gaggle64

Pulled the trigger on a laptop upgrade - Acer, i5 7200u, 950m 4gb, 1Tb+ 256gb SSD, £600 from Ebuyer. Nice for the price, a modest beast but light years ahead of my faithful 4y/o Inspiron (which will enjoy a reasonable retirement as a family photo dipository for my mum).

So has anyone else been trying the open beta? I must say I've enjoyed it quite a bit, it seems like a pretty & well put together game. Just don't know if it would hold for the hours required to justify a full price purchase though.

Finished Bayonetta 2 today. Holy hell what a game. Starts strong, gets stronger. May be the best 2nd-half to any game I've ever played. Kept surprising me right until the end. Just astounding.

Worth noting - Hillary won every POC & LGBT demo except whites. Every non-LGBT white demographic voted Trump overwhelmingly regardless of wealth, age, education, profession, and gender. Hillary won voters earning less than $50k overall, Trump won everyone over $50k. I find it impossible impossible to accept any narrative that this was a working class revolt when the voting lines are so starkly aligned along racial boundaries and across class identities. Not to mention the nature of the candidate and his rhetoric.

Silver lining: Looking forward to the Simpson presidency in 4-8 years time.

A final kicker - Odds are good that Clinton will finish with more votes than Trump overall. Current votes put her about 140k ahead (as reported by the BBC tracker). The only other person to become president while still losing the popular vote in the last 100 years was George W Bush.

Mike Pence supports conversion therapy for gay children, including electrocution.

More than enough to swing key battleground states like Florida from Trump to Hillary.

Now watch as May & her merry band of Brexiters rush to kiss Trump's feet in exchange for a half-baked trade deal.

Imagine being Obama and getting ready to hand your presidency to a white supremacist.

There's no doubting this falls on the same axis as Brexit and European nationalist movements - nothing is unrelated in this day and age. It affects all of us and we're all going to have roll up our sleeves and face it. It still seems impossible though. It's just surreal. Literally the worst potential president anyone could find.

People are waiting for confirmation on Pennsylvania and Michigan. If those are confirmed, Trump is president elect. NBC has reported that US generals have begun checking the constitution for the possible event of receiving an "immoral order". The US Dollar has tanked and markets are down across the board.

I think it's time to get more seriously involved in politics. What a fucking nightmare.

We should have a firm result around 4am, maybe 5am. Might be worth staying up to see the first few projected results from the East coast if you want. If it looks like Hillary will take Florida she'll almost certainly be president, if it's called for Trump it's gonna be a long night for everybody.

I definitely urge anyone on the fence to give it try, rent or borrow it for a weekend if you're super unsure. It's very much an "easy to learn, hard to master" sort of game and it's definitely not a twitchy shooter like CoD or Counter Strike. If you know to stay on the objective you're probably better than about 50% of players in the main "quick play" mode.

It's voting day in the US at last, which means our collective nightmare will soon be over/continue indefinitely (delete as applicable). The situation is still neck and neck. Polls show a very slight lead for Clinton with higher then expected early turnout from Latinos & Asian voters but lower than expected early turnout from African-Americans. Markets are betting on a Clinton victory but a Brexit-style upset is still very much on the cards. A winner will likely be declared at around 4am GMT. I might have to get drunk.

Here's the excellent new short introducing Ombra in case anyone missed it, also info on the new "Arcade" modes. I'm pretty up for anything that lets me earn those loot boxes a little faster. http://www.polygon.com/2016/11/4/13527874/overwatch-arcade-mode-blizzcon-2016

Politically it's worth noting how much it's favored the pro-"Hard Brexit" camp to be as light on detail as possible until now. Revealing their negotiating position to Parliament & public means admitting the harsh realities of "taking our country back" ie. this isn't going to be anywhere near as easy as they promised and are still promising. Being forced to reveal the detail means forcing the government to admit our collective position isn't as strong as many might imagine, no matter how many biscuits we sell. I wonder if the government might trigger a snap election next year while polls still look good, before the reality sets in?

It probably won't be used to stop Brexit but it does force the Government to present it's negotiation plans to parliament before triggering Article 50, rather than waving their hands and promising it'll all be fine somehow.

Won't be available for the next few evenings unfortunately, will jump in if I see you from Monday onwards though.

I'm pretty free until the end of the month so I'd be down for that. Depends on who might be using the telly but I'd love to jump in when it's free on an evening. What time do you usually play? My favourite players are people who play Hanzo, never challenge the point, and immediately quit when we lose a round.

Sorry to hear folks are feeling ground down, hope it looks brighter for you all soon. I must admit going back to the job hunt rigmarole so soon is starting to take it's toll, I've worked hard on my mental health over the past year but it feels like some of the bad stuff is starting to creep back in. Objectively minor problems are starting to feel bigger again. I know that, one way or the other, it's all going to be OK but life sure can make it hard to let yourself feel like it.

Alright, got a job offer which I'll be able to sign off on by Tuesday once they've done their background checks. Will remain anxious until then.