#checkpoint scene. green zone

[bucketbender]

HOA is the best game in the whole Dark Anthology Pictures series.

It just has so much the other games don’t have. Like ogres, it has layers. So many details for each character (like the « was Joey dead ? » post ? This shit is brilliant guys, please never stop investigating), the game gives them time to breathe, to exist outside of the horror, to be actual people instead of puppets that move around and react to stuff. Every relationship (even the love triangle, which pisses me off most of the time) feels genuine and earned.

For instance, just take the Checkpoint discussion scene. I know, out of all of them, I chose the most impactful one in the whole game. But there’s just so much to say about it.

First of all, the fact that Jason said this to Salim of all people. Salim. That random Iraqi soldier who almost shot him at the beginning and who he kept on threatening the whole game. The enemy of his state. The enemy of his enemy. I mean, we could be led to believe he would share such deep thoughts with his "official" best friend in the army, right ? Not to mention that Nick was there as well : out of all people, if there’s one person he should talk to this about, it’s him. But no. Every time Nick mentions the checkpoint, Jason shoots him down. He can have one moment to admit that this incident did mess with his head, saying that if they die down here, maybe that’s what they deserve, but that’s it. He refuses to talk about this any longer. Why should he ? It’s done. It’s over. They fucked up. Dwelling on it won’t make things right.

But then, after spending roughly two hours making his way down the place with Salim, slowly getting to know the human being behind the Iraqi, learning about his personal life that Salim isn’t afraid to share, his son, the only reason he fights, even as a single parent, how proud he is of him, how Salim just wishes he would stop stealing. How much he misses him. Only when Salim asks him if his conscience is clear, if he has anything weighing on his soul, now that they’ve reached the end of the world. Only then does Jason finally crack.

There’s just so much going on on screen. His voice wavering and breaking. The way he interrupts himself and Salim has to gently say « Tell me » to give him enough courage. The way he hesitates as the guilt of making the call weighs on him : « I order… I ordered her to stop, loud and clear ». The way he feels like he has to justify the way he called for the woman, to Salim and to himself, that he wasn’t really in the wrong for ordering Nick to shoot her. The way he just spills out that he joined the army out of desperation because his life was going nowhere. The way he laughs humorlessly at Salim’s try to make him feel better : « We all have our reasons, they don’t have to be profound ». The way he tells him how miserable and pathetic he was, stoned enough to only hear about the towers after a week later. The way he admits he has no idea what he’s even doing here, in the catacombs as well as in the army.

Salim assures to him that right now, in his life, he’s doing something worthy, something good : « You’re serving your country ». But Jason just summarizes this whole situation in a single thought : this woman had her whole life ahead of her, and they just took it all away with a bullet ; « I mean, what the fuck ? ».

But then Salim gives him a new goal, a present goal : hurt the vampires. Make these abominations pay for everything they’ve done. And Jason approves. Yeah, these things did try to kill them, didn’t they ? and they will pay for it. And you know what else ? « Start believing, Salim. We’re gonna get out of here and see the sun again ». And then, the Oorah scene. Jason just completely accepted Salim as one of his pack. (You see the meme « [BLANK] will now die for you » ? Yep that’s Jason).

In Nick, Jason has a friend. A great friend, even. Maybe a best friend. A brother in arms. A member of his pack. They often talk together and joke lightly. It’s obvious that they’re close. They are sincere towards each other, but there’s still this "toxic masculinity" thing going on with them. Jason not wanting to talk about his feelings // checkpoint, Nick telling Rachel if he dies down there, at least he would make things clear and go down « like a man », Jason calling Salim a pussy for not wanting to touch a freaking fossilized vampire, etc.

In Salim, he has a confident. The man’s a father, and a particularly reluctant solider. He didn’t want to serve in the army, he never had a choice in the matter. Salim has a perspective far larger than his, and Jason comes to understand this. This isn’t about the war. This isn’t about the Americans he’s trapped with underground. This is about going back to the surface to hold his son and celebrate his birthday. When everyone around him remains fixated on their war, Salim never loses sight of his own goal.

« Seeing the sun again » isn’t just literally. They were going to get out to find their purposes.

#hoa #house of ashes #the dark pictures anthology #salim othman #jason kolchek #eric king #rachel king #nick kay #checkpoint scene. green zone #i can count on my fingers the number of games which made me care for the characters this much #except for rachel. screw her. #if in their next game we don’t meet the aliens from hoa i’ll be very disappointed

[emberstoriesandtales]

Mistakes and Regrets (Jason Kolchek x Salim Othman)

I did my best with this, made a bit of changes to the scene where Jason talks to Salim about what happened at the checkpoint with Nick

●●●●●●●●●●

Jason couldn't believe his eyes as he and Salim entered a giant, dark cavern, cocoons scattered around.

It was like something out of a horror movie.

"What is this hell? Is this even real?" The marine could hear Salim mutter as he knelt down.

"We are being judged... God is punishing us all, for the mistakes we ever made..."

Images of that girl back at the checkpoint flashed in Jason's mind.

Her screams haunted him till this day.

"Zain is all I have left in this world." The voice of his ally snapped Jason back into reality.

"After my wife left us, I gave him my all... I wanted him to have everything I didn't. " Hearing that made Jason felt bad for him that he was dragged into this nightmare.

All Salim wanted was to get back to his son, he didn't deserve any of this pain.

"Single parent... tough fucking gig."

Salim nodded.

"It is." He agreed before looking back down into the cavern.

"My boy has made me very proud. He's going to London. To university." He said with a proud look on his face, but that went away a moment after.

"If only he stopped stealing." He mumbled, shaking his head a little.

"I miss him so much."

Sighing, he looked up at Jason to see him deep in thought, as if something was bothering him.

"Is your conscience clear Jason?"

The marine looked at him with a look full of regret.

"Green Zone... Checkpoint."

This confused Salim.

"What checkpoint?" He asked, somewhat curious.

Jason shakily sighed before speaking again.

"Nick and I... we were caught in traffic. The checkpoint had been hit before by suicide bombers. There was a woman..." this was hard for him to tell, but he continued.

"She was carrying a bag..." the memory replayed in his head, causing him to look away, guilt eating him up.

"Fuck..." he muttered.

Salim could tell whatever happened, it took Jason hard. Placing a hand on his shoulder for comfort, Salim gave Jason a concerned look.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't have to."

He gave him a thankful look, but shook his head.

"I ordered for her to stop, loud and clear, but she just kept on walking..."

His hands clenched his gun tightly as he continued on.

"I had to make a call. Nick... he shot her dead." He looked away, ashamed to look at Salim.

"What was in the bag?" He heard his ally ask.

Jason took a moment, still taking the incident very hard, but he replied. "Groceries." He answered, still not looking.

"I don't understand... why didn't she stop?"

"She couldn't hear me... she had fucking headphones on." He finished before exiting the cavern, back into the tunnels that they were exploring before.

"Jason, don't be hard on yourself. It was a mistake. You didn't know." Salim exclaimed as he ran after him to stop him.

"You're right, I didn't know... But what I do know is that I got an innocent person killed. Her blood is on my hands!" Jason growled as he sat down on a rock, setting his gun aside to bury his face in his hands.

"I am sorry that you have to deal with that pain. You are a good man."

Jason sighed, then gave Salim a smile.

"Thanks Salim. I needed that talk. Now let's figure out how to kill these things and get out of here. I am making sure you get back to your son."

#house of ashes #salim othman #jason kolchek #jason kolchek x salim othman

[caps-lockdown]

Sweet On You Part 3

Surprise! I had this chapter written by this morning and figured no time like the present to post! I’m pretty sure the last two parts won’t be for a minute simply because the rest of this week will be pretty busy for me, but I hope to have this series finished by my actual birthday at the end of the month! 

Again no beta so I own all of my mistakes and not any of the characters, with the exception of the reader.

Major thank you to @kaytizzle for the help with this particular part as I was torn with writing it. Enjoy!

Words: 3,416 (Strap in kids)

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Female Reader

Rating: PG 13 (Language)

Summary: Part 3 of my series continues as you get a shocking detour from your scheduled birthday alone.

Warnings: Language. Otherwise fluff and some tension.

Part Three: Premature Heart Attack

“Alright it’s five o’clock people go home!”

You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding and stood up from your desk in your office, watching the people quickly file out from their cubicles. You didn’t have a huge workload to accomplish today, Pepper giving most of the tasks to other employee so you could have “An easy birthday”. She had tried to make you take the day off but you wouldn’t hear it. It wasn’t like you had a significant other to spend it with or family.

You didn’t even have a pet.

After the office had emptied out you closed out of the windows on your computer and shut it down, locking your new employee orientation documents in your desk drawer. Grabbing your keys you locked your office door and happily strode to the elevators. You smiled to yourself and the elevator descended, humming joyfully as you exited to the lobby.

You had decided a nice night in with Netflix, a bubble bath, and your weight in Chinese food would be the best birthday present to yourself. Everything so far had gone right today. You said goodbye to the lobby security officer at the checkpoint and headed for the door. Nothing was going to stop you from enjoying yourself.

“Y/N!!”

You knew those two voices. You turned around from the large doors that lead to your freedom, your once happy smile dropping from your face.

Nat was running at you, a panicked expression gracing her beautiful features while Wanda wasn’t too far behind her. She looked just as worried. Shit.

“Y/N We. Need. Your. Help.” Wanda managed to get out in between breaths, Nat nodding vigorously in your direction.

“There is a dinner tonight with the new secretary of defense and Tony just took Pepper to the hospital because she’s having trouble breathing. She’s supposed to give a speech and we can’t find her notes.” Nat continued, looking at you with a hopeful smile.

“The team is helping with security tonight and we don’t know who else to ask. Please help us Y/N.” Wanda finished, looking at you and giving her best puppy dogs eyes. Shit. So much for your perfect night in.

“When was this scheduled? Why didn’t I know anything about it? When does it start?” You rambled off, suddenly feeling very self conscious. Usually working under Pepper meant you ran things behind the scenes. You had never been one for spotlight, and preferred working with the crew and ensuring things were perfect for meetings and galas alike. That was your zone and you thrived in it. You were actually hurt that Pepper had chosen not to include you in this event. You were supposed to be her assistant. As if reading your mind Nat piped up.

“Pepper wanted you to have a nice quiet birthday in. It’s only two hundred people Y/N. Nothing she couldn’t handle.” Your face paled as you swallowed hard.

“Yea and she told us to use Tony’s credit card for your dress. Think of it as a birthday present! We already bought ours and just have to change before we go.” Wanda beamed at you, holding up two large garment bags. You felt your heart melt a little at their encouraging faces. Wanda and Nat were really like family to you, and you know they would never ask you for anything you couldn’t handle.

“Alright.” You sighed, reaching into your pocket and pulling out a separate set of keys from your own. It had a letter “P” keychain and small thumb drive attached to it, which clinked together as you set it in Nat’s hand.

“This unlocks Pepper’s office. She never locks or shuts down her computer, look for the dinner speech notes and download them to this thumb drive for me. I’ll print them out at home while I get ready. Wanda you’re coming with me.” You started for the door, never taking the credit card.

“What about a dress?!” Nat called out, clearly concerned.

“I already have one.” You responded, tearing the lobby doors open and hurrying to the employee parking facility.

”Awwww yea let’s do this!” Wanda shouted as you sped walked to the car.

You had a dress in the closet you had actually bought a year ago for the company Christmas party, but you had chickened out last minute and had chosen to wear something a tad more simple. It had worked out anyway because again you were helping the crew with running everything, so you weren’t bitter about it. Tonight was the perfect night to take out the gown, even if the current idea of wearing it in public was terrifying.

You and Wanda essentially raced to take a seat in your car, it roaring to life as you swiftly turned the key and pulled out of your parking slot. You sped (only slightly) out of the massive parking garage and onto the busy streets of Manhattan, the congestion not as bad with it being nearly six pm now.

“How much time do we have Wanda?”

“You only have to make it in time for your speech, everything else is being taken care of by Mattie and Scott. You are slotted for eight but say the word and I can probably get you an extra half an hour, judging by the current circumstances.”

You nodded as you slowed to turn into your apartment parking. You killed the engine and dashed to get out, Wanda hurrying behind you. Less than an hour and a half. You could make this happen. You had to. Pepper needed you and she never asked you for anything like this. You couldn’t fail her when she had become like the sister you didn’

Jamming the key into your apartment door you took no time throwing it open, flipping the light switch to illuminate your small haven. You tore your work blazer off before chucking it onto a nearby armchair in your living room along with your keys, kicking your heels off by the door.

Running into the bathroom you quickly plugged in your curling iron and began the process of taking off your current daytime makeup. You would need the perfect glam look for tonight, so you were going to go big. It was also your birthday and you deserved a great night damn it.

“Where’s your dress Y/N?” You could hear Wanda entering your room as you brushed your teeth.

“Itmphs Inmmn thph closeph” You mumbled out as your electronic toothbrush hung out of your mouth, pointing as if she could see you.

“Closet. Got it.” You heard a lot of crashing noises as Wanda began to ransack your wardrobe, you shaking your head as you rinsed your mouth out, wiping your face on your towel before heading into your room.

Wanda stood there with the gown, her eyes wide as she looked from you to the daring garment.

“You’ve been holding this BEAUTIFUL dress hostage!? What the hell Y/N? This is stunning!”

You felt your face blush as she touched the gorgeous fabric of the green evening gown. You couldn’t help but feel a moment of pride as she gazed fondly at it before smiling wide at you.

“Steve is going to have a heart attack. Along with half of the male population there tonight. Maybe we should warn them. It’s going to become illegal in New York to look as good as you are going to at this gala, you know that right?”

You snorted, rolling your eyes before heading back into the bathroom where you peeled off the remainder of your outfit and changed into a black low back strapless bra and matching panties. Just because no one could see them didn’t mean you didn’t want to feel attractive under your dress too.

