Lurker > Zeus

I keep meaning to talk about the Chase again, but I keep thinking I've already done it since I probably covered a bit of stuff in my first post about it.

At any rate, apparently the reason Ken Jennings hasn't just kept on with Jeopardy is because of his commitments with the Chase (which hopefully will end, especially because the smarmy jackass executive producer they have doing it now pisses the fuck out of me and then the clown car of celebrity guest hosts is going to annoying). But that's only a small side discussion to what I've got to say about the Chase.

I think I've seen 6 episodes of the Chase so far (probably however many are up) and it kinda reinforces what I said in the first place -- Jennings is wrong for the program, but so is Brad. You have teams playing against these Jeopardy champs and it's just too fucking easy to root against the contestants. Ken Jennings is a choir boy, so his trash-talking falls flat. Brad's ridiculous bowtie is distracting, but more importantly he's still a reasonably likeable guy. (There's also the sub issue that Brad is the weakest of the chasers by a very wide margin.) By contrast, James is made for the fucking role because he can play a convincing heel... although half the time I'm still rooting for him because he's a cool heel. For example, we learn that the third guy on a team is actually an 8-time Jeopardy champion. James's reaction? "I'm a 36-time Jeopardy champion. Welcome to the grown-ups table." (Of course, it's worth noting that Ken's run is much, much longer but I can't see Ken saying something like that, let alone having a great delivery.)

The Brad episodes kinda feel like a waste, although they also pair him against weaker opponents. Speaking of a waste, contestants have an option of selecting other offers but offhand I can't really remember them ever going for the high/low.

The Wave Master posted...

The new Spider-Man. Movie has a title.

Spider-Man: No Way Home.

I can dig it.

The Wave Master posted...

After the events of Far From Home the tiyle6 enables sense.

z0mg no spoilers!

I guess because of the fucking Sony involvement, neither of the MCU Spideys is on D+.

Revelation34 posted...

Scorpion as the villain or bust.

Would be nice.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

shadowsword87 posted...

Do people actually care about funko pops? I thought it was just a waste of plastic.

I've gradually come around on them. Prior to talking to a Funko rep who just gave me a bunch of stuff (some Pop!s, Mystery Minis, etc... actually, come to think of it, she gave me a lot of stuff), the only ones I had picked up were Chernabog (because how could you not like Chernabog?) and Bumble (the Abominable Snowman). I generally prefer the ones with mouths -- the lack of mouths is why I originally wasn't terribly enthused by the line in general -- but I'll sometimes get some of the mouthless ones as well (Sorceress for instance, although I just really like the Sorceress... which I why I paid like $80 or $90 for the MotUC version).

I've mentioned them a few times in every Geek Topic going back maybe at least a few years now. My collection might be up to 30-40 Pop!s total, which is tiny compared to actual Pop! collectors. I know a lot of people who got crazily into them, and often people you wouldn't think would be into them. They're still far more popular than they logically should be, which is why you can find them all over the place and they've been going strong all this time.

My favorites among the ones I own are probably Chernabog, Sharnado, Tung Lashor, and Donquixote Doflamingo... and maybe Bebop & Rocksteady.

That said, I greatly prefer the Mystery Minis line. (And I like the Hikari line, but the pricing is generally greater than my interest. I just own maybe 2-3 of the Skeletor variants because, well, Skeletor.)

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

Hamilton Pop!s are now a thing.



What took Funko? >_> Really capitalizing on this late. If I thought they might do Mystery Minis for Hamilton, I'd probably skip these. However, since they likely won't, I might at least pick up the Angelica Schuyler. Generally trying to keep my Funko purchasing in check.

Oh, and I watched the next 4 matches in the AEW Women's tourney (rest of round 1 for AEW, round 2 for the Japanese women's branch). Tay Conti's work was better than in the dark matches, but there was this hilarious moment where they did one of those badly telegraphed running-at-an-opponent next to the ropes then getting flipped/tossed over the ropes. Of course, they just *happened* to do it on the side with the ramp, so they didn't have the usual stakes. (Although that's probably smart, considering that it's usually a hard bump.)

Anna Jay was subbed out (due to a legit injury) for Madi Wrenkowski, and I'm kinda wondering who was originally booked to win that match. The shit with Dr. Britt Baker, DMD was humorous since you don't do "Dr." with "DMD" (it's either one or the other; supposedly she's a legit dentist, so this feels like a Ken Jeong thing... except she actually works as a dentist as well, which is unsurprising given that she works at AEW). Fun match, though, and it was good that it was saved to last, because it obscured how long the Aja Kong match was.

Then the round 2 Japanese women's matches were kinda better than the round 1 on the whole. Emi's first match was better, because Veny was a much better performer but Yuka looked decent here... and Mei Suruga, who was ringside for Emi, got involved with some fake-looking kicks when she and her cohort jumped Yuka outside of the ring. Then Aja vs Ryo was better than either of their first-round matches. I kinda expected Ryo to win just because I figured they're putting Yuka over and it'd look more credible for Yuka to beat Ryo... although it'd be crazy as fuck if Ryo wound up winning.

The only round 1 match I haven't seen is Riho vs Serena Deeb, which I might skip because it would entail watching an episode of Dynamite and, knowing the result, I'm not terribly interested in seeing Serena, who I remember as being half-decent, job to a joke wrestler like Riho. I *think* the remainder of the tournament will be going to just be on YT, and then the winner fights Shida (who I guess was in attendance in Japan) at a PPV. I'm half-wondering if Shida was in Japan because they're just going to film the PPV match (and finals match as well). Given that the whole thing is a work, they can just shoot things beforehand.

The Wave Master posted... Now there's some stuff with Bobby Lashley (Milk Dud or The Beta Male. Pick one)

tbh, Lashley is one of those wrestlers I always wanted to like, because the dude looks like a powerhouse, but it's just never happened. His face run with the WWE sucked. His feud with VKM was fucking garbage, including that awful VKM fake death storyline that ended because Benoit died for real (leading to that tribute... before the news came out that Benoit had murdered his wife and kid *then* took his own life) and the terrible decision to put him over on the ECW relaunch which took CM Punk's spot (who I liked at the time, and the fact that the WWE kept under-using him was a big reason why I stopped watching at the time). In some ways, he was both a prototype for Roman Reigns and followed in the tradition of John Cena, where VKM picked a guy he thought should go over and, even when fans weren't feeling it, he kept pushing, and pushing.

I caught part of his TNA run after that where they had him as a heel but... eh, idk, even then I wasn't buying into him as a star. Other than having an incredible physique, he didn't seem to really have much going for him. His promos never even seemed good.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

The Wave Master posted...

missing WWE Elimination Chamber from Sunday night

How many elimination chamber matches did they have this year? I know they were doing a men's one from both raw and SD, but was there also a women's chamber again? Oh, and has Edge picked his WM opponent now? (Which seems like it was always going to be Roman Reigns, so he could put him over at WM.)

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

Last night I wound up watching AEW All Out 2019 (or what AEW had of it on their YT channel -- it looks like the full show included a 21-woman battle royal (which I would have been interested in watching) and another tag match). Part of it was curiosity and part of it was the fact that I had just watched weekly shows so I wanted to see an example of AEW at its hypothetical best.

Well, the event had one really good match, but goddamn if that match wasn't amazing. I'm very obviously referring to Cody Rhodes vs Spawn Spears, with MJF and Tully Blanchard respectively. And while Spears was fucking awesome, it was really Tully Blanchard who made that match because you got a LOT of old-school heel shenanigans.

