seamus2389

Vice are a rising media star at least from an investor point of view. Lot of growth and plans for future growth. This reminds me - Is Offworld officially shudown ?

I have been thinking about start this topic for a while since I have started watching wrestling (NXT, Lucha underground) after last doing so back in 2002. Although my favourite at the moment is Jordan and Gable for bits like this

The thing I am liking most in this season of Lucha Underground is more comedy especially with famous b and joey ryan. It fits in so well with the more fantasical and dramatic parts. Jack evans has also been on fire this season as a very funny heel, him teaming with Johnny Mundo and the "Darewolf" has been a joy to watch so far. Netflix are producing a comedy series based on the Gorgous women of wrestling promotion which according to one article is actually on the US netflix.

The only time I don't listen to podcasts is at work, with friends, watching tv and reading books that demand more than the normal amount of attention which isn't often. Round 2-5 hours on weekdays and 6-12 on weekends depending on what I am doing. Also listen to most podcasts at 1.3 speed with some at 1.1,1.2 - mostly improv comedy podcasts and friends at the table at 1.5.

This website (not sure if it still going) and this podcast both talk about this stuff.

History of Byznatium pick up where Rome left off. Also there is the history of China and topics in Korean history podcasts using the same format. There was also a history of Iran one but that seems to have been abandoned. There is also a history of japan which is more topical than narrative along. There is the China history podcast that is also topical. The Samurai archieves podast and Ottoman history poccast are also topical hosted by people who are doing actual historical research which means they can really drill deep onto particular topics. Also history of philosophy without any gaps, history according to bob and my history can beat up your politics are worth checking out. When diplomacy looks at historical conflicts looking with a focus on the diplomatic/ international aspects. Finally history of english (language) podcast looking at the history of the english language and the ancient warfare magazine podcast. Liking friends at the table, 10 episodes into the first season and it really interesting to hear Austin GM.

A book was released this year that is talked about as a sequel to Man in the high castle called the United States of Japan. It is set in the 1980's and follows a Japanese censor hunting an underground group that uses a video-game which is set in a world where history turned out differently. Two of his other best regarded books - 'Flow my tears the policeman said' is about a famous actor who ends up in a world where he never existed. 'Ubik' is about a character who along with his team end up in world where time is flowing backwards. Yer talk about this being an ideas book compared to previous ones reminded me of a couple of sci-fi/ fantasy (Samuel R Delany and Steven Erikson most readily come to mind) have written about their dislike of the heavy emphasis so much 'literary' fiction places on character as opposed to ideas, place and plot. Delany called it the 'tyranny of the subject' which the more well regarded 'literary' fiction I read the more I agree with them. Also if you want more alternate history in the vein of Dick there is Laive Tidhar Osama which as this review point out is very influenced by Dick. Very simply it is an alt history where bin laden is a fictional character and the war on terror never happened. Titles of the books featuring bin Laden include Assignment : Africa and world trade centre. Dave Hutchison's Fractured Europe books also bear a heavy Dick influence mixed with some La Carre and Python the crying of lot 49. Alt near future with a Europe that is breaking apart with new states rising left, right and centre.

If you are interested in book on the history of American slavery the slave coast focuses on the slave breeding industry of the South.

The sorcerer of the wilddeeps by Kai Ashante is worth checking out. Also through the valley of the nest of spiders but read this review first cause there is alot of sex scenes involving alot of taboos. The queering F&SF series on tor.com covers books featuring queer characters/relationships. Kameron Hurley's World breakers saga also has characters across the range of LGBTQ.

That opening is fantastic as is the ending. Bojack part of an interseting trend with 'comedy' shows in recent years - a focus on characters with mental health issues that is decently done, often part of shows about L.A is a terrible place and shows that are 'cynically sincere' . Started watching the original x-files using this article that rank all the episodes. I plan to stick to the top 75 supplemented by the av re-watch reviews. I listened/read Vince Gilligan talking about his time on the show and one of the things he mentioned really influencing him is the shows focus on direction that was uncommon at the time and it is really obvious when watching this alongside Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5 the former which is very statically shot with all the focus on the writing.