Turning your focus back into your mirror you began the lengthy journey of curling your hair for the gala, focusing on a more vintage look as you made tight pin curls onto your head, placing clips to hold them in place while they set. While they were cooling down you put on a fresh face of makeup, decided a sultry smoked out eye makeup and a more subdued nude lip would be best with your dress.

“I think you should tell Steve how you feel. Tonight.” Nat said as she opened the bathroom door, nearly giving you a heart attack as you squeaked out a half shriek. You made a poor attempt at covering yourself, only earning a cheerful giggle from Wanda. You hadn’t even heard her come into your apartment.

“Oh please Y/N, it isn’t anything I haven’t seen before.” You glared at her as you finished setting your makeup, happy with the overall outcome.

“Did you get that speech downloaded?”

“Did ya one better!” Nat exclaimed, holding up the printed sheets of paper as you let out a relieved breath, pushing past her and into your room.

Your eyes looked at Wanda expectantly as you noticed a pair of silver heels and matching necklace and earrings sitting on your bed with your gown, only earning a shrug from the brunette in response.

Both women had already changed, Wanda wearing a beautiful red halter gown that reached her ankles and was embellished with gold rhinestones over the sides. She had gone for comfortable gold sandals for footwear and you were already envying her.

Nat had gone with a simple but elegant black dress that was designed in a more Grecian style. The gathering of the fabric flowing beautifully off her shoulders and offering a mid thigh slit, and accompanying her red pumps made for a knockout combo. They both looked nothing short of stunning.

Wanda smiled as you went to put on the shoes, thanking her for picking them out.

“Hey I was bored and silver would compliment your dress so well.”

“Can’t fault you there, I actually love these shoes. You both look spectacular by the way.” You all laughed as you adjusted the straps, the dress being a bit too tight and you didn’t want to have to bother with them after you got it on your body.

“Are you going to tell Rogers? He wouldn’t be able to say no to you looking this gorgeous.” Wanda muttered as the two women helped you into the evening gown, the green fabric clinging to your body as they pulled it down. You wiggled it over your hips before letting the rest of it fall to the floor, Nat zipping you up.

“Damn Y/N, if this gown was any tighter they would have to cut you out of it at the end of tonight. I see those training sessions with the boys are paying off!” Wanda whistled in appreciation while Nat circled around you, nodding enthusiastically.

“This will be the only time in the history of the universe where I actually agree with you. Usually I’m planning my funeral after those sessions.”

They laughed as you took out your pin curls, brushing out your hair to resemble vintage waves. Securing your hair with pins and hairspray, you hung the silver necklace around your neck and fastened in your earrings. You spun around in a circle and looked at Nat and Wanda, both women clapping and cheering for you.

You checked your reflection out in the mirror and actually felt pretty damn good about tonight for a change. Everyone was going to be shocked, and you wished that the girls were right about Steve being speechless. You didn’t want him to have a heart attack, but you weren’t opposed to his heart skipping a beat, or his jaw falling to the floor.

“The limo is here to pick us up!” Wanda called out from the large window in your apartment that overlooked the city.

Spraying a light mist of perfume on yourself and applying deodorant you found your silver clutch and quickly put your wallet and phone into it, grabbing your keys off your armchair. Doing a quick once over of your apartment you turned off the lights and headed out, the girls cheering as you made your way down the otherwise quiet hall.

Exiting your apartment building you gasped at the Limo. It was Tony’s Limo. No one ever got to ride in Tony Stark’s personal limo. Except Tony. The large plush black leather seats welcomed you in as you sat down, admiring the fully stocked bar on the side. It was absolutely huge, and you were starting to understand why the billionaire didn’t want to share.

“Tony wanted to surprise you by letting you ride to the gala in style. Also to apologize because he knows it’s a ton to ask of you on your birthday.” Nat chuckled as she lightly pushed your arm.

“I’ll make it work. Pepper ok?”

“She’s stable, but turns out it was just high blood pressure due to stress. They’re going to keep her for a couple more hours and run some extra tests to be sure.”

“Well look who she married, she’s permanently stressed.” You quipped, Wanda nodding as your driver started down the street.

“Where is this gala anyway?” You inquired, looking out the window and trying to figure out where you were. The streets weren’t looking familiar to you so you figured it wouldn’t be at The Tower or anywhere in Manhattan.

“The Museum of Natural History. President thought it best to honor our past and blah blah blah.” Nat answered making a gabbing hand motion, your eyes lighting up.

The American Museum of Natural History was one of your favorite places to visit. You loved the butterfly conservatory and planetarium, and they had just opened a new wing dedicated to the Avengers last month. The whole reveal had been amazing and you were really happy you would be going back so you could really take your time going through it. The initial opening you had been rushed, so tonight you were going to comb through it exhibit by exhibit.

“Oooh look out Y/N went into Museum mode.”

You swatted Wanda as you heard your driver announced your upcoming arrival to the massive building. You could barely hide your enthusiasm as you practically leapt out of the car, Wanda and Nat trying to catch up as you climbed the stairs outside.

“Wait up Y/N! You don’t know where you’re going!” You stopped after entering the doors, waiting for the two women and tapping an impatient foot. As soon as this speech was done you were going to roam this building until your feet hurt. Then you would take off your heels and keep walking until every inch of this museum had been covered.

“Well hurry up then! I’m not getting any younger and we have less than ten minutes!” You huffed as Nat took your arm and lead you past security and down the main hall of the museum. You stared longingly at the dinosaurs as you hurried past them, promising to return later.

You neared the new unseen Oceans exhibit and saw a very nervous Tony Stark pacing the floor, figuring out that was where the event would be taking place. It was right next to the new Avenger’s exhibit so again, you were more than happy.

“Oh Y/N thank god!” Tony went to embrace you as Natasha and Wanda went to take their security positions in the exhibit, promising to catch up with you later.

“Tony is Pepper ok?” Tony nodded and you relaxed a little, your boss always being top priority to the both of you.

“Yea she’s going to be ok, but she’s going to be super pissed when she sees how perfect you look on the tv. Damn giiirl.” You laughed as Tony clapped in your direction, taking in your attire and shaking his head.

“Shove it Stark.”

“You only need to ask nicely Y/N. And maybe buy me dinner first. Shall we?” You threw your head back to laugh before taking his offered arm. Security nodded you in and you felt a slight chill as you entered the darkened exhibit, the green and dark blue lights swirling along the floor to imitate the ocean’s waters.

“Nervous?” Tony asked, noticing how tense you had become on the short trek to the main part of the exhibit, you only being able to nod in response.

“Don’t be, everyone is here for you tonight.”

“What do you mea…” You were quickly silenced as you entered the room by thunderous applause and cheering.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY Y/N!!!”

Letting your eyes adjust to the now well lit room, you couldn’t help but beam at the sight before you. Hundreds of coworkers and your friends gathered around your entrance, the large “Happy Birthday” banner swinging from the ceiling and everything decorated with balloons and streamers to match the exhibit.

You noticed the large thirtieth birthday cake in the middle of the room surrounded by presents and felt yourself tearing up at the overwhelming amount of love.

“Oh you guys….this is…this is so wonderful. Thank you.” You managed to choke out as a very healthy looking Pepper stepped up to you and Tony.

“Sorry about the scare Y/N, it was the only way we could think of to get you to come out tonight. You look amazing.”

“Thanks Pepper. I hate you.” She laughed as you smiled at her before wrapping her in a hug of appreciation, managing to keep your emotions at bay.

You shifted your gaze towards the group of people, making your way to them and dispersing hugs and thanks.

“Damn Y/N you look so good!” Sam said before pulling you close, whispering into your ear.

“Who are you and what have you done with the timid and modest Y/N?”

“You asshole don’t be like that! She looks incredible!” Bucky interrupted, taking his turn to give you a hug before passing you along to Bruce who shook your hand.

“I see our training has proved fruitful. You look exquisite.” Thor offered, hugging you tightly before allowing you to break free. You hadn’t managed to see Steve yet, and you felt yourself scanning the crowd looking for the first Avenger as Nat and Wanda hugged you.

“We’re sorry we fooled you. But you should have seen your face!” Nat exclaimed while Wanda took out her phone.

“No need, we can show her!”

“You post that on any social media and I will murder you.” You glared at the women who only smiled cheekily in response while they showed you the short video, your face heating up as you watched your own shocked expression upon entering the room.

“Ease up ladies, our girl only turns thirty once.” You turned around to find the source of the deep voice and felt your pulse quicken and breath hitch.

Steve was smiling widely at you, his own crisp gray suit flattering his masculine frame. He had his hands in his pockets, his blue eyes carefully making their way down your body before slowly bringing them back to your face. His gaze was smoldering and electric as his eyes locked on yours for what seemed like minutes. You were starting to wonder if you would be having the heart attack this evening as he came to step in front of you.

“Steve! You look….wow!” You sputtered out, groaning and trying to hide your face as your blush came back. Wow? Seriously? Steve only laughed as he took your hands from your face and gently tilted your chin up to look at him.

“Hey you look pretty wow yourself.” He smiled and you felt as if your knees would buckle as he winked at you before giving engulfing you in a hug.

You couldn’t help but sigh as you felt his body heat melt into yours during the embrace. This could not be happening to you. It had to be a fever dream. Maybe you were in a coma. Maybe you’ve been in one for the last two years and only thought Steve up. There was no way Steve Rogers was this perfect and real.

“Hey Rogers! No keeping the birthday girl to yourself now! Especially with her looking this fine!” Sam interrupted and grabbed your arm, you laughing as Tony brought up his hands to shout.

“Let’s start this party already!”

You couldn’t help but look back over your shoulder at Steve while Sam dragged you to the dance floor, offering him a small smile as loud pop music began to flood the room.

Was it just you or did he look…torn?

Tag list: @kaytizzle @cuffski

#steve rogers x reader #captain america #fanfic #the avengers

[kindabraveandlittlestupid]

Another active list of ideas for me to update as they come to me. This one is all about Halloween Decorations/Haunted House ideas. I always prided myself in making a house people would find memorable, enjoyable and scary. Some of these concepts are basic idea that requires a little bit of setup and other are larger projects that may need the whole damn street to be on board. Have a read and let me know what you think OR if you have any ideas to suggest to my list.

Alien Crash Site

I always loved the crash landing decorations. They are rare and obviously take some effort to set up but if someone puts the effort in, they often come out looking like the best house on the block.

If I had money and time I would love to construct something like crashed Tie Fighter or Pelican (Halo) on the lawn but since those ideas are expensive, I am thinking to construct a UFO saucer out of aluminum or sheet metal with a little glass cockpit on top and maybe a rubber alien corpse on the lawn somewhere with dry ice for a smoke effect.

Best idea for a costume is a Men in Black look or a Hazmat Suit. We are there to cover up the alien sighting and make sure everything is transferred to Area 51 without being contaminated.

Effort: Medium

Chemical Spill

Chemical Spill has been an idea I been kicking around since High School. Men in yellow suits walking around with cannister and using metal tongs on both side to hold it. This would be more a skit then it would be an actual haunted house as we walk up and down the street with our gas masks only to drop the container and have the smoke (dry ice again) spill out into the area and the two of US flee in terror or act like we were dying from the fumes. This could be very fun and of course some people might not like the joke but fuck em. 

Effort: Low

Hogwarts

This idea feels simple enough; Brooms, Cauldrons, Floating Candles, School Spirit and so on. Harry Potter does well as an idea not because its so unique but rather because the world is so rich and it has become as big as Star Wars, Star Trek, and Lord of the Fucking Rings. This will excite the Potter Fans to see a house with the four houses of Hogwarts represented. While the initial idea is to keep it to one doorway to deliver candy, I also thought a Sorting Hat puppet might be cool leading the kids to different candy bowls representing the different chapters in the school.

It’s all really up in the air with lots of different ways to build the Harry Potter Haunted House. I would be excited to explore/do all of them over the course of a few years.

Effort: Low to Medium

Plants Vs Zombies

Perhaps a dated idea since the age of Plants VS Zombies is about 4 or 5 years behind us now. I still love the idea of placing 5 lawn mowers in a row, toss up some sunflowers with faces on them and create some defensive plants that are a throwback to the game.

This will take some effort as I will have to A) Burrow my neighbor's lawnmowers B) Build the plants from the game C) Make some dummy zombies to pull the whole damn thing together! The great thing is this is all work and very very little play. Rick’s Garage and the Quarantine Zone require a commitment to character, this is all about setting it up and letting people look at it and say. “Oh yeah, that was a thing once.”

Effort: Medium

Rick’s Garage

It should be noted I don’t look or drink like Rich Sanchez but when I want too, I can sound EXACTLY like Rick which I think is a great opportunity to troll some trick or treaters who come to my door.

Open garage, light on, stool out in the middle and me sitting there working on a new invention. Of course, there is a pickle on the desk and a large cardboard circle nearby with a light projected on it with a green lava lamp like effect to make it look like a portal.

The setup is simple enough and a treat for the fans of the show who will pick up the little easter eggs around the garage I would make IE the portal gun, the Plumbus, the butter bot, etc. Of course, the real fun would be acting like a dick.

*Clears throat for Rick’s Voice*

“Oh.. ohh another ninja, great. You look pretty pale to be Japanese. Just another white kid appropriating another peoples culture, huh?”

“You’re all really good parents. Filling your kids up with sugar when we’re the fattest country in the world. Say hello to type 2 diabetes for me.”

“Jesus a bunch of teenagers! I guess no one is getting laid tonight. Go home, watch a movie and do some dry humping until one of you works out how to lose your virginity in the most awkward way possible.”