Cody was incredible, but I think a lot of that might be on Shawn Spears... who I didn't recognize as having been the WWE's Tye Dillinger (and then obviously the ringside Tully and MJF drove a lot of the action and kept me invested). Good fucking god the WWE under-utilized that guy back when I watched it. In fact, I can't think of any really huge complaints I had about the match (which even made the usual fight spilling out into the ground palatable after the package explaining the feud). However, I'll mention that in the middle of a fucking grudge match where Cody is finally getting revenge on this guy, he stops to high five a child. It was something of a nice gesture, but he completely broke character and took me out of the match for a minute.

The rest of the PPV was a mixed bag. Jungle Express vs SCU was interesting since I got to see Jungle Express's early gimmick, between the different entrance video (with the cup of water homage to Jurassic Park) and the fact that JR (and only JR) kept referring to Jungle Boy as "Jungle Jack." SCU still seems like a massive under-use of reasonable talent, although I guess somebody like Christopher Daniels wouldn't rise above a midcard position outside of TNA.

That Cracker Barrel match dragged on towards the end. The early going was neat. They worked in what seemed like another dig at Jim Cornette during the match, when Jelly Nutella pulled out a racket from under the ring and the announcers made a big deal about him not using (prior to that, Chris Daniels -- in the middle of what sounded like a heel entrance -- made a big about somebody talking about them not being able to fill an arena. I'm kinda guessing who they meant there). Darby and Jimmy Havoc were both cool. Jelly Nutella was a distraction. I laughed when one of the announcers call the match unforgettable. This one certainly won't stick out in my mind, even with the hilarious over-use of Cracker Barrel promotion within it.

Pac vs Omega was okay. There was a lot of stupidity in it (all of which was 100% on Omega), but if somebody likes Omega, I guess they're into stuff like that. I thought it just looked lousy. I will credit Omega for his ability to mug for the camera and otherwise demonstrate personality. I've always been less impressed by his wrestling, although -- outside of the silly stunt stuff -- he's not terrible (at least when he's not trying to do things he can't pull off). Pac was reasonably solid. I liked the ending.

Riho vs Hikaru Shida looked kinda bad mostly because Riho is fucking tiny as hell, something I didn't realize from the match preview images I've seen featuring her. To make it even more ridiculous, she looked as though she were dressed like a little girl. Between those two elements, I couldn't get into the match at all. The kind weird thing is that Shida is listed as only being 3-inches taller than Riho, but she looked big standing next to Riho. I'm already planning on watching the rest of the AEW Women's tournament (which thankfully will mostly be on YT -- including some of the American side -- so I won't be stuck having to watch Dynamite, other than for the Riho vs Serena match... which I don't have any hopes for now)

The Bucks vs Lucha Bros was fucking terrible. There was a lot of synchronized, coordinated stunt shit where both sides were doing the same thing at the same time. If they hadn't been doing it at the same time, MAYBE some of that shit might have seen neat. However, it was a ladders match which I'm already predisposed to dislike because those are almost always stupid, and this probably one of the worst uses of the gimmick I've seen. You had the classic shit like "Gee, it's nice that those tables he set up earlier were there to break his fall!" (and yes, it's almost always the guy to set up the table who later goes through it, which I imagine is them verifying that the thing they're going to fall through is set up properly) and them doing moves that clearly looked like they hurting themselves or a teammate far more than an opponent. The only cool stunt in the entire match might have been a Lucha brother doing a jumping "cutter" from one side of the latter and grabbing his opponent on the other side. That I hadn't seen before and it looked great. Otherwise I'll never understand how the Bucks have fans. There are probably a thousand tag teams who do the things they do better, have a better look, and many of them can actually cut a promo.

The main event was Jericho vs Adam Page, which... honestly I stopped paying attention during. I had broken the 3-hour or so PPV up between 5-6 hours of real time, but a combination of boredom and disinterest set in pretty quickly after I started watching the match. It was also just a long match.

Oh, and there was a match between the Dork Order (accompanied by gimps -- is this supposed to be a sex cult gimmick? I didn't get that vibe from the newer stuff) and the Best Friends. It was two teams I dislike in a match that looked like shit.

So the PPV had one incredible match, a bunch of things I was okay sitting through (Express v SCU, Pac, and the Cracker Barrel 3-way), a bunch of things I dlsliked sitting through (goddamn Bucks and Dork Order/BFs...), and a match I wasn't really paying attention to half the time. I guess Riho falls somewhere between okay and disliked.

And thus ends my grand AEW experiment... no, wait. Technically I have to do one more thing to be thorough... I need to watch some TNA >_< Granted, the show isn't on Hulu and they don't have full episodes on YT so... maybe I won't.

It wasn't a total waste of time. I saw one great Cody match, which was also probably the best wrestling match I've seen since... well, it's been a minute. I was happy to see that AEW has at least a few wrestlers on its roster, like Bear Country (and I guess Comoroto, although he still needs a lot of work). It was great seeing a few ex-WWE wrestlers like Pac. Then it gave me a reason to watch some WWE again. The two elimination chamber matches I watched were fantastic. The episode of SD would have been great if it didn't have so much filler. And while NXT doesn't look as good as it used to, I'm kinda tempted to check out a few more episodes.

In general, it's kinda tough because -- just like before -- there are some wrestlers I want to follow, but there's a lot of stuff I don't care about (or dislike) in the way. In the case of Hulu, it's kinda hard to skip to where you want to be. YT is a bit more responsive, but it's still hard to dissect a program (as I realized while trying to skip through that second episode of AEW Dark).

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

Well, my opinion of AEW Dark has officially tanked. I wound up watching the Feb 9 edition ("12 Huge Matches featuring The Natural Nightmares, Brian Cage, Pac, Joey Janela and more") and I had to fast-forward/skip through a lot of it.

Despite advertising 12 matches, the listed run-time was 97 minutes which immediately had me a little leery. But I figured I liked the last one, so what could wrong? The answer, apparently, was lots.

That 97 run-time included two commercials (same commercial, run twice) for the Inner Circle's beverage. It also included a rap segment I just skipped through. I watched a minute or two of a Sonny Kiss match, then skipped the rest. (Sonny's opponent was KC Navarro, who looks like a high schooler.) I then saw Marko Stunt wrestle and... wtf? I thought he was a little kid or something when he was coming out with Jungle Express. Then when I saw him in the ring, I was wondering if he was so small and kinda unusual-looking because of a disability, but I checked his wikipedia page and nope, nothing. He's just a super tiny wrestler who they have in with a 6 ft-tall guy and they have the 6 -ft guy selling to this 5-ft, 120 lb (that's his billed weight, although I expect he could be even lighter) wrestler who looks like he might be in high school. Wtf is this? Seriously?

Then the main event was Jelly Nutella vs who the fuck cares. I sat through maybe 2 minutes of that before stopping.

The other stuff on the card was a six-man tag (Dustin Rhodes, Comorota, and somebody against... whoever; Comorota showed off his power moves, but his opponents were literally walking right into them so it looked goofy), Brian Cage vs whoever (I thought Cage might have been Benoit's older son because I knew he was getting into wrestling, the look reminded me a little of Benoit, and he did that throat slit gesture but no, they're not related; I remember it being an okay match but it's a little hazy since I watched it last night), Tay Conti (who isn't great but is watchable in short matches), Pac (which was alright), and as soon as I saw Peter Avalon -- who I recognized as the short job guy -- I just skipped that fucking match. I also skipped the Dork Order match, although it was just one of them in there.

Oh, and I saw SCU wrestle somebody and Lee Johnson. That was surprising, since SCU is comprised of two reasonably big name TNA guys who look like jokes now. And Lee Johnson was tagging with some nobody, and their team lost which makes it even stupider. I 100% understand all of Cornette's complaints about AEW booking.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

Well, if there's one thing I admire about AEW, it's the ability to take people and make them look like shit >_> I thought Jungle Boy and Comoroto both seemed like they had something, then I saw them paired together and... ugh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXTFsKwOFpE

The way that Jungle Boy slows down each time right before Comoroto goes for a power move looks so awful. And his super kick didn't look so super.

