Gabriel

I haven't watched it yet, because I'm trying to get through the whole series again first, but my understanding is that they decided to grow the show with the original audience a bit... so it's a bit heavier, subject matter is a bit more intense and there may be some light swearing. So, probably nothing you need to worry about if you actually talk to your children.

Agreed. My advice to anyone is just to go in without reading too much about it, but make sure you pay attention. It's wonderfully done, the performances are amazing and they nailed the aesthetic.

New ownership is expected to be highly aggressive in the free agency market, and the prospects and picks the team already have will help them be aggressive on the trade front. I don't think you're going to see this same team in Utah. You're going into an unproven hockey market. You have to ice a competitive and exciting team from day one or we'll be talking about relocation again.

Ooh, yeah. I like the idea of multi-ball. Five pitches in rapid fire sequence. Any dingers count, the batter runs after the last pitch.

Replace all pitchers with robots that are programmed to throw every type of pitch, who never miss the strike zone. Saves pitcher arms, speeds up the game, brings in robots. How could we go wrong?

After going WAY out of my comfort zone for the last song I posted, I went back to an old favorite to record a vocal cover for my partner. https://www.bandlab.com/post/789ac061-88ec-ee11-aaf0-000d3aa5105b Five Cellars Below by Argyle Goolsby. Again, I didn't spend a lot of time on it because it's just a vocal cover, not a full band cover or original tune. Much happier with the results though, than I was with my Jamie Bower attempt.

It's only a brief minute-long teaser, but they dropped the first trailer for Alien: Romulus yesterday. I am beyond excited for this. It's not just a love of the Alien franchise, because I'll admit that I get excited for every new visit to the universe even when they're arguably disappointing... but I have such immense faith in Fede Alvarez as a writer and director, who has not only proven that he belongs at the top of the Best Of lists for each of those, but also has a deep personal love of the franchise. What he did with the Evil Dead "remake" was, in my eyes, absolutely the perfect way to go. It still felt like Evil Dead, but with the aggression level and intensity just cranked to the max. It's a love letter to the franchise, by a guy who wanted to bring it into the modern era. The trailer for Romulus, and everything I've read thus far, would point to the same type of approach being taken with this. His work with Don't Breathe is a really good look at how he handles quiet tension and a more claustrophobic atmosphere. Even just based on those two films alone (Evil Dead and Don't Breathe), it's really easy to see how he's just the perfect dude to try to breathe life back into this franchise. And for any Ridley Scott lovers out there who might be upset, not only is Scott a producer on the film, but after years of saying the Xenomorph was done and not scary anymore... after completely altering the original (and better) scripts for Prometheus to remove most connections to said creatures... Scott not only enjoyed Romulus upon seeing it, but apparently told Alvarez that it was terrifying. Fede Alvarez, upon seeing Scott's prior comments about the Xenomorph, had this to say: "Hold my beer".

Disappointing, but not surprising. That Franchise gets any resources and time allocated to it is a miracle. I don't think it's a high priority for them, because it doesn't make them any money post-launch. I've been trying to surmise if anything in Franchise has changed this year, but I haven't seen anyone mention anything yet.

I haven't been excited about the idea of remaking The Crow since it was announced. The names attached gave me the feeling that this was a cash-grab attempt at reviving a franchise without putting the proper heart and soul into it. Then Bill Skaarsgaard got cast and I felt a little better about it. He's an amazing choice to play Eric Draven. Unfortunately, what I gathered from the trailer is that it's more in-line with the Child's Play remake than anything else. Change the name of the characters and it's an entirely different movie. It may follow that same path of actually turning out to be a decent film, but even if it does, it will forever have the stink of butchering the legacy of the original. They could have just made this a different version of The Crow altogether and I'd be fine with it as a relaunching of the franchise. But forcing the character of Eric Draven, while not hitting on any of the things that made the character resonate so well... it's just a slap in the face to the fans. Gone are all of the things that made the original so special. The sadness and hope that Brandon Lee was able to convey, the entire goth feel of the original... gone. Maxx is totally right. It looks more like a typical action film with slight horror elements. I'll be waiting to see this when I don't have to explicitly give them my money to do so. I already pay for streaming services, so I'll wait for it to hit one of those and give it a watch. Though, honestly, if it wasn't Bill, I'd probably skip it altogether.

