Argobot

I just finished reading Turn of Mind, the book about the older woman with dementia that Remo mentioned on the cast a few weeks ago. It was pretty good, and by pretty good, I mean it was a heartbreakingly accurate depiction of someone with Alzheimer's. I was grateful that it never felt like the author was emotionally manipulating me--an amazing feat given the book's subject. My only criticism is that the book had a crime thriller sub-plot that I felt was unnecessary; the story of a woman dealing with dementia and how the disease was affecting her and her loved ones was enough, the whole murder-mystery didn't really add anything to the core story--at least for me. But I would still recommend this book, as kind of a more physical less philosophical version of Sense of an Ending.

I was watching The Wire, and was pleasantly surprised by this scene (season 2 episode, in case you're worried about spoilers): I think D'Angelo's take is pretty smart.

That's a shame--I actually like Gravity Bone more than Thirty Flights of Loving. There both great for sure, but the ending of Gravity Bone made me literally stand up and shout (when I played it, I had no idea who Brendon Chung was or what to expect from his game). Going into TFoL, I knew a little bit more about what I should expect and that slightly diminished the pure glee I was able to have while playing Gravity Bone. Objectively TFoL is probably the better game, but I had such a blast playing Gravity Bone; it's not a gaming experience that I'll easily forget.

The only Atwood books I've read were The Handmaid's Tale (which I loved) and The Blind Assassin (which I think is actually the better of the two books.) I haven't tried to read her more recent stuff is because its mostly gotten lukewarm reviews. Maybe I'll give Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood a shot though.

Yeah pilots are always hit-or-miss. I just started watching The Wire for the first (I know, so late to the game), and after watching the pilot, I couldn't understand why everyone was obsessed it with. Based on the pilot alone, it just seemed like a really well-acted, well-written cop show, but not the 'best TV show of all time.' It took 2-3 more episodes for the show to convince me of why it deserved such high praise. I'm surprised that episode 2 is so disliked; for me it wasn't the best, but I certainly enjoyed it. I think it transcended a lot of it's stock horror movie tropes to become a really good piece of writing:

Will this do?

The whole article is a great read, but I especially enjoyed this part: Anyway, I know that Thirty Flights of Loving is a game because I played it.

I don't care how obvious the line 'One nation, over God' is, I still love it. The last two trailers have been relentlessness in amplifying my excitement for this game.

I'm glad that the over-saturation of words like 'hipster' and 'pretentious' has led people to label something with genuine artistic value/sincerity as somehow 'bad.' Anyway, this game looks good; I will probably buy it this afternoon.

Hedgehog in the Fog is a really famous Russian animated short and I love it:

Fukushima Radiation May Cause 1300 Cancer Deaths

I think in general the reason why video game trailers are so ineffective, is because they are essentially the same; just look at the Dead Space 3/Aliens trailers. Unless the mechanics are super innovative or original, showing shots of it in a trailer isn't going to tell me anything new; I already know what a typical shooter looks like, I don't need a trailer to remind me. That's why I like the latest Bioshock Infinite trailer. It's sets up the tone and history of its universe, which is what makes that game interesting to me. It attempts to convey more information than just: here's some context-free gameplay footage!

Remember when Aliens was was just an allegory for the Vietnam war and the whole point of the movie was how incompetent, and not badass the Marines were? I've actually had the opposite happen, where a trailer set me up to expect something that turned out not to be in the game at all. A big example is the Mass Effect 3 trailer that showed Earth as a major fighting zone. When I actually played the game, I was pretty disappointed at how little time you spend actually spend on Earth. Ever since the movie Drive came out, I've learned to completely distrust all trailers. The way that movie was marketed, I assumed it was just another dumb Fast and the Furious knock off with Bryan Cranston.

Kind of tangental, but related. Recently I was watching The Wire for the first time and got to an episode where one of the addicts is mandated to attend AA classes. The atmosphere and the dialogue in that scene was amazingly similar to all of the AA sections from Infinite Jest, which I always interpreted as fairly realistic (the guy did spend a lot of time going to those same meetings) if not slightly exaggerated for the story.

Transitive property of douche.

"If reading a book isn't like running a marathon with your mind, then what is the point of reading it?"--says the person who stupidly took a lot of Russian lit classes in college.

I was already on the floor laughing when they had James Earl Jones say "Padme" in a serious voice.

The courts are independent from the Executive branch of the government, but they are still part of the Federal/State/Local system are often appointed by Legislative or Executive officials. The Police department are also run through local and state governments. So they are effectively 'controlled by the government' because they are the government.

"But when do I get to shoot stuff in the face?"---College frat bros, probably. Seriously though, that looks awesome. Secession is super popular right now.

Neptune's Pride & Prejudice & Zombies & Space. (What a great way to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the novel, after all).

There have been a few instances where I've had to look something up on the Internet because I was stuck, only to find out the way I wanted to solve the puzzle was right, I just wasn't doing it in the 'right' way. Specifically in the Time Traveler level:

Well the one good thing about a rating system being run by the government is that it would be subject to public scrutiny: if you don't like how they're running the rating board, vote their party out in the next election. Independent organizations, while nominally apolitical because they don't belong to one specific party, are still staffed by people who have political beliefs, which would inform how they perform their job, and are generally not subject to public voting. (Also, the police and court systems are not apolitical institutions. Judges are either voted on or appointed by the local/state/federal gov't, and to make it into any higher position beyond detective, police members have to curry political favor. I understand your overall point about government vs. priviate organization, just wanted to point out that this specific example doesn't really fit that model) But I don't think any organization--political or private--should have the ability to force creators to subject their work to any kind of ratings board.

Interesting, but, how do midichlorians fit into all of this?

!!! Confirmed: Chris has been Jake this whole time.

Christina Hendricks as Mara Jade (now I'm just getting carried away).