That is me with Jane the Virgin and Crazy ex-girlfriend at the moment, also the old HBO show Enlightened . Alot of stopping the episode to do something else for 5 minutes. On the other hand the moments when things go right are a joy.

Jeff reading the skate 4 comments has been a podcast highlight. It was like a little piece of the e-shop update.

Pathalogic is a game where you can play as one of three characters in a russian town in the early 1900's. Each character has different mechanics in terms of how they heal themselves with one being a modern medical doctor, another trained in folk healing and the third being a faith healer of sorts. Each has a different relatioship with people in the town especailly the faith healer who most of the town distrust. Whats even more interesting is you effect the other/meet the other two characters you don't pick for a particular play through. I kinda reminds me of Vampire bloodlines Masquerade where one of the type of vampires you played talked nonsense while another looked so non-human you couldn't be seen by humans and had to travel from place to place through the sewers.

Plan on doing the same once I finish Persona 3 Portable some time this year. Bought a DS to play the World Ends with You and a PS3 a couple months ago for the very low price of 80 euros for Demon Souls (and finding out persona 5 will also be on PS3 so no need to buy a PS4 at some stage down the line)

Tom Chick would not be happy to know I am at currently at 334 hours of COH2 90% of which is playing the soviets online. It has one clear superiority over COH in that snipers are only invisible in cover as opposed to all the time which was annoying as hell in COH. Rob/Tom point about Philip II being the first person to practice realpolitik in the West is a really interesting point I never considered till early this week when I was reading Robin Fox Lanes book on ancient Greece and Rome and he made a similar point. The more I read about Philip II the more fascinating a character I find him to be mostly because of his diplomatic wheeling, dealing and blackmailing. Also reading Lanes book also had me thinking about how long and drawn out wars were and Rob/Tom point that it was cause it was really hard to stick a knock out blow was something I never thought of before. I just finished re-installing the first Hegemony to finally check out the Peloponnesian war. Played through Philip II twice with slightly different settings.

I don't know you if you have listened to many improve comedy podcasts but Comedy Bang Bang, With speical guest Lauren Lapkus, womp it up and Hollywood handbook are worth checking out. Comedy Bang Bang episodes can be uneven depending on how well the guests that don't have a background in improv fits in with what is going on. The other three guests are other people with improv experince. Don't get me started just did an interview with Jason Mantzoukas where the two hosts and him talk about improv comedy for close to two hours and as someone who only started listening to improve comedy podcasts last year (namely the four above and Hello from the Magic Tavern) it was very enlightening look behind how it actually works.

I haven't played it but from what I have heard on three moves ahead Attilia : Total War might be the closest there is to such a game. Also it might not have a tech three but it could have a transcending mortal concerns/ steps towards enlightenment tree which you can unlock faster but giving up your material wealth in the form of cash.

I think CBS being the home of procedural mean it is the home of shows that push at the limits of what a procedural can be like the good wife which combines a law procedural with both politics both governmental and within law company(s). It also took the law show outside of the standard criminal case with trial jury by inclduing civil suits, depositions, military court or people round a table with their lawyers present hashing out some kind of deal. You also have Person of Interest which has become a show that was very precipitant about the extent of the US surveillance state when it first aired and has become very focused on the development of AI and how they can effect the world and how they can be percieved/used by different groups of people in the world (particularly regards keeping the world/the US safe). Also catching up on the third season I think it is one of the better shows on tv when it comes the range of roles/characters women play on the show from the main cast with Root and Shaw to recurring characters that range from political fixers to the head of the NSA (who had stealth arc in the third season) to once off characters like bounty hunters, amateur MMA fighters and lieutenants in criminal organisations. Also in the third season it had an episode similar to that of communities remedial chaos theory with dice replaced by a computer simulation Also Minnesota nice sounds like Irish nice/polite (or whatever particular group that fits the same role in places that aren't the US and Europe). We are perceived as being very polite, charming etc but get to know us and you'll find plenty of knives behind those smiles that are mostly directed at each other to not scare of the tourists. I do wonder if Minnesota spend as much time as we do writing and aruging about it. PS - can't think of CBS procedural without thinking of this short story about Law and Order (even though it's NBC) - Especially Heinous : 272 views on Law and Order

Monday night wars is ok for that but be aware that the WWE use it to re-write history to suit themselves. You should check out the Attitude Era Podcast which goes through the Attitude Era Pay-per-view by pay-per view while also mentioning what is going on in WCW and Raw if it's pertinent. There is also a couple of similar podcasts covering the WCW in and around this era like New Blood rising (looking at WCW after Vince Russo joins) and the 3rd man podcast which is the best of the WCW podcasts I have listened to is just starting to over the WCW in this era.

