I don’t understand anything about music in general, and for sure not about jazz in particular. All the terminology, “tempo”, “rushing”, “dragging”, “bar 45”, is way above my head.
What I do understand is the concept of chasing a dream. Not that I ever did.
But I like the writing, how understated it is, phrases dropped and just left there.
“His opinion means a lot to you, doesn’t it? Pass the shakers.”
The blood dripping as metaphor for sacrifice is a bit on the nose.
And the final betrayal doesn’t make much sense, as Fletcher would needed to come up with the setup on the spot. And Neiman wasn’t even playing, so there was no career to try and ruin.
Still, it was worth it if only for Fletcher’s monologue about “good job”.
Month: October 2026
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Whiplash (2014)
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CaDA Master C61505W Viva Hypercar (Ferrari La Ferrari)
5th bag, 3.5 hours. In a ridiculous decision that’s probably dictated by the page counts they placed two pages of Bag 5 in the 1st book. Instead of starting a new book with a new bag.
They try very hard to reproduce the curves and angles of the front of the car, which again means a lot of pieces are either under tension or feel like they’re very flimsily connected.
I was afraid of missing a piece due to quality checks. Instead, I have extra 20 pieces left, which leaves me worried that I skipped a page or two. -
Arcane S02
The problem for me is that they start of exactly where the first season ended. But I watched it a couple of years ago, so I don’t actually remember who’s the son some character wants revenge for. But they also aren’t afraid to finish off some characters after an episode or two.
The first two episodes are an excercise in good animation. But the into for the 3rd episode is simply amazing.
I praised the depiction of lesbian love story in the first season. But in second season, Nolan doesn’t really work, because unlike Vi, there are no shared struggles. There’s a time jump, and here she is, in Kaitlin bed.
The Hammer Guy first rescues Victor, then become evil and kills him a few episodes later. First the werewolf guy is evil, then he’s good, then he’s evil again just to be blown away. The bodyguard is first scary, then he’s killed by the werewolf guy. I usually don’t complain when characters are killed off, because that adds impact, but here, I wasn’t sure what that was all for. I’m not even sure how many sides are there 😅 -
Secret Level S01E05
Secret Level follows the same format of Love Death Robots. The W40K episode is incredible. Full 10 minutes of not a single line of dialogue, just pure brutal visuals.
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Northern Monk Even More Faith Double Hazy IPA
Northern Monk is a supermarket level brand, but this is solid, fruity and sweet, reminds me of BrewDog’s Double Hazy Jane. Maybe with how hard it is to find barrel aged stouts, it’s time for me to switch to Double IPAs instead.
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Retrogamers
It’s uncanny how similar our stories are.
I started playing in ’95, but my first console was Xbox 360 in 2010. Before it I only got Gamecube for a month or two from a friend to play Eternal Darkness and Resident Evil Zero.
And now, I have probably 15 consoles, and even exactly the same CRT this guy has.
And of course I modded my original Xbox, modded my Dreamcast with SD card, modded my PS2.And the second video that hit close home was this one:
I’m just not at the 2nd CRT stage yet 😅
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Eggenberg Urbock 23
Only 9.5% ABV, not 23%, what a disappointment 😅
Well, not really, 23 refers to sugar percentage, and basically means triple.
Interesting that it’s a lager, not ale that I usually drink.
Deep amber in colour, with no head to speak about, but a bit fizzy.
I know I lately complain about Belgian beers tasting bland. This is not the case here. While not too complex, it is still very interesting, with orange notes, almost like a concentrated Blue Moon. The aftertaste is bitter from hopps, but unlike triple IPA, I didn’t feel the bitterness while sipping. -
Halo 3
With a few characters having access to seemingly unbound teleportation, Halo can get confusing at times. At the end of Halo 2 Master Chief heroically boarded a Covenant ship heading to Earth, only to arrive there after Master Sergeant and Arbiter.
Curious that they went back to assault rifle and the pistol from Halo 1. At least the assault rifle has better accuracy now.
The control scheme changed slightly, which threw me off guard. The reload is on the bumper now. Original Xbox didn’t have bumpers, so you used the face X button, but now it’s assigned for your inventory item.
Also curious how they retrofit the story, not Cortana says she picked Master Chief. In fact, she was Pillar of Autumn ship’s AI, and ended up with Master Chief just so she wouldn’t get captured.
Miranda Keyes looked cute in Halo 2, but with graphics update she fell into the uncanny valley.
I remembered that you could detach turrets to carry them as heavy weapons. Very effective.
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Dithering on CRTs
Dithering is a technique to fake transparency, most famously used in Sega Genesis and Sega Saturn consoles. When CRT attempts to display a grid of pixels, it blends them instead, producing the desired effect. Waterfall from one of the Sonic games is a famous example, although I never liked Sonic, so I’m not sure which of the games had it. Streets of Rage 2, on the other hand, is a game I like, and the bar scene is another famous example, so I decided to test it.
The problem with capturing artefacts though, is that they are, well, artefacts, side effects. Famously trying to record a CRT using a camera produces Moire pattern, that isn’t visible to human eye.Raw
Retro Crisis GDV-NTSC MegaDrive Dirty
This is the optimistic impression
Retro Crisis GDV-NTSC MegaDrive RF100
This is the pessimistic impression
This is the “reality”, same emulator on CRT:
There are a few issues with the “reality”, though.
