Duckman

I just wanna know how they got the kilt on in the ultrasound. And I gotta say, those have gotten lots better resolution in the last 20 years.

Part of the reason for chosing SR is the presence of the racial tension but even so the rules have always been a shambles (the Matrix in particular, but every edition has had a laundry list of things needing house rules). It's a tough choice. I was looking for something that would not require a whole bunch of house rules but I realized if I try and do a conversion it is a full set of house rules anyway. Both system have new core sets out in the last 12 months. Catalyst (CGL) continues to abuse Shadowrun, their writers and their customers. Given their behavior in the open panel at GenCon last year (with the embezzler-in-chief laughing as he admitted that they didn't know if the European backers of their most recent kickstarter would ever get their product) I am not in any hurry to give money to CGL and the changes they made to dice management followed by their defense of those changes on their official forums demonstrated that they really don't understand dice rolling distributions or how modifiers affect them. That said, a lot of people are liking the "streamlined" system. I'm struggling to keep an open mind about it but Inquisitor66 can tell you I am not doing a very good job of it. Too much baggage and group preferences which are counter to the way some of their changes read. Cyberpunk Red got some glowing reviews as well but it is hard to tell if that is because it is so good or it just was not the editorial tire fire that SR 6e was. The actual core for Cyberpunk Red is still 6 weeks or more away although the intro box came out around GenCon last year like SR 6e.

I was thinking recently that I wanted to get back into Shadowrun but having looked into the "new and improved" Sixth World I think I would rather choke on my own Argle Bargle. As a result I am looking for options. That means either a conversion of Cyberpunk Red (a system I am not as familiar with) or an older Shadownrun edition (which means lots of house rules and clean-up anyway). Anyone familiar with Cyberpunk Red or a Shadowrun conversion of Cyberpunk?

We never had kids but like many potential fathers I wanted a boy because I didn't want to have to lock my child in a house to avoid letting them date until they were 30. I suppose the pandemic makes that easier though.

So get in the car and go ignore social distancing suggestions now! Hugs and kisses for everyone!

I have picked up a copy of The Dark Tower I (Stephen King) recently at the suggestion of a friend. I have not read much Stephen King and I am enjoying the different writing style. Not far enough into it yet to have a solid review though.

This was on sale a few weeks ago on Steam and I picked it up at essentially 50% off. I've been playing it as an outlet when work is overwhelming (I work in healthcare). I played BL2 but not the pre-sequel. This installment is a bit more linear than BL2 was (might have to do with not getting into BL2 until there were a number of expansions). It is, perhaps, a bit *too* narrow but is otherwise very entertaining. I have enjoyed the gameplay and the one character I am playing is nicely structured and can support a couple of different play-styles pretty readily. The dialog is generally pretty entertaining and many of the quips are still every bit as amusing but the core storeline has some points that I don't like. Better weapons are more readily available to the player but the storyline develops a bit more slowly and it takes longer to unlock extra weapons, artifacts and eridium transactions but they have also changed what you can buy with cash and eridium so while you expect it to be coming the delay does not severely hamper you. Overall I am enjoying it and woud give it a pretty solid 8 of 10.

Depends on how in-depth you want to go on the language. I used Rosetta Stone to prep for moving to Mexico and found it lengthy but effective for preparing for immersion. They have also changed their pricing model so now if you purchase any language you get all languages (at least so says my wife). They also include additional features like online community and weekly exercises online if you want to get into a subscription model.

The original founding was in 1934 but they renamed in 1961. I suspect that the new name in '61 was intentional but they have never admitted that to me (they are one of my clients).

This makes me want to cry.

You think he forgot to carry a 1 or two?

Congrats to both of you, Romans. Tell Becky she has a choice to make... My cousin was born in early July and all Shanon ever got for his birthday was fireworks. You guys need to decide if you want to encourage that or avoid that and then she need to either start Lamaze early or cross her legs accordingly. 😉

Hostess' contract has run out?

Doesn't it have to be Godfather's?

Christmas came and with it came a bunch of titles from friends and the wishlist. Also, a change of pace needed after grinding PvP rep in Warcraft. Conan Unconquered - This is Age of Empires meets Tower Defense and it is done fairly well if that sounds like a good concept to you. There are multiple layers of research and resources to work through while keeping up with waves of enemies spawning and rushing your defenses. You have active control over your recruiting and your armies at all times so you can explore, build and expand as well as defend when the waves come at you. Supports single-player and two-man co-op. It is pausable and you can give orders (build, move and buy) while paused but nothing else happens. Resource management in co-op is fairly well done as well so high marks for this if the concept is up your alley. 4-4.5 out of 5. Planetbase - Build a base and survive on an airless (or corrosive) world. Essentially this is trying to mimic Mars or Venus or possibly dark side of Mercury. Fairly simple once the mechanics are well understood and it becomes an exercise in rote tedium of repeated expansion using optimal ratios of buildings. Achievements are intended to force one complete play-through on each of three world types with replayability only in so much as it takes you to optimize the rotation for that planet-type and get all the acheesements.

Over the holiday I managed to binge 5 seasons of Boston Legal and 4 seasons of The Expanse. I had never watched either (or read any of The Expanse). Boston Legal - Overall I'd say 3.5 or 4 stars (out of 5). Denny Crane is too over-the-top most of the time which is as often a distraction as an amusement. It is always comedy as social commentary with a liberal lean (which suits my politics so I only found it occasionally preachy). The first three seasons were pretty solid however the 4th showed its age and the 5th was almost unwatchable but I was willing to wade through the 13 episodes (only a half-season) to see them wrap up the characters in a final pair of episodes that were fairly redeeming for the season. The Expanse - Excellent for effects, decent for writing. 4 out of 5. I like the hard-science bent but since I have a masters+ in the subject many of their orbits are clearly wrong (not deducting points for that but making the observation). They have done well with their weightless scenes but not so well with their decompression which makes sense because they want characters to have last words, etc. and they allow that in contrast to using helmet-to-helmet contact appropriately when radios are scrambled, etc. For seasons 1 and 2 I was enjoying it for what it was and probably overlooked some of the things that bothered me in later seasons. By seasons 3 and 4 I was noticing that the main characters seemed to claim they were trying to react to what the universe was throwing at them but my take was that they were causing a lot of their own problems (Capt. Holden in particular).

Let them eat cake.

No, I was saying that Sturgeon's law applied back in the 80's and 90's but that the crap was not worth bootlegging and smuggling so it was not here and as a result there was a false impression that the quality of anime was higher because drek was not available.

Ok, let's not forget the obvious.... 20+ years ago all anime in the US was being smuggled in and bootlegged and copied. People were not going to that effort for the stuff that was mediocre. There was a selection effect in place. Now it is easy and more stuff is being imported.

You're ignoring all the people who have been abducted from the Bermuda Triangle and spirited away to other planets for experimentation! 😉

It is also a silly use of statistics intended to demonstrate that with the right biased question you can produce an answer that is intentionally misleading. IK's link on the subject is interesting and one I had not seen before but that doesn't change the initial intent of the comment.

I don't know if life is the leading cause of death at this time. I believe that due to skyrocketing birth rates and world population it can be claimed statistically that life does not introduce the certainty of death as less than half the people ever born have died.