I also don't get why they have Jungle Boy fighting in singles anyway when he's got a tag team... and I also don't get why the fuck they'd have Marko Stunt physically kicking Comorota out of the ring. These guys are supposed to be faces. Kicking somebody out like that is kind of a dick move, and having Marko Stunt do it makes Comorota look like shit

I_Abibde posted...

AEW Dark has been a little exhausting for me the past few weeks, since it's been running to 2+ hours, but the most recent one tightened it back up to one hour, like it used to be before the pandemic.

Good god... I guess the one thing about a YT show is that you don't have to worry about time constraints. And I'm guessing those long run times aren't because they're trying to squeeze in extra matches so they can go from doing 12 to 24 or something >_>

The thing I've noticed about AEW matches is that they can work when they're short. The longer they go, the worse everybody looks. (Except the Team Tazz guys, who did those stupid squash matches where they don't look like they could credibly squash anybody.)

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

Shadowbird_RH posted...

I just said that this situation, being so burdened by going through something so insurmountable that you'd even consider taking your own life over it, and your folks are totally ignorant of it, thinking you're the happiest person alive when you're ready to die because you just can't take it anymore, that is very sad, and that's not me being sarcastic or mean, I meant that literally, from a place of sympathy, and I got dogpiled for it! Should be reasonable that I'd be pissed off about that.

And you deserve to be fucking dogpiled for it. That was a wildly offensive, profoundly ignorant thing to say. You talk about reasonable, but what could reasonable than criticizing somebody who says something like that? I mean, ffs, man. You were literally victim-blaming the parents of a suicide victim. If anything, people were being gentle.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

My handwriting is hard enough to read without it being in cursive.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

dragon504 posted...

On to Goblin Slayer rewatch, plus the movie.

I didn't know there was a movie. Oo

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

Alright, so for Main Event, I figured I had to do the Feb 10th episode because that's apples-to-apples even though the description looks far less interesting than the Feb 17th episode. (I mean, ffs, it's advertising Dana Brooke. I doubt she's any better than she was before.)

I can't recall if I've ever bothered to watch an episode of Main Event and, until I_Abibde suggested it, I had forgotten the thing existed. Needless to say, it's going to be a new experience.

The immediate plus I'm noticing is that it's only 46 minutes so even if it's lousy, it won't be long.

Dana Brooke vs Peyton Royce 1/5
Dana has the same entrance music, the same kind of entrance, and I'm hoping not the same level of talent. She's been wrestling for... maybe 3 yeas since I last saw her? Surely she must have improved in that time.

Peyton Royce is really cute. I don't remember her. I'm looking at wikipedia and she was signed to NXT in 2015 and had some on-air (?) appearances during that time, so I must have seen her, I think? Meh.

As for the match, it was pretty lousy. They repeated some of the same shit like Dana getting shot into the corner and using it to leapfrog back and did a *lot * of basic shit. Granted, I've watched over 2 hours of wrestling so far tonight, including a lot of women's wrestling, so maybe my expectations are a bit high.

Edge promo ???/10
I like Edge. It's nice that he's wrestling again, particularly given that I thought an injury took him out years ago. Edge has really aged.

At any rate, I'm not sure whether I'm watching a recap from SD right now or if this supposed to be happening now. The ring has the SD logo. It's weird because they presented it like Edge was just coming out or something.

Charlotte & Lacey Evans recap
Oh, so Main Event is just recaps of other shows with some C-card matches. I guess it's nice that they're still using Ric Flair? Charlotte still looks great. She has more presence and authority.

That Raw match looked like horseshit, though. The ref called for the stop waaay too soon. That was coordinated.

Humberto Carillo vs Ricochet 2/5
It's a cruiserweight match, not really something I care about. The match itself wasn't great. It was fast-paced nonsense which looked cool at times (like hitting each other with kicks at the same time), but I was as bored as the announcers half the time.

The biggest problem was that there were a few points when they should have just ended things, but kept going. And after Humberto kicks out of some big impressive moves, he gets beat by a shitty move. Ugh.

Recap of Drew vs RKO on Raw
This might be a stupid question, but why is ANY of this on Main Event? Wouldn't anybody who watches WWE have already seen the Raw and SD segments on Raw and SD? Why bother putting it on Main Event like this?

It looks like it was an okay match.

Overall 0.5/5
This wasn't worth watching. I can't imagine how anybody can watch *all * of the WWE's shows without going crazy. Raw is basically 3 hours (Hulu iirc only has 90 minutes usually?), SD is 2 hours (or 90~ without commercials), NXT is like an hour, Main Event is 45 (or an hour with ads?), and then there's 205 Live, as well whatever else they have.

Oh, and I was looking at the read-ups for all of the Main Event episodes and it looks like Humberto is in like each one. Wtf?

Main Event was 45 minutes with maybe 15-20 minutes of wrestling, and maybe 5-10 on top of that if you could the recap stuff. So even though it was only 45 minutes, it felt longer than SD or Dynamite.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

Alright, so I watched the round 1 of the Japanese bracket for the AEW Women's World Championship and... well, meh. (By the way, I think the last thing I'll bother listing my thoughts on will be the WWE Main Event episode. I haven't been able to find an ROH episode to check out, so I'm not even bothering with that.)

First off, the thing was shot in what looked like a warehouse with curtains up. I thought there was no audience, but later on they referenced that some people were there. Where, exactly, I do not know.

The Magical Girl Yuka Sakazaki vs Mei Suruga I'm not rating this shit/5
Mei is adorable. I love the weird insect wing cape. Yuka is also cute, but her entrance is nowhere near as fun or dramatic. Otherwise it's so weird because you don't have titantrons, etc, they're just coming out from behind a curtain.

Given the setting and the way they're acting, I don't necessarily have the highest hopes when it comes to their actual performance... and, from the production values, I didn't have the highest hopes for the coverage either. And I was right on both counts. The footage is choppy because it's just some guys wandering around the ring with camcorders. The actual fighting is silly stunt shit, although some of it is cute (like that Oklahoma Roll into a pin attempt or something.)

The match was terrible, but I kinda enjoyed it. The performance was mostly lousy, but I liked how they reacted and sold the moves. I'm not sure I could watch something like this on a regular basis (which I mention only because these girls from some Japanese women's promotions so, in theory, if I cared enough I could watch more of stuff like this.)

I think my favorite parts were the double missed drop kicks, Mei trying out a scoop slam (which is hilarious since she's fucking tiny), that array of weird holds Mei placed on Yuka while she was on the mat, and the sliding lariat.

I was kinda disappointed by the outcome. I was really liking Mei by the end.

Veny vs Emi Sakura 3.5/5
Talk about a difference in competitors. The first match was between two cute schoolgirl-ish wrestlers, whereas these two are older and more serious-looking.

When they introduced Emi Sakuara and mentioned she'd trained two of AEW's champs, it kinda felt like the match and tourney might favor her.

...and unlike the first match, right away it looks like these women might be talented, serious wrestlers. (And I made that note *before * the oddly impressive-looking hair throw.) And their style of fighting is helping with the production, since shit doesn't look as choppy.

All things considered, I was pretty impressed by Veny. Emi was surprisingly decent as well, executing a few wrestling moves I haven't seen in a while.

The headbutt shit was stupid. It looks like they were waiting and posing to be hit. Very sloppy shit.

All in all, a pretty solid match. I think I might look up more of Veny's stuff.

