2019-11-06 07:54
I walk around my town a lot. There are 4-way stop signs on most intersections off the main drag, and I inevitably, pretty much every day, see people just blow right through them. I see that, and I despair for humanity. If people can't follow a really simple rule that is both for their own and others' safety, how can we expect them to do anything? I've almost been hit numerous times by people that just didn't bother to look even when turning at the intersections.
I forgot to write the other day about my Sunday movie viewing. I watched Naruse's Sound of the Mountain from 1954. I was reading this article called "The Smile of Setsuko Hara" about one of Ozu's frequent leading ladies, and it mentioned her appearance in this other film. It's based on a Yasunari Kawabata novel I really love (of the same name). I've read the novel a few times and had heard of the movie, but never had an available way to watch it. But the Criterion Channel to the rescue!
It turned out to be a pretty faithful (to my recollection) adaptation of the novel's plot, but on the whole not a very exciting one. Hara is great, as always, but in general the style of it is was invisible to me. Just a regular drama. Nothing made me sit up and really take notice like when I'm watching an Ozu movie.
Still playing The Outer Worlds on my PS4. It's a fun game, though also pretty easy. There are no real puzzles or complications to it yet. I've yet to really have issues balancing factions (and there are quite a few that the game tracks your reputation with) or making decisions. Like many games I can turn up the difficulty on combat, but nothing else, and the fighting just isn't that exciting. Like many of these games, also, there is a proliferation of stuff you can pick up. I have tons of consumables (drinks, medicines, food, etc.) that offer various temporary bonuses, but even at normal difficulty I have yet to need any of them.
I am enjoying the narrative and world building though. There is a lot going on, that at times becomes a bit overwhelming. Like in Skyrim or Fallout 4 one quickly accumulates a large list of quests even when trying to stick to just one. (Edit: After finishing the game, this turned out to be an illusion, I had a lot of quests at once and then there didn't end up being a lot more of them later.)