Pandemic Binge Watching and HBO Max

Last month HBO and Roku worked out whatever it is that was keeping me from being able to access the service on my Roku Stick, so I now have access to all the wonder and majesty that is HBO Max.  And it is a bit of a mess.

It is fairly obvious what the plan for HBO Max is in the evolution of HBO overall.  Back in the day, HBO was a service that let you watch a few movies that had recently been in the theaters along with a haphazard selection of older movies.  Then they started producing some original content with things like comedy specials and shows like The Wire and The Sopranos.   With Game of Thrones their original content was clearly the biggest draw for the service.  And now, in the world of the pandemic and theaters being closed, HBO has leveraged the situation to get some films to open on their services at the same time as their theatrical release.

Also, Netflix and Hulu have been doing pretty well with a bunch of old but popular shows, so HBO wanted to jump on that bandwagon as well, which brings us to HBO Max, which attempts to bring all of that together into a single user interface.

As I mentioned, it is a bit of a mess.

That doesn’t mean it is bad.  They have added some features that they were lacking when compared to other services.  You can now have a user profile, something I think Netflix has had for a decade at this point, so if your kid binge watches Sesame Street you don’t have that polluting your recommendations.

You can also skip over ads for other shows or the opening credits or the series summary with a press of a button now.  And these are good things.

But, at its heart, HBO Max is an attempt to have a lot more content without making finding something you want to watch any easier.  This is a problem every service has, so it is a matter of where it stands in the hierarchy of channels we use.  HBO Max does this a bit better than Amazon Prime or Hulu, but not as well as Disney+ and not nearly as well as Netflix.

Which is odd, because HBO Max was clearly trying to emulate Netflix in their own way.  But despite the fact that a lot of the same categories are up at the top of the page when you open the service… just added, popular, continue watching, items from your list… and despite my occasional annoyance at how brazenly eager Netflix is to start rolling video the moment you pause on some title… Netflix just does it better.

Part of this is that Netflix is easier to read from across the room on the couch.  They have titles in big bold print, while somebody at HBO decided that the title card for a show or movie has the name on it and that is good enough, forgetting how often that text can be tiny, in a frilly script, or made otherwise unreadable to older eyes.

And part of this is that HBO Max just doesn’t run very well on the Roku.  It is slow to load and slow to respond to inputs, which is a bad look next to Netflix, which is light and nimble and responsive even as it is more active and throwing video at every turn.  How can Netflix be so smooth with dynamic responses to selections and streaming clips on the fly as you move through a list while HBO Max, which is relatively static, chugs along, responding eventually to your inputs?

But there is also just the simple ability to find something to watch.  Maybe because my Netflix account is now about 20 years old, counting the old disks by mail era, they know what to serve up to me as options.  Maybe their algorithms are more sophisticated.  Maybe they just have better content.  But if we sit down on a Friday night and I pull up Netflix I am generally able to find something for us to watch on which we can both agree.

And, in the end, finding something to watch is the most important thing.  HBO Max promises more movies coming with their theatrical release dates, while Netflix has been telling me they’ll have a new movie every week this year.  We shall see how these two services compare over time.  While we are currently subscribed to both, I have to give the nod to Netflix at the moment.

Friday Bullet Points about EVE Online and Bonus Skill Points

It is Friday and, despite not playing much in New Eden myself this month, I have accumulated a few items I want to mention about EVE Online.

• More Bonus Skill Points

Another bonus skill point event starts today.

Bonus skill points are the best skill points

Log in daily from today through Monday and get some free skill points to spend on skills you need… or to hoard  for some potential future need.  Alpha pilots will get 75,000 skill points if they claim every day while Omega pilots will be eligible for 250,000 skill points.

• PLEX For Good

The PLEX for Good campaign to raise funds for the Australian Red Cross is still going.  You can donate PLEX, the cash value of which will be donated, through until January 26th.  Details on how you do this are at the link.

PLEX for Good

There is also a Stream Fleet event coming this weekend to raise awareness for the efforts and drum up more donations.

• Download Your Year in EVE

I wrote about the Your Year in EVE videos CCP produced already.  You can see one of mine again if you need a reminder as to what they were.

If you enjoyed your video and want to keep it, you need to download it by January 30th.  CCP will be purging them after that date.  Fortunately, each video has a link included that downloads an MP4 copy of the video to your system.  That format is pretty much ideal for uploading to services like YouTube, which is what I did.