Maki Itoh vs Ryo Mizunami 2/5
I was most interested in seeing Maki in the tourney, simply because of the feud she had going with Cornette. I had watched a clip of her at another promo, which made her look like shit so... my expectations for her ability were pretty low. Her ring entrance was cute, but she's a former idol so... kinda expected. It basically gives her a legit gimmick.

From the photos, I thought Ryo might be a guy which confused me. If this was an actual fight, Ryo would kick the crap out of Maki in seconds so it's not a credible match-up.

I like how Maki sold the hell out of that forearm shot.

For a while, things actually really good. They were playing the match in a somewhat realistic manner, with Ryo no-selling many of Maki's attacks and Maki over-selling Ryo's hits... but then they had to fuck it up. Towards the end, it looked they were striking in an equally effective manner, which breaks any suspension of disbelief when you see the two of them. Not to mention that a lot of Maki's strikes just looked sloppy.

And I should note that Maki's hard forehard gimmick doesn't really work when earlier in the match I could have sworn she had been struck in the head and sold.

On the whole, Maki's performance was a lot better than I had expected it'd be. There's nothing particularly impressive about Ryo.

Aja Kong vs Rin Kadokura 1.5/5
Rin's entrance was probably the weakest I've seen so far. She doesn't have much energy. Aja came out to the ring looking like a monster. Not sure why she's carrying around that trashcan. Kinda silly. Her ring attire is really fucking cool. During the introductions, Rin looks bored.

Once again, at a single glance it's pretty obvious who should win a match like this. Aja Kong is a foot taller and probably a hundred pounds heavier than Rin.

Just noticed there are only 7 or 8 minutes left... this is going to be a squash match, just like it should be. Aja is no-selling everything.

I liked Aja's casual pin attempts. I don't get why where are so many near-falls. It just seems kinda stupid. It was a kinda-lousy match. Every near-fall had me wondering why this wasn't over already.

Overall thoughts:
The only match that felt like a complete waste of time was Aja Kong's, since it dragged on for longer than it needed to. Emi vs Veny was pretty damn good. Maki vs Ryo was entertaining, even though it had problems. I enjoyed watching Mei fight Yuka, but that was pretty lousy. The pacing sucked, the camera wasn't adequately following the action, and Mei had a habit of seemingly breaking holds for no rhyme or reason.

And, while I love elimination tournaments, the selection of competitors was iffy. I'm kinda curious whether or not they're going to book the winner of the Japanese side to win the tourney. That would make the most sense logically, but they're not showing these matches on broadcast which suggests this side isn't being taken seriously.


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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

Because I wanted to try to find that Japanese women's tournament, I wound up watching an episode of AEW Dark... only to realize midway through it was in a different video. I can't complain too much, though, it was a reasonably good episode.

AEW Dark 2/16 notes

Moxley vs Jobber
Fast, but sloppy match against a job guy. Some of the job guy's stuff just looked terrible. On the plus side, it was a short match.

Bear Country vs Chaos Theory
Very impressed by Bear Country. Big, strong wrestlers, very old school feel. Got to see a few classic power moves, which is always nice.

The Chaos Theory guys look and act like goofs, but some of their tag team moves are amusing.
Was kinda surprised to see them beat Chaos Theory, since I thought Chaos was being pushed? It was the right play, though. Chaos Theory seem like a joke.

Butcher and the Blade (with Bunny) vs Sage Scott and... it doesn't matter
Kinda like Bunny's weird-ass laugh. Their team's horror vibe is kinda neat, with them coming out to the ring with masks that remind me of various home invasion movies (and, I suppose, Bioshock). It was a pretty quick match B&tB looked dominant. Other than the presentation, nothing really stood out (either good or bad).

Within the first 19 minutes, there were THREE matches. That's an improvement over any of the other wrestling programs I watched recently. (In the case of SD, the matches were reasonably good, but there was was more non-wrestling than wrestling. For AEW Dynamite, you had some fluff but then you also had the matches going long and often looking like shit. As for NXT, it wasn't a good sample episode, since the last episode before a major show for NXT is always shaky.) Were they amazing matches? Not really, but they were good enough. Even the Moxley match was kinda watchable (and this time the problem wasn't necessarily Moxley).

Renee Michelle vs Shanna
Shanna's ring entrance was whatever. Once again, this kinda feels like it'll have a predictable outcome, considering Shanna got an entrance whereas Renee Michelle was already in the ring.
Lot of arm drags and athleticism, which was kinda fun. Those arm drags looked sloppy. Shanna did a pretty good job of selling those hits from Renee. The camera work made a lot of it look better than it probably was. I'm not sure why they're this much better on the YT show than the broadcast one where I was constantly seeing things miss... although maybe Dynamite is live? I'll have to look into that later.
I wasn't overly impressed (especially given that botch at the end that even the refs called as a botch), but it was alright.

Eric James & DSK vs Alex Reynolds and John Silvers (Dork Order)
Again, one side gets a ring entrance, the other doesn't (and, like Renee, is mentioned as having their AEW debut). That's a pretty obvious job.

And the Dork Destroyer is probably one of the worst finishers I've seen in pro wrestling. It looked like the job guy had suplexed the two of them. Wtf? Why do these idiots think that's a good finisher? I watched the fucking thing three times and it STILL looked like they were taking the move instead of giving it.

I imagine any wrestling promoter with any amount of experience would tell them to never use that move again. Ugh, fucking AEW...

And fucking Dork Order, for that matter. What a goofy ass stable. Tazz and whoever were putting over John Silver, but the guy is tiny. And their end pose and that chant, wtf? Get these guys back to the indies. Send them to a developmental. Do something with them, but don't even put them on YT. The really awful thing is that I know these guys have been on broadcast because I saw them for a backstage skit during AEW Dynamite (and that was a complete throwaway).

The Inner Circle and the Briefcase commercial
I only mention this because Sammy can't act for shit and I swear this guy looks like Justin Bieber. Why are they pushing him? (Unless the group has two Justin Bieber lookalikes.)

Baron Black & John Skyler vs Jurassic Express
I like Jungle Express's entrance (although it needs the video package to make it work). It's kind of a cute concept. Jungle Boy looks like he'd be more at home in a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat or Jesus Christ Superstar, but the guy seems talented. And wtf is up with that name? That's some TNA shit right there. Luchasaurus is kinda sloppy, but he's huge and looks intimidating.

Of course, I'll mention that the match was shorter than the fucking ring entrance. It was a decent squash in that it showed off a bunch of what Jungle Express can do.

Vertvixen vs Tay Conti (with Anna Jay)
Tay Conti is cute, but otherwise neither wrestler stood out... which is understandable for one of them. Not a great match, but when you're filling 5 minutes, it doesn't really matter.

Commercial for Young Bucks: Killing the Business
Killing the Business is a little too on the nose, isn't it? >_> If not the business, they're certainly killing a billionaire's bank account.

Eddie Kingston vs... eh, who the fuck cares
For some reason the announcers were talking a lot about tripping when getting into the ring, so I'm wondering if the job guy did that or if referenced some previous event with Eddie Kingston. I was disappointed by Kingston. For some reason, I thought he was supposed to be good. He doesn't seem all that talented. The job guy was way worse, though, with his punches clearly not connecting. I tuned out midway through and stopped watching.

KC Navarro vs Ricky Starks (w/ Hook, repping Team Tazz)
Ricky Starks has a goofy vain gimmick going. That was the shits. They spend a ton of time on the entrance, then Starks delivers a spear for the win. He's much too small and thin to make that seem credible. The fucking recap was great.

Brandon Cutler vs Misterioso
Love Cutler's cool dragon ring attire and entrance... although the 1d20 in the intro looks goofy. Misterioso looks badass. Of course, the actual fight was lucha so... meh.

