Random Thoughts... [Entertainment Edition]

GRtak said:
This makes me feel old. I do remember the debates about changing formats./oldish guy

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For me it's cassettes that make me feel old, for a long time they were my world when it came to music. I feel like cassettes are missing the novelty factor but it's there, if someone put the effort in to make a decent cassette player that has some kind of novelty like a totally exposed mechanism or my own idea of just servo motor controls to eliminate the mechanism entirely.

When every physical media is a novelty to most people it makes sense that vinyl wins. I did end up buying the Gorillaz Cracker Island picture disc and it's brilliant. The CD version looks good but I don't have a CD player that lets me see the spinning disc, even then I don't think it's designed to look good as the speed changes. I've always wanted one of those vertical multi-CD players
 
Matt2000 said:
For me it's cassettes that make me feel old, for a long time they were my world when it came to music. I feel like cassettes are missing the novelty factor but it's there, if someone put the effort in to make a decent cassette player that has some kind of novelty like a totally exposed mechanism or my own idea of just servo motor controls to eliminate the mechanism entirely.

When every physical media is a novelty to most people it makes sense that vinyl wins. I did end up buying the Gorillaz Cracker Island picture disc and it's brilliant. The CD version looks good but I don't have a CD player that lets me see the spinning disc, even then I don't think it's designed to look good as the speed changes. I've always wanted one of those vertical multi-CD players
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You need a reel to reel machine.
 
GRtak said:
You need a reel to reel machine.
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Oh man that's an avenue I'm not going down. Yes, I'd love one but I'm definitely not enough of an audio snob audiophile to make it worth doing and that's a whole world of wallet pain. I was looking at the prices last year after Techmoan's video on the TEAC X3 range - lovely machines.


View: https://youtu.be/WdUgBHDFN4c
Putting effort into a fancy cassette player would be better for getting it noticed, the mass market does not care about reel-to-reel these days.

Yes, I like reel-to-reel video tapes too...
 
Played Atomic Heart on Game Pass. It takes bits and pieces from other games like Bioshock Infinite, Prey, and maybe a little bit of Nier Automata. The atmosphere and the boss fights are on point, but the difficulty and the puzzles, not so much. The game is also very buggy on PC, I got stuck in geometry multiple times and had to reload the previous save. Overal 7/10. It's not worth $60, but if you have Game Pass it's worth a try. Also I recommend going melee, as enemies can but bullet sponges.

Ending spoiler
I got both endings and both are disappointing. The first time I chose to fight Sechenov, the robot twins fight was cool, but it felt kind of lacking. When I saw the ending cutscene I thought I get to fight that Zakharov polymer monster, but nope, the game just ends. I went back and tried the other choice, but it just ends. There's not even a final boss fight.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zdYCpqpqmo
 
For me that also has strong Half Life /HL2 vibes with the zombies and the puzzles. Interesting but not one I'd spend my money on, an ideal game pass candidate but I refuse to install games through the crappy MS store if they can be had on Steam. I'll watch a playthrough though.

Also I had to turn off the audio on that video after one guy's dog kept barking, is that the level gaming Youtubers are at?
 
MS Store does suck, but I don't have an Xbox so MS Store it is. This game is not worth spending $60 on. There are 2 endings but you can get both easily, not much replay value. So for Game Pass this is perfect.
 
Crispy critters can I have the time back that I wasted watching a playthrough? I had it on double speed most of the time, still had to skip through the crappy fight segments and I still want the time back.
 
I kinda like that "Crispy Critters" saying later on in the game. Idk if the stream you watched found this note, but he learned that term
because one of the nurses in the hospital he was staying uses that term when he's in a coma
.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZHy5JvqrHs
 
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I just watched the pilot episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles again. And it reaffirmed the one nag I've always had with the franchise: Why are the terminators such miserable shots?
 
just going to say this, I wish for Train Simulator on Steam to be better, but it's poorly programmed, and so I get low or stuttering frame rate, and it looks like Microsoft's Train simulator from the early 2000s, just on higher resolution. Everything's still blocky and low quality renders. I figured we would have advanced past Alpha Project level of animation.
 
93Flareside said:
just going to say this, I wish for Train Simulator on Steam to be better, but it's poorly programmed, and so I get low or stuttering frame rate, and it looks like Microsoft's Train simulator from the early 2000s, just on higher resolution. Everything's still blocky and low quality renders. I figured we would have advanced past Alpha Project level of animation.
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That’s such an old game now, I bought Railworks in 2009 and they’re still giving me updates to the latest version. The Wikipedia entry doesn’t sugar coat it:

The core game has received several updates since release, including major new versions RailWorks 2: Train Simulator, RailWorks 3: Train Simulator 2012, Train Simulator 2013, Train Simulator 2014, Train Simulator 2015, Train Simulator 2016, Train Simulator 2017, Train Simulator 2018, Train Simulator 2019, Train Simulator 2020, Train Simulator 2021 and Train Simulator 2022, released between 2010 and 2021, respectively. The current version, Train Simulator Classic, was released on 26 April 2022.
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I remember the models being quite impressive back when it was new and the reflections were good. I like the frankly amazing add-ons by Armstrong Powerhouse but the price gets silly. that’s also on top of a shonky base game as you say. MS Train Simulator at least had the jet train mod that was free.

