One last goodbye, Destiny

 December 2023 is when I gave up on Destiny 2, a decision I haven't regretted.  Did it help usher in the change I was hoping for?  Not really, no... Sony didn't take the nuclear option and flush the Bungie board (doubtless thinking of the lawsuits that would be sure to follow), but rather allowed the then-head of the board to cash out, without replacing him.  In the meantime, Sony basically absorbed everything from Bungie except their Destiny and Marathon teams, then watched as Destiny staggered about without sufficient support or focus, pinning their hopes on Marathon instead.  As of this writing, that looks to be a poor decision, with Sony having to write down some of the value of their Bungie acquisition after Marathon finally launched to a tepid market response.

At any rate, the game looks to be up for Destiny.  The current game has been announced to be getting its last update next month, after which it will be in maintenance mode, just like the last game.  It's always possible that Bungie could be thinking in terms of prepping a Destiny 3, but current leaks make that look unlikely at best.  Rather, there's likely to be layoffs after that last patch comes out, with maybe some lucky survivors getting yeeted over to the Marathon team.

I feel for the Destiny team members, truly.  There's never a good time to be laid off, but these days are amazingly bad.  Still, Marathon doesn't strike me as my sort of fare, and, even if it were, there's still at least one lingering board member there from before Sony's takeover, so I'm still not getting involved in anything Bungie for the time being.  At this point, it's almost with clinical detachment that I'm keeping an eye on Bungie's future.  Will they somehow parlay Marathon into something that will reverse the company's fortunes, or will Sony eventually absorb the remnants, and squirrel away its IP?  I know which path I'm seeing as likely.

Tidbits from gaming land

 Yeah, I'm going to give the real world's continuing slide from SNAFU to TARFU a rest this time.  Let's stick with smaller-stakes stupidity from the world of games.

First up has to be Valve's launch of the new version of the Steam Controller.  I get why they might have thought the demand wasn't going to be as high as it was, because they tried this game once before, in 2015.  I got one back then (and still use it to this day), even though it was apparent that it was a compromised device in some respects - notably, lacking a physical d-pad or right analog stick, and expecting the clickable track-pads to be a suitable replacement.  At least they learned from that when they made the Steam Deck, which helped it become as dominant as it is in its gaming niche.

So now, May 4th, in a world seeded by the prominence of Steam Deck, they launch orders for their new Steam Controller, this time without those pesky compromises, and they decide to do so as a worldwide launch at 10am Pacific.  I tried to get my hands on one, but, to nobody's surprise, the scalpers and their bots won the day, overwhelming Steam's payment processing systems, with eBay listings for two or three times the price cropping up shortly thereafter.

Normally, that's where the story would end, but Steam is a different sort of company in many respects.  They took much of the week thereafter to look at what happened, and think about countermeasures.  So now, as of May 8th, they decided to implement a reservation queue, similar to what they did when they launched Steam Deck, limited to accounts "in good standing" to effectively shut down scalper shenanigans.  My reservation is in, so now we wait.

Of course, I could start up another game now, and the temptation is there, especially when I see things like publisher sales on quirky "AA" games.  But lately, there's been a disturbing up-tick in games getting launched even as (or after!) the studios that worked on them are shut down, effectively eliminating any chance that their worst bugs will ever get fixed.  So, shout out to Bellular for this video about Nacon, detailing some of their business moves and their relation to the state of the games they've been releasing of late.  Long story short, they've just jumped up to the same level as Ubisoft for "do not buy"-ness for me, if only for engineering the shutdown of a subsidiary union studio while they staff up an internal non-union studio for the same game genre the old studio served.

Well, things should improve in this space with time, maybe after the AI bubble pops and further constrains the credit markets.  For now, I'm getting by fine on Warframe, and Forza Horizon 6 is on the horizon, courtesy of a more-palatable Game Pass subscription price.  Let's see what comes next!

Seriously, the fuckin' POPE?

 Just gotta keep reminding myself, every day that passes is another day closer to us being, maybe, with any luck, done with Trump and his cronies.

