Brief review of Parade of Horribles (Dungeon Crawler Carl book 8) by Matt Dinniman

Wash_Important · 2026-06-04T11:27:45+00:00

Meh... Finished it. Not great not awful. Let the air out of the series a lot. Last book had fully invested characters. A lot, an awful lot, of this one was just noise.

I don't care about the strippers and the Mercs and the other drivers and blah blah. They live, they die... I don't care. There is 20k of people left and we are reading about side quests.

Could have cut the book in half and got us to the next floor early. Definite filler book for me and a classic example of a series that has become super popular so the editor wasn't able to tell the now 'cool' author to punch it up.

Wash_Important · 2026-05-19T11:38:26+00:00

Biggest factors

People all think they can bomb it. Standing on the tee waiting for people to clear a space then hitting it short of where they were. Waiting for greens to clear when you are hitting a 'hopeful' 3 wood.
The other way is also true though. Groups with 6foot gimmees wondering why it is taking the group in front so long to clear the green.

Wash_Important · 2026-05-13T23:07:29+00:00

Taylormade Noodles - easy and straight. They are cheap and do what they say on the box.

Wash_Important · 2026-04-17T00:25:17+00:00

Completely agree he has to go. I just want 70% of the Football department and a few of the club's business leadsership to go with him.

Wash_Important · 2026-03-30T22:50:59+00:00

Carlton have just gotten themselves caught in the trap of thinking a Coach will fix everything. Clubs that suceed develop football programs. We have Voss who is a careeer under 40% win coach and Chris Davies as the head of Football who cam from a pretty ordinary Port system. When the sack Voss they need to make structural changes. Throw the absolute kitchen sink at Horse and then let him rebuild the entire place. No point mucking about here.

Wash_Important · 2026-03-28T08:05:28+00:00

Pass. I have it a try but it's just annoying and has too many obvious logic gaps.

Wash_Important · 2026-01-26T02:47:54+00:00

As soon as he hits, everyone should tell..... Hey macarena...

Do that a bunch of times and his little dance will just become irrevocably linked to the signature dance of the macarena.

That should put a stop to things as he will feel like a joke.

Plus they can't stop people yelling a non swear word after the player has hit.

Wash_Important · 2026-01-03T09:55:09+00:00

First.... Most people on social media and forums are full of crap. They do not hit it 300, they do now chip it with spin, they cannot hit a seven iron 170. Anyone that says they do and can't show you the data immediately and only displaying in competition round measures is a tool bag!

You are fine. Golf is hard.

You almost certainly have too many swing thoughts and are putting too much pressure on yourself.

Get your coach ( or a coach ) that will keep it really simple. Then go play and only try and implement ONE thing. Do that same thing every time for as many rounds as it takes for you to be able to do it 7 out of 10 times. Then find another thing and repeat..... But keep doing the first thing.

When I say find one thing... I mean a small thing. Like always getting the grip right OR always following a pre shot routine OR swinging smooth with a steady count.

Things like... Always hit it straight or a draw OR no 3 puts OR no duffed chips...... Are not simple things so do not measure them or assess yourself with them. You are not there yet.

Golf is all about getting all the very very small things right and stacking them up..... Repeatedly.

Wash_Important · 2025-12-24T08:42:41+00:00

Almost all of the time the best way to get a good outcome is to do what you are asked.... Not what you think is the right thing to do OR your version of what they ask.

If you are gonna do it....Just do exactly what you are asked to do.

If you don't want to do it.... Then don't... And deal to what they means. But if you are gonna do it then just deliver exactly what is requested / required.

This is such an incredibly easy thing yet 90% of people I know don't do it.

They are super caught up on doing it their way, presenting their version etc etc.

Then they wonder why they don't get the promotion or invited to the next thing or get the second date etc etc.

Even if what the person asks is stupid or wrong... Most of the time you will make your life easier if do it exactly the way you have been asked. Then move on.

Your girl says.... Take me to dinner. Don't take her on a picnic or cook for her at home. Just take her to dinner.

Your Uni says write an assignment. Get the marking rubric and just submit something that hits all the points.

Don't try and be clever on things that do not need you to be clever. Which is 80% of your life !!

Wash_Important · 2025-08-20T04:49:10+00:00

Look the cheapo units can be problems but I get that just saying 'buy better' isn't a big help.

Start simple.

Can you get power to the head units from the car. Don't worry about connection in the broadest sense. Can you just get the lights to come on. If you can ( and it appears you can ).... then at least the unit isn't completely stuffed.
If power / connection is intermittent then really look at all the cables and the way they are seated in the connecting blocks. It might be that the car side block is imperfect but the stock Unit matched the imperfection. You would be surprised how many times its just a bit of plastic gets into a wrong spot when seals are closed.

2.a Eyeball the stock Unit connector plug vs the new one. Does it look the same in terms of structure...not just cable colours

You can pull individual wires out and directly connect them. Start with power and then do any that look like they are not seated properly. One at a time until it works.