Effort: Low

Wonderland Tea Party

The Wonderland Tea Party idea was something I came up with a few years back. Giant mushrooms, a long table on the lawn, and a few method actors playing Alice, the Teacup Mouse, Mad Hatter and me as the March Hare. Naturally, the insane people would be the Hare and Hatter talking crazy to one another across the table. Alice would be the go too person for candy being the only sane one at the table.

If the decorations were done right, I can easily imagine Cheshire cat smiling from the corner of the roof, a tiny door on a nearby wall and lots of other practical effects decorations to pull the scene together. This is another Haunted House/Decoration that really requires people to get into their roles while we have a tea party on my front lawn. I hope to find a girlfriend crazy enough to do this with me.

Effort: Medium

Quarantine Zone

This is something I been wanting to do most on the list. The Quarantine Zone is a nothing short of interactive Trick or Treat experience. A culdesac converted into a zombie outbreak zone. At the opening of the street, some rented chain link fences to block the sidewalks, a white quarantine tent and people dressed up as soldiers to hold the checkpoint. On the other side of the fence, the neighborhood has turned into a zombie epidemic with shamblers walking about, corpses on the lawn and other practical effects to give the end of the world vibe.

The Trick or Treaters come to the white tent where they meet a soldier who will be their escort to one, two or three candy houses. Using an air compressor we can blast them with air to make it seem like they are going thru a decontamination room. The soldier will use his airsoft gun (unloaded) to shoot a few shamblers who will drop to the grass as he leads them to some “safe houses” where some survivors are locked away and giving away king size candy bars. I always imagined one house could have someone who is bitten and slowly turning, another house could have a survivor who died but their candy bowl is still there (small candies) and the last house be a man or woman who is afraid to open the door but the soldier convinces the kids to yell trick or treat to let them know they are human.

I imagine how interactive this all would be for the kids and having the soldiers communicate with the survivors with walkie-talkies. Also having a few houses open where zombies can shamble in to take their break and let another actor step out to play the undead for a few hours. It's a dream and one which I love to have come true one day.

Effort: Very High

As always thanks the reading and feel free to share your own ideas or leave notes that I can add to my list.

Regards, Michael California

#Halloween #All Hallows Eve #Dia De Los Muertos #Happy Halloween #Haunted House #Halloween Decorations #Halloween Decoration Ideas

[y4s2-20192020]

NST Wildlife Corridor

this project is to connect Khao Luang and Khao Ban-that forest complexes together as ONE Nakhon Si Thammarat Mountain Range to enhance THE LANDSCAPE CONNECTIVITIES OF FOREST PATCHES. In order to promote THE LIFE EXPECTANCY of wildlifes.

Thailand is experiencing the destruction and degradation of natural habitat, widespread across the nation, where humankind is responsible for an “EPISODE OF SPECIES’ DECLINE”.

According to Bennett (2013), despite endowing one of the most important biodiversity hotspot in the World. During the past several decades, wildlife habitat in Thailand has been declining and fragmented into “Remnants of Natural Environment” or completely defunct..

this project is to connect Khao Luang and Khao Ban-that forest complexes together as ONE Nakhon Si Thammarat Mountain Range to enhance THE LANDSCAPE CONNECTIVITIES OF FOREST PATCHES. In order to promote THE LIFE EXPECTANCY of wildlifes.

Especially in The Southern Peninsula of Thailand, where the mosaic of the large and small patches are only preserved as the protected area from the Nation’s conservation acts. However, these existing core habitats are presently invaded and developed into productive land-use for human economical and urbanization development.

As you can see in this map, the landscape greenery does not serve the ecology function as a wildlife hospitable habitat because it is not to be as green and abundant as we thought, instead, it is the “Green Desert” of “mono-cropping plantation”.

According to Bennett, Figure. 2-1, in the LINKAGE IN THE LANDSCAPE, the process of fragmentation are classified into three component:

First, is an overall loss of the habitat or “HABITAT LOSS”

Second, reduction in the habitat’s block or “HABITAT REDUCTION”

Third, the increase in the isolation of habitat as the “ISLAND EFFECT” OR “HABITAT ISOLATION”

Starting from the DISSECTION from road infrastructure, and followed by the settlement in small scale as the PERFORATION, before expanding the human lands to the surrounding on a larger scale, known as FRAGMENTATION. This accelerates the natural habitat loss and isolation process and results in ATTRITION where remnants of small patches no longer exist.

These processes, as mentioned above, affect wildlife mortality from losing their MOTHERLAND or facing local extinction and have either migrate to the remaining core habitat or defunct. This effect results in increasing resources demand to sustain the wildlife population leading to the high competition over resources, which increases STRESS and INBREEDING IN POPULATION. Also, the increase of PERIMETER TO AREA RATIO OR EDGE EFFECT which increases the exposure to humans leading to more confrontation and competition with a human for more resources and dwelling.

Nakhon Si Thammarat Mountain Range is one of the most important BIODIVERSITY hotspots in the region with North to South alignment providing the safe passage for wildlife to migrate from the CLIMATE change to the different latitude. In order to find a suitable habitat environment within the protected area along its path.

However, Nakhon Si Thammarat Mountain Range is fragmented and isolated into 2 forestcomplexes- Northern Nakhon Si Thammarat Mountain Range (Khao Luang forest complex), and Southern Nakhon Si Thammarat Mountain Range (Khao Ban That Forest Complex).

In Section B, these two complexes are separated by heavily invaded reserved forest and human settlement in Thungsong Area.

My objective in this project is to connect Khao Luang and Khao Ban-that forest complexes together as ONE Nakhon Si Thammarat Mountain Range to enhance THE LANDSCAPE CONNECTIVITIES OF FOREST PATCHES. In order to promote THE LIFE EXPECTANCY of wildlifes. By starting to connect from Nam Tok Yong National Park to Khao Pu- Khao Ya National Park using Wildlife Corridor

And this is the current latest dimension of LANDSCAPE INFRASTRUCTURE DESIGN that is not merely designed to serve the urban need but other capacities in ECOLOGY DIMENSION.

The question is “If we want to connect forest patches altogether, what are the criteria that are used in the process?”

In this studio, we use weight-overlay analysis based on the ESRI standard to study the different bands of landscape, and ecology functions to explore the potential wildlife suitable trail and habitat based on habitat suitability model for wildlife animals.

Especially, elephant as a Keystone and Umbrella species where conserving ELEPHANT is also conserving other species because it has a high capacity of regrowing and maintaining the forest environment with the large home range of 400 square kilometres. It also initiates the wildlife trail by clearing the path of the dense forest allowing other species to follow and thrive.

The Tiger or “เสอื โคร่ง” is the key measurement in this project because of their population indicates the habitat abundance. And, being as the KEYSTONE TOP PREDATOR with the high rate of consumption and large home range. They are responsible for controlling other species’ populations to maintain the balance of the ecosystem.

In analyzing, habitat suitability model, classifying into 3 criteria based on wildlife needs and preference of landscape.

First, is the Habitat Landuse map from the information acquired from GISTDA and the department of National Park to define Protected Area, Remaining Forest, and Agriculture area. These maps are used in score based weight overlay analysis to define suitable habitat and land use areas.

Secondly, Topography criteria consists of slope and terrain data to define Euclidean Distance from Ridge and StreamLine because wildlife prefers this landscape configuration, especially ELEPHANT.

Third security criteria and safe zone defining from human activities and disturbance hotspot to define safe spots for wildlife apart from humans.

Finally, we use weighted maps from these 3 criteria to define SUITABLE AND HOSPITABLE core habitat in the site by extracting the area with a score from 7-10 to create SUITABLE HABITAT PATCH, where the selecting score range is based on...

This AMPLITUDE OF TOLERANCE FROM HUMAN ACTIVITY DIAGRAM before analysis with COST DISTANCE AND COST BACKLINK for establishing LEAST COST PATH or TRAIL LINE.

The results are this comprehensive map defining the potential corridors and habitat consists of 6 potential corridors from 1A to 5 and 5 potential habitat patches from A to E.

The Corridor 1A is selected to be the NODE of a starting point as it proves the potential compared to Corridor 1B Corridor 1B, which consists of denser obstacles from urbanization and curved road.

The rest of the four corridors have also shared the similarity in the bands of landscape typology except RAILWAY AND HIGH VOLTAGE POWER GRID LINE.

After we get the corridor, the typical section is needed to understand the different bands of the landscape configuration and how the wildlife uses the landscape and we use Corridor 1A as the example starting with...

Para Rubber Plantation

That should not grow in this type of landscape as mono-cropping because it degrades the abundance of the ecosystem, and is responsible for the cause of soil-erosion. As well as high contamination of pesticides, other chemicals, and potentially becoming the disease spreading hotspot affects wildlife mortality and inhospitable for wildlife habitat. According to the research on the topic of The impact of rubber plantations on the diversity and activity of understorey insectivorous bats in KHAO BANTHAT by Phansamai Phommexay, found that para-rubber plantation has lesser than 50% of biodiversity compared to surrounding forest environment and not found any VERTEBRATES LARGER THAN 7KG. except rarely visited by the elephants. As well as the research In the other region, also report in the same way.

Beginning with converting Para Rubber Plantation into TROPICAL AGROFORESTRY to restore the hospitable ecosystem for both human and wildlife needs. The process can be initiated through the para-rubber trimming and cutting some of them down to allow more light to penetrate to the ground level. As well as clearing the Caeruleum, becuase of its... 

resulting in the thriving of the local orchard and pioneer plant species with remaining para rubber plants serving as NANNY PLANT or Mutual Plant.

And the results after 30 years is the TROPICAL MOIST AGROFORESTRY serves as the food source for both human and wildlife, also the continuity of the landscape configuration and ecological function. When the restoration meets sufficient abundance, the wildlife will start to emerge in this type of landscape.

STREAM CORRIDOR

The Stream Corridor also has to restore the para-rubber plantation at the same time to preserve the existing remaining forest. This will allows nature to create a design based on its nature and the rhythm of life.

And this is the results after 20 years, this corridor will serve as the hotspot for the animal to access water resources and bring the SONG OF WILDLIFE to the scene.

The stream corridor also can be the camping site, and the design of camping area should be above the ground and facilitate the camping gear such as the flysheet and hammock, as well as The modular structure features a rope net rail and rope stair, connected into the collective series of trees. By choosing the site, the site should contain trees with a trunk height more than 6 meters from the ground and have the space between them of 4 to 5 meters.

SECONDARY ROAD CORRIDOR

For the Secondary Road Corridor, also follow the design principle from the stream corridor, but need to adapt with surveillance systems such as camera tracking, CCTV, and a checkpoint for monitoring and provide wildlife security integrating with law enforcement smart patrol along the EDGE AREA TO THE INNER HABITAT.

RAILWAY OVER[ASS CORRIDOR

The railway overpass in its existing condition serves as the attraction spot and the train shortcut through the mountain We need to preserve the existing forest as well as adapting the vernacular FLYINGSHEET architecture to provide safety for humans and wildlife to serve as an animal corridor with human recreation.

Also can be used as a scenic campground features with the FLYINGSHEET to allow humans to witness the GREATNESS AND AESTHETIC OF NATURE on the safe vertical distance and use the architecture to camouflage and blend with nature, to reduce wildlife stress.

RAILWAY SIDE CORRIDOR

On the railway side, we also apply the same design principles connecting from the Overpass corridor. Where it serves a similar function but different feeling. Because we can observe the Dynamic and Aesthetic of Landscape from the train.

It will be super cool if we spot bands of animals along the path.

HIGH VOLTAGE POWER GRID LINE

The High Voltage Grid corridor provides the light gap along the line, as it is the need of clearing space for the powerline for safety. The design is to adopt the method from the para-rubber to transform into Agroforestry and turn the power grid floor into the saltlick and grassland to attract the animal to the designated path after crossing the major road corridor.

MAJOR HIGHWAY CORRIDOR

the Major Highway Road Corridor. This corridor proves to be the most challenging landscape infrastructure design where we need to study the condition, criteria, and elements. And to use all knowledge acquiring through the journey in making this project from start to end as we need to provide a...

... safe passage for wildlife

...and human.

The first idea is to design the overpass with an observation deck which is promising in many countries. However, both elephant, tiger, and other terrestrial species are more preferred to the underpass according to the report from the underpass corridor in India, Kenya, Malaysia, and A304 corridor in Khao Yai, Thailand.

And this is my design of VIADUCT UNDERPASS CORRIDOR.

The design is to provide a safe passage for a wide array of terrestrial and avian species on different levels and elevations. Where the avian is using the canopy and over-story trees line to cross this corridor. For the Terrestrial, Specie will use the ground level on the landscape of Mixed Forest and Grassland to the salt lick at the core of the corridor.

The bridge structure is designed to be curved along with the tree shape and to be as slim as possible. The column also acts as the tree growing guide and creates a large void in the center as a cave environment with mineral lick large enough to accommodate ELEPHANT passing through the corridor and support 2 lanes road with 1 parking lane integrated with low disturbance safety equipment. The bent trees that planted near the bridge column within the bridge shade, allowing them to grow on the designated sunlight path to reach the bridge platform level. The result will be the bent tree acting as the camouflage screen, as well as controlling the microclimate such as temperature, humidity, and brightness under the bridge. And it helps reduce human appearance to animals while spotting and enjoying the scenic view of Nam Tok Yong National Park. The tree canopy’s negative space allows us to see through them to the lower ground and spotting animals, as well as reducing noise pollution from transportation and limiting the crowded space on the bridge.

RESEARCHER & OFFICER’S OBSERVATION ROOM the facility is used to observe wildlife activities when they are using the corridor. The researcher can take the opportunities to collect the sample and experiment for research and conservation purpose The rock-cut design of the space features battened one-way glass windows to allow the researcher to spot the wildlife and blend with the environment to observe in the close-up distance. The mezzanine design is for observation and experimental garden to provide higher elevation view allowing the researcher to observe with the different perspective view And When certain species conditions are met, there are chances for rare species to grow in this corridor.