I mean, sure, the guy's gotten us into a pissing match with Iran, he's throwing his under-performers under the bus, and Epsteinapalooza constantly burbles in the background.  Those are just a sample of the things he's been doing over the past year, but pretty much all things that I'd say fall within what I'd expect him to try and pull.  I honestly never thought I'd see the day where he'd try to take on the Pope.

So, I'm not going to link to the source materials this time, because it's all social media, so ew.  But basically, the pope, like many before him in modern times, came out and said something to the tune of "war bad, don't try and justify it with religion."  Trump apparently took that as a rebuke (duh!), and put up his own rant about how the Pope is weak on crime(?) and terrible on foreign policy... then followed up with an AI-generated picture of Trump as fuckin' JESUS CHRIST.  Saner heads prevailed and got that pic taken down (with Trump making the lame excuse that he thought it was made to look like him as a doctor, not, you know, a major and readily-recognizable religious figure).  Since then, there's been a little bit of back-and-forth, but, unsurprisingly, the Pope is being the bigger man and refusing to let things escalate.

But the kicker is that it's not just Trump.  His VP and the Speaker of the House, both supposed men of faith, have, in effect, told the Pope to stay in his lane... and apparently, there's significant support for that stance among various Trump voters.  Honestly, it would no longer surprise me if the people dredging up bad ideas from the past didn't have "once we've got the brown people under our thumb again, we're going after the Catholics next" on their agenda.

Seriously, the midterm elections can't get here soon enough.  I need another read on my fellow Americans, to see how many are in the camp of "no, really, this is what I voted for", handily sorted by region so I know where never to go in the future. 

Project Hail Mary, and another dose of the Regal experience

 This past week, I went and saw Project Hail Mary.  For those not in the know, it's basically the story of a man who wakes up, after an induced coma and with severe memory loss, on a ship at a distant star as the last survivor of his crew.  After working out/remembering why he's there (saving Earth, natch), he encounters an alien ship, crewed by the last survivor of their group, similarly looking to save their world.  Hijinks ensue, hurdles are overcome, and everybody makes it through.

I liked the film overall.  Sure, it's got its holes in the science here and there, but all in service of telling a better story, so I'm not going to nit-pick too hard.  There were even a couple of "oh, you decided to go there" moments that elevated the film a bit in my eyes.  Of course, it probably helped that I was in a better mood from a somewhat-improved theater experience from last time.

 I'm still working on that gift card I got for Christmas, so I chose a different Regal theater this time.  The main positive takeaway here is that you want to check the tag-spam of your theater/show choices for the "Recliner Seating" option - I'm sure it's more expensive (although I don't know for certain, since I did a matinee this time around, so it's not a simple apples-to-apples comparison), but actual adult-scale furniture with padding and the ability to put your feet up makes a world of difference, especially when it's time to get back up.

Beyond that, the compare-and-contrast with my last Regal experience was pretty spot-on.  Same dodgy app experience (and a note on the ticket booth to buy tickets at the concession stand instead of touch-screens), same commercial overload.  I did get to experience the concessions this time around, and what an experience that was - it's never been cheap, but I'm amazed at what it's become.  Candy is no longer hoarded behind the counter, but scattered through a serpentine approach to the stand.  The signage above the stand shows large photos of the products on sale, in their various combo packs, while the prices are relegated to a small bar at the bottom, barely legible while standing at the counter - not certain what percentage of "intentional customer behavior shaping" and "shame at the prices we're charging" is involved, but the first part's gotta be higher.  End result, for a small popcorn (similar size to the 3/$1 microwave bags you get at the grocer) and a medium soda (which translates roughly to Big Gulp sized) approaches $20, pre-tax.

Well, now I know what Regal brings to the table for the movie-going experience, and I remain unimpressed.  I figure I'll get one more movie out of that gift card, then I'm going to have to pay for a movie or two at other local theaters to see how deep the industry rot has spread. 

A few small items, while things are relatively quiet

 Weird that I can think of "at war with Iran and shooting up boats in both the Atlantic and Pacific" as relatively quiet, but here we are.  Everybody's fussed about the entirely-foreseeable after effects of the US attacking Iran jointly with Israel, so nobody's actively looking to rock the boat any further - assuming you don't include Trump "joking" about Pearl Harbor with the Japanese prime minister, of course.  Otherwise, Epsteinapalooza continues to simmer, alongside the many, many other problems Trump and company have brought down upon us.