Ryzin vs Powerhouse Hobbs (w/Hook, repping Team Tazz)
Hobbs looks stupidly out of shape. He's paired against a guy with a 0-4 record. Another fast job.

Fuego Del Sol vs Nick Comoroto (part of Nightmare Factory?)
Comoroto looks like an actual wrestler. He reminds me a little of either Randy Savage or Jim Duggan. This is the kind of guy I'd rather see on Dynamite.

Overall 3.5/5
Despite being a YT show, AEW Dark was worlds better than AEW Dynamite. What gives? Why would you put the better stuff on YT? I don't fucking get that. I will say that most of the matches weren't exactly competitive, so it might that they're putting more of the strictly job matches on Dark.

And while the work wasn't the best (and a few matches barely count as matches), it's an hour that's pretty much just wrestling AND it fit in a lot of matches. I think they did 12 fights? That's kinda neat. I can see myself watching something like this on a regular basis, although I might get bored of the format. Even the matches where one guy kinda sucks aren't terrible because they're short.

I_Abibde posted...

Dare I challenge Zeus to try watching episodes of Main Event (available on Hulu)?

I find your challenge intriguing... but first I'm going to watch that AEW women's tournament.

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She's not deaf...
But Ill take it.

Wtf is wrong with you? -_-

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

TIL: MtG "super drops" are a thing

https://secretlair.wizards.com/us/smittensuperdrop

I think I've ever seen these kinds of cards before or something similar to it (which may not have been actual license product and instead a fan thing), and wondered what was up with it.

At any rate, they seem to be weird as hell limited collectibles with variant art and a different style. While the concept is interesting, the prices are outrageous (probably so as to not to mess with the secondary market?). At first I thought it was a bit much for a collection of cards, but then I learned that each thing was only a few cards which became a definite "NOPE!"

Some of the previous ones are kinda neat:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/announcing-secret-lairs-secretversary-superdrop-2020-11-25

The Wave Master posted...

My point is that no one is "Woke" for liking the plot of TLOU 2 or not liking the plot. But until recently the LGBTQ community was ignored in the media representation or played up for laughs or scorn. Same for my people in movies and television shows. We were either gang bangers or drug dealers or unemployed vagrants. I'm not a huge fan if Tyler Perry, but at least he portrays black people with nuances and layers and normal successful people. It's why Black Panther will always get love in my house until the end of freaking time, same with Coming to America.

Generally speaking, I dislike labels and find most claims of "representation" patronizing. I've occasionally mentioned that I suffer from OCD. However, I've also had to suffer from idiots lauding shows like Monk and films like As Good as it Gets which praise the "representation" offered to obsessive-compulsives. I'd like to personally walk to up to every OCD "ally" who praised this shit and tell them a loud "fuck you" to their face. I don't need representation and, even if I did, that's not the way I'd want it done. Both performances were at least somewhat played for laughs (which was one problem) and exaggerated beyond any realistic standard, considering that they embodied pretty much every possible trope instead of just a few key ones.

Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with them doing anything for whatever reason even if I don't agree with it, but don't piss on my cupcake and call it frosting.

And whenever anything is pushed as part of "representation," I'm probably not going to bother checking it out even if it interested me before because fuck those virtue-signalling assholes trying to make a big deal over shit.

And, not for nothing, but much of the time "representation" is used as crutch for not providing quality. It's what the Feige Ghostbusters reboot tried to use a shield and write off criticisms.

I_Abibde posted...

Neither of the TLOU games caught my interest, so the controversy passed me by.

I own 2 copies at this point -- one I bought for the ps3 and the other which came with my ps4 bundle -- but I haven't bothered to play it. My interest there was solely because of Ellie's likeness (which apparently they strongly adjusted in TLoU2)


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T0ffee posted...

Here's a link to the full interview conducted by vtuber and fellow mangaka Tamaki Inuyama.

I didn't realize that was a vtuber thing. I would have opened it in a private browser window >_< Now I'm going to get vtuber recommendations for a week again


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Next up was the Feb 12th episode of Smackdown. They're making a big deal over this Thunderdome thing, which I guess looks cool. Of course, the video fans thing looks even sillier and more distracting than on NXT

Opening / Reigns promo 3/5
I hadn't seen Roman Reigns since he finally got his heel turn, but his faction has a good look. Apparently he's with Heyman, who can put just about anybody over, as well as Jey Uso. I guess Roman is the Universal Champ.

I hadn't been keeping up with any WWE storylines, but I guess Edge won the RR and is delaying on picking who he wants to fight at WM. Good handling.

It's nice to see Roman as a heel (well, again), which seems a better pick for him. I loved the I'll beat him so bad they'll have to put him on a Legends contract. They'll have to use him as a WWE Ambassador. (Considering Edge is a face at this point, I guess he's going to job to Roman at WM.)

I fucking loved Heyman's shit. That was a nice spiel. On the whole, that was a reasonably good opening promo, but I guess if I'd been following it week-to-week I might not be as approving.

Rey & Dominik Mysterio vs King Corbin & Sami Zayne 3.5/5
I was kinda surprised to see Rey's son there. Otherwise I like Zayne's new gimmick. Zayne is a good promo now. It's nice to see him as a heel.

Boring Corbin seems to have improved a bit. It's weird seeing him bald, but his hair had made him look goofy. They pretty much changed everything about the guy, which was for the best.

Of course, Dominik stole the show there. He's got Rey's agility but he's bigger and has good look. I can see this guy being huge at some point.

Decent match overall. I kinda expected the outcome from the second it was booked (also wtf at Sonya DeVille in an executive role?).

Big E vs Shinsuke Nakamura 3.5/5
I've always liked Big E. He's got a great look, good personality, and is very talented. He seems like the kind of guy who could have succeeded in any era... and apparently he's only gotten better. His mic-work is a bit better, he has even more charisma, etc.

Of course, before we get to his match, there's an interruption where we see some stuff between Sasha Banks (I like the hair and new look). I love Sasha, but wtf? And then there was ANOTHER interruption. Ugh. Wtf, WWE? If you have a guy in the ring, stay on the guy.

Apollo Crews comes out and argues with Big E. Last time I saw Apollo, I liked his agility but he was weak on the mic.

The actual opponent was Shinsuke, who had been super-hyped when I last watched WWE. He's an interesting pro wrestler, but I was kinda indifferent towards him. Regardless, it was two very talented wrestlers who put on a pretty good match... well, until the end (One of Shinsuke's kicks went wide, but that was the only really obvious issue I saw.)

Seth Rollins comes back 1.5/5
Why'd they empty the locker room and have everybody come around the ring for this? Seems stupid. Otherwise the segment mostly felt like filler. At any rate, apparently they brought everybody out just so they could walk out on Seth.

I guess he's coming back as a heel? Was this the gimmick he left with?

...also I just realized that the show is halfway over and I've only seen TWO matches. Wtf?

Bayley vs Liv Morgan (of the Riott Squad) 3.5/5
Wait, Bayley is a heel now? Wtf? >_> Now THIS I didn't see coming? And are they just flipping everybody now? The whole This is my show shit is the same crap they tried with Paige that went over like a lead balloon.

Liv Morgan was pretty impressive. Bayley was great as always. It was a good match, and as long as it needed to be... the only problem is that they're freeing up time and doing NOTHING with it. Instead of more wrestling, we're watching the Street Prophets give a replica belt to a NASCAR driver. Wtf?

The Street Prophets vs Chad Gable & Otis 2.5/5
My only experience with them in the past was some shitty comedy they did with a WWE Legend at one point. (Oh wait, one of them is Angelo Dawkins. I remember him NXT. I think he had a string of shitty gimmicks?)

