The trick to inserting your established unstoppable badass into your spinoff film without weakening the lead character of said spinoff film is careful, deliberate measurement.
So, yes, I watched Ballerina last night. And to get into my thoughts here I’ll have to spoil certain things about it. I intend not to give away all the movie’s tricks, mind you, because if you’re into the Wick-verse movies at all then I also can easily recommend this installment, so you should get to enjoy as much of it as you can as a fresh experience.
Now that I’ve had a few weeks to let my feelings about the televised adaptation settle, I did a re-read of the novella which started it all: Martha Wells’ All Systems Red. Part of my motivation to do so was to put “faces” to characters, and another part was to consider the questions of adaptation. Mostly, though, I read it because it’s a damned good book. There’s a reason this series is so beloved, after all. And a lot of what hooked us with the first installment did, in fact, make it into the TV show.
Just, for the most part, not exactly as in the original text.
I decided to take a bit of a break from Satisfactory. Yes, again. The news of Titan Quest 2 hitting “early access” made me consider getting back into Last Epoch (they’re both what’s called an “ARPG” for whatever reason) so I looked around for information about Last Epoch’s upcoming “season” event.
What I found instead was the news that the game’s studio was sold to Krafton, the folks behind such hits as PUBG, the debacle that is the Subnautica 2 situation, and the gen-AI hot mess that was InZOI.
Oh.
Well, Last Epoch was fun while it lasted but y’all might as well uninstall it if it’s on your hard drive because it’s about to be hyper-monetized and micromanaged into oblivion.
And the alternatives aren’t great: Diablo products are of course from Blizzard, with all the baggage that entails. The aforementioned Titan Quest sequel? THQ, thus Embracer Group, which is a non-starter for reason I don’t have the stamina to delve into right now. (If you know, you know. If not, you have a new research project now, don’t you?) Torchlight? I think it’s a mobile game now or something, and Torchlight 3 was a cruel joke. My experiences with the Path of Exile game family aren’t great. Which leaves me with… playing old games for nostalgia value.
All I wanted to do was spend a quiet Sunday afternoon having some fun. Instead, I’m even more depressed. Feh.
In a recent work “hangout” chat, I mentioned in passing that some day I’d like to get out to the Oregon Coast again. As someone who neither owns or operates a motor vehicle I’m reliant upon tourism services, twice-daily bus service, or the kindness of friends to see the ocean so it doesn’t happen very often. One of my coworkers noted in the chat that, in fact, they had an Astoria trip planned for late July and would I be interested in a lift to & from?
Sure I would!
Thus preparations began and so, yesterday, I went on a little tourism adventure.
This model, available for viewing at the Heritage Museum in Astoria, Oregon, depicts a mockup of a dog-powered wheel used to churn butter. No, I am not making this up.
Commence a lot of walking punctuated by museum visits and stone benches.
When I moved into my new bedroom in the rental house last year I saw that the room came with a neat knickknack shelf right over where the bed goes. How delightful! So I put some things on it.
Please pay no attention to how incredibly dusty that mini Mini has become over the past year.
Then, one night last week, my brain decided it would be fun to ponder what would happen if… oh, let’s say, there was an earthquake. Would I want a solid chunk of LEGO to land on me from that height? What about the gooseneck reading lamp with the metal base? Or the Zentraedi Officer’s Pod?
Why did it take this long to even ponder the question? Because I’m not always terribly bright, that’s why. But once the realization occurred to me at all, I couldn’t let go of it. So I had a rethink. Now the lamp is gone (I rarely used it anyway), the heavy plastic items are in the glass display case (remember that?), and the overhead shelf is populated by much, much softer objects.
The lizard doggo, the Ruan Mei “creations,” and the quaggan should be much, much less likely to do physical damage to me if they fall off the shelf for some reason.
And so I sleep just that little bit easier at night now.
