Latest gaming updates

 Per tradition... Russia, Israel, Hamas, all of their leadership, and some of their populace, could really benefit from some horribly painful/itchy STDs in their lives, at a minimum.

Here at home, though, things are mostly more pleasant, if you set aside the obscene heat courtesy of climate change, the similarly-obscene political climate, and the odd assassination attempt.  So... yeah.  Well, focusing on games for a bit, here's a few items in no particular order:

• A bit over 200 hours of playtime later, I've finished two runs through Book of Hours.  Two runs, because there are multiple endings - the "easy ending" (which is likely the most relatable for ordinary, everyday people that would be attracted to this game) and several "true endings" that take significantly more work to get.  I've enjoyed my time with the game, but, at a minimum, I want to take a break from it before I even think about diving back in.  It's one thing to let a game lead you on for hundreds of hours, but quite another to go in knowing that's what it will take, when there are so many other games out there.
• Looks like I never mentioned - I got air conditioning in this year, in the form of a heat pump (and not a moment too soon)!  Once I verified it was able to keep up with the peculiarities of my house, I finally went ahead and upgraded to an XBox Series X.  So, I now have access to all of my XBox One games, DVDs, and Blu-Ray discs on the same machine I use for streaming and current-gen games.  Oh yeah, more power too, theoretically, but it's not like my old Series S demonstrated any issues there.  Side note, Amazon has really gone downhill - I tried being cheap/responsible and buying one of their "in stock" refurbished Series X units from them, only to have them not ship, then try to move the delivery date on me on the day it was supposed to be delivered.  In the meantime, Best Buy put their new units on sale for nearly as cheap, but with a gift card attached as well, so that's where I went.  Yay, capitalism?
• Since I was testing capabilities, I went ahead and put in the disc for my XBox One version of No Man's Sky.  Side note:  Wow, looks like I haven't posted about that game since 2017, and there have been a fair few patches since then.  Good news, it looks to have auto-upgraded to the Series X version, so yay there.  Bad news, the latest patch hasn't gone live on the XBox ecosystem yet, so... I guess I'll give it another proper go, if/when I see it update.
• Well, assuming I'm not still embroiled in The First Descendant, of course.  Saw my brother putting in hours on this game over a couple of weekends, so I figured it was worth giving a go.  Briefly, it's mostly Warframe with a bit of Destiny thrown in for flavor.  It's decent enough for a grinding game, maybe lacks a bit of polish here and there (particularly in the localization department), but easy enough to spend a few hours in at a go.  Naturally, I'm waiting for the free-to-play cash spike to hit... but the battle pass, I'm not seeing anything I care about in the paid section so far, and I was able to negotiate Warframe's monetization to my satisfaction back in the day, so... maybe?
• If not, I've certainly got a list of "not worth picking up Game Pass for this, but I'll check it out when I get Game Pass next" games that's grown large enough that, maybe, I'll just get a month of that to winnow that list down.  Or, I've got backlogs on various systems, or, or...

Well, that's where I'm at games-wise at the moment.  Stay safe, stay sane, stay hydrated!

Sure, let's ramp this hell-in-a-handbasket ride up a notch

 Happy Bastille Day, for those of you who observe it.  Absolutely nothing of note has occurred lately, outside of the ongoing douchebaggery of Russia, Israel, and Hamas.  Nope, nothing at all.

Obviously, that's a lie.  Yesterday, somebody took pot-shots at Trump at one of his rallies.  Current reports indicate it was a 20-year-old kid, registered Republican, who took an "AK-style" rifle to a nearby rooftop and tried to snipe Trump, in spite of wearing glasses, from a couple-hundred feet away.  He's dead now, of course, so everybody has questions about who was he, why did he do it, that sort of thing... and the short answer is, it really doesn't much matter in the end.

On the motivations front, this was eminently foreseeable.  You've got a presidential candidate whose previously shown his lack of aptitude for the job, who talks about being a dictator on day one if he gets re-elected, getting backing from gas-lighting congressional members and a supreme court that, until recently, maintained a facade of impartiality.  Under those conditions, I'd expect at least one young hot-blooded sort to take a shot in any community, given the opportunity, be they military trained riflemen with an oath to uphold or "I'm pretty good at Call of Duty, I could make this work."  The lucky thing for Trump is it looks like he got something closer to the latter here.

But, again, why doesn't matter much here.  More important are the impacts of the act - which, again, immediately aren't much.  Trump got an ear tagged, which shouldn't be in any way debilitating, unless you want to take the very long odds that a man who was wanting to lead an assault on congress is the sort to get spooked by a flesh wound.  We've got a couple of dead people and a few wounded, but, while doubtless tragic for them and their families, only results in the loss of a couple of votes for the Republicans, tops.

Longer term, though?  This guy just created a touchstone for the Republican party.  Anybody who considers themselves a Republican for non-cynical, non-self-serving reasons, has a concrete event to point at and say that they are under attack from a shadowy "THEM".  Doesn't matter that the kid was a registered Republican, any number of excuses, plausible or implausible, can be made for why he was duped, or wasn't really a Republican, or maybe he was acting under orders from Democrats/the Deep State/Joe Biden, that sort of thing.  With the current pile of lies they're operating under, what's one more for the pile?  But this one, it's visceral (almost literally).  You've already got people like the Republican National Convention attendees talking about this strengthening their resolve to do what they were going to do already, and you know that, at a minimum, this will be used as a rallying point as Election Day comes closer to get people out to the polls.  Past that... well, I'm hoping I'm wrong, but this could easily be the start of a spiral of tit-for-tat political violence, all egged on by either Republicans deciding "the gloves are off", or external influence like Russian misinformation campaigns, or both of those and more.

Yeah, I really hope I'm wrong on that last bit.  Election season is bad enough without fighting in the streets over it.

So, I guess we're a nation of vibes now?

 Those fuckers.

Whoops, first things first... yeah, Russia deserves everything they're getting and then some, and both Israel and Hamas can go eat a bowl of dicks.

That out of the way... those fuckers.  Who else could I be talking about today besides the corrupt, regressive wing of the Supreme Court?  Not content to just let their precedent-breaking take-down on abortion rights fester, not even content to rule that bribery is OK, so long as the bribe gets delivered after the fact, they had to go that one step further.  They upended something truly foundational, the concept that nobody is above the law - and they did so without even the barest of cover in the letter of the law or the Constitution, but just based on the insane assertion that, sometimes, presidents need to commit crimes, and it would be an unfair burden on them to have to consider the consequences of those crimes in the heat of the moment.

OK, so, first off, I never want to hear anything coming from any of their pie-holes about "original intent" from the Constitution ever again.  Up until today, it was pretty straightforward - presidents shouldn't be criming, and, if they really had to, any of their successors could pardon them for it after the fact.  Now, it's strictly a question of whether they're using the powers of their office - if so, it's not reviewable, ever.  That's so far beyond the intent of the founders, it's in the realm of what they were actively trying to prevent, the creation of a king.

We are now officially beyond "respect for the rule of law", because this court has demonstrated that the law simply doesn't matter - if they want something, they'll make that something happen, regardless of what the Constitution or the laws actually say.  Something needs to change, soonest.  Impeachments, pack the court, heck... I do my best not to wish ill on others, but, if Biden were to use his newly-granted immunities to create a few openings in the court, well, I might not agree with that, but I'd totally understand.