Gavin King

I hope they do a better job that Solar Opposites, replacing Justin Roiland's voice. It's going to take some getting used to the change.

Wow, for Day 3 even, that's crazy.

A couple of weeks ago, I barely remember hearing about a new TCG with classic Disney theme. Lots of announcements lately (full card reveal), craziness at Gencon yesterday. This game appears like it will be huge hit with both card gamers, Disney fans, and of course the collectors as well. The art work is great (and original). It seems like Ravensburger is making smart decisions on building up the game. Really quite pumped and interested in this. Last card game I got into was Keyforge, which I still love, but unfortunately the scene died over covid, and is currently (hopefully) being brought back from the dead under a new company. The big mechanism in the game, is any (technically most) card can be played for cost, or turned upside down and put into ink (e.g. mana) and put into your inkwell. The ink is there for rest of game and can be used (tapped) once per turn to spend on new cards. Once played, cards can either challenge opponents cards, or can quest to get Lore points. First to 20 Lore wins. Cards have different effects, but are balanced by 1. Ink Cost, 2. Attack, 3. Defense, 4. Quest Lore, 5. Ink/Non-Ink able. Some of the best cards are non-inkable, so if you put too many in your deck of 60, you're going to get into a tough spot. 6 colors of ink, the deck you build can only have 2 colors, and can only have 4 copies of any card in their deck. Hoping Lorcana is successful, I think it will be with the IP alone and the fan response so far. They're already working on set 5, and plan to release 4 sets / year. Like most launches, it'll be a bit bump the next month, but once production can fulfil demand it should be lots of fun. As any TCG will be, it'll be expensive, but one of the best things (IMO) is that the foil, enhanced rares (alt art) don't impact gameplay. For those wanting to play the game, you shouldn't have too crazy of a chase or $-need to spend on singles to fill out your deck with the rares/super-rares/legendaries you want. For those that want to do that thing, there certainly will be that for you. Every booster is 12 cards that will be 6 common, 3 uncommon, and then also a guarantee of 2 rare/super rare/legendary, in addition to a random foil of any rarity. So basically you're going to average about 31 rares, 12.5 super rares, and 4.5 legendries per case of 24 booster decks. Not bad. Curious if anyone else here has been checking it out? https://www.disneylorcana.com/en-US/product/ Quick 10minutes Dice Tower Preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duJW5ve55XM&ab_channel=TheDiceTower All cards/deck builder: https://dreamborn.ink/ Unofficial Online Games: Pixelborn: https://discord.com/invite/qBBQ2D384A (Follow-Install in How-To section, takes 2 minutes)

I'm not butt hurt over a musical episode... but musicals are just not my thing. It seemed like they did a good job and all, I appreciated them trying to make a musical make 'sense' in a sci-fi world.... but yeah... just was not really into it. For me, whole thing was kind of meh, fine.

I loves how they played off the way they speak in Lower Decks to SNW not being a cartoon/reality thing but more of a history/different times thing. I think I was generally surprised how well the characters felt in the SNW 'real' world considering LD has such a different tone, but it just all worked. Hope they do it again, even if it does get hard to constantly repeat 'time portals' as a plot device to make it happen.

Inner Light, hands down, my favorite Trek episode. Hits me every time at the end with Picard playing his flute.

I really wanted to love Picard.... it was... okay. S3 was by far the best, nostalgia was strong, but the story never really gripped me. I just don't find myself rewatching it any time soon, where as Lower Deck I've rewatched multiple times, and just caught up on SNW, but easily can see rewatching it in preparation for new seasons. 100% agree that DS9 is the best Trek. Growing up, I thought it was TNG, but as I've gotten older, DS9 has edged it out for the story and character arcs. Voyager can be a lot of fun, and I actually really liked Enterprise, wish they could have gotten a couple more seasons back in the day.

Lower Deck is actually probably the best of the new Trek shows in my eyes, but Strange New Worlds is closing the gap at #2. It was such a good episode. I normally don't watch the ready room after show stuff, but is was a pretty good one I thought. I hope they do another cross over episode or let Jack and Tawny do live-action again somehow. Was just so much fun seeing them do it for real.

Can't Wait! There's a new bonus, Atom Eve, episode up on Amazon Prime. Haven't watched yet, but will soon.

Is this similar to Netflix, Fox, and other places where the trust has been broken, so people don't watch stuff until they know it's a hit and it will be renewed or is on for several seasons? Catch-22, because people won't watch and it will get cancelled all the faster. I feel like DCU is similar. General fans aren't going to invest time until they know it's worth it... even if it's a fantastic film, unless it's something like Joker or The Batman... any universe building film ain't worth going to when it's already been cancelled. Probably lesson here is maybe don't tell folks you're rebooting until after the last of the films come out.