This corridor will be named as The KODCHALUCK (ชา้งคชลักษณฺ) to honor the royal elephants living in this region or you can call REGENCY BRIDGE. The inspiration for this bridge is from my personal impression of the landscape of small streams during trekking in Khao Luang National Park 

The KODCHALUCK bridge serves as the symbol of the Elephant as National’s animal and conservation. The landscape and defined trail formed into the elephant shape from every angle of view. And the top view is designed to let the elephant crossing the road facing the South direction to express the connection of the NST MT range corridor start here. With the elephant to be the umbrella species to open the corridor trail for the other species, and its characteristic of being large, strong, and be able to fight with all obstacles just like the conservation approach of Thailand.

The trail in this corridor also represents the dynamic of nature as the point WHERE NATURE MEET THE LONG LOST RELATIVE. This corridor is designing with the standard from WILDLIFE CROSSING STRUCTURE HANDBOOK BY USDOT and LINKAGE IN LANDSCAPE BY BENNETTS.

In order to see the elephant’s symbolic, there is a need to wait for a tree to grow and reach an overstorey level, and need to climb up to witness it.

Where the measurement of success of this project is the appearance of species in this diagram, where the tiger indicates this highest success.

This is what the wildlife corridor will look like after applying the design across the different bands of landscapes. Where the wildlife corridor results in protecting network to ensure both wildlife and human safety and facilitating wildlife to meet their daily, seasonal and basic biological needs and maintaining regional metapopulations, community stability, and ecosystem processes. To promote movements and genetic interchange and minimizing risks of inbreeding within populations

Finally, the design principle can be adopted in other corridors through the region to regain...

...suitable habitat and enlarge them to create an INTERDEPENDENT point between wildlife and human.

And this project will be the LAST piece of the puzzle that was placed back on the map canvas and reunited NST MT RANGE as...

ONE.

#Chon Supawongse #2 Sung Pisitt Sae-Tan #YEAR4 #SEMESTER2 #NSTWILDLIFECORRIDOR

[bangkokjacknews]

‘Death to America’: Pro-Iran Mob Attacks U.S. Embassy in Iraq

A mob attacked the U.S. Embassy in #Baghdad on Tuesday, prompting some embassy staff to evacuate.

The mob was angered by last weekend’s U.S. airstrikes against the Iran-backed Shiite militia Kataib Hezbollah (KH), which killed an American civilian contractor in a rocket attack last week. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday morning that Iran “orchestrated” the embassy attack and would be “held fully responsible.” The mob grew into thousands of people, led by openly identified KH supporters, some of them wearing uniforms and waving militia flags. The attack began after a funeral service for the 25 KH fighters killed by the U.S. airstrikes. Demonstrators marched through the streets of Baghdad carrying photos of the slain KH members and Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who condemned the American airstrikes. Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many. We strongly responded, and always will. Now Iran is orchestrating an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. They will be held fully responsible. In addition, we expect Iraq to use its forces to protect the Embassy, and so notified! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2019 KH vowed to seek revenge for the airstrikes on Monday. Both KH and the Iranian military unit that supports it, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), have been designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government. The government of Saudi Arabia also described KH as one of several “terrorist militias supported by the Iranian establishment” in remarks on Tuesday condemning the assault on the U.S. embassy. The attackers were able to smash open a gate and push into the embassy compound, lighting fires, smashing cameras, and painting messages such as “Closed in the name of resistance” on the walls. Gunshots were reportedly heard near the embassy, while tear gas and stun grenades were deployed by its defenders. A uniformed militia fighter on the scene in Baghdad told Kurdish news service Rudaw that attacks were also planned against the U.S. consulates in Erbil and Basra, with the goal of destroying the consulates and killing everyone inside. “This is a letter to Trump and the American embassy in Baghdad and its consulate in Erbil and in Basra,” he said. “Those who have attacked our forces and our Jihadi brothers… God willing, if this fire reaches inside of the embassy, we will not spare a single employee. We are the children of the martyrs and this is our statement, death to America.” Several militia commanders loyal to Iran were spotted in the mob, including Hadi al-Amiri, head of the state-sponsored Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) umbrella organization for paramilitary groups. At least one sitting member of the Iraqi parliament also participated in the attack. Iraqi government Member of Parliament Hasan Salem participated in the attack against the U.S Embassy in #Baghdad #Iraq , he claims this is the end for U.S and allies including Saudi Arabia ,Israel and UAE. pic.twitter.com/kgjyk5dir5 — Steven nabil (@thestevennabil) December 31, 2019 Iran and its terrorist proxies in Iraq were not without support from the Iraqi government, which is teetering on the verge of collapse after months of protests from Iraqis angered by Iranian influence over their country. Outgoing Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi, who technically resigned in late November but has not yet been replaced, denounced the U.S. airstrikes against Kataib Hezbollah as “sinful,” the same term used by Grand Ayatollah Sistani. “The Iraqi government condemns this act and considers it a violation of its sovereignty and a grave violation of the coalition forces’ rules of action, including the American forces, by carrying out operations without the approval of the Iraqi government,” said a statement issued by Abdul-Mahdi’s office on Monday. Observers in Baghdad found it suspicious that the embassy attackers were able to penetrate the “Green Zone” safe area without resistance from Iraqi security forces, who usually repel angry crowds that attempt to enter the area. A sight I didn't expect this morning when we set out to cover a funeral processions. Thousands of PMF marching through checkpoint leading to US embassy, with no effort by Iraqi sec forces to stop them pic.twitter.com/FRyL2L8vhc — Simona Foltyn (@SimonaFoltyn) December 31, 2019 Iraqi Interior Minister Yassine al-Yasseri appeared at the embassy to inspect the scene but made no apparent effort to halt the attack. After a few hours, a small group of Iraqi soldiers arrived in armored vehicles and urged the mob to move back from the embassy, without taking action to disperse the protest. Iraqi riot police reportedly attempted to reach the embassy but were blocked by the mob. Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi belatedly warned against attacks on foreign embassies on Tuesday and asked the demonstrators to leave, promising that violence and vandalism would be punished. Although early reports said U.S. Ambassador Matthew Tueller was evacuated from the embassy during the attack, ABC News was told on Tuesday that Tueller was on leave and was not in Iraq at the time of the assault. – You can follow BangkokJack on Instagram, Twitter & Reddit. Or join the free mailing list (top right) Please help us continue to bring the REAL NEWS - PayPal Read the full article

[sonicboomtube]

Sonic Mania Review

Sonic Mania was the most anticipated Sonic title since Generations due to it not only being in the Classic Sonic style but as well as looking like an old school Genesis game! Is it worth the hype?

Background:  Despite the Adventure, Advance, and Rush series, Sonic games that came out since were mediocre to down right atrocious.  Things seemed to turn around in the main series with Sonic Unleashed (not counting night time stages) and Colors.  The 2.5/3D platforming action proved to be a success and by Sonic's 20th Anniversary came Sonic Generations. This game brought in Classic Sonic along with his gameplay style.  Many say it and Colors are the best Post-Adventure games ever.

Then they changed it up in Sonic Lost World and Sonic Boom trying to fix what wasn't broken.  Both games did not sell very well and the latter was even considered worse than Sonic 06.  Sonic was once again a laughing stock of the video game industry.  SEGA did some rebranding the last couple years and they came back with an announcement of 2 new Sonic games.  Sonic Forces, which has similar gameplay to Generations with a new gimmick and one that fans been asking for many years, Sonic 4!  Well, it's not called Sonic 4 but it's a game that is worthy of that name.  This is Sonic Mania!

Sonic fans turned pro Christian Whitehead and his Retro Engine and Stealth to help create a new Genesis styled game.  Christian and Stealth previously worked on Android/iPhone ports of Sonic 1, 2 & CD and thanks to their success, were hired to work on this game.

Story:  Sonic & Tails return to Angel Island as they sense a big energy reading there.  They encounter Dr Eggman (Robotnik's) new line of robots, the Hard Boiled Heavies and they retrieve a mysterious ruby from underground.  Then the ruby transports them (and Knuckles who encounters the robots shortly after Sonic and Tails) to Green Hill Zone.  I am not sure if they transport to the old zones' timeline or if it's just locations.  The storytelling is light since the gameplay is the focus.  Like Sonic 3, the story advances within the game.

 Graphics/Music:

The direction for the look and sound was to be a lost 32X/Saturn game and they have truly accomplished it!  The animated cutscenes at the opening and ending are wonderful.  Tyson Heese, who drew Archie's Sonic comics, also penciled these and it looks beautiful!  Hyper Potions did the music too for the intro and trailer and is amazing!

The remix zones' look wonderful and even smoother than the Genesis version. The original zones look gorgeous as well! The special stages look like they are from a lost Saturn game.  The animations in the characters, objects, and scenery are flawless!  The frame rate is perfect and having the game in widescreen really makes a difference as it is easier to see what is in front of you.  You can even add a CRT filter to get that nostalgic look of a 90s TV screen! 

Generally, the music in the Sonic franchise is top notch and in Mania, it is no different. As with the visuals of the retro zones, the remix of zone's themes are as you remembered it but has more of a kick to it! The new zones sound great too like the jazzy Studiopolis, the western feel of Mirage Saloon, and the peaceful melody of Press Garden!  They even released the soundtrack on Vinyl!  It's that good!

 Gameplay: If you have played the Classic Sonic games, then you'll feel right what home with Sonic Mania!  The complaints about the games that tried to copy the classic gameplay style fell short of the Genesis days. (Sonic 4's floating physics, Sonic Rush's boost to win, Sonic Advance's bottomless pits, Sonic Generations scripted speed thru certain sections.)  Fear not, all the controls are tight and not only exactly as you remember it, but in my own opinion are more refined.  It has a good balance of speed and platforming.  Playing the remix of the Genesis Zones while in part, are similar to the old games, feel fresh with new mechanics like in Chemical Plant Zone, bouncing off of colored floors to get to new heights or in Green Hill with the fire shield, can burn some bridges to get to new paths below.  The new zones are also among the series' best. Studiopolis is one of my favorites of this game,.

The zones are also non linear so you can take any path you want to get to the end and it is also required to explore if you want to find special rings, hidden items, and shortcuts. Every character plays well thru each zone.  The new move, Drop Dash helps keep your momentum of speed and also makes it easier to avoid enemy attacks.  Knuckles can smash thru walls that Sonic and Tails can't to find more hidden goodies and shortcuts.  What I like about Tails & Knuckles in this game is they can't just glide/fly thru a level with no problem.  Yeah, it helps get you thru a bit faster but the game forces you not to take the cheap way out thru the whole experience.

The bosses are some of the series best.  Mini bosses return at the end of Act 1. Act 2, you fight a hard boiled heavy, Robotnik, or a surprise challenge.  Some of the classic bosses have a new twist as well.  For example, the Death Egg Robot showing up at Green Hill Zone throwing bombs and extending it's arms to try and kill you or using Robotnik's machine from Hydro City in Sonic 3 against him.

 Extras:

The bonus stages are the blue sphere rounds you can access if your have 25+ rings and hit a checkpoint. Half are straight from Sonic 3 and others are completely new.  They aren't required to beat the game or give you the true ending but they give you medals to help unlock extras.  I consider myself really good at these in Sonic 3 but some of the newer rounds were still a challenge.  If you unlock blue sphere mode, if you play the Mania style, you get two new spheres. One is to teleport you to different parts of the round.  A green sphere is like the blue one but you have to run over it twice to turn red.  

The new special stages are found throughout the levels as giant rings like in Sonic 3 but the difference is instead of turning blue spheres into red spheres/rings, you have to chase a UFO by running over the blue objects.  They fill a speed meter and can go up to Mach 3.  Collecting rings increase the time of the stage. The control is a little stiff with the drifting but it isn't impossible though it is easy to bounce off things, fall off course, and run into spikes if you aren't careful.  The trick is to find shortcuts and try to collect as many spheres early on.

You can also play the UFO stages via a level select code and extras menu if you need to practice.  The good news is if you beat the game without getting all of the Chaos Emeralds, you can go back to your save file and keep the emeralds you have and retrieve the rest in the next run.

Other extras you can unlock are playing Mean Bean Machine, Time Attack, sound test, and debug mode. You can also play in different gameplay styles (2, 3, and CD.) You can also use the insta-sheild and super peel out but like debug mode, you have to select no-save mode.  Its unfortunate for the & Knuckles mode but you can have Knuckles as the 2nd player for each player (and that includes Knuckles himself! Make sure you beat the game as Knuckles & Knuckles to get secret ending)

 Spoiler After getting all 7 Chaos Emeralds, you can become Super Sonic, Super Tails (though doesn't have Flickies with him this time), and Super Knuckles.  If you beat Titanic Monarch as Sonic with 7 Chaos Emeralds, you get to fight Eggman and the main Hard Boiled Heavy fighting over the ruby.  You must keep collecting rings to stay alive.  You lose rings if you get attacked or do a boost attack.  It took me a bit to figure out how to play it but it's not too difficult but it is cool being part of an epic battle. Something about that ruby and the pose Sonic makes at the end of the good ending looks familiar.  Hmmmm!

The Positives/Negatives of the Game:

+High replay value with multiple paths, collecting chaos emeralds, unlocking extras, and playing as all 3 characters +Very tight controls with great balance of speed and platforming +New moves like the drop dash are a welcome addition +Old zones feel new again with never before seen sections and challenges +New zones feel right at home with the classic era.  Some of the series best +Music as always is top notch. +The majority of the bosses are some of the best of the classic era +The Easter Eggs +Blue Spheres and Mean Bean Machine are back +Sprite cutscenes and the Opening/Closing Animations are gorgeous

=Oil Ocean is one of my least favorite zones of the classic eras and would have preferred if they chose a different zone but the remix is an excellent rendition of it. =Wish there were more in game cut scenes between zones than what we got but what we got was wonderful. =I was happy with the amount of new zones we got and their quality but I wish there were one or two new zones.  Oh well, maybe next game we can get more new zones.

