GunStarHero

Original Xbox games online via Insignia. I have been assisting with the testing of games as they are added to the service. Two most recent big game tests were Forza and Halo 2. Here is a video of a test game before they launched the public beta for Halo 2. Service is free and can run on XEmu (Xbox emulator) on PC or on original Xbox consoles that have been soft modded (or hard modded). https://insignia.live/

The Halo show is so insanely bad that I cannot wrap my head around how so many people seem to like it. I may be a big fan of some of the games but I'm not such a lore snob that I clutch my pearls at the thought of any changes being made. I get that it's a "different timeline" and that it was created for a broader audience, and that's fine, but this? This is what they made? Season 1 started with a brutal Covenant attack on a human settlement and then just dive bombed into weird subplots and got lost in the weeds trying to declare it was not the existing lore. Apparently some of the showrunners didn't play any of the games or read any of the books, and they're proud of that? This shit is boring ass bullshit. It's the epitome of lame. What a rich universe to just throw out the fucking air lock for the sake of "nuh uh this is a different timeline!" but still keeping so many elements from the original, only to butcher them. Normally I say let people enjoy what they enjoy and leave it be. If it's not for me, then I shouldn't watch it. But in this instance, this show is trash and you have bad taste if you enjoy this sober.

Saw it in theaters. Enjoyed it, probably more than the first. We got two of the weird Shai-Hulussy popcorn buckets. Sold one for $80 lol

I conveniently always have another job that I simply cannot move my schedule around to get the days and hours I want at a new job.

Not sure if anyone here would be interested but I recently finished working with an editor on a Halo 2 montage showcasing my gameplay.

I mean I guess it boils down to which music you're talking about? Popular music? Stuff you hear on the radio/in public places? I have a playlist I listen to almost every day that I tweak at least a couple times a week and the overwhelming majority of 700+ songs on it were made in the past decade. Don't think there's been a better time to be alive when it comes to enjoying music. Just gotta find what you like and seek out the artists making it.

Halo 3 fucking sucks, especially as a comp game.

Shame Volition wound up remastering Saints Row The Third and not SR 1 or 2. Since Volition is no longer a thing, maybe the rights holders will do something with the franchise. Saints Row 2 was far and away my favorite of the series. Felt like they embraced being a video game and it found them success against GTA 4.

Evidently I have a twin in Russia. I'm probably the evil one, though.

You can use applesauce as a substitute for milk, oil, juice, syrup, and even stuff like wine in stuff like bundt cakes, soft cookies, muffins, pancakes, etc. You can also just use some in an existing recipe, but like scoob said, just cater to it's inclusion. Then you have more uncommon things like apple kugel, which is a casserole, or latkes/potato pancakes. Non-baking stuff would be things like marinades and glazes, especially on things like ribs or slow cooked meats. Works great in sauces in general, really, if you want that apple flavoring. Then there's adding it to an existing food, like mixing it with oatmeal or in with yogurt or ice cream/custard. This can be even better if you have time to freeze the applesauce and make a sort of sorbet. There was a time in my culinary career I was really interested in using fruit and fruit byproducts with meats in different ways. Lead me to some really amazing dishes. Applesauce just kinda kept coming up as an established ingredient, though lol

Applesauce is great. I especially like mixing other fruits into it when making it. Good for baking, too.

I still go to LANs when I can but its getting harder to find enough CRTs to make it authentic. Here's a pic from one a few years back:

Recently got a CRT with a VCR/DVD combo off Craigslist for $25 and everything works so I was stoked. Happy to hear you got one, as well. I love old media and have several hundred VHS tapes, including a ton from Japan. Even got a refurbished Sony VCR from a Japan for cheap at a great price. Really want to get one of those weird Blu Ray/DVD/VHS players and a laserdisc player, too. Gotten really lazy with it lately but I was preserving old media and want to continue doing so. Got tons of stuff that's not available anymore, some not even as rips or anything.

Easily one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Saw it on streaming last night. Just misses every fucking mark at the advertised lightning speed. Don't watch it; isn't even fun to riff on. Just fuckin' sucks.

