#Fridays are fun day when I usually do VR

[keefwho]

April 05 - 2024 Friday

12:14am

6.5/10

This morning I put away my clothes, took out the trash, and vacuumed. I almost always vacuum on Friday because it sets me up to have nice carpet for the weekend. For breakfast I made eggs, sausage, and oatmeal. The eggs didn't turn out great and this meal hurt my tummy later in the day.

During work I warmed up with some torso studies in preparation for 57's commission. It went well, I cranked out what I had to. DS's package for me came in the middle of the stream so I set that aside for when I was done.

After stream I did my dished like usual and called DS so I could open her gift. It was a G1 Ghoulia doll which I didn't expect. Apparently she got kinda lucky getting it before it sold out. I was absolutely thrilled and I hope I made that apparent enough. I know I'm bad at showing surprise and gratitude with my body language. For about an hour after unboxing, we looked at doll prices and a couple videos. I left to make lunch.

Lunch was tuna spaghetti with the tuna I just got in the mail but I forgot the lemon pepper so I had to add it last and it worked out well enough.

For my afternoon work I continued a drawing of Millie I was doing and hung out in BR's server. I joined because AE was there but he had to leave within 5 minutes so I was left with another guy. I stayed but we didn't chat much, he didn't seem to want to talk to me. I left after my drawing time and a little bit of world making.

My tummy hurt now but it was over pretty quickly. I spent a little while way too invested in some thoughts while I browsed Twitter and other sites. Eventually I broke out of it and asked JD if he wanted to play Helldivers like he suggested earlier. We played 1 round while I cracked open a drink. I got off to wait for DS who I figured would be on soon and she was. We watched the newest 22 minute long Tell your Tale episode while she did her nails. Then we got into VR. In VR I had joined on BD since I knew she was partying and I figured we could probably merge into them for the night. I thought it felt kinda disjointed when we joined and I really wanted to show DS the puzzle world so I dropped a portal for us. BD and her friends actually followed which was a nice surprise. It was chaotic at first but it was really fun, we did 3 puzzles and took about 10 minutes each. Then we went to a smash or pass world where almost all the characters were from unfamiliar animes but it was still fun.

In bed I played KH2 for DS and we talked about some important stuff.

~~~

I struggled a little bit to escape my thoughts and give different people the attention I wanted to give. I lost sight of my goal to pay attention to things I like today to get a better idea about what I might value.

[black-and-yellow]

The Man Behind the Stinky.

For you, lil listeners. Another VRChat redraw (This is the part where you go ‘eeee’).

[World: Uh Oh Stinky] (Pretty self-explanatory)

[acanthodii-phobia]

I know, I know... you've been searching for this for awhile. I got'chu.

(TMNT) The Turtles' Music Playlists (& What Song Reminds Them of You)

Generally, they were very influenced by modern/ popular songs - usually falling into the Hip Hop and Pop categories. These lists focus on what each turtle specifically likes.

Leo:

-• Surprisingly, he likes some good ol' Rock - Classic Rock especially - and Pop/ PopRock. "They're just good, you know":

-• AC/DC, You Shook Me All Night Long

-• Alt-J, Breezeblocks

-• Artic Monkeys, Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High?

-• Boko, So Long

-• Bon Jovi, Livin' On A Prayer

-• Coldplay, Viva La Vida

-• Credence Clearwater Revival, Have You Ever Seen The Rain?

-• Gang Of Youths, Achilles Come Down

-• Goo Goo Dolls, Here Is Gone

-• Green Day, 21 Guns

-• Greta Van Fleet, Edge Of Darkness

-• Guns 'N Roses, Sweet Child O' Mine

-• Keane, Phases

-• Kings Of Leon, Sex On Fire

-• Nothing But Thieves, Honey Whiskey

-• Of Monsters and Men, Wild Roses

-• Red Hot Chili Peppers, Dani California

-• Seal, Kiss From A Rose

-• The Killers, Mr. Brightside

This song reminds him of you:

-• Fall Out Boy, I'm Like A lawyer With The Way I'm Always Trying To Get You Off (Me & You)

Listen to his playlist here:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVcpaWiKWngK6D4Qhu407NKAp68wf41Nm

Raph:

-• A big, big fan of heavy bass and his tastes lean more into Hip Hop, Rap, Electronic, and Funk because of it. He generally likes any genre however:

-• Big Data, Monster

-• Big Data, Put Me To Work

-• Block B, Nillili Mambo (Japanese vr.)

-• Confetti, Hot

-• Confetti, Rob A Bank

-• DAMPSTATE, Don't Give A Fuck About It

-• Eminem, Godzilla

-• Friday Pilots Club, I Don't Care

-• Fort Minor, Remember The Name

-• Imagine Dragons, I Don't Know Why

-• Imagine Dragons, Machine

-• Khalid, Young Dumb & Broke

-• Lewis Blissett, Killing Butterflies

-• Lonzo Da Menace, Danny Phantom

-• MISSIO, Twisted

-• Neoni, Loser

-• P!NK, So What

-• Rag'n'Bone Man, Human

This song reminds him of you:

-• Rosenfeld, Body

Listen to his playlist here:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVcpaWiKWngKImrg8vPzvngcANgTpdSVX

Donnie:

-• He really likes the New Wave/ Alternative Rock genre along with older Pop. And like Leo, the classics are some of his favourites (the 80's rhythm is gonna get him, you know):

-• Alanis Morissette, Let's Do It (Let's Fall In Love)

-• Bon Jovi, You Give Love A Bad Name

-• Cyndi Lauper, Girls Just Want To Have Fun

-• Divinyls, I Touch Myself

-• Elton John, I'm Still Standing

-• Ferris Bueller, Your Love

-• Glass Animals, Your Love (Déjà Vu)

-• Greta Van Fleet, Heat Above

-• Journey, Don't Stop Believin'

-• Keane, Everybody's Changing

-• Keane, Is It Any Wonder?

-• Keane, New Golden Age

-• Michael Jackson, Billie Jean

-• Michael Jackson, Smooth Criminal

-• Pheonix, Lisztomania

-• Queen, Another One Bites The Dust

-• Survivor, Eye Of The Tiger

-• Two Door Cinema Club, What You Know

This song reminds him of you:

-• X Ambassadors, Gorgeous

Listen to his playlist here:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVcpaWiKWngL4FPg-eq6vgAPqPIU2nLYo

Mikey:

-• Loves Pop and Hip Hop - there's something about that upbeat rhythm that sparks a fire in him, and he's not shy to show it:

-• Black Eyed Peas, Pump It

-• B.o.B ft. Bruno Mars, Nothin' On You

-• DNCE, Cake By The Ocean

-• Eminem, Without Me

-• Glass Animals, Space Ghost Coast to Coast

-• Gorillaz, Dare

-• Kylie Minogue, Can't Get Get You Out Of My Head

-• Lyaz, Replay

-• Maroon 5, Sugar

-• Maroon 5, This Love

-• MKTO, Classic

-• Natasha Bedingfield, Unwritten

-• Olly Murs, Troublemaker

-• One Direction, One Thing

-• Sean Kingston, Beautiful Girls

-• Shaggy, Angel

-• Stepdad, Parrot

-• The Young Professionals, All Of It But Me

-• Steelix, Lay It Down

This song reminds him of you:

-• Will Joseph Cook, Be Around Me

Listen to his playlist here:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVcpaWiKWngIKVnJw9LI_wWY0RI6VIxvQ

•

Thanks for reading and listening! :)

[anxiouslyfred]

Edited Lesson Plans

for @dukexietyweek‘s day 5 prompt ‘School’

Summary: The science experiments Remus includes in his lessons baffle most of the staff for how he’s able to get them past health and safety concerns. Virgil is just glad he hasn’t been questioned over stealing the plans to add precautions to them yet.

Warnings: elusions to chemical accidents, vauge mentions of bad lab safety, explosion mentions

/\/\/\

“Again? He's managed to get these major experiments in his work plan again?”

“Who the hell is he bribing to be allowed to do this stuff? Even I couldn't get a risk assessment thorough enough to do these things!”

“Remus has to be like dating the headmasters daughter. That's the only way Mr stick-up-his-arse Read would be letting him do these experiments. They're just too dangerous.”

“I think that's why Remus is doing them. Have you seen him mope when one is rejected?”

The talk in the staff room had once again returned to Mr Remus Cethalapod as the lessons plans and class schedules were shared among the teams, including the weeks where teachers should expect delays from students leaving specific classes. Virgil was sat working on fine tuning his own quietly, listening in, but never expected to join in with their talk.

That was the other certainty he knew the other teachers and faculty held, Remus would include science experiments no sane person would demonstrate to their teenage students, and Virgil would only speak up about issues with lesson plans if he saw classes overlapping with his that could be risky. The only exception to his demands to see the risk assessments were Remus's despite those classes following or precluding his own most often.

He smirked, making a few quick notes on a plan for the woodworking module. If the class picked up the skills in a different time period to expected a few classes might be moved around which would help with when Remus had chosen one of the few repeated experiments to be done.

“What is up, Bitches! Have I convinced any of you to give up repeating the same old plans and get something interesting in those classes?” Remus yelled, barging in to check the schedules for next semester.

“Why would we need to include something interesting when your lesson plans could well blow up the school?” Nate scoffed, shaking his head, and clearly unhappy that his classroom designation for the next semester was beside Remus's.

Virgil was tempted to speak up at that, defend his risk assessments except he wouldn't even acknowledge to Remus that he'd regularly steal the other teacher's lesson plans to make sure they're safe, or at a minimum have all possible and extremely necessary safety measures in place. He was certain that his input was known about though.