-You still fall for some cheap deaths.  Thankfully there aren't many bottomless pits like in certain Sonic games but it's very easy to get crushed to death (chemical plant and titanic monarch are the ones where it happened often for me) -While I liked the challenge of the special stages, I felt the controls should feel a bit tighter when turning. -Some of the bosses were tough to figure out how to beat.  Some of it was rewarding when i did find a way to defeat them.  There were a couple I had to look at let's play vids to figure it out.  Like in Sonic & Knuckles, playing as Knux was difficult fighting against the bosses thanks to the height of his jumps.

Closing Thoughts:

Even the negative points of the game didn't really bother me that much and in no way, tarnish the quality of the experience.  Some fans even claim that it is the best Sonic game to date!  I am not sure if I agree with that but I do like it more than Sonic CD which was my #2 favorite Sonic game of all time and can understand why some fans place it #1!  Whether you are a die hard Sonic fan, a causal player, or a noob, this is the game for you!  I have really enjoyed this game and will come back and replay it as often as I can!  

Sonic Mania gets 4 3/4 STARS out of 5!  (9.5 out of 10 for those that score in 10s.  A- that like letter grades.)  See you next game!

#sonic the hedgehog #sonicthehedgehog #classic sonic #sega genesis #sega #sonic #sonic mania #miles tails prower #tails #knuckles the echidna #knuckles #robotnik #doctor robotnik #doctor eggman #eggman #Dr. Eggman #megadrive

[50books50movies]

The LEGO Batman Movie (2017), Logan (2017), and The Fate of the Furious (2017)

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Trailer

Trailer

I’m at an age where many of my friends have become or will become parents. Since I was the first person in my peer circle to become a father, they sometimes turned to me to ask what advice, practical or philosophical, I could give about becoming a parent. By this point, I’ve refined my patter to a performance. I will consistently tell my friends, “Don’t have kids.” Either that draws them in further to inevitably ask why, or they take the words on the superficial level and move on with the conversation. If they ask why I, a father of a delightful kid, would say that, I ask if they want the practical or the philosophical reasons. The practical reasons are simple: having a child is a major financial commitment, a guarantee that you will never have a sound night of sleep ever again (and not just because an infant’s needs will interrupt your sleep), and a turning point in the relationship that you and your partner have. You and your partner’s relationship may not survive; the roles that you and you partner played in the relationship before you became parents will not be the roles that you will play after. The philosophical reasons are based in pessimism: if we accept that any actions that lead to the suffering of others is immoral, then having a child is an immoral act because human sentience means that we all live in constant pain born from a terror of knowing that our lives are finite. We are always dying. We die every second. In response to the absurd notion that we are born only so we can live to know that we will die, the most common options are: commit suicide, embrace the absurdity of life, or to recognize how absurd life is and rebel. How could you then morally justify creating life? 

What could have been in the creative air to inspire three major blockbuster films (The LEGO Batman Movie, Logan, and The Fate of the Furious) from three different distributors (Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, and Universal Pictures, respectively) to tackle the ideas of family unity and fatherhood in three different ways? (And it’s noted that these three films offer their takes on fatherhood specifically, not parenthood.) I suppose it’s natural that someone will explore the paradoxical idea that characters like Batman and Wolverine, who are so often defined as loners who don’t believe that they deserve human connections to other people would actually have many relationships that form an extended family with characters who choose to be with them. In other words, you could imagine Batman, Wolverine, and Dominic Toretto each saluting their respective families with their beverages of choice. 

Colorful and bombastic, The LEGO Batman Movie contextualizes the characters around Batman as his extended family. From Alfred the patriarch (voice by Ralph Fiennes) to Batman (Will Arnett) to Batman’s adopted son, Robin (Michael Cera), to Batman’s co-dependent nemesis, the Joker (Zach Galifianakis), to Batman and Joker’s extended work friends and acquaintances like Harley Quinn (Jenny Slate), Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson), and Clayface, the many bonds that Batman has with the world around him are highlighted in bright neon explosions. As Batman’s surrogate father and like a father who worries about his kid’s ability to make the right kind of friends at school or meet the right partner, Alfred worries about his charge’s ability to form social bonds that will sustain Batman if he were to ever die. 

The film’s inciting incident is Batman breaking the Joker’s heart by telling him that he means nothing to him; the movie ends with a play on romantic comedy beats by climaxing with Batman and the Joker telling each other that they hate each other. It’s the psychosexual dynamic between the two that Frank Miller famously explored in The Dark Knight Returns and Scott Snyder years later in “Death of the Family” sanitized for the elementary school set. 

The cinematic versions of Batman always come around to embrace the idea that Batman isn’t the loner that he thinks he is. He travels with gods like Superman and Wonder Woman. In The LEGO Batman Movie, he craves the attention from his peers in the Justice League so badly that he has to put up a front to pretend that he doesn’t want it when he doesn’t get it. In other films, he actually founds the Justice League.

He’s also a father figure, whether in the figurative sense (Batman’s vigilantism gives birth to a more demented class of villains, and his rogues slowly transition from mobsters to supervillains) in a more literal sense (Batman becomes the guardian to the various Robins over the years and the central figure in a cohort of vigilantes, from the Huntress to Spoiler to Red Hood to Batwoman to Batwing). Michael Cera’s performance as Robin in The LEGO Batman Movie makes the character guileless and eager to please than normal to contrast with the bravado that Will Arnett infuses into his Batman. 

Like his bald counterpart in The LEGO Batman Movie (coincidentally portrayed by Ralph, another Englishman, Fiennes), Patrick Stewart’s Charles Xavier is concerned that Logan (Hugh Jackman) will lose his chance to reforge a connection to the wider world around him in Logan. Bitter, broken-hearted, and betrayed by his body, Xavier insists to Logan that there is still time for him to reconnect with the world after the rest of the X-Men were killed when Logan meets Laura (Dafne Keen). Logan, Laura, and Charles’s adventure across America remind Logan what a warm household full of affection, as the X-Mansion might have been once, looks like compared to the dusty and solitary existence he, Caliban (Stephen Merchant), and Charles lived in Mexico as he tried to raise enough money to go somewhere so he and Charles can die in peace. As Logan undergoes this journey and reforges connections, he travels from a dusty broken down industrial plant to a neon-bathed city to a corn farm and back to nature, his soul undergoing a revival even as his body continues its breakdown. 

Both Logan and Batman begin their films as reluctant fathers, each haunted by loss and unable to figure out the hedgehog’s dilemma. Both are convinced that their lonely lives are the only ways that they can pass their days. Both are pushed by their surrogate father figures to bond with children who unexpectedly enter their lives. And both try to demonstrate their acceptance of the responsibility of fatherhood through sacrifice. Logan overdoses on a drug in order to protect Laura and her friends from a physical avatar of his wild past, while Batman volunteers to return to the Phantom Zone to honor the agreement he made with the Phantom Zone’s keeper that allowed him to return to save his fledgling family. 

There’s a thrill to seeing Logan cut a bloody swath across the screen, but the film’s melancholy gives it a bitter taste. The shock of Logan cutting off an arm from a man who was trying to steal the tires from his rented limousine is undercut by how hard it was for the legendary Wolverine to fend off those four men. The excitement of Logan bearing his claws at Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook) and the Reavers is undermined by how ineffectual Logan is against them. You might be surprised that Logan is casually murdering Reavers who were trying to capture Xavier, but the surprise is subverted by the realization that the Reavers were completely defenseless and neutralized by Xavier’s psychic seizure. Logan facing down goons to help Will Munson (Eriq La Salle), a farmer that he helped on his journey, but his violence against the Reavers and the goons only brings more violence upon the Munsons, which leaves them all dead. In the climax, Logan is temporarily restored to his former vitality due to a healing serum, but by the end of that burst of violence, Logan can barely stand. Violence in Logan is a bittersweet fruit.

Every time Logan fights the Reavers, they come back with more and stronger soldiers. When he faces them in Mexico, the Reavers have heavily armed Mexican police officers riding in SUVs. By the time that he faces them in North Dakota, the Reavers have armored trucks, jeeps with mounted machine guns, and a young feral clone of Logan. Nonetheless, Logan can’t help but feel fatherly pride during the climactic fight against the Reavers. Laura had already saved him once after he collapsed on the side of a highway by getting him medical attention. But he becomes proud of her when she fights to defend her friends against the Reavers, and they coordinate their attacks. They bond through violence because, as Xavier said, they’re very alike.  

The price of violence makes explicit the idea that becoming a parent raises the stakes. One might be tempted to quit an unsatisfactory, unfulfilling, underpaying job, but the income or health insurance from that job might be the only thing that protects your family from deprivation. One might be tempted to lash out at the world or to go it alone, but that might be the selfish thing to do. 

James Mangold, the director of Logan and one of the screenwriters, along with Scott Frank and Michael Green, unintentionally struck political relevance in the current political climate. The film’s development began in 2013, and the screenplay was complete by early 2016, around the same time that Donald Trump was campaigning for President of the United States on a platform of xenophobia and racism. In the film’s opening scenes, we see Logan chauffering four young white men past a Mexico-US border checkpoint. They’re standing through the limo’s sunroof, chanting “USA!” at the immigrants waiting to pass the border. By March 2017, President Trump’s administration is floating trial balloons to test the idea of separating women and children who are caught crossing the Mexico-US border together. Laura and her friends are Mexican children whose humanity has been denied by a corporation so they can be experimented upon and trained to be weapons. As Donald Pierce references repeatedly throughout Logan, Laura and her friends are commodities, patented intellectual properties of the company that employs him. Whereas other X-Men stories would be metaphors about how the Other is demonized, here the Other is completely dehumanized. Principal photography for Logan ended in August 2016, but the idea that Laura and her friends are not seeking refuge in the United States because the United States is not a hospitable place for children born from Mexican mothers and the image that they are running toward the Canadian border to seek asylum make for accidentally potent juxtaposition.

While The LEGO Batman Movie and Logan present their protagonists in trigenerational families, The Fate of the Furious presents two different types of families. There’s the circle of friends that become a family that Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) often toasts with a bottle of Corona. Then, there’s also the son that he and Elena (Elsa Pataky) created during their relationship when he thought that Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) was dead. Dominic accepts fatherhood without reservation and is willing to betray his la familia in order to protect his biological family until he can find a way to save his son from Cipher (Charlize Theron, mostly underutilized in the film), a legendary cyberterrorist who is blackmailing Dominic to steal an EMP device, a Russian nuclear football, and a Russian nuclear submarine for her.  

There is, of course, another father in la familia who is noticeably absent. Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker), Mia Toretto, and their son are written out of the film with a line delivered by Letty to explain that they cannot contact Brian for his help in subduing Dominic and capture Cipher. Within the context of the film, this allows Brian and Mia to raise their child in peace, though I cannot imagine that they would feel much peace watching news reports of the theft of an EMP device in Germany, the assault on a Russian defense minister in New York City, or the chaos in New York when la familia attempted to take Dominic down. Outside of that context, this allows Walker, a father himself, to live on through his character.

With Brian removed, The Fate of the Furious screenwriter has to pile the human pathos on to Dominic, Letty, and Elena, and the film creaks and moans under the pressure. Making Dominic a father certainly raises the stakes for him, and the film is focused only on what becoming a father would mean to Dominic. Unfortunately, the film again can only define Dominic’s fatherhood by his sacrifice of his honor and his betrayal of his familia; the film is completely uninterested in Elena’s experience or perspective as the child’s mother. Because the existence of Dominic and Elena’s son is a shock revelation, there’s no time for them to form a connection or for the viewer to form a connection to them. We feel sympathy for Dominic in theory (one can only imagine the horror of someone holding your child hostage and leveraging them to make you commit crimes and betray your loved ones), but the film tries to split our focus by making us feel the pain from Letty’s perspective as the loved one who is abandoned for unexplained reasons. It’s an attempt to give Dominic a shade of humanity, but it’s done only in abstract.

By comparison, we have a better sense of the surrogate paternal relationship between Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) and his trainee, Little Nobody (Scott Eastwood) or between Hobbs (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) and his daughter, Samantha (Eden Estrella). Hobbs is a devoted father to Samantha and a committed coach to her soccer team; the cinematic appeal of their relationship lies in Johnson’s charm and their characters’ shared history, which dates back to Furious 7. Even the Nobodies evoke a more real emotional reaction than Dominic and his son because we see how they interact with each other and how Mr. Nobody tries to teach Little Nobody the tricks of the trade. 

Without the human connection, the spectacle of The Fate of the Furious felt hollow. I should have been wowed by remotely controlled cars barreling through New York City’s streets and raining from parking lots in skyscrapers, but I was bored. I should have been impressed when Dominic and company were racing across ice away from a nuclear submarine, but I was bored and almost nodding off. While the stakes for Dominic as a character were raised with his son’s introduction, the movie itself felt rote, from Cipher’s poorly outlined motivations to a moment that upends the importance of family that is the core of the franchise.

Dominic pays tribute to the bond between his peers that form la familia. However, there is dissonance in the way that Letty, Roman (Tyrese Gibson), and Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges) seemed to have no objection to Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) joining the team. Shaw murdered Han Lue/Han Seoul-Oh and attempted to kill Dominic, Mia, Brian, and Mia and Brian’s son in Furious 7. Even though Dominic was desperate, contacting Deckard’s mother (Helen Mirren) in order to convince her to persuade Deckard and Owen Shaw (Luke Evans), who has his own disagreeable history with Dominic and company, to save Dominic’s son seemed to betray Han’s memory and to put aside the threats that were made to his family.  

