Sledgstone

Yay! The trailer didn't really show much considering we know from leaks some of the new characters being introduced. I'm getting hyped.

I want a 4k Switch. My Nvidia shield is the 2017 model that doesn't have the AI upscaling feature of the newer 2020 models. But from what I saw of the Shield's upscaling its pretty impressive. For the switch to have that, it'll be a great way for all the original games to be auto upscaled without having to re-release them in 4k versions. I've only recently started watching some actual 4k content on my 4k tv. I will say 4k is a big upgrade visually. From the distance of the tv to my couch, about 8 feet, 4k content looks like I'm looking out a window and seeing something in front of me. But if I get close to the tv I can still make out pixelations, flaws, etc. But from 8 feet away 4k is visually amazing compared to 1080p. 1080p content still looks good, depending on the content... an old movie upscaled to 1080p released on bluray played on a 4k tv will always look pixely on my couch, but true 1080p movies like anything that came out in the last couple years can still look damn good, but 4k versions of them look amazingly crisp and more vibrant with much better blacks that have none of that pixelation black shadow issue.

I will say tho, I think HDR is a bigger upgrade than 4k. I've played Horizon Zero Dawn, Uncharted 4 and a few others with HDR on and the lighting effects can be draw dropping depending on the tv. Like walking around in a sunny area looks like the effects of real sunlight being shown on my tv. Its not really possible to take a screenshot or video to show the effects either because unless that video and tv or monitor the video is being shown on has HDR effects the video will only show a sunny area.. HDR tho makes it looks like genuine real sun light (depending on the quality of the game of course). Now if I can see a game that plays in native 4k with HDR effects on running at 60fps, I bet that would be amazing. If that new Horizon Zero Dawn game on PS5 can accomplish that, that would look gorgeous.

Back to the switch, alot of its games that I've seen are more cartoony based so I'm not entirely certain how much crisper and vibrant the games will look on 4k. It might be a big improvement, but not worth buying a new Switch for if someone already owns one. I doubt it'll be as huge as a graphical upgrade compared to something like the new next gen consoles could be potentially pulling off. This basically sounds like the PS4 Pro version of the Switch that will be coming out. I have a PS4, but no desire to buy the PS4 Pro when it came out.. but if I didn't have a PS4 at the time, i'd have definitely bought the pro version instead. Kind of like the new Nvidia Shields. My old one works amazingly well and plays 4k content, but if I didn't already own one, I'd be buying the new Shield Pro version that recently came out.

Edit:

Heres a video I watched a while back that shows the Shield 4k DLSS AI upscaling differences and this is what we can expect with the new Switch 4k since it uses basically the same hardware.

I like it. The sandworm design seems a bit odd, kinda looks a bit like a gigantic leach mouth. 

This show was awesome.  That season 2 finale though. wtf.

With how they left the season on such a huge cliffhanger, I really hope covid doesn't screw up the production start date of season 3 too bad. Those kids grow fast in between filming seasons as it is. We might have a CW Riverdale situation where a bunch of actors noticeably in their 30s are playing high school students.  

After watching the first two seasons, I still emphasize with Johnny. Hes a great guy but everyone has their own flaws. This still reminds me of this video showing Karate Kid from Johnny' perspective:

I can't remember who made these original quotes, but they apply to this story like almost everything else:

"Everyone is the hero in their own story"

"There is no bad guy, just people with different opinions that are doing what they think is right."

Its all about perspective, I like when Johnny explained what happened on the beach way back then to Miguel. From his perspective Miguel was basically "Wow, Danny was a dick".

Season 3 is decent and Clementine does play a large role in it. I never played season 4 so I'm not certain what choices in season 3 affect the last season or not.