Remus just beamed at the veiled criticism. “My fairy health and safety agent says every class I do is safe as long as I follow the purple ink. Can you say the same?”

“You're creating fantasy creatures? You're meant to be a science teacher!” Nate's protesting was cut off as the first school bus arrived and everyone refocused back on this semester rather than the next.

/VR\

Teaching Engineering and Resistant materials had always been Virgil's main interest, and a lot of that relied on science not only to improve and progress but to remain safe for the people who practised it. Getting a few journals on Chemistry added to his reading list wasn't too difficult to do after Virgil first met Remus.

He'd loved the passion and energy when he'd heard Mr Cethalapod teaching during a free period in the first year they'd worked together at the school. Discovering that the class had been mixing dangerous chemicals without enough safety precautions however had him basically panicking for 20 minutes before he forced himself calm if only to focus on his next class and the teenagers about to be playing with fire as much as soldering some metal together could be called that.

After that day Virgil would steal Remus's lesson plans, originally just to satisfy himself that they wouldn't be putting students or teacher in danger, but all too soon he was adding sheets with safety instructions and getting risk assessments filled out. Enough of the things he did could cross over, although temperatures in chemistry got higher than they ever would in resistant materials and the chemical element rarely impacted engineering to the degree it would of course inspire a chemistry class.

Remus even seemed to accommodate his lesson plans getting stolen, once when they were first written, once soon before the start of each subject and finally the week before he'd teach the class. When Virgil had first realised that pattern had been deliberately made he tried to hide more, put the things back exactly as he'd found them, terrified there'd be some consequence for his interfering. Remus had after all once made a class where a parent had complained over his teaching style only read their books for a term, conducting the experiments he'd planned to show or have them do silently at the front of class, and another time brought in a mobile lab so he could walk his class around behind the PE class after the teachers were disparaging his class loudly at the end of the day.

Instead nothing had happened, except occasionally his additions would have more corrections added. Of course the corrections were usually only on the severity of the injuries that could occur if one of the safety risks wasn't followed, but it was an acceptance of his guidelines regardless. Even Virgil's students had mentioned feeling calmer and safer during experiments with Remus bringing new precautions in, all of which had been his own additions.

Honestly, being called a 'fairy health and safety agent' had Virgil snickering for the rest of his day. He had the powers of magic and way too much fear on his side and with it would save the school from dangerous experiments. That sounded like a lot more fun than screaming and lecturing the headmaster whenever one of the other teachers blatantly failed to follow even the basic health and safety precautions.

When Virgil gets the lesson plans at the end of that week a tiny part of him was tempted to put fairy wings on of something while taking them. He wouldn't do that for fear of having to explain why if another teacher spotted him, but it was a thought.

A thought that vanished along with everything else that night when in green highlighter, covering the last page of lesson plans Remus had scrawled

Dear H&S Fairy, I'll clap all the times I can to make sure you exist if only you come with me on a date next Friday. Love and other Goopy Stuffs, Remus xoxoxo

Please, Virgil could only pray, please say Remus actually had figured out he was the one doing these plans, because he wanted, but could not face turning up only to find out Remus thought it was some other teacher or administrator.

Before he could worry about that any further he scribbled a reply just underneath the note, signed with a doodle of a fairy.

/VR\

Now it wasn't that Remus had forgotten asking the Engineering teacher out on his lesson plans, or that he hadn't seen the response once they were returned to his desk. It's that he absolutely hated planning ahead any more than was necessary and his dreams were just of inspiration striking for the perfect date the minute they met up at his car.

Only as he was setting out the lesson and getting the students ready to carry it out did he finally think that someone so concerned with safety they'd steal his lesson plans might actually feel better if he had a plan in place. Remus couldn't exactly create a plan while teaching though, so it really would just be up to the evening and the thoughts it might bring to do.

He couldn't imagine a date being as full of risk as playing with low level acids though.

Virgil was already leant against Remus's car by the time he reached it and all Remus could do was beam. “I actually got it right! Damn, and Mr Read always says I can't figure out anything except explosions.”

“Glad to be who you wanted, should I even ask if you have a plan for tonight or just accept you're making this up as we go along?” Virgil snorted, pushing himself up as Remus rounded the car.

“I can at least guarantee lower chances of injury than I might find if you weren't with me.” Remus countered.

Perhaps they'd only really communicated via lesson plans and occasionally crossing paths around the school up until this point, but Remus couldn't wait to see where this first date might take them.

[shinymooncolor]

Hi all!

As usual, I owe all of this to the wonderful world created by @lumosinlove. 🙏🏻

I love Kris so much. Single dad, hockey star is a mood. Apologies in advance. 😇

Enjoy!

Sweater weather chats #2

Kris joins a super secret club. Lily gets emotional. We get introduced to the bat cave. Kris is a cautionary tale for the rookies. Or that’s what Nado days. Kris is also an honorary mom. Celeste reminisces. Kasey, Nado and Kuny babysits. Everybody loves Remus. Ava wants a pony. Natalie has plans. SO MUCH BROMANCE.

—————

Emotional support group and Remus 🤩🥰🏒:

Friday 3.32 pm

NatNat added Kris to the group.

Allison: do I spy a new member? Welcome to the dark side, Kris. The rules are simple - this is a safe space for us to discuss our men, babies and other related topics.

Lucia: also, never tell the boys what happens at brunch. 😁

Celeste: welcome Kris. We thought you’d enjoy coming to brunch with us - Ava is always welcome.

Kris: woah? What is this? Shit. I’m honored. Also Remus? Wtf.

Remus: hi kris yeah I don’t know how I was allowed in, but it’s nice. 😁

NatNat: well Dumo might be the honorary dad but Kris is totally the honorary mom on the team. He wiped Gatorade off of Leo’s face last game. It was adorable 😍😍😍

Kris: well James did unscrew the top as a prank, not actually sure it’s a prank if you do it every game. And Leo didn’t realize. And he’s weird about not taking his blocker off. Had to help the kid out. 😆

Allison: well it made us enroll you in our secret and sacred club. Welcome! 🤩

NatNat: i forgot to send this on Wednesday!! Baby Russian with baby puppies

*kuny puppy pic*

GingerLily: awwww he looks so happy. James said he’s been depressed he cannot train this week. I love this. 😍

Anyaismyname: my baby. I knew him from he was 16. Such a sweet boy.

Kris: sweet? Are we talking about the same Kuny? He taught Ava to cuss a ref and last time the media asked her what she thought of the game and my playing, she parroted that. I had a trending tag for a month after that on Twitter😔

NatNat: I’m not condoning it but it was hilarious. I cried. But seriously he adopted a cat and named her Aya and they send me selfies with her every 7 minutes. They built her a castle in their ridiculous bat cave game room. 😅👑🐱

Remus: the bat cave is awesome. They’ve got pro surround sound and all. And a real slushee machine. 🤖 also kris, coach want you all back on the ice in 10.

NatNat: yeah haha kase is excited to go for halo night. Apparently they’ve got some sort of new VR stuff for practicing as well. 🏒🏒🏒

Celeste: Kris, don’t worry about the curse words. Marc spent three months yelling fuck at everything after Logan accidentally taught him. They get over it quick and the fans love you even more after that - haven’t you been on the most eligible list for your entire career? Also, didn’t Anya tell Kuny’s mom?

Anyaismyname: da, and believe me, Scolding work better in Russian. And I promised her to look out for her boy.

Kris: thanks guys, I know. I was just shocked. She’s my baby and sometimes I just can’t handle how quick she grows... it’s not fair... and yeah, apparently a single dad with a travel heavy job is eligible. Weird.... also - the boys’ game room is amazing and they did set up a my little pony game for her last time on the projector. Be there in three Re!!! 🏃‍♂️

GingerLily: awww I cant believe she was a baby when I first met her. She grows sooo quick! 😍

Kris: well it’s you soon! Good luck - you think you know what love feels like but. Damn, a baby just changes things. ☺️

GingerLily: we’re starting on the nursery next week and I can’t wait. James is hopeless with tools though but we’ve decided on a color theme at least 🥰🥰🥰

Celeste: mmh, that is always a big moment. I remember when I was pregnant with Adele, Pascal was still just settling into the Lions and we’d already moved twice, but something changed when we started working on the nursery. It got real then - he didn’t get the puck theme he wanted but nevertheless, I think that was when he really realized he was about to become a father 😍

NatNat: awwwww, can’t even imagine you two without your babies 😁

Celeste: me neither, honey, me neither. 😉

Friday, 4.38 pm

Kris: Natalie do you think we could find a puppy for Ava? We could house train it during off season and she’s been begging for a puppy for a while and i really want one too and hopefully with a puppy the “I want a pony” phase can be forgotten! :)

NatNat: of course!!! Also shouldn’t you be at training?

Kris: We finished 5 minutes ago. :) also thanks for cheering Kuny up, he was allowed to do stretches today.

NatNat: oh god. Forget the time out here. Is kase done too?

Kris: yeah but he’s currently unavailable. Something about hug a goalie day *pic of kasey and Leo, on the ice under a mountain of players*

GingerLily: 🤦🏽

Celeste: on another note my lovelies. I would love to host brunch next Sunday! We have full attendance - Elsa is visiting from Sweden! :) please let me know how many babies you’re bringing.

Sunday 7.03 am

Kris: hi Celeste. I’m really sorry to do this last minute but ava’s mom has cancelled again and I can’t get a sitter this late. I’d love to come for brunch next time though.

Celeste: oh my dear. Bring her. It’s absolutely no problem.

