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Finally finished the game with my best friend. What a journey. One of the best games ever made. An extraordinary C-RPG. The depth, the density, the polishing, everything in this game is insane. I still can’t believe how reactive it is and how much it offers. A true masterpiece. GG.

I used to hate him and Microsoft growing up. I was FreeBSD all the way. I was proud hacking and cracking MSFT pieces of software and refusing to pay for Windows. Then, somehow, they got me. I actually thought he was cool for a few decades even. I liked the XB360. Well, that didn’t last.

The Poet's Tale is hilarious and my favourite still. I find it even more meaningful in today’s age of hyped-AI.

My wife’s firm forced everyone to use an impossibly long password, a mix of alphabetical characters, special ones, and numbers, to unlock her phone. For security reasons apparently. And that was the best way to help her from using her phone. Maybe that’s the secret to go back analogue.

C’est ouf le niveau de Top Chef qui augmente chaque année. Désormais, si t’es pas d’une cuisine étoilée, t’as pratiquement aucune chance. C’est tellement technique. Mais du coup, ça devient un peu trop mécanique aussi. Je me demande s’il y a encore une part à la créativité et à la folie.

A friend from Shanghai came to visit and we had dinner at the battery. While she was leaving, after a good evening, she said that she can’t stand the bad smell, the sense of danger, and homeless people all around. Someone else said almost exactly that to me about 2 decades ago. About China.

J’ai entendu parler Michel Platini à la radio. Je suis content.

GitHub - m1k1o/neko: A self hosted virtual browser that runs in docker and uses WebRTC. A self hosted virtual browser that runs in docker and uses WebRTC. - m1k1o/neko

Since my retirement, I’ve disassociated myself from tech and took some distance. But from time to time, I still find some really cool projects. Like this one: github.com/m1k1o/neko. And the original author made it because « He just wanted to watch anime with his friends ლ(ಠ益ಠლ) ». Unbelievably cool.

Maradona and Cruyff. Can’t argue.

鬼武者をやり終わった。この長さは絶妙だよね。戦闘が気に入ったし、物語はシンプルだけどキャラクターは皆面白くてカリスマもあるよ。ゲームシステムは古くても未だに楽しかった。無駄な水増しがあまりないからすごく洗練されていて的を絞った作りだ。GG。

So lucky! I really want to experience it in films. I also need to learn Cantonese because my wife tells me non-stop how much more epic it is than the subtitles.

And I forgot that the cast is so insane. Funny how many actors are in common between my two favourite HK police movies (this and 無間道). Even the plots have similarities. And now, I want to play Stranglehold so I can be 周潤發.

Watched Hard Boiled (辣手神探) on 4K blu-ray. It is one of my favourite action movies. It is still spectacular, epic, and satisfying. John Woo has such a spatial sense. Everything in the movie is meticulously placed and used properly, at the proper time. The gun fights are pure poetry. A masterpiece.

武器をいつも切り替えなきゃいけないのは好きなシステムだけど、いちいちポーズしてオプションメニューを開いて手動で全部設定しなきゃいけないのは本当に疲れるよね。この問題は昔は普通だった。PS2時代のゲームはほとんど全部同じだったし。昔のが良かったとは限らないよね。

Somehow Instagram doesn’t load photos in ProRaw format from iPhone anymore. It used to be fine just a few days ago. It’s crazy how big tech companies keep making everything worse over time.

And if you smoke a cigarette at the same time, you become French. And that’s awesome.

このゲームは気に入ってるのに、本当に古臭いシステムのせいで時々すごく悔しくてガッカリするよね。謎が多すぎるし、第三のボスはあんなにウザくてつまらないよ。あの戦闘はまるで防御ベースで、ボスの攻撃を防いで躱すだけで何も攻めることができない。本当につまらない。防御ベースの戦闘が本当に嫌い。なんであんなつまらない戦闘システムを誰かが気に入るのか、いつまでたってもわからない。

タンク式の操作に段々慣れてきた。良かった。まだ難しいけど、戦闘に本当にはまってる。敵を倒すと気持ちよくて、処刑シーンがあんなに爽快なのは納得だよ。このゲームはビジュアルも綺麗だよ。キャラクターの顔のモデリングとレンダリングがすごくいい。曲も気に入ってる。メインテーマはつい聴き続けてしまうよ。

Wonderful last episode of the season. The conflict is well brought and perfectly executed. The idea that the fear of being alone drives people to embrace tyranny, or other forms of dictatorship, is powerful. The acting is always on spot. What a masterpiece. Can’t wait for the next season.

I was still in France when he got elected and I thought: they have Fallout, Half Life, Counter Strike, Planescape, Die Hard, Jurassic Park, Alien, Terminator, Dune, Fahrenheit 451, Hyperion, Ender... and it wasn't enough. Now they have to also have the coolest President ever. The US were so cool.

If I already have the PS2 original copy, is it still worth it?

Yes. You are essentially buying 2 games in one.

The best way one can learn is to shoot more. The best way one can improve shooting is to develop less. Being intentional is so hard and so crucial in the apprenticeship of any craft. And anything that makes it painful to create abundance is generally good to force intentionality.

« I have a black friend ».

And how is it on TV? Was it that frequent? How come I've never, ever, heard about this problem in France? And I just Googled it... and... damn.

They were somehow destroyed into tiny pieces or something. I don't know why I suddenly thought of that. And there are so many things wrong about it. I don't ever recall even hearing about any stomach worm when I grew up in France. And let's assume they exist, can we even see them in the first place?

I recalled a piece of ads I saw on TV quite frequently when I was a child, back in the late 80s, in China. It was about some sort of medication against some sort of worms. There was someone, maybe a doctor, explaining why with the new formula, we don't see the dead worms in stool anymore.

日本版の鬼武者をやり始めることにしたけど、このゲームの日本語はとても難しいから、もしかしたらあまり良い選択ではなかったかもしれない。タンク操作にもまだ慣れていない。やっていると本当に違和感がある。しかし、このゲームは本当に楽しい。グラフィックスや物語、全体的な雰囲気も今でも素晴らしい。PS2のレンダリングには独特な雰囲気があるよね。金城武がこのゲームの主役をやっているなんて信じられないね。それって本当にクールだよね。

I used to borrow and read all those magazines from my friends at school. So many great memories reading Joystick or PlayStation mag. Now, I read APWOT. But the real place to be to buy cool mags is still in Japan. And if you ain’t fortune enough to find the old ones:

archive.org/details/@jap...

C’est tout de même dingue à quel point l’Olympico offre bien plus de spectacle et d’émotion que le classique, qui, avouons le, n’a plus aucun intérêt depuis des années.