Side note, did you know there's another No Kings protest scheduled for next week?

Anyways, the main bug in my bonnet today isn't the big picture, but a smaller piece of corruption and control.  Turns out, yesterday, the Nexstar acquisition of Tegna was approved.  You know, one of the companies that tried to support the FCC head in his attempt to get Jimmy Kimmel kicked off the air back in September, getting special dispensation from that head to bypass the law (under what authority?) to extend their empire further.  Some states have filed a lawsuit to try and stop it, but, in my mind, Tegna is already tainted.  So, as promised, I've dropped their local stations from my tuner's channel list.  Mind, the local Tegna station's main channel was the CBS affiliate, so it's just their also-ran UHF channel (CW affiliate, maybe?) and all the filler sub-channels for both that went away.  Kind of a wash all around, really, but I might miss getting tempted to watch some Svengoolie thing on a random Saturday night in the future, I guess.

 All the more time for games then, yeah?  Let's start with PowerWash Simulator 2 - I finished that the other night.  No major surprises, up to the end credits, which suffered a crash-to-"desktop" on my XBox.  Ah well, I had my fun, but I'm not champing at the bit to get any DLC for it, so take that for what it's worth.

Outside of that, I've added a couple more programs to my "games that have my attention" list.  Trash Goblin is a fairly simple game (barely more than a visual novel, really) where your young goblin self sets up a shop where he takes bits of trash sourced by his Auntie, chips away the worst of the encrustation on them, (usually) cleans them up, and (sometimes) pieces things together before selling them off to the townsfolk that stop by.  Most of the mechanics are forgettable at best (although the cleaning sponge you start with is absolutely wretched), but the chiseling part does a really good job at hitting the same puzzle-solving notes as manually examining an object you're trying to uncover/decipher.  It's got my attention for now, but we'll see how the story holds up.

There's also Dawnfolk, which I'm playing on my PC due to the controller setup, mainly (anything d-pad related on the first-gen Steam Controller is not a good time).  It's a minimalist town-builder with a Commodore-64 aesthetic, including very simple mini-games for some tasks.  It hasn't proven to be "hard" (at the normal difficulty level at least), but it's both engaging and charming.  I'd say take a look, while the Steam Spring Sale is on, maybe it'll grab your attention too.

Again with the war criming

 Here's another one for the pile of "I never thought I'd say this", but... I kind of miss the bad actors in our government having enough respect or fear for their constituents that they felt the need to get their stories straight before they started their shenanigans.

This time's example?  Well, we're at war with Iran, now.  We've been blowing their leadership, people, and stuff up constantly for the past week.  Why?  Nobody has given a consistent reason to date.  The closest anybody's come is something along the lines of "they were going to attack us, so we attacked them first."  Try that line of reasoning if you ever find yourself in an assault trial, see how that goes for you.

Of course, once again, this is a war launched on a sovereign nation without Congress having a say in the matter, counter to what the Constitution requires.  No worries though, the baddies in both chambers said it's OK, although they can't seem to come up with a reasonable answer as to why.  I don't know what's worse, the ones who say it's "not really a war" (to which I would say, if the shoe was on the other foot, and DC was getting bombed for a week, would that be a war?), or the ones saying because Trump's commander-in-chief, he gets to do what he wants with the military (you know, like the Constitution explicitly doesn't say).

And what's a new war without new war crimes to go with it?  Take your pick, so far we've at least got us bombing a school (possibly chosen as a target using AI) and sinking a warship, then refusing to rescue survivors.  Just imagine what we get to look forward to if Trump decides air power isn't sufficient to cow Iran into submission and sends in land troops.

Mind you, I'm not terribly sad that Iran is on the receiving end of all of this.  They're a theocracy with decades of "death to America" running through their foundation (however justified some of it might be), and a regular supporter of actions destabilizing international relations.  Heck, if anything, I do like that they're not likely to be sending many more drones to Russia for their Ukraine campaign, and having an EV in a hydro-power state insulates me somewhat from their immediate ability to strike back at us economically via oil prices.

