guess and I did buy TLOU2 at Xmas and after I finish RDR2 it will be my next play assuming my PS4 controllers haven't crapped up full of dust again.

Most likely this will make more than Titanic and become the 3rd most successful film of all time. I dunno what demon Cameron made some blood pact with but we can be pretty sure it was probably 9ft tall and blue.

9 Years later (HOW THE HELL IS IT 9 YEARS AGO!) and Justin Roiland is out as the voice of Rick and Morty. https://twitter.com/RickandMorty/status/1618009508420386817 Thanks for listening to me guys (which I am sure is the only reason this happened).

I went back to Alyx but made the mistake of doing it at 11pm after everyone else had gone to bed. I immediately loaded into an area with a headcrab jump scare and followed it up with a sequence in a room filled with those coffin things which they store people in where you could hear Darth Vader style breathing coming from them. I had to nope out again but I did remind myself of the great design of the game which will drag me back in (but during the day time this time!).

Confirm / Deny you'll be showing Amistad next and renaming to the Slavoury Cinema Club?

I've a good few hours in it spread over several months but it is also a gruelling experience I find hard to do in long bursts. If you found Ravenholm stressful in 2D imagine something along those lines in 3D. It isn't always like that but there are some real horror moments in there. The dead bodies are grotesquely realistic at times. It is real good, perhaps because of some of these things, but allow for appropriate decompression after the more stressful sequences.

I still play VR a bit though my daily dancing workouts have dropped off a lot, mostly because it is easy to laze on the couch playing something else from my massive backlog.

When I do play my current setup is a lot improved. I've a room which is pretty much for my use which has a decent space for VR (not walkaround space but sufficient for most things to be done standing.. including arm flailing). My work laptop and gaming PC are in there and I have a sit-stand desk I can put into standing mode for VR and stuff my seat under for more room. It's a small thing but having the desk higher for things like putting down my glasses and putting on my headset and Vice Versa works nicely. There is a fan in here and I even have the IKEA Pegboard on my wall for hanging all my VR stuff. I recently got a strap with additional batteries too so the headset can actually be used when I want as opposed to being drained again because I didn't hold the off button for a fraction of a second longer than I should have.

Earlier I was playing a game of Take and Hold in Hotdogs, Horseshoes and Hand grenades (H3VR). I had some military assault rifle in one hand, ejecting mags, grabbing a new one and slamming it in with the other. I had pre-primed grenades I could fling one handed through corridors if I saw movement on the sensor.. following up with the rifle. I had additional guns strapped to various parts of my body and others lying on the ground I could grab if I needed. The game doesn't do any of that for you and half the process is getting a setup that works for you. It's just amazing how interactive and reactive everything is within this particular sandbox.

A younger me would be in here for hours but things get so intense I just have to turn the game off. Its physically demanding to stand for so long with the weight of the headset on you. The headset makes things hot even with the fan going.. but even the physical micromanagement of my loadout is starting to get to me and the thought of an even more intense firefight is something I can't bring myself to. I think I got virtual shellshock. Obviously not but I've had this sort of anxiety with regards 2D games as I got further in and they got harder. The VR and the physical element reinforce it all here.

I've a huge backlog of VR games now I've yet to try. I often revisit the same songs in Beat Saber, Pistol Whip and Synth Riders. Then I might do a bit of a shooting range in H3VR. By then I am too tired to try something new.

Honestly the worst part of the experience was being back in a cinema after three years. The stink of popcorn and unwashed teens, the tatty chairs and unkept sound system, the rustling, the over bright exit sign in my peripheral vision... the constant coughing! To its credit with the 3D wonkery Avatar at least made me feel the trip was somewhat worth the effort. Beyond that impact there is no reason to ever go to the cinema for any movie in TYOL 2023.

I dunno the last 3 years kinda told us people never do the bloody obvious thing they're told to do to stop themselves dying. That cliche gets a forever pass now.