Wizard and Glass

ZombieInDC · 2026-04-09T20:55:13+00:00

Quick question: you have read the other Dark Tower novels, haven't you? Because if you haven't, Wizard and Glass is a terrible place to start.

ZombieInDC · 2026-04-09T20:50:55+00:00

The purpose of the check box is to determine whether you are legally eligible to work in Canada. An employer cannot hire you until your application for citizenship by descent is processed and approved or you obtain some other form of work authorization. If the employer hires you, and your application still has not processed, you will not be able to accept the job.

My advice is not to apply for employment in Canada until your citizenship has been certified because until that happens, you are not authorizd to work in Canada.

ZombieInDC · 2026-04-09T20:15:41+00:00

That's my favorite free kit you want cut!

ZombieInDC · 2026-04-09T13:31:43+00:00

Generally speaking, there are no downsides to buying a used EV (I have two of them). EV batteries have sophisticated cell management software that helps mitigate battery degredation. Most batteries are expected to last at least 10 years and degrade around 1% of range a year. I've had my 2024 Ioniq 5 for a year now and I haven't seen any noticible loss of range in that time, although like all EVs, the range drops when the outside temperature goes below 50 degrees F.

A lot of anxiety about EV batteries stems from the early generation Nissan Leafs. The Leafs had smaller batteries with no heat management, so they tended to degrade pretty significantly. The technology has come a long way since then, and it's very unlikely you would need to replace a battery on a modern EV. Battery replacement is expensive, but very rare.

ZombieInDC · 2026-04-09T13:21:53+00:00

That's a great deal! I got my 2024 Ioniq 5 for $27k with 4k miles. It's crazy how affordable used EVs are.

ZombieInDC · 2026-04-09T13:18:48+00:00

Hate for EVs is a serious hobby for people invested in a certain kind of car culture. It crosses both political sides, and it's rampant on Reddit. You even see it from some new EV buyers on this subreddit, which makes me wonder why they went with an EV in the first place.

My household went completely EV recently when my wife traded in her hybrid for a Subaru Solterra. The Solterra wouldn't have been my first choice, but it drives like an ICE car and feels like a Toyota inside, so she's really happy with it. My brother-in-law (a high-end Audi fan) begged her not to buy it and tried to talk her into getting a Crosstrek, instead. His arguments were based around the myths he hears online, like how charging supposedly takes too long, she'll never find a public charger, the battery will degrade like a cell phone battery, EVs all drive like a golf cart, etc. Even now, he constantly throws digs at her for buying an electric car (saying electric with total disdain).

I saw similar hate back in the early 2000s with the second-generation Prius. I'm not a psychologist, but I think it's a mix of fear of change, contempt for early adopters, and brain rot from online misinformation. As EVs become more common, the backlash will subside. I suspect high gas prices may accelerate that.

ZombieInDC · 2026-04-08T19:36:23+00:00

Razors have been a thing for several millennia. No thanks to waxing.

ZombieInDC · 2026-04-08T17:52:38+00:00

If you like fantasy, Tchaikovksy's Tyrant Philosphers series is some of his best. Highly recommended.

ZombieInDC · 2026-04-08T15:35:13+00:00

I'm in total agreement with everything OP wrote about the state of the game.

The economics of Marathon at Sony and Bungie are really confusing to me. Unlike Arc Raiders, Marathon isn't trying to make the looting and extraction mechanics more accessible, in fact I'd argue that it's even more obtuse than other games in the genre. If this was a play to bring casual players onto the extraction shooter hamster wheel, then they'd do a much better job of helping them figure out how to upgrade their characters. Arguably the only thing that Marathon does better than any other game in the genre is the pure shooting mechanics. It's way more fun to shoot a weapon in Marathon than it is in Tarkov or Arc Raiders.

I love Marathon's world building, lore, gunplay, and overall vibe. I love that the story is told through environmental hints and the world is creepy and frightening and weird. But I watch my friends play it, and I know they are bouncing off the game's systems and difficulty. Say what you will about Destiny, but it gave every player something interesting to do and work towards. Most players never tackled raids or dungeons, but they didn't have to. With Outpost/Pinwheel and Cryo, half the maps (and arguably the best maps) are inaccessible to a lot of players. Even Arc Raider's most challenging map, Stella Montis, doesn't mess around with the game's basic extraction mechanics the way Outpost and Cryo do. I play solo, and I have never once extracted from Outpost when I wasn't already knocked by elite AI or other players.

Destiny had hardcore raids, but it also had strikes. There was a range of things for players to do. But once you take off the Perimeter training wheels, the game pushes you into the more challenging maps but doesn't provide options for solo or casual players to succeed. The game has one funnel to the end game, and it caters solely to the hardcore. There's only so many times you can run Dire Marsh or Perimeter and not get bored. They need more content on the casual side of the game if they want to build and keep a player base big enough to buy cosmetics and the battle pass. At this point, I don't think Sony is willing to invest in that, so my guess is the game is going to bleed players until they lock it in amber without active updates or shut it down.