Everybody who got a video should also be getting a reminder in the email about the videos going away, but it you don’t check that email account very often here is another reminder.

• 64-Bit Client Transition Complete

Last year saw the introduction of the 64-bit client which promised to make EVE Online a better experience when it came to big space battles, or even smaller ones as you would no longer have to go into “potato mode” just to be sure the old client wouldn’t exceed the 32-bit memory limit and crash. (64-bit was also necessary for ongoing MacOS compatibility.  Apple doesn’t hang about supporting legacy features the way Microsoft does.)

Getting people to move to 64-bit went better than expected according to a Dev Blog from CCP, such that they have declared the transition complete.

Every dev blog gets a graphic

Because of this the old 32-bit client will be officially sunsetted on February 26, 2020.

In addition, the system requirements for EVE Online will be raised, with 4GB becoming the new minimum RAM requirement and 23GB being the new minimum drive space allocation.

• December MER

The Monthly Economic Report for December 2019 is out at last, so now people have all the data for the year so they can explore what went on.

December 2019 – Top Sinks and Faucets over time – Everybody’s favorite chart

The Nosy Gamer has already been at it.  I don’t have much to say myself and am giving up the monthly posts about the MER.  They got tedious when I was reporting on them generally, so I went to focusing on specific items each month, but I think most people find the whole thing a snooze, so I’ll just play with the data on my own.

• I Won a Thing

In conjunction with the Year in EVE videos I mentioned above CCP ran a social media contest around the hash tag #MyEVE2019.  Winners were picked at random and so I managed to make the RNG cut with this tweet.

But this might have been the most unique thing I saw in space all year… at another structure shoot in M-OEE8 #MyEVE2019 #tweetfleet #eveonline pic.twitter.com/6QDWFGl1qu

— Wilhelm Arcturus (@wilhelm2451) December 30, 2019

Winners all got 500 PLEX which was delivered this week and the promise of a special SKIN to arrive at some future date.  I am going to keep the SKIN of course, but I am sending off the PLEX to the PLEX for Good campaign mentioned above.

WoW West Returns to SuperData while EEDAR has a Different List

Two SuperData Research related posts in one week?  Well, we got the 2018 in review report before they showed up with the December numbers.  But do the December numbers fill in any gaps left in the annual report?

SuperData Research Top 10 – December 2018

On the PC side of the chart League of Legends and Dungeon Fighter Online remain in the top two positions.  However, Fortnite managed to bounce its way up one spot, into third position, passing Crossfire by, which dropped to fourth.

Battlefield V disappeared off the chart, but as a title that series tends to be one that spike quickly and then fades.  But speaking of things that disappeared, Fantasy Westward Journey Online II, long a staple of the list, went missing on the November chart but returned for December, taking that fifth spot.  As I said last month, it had been rolling around between fourth and sixth for quite a stretch, so for it to go away for November and then reappear in that range in December raises questions.  Did somebody just forget to send in the numbers?

Likewise, World of Warcraft, another resident of the chart since it took on its current form, also went missing in November only to reappear in December.  And, even more odd, we’re back to the “West” designation for it, something that .  Does that mean that the game is strong here but tanking in Asia?  Or are we seeing the results of Blizzard being cagey about what they report?

The East/West thing first showed up in the report for January 2017.  It was a surprise at the time.  Then for the February 2017 report it was combined again, though the report was revised after it was initially published.  The split returned again for the April 2017 report, then was dropped until this month’s report.

Again, having dealt with this sort of thing in another industry, I suspect that SuperData has to deal with the data that Blizzard, probably via Activision, gives them.  But why they should want to split the data is unclear.  Maybe the “East” data wasn’t ready yet and they wanted to make sure they didn’t miss another month on the chart?  Who knows.  I certainly don’t.  And, as I have said before, I wouldn’t bet money on any single chart’s data.  It is the trend over time that interests me more.  If WoW sticks on the chart in 2019 it might be okay to discount the disappearance in November.

Anyway, lacking a crystal ball I will just carry on.

In between Fantasy Westward Journey Online II and World of Warcraft sits PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, holding its six place spot for another month.  At eight position is The Sims 4, down a spot from last month, but still very strong for the title.  Holiday sales must have been nice for it.

