Robert S

It's somewhat weird that Elizabeth II and Gorbachev passed on within less then two weeks. As someone in his early forties, I think those were the last two political figures that I knew since I can remember. Obviously, one of two (no matter if intentional or not) changed the world and won the Noble Peace Prize while the other was just a symbol, but still, this is like another piece of childhood is finally gone. I guess Americans still have Jimmy Carter in that regard.

Funny thing is, winning here and losing at Blood Money would have just been a different kind of getting Luger'd (WCW 97 instead of WWF 93).

I have watched the second episode yesterday and don't have much to add to my thoughts of the first episode. Some choices are interesting like Celebrimbor mentioning the name Feanor, the Silmarils and the theft of the Silmarils by Morgoth but not the stuff that would be quite relevant to the backstory like Celebrimbor being Feanor's grandson or the theft of the Silmarils being the reason of the flight of the Noldor and the war against Morgoth. It's also remarkable that at least for the first season, they seem to concentrate on Middle-earth, not having introduced Numenor as far (I guess the ship that rescued Galadriel is Numenorean, probably lead by Isildur?). Obviously, Middle-earth gives them much more freedom w.r.t. source material, though in the Silmarillion (the Akallabeth, to be precise), Numenor is ruling all those human domains of Middle-earth towards the end of the second age. I guess they chose to portray Numenor is being isolationist like they were earlier in the second age. But let's see. The whole giant stranger thing is weird so far. I doubt (and hope not) that this turns out to be Sauron, but I also don't see what other way they could go. It could be an Istari (wizard), but this would be somewhat against the chronology of Tolkien (they only came to Middle-earth in the third age).

I have watched the first episode yesterday (I was too tired to watch both). My biggest issue w.r.t. Tolkien-canon is the portrayal of the Elves. Second age Elves should already be close to third age ones, but instead they portrayed them as militarized and human controlling. All things that should have been lost after the first age. Also the protrayal how the Elves see returning to Valinor is really off. In Tolkien, Elves how are weary of the world (well, Middle-earth) "fade" to the west (the Peter Jackson movies actually captured this really well), here it's like Rod and Todd saying "hurray, mama is going to God". The relationship between Galadriel and Elrond also does not perfectly fit. Tolkien never gave a timeline, but Galadriel should be more or less married to Celeborn and have a daughter that should eventually marry Elrond (and leave for Valinor somewhen in the third age). Here they are close to shipping them. Galadriel feels off anyway, w.r.t. wisdom and power, she should be among the top four of all Elves in Middle-earth (only rivals being Gil-galad, Cirdan and Celebrimbor), but she seemed more like a young rascal trying to defy the order of things. I also noticed that they were extra careful to use as few names as possible. For example, Finrod was always just called "brother" and Gil-galad "king" (the second thing will change). I think in the first half hour, there were exactly five names used: Galadriel, Elrond, Nori, Morgoth and Sauron. On having Hobbits, I will wait and see before I decide if I like of dislike their inclusion. Obviously, Nori will play a role similar to Merry and Pippin, discovering the world alongside the viewer.

Has anyone here seen it yet? Some of the reviews have been, well, less than stellar. The more positive reviews were like "it looks great though not much is happening so far".

Do you mean something like ?

The restriction got reverted, I can access the page with my default DNS server again. The whole thing got a bit of media coverage (I mean they blocked a whole bunch of IP addresses of one of biggest reverse proxy providers of the world). Apparently, some lawyers sent a request to block a couple of domains AND the IP addresses related to them. This was the first such case since 2019 or so and in 2020 there has been an Austrian supreme court decision that basically says that in case an ISP does not fulfill a block request and it turns out that the site was doing something illegal, the ISP opens itself to litigation. Anyway, once the thing became public today, the ISPs quickly reacted and removed the Cloudflare IPs from the block list. Long story short: judges know nothing about the internet (besides how to read their e-mails) and this thread can be closed.

Okay, some site offering illegal stuff apparently was using Cloudflare for proxying too and the site got banned in Austria (and I guess in Germany, as there seem to be issues too) by court order. And those fuckers not just banned the domain but the IP address as well, i.e. blocking those Cloudflare servers. Blocking IP addresses in addition to the domain seems pretty silly to me (at least if you don't check what these IP addresses are as definitely was the case here). I guess Cloudflare can say goodbye to those IP addresses (as appealing to this decision is very likely much more expensive).

It seems that Cloudflare (or at least the server used for proxying this page) is fucked since last Friday for users located in central Europe (at least Austria and Germany seem to be effected). There are several threads open in the Cloudflare community but so far Cloudflare has not reacted on any of them. The effected servers are 188.114.96.12 and 188.114.97.12. The only workaround listed in the community (besides using a VPN which I am currently doing; I played around using some free proxies yesterday but did not really get anywhere due to SSL errors left and right) is trying to clear your DNS cache until you get lucky and the site is not resolved using one of those two servers. EDIT: using a different DNS server (I am using the Google DNS server now) seems to work. Still, it would be good if one of the admins here could try to create a support request at Cloudflare (because I would think that it is simple luck which Cloudflare proxy the DNS server suggests to try to resolve the domain, i.e. what works today might not work tomorrow).

