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Category: Aleosha Blog

Red Alert Remastered

After enjoying Command&Conquer Remastered less than expected, I didn’t plan to play Red Alert, but I ended up finishing the Soviet campaign anyway.

What surprised me is that the campaign of Red Alert isn’t broken by remaster, unlike Command&Conquer. Which doesn’t mean that the game isn’t broken: Soviet V2 being able to destroy power station in a single hit or target off screen is insane. On the other hand, same V2 have troubles with their AI, and would sometimes refuse to fire.
Major change is how engineers work: now the building needs to be critically damaged in order to be captured. Otherwise, engineer will just chip at its health. Which is annoying, as either the building gets destroyed by one of your units shooting at it or by enemy unit, because it’s badly damaged.
Either SAM sites were made weaker or helicopters stronger, but now you need multiple SAM sites in one spot to fend off helicopters. And Soviets lack any mobile anti-air, it seems, except Mammoth tanks 🤡

One interesting detail is that if you capture Allied Tech Centre, it will reveal an entire map by launching a satellite, and you can see the rocket.

Penultimate mission is unnecessary evil. Not because it’s hard, it’s actually easier that some previous missions, but because you have to capture radars tucked the the most faraway corners of the map. I had to build transport just to get my engineers to that last radar.
In the last mission, AI cheats a bit, bringing reinforcements from off screen. But I think those stop once you destroy some of the Construction Yards, although that never explained properly. Nothing like a cruiser popping up to blast your base. Speaking of cruisers, they are also sprinkled in such a way that they blow all bridges, so you have to take the longest path possible. Ironically, paratroopera really help in that mission, as they are quite effective against buildings.

Despite all that, it’s a far more reasonable campaign than Command&Conquer Remastered, and I enjoyed it, despite how much they like to start missions with you being in the middle of a fight.
Funny that despite all the plot being built around Chronosphere, Allies never use it against you. Maybe they had trouble with AI.

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June 12, 2026
Knife magnet

I’ve been using IKEA knife magnets for years. Don’t remember if I brought the one I had from the old apartment or just bought a second one. But with my knife collection growing, I got a bit tired of scratches from metal on metal. So I decided to buy a wooden knife magnet instead.
It’s a slight disappointment, I must say. For four times the price (IKEA magnet is around 15GBP) the magnets are weaker, and the knives leave marks on the magnet.
I tried varnishing the magnet, but my varnish wasn’t fresh, so the rack ended up being sticky. So I had to scratch everything, buy a new varnish, and do it properly.

June 11, 2026
Path of Exile 2

Compared to Diablo 3, I feel there’s less cooldown management, but more effect management. Diablo 3 had modifiers on skills, but here each skill has at least two modifiers. Enemies hit by poison start bleeding, enemies killed from bleeding explode, enemies killed while being electicuted electricute others, it’s all a chain reaction.
Balbala the Traitor was the first side boss that had me pause.

She has a pit in the middle that spits poison fog, and I kept dying from it. She throws coins on the ground, so I thought that’s some kind of a ward. But those coins are actually summon spots for her minions. In any case, returning to her after a gaining few more levels helped. Turned out, it’s one of the most important sidequests, as it allows for Ascendancy, or specialization, in other words.
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June 9, 2026
Octopath Traveler

Primrose arc is the best one yet, because it has gravity to it, which most JRPG plotlines lack. She is a disgraced daughter of an assasinated noble that works in a brothel.

Her friend helps her escape only to be killed by their owner.

I had a lot of trouble with this boss fight, mainly because I didn’t care to level up my characters much, while the bosses scale with number of members in your party.

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June 7, 2026
Signatory Whisky Speyside M 16 years

Macallan is a strange whisky. It’s considered to be good, but not good for its price, and it doesn’t have characteristics that are considered to be good, such as 46% ABV. By this point, there’s an entire category of YouTube reviews of “MacCallan alternatives”.
There is a catch, though, which is independent bottlers. I have a bottle from Berry&Rudd which I like, as well as more recent Olorosum and the Dark Fruit Feedback Loop 17 (Balmenach?) from Scotch Whisky Society.
It is rumoured that Signatory independent bottlers buy distillate from Macallan, but do not dilute it like Macallan does. And that’s what Speyside M is. With the emphasis on M: there are just two distilleries in Speyside that start with M, and experts say this ain’t Mortlach. I believe them, since Signatory actually have a bottling from Mortlach, and they say so on the bottle. So it’s either Macallan, or Signatory playing the entire whisky community really well.
I was delaying this bottle, until I discovered it almost entirety disappeared. There are plenty of 14 years around, but not 16. So I did get one of the last ones available.
On the nose, it’s Christmas pudding: molases, dates, figs, raisins, all the sweet and sticky and dark stuff. And tastes as you’d expect: sweet, a bit sour, and with a very long warm finish. The closest I have at the moment is probably the aforementioned Dark Fruit Feedback Loop 17, although Lochlea Cask Strength Batch 2 comes close too. Definitely intesnse at 57% ABV.
Considering that I paid 83GBP for that bottle, and Scotch Whisky Society at that age is around 100GBP, it’s a steal.