World of Tanks hung in there at ninth position, down one.  And then, in tenth place, there was a surprise appearance by Hearthstone, also wearing the “West” designation.  Are we seeing accounting issues or other problems with the Chinese government in that?  Strange times.

On the Console column Fortnite grabbed the top spot, followed by Nintendo’s release of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the Switch.  Red Dead Redemption 2 fell from first to fifth, but that still seems like a strong performance for the title.  And then the granddaddy of the list, Grand Theft Auto V, climbed up from ninth to six for December.  It just keeps on going.

Then at the Mobile end of the chart Honour of Kings grabbed back the top spot from Pokemon Go, which fell to second, while the six year old Candy Crush Saga proved its staying power once again by holding onto the third spot.

And so it goes.

As a comparison, EEDAR, part of NPD, has started sending me a monthly ranking for titles as well.  You can find the current list here.  Of course, it has PC and console combined, counts physical sales (which favors consoles more), doesn’t include mobile, and doesn’t include any digital sales for most titles, but it is another list, so I’ll put it in here as well. (Their chart isn’t as handy to take as a graphic so I’ll just write it out.)

1. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*
2. Red Dead Redemption II**
3. Battlefield V**
4. NBA 2K19
5. Mario Kart 8*
6. Madden NFL 19**
7. Super Mario Party*
8. Pokemon: Let’s Go Pikachu*
9. Marvel’s Spider-Man

*No digital data
**No digital data for PC

That is definitely a different list.  Without digital League of Legends, Fortnite, PUBG, anything from Blizzard, and anything from China just disappears.  I don’t think either list is “wrong” per se.  This is just what you get what you measure different things.  SuperData is only interested in digital sales while NPD is the old school “What’s selling at GameStop” measurement for the most part. (They also have point of sales based number for books and videos.)  As NPD puts it:

NPD’s U.S. top 10 games list, ranked by dollar sales, includes full-game digital sales (from participating publishers) as well as sales for physical formats sold at retail and online across console, PC and portable platforms.

While I cannot find it written out anywhere, I suspect that it the numbers may be US and Canada only as well.

EEDAR also has a full 2018 chart, which looks like this:

1. Red Dead Redemption II
2. Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII**
3. NBA 2K19
4. Madden NFL 19**
5. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*
6. Marvel’s Spider-Man
7. Far Cry 5
8. God of War 2018
9. Monster Hunter: World
10. Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey

*No digital data
**No digital data for PC

Again, if you compare it against SuperData’s 2018 list, which I posted on Tuesday, that is… different.  And the list formats are even similar, as EEDAR’s list seems to line up with SuperData’s Premium Games list, which included both PC and console.

A few items overlap, but EEDAR again misses completely on things like PUBG and GTA V because of digital sales.

Amusingly, further down in EEDAR’s report they talk about social media impression data, and that is dominated by games missing from their chart, specifically Fortnite, League of Legends, CS:GO, DOTA 2, and PUBG.  Go figure!

Other items from the SuperData report:

• Worldwide digital spending declines 2% to $9.0 billion. December’s weakness came primarily from Premium PC, which fell 21% due to an unfavorable comparison against PUBG and CS:GO last year, as well as another single-digit drop off in mobile. This more than offset a 12% rise in console, where Fortnite drove a 209% increase in the free-to-play segment.
• PLAYERUNKNOWN’s Battlegrounds and Fortnite end the year on a high note. Fortnite had its highest grossing month to date, while PUBG sold 2.75 million units across console and PC.
• Super Smash Bros Ultimate is December’s best selling console game. We estimate that Smash Bros Ultimate sold 2.49 million digital console units, making it far and away the best digital console launch on the Switch so far.
• Sims 4 benefits from end-of-year promotions. A significant price cut led to a surge in new unit sales on both console and PC. However, DLC revenue on PC declined year-over-year by 10%.
• Battlefield V falls short during the holidays. EA’s shooter missed out on the top 10 console list this month after selling significantly less than competing shooter titles.
• Counter Strike: Global Offensive finds early success as a free-to-play title. CS:GO hit a new MAU high point for the franchise in its second month as a F2P title. We estimate the free version generated roughly $49 million between November and December.

I generally do not comment on the other items from SuperData’s notes, but EEDAR has a different look at December.