I only realize now, years and years later, that they planned to have one NXT covering Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia (and maybe Israel). Good luck travelling between those countries (or entering one of those countries having a visa entry stamp from another in your passport).

I have started rewatching Voyager for the first time in more than 20 years. When it originally aired, I quit somewhere during season 4 (apart from two or three single episodes) and I did not rewatch anything since then. Also, this is the first time I am watching it non-dubbed (the voice of Kate Mulgrew takes some time to get used to). In case someone is interested, here my thoughts on the first two seasons, where I agree with younger me and what I see different now / did not realize back then: The writers and showrunners completely ignore the whole premise of the series. For example, Voyager should be flying straight to the alpha quadrant. But even after two years, they still have no problem reaching Maje Culluh and his crew with a short flight. Similarly, there is always a Talaxian ship around, when they need it. In the same vein, there are people killed left and right on the ship without it having any effect on the crew. A list I found after a quick Google search lists 12 casualties between the pilot and the end of the two parter at the end of season 2 / start of season 3. The relationship between Neelix and Kes was weird when I was a teenager, now as a full grown adult, it's about the worst thing going on in the series. To make it even worse, making the Ocampa short lived and and Kes only 2(sic!)-years-old, they almost shout in your face "here is a man in his fourties having a relationship with a child". Thankfully, in season 2 (at least in the latter half) the relationship is not that much in focus. Talking about Kes, Jennifer Lien was a pretty decent actress that had great comic timing. What a pity that Lien (allegedly) has personal problems and therefore was cut after season 3. Besides the disgusting relationship, Neelix is actually not that annoying a character as I remember. Usually he only plays a supporting role at best, used for some throwaway lines and when he is given serious material (again, besides the Kes stuff), it actually works quite well (the Oppenheimer-inspired episode Jetrel, that focuses on Neelix, is one of my favorite episodes so far, for example). They got some great actors for guest appearences, most notably Michael McKean and Joel Grey, both bringing performances that made episodes that might have failed badly with worse actors. The concept of Tom Paris and what they actually did with it does not match at all. After the pilot, there is barely any scene (besides the gambit they ran to expose the traitor on the ship) that would make you believe that this is a guy who was kicked out of Starfleet, joined the Maquis as a mercenary and spent some time in a penal settlement. Robert Picardo as the holodoc is as great as I remember it.

I have been stuck playing Two Point Campus over the last week. It's a throwback to the 90ies (which should not be a surprise considering that two of the founders of Two Point Studios (and the directors of this game) are former Bullfrog developers who worked on Theme Park and Theme Hospital) and in a good way. The biggest complaints I have so far is that there are some mechanics that seem to be somewhat hidden and that the difficulty between the different scenarios feels a bit uneven. It might also not have the longterm playability that a Transport Tycoon (Deluxe) or Rollercoaster Tycoon had, but that's not really what I look for anyway.

Brock is still too young, Goldberg fits NOAH's age structure pretty well, though.

The first one looks more like Terry Funk, the lower ones are really good, though. Hustle, loyalty, nevermore.

I have heard he got them from a doc (or a duck?).

A quick check on cagematch show that this is not fully true. In 96, he lost twice to HBK (when Michaels was the champion), once to Ahmed Johnson (via DQ) and once to Bret Hart (all in Germany, all on the same tour). Cagematch also lists two losses of the British Bulldogs to Demolition in 88 (in Paris and in Rome) and considering that there is a gap of a week without results on that European tour, I would assume, that the Bulldogs lost more often to the Demos in between. But yes, in general Davey Boy had a great win-loss record in Europe when working for Vince and Turner (and besides the 88 stuff, never lost when being the face). Actually, both losses from the 88 tour seem to be online:

They should hire Bill Mercer instead, at least he does not have the Jesse Helms association.

Was that the show where Heenan was clearly drunk and got problems backstage or was that a year or two later?

Maybe Vince plans to run for president himself in 2024?

I know baseball is big in Japan nowadays, no idea about the 1950ies, so I don't know how much it is worth that Baba won the award for best pitcher (according to Wikipedia) for two years in the "Nippon Professional Baseball" league.

The trailer has got a Two Trees of Valinor scene, which I guess will be a flashback from Galadriel, so apparently they can use the material from The Silmarillion at least that way.

I have got a master in mathematics and I am working in software development for 14 years now but everytime I have to do something with my smartphone that goes beyond calling someone or texting via Signal, I am completely lost.

Isn't that Bret? (1) the way the guy sells really looks like Bret and (2) it looks like pink hearts on a black trunk. EDIT: Yep, that's definitely Bret vs. Hennig at Summerslam 91, just look here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXD7Jm_6LVw&t=0m44s

Clearly Hogan is not a wizard (or at best a grand one).

The statute of limitations for rape, in the state that the rape allegedly happened, in the early 90ies was less than 5 years? That's wild.