Luftmensch

As a SubGenius, I'm still waiting for the end of the world to come on July 5, 1998.

With the new Humble Bundle, I have extra keys for Binding of Isaac and Grimrock. I feel somewhat guilty since I probably won't play the other games at least anytime soon, but on the other hand I know BoI and GR are great so ENJOY IT YOU DAMNED DEADBEATS Also all but $1 of all my Humble Bundle orders goes to charity so I guess I should make the devs get as many more purchases as they can.

Oh dear I did not know they sounded like that. I'm not sure I'm totally okay with them now. @3:08 is like an establishing shot for a Kubrik film.

I don't see any particular reason to tell her explicitly that he badmouthed her, but I have no idea how it'd turn out. I imagine it'd be worth bringing up your encounter, and at least mentioning your first impression of his character, but unless she's somehow duped by some secret sociopathic charms of his, it doesn't really make much sense to tell her her coworker thinks she's a low-class PoS or whatever.

Related, brush pens are absolutely marvelous. I tend to tear up the felt tip ones, but the synthetic bristle brush pens are a treat. Yes, I do believe they have improved my life.

Doing some watercolor sketches, both to learn watercolor and to sketch out some ideas I want to do paintings of (or learn they weren't that good and forget about) so here's one I finished this morning: edit: improved scan

That looks like an incredibly difficult design constraint to work in, I look forward to trying it.

I was at a wedding, I'll go back at watch if I can.

Whoops, so it is. Fixed!

Just don't get the kinds that come in novelty shapes, like christmas trees and easter bunnies. The pb/chocolate ratio gets off. Personally, I prefer the classic size, but my sister things the mini cups are the ideal. Reese's pieces are also pretty great. M&Ms, the regular kind, are bland milk chocolate, but recently they're getting more adventurous. You can get dark chocolate M&Ms in different varieties, and the crispy and pretzel varieties are kind of delightful. I'm pretty sure you can get M&Ms almost anywhere though. Again though, Kit-Kat is irresistible to me. You can probably get it in dark chocolate most places too. Here's a couple interesting links: Why do British and American chocolate taste different? (very thorough answer) Wikipedia page for American Chocolate (not very thorough)

In the words of The Dude: I prefer to jerk off manually. Sorry I've got nothing to add.

Finally played the Puzzle Agent games. Not sure how much more it could have been like Twin Peaks. The first one got by on charm and novelty, but I have to give props to the sequel for actually having fun, paced puzzles. I personally didn't think that integer sequence puzzles were a great way to start and end the game, but otherwise I thought they were handled well.

Prismacolor watercolor pencils are fun too. That and a water-loaded brush pen is a great way to doodle on the go. Sakura makes a nice little travel watercolor set that comes with a brush pen; you can use the brush directly onto the cakes though I think you're supposed to just use it for water washes. Here's some good old Christmas spirit in the aforementioned method. Apologies for the quality, it was just a doodle I did waiting for dinner, and I just took a photo instead of scanning. Also, I just doodle on a regular sketchbook; watercolor notebooks are expensive and the paper still buckles anyway. I guess the quality is better but I don't have any income right now so to hell with that.

How did other folks feel about Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery? I thought it was fun and had a nice Pendleton Ward-esque appeal and a really sick style, but, eh, when I actually beat it I felt kinda lukewarm. Maybe I didn't get it. Did other people feel the same?

Ick I used to. I can't anymore, not as sweet as it comes down here. Maybe once a week or so I'll go to McDonalds and get some but I always have it cut in half with unsweetened tea. To each their own. I've heard people who brew iced tea at home sometimes add a little baking soda to cut down on the bitterness, but my family never did that.

Oh I'm just using Bombay since that's what Hobby Lobby (the only local art supply store) sells. I'm sure I could do better but it's not like I'll make any great use of it. Eh. I drink a lot of imported loose leaf tea, but when it comes down to it I think good old Lipton is just peachy. There is lousy instant tea, but regular cheap tea is okay. Try it yourself, if you really just don't like it, you'll only have spent a couple bucks even on a big box.

Oh, those Ghirardelli chocolates are alright too. I don't know how different British tea is going to be, but you can get a good selection of tea in most decently-sized cities in the states. My town has a British import grocer with a very wide selection of teas. And in any city with a good sized Indian population you're going to be able to find an Indian market with imported tea aswell. Just remember, we have a weird relationship with tea in the States. If you're far enough south, "tea" means sweetened ice tea. Further north, it means either sweet or unsweetened. Further north, it means unsweetened ice tea, and you have to ask for sweet. Eventually, there's a point where they'll ask you if you want hot or iced. Somewhere around New England or so, you ask for tea, and you'll get a cup of tea (though it may be a paper cup with a zarf). Stay away from the sweet tea. That is the reason you'll see 400lb people in wheelchairs with missing feet.

I don't like sweets, but I have a weird thing with York peppermint patties and Kit-Kat bars. Neither of them are good quality especially but I always overeat them. Andes candies too. I enjoy, but never engorge upon, black licorice. I can't think of any good quality American candy I really like. I just don't like candy.

I had a lot of fun with these, although towards the end of TGP I was sleepy and had trouble remembering all the things spread out through the maps (even when I figured them out, a couple still felt pretty opaque), but I appreciated how well the silly dialogue makes dumb puzzles fun and solvable I'm trying to convince my little sister to play this, what should I tell her?

I also had issues where I'd get an error message and the game would either crash or play without music. This was an intermittent problem though, and only happened to me a couple times.

I jump around, recently a lot of what I've been posting has been mostly digital, mainly because it doesn't cost anything to screw around and see what happen. I have plenty of oils and watercolors though, it's just more of a hassle to use and maintain.Lately most of my sketching and doodling has been in ink; brush pens especially are really fun to work with and hardly a hassle at all. I keep a few loaded with a solution of neutral-tone inks (I don't have enough yet to fill with a full palette of hues), and I use them to make a simple watercolor-style wash, or to make interesting accents, or just to screw around. (something I scribbled up today while I was waiting for paint to dry) All in all I imagine that any artistic skills I learn will help me improve overall, so right now I'm letting myself float around and play with whatever tickles my fancy, taking a little extra time now and then to nail down a skill (there's always room for more anatomy lessons). Hopefully I'll learn something along the way...

I'm not very good at following this rule, but I've learned that the first step to getting over a grudge with someone is to be good to them for no good reason (conversely, if someone has a grudge against you for some reason, put them in a position to do you minor favors). In general it's unhealthy and not especially useful to hold resentment, and principle is just a word people throw around to justify their emotions. I'm not saying you aren't entitled to your emotions or that they're somehow invalid, just that, that's not the same as having a moral duty to moan and drag your feet. I say, make the most of it. Maybe you can give her this card:

I finally got around to playing this game. I have an A+ rating through level seven and collected all the masks. I have mixed feelings about the hidden ending, I thought the tile collection could have been more interesting. The was a lot of potential for mixing things up, it's a shame they didn't do more. But going through and trying to get an A+ rating on all the levels is surprisingly rewarding and I'm glad the choice of masks makes it so interesting; it's neat how unexpectedly useful some of the masks turn out to be. I would love to see someone take the level data from this game and put it in a DOOM style FPS engine.

Gee, haven't heard that one before.