The LEGO Batman Movie, Logan, and The Fate of the Furious presented their respective protagonists in non-traditional families. Batman adopts Robin, and they form a trigenerational family with Alfred. Logan becomes Laura’s de facto guardian, and they form a trigenerational family with Xavier. Dominic, Letty, and Dominic’s biological son form a blended family. Indeed, the only traditional nuclear families that we see in these films are the Waynes, which is broken when Batman’s parents are murdered, and the Munsons in Logan. 

You could strain to draw a connection between how casually the Munsons are killed to how dystopian the world in Logan is, but the Munsons’ deaths feel almost cruel. From the moment that Logan stops the truck to help them wrangle their horses, the audience begins to wait for the Munsons to die. It gives the otherwise tranquil scenes of Logan, Xavier, and Laura observing what a normal family looks like as they dine together suspenseful tension. Their deaths for doing nothing more than extending hospitality to Logan, Xavier, and Laura felt like a manipulative exercise in cynicism and nihilism. They’re collateral damage in Logan’s violence trap, and the viewer empathizes with Will Munson when he pulls the trigger on Logan after they’ve incapacitated X-24, the younger, feral clone of Logan that was sent to subdue and capture Laura. With his dying breath, Will doesn’t distinguish between X-24 and Logan because they are both monsters that trampled the Munsons’ lives. That the gun’s chamber was empty only emphasizes that violence, even in the cynical world of Logan, isn’t a solution.

Finally, if we accept the notion that becoming a parent is one of the few rites of passage into adulthood left in today’s America, then the other side of that passage is observing your own parents’ decline and eventual death. In Logan, Charles Xavier is suffering Alzheimer’s disease, and Logan and Caliban are Xavier’s sole caregivers. When Xavier doesn’t recognize Logan, he is afraid of him because, to Xavier, Logan is the person who drugs him into unconsciousness. When Xavier is awake and lucid enough to recognize Logan, he berates him for being a disappointment. Xavier’s seizures cause Logan physical pain, and his words cause Logan emotional pain. Xavier is angry at himself and Logan because he needs Logan’s help with something as fundamental as using the bathroom; Logan is resentful for Xavier’s role in the Westchester incident, the physical and emotional pain that Xavier causes him, and the fact that he has to take care of his father figure in his decline. 

It was curious to me that three different and big budget films released within two months of each other wove in different ideas about fatherhood into their tales. Each film tried to examine its respective protagonist through the lens of fatherhood and came away with slightly different conclusions. Batman, for as much as he describes himself to be a loner, is character with myriad connections. Logan, another self-professed loner, can’t help but to connect to his daughter when they both do what they do best, even though what they do isn’t very nice and could trap them in cycles of violence. Dominic, a man who talks constantly about his familia, showed that his biological family is ultimately more important to him than the friends and peers around him. 

#the lego batman movie #will arnett #michael cera #ralph fiennes #rosario dawson #zack galifianikis #jenny slate #logan #Marvel Studios #warner brothers animation #hugh jackman #patrick stewart #boyd holbrook #dafne keen #eriq la salle #elise neal #the fate of the furious #f8 #vin diesel #michelle rodriguez #tyrese gibson #kurt russell #scott eastwood #ludacris #chris bridges #movies #films

[tauers-go-dutch]

Molly does Europe

A guest column by Molly herself

There’s a hokey quote that gets circulated on Facebook about how you can go long periods of time without seeing your best friends, and when you do see them again, it’s as if no time has passed. During my trip to Europe to visit Mariah and Ryan, I found this to be true, hokey or not. Mariah did me the honor of asking me to write a guest column on this travel blog about my whirlwind trip through four countries in 10 days, so everyone’s about to find out how wordy I get when I’m not confined by news writing. (Fans of the Oxford comma, deal with it.)

Amsterdam or “This cookie just ruined every other cookie for me.”

In Amsterdam there are the most delicious cookies. They’re from a little store that does just one thing: Makes delectable dark chocolate cookies filled with a molten white chocolate center. Mariah and I ate those cookies while crossing a canal after having cappuccinos to help me with the jet lag, and I’m pretty sure I felt the ground move, that’s how good they were.

(I have to note here that my mom’s chocolate chip are still better, though.)

Why in the world bitterballen are such a big deal and Van Stapele cookies are not is beyond me.

Bitterballen are fried gravy balls, and are a national food in The Netherlands. They’re, well, an edible thing. I ate one in spite of my life-long hatred of gravy and was unimpressed. I was not disgusted either, so I guess that’s something, but that could have been because they come with mustard, which is one of my favorite things. But hey, more for Ryan that way.

We went next door to Brouwerij ‘Tij, which is located inside one of Holland’s trademark windmills and brews some pretty good beer. While there, Mariah and Ryan regaled me with tales of their lives in Amsterdam and we did our best to get caught up on everything that has happened since August.

Beyond the culinary delights and not-so-delights, we filled our initial time in Amsterdam with museums and other sight-seeing. We visited the Anne Frank house, which was a sobering experience and dredged up memories of reading the Diary of Anne Frank as a teenager. We walked through the rooms where she and her family and the other refugees lived and were eventually betrayed and hauled off to concentration camps.

We also paid a visit to the Van Gogh museum, absent from which was Starry Night because of “some damn Rockefeller,” who put it in the Met in NYC instead, but we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless.

Stroopwafel as big as your face

Brouwerij ‘t IJ

Paris or “There’s that church you wanted to see.”

Our first stop after our hotel in Paris was a nearby restaurant with a good Bordeaux and better ravioli, because why not eat Italian in France? Snails are gross. We followed that with crepes for dessert and then arrived at the Louvre to get a look at ole Mona Lisa.

I confirmed my suspicions that I prefer Van Gogh to da Vinci.

We made our way along the Champs Elysees and had some dinner before starting our trek to the Eiffel Tower, which was lengthy. Along the way, we found a memorial to Princess Diana on top of the overpass where the car accident that killed her occurred. Unexpected but kind of interesting.

We finally got to the tower and realized we’d need to wait longer than we expected to catch the big light show they do there after dark. So we waited and turned down about a dozen guys who wanted to sell us wine and roses in the meantime.

When the lights came on though, it was worth the wait. The tower is always lit up after dark, but every hour they really put their backs into it and turn on a mass of dancing lights that make the whole thing glitter for a full minute. It’s stunning and you can’t take your eyes away from it. Nor should you.

The next day we headed to Laduree for brunch. They served us scrambled eggs that were delicious but inexplicably compacted into a hockey-puck shape, albeit larger. We ordered macarons and went on our way to Montparnasse Tower, a 59-story office building that is located in an area that is definitely not zoned for that.

Because it’s the only building of that height in the area, the views of the city from Montparnasse are incredible, so they turned the top three floors into a visitors’ center. You ride the elevator up and then climb three flights of stairs to get a 360-degree view of the city from the roof. Then you go back down three flights of stairs and eat an eclair where it isn’t quite so windy but you can still see out the windows.

From there we went to Notre Dame, or “that church I wanted to see,” which contained exactly zero hunchbacks performing heroic acts.

What it did contain, though, was architecture from the 12th century and stained glass windows that are incredibly vivid, as are the relief portraits of various scenes from the Bible that line the interior of the cathedral.

At this point, we decided we had really not eaten enough cheese for being in France, so we fixed that by visiting a cheese shop for dinner. We grabbed dessert from a bakery and retreated to our hotel.

During our last hours in Paris, we climbed Montmarte to Sacre Coeur, another cathedral, stopping for more crepes along the way. We did some shopping and then headed for the train.

Aboard the train to Paris

Brussels or “Wow. Wow. Wow!”

I probably could have sat in Grand Place eating truffles for my whole visit to Brussels and been happy.

We rounded the corner into the square, which is 360 degrees of intricately constructed buildings, built in the 10th through 13th centuries. As expression goes, I’m much better at sarcasm, incredulity and snark than I am at excitement and wonderment. Exclaiming aloud about cool stuff just isn’t something that comes naturally to me.

But this place got three (maybe even four) consecutive “wows” out of me. And that’s a lot for me; I think Mariah would back me up on that. (Editor’s note: It’s true.) 

Fortunately it was early enough that there weren’t many tourists present, because I would have run right into them with my head craned up toward the sky.

We ate some brunch and then bought chocolate, obviously. We went to see Mannekin Pis, or the fountain featuring a peeing boy. They dress him up in different outfits and people take pictures. That day he was dressed like a firefighter because we were in Brussels on the one-year anniversary of the bombing at the train station there.

Aside from chocolate, Belgium is famous for its beer, so we had some of that as well, at Delirium and at Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen, which specializes in lambics and krieks, which are some of my favorites.

And aside from chocolate and beer, Belgium is famous for frites and waffles, so naturally we had those too, and jumped on a train back to Amsterdam.

Grand Place

Mannekin Pis dressed to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Brussels terrorist attack at the train station and airport

Amsterdam again or “Is this a tin can?”

We spent a day in between trips in Amsterdam, during which Mariah cooked up a delicious Dutch pancake for me. Later we met Ryan and his colleagues at a speakeasy where they were hosting a guest bartender from Switzerland. We ordered drinks. Mariah got a pretty pink one in a cut-glass champagne flute. Mine came in a tin can. An actual tin can, and it had a rosemary sprig in it that that looked like a tree. In spite of looking like it came from the garbage, it was quite tasty. Good job, Swiss bartender.

Berlin or “We’re back in East Berlin, there’s Ampelmann.”

What Berlin lacks in aesthetics (in my opinion and relatively speaking after Paris and Brussels), it makes up for in history, depressing as it may be, and the best food I had on the whole trip, except maybe those cookies in Amsterdam.

Mariah and I got to Berlin ahead of Ryan, and made use of the time by going to Charlottenburg Palace, which was built by the final few generations of the monarchy there. The exterior of the building was covered by construction scaffolding, which was a bummer, but the interior has been restored after sustaining a lot of damage during WWII.

The surrounding gardens are probably a lot prettier later in the spring, but still made for a nice stroll in late March.

The next day we took a walking tour of Berlin that started at Brandenburg Gate (site of Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” speech, and a slew of other important events) and led us through some of the most historically and culturally significant parts of central Berlin.

We visited the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe, which is a large piece of land with huge gray stones of varying size set so that people can walk among them. The guide explained that visitors are encouraged to walk through it and get lost a little bit, as it is intended to be disorienting and something of a sensory-deprivation experience. The stones get taller as the ground slopes down, so you can’t see over the top, creating a maze of sorts.

We also stopped at the site of the headquarters of the Gestapo and SS, which has been torn down and is a vacant parcel that will never be developed, some remnants of the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie, as well as some non-war-related sites including churches and concert halls.

You can tell if you’re in former East Berlin or not by looking at the pedestrian traffic lights. In East Berlin, the little red and green guys who tell you if you can cross or not have a distinctive shape and have been dubbed “Ampelmann.” He has his own tourist shops and is kind of a big deal, apparently.

The most memorable part of the tour, though, occurred when our tour guide took us to a parking lot at an apartment complex. Yeah, you read that right. We were standing on some grass that hadn’t started to grow properly yet this year.

He then told us that we were standing above the remnants of the bunker where Hitler shot himself as Soviet troops closed in on him, bringing an end to WWII. After his body was removed and cremated, the remains were scattered into a moving river and the bunker was imploded and paved over. Now it’s just a parking lot, and that grassy spot is where residents of that complex take their dogs to do their business.

It was chilling to say the least, standing there. The tour guide explained that officials at the time wanted to make sure that no one would ever have a place to go to pay respects or otherwise honor Hitler.

However, a nearby sign indicating what happened there means that theoretically there could be a gathering in that parking lot if someone wanted. Or across the street on the SS headquarters site. But I guess they did the best they could in trying to erase the evil that occurred without turning a blind eye and pretending it didn’t happen. It would be a hard line to walk.

After all of that, we needed a pick-me-up, so we ducked into a Bavarian restaurant for helles and hefeweizens, as well as spatzle and strudel.

We visited the DDR (Deutsche Democratic Republic) Museum, which is focused on life in East Berlin during the 28 years that the Berlin Wall divided the city. Hint: Communism is unpleasant.

That night and the next day were mainly wandering around the city and Mauer Park, where big markets are set up every Sunday and bands play for passersby.

We closed out Berlin with lunch and ice cream, both of which we had outside because it was unseasonably warm.

Inside Charlottenburg Palace

Brandenburg Gate

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of the Holocaust

Remnants of the Berlin Wall

Berlin Wall Memorial

The East Berlin Stadium (Not the Berlin Wall) 

Amsterdam again or “You have packed one Molly’s worth of beer.”

My final experience in Europe was a sitcom-worthy jaunt through Amsterdam with my luggage and the suitcase full of Belgian beer I agreed to escort home for Ryan. He painstakingly packed it the night before and had to help me get it to the airport because it weighed as much as, if not more than, me. But he’ll have a respectable stock of Cantillon when they come back to the states. (Come back soon!)

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily express those of the main Tauers Go Dutch author. However, mostly they do. It’s why we’re best friends. Tot Ziens! 

#Molly does Europe #tauersgodutch #Guest columnist #tauers go dutch

[rajeshlaxkar]

Kumara Parvatha Trek, Coorg – Valuable tips

Snap Kumara Parvatha trek to know more. Through this blog, I am offering my experience to the Kumara Parvatha trek. Know a noteworthy number of you would have experienced significantly more prominent encounters and trails, yet this one is for some like me who continually need to try something like this, yet don't get the open entryway beforehand. Sharing the outing of this supposed excess and experiential travel blogger through brutal scenes, thick woods, and adversarial air in a straightforward trekking experience, close by some accommodating clues which I learned in transit. Desires will convince you to challenge yourself and assess new endeavors.