...and while the Street Prophets are in the ring, the announcers are fucking talking about the Super Bowl. Wtf?

Chad Gable I remember a little of. I don't think I've seen Otis before. Otis is surprisingly agile for a guy his size. He's short, but goddamn is he wide. He reminds me a little of Bull Demsy, except bigger and stronger. All in all, it was a decent enough match. There was some clumsy shit at times.

Sasha Banks talks with Bianca... and Nia Jax, etc 2.5/5
Sasha's ring entrance was nice. It was neat watching her and the Street Prophets dance, nice little touch.

This is probably the first I've seen of Bianca Belair. Kinda like the personality.

Nia looks even worse than before. I don't really know what the fuck is going on at this point, but I'm not complaining. It was a weird segment, but okay.

Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode vs Cesaro & Daniel Bryan 3/5
I liked how Daniel Bryan's suicide dive backfired. I'm so fucking sick of suicide dives. In general, Ziggler has been criminally under-used over the years. He's an incredible talent... although I guess Cesaro is in a similar boat. Decent enough match, but wtf was with that shit afterward? And why the fuck did they have Seth randomly attack Cesaro if they weren't going to do anything with that. I was expecting him to come out and interfere, leading to an angle between Seth and Cesaro at Elimination Chamber, possibly one that Seth would win and "convert" Cesaro into some new faction. But no, they're not doing anythign with that.

Oh, and Kevin Owens is a face now? They really did flip everybody... wtf >_<

Overall - 2.3/5

Well, what do I say? For a wrestling show, it felt like there wasn't that much wrestling... which, come to think of it, was one thing that turned me off the main roster WWE shows. Had that time been used for promos to hype up matches and get me to care about *anything*, I would have been fine. However, I saw a lot of the WWE whoring itself out to other sports, etc, and then a bunch of recaps. Offhand, I only remember that AEW episode I watched as having maybe 1-2 recaps (and the wedding recap wasn't terrible, although I understand the wedding event was poorly received).

Otherwise the big advantage to the WWE is that I know at least half the talent going in. I may not have watched Smackdown in maybe 3 years, but there were only a handful of people I didn't know and they were paired with ones I knew. It kinda makes it easier to pick up the show. The other thing is that, unlike AEW, most of these guys are fucking talented. I'm looking at the wrestlers from tonight and I'm not seeing any Joey Janellas or that midget who jobbed to Lee Johnson. Smackdown has a pretty deep bench.... the problem is that they don't use them that much.

The opening segment was good, but it went a bit long. We only got 5 wrestling matches in the show (were more in the actual broadcast?), and most were of a reasonable length so it meant that there was a lot of non-wrestling, but not the good kind of non-wrestling (like stuff that gets you hyped for a match). No, instead we had throwaway segments like Seth Rollins coming back, and people would walk out to the ring then we'd see backstage shit. Wtf?

All in all, though, I liked the episode enough that I'm tempted to watch another one.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

So fair being fair, I decided that since I'd watched last week's AEW (I *think* it was last week's episode, it's not really labeled with the date), I'd also watch that week's NXT, Smackdown, and -- if I can find it -- ROH. (But not Raw, there's only so much I can take.)

Thoughts on the Feb 10 NXT (ep 605)

I guess NXT Takeovers aren't on Hulu any more >_>

First, I loved the light show at the beginning. Very cool.

MSK vs Joaqqin Wilde & Mendoza from some heel faction - 2/5
Good presentation on the entrances. You know, that was one thing I noticed about AEW -- they didn't really do much for entrances on some of those matches I watched (except the main event).

Unlike with AEW, right from the get-go I can tell the faces from the heels. That little stunt at the beginning of the match was a great touch. In general, I enjoyed some of the flourishes and the heels' presence, but... idk, the action was a little sloppy at times. I will mention I loved the part where they kept doing those clothslines into the corner then tagging their partner so they could take turns doing it. It was a great build that made the later dodge look great. In general, the tag-work was pretty solid. Otherwise there was some silliness and stupidity that took away from the match.

Mercedes Martinez promo - 3/5
Short functional promo that got me a bit hyped for the match.

Johnny Gargano promo/skit - 3.5/5
There was some silliness involving a guy coming out in a wheelchair for his broken arm. I guess it's humorous? Once again, we can tell he's a heel from the get-go. The promo cracked me up. I especially loved when Gargano started gesturing with the supposedly broken arm.

idk, I was inclined to dislike it from the get-go, but I wound up getting into it.

Blackheart & Embermoon vs Candice LaRae and... Hartwall or something (members of The Way) - 2/5
Candice LeRae seems talented, wasn't as impressed by the others... and I had to do a double-take when I heard Candice described as a "19 year veteran." Wtf? She looked maybe 30. I wound up checking the wiki and she's 35. Something seems flaky there.

Finn Balor promo and recap - Meh
Why is Finn back on NXT? Did he completely flop on the main roster? Pete Dunne seems pretty cool, though.

Kushida vs Austin Theory (The Way) - 3/5
Kushida seems pretty talented. That low german suplex on Austin was really neat. Honestly, I was going to say 2.5 before the ending. Johnny Gargano's "It's a miracle!" was great. Of course, the stuff *after* that was a little silly.

Toni Storm promo - 4/5
One again, great promo / package. Had me interested in the match.

Io Shirai promo - 3/5
Ehhh... fucking closed captions had "[Speaking foreign language]" over the fucking subtitles telling me what Io was saying. And other than it not being in English and therefore losing some impact, it was a decent promo.

Thatcher & Ciampa vs Grizzled Young Veterans - 4/5
I'd heard Ciampa mentioned now and again and was interested in seeing him compete. The start was... meh. Just some out of the ring crap. Once they got into the ring, it was a pretty good fight. Ciampa looked pretty impressive. The GYV also seem pretty good. Very solid heel team.

I looked up Ciampa because he looks ancient and was shocked to learn the guy is only 35. Wtf?

At any rate, it was an all-around good tag team match, right down to that ending. No complaints other than maybe the beginning.

Overall - 2/5

I clearly didn't pick a great episode for watch. This was the go-home episode before a big show where most of the matches were tag-team, there were a lot of packaged promos for the PPV, etc.

It was interesting enough that I might get back into NXT. The only reason I stopped before was that I fell behind and had wanted to catch up. One of the bigger things it has going for it is that it's just one hour >_>

Also is Wade Barret just retired from competition at this point? I don't see anything about him having suffered an injury, and he's still a young guy.

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CyborgSage00x0 posted...

That looks exactly like what the trailer is advertising, though. The story seems pretty straight-forward.

It looks like they're kinda leaning into the character drama too hard, and I'm getting the impression that we're going to have subplots and side plots. Keep in mind that the first MK film also made it look like the focus was on the tournament, then we wound up getting... how many fights? It didn't seems like there were that many bouts.

And where some of the fighting is just taking place wherever, it suggests something broader.

WhiskeyDisk posted... The Yakuza team really did the work. The gamergate set could really take a lesson from the Yakuza team on how to do woke right.

If it's done right, then nobody complains. And if nobody complains, it can't get that much attention. Keep in mind that the feminists who fought in Gamergate weren't even gamers so it's not like they're looking to improve anything, they were just trying to build their personal platforms and brands so they could make money and gain fame without any real work.

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tbh, I'm so backlogged I could probably sit out the next 3 generations >_> idk, I just don't feel like a lot of gaming any more. Before it was a matter that I never had that much uninterrupted time. Now I've got the time but I'm just indifferent towards a lot of it.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

As I said in Gunsl's topic:

The opening looked kinda crappy, the tattoo thing was interesting, and then it got crappy towards the end. Personally I'm not sure how they keep making the movies suck. Although the franchise's story is unnecessarily convoluted, the bullet point is that it's a fighting tournament with superhuman contenders. Simplest shit in the world. How the fuck do you mess that up?