That shotgun looks like it'd be great for me. All I'll be using it for is home defense so as long as its reliable and functional I'll be good with that.  Thats some impressive range with a shotgun. I like that.  I mentioned in that snapchat, I was thinking shotgun for slugs for defense for everything, but that .22 could be good for shooting theives in the neck. lol. Or least for wildlife control. If I need to put down a coyote from some big distance or at least scare it off the .22 might be good for that. I know people that like to use their .22 for killing ground hogs to remove them from their property. Birdshot could be good for in home defense so I don't accidentally kill anyone with a slug going through drywall. Eh.. In the end I don't have much money for gun purchases, I'll probably stick with just the shotgun and slugs when I can afford it. Good news is I feel safe enough to actually own a gun now.  Safe as in my nerve issues in my arms has reduced significantly. I think its all thanks to the exercises I've been doing over the last couple years. Its been a year since I've had any numb arm issues while sleeping and I haven't had my fingers or thumbs twitch in a year either. I've dropped a couple things a week ago but that was me being clumsy and my hands were wrecked from using heavy ass pipe wrenches that entire day. Before I couldn't trust myself to own a gun when I could have potentially dropped a loaded weapon.

On 9/4/2020 at 4:44 PM, DeathscytheX said:

Voting in my state use to be similar, but now you must have ID, and the ID must match the address listed. I'm generally a cheap bastard when it comes to renewing my licenses. It costs $40 now I think? for 4 years. (use to be 5 but I guess they trying to get that money). So one year I moved in the middle of my licenses lifespan... and I had to drive 20 min to my old polling place rather than the one 5 min from my house.  

We also use to have electronic booths. But after so many complaints about hitting something and the opposite lighting up, and hackers, etc we now do scantron ballots. You fill them out and then you feed them to the machine yourself.

Lol. When I first moved I had to do the same thing. We moved in October but it was too late to update our voting registration so we had to drive 20 mins to the old polling place. But we still lived in the same district so it wasn't really a big issue.

We have been using scantron ballots here for years. Since they all have a unique barcode and number for each one and that number is then attached to the person voting, it ensures everyone gets their one vote. I never signed up for mail in ballots this year so I'll be going to my polling place and using the good old scantron and feeding it into the machine. As far as I know the mail in ballots are the same scantrons and once they are received by the elections, they feed them into the machine themselves. 

I think its funny how some people think that voting fraud can happen so easily when it seems like a good system with accountability. I think the scenario most people think about is some old 80s movie where they stuff the high school prom ballot box full of fake votes to make sure someone gets to be king or queen. Its so stupid.  Voting in an election is taken way more seriously than that. I will say tho, if there ever is any voting fraud it needs to be fully investigated and people need to go to jail.

The latest article I saw for voter fraud was where people voted twice in Georgia. But it was discovered and they'll be prosecuted.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/1000-georgia-voters-face-prosecution-for-casting-multiple-ballots/

Well now those people can spend the next 1-10 years in jail. In NY, if someone got an absentee ballot, mailed it in and then went in to vote, it would be spotted pretty quick by the computers once those ballots are scanned in. People who intentionally vote twice deserve their sentence.

I will say tho, I'm glad mail in voting is become more available, theres some places with crappy polling locations that serve way too many people. If I had to wait in line 5 hours to vote I doubt I'd ever do it. Every place I've ever lived has been pretty straight forward tho with only a 10 minute wait on average during a presidential election.

On 8/30/2020 at 6:18 PM, slippers said:

do they even accept copy of expired driver's licence or other means of copied ID when mail in voting? i hear most states DMVs are so backed up due to covid that even if you make an appointment, it'll take two months or more to get it renewed. some states are giving extensions of 60 days after expiration but thats not enough. in texas i think theres a limit if you want to renew it online, you have to be in a person at some point. a couple years back, houston closed all the small ones and made big ass DMV centers from abandoned malls. at first it was great bc it went fast, but it started to clog up and waiting became longer. and this was all before covid bs. i still have one and a half year before mine expires but ill might just drop my CDL if it becomes annoyance and do it online if its allowed. and screw voting, i never voted anyway bc there might be a chance that i could get called up for jury duty. no one can fix this scamdemic no matter who gets elected 

