Ashley

Quick Ubisoft, release Just Dance for the GBA after this. They can't be allowed to take your crown!

Sorry yes, the issue with checking these things on the go. In fact, the FTC has filed an appeal.

Gex is back, in trilogy form! Switch, PS4/5, Xbox Series X/S and Steam.

The FTC has agreed for Microsoft to purchase Activision: https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/11/23779039/microsoft-activision-blizzard-ftc-trial-win And the CMA is apparently going to reconsider it's earlier decision:

Oops https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-66141339

Given Meta's love of harvesting data (I have an Instagram account so I know it's no different, but don't feel the need to go deeper), the fact your timeline is a mess of people you don't follow and not in chronological order and the fact if you remove your account you remove your Instagram account too I'm just not going to bother. I feel like I need less social media, not more.

Oh I wasn't trying to say Microsoft officially announced it or anything, just amusing they have potentially revealed stuff before Sony wanted to.

I could have warned them

Oh yeah the information itself isn't that shocking and of course the companies have information about the others but it's more the way it came about and the fact if it's true the information will have come from Microsoft instead of Sony. We all know the pain companies feel when information is leaked just before an event, imagine the feeling of your direct competitor do it in a court of law.

A $400 smaller and slimmer PS5 will come out this year according to... Microsoft? Obviously from that court case going on. They also allege the handheld thing will be out later this year for under $300 https://www.ign.com/articles/sony-expected-to-release-a-playstation-5-slim-later-this-year-priced-39999-microsoft-says

@Josh64 this sounds like your kind of thing

Well given he's being sued by a company in multiple countries for not paying the rent yeah I can see him trying to skimp on bills. She's taken over already but he's in charge of tech still because he's obviously the best for that. She's basically in charge of trying to get advertises back and I'm sure "we're limiting how many people can see tweets" is going to help her.

My favourite of all the dinosaurs

I do wonder if new people would find it useful. I felt like they could do with a "I've played Pikmin before" option to show you how Oatchi works and then leave the rest to yourself. Even just being able to skip text but you've got to wait and often the dialogue is split in two so you see the first bit, press a button to see the second bit, there's a pause then you can continue. But yeah the game itself is really fun. There's something so enjoyable about the core loop and once I finally had a little army I had fun running around with them. Not finished the demo but near the end. I think I might end up getting it too. I really enjoyed the original 2 but never got 3.

That and on the 30th they switched off being able to view Twitter without being logged in which then caused embedded tweets to fail but continuously try, thus essentially DDOSing themselves. Business genius.

Played a bit of the demo although getting pretty bored of the constant stop start with the dialog and being unable to make it go faster. I'll get back to it at some point.

I had no idea this was a thing. Cheers for highlighting it.

After being down most of the day it's now back with some changes: I know he says it's temporary but nothing says "successful social media platform" like limiting how much people can look at it per day.

We've all been there

It was last year (a year two weeks ago in fact). But time is a flat circle lately. Not tried that one. Had the Peroni here and there but I was never a big beer person anyway. In fact I normally drink wine but not actually tried alcohol free wine. Only tried cocktails, beer and fruity cider.

Fixed it for you

I'm proud of you @Josh64, that's amazing! I can't recall if I mentioned at the time but my stepfather passed away last year ultimately because of his trouble with alcohol. Technically hospital-caught pneumonia, but he was there because of it and his body was too weak to fight it off. He didn't have it easy because most of his family suffered from alcohol dependency too (don't recall the exact numbers but at least one of his parents died from it and several of his siblings did too) but it really went downhill in February 2020. His job laid him off (and he put a lot of stock in his work and obviously it also provides a distraction) and then a few days later hired him again and then I think either let him go, or Covid did. Either way, it really shot his weak confidence and it went downhill from there. I lived with them for a month after coming back from my trip because of Covid and he did get progressively worse. He was never a perfect person, but the drink was getting the best of him and he was doing some of the things you mentioned such as trying to hide alcohol. My mom ultimately kicked him out for both their sakes and paid for him to go to rehab sometime early 2022 if I recall correctly, but two days after coming out he drank again. And I just realised that may sound like I'm trying to scare you or something, but simply instead I understand where you're coming from (or at least as much as I can having not been through it myself) but the fact you seem to be in the right mental headspace in terms of dealing with it (identifying the problem, the causes/triggers and actively wanting to change) is a great sign. One thing I have learnt in my brief time as a PT is if someone wants to lose weight it has to be intrinsic. It can't be someone else telling them to, or them feeling like they "have" to without wanting to, it has to come from within. Obviously dependencies are different, but I am sure there's a truth to it there too so it is good to see you wanting to change. Wanting to be a better version of yourself. I think it's sensible not to try the "well I'm sure I'd be fine with one..." approach. Maybe in time, but I would say it first of all needs more time and ideally you'd speak to someone who is more qualified to talk about whether that is sensible of feasible. Hopefully your current "moving the goalposts" will continue and you won't want to anyway. Thankfully more places are offering alcohol-free drinks now so that is an option, but again I would understand avoiding those for the time being because it may stimulate the mouthfeel (a horrible word and phrase!) of alcohol, but perhaps in time you will be able to go out with others and enjoy an alcohol-free drink knowing your willpower and strength is such that it won't knock you back. Which brings me to a pessimistic point but one I think is worth flagging up; something will happen in the future (hopefully not the near future) that will test and challenge you. It will knock you back and make you want to drink again, even if its a momentary "this is a difficult time, I can handle one drink!" mentality. All I would advise, as a friend rather than any kind of professional, is to a) have people you know and trust that you can turn to if that happens who will support you and b) look into how other people have learnt to handle those situations. In the moment you obviously won't be thinking logically, but hopefully if you have the friends I mentioned in point a they can help you through point b. And as to your point of not being able to celebrate it I don't live that far away remember! Plus I'm also not drinking at the moment. But you know you can always reach out to me if you want to. Congrats on not only the sobriety but also the strength and courage to post about it. It is no small or easy thing and I am really proud that you have done this.

Was watching something by Good Vibes Gaming and they point out 2D Mario games sell phenomenally well (no surprise there), even years after release, and Nintendo wouldn't just release one on a console that's about to die so it lends credence to the idea that the next console will be backwards compatible