I haven't done much work on my tunes lately, what with having Covid and losing my grandfather and having the funeral all within a few weeks. That said, I heard the newest Jamie Bower song for the first time this week and decided my grandmother needed to hear it... and they've been bugging me to do more since I sang in front of that side of my family for the first time at the celebration of life. So, even though I'm not entirely happy with the recording, I wanted her to have it and did a vocal cover. https://www.bandlab.com/post/0ef1f06a-bee0-ee11-85fb-000d3a425266

Yeah, I noticed that also. I might have to see if I can find a website that keeps a better chronological list until they fix that.

A 2025 First (which could move to 2026 if Vegas decides to trade the 2025 pick before the deadline, which is weird), and a 3rd that turns into a 2nd if Vegas wins a round this playoffs. Also netted us 26 year-old offensive-minded d-man Daniil Miromanov. He hasn't done much in the NHL, but reports I've read paint him as a someone who is counted on to run the power play from the back end. He won't replace Hanifin's production, but I trust Conroy and the scouts, because a lot of his adds have looked like head-scratchers at first, and then worked out better than the fans could have hoped. The last bit left for Connie to take care of is to make sure that he can get ownership to sign off on a Markstrom trade before the deadline. This isn't about tanking, because the goal is to get Wolf into games and let the new guys just run wild to see what we've got. It wouldn't be the first time that a team has gutted a bunch of veterans and ended up performing better. Moving Markstrom is about three things. Maximizing the return, getting Wolf his playing time and taking care of an upset player. I fear that keeping Markstrom past the deadline could result in his numbers dropping and hurting his stock come summer time. Consciously or not, unhappy players tend to go through cold streaks more often and for longer than others. If ownership won't sign off on a deal, expect a final-hour trade of Vladar for a bag of pucks and maybe a cap dump to allow his salary to fit with the new team.

Flames ownership throwing their weight around again and handcuffing their GMs. Nothing new here. Markstrom to Jersey was apparently a done deal as far as Conroy and Markstrom were concerned. Don Moloney stepped in on behalf of ownership and nixed the whole thing, which prompted Markstrom's comments from the other day about the mishandling of his situation and his displeasure with the whole thing. Why even bother to hire a guy with a "unique vision", if you're just going to pull the same old bullshit as owners? I get that the tipping point for ownership was salary retention in the deal, but look at the market. You're going to need to be comfortable retaining salary if you want to get good value back in most cases. Buyers don't have lots of cap space to add without subtracting or having salary retained.

Yeah, the roster logic in general needs an overhaul. It might need to come from something like adding Team Traits or adding GMs and giving them traits of their own... but the vast majority of teams don't want to burn service time or risk prospects not developing by just sitting on the bench, even though sometimes those prospects may legitimately be better or as good as the guys on the roster. Service Time Manipulation should absolutely be in the game to some degree. It would also stop the issue of having a Free Agents list at the end of the off-season, where you could conceivably piece together a team that would be better than the bottom five in the league, just with guys who are left over after the signing period. The game should be able to recognize that. So a team like, say the Yankees or Jays would only bring up a prospect if they're going to be playing every day... and if not, they'll go out and find a veteran "bargain" or whatever. Whereas a team like Oakland may be more inclined to run with their top prospects if they can't find a budget friendly veteran who can keep that prospect in the minors a little bit longer.

I'm of two minds on this. First, obviously female inclusion is a cool addition. I may never use it personally, but it might help grow women's baseball. Beyond that, even if only a handful of young girls pick up the game and feel good about it, they deserve that. EA NHL has women's hockey. Why not women's baseball in The Show? It doesn't radically alter the game. You won't have a mixed men's and women's MLB five years into your franchise. So anyone freaking out needs to chill. Tranquilo, homies. That said, ANY new addition in a year with minimal or no changes/fixes/updates to Franchise always feels a bit like a slap in my face. March to October upset me for that reason. With no news on franchise yet this year, I'm a little upset they took the time to add completely separate stuff to the game. I'm not saying it will be easy to fix, as I haven't coded in years and don't know the limitations and restrictions of what they're dealing with... but even without adding new features to Franchise (like full Class-A, expanded draft, bigger rosters, expansion, etc)... even without touching that stuff, there are glaring problems in the mode that need to be addressed like Bullpen AI. Even if they can't get it into a specific year's game... just letting us know it's being worked on, keeping us updated when they hit roadblocks or see progress... stuff like that can go a long way in keeping your fanbase satiated.