I’ve been trying to watch episodes of the TV show about the Hornby company that are famous for 00 model trains here, there was a preview of a VR game and it reminded me of their old Virtual Railway game that let you set up a mode railway and ride the trains. Also neat for its time.
 
^It's disappointing that it's basically an add on money maker.

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Are there stories of actors working on a tv show that absolutely hated it? Like "It turns out, the people are aggressive, I didn't jive with the other people." that sort of thing.
 
93Flareside said:
Are there stories of actors working on a tv show that absolutely hated it? Like "It turns out, the people are aggressive, I didn't jive with the other people." that sort of thing.
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Chevy Chase on Community seems like it'd qualify, though it seemed like maybe the cast and showrunners had a bigger problem with him than he had with them.

Andy Kaufman on Taxi.

The "half" kid from Two and a Half Men. He found Jesus and described the show as filth, to them basically be written out in the next two seasons unt a cameo in the finale.
 
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93Flareside said:
Are there stories of actors working on a tv show that absolutely hated it? Like "It turns out, the people are aggressive, I didn't jive with the other people." that sort of thing.
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ALF! This question always brings ALF to mind.


ALF was technically difficult and extremely demanding on series creator Fusco as well as its four lead actors. All confirmed during a 2000 People magazine interview that there were constantly high levels of tension on the set
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Max Wright stated that he despised supporting a technically demanding inanimate object that received most of the good lines of dialogue. He admitted to being "hugely eager to have ALF over with. Anne Schedeen said that on the last night of taping the final episode, "there was one take and Max walked off the set, went to his dressing room, got his bags, went to his car and disappeared... There were no goodbyes." Schedeen herself said "there was no joy on the set...it was a technical nightmare – extremely slow, hot and tedious... A 30-minute show took 20, 25 hours to shoot.
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Relevant wiki section here.
 
93Flareside said:
^It's disappointing that it's basically an add on money maker.
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Simulators always are, I mean shit a friend's dad used to spend an absolute fortune on Flight Sim hardware (pedals, controls, simulated radio banks, etc.) and add-ons. The add-ons for Train Sim are very well done and in a lot of cases massively improve on what the base game has.

I bought the Wherry Lines: Norwich – Great Yarmouth & Lowestoft Route Add-On because I'm very familiar with the area and it's really good. They've upgraded it now too for just a fiver extra, might get that and play again so I can see how it runs on this beast. Probably badly.
 
Matt2000 said:
Simulators always are, I mean shit a friend's dad used to spend an absolute fortune on Flight Sim hardware (pedals, controls, simulated radio banks, etc.) and add-ons. The add-ons for Train Sim are very well done and in a lot of cases massively improve on what the base game has.

I bought the Wherry Lines: Norwich – Great Yarmouth & Lowestoft Route Add-On because I'm very familiar with the area and it's really good. They've upgraded it now too for just a fiver extra, might get that and play again so I can see how it runs on this beast. Probably badly.
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I have the Freiburg to Basel DLC which has the ICE1 train set. That is very good but it always startles me because somebody recorded deutsche Bahn announcements. No other routes have intercom voice announcements so it’s odd. Somebody went through the effort to either record it and add it in themselves. But I’ve only got a few because after some time I got annoyed with how low resolution it all is, and I didn’t want to double the price I paid for the game.. :(
 
I like to think of myself as reasonably "well-read" when it comes to music from most genres (except maybe up until about the last 5-10 years), including growing up around people who never switched their car radios from classic rock/oldies stations, and spending a lot of time riding in those cars...

But somehow, Gordon Lightfoot just never really popped up on my radar of awareness. I never heard "The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald" until a couple of years ago when I kept hearing it referenced somewhere, but when I heard it,, it didn't sound at all familiar. His only other two songs I have faint memories if are "Sundown" and "If You Could Read My Mind"...but I had no idea they were him.

My only actual Gordon Lightfoot memory is, about 25 years ago someone asked me to come up with some album cover designs for their local metal band. One of them, the feedback I got was, "Nah, this one looks like a fuckin' Gordon Lightfoot album."

I say this not to somehow undermine his career or the people mouring his passing, but I just found it super interesting how my life's music journey never crossed paths with his, despite his reach and impact.

It's sort of the opposite to my experience with Simon and Garfunkel. For years, I always laughed at the album cover. At home, we had the 8 track and the LP of Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits… but just the name turned me off as a young kid. It wasn't until I was a teenager that I actually sat down and purposefully listened to that album, that I realized, song after song, I already knew and liked so many of these songs and had no idea they were all Simon and Garfunkel, and that LP because one of my favorites of all time.
 
Anyone have HBO, err, MAX that wants to weigh in on the transfer to the new app/service?
 
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