• Led by the record-breaking performance of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Nintendo Switch, tracked December sales reached $3.4B with growth of 2% when compared to a year ago.  Nintendo Switch also finishes the year as the best-selling hardware platform, while Red Dead Redemption 2 is the best-selling game of the year.

So SuperData, measuring digital only, says December was down while EEDAR, measuring mostly physical sales, says December was up, though the EEDAR number, $3.4 billion, was overall much smaller that SuperData’s $9 billion number.

Anyway, I’ll include EEDAR data as a comparison going forward if I can, though they are not as regular as SuperData, which is pretty consistent about dropping around the last week of the month.

Winter Movie League – Thieves Steal the Week

Week eight of our Fantasy Movie League has now passed and it was one of those strange weeks.

The usual effort involves picking an anchor film that will bring in the most dollars, and then backing it up with something at the low end of the price range that will back it up, the optimum generally being the best price/performance film.  And this week started off no different than most with the following options.

Jumanji              $290
12 Strong            $251
The Post             $209
The Greatest Showman $156
Paddington 2         $110
Den of Thieves       $94
The Commuter         $90
Star Wars            $85
Insidious            $74
Proud Mary           $65
Phantom Thread       $52
Darkest Hour         $47
Pitch Perfect 3      $45
I, Tonya             $40
Coco                 $34

It seemed clear that Jumanji would be at the top of the box office, so on the anchor front it was more a question of whether or not one of the other possible anchors was cheap enough to offset that.  12 Strong didn’t seem like it would be worth the investment, so after my first gut pick early in the week I changed to anchor on three screens of The Post.  That left me enough room for a variety of fillers at the low end.

For filler I had my eye on The Commuter.  With my own estimates, where I usually just assume a 50% drop from the previous week for movies already in play, seemed pretty likely to get the best performer bonus.

As the week went on and more estimates came in from various sources, I started to think that maybe Insidious might be the better pick and swapped over to that.  Meanwhile the predictions for Jumanji were coming in higher than I expected and the forecasts for Den of Thieves, a potential filler, were all over the map, ranging from $5 million to over $11 million.  At the low number it wasn’t worth considering, but at the high number it was a must-have pick.

So I vacillated.  I made Jumanji my anchor, then kept changing up the filler.  But I wasn’t willing to commit to Po Huit’s Tuesday “Hail Mary” pick of Jumanji and seven screens of Den of Thieves.

I went back and forth on a couple of picks on Thursday night.  And then on Friday morning the number for the Thursday night previews came out.  For those who want to see these early, the Box Office section at the site Deadline generally posts them around 8am on Friday morning, which gives you an hour before picks are locked.

The previews showed Den of Thieves doing nearly a million dollars on Thursday night.  That was a very strong performance, making the high end estimates seem likely.  Not only that, but the Thursday night preview take counts towards the weekend box office totals, so Po Huit’s “Hail Mary” pick on Tuesday suddenly became the “well duh!” pick on Friday morning as I and nearly a thousand other Fantasy Movie League players jumped on board.

My Winter Week Eight Picks and the Perfect Pick

Included in the 981 people who got the perfect pick were six people in the Meta League, including the five of the top six contenders, so the scores ended up like this:

1. Po Huit’s Sweet Movie Suite (T) – $144,947,926
2. Ben’s X-Wing Express (M) – $144,947,926
3. Corr’s Carefully Curated Cineplex (M) – $144,947,926
4. Biyondios! Kabuki & Cinema (T) – $144,947,926
5. Aure’s Astonishingly Amateur Amphitheatre (M) – $144,947,926
6. Wilhelm’s Broken Isles Bijou (T/M) – $144,947,926
7. Dan’s Decadent Decaplex (M) – $126,670,568
8. SynCaine’s Dark Room of Delights (T) – $121,553,968
9. Paks’ Pancakes & Pics (T) – $101,579,844
10. Dr Liore’s Evil House of Pancakes (M) – $101,579,844
11. Darren’s Unwatched Cineplex (T) – $69,599,900
12. The Filthy Fleapit (T) – $66,917,547
13. Elly’s Elemental E-Plex (M) – $65,732,064
14. The Bean Movie Burrito (T) – $65,663,644
15. I HAS BAD TASTE (T) – $65,397,597
16. Vigo Grimborne’s Medieval Screening Complex (T) – $65,026,990
17. Kraut Screens (T) – $64,525,769
18. Joanie’s Joint (T) – $59,748,952
19. Logan’s Luxurious Thaumatrope (M) – $58,307,592

Meta League Legend

• TAGN Movie Obsession – players from it marked with a (T)
• MCats Multiplex – players from it marked with an (M)

Those who went with Den of Thieves topped the list while those who failed to get on board suffered, with the dividing line being about the $100 million mark.  Above that, you have Den of Thieves in your line up, below that and you did not.

