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I mostly used my GBA back when I had breaks between classes. Once my girlfriend (now wife) started stealing the GBA, I started using it far less. I used to game a lot more when I was a student working two part-time jobs. Working full-time day shift kinda kills gaming vibes so much of the time.

It's the conundrum of being an adult; now I have money for more games and no energy or time to play them!

wut?

My internet was down for a few days after the storm. It doesn't look like I remember it "before the storm."

Why do all of the weapons break on EVERY enemy encounter?

I remember that games like Diablo II had a durability stat on weapons. Sure, they'd break if you were really negligent about repairs when you visit a town. With Breath of the Wild, I go through multiple melee weapons with every moblin group I encounter. Also, bows shattering while just drawing the string even though arrow are depleted is just.. silly.

Anyone else completely dumbfounded by the game design on this one?

I don't know if I have ever seen one in person. Was yours behind that air purifier tower next to your TV?

Yeah, that guy and his mom suck.. but I think that's the point. They are setting him up to be a creep. He's an overachiever who listens to no one. He's a zealot. He is just generally distasteful. His mother is annoying and overbearing. He ends up being almost stalker-ish at points. They are crafting him as a creep to the highest degree. He's not "evil" in the traditional sense, but they are creating a character who is believable.

Yeah, this show is dramatic on a level that I never expected from Star Wars or Disney.

I liked that Andor, as a series, was a bit more relatable. It is cool to see Jedi and Sith, but it is more difficult to relate.

Also, in opposition to the prequel trilogy, this series had real backgrounds and real sets. They did not add CGI every other scene. It seemed like a more tangible, relatable world, but still had the epic feel of a galactic scope.

It also has the looming dread of knowing what is to come with what the empire is building.

So, after episode 6, Renee and I thought that was the complete series. I started seeing a bunch of reviews, as if the show was still happening. So, Renee and I just finished the second half of the season...

That show cultivated drama more effectively than anything I have seen. It was serious tension with a palpable, real-world feel, though it was still set in the Star Wars Empire era galaxy.

I am floored by how good that series was.

Also, at the end of the last episode, there is an end credits scene.

You know what happens to all the ghosts of all the turkeys after Thanksgiving?

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They become poultrygeists...

Happy thxgiving!!

Sometimes brick walls have meat.

The NES TMNT was one of those games that I beat once, then never picked it up again. That game was hard beyond the point of challenging and far into the zone of being frustrating. I spent most of 5th grade trying to beat that game. I think that 7th grade was dominated by Castlevania III, then 8th grade into freshman year was Mega Man 7. Those three games were all a pain to beat. I remember Castlevania more fondly though.

Renee and I played through Turtles in Time in one sitting. There is a bit of nostalgia there, but that game's responsiveness has not aged well.

I think we'll have to go straight back to the TMNT arcade game. I spent so many quarters on that back in the nineties!

I do not want to ever play the NES original TMNT game by Ultra though. That water level still gives me the shivers!

Just don't start yelling about "get off my lawn!" and you'll be okay. 

2021, we had maybe four of the neighbors' kids come up to get some candy. This year, we had zero trick-or-treaters. I guess that living in a condo neighborhood, I am about thirty years younger than most of my neighbors.

I made the mistake of going to a housing association meeting last month. It was right out of a sitcom making fun of old people complaining about parking regulations. I think that I witnessed what at least one corner of hell looks like that night.

By "ran through the first game" I am not taking that as you beat it, right? Because, seriously, after stage four, that game is super difficult. I think I spent most of 5th grade trying to beat that game.  That NES TMNT made by Ultra was Turtles, but it doesn't hold a candle to the TMNT arcade game.

That water level with the electrified seaweed still gives me shivers.

So far Renee and I have only played Super Mario Party Superstars and some Link's Awakening.

We have the TMNT Cowabunga Collection, but haven't opened it yet!

I had zero plans over the weekend. I miss having Halloween parties, but still have no social network here as I moved down here right before COVID started.

Why did the skeleton bail on seeing the scary movie?

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He didn't have the GUTS to see it!