Even though the picture is 200M, there’s the lighting in the room, and how my phone camera reacts to it. Then there’s the natural curve and reflectiveness of the CRT TV, and the fact that I can’t hold my phone absolutely level. Then there’s also the fact that this is a PAL TV, so it has to either underscale or overscale, because it’s a weird 720×576 resolution, but MegaDrive outputs 448 lines, so there are 64 blacks pixels at the top and 64 pixels at the bottom.I don’t own a MegaDrive, but I do have a Dreamcast with SCART cable.
So let’s try again on the Sega Smashpack Volume 1 for Dreamcast that has Streets of Rage 2.Raw:
Emulator on CRT:
Hardware Dreamcast on CRT:
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Kilkerran 16
Another bottle that I failed to purchase from Masters of Malt. Found it forgotten on one of the cigar sites, but waited too long, and it disappeared as well. So when another random wine store stocked it, I had to get one. The fact that concierges almost lost the bottle tucking it away only added to the exclusivity.
Colorwise, much darker than Kilkerran 12, as expected. Smoke and sherry on the nose. Tastes like balanced sherry: not too sweet, not too muted. If I had to pick, I’d say “stewed apples”. Aftertaste is slightly oily. It does have a bit of “wood polish”, maybe, but you need to look for it. Overall, I’m quite pleased, although I wouldn’t pay more than 100GBP for it. -
Benromach 15
Got that bottle because a lot of YouTubers were raving about it. And what a disappointment. I guess sometimes you get what you pay for. At 57GBP for a 15 years old, it’s not a bad whisky, but it’s definitely not a fantastic one either. 43% ABV makes it easy to sip, but that’s it. There’s plenty of smoke to my taste, a bit of sweetness, classic Speyside for sure, but I had better mystery bottles.
The only positive is the mouth coating oily aftertaste. But other than that, I frankly must say it’s second worst purchase of this year, after Springbank 5. I planned to get a Cask Strength too, but now, I think I’ll skip it. -
CaDA Master C61505W Viva Hypercar (Ferrari La Ferrari)
4th bag, exactly 5 hours. Funny, that there were two symmetrical parts, I built one in 35 minutes, and I thought I’d build the other one quicker, but ended up spending exactly 35 minutes on the second part too.
In the end had to redo a part, the model could benefit from some text instructions, as you have to align the pieces just right for a cross-piece to go through them.
Also, that part definitely breaks Lego rules. To achieve some of the curves the pieces are put at very strange angles. -
Tacticus
Unlocked Nubari from his release event. Cheap character, 100 shards.
Unlocked Ragnar through Guild War. Once he was very important in Guild Raids for his double melee damage buff.
Unlocked Typhus from a random pull, although I was farming him, so I was missing just some 20 shards. Still, it’s a very good result, as he’s the last Death Guard I was missing, and Death Guard are nasty.
My next goal I’ve set to promote Celestine to Mythic, since I had her close enough, and got her Mythic weapon from Rogue Trader shop. Mythic weapons are interesting, because they alter how character plays. In Celestine case, she’s able to resummon her minions if she lands a kill, or to land an attack if they are alive, which should make them and her so much stickier and nastier. Got lucky with her “10K damage” mythic quest, as I had exactly the Tyranid boss lined up: big enough the damage, but not leveled enough to mitigate with armor.
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Hot Pursuit (2010)
I don’t play racing games much, as I’m not good at them in general. But there is something about Xbox 360 era racing games that I adore. And Hot Pursuit is one of the prime examples.
There is no customisation or personalisation, no dud cars, you just get into something like Chevrolet Camaro and drive. In this game, they even have rolling start, dropping you in front of the wheel as the car already drives, instead of a grid start. There is no slowmo or rewind, which I rely on a lot, but there are rechargable gadgets and shortcuts.
I also like how the game lets you drive Pagani Zonda as a preview just an hour in.
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Moby Dick, Herman Mieville
By the 3rd of the book it suddenly changes styles, and each chapter becomes a separate inner monologue of a different crew member: Ahab, Starbuck, Stubb.
At that point I also started to doze off a bit, as 1850 style of the author became very tiring. He has the tendency to pile adjectives, or to ask rethoric questions over and over again:
What kind of oil is used at coronations? Certainly it cannot be olive oil, nor macassar oil, nor castor oil, nor bear’s oil, nor train oil, nor cod-liver oil. What then can it possibly be, but sperm oil in its unmanufactured, unpolluted state, the sweetest of all oils? -
Halo 2
Completed Halo 2.
I remembered Halo 2 as being short and abrupt, but this time, despite a good start, I couldn’t wait for it to end already. They don’t have rocket zombies anymore (there are zombie with rocket launchers, but they aren’t as obnoxious), but brutes with grenade launchers aren’t much better. You pop the corner and get oneshot by a grenade to the face.
The final boss fight confused me as much now as it did back in the day. You fight this white Brute with a hammer, and mostly, he can’t kill you, unless you get stuck, but its unclear if his shields go down based on time or on the damage, and since there’s no lifebar, you can’t know. Also, I didn’t remember that you fight him as Arbiter, not as Master Chief.
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