The over all Meta League standings after Week Eight were:

1. Ben’s X-Wing Express (M) – $936,932,561
2. Corr’s Carefully Curated Cineplex (M) – $926,443,555
3. Wilhelm’s Broken Isles Bijou (T/M) – $875,631,244
4. Biyondios! Kabuki & Cinema (T) – $863,905,925
5. Aure’s Astonishingly Amateur Amphitheatre (M) – $858,511,984
6. Paks’ Pancakes & Pics (T) – $847,362,620
7. Dan’s Decadent Decaplex (M) – $818,958,132
8. Po Huit’s Sweet Movie Suite (T) – $793,368,709
9. Darren’s Unwatched Cineplex (T) – $779,256,658
10. SynCaine’s Dark Room of Delights (T) – $752,756,746
11. Vigo Grimborne’s Medieval Screening Complex (T) – $714,914,429
12. Elly’s Elemental E-Plex (M) – $690,400,935
13. Logan’s Luxurious Thaumatrope (M) – $669,741,531
14. Dr Liore’s Evil House of Pancakes (M) – $661,721,152
15. I HAS BAD TASTE (T) – $686,033,235
16. Kraut Screens (T) – $686,023,088
17. The Filthy Fleapit (T) – $672,441,442
18. Joanie’s Joint (T) – $667,201,673
19. The Bean Movie Burrito (T) – $334,926,516

The week ended up with something of a “the rich get richer” scenario as those five of the top six who went with the perfect pick pulled further away from the pack.  But it brought no joy to Corr in his attempt to catch Ben and, while I am now in contention for third place, first and second got no closer.

So that was the result of what ended up being a poorly priced week.  And Den of Thieves was not alone on the list.  Corr noted last week that the film Forever My Girl, a new film opening in over a thousand venues, was somehow missing from the list and ended up in 10th place in the US box office over the weekend.  Oops.

That was Week Eight.  Now we’re on to Week Nine and more potential comedy.  The movie options and pricing had to be up by Monday at 5pm Pacific Time, but the Oscar Nominees were only announced twelve hours later, early on Tuesday morning, and the nominee list may influence the weekend box office.

Sure, we all know Three Billboards is going to be nominated, as it already expanded onto more screens last week. (I went and saw it finally, and there was an ad for Fantasy Movie League before the showing.  Direct hit on the target audience I guess.)  Three Billboards made it to 17th place for the weekend box office, and might move up further, but what else might see a resurgence due to announcements?  Well, the price list for this week is:

 The Maze Runner      $358
 Jumanji              $222
 The Greatest Showman $134
 The Post             $129
 12 Strong            $128
 Den of Thieves       $127
 Hostiles             $126
 Paddington 2         $93
 The Shape of Water   $86
 Phantom Thread       $81
 Three Billboards     $68
 Best of the Rest     $67
 Forever My Girl      $64
 The Commuter         $58
 Star Wars            $57

New to the list this week are The Maze Runner and Hostiles, while Forever My Girl, which should have been on the list last week since it placed 10th in the US box office, finally makes it. Then there is The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, both of which return to the list, being obvious Oscar nominees even before they were announced. There is also a Best of the Rest options, which I think is there to cover FML in case some nominee surges in the theater count.

Falling off the list was Darkest Hour, Pitch Perfect 3 , I, Tonya, Coco, Insidious, and Proud Mary.  Darkest Hour might be the only surprise there given that it also seemed likely to get an Oscar nod.  But it can come back via that Best of the Rest slot.

The assumption this week is that Jumanji will finally fall from first place, to be replace at the top of the box office by the third installment of the Maze Runner franchise… also the second one not to feature the maze.

Meanwhile, the following films still in release were nominated for the Best Picture award, so might be expected to see a boost at the box office: (full list here)

• Darkest Hour
• Lady Bird
• Phantom Thread
• The Post
• The Shape of Water
• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri

Coco and Ferdinand (and Boss Baby!) were also nominated for animated feature.