June 6, 2026
Command&Conquer Remastered

I decided to try NOD campaign after all, if only for the CGIs, but on Easy. The difficulty is as I remember it, but on the other hand, the difficulty also lowers the costs of units, so still not the original experience. You can’t step in the same river twice, I guess.

I remembered the iconic scene where Seth gets executed in the middle of the briefing, but didn’t remember what that was about. Turns out, he wanted us to attack the Pentagon.

Another interesting detail, not sure how canon it is, but on the other hand, the entire C&C universe went to shit, so canon doesn’t matter: Kane says he was the one who discovered tiberium and gave it its name.
I was always fascinated that if you capture GDI Construction Yard with NOD, you can build helicopters. It’s such a specific mechanic, as GDI doesn’t have its counterpart, and also there’s just the final mission that has two enemy bases, so by the time you capture a Construction Yard, it isn’t Mission Accomplished yet. Later, Starcraft will have that mechanic as well, but not any other Command&Conquer game, as far as I can remember.

NOD campaign is also weird, because it has 13 missions instead of 15 for GDI. And I’m not sure if it’s a bug, but Temple of Nod allowed me to build only a single nuclear missile, which I wasted, because I was used to firing Ion Cannon every few minutes.
The ending is weird as well. Suddenly, Kane talks about netrunners and cyberspace, and there are three hackers trying to pass GDI cybersecurity defences and getting fried. How did it turn into cyberpunk, suddenly?

Also, for some reason Kane captures the Ion Cannon to frame GDI. Dude, you have built a nuke already.

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June 6, 2026
Commander Farsight

This is the only model I wanted to paint when I started painting Warhammer a year and a half ago. And finally I got to it.
I must apologise to Citadel Plastic Glue, it actually works well with Warhammer.
It is larger than I expected, 60mm base, and has around 50 parts.
The really nice bit is that the arms are on those ball bearings, which means you have a lot of flexibility for the pose.
The not so nice bit is that it’s very hard to drybrush. I wish I had drybrushed it separately and combined later, but here we are.

June 5, 2026
Path of Exile 2

I might say it as well now, this is everything I wanted Diablo 4 to be. The linear progression means you don’t fight level 50 hedgehogs. And the fact that enemy bodies do not disappear until you leave the zone adds to the spectacle.
By level 15 I got my first unique item, and by “unique” I mean actually a unique: it’s a mercenary coat that emits smoke.

It is curious that they decided to add friction with identify scrolls and tiny inventory without autosorting, but you don’t have item durability.
The bosses are such a spectacle, even the side-quest ones, like the Candlemass, a gargoyle that comes to life. Or even the pack of dogs in the circle of grass.

The Mansion is very interesting, as it clearly mimics Diablo 3 Cathedral design where you descent down a hole, getting close and closer to the bottom.

And the Count boss is clearly swordwielsing man-horse from Bloodborne, only he’s swordweilding man-wolf (which also explains why we were fighting werewolves when we weren’t fighting vampires). Speaking of vampires, those are Darkest Dungeon version, insectlike with clear bellies full of blood. The game has many inspirations.

Anyway, beating the count brings us to Act II, which is of course set in… a desert.

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June 4, 2026
Path of Exile 2

I never managed to get into Path of Exile 1. Similarly to Titan Quest, the Greek/Roman aesthetics doesn’t appeal to me for some reason. Path of Exile 2 is another story: it’s gothic style is less of Diablo, and more of Warhammer.

I usually like to play as Paladin, but since there’s none available, I went with crossbow wielding mercenary, a bit like Demon Hunter from Diablo 3. WASD movement and roll almost turns the game into twin-stick shooter. And the fact that one of the skills turns the crossbow into a shotgun helps too.

The system where you need to pick a skill instead of getting one after a level up takes some adjusting to, but not too much. You can pick any skill, but the game does suggest you some that should be more useful to your class.
Such a surprise that you can put the game on a pause. I got use to ARPGs forcing you to be always-on.

