Mod Post: Off-Topic Tuesday

[icon_uk]

In the comments to these weekly posts (and only these posts), it's your chance to go as off topic as you like. Talk about non-comics stuff, thread derail, and just generally chat among yourselves.

Barely have the borders been opened than the UK has instituted a two week quarantine on anyone retruning from Spain (and just after a lot of British holidaymakers went over there). This has not been well received, with travel companies, tourists related industries and the Spanish Government all saying a blanket ban is unfair, since the hotpsots are not nationwide and generally it's doing better than Britain.

Germany is recommending that tourists avoid certain parts of Spain (Catalonia, Navarra and Aragon) rather than the whole country.

Belgium is tightening it's social distancing amid fears of a recurrence.

In more positive news, clinical trails of possible vaccines are continuing. Nothing certain yet, but it's considered to be promising, which might not sound like much, but I'll take it right now

A tense weekend for the US, exacerbated by the controversial decision from Trump to deploy Federal forces, in unmarked vans, and arresting withut due process, in already tense areas. Six Mayors have requested Congress block Trump from continuing with this.

Richmond Police noted that violence there over the weekend was started by white supremacists posing as Black Lives Matters protestors.

The rest of the news was... not exactly cheering, so I found this article on how a VR relaxation program is being developed to assist with mindfulness. That would nice right about now.

Netflix has two shows arriving this week which I'm keen to see: "The Umbrella Academy" Season 2 and (deep breath) "Transformers: War For Cybertron Trilogy- Siege", both of which arrive on Friday.

disney has pulled the live action "Mulan" from it's schedules. One has to wonder if this might also impact The New Mutants, which was due out around the same time.

The Shore, is a Cthuluhu mythos inspired game with some frankly amazing graphics IMHO, which is under development, and you can download the Windows demo on a "Pay what you think it's worth" platform. It's over 12 gigabytes, so have a strong connection!

Today's utterly random question: Your favourite flavour of ice cream?

Comments

Thank you.

[owlbrigade1]

This is just a comment to say thank you to everyone who answered my question about Mercedes Lackey last week. Sorry I didn't get to reply myself there. Thanks all.

Edit: Rum and Raisin is my favourite Ice Cream flavour. Courtesy of far too many trips to fading seaside resort towns with my grandparents when I was a kid.

[leahandillyana]

No outageously bad new news from Poland this week. Indeed, the parliament rejected the proposal allowing children to take part in hunting, which, while not good change, is not a change for the worse.
Kyoujinzoku no Hanayome it's aring. It's the first anime adaptation of geikomi manga since The Legend of the Blue Wolves all the way to 1995. It's porn with an excuse plot and no characterisation, but nonetheless it's an interesting experience.
I like green tea, honey, zabaglione, and rose ice cream the most.

[skjam]

Work is now planned to move back to the office no earlier than January 2021. Earliest is the 4th, but they may hold off on my position until later in the month.

My landlord decided not to raise my rent this year. Yay!

I am almost out of the scratchpads I brought home from work, so ordered more from Office Depot. They were delivered on time, but vanished out of the rental office package room during the two hours between arrival and when I went to pick them up. I have a request in to the security company to investigate.

[mastermahan]

I watched The Old Guard this week. Charlize Theron is a 6,000 year old soldier leading a squad of immortals. It's of interest to this community because A) Greg Ruck adapted the screenplay from his own comic, and B) it has great queer representation. Without spoiling anything, two of the soldiers are a gay couple who have been together since the Crusades. There's a big romantic speech in which one declares his all-encompassing love for the other. Rucka actually put in his contract that any adaptation of the comic had to include the speech verbatim. It was a good call - it's a great speech.

Strongly recommended.

EDIT: Ben & Jerry's Pucker Upper. Raspberry and extra tart lemon sorbet with little sour crunchy bits. It was a limited batch they made during last summer. I bought several, and my brother hid two in his freezer and gave them to me for Christmas.

[llordllama]

Back to work today (albeit still from home) after a decent staycation involving some hiking, reading and films. I also built a cardboard castle for my hens at the insistence of my wife Amazon boxes make a useful base!. The chickens were less than impressed by it, despite our efforts to encourage them inside! Footage exists over on my Insta.

