h-o-t t-o g-t-f-o-o-h-k-w-a-y-d-g-g-t-f-o-o-h-y-s-i-f-w-a-d-g-t-f-o

[Slurpee]

*draws warm bath*

[FLOUNDERMAN_CLOCK]

*uploads it to anime bath scene wiki*

[FLOUNDERMAN_CLOCK]

after careful consideration of my experience with the franchise I can now say that mesal gear solid is the best incarnation of metal gear. still, it's weird that the penultimate boss is the revolver ocelot piloting the shagohad when the rest of the game is like solid 1. the actual final battle is absolutely intentional foreshadowing for metal gear solid 4.

[Slurpee]

did you miss the number 3 somewhere in that post lol

[Slurpee]

unrelated to anything: Apple has been oddly quiet with the whole generative A.I. thing, haven't they?
if they acted like Microsoft and Google have, we'd have a super advanced/weirdly shitty version of Siri that costs a trillion dollars by now, housed in a massive server farm that needs its own power plant and raises the sea levels by half a foot or so goes my understanding
they're like the one tech company that actually WANTS to pump money into user-facing services with absolute bullshit for ROI because for them it serves as a loss leader for their ~lifestyle product ecosystem~, but they've just been sitting at the table mysteriously steepling their fingers like Gendo Ikari. those n-words know something we don't, believe. we're a couple months or years away from a big article about how Apple walked away with the pot. how, I don't know. but it's like what happened with Universal and the streaming wars. it turns out the thing that everybody was concerned might be irrational exuberance was irrational exuberance and the guys that didn't buy in are the only ones that come out the other end without a big fucking albatross around their necks
(source(s): my butt)

[Slurpee]

it's so easyyyyyy
happy-go-o-luckyyyyy

[FLOUNDERMAN_CLOCK]

did you miss the number 3 somewhere in that post lol

nope

it existed to advertise metal gear solid 3 though

[Slurpee]

*yahoos*

... oh. huh.
I didn't even know there was an Ape Escape 3

[PannacottaClock]

i have no mouth and i am unable to generate a reply that meets our content guidelines

[VCRClock]

it's so easyyyyyy
happy-go-o-luckyyyyy

we are za warudooo



i think apple is just in its "afraid to tank their reputation and waste money by fucking up at something new" era. like basically these days they're just The iPhone Company (a sandcastle which they must defend by maintaining the image that if you don't have the iPhone, no matter how beautiful and beefy that new Chinese manufacturer's phone is, you're a green bubble) and maybe sometimes The MacBook Company (but have you seen them do any fighting for personal computer market share lately?)

there was talk that they were trying to do the self-driving car thing, but they axed it before taking it anywhere. launching a new product and having another Apple Maps-style bumpy takeoff harms Apple's image of making reliable products, but Google's constantly launching products they won't stick to and Microsoft's fucking up all the time, so what if Bing is trying to seduce you. Apple probably privately dipped their toes into AI, got cold feet, and disqualified themselves from the gold rush simply by not being there to collect market share day one. but then all AI ever does is be wrong, so not a bad pitch to not swing at as far as image is concerned. imagine not having to devote any of your resources to AI damage control

[VCRClock]

most of my hot takes are in that 40°-140° zone where you don't want to leave food sitting out

[PannacottaClock]

last week The Antlers released a new record "Blight", they are the ones who made classic indie album "Ho Spice" one of my favorites, haven't listened to the others by whoever this guy is

I wasn't expecting to really like this one since i read on the internet that this is more atmospheric and calm and boring but also that it would be good for an autumnal walk so I listened to it on a walk

i think this will be one of my favorites of the whole year, it just happened to really hit home. the instrumentals are beautiful, melancholy with electronical synth elements and occasional small explosions and yes it has a fantastic atmosphere when i was walking outside i felt i was living inside it. on this record i liked the drums and the piano

the theme of this album is the effect mankind is having on nature, real fucking original, and the writing is as subtle as a bird hitting a window and heaving and dying but i don't know i really like it, it's a serious topic so go nuts i don't care. okay now that i'm reading these there are at least two songs about how you the listener need to order from temu less. oh well it's not like he's wrong

i think the singles are the highlights, "Carnage" is heartbreaking and essentially about roadkill and then "Something in the Air" which just sounds like the end of the world, "Blight" and "Calamity" are great too. if i'm lukewarm on something they are the opener and the closer

6/7

[FLOUNDERMAN_CLOCK]

the writing is as subtle as a bird hitting a window and heaving and dying but i don't know i really like it

I didn't listen to anything after hospice and that album was nothing if not unsubtle and emotionally manipulative so can't say I'm surprised. two was a good song though. I liked two. if that strategy works it works. the album is listenable and the bird is dead. also I like the name "the antlers" it's a good band name. you'd think we would be out of good "the asdfsadf" names by then but no.

[FLOUNDERMAN_CLOCK]

I didn't even know there was an Ape Escape 3

and that negligence is why they keep escaping

[Slurpee]

what do you call the ruler of ancient Egypt who starred in Rosemary's Baby?
Mia Pharaoh!

[PhantomCatClock]

I didn't even know there was an Ape Escape 3

Begrudgingly, I must say it's quite good. I'd still rather play Ape Escape 2 in usual tradition where I keep playing it as-is until I get tired of manually fixing my farms, then installing the Conquerors expansion solely for the farm queue at the mills

[VCRClock]

I've never bought anything on Temu. I was about to go look at my Amazon order history for this year and huff my farts, already knowing there would only be like two things I bought (guy selling his own book; last minute birthday gift)

but now they've got your Whole Foods purchases on there too, so instead of my practically spotless record, it's every time I kicked Jeffy B $30 to eat at the hot bar

[PhantomCatClock]

air bud clock day special air bud: clockchshund where they check the laws and there isn't a rule that says a dog can't rob a 7/11 at gunpoint

[VCRClock]

buddy (now very, very old for a golden retriever) has become the first ever dog to make it through law school and has even found work at a major firm. but when he's called upon to prosecute another dog accused of excelling in a way that he shouldn't, will buddy have to sacrifice his success as a lawyer and go against the letter of the law to do what's right? with adam sandler, gal gadot and barkley

[Slurpee]

today's stupid thing that I am upset about: Apple devices automatically replace certain unicode miscellaneous block characters such as the snowman and the smiley, which predate the incorporation of emojis into unicode, with emojis
☃☺

here's what those look like by default on my Apple Cornballer:


the simple dignity of the unicode snowman cannot be overstated and should not be perverted imho
tragically, Apple's influence is so powerful that if you search for the snowman character, it turns up its entry on emojipedia and refers to it as an emoji, which is ahistorical at best

Courier New, my beloved, does not support emojis, so it overrides Apple's weirdly aggressive substitution, thank heavens, but obviously this isn't an option on any platform where you can't set the font face of your posts

the other option is the "Variation Selector" characters, notably U+FE0E (html entity ︎ or ︎). these are invisible unicode characters that the system reads as requests to render the preceding character in particular ways. this kills the crab. however ☺�☃� its effectiveness varies