NatNat: hey kris. Kasey is going to nado and Kuny and he says they’re happy to babysit. Also he wants to know why you and Remus are invited to brunch. Don’t tell him anything. 😉😉😉

Kris: oh I don’t want to be a problem they probably don’t want a 4-year old to disturb their halo game...😬

NatNat: it’s not a problem at all :) (also need kase to practice - not getting any younger here 😏🤩)

Kris: well if it’s really no problem I know Ava would love to spend time with them. :) also totally rooting for baby blizzards soon!

———-

Blizzard created a new group: Babysitting

Blizzard added RussianGod, Nadotheman and KrisVolley

Blizzard: hey guys. Quick change of plans. Ava is hanging out with us today. Kris is going to brunch with the girls?! Said we’d be happy to spoil baby munchkin and teach her more Russian curse words

RussianGod: ok. Can we eat cookie? Also no bad words. Don’t want more yelling from Anya. She scary.

Blizzard: season diet Kuny. Oreos are only for Ava. And isn’t Anya like 5.2?

RussianGod: nado is still sleeping. But we can go to park and meet ladies. They love single dad. But Anya is little but scary. Have you not see how she keep sergei in check?

KrisVolley; you are not using my baby to meet ladies. Haha oh never thought of that. Anya is always nice to me 😂

KrisVolley: Here are the ground rules gentlemen!!!!

1) no begging - you need to say no and stick with it, unless she’s crying properly don’t give in to her. She hissy cries when she wants things her way

2) not too much sugar and candy alright? (Looking at you Kuny)

3) Kuny and nado can’t use her as a ploy to ensnare women.

4) do NOT teach her any more Russians words unless they’re good, safe and cute words. The press still hounds me from the time you taught her to cuss a ref....

5) have fun and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do

Nadotheman: Morning boys. Also happy to babysit. But tHaNkS fOR aSkInG kase... 👍🏻 also @KrisVolley:

1) how the hell are we supposed to say no to that face? No idea how you made such a beautiful baby.

2) no problem. (Totally lying to you)

3) we would never use our baby niece in such a despicable way 😳 also it was one time and we can’t help that we are irresistible to baby-crazy ladies.

4) she can only scold a ref. According to Kuny totally safe and good words. Don’t believe what Sergei or Sunny says. Or the press.

5) so don’t knock up a fan at 18? Alright man got it.

KrisVolley: ....

Nadotheman: just keeping it real. You’re a cautionary tale for the rookies man. But your baby is cute. And you do a great job bro! 💪🏻

KrisVolley: I’m a what?? And thanks Nado. 😊

Blizzard: When you’re done with your moment.... I’m picking her up in five, can Nat go with you to Dumo’s? Ava and I will go have brunch at the bat cave and have an awesome time. And don’t worry. I’ll keep an eye on the boys.

KrisVolley: thanks Blizzard. Good practice as well 😉

Kuny: 👀👀👀👀 baby blizzard????

Blizzard: alright calm down m8. We’re not even married (no judging kris)

Nadotheman: whatever you say bro. You gotta make a baby with that girl - she swooned at family skate. Also we all saw you makin heart eyes at the Brady bunch. 😆😆😆😆

Blizzard: they’re adorable and this conversation ends here. We’re outside now Kris. Also don’t encourage Nat. I’ve got a plan. 😬

——-

Nado: Kuny. Kuny. Is it baby safe? They’re here in 15 minutes.

Kuny: why you text me? I’m next door.

Kuny: also yes is fine. Maybe get bra down. It been in fan for 3 days

Nado: you’re the tall one. Get it down.

Kuny: I not put it there.

Nado: fine you lazy jerk. I’ll get it down.

Kuny: 😘

Nado: fuck off. But I love you too bro.

—-

Until next time, my lovelies 🥰

Always open for ideas, prompts, constructive criticism!

Also - does hug a goalie day exist? I think it should.

[benong-96]

Day 1 of Interdisciplinary Project

Today is the first day of the Interdisciplinary Project(IP) where all BA2 students in LASALLE have to go through. IP usually last for a week and we are suppose to get together in groups of 4-5 from other disciplinary in the school and come out with a proposed plan on the theme given this year. 

The theme given to us was “How do we own the future”. My lecturer is Jerome Romulus Santhanam and he was really helpful throughout the week of IP. He gave us many valuable insights to further our thought process and even guided us along with mock presentations so we will be prepared for Friday. Where each group have to present their ideas and try to sell it to the lecturers.

My IP group members were Khairel, from Film. Tanya, from Design Communications and Simrita, from Fashion Design and Textiles.

I kind of like my group, it is very unique especially since Tanya and Simrita are still in India due to the covid restriction and could not be back. It was tough for us to discuss even as a group together compared to others that could meet up and discuss. I think I work much better when the group are together physically rather than on Zoom.

We started working on introductions and from that moment we knew how we were able to split the workload for the presentation slides evenly. For example, Tanya is able to do a video, and Simrita is able to do sketches or operate Photoshop pretty decently too. We have these two great asset which is very valuable as I’m clueless on how to do a very graphical presentation since most of the time I’m only dealing with either words or notes, much less Photoshop and Video editing. 

On the later part of the Zoom session, our lecturer gave us some time to break out with our group members to embark on our project with the given theme. We were kind of lost initially as the theme was very vague. It was so big and it could mean anything. So we decided to take the given outline by our lecturer which figures it would lead us to something. The outlining questions were: 

1. Identify the issues/topics (What is the main question that you are posing/dealing with)

2. Clearly define the context (Where you situate the issue/yourself)

3. Identify and list/enumerate all the choices(what are the plausible/possible outcome)

4. Analyse the options found(identify the best course of action)

5. List all reasons explicitly (decide on the selected choice that will be the final one?)

We tackled the first question together in class and came out with our current issues faced in our own industries. It was honestly a really good discussion session as we talked a lot about the pros and cons of our products. We debated for awhile and finally came to a consensus agreeing to deal with Virtual Reality(VR) and Augmented Reality(AR). The other 2 questions we did it after class in the night on our Whatsapp group

After IP, I headed towards the dance room for my elective workshop the movement’s musicality. It was conduct by Leela Alaniz and honestly it helped me step out of my comfort zone. It was really fun and i learnt a bit on how to be true to myself and expressing myself freely.

[romantic-witch]

Talk Fast // Noah

imagine: noah and you meet online

inspired: san junipero (black mirror) - ready player one - talk fast (5 seconds of summer)

where: you meet noah throughout an online virtual game called CosmoML.

warning: english is not my first language. please warn me if there are any grammar mistakes.

~

It's the year 2041 and people are escaping the world's fascist realism by the new virtual reality game CosmoML. It's not only a game to me though. Some teenagers are adapting their school life into it by studying with students all over the globe. At least that's what I said to my parents. I always switch the game's timezone and go back to the '80s. My friends thought it was lame but at least I got to meet some 80 year olds who are really cool. The game allowed to change your age so 80 year olds could turn their faces into their younger selves. Which was really cool too but it lowers the chances of me, meeting people that are my age.

I knocked on my apartment's door and my little brother opened it for me. I rushed to my room. Since my parents were not home I could use this time meeting a grandma who slept with Madonna or something. I put on the VR glasses and switched it to 1980's Malibu.

It was almost night and the night club's shining neon lights were on already.

Fast Night Club and Dance Zone

Interesting name of choice, I thought. I get in and went straight to the Atari section. There were still some kids who were playing. I said kids but they were probably five decades older than me. The game's graphic designer did a really good job on that.

There were five people in the dance floor but after I spent twenty minutes on the Atari section plenty of people came, since it was the time for the DJ.

I went up there and started to dance to Footloose by Kenny Loggins. The movie came out just this summer and people were obsessed with it.

'Ugh, the chorus!' I thought. I was dancing like nobody's watching.

Then 99 Lutfballoons by Nena started playing.

I joined a bunch of grandma's dancing and swing it from there. But I felt a pair of eyes on me. I didn't mind for the rest of the song but after the song ended and the DJ started to play True by Spandau Ballet, the pair of brown eyes started coming towards me.

At that point, all I was thinking were two things. First of all; why was the DJ playing a song from last year? And secondly; this grandpa was something back in the day.

"Hi." he said.

"Hi." I replied.

"Can I have this dance, madame?"

'What a gentleman.' I thought. Boys now are so trash.

"Sure." I said blushing.

(imagine the gif right here)

While we were dancing the brown eyes couldn't stop smiling. He had little freckles around his face and his curly brown hair was added up to his gorgeousness.

'Stop having a crush to someone's grandpa, Minerva!'

But his smile was ugh! It started getting annoying throughout the song, how handsome he is.

He asked through the middle of the song: "What's your name?"

"Minerva."

"Wow, that sounds like a new name."

"Because it is. I'm only seventeen."

It's important to stay true to yourself and others.

"You are seventeen?"

I shake my head as a yes.

"I'm eighteen." he said.

He looked happy. His smile changed from a calm one to an excited one very quickly.

"Do you think we are the only real teenagers here?" I asked.

"I thought I was the only one, that's why I called you madame in the first place."

"And I thought you were such a gentleman."

After a quick laugh DJ changed the music to Ghostbusters by Ray Parker Jr. and then something else, and then an another song.

All I cared about that night was to dance with this claimed-eighteen year old who made me laugh and fly butterflies on my stomach.

Beautiful, dark-haired, boy which I still didn't knew what his name was.

Time flew when I was dancing with him. He bought drinks for me and I bought drinks for him.

We danced all night long, up until my third drink. After that everything went blank and I opened my eyes to my angry mom and dad.

"Minerva!" said mom.

"Did you study all night, again?" said dad.

"Yeah, sorry about that." I lied.

What was the time?

"Honestly, if you weren't studying I would ban this thing ages ago!"

"Have you eaten anything?"

I shake my head as a no.

"We are going to bed, if you're hungry there are leftover dumplings in the fridge okay honey?" said dad and closed the door behind him.