I too am excited for the new Umbrella Academy season, having just re-watched the first one over the past couple of weeks. Hoping the accompanying soundtrack is as entertainingly eclectic as last time, as that was a real stand out element of the show.

Ice-cream wise I would have said rum and raisin...until I had a scoop of Ferrero Rocher ice-cream in Italy last summer. Heaven on a cone.

[iamrman]

Comixology has a Sandman sale, so I was able to get a bunch of trades for cheap. There are also sales on for Runaways and Uncanny X-Men, but they were of less use to me because I already have trades worth getting for those titles.

I am not a gamer by any means. The nearest I get is playing the Contest of Champions free to play thing. I just managed to get a 4 star Squirrel Girl, so I'm happy.

[zachbeacon]

Yeah, I just got the newest Runaways trade from them last night and realized that the series hasn't picked up since the hiatus.

We were talking about Atlas Era Marvel a while ago and I think Menace (sadly not discounted on Comixology right now) might be worth looking into. I haven’t read it myself but I stumbled across this …

https://twitter.com/ColeMooreOdell/status/1286821847175245831

…last week. Damn.

[tripodeca113]

Yakuza: Like A Dragon has gotten a concrete 13th November release date!

STALKER 2. An Outer World expansion, which is nice because the overall plot of that game was kind of lacking. What a world.

Avatar 2 has been delayed another year. Reset the clock.

The Walking Dead season ten finale will air in October. Only the eleventh season has been delayed, with season ten being extended by six episodes. Norman Reedus has indicated that he plans to end his involvement with the series, so get ready to say goodbye to Darryl. Also there was some stuff about the spin-off shows but I don’t care about them.

Archer season eleven. It seems like Fox still region locks their trailers.

Hmmm, more information of the upcoming Discworld show The Watch. Apparently, it was about two weeks from finishing filming when the pandemic started.

The public library has opened again. Unfortunately they’ve redecorated and it’s ugly now.

[deh_tommy]

The Xbox event was pretty cool, though the big Halo reveal sadly looked a bit eh to me. I hope they haven’t ditched all the cool SPARTAN abilities you could do in 5.

[zachbeacon]

These last few months I've been occasionally surprised when my library emails me about holiday closures because I keep forgetting they reopened in the first place ... though they might still be curbside only; I haven't been there since the before-times but I think that was in another email.

[deh_tommy]

Our Switch has just upped and stopped playing most games altogether. I don’t know if that’s because I did something stupid or if that’s an issue with the OS, but I’m a bit scared to send that off for repairs out of concern for the price (which isn’t specified as far as I can see) and the idea about possibly accidentally triggering a series of events that will cause the repair people to contract the coronavirus.

I’m not sure if I like the idea of having a favourite anything, but because I’m bland as heck 9.5 times out of ten I go for anything that’s predominantly vanilla. Maybe mint or strawberry if I’m feeling particularly adventurous. What’s your favourite ice cream (presuming you have one)?

[icon_uk]

I'm partial to Neapolitan myself! Vanilla, chocolate and strawberry all in one bowl! :D

And if it's in a cone, it just needs a accidental sprinking of salty beach sand in it to take me back to childhood holidays at the seaside!

[zachbeacon]

The weekend I read a comic called Everything Will Be Okay. Its about what happens two adult siblings after several apocalyptic events happen at once. Y’know, light escapist fun.

RE the new episode of Stargirl: I guess Courtney has one awful parent after all.

I’m baffled by the upcoming Avengers game. Apparently its intended for both current and next gen consoles but the characters look like partially melted wax figures. It’s so bizarre that they use the movie aesthetic and the first movie lineup (with Hawkeye swapped out for Ms Marvel) and then not use the actor’s likenesses. Why even bother limiting yourself to the MCU trappings if you’re only going to do it half way?

Still, good for them for including Kamala.

[icon_uk]

Funny you mention the premise for "Everything Will be Okay" as I was reminded of that idea only yesterday*

https://xenosaurus.tumblr.com/post/188607118042/alright-heres-more-content-for-you-guys-marian

* Well, that and the Buffy quote: “When I saw you stop the world from, you know, ending, I just assumed that was a big week for you. It turns out I suddenly find myself needing to know the plural of apocalypse.”

