Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York

I want to like this game a lot more than I do, and I think I'm actually cutting it more slack than I should. I did enjoy it, but I can't say it's good. And I think that if I had free reign with the assets I could make a better game. I'm not saying you shouldn't buy it (although I am definitely saying that you shouldn't pay almost $30 for - get it when it's on extreme discount like I did) but do be aware that it's more atmosphere than story and more interactive cutscene than game.

Life in plastic? It's OK.

Movies should be 90 minutes. Even at just under two hours, Barbie feels long. And it's not like there wasn't anything to cut: everything before the return to "Barbieland" could have been drastically condensed. And that's about half the film. There are some funny bits in that first half, but it's not till the second half that the main plot actually begins.

Utopia: Why doesn't Tony quit?

It's a question I find myself asking while watching the latest season. What possible reason could he have for sticking around, despite the fact that it must be extremely clear to him that he cannot achieve any of his goals. Unless he actually does achieve some things, but we don't see it?

Magic: the Gathering is good?

Magic: the Gathering is good! If you play it online and don't spend any money.

Routine Inspection

Hi Property Manager, 

On behalf of every tenant who has to put up with this bullshit, I'll be conducting an inspection at your house on 16/04/2023 between 8:00PM - 4:00AM. I realise that window may not be convenient for you, but none of you have ever bothered to ask me what time I'd prefer you to visit so I won't either. I'll take approximately 15 minutes (or however long I feel like); however, as I'm very busy with important matters, I cannot confirm the exact time of inspection. It'll be a fun little surprise for you. But don't try to take a shower or go to the shops or anything because I could arrive at any time.

Fake Bacon

Tried this plant-based bacon substitute.

I'm playing Magic the Gathering again

I've been tempted, lately, so I downloaded MTG Arena. I'm not spending any money though. I wouldn't even pay for actual cards any more, so I'm definitely not buying virtual ones. Fortunately you can pretty easily get by without spending any money at all. In fact, there's very little reason to buy anything if you just want to build a deck and play. Within a few hours of pretty casual play (over a number of days) I was able to get all the cards I needed for the deck I was trying to build.

Victorian State Election 2022

If you just want my advice on who to vote for, skip to the end. If you want to know the who and why, here's where I go through all the parties in alphabetical order. Since I already covered a lot of them (or their equivalents at the national level) for the federal election in May, I'll repeat what I said about them then, but I'll indent those sections so you can skim past them if you just want the new information.

Unnecessary Confusion

The MyGov and Centrelink websites are really bad. They're confusing and inconvenient. For example, you know how on every website ever, you've always been able to enter your username, press Tab, then enter your password and hit Enter rather than clicking on each text field and then the login button? On the MyGov site, you have to click on the username field first. It's not automatically selected. Then after entering your username, you have to hit Tab three times to get to the password field. One press takes you to the "forgot username" link. There can be no good reason for this. They just set the tab stops in the incorrect order and don't care to fix it. But that's not the main thing I want to talk about today.

Game reviews by a guy who's only ever played Skyrim

Civilization

Civilization is an interesting departure from the mould of traditional games like Skyrim in a few ways. Probably the first thing new players will notice is that the first-person perspective has been abandoned in favour of a sort of top-down "bird's eye view", but this is just the beginning. Rather than controlling a single individual, given tasks by the various quest-givers around the world, you function as a sort of quest-giver yourself for your chosen nation, instructing its people on what projects to pursue and what battles to take on.