tegan

I get that! Especially the spicy food bit. I thought that was normal.

Spaced is a sitcom directed by Edgar Wright and starring Simon Pegg (naturally). I haven't seen the whole thing, but it's pretty good. Also, it's one of those rare shows to use video games effectively to aid their story rather than just having characters mashing buttons for product placement. There's episodes where the cast are playing Tomb Raider and Resident Evil purely to reinforce the tone.

After three months of trying, I finally got approved for medical benefits. I have no idea when the money I'm due is actually being paid out, but hey! I went to the doctor again yesterday, and I'm being given at least another month off of work. Now that I won't be living in absolute poverty, I might even be able to enjoy it! Also, I have so many free samples of antidepressants. She gave me like five boxes of them.

Today's Gunnerkrigg Court is relevant to my interests. I've been hypothesizing that for ages now, and I'm really excited to see where this new thing could lead.

"The Haunting of Bill Crouse" is easily my favourite episode of a live-action sitcom ever. Just sayin'.

I'm going to take the typical dumb Tegan nobody-else-gives-a-shit-about-Pokémon approach and say that I'll bet a lot of people had an attachment to their starter Pokémon as kids, even though the activities involved aren't really traditionally pet-like. I know I cared enough to keep porting my Charizard over from game to game after I cleared LeafGreen.

By the way, can we all just take a moment to appreciate that Microsoft finally got the d-pad right?

I missed the reveal because I was at a doctor's appointment. I'm not sure why people are down on the look of the thing itself so much. It's a low-profile black box. That's literally exactly what I want all of my electronics to look like. It's pretty big; the controllers look like a step back to the original bulky "hamburger" controller for the original Xbox; and I'm not a fan of the massive vents, but I'd gladly take that over more overheating issues. My big thing is... I'm not really sure why anyone would want it. That's not meant to be a knock at Microsoft or anything, really, but usually even if I know I won't ever be able to buy a console I'll at least take interest in it. Besides the mandatory graphical update and assumed "we will no longer be making new games for the Xbox 360," I'm not really sure what this new box can do that the old one couldn't, and it seems almost pre-emptively punishing with the mandatory installs, lack of backwards compatability, and used game fees. There's just no appeal for me at all. Also, I hate the name. You can't call your new system the Xbox One! That's like if Sony decided to call the PS4 the PS1. It's the name that's been retroactively applied to your original console, whether you like it or not. You're sabotaging yourself by making your branding confusing, Microsoooooooft.

My downstairs neighbour just came up to very condescendingly complain about how loud my TV was. My TV's been turned off all night. Think I'll mention the floor-shaking music she was playing a while back next time I speak to the landlady.

Please please please oh please. I'm a sucker for a good book cover; I'd love to be able to design some. My all-time favourite: Battle Royale, first English edition. The current editions are covered with junk, whereas the stark simplicity of the original really struck a chord with me. The rifle formed by the negative space between the two silhouettes took me months to notice (and even longer to notice that the I in Takami is dotted with a bomb).

I watched the movie again just today! I almost forgot about all of the hand-themed imagery in the movie. Such good foreshadowing! The only thing that kind of bugs me is that they changed the ending a little. I always really liked that Coraline isn't safe after the big showdown with the Beldam. The hand is still out there. It's refreshing to see that things aren't wrapped up nicely. But in the movie, she's saved by Wybie after the hand attacks her; while in the book, she traps the hand herself by setting a tablecloth over the well and pretending to have a tea party using the disguised well as a table. I guess the movie's ending at least gives Wybie an excuse to exist besides delivering exposition, but I loved Coraline's plan in the book. It's so perfectly kidlike to use a tea party as a trap, plus it's weird to have such an incidental character save the perfectly capable protagonist in the last action of the book. I also remembered that the Other Father is handled a little differently. In the movie, he's more autonomous and is physically forced to attack Coraline by his weird mantis machine controlling his limbs; plus he seems to be made from a pumpkin, with his glamour fading as the Bedlam becomes more unstable. In the book he still doesn't want to hurt Coraline, but only does so when he deteