No.35678
>>35676I often do that but for some reason they are not that good either. Hmmmm.
>>35677Thanks. To you as well.
No.35685
I had a small flat white with two sugars but it was from somewhere else so they were normal packet sugars this time.
Still bleh.
It's just bad tasting milk but even the milk itself is bad for some reason. I think it's because they steam it or whatever. Might have to try black coffees at some point.
No.35686
I finished The Pariah by Anthony Ryan.
It ended getting even worse than I thought it would.
All the things I said about it before are still true only even more so.
The protagonist is an outlaw who is the son of a whore who died in childbirth and he gets kicked out of the brothel as a child and gets picked up by forest outlaws. They are not robin hood types, they are evil. But not evil in an endearing way. I do not like them and the protagonist barely likes most of them.
I had thought the story and world would open up, that the protagonist would develop ambitions of his own and go and do something and that would bring him out into the world. This really doesn't happen. The outlaws get betrayed and most of them are killed in an ambush of Kingsmen and ducal soldiers but he escaped only to then be captured later and sent to a pitmine. So not much room for world building there. Then it gets even more annoying as he happens to just instantly be accepted by a condemned cleric and brought into her escape plan and taught to read and write better than everybody else even though he only just learnt and he learns in a pitmine prison. He learns during a 4 year time skip at which point he is also scribe to the garrison, writing love letters for the lord and writing the testament of the person that taught him. It's annoying how unearned and dumb it feels. The tunnel they were digging to escape took years but he escaped and runs off to a religious sanctuary city. Again it not being his idea. He just follows what other people do. Then the people there are amazed by his writing skill too and he becomes a scribe there for a bit. Then he ends up having to flee so joins a religious militant unit and so again he has no agency or plan. He just follows along for the rest of the book. And there is still barely any world building and the characters are still bad. I just do not care about any of the characters or anything that happens and it's made worse because the author actually writes it that way. He writes the church and the king to be oppressive and the protagonist to be a cynic. So if the protagonist doesn't care and the church is poorly fleshed out and oppressive. Why should I care? Why should I care what the church unit does? Why should I care if they all die? I want them to all die. I want the protagonist to leave and go and do something for once. I don't like him but I still want something interesting to actually happen in the story. I want an arc of some kind. Finally at the end it looks like him and a friend might leave, that they will go on a treasure hunt together but at the last minute he leaves her there and goes back to the church unit. So she might have some kind of a story next book but he won't. The leader of the church unit literally went insane and started a jihad, a jihad which the protagonist thought was insane and wanted to flee from and yet he didn't and now I am somehow still meant to care what happens? I didn't care before the leader went on a jihad and I don't care now. I wanted him to leave not to stay there. I just don't care about anything about the book or what will happen in the next book at all.
I don't know if I will get the next book or not. I'm still stuck in a hotel with nothing to do apart from rate my morning coffe so I'll probably have too....
No.35687
I bought the second book in the series. Sigh....
Also I had a small long black with two sugars. Still not very good. I couldn't really taste coffe and it taste kind of burnt. Maybe the coffe maker was incompetent, this is Victoria after all, I have come to the conclusion that they are barely human. Well I will try one from another Cafe to test. Maybe that was the issue all along, they are all just incompetent.
No.35688
Buy also. I couldn't really taste the sugar which is strange and an issue with all the coffee I have had. Still not sure why that is. A small coffe should be equal to a standard mug and two sugars should be two teaspoons. It should be the same as at home.
No.35690
There is a car parked at the hotel that has a custom number plate. Instead of Victoria it says Bikutoria in katakana. Maybe there is an otaku in Victoria somewhere. Most likely not though.
The word Victoria is interesting because in Japanese Victoria the state and Queen Victoria are actually spelt differently for some reason. I have no idea why.
No.35691
The number plate says WRXVA and the car is a Subaru WRX. Also the driver is on his green p plates. Victorians have 2 p plates, red and green, green is the next level up from red so he is probably around 18.
No.35692
Actually I don't know if other countries have p plates so maybe people will be confused.
They show that the driver is on their provisional license. They are no longer learner drivers and so can drive by themselves but they still only just started driving on their own and have some restrictions.
No.35693
Also the plates do still say Victoria. They say Bikutoria in katakana up top then there is the plate number and then it says Victoria in Latin script on the bottom.
No.35694
Huh. Latin script. Romaji. Of course Roma ji, Roman script. That never occurred to me until now. I'm an idiot.
