If you haven’t tried it, it’s worth giving Monster Train 2 a go, it’s given me lots of playtime and they recently released an update.

It has a loose story to get to the center of the universe, but I can’t say I’ve ever made it there as I always end up doing other things

I don’t know a great deal, but his stance on the Russia/Ukraine war concerns me.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/02/jeremy-corbyn-urges-west-to-stop-arming-ukraine

I remember it because one is a bumper and the other is a trigger. Bumper like the front of a car, and a trigger like…a trigger.

I personally prefer the asymmetric joysticks over the playstation symmetrical ones. RB, RT is descriptive of the button itself. B being Bumper and T being trigger.

I do agree with you in the shapes being more memorable though.

I couldn’t stand Jason Statham. Then many years ago I watched Spy with Melissa McCarthy and he was the perfect piss take of his characters from so many other movies. Example scene that shows his comedic stupidity. Ever since I haven’t minded the guy.

When I originally saw this report on another source, the key standout for me was how many people were beaten by the AI, and the fact the winner was 5% ahead, which really is a small margin. It was being touted as “Yay we beat the AI!” without acknowledging that there were a lot of people that lost to it.

Last book: The Hero of Ages (Mistborn) by Brandon Sanderson

Current book: Wind and Truth (Stormlight Archive) by Brandon Sanderson

I would 1000% recommend these books and other Cosmere books to anyone that enjoys fantasy but with the caveat of being aware of the Sanderlanche. Pretty much every book this guy writes takes time building everything up so it can feel quite slow, but then towards the end you get your avalanche of action, quick story progression, and answers to questions you get throughout the books.

I could only just get through Name of the Wind many years ago. As I was reading it something just felt off and was bothering me massively, I then came to the realisation that the main character (Kvothe) was just too perfect. His flaws were the world around him, not himself, and really the only fault that could be considered was that he was so good at everything he would do too much and get burnt out.

Is the second book better, and would you say it’s worth reading given the third one is nowhere in sight?

I like this take, I want this one.

UK, US, or Aussie?

Many years ago, I had a dream where I was in a church, talking to my ex, who was wearing a wedding dress. It was just a chat about why things didn’t work out, how it was a horrible break up but we both accepted we were young and stupid and we wished the best for each other’s future - it was a very calm and positive dream. We hadn’t spoken in 5 or so years and were in no way connected on any social media platform or had any friends in common at this point.

A couple of weeks later after the dream she emailed my old email out of the blue saying she’d found some pictures of my dog from when we were together. I thanked her and asked how life was going. Shed moved to America and had got married recently. I congratulated her and wished her the best, but never stayed in touch after then.

I’m sure there is a grounded explanation to it, but I also like to think that there could be something more universal/spiritual to it.

• Big Boys
• Friday Night Dinner

I cant remember the name but it was a hotel in Bruges. The lobby looked lovely, but everything else was strange or run down.

Honestly thinking back I feel like it was a fever dream. They had a lift that was incredibly small. The stairs were steep and covered in this really cheap thin red carpet that did not muffle the sound of people walking. To get to my room I had to go up two sets of stairs, and then down a set of stairs.

The room required me to then go down another set of stairs, open the door for it to hit the end of the bed. The mattress was all spring, uncomfortable and had me waking up with backache. The windows were on the ceiling, but difficult to open and the room was stuffy.

The shower seemed to have been put in what used to be a closet. No proper ventilation, and a skanky shower curtain. When turning the shower on it was equivalent to someone pouring water from a watering can on me.

I complain, but it was booked and paid for by someone else. Bruges was lovely and I was only sleeping in the room for a couple of nights.

Using uBO, but have noticed a slightly longer delay of a few seconds between hitting play and the video starting, but I can deal with that over being forced to watch 30s of ads.

Back when I was managing a team, we had a new guy that I was on-boarding. I’d run the. Through all standard procedures and then get them to shadow others in the team, then swap so they are being shadowed and guided.

One day I told him to pair with someone in the team for an afternoon. At the end of the day I took him into the training room and asked him how things had gone. He had a big smirk on his face and said “I know why you had me shadow R”, and with a returning smile I said “and why was that?”, “because you wanted me to see how not to do the job.”

The new guy had hit the nail on the head, the person he was shadowing was a huge under performer and was due to go on a performance improvement plan after repeated attempts to give guidance. Anyway I didn’t confirm that is why I did it, but I’m glad that the new guy had come away thinking that, it showed that the training up to that point had been working.

I’m so envious that you have it as a job and a hobby. When I started coding I’d hoped I’d be one of those people that just whips up stuff in their free time for fun, but after finishing work I just find myself not wanting to code 😔

They are updating the app at some point, which is removing the watch together feature. I wonder what else may disappear.

The Way of Kings (Stormlight Archive) - Brandon Sanderson

When I first bought it, I got through about 3 chapters and then shelved it. A couple of years later I was looking for something to read, I saw this book being praised and remembered I had a copy. I ended up getting hooked and sucked into the cosmere.

I believe the initial intention was that it was going to be a live service game, where they would add more content and cosmetics over time and continue to support it, but after the backlash of their monetisation method (after people had already purchased the game) they got it to a 1.0 state and moved on to I’m guessing Monster Train 2.

It’s a shame because Inkbound had an interesting foundation there and I believe they could have figured out a better model to keep the game alive.