[iamrman]

Mint choc chip is my favourite ice-cream flavour, but if I'm at the seaside I have one of those whippy style ice-creams with all the nuts. Nothing better than ice-cream and seaside donuts.

Although, I can't get whippy style ice-cream when I go abroad so it is just scoops. If I feel fancy I get Ferrero Rocher ice-cream. Oh Monsieur Ambassador, with these frozen treats you are really spoiling us!

[thanekos]

" These, on the other hand, are revolting. "

[scorntx]

Not really interested in Netflix's Transformers series, thanks to the disasters that were Combiner Wars, Titans Return and Power of the Primes, and that one of the writers on this series is the guy who gave us the eye-searingly awful Transformers: Deviations (or as TFwiki put it, an embarrassing 1990s Transformers fanfic in comic form).

Some of the toys look nice, though.
(Elita-1 in deluxe form, boo! Should be Voyager sized, same as Optimus.)

Rumour abounds that the next part of the toyline will feature Beast Wars characters.
Which, given Hasbro's shabby track record with Beast Wars, is pretty damn dubious (even if we ignore War for Cybertron's sheer geewunishness).


They finally announced a release date for the third season of Star Trek: Disco. Yay!
... and it still has Mirror Georgiou showing up.
Significantly less yay.
(Would've thought time travelling into the future might've stopped her outstaying her welcome, but nope. Guess not.)
Undecided about the actual plot.


Evidently She-Ra is being shown on the BBC's Ceebeebies channel.
Which is... pretty odd, given some of the themes on display.
(Lookin' at you, Shadow Weaver.)
Unless it's getting edited to buggerty, can't imagine how it got on there.


As for ice cream: Mint choc chip. No contest.
Haven't found a restaurant that serves it in five. YEARS. Store bought's just not the same...

[icon_uk]

I think since the Section 31 series is cancelled, they're not wanting to waste Michelle Yeoh whilst she's free to appear on their show.

[malurette]

Yay ice cream! I'll eat gladly almost any flavours but my favourites are pistacchio, and rum-and-raisins.

[donnblake]

Hmm. Dairy intolerance means ice cream's usually a no-go for me, but when I find a non-dairy option, I'm a fan of anything with salty bits in it.

[werehawk]

Ben and Jerry's just came out with some new non-dairy flavors (the older ones are all almond milk but these are sunflower butter milk). My favorite is "Milk" and Cookies but adding some chocolate syrup to the Creme Brule is freakin out of this world!!!

[silverhammerman]

Years ago, I came across a Terry's Chocolate Orange ice cream. I've been chasing that dragon ever since, never again to find it.

I've had a massive load of comics delivered: Mother Panic, Deathstroke RIP, Last Knight on Earth, Batman: Universe, the FLCL manga, and the 3rd Adventure Zone graphic novel adaptation. Now if only I could muster the energy to read any of these or the novels I currently have cluttering up my bedside table. The past couple of weeks I can't seem to get anything done, even reading.

[icon_uk]

Terry's Chocolate Orange Ice cream? That's.... decadent... I approve! :)

[mazway_75]

Good showing by HBO's Watchmen series with 26 Emmy nominations, including for Regina King, Jeremy Irons, Jean Smart and Louis Gossett Jr.

I had so many doubts in that show but thankfully wrong, amazing series.

[thezmage]

I don’t remember if I said anything earlier, but a fourth Wayside School book (excluding the math ones) was released recently. If you were a fan of the series as a youngster it’s definitely still good 20 years later.

Watched Red Dwarf: The Promised Land this weekend. I liked it. I hadn’t watched any Red Dwarf since I was disappointed by Back to Reality and didn’t even know there were three whole series released between that and this, so I can’t attest to the quality of those seasons but I really liked the movie. Thinking I might try a whole series rewatch.

I received Betrayal at Mystery Mansion, the Scooby Doo themed version of the board game Betrayal at the House on the Hill, this weekend. Haven’t had a chance to play it yet but I’m looking forward to it Hopefully this weekend. I’m sure he’s too young to really get a lot out of it but I am hoping my five year old nephew will enjoy it too.

