TimesEcho

There’s a picture of the mayor being sworn in and another of one of the accused men. The article does not mention the race of the attackers nor how they self-identify.

Heaven’s Vault was fantastic and can be played multiple times to get different versions of the story. It’s also on sale right now. What I thought was especially well done is how they tied the narrative to replaying aspect.

Listening to To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf while I do chores. It’s literature so I have to listen to it since there’s no plot, really, and it’s all thoughts inside people’s heads, so far all on the same day.
Just finished book 2 in the Seraphina series, Shadow Scale, by Rachel Hartman. I almost didn’t finish it because for most of the book the main character didn’t have anything going in her favor and the relentless piling on of bad news made me anxious.
I’ve got to finish the other stories in Stories of Your Life and Others, by Ted Chiang, because I got it to read “Story of Your Life” after reading a thread on Kbin about the movie Arrival (which I had really enjoyed by apparently hadn’t understood fully).

TotK. I’m going the maximum exploration route, so I’ve only gotten the Travel Medallions, Tulin’s Sage, and the locator so far. I’m leaving the main story until much later. 135 hours in, though, and only playing an hour or two most days.

Pinky: What are we doing this weekend, Brain?
Brain: The same thing we do every weekend…We’re going to take over Hyrule!

How on Earth have you done all the temples in only 50 hours?

It can be a bit overwhelming, yes. I purposely did enough of the main story line in ToTK so that I could get the Hero’s Path and the Travel Medallions. And now I’m ignoring the main story and just exploring the world bit-by-bit, like I did with Breath of the Wild. I’m still thoroughly exploring Central Hyrule. I’m racking up side quests and adventures, but only doing them if I want a break from exploring or want to better my gear or something. It takes the pressure off for me to do it this slow, relaxing way. The game feels like it has hundreds of hours in it, which is what I tell myself when I get antsy. I have almost literally all the time in the world.

I’ve discovered that my brain will only accept certain content certain ways. If I’m really into a fun book, then text is perfect. If it’s any kind of “literature” or non-fiction, I need to listen to it at the fastest setting my brain can absorb (usually 2x speed) while doing things that would otherwise not be fun (unloading the dishwasher, cleaning, doing laundry, whatever). And I pay attention to my emotional reactions to stuff. If something is too heavy to be fun (or to handle in general), I don’t make myself go back to it. I evaluate whether I want to continue. I have more than 1,000 books on my Libby wishlist, so I feel no guilt about moving on to the next thing.

This seriously brought me down the other day when I first read it. I’m glad that BBC is doing this important work, but also, this is so dark my brain just can’t go there.

The Orville is closer in spirit and execution to Roddenberry’s Star Trek. Post-Roddenberry Star Trek is a different type of entertainment that isn’t trying to accomplish the same goals. Applying “good” and “bad” to either is counterproductive and subjective. They serve different purposes and it’s fine to like or dislike either.