bob

Somehow, Boris returned.

Looks very pretty, even if it is supposedly just Far Cry with an Avatar skin on it. Flying the dragon thingies has the potential to be an awesome experience though, hopefully they nail that.

Also, they fly now.

If it wasn't about money - why wouldn't he go to Barcelona for free? If he had had enough of playing at a high level, why not retire completely? Why bother signing with a team who are basically at a League 2 level, who according to their GK, only have a temporary stadium with no security. The whole thing is very weird. It's like something out of a game of Football Manager.

There are rumours that Messi might be going to....Inter Miami?! What the fuck? Apparently it's some sort of deal like the one Beckham had where he gets the opportunity to buy a franchise afterwards or something, but the whole thing is just too bizarre imo. One of the best players currently playing (a contender for another Balon D'or) going and playing in the MLS? It's such a wet fart ending to his career, it's so strange.

Yeah but then all your data and secrets go to the Chinese government, rather than Google or Apple. No thank you!

I did look at the 7a - I like how small it is, and Google products are generally quite swish. However, I don't really like the look of the back, and it doesn't have an expandable memory slot, and only has 128GB of storage? That's less than i have/use now, so it would be a bit of a downgrade.

Currently looking for a new phone (the power button fell off my Moto, amongst other things, maybe @drahkon had a point), and the current state of mobile phones is a bit weird. They are all essentially identical now. Sure, you get a bit more brightness with this one, and a few more RAMS with this one, but for day to day use, it doesn't matter all that much. I get that there is more of a difference between a £1500 phone and a £200 one, but for phones in the same price range....you could pick one at random and it would be fine? Trying to look for daylight between the various models, but all the reviews are full of weird fanboys in the comment section saying how this chipset is absolutely trash, or a 25W charger is an embarrassment and you'd be a fool to get this one etc. I think I might settle on the Samsung A54, but I will probably seek one out in the flesh before I buy, as it's a bit larger than phones i've owned previously, so I want to make sure it doesn't make me feel like a tiny-handed twat.

I don't think there's anyone out there that truly enjoys their job. If anyone says they do - I don't trust them.

I know I am easily confused, but I do probably represent the casual fan who doesn't study every scene or know what the hell BBY or whatever means (I didn't before your post). What I think further muddies the waters is that there isn't really any proper distinction between the various eras. The prequels are easy to discern, because everything looks kind of new, and you have the droids Vs humans etc. But then after that you get the rebels Vs the empire/stormtroopers, and everything turns grungy and brown. But then even when the empire is defeated, you get an identical fascist 'empire' pop up, who also use stormtroopers, and you have the rebels rebelling, and everything kind of looks the same. So there's just always an oppressive regime, and there are always rebels, and the shows (and games) could really be happening at any point on the timeline after the prequels and it wouldn't make much difference.

I recently resubbed to Disney+ to watch Ant Man 3, so I had access to the rest of The Mandalorian S3. I enjoyed it. It was better than Season 2 in my opinion, which relied too much on cameos from Luke etc. I like the simpler standalone episodes like the one on the plant with the robot uprising, and it looks like Season 4 is going to be more of that, with Mando and Grogu getting bounty contracts from Appa. Good to see Grogu finally getting to use the Force more, although I'm sad he lost his cool robot body. I thought that would be his new form moving forward. One thing that I realised about all the new Star Wars shows that I find a bit confusing, is how they just around the timeline quite a bit. Obviously the prequels are fairly distinct, but all the other shows and films tend to jump around and it's not immediately obvious where each one appears in the timeline? For example, is Andor happening at the same time as Mandalorian? Is all the stuff happening on Coruscant at the same time? I find it really hard to place it all.

Finished watching The Marvellous Mrs Maisel on Prime. It was ok. We watched the first 3 seasons before the pandemic, and then hadn't realised that they'd done another 2, so we binged the rest in a few weeks. I like a lot of the side characters (the dad and Suzie were great) but where it falls down imo is that Mrs Maisel herself is just so unlikeable. And she keeps torpedoing her own career by being unable to shut her own damn mouth again and again. Almost every episode in the latter few seasons, she has a 'big break', but near the end of the episode she insults the boss, or breaks the rules etc, and then gets fired. It's just so annoying. I guess it's because she wants to get to the top her own way, without a filter yada yada, but its so frustrating to watch. Anyway, the final episode is actually really well done and satisfying in tying up all the loose ends and showing what happens in the future. I would give the whole thing a 7.5/10.

They showed Venom in an earlier teaster trailer too, so it looks like the whole plotline is going to involve the Symbiote. The Symbiote is a alien goo that melds with a human host to create a monstery type being. When it melds to Spider-man, he becomes like an edgier version of himself with powerful goo powers

Oh man, looks like I didn't win then. I guess there's always next time.

It's happening! Not sure what to do tbh. I want to cancel to send a message that they're being shitty and greedy, but at the same time, we still do use Netflix a lot.

A kids film doesn't even have to be deep to be good. My favourite animated film is Megamind - the plot isn't anything deep or meaningful, but it keeps you entertained and guessing all the way through.

I've only watched the Spider-Man 2 bit because that's all i'm interested in. Yeah, it was a weird way to start off a big reveal. You'd think they'd have a flashy trailer or something to start it off, rather than the Kraven bit at the beginning.

It's not a game though, it's a film. I understand it's based on a game, but it can still have more than the most basic story joining everything together and still be fun. Without that its basically like watching someone streaming a game on Youtube.

Finally managed to watch this all the way through. It was okay....not fantastic, but not too bad either. I enjoyed spotting all the references, and i thought the music was really good, but the plot was as barebones as they come. I realise it's a children's film, but there are plenty of examples of kids films that have well written storylines. This one just felt like a load of action scenes loosely strung together with barely anything in between. I liked all the voice acting. I don't think I ever heard Kranky Kong talk before this, so what they had was fine. Here's hoping the inevitable sequel is better. This one i would give 5/10.

I've been feeling really run-down and knackered during my cycle commute recently. I thought for a while that there might be something wrong with my lungs because I was bringing up phlegm and generally feeling horrendous after every journey, but an x-ray confirmed nothing untoward going on there. I'm having to come to terms with the fact that I may just be really unfit.

All you old people look alike.

I assumed so if Grandpa Smeagol mentioned it.

Logan's Run? What's that? Is that like the Hunger Games?

I'm 36. Is that old?

This is like listening to two old people in a retirement home have a conversation.