This is the means by which everything began

Anuja, my neighbor, an old Companion, and an eager trekker shared that she has sought after a trekking experience to somewhere called Kumara Parvatha. In any case, her companion dropped out end minute. An endeavor fan and nature darling inside me started aching for some outside air and new experience. Thusly, without knowing or thinking a great deal, I offered to join her. Being a development blogger makes you ricochet towards each open entryway that goes to your course.

The situation

A day subsequent to going along with, I got a message from Shabari, drawing nearer in case I paid for the trip? She shared her nerves (her significant other took a comparative way this week's end), Kumara Parvatha is likely the most difficult trek in Karnataka with around 27 kms of walking around 2 days. Additionally, the workplaces given were rudimentary. Would it be a good idea for me to look at it or skip, was the Gigantic issue? However, with some relief from my significant other and not wanting to give up this new experience, I decided to allow everything to out.

The first run through trekking experience

I would brag in case I state I was not scared or disturbed at this point somehow enthusiasm of something that I ached for quite a while overpowered each other feelings.We started early morning from Bangalore and came to Subramanyam town, which was 200 kms away by early evening. Post lunch, our guide gave over a climbing bed and tent, which we were to pass on till base camp (7 kms intense). Legitimately before the start of the timberland zone, we were prompted about the trek, and everyone introduced themselves. Finding that I am the only one with no past trekking involvement with somehow further fortified my affirmation to complete the trek.

Confronting the test

We started weaving our way through tangled roots sticking from the earth, molding a kind of staircase in the midst of thick woods, the sound of crickets, and peeping of fowls. The dampness, weight of the rucksack, and not being acclimatized to walking strong made it much extra testing. Wheezing continually, I could feel my lungs developing earnestly to get more oxygen. I expected to plug every now and then to find a good pace some breath, on occasion, clicking pictures as an explanation. Our guide was consistent and kept moving me throughout.It was basically Sunset, and I was the last one to reach nearby the guide, the remainder of the social event was out of the site. Simply the vision of coming to and cheering at the apex propped me up.

Appreciate little delights of Life.

That night we remained outside near to the boondocks check post. We made sense of how to set up a camp, how to ignore tidiness and eat up the most central dinner promoted. Experiencing a night in the wild inside somewhat tent wrapped by our climbing beds, enveloped by odd disturbances and fogginess despite the fact that everything capitalizing on our irregular talking, was a basic experience. Now and again, fundamental minutes leave such a suffering effect at the bleeding edge of your contemplations.

Furthermore, the battle proceeds

This was an upsetting day. We expected to climb 7 kms up to show up at the top and fall 14 kms down to the town. At 3.45 am, in the wake of leaving our outdoors beds and tents at the forest checkpoint, we started walking around the way. Bit of elbowroom this time was that we passed on a liter backpack with breakfast, water, and remedies, which made walking significantly less difficult. This time I followed Shabari's suggestion of not halting yet keep walking whether or not it's truly moderate-paced, and it had any kind of effect. Making our way through wet meadows and shakes in lack of definition, we kept strolling ahead. Not some time before the sunrise was a fanciful moment. The sky was shining in the shades of pink, purple, orange, and blue, strong breeze experiencing the grass, making it difficult to miss a sound. It looked like winding up in a lovely spot with fogs floating over the unlimited stretches of rich green glades. I felt a convincing drive to remaining there and start creating. In any case, we had the goal to achieve, so we kept moving. The remainder of the domain was steep and disproportionate. Be that as it may, the cold and shady atmosphere helped us.

The last mile is the hardest one

Normally walking the past mile before showing up at your last goal is the hardest one. This was no exception; It was foggy and blustery all through, yet the moment we came to Sheesh Parvatha (the primary zenith), it started descending seriously. The following stretch was through thick storm timberland stacked with leeches. In any case, this was a beautiful spot for watching nature, the sound of water gushing through the short streams, mist incorporating the thick woods, distinctive living things becoming even from dead and spoiled. There were such colossal quantities of varieties of mushrooms creating on spoiled leaves and woods. The charming experience I should state! Look at the enamoring pictures from the journey here. Photograph Stroll through Kumara Parvatha Trek By then, there came gigantic shakes with water gushing through them, we were to climb tight through the stream as the last stretch. The deluge and the greenery made everything essentially progressively slippery and unsafe. We crawled our way through stones of rocks.

Aha Minute: Arriving at the top

By somehow fighting our tiredness and beating the storm, we finally made it to the apex. A preview of easing and enjoyment when you surprisingly start feeling weightless and simplicity of making it to the top. Despite the fact that it was descending so hard that we couldn't see anything from the apex, yet like someone said everything with respect to the journey and not the objective.

#travel

[santrekblog-blog]

Kanchenjunga circuit trek

Kanchenjunga circuit trek

The Kanchenjunga Circuit trek visits both the north and south base camps of Kanchenjunga, the third most raised mountain on earth at 8,586m. Because of reality, this is a remote zone trek, an uncommon degree of prosperity and some trekking establishment is engaging.

 In any case, regardless of its remoteness, trekkers increase learning into social requests' lifestyle and can visit Ramtang and Oktang Monasteries. In movement, the scene is piled up with streams; falls; green glades; rhododendron, birch and pine timberlands; the Yalung Glacier, and unmistakably, guests are going with on the course by the wonderful mountains. 

Kanchenjunga itself lies on the far eastern side of Nepal, close to the outskirts with Sikkim, a minor Himalayan state in the north-eastern piece of India. Until mid-1800, it was thought Kanchenjunga was the most fundamental crest on earth. This area was shut to trekkers until mid-1980. Today the locale is ensured by the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area and an exceptional trekking license is required. With these controls, the incredible and novel verdure of this district is still in flawless condition today. 

Concerning the mountains themselves, regardless of the key peak of Kanchenjunga, there are four fortification summits beating 8,000m, the most basic being Kanchenjunga West, for the most part, called Yalung Kang (8,505m).  What's more, there are various tops over 6,000m. Among this astounding social event of apexes are five noteworthy cold frameworks. Of these, Zuma, Talung, and Rathong stream into Sikkim while toward the west, the Kanchenjunga and Yalung bone-chilling masses stream into the persuading Tamor River of Nepal.

Kanchenjunga circuit trek itinerary

Day 1: Arrival in Kathmandu Airport

Day 2: Flight Kathmandu to Bhadrapur — Drive to Ilam

Day 3: Drive from Ilam to Taplejung - 7 hours)

Day 4: Trek from Taplejung to Mitlung - 6 hours

Day 5: Trek from Mitlung to Chiruwa (1270 m) 5-6 hours

Day 6: Trek from Chiruwa to Sukathum (1579 m) 5 hours

Day 7: Trek from Sukathum to Amjilosa (2308 m) 6 hours

Day 8: Trek from Amjilosa to Gyabla (2730 m) 5-6 hours

Day 9: Trek from Gyabla to Ghunsa (3595 m) 5-6 hours

Day 10: Acclimatization day

Day 11: Trek from Ghunsa to Khangpachen (4050 m) 7 hours

Day 12: Trek from Khangpachen to Lhonak (4780 m) 7 hours

Day 13: Trek from Lhonak to Kanchenjunga Base Camp (5143 m) 3 hours

Day 14: Trek from KBC to Ghunsa (3595 m) 8 hours

Day 15: Trek from Ghunsa to High Camp (4,100 m) 4 -5 Hours

Day 16: Trek from High Camp to Tseram (3870 m) via Sele -La Pass - 8 hours

Day 17: Trek from Tseram to Ramche (4580 m) 7 - 8 hours

Day 18: Explore to Yalung Base Camp (4500 m) 7 — 8 hours

Day 19: Trek from Ramche to Anda Phedi (3390 m) 5 hours

Day 20: Trek from Anda Phedi to Tortong (2995 m) 5 hours

Day 21: Trek from Tortong to Yamphudim (2080 m) 5 — 6 hours

Day 22: Trek from Yamphudim to Khebang (1915 m) 5 -6 hours

Day 23: Trek from Khebang to Khanidingbe

Day 24: Drive to Birtamod by jeep

Day 25: Morning drive to Bhadrapur airport and flight back to Kathmandu

Day 26: Departure for international airport.

Kanchenjunga trek cost

San trekking gives a standard pack or a movable pack for Kanchenjunga Circuit Trek. The Kanchenjunga Circuit trek visits both the north and south base camps of Kanchenjunga, the third most raised mountain on earth at 8,586m. Because of reality this is a remote zone trek, an uncommon degree of prosperity and some trekking establishment is engaging. In any case regardless of its remoteness, trekkers increase a learning into social requests' lifestyle, and can visit Ramtang and Oktang Monasteries. In movement, the scene is piled up with streams; falls; green meadows; rhododendron, birAn remarkable soul is required to trek in Kanchenjunga Base Camp. 

The Kanchenjunga locale is verbalized as an insurance zone to help secure the ecological and social estimations of the areas. There are diverse police checkpoints all through Kanchenjunga trekking course to check licenses. 

The expense for Kanchenjunga constrained territory section license is right as of now set at Rs. 1000 identical to USD 10 for every individual for consistently. 

The expense for Kanchenjunga security area section license is right presently set at Rs. 2000 for each individual with respect to USD 20. 

In like way, there are distinctive bound focuses that you should think around, a master guide will stress over the fundamental things that are in any way noteworthy and that is only a look at something bigger. An expert and government attested guide will cost by and large USD 20 to 25 reliably for each guide careful of sustenance, settlement, and security of the guide. 

A sound attendant will cost around USD 18 to 22 reliably for each watchman complete of sustenance, settlement, and affirmation of the caretaker. A guardian will pass on 20 kg of weight including his own one of a kind 4 to 5 kg loads. So you should pack your things under 15 kg, if not you will require an additional attendant. 

The trekking voyage will begin after a zone private trip to Bhadrapur which will cost around USD 137 to USD 200 for each individual. You should take a vehicle to from Bhadrapur to Ilam or obviously to Taplejung from Birtamod through a region transport. The vehicle charge is around Rs. 725 to 800 vague from USD 8 0. 

Getting a private jeep from Ilam to Taplejung costs around USD 200 to 250. This is a reasonable cost to pay over taking a near to vehicle. It is less tiring and snappier, you will spare a gigantic measure of time. 

The standard ambiguous expense per supper per individual is around USD 5 that combines Dal (Lentils), Bhat (Rice), and Tarkari (Vegetables), a near to Nepali dish. 

With respect to the expense for some tea or espresso, it might move, as it were, running from USD 1.5 to USD 2 for some tea and USD 2 to 4 for some espresso. 

A holder of water will cost by and large USD 0.5 to 4 and a compartment of beer can cost around USD 2 to 5. 

As the stature creates, the cost for the sustenance gets somewhat extravagant than the lower districts. 

The additional expenses for your own one of a kind guilty pleasure are joined as incidental costs. This can join costs for things like verifying water, batteries, charging your electronic contraptions. 

Additionally, you could be moved closer to pay around USD 1-3 for a bowl of foaming water (warmed by gas or fuel) for showering or a compartment of hot drinking water. Dry customary things, snacks and other sustenance things that you wish to nibble in could be genuinely costly than the standard worth you pay. 

ch and pine timberlands; the Yalung Glacier, and plainly, guests are went with on the course by the glorious mountains. 

Kanchenjunga itself lies on the far eastern side of Nepal, close to the outskirts with Sikkim, a minor Himalayan state in the north-eastern piece of India. Until the mid-1800, it was thought Kanchenjunga was the most fundamental top on earth. This locale was shut to trekkers until mid-1980. Today the locale is ensured by the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area and an extraordinary trekking grant is required. With these controls, the extraordinary and novel verdure of this district is still in perfect condition today. 

Concerning the mountains themselves, in spite of the key peak of Kanchenjunga, there are four fortification summits beating 8,000m, the most basic being Kanchenjunga West, by and large called Yalung Kang (8,505m). So also found around there are around twenty apexes beating 7,000m, the most raised being Kambachen (7,903m), Janu (7,710m), Jongsong (7,483m), Kabru (7,353m), Tent Peak (7,365m) and the Twins (7,350m). What's more there are various crests over 6,000m. Among this bewildering social occasion of apexes are five critical cold frameworks. Of these, Zumu, Talung and Rathong stream into Sikkim while toward the west, the Kanchenjunga and Yalung freezing masses stream into the persuading Tamor River of Nepal.

Kanchenjunga trek difficulty

World's third most significant apex, Mt. Kanchenjunga (8,586 m) is orchestrated in the far northeastern corner of Nepal and shared by India and Tibet. You can look at this blog to comprehend the detail data on the domain of Kanchenjunga. One of the most daring and badly designed treks of Nepal, Kanchenjunga Trek wires tricky passes, valleys, wild ice sheet conductors, backcountry, and unforgiving ways. Truth be told, even two of the most exceptional and safe courses are in addition unbelievable and requires specific climbing. 

Trekking in the Kanchenjunga area requires an intriguing honor from the Government of Nepal, which itself tells the degree of an issue its social events. The trail experiences two or three hazardous risings and slips and as the rising fabricates the degree of issue in like way expands regardless, it doesn't recommend that one can't finish this trek. In the event that you are going with the correct affiliation and an authority oversee, you can finish this trek. Regardless, you ought to be physically and reasonably fit.

#kanchenjunga #Kanchenjunga Trek #Kanchenjunga Circuit Trek

[ftwrthtx]

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 has been released upon the World and we have spent 30+ hours roaming the streets of Washington DC. The question is, should you venture there yourself or should you leave the death and destruction to the politicians.

Read on to find out

Three years ago Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment introduced the world to a brand new franchise. The Division took off in a hurry and shown the world what a ravaged New York City could look like. The game was met with praise and decent review scores, and created a fan base that were still active up to the release of The Division 2 (and probably still are). Fast forward 7 months after the Green Poison Outbreak, and The Division 2 begins its story arch.

