I am not all that interested in your cosmology

It's not me, Obsidian, it's you:



It does go on.

And on.

And on.



I know, right? 😴

It's too bad, though. To Obsidian Entertainment's credit, the dialogues in that second installment in the Pillars of Eternity series are fully voice-acted, and the actors did a stellar job! (Giving credit where credit is due.)

To be fair, the Pillars or Eternity series has its fan base and its cringe-worthy cosmology has its well-meaning commenders.

Point in case:





I rest my case.

CRPG games are half about mechanics and rules, for one part, and half about story-telling and world-building—i.e. the power of words—for the other part. While many contemporary games, like Pillars of Eternity do well with the former, they seem to have lost their touch with the latter, which was the hallmark of the golden age of adventure games, from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, with titles like, say, Ultima VII (The Black Gate), or even point-and-click games like Quest for Glory (Shadows of Darkness), which did so well creating immersive worlds and engaging engrossing stories (including some simple, yet memorable, mood setting MIDI compositions), with so little, technologically , compared to today's era.

Lestrade may never glimpse the transcendental potential of words—though he well understands their everyday mundane uses.

I, on the other hand, feel that words, and the worlds they conjure, are mostly successful if they open for me a glimpse of attractive and undiscovered places.

Close to Home

Hat tip to Caldwell Tanner @ College Humor

Don't Be Evil

Alain Souchon, Foule Sentimentale (Lyrics)

Everybody Wants To Rule The World

Those people are funny! Quite a few insightful comments. (And even some sound advices, too!) More here.

If cats could talk...

Why, they would speak French, of course!

The one who cares too much about what others think will always feel and be victim to the constraints of convention

That's not you!



Try the thing you've been thinking about. It won't go right the first time, so try it several times.

- Holiday Mathis (03-13-2014)

Keep Calm and Carry On

Fitness . . .

The more serious you are,
the more fun it becomes...

Well, blow me down!

Arrr!

That's what I always say.

Only Margherita feel like a holiday

Hey, I didn't totally suck!

And I have a trophy to prove it.





OK, it says "turkey" on it. A bowling lingo for three strikes in a row. That's what it's called—or so they assured me.

I think they were just trying to make me feel better about myself.

My average is in the 80s. I’d be glad if I could scrape 100. Still, it's a clear improvement from last time, when most of my balls were ending in the gutter.

Thank you to all of you who helped me—you know who you are.

And, most of all, thank you to Wayne Webb and Lisa Wagner:



I mean it. Thank you, guys.

I couldn't have done it without you!

I know, right?

Sometimes the current
Is with you, and sometimes against;
Who keeps changing it?
—Kenneth Verity, Breathing With The Mind

This is the Key of the Kingdom

This is the Key of the Kingdom:
In that Kingdom is a city;
In that city is a town;
In that town there is a street;
In that street there winds a lane;
In that lane there is a yard;
In that yard there is a house;
In that house there waits a room;
In that room an empty table;
And on that table a Piecaken
A Cake of Sweet Pies:



   Of Pies, of Pies;
   A Cake of Sweet Pies.

Pies in a cake;
Cake on the table;
Table in the chamber;
Chamber in the house;
House in the weedy yard;
Yard in the winding lane;
Lane in the broad street;
Street in the high town;
Town in the city;
City in the Kingdom—
This is the Key of the Kingdom.
   Of the kingdom this is the key.

What?

T'is an old nursery rhyme, you know...



I just like cake, that's all.