The Stochastic Game
Ramblings of General Geekery

Hey Ludo, what time is… YEAH IT’S RHUBARB PIE TIME AGAIN BITCHES!

Also, yes I’m drinking the rhubarb juice left behind because that’s how I roll!

A photo of my latest rhubarb pie, obviously.
A slice of the pie.
Some pink-ish juice in a glass that's basically rhubarb syrup mixed with water. The syrup is what's left behind after cutting the rhubarb in bits and mixing it with sugar. Let it sit there for a few minutes and it will collect at the bottom, making the pie less soggy.

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I reached the end of season 01 of Star Trek: The Next Generation! Fun times! But who the hell put some “body snatchers”-style conspiracy and gore in my Star Trek? I mean, I like it a lot, but it was clearly too hastily made. Should have, at the very least, been a two-part episode IMHO.

A weird alien bug escapes from its human host after she has been killed. Big "WTF" moment followed by some giggling from me
The obligatory "we love to eat something you find disgusting", to really show the mind-controlling aliens are weird and bad.
Picard and Riker don't think twice before killing the host of the alien leader. That was very surprising for a Star Trek -- usually the whole shtick of the series is that the characters do whatever they can to avoid taking a life. I guess the writers ran out of time.
Some fun 1990's gore with the mutilated corpse of the human host to the alien leader... or at least that's what we suppose it is.

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I finally watched “Masters of the Universe” (1987) and holy shit! It’s so bad in so many ways that it’s actually quite impressive. Probably one of the best “popcorn & laughs” movies out there. To think Moebius and Frank Langella were involved in this. Anyway, the post credits scene is horrifying.

Movie poster for "Masters of the Universe". He-Man is carrying his sword in one hand (which he barely uses in the movie because that would require a lot more qualified stunt-people and a combat coordinator), and a big laser rifle in other hand (because laser weapons were big in the 1980s, and just require some sparks, somebody to yell "fall down now!" on set, and you can do the rest in post) You have really for the whole movie to recognize something that looks like the cartoon.
He-Man, Teela, and Man-at-Arms. Nobody really looks like their original characters, but at least I got a chuckle at Chelsea Field looking dead at the camera after shooting a couple bad guys and saying "woman at arms!"
Julie and Kevin find the McGuffin! I barely recognized Courtney Cox here without all the plastic surgery...
Skeletor's mask is probably the biggest affront to movie makeup ever. The fact that his nostrils are visibly closed with a black mesh will probably haunt me for years.

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Since some people asked about this on Discord, this is the Gloranthan card deck that the great Lee O’Connor did last year! It looks amazing. I only used it to play poker a couple times so far but it may be fun to hastily design some Gloranthan card game too? I hear Lee’s doing a Tarot deck next, which is exciting!

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The kids liked it (which is what matters) but frankly The Mandalorian & Grogu wasn’t very good. Kept wondering if they filmed the first draft of the script by mistake instead of the last. Also, did they just type “strong Jabba” in chatGPT and left it at that for Ratta’s character design? Ugh.

Movie post for The Mandalorian and Grogu.
Grogu eating junk food. Glad to see they stuck to the "use as many real puppets as possible" motto. It looks sometimes ridiculous next to super high quality CGI, but that's part of the charm I guess.
Sigourney Weaver is maybe wonder what she's doing here. Pablo Pascal is probably not here on set with her, and waiting to collect his check from an ADR booth.
Ratta the Hutt in the battle arena. He's a Hutt with... errr.... bicepts and pecs and abs. Makes zero sense. Looks terrible. But at least I like his fighting technique, rolling around and using his weight.

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Okay obviously I’m, like, 40 years late on this, but shit! Tasha Yar! One of my favourite Next Generation characters! Oh Armus, you absolute sadistic bastard.

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I’m continuing my first watch of all things Star Trek, now about 2/3rds into TNG’s first season. I love it! It’s in line with TOS, but with more 3-dimensional characters, expanded lore, and hints toward some story arcs. Why were fans ever upset about this?

Crusher, Troi, and Picard standing somewhere in the Enterprise. Of all the TNG characters, I think Troi is the only one I find "meh" so far.
Riker is looking super sexy when Beata, leader of the planet Angel One, summons him to her bedroom for, ahem, diplomatic reasons. This whole episode was ridiculously cheesy fun.
Data and evil-Data are chatting in a corridor in the Enterprise.
A whole bunch of people from the Enterprise crew are ready to beam out.

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Who’s fluffy, hates crows, and is racist against German Shepherds? THIS GUY

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The pre-show hike yesterday was nice! I saw some rabbits, and also possibly Emmanuelle Vaugier (sorry for staring like a weirdo when I’m trying to figure out why someone looks familiar 😅)

A view of the forest from a hiking trail in the Langley Bog
A little rabbit on the side of a hiking trail in the Langley Bog
A view of the Fraser River, with the north shore mountains in the background, from the Fort-to-Fort trail in Langley BC
Another view of the Langley Bog from the hiking trail

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Sound check done, ready for another gig! This one is gonna be long, with 3 sets… I might go hiking a bit before the show

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