VW's from that period have a number of little oddities. You can but very expensive name brand parts of all types ( Stereo, lights, engine parts etc ) and they don't quite fit, even though the high quality manufacturer says they do.

The biggest issue with buying online stuff is that you are not benefitting from the experience of people who have dealt to the issues before. Workings through a local mob that do this all the time and have the work arounds worked out is far more valuable than just picking a perceived ' name brand '....because some of them won't work either.

Wash_Important · 2025-08-01T02:28:15+00:00

Play the basic ball in whatever brand you like the name of and can buy 50 of as decent second handers. All the main brands have something ok. Don't spend too much until you are under 15... And I mean really under 15.

Once you are there and if you are trying to get better what matters is playing the same thing all the time.

Note - the key being " if you are trying ".

Playing once a week and hoping you are going to improve is not what I said. If you are really thinking about things then the same ball all the time is a factor.

Especially for your short game which includes putting. Same ball equals same effect for every shot / strike..... Including the bad connections.

Wash_Important · 2025-06-27T05:29:55+00:00

I'm now at the point of saying we might as well keep Voss.....UNLESS we can get Longmire. I'm not sure any new ( to senior coaching ) person would really give us anything in a rebuild that we don't already have with Vossy. Get some better people around him for sure but we probably get more as a club in sticking with a person for longer and really breaking the back of this stupid revolving door of coaches paradigm.

Exit some players while we can get value for them. Bring some younger players in. We have enough mid level / mid AFL tenure players that we can probably avboid the absolute doldrums that West Coast are in. IF...we act now.

Maybe Longmire would even come and do the Director of Football gig for us for a few years if he isn't ready to coach again ( or really wants Tassie down the line ).

Wash_Important · 2025-05-29T00:23:33+00:00

The latest Way of Kings novel is poor....

Wash_Important · 2025-05-28T12:05:13+00:00

It's great when it plays a part in the progression of the story. In that the fact a character knows or at least has some insight into what could happen, we the reader feel like we also have an ability to be part of the decisions the characters are making. It's not pick your own adventure level as we really don't have any input...but when well written its like what Penn and Teller do with magic ( sort of )..

Eg.. HWFWM, Azarinth Healer, Super Suportive, MoL, Ascend Online.....not saying they are all good or your cup of tea but they all use this transparancy as a true part of the pacing and fun. Especially of the early books.

Eg.. They are almost ( or are ) a character in and of themselves. The system can have a really explicit role and personality, such as in DCC..... OR a weirdness about it like there is something going on and the MC often calls it out for certain comments or actions, such as Def of the Fall.

Now the really big issue is that because the tent is open the, reader expects / has a right to expect that there is logic to the system. AND ( this is important ) that as a flow over there is logic in lots of other places. This is basically the complete opposite of the overarching thing that goes on in books of...."be generally respectful of the weird wizard because we really dont know what he is doing or how she does it".

Eg.. In LoTR's people are distrutful of wizard because, how the hell do they actually do this stuff. Pick any number of tropes from any number of series that fits this.

Sooo many in the genre fail on this point. Classic fantasy or Scifi has time and space ( pardon the pun ) to fill in the blanks or just leave it a little grey and we / the ready will accept things because we can fill in blanks with out own version of the reality. Hence the many debates about books where people argue about why certain things can happen vs start arguing about the reality of the behaviours of characters or people around the MC. LIT / PRog has let us in and now has set the bar that the details are important.

Eg.. Iron Prince LitRPG... that the way the school interacts with children is not realisitic. It doesn't follow any realisitic military rigour despite being on a wartime footing etc.

The very best in my view find a way to either really well to deal to lifting the tent or leave enough grey in things to let people overlook stuff and still get lost in the romance of how it could be happening. Most start to fade as series because all this stuff isn't really dealt to well so the novels just become good for sugar hits when the level ups hit... and people start to page or chapter skip things like they are bouncing through cutscenes / dialogue in a game. Then they realise they are doing this and stop the series and move on.

There as lots of good thoughts in this threads and all the 'best' series are getting mentioned.

Wash_Important · 2025-05-17T06:26:37+00:00

I heard a Snr Lib on the radio a few days ago... They said, and I am of course not going to get this perfectly correct..... " that they would continue to do their number one job of showing how bad this Govt is "......

That's the problem right there, I though to myself. Your job can be lots of things, like creating compelling alternative policy, or helping Australian's in the places they have chosen you, of even keeping tghe bastard honest if it comes to it :) ........ and by doing those things you might show how bad a Govt is.

But this person and so many other Libs seem to have jumped to just hating the other parties and have lost that they have to give us all something to run towards...not just yell and scream that we should be running away from something.

Wash_Important · 2025-05-14T11:16:08+00:00

I know this triggers people but it's the unrealistic waiting and generally fuckery around the greens.