My normal early week lack of direction is enhanced by the possibility of the nominations changing the game.  I will definitely be checking the theater counts over at Box Office Mojo when they show up on Thursday afternoon before making my final pick.

Fighters and Faxes and Capital Plans

I have had a carrier for a while now.  I picked up the hull back in September 2013 and managed to jump it home successfully on the first try.

First successful jump was to 0P-F3K

That was back in the then CFC when the big push to get everybody into carriers… specifically the Archon… was a thing.  That was also when an Archon pilot with Jump Drive Calibration V could hop 14 ly at a go and didn’t have to worry about jump fatigue.

I don’t think I ever got the Archon fully fit and I was still short a couple of skills so I couldn’t apply to CapSwarm until that was complete.  But I could get into CrapSwarm, the group for people who own capitals so they can get in on move ops but aren’t there yet for actual combat ops.

CrapSwarm!

Back then I “only” had 110 million skill points and there were still subcap skills I needed, so I put carrier skills on the back burner for a bit while I worked on those.  I had been in the coalition for nearly two years and there wasn’t really a war going on for us at the time, the Fountain War having wrapped up.  The Halloween war was brewing, but I had put my all into the last war and skated through that, though I managed to show up at B-R5RB.  Not in a carrier, just a neuting Dominix.

Then there was Reavers, which meant focusing on subcaps ever more so and then the Casino War, where the Archon helped me stay ahead of our crumbling northern empire as I jumped out of Tribute then Pure Blind just ahead of trouble.  That all culminated in the retreat to Delve, most of which I covered on my own, and the Archon carried a lot of my stuff with it.

Exotic stations under strange stars

Once in the south, there was the conquest of Delve and settling in to our new region before capitals and, more importantly, capital production became a priority again.  Then the call was for force auxiliaries, the capital log ships.  Only two of the four fax machines were recommended, the Minokawa and the Apostle, but since I had trained up for the Archon already, I was well on my way to the Apostle as well.  I put in an order for one after The Mittani pushed us to have a couple on hand, they being the apparent key to any supercap battle, and started back on the capital ship training plan.

About a month after I ordered it, I had an Apostle.  However, I wanted to wrap up training to be able to fit a tech II triage module to it, so it took a bit longer until I was ready to apply to CapSwarm.

Medical White Apostle, with a Minokawa in the background

Eventually I was trained up, had a fully fitted Apostle (I stole a lot of the modules from the Archon and its list of “required to have” items) that I really had no idea how to use.  I mean, I guess it is just a big logi ship, so that part is simple enough; put reps on big things that ask.  But capitals are also serious business, and I’ve seen a few “if you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t go on capital ops” notes over the years.  I was also set back a bit by the “read this first” guides for CapSwarm, which seemed out of date and assumed you were in GSF.  Meanwhile, asking questions on Jabber got me “just jump in with the fleet and die quietly” level responses.  I don’t even mind losing the ship, I just don’t want to do so because I am clueless and I really don’t want to do something that screws up an op.  I’ve already had, “Oh my God” level responses for asking simple questions while on the move op to Rakapas.  So I opted to stick with supcaps ops, leaving my Apostle back in staging, hoping for a an updated guide or training op or something.

Now, however, there is a new call to train for capitals.  This time we’re back to carriers, which have been deemed especially effective against sub caps.  Somewhere along the line I had trained up fighters, because having a carrier and not being able to use its primary weapon system just seemed wrong.  I might have just ignored this new call to caps, but there was a statement about training… like the coalition is going to provide some so people actually feel good about using their capitals.

For just the suggestion that there might be training I got my Archon out and jumped it back to our staging system.

Archon, also in Purity White, hanging off a Fortizar

And then I checked it fitting and backup modules and found that I was well out of date on the basic fit and that I had, in fact, pulled a lot of the modules for the Apostle.  Also, while I have the skills to use fighters, I haven’t actually bought any fighters.  So I now have more than a billion ISK in modules and fighters being shipped out.

But that is fine.  I’ll be up to date again.  And I am willing to spend that on the off chance I will actually get to use my carrier in combat, or at least feel confident enough to answer the call and get into fleet should the situation arise.  Maybe I will even figure out the Apostle as well.