That said, I'd really prefer not to use fighting Iran as an excuse to become more like them.  I'd really like a functioning republic back, without our military leaders talking up a war in terms of hurrying Armageddon along.  Sooner rather than later would be good here - I'm hearing stumbling steps in the direction of making Cuba our next target.  Enough of this sort of thing and, internal governance aside, the other nations of the world are likely to start looking at us as something that needs "dealt with", especially if we're low on supplies from our prior adventures.

Fun movie, bad theater

 It's been years since I've stepped foot in a movie theater - the last post I see here that attests to me being at a theater was from 2011.  I'm sure I must have seen something else in a theater in the meantime (maybe Everything Everywhere All at Once?  Great film, by the way), but I couldn't swear to it.  However, I got a Regal Cinemas gift card for Christmas, and found something worth giving a go over the weekend, so away I went.  Sadly, there's nothing like years of absence to make enshittification stand out when you do eventually return.

First things first though, the movie... Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die was both different and better than I could have ever expected, given the setup.  A man shows up at a diner, looking like the prototypical paranoid homeless guy, ranting about being from the future, where things have gone horribly wrong due to social media and AI, and he's looking for team members to change how it all goes.  This is one of those movies that's better to go into blind, so I'll just say it's a little dark, a little gory, and supremely silly.  I giggled several times throughout, and not in an "it's so bad it's good" sort of way.  I heartily recommend it.

In contrast, we have the Regal Cinemas experience.  I mean, I know theater chains are struggling, but some of this shit is downright abusive.  I've still got credit on that gift card, so we'll try another of their theaters in town for my next experience for a compare-and-contrast, but some of it is outside of any one theater's control.

I knew I was in for disappointment as soon as I went to order a ticket through their phone app.  Yes, I'm sure there's some way to use a gift card without the app, but I'd already accepted that modern inevitability and set things up prior there, so it's not like the app itself is all that terrible, if you set aside the popup ads that get in the way of doing what you came to do, of course.

Anyways, I pick my seat, select an adult ticket, and go to checkout... and they hit me with a $2 booking fee on top of the ticket price.  A booking fee, on their app, for their theater.  If I were paying cash, I might well have noped out at that point, but somebody else already paid for this, so what the hell.  Continuing on, as soon as the purchase is complete, I get no fewer than four "special offers" from various services that I have to decline before I can get the QR code for my show.  At this point, I'm wondering whether the convenience of the app beats just showing up at the theater and buying a ticket.

I get to the theater about 10 minutes before the posted showtime.  The first thing I notice is that the ticket booth is entirely unstaffed, humans replaced by touchscreens, so I fully expect the local purchase pattern to mirror the app.  That's not my problem for the day, though, so I head up to the ticket taker (or whatever their job is called now), get scanned in, and head off to the theater - no time to stop for concessions, right?

As I arrive, the ads are already playing, so I find my seat.  Turns out, whoever's in charge of arranging seats here has some airline experience.  I mean, there's plenty of legroom (because the layout of the concrete steps dictates it), but the fold-down arm rests are close enough together that I couldn't comfortably sit with one arm squarely on each (never mind the one-arm method they must be envisioning).  And of course, those armrests are also too short to lay an arm down, without your hand sitting in the drink holder - very convenient, if you have a drink, I'd guess.  I'd get one, but the show's about to start.

Of course, the show wasn't about to start.  From at least 10 minutes before showtime, to more than 20 minutes after, the ads continued to flow.  They eventually shifted to mostly movie previews, as expected, but not entirely - there was one of those superbowl AI ads thrown in the middle, which was kind of funny in hindsight given the way the movie goes.

Eventually, the ads end, the movie shows, I have my fun, then I creakily lever myself out of the seat and go home.  I will say, what was in the control of the local staff seemed to be fine - everything was clean and in seemingly good repair, and no hiccups from the projection and sound equipment were noticed - but, if this is the standard across theater chains for how they treat their customers, I'll stick with streaming, thanks.