The agreement over fallout 4 as one of thee most disappointing games is what I love about the GOTY podcasts.

Rob mentioned how few insurgency/counter insurgency games there are and would AI: Fleet command fit into that model. It's a game where trying to play it as a traditional 4x will see you lose very quickly and the amount of expansion you want to do is as little as possible to destroy the AI home worlds while having a decent layer of worlds to defend your own homeworld from the AI attacks. No hearts and minds through and it's from the insurgent side. Also is there any strategy games where you start with alot of non-renewable/ hard resources but over time they are whittled down as the original size of your empire. From what I heard on the podcast Attila total war does this with the western roman empire but is there a 4x equivalent ? When I saw the name of this episode I looked up from chair in my parents home to see star war empire at war : forces of corruption the shelf over their pc which I briefly played years ago and remembered really liking the stragetic layer and not caring at all for the more prominent RTS aprt so I will definitely be picking up rebellion.

Lucha Underground returns next month and t it looks great cause it how would a show this good not be. Also NXT Takeover London was quite good but for me it did't have the emotional high point of the last couple mostly down to the lack of a Sasha Banks or Kevin Ownens.

He is describing the last 100 pages of Return of the Kings which is appendices covering the entire history of Middle Earth till the last of the fellowship leave Middle Earth properly ending the Age of the Ring or Age of the fellowship. Can't quite remember but the entries covering the death/departure of the remaining members is still something that makes me a bit sad. Also he tells how to read/speak Elvish and Dwarfish. But Tolkien did that cause he was really interested in language and he kinda worked backward from that to the races to the history to what would become the series. The African Games of Thrones could be NK Jemisin's Hundred thousand kingdoms or the Acacia Trilogy by David Anthony Durham Samuel R Delany's Return to Neveryon series would be of a Conan/LOTR series. As a couple writers I follow on twitter pointed out James seems like another "literary" writer making claims about breaking rules of the genre while not being aware people are already doing that. It is a pretty cool title and African history and mythology is full of material that could make for some great books.

Hamilton re-threads alot of the Night Dawn trilogy with his commonwealth book with a focus on some of the idea's he had in the original. Still needs an editor and his endings are still not great. Really liked his City of Saints and Madmen book but I got about half way through the first book of the southern trilogy and lost any interest in reading anymore. The weirdness he is famous for worked really well when focused on a fictional city and it's history but out on the wilderness I lost all interest. I think I have read so many short stories with a similar premise that Annihilation felt like one that over stayed it's welcome. I have been meaning to go back to Memory, Sorrow and Thorn as well as Otherland his cyberpunkish series since I only read the last book of each many years ago. I started the first book of his Shaowmarch series but dropped it in about 50 pages cause I am mostly done with stories with children who have mysterious past and a princess unhappy with the restricted role they have in their society (which from what I can remember both are also present in M,S&T). That said I tore through Kate Elliot's Black wolves in a couple of days which has a strong focus on women unhappy with the restricted roles in their societies but Elliot has always put alot more thought into that part of fantasy than 99% of those who have that particular trope. She is also a fantasy writer who uses actual history as an inspiration for her books and not the pseudo medieval European D&D/Tolkien influenced history of alot of fantasy writers I have read. Also good person to follow on twitter for interesting history books to check out especially if you have an interest in the history of trade.

He wrote the re-launch of dc's dial h for hero a couple of years ago which was fantastic in part because the "hero's" power was phone that turned him into an endless parade of Mievillean superheroes like the living embodiment of Victorian smoke pollution or a giant slug only to then reveal all these are actual heroes from other universe who are basically being kidnapped by the dial h hero.