It's interesting to me

[6744495f668b8voodoo47]

he is using a few mods.

[6744495f66a7aKolya]

Well it still looks a lot worse than I remember it. Nostalgia goggles I guess.

[6744495f66be1ZylonBane]

Looks like maybe the Enhancement Pack? At least it's not the HD Mod.

[6744495f66d1dvoodoo47]

it's the standard TFix loadout, so yeah, EP1, and all the T2 style stuff. candles as well.

[6744495f66e8aNameless Voice]

Remind me again why the standard loadout is the ancient EP1 and not the EP2?

[6744495f66ff4voodoo47]

EP2 didn't exist at the time the patcher has been put together, and EP1 is tiny, when compared to EP2 - integrating EP2 would put the patcher at almost 1GB, and I don't think I want to do that. that means all I could do is kick EP1 out of the patcher, but that seems redundant, people can just deselect it if they don't want it. also, I did actually update it a couple of times, so it still does its intended job of updating the object models properly.

and I could throw in/swap some more models if you have something particular in mind..

[6744495f6735aKolya]

I finally finished watching Ash vs Evil Dead. The last time I tried, I stalled halfway through the second season, when the main enemies had become grey eyeless computer animations. I've had a bunch of gripes with the series, but objectively one of the reasons it didn't take off (as much as hoped) certainly was, that it was only available on Starz, a network that hasnt had much else to offer for this demographic.

Sam Raimi chose Starz because they were the only network that promised him to air anything he filmed, without any cuts. Theoretically I can appreciate that but practically I know that working against some limits can be a healthy thing. Maybe it would have spared me watching Bruce Campbell getting pulled into a dead guy's asshole.

Now 5 years after directing the first episode of Ash vs Evil Dead, Sam Raimi is back with a new horror series named 50 states of Fright about urban legends of the states of America. And apparently he decided to top his choice of obscure outlets, by releasing this new series on a mobile only streaming service called Quibi which specializes in very short daily episodes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf0tzkcOZGQ

Raimi directed the first episode again, about a girl who loses her arm and gets a metal prosthetic. Sound familiar?

EDIT: I watched the first episode and it's a simple half hour affair, cut in 3 parts, about a lumberjack's wife who loses her arm in a tree felling accident. It has a few Raimi-typical effects, eg the old camera pounding against a door. But there's not a lot of that. The style is probably closest to "Drag me to Hell", albeit less moralistic and more predictable.

[6744495f6757dicemann]

I made it to a few episodes into season 3 I think. I need to finish that show off. I love the movies (especially the second one), the third one is very in the style of Hercules and Xena (which Sam Raimi and his brother were behind) which is fine. Hell I even loved the PS2 game (Evil Dead - A Fist Full of Boomstick). TV show, I really enjoyed the first season, liked the second season, and fell asleep in the third. Started feeling a bit repetitive.

[6744495f67720fox]

I'm with both of you. Got stuck mid-Season 2 and again in Season 3 but I still love that this show exists and genuinely was a bit sad when they canceled it.

I have faith that this wasn't the end of Ash though.

[6744495f67923Kolya]

My 2 main problems with Ash vs Evil Dead:

1. Ash was rewritten as an "old white man". Slightly racist, quite sexist and definitely a drunk. (He wasn't any of that in the previous movies, he was just a bit dim witted sometimes for comedy's sake.) Quite often it feels like the creators (including Campbell) despise Ash. For contrast he gets 2 young sidekicks right away (and accumulates many more along the way). But then they all act extremely obedient towards Ash. Despite not sharing his antiquated views, they never question his leadership. That creates a very awkward dynamic between these characters. He's like a father figure to them, but they are clearly too old for that kind of relationship. One can't help but wonder what their own plans are, if any.

2. The pacing is: Barked exposition, rush somewhere, people/deadite head-turns, slash & stomp, repeat. It just feels repetitive. Because never does this series get any room to breathe, reflect, develop. Even the movies had more silent/romantic/reflective moments. They never got how to do a story arc in a TV series format. Consequently the characters are flat stereotypes. It would have been perfectly fine to have only one or two fights per episode, sometimes even none. The way it's done is entertaining but also exhausting and forgettable.