D.C. in Distress

The game opens up as you are defending a settlement outside of New York somewhere and receive a distress call from Washington D.C. You are then transported to the area and must fight your way to the White House, which has been setup as the base of operations for the Joint Task Force (JTF). Once inside, you meet Manny Ortega, the Division controller for D.C, and he informs you of how the city is now laid out and who controls which areas.

Different factions control different areas, with each area having a difficulty level that will limit your ability to control them until your agent level matches or exceeds the area level. The factions are called the Hyenas, the True Sons, and the Outcasts and can be formidable foes, especially if they are much higher in level than your agent. We ran across an enemy that was a 28 while we were only a lowly 10 and the guy killed us with one shot. Each region has control points that’ll need to be taken over, and you’ll have a flare gun to call in some AI to assist you.

Upgradeable Settlements to Build Upon

Scattered across the city are three settlements that are in need of your assistance. As an agen, you’ll have to speak with different folks to unlock side missions that will give each settlement certain upgrades such as a better roof, a better water supply, maybe a games area for the kiddos, or even a shooting range for these folks to learn to defend themselves or sharpen their shooting skills. Every able bodied adult is a member of the local militia, so they all need to know how to safely handle firearms. This is something we could all benefit from, even without this Dollar Flu scenario.

As you upgrade each settlement, you’ll also start on and complete projects for them. Whether its feeding the needs outside the settlement or taking over control points and supplying them with needed resources, these projects will unlock blueprints for you to craft better weapons and add-ons for your weapons. A UMP .45 is a very effective weapon, but add an extended mag and a nice red dot site, and it can be even more effective.

  The Virus Continues its Destruction

The story is told through cut scenes and collectibles, and if you follow along, you’ll find an intriguing back story that is well written and well acted. Tape recorders are littered throughout the game and can give tidbits of information that reveal the bigger picture. There are also digital echoes that will reveal key scenes from the past and how they played out. There are a few political points we ran across, but all in all they were what we would expect to happen if this grand scenario actually played out. If a virus is ravaging a country to your North or South, it would make complete sense to try to stop said virus at the border, if possible.

The voice acting for the game is pretty well done. You can sense the urgency, the fear, the despair, and/or whatever emotion the actor is trying to project whenever they speak. As someone who is hard of hearing and a pretty good lip reader, the speech animations match up nicely in English as well. This really adds to the overall production quality of the game and it’s impressive. Overall, the acting and the storyline do a great job of telling a decent story. Factor in the living, breathing, always something around environment, and you end up with a pretty damn good game.

Is it an RPG or a Third Person Shooter?

The game is both an RPG and a third person shooter set in a living, breathing, very active and ravaged Washington D.C. As you progress through the story and take out bigger and badder enemies, they’ll drop weapons and armor for you to gather up. These drops will scale with your agent level and will allow you to raise your armor level as you go. Early on these drops might not be as important as when you reach the max level of 30, but keep in mind that armor sets can increase different attributes of your agent, so just because a vest or a backpack might give you a slight armor boost, breaking up a set might make you weaker in the bigger picture.

As you complete some of the main missions, you’ll unlock skill points which in turn are used to unlock one of eight specialized skill platforms. These are all upgradeable devices that will become invaluable to you as you play through the game. Our two favorites are the drone and the turret, but they didn’t become truly effective until we found some mods to apply to them. Better batteries for the drone allowed it to stay around longer and cool down faster, and a better targeting mod increased the accuracy of the turret. The turret comes in several variances like a machine gun turret, a flame turret, or a sniper turret, but that machine gun turret works best for us.

Not an Easy Game for Solo Play

The Division 2 works best as a team centric game, but it is possible to play through it solo. The game requires an always-on internet connection and you’ll see other online players in your world quite often, but once you start a mission, you’ll be on your own unless you already have team mates. If you do find yourself in a dire predicament, it is possible to put out a call for back-up and hope someone will come in and save your ass, but those calls are only answered if someone online takes the time to actually answer them, and there’s no guarantee they will. If they do, prepare to see more enemies than you had before as the game will actually adjust that according to the number of players in a team. While that might make the mission a little harder, at least your team mate can revive you if you go down so you won’t have to restart at the checkpoint, unless you both go down.

This isn’t a run-and-gun, spray and pray like Rambo style game. That method will result in your death. Make no mistake on that point. If you run into an area, during a mission, unprepared and hoping to just kill everyone in one quick sweep, you will fail miserably and you will die. If you just stand out in the open, with no protection other than the armor you are wearing, you will die. Doesn’t matter if you have level 30 gear with some awesome weapons, if the enemies are somewhat close to you in level, and you try to act like Rambo, you will die. The game uses a cover based system that works very well, and blind fire is your friend. Playing solo with a drone and turret does make the game a little easier, but still, use cover and your brains or you will die.

The AI Bad Guys Are Not Stupid

One of the things that surprised us the most was how intelligent the artificial intelligence is in the game. While the lower level enemies might have a lower IQ and are easily led to slaughter by using a doorway as a choke point, the higher level you go, the smarter they become. You’ll need to pay close attention to the layout of each battlefield and make damn sure you can cover your six by either utilizing a wall or planting the turret accordingly. The AI won’t stay stationary either, as they will constantly try to flank you or maneuver behind you.

The enemies use of grades and gas can be a pain in the ass as well. The can hit you with standard frag grenades, electric grenades, fire grenades, or our least favorite is the confusion gas grenade. That damn thing will make you think up is down, right is left, over is across, or run is jump. Your controller becomes useless because it doesn’t do what you want it to do. The first time we were hit by it, we thought we broke our controller somehow, then we read the tip on the screen and realized the developers were just being buttheads. Honestly, it is a very creative weapon and very effective, even against the AI. We have noticed that regardless of who throws it, everyone within is the gas is affected, and the same goes for fire, meaning that the AI can actually hurt their own team mates.

Map of D.C.

It really feels like the developer spared no expense when researching and creating the overall maps of Washington D.C. Using GPS to map the area on a 1:1 scale, they did an incredible job of recreating it in-game, albeit aged and decayed accordingly. From the White Hose to the Lincoln Memorial, this has to be the best recreation of a locale to date in a video game. The game is complete with wildlife like wild dogs, rats, deer, and vultures.

The buildings and locations themselves are also recreated internally, with most being repurposed by whichever faction took that area over. The space museum made me want to try on an astronauts space suit, or at least find some armor that looked similar. There’s one place in a museum where the Vietnam War was being historically displayed, complete with sound effects of a Huey. That made for an interesting battle once the bad guys showed up.

The DZ and End Game

As with the previous game in the series, the Dark Zone returns. In the Dark Zone, other online players can follow you around and wait for you to find some cool gear, then kill you and take it. It’s an area of PVP that can really be a pain in the ass while playing solo, but with a decent team, can be a lot of fun. We aren’t big fans of folks taking things from us that we worked hard for, so this mode can really get our blood boiling.

Upon reaching level 30, Division Agents will be able to activate one of several specializations. Each one unlocks a unique signature weapon and additional skills that offer new ways to play. These are the Survivalist, the Demolitionist, and and the Sharpshooter.

Glitch Free and Gorgeous

After spending over 30 hours in the game (we aren’t finished and shall continue on), we have yet to come across any glitches or even have any crashes. After participating in both the closed and the open beta, with only a few issues there, the beta seems to have helped the developer squash any bugs folks came across. We have heard about issues with turrets not deploying properly, and skills not acting properly, but we haven’t personally ran across these issues. We have also been told of the sound occasionally dropping but haven’t experienced that ourselves.

The graphics for the game on our PS4 pro are some of the best we have seen. The game has run smoothly with little to no frame drops, even when we were heavily outnumbered and stuff was blowing up everywhere. We were sent a code for the digital version of the game and that 90GB download was a bit much, but after experiencing the graphics, we know understand why it was so large.

Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment set a pretty high bar with the first game in the franchise, but they went above and beyond the call with The Division 2. An exceptional story, memorable characters, great voice acting, with an RPG weapon and armor system that will keep us busy for some time to come.

Very impressive!

9

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 provided by the publisher. For more information on scoring, please read What our review scores really mean.

Tom Clancy's The Division 2 Review - Better Bring Some Back-Up Tom Clancy's The Division 2 has been released upon the World and we have spent 30+ hours roaming the streets of Washington DC.

[lrmartinjr]

Downtown Charlottesville felt like the green zone of a war-torn city Saturday. More than a thousand local and state police officers barricaded 10 blocks of the city’s popular pedestrian district, the Downtown Mall, to prepare for the one-year anniversary of the white supremacist rally last year that left dozens injured and one dead.

To enter, people had to submit to bag checks and searches at one of two checkpoints.

Police faced heavy criticism last year for their failure to intervene in street brawling between rally attendees and anti-racist protesters. This year, they had far more officers on the ground, fencing around the park and street corner where fights broke out last year and heavy barricades to prevent car attacks.

Preparations aside, unlike last year, no white supremacist groups had said they were going to visit the city, and, by week’s end, none had. Instead, it was a normal day on the mall except for the heavy security, a military helicopter constantly circling overhead, and hundreds of police officers milling around. People streamed in, many just to get a drink, many carrying a flower arrangement to leave at the site of Heather Heyer’s death.

Anti-racist rally

Student activists at UVA rallied in front of the Rotunda, where last year torch-wielding white supremacists surrounded them. They symbolically reclaimed the space and called for the school’s hospital to forgive the medical bills of victims who were injured protesting last year.

The students avoided the school’s plans to require attendees to go through a check point with metal detectors by marching around the corner to the steps of a nearby building instead.

Click on the headline to continue reading and view the photographs.

[bookmarks-reviews]

DINO COPS

III.                    The First Casualty

The pair of glowing totems seemed to glare at me as I entered the Tropics of New Dino City. Of course, the entire city was located in a temperate zone, but that didn’t stop the bigwigs from pouring millions into heaters, humidifiers, and lush plants. Not to mention these stupid things, I thought, flashing my badge in front of the faux stone statue. How much more does it cost to have this ridiculous thing instead of a guard.

The totem was not really made of stone, but a rough molded plastic shell made the illusion complete if you didn’t look close enough. It was another reason I hated the Tropics. The fake statue pulsed once, green light emanating from its weathered grooves. I had passed the checkpoint. I rolled my eyes at the animatronics, and entered the jungle.

To be honest, the inside of the Tropics wasn’t that different from the rest of New Dino City. Apartment buildings still stretched skywards, vendors clogged the streets, and yelling voices complained about how fast individuals were moving. The difference came when you looked up. Illuminated pillars, similar in design to the ones guarding the entrance, stretched up the sides of buildings, covering them in twisting shades of orange and green. Between the buildings, dense foliage hid the steam-belching humidifiers, giving the entire area a warm and sleepy feeling.

I sidestepped a pack of spiny green dinosaurs headed down the street, dodging when one spat in my direction. Maybe sleepy is the wrong word.

A screech from overhead drew my attention, and I looked up to see a flash of white and red above me. My annoyance at the green Kentrosauruses vanished as I recognized my contact alighting on a nearby rooftop.

 It took me a couple minutes to reach the top of the building. The elevator jockeys weren’t very cooperative, until I flashed my badge their way. Even then it had been difficult to reach the roof. But what else do you expect from a Compy?

After ascending the stairs that led to the top of the building, I pushed open the door that led to the roof. It took a bit of effort, hinges screeching just barely louder than the air conditioning units. Humidity’s a bitch, I thought, stepping out of the stairwell. “Reggie?” I called out. “You still up here?”

There was no response.

“Reggie?” I let the door close behind me, and it thudded shut with a sound of finality. Despite the humidity, I felt a chill run down my spine. Something wasn’t right.

“Jake!” a voice yelped, and I jumped almost three feet straight up. “Jake! Help!”

“Shut up, you feathery idiot! There’s no one here to save you.”

“I don’t know about that,” I charged forwards through the steam, and came face to face with a terrifying scene. Reggie the pterodactyl, my contact, my friend, was immobilized, wings bound with thick black cord. He stood on wobbly legs on the edge of the rooftop, shooting nervous glances at the ground far below. Before him was a group of hooded dinosaurs, black fabric hiding their faces.

“Pachys,” I growled. They might have hidden their specific identities with those disguises, but there was no mistaking their species. The bulging foreheads that spoke of brawn, not brains, furrowed as I ran forward.

“Stop him!” one of the Pachycephalosauruses growled, and the two closest to me leapt into action. Charging headfirst, one went high and the other low. I managed to scramble over the back of the low one, but that only put me in the way of his friend.

The bony plate in the thug’s forehead collided with my gut, and it took some serious effort to keep my lunch down. I fell hard, landing on the slick roof, and I saw the lead Pachy turn back towards Reggie.

“Goodbye, birdbrain,” he said, and swung his tail in a savage arc. I saw Reggie’s eyes widen, and he struggled one last time to escape the cords-but it was too late. Flailing, screeching, Reggie disappeared over the edge of the roof.

He fell for exactly ten seconds. I could hear my heart beat for each one. As the Pachys scattered around me, sprinting for the safety of the stairwell, I heard the unmistakable sound of a body meeting concrete.

Then the screams started.

Sitting numb on the rooftop, I tried to process what had just happened, but that was a no go. My brain wouldn’t work, couldn’t work right now. As the sound of sirens began to pierce through the steamy air, I realized that my hands had clenched into fists, and I felt myself stand up.

“I don’t know who you are,” I promised no one, my words venom in the air, “but I will find you. And when I do,” I turned to leave the roof, “you will learn why man is the most dangerous animal on this planet.”

#writing #dinosaurs #dino cops #Jake 'Bones' Mackenzie #ridiculous #Reggie the Pterodactyl #who are the Pachys?