I check my phone to see the time and OH MY GOD IT IS ALMOST MIDNIGHT AND I HAVE WORK DUE TOMORROW.

I didn't like lying to my parents but I also didn't spent all my time on CosmoML. I usually spent an hour or two and that was it. I almost spent seven hours tonight.

It was definitely not a thing I do but I didn't regret anything. My only regret was not to say goodbye to that boy. At least I could have thanked him for the dance and the drinks.

~

I didn't went to CosmoML for almost a week. Since that fiasco my whole schedule went nuts and I almost couldn't finish any of my school work only because I spent seven hours. Though it was a harsh week, on Friday night I decided to login again, to the same place and hope the boy was logged in there as well.

This time, I opened my eyes at the beach. While my pink crop top and acid-washed high waisted black jeans were something else, my grey, sparkly boots looked out of this planet.

I asked a few people to locate the night club but eventually found it myself by the bright green neon lights.

Fast Night Club and Dance Zone.

Here we go again.

Since I logged in a little late tonight there were a lot of people having fun and dancing to Like a Virgin by Madonna already.

I looked around and finally saw my guy at the bar.

I tapped on his shoulder.

He took a sip from his whiskey and then turned around.

"Hi!" I said.

He looked like he was glad I came.

"Oh god, I thought I'd never see you again!"

"Yeah, sorry about that, my parents..."

"Say no more." He said while he gently put his index finger on my mouth.

After a few seconds of staring at each other's eyes he said; " I'm Noah by the way."

"I don't think we introduced ourselves that well." he added.

"Hi Noah, I'm Minerva. Pleasure to meet you."

"The pleasure is mine madame."

He kissed the top of my hand and then turned to the bartender and said; "Can we get your strongest shots?"

The bartender filled the little cups with a drink called Snowshoe.

We literally drank all of them in less than five seconds and he quickly turned to me and said: "I feel like, I can run a marathon right now."

"Then let's go!"

He grabbed my hand and we quickly went out of the night club and just started running in Malibu Beach.

He saw me struggling because of my space boots so he grabbed me from my belly and started spinning me around.

At that moment I feel like I was gonna throw up but I didn't care.

He finally let me put my feet on the ground.

We stared at each other's eyes again for maybe like a minute or two.

'Ugh those eyes looked like Hershey' s chocolate bars. Smooth, creamy, delectable and melting.' I thought.

I wondered what he was thinking about me.

Our heads slowly came really close and I felt his soft lips on mine. I could kill for those lips.

We slowly went on our knees and somehow I was sitting on his lap, making out with him, online. Someone I know nothing but everything about.

The sand felt like bedsheets and we didnt care for the skinny dippers and surfers around us. That moment was ours, and even if it was not real, I wouldn't change it to a real but bad one. The online was enough for me.

The End.

[lexrudera]

Productivity log #91

08-07-2019 - 14-07-2019

Monday

A whole lot of nothing. I'm not even sure what I did today. Watching hour long videos on youtube.

Tuesday

In retrospect, I can't remember much of the day. One of my vive controllers broke and I fixed it. That's about it

Wednesday

I got home and played VR, EU4 and Don't Starve with friends. I became a grumpy butt and went to bed. Heck

Thursday

Alright, some to focus and get some development done! And then I actually managed to focus! Let me check mercurial for what I got done... Okay, tortoisehg is broken, so I have to remember from the top of my head. Extending Commands to contain subcommands, and getting those to work. Still got some unit tests to do make work, but easy peasy. Good day!

Friday

Short day at work. Wrote my granddad a letter and put it in a mailbox to be picked up on monday. I feel like doing some Age of Empires 2 multiplayer again, and then continue the programming adventure! If any of you might want to join me for AoE2 or some other game, feel free to add me on discord! Beats playing everything alone. I solved a dumb programming error I was having and saw all my unittests pass, so that's something!

Saturday

Hahaa! There is 25 minutes left of the day and I did nothing productive! To be fair, I went to the pride parade in town today. Went along with it as something I usually wouldn't see myself as a part of. It was pretty fun, despite not having any friends there. Thought about getting productive when I got home, but I ended up flip flopping between being half asleep on the sofa and playing more Age of Empires 2. Oh well!

Sunday

I forgot to write for this day. Whoops. I did a trello board with tasks and started sketching in my drawing pad how the library structure is to be.. well, structured!

Conclusion

Half a productive week is still good!

[supercastrated]

SEPTEMBER

my Yoga endeavours (Sept. - Oct. 2018)

I have decided to take on yoga classes. It’s a growing trend, and the benefits seem to be endless. In the past year I have managed to loose some weight, and I think this will be a great way to stay in shape. The classes will take place on every Friday, September through October. I hope my body will develop notably. Another health benefit I hope this will bring is straightening my back. I am afraid I might get back problems after sitting so much at school and in front of the computer. I am looking forward to these yoga lessons.

September - Yoga turned out to be far more difficult then I initially expected. After each lesson my whole body hurts. Luckily, the pain started going away after two or three lessons. I can feel some development - positions I couldn’t do before are now possible. Also, my back problems have started to go away. I no longer hunch as much as I used to. Generally, my health is improving and I see much development.

Theatre visit Reflections (2018)

I was shown a great theatre by my friend when working with him on a project in school. The name of the institution is “Teatr bez sceny” of Andrzej Dopierała, and by attending many different plays I have met both him and his wife, who run the theatre themselves. He will write scripts, play and reverse with actors, while his wife makes the costumes etc. It was very un to go there, the quality of acting is always very high and the plays are entertaining. I always wonder whether I shouldn’t give acting a try - it seems so fun from the audiences’ perspective.

Another Silesian theatre I try to visit often (with an emphasis on “try”) is the Wyspiański Theatre (also known as “the Silesian Theatre”). I have managed to see three plays there in the recent times. I enjoyed each one more then the other. It is interesting to note that in one of the plays Andrzej Dopierała played one of the main characters. 

Overall, since September of 2018 I have seen the following plays in the these theatres:

Psiunio - it was the first play I saw. The most interesting thing about it, was the erotical relationship of the main actor and actress. He would touch or kiss her, all while - as I later found out - his wife was backstage. It is interesting how seriously the job of an actor is seen, with all of his actions being automatically labelled as acting. This made me ponder on whether he and his wife have a deal about his work, or just are not jealous of each other. It was very interesting to see the relation between the stage and real life.

Bunt - in this play, the mot shocking thing that happened was a moment where the main character (an older man) was having his clothes changed and the audience could see his private parts. This was shocking, not only because of the imagery, but also of the sole fact that an actor would expose himself like that. This moment in turn made me ponder how much excuse can a man find for what he is doing on stage to be “just acting”. Both in this and the previous play, the actors were doing morally questionable things, that I believe many could feel offended by. Although I didn’t have a problem with it, I sensed some of the audience may have. Nevertheless, it was a very enjoyable play.

Terror - a play that took place in the Silesian Regional Council, and questioned the morality problem often shown as the “Trolley Problem”. The only play I wasn’t sure I completely liked. The plot was very simple - a plane bound to crash into a full stadium is blown up by a fighter pilot, in turn killing everyone on board. Was it moral to make this choice by the pilot himself, when the law prohibited him from doing so? Should he have waited until the plane crashed into the stadium, and suffer more casualties? At the end, the audience had the right to choose whether the pilot was guilty or not. We collectively chose to free him off the charges. The whole premise reminded me of the Trolley Problem, where if a lever is pulled by you, less people die, but the ones who die die because of you. I was already familiar with this question, and would always choose to commit to the survival of humankind by saving the most people I could. Because of that, the play didn’t explore anything new for me, only made me rethink old ideas and find myself reassured in them.

Diabelski Młyn - this comedy with a twist was very philosophical since the beginning. It pondered the issues of marriage, romance and reasons for them. It was extremely entertaining and the best written of all of the plays I have seen this year. It again made me think about relationships. Also, some of the special effects drew my attention - at a point a gunshot was even simulated! Overall, it was very fun to see this and talk with the actors afterwards. At this point the owners of the theatre - mister Dopierała and his wife - were recognising me and knew my name. 

#focie - this play I saw right after Diabelski Młyn, on the Metropolitan Night of the Theatres. It took place after midnight, but was worth the wait. It was an interesting take on teenage love through the prism of the internet, and how people on social media spread hate. The interesting thing was that the author apparently didn’t like Dopierała’s interpretation. Nevertheless I did, and it made me rethink how I use social media.

NOC-K, ARS Independent Festival and Night of the Theatres (28-30 Sept.)

It was very unfortunate, that the three of the most awaited events in easily accessible cultural events of Silesia took place one after another. Technically, the ARS festival lasted a day before and after, but still Could only attend on 29th. In the few days I took part in the Night of open galleries in Katowice (NOC-K), the ARS independent festival and the night of the theatres. 

When walking around the galleries, there was a game ready for all participants - if one was to walk around all of the participating galleries and get sticker from each, one would get a free pilot with NOC-K logo as a prize. I managed to get the pillow, but it took a lot of walking. 

Then, I went next door to the ARS festival, which was very fun. I had a chance to try the cutting edge VR technology. There was a very interesting lecture about how one of the sci-fi writers from the 60s predicted the future we would live in. This made me wonder how the world will look like in 50 years. Generally, the independent festival was very stimulating to my imagination.

Finally I had a chance to watch some plays in Teatr Bez Sceny. It was great, since the owners knew me and let me into a booked play that I usually wouldn’t access. It was then that I saw some of the more interesting plays that I go into in the post about my theatre visits.

Overall, these were two very active nights in which I had to walk all over Katowice. They were also very artsy, and it was fun to participate in culture to such an extent. I hope that I will be able to have such a marathon again in a year, or sooner if there are any other similar events.

