Strider Hiryu

I've heard of it but never used it. In fact I don't think I know anyone that's ever used it (my group of friends are pretty much the same as me, old school internet pirates sailing on the good ship Torrent (she will never sink as long as we keep her afloat )). I'm not surprised by it though. Crunchyroll was the same exact way for anime before they went completely legit (well legit but still shady as hell), I used to use them back then when I couldn't find fansubs for something I wanted to watch (it's how I first got into watching Naruto Shippuden, how I first watched Macross 7, and what introduced me to one of my all time favorites Dirty Pair). They offered a HQ stream if you paid a monthly fee but the LQ stuff was still watchable (sadly I paid for the HQ stream back when they weren't legit but I refuse to pay for it now that its legit, there's something fundamentally wrong with that). I honestly wouldn't know if I'd trust this app though, the amount of shit that could go wrong aren't worth the free aspect to it (then again it'd be no worse then dling a torrent off of a shady torrent site).

People rake it a shit ton of money on Twitch and it's actually how a lot of youtubers make their money now ($5 a sub (well roughly $3 after Twitch's cut) rakes in pretty fast plus donations, you honestly make more money being a full time streamer then you do being a YT personality). I'm subscribed to a few people at the moment and if I actually used Amazon more I might actually look into this (just because I'd like to sub to Maimi0 but can't afford it atm and this would be a good way to do it). Honestly the ads on Twitch aren't all that bad and you can bypass them by using PS4's twitch app (for some reason it never plays ads except when you first log into the stream (even when the streamer puts ads up)) so going ad free isn't exactly worth it (plus the streamers get a cut of that ad money as well so you're screwing them by not watching ads).

Torrenting never died for me, I'll be a pirate to the day I die (Yarr!, had to do it ). Honestly I never understood why torrenting died with the advent of streaming services (I mean seriously it's free and the chance of actually getting caught and persecuted is slim to none as no ISP will take you to court unless forced to by the rights holder). Subscribing to Netflix didn't stop my torrenting at all, hell it didn't even put a dent in it. Then again when I was living in Arizona I didn't have cable TV. My roommate and I decided there was no point in paying for TV when we could just download everything we wanted to watch or catch it on Netflix. Then again that's just us and even though I have cable again I prefer to download my stuff so I can watch it when I want without having to pay extra for a DVR so I can do the same. Meh, I guess I'm still an old school internet pirate that can't give up his past ways (then again I do end up buying 90% of the shit I download so I guess I'm a somewhat reformed pirate). There really never will be a happy medium here as cable companies will never give up their hold on the TV market and will continue to gouge prices. Eventually streaming services will do the same as, like I said, getting the rights to stream things is getting more and more expensive as the years go by (pretty soon Hulu and Amazon will be in the same place as Netflix is now when everyone and their mother has a streaming service for their own shit).

It's not surprising. With content providers creating their own streaming platforms and with the costs of streaming rights for movies and shows going up it's not surprising Netflix's catalog has shrunk substantially over the last 4 years. I honestly saw this coming back when I first subscribed to Netflix because it was only a matter of time before others took a page from Netflix's book and started doing the same thing. Honestly I don't know why I pay for Netflix anymore. I rarely, if ever, watch anything on it anymore (and when I do it might be once every few months) besides certain shows (like Supernatural, I really wish they'd get season 11 up) and documentaries (I absolutely love Netflix for documentaries). Honestly the only thing that will keep Netflix going is their original content they've been creating over that last few years (stuff I have yet to watch but I do plan on checking out Stranger Things, Orange is the New Black, and House of Cards (which I've heard nothing but great things about) to name few). I tend to download all the movies I want to see if I don't get to see them in the theater and before I buy them (I buy very few movies without watching them and only if I know I'll like them (like The Hobbit Movies and what not)) and I do the same with TV shows since I rarely watch anything on cable anymore (again there are exceptions like Deadliest Catch but that's one day of the week). I've never used Sling but I haven't heard good things about it from the few people I know who use it. I've been looking into getting Playstation Vue (I've heard nothing but good things about it) but I'd run into the same problem I do with cable/Netflix, I'd rarely watch it so it'd be a waste of money (luckily I don't pay for cable so that's one bill I don't have to pay). Honestly the one thing I do spend a lot of time watching content on is YouTube, thankfully that's free (for now, who knows what may come down the line).

That's my current home screen. Sorry it took so long to post it (and for the double post) but I ended up playing 8 or so hours of FFXIV yesterday to make up for my lack of time on it during the week (and I completely forgot to take and post the screen shot, I lose track of time while I'm playing (still can't believe I was on for that long yesterday)).

My home screen is also a Stormtrooper. I'll post a pic of it later.

Yep, not surprised by yours DX Cute dogs Sledge. I just changed mine today as the old one was getting boring and this one just happened to win.

I'm strangely ok with this and it's about time. As much as I feel the game deserves the money that was being charged I'm sadly in the minority there and I'd hate for it to die just because 2K made some shitty choices with it's launch and afterwards. I'll definitely be grabbing it when it goes F2P (even if the servers are sparsely populated).

Don't get me wrong they're not overly bad (I mean I bought the first two when they came stateside and plan on buying the last two when I get the money (or if it's on Rightstuf's Black Friday or 12 days of Christmas sale)) they just weren't as good as the original movie or the SAC series's and movie. It was such a huge departure from what made the setting and the character's so enjoyable (I mean the Major just rubs me the wrong way in the OVA, she's just not as awesome as she was in the original movie or the series). It was like they decided to just take the framework of the story/background and the characters basics information from Shirow's original manga and throw everything else out the window (it's not like the movies and the SAC series/movie didn't do the same but they were more in line with what they were in the manga (and believe me the manga is completely different from the original movie, they took a lot of liberties when they adapted it)). The Arise movie however was amazing and I actually enjoyed it, it really went back to what made GitS what it was (I really need to buy it). The Major actually seemed like the Major and while the other characters still irked me (Ishikawa was probably the only real character I liked in Arise, he didn't really change much) it felt more like GitS than the OVA's did. (Honestly don't know why I didn't cover this in my earlier post but like I said these 10 hour days are slowly melting my brain)