Thom McGrath

I'm sick of this trend of releasing a cappella versions of songs that are nothing more than the vocal tracks.

Yeah I tried watching it agin a couple years ago and ended up turning it off. I remember liking it, but it's just... bad.

Oh The Pitt is fantastic, and oh boy… buckle up.

Fun tidbit: it’s a spiritual successor to ER. It was intended to be a reboot, but they couldn’t get the rights.

Tidbit 2: It was intended to be 12 episodes, but HBO actually asked them for more. Nice when somebody understands what a season is.

I will probably not be updating my Beacon app to use the macOS 26 SDK. Between Liquid Glass being a usability nightmare and Xojo having no practical way to handle the new control sizes, I see little benefit. Which sucks because I’ve always tried to keep it looking modern.

Made the mistake of trying rental roller blades, and I should have known better. Even as a kid, they never fit well enough to be usable, and as an adult, they’re no different.

Is it though? I’m ready for him to move on and maybe bring in somebody with a sense of taste.

Interesting. When deciding between Jurassic World and F1, we picked Jurassic World because the consensus online was basically “it’s a sports movie. If you like F1 racing, pick F1. Otherwise pick Jurassic World.” I figure we’ll watch it when it’s free on Apple+.

I’d talk more about the movie’s faults, but it’s brand new. I’ll refrain until more have seen it.

Solid B maybe B+. Cast definitely has chemistry and I quickly liked watching them. These characters are not cartoonish exaggerations, but feel like real people just trying to live their lives. But the story is predictable and has pacing problems. You can just feel every failure coming.

Going into Fantastic Four now and there’s at least hype for this one. I’ve not seen the theater this crowded for a Marvel movie in a while. I’m still not confident, but I’ll know in a couple hours.

I’m sorry, I think you’re alone on that hill.

Superman was goddamn fantastic. Everything (I think) a Superman movie needed to be. If DC can keep this up and Marvel continues to flail aimlessly, DC will be eating Marvel’s lunch for years.

They are diversifying the roster, without investing in any character enough for them to become popular. They are intentionally holding back the entire cast of characters.

They made this character inconsequential. I’m not in love with the character or anything like that. But I do recognize what kind of impact she *should* have. I think the real problem is Marvel. I think they are trying to avoid giving any one actor RDJ levels of negotiating power.

And what does Marvel do with this potential? They tell the story of a good kid who makes a few bad decisions and gets in over her head. Isn’t this the same story they told with Ms Marvel? They could have done something to actually evolve the MCU, and instead they did nothing.

The only other character to get this close to Stark’s abilities was Vanko. And he’s dead. The moment she put that suit on, the world would notice. They’d give her everything she asked for.

The whole world is looking for somebody to replace him. Wasn’t that the point of Far From Home? And then Riri shows up with her own suit, rivaling Stark’s early suits, and the world doesn’t seem to care? Realistically, EVERY company, whether they make tanks or toasters, would be recruiting her.

Ironheart, which I haven’t finished yet, has some serious problems. It’s not bad as in unwatchable, but the entire story is wasted potential. This character should be having a huge impact on the MCU. In-universe, Tony Stark is regarded as the greatest hero to ever live.

This version of the film is ok, only because it stands on the shoulders of a better film. But I didn’t see much that was improved, only things that were worse. Such as the death of the queen dragon. She explodes. Like a plane crash. She hits the ground and explodes. Fucking what?

The exchange “so what are you going to do” “something stupid” felt natural in the original, but completely out of place in this one. Hiccup doesn’t have nearly any of his humor from the original, so the line just doesn’t work. It doesn’t feel like something this version of the character would say.

It is an astonishingly close remake. Most scenes are pulled directly from the original. But delivery was lacking. You have dialogue and motions designed for cartoons that lose all their heart in live action.

Saw the How to Train Your Dragon remake a couple days ago. It’s not bad, but it’s not good either. Certain shots I think were great, like all the high speed “learning to fly” stuff. The sequence felt so much faster and real. Besides that, it’s all just slightly off.

Yesterday it was so hot we set a new record for the highest temperature ever recorded in Connecticut. Today it’s cold enough that the heat may actually come on soon.

The data comes from my PHP-built API, which is what my Xojo-built Beacon app is using already. It’s basically just an OAuth client.

I’d love for Xojo Web to be this. To be capable of creating a progressive web app, as this is formally called.

As a side note, after finally getting the hang of Vue, this really what I wish Xojo web edition would have become. The web interface I’ve setup in Vue is 100% client-side. It runs from static assets hosted with CloudFlare for free. For any level of traffic.

After roughly two years of work, I have finally launched my Beacon Sentinel service. This is a moderation “platform” for Ark Ascended servers built on PHP, Vue, Xojo, and Unreal Engine 5.

I’m kind of amazed I’ve pulled it off.

And then what? They just stay out for another 4 months? I get that stores are setting up earlier and earlier, but this is absurd.

But… it’s June.

This is the brilliance of Nintendo. Release these games - not even for free mind you - that suck to play with modern controllers, then also sell new controllers that perfectly match the originals. These replica controllers make the experience so much better.

In GoldenEye, for example, manual aiming quickly goes from one extreme to the other with barely a touch of the stick. In Wind Waker, it took me like 6 tries to cross a simple bridge because the I’d overshoot small corrections.