Marsz Równości Katowice 2018

On the 8th of September 2018 I had participated in the Marsz Równości (March for Equality) in my home city of Katowice. I marched alongside the LGBT+ community of my region to make a statement about equality. It was a fun and very positive experience. My friend, who played a big role in organising and supporting the march had a place on the raft, and some others walked with me. I was happy to see my father join us - I’m glad he is fond of progressive ideologies. 

In the end, the event made me more aware of how significant it is to fight for the equal rights of all people. I have great hopes that someday the LGBT+ community will be treated equally in Poland, and I will do my best to fight for it to happen. I will definitely participate in this event next year as well.

[vicechan]

One week later

Deadpool 2 was enjoyable if you liked the last one and they tried to make it a bit more emotional than the first.  Cable was basically everything I wanted in a live action Cable and Domino is amazing.  I'd love more B Team X-Men, but it was solid.  Solo, however, blew away all expectations.  It was the kind of fun I've wanted in a Star Wars movie.  Solo > TLJ, so hard.  Some things were excessively explained, but I can't complain about anything else, really.  If you like Star Wars and you were on the fence about Solo, don't be.

The lake didn't happen on Friday, so after a chill day of work, I took a me evening.  Played more Resident Evil 7 and after some hit and miss combat and some anxious VR times, I think I'm finally starting the meat of the game.  I like it , but I'll be glad when I have to mess with Jack less.  Beat Statik and while I'm not crazy about the narrative, the puzzles are very sound and gripping and a lot of fun. Started I Expect You to Die and those are amazing little escape rooms with very intuitive controls.  Speaking of...I hate how much I like the VR version of Zone of the Enders Anubis.  It doesn't give me motion sickness and it's still fun to play and has cool bonuses that weren't in the PS3 version.  I might justify it to myself that it's not a new game but the remaster work is being paid for.  ...I wouldn't want to do something that would make Kojima sad.  Konami has done that enough.

Birthday started typical with usual family shenanigans at Saltgrass and got to chill a bit before Abby came over and we did some shopping and we watched "What We Do in the Shadows" before playing some Lego Dimensions.  Lego Dimensions is literally Every Lego Game but with Toys to Life stuff and different properties.  Fun enough but I don't feel the need to play more outside of maybe the Midway one after Portal.  The properties really carry the gameplay in Lego.

Got to sleep a bit later and did another Breakout room with the same crew from last year minus Quinn plus Ricky.  It was Ricky's first room and he really enjoyed it.  Everyone dug in a lot more than the first room, I feel, but I wasn't super imrpessed by the tech or the puzzles.  It was still fun and we still won, but I liked the first Breakout room that I did more.  Uncle Julio's was super packed afterward, but the food is still good (and maybe even better on a chocolate pinata front) even if the service was slow and the company was nice.  It was then that the lake was happening, so I went back home, changed, packed up, got goodies, and then sat around a campfire for a few hours.

Got to chill and catch up before Raw and some late Overwatch with Grace.  Junkenstein in the summer is weird but fun and Total Mayhem is a lot of fun too.  Am I eating out for belated birthday things tomorrow and Thursday?  Do I really need to get to work on A-Kon stuff?  Is A-Kon a little over a week away?  Does Olive Garden owe me almost $10?  Will I finish all my arcade boxes before next Monday?  Find out next time!

[ecotone99]

[SF] 'Chris Allen' part 2 by Connor J Lukasik

So I woke up in a hospital in the year 2070, after being shot and killed in the year 2019. When I woke up, I had no idea about the passed time. My younger brother paid big money to have me brought back, and he also brought back my deceased Mother, Father, and Sister. They died decades after me, and were overjoyed when they saw me again. We went to the house my brother had bought, and that's where my parents filled me in on what happened. My name is Chris Allen, I am 15 years old but technically 66. My story continues here. I stayed at the new house for a week, trying to catch up on history. All of my friends are dead or old now. School is gonna start soon. So in 2033, the US annexed Greenland, and Germany started a world war(again). The third world war lasted 15 years, with Germany, Australia, Venezuela, and Brazil fighting in the name of Modernistic Intrinism, a form of government that centered around extermination of any and all religions. The war ended with the annihilation of Germany. Nuclear weapons, however, were not resorted to in this war, somehow. In 2048, at the end of the war, the UK annexed the land that was once Germany, Russia annexed Australia, and Venezuela and Brazil became Karga, a capitalist nation. Throughout these decades, technology became better and better, and the average human lifespan increased so much that no one had or has gotten the chance to die of old age yet. Again, because of technology. In 2067, the US annexed Canada, and Mexico began considering joining the US. Relations between the US and Russia became better, as the two countries had become allies in the Third World War. Nothing too major has happened since 2067, three years ago. Now it's the first day of school and well... I gotta say I'm nervous. I mean come on... I'll be the only one there from Gen z, and I'm technically 66 years old. Awkward as hell. But maybe I won't be the only one there who is from an older time, I wasn't the only one who was killed in the shooting...aaand I'm here. The school was made mostly of glass, chrome-looking metal, and various wood types. It was a work of art. There's trees everywhere, and flowers and lots of green grass. Butterflies and bees flew around, the bees never bothered anyone and no one seemed anxious around them. I had all my school supplies, I was registered for school, so I walked into the school. No one payed any attention to me, my friends weren't hanging out in the plaza when I got there, everyone was different, I recognized no one. The bell rang, so I got to class. Everyone is tall, even most of the freshmen are at least 6'6". I am 5'10", so I'm pretty short compared to all these kids. I thought that maybe the average person in this time would have skinny arms and legs, but no. It's very common to use medicine to make people strong without working out, apparently. I got to my first period history class, and took a seat. The teacher was this guy who looked to be in his 60's. He introduced himself, and HOLY SHIT that's Jordan, my old best friend. But he's in his 60's now. He looks at me and smiles, recognizing me. The other kids were wondering why this old fuck seemed to know me. Jordan explained to them that him and I used to be friends, back in 2019 but I had died. They seemed at least slightly intrigued by this, but it wasn't like it was anything too alien. When Paul told us to put on the headsets, I was confused but everyone else just swiped there finger across their desk, then headsets materialized on their heads. I did the same, and the headset came over me. I was now in the year 1900, but the rest of the class and Paul were there. I realized that this was VR, and that this is how history is taught nowadays. We were in a busy town, with people rushing to the train station, people rushing to the store, and people reading the news papers. No one payed any mind to us, like we weren't even there, when in reality, it was them who weren't there. Paul began his lecture on the early 1900's and late 1890's. After history class, I went to living economics class, which seemed to be seen as more important in modern schools. I should mention that algebra, geometry, pre-cal, different sciences were electives, because not everyone needs or wants to study those things. In Living Economics, I learned quite a bit about modern society. People seem to be a lot more extrovertive and social, and getting a job is easy. As a matter of fact, doing your job is easy. People usually work around 2 hours on Monday through Thursday, and they didn't work at all on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Some people still make more than others, but pay fully based on how much work you put in, how productive you are, and creativity can get you bonuses in certain jobs. I went to lunch after Living Economics, because school started at 10 am, and it was already noon. I sat with some people that were obviously gamers and memelords, and they seemed very eager to meet me. Word had gotten around that I was from 2019, and some people thought that was cool. I talked to all of these kids, they're names are James, Kevin, Jason, and Sven. The name Sven became more common in the US after Pewdiepie became president of the US and declared war on t series. T series was destroyed, and frankly no one was disappointed. Their YouTube channel got deleted, and pewds tooks over YouTube once again. He is still alive in 2070. Anyway, the group filled me in on how the internet works nowadays. Most of the old websites still exist and thrive, and there are also new ones. Minecraft is still the greatest game of all time. Something I had noticed is cell phones are different. Everyone has a wristband on, and they press it lightly with one finger, then a glass phone materializes in their hand. The screens can only be seen from the front, for privacy. Jason threw his phone on the ground to show me that they just don't break. After lunch I went to PE. To be frank, it was kind of embarrassing but everyone understood. I was the shortest and the weakest in the class. All of my friends were in there though. We had fun, but I had a harder time with the workouts then everyone else. But as I said, they all understood. When PE ended at around 1:00, school was out. The schools in the future recognize that education is important, but it should not be the central focus if our lives. And also, we just google everything, duh. Me and the gang went to the river after I told my parents via a video call. They were so happy that I was making friends so quickly, then I told them how extrovertive everyone is, and I also told them about Jordan. They were like 'damn, ok' then I said goodbye and hung up. Many other kids from the school were there. The river had clear water, and was filled with healthy fish and plants. Around the river was trees and grass and rocks, we hung out on a river back which was made of pebbles and was very clean. A drone flew by and picked up our trash that we had bagged up already. We had no homework, so we spent the rest of the day at the river. At the end of the day, we all said goodbye and headed home. Everyone seemed to like walking places rather than biking or driving. I walked home and ate dinner with my family when we heard the doorbell ring. A screen appeared above the table, and my little brother Mark was at the door. We let him in, and he was, well, overjoyed at seeing us. He lived in northern Canada(still in the US), we live on the East coast. He had to finish up a project for work, then he was able to make his way down here. He was in his late late 50's now, but looked younger, probably due to technology and/or medicine. We all hugged and continued eating dinner, with Mark joining us. He owned a business in north Canada, which is why he had enough money to resurrect 4 people. We gave him one of our many extra rooms, and we all headed to bed not long after dinner. I lay in bed, thinking about the day. I made four friends in not just one day, but on the first one. I speculate that the extrovertiveness and lack of depression is probably because of medicines and/or vaccines. I look up to the ceiling as it turns into a 1 way mirror and I see the stars. The sky is so clear tonight, as it probably always is now. I close my eyes, and I fade into sleep.

(Thank you so much for reading part 2! Feel free to criticize and critique in the comments, and let me know your thoughts on the story! I might make a part three, but don't expect it too much. I feel like this is a good ending. Thank you!)