The best part of the game so far are the bosses. They are amazingly designed, clearly telegraph their attacks, and as I’ve already learned, deadly.
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June 1, 2026
Tiberian Sun Firestorm

Completed GDI campaign. I think I’ll skip NOD campaign, as I’ve seen most if not all of the new NOD units already, and there wasn’t much new to begin with.
To the best of my understanding, both the GDI and NOD endings are somewhat canon, because when you start the expansion campaign for GDI, they say they lost contact with Philadelphia space station (because NOD shot it down), but they need to recover Cabal, NODs AI, from the ruins of the temple, which you destroyed at the end of GDI campaign. Cabal then quickly betrays you, and you have to put it down.
It seems that the pace of units getting experience has been increased, as in the Tiberian Sun, I rarely had a veteran unit,
The new GDI unit, Juggernaut, is awesome. It’s a better version of NOD artillery, firing three shells instead of one, albeit less accurately. There’s a mission where you need to pair it with GDI commando, Ghost Stalker. The only issue in that mission is the commando himself, as he’s unable to shoot up slopes 🤦‍♂️
Only the final GDI mission is really difficult, or unnecessarily evil, as you start extremely close to enemy artillery positions without many options to tackle them. Luckily there’s no time limit in this one.
One final surprise is that once you capture three key points, a huge robot appears, and you need to destroy Cabal before that robot reaches your base, as it destroys almost any unit in a single shot.
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June 1, 2026
Tiberian Sun

Completed the NOD campaign.

Once NOD gets artillery, it’s game over for GDI. The most overpowered artillery since Ground Control. It is even smart enough to deploy automatically once in range.

Story is still rough. You complete a mission, and the next thing you know, Slavic is captured by GDI, then rescued by Cyborg Commando. What is Cyborg Commando? It’s actually never explained.
The final mission is a bit underwhelming. It also has a timer, and I thought that after placing the 3 ICBMs it will just stop, and I would still need to deal with GDI forces, but no, it’s the end of the campaign. And I didn’t even get to try the UFO-like Banshees.

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May 28, 2026
Garmin Fenix 8

It’s an interesting watch, because almost everything I like about it could easily be implemented in Garmin Venu 3. How expensive is it to have 5 buttons instead of 3? But 5 buttons allow you to turn display on or off, and also scroll up and down without using the touch screen. In general, I feel like I could turn the touch screen off on Fenix 8 and be comfortable with it.
Then there are watch faces. It’s actually funny how hard it is to find a watch face for Venu that has steps, battery level, day of week and date all on the same screen.
Speaking of battery level, Fenix 8 promises 9 days with always on display. We finally reached Pebble levels of battery life, all it took us is 10 years in a 700GBP watch.
Multiple timers are another completely software feature that’s only present in Fenix. Can I have two timers on Venu, please?
Also, the fact that compass is just accessible from the menu.
Features that do require special hardware: flashlight built into the watch. Neat.
Smart alarm is another feature coming back 10 years from Pebble.
It’s nice that you can assign actions to long press for each button, and you can also unnasign the voice assistant.
Another very basic training feature: default rest time between sets. How hard can it be?
Voice commands works surprisingly well. Those processed by the watch, not sent to phone. I managed to set a timer and cancel it as well. Saves a few button presses.

May 26, 2026
Aberlour 18 and Bunnahabhain 18

There is a certain irony I write about random whiskey tasters, but sometimes ignore bottles I buy. I’ve had Aberlour 18 for over a year now, although didn’t touch it much, and I recently opened Bunnahabhain 18. Both are great whiskies for their price, although both are slightly subdued from what I had expected.
Aberlour has the slight disappointment of being 43% and chillfiltered on top. But I didn’t learn about it until recently, and honestly hadn’t I known, I would have considered it to be superb. In fact, all the whisky Youtubers are still considering it superb, despite the characteristics. It’s slightly sweet, spicy and complex.
Bunna 18 is more peated than I expected after loving Bunna 12, but still less peated than common Islay whiskies. It’s less sweet that Aberlour 18, although there’s still that, and also slightly savory. I call it “pancakes with bacon and maple”.

May 26, 2026
Tiberian Sun

On one hand, it feels like I should have started with the NOD campaign, because Kain first introduced in it, and it has tutorial tips, which I didn’t notice in the GDI campaign. On the other hand, it still feels like I’ve started watching from the middle of the show. Who’s Hassan and why is he taking order from GDI? In general, it feels like the cutscenes for NOD were done by another person. Who loved to use the fisheye effect.
Generally, the campaign feels easier. I still hate the ion storm missions, though, because you don’t have a minimap, and playing RTS without a minimap is a pain. Then both “Salvage Operation” and “Capture Umagon” missions made me scratch my head, a lot. They both can be completed in a couple of minutes. I’m just not entirely sure how. In Salvage Operation, you’re given a meager force to capture the downed UFO and intercept a train, which is almost impossible, unless you know where the train stops, and then you don’t even need to capture the UFO.
And in Capture Umagon, you have about a minute to intercept her, which is incredibly hard. Unless you just know where the train appears, and then you can just bomb that place preemtively 🤡

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May 26, 2026
Mikkeller Beer Geek Vanilla Shake

Mikkeller is as much underground as BrewDog there days, so it’s always good to see an Imperial Stout expression from mainstream producer.
It has zero head, full body, like Imperial Stout should. What surprised me were the whisky notes. Turns out, it’s literally whisky infused. Not sure what that means, I understand “barrel ages”, but not “infused”.
At around 9GBP, not cheap, but also not overly expensive. Worth buying.

