Contentious C

That's 2 days in a row that went pretty much as expected. Memphis stinks, Orlando is the defense version of Denver, and who knows if Miami can steal any from Cleveland. But Houston did not play well. Too many turnovers, but mostly they just don't have Guys. Sengun could be, Jalen Green could be, maybe Thompson too, but they're not Guys yet. And usually to become Guys, you need to take some fucking lumps like this. Tonight was definitely a lump, aside from the 25-6 run or whatever it was.

Is that the Japanese silent film from 1928, the Britney Spears/Zoe Saldana vehicle, or the Ralph Macchio? Guessing the last one. Still sounds like "From Dusk Till Dawn" with racism.

Is McAfee attending, and Dart is doing the smart thing by avoiding the urge to break his throwing hand on Pat's face? Fully understand if so.

At this point, that function is too overwhelmed to do much good.

Pretty sure one of the more recent software updates on my 7-year-old TV resulted in motion smoothing being permanently enabled (it's not a model with its own setting to toggle). This has made me more than a little furious. Now if only I could afford to replace it...

Hahahahahahaahahah, fuck the Lakers. Series is probably still going 7, but fuck those guys.

Westbrook hit a 3 and then also Houston Cougar'd his team the next time down. What the fuck. Then again, Jokic should have found Braun on the baseline, and should have made his FTs.

Trae Young continues to make me think he's not really A Guy in the NBA and is better off as someone's sidekick. Would Young be a better fit next to Jokic than Murray? At least he's on the court more in the regular season. And Davion Mitchell is ending Atlanta's season. Awesome.

Or if you spend all day reading and don't want to do more of it in leisure time with a medium that doesn't require it? Jesus Christ.

28 Days Before, chronicling all the fuck-ups that let a pandemic happen? And she's the first one to get chomped? I could write that. Give me 45 minutes.

Well, the first little snippet chapter is a masterclass in what you're highlighting. It was a little like starting A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James and thinking, "Fuck, I've been saying stuff like this to myself all the time, but I'm not putting it into things I write nearly often enough. Fuck." So, that's... something. And the initial introduction past that hits more than a little close to home. It may be a slog to get through unless there's a particularly grabby moment around the bend. Or maybe I can try to leaven it some by progressing further in Night Circus if I feel bogged down.

Gave Indy a try, of course Game Pass says, "sure, you can run that," and it crashes out instantly due to some ray-tracing tech my GTX 1080 doesn't have. Guess I should have clicked the 'More' tab first, good thing I had the sense to skip the 40+ GB of unnecessary texture downloads. Played a few minutes of Pentiment and decided that's probably going to miss me. I can do one of oddball art style, point and click-adjacent, or no voice acting, but all three is a big ask. Maybe I should just spend the rest of the free trial in Powerwash and call it a week.

Maybe once as a dig at Hollywood, the gag was worth it. The real problem with it is now there's LIMU *lore* and that can go fuck itself.

Avoiding spoilers, since I just started this the other night, but I have to say: it takes some real talent when you had one of the very best opening-credit rolls in history in the prior series, but you come out of the gate and top it with the new show.

Well, wasn't the crux of 28 Weeks that certain people could be symptomless carriers? It's still Boyle and Garland writing and directing, so yeah, they'll figure something out. I'm just pissed they didn't do a "28 Months Later". Like, c'mon, hit all the time measurements!

Avoiding too many spoilers for myself, so... Playing through all of The Last of Us Part 1, then making it through the Left Behind DLC and its absolutely *brutal* Game Over cutscenes did *not* leave me in a good place for the first episode of Born Again. Ooof times a million. By the way, have you heard my new band, Elden Henson's Ozempic Face?

Man, the way things are going, these BIKTARVY commercials are going to have to do something about their fine print making "outrageous" claims. We're so fucked.

Hey my library actually has the Kawakami book. Cool. Saw a Stephen R Donaldson book at Goodwill for 2 bucks today but didn't grab it. It's not one of the Thomas Covenant books, so I wasn't sure if it was worth the pickup. I tried reading the first of the Covenant books a while ago and didn't exactly enjoy the style (not to mention the early events in that edition).

Welcome to the off-season, Chicago. Enjoy being the dictionary definition of mediocre for the foreseeable future.

Avowed is kinda fun through the tutorial stuff, so I have a good feeling about it. The combat feels a bit like Oblivion, which is janky, but the kind of jank I don't mind. But, as ever, no intention of paying full price for it. Maybe someday when it's half off at least.

And Bill Paxton was one of the set decorators!

Coby White looks like such a fucking hobo. I love it; basically the same look I went for with my character in Avowed.

Now I'm picturing him in the suit but with the Rust Cohle mustache and ponytail (and the age and baggy eyes), going on tangents about threshers and the ends of thousands of lives and discussing the monster at the end of the story, and weaving them in to that closing argument.

Does the producer not understand that the Viet Cong were not part of the Monsterverse?

Orlando is already boat racing Atlanta. They just don't have enough to do anything even if they win one of these two games. I think Miami has a reasonable chance to sneak into the 8. And Orlando isn't too bad, but they'll be lucky to steal 2 from Boston. And Trae got ejected on some punk behavior. I know people were saying Atlanta ultimately won the draft night Luka trade because of February, but maybe both teams lost??