submitted by /u/ConnorJLukasik [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2ZWprK5

[keefwho]

September 29 - 2023 Friday

6:31pm

I'm doing this funny little thing I do, and used to do to a much greater extent. My tummy is a little bit upsetti tonight but not a lot, something I'd consider normal even. But sometimes I'm susceptible to thinking about worst case scenarios. In this case I don't even know what that is. I know I can't be sick. It's almost impossible that it's food poisoning. So I don't know what I'm afraid of. Feeling bad I guess? Also I'm worried this headspace will carry over to tomorrow when it will really matter since I'm getting my groceries. I told myself I have to go no matter what and thats what I intend to do. I know there is nothing to be afraid of. My "fears" are always unrealistic and obscure. Tomorrow I intent to keep that in mind when I gotta go to town. It's only a 3.5 hour trip, not actually a long time. As shown last time, I can easily go that amount of time without having to use the bathroom which is something I'm nervous about. Only because I really don't want to use a public restroom unless its just to pee maybe.

I know tomorrow I'll be okay. My brain tricks me into thinking that suffering will last forever or will always get worse. I need to remember that I'm being lied to.

11:47pm

Today was okay, I was worried I wouldn't stay on task like the past couple of days but planning exactly what I was going to do in the morning paid off. Breakfast was a bologna sandwich with baked beans. I also woke up to a pretty decent scan of my room that rendered overnight so that's good, still tidying it up though. The stream went okay, I got pretty frustrated at both the YCH I had to do and my friend who is always correcting me on basically everything. It's something I've noticed for awhile and today it was bothering me. We watched the final episode of Courage which made me tear up more than I thought it would.

After stream I did a very good job cleaning. I put away my clothes, wiped down my entire kitchen area, and vacuumed. Right after I did my whole workout very diligently. Lunch was a bowl of tuna spaghetti while I watched the Fionna and Cake finale. The show in general blew my mind and gave so much grand lore that I wanted. It also left a lot open in a way that is obviously set up to explore later.

I admit I didn't do all my afternoon work but I didn't feel the need to. I did some good sketching and my friend wanted me to play Roblox with him which I also wanted to do since I knew he wouldn't be playing long. So we did that for a little bit before I left the call and was just chilling. My tummy started behaving weird around this point. I was basically waiting for Daisy to be free because I wanted to chill before VR and play my new game Tiny Atolls. She alerted me when she got in VR and then we had a nice little night of hopping places. It seems like neither of us knew what we wanted to do at first. We tried a couple Halloween mazes which were meh and tried joined off some people. My tummy hurt and I didn't quite feel the socializing mood but it got better. At around the time we were in the Namco museum I started to get in the right mood and had a lot of fun. At some point 570 joined and we hopped a couple places before getting off for the night. Daisy watched me play my new game as she went to sleep and it was cozy.

I'm not feeling so nervous about tomorrow anymore since I feel better now. I also know this can't keep being a problem, it just can't be. I have to get over it eventually to the point where it won't even be a second thought. So I'm trying not to get into a weird headspace where I overthink. Tomorrow I'm gonna wake up and shower like usual before doing a chore not much harder than any other. It has it's own benefits too like how interesting it is to see other people for once and I get nice things like a coke icee and fast food. Last time went smoothly so that gives me my hope for tomorrow. I also always have Daisy I can text if things get iffy. I'm not trapped.

I really want to get better about knowing what I want to do. I don't want to be boring, I want to be able to be the entertaining one if I have to be. The one that can find something to do when there are no other ideas. I think I usually know the kinds of things I want to do but I instinctively dismiss them.

[torentialtribute]

Andy Murray knows new partnership needs work ahead of Wimbledon return

If Andy Murray is up to challenge for a third Wimbledon title then he admits his partnership with Pierre -Hugues Herbert wants to improve from their first outing together on Friday.

Murray will team up with the Frenchman in the men's doubles as he makes his return to Grand Slam tennis five months after undergoing hip resurfacing surgery.

Murray and Herbert took on fifth seeds Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau in a practice session, and the Scot told PA: "It didn't go amazingly well, I don't think we played brilliantly.

Andy Murray admits his doubles partnership with Pierre-Hugues Herbert must improve

Murray will team up with the Frenchman in the men's doubles tournament at Wimbledon

" But it was tricky conditions and we were playing against guys who have been playing together for four or five years so they know each other's games. But I like him a lot, he's a nice guy, so I'm sure we'll have fun. I just hope we play a little bit better when the tournament starts. "

Murray is feeling his way back to professional tennis by playing exclusively in doubles, and made the perfect return by lifting the title at Queen's Club with Faliciano Lopez before a first-round loss alongside Marcelo Melo at Eastbourne earlier this week.

The draw pitted Murray and Herbert against the unseeded pair of Romania's Marius Copil and Frenchman Ugo Humbert, but the real headline was a potential third- round meeting with Murray's brother Jamie and his new British partner Neal Skupski.

The brothers could have played together given Jamie's split from long-time partner Bruno Soares after the French Open but the uncertain status of Andy's fitness meant they decided against it.

"As it got closer I was more thinking it would have been nice to have been playing with him," Andy said. "It feels a bit odd that we're both in the doubles draw but we're not playing together.

" But it would also be cool to play against each other and to have that memory. Although it would be difficult I'm sure, it would be nice if we both got there. "

Murray revealed he has now received several offers from potential mixed doubles partners but remains undecided whether to commit to a second competition

Should the weather delay proceedings, doubles matches be the first to be postponed, meaning players can find themselves with a heavy schedule.

Murray sparked a glut of interest on social media after saying he had been turned down by several women including world number one Ashleigh Barty and is able to keep his options private this time.

The Briton will return to Grand Slam tennis five months after having hip resurfacing surgery

"Last time it was a bit of circus for a few days but they are all good players, a few doubles players, a couple of singles players," he said.

"I want to play , I think, more than my team want me to play. I don't know if I'm ready for it. I think the weather is supposed to be pretty good so that it is just a difficult one. "

One thing that has been inescapable since Murray returned to the court at Queen's Club has the smile plastered on the 32-year-old's face.

The contrast could not be greater from the press conference the gift on the eve of the Australian Open in January when he was tearfully admitted considering the end of his career because of the debilitating pain he had suffered for 18 months.

Being free of pain has transformed Murray's life away from the court and he described the last few months as the happiest he can remember.

Learning that he does not need professional tennis to be happy left him half wishing his surgeon was less positive about his chances of returning to the sport.

'I've seen what my future will look like if I'm not playing and I'm fine with that, "said the former world number one, who has entered into a partnership with American Express.

'I am certain that if I stop playing tennis tomorrow that I will be absolutely fine and enjoy my life, Last year I didn't know what that looked like. And that's something all athletes probably struggle with.

'Since I was 15, when I moved over to Spain, that's 16, 17 years of your life, your whole adult life has been playing tennis.

'So when the injury with my hip came, I was ranked number one in the world, I'd put no thought into what I was doing post-career really because I didn't think it was particularly urgent. But things changed extremely quickly. '

Murray could face brother Jamie and his new British partner Neal Skupski in the third round

Murray's overall ambition is to get back to playing singles, possibly just as soon as the US Open, but will his contentment have the competitive fire that has been at the core of his success? Murray thinks not.

"I don't know if that's something you lose or if it's something that comes and goes," he said. 'I guess everyone's a bit different. But when I was at Queen's I was very motivated on the court and trying to compete as best as could and I enjoyed it.

'I enjoyed Eastbourne as well, even though it didn't go well. Once you get on the court you want to have that competitive streak but it's the perspective you have as well. "

Murray's presence will provide a headache for organizers, with doubles usually played on the outside courts until the final stages

Tellingly, they raised the possibility of having more matches not given a confirmed slot in the schedule with the hope of putting them on either Center or Court One later in the day.

The man himself would probably happily play in the car park, such is his delight at being back and pain free.

He said: 'People really worked up about things like that. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter. It's brilliant to play at Center Court, everyone wants to play at Center Court, but, if not, all the tennis courts are the same size. I don't really care where I get put, I'll enjoy it regardless. "

To mark the start of his new partnership with American Express, Andy Murray will be 'virtually' hosting 'Champion's Rally', an immersive VR challenge at the American Express Fan Experience on-site at Wimbledon.

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[kayawagner]

Happy New Year–Plans for 2019 and A Look Back

After taking an extensive break over the holidays I am back at work. This is also a good opportunity to give you an update what I have been up to lately. Without further ado, let’s get started…

Forbidden Lands and Shipping Woes In December Fria Ligan’s latest roleplaying game called Forbidden Lands was finally ready for shipping. It’s a sandbox fantasy roleplaying game which I backed on Kickstarter in 2017. When the game finally was done it was already a bit delayed but that’s something you get used to when you regularly support projects on Kickstarter.

Sometimes things don’t work as planned. Unfortunately, the shipping of the Forbidden Lands boxed sets quickly turned into a total disaster. Backers started to get grumpy when it turned out that the books and boxed sets were already done, but the distributor had to delay shipping because of another Kickstarter fulfilment.

When finally shipping started everyone was excited and a few people quickly got their packages but then things went downhill pretty fast. A lot of backers didn’t get any shipping information even though the distributor claimed they shipped everything. When Fria Ligan support contacted the distributor they got told that the packages have been sent out without tracking – which is a terrible idea considering some people were waiting for stuff worth up to hundreds of Euros. Then the same people suddenly got shipping confirmation emails with conflicting information. Quickly accusations were thrown around and it seemed as if the distributor was lying to both Fria Ligan and the backers.