At any rate, I'm annoyed that instead of giving us Johnny Cage, we're getting a new character. It's fucking stupid. Maybe we'll see him in the sequel, provided that this movie doesn't bomb

And I said to your mention of JC's absence in the movie:

Yeah, it's fucking stupid. And it's not even a matter that they wanted to cast an Asian in the lead, because Liu Kang already is Asian. Maybe they wanted to change the backstory and were worried about annoying purists (unlikely), or they just realized that he was the main character in 90s one and wanted to go a different direction.

No Johnny Cage is a shit move regardless.

And, in general, it's just one of those things where these movies play a game of limbo with my expectations. No matter how I low I set that bar, they dive right under it. We've had many fighting game movies and the ONLY really passable one was Street Fighter, and then it was mostly for the camp. (That Bison painting is still fucking dope.)

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agesboy posted...

probably using school uniforms, steam is adamantly against that

Wtf, Steam? >_<


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pionear posted...

Right now its gaming for me...still enjoy it, but sometimes I just don't get the desire to completely 'Finish' certain games (like finding all the secrets, getting '100%' completion, etc) like I did when I was younger. Also Fighting Games are just a tad less appealing to me as I move into my 40s (not as angry and aggressive) I would rather watch others in the FGC play/compete

tbh, fighting games have appealed to me more with age simply because pick up & play nature where you don't have to invest massive amounts of time finishing the game.

Lokarin posted...

Yes, but I'll do it again...

Geez, how much did that set you back?

And I wasn't sure if it was dust, the photo res, or paint in the first few photos but something looked a bit off.


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I'm hoping by the time that I want to buy a ps5 they'll have a design that doesn't make me want to retch. It's one of the ugliest consoles I've ever seen. I don't know why console makers insist on going with weird, funky designs. Unless something needs a special shape to work, just fucking design it to look normal >_<

There's just something so visually off-putting about the ps5 and its weird asymmetrical design where, if I was given one, I'd probably set up someplace where I wouldn't have to look at the fucking thing.


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No sooner than I talk about how I've never been into 4-komas then -- while drying to find something by the same mangaka behind Buki-Chan in Love (I love the character art, the stories are... eh) -- I find and finally start reading B Gata H Kei. If I get used to the format, maybe I'll give some other series another try.


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streamofthesky posted...

Even the most iron clad prenup, she's at a minimum getting 50% of anything he made since they got married.

[Citation needed.]

streamofthesky posted...

And if she divorces in an at-fault state, proof he cheated on her can impact the results, too.

Pretty sure that's the kind of stuff that's both overriden by pre-nups. Otherwise pre-nups exist to avoid normal arbitration by the state.


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dedbus posted...

Probably the most famous example is writers block. By then you probably have all the techniques down and they can create good work, but plugging them in doesn't automatically give you the level of mastery you hope for.

I'm not sure that's really a "mastery" issue. The proposed solution for overcoming writers block is to just keep writing anyway, which isn't necessarily a matter of skills as it is determination, dedication, or whatever.


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TheOkHornedRat posted...

just looking at the questions, i can pretty well guess most people get the results for the person they most want to be, not the person they actually are. i would guess a lot of people will get INTJ or INTP, believing themselves to be highly intelligent and logical, when in reality they are overtly emotional and probably around average intelligence (i mean, aren't most of us?). interesting test, but i would put exactly 0 faith in the results.

If only there were other versions of this same test where some of the respondents mentioned getting the same result, or if there were some independent way of verifying intelligence like, idk, an education system or something where individuals might graded and maybe even national ratings for these education institutions so you could see how one might stack against another.

And while people can always consciously or unconsciously gravitate towards answers that they think might get them the results they want, from what I saw just now it doesn't seem like the questions are necessarily laid out in such a manner that facilitates the most blatant steering. Not to mention that your supposition that people would necessarily *try* to get certain results is at least moderately flawed and, from a technical standpoint, the test ultimately isn't about intelligence anyway. Any of these personality types could be associated with a highly intelligent person because personality and intelligence don't necessarily go hand-in-hand.

And if your argument is the usual "well, there are just INTJs or INTPs than the general population," then you might want to stop and think whether Gamefaqs is representative of the population at large.

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Kanatteru posted...

i like how there isn't even a link and you guys just got mad anyway

Hence my talk of Poe's Law.

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NeoSioType posted...

Reimu with purple hair?

I'm not sure what the reference is? Does Reimu appear elsewhere with other hair? Is there another popular Reimu?

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I just can't get into SSB with all of this DLC crap. Unless they release a version with everything on card, I'm probably not bothering at all with SSB.

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Clench281 posted...

One of the most educated, if not best educated, city in the USA

Ann Arbor, Michigan? Lame.

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Not really. It more comes down to the hobby and whatever else is going on at the time. Otherwise it can vary person to person. Most sports fans have been fans since they were kids, and it pretty much follows them their entire lives, so clearly many people keep that passion. Then you have other people who burn out of stuff pretty quickly.

Plus there's the loose affiliation of hobbies. For example, a lot of people who have long-term hobbies might not do it do consistently. Does it even count at that point? And do the specifics matter? I bought but effectively quit Pokemon Shield and LG!P before getting too far into them, but I'm still playing Pokemon Go so even though I'm not active on one side of the franchise I'm still playing on the other side. And technically there were gaps in playing the games between generations (DPP up until I started PG in 2017 where I wouldn't necessarily be constantly playing Pokemon games when a new one wasn't out, although I did replay FRLG quite a few times) when I kinda wasn't doing anything with the franchise despite being a fan. Granted, could Pokemon even be referred to as a hobby? I don't even know. I've used entertainment for examples, but those might not actually qualify as hobbies.

And in general, I don't think it's a matter of that silly overdramatic "leaving you jaded and unfulfilled as you continue to try to reignite the spark" as it is people quitting hobbies or semi-quitting hobbies at time and coming back to them.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

The Wave Master posted...

Skyward Sword HD: They did mostly take out the terrible motion controls, but I've been over Zelda since 1994. I want to get back into the series, but they aren't trying so why should I?

Given I still own but haven't played the original, I'm probably not buying this one >_>

The Wave Master posted...

but I've been over Zelda since 1994.

I loved LBW. PHg and ST were fun despite the controls, although I can't see playing ST again because of all of the shit between dungeons. OoT was reasonably good (wait, you were over LoZ before OoT?). TP had some shit I liked, but it got gimmicky at times and it shorted us a dungeon. Then BotW had a great concept, but its world was so empty and dead. I wished it were more Skyrim than SotC.

I didn't like the idea behind MM, so I barely touched that. I didn't like the direction they went with MC, although I liked the graphics and cast. (Vaati was really neat.) OoS was just okay, while OoA -- which seemed a lot better -- was killed by that fucking rhythm game. Oh, and I never played WW.

The Archery training was a throwaway. I'm not counting stuff like Hyrule Warriors or that co-op game.

The Wave Master posted... Overall.. Meh. No new Breath of the Wild 2 footage, taking away the terrible weapon break feature from the first game, No Metroid Prime 4, no Metroid 5 in 2D, no new Mario Kart 9 or F-Zero, and definitely no version of Mother 3 coming to America. Basically just things people other than myself will get excited for, and that's what Nintendo is for me now and has been for years.

Is a new F-Zero really something people have been clamoring for? I didn't even realize it had much of a following any more. I thought any interest was just based on Captain Falcon being in the Smash franchise.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

DANTE20XX posted...

