Weeknotes 2023 Jan 19

The new year is here. Only three weeks in, and I've already spent a week of it in Philadelphia for some company meetings.

Where I live now, working in the city is in stark contrast to where I'm typically working, where I can look outside and see javelina walking by.

Loona

A new addition to the household is Loona. The posts around the internet about this thing make you think this is the most advanced robot pet ever.

You'd be misled.

Loona is okay, but I'd still call it a beta product. The functionality promised in the videos isn't nearly here yet.

A few updates have already had a marked improvement. The team behind it seems to be responding and dealing with a lot in an encouraging manner, so I'll hold out, keep updating and hopefully Loona will become the pet from the videos.

Movies

• Puss in Boots: The Last Wish was surprisingly good. Really enjoyed this one.
• M3GAN was a fun little horror flick. Would have had a much better time if the row of teens across from me at the theater were more interested in the film than texting and running back and forth to their friends in the back of the theater. They were kicked out eventually. Why would you pay for a film you're not going to watch?
• Vesper is a slow but beautiful sci-fi film. Watching it felt like I was reading a short sci-fi novel. In a good way.  I like reading books.
• Plane was just a plain good old popcorn-munching time at the movies. It's better than the direct-to-video looking trailer would lead you to believe.

Reelhouse Foundation Films

• Hell Night (1981) isn't very memorable, but an okay time watching and making fun of it.
• Fandango (1985) is Kevin Costner's first film. And he's not very likable in it, but you can see how he'd go on to other roles. About a road trip from Austin to Big Bend in Texas, so probably a film Texans may want to see more than anyone else.

Skyrim: The Adventure Game

I was a huge fan of the video game and the board game version intrigued me enough that I bought into the base game.

It's got a similar feel. The game is story based to a degree. There's a main quest, and you encounter side-quests as you encounter different areas of the world.

These typically are revealed when drawing a card and getting a small task. Go somewhere, do some thing. If you succeed, you get to draw the card for the next stage of that quest. You fail, that may be the end of that quest line. Maybe not.

I'm having fun with it, but not sure it'll be a permanent addition to my shelves.

While there seems to be a bit of replayability, I can see after a few play-throughs you'll end up performing the same quests. There are expansions already, but even playing through the campaigns, it becomes a little repetitive.