At this point I decided to write an email to Fria Ligan support, the distributor as well the CEO of Fria Ligan and voice my concerns and displeasure with the whole situation. I usually don’t use my status as an “influencer” but this time I thought it might be wise to throw my weight around. And lo and behold the management director of the distributor reached out to me and they even posted an update to the Kickstarter explaining what went wrong. And only a day or two later packages which have been stuck in some warehouse for ages started to move again.

The whole kerfuffle was caused by the initial shipping delay. Shipment of hundreds of boxed sets coincided with a lot of traffic caused by both the Black Friday sales and pre-holiday online shopping. The distributor’s logistics partner was extremely overwhelmed. Even though they had hired additional help, some shipments stuck for up to two weeks in sorting hubs all over Europe. Bad communication between the distributor, Fria Ligan, and the backers caused a lot of bad blood, but luckily things calmed down after people finally received what they’ve paid for. And oh boy, Forbidden Lands is a beautiful product. The long wait was definitely worth it. I’ll probably write more about it in the future.

Hacking, Alchemy, and animated GIFs As you probably know I am not only interested in roleplaying games, but I am also a great fan of video games. I also dabbled in software development (which is probably a too big a word for what I’ve been doing) since my teens. So it’s no surprise that I enjoy many of the games released by Zachtronics. Most of their games consist of puzzles which are solved by programming. During the Steam Winter Sale I added both Exapunks and Opus Magnum to my collection. In Exapunks  you play a hacker living in an alternative version of 1990s who has to work for a mysterious AI in order to pay for medicine they need to survive. To do your job you use EXAs (which are small software constructs) which you program with a programming language comparable to Assembly language.

The other game I picked up is Opus Magnum which is set into world where Alchemy works. Your job is to design transmutation engines to – for example – turn lead into gold. It reminded me a lot of Zachtronics’ older title SpaceChem, but is much more polished in every way.

You’re probably wondering why I mentioned animated GIFs earlier. This is easily explained. Most new Zachtronics games allow you to export your solutions to the puzzles in the form of animated GIFs! I’ve included one of my solutions to a Exapunks puzzle below.

Demons, Bomb Disposal, and Nausea Traditionally my wife and I spend New Year’s Eve with friends. Usually I run a roleplaying one-shot, but this time I just didn’t feel like it. So our hosts offered we play Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes instead. It’s a party game developed for VR headsets in which one player has to disarm a bomb only they can see, while the other players have access to a manual with disarming instructions. It’s a fun game where precise communication is key. This has actually been the first time I experienced VR on a Playstation 4 and I was surprised how well it worked.

Last time I had the chance to try out a virtual reality headset was when a friend lent me his Oculus Rift Developers Kit 2. My PC at the time was barely VR-ready and most of the games weren’t really optimized yet. When it worked it was pretty impressive, but also extremely nausea-inducing. Surprisingly the PS4 VR headset didn’t cause any of these problems, even though movement in VR still felt a bit weird.

After playing Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes for a while I also had the opportunity to try out DOOM VFR which was totally awesome! If you ever have the chance to play this game, you definitely should do so. There’s also a video of me playing this game which doesn’t look as silly as I feared, which I might upload to YouTube eventually.

Retro PC Gaming and Thin Clients The older I get the more I enjoy playing old computer games from the MS DOS and early Windows era. Some of these games just have a certain charm that modern titles lack. Tools like DOSBOX and online shops like GOG have made it much easier to play old games on modern machines, but there are advantages to running games on actual hardware. While browsing YouTube I stumbled upon various videos in which retro gaming enthusiasts talked about using thin clients for retro gaming.

A thin client is basically a stripped down computer basically not much more than a terminal used to access a remote server. Most of these machines use outdated hardware and are available for just a few bucks on eBay. After doing some research I found out that a good choice for a retro-gaming machine was the HP T5720 thin client. The CPU is not too fast and can be further slowed down by reducing it’s speed multiplayer and disabling its cache. This can even be done by software while the computer is running. This is perfect if you intend to play old DOS games.

Quickly I found an HP T5720 on Amazon Marketplace for less than 20€. Unfortunately the seller supplied the wrong AC adapter. Luckily he immediately sent me the correct one, but alas the thin client still didn’t work. This time replacing the CMOS battery did the trick. While opening the machine I also found out that the seller sent me the HP T5730 by mistake. For a moment I considered returning it, but then decided to keep it for some other future project.

A few days later I found an offer for a HP T5720 on eBay. After the auction was done it turned out I was the highest bidder and for less than €20 including shipping it was mine! This time I got the correct machine including the original packaging, all documentation, a USB keyboard and a PS2 mouse. Yay!

It took me a while until I figured out how to install Windows 98 using an USB drive, but after a couple of hours my retro-gaming PC was working fine. The sound chip included on the mainboard is unfortunately not 100% DOS compatible, but works fine under Windows. I own a couple of games intended for Windows 95 and 98 which are almost impossible to play on modern machines, which should work fine on the thin client. If you’re interested in reading more about this project, please let me know.

Roleplaying game plans for 2019 Over the holidays I also had the opportunity to think about how my roleplaying activities went last year and what my plans for the future are. When it comes to Kickstarter projects 2018 was for me dominated by Fria Ligan projects – and not just on Kickstarter. I have probably played Mutant Year Zero, Genlab Alpha and Mechatron more often than any other roleplaying game this year. I also own Tales from the Loop and have backed their successor Things from the Flood which I am very excited about. I have considered running the games for a while now, I just couldn’t commit myself to preparing anything yet.

Other games I would love to run in 2019 are John Harper’s World of Dungeons Turbo: Breakers, which uses a very cool and extremely streamlined variant of the popular PbtA mechanics (it’s also free!), Everywhen, a multi-genre implementation of Barbarians of Lemuria, Advanced Fighting Fantasy or its scifi variant Stellar Adventures, and – last but not least – D&D using the Rules Cyclopedia.

My last few years as a DM have been dominated by failures and even though I feel the itch to run a roleplaying game from time to time, I haven’t been able to commit to anything yet. I also know that I’ll have to make some unpopular decisions in the future. The group I regularly play with is just too big, so I have to make up my mind who I want to invite to a new game. Regardless of who I pick, scheduling will probably an issue, and this had lead to some serious burn-out in the past. I don’t know why scheduling issues are such a huge problem for me, but it drives me totally bonkers.

I also would love to write more in general and definitely more regularly for the blog, but my lack of writing is directly tied to my lack of DMing. It’s much easier to come up with interesting topics to write about if you run a weekly game. I haven’t run anything in quite some time, and I am not sure if it’s wise to bore you with stories of my failed attempts to get a new campaign running. Heck, I am already boring myself just thinking about it…

So what have you folks been up to lately? What are your plans for 2019? Please share your comments below!

Related posts:

Kickstarter: Forbidden Lands

Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year–Plans for 2019 and A Look Back published first on https://supergalaxyrom.tumblr.com

[squeemcsquee]

Anime Midwest 2018, Day 1

Well, frack. In my attempts to edit, this post got deleted. So, I’m going to do my best to re-create this post, but yipes!

This was my first year attending Anime Midwest, and I went with @lechevaliermalfet and @shbumi. We started out heading toward the con on Friday morning. We knew it would start midday, but there wasn’t anything huge on our radar, so we opted to just arrive a little late.

We took a back way for part of the way up. Not sure if it was faster or not, but hey, the scenery was a little more interesting than usual.

When we got to the hotel, there were Anime Midwest staffers on hand to point attendees to the appropriate desks for checkin, etc. Our room wasn’t ready yet, so we opted to pay $10 more/night to get a balcony room that was available. On our way there, I got stopped for a photo, even though my Navi cosplay wasn’t even fully ready yet and I had suitcases with me. I took it as a good sign! 

Once we got in, I made sure to get the photos for TraffickCam 

Our balcony view wasn’t spectacular, but hey, balcony! 

Once everything was carted in, we headed toward the con center. We probably could have walked outside, but we opted to go through the walkways, since we were most used to doing that from Anime Central.

This event was also very Pokemon-heavy for myself and @shbumi as event Pikachu were all over and Sat and Sun were both special Pokemon dn. And the Hyatt is an excellent place to stay if you want to play Pokemon Go.

When we got to the con center, we found a mini Line-Con. Rumor had it that the registration computers had gone down for a bit, forcing delays. We were in line for probably an hour to an hour and a half. 

Thankfully, no one got too pissy about it that I could tell. Anime Midwest staff were also walking around, handing out programs and lanyards, and they had them available for pickup on a table before you reached the badge booths as well. And things did move steadily - it was just a lot of people for them to push through.

We then rushed to our first panel of the day, Linkara and The Geek Talk Comics. I didn’t really know who The Last Angry Geek was and I’m only casually familiar with Linkara’s work. But their discussion on comics was fun. 

From there, @shbumi and I wandered to Forget This, I’m Using Hot Glue! The first part of the panel was difficult to see. Due to tech issues, the panelist could only show her slides on her laptop. Attempting to take a photo with my phone and then view the screen didn’t help, and I wasn’t inclined to move further up, because I could still hear okay.

I did wish I had an app like Guidebook to help me keep track of things, though. The printed program guide doesn’t really have note-taking space and it was hard to dig my notebook from my bag. That was poor planning on my part, I’ll admit. Still, if I’d been using something like Guidebook’s notes feature, I’d have been in heaven. This panel had plenty of good tips on using more than just hot glue.

The AC in the con center was cranked stupidly high, and there weren’t enough people yet to generate the level of body heat needed to offset the cool air. So, because I was hungry and because I needed to warm up, I went with @shbumi to check out the ConSweet.

The ConSweet is an AnimeCon.Org offering that lets attendees have free ramen (only ever saw chicken or shrimp available), soda, and rice. When available, you can also get salad, plain noodles, and oatmeal. 

For a fee, there was a chef offering to add items to your ramen bowls.

There’s nothing like free food! 

After this, I looked into the exhibit hall. It wasn’t as crowded as you would see at ACen, but they still had an awesome selection of vendors and artists on hand.