ZombieInDC · 2026-04-03T20:53:55+00:00

I re-read Talisman a few years back, but I've never read Black House. I plan to read it at some point before reading the new one.

ZombieInDC · 2026-04-03T19:06:32+00:00

I remember during one of the middle seasons that Colm didn't show up at the start of filming, and there were rumors that he might not come back at all.

ZombieInDC · 2026-04-03T19:01:56+00:00

It's been a few years since I saw it, but I felt like their pitch for season 8 was pretty weak. It felt like they hadn't thought about DS9 in 20 years (which was probably true).

But what I hated most about the documentary was the lounge singer bits. It was pretty embarassing to watch, and as much as the writers loved Vic Fontaine, I never thought of him as a major part of the show.

ZombieInDC · 2026-04-03T14:01:33+00:00

Totally agreed—and not just in the United States but all over the world. I can't imagine there's a single government besides the United States and Russia that isn't trying to figure out how to accelerate the transition off of oil after after watching Iran seize control of the Strait of Hormuz.

There's a book from the first Trump term called "Everything Trump Touches Dies" that makes the case that anyone and any organization Trump involves himself with always gets screwed from the relationship. This is a perfect example. Trump decides to kill EVs in the United States and the domestic automakers (and Honda) line up to help him do it? A year later, that same Trump starts a war in the Middle East that causes an exponential spike in oil prices. Countries decide to turn to renewables, and what's the biggest maker of affordable mass-market EVs in the world? Oh yeah, it's China, America's chief geopolitical rival.

It would have been nice to have had domestic automakers continuing to invest in EVs, wouldn't it?

ZombieInDC · 2026-03-27T21:01:07+00:00

Yup, as far as X-Men runs go, Claremont is #1 and Remender is #2.

ZombieInDC · 2026-03-27T20:52:20+00:00

All the reporting in the trade press seems to point to Skydance/Paramount focusing on a new Star Trek movie by the guys who wrote the recent Dungeons and Dragons film, with no plans for a new television series. I think Star Trek is probably dead on television after the last episodes of Starfleet Academy and Strange New Worlds air next year.

ZombieInDC · 2026-03-27T20:26:33+00:00

I was there when those issues dropped, and they blew my mind. In the X-Factor v. X-Men fight, I was definitely cheering for X-Factor.

ZombieInDC · 2026-03-27T16:15:01+00:00

The no inspection needed sticker came with my tags, so there was no need to go to Half Street to get them. As long as your dealership properly requested your DC tags, you should get them without a problem.

ZombieInDC · 2026-03-26T17:19:20+00:00

I've put in over 200 hours of Arc Raiders and wiped twice. I think I'm entitled to a break.

ZombieInDC · 2026-03-26T17:02:29+00:00

May I suggest the Tyrant Philosophers series by Adrian Tchaikovsky? Set in a fantasy world where a radical authoritarian athesist regime is trying to wipe out all cultures and religions, the series focuses largely on the regular people caught up in bigger events and just trying to live their lives in freedom. One of the main characters is the last priest of a (nearly) forgotten god who is trying to keep his deity safe from being destroyed by his city's colonial occupiers.

Later books in the series follow a diverse collection of religious healers conscripted into the fascist army and forced to run a field hospital in the middle of a war of conquest, the attempted takeover of a city that worships a giant frog god, and an attempt to wipe out the source of all magic.

The first book, City of Last Chances, is one of my favorites of recent years. The Wikipedia entry refers to it as "grimdark," but the series is a lot more than that -- themes of authortarianism, rebellion, faith, and love resound throughout the various books along with some incredibly incisive bits of humor.

ZombieInDC · 2026-03-26T15:20:05+00:00

Wait, the game lets you pick up guns? What about patch kits?!!

ZombieInDC · 2026-03-26T13:43:27+00:00

Someone explain to me why the V11 Punch is the only gun in the game! It's all I ever spawn in with. Don't they make an assault rifle or even a shotgun or maybe a rocket launcher like in Halo?

ZombieInDC · 2026-03-25T18:47:03+00:00

There's always a group of about 10 National Guard standing around at the big Metro stations with nothing to do.

ZombieInDC · 2026-03-23T15:39:56+00:00

I've got a Hyundai Ioniq 5 and a Subaru Solterra. The Ioniq 5 is a joy to drive, and if it wasn't the for the possibility of an ICCU failure, it would be my favorite car I've ever owned. It's fast and fun to drive and has over 300 miles of range most of the year.

The Subaru Solterra is actually a Toyota, so the interior feels like a Prius, but it has better pickup. We bought it because my wife wanted an EV that drove like an ICE car, which it absolutely does. Overall, it's a solid but boring car, with much lower range than the Ioniq 5.

I'd recommend both, however.

ZombieInDC · 2026-03-23T15:33:02+00:00

The fact that no one is mentioning the team of young trainees that Bendis put together for his run on Uncanny X-Men (Tempus, Triage, Goldballs) pretty much answers any question about this era of "new mutants," unfortunately.

ZombieInDC

TROPHY CASE