Contents
Reading
Playing
alChandler's Halls
Contempt
Just to clarify, we're aware of it.
March 2, 2026
An Interview with Seamus Blackley
Seamus Blackley was around at the birth of the Xbox, he's retired now. Xbox CEO Phil Spencer was also around from the begining. He's retiring and his replacement is Asha Sharma. She has no experience in the gaming industry but lots of experience in AI. Dean Takahashi of GamesBeat interviews Blackley about the changes in Microsoft's Xbox brand.
February 23, 2026
Styx: Master of Shadows
The game was pure stealth, straight out of the Thief playbook. Yes, you had a weapon but if you had to use it you screwed up. Combat was very iffy and most of the time if I did engage in combat with a pissed off guard I'd go back to an earlier save, even if I won the fight. Coffee is for thieves who never have to fight.
So what was the final sequence in the game? A three part fight with Styx clones. I had no knives and no amber (the stuff that allows you do do magic) and never finished the first fight. One suggestion, from someone who was trying to be helpful, was to go back to the beginning of the mission and try not to use amber and knives. My answer was to end the game (it's not like I never had to walk away from a final boss fight) and put the developer, Cyanide, on my shit list.
So at the moment I'm 0 for 3.
I did put the ridiculously named Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 back on Kosh. I played it last year and was disappointed. It wasn't a role playing game like Vampire: The Masquerade but as a brawler it's not too bad. These are vampires out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and by keeping that in mind I'm enjoying it, not loving it mind you but I'm having a reasonably good time on the second play through.
February 23, 2026
There Is No Antimemetics Division
I recently read a book called There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm, also known as Sam Hughes. The film is based on the first chapter.
February 21, 2026
Winter's Tale
I bought Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin in 1983. It took several attempts before it could get through it and even then I had no idea what magical realism was.
Some 43 years later I'm reading it for the first time. I now know what magical realism is and looking back there is more then enough good stuff in the novel to warrant a second reading. A horse that can jump a city block, a consumptive who sleeps on the roof of her father's mansion to chill her fever, and a wall of fog that sometimes snatches people (and other times drops people off), and that's just in the first 100 pages.
I might have passed on this book but I reread two long Stephen King novels so a 748 page book is nothing, at least right now while I've got my track shoes on.
February 20, 2026
Games
2026 hasn't been a good year for me so far, gaming wise. I started The Callisto Protocol, enjoyed it but my skill wasn't up to finishing it. Then I installed Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, didn't like it but I gave it a fair chance and abandoned it somewhere in Act 2. But since I'm antsy without a game I putStyx: Master of Shadows back on Kosh. Aided by YouTube I finished Act 6 (I abandoned the game last year half way through though that act), ran through Act 7 and by that time I was back into the groove and am now in Act 8, the final part of the game. Unless there's some kind of ungodly boss at the end I should finish the game soon. So that's what I've been doing.
February 19, 2026
The Inferno
The Divine Comedy isn't my favorite long form poem and I've no idea why this bothers me so much but it does so I'm going to get it out of my system.
In the strip, Judas is shown being in Satan's right mouth, Brutus is shown in the center mouth and Cassius has been replaced by Jetpack Cat. However, Brutus was in Satan's right mouth and Judas was in the center mouth. Judas' punishment was worse then the punishment of Caesar's assassins. There, I feel better now.
Update: Yes I did see this article in today's Times.
Why do you ask?
February 13, 2026
Vince Guaraldi Playing Linus and Lucy
From 1964 on WNET.
February 13, 2026
Update
I have to admit that it took a day before I could adjust to the size of the text, it was a bit smaller then the setting on my Kindle. Not small enough to prevent me from rereading the book but it took a day before I adjusted.
I used to make it a point to reread The Lord of the Rings every year and when I did it I read the hardbacks. But I haven't done that for about five or six years. After that long a time there's a kind of ill defined rhythm reading a physical book that's different from reading an ebook. I can't explain it any better then that but it's enough so that I think I understand why some people want nothing to do with ebooks.
I'm not one of those people but it's possible that my days of buying an ebook when I already have a copy of the book in my library are over, unless it's a worn out paperback at the end of its life. Meanwhile Newton has adjusted to me reading Adventures in Unhistory in a new format.
February 10, 2026
IRC?
"Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time."
February 10, 2026
Adventures in Unhistory
I'm reading a book! A physical book with covers, pages made of paper an' everything!
It was written by Avram Davidson and his stuff has been slowly migrating to ebook format. I have his Vergil Magus series on my Kindle as well as other books, what I don't have is Adventures in Unhistory a quirky series of essays about the origins of things like Prester John AKA "John, Christian Sovereign and Lord of Lords". Emperor Manuel I Komnenos of the Roman Empire got a letter from the guy in 1165 and since then folks have been trying to figure out if Prester John was based on a real person or if Manuel was pranked.