I wound up purchasing a small Navi from a vendor. How could I not, since I was cosplaying her that day? I didn’t get the artist’s name, though, and I wish I had. My little Navi stayed lit the entire weekend. 

My next event wasn’t until 8:00, at the Making Anime in Japan: Q&A with Animators and Directors From Japan panel, featuring guests Terumi Nishii, NaSka, Hiroake Inoue, and Takashi Otsuka.

This one was very interesting to me. It was a fan-driven panel, but the depth and breadth of questions asked surprised me. There were the standard questions about how to get into the industry, but also questions about problems within the industry and changes the guests would like to see. It was very informative.

After the panel, we checked out the video game room. Sadly, it wasn’t to my tastes, so that was really my only visit during the weekend. The classic games they had that I would have wanted to play were already loaded on my 3Ds or @lechevaliermalfet ‘s. I’m still too self-conscious to attempt VR in a big public space. And while I might have tried the rhythm games, the wait was longer than I preferred. But plenty of people were enjoying themselves - this just wasn’t the area for me.

Instead, we headed to the manga library. On the way, though, I noted empty halls. This isn’t something you’d see at Anime Central until the wee morning hours, but Anime Midwest is still only about half the size and uses less of the convention center, so that’s probably why.

It was still unusual to me.

At the manga library, I browsed some My Little Pony comics and enjoyed the quiet. I love that this is a thing that exists. It lets me look into comics and manga that I’ve maybe wanted to buy, but haven’t been sure about. 

And then it was time for a final panel and to wrap up the night:

I feel like this panel needs more love. But then again, I’m a huge fan of seafaring piracy’s history. The panel was well-paced and informative, and a great way to end my evening.

All of my Anime Midwest 2018 Coverage:

Anime Midwest 2018, Day 1

Cosplayers of Anime Midwest, Day 1, Part 1

Cosplayers of Anime Midwest, Day 1, Part 2

Anime Midwest 2018, Day 2

Cosplayers of Anime Midwest, Day 2, Part 1

Cosplayers of Anime Midwest, Day 2, Part 2

Great Graphic Novels You Should Be Reading (Carolina Manga Library)

Anime Midwest 2018, Day 3

Cosplayers of Anime Midwest, Day 3

[vrheadsets]

VR vs. E3 2018 In Absentia Alternative Awards

Welcome once again to VR vs. The weekly opinion piece written by ‘the one who isn’t a writer’ on VRFocus, because… well, I can’t even remember why any more. But I’ve been doing this for long enough to be able to welcome you, for the third year running, to my In Absentia Alternative Awards.

That’s ‘In Absentia’, i.e. ‘was not there’. Yes, as usual there was no plane ticket out to Los Angeles for me to enjoy things. Instead I got to watch everything from home, keeping things going for the UK team. Ah, the joys of handling an event while not actually being there. It’s an absolute barrel of laughs, I can assure you. But despite virtual reality’s (VR’s) rather all over the place presence at this year’s event there was still plenty that caught my eye.

As usual things are somewhat satirical, so if you’re going to get overtly upset just because I didn’t like X – well the door’s over there. For the rest of us however let’s get on with a biggie.

THE KRUSTY THE CLOWN ‘WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?’ AWARD Winner: Sony

Sony did very well, (not exactly a good thing) last year in the awards, in part because of their continued ability to mess up everyone’s fun with their stance on cross-play. Still thankfully they didn’t mess up this year on anything too big to do with that, eh? Certainly not one involving one of the biggest and most popular games currently in the world. Haha… ha…

Sigh.

Luckily Sony get away with that this year, owing to the fact that award isn’t up for grabs. However, what they don’t get away with was that mess of a presentation we had. I mean, what was that? Pretty much every website out there has written their thoughts on the matter I know. But for the life of me I can’t understand what they were thinking. Shoving journos into a ‘church’ which looked more like a barn, in a way most would have difficulty actually working before moving on to another venue.

No one can leak anything… if you put them all in a barn and they can't move. #E3 pic.twitter.com/CVA9Nkq9Qz

— VRFocus (@VRFocus) June 12, 2018

I get they were going for atmosphere and concentrating on the ‘big hitters’ but it really didn’t work. It felt like it was over before it had even begun and for some reason why Microsoft were firing off game after game Sony decided that the best thing to do was to hold some sort of music recital. “Kids, remember to pick up your parent from the stage when they’ve finished performing.”

It felt a mess, it confused everyone, and despite some very good-looking titles indeed on display it made Sony look really out of touch.

THE KAWAII DESU NE AWARD Winner: Ghost Giant

For the first time on one of these I’m actually bringing an award back. Last year it was one hands and paws down by Quill from Moss. A title which is quite possibly VRFocus‘ favourite VR videogame. We crush on it pretty hard, and not without good reason. As I put it last year “Could Moss be the first VR-only game that standard gamers are jealous of? Time will tell.”

Luckily PlayStation VR is set to bring us even more adorable visuals in the form of Ghost Giant, a title which stood out immediately – not just for its aesthetics – and, I’m pleased to say appears to be something of a winner. At least based upon the hands-on that the site had at E3 and our early impressions. Personally, I’m very interested to hear more about how your roles as the ghost affects the story of your young foxy friend.

And if it’s also revealed that Zoink Games’ big rival are Jinkies Entertainment, like, my day will be complete, Scoob’.

THE ‘CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR’ AWARD Winner: Concrete Genie

Oh, Sony Interactive Entertainment you little scamps. You do like to get my hopes up don’t you? While there’s obviously been some titles that were announced at the event as well as in the run up to it, for five glorious minutes Sony made me think that one of the titles from last year’s Paris Games Show was going to make the jump to VR – and boy was I all for it.

Concrete Genie was announced last year, as I say, and it is absolutely gorgeous. The PlayStation 4 exclusive follows Ash, a bullied teen who escapes from his troubles by painting creatures and landscapes all of which come to life. It’s kind of like ‘Penny Crayon: The Game’. With his magical paint he brings life to his dead home town. The initial trailer looked amazing and you can kind of see the possibilities for PlayStation VR to be integrated.

So, when I went on the PlayStation press vault to begin working through all the media that gets uploaded there whenever we have any of these sorts of events my heart leapt when Concrete Genie’s format was listed as PlayStation VR. But… alas. It was just an error on the site.

Damn it.

THE ‘THANK GOD FOR BE’ AWARD Winner: Bethesda Softworks

While I know that a lot of people aren’t particularly happy at what they consider to be half measures with what we got in the Prey DLC and Wolfenstein Cyberpilot (The Elder Scrolls Blades doesn’t seem to be counted in the same way by people) let’s all be thankful that of all developers Bethesda Softworks came to E3 to be enthused about VR. Because goodness knows it needed someone on the PC developing side to do so.

Their continued push for supporting VR with their franchises is most definitely welcomed. I’ve nothing more really to say than that.

THE KNOWN UNKNOWNS AWARD Winner: Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown

Before E3 we were informed via a contact at Bandai Namco that no, we could not Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown at the Expo because it wasn’t going to be there. The Editor was a bit surprised at this. I was a bit surprised at this. The rest of us were a bit surprised at this. Weren’t we closing on what was expected to be a release? Anyway, we reported on the fact it wasn’t going to be there and oh boy were people upset.

We were asked to show the email to prove that this was what we were told. We declined, since obviously its full of private and personal information besides that. Which meant that as we won’t show our contact (who does, that’s not how these things work) we’d in fact, obviously, made the whole thing up. FYI: We’re far too busy to make stuff like that up. Besides the next pointing of fingers on that conversation would’ve been that we’d’ve just faked the email. What’d be the point?

Following on from that one of the members of the Ace Combat community on Twitter contacted Bandai Namco and were told it would be there. They posted the email, it suggested only the VR version would not be there which wasn’t exactly what we were told. Again, this meant we made it all up. We stuck to our guns that this was what we were told. We went to E3 hoping that our contact was indeed mistaken because, hello, this looks awesome and it’s something we really, really want to play!

And… No Ace Combat 7. Bugger.

On the plus side vindication for us, on the negative side no Ace Combat 7 FFS! This award is not about going “we told you so”. Far from it. It’s because I’m pretty steamed it wasn’t there. Oh, it was there “highlighted on the show floor at E3 with an exclusive trailer” as Bandai Namco put it on Twitter recently – said trailer will by, the time you read this, have been out several days* but it isn’t out at the time of writing – but that is most definitely not the same thing. Why wasn’t it there? I haven’t a clue. It just wasn’t. And gamers, VR fans and the PlayStation VR itself lost out. For a title in a long-standing series to skip E3 after a long period of radio silence does not help matters. Screens in Famitsu and a trailer are one thing, and we’ll hear more at Gamescom apparently – but if we don’t get to play it how do we know how things have improved? Ace Combat 7 should have been there and Ace Combat 7 had no business not being there.

*Also, a trailer coming out on the Friday of E3? That’s pretty eyebrow-raising in itself. Skilful avoidance of the media rush, or “oh shit we’d better put something together”? Your call on that one.

THE CONFUSED TRAVOLTA AWARD FOR THE ANNOUNCEMENT THAT REFUSES TO COME Winner: Resident Evil VII biohazard

It’s been a while. A long while, Capcom. Fans have been patient. Most, most patient. Loud, granted – but patient. Resident Evil VII biohazard has been a success for the company on the PlayStation VR and has reworked how people think about the Resident Evil series. (We’ve talked about this on a number of occasions.) Yet the title stays on PlayStation VR alone, and does not come to PC.

I honestly thought this’d be really good timing for Capcom, a one-two Resident Evil punch to round off what was, in all honesty a pretty commanding E3 for them. But no, still silence. Will PC VR owners ever get the chance to be scared out of their wits by the Baker Family?

from VRFocus https://ift.tt/2lkw82E