Why did the student witch have to go to elementary school?

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She needed to learn to SPELL!

I thought I had a pumpkin joke, but every one of them that I could remember was just too seedy.

I have started Clone Wars probably four times, even as a go-to-sleep white noise show, and the first season is so boring that I make it about 6 episodes and give up. I also don't love using cartoons as canon. Thoughts?

I have probably watched through it more than 4 times, also as a go-to-sleep white noise show. The first three seasons are boring and slow. It really isn't until Ahsoka grows up a bit from those times she is independent from Anakin that she gets interesting. The story arcs with Obi Wan and Dutchess Satine of Mandalore get really good. Maul's return makes it even better with an actual tangible threat to the Jedi Order.

The series really culminates in the last four episodes of season 7 though, since it really shows a much deeper view of Order 66. It isn't just a handful of Jedi masters being killed, it is really a galaxy-wide event. At the same time, a civil war is occurring on Mandalore and you get to see how things play out between Ahsoka, Captain Rex, Dearth Maul, and Bo-Katan Kryze during that Mandalorian occupation.

Renee found some cutesy anime shows that were great to binge. Romantic Killer is streaming on Netflix. It is a cute short story about how a girl who is obsessed with video games, chocolate, and her cat, gets dragged into a real life dating sim game. Cutesy, but pretty good overall and short enough to binge in a night.

Since we know Obi-Wan is invincible between now and ANH, bring in some other characters (maybe Maul?) and just make him a badass for a couple more seasons.

Watch Star Wars: Rebels, season 3, episode 20 "Twin Suns"

You'll get to see Maul and Obi Wan.

Edward Norton in Fight Club was better.

But I guess I can't talk about that. 

Tales of the Jedi was just released too, which is a nice companion piece to The Clone Wars series.  That series is short enough to binge in one evening, but has nice backstories for Count Dooku and Ahsoka Tano.  Disney is really doing a great job of world building and filling in all of the little gaps!

[Scream]

LOL good topic... I unfortunately DON'T have Halloween jokes. This one will work:

A Skeleton walks into a bar... orders a beer and a mop 

Nice! I had forgotten about that one.

Did you hear the one about the gravedigger?

He found out that he was in a dead end career...He was always buried in his work.

What did the banshee serve with crackers at her Halloween party?

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Scream cheese!

This one started out as a pretty slow burn.  However, the writing gained momentum and smoldered the tension at a consistent build throughout.

There were no Jedi, no force users, and there was only one droid really featured in the earlier episodes. This was a departure from the regular Star Wars formula. This one was more gritty and more dramatic than most Star Wars releases.

The acting was top notch. The cinematography was immersive. I thoroughly enjoyed this series!

I have to restate; the acting was phenomenal. There were no bad actors and no poorly acted scenes throughout. This was one of the most solid things I have seen in a while.

[Witch]

So for the rest of the month, at work, instead of saying, "Which doctor gets this case?" I am going to say, "Witch doctor gets this case."

Q: What do vegetarian zombies eat?

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A: GRAAAAAIIIINNNSSSS

Q: Why does one always invite ghosts to the Halloween party?

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A: Because ghosts always bring the BOOS!

Q: Why did the witch go to elementary school?

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A: Because she wanted to learn to SPELL!

Q: How do you know when a vampire is getting sick?

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A: Because you can hear them COFFIN!

SSDs were no-brainer decisions for laptops; faster read, write, and random access times, better resistance to shock than spindle drives, lower power consumption, and lower heat output. My gaming laptop has one m.2 drive and one SATA drive. I don't think there is a single thing on the SATA drive in that.

I remember feeling the tangible difference between SATA III SSD, 10,000 rpm Velociraptor, and 7200 rpm Barracuda drives.  My main desktop still has all 3 drives. My gaming laptop has m.2 drives and loads things even faster. Hard drive speed makes such a huge difference!

[And Christian Bale was a great villain.]

And Christian Bale was a great villain.

That was the thing that kept my interest through the movie. I expected the villain to be lame, but Bale delivered the goods!