I’ve been GMing a game of Monster of the Week for a few months now and I get the urge to share your stories with people. I’ve mainly been using pregenerated mysteries from the Time of Mysteries and weaving them into a sort of loose plot, but I had a lot of fun with my loose ripoff of the Shining/Doctor Sleep. I’m working on something with mermaids and a mirror portal for this weekend. Still if I could convince one of my friends to take over for a session so that I could play I wouldn’t complain

On a bit of a “YA adaptations of other properties” binge right now. I’ve read and enjoyed both Daphne and Velma books, both of the Archie Horror Adaptations (A Werewolf in Riverdale and Interview With A Vixen, neither of which are straight adaptations of Jughead the Hunger and Vampironica respectively), and In the Hallway with the Knife (based on Clue). They’re all a bit silly but I like ‘em

Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go came to Disney Plus recently. It was a bit of a surprise because I don’t even think it’s been available digitally forever

Buying most sweets is a bit of a losing proposition for me. Dessert really isn’t a priority for me and I tend to let them sit around until they’re ko good anymore, but ice cream-wise I’m a rainbow sherbet guy

[cygnia]

Trying to finish up a game called "The Hex" (bought it as part of the Racial Justice bundle a month back). Problem is, I'm on the part focusing on the space marine -- and I need to do some shoot 'em ups.

My eye-hand coordination isn't that great (not that it ever was). So, I switched over to a point & click game also in the bundle called "The Search". Wasn't bad -- but it took me less than an hour to finish it.

Ice cream/frozen custard: anything chocolate.

[thezmage]

Okay, I knew they were making an adaptation of Death in the Family for the DTV DC universe films, but I didn’t expect it be interactive.

https://www.cbr.com/dc-batman-death-in-the-family-interactive-trailer/

[zachbeacon]

Huh, I was about to make a joke about the infamous phone poll but then I saw the first image. Never mind.

(Aw, what the heck. "If you vote to kill Robin, remove this disc and insert 'Under the Red Hood'")

I was wondering how they were going to keep making these movies given how the last one ended. The upcoming Superman movie seems to be a standalone story.

[bradygirl_12]

Been enjoying The Alienist: Angel Of Darkness, though I'm puzzled why TNT is blowing through their new original content so quickly.

I have lots of fave ice cream! Some staples: French vanilla and strawberry, but mint chocolate chip and banana flavors are up there, too! :)

[cyberghostface]

Well apparently Tom King made a big stink about Jae Lee doing the Rorschach variant because Lee did a Comicsgate cover. Turns out Jae Lee didn’t even know that Comicsgate was a thing and King retracted his statement although the damage was done.

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/jae-lee-to-tom-king-were-not-all-good/

And no I don’t support Comicsgate but this is something King should have done in private.

[silverhammerman]

To me, everyone involved comes off poorly. King's initial condemnation could be read as self-serving and Lee's reaction to the whole thing came off self-righteous and lacking in an actual apology, though for understandable reasons.

That said, though the story developed quickly, I sincerely believe that if he hadn't condemned Lee's seeming involvement right away, King would have been pilloried for complicity. Maybe this whole thing would have been better handled behind the scenes, but I can't really fault King for wanting to denounce a hate group.

Moreover, while I sympathize with the personal misfortune which made this painful for Lee and probably caused his initial reaction to be a rebuke to King rather than a mea culpa for, y'know, unwittingly working with a hate group, I don't think his claims of ignorance are exactly exculpatory. That Lee, a comic book industry professional, would be so profoundly uninformed about his own industry as to be unaware of a high profile colleague's public fall from grace and affiliation with a virulent online harassment group that's targeted others in the industry, is Lee's fault. Not everyone in comics needs to be plugged into The Discourse at all times, but having a general awareness of the industry at large is a reasonable expectation.

Local scoop

[sisterofbloomerjunior]

Surprised Mayor Jacob Frey wasn't on the original list.

Mom's convalescing after her gallbladder surgery.

And the answer to the 6.4% butterfat query: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beTsDOBRs8I

Re: Local scoop

[deh_tommy]

Well done for your mother!

[deh_tommy]

Since Quasimodo has an ‘I Want’ song, is the titular character of his movie and was crowned the King of Fools, is he technically Disney royalty?

[zachbeacon]

The criteria for Disney Princesses has always been incomprehensible so, sure, why not?