ID isn't required for mail in voting or in person voting because the initial registration is where you are verified. When you register to vote you generally have to do it through the DMV when you get a state ID and that is where they verify you initially, or if you move you can update it with your new address. After that you have to go to your designated polling place and when you vote, they don't ask for ID. Mostly because when you vote, they see your name in the books, you sign it and they can compare your signature to last years. They give you a ballot with a number on it that they mark in the record next to your name. Sure somebody could come in to the voting place, say they are me, forge my signature and vote for me, but then if I come in later that day to vote, someone says I already voted, then that would kick off an election fraud investigation. Election fraud is federal charges and can lead to some serious jail time. Like 5 years in prison on just federal charges not counting state charges. For mail in voting you have to register for it through the board of elections or DMV if I remember right. They verify you through the website, I think its all tied into the DMV again.. they send you a ballot in the mail with a number on it that is specific for your registration, you fill it out, put it in the envelope and mail it in. Don't need to put a copy of ID in it since you were already verified. Sure somebody could take my ballot from my mailbox, fill it out and mail it in, but if I call to find out where my mail in ballot is and there is fraud.. once again an investigation would kick in. Of course someone could say, what if someone takes your ballot already filled out from your mail box.. I would think it'd be pretty obvious if there were a crap load of people going around to everyone's mail boxes and searching them for ballots when people are mailing them out at random times all over the course of a month and checking other people's mail boxes can be considered tampering with mail and lead to jail time. People could also just put the ballot in a USPS drop box.

Lady had to renew her license a couple weeks ago. Turns out they enabled renewal online. The only thing she had to do was get an eye exam at one of the multiple locations that do it for the DMV. So she went to one of the local pharmacy stores down the street, paid $20 for the eye exam, they electronically sent the results to the DMV, days later she went online to renew, they verified that the results of the eye exam were received and she got the new license mailed to her. But it had the same picture from 8 years ago on it. lol. One of the restrictions for the DMV now is they will only do appointments and they'll only see people at that specific DMV office that live in the same county as that office.. and that sucks because we have a DMV that is small, hardly ever busy and its only a 12 minute drive from us, but its in the next county because we live right on the county line. The DMV we would have to go to is a 45 minute drive to a downtown Syracuse one that is generally so busy it literally has 2 waiting rooms. Screw that.

I used to note register to vote because of jury duty. In hindsight I should have. The last 3 times I got a jury duty notification, I'd call the number once a day for 4 days and my number was never called for coming in so I've never even gotten to the initial showing up part yet. btw, at least in NY state, as long as you have a state ID you already are registered for jury duty. Or if you register a car to drive, you are already registered for jury duty. Theres some other things they pull your name up for jury duty too. You might already be signed up and don't know it because everyone hardly ever gets a jury summons. 

On 8/30/2020 at 6:18 PM, slippers said:

is it easy to get guns in your state? i dont blame you if you want to. all these civil unrests and unemployment..its really getting crazy. in texas i just fillout a form and after a background check, a cashier walks me out the store with a gun and it takes no longer than 30 mins top. im personally not into shotguns though..lol. i dont think i can handle something that dangerous. hell i dont even like pistols. but at least with a revolver, i know i feel safe handling it. 

Hand guns in NY state are blocked off with all kinds of restrictions, background checks and registrations, etc. Its possible just time consuming. But shotguns and rifles only need background checks. I could technically go to a walmart and buy one, but there would be a waiting period for the background check. Or I could go to a trade show and buy one. I'd like to eventually own a shotgun for home defense and a .22 rifle. We have alot of woods near me. We have coyotes and other wild life, but recently we've had a couple black bears sightings in the local communities. Sure on facebook people are like, oh look how cute they are, leave them alone they're not bothering anyone.. yeah because they're small at the moment.. but if these bears start reproducing here and get big.. we could have a bear problem. wtf. So yeah, shotgun with slugs or bird shot for home defense from potential thieves and maybe bears. lol. A .22 rifle would be great though for killing anything from a distance. I'm no pro shooter, but a .22 makes almost anyone a pro shooter. lol. That recoil is so small you can pump 3-4 bullets into anyone or anything from a distance with ease.

I marathoned season 1 over the weekend. I started season 2 yesterday and I'm half way thru it. I might finish it tonight. I'm loving this show. It's like they accomplished an 80s feel in current times. The comedy parts of Johhny being so stuck in the 80s is hilarious.