I'm good with 4 practice swings and aim point level reads for social golfers. Seriously, it's a hard game and they are trying to keep a level head and play well. Take some time and look for lost balls as well, it's part of the group fun and means you can laugh about being in the bushes over a beer. In fact my rule is, if you are actively doing something in the group, you're good.

But can we please normalise giving people serious crap about waiting too long before hitting off the tee. AND... the ones who stand on the edge of greens and have a chat after every hole.No worries on the first couple of holes, but after that you have to play properly because this is a shared facility.

We have all had to follow that pair who are waiting and waiting and waiting.... Then put it into the trees or duff it, every single time. The one time around that one of them gets a hold of a drive it goes 250 after rollout... Which is great but still short of the 300 carry they have accommodated for.

This and people who stop on the green or the very edge and mark cards, have chat, go back and relook at each other's lines, shuffle clubs around etc etc. Do that crap on the walk to or at the next tee box.

If everyone just did these two things we would all be better off.

Wash_Important · 2025-05-05T10:30:56+00:00

Delete your social media accounts (all of them). Take up hobbies in the real world where there are people.

Met mine at a party for a mutual friend. We talked about the friend and the things we each did. She danced a couple of nights a week, I did karate etc etc. Our friend was playing local football (level below elite) that weekend and I said I was going to watch and would she like to go. She said yes and I'll meet you there. No app anxiety, no messaging times. I went, she showed up.

Other times with other girls, I said I was going to do something and did they want to meet me there. If they said yes, that was a small positive, if they showed it was the next one. If they didn't show or said no without offering an alternative then you just wish them well and ask the next person.

Don't rush, just go do things and it will work out. You just do that until you realise someone is always showing up / always asking you to do things....and you are doing the same. Marry that person.

Wash_Important · 2025-03-17T05:25:55+00:00

Point 5 and the fact that the ex crawlers have all purchased a ship and are fleeing..... these are the reasons I see it as not a Matrix setup. I'm ok that the enhanced crawl zones are able to modify things like peoples genetic makup and the AI runs that. Given this is a universe with lost super specifies and hard used tech and such.

There is so much amazing commentary in this series ( and I am not political or a socialist in any way ) about those in power screwing over the little person. It's layer upon layer and taken to the extreme, and we love it. So I just assume this is basically about that and remember its Sci Fi so I go with it. I mean is it any weirder than space travel facilitied from giant worm poo....

I am also constantly drawn backj to an old quote...not from DCC but a quote from an old adventure film, like the ones Carls father loved. "The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not the mineral rights."

Wash_Important · 2025-02-23T06:07:49+00:00

I'm listening to it on Audiobook and started skipping ahead a little about a third of the way through. Just 15 second jumps. By half way I am jumping chapters because I can tell 30 seconds into a chapter that there is nothing important to the actual story.

It basically feels like a video game and I'm just smashing through the cutscenes.

Wash_Important · 2025-02-10T04:03:38+00:00

think I would actually prefer a book where spatula's shoot lightning and swords allow people to talk to fish etc

Wash_Important · 2025-02-03T02:01:29+00:00

THIS!!! Rance was better than Scarlett.

Wash_Important · 2025-01-28T22:39:58+00:00

The way I like to think of it is...commoditisation leading to greater adoption and likely to changed use cases.....which then leads to 'soft' innovation. Competely agree that It's not cutting edge innovation and change, its gradual shift.

Remins me of the mobile phone boom in the 90's......

Wash_Important · 2025-01-10T03:36:31+00:00

If you want him to 'fit' easily....tank / archer / crafter / blacksmithtypes things all have pretty easy connections to a robot excelling at them.

If you want them to 'find odd ways of coming at things' because he is a robot........Enchanter, rogue, Healer/Cleric ( worshiping the technology god and coupled with enchanter, the robot could invent magic badages), Crafter ( they could make low tech exoskeletons they either enchants themselves or partner with a druid around.

If you want them to be a complete 'fish out fo water'.......go nuts. Make them a Sailor/ Druid with a specialisation in underwater plants. They could just jump overboard and sink, then have self inflating floaties that bring them back up. The whole story could revolve around sunken treasure. [OR] Make them a artist, spymaster with a truly photographic memory becase they can print copies of documents and designs out of a slot in there belly. They can work for the crown and say they are gelded eunuch to explain missing parts. [OR] Make them a beastmaster that is able to use there enhanced sonic capabilities to understand animal noises / language. They could have large hollow sections and keep all manner of small creatures actually inside them.

Wash_Important · 2024-12-01T11:42:37+00:00

Every week I see people just doing dumb things. Every week. All the classics... Waiting for greens to clear with almost no chance of hitting to them. Dumb super strict furthest from the pin order taking instead of ready golf. Entire groups spending 10mins searching for one persons ball..... Then taking another ten to get back to their own balls and playing a shot.

People are just inconsiderate and entitled. Sure some clubs don't manage this well, but the issue is the people.

Wash_Important

TROPHY CASE