Weekend Spree - 16-18 February 2024

[Ensign Cthulhu]

Did my Naval Battles, streamed, and worked my way through Battle of the Java Sea missions to grab standard Java Sea crates. NB: There is one free premium crate waiting at the end of the last mission.

I finished everything before the 60,000 Commander XP mission and decided to stop playing at that point. It's almost 9pm on a Sunday and that's a nice point at which to break things off until tomorrow. 

Ran the kids around to their various activities and picked up a couple of wooden rods which will become perches for our poultry. 

Been reading Wilson's War: Sir Henry Wilson's Influence on British Military Policy in the Great War and its Aftermath, by Spencer Jones. Robin Niellands, a popular historian who wrote in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries, was very fond of sticking the boot into Wilson all throughout his World War 1 doorstopper The Great War Generals on the Western Front 1914-1918, essentially accusing him of deliberately suborning British interests to those of the French, and I remember thinking at the time I read it, "Surely someone somewhere has written a contradictory biography of the man in which he is the genius who won the war." This isn't exactly that book, but it does shine a new light on the man. Neillands' book is worth reading if you can find a copy, as it's a necessary antidote to Alan Clark's execrable The Donkeys; but like Wikipedia, it's the jumping off point to more scholarly reading, not the be-all and end-all of Western Front history. 

 

[Utt_Bugglier]

Liberated myself of the ranked grind to the last of the win-based rewards in Ranked Silver on Friday

Yes, we all choose to be enslaved or liberated selectively to various grinds or not. I just reached the goal point of one of mine.

Pivoting to randoms.

Reset the US DD line after that. Used all the demoted ship XP to research Sampson, FXP to unlock and module up Wickes. 3-0 in that boat to unlock Clemson. Waiting to grind credits to 400M before buying Clemson. Just to break my record. At 395+M right now.

Sunday has thus far been a WoWs-free zone.

Might have more WoWs-free zones in the near future - left WoWs behind from October 9 to December 9 with no thought to get back in at all - left it for model railroading. Model railroading affords me the ability to exercise creativity and problem solving in a way WoWs can’t. And no one exercises “balance changes” after I research and throw down credits on anything.

I weather my stuff with a lot of airbrushing, but not a lot of ventilation, which drives me to do my airbrushing outdoors. The cold winter weather isn’t conductive to the drying of paint, so inside I came. My layout isn’t at a point where it’s visually entertaining to run a lot, so back into WoWs I came.

But now, warmer weather is arriving, the airbrush awaits (as does our vegetable garden) and hiatus from WoWs may well ensue. Pending my progress on the layout before the next winter, I might railroad on through.

The progress of the past three years suggests that is somewhat unlikely, though.

Plus, I would like to get my 51.9% WR over the hump to 52% before I hang it up here.

My remaining overarching self-imposed enslaving grind.

Edited February 19 by Utt_Bugglier
Typos - and more typos - Yeesh

[Aethervox]

Didn't do NBs in EU. Didn't have to as clannies there did a lot of NBs to edge the enemy clan.

In NA I did 9/10 NBs to pad our lead in that NB - should win it as that is vs an EU clan. 

 Found I did some Java Sea mission(s) which I will have to do some more of (I guess?)

So frustrating to see 3 losses in a row while you've done well personally every time but 2 of the losses were so #$*@ing one sided it's rediculous.

[Wolfswetpaws]

Learned that the movie "Hell Comes to Frogtown" has two sequels.  I found one of them accessible via ROKU.  The other might be on youtube in a shortened form.

So, I watched "Return to Frogtown". 
It was interesting to see how many relatively famous people are in it. 
The movie itself was on the cheesy side of the spectrum, but I expected that.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106970/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_Frogtown

Sailed my Tier-7 Cruiser Maya into Brawls often enough to train-up her Captain, Minakami Shiori, to 10 skill points.
  
Image from the dev-blog https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/340

 

[Admiral_Karasu]

@Wolfswetpaws Would you say they get better by every sequel?

[Ensign Cthulhu]

1 hour ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

Learned that the movie "Hell Comes to Frogtown" has two sequels. 

"Ribbiting, edge-of-the-seat cinema, guaranteed to have audiences hopping into theatres."

😜

[Wolfswetpaws]

11 hours ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

@Wolfswetpaws Would you say they get better by every sequel?

To be honest and fair.... "Nope".  🙂 
The production quality seems to have peaked with the original "Hell Comes to Frogtown".

[Asym]

Operations with the "Circus of Immortals"... 

Found a very old publication of Hamlet from the 1870's at an antique store....  It is fascinating to read all of the scholarly comments and annotations added by the author.

Spent bunch time researching why the Springfield M1A steel scope mount is not usable.  Their Aluminum is great !  The steel won't work and a close friend called me and we've spent a while exchanging pictures....  I'm headed up to the innovation center and I am going to laser map both and run a comparative analysis.  It's just a mystery !  And here, I thought establishing stall performance in jets was frustrating !!!! 

Played ops and finished the Java Sea tasks and received a ship in a box.  And, played that ship in COOP.  Note:  it's a clone of a clone with torpedo options and no AA at all (10) at tier 9........that's simply death looking for a place in today's game....  Nice to have and free is free...  But geeze Marie, a terrible ship.