Paint Everything Everywhere: https://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=6a412035f6f1999cc773ddcb071de6e6
A nice short puzzle game
form.
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Aug 2021
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THE SUICIDE SQUAD spoiler-free review:
- great, fun, violent, hilarious, possibly best of DCEU so far
- trailers have spoiled waaaay too much of this movie
- first act was ok, second act felt a bit meh, third act was great
- hard to comment on actor performances without spoiling things, but Daniela Melchior was great and Idris Elba took the role seriously
- there is a post-credits scene
Full review on the blog later
Jul 2021
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Penniless: why a Victoria man has gone two decades without money https://www.capitaldaily.ca/news/penniless-two-decades-without-money
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Saturday gaming group decided to do a movie watch-along while we played and randomly settled on Under Siege (1992) for some reason. I’d never seen it before and several times I said “Isn’t this just Die Hard on a boat?” and apparently that was a universal consensus. Very 90s. Unsurprisingly this is already Seagal’s best-rated movie and has a surprising number of familiar and even good actors, including Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Busey, and Colm Meaney (Star Trek’s O’Brien)
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License to Kill (1989): Bond film no 16, Dalton’s second and last outing is much darker and yet weaker than the first one. The first one where Bond goes rogue, driven by vengeance instead of duty. Unremarkable theme song. Villain is a drug smuggler; I guess with the collapse of the USSR they couldn’t have another Russia-centered plot. More actors look familiar as we near the 90s. Notable are a young Benicio del Toro playing a henchman and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (known for playing Shang Tsung. Dalton’s performance is mixed, and for some reason he reminds me of Sir Patrick Stewart in some scenes. Too bad he couldn’t have had a better sendoff as Bond.
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The Living Daylights (1987): Bond film no. 15 and first of only two Dalton entries. More 80s music theme song, this time by A-ha. Much more serious in tone compared to Connery / Moore. John Rhys-Davies is here, years before Sliders or LOTR. No sci-fi mad scientist stuff this time, straight-up spy stuff (more or less). Assassinations, defections, Russia’s internal politics, Afghan rebels, weapons, smuggling, drug deals, faked deaths, etc. Might be a tiny bit too long. Surprisingly, I liked this one!
Jun 2021
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Was stuck in a waiting room long enough to watch Downsizing (2017) on cable. Interesting sci-fi concept (miniaturizing humans to reduce consumption and avoid climate change) serving as background for a mediocre Matt Damon story.
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In the wee hours earlier for some reason I decided to watch Transformers: The Last Knight (2017) while playing online boardgames with friends. It was the only one of the Bayverse films I hadn’t seen yet, and now that I have that seemed like a good decision. Too long, ridiculous plot, and once again the Decepticons barely distinguishable from each other.
The story needs a lot of suspension of disbelief. Lots of spectacle as you’d expect from Michael Bay. Surprised they managed to get Anthony Hopkins for this. John Turturro is still around, but serving only as plot exposition. They decided to introduce a new female lead that looked as close to Megan Fox as possible.
The movie ends with Cybertron crashed into Earth, so you kind of have to suspend your belief in physics as well. Also, apparently Earth is Unicron! WTH lol.
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Watched A View To A Kill (1985), Bond film no. 14. Moore is showing his age, luckily this is his last entry. Very 80s theme song by Duran Duran. Christopher Walken is here, as a Bond villain with a plan straight out of Superman (1978). Tanya Roberts plays a young Bond girl just 14 years before playing a middle-aged mom on That 70s Show. Random young Dolph Lundgren cameo! Kind of a ridiculous street chase scene through San Francisco. Overall not the best of Moore’s run.
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Yesterday I saw Octopussy (1983), Bond film no. 13. Another grounded entry with no fantastical elements, with the plot centered around geopolitical concerns. Some interesting action sequences, but overall, but I found most of the movie unremarkable. India shown as an exotic place (w/c I suppose it was to Westerners at that time) with elephants and firebreathers and whatnot all over. There was one scene where the bad guy appears to have broken a genuine Faberge egg but no one said anything lol.
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For Your Eyes Only (1981): Bond film no. 12. After the sci-fi fantasy of Moonraker, this one is more grounded and down-to-Earth, a callback to early Connery adventures. No megamalomaniacs to defeat, just foreign agents and mercs. The opening sequence pays homage to the earlier pre-Moore films, acknowledging the death of Tracy Bond and killing off a villain that looks suspiciously like arch-nemesis Blofeld. The opening song is pretty good. The rest of the film was ok, if a bit forgettable. I liked the rock climbing scene, but the ski chase and car chases felt like things we’ve seen before. Also, Moore is starting to show his age.
Melina Havelock (portrayed by Carole Bouquet) reminded me a lot of DC’s Huntress - a crossbow-wielding woman out for revenge
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Watched Moonraker (1979). Spectacular opening sequence. Villain reminds me of Tyrion Lannister. California -> Venice -> Rio de Janeiro. Mandatory canal chase while in Venice, obviously. Lots of of product placement. A bad guy tried to ambush 007 with a KENDO STICK. Have they heard of guns? Comically indestructible assassin Jaws appears again, and actually has a character arc this time. First half of the movie was kind of meh, but the last third of the film with the space station and the laser battles and the ridiculous villain plan kind of won me over with how campy it all was.
May 2021
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Just based on my public drafts, my Strixhaven limited win/loss record is at 54%
I actually started checking this because this reddit thread claimed that if your win% is at least 56% then the upcoming draft challenge should be profitable, so I just miss that threshold lol. Area for improvement!
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Does the internet archive have an API for sending URLs/links to be indexed for archiving?