May 25, 2026
Tiberian Sun

Completed GDI campaign.
Out of all the GDI missions, “Weather the Storm” is the worst one. You aren’t allowed any flying units due to ion storm, which means you have no way to counter NOD artillery. You also have no map.

And the last mission is though. The real problem is the time limit of 1 hour, otherwise, if would be as any other mission. The idea is that you reset the time limit by hunting the ICBM sites, but this isn’t explained at all. Once I did, though, it was bomber-time. In the final mission it’s quite pointless to destroy enemy buildings, as it’s able to rebuild them almost instantly, so you need to hunt the construction yards. And in fact there are 3 AIs and 3 separate construction yards, but you wouldn’t know that, because they are all the same red color.

As a kid I thought I don’t understand what characters are saying, because my English is not good enough. Turns out, the audio isn’t good enough: you often can’t hear the actors due to music and background noises.

Overall, I enjoyed Tibrian Sun much more than the first time, despite somewhat akward controls and terrible unit aiming: my Mammoth MK2 was firing at a target few steps ahead, and not hitting it, because there was some bump, while missiles would hit cliffs instead of SAM sites above.
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May 24, 2026
Redbreast whisky

I had a bottle of Redbreast 12 from 2020, and I might have pulled it in one of the advent calendars as well. But this time, I decided to get a taster set with Redbreast Lustau and Redbreast 15.
Lustau is smooth and sherries, smells of vanilla, with some oily texture common to Irish whiskies and long warm finish. The closest from Scotch is probably Tamdhu 15. Very pleasant, and for 65GBP, it’s a great value for money, even though it’s a no age statement.
The Redbreast 15 is smooth, as expected from Irish whisky, with vanilla nose, oily mouthfeel, surprising warmth for 46%, a bit of sweetness, and tart aftertaste from oak barrels. For around 92GBP, it’s reasonable, although at the higher end.
If I was to pick one, I would go with Lustau.

May 22, 2026
Tiberian Sun

The game works well on modern PCs, but since it’s not a remake, the control scheme isn’t modernized. You issue orders with LMB, you cannot select units of the same type with double-click, and the waypoints work weirdly.
As a kid, I completed this game, but didn’t like it. First C&C was straightforward, especially with GDI that had Mammoth tanks. In Tiberian Sun, everything was weird: you could build just one Mammoth, and it was this AT AT with a gauss cannon. NOD artillery couldn’t fire until deployed. Tanks could transform into turrets. And so on.
Now, though, I appreaciate it much more. Missions are like puzzles, and actually encourage exploration: you can find bonuses or alternative paths.
The way campaign is structured is interesting as well. You can do side-missions, that make the main missions easier. Although sometimes it’s hard to figure out which is the side mission and which advances the plot.
One aspect I don’t appreciate is the need to hunt down every SAM site and even destroy fences or complete a mission.
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May 22, 2026
CaDA Master C61505W Viva Hypercar (Ferrari La Ferrari)

2nd bag, 5 hours. Now I’m more cautions with the angle parts. Noticed that some parts are at a weird angle, putting a lot of strain. I’m not sure for Lego that would be legal. Figured out that the angled parts need to use the flexible connectors from the extras bag. Lego would have put warnings, “use this part, not this part”, but not Cada. Block with seats assembled.

May 22, 2026
Shan Zu Koraka Nakiri 8″ knife

Some of the knive enthusiasts I watch were praising the Shan Zu chinese knives, so I decided to give them a try, after all it’s just 22GBP.
Because it’s a Chinese product, their lines change all the time, and they also sell widely different knives under the same Amazon listing.
I went with nakiri, because I don’t own one yet, and I have plenty of santoku and chef knives already.
First of all, this isn’t a damascus knife. Maybe some of the other lines are, layered steel isn’t so hard to make. But this has clear laser etched pattern.
Which doesn’t mean that the steel is bad. The knife is extremely sharp out of the box, but there’s no indication on what steel was used.
After a week of use, it dulled to the point of not cutting paper. So around 58 hardness, by my experience. Which isn’t bad for the price, something on the level of IKEA 365 knives.

May 22, 2026

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