A fun thing that I only noticed the last time I watched Return of the King: in the movie's timeline Sam has already been elected mayor of The Shire when we see him visiting Frodo in Bag End. In the book this doesn't happen until several years after Frodo has left Middle-earth.

Some of the effects used to make the hobbits look short are better than others, but they're NEVER so bad as to break the illusion. When you look at this picture of Sean Astin standing next to Peter Jackson on set it just looks WRONG.

Producer: have you done the box art illustration for the murder clown game? Designer: sure thing boss, real fucking sexy just like you asked. Producer: what.

Been messing about on Hearts of Iron IV, a game with a lot of depth that I don't understand yet find compelling.

Me when I tear off the outer packaging on a roll of bin liners, then place said packaging in the first liner.

Every time they announce one of these things I'm left wondering who is it for? Who spends £600 on one LEGO set? And after you're done putting it together, does it just sit on your coffee table forever?

Steam Controller

Casablanca is one of those classic movies that you hear about as a kid and maybe it doesn't interest you at the time because it's old and you're young, but one day you watch it and realise it really is one of the best to ever do it. Just astonishingly good.

Unfortunately, I have started trying to beat the Corrupted Heart on A20. Just getting the A20 dub wasn't enough for me in the end.

Sometimes the YouTube algorithm is good youtu.be/9m-va7UIS9E?...

What if Saturn's son just tasted really good

I heard a story once about a guy who had too much to drink at a local pub, wet himself standing at the bar, then looked the barman in the eye and said "I want answers".

Today in Lord of the Rings news:

We're down to the final three folks.

Combination of an 8 PM coffee followed by this hotel's fire alarm going off at around midnight means that I am now about as far from being able to sleep as I've ever been at 1:30 AM.

Something about 'Goldfinger' (the theme song) tickles me. It's like, by the end even Shirley Bassey is getting exasperated by the premise, so she decides to just shout the crux of it a couple of times to wrap up: HE LOVES GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD!

Re-reading The Silmarillion and this time trying to remember who the hell all these names are

This is tantalising—and given the success of Oblivion Remastered we'll probably see a New Vegas remaster sooner or later—but I will eat my hat if they don't remaster Fallout 3 first. I don't want it, but it's what they'll do.

Had this saved to my phone and can't remember why I made it

🎵 Didn't we almost have it aaaall

I love New Vegas dearly but it's always bugged me how at the end of the tutorial Doc Mitchell is like "here have my old Vault Suit and Pip Boy" even though your character has no connection to a vault.

When you're waiting all day for a package delivery and keep glancing down the road to see if it's coming

After finally hitting A20 on Slay the Spire I've returned to Balatro as my go-to game, which is nice because there's loads to do but no clearly defined end goal for me to go insane in the pursuit of.

Thinking (regrettably) about The Hobbit movies: They made Smaug TOO DAMN BIG man.

Nine years ago I worked at a school, and while I don't miss much about it (least of all getting up at 6:30 every morning for the commute) I did just experience a pang of yearning for the coffee machine in the staff room.

Every so often I think "hey maybe I'll try Civ 7 again" but they still seem to be making fundamental changes to the product a year after launch. This is an early access game that was sold as finished!

The problem with liking big media properties is that on a long enough timescale they always suck. "I'm a fan of Game of Thrones" well it sucks now. "Oh I really like Fallout" well it sucks now.

It's gotta be really funny if you're Xi Jinping watching Carney, Starmer et al. come grovelling at your feet because America is doing a fascism.

Had a dream where I was kidnapped and forced to wear a suit of armour with a helmet fashioned after a pigeon. All I was allowed to say was "coo".

Experiencing schadenfreude because Wicked didn't get an oscar nom for Best Original Song. Every movie adaptation of a stage musical shoehorns at least one new song in to try and get that nomination and they always suck eggs.

This is a weird one for me because I recognise something distastefully authoritarian in a U16 social media ban, but I'm also not sure it's a bad idea...? I'd probably support it... So this consultation is welcome. I'm also interested to know more about how it's been going in Australia.

After listening to nothing but Act III for the past several days I am now fully on board with the conspiracy theory that this is not the end and that The Protomen will announce "Act III pt. 2" (or some such) in due course.

Watched Jurassic Park 2 over the weekend with my wife. It was her first viewing, which means it was my delight to witness her live reaction to this truly unhinged jump cut.

This post inspired me to check in on my student loan for the first time in a few years. Ha. Ha ha. Ha. Last year I paid off a couple hundred pounds and they added about £4000 interest. Best not to think about it...

New Protomen album absolutely whips. Slam dunk bangers start to finish. It's almost exhausting.

Been re-reading The Lord of the Rings, as I am wont to do every few years. Currently on the first book of The Two Towers.

New Knives Out good.

The first second or so of 'One of Us' by ABBA is near-identical to the first second of 'He Said She Said', by CHVRCHES, which makes for a fun guessing game.

This is crazy. A woman dies in Roman Britain and her body is preserved in a bog. Almost 2000 years later somebody finds her skull, then a local man confesses to murdering his wife because he thinks they've found her remains and the jig is up.

Watched GREMLINS last night, which is delightful. Even when some of the puppet set pieces go on a little too long it's okay, because you can tell they were having a lot of fun making the movie.

Interested to see more of Jacob Elordi after his performance in Frankenstein, though I can't help but feel that casting a white actor as Heathcliffe is willfully disengaging from something interesting that the book wants to say.

Slay the Spire: trying to beat A20 as Silent has become a Sisyphean task for me. It feels impossible to defeat the Time Eater.

Wicked Part II doubles down on everything that worked—and didn't work—about Part I.

Has Google done some AI bullshit to autocorrect recently because I swear it's taking liberties. I was messaging my brother earlier and typed "I need to talk to mum" - it changed that to "I need to talk to my mum"! Like, excuse me?? Who asked you???

Was watching the Greta Gerwig Little Women last night and was like, why the hell is Beth playing a Billy Joel song in the 1800's. Anyway the more you know

It's going to be absolutely maddening in a few years when Reform comfortably get in and start building upon the Labour immigration policy that was ostensibly supposed to prevent Reform from getting in. And then we'll all be expected to forget that was ever the plan and nobody will be held to account

Hey neat, thanks Valve.

> game designed primarily for KB+M is Steam Deck Verified > default control scheme is just the controller scheme used by the console port