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alChandler's Halls
Spreading joy since 1999
Avowed
That's my character in Avowed, he doesn't have a name, he's just called the Envoy. The Emperor of Aedyr sent me to the Living Isles to find out what's going on with a plague there. The Emperor would also like to annex the Living Isles and the folks living there are not too happy about that.
The plague manifests itself by causing fungal growths to appear on the inflicted. My own plants are not due to plague, I'm Godlike. Godlikes are touched in the womb by one of the gods, the plants are a symbol of that. In my case I have no idea what god touched me and I suspect that's a plot point. At any rate I'm in an early stage of the game, still getting the controls down and all that. But I have figured out one mystery, apparently when I chose the look for my character I was thinking of this guy:
So that's where I'm at right now.
February 19, 2025
Lighthouse
I was looking forward to Avowed unlocking tomorrow but wasn't psyched for the game, if you know what I mean. My last major game was Dragon Age Veilguard and Avowed is another fantasy role playing game. I'm grateful it's coming out but you know, been there, done that. But tonight I saw this picture on Reddit and read that the game's director, Carrie Patel, was influenced by the visual style of Alex Garland's Annihilation. That intrigues me and all of a sudden I am psyched, at least a little.
I suppose that after 42 years I'm just a tad jaded.
February 17, 2025
A Game About Digging a Hole
Finished the game. To my surprise the ending is stirring up some controversy but really, it's a $5 game, chill. But I did finish, the game kind of resets but now you have a shelf for your achievements.
On Tuesday Avowed unlocks. The reviews range from mediocre to good and I'll probably pick it up next week.
By the way, I finished the first game, Pillars of Eternity but I never finished the second game in the series, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire. That game gave you your own ship, I didn't like running a ship so I did the couple of missions that required it and then never used it again until the endgame. You needed it to take you to the final boss fight. Unfortunately, I never upgraded my ship and was told that it wouldn't make it to the Boss without a lot of upgrades. So that ended that. I'm not blaming Obsidian, just my own stubbornness. So I'm hoping I'm able to finish Avowed.
February 15, 2025
A Game About Digging a Hole
Yes, that's what I'm playing at the moment. To quote Arlo Guthrie, "I'm not proud."
February 13, 2025
Oscars
I love this. Gints Zilbalodis' dog plainly wants to sleep but is aware that his human was very happy about something so he puts up with it.
February 13, 2025
Stuff
First thing, I removed the links to the pages that got trashed during my month of panic attacks. And speaking of that, I see my nurse practitioner next month and will bring that up with her. She'll probably tell me that if you tend towards that kind of thing at the best of times, smoking pot on a daily basis is probably a poor lifestyle choice. For whatever it's worth, I've stopped doing that.
Secondly, I finally got around to making the color scheme of Ken Burch's Tales a bit more readable. Someone who actually knows html could have done it some time ago. I picked up html on the streets. There's a chance that the rest of Ken's surviving stories will go up sometime this weekend.
Thirdly, I'm into comfort rereading at the moment. But after I finish rereading The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente, I'm going to tackle Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome by Robert Harris. It's centers on Cicero and the moment when the Roman Republic died. I read it a long time ago but it's part of a trilogy and now seems the right time to reread the first book and read the other two. Besides, I saw Conclave last night (good movie) and I'm in a Robert Harris kind of mood.
Later all.
February 12, 2025
Flow
Last night I made a $20 impulse purchase and bought Flow. Turned out to be a wise decision and Newton loved it too, right up until this happened.
Newton ran into the bedroom in a panic. After the cat was safe I went into the bedroom, calmed Newton down and he watched the rest of the film next to me on the couch. No sense taking unnecessary risks.
February 8, 2025
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
You know, I've been playing computer games for many years and I don't think I ever saw a game that started so strong and became so tedious and boring. I mean, how can you make killing nazis boring?
At any rate, I took it off my system. On 2/18 Avowed drops. It's an Obsidian game and at one point I would have preordered it. However I've been burned too many times to ever preorder a game again. But I am looking forward to it. People who paid for early access will get it on 2/13 so I'll have a pretty good idea if the game is worth buying. Or perhaps not, the reviews for Indy were, and still are great but goddamn was it tedious. The game had puzzles but by the second half of the game the puzzles were dominant. I hate puzzle myself but I'll grab a walkthrough, plow through and move on but they just took over. I felt like I was playing Myst but with fascists soldiers wandering around in the background.
Enough. Oh, I finally started on the table of contents for the few stories I salvaged from the wreckage (a self inflicted wreckage). Ken's stuff, what remains of it, will be up a before Avowed drops.
February 7, 2025
The Emperor's Cat
“On the 6th Day of the 2nd Month of the First Year of the Kampo era. Taking a moment of my free time, I wish to express my joy of the cat. It arrived by boat as a gift to the late Emperor, received from the hands of Minamoto no Kuwashi.
The color of the fur is peerless. None could find the words to describe it, although one said it was reminiscent of the deepest ink. It has an air about it, similar to Kanno. Its length is 5 sun, and its height is 6 sun. I affixed a bow about its neck, but it did not remain for long.
In rebellion, it narrows its eyes and extends its needles. It shows its back.
When it lies down, it curls in a circle like a coin. You cannot see its feet. It’s as if it were circular Bi disk. When it stands, its cry expresses profound loneliness, like a black dragon floating above the clouds.
By nature, it likes to stalk birds. It lowers its head and works its tail. It can extend its spine to raise its height by at least 2 sun. Its color allows it to disappear at night.
I am convinced it is superior to all other cats.”
***
From Smithsonian Magazine.
February 5, 2025
Update
I've been sick the last couple of days, never the less I managed to throw together a bare bones table of contents page together for the few of Ken's stories I managed to salvage. I haven't actually put anything into the table of contents but long term all of his stuff will be in Ken Burch's Tales, the other menu items will go away. By the way, before I had my second January panic attack I paid Bluehost $129 to migrate everything from OLM to their own servers. Obviously that didn't work and two days ago they sent my an email that they were refunding my money. Since it was my fuckup, not theirs, I didn't expect a refund. So that was nice.
February 3, 2025
Democrats and Republicans
While the Republicans are in full blown fascist takeover mode the Democrats are acting like they're dealing with gentlemen playing by Marquess of Queensberry rules. It's pathetic, no wonder young people see no hope coming form the Democrats.
February 1, 2025
Cat Bed
First time Newton has used the office bed in years and I have to kick him out. That's because I'm leaving soon and after almost 11 years the little bastard still chews through wires.
January 31, 2025
This has been a Whenpigsfly production.
Any questions or comments can be directed to kaliban13@comcast.net.
Logo courtesy of Mrs. Silverman.