Chris Tanev has been shipped off to the Dallas Stars for a stay at home defensive prospect they drafted in the 2nd round, and another 2nd round selection. I would have loved a first rounder, but the fact is that Tanev's style is such that, at his age, he's a bit of a risk for a playoff bound team. If he stays healthy, Dallas is getting one of the best playoff-type defensemen in the league... but staying healthy with his style and age is risky, so I don't think a first rounder was realistic. Hanifin though, will either fetch us a first rounder or a very solid roster player. Markstrom, if there's a move to be made, could get a similar haul to Hanifin... but depending on the goalie market, he could also be moved out for what would amount to a slightly better return than Tanev got us. Trading goalies is a crapshoot. His play would suggest that he's not regressing, and last year was just not a great one, and he's got term with a reasonable cap hit. If I'm Conroy, I'm really putting the pressure on teams to get a first round pick and someone who can immediately slot into the roster with high upside. If that move isn't there, I switch gears to Vladar and move him for the best deal I can swing. Wolf needs to be one of the two goalies when we get past the deadline. Connie cannot, under any circumstances, get through the deadline without moving a goalie. One of the biggest issues this team has had for years has been prospects losing faith in the organization because they're not being given opportunities. Dustin Wolf is potentially a generational goalie. You need to show him that there's opportunity to be seized, or he'll leave as soon as he gets the chance.

I see there are some people talking about free agency being a problem with so many surprising names still available so late. This is one of those times though, where I laugh at them because what's good for the goose is good for the gander, right? When fans complain about how much money that a player makes, one of the arguments that I hear frequently from players/teams/agents is that the market dictates the value and if a team is willing to pay that market price, then fair play to the player and let them get theirs. When there are players that aren't signing for as much money as they expected to, it becomes a problem? Nah... nah bish. If the market dictates that all you can get is a one year deal for significantly less money than your agent told you that you could expect... well, that's fair play to the owners, GMs and everyone else. You can't argue for ungodly amounts of money under the guise of a fluctuating market and team needs... but then call foul when the market crashes and teams don't need or desire to spend that amount of money. If it's a case of teams actively refusing to better themselves, that's a problem... but if it's a matter of teams legitimately feeling like they can get the same or better production out of cheaper players or whatever, then it just is what it is. Hammer out a one year deal with someone, do the work and try again next off-season.

I caught Covid last week and went through a lot of random stuff on my watchlists from the various services, because I was basically useless for a full week and what else do you do? I caught onto an absolute gem though on Prime Video. The Invitation, which came out in 2022. I literally knew nothing about it, other than that there were some jump scares in the trailer I'd seen when I originally tossed it onto the list. I am so happy I didn't read into it at all, and just let the journey play out. Thomas Doherty made me fall in love with him. I want to see that kid do big things in the horror genre. I had no idea how young he was. He plays his character with such conviction and gravitas that I would have expected him to be well into his 30's, but the guy would have been mid-20's when they filmed this. Without spoiling anything, because I think the revelations are part of what really excited me about this one, it's a modern romantic gothic horror film. It isn't super heavy on the scares, but it's well-acted and gets quite tense. Did I mention that Thomas Doherty was great? Man, was he great.

It really depends on what you're looking for out of it. My wife and I found it to be a fun little romp that is littered with opportunities for it to be a much better movie. It's a bit frustrating in that regard, but if you're still having fun watching superheroes do superhero things, there are worse movies out there.

