Trails of Azure end up being any good?

Next season, Ancient Magus S2 and and Skip to Loafer were the ones I had eyes on. Maybe Jigokuraku. Maybe After School Insomniacs.

Seems that CJGJ went to the Lions. Cooks gets liberated from the Texans to the Cowboys for very little draft capital. AFL season started and supposedly had its 3rd most attended round ever but...I am finding it hard to care. The other side in my state had a big home win against a top 4 side of last year. Mine started great but was very inaccurate and they got overrun. Getting a sneaking feeling my side might be 0-5 in a month.

Been listening to loads of post rock lately on a channel called WherePostRockDwells. Certainly gets me through a lot of irksome days and nights I need to chill.

I...need to get onto Ancient Magus S1 before S2 starts...along with catch up on Tomo-chan is a Girl. Just can't vibe with anime lately. Guessing once it's cold in a month that will change.

Lot of O-line moved teams on Day 1. Denver loaded up amongst others. Bates going to Atlanta was another intriguing one. Guess they can't afford Jackson anymore - not that I think Baltimore will let him go anywhere this year. But...holding out is a thing.

Generally get stuff from Amiami. Anything needing to be in English, Rightstuf.

For the last week, I had a sudden itch to go back to Hearthstone for the first time in 3 years. After the first day, I was disgusted by how out of control cards that Discover a card/Cast 20 mana of random spells/turn your whole deck into spells of higher cost but retaining the original cost/play your whole deck in 1 turn were. So...I was compelled to find a way to construct a beatdown deck with none of those vile near-endless card generator cards that could smash through them and the utter aggro decks. I was very limited since I hadn't played in years, so with what I had, I went to the Wild format, spent my remaining dust on some new legendaries and made a Mech Mage deck. One week later...I actually made Legend rank. Ironic...I spent 5 years back in the day trying to get to Legend and always falling short by a few ranks in the tier before Legends. This time...I actually punched through. And it felt damn good. I literally saw no one playing the deck I was. I didn't spend any money, I didn't go after the pay-to-win mini sets, I didn't play a popular deck. To finally make it after all this time was a real sense of euphoria. To do it my way and go completely against what was popular was infinitely amplifying that satisfaction.

Chuck Fletcher has been fired. Perhaps the Flyers will 'eventually' progress.

Durant injuring himself in a warmup was bizarre. Morant indefinitely suspended over the gun incident. Bears trade the #1 pick to the Panthers for two 1sts, two 2nds and DJ Moore.

Edit - Jalen Ramsay just got traded to Miami.

Well, 76ers broke the Bucks' 16 game winning streak so they might be capable. And I didn't make a joke about the Canucks earlier because I knew the Leafs would somehow lose tonight...but I didn't foresee because of 2 shorthanded goals on the same power play...it's getting ready for Tampa at this point.

Road 96 requires the right mood. I played it during my month off. Leave it until the time is right. I was kind of hyped for the prequel...and then I saw the first 14 minutes...and then I removed it from my wishlist. Sadly, it forgot what made people want to play the original. Which is still very worthy.

Avatar and sig are to make people wonder 'where is that from' if they don't know. Summertime Rendering will likely be forgotten with how much new content gets pushed out but moreso that it was the shounen that wasn't. Night Cascades, hardly anyone would know it even exists. A passion project from one person in their bedroom that outdoes almost any VN but won't get noticed because of not having branding and because it was about adults. Then again, knowing these things exist is enough.

Going to revisit 2003 titles this year. The ones I have marked:

Jan - Someday's Dreamers
April - Last Exile, Scrapped Princess
July - Full Metal Panic Fumoffu, Tokyo Godfathers
October - Planetes, Rumbling Hearts

So the Flyers were going to actually trade JVR...and the Red Wings pulled out at the last moment...

Chuck Fletcher needs to be fired into the sun. The Flyers will never progress from utter failure while he continually shoots you in the balls, chest and brain simultaneously. Aggressively retooling? Right...

So the Rangers acquired Tarasenko and Kane.

But the one team going all in is...the Leafs?!

O'Reilly, Acciari, McCabe, Lafferty, Gustaffson, Schenn?! Dubas has decided if the entire East is going to be an arms race, he's really going for it. Yet...he gave up no significant future and only gave up 4th liners in terms of existing players. O'Reilly already has a hat-trick and the team seems grittier, Acciari has made the 4th lane way better. The rest should be playing their first Leafs game against the Oilers in 12 hours. We needed defenders, a winger and some veteran resilience. Dubas is going for a grand slam and not selling the future for it.

Also...Gunbuster is finally getting an English release. About freaking time!

I put on an NBA for the first time in ages. Happened to be Celtics-76ers. 76ers were up big early in the 3rd then Boston somehow had the lead going into the 4th. Game tightened up, Embiid cracked 40. Tatum had been playing lousy most of the game then suddenly couldn't miss and nailed the game winner with a second left. But the painful part is Embiid took a full court shot...and hit it...but it was too late by a few tenths. If it isn't the Bruins that pull out victories from nowhere, it's the Celtics. Seriously hope someone steps up to help Embiid in the playoffs. He was the main reason I kept watching. Most of the rest on either side resorted to 3-ball and it just bores me. Harden did some utterly bizarre passes (trying to do a long behind the back through 4 people...?!). Oh well, at least Simmons isn't weighing them down now. Honestly, I can't believe companies here used him in advertisments. He's a lazy prick that never wanted to improve.

I did a day 1 purchase of The Pale Beyond. Try and think of it as Frostpunk-like but with Persona-like Social Link-ish stuff also going on. But far more grim. As in Persona 3 would feel gentle compared to this. Indie dev I really respect made this their debut, hope it manages to get some decent exposure.

So over the last two weeks, there was a publically available demo of Tape to Tape, combing roguelite mechanics similar to Slay The Spire with sports arcades of late 80s/early 90s and NHL 94. It's just damn fun. Releases in late April. Really looking forward to it.

I'm on the final day of P3P but...Margaret is ruining me. I made it to Phase 3 once...but I think I'm going to need a lot of luck to get through her and Elizabeth. I don't want to have to go for them again in the 2nd playthrough. The Pale Beyond is out in just 2 days and I wanted a playthrough done by then. But that is looking unlikely at this rate.