No.35695
>>35694yeah and the o is long because japanese does take length from latin and ancient greek
so it's Rōma, Mārusu (the god, not the planet), Arēsu, etc
No.35696
im accustomed to drinking instant coffee at home and job so anything i drink at a cafe tastes fancy schmancy to me
No.35697
>>35695Yeah. That's something that embarrassed me before in a discussion about v in Japanese where I also mentioned the victoria fact. But I was saying that Von in Japanese is spelt fon not Von and the other guy said why would it be Von when in German it's pronounced fon and he is right. I think we assume that Japanese would follow English but why would it?
Japanese has some long vowels as well so could easily do that. I guess we don't do it because it's not really part of the way we speak. I think if we tried we could though. We could spell Roma as Rohma or Rouma or Roema.
>>35696So am I(minus the work part). But that's why this bothers me so much. It should taste fancy but it doesn't. I get more of a coffee taste from the instant coffe I make at home.
No.35698
I tried another small long black from a different place. I asked for a long black and they said it was a long black but I don't think it was. It only filled half the cup but it was busy so I has takeaway and maybe that is why. Maybe a full cup of boiling hot water would melt the paper cup or something.
Anyway. It was still bad. I'll go and try again from a third place tomorrow.
No.35699
I had another small long black but from the place with raw sugar dispensers which is also Italian themed. The coffe had crema on the top which is what long blacks are meant to have but the first one I had did not and the second was in a paper cup so I am unsure.
It might have been a bit better but it still was not great and sugar still did nothing. It tastes bad and not really like coffe or at least not like what I think of coffe as being.
No.35700
the best coffee is the coffee your sister makes for you
No.35702
I really hate the ground here. It's too hard. Everywhere I go It's hard. Even the park has ground that's hard. I hate it.
When this is over, I'll have to do some research into the geology of this region to find out why this is and if it's just where I am or if it's all over Victoria.
No.35705
I had another cappuccino this time. Still just bad tasting hot milk and sugar still does nothing to better it.
No.35706
Are you close to your destination yet
No.35707
>>35706I'm still waiting for my car to be fixed. The businesses that supply engines closed over the holidays but they open this week so I should hear more soon.
I don't have a destination anyway though. I think I will just wait in this area for the minister to contact me.
No.35709
Just got more information about car repair. It looks like it will take a few days for parts to arrive and then the mechanics have to fit job into schedule and then it will take a day and a half to fix. So it looks like it will take until Wednesday for my car to be fixed.
No.35710
Until next Wednesday I mean.
No.35711
Nothing about this environment or this state inspires me at all. I thought some of the mountains and there biomes would but they have not.
If I end up making the game I want to make, there is nothing from here that I will add to it. I don't want a zone based on this area in my game.
No.35717
are you still reading that fantasy sequel
i picked up Prince of Nothing and it's pretty good, i'd recommend it
No.35719
>>35717Yes. It's at least doing something more interesting now but I still don't like it or where it is going.
The selection of fantasy at the book store here is limited and it seems to mostly be recently written. So I don't think they would have that. But I'll check.
No.35720
Actually. I might see if I can order it in. That and the first book in Brandon Sanderson's series. I'll be here for at least another week after all.
No.35721
i remember liking the mistborn trilogy quite a bit
No.35722
No. The distributors they use are out of stock for both mistbourne and the prince of nothing.
Sigh...
>>35721I don't know what to expect. I hear good things about it but what I have seen of Sanderson on YouTube cause me to have doubts in his abilities. But I will have to read it one day.
No.35723
I had a cappuccino again and it was still bad. I'm thinking of giving up on this. Maybe I will try a chai latte or whatever it was I got from the Liyue restraunt when I asked for white tea. It was very milky tea but I am not sure it was a chai latte as it did nit have the frothy milk that I would assume chai latte has considering everything that coffe makers make with milk seems to. It was alright though. If not what I actually asked for but then she is from Liyue so probably can't speak English very well.
I would ask for regular tea but it comes in a pot and it takes too long to drink it all.
No.35728
>>35722mistborn has a very nice post apoc ash-ridden setting, a hard magic system of the type that made sanderson famous, and a solid plot with several good twists
i reread some forty pages of the later parts of the first book and enjoyed it a fair bit
shame they don't have it, if you don't have any fantasy you trust you could try some other classic like moby dick or nabokov
No.35743
Got a cappuccino from the Italian themed cage. It's certainly better but still.
At some point I am going to need to buy proper coffe beans and sort look into this myself. But that will not be anytime soon.
>>35728I'll try to get it at some point. Right now I'll probably keep reading the second book in this trilogy at which point I may as well read the third.
I didn't look for classics. But there are things there I can read if I get desperate and there is some more fantasy just not much.