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Watched Mortal Kombat (2021). Some friends tried to tell me not to waste my time, but joke’s on them I enjoyed it anyway! In hindsight, the plot was pretty flimsy, but I enjoyed the fights. It’s basically what you’d expect lol.
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Bond film no. 10: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). The best Moore installment so far. Excellent opening sequence. Austria; Cairo, Egypt; Sardinia, Italy. 007 and Triple-X have great chemistry. Jaws has to be the most unstoppable Bond villain / henchman. Stromberg’s Atlantis reminds me of the Legion of Doom’s base in the old Superfriends cartoon. Actually, I think his evil plan might be the best one so far as well.I wonder if I can get through the rest of these before No Time to Die actually comes out lol.
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I finished reading What Matters Now by Seth Godin, a book that is basically a collection of short blog posts by “big thinkers”, released for free back in 2009. Interestingly, a lot of the ideas presented in the book still feel relevant today. I didn’t think it needed a full review post.
The funniest part for me is that one of the entries is by Jason Fried about how to apologize, advice he certainly could have used during the recent Bandcamp brouhaha
You can get a copy here
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Bond movie no. 9: The Man With The Golden Gun (1974). Christopher Lee was a Bond villain! Beirut, Macau, Hong Kong, Bangkok. An Asian girl is introduced just for the pun in her name. Comic relief southern sheriff dude is back from the previous film. Final fight scene with Nick Nack was ridiculous. As per usual, Bond gets captured and the bad guy explains everything. Still not used to Roger Moore in the role.
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I binged season 2 of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan this week (after watching season 1 back in 2018!). This season felt tighter than the first in terms of pacing and such.But I’m not happy with the way it promotes American interventionism and their easy willingness to interfere in the affairs of a sovereign nation (however justified it may be)
Apr 2021
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Invincible season 1 finale was pretty great, the fight was intense and afterwards I couldn’t believe there was still half an episode to go. It’s been a while since I read the books so I’m not sure, but I think they diverged a bit from the source material, but it’s fine.The series was developed well enough, decent pacing and enough to portray the major characters well. Looking forward to season 2!
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Last night I accidentally watched most of the latter part of Green Hornet (2011) starring Seth Rogen. I never new he portrayed this character! Movie was reasonable popcorn action-comedy.
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“Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.“– L. R. Knost
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Me: Been using Python since 2008
Also me: Need to lookup how to use the filter function every time
(Note for future me:
list = filter(func, list) -
Today I decided to watch Rocky (1976) for some reason. The quintessential sports film, but I’ve never seen it before. Stallone looks only a bit younger than I remember him from the 90s. Apollo Creed is that dude from the Mandalorian! Surprised at the ending.
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Bond film no. 8: Live and Let Die (1973).
Moore feels a lot more “generic white guy” than Connery was. Maybe I just need to get used to him. Young Jane Seymour is here! There’s a bayou chase scene here that goes on just a bit too long and had superfluous cop characters. All the voodoo stuff felt weirdly out of place. There’s a character named Tee Hee! Most ridiculous villain death so far.
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Bond movie no. 7: Diamonds are Forever (1971). Connery’s hair starting to go a bit gray in his last appearance. More Blofeld than I’d expected (harhar). Space laser! Plenty O’Toole seemed pointless, there just to die. A lot of cheesy lines from the assassin henchment.
These movies would be a lot shorter if they just shot Bond whenever they caught him. The action scenes in all these old Bond films always feel so jarring compared to modern ones. Limited by the technology of their time I guess.
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“The price of being a sheep is boredom. The price of being a wolf is loneliness. Choose one or the other with great care.” - Hugh MacLeod
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Bond movie no. 6: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969). Only Lazenby appearance. He was fine, I suppose. Tracy probably best Bond girl so far. I liked the ski scenes more than Thunderball’s underwater scenes.
Loose continuity. Was confused by Blofeld not recognizing Bond after they already met in the previous movie. Apparently, the novel order was reversed. Also, did Bond just leave him stuck in a tree assuming he was dead after hunting him relentlessly?
Mar 2021
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Bond movie no. 5: You Only Live Twice (1967). Such Japan. Much wow. Cringe at trying to pass Bond off as Japanese. Introduction of secret volcano lair trope. Ninjas with guns! First screen appearance of the head of SPECTRE, inspiration for Dr Evil.
That endgame scene of ninjas invading the secret volcano lair reminded me of the Simpsons episode You Only Move Twice. Bond’s “wife” never named despite being only Bond girl to survive the movie.
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Bond movie no. 4: Thunderball (1965). This is the first one I didn’t like very much. Too many boring/confusing underwater parts. There’s a jetpack! Wasn’t there an atomic bomb aboard that boat when it exploded? And did they just leave the guy who helped Domino escape floating alone in the ocean?
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I changed my Windows color preferences to Light mode for like 10 minutes to test something and I was like “How do people live like this?”
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Bond movie no. 3: Goldfinger (1964). Lot of the classic Bond tropes introduced. Bad guy’s plan was actually pretty good, even had the escape contingency. Disappointed he did not have an actual gold finger. Great fight between Bond and Oddjob.
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James Bond movie no. 2: To Russia With Love (1963). This one actually had more bits that felt like actual espionage. And Bond didn’t need to get captured this time!
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Is there any good privacy respecting recaptcha alternative?
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Haven’t seen any of the pre-Brosnan Bond films, so I started today with Dr No (1962). Pretty good, but if this were a modern film, I’d have expected some kind of plot twist with Honey Rider, like maybe she would have turned out to be the actual Dr No
Feb 2021
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“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”
-Rainer Maria Rilke, “Go to the Limits of Your Longing”