As if the game wouldn't be a big enough of a time sink, instead of having one battle pass per season, each character will have their own battle pass for $10 each per season, but if you play enough for each character you buy the pass for you can max out that pass to unlock the next season's pass for that character for free. I read a while back that multiple pieces of character models are in the game code, so this game is going to be a massive cash grab once they release a crap load of DLC characters that will cost money too.

https://www.psu.com/news/marvels-avengers-will-charge-10-a-battle-pass-for-every-hero-after-launch-but-you-can-avoid-spending-money/

Reading this doesn't sound like fun to me, it sounds like a massive grind that will never end. I think I'll watch someone play the campaign in a let's play and skip on buying this.

https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/black-panther-star-chadwick-boseman-dies-cancer-43-72695093

Quote

LOS ANGELES -- Chadwick Boseman, who played Black American icons Jackie Robinson and James Brown with searing intensity before inspiring audiences worldwide as the regal Black Panther in Marvel's blockbuster movie franchise, died Friday of cancer. He was 43.

Boseman died at his home in the Los Angeles area with his wife and family by his side, his publicist Nicki Fioravante told The Associated Press.

Boseman was diagnosed with colon cancer four years ago, his family said in a statement.

Damn that's sad.

A significant amount of people will be voting by mail this year because of the pandemic, and since the majority of those ballots get sent out even before the presidential debates happen, people will most likely already have made up their minds and voted. All the current polls before the Trump USPS mail attacks happened, showed him losing in the majority of the polls. To prevent an outright loss, "Voting by mail will lead to fraud" became he latest gimmick. Our military over seas has been voting by mail for generations but now its not safe anymore. Sure.. And now mail sorting machines are being chucked in the actual garbage because its somehow more cost efficient to pay an employee to sort mail.. which makes no sense.. that would be like GM or Ford chucking some welding robots just for the hell of it and slow their production line to a crawl. Mail in votes that arrive too late won't be counted.

https://www.syracuse.com/politics/cny/2020/08/central-new-york-mail-delivery-slows-as-sorting-machines-are-tossed-unions-say.html

I don't know about anywhere else, but we have a significant amount of political ads on TV right now, way more than previous years at this time of year.. and its all because people are already voting. They can't wait to do an ad blitz at the last days before an election now because with the mail in votes its happening now.

And even though Trump says mail in voting is garbage, he votes by mail all the time.

https://www.npr.org/2020/08/19/903886567/trump-while-attacking-mail-voting-casts-mail-ballot-again

Its good for him but not for everyone else apparently.

Regardless of the outcome for the Presidential election, unless its a landslide I don't see either candidate actually accepting the results. It could lead to some serious shit going down. Meanwhile gun sales are up 70% compared to last year with first time buyers leading the way.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/aug/26/gun-sales-up-by-almost-72-first-time-buyers-lead-t/

Hell, I want to buy a shotgun now because who knows how this country is going to be by the end of the year. x_x

I'm glad its got a campaign and it looks good.

LMAO! Whenever I think of Kristen Wiig, all I can think about is Bridesmaids.  I was still confused as to way she was cast as a villain for WW. But then again after seeing the trailer it looks like most of her action scenes will be all CG anyway.

I won't be preordering it myself. I have way too many games in my backlog to play before I buy another console right now.

I completely forgot that the last season was actually completed since the telltale closure. I should buy the last season just to see how it ends. I liked the third season, but it wasn't as good as the first two imo.

https://www.playstation.com/en-us/campaigns/2020/ps5-direct-pre-orders/

Register for a preorder form is available.

That looks impressive as hell. I watched the Yongyea video about it to. I really hope they do a full english release, at least subtitled if they can't dub it.

I was hesitant at first when they said the sparkly vampire guy from Twilight was going to be Batman, but this decent. Hes giving off that Crow vibe of vengeance. I like his costume alot too. Theres none of that bullshit fake muscle of Ben Affleck's Batman costume. And it looks like its armored yet functional. Not every super hero has to be a weight lifter in an Iron Man competition. 

This movie looks amazing.  But Cheetah looks a bit odd to me, but still better than that weird Cats movie.