Anyway, the book hasn't been digitalized and if I want to reread it I'll just have to read my hardback, and that's just what I'm going to do. I expect that occasionally I'll poke at a word with my finger expecting a response from the page.
February 8, 2026
Tainted Grail
On one hand it's not a great game, outdated graphics and wonky NPC AI. But it's reminding me a lot of Skyrim and I'm 30 hours in. I started tonight's session at 7:00 Thursday and it's now 12:15 Friday and the cat is getting pissed at me (well he was, he's asleep now). But now it's time to step away From King Arthur and check out this week's Trek episode.
February 6, 2026
The Gunslinger
If anyone has read the Dark Tower series and felt that Roland's fate was unfair, don't forget that in the first book Roland let a 12 year old boy fall to his death so he could get information on his quest from Walter o'Dim. Roland deserved his fate.
February 2, 2026
Sunlight
After I shower and make coffee I go into the office and boot up Kosh. Most of the time Newton jumps on my lap. But come late January and early February, Newton postpones the lap thing to bask in the sunlight streaming through the window. It's a pleasure he can only enjoy for a few weeks and he makes the most of it. We're both old and take our pleasure when and where we can.
January 31, 2026
I Like Cheese as Much as the Next Guy
It's been a while since I had to use cheesy tactics to bring down an NPC but I resorted to it with Fingerless Colm. He had a bounty on his head and he kept slaughtering me. Someone on Reddit said that if you hit him, ran away and jumped onto a small ledge on the left he couldn't hit you. I'm not proud, I followed the guy's instructions and took Colm down. And that fight brought me to level 10.
By the way, I decided to rewatch season 1 of Fallout before watching season 2. A wise decision, a lot of bad stuff went down in the first season. Fallout is still the only program based on a game that I'll watch.
January 30, 2026
Avalon
The name of the world in Witcher 3 is The Continent, and a shitty crapsack of a place it was. But damn, Avalon in Tainted Grail makes The Continent look like Paris in spring. I know it's supposed to be a shitpit but it's pretty depressing.
January 28, 2026
Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon
The return of King Arthur, with a touch of H.R. Giger thrown in, be still my heart. I just completed the Tainted Grail demo and the demo had some meat on it, the thing lasted two and a half hours. In this version of the Arthurian Mythos, Arthur leaves for Kamalot, to avoid a plague. I'm some schulb who in a dungeon who's been liberated by a mysterious guy named Caradoc. By the time I make it out of the dungeon, I've got a slice of King Arthur's soul in me. Caradoc stabs me with a sword. It doesn't hurt me but Caradoc claims it killed the piece of Arthur I was carrying (Caradoc believes that Arthur was a first class shit heel).
But Arthur is still with me and doesn't know that his kingdom is pretty much a plague pit. And that's what happened in the demo. I have to admit, I'm not in the mood for a classic D&D game, especially one with a witcheresque vibe. But I haven't really gotten into a game (if you know what I mean) since Outer Worlds 2 and since it's on sale for $35 I'm going to pick it up. Besides, the whole Gunslinger thing is Arthurian. Roland is the descendant of Arthur Eld, King Arthur with a six shooter. Anyway, the full game is downloading.
And the full game picked up right where the demo ended, well done lads!
January 26, 2026
The Dark Tower VII
I've just started The Dark Tower VII, which is now the eighth book in the series. The series was concluded in 2004 but in 2012 King released The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole and dubbed it number 4 1/2. This is the first time I've read the entire series from the first book to the last. And if I'm being honest with my self, it's probably the last time I'll be doing that. There's always the possibility that King may write another novel set in Roland's world but if he does and I need a refresh, I'll probably go to Wikipedia.
I have a book, somewhere, and the person doing the book's introduction refers to it as the author's Benjamin. I no longer remember which book that was but I'm pretty certain that the Dark Tower series is King's Benjamin.
Triumphant Update: The novel in question was David Copperfield. I have (somewhere) a Signet paperback edition of that book. I'm not sure if there was an introduction in that edition and I'm not about to go crawling around to find it (it's almost midnight) but the Benjamin reference refers to Dickens and David Copperfield. By the way, it's been years since I went to a bookstore, are inexpensive paperback editions of the classics still popular? I imagine they are because there are a lot of people who don't like ebooks.
January 25, 2026
Uncle Floyd Is Dead
It's one of those if you know you know things. But today I learned that David Bowie was a fan of Uncle Floyd. If you're curious, you can go here. I used to watch The Uncle Floyd Show back in the 80s when I got a chance, but I was working shift work and didn't have a VCR. Dear me, Floyd Vivino wasn't much older than me, I figured he had to be in his 80s but he was 74.
January 23, 2026
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Logo courtesy of Mrs. Silverman.