Just why? Is there anyway this thing even comes closer to doing what the first did at the box office? There's a chance this does worse than the flash. I think audiences are done with the DCU until they reboot.

A lot of different issues for The Flash, but I think the biggest is branding of the DCU. #1, most of them have been average at best. #2, it's well known that it's killed and they're rebooting. Why invest time and hard-earned money into something that doesn't mean anything? Most people will just wait a couple months and watch it for free on streaming. The reboot is much needed, but hopefully they build it slowly and the right way. If they rush into it, they will fail all over again.

Just started watching it, a couple of episodes into season 1. Feeling is the same... back to more episodic type stories, with character and some overall story connecting it all together. Enjoying it more the discovery which I'm still a season or two behind on.

Saw this game at AMG's corp office/store setup when I went to pick up my Keyforge kick starter. It had a cool table prescense. Kind of thinking of getting the core set, and worse case scenario, it's some more (expensive) terrain for my Legion collection. Catching up on this thread... I know painting is a big part of this hobby, and I plan to try it out someday, but shoot... I've probably spent over $1,000 on Legion (have pretty much complete Clone and Droid army, half of Empire, and my buddy has the rest of Empire and rebels). None of our stuff is painted. Would certainly be cooler if we have had it painted, but still great to play whether we ever get to the painting side or not.

Had never heard of that and had to look it up: The Joe Schmo Show - Wikipedia EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG Yes, sounds very similar. was The Joe Schmo show any good?

Agreed! So good and loved the insight they provided to the behind the scenes process. Didn't know I wanted essentially real life Truman Show, big now I want a season 2. Genius that they put the setting as jury duty. I'm not sure what other environment/situation you could pull this show off in where you can take away cell phones, internet, and really the outside world for 3 weeks and make it all believable.

So binged it all last night, then started rewatching with the commentary, which might even be better. Kept saying just one more just one more.

That's a really interesting concept... Gonna have to check this out.

Was a director at my last job and saw both ends of it. New hires were consistently needing to be hired 10-20k higher than they would have just a couple of years ago. This made it an issue with the current employees. Not good to have new folks getting paid significantly more than current employees. As a leader, you hire who you need and pay them what the market is dictating. You then, as best you can, leverage that to get the rest of your team raises. Companies will always drag their feet on raises, but if it's new hire or a good employee with an offer somewhere else, then it can happen in days. Problem is, if the employee can only get a raise by threating to leave, that's a really bad lesson to teach them (work hard enough to be valued then threaten to leave to get paid) even if they stay, and with one foot out the door, good chance they're already gone. For myself, I was able to leverage different situations and able to to get 33% raise total over the last 3-4 years, plus some extra bonuses. Currently taking a break from the rat race by leveraging that money to have spring and summer off with the family. When I go back, likely will be successful getting competiting offers and negotiate a raise along with sign-on bonuses. It really is a different world out there. More jobs than there are people. For most (smart/good) companies... it's cheaper to give an extra $10-20k in salary or more in a sign-on bonus to fill a seat, then to wait possibly 1-6 months more trying to find someone else who likely will demand the same costs anyways... in the mean time, they likely will lose more employees who are carrying the load of the empty chair. Most companies want to grow, and they need bodies (normally) to do that.

Excited to see this, might have to get Netflix again. I figured the show was just done, didn't see this coming. May have to rewatch to get ready.

Agree on that. Behind on the podcast, but he has gotten increasingly grumpy over recent years. I actually think he might get out of politics for a bit. He has his money, he'll probably just go play poker in Vegas for a year.

Meh... I feel like brands can be replaced. I'd take the models and his name elsewhere and build it all up again. Curious to see where he lands.

It's also not truly a 70%+ discount. Currently, there's huge rebates on insulin products. Pharma pays PBMs. PBMs pay the rebates to Health Plans (with or without keeping a slice), Health Plans then pay those rebates to the plan sponsor (your employer) and also may or may not keep a slice. No where did I mention the patient/member. Very rare for a member to benefit directly from rebates (indirectly, in theory, lower premiums). Just example math, but if a drug cost $100 with a $70 rebate.... manufacturers can charge $30 with a $0 rebate and still make the same margins. Typically they pay rebates in order to entice PBMs/Health Plans to prefer their product over their competition on the formulary and potentially even exclude coverage all together on the competition. As others have said, patents are expiring, it's going to soon be an open market, they're likely just getting a head start and buying some good will, but it's not costing them nearly what it appears in headlines.

FTC's new rule could end noncompete agreements for millions of workers - ABC News ABCNEWS.GO.COM In a sweeping step earlier this year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) proposed a rule that would void non-compete clauses and ban their use in future contracts.

Picked some up this week, yum. Carrot Cake or Red Velvet are probably the best Oreos. Apple Cinnamon Donut Oreos are pretty good too.