No.35750
>>35743I meant Italian themed Cafe not cage.
No.35761
italian themed eroge
No.35763
I got a Chai latte this time. It's not what I expected.
It's got cinnamon in it which is quite over powering and means you can't taste anything else.
I'm not terribly fond of cinnamon so I didn't like it much but I can see how other people would like it. Unlike coffe.
No.35765
One of the things I dislike about Victorians is how disgusting they look. Most of them have tattoos, even the older ones do and even many of the more normal looking ones do. They have terrible hair, particularly the men. There is this really ugly hair style that's quite common here that is a mullet(that's already bad enough) but with the hair around the temples shaved. They frequently have facial hair too.
Victorians dress terribly too. Most men were sleevless tops and short shorts. Some if the sleevless tops have huge gaps in the sides as well. It's revolting.
Also men often walk around topless here.
Women dress terrible as well. Often wearing very tight and revealing clothing. Often enough they also don't wear bras.
This kind of thing carries on to stop staff as well. It's fairly common for the girls behind the counter at a bakery to be wearing short shorts or even spats. It's not a good look.
I have also heard staff swear which I never hear in SA. It's not like people in SA don't swear but they have the decency to avoid it in public and certainly to avoid it in front of customers.
I don't like these 'people' at all.
No.35809
I finished the second book. This one us called The Martyr.
It's not as bad but it still is bad. I don't think I will bother writing a review.
Well now I have to read yet another of his books...
At least it will be over then. He has other books but I am not reading them.
No.35814
The minister responded. We still disagree...
No.35817
sister, barrister, minister... you're not having very much luck with the 'sters
No.35818
>>35817I think the problem is that the magic I am using is to make powerfull men like me but the minister is a woman. So I would have to use some other forms of magic but alas I am separated from my grimoirs.
Maybe I should see if the book store has any.
No.35819
I think part of why these books by Anthony Ryan are so bad is because he doesn't seem to have a consistent idea for how the story will go. That's probably part of why things are so stupid.
There is stark evidence for this. Two characters(at least) have had there names change from the second book to the third. Also in the second book a character is described as being covered in scars but then later in the book is described as having no scars. These are the easiest parts of a story to keep consistent so who knows what else he changed his mind about over time.
No.35910
Another thing I hate about Victoria is the architecture. I thought it would be more historic than SA and have lots of nice old buildings but it actually does not. I think the reason for this like the reason for many if Victoria's faults lies in the fact that it is a convict state.
Most old buildings here are either cheap looking wooden buildings or cheap looking brick buildings that look like Victorian(the era) warehouses.
Whereas SA has many old sandstone and brick buildings that look nicer plus nicer looking old buildings in general.
Victoria really is an uncivilised place.
No.35911
>>35910I quite liked the sandstone brick buildings in the university of queensland campus in brisbane
No.35912
>>35911They do look nice.
Not sure if Melbourne itself has much like that. I got scared driving there and left. It's much denser than I am used too driving in.
I more mean the buildings outside of the city. Like in Mansfeild where I am and also in every other town I have been too. I keep coming across plagues that proudly tell me the history of some dumb ugly building.
No.35913
Ahh. Mansfield does have one vaguely interesting construct that I have thought of posting a picture of but it's not quite interesting enough too.
There is a monument to the three policemen killed by Ned Kelly and his gang. The place where the fight happened was near here and the Policeman came from here I think. They are also buried here.
Interestingly, they all were born in Ireland.
No.35914
Another inconsistency in the book.
This time a character tries to kill another character but a third character steps in the way and gets his throat cut open by a sword(which is stupid when you think about it as the attack must not have been able to actually reach the intended target to do that or else it would cut the interposing characters head off and also the character behind him) then a bit later a character is about to fight a battle with another character and he says 'did you cheer when character hung character? The man you served for so long' or something like that. So his death was completely different. Really weird mistake to make.
No.35917
I came across a second Bikutoria plated car.
I don't know if this car was Japanese or not. The emblem was a Z and I could not find a model name anywhere on it. So I have no idea who made it or what it is.
Anyway. It had writing on the windscreen. It said Supa Love and order that in katakana it said Supa Rubu.
On the rear windscreen in said Gameover on block old video game style writing and it said Supa Rubu underneath that in Katakana again.
The car also had some stickers on it. Like a cute cat and things like that. It one if those Japanese good luck charms attached to the rear view mirror. I actually have one of those on me and tried to do that but the string would not fit around the mirror.
No.35918
>>35917I meant under that not order that.
No.35940
it said sister love