[6744495f67a9afox]

I have no qualms about the evolution of the Chin and I love the character but I agree that there were some pacing issues, a slightly clueless use of the format and Ashes sidekicks were not always working in favour of the show although I liked 'em both. Despite some shortcomings, it was meant to be a very pulpy romp just for the heck of it and and it delivered that very well most of the times, as far as I'm concerned. It's just not something that I want to watch everyday, like some of those more serious shows. It's still dear to me.

Somehow, I didn't enjoy Lucy Lawless's character much.

[6744495f67baficemann]

Well Sam Raimi is like Adam Sandler, in that he tends to keep the same actors around for everything he does. Hell even, JJ Abrams does that.

[6744495f67d82Kolya]

Lawless was apparently meant to be this charismatic character of which is never clear whose side she's on. And that's just not a good role for Lawless. She did have some great scenes in the 3rd season as a demure school counselor and evil mother.

Anyway, while on this new Quibi streaming app, I discovered Dummy, a short TV series based on a real life experience between creator Cody Heller and her partner Dan Harmon (Community, Rick & Morty), in which she discovered that Harmon had a sex doll. In the series the sex doll (Barbara) comes to life and Cody becomes kind of dependent on her in a weird way. Definitely the best comedy I've seen this year. Unlike 50 States of Fright, Dummy was worth the free 90 day subscription to Quibi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqQevv-qtwQ

[6744495f67e9cicemann]

If you've not watched "Barry" yet. That is a must watch.

[6744495f68428Kolya]

Public interest .org Domains sold by ISOC

Billion Dollar Sale of .Org Registry Is Off
Something good has happened for once: The Internet Corp for Assigned Names and Numbers voted to block its partner organization, the Internet Society, from selling off control over the .org domain registry to private equity goons in a deal opposed by virtually everyone who wouldn’t have an opportunity to cash in.n

[6744495f686beKolya]

More TV series reviews by yours truly. Both of these are on Netflix.

The Midnight Gospel - boring
Into the Night - very, very good

The Midnight Gospel is a mashup of a cartoon and a podcast. I watched the first episode. Since the cartoon part is handled by Pendleton Ward of Adventure Time fame I had high expectations. The animation is psychedelic, sloppy and not very original. The interview that spans the episode is a rambling mess about drug usage. If you ever spent any thought on that subject you already know more than will be revealed here. I'm not overly optimistic this will change if future subjects such as death, Jesus, Buddhism, self-awareness, etc are handled in the same superficial way.

Into the Night is a Belgian produced sci-fi apocalypse survivor drama. The sun has suddenly become deadly and kills off any life where dawn rises on earth. A few people in a hijacked airliner try to escape into the night by flying west. That's really all you need to know, before watching this most intense series in 6 pieces á 40 minutes.

[6744495f6880dfox]

You probably didn't notice but I'm holding myself back quite a bit regarding posts of this nature but this one is just too good. It's a master class in irony and sarcasm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzRhcjOG1es

[6744495f68928fox]

RPS: "Deus Ex at 20: The oral history of a pivotal PC game"

[6744495f68b4aKolya]

About two weeks back I went to a department store with my wife. While looking for a kids present we came across some miniature dinosaurs. I picked one I liked and began photographing it still in the store, while waiting for my wife to try some new underwear. Hilarity ensued.

This kick-started me into buying and even repainting a few more, larger dinosaurs and making more pictures.

[6744495f68c3bNameless Voice]

Great composition in those photographs!

[6744495f68da2Kolya]

Thank you. I learned today that you can google for "dinosaurs" on your phone and have some of them walk about your living room, thanks to augmented reality. Like this Ankylosaurus next to my cat litter box.

https://www.blog.google/products/search/travel-back-time-ar-dinosaurs-search

[6744495f693b1RocketMan]

Hilarity ensued.

It's good to know that natural selection prioritized the need for T&A in both man and beast alike.  Makes me proud to continue to honor the traditions of my prehistoric ancestors. 

[6744495f694dcKolya]

Okay calm down, Larry Flynt.

[6744495f69644Kolya]

I wrote a basic html/css/js editor: https://tomato-editor.com

It's only a barely more comfortable version of this one-liner: https://github.com/sidnz/TinyEditor
I added automatic saving to localStorage, un/indenting of single lines and a few styles.