The therapist I saw after the Vegas shooting genuinely helped me through that difficult time, she really did. But our final couple of sessions were unhinged, to be honest. She successfully helped me confront things I was shying away from in my life in general and got me moving forward again but then she just went off the deep end. Started feeling like she was airing her grievances to me. Told me personal stuff like how she had gotten breast implants and loved them, totally unprompted. Suddenly tried to convince me that my new partner, whom I am still with, was going to abuse me in the bedroom and I needed to leave her ASAP. (Literally no clue where this even came from tbh.) And the one that just sent me was when she said "well all LGBT people were raped as kids, that's how you become one." For all the good she had done, she just lit another fire back up inside of me cause she sounded like my abusive father. Just a stupid motherfucker that may be skilled and knowledgeable about one thing but is a total, cocksure moron with everything else. She helped me with one thing but just ended up making things worse for something else. All she had to do was shut the fuck up, too.

Loved doing the super jumps off trash bags in the original.

Dungeons and Dragons - 7/10 Fun little movie. Wouldn't mind another one, also wouldn't mind it being the only one. Across the Spiderverse - 8/10 Love the animation, another fun movie (mostly). Only complaint was the runtime since it was a cliffhanger. Avatar: The Way of Water - 5/10 Some of this movie is drop dead gorgeous, some of it is not. The entire story was driving me mad and I hated the dialogue and weird/stupid direction parts of this film went with. How did this fucking thing make $2.3 billion at the box office? I call shenanigans. Bros - 7/10 Did not expect this to be as funny as it was. Ben Stiller's cameo damn near floored me. Shame this one bombed but at the same time the way that that was handled by the writer/star did not help. Bullet Train - 7/10 Another fun little movie. More like this, please. Trailers made it look god awful but I was pleasantly surprised with the movie itself. The Menu - 6/10 It was fine, really, but I expected more from it. Well accustomed to the type of snobbery the movie was poking fun at but, like, that's exactly what I don't want to see, if that makes sense. Cool to see someone live out the chef's dream of killing annoying/pretentious customers, though! Air - 6/10 You could do worse for a corporate biopic but if you thought this was one big advertisement for Nike as they jerk themselves off for being so great, then you were spot on. This would have worked so much better as a documentary that spliced in the Hollywood cast reenacting tidbits and having the real people react to said bits. Play the whole thing tongue and cheek, ya know? I'm thinking too much. John Wick 4 - 6/10 The John Wick formula of action porn has finally glossed my eyes over. Saw this in theaters, got the collectible coin set, thought the movie was largely mediocre. Cool seeing Scott Adkins do martial arts in a fat suit and some of the shots, like the overhead with the dragon's breath one shot scene, were awesome. Hope any future films do not focus on John or rely so heavily on guns tbh. Nope - 7/10 Solid movie. Had no fucking idea what it was about and it kinda hit me over the head with weird and unsettling shit but I can dig it. Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness - 6/10 Please god make them stop. For every good scene in this I felt like there were a dozen lesser ones. Expected a lot more from this, as well, like, I don't know, more Multiverse shit?

Finally, my collection has surpassed yours!

There are many ways to play Halo 2 right now. Best one is Project Cartographer on PC which is a fan mod of Halo 2 Vista that works really well. You can also play on Xlink Kai since there is a consistent group that plays that every day. There is Xemu which runs on PC and is basically an original Xbox emulator. MCC also works but I think it's the worst way to play. And Insignia is in the works to have Xbox Live running in old school Xboxes but Halo 2 will take awhile. If Insignia works then you can have all the original functions of Xbox Live, including matchmaking and ranks on Halo 2.

There's a ton you can do, but getting the capacitor squared away is the main concern. Both my OG Xboxes have had them replaced and are softmodded. I just use FTP to put games on them. Used to have one with thousands of games but unless they were original Xbox games I just couldn't get into playing them with the Xbox controller. Last month I took one to a classic Halo event so the Halo CE guys could play 2v2s. They use a special version of the game called Halo PE which is modified in various ways but I had to install it via an FTP cause they are real uptight about who gets access to those files. But yea, change out the capacitor for the clock and get a softmod kit and you're off to the races.

As a cadaver?

If you get an original Xbox you need to either make sure it's had its clock capacitor changed already or that you can do that yourself. Otherwise its a ticking time bomb that can destroy the motherboard since most original Xboxes used cheap capacitors that corrode and spill acid onto the motherboard.