I played 3 hours of the beta this last weekend. It was ok at first. This Avengers game noticeably takes place in a different timeline or yet another alternate Earth because this game has nothing to do with the established Marvel movies. The combat was decent, the campaign flipped me around between different characters while the beginning of the story was unfolding in a large kinda epic battle with alot of destruction. But then the plot gets a bit weird. A terrigen bomb goes off, creates alot of inhumans, the avengers get blamed for it and are disbanded. Tony Stark's assets are seized by the government... um.. I don't think he'd actually allow that.. superheroes are outlawed, 5 year time skip.. and some super high tech company basically takes over the USA and its called AIM. So AIM is the bad guys and they have an endless, and it really seems endless, amount of armed troops, robots, etc.

So the campaign continues, some of the missions seem good, but then abruptly the game turns into Destiny. This is basically where the beta ends the campaign but continues to show end game stuff. Theres a war table, holograph display, that lets you choose a variety of strike missions. Theres matchmaking or you can play solo with AI controlled characters. But I'm not kidding when I say its Destiny. All the strike missions are repeatable, all have difficulty variables (increased ice damage), you can choose the difficulty for better rewards, etc. Different boss fight locations, etc. will have no respawn zones like Destiny. You revive fallen characters like in Destiny. And there is endless gear, even for the Hulk. He equips nano gear that somehow gives him powerups but you don't see it equipped on him. And all the gear is endless to, with their own different upgrade variables, better defense against freezing, more offense with shock damage, etc. etc. Its a hack/slash/shooter/looter. I did one strike mission and it took a solid 30+ minutes. I don't think I'll like this game. If it was all just a campaign based single player like Spider-Man I'm sure I'd love it. But I have no interest in multiplayer looter games anymore. And all the combat starting feeling quite repetitive after those first 3 hours. I'm also not good with strike missions like that anymore. If I have to walk away from a game I want to save it and resume later.. but its strike missions so you better have the time to dedicate to it. I'm sure its only a matter of time before Avengers also gets Raid missions too. ehh.

Btw, skin shop galore. You can buy skins like crazy, because who wouldn't want to play the game with Hulk wearing a business suit. wtf.

Looks like starting September 1st the payroll tax deferment will kick in so we all have more money in our paychecks. But we'll have to pay that when we file our taxes since it's a deferment. I wonder how many people will be complaining they have a smaller return when they file their taxes next year.

NPR: Payroll Tax Delay To Boost Take-Home Pay, But Don't Spend It Yet.
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/12/901416058/payroll-tax-delay-to-boost-take-home-pay-but-dont-spend-it-yet?ft=nprml&f=1001

Maybe we'll get a new stimulus plan in a couple weeks when the Senate comes back into session that will negate this payroll deferment.

The landscapes reminds me of legend of zelda windwaker except not all cell shaded. And the characters have a bit of a RWBY / Grandia combo look to me. Could be fun.

Good for MS to have backwards compatibility that good right at day one. MS and Sony can keep having console wars but with steam as a gaming competitor, they need to have "library wars" whatever platform has the most users with the largest libraries of games will have a significantly stronger fan base for years and years. Like steam... I couldn't imagine ever dropping that platform since I have to much invested in it. I currently have a large library of ps3 and ps4 digital games, if sony would commit to the library wars like MS is doing I'd be thrilled. Good for MS. If I had alot of xbox games I'd be very excited for the series x. Hopefully this will be a permanent feature going forward with all their new consoles over the years to.

I'm definitely going to play Ghost at some point, but aside from the clips I've seen of it the only other minimalistic UI game I've played is Dead Space. I'm about 5 hours in on it and it has no minimap, or anything cluttering the screen. The health bar and statis charge level is visible on the back of the armor and ammo is displayed as a virtual popup screen for each gun when being aimed. I didn't think I'd like this but I've gotten used to it and almost prefer it now. There is no clutter on the screen at all and instead of opening the menu to see my map, I click R3 and he does some objective homing scan on the ground to point me on the right path. More games should do this. And if godfall can implement it like Ghost or Dead Space in some way then it'll be nice to be able to see more of the action and environments without having to stare at dot on a minimap.

I say that but for some games it's not practical to have a minimilast UI. They toned down alot for BFV and that sucked ass. I'd rather shoot at red doritos in the background than try to see enemies in the mess of environmental destruction, bad lighting and particle effects.