Once In A Blue Moon

Living up to my name.

I keep watching those Game of Thrones Official Licenced Mobile Game adverts, despite them being awful adverts for an awful game, because I am just fascinated by how diabolical they are.

I was watching Stellaris trailers to try and find a bit of inspiration for a sci-fi RPG I'm running. They're all quite well done, and good material, and perhaps the best moment was a YouTube pop-up in the top right hand corner reading "Would you like to know more?" Credit to the person who did that.


For those that don't get the reference, it relates to the news / information broadcasts from the film Starship Troopers (just search for 'Would you like to know more?' on YouTube. Be advised that some of the information broadcasts are quite gory.)

Stellaris... wow. I can't say quite what it is, but once it clicked I couldn't get enough. 45 hours in the past two weeks (and I don't play computer games nearly as much as I used to, so that's a lot for me.)

I've decided that I rather like materialist authoritarian technocrats - that boost to research and unity supported by the toil of the slave classes seems to work quite nicely.

I have just learnt what the romanisation of Russian for 'Channel One' is. 

That I found it rather amusing and possibly not suitable for printing on this site should tell you enough; search for a romanisation English-Russian translation.

I saw a car with a dreamcatcher hanging under the rear-view mirror today.

I can't help but feel that if you're asleep at the wheel of a car then perhaps you have bigger concerns than bad dreams...

I have only just discovered that the Townsville in the Powerpuff Girls isn't the one in Australia.

This has left me feeling bemused; it just seems so odd to name a fictional US city after a real one in Australia. 

Oh dear. This could be expensive...

As long as you're aware that it's basically an episode of Dr Who(oves), Recall the Time of No Return is really good. I'm surprised that I hadn't found it earlier.

So that title screen is mildly disturbing - mostly due to the horrified looks of all involved.

Ugh. For all that it's got absolutely beautiful art (and it would have to in order to persuade me to buy a platformer) 'Wonder Boy/Girl - The Dragon's Trap' has some very... irritating design choices. Such as putting a boss at the end of a difficult area so that if you lose, you have to go back through the difficult area to try again.

Yes, Dark Souls did it*.

No, I didn't like it then either.

Learning through experience stings a lot less when you have a fast turn-around time - much like Dark Souls, there is a risk that I'll leave the next attempt for another time and end up never coming back to it. Which is a shame as both games have their merits and are quite enjoyable when you get into the swing of things.

*much later, as Wonder Boy/Girl is an older game. 

Oooh, another Xcom pony parody, and an old one too:

I just saw a thumbnail of a German clip from 'The End in Friend'. 

Unless there's another German joke that I can't see in there, 'Das Ende der Freundschaft' doesn't sound nearly as lighthearted (and it's not like the English version is a barrel of laughs either.) Surely they could at least try something like 'Schaden der Freundschaft'* or suchlike.

*ok, my German is both bad and rusty, but you get the idea. Perhaps Freundschaden? (unless that means physical hurt, which it might.)

When a pony suddenly and unexpectedly accosts you with precious stones...

When you realise you've left these two opened on a tab for the past four hours....

Poor things must have neck ache by now.

It would appear that Buffy has gone rogue and is spamming the site with status updates.

From Marks and Recreation:

"The point is that Rumble is a mad pony who must be stopped."

Why do I immediately think of an Apocalypse Now scenario where Scootaloo is sent to hunt down Rumble and the Blank Flanks?

Deadnaut allows you to create your own team of 'deadnauts' to explore derelict spacecraft. Meet team Harmony:

I can definitely see Twilight as the coding sort. Actually, the Elements of HTML kind of works; Rarity is the element of <pre>, Applejack is the element of <samp>, Pinkie is the element of <var>, Rainbow is the element of <code> and Fluttershy the element of <kbd>, with Twilight being the programmer who puts it all together.

Picture by Check3256 on Deviantart - go and have a look at their gallery. 

Yes it's a bit tenuous*. No, I don't know much (or really anything) about HTML. 

*Rarity is <pre> because of course she's preformatted. Applejack is <samp> because... um... sample of cider? Pinkie is <var> because she's nothing if not variable, Rainbow is <code> because that's where the awesome stuff happens and Fluttershy is <kbd> because horses have hooves and so one could loosely claim that they 'walk all over' a keyboard - and Fluttershy is nothing if not obliging at being walked over.

I shall open with this image:

I shall now follow with a tangential aside that I 'called it' in the RP I ran a couple of years ago - if Discord stops being chaotic, he'll fade away. 

On 10/02/2016 at 1:26 AM, Once In A Blue Moon said:

But be aware that the Fool also treads a fine line - fall too far into chaos and it will consume you, too far into order and you will waste away and die.

It's not what the writers intended, but I don't have much sympathy for Rainbow Dash's parents in Parental Glideance; it's not often that I outright disagree with the message an episode is trying to convey, but either that one wasn't made clear or it was just completely off the mark when it comes to what 'supportive' actually means.

Seeing a My Little Pony joke whilst at work:

I hadn't noticed it before, but it would appear that back when they held the elements Luna held the elements of Laughter, Honesty & Loyalty whilst Celestia held the elements of Generosity, Kindness & Magic.

I have just learnt that pressing [SHIFT] + [ALT] toggles my keyboard layout between English (UK) and English (US). Replacing the '£' with '@' was what gave it away, although I should have guessed when I typed 'fish and chips' and it came out 'big mac and fries'.