dr. b

Moving on to the last gym when I play tonight. Soon enough I will be the new Champion!

Got turned onto B. Hamilton last week. They have a new album (Nothing and Nowhere) on bandcamp, this was released as a single about a month in advance: Pretty solid rock album.

Still Pokemon Sword. Coming up on gym #6. Still really enjoying it. I'm probably going to grab Lumines Remaster while it's on sale on the eShop, so I probably have some Lumines in my future this week as well.

Gotta figure Peters gets fired pretty soon Also, like, is anybody really that shocked that hockey culture is a bit fucked up? Not even just hockey, sprots in general

To this point (only 3 gyms in, so obviously things will get tougher) Drizzile has been able to take care of almost everything for me even without type advantages. But I also like variety so I try to rotate even if I don't need to. I've used Boltund and Thievul quite a bit. Eldegoss and Carkol get cameos if I need a grass or fire type ability. And Noctowl brings the flying/psychic moves when they're useful. Probably quite a bit of turnover coming up for my team though. Too many different Pokemon to try out!

Probably Toxel

I finished gym #3 last night. Still finding the game quite enjoyable. Catching Pokemon is fun and the game is easy, which suits me just fine these days. When I only have 30-45 minutes max (if that) to play on any given day, I don't want it to be frustrating

I sort of get that feeling too, it's in a way reminiscent of how things go in, say, The Walking Dead... but I'm not sure yet if Dr. Stone will follow the same good times and then bad times / tragedy sort of cycle

Pokemon Sword Gonna take care of the first gym tonight. And then I might go back to the Wild Area for a bit. I should be able to take care of a few of the strong Pokemon now.

Since I have very little experience with these games and basically no attachment to older Pokemon games, the "it was there before so it should be there again" arguement isn't very convincing to me. (Not trying to be dismissive or anything, I'm just more inclined to accept that these things can change since I don't have the same expectations.) I also suspect that the kids are less likely to care about the changes in the new games, and as long as the kids keep asking their parents to buy Pokemon stuff for them then Game Freak and Nintendo are probably happy. The people who were unhappy and expecting to be disappointed by the games should just not buy them-- I think that's the best way to send a message as a consumer.

This is primarily a children's franchise, isn't it? People who have been playing the games since the GB/GBA days are 30+ years old now and perhaps have unrealistic expectations for what each new Pokemongame will bring. I don't think people of our vintage are the key target audience for these games. The games probably need to stay kid-friendly to continue growing the fan base with more kids over the years. And maybe that means not adding new mechanics, or even removing some.

The Leafs fired Babs

After looking up the data on the Wild Area on Serebii.net, I decided to just move along - way too many Pokemon to try to catch them all across different weather conditions and all that

You work fast Eizan!

I probably would have been to the first gym by now but I'm kinda hung up in the Wild Area trying to catch as many Pokemon as I can. Should probably just move along now...

Seriously. After all the Osuna-related stuff, it already would have left a bad taste had the Astros won this year. Would have been even worse had they won the WS and this came out.

They're poised to come back as a pretty decent team next year though, so they might as well tank this year. No reason why Steph or Klay should try to play in any meaningless games in the spring. Tell Draymond to get ejected from as many games as possible DLo isn't going to win them many games by himself. (Or maybe he's hurt now too..?) Get in the lottery this year and bounce back next year.

I figured when you said you'd sit this one out that it would end up like when you said you weren't gonna play Smash a few weeks ago Which started did you go with?

Even with the injuries, the Raps have still looked pretty damn good. Pascal and FVV are playing really good. Probably need to reign in their minutes a bit, but some of the bench guys have had good performances in recent games so maybe there are a couple more guys that Nurse can rely on a bit. I really like watching Boucher. He makes his fair share of mistakes, but he's also causing a lot of chaos for the other teams out there. And unlike some of their other bench guys, he's not afraid to take his shots. You still been watching / following along with the games, Ma?

They did the awards. I already forgot who won what That Astros expose on The Athletic re: sign stealing though That's a pretty big blemish on the 2017 World Series win. And some of the dudes implicated are in managerial roles on other teams now

Having not played much Pokemon before, I don't really have anything to compare it to... but I just played 30 minutes or so and I think it looks pretty sharp. Decided to pick Sobble as my starter, did the first tutorial battle thingy, and then had to go and do other things. The intro was a bit long for my liking - I prefer to just get into the gameplay, but that's just me - though I did find it a bit weird that there was no voiceover during that cutscene. Felt like there should have been. The dude's mouth was moving and all that... I don't even really care about voiceovers, it just seemed strange because it looked like it was supposed to be there Not something that would really bother me either way though.

This episode really hit the sweet spot for me for this show. Tsukasa and co. are boring bad guys and the fighting in recent episodes wasn't super duper interesting. Gimme more episodes of scientific discovery and blowing people's minds with good tasting food (Also find a way to shoehorn Taiju in there!)

Been on a pretty big David Berman (Silver Jews, Purple Mountains) kick

I've never played a Pokemon game before, but I've got Sword pre-ordered. It's mainly for the kiddo, but I'll probably play it a bit too. Might be fun.