The Jays' pursuit of Ohtani is really going to bite them hard. Atkins said that any further additions would require subtractions, and while the optimist in me wants to believe that's more about room on the 40 man than the financial aspect of it, it's hard to argue if someone feels otherwise. The team was willing to shell out $700 million for Ohtani, and yeah, there are intangibles and other factors there like merchandise revenue... but you can't sign a Cody Bellinger? Go with Vogelbach over Joey Votto? Let Soler go off the board for $42 million over three years? And if you're not comfortable spending that money on free agents, where are the contract extensions for the core? Jansen, Vlad and Bichette are all due up soon. You can't show the fans and the team that the money is there and then try to deny it when the toy you wanted isn't available anymore. Things could end up getting real bad in Toronto if they don't smarten up.

I noticed it also, and had to check to see if voice actors had changed. Could just be everyone getting older.

Haha, I knew what you meant. BandLab, using free-use loops and the like, is a great place for me to experiment, but it's definitely not the same as collaborating with a real person. Which, I suppose is why I'm treating everything I do with it as if they are demos. Ideally, I'll put it together, record vocals and hopefully attract someone or some people who may be able to take those demos and help mold them into a more solid set of tunes. I was really excited to find BandLab for that reason, because every time I've been in a band, it's crashed and burned before we got a chance to play a show or properly release anything. The reason being, that every time I've managed to gather the troops, we go in with a set plan that had been discussed (song ideas, style of play, etc)... and then inevitably, all of those people have ended up whinging and complaining that they wanted to play something else entirely. I figured it would be best to bring a more completed vision to players, who can them help to complete the vision. I think I like the idea of collaborations better than the idea of trying to find a full band. Also, that way, people can jump in and out on a song by song basis... there's no real commitment for anyone else... and I don't have to compromise what I'm doing. Eventually, my end goal is to have a two-pronged attack of Cancerslug-type Punk Rock, where I can really just tap into my anger, toss my tongue into my cheek and probably offend a lot of people who don't get it... and then a more Horror Punk oriented prong, looking to bands like Blitzkid and obviously the Misfits as inspiration. I've also got a scribble book of lyrics for a little black metal project, but like my foray into trying my hand at country, I have no intention of that being something I work on consistently. Probably something I'll just do a handful of tracks for and move on until I get the urge and time to do a little more down the road.

After 1 game with their new teams, it's looking good on both sides of that deal. Lindholm immediately plays his best game of the season in his Canucks debut. Good for him. Good for Vancouver. Kuzmenko lights the lamp in his first five minutes as a Flame... but infinitely more importantly? Gets Huberdeau to play his best game of the season. Good for them. Good for Calgary. We all knew Huberdeau wasn't going anywhere. That contract might as well be an anchor, paired with his play since signing it. Lindholm is a very strong player, and I'm going to miss him, but he hasn't been the same since Gaudreau and Tkachuk left. I think he struggles under the pressure of being the top dog, so Vancouver is a good fit for him as he can slide back into that role of being sneaky good (if only because other teams will be focused on shutting down different players). The most important thing for Calgary here is the idea that we might be able to bring out the old Huberdeau. Something's been off with him since arriving in Calgary, and I think early on, it was linemates and lack of chemistry, which led to low confidence and just spiraled out of control. If Kuzy is able to ignite that fire under Huberdeau consistently, the stretch run will be very interesting for Flames fans.

...man... I'm fucked.

Ended up having a free half hour yesterday, so I pumped out a quick little vocal cover of Junkie by Alex Story. Explicit lyrics warning, for those who are bothered. It's an acoustic jam, vocals removed and re-recorded by myself. https://www.bandlab.com/post/60dd5ce0-a7c3-ee11-85f9-000d3a90bcc3 Aside from that, I've been working on some country-influenced tunes, as per my father's challenge. I had asked for help focusing my creativity, because I noticed that I'd somehow ended up with almost a dozen different projects ongoing, and that's no way to complete anything. I'm not a big fan of country, and it's usually easier to just tell people that I don't like it, but it's going better than I anticipated. The first tune is almost ready, but ended up not being at all what I'd been thinking about. Musically, it's nowhere near the sound I'd envisioned, but I'm playing around in a puddle that I'm not used to, and I'm happy with it regardless. I've laid down a baseline vocal to establish my melody and lyric placement, but the hard part now is going to be trying to find the sound that I want from the vocals. With the music not hitting that country style like I'd hoped, I'm trying to channel my inner-hillbilly for the vocals in an effort to bring the sound more in line with what I set out for.