Redwolf's Journal (continued)

 I've still been enjoying Book of Boba Fett 's flashback Fett much more than the "present" Fett. The flashbacks show a resilience to the character, which is good. And his arc with the sand people, though predictable, is solid. As a budding crime boss, however, he seems clumsy and lacks the cunning of the bounty hunter who followed and headed off Han Solo back in Empire. But yeah, episode five has probably been my favorite, and it's basically a Mandalorian episode. The Creed is still kind of screwed up and the Darksaber is a big plot device with quirks all its own, but neither of those things that bother me a little are new. I liked the starfighter more than I thought I would, and "Mando" is still a character I like. I also went and watched SW: Visions . As expected of an anthology, it's something of a mixed bag, but I think overall I enjoyed more than I expect. The Duel: The artwork put me off a little at first, but I got into it. The wandering ro...

 I quite liked The Mandalorian . Disney's been doing above average cranking out various series for a while now. I have mixed feelings on The Book of Boba Fett  so far. Some spoilers follow. Boba Fett's a curious character. Originally seen in the Christmas special (which shall not be named in some circles), he really doesn't do much in Empire either. And yet that Empire appearance establishes him as someone with 1) a reputation in the universe ("no disintegrations!") and 2) intelligence and cunning above the norm (by following Han and actually getting to Bespin ahead of him). Though he went down kind of easy in RotJ , the character was set up surprisingly well with those little appearances. In the series flashbacks, we can add action-hero levels of resilience/perseverance and that builds upon the character, making him intimidating and a bad ass even without his armor and gear. This Fett I love. The Tuskins and the storyline there feel a touch cliche, but I very muc...

 Been a while, but it seems less "necessary" to put thoughts here in general. Still, I have a few I want to collect today on recent movie watching... Cloud Atlas I caught Cloud Atlas on Netflix, knowing it was a big release at the time. Having seen it... well... it hit me about as I would have expected, I think. I see a certain artistry in it. I appreciate many elements of the movie and performances. At the same time, though, it strikes me as pretentious. It's long, but could have delivered the same point about interconnectivity of people even if it dropped a couple of the story arcs. It doesn't feel like there is a lot of payoff for the build up in most cases. Overall, it's something I'm kind of glad to have seen, but have no intention to spent time rewatching at any point. Spider-Man: No Way Home Relatively spoiler free remarks: I enjoyed it. The movie has several things going against it in my book: Heavy reliance/use of previous story elements Inclusion of ...

Whether money or the love of, I've had various thoughts bouncing around for a while... - Some have come up pretty recently. At work, a few of us have been scrambling for the last handful of months trying to set up a new advertising/accounting system. We are supposed to go fully live with it this coming week and the sales team is only just getting into it because... well, "we don't have time" translates to me as closer to "we have no initiative." I can't be too critical. I don't realistically expect people to sink their own time after hours into such things, but I still feel frustrated when others have to be pulled kicking and screaming into something I've already been pushed into. What this really means, though, is this last week we've found a lot of problems we didn't foresee when it was just a few people with admin rights working in the system. A lot of the new stuff amounts to procedures that need to change, but one thing that's co...

 As we near what was supposed to be the go-live date for a major system change (but won't be due to issues), work continues to consume most of my brainpower as it has for the last few months. Ugh. Still want a vacation, but it doesn't seem practical in the foreseeable future. I have managed to consume entertainment in off-hours, though. I got caught up with watching Loki (though still haven't gone back to watch Falcon/Soldier). I liked it quite a lot. There were some moments that made me laugh aloud, there's some serious drama, and it feels Loki himself actually goes through some personal change. Admittedly, it's hard to tell for sure with him. I totally respect the ending for not being a throw-down with a cosmic villain preventing a hole in the sky. My only real gripe is that events of the series seem positioned to be a linchpin for the next wave of movies. I don't really like that, but that's sort of the burden of a "cinematic universe" and Marv...

  Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries is... a Mechwarrior game, and I hadn't played one of those in a long time. It gets most things right, but it doesn't strike me as highly revolutionary or a great improvement over older entries to the series beyond natural graphic updates. The strategic layer covers handling of finances for a mercenary lance - pay and salvage versus repair, travel, salaries, and upgrades. Travel time is, I guess, "realistic" within the setting, though I find it a bit disturbing to watch months roll by for a major refit or travel more than a couple systems away on the map. And my quest for revenge (the main story) took something like twenty years. Mech modification and design is restricted by the newer (in relative terms) hard point limits beyond just tonnage and space, which can make acquiring certain variants of mech models important. The tactical play of the missions is fairly routine, though gets mixed up enough that I didn't really feel bored by it...

I started off the day busting my ass working on things that came up yesterday during a training session in our new system as incomplete or needing adjustment. I made pretty good time with it through the morning, really, and I'm proud of it. Then, while walking at lunch, I observed an odd feeling of somehow being on the verge of something. It was like some epiphany was just beyond reach, waiting to be grabbed. I was reminded of a period of my life when I was not so jaded and actually so in love that everything felt more vivid and alive. This wasn't that, but it was still unusual, remarkable, and positive. This afternoon, our CFO is filling me in on some personnel changes. This mostly revolved around people who are leaving, but one is coming in soon. She then offers the good news that I'm getting a raise as of next week. 15% doesn't radically change life, but it's not trivial either and when any raise at all has been virtually mythological in the company the last seve...