Kinda true. It's the same on both sides for potential presidential candidates. There's only a select few who most the public is even aware of. You'd think Mitt would be up there more but he just isn't in public view often. He should have as much coverage as Bernie almost.

Mitt already lost a general election and he ran opposition (and on the fringe) from the 2016 primary to after the end of Trump's term, so the same reason he's in the public view are the same reasons that he hasn't engendered himself to the GOP (especially not after encouraging people to vote against Trump in the 2016 general election when he was already the party candidate). And, honestly, other than running for president in the past and releasing diss tracks on Trump, it's not like he's ever had much reason to be popular.

And while he might have been able to run as a Democrat in the past -- since he governed a liberal state where he had universal healthcare -- he kinda killed that with his 2012 candidacy.

Fierce_Deity_08 posted...

Well, I have to agree with him slamming McConnell. The guy is an asshole and doesnt really do his job very well.

And McConnell really deserved it, considering how stupid it was of him to say the crap he did since it's not going to win him any new support and only fractures the overall base.


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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

GunslingerGunsl posted...

And 6 days for a response. You weren't kidding.

Quite the talent they have there.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

tbh, unlike a Nintendo Direct is about Pokemon or something that ain't going to happen like a KIU sequel, I never bother with them. The stuff that people post on PotD is generally the most I'll hear about the goings-on as they happen.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

Krazy_Kirby posted...

i'm sure mods won't care, because of who it's about. can't even make a joke about kobe w/o getting modded though...

Pretty much. Plus the usual guys are pretty much untouchable. I still wonder what material Mead has on the mods that he gets away with the shit that he does.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

Oh, I thought this was part of that rolling blackout thing in Texas other people had been complaining about. Yeah, that's a lot worse part of the country to be without power. I still remember the 10 days I was without after Superstorm Sandy, which was one of several storms within a few years to knock out my power for a while.

And despite losing power multiple times, I still haven't bought a generator.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

I know virtually nothing about the franchise, but I've seen images of Flandre Scarlet and I like the design (largely for those weird Christmas tree wings) so I'm going with her.

https://i.imgur.com/KBLQjs9.png

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

iirc, he'd been ill for a pretty long while. Otherwise 70 isn't terribly old, especially for a conservative icon since they seem to live forever.

Far-Queue posted...

Thoughts and prayers

Kinda where I am. I didn't listen to the guy and don't have many strong opinions about him, since -- like just about everybody -- I'm far more familiar with the stuff parodying him. Of those parodies, I think I probably got the biggest kick out of TheJuiceNews skits back when they were doing that rap news stuff (where the impersonation varied greatly in terms of quality; some of the earlier entries -- like the Cablegate episode -- the impersonator looked way off, but I think it was the performance that amused me the most)

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

YoukaiSlayer posted...

I've watched 1 episode of lucky star and like 4-5 of K-On. Didn't really love either one. I feel like I need a theme other than japanese highschool to enjoy CGDCT. Although I loved yuru yuri and thats basically the same thing +mild yuri themes.

I think 4-5 is where I stopped on K-On myself. That series just wasn't grabbing me. I think a lot of it came down to not liking any of the characters and then the humor being kinda eh, which made the bland story harder to watch. (And to bring the discussion full-circle, I almost stopped Nozaki early on because the lead characters just weren't doing it for me. However, in that case I became more invested in the supporting cast which kept me going and eventually got me care to care about the story. That and the premise for the series was a lot more interesting.)

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

Woof.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

I guess my cousin picked a good month to leave San Antonio... although wherever he is in Texas atm might also have those issues.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

Let's be honest, the reason he had such a clean sweep the first time was because there wasn't exactly a sea of popular competitors. Nothing has changed there. Keep in mind that the guy who was the frontrunner before he came along was perhaps most famous for the "Please clap" meme.

HornedLion posted...

Is a Trump 2024 run REALLY something we have to worry about? Dude eats shit all day. No way hes making it to 78.

His habits have been the same for decades. I don't anticipate that being an issue. The question is would he bother with it again.

BlackScythe0 posted...

Traitor party

BS0 is in favor of locking up entire political parties now. Is anybody surprised?

TheOkHornedRat posted...

Duckbear uses the word 'as' so goddamn often and in context where it does not belong. You'd think after doing this for so long he'd eventually learn how to write or at least articulate a coherent statement.

Blame the Canadian education system.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

Clench281 posted...

It's kind of sad that you can only fathom someone being informed about health and science if they're pretending. Maybe you're the one who needs to change who they associate with?

It's the sum of your nonsense and your handling of same, not your opinion on one given subject.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

pionear posted...

Stories like this make me wanna throw up...but I'm pretty sure he had no problems with other 'Races' cooking his food, cleaning his home, etc for minimum wages...how come he didn't leave it to any of them?

...because (assuming he had any servants) they were just employees? Do you plan on leaving whatever money you might have to your mailman?

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

Somebody I knew got really sick for a day, another reported arm problems. My brother's wife managed to get a dose early and she reported feeling really tired for a day. I'm not sure which of the major vaccines they got, or what side-effects are reported with each. The CT people I talked to said they weren't told which version they'd be getting.

All I know is that this shit is still in really short supply and everybody's trying to jump in line.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

Veedrock- posted...

You act like Trump supporters are the only ones wary of the vaccine when our very own PotD is vehemently anti-Trump while the majority are unconvinced about getting vaccinated.

Pretty much. Anti-vax isn't a partisan issue.

That and the basic premise is flawed, because I'm not sure that Trump supporters even make up that many people. Blu has kinda conflated Trump voters with Trump supporters, which isn't really the same thing.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Then you must spend most of your time on some pretty extremist left-wing sites and with mostly extremely skewed people IRL.

Though with you, that wouldn't be entirely surprising.

I'm pretty sure he's just playing a character anyway.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.

That's some nice handwriting. And you know when somebody takes the time to sit down and write something, they mean it.

Full Throttle posted...

11 Members of Illinois Republican Adam Kinzinger released a scathing HANDWRITTEN multi page, single spaced diatribe by 11 of his relatives who called him a "disappointment to God" and a STAIN on their family's name for backing the impeachment of Donald Trump and has now DISOWNED HIM!!

Not really single-spaced.

BlackScythe0 posted...

We need to figure out what to do with traitors who want to disown people for respecting the fucking constitution.

Oh good lord, look at what the board's resident authoritarian is pushing now! He's implying that the government should round up dissenters. This is literally happening right now. Horseshoe theory in action, except no, it's even worse than that because the guys on the other side haven't been implying that political critics need to be dealt with by the government.

Fierce_Deity_08 posted...

I just dont like people who disown their family for stupid reasons like politics

You say that, but that was literally a tactic that the left was pushing to try to deal with Trump voting or support. And on the night of the election when my far-leftist cousin's wife was debating on fleeing the country so she "didn't have to explain that Trump got elected again" to her kids (who were only scared of Trump in the first place because she had been trash-talking him in the first place) removed countless family members from her friends list who she believed had supported Trump, and went on a screed about how she should have done it earlier like people suggested.

Arcturusisnow posted...

So seven people voted "No". @Zeus stop hiding

I'm not sure who's behind that mask (probably Clark) and while I don't have the mention system enabled, I don't feel like putting up with random alts trying to troll me so you're on the ignore list (which is where you'd probably been in the first place until I purged some names the other month... although it's equally likely you made that name as reference to another one of your banned accounts).

And for the record, I was the 10th no. The fact that it has any yeses when it was the SECOND completely unfounded, partisan-driven impeachment hearing from a party that wanted to impeach Trump before he took office speaks very ill of this board. The fact that the whole thing was a farce from the get-go is good reason why every senator who voted "yes" should be subject to a recall and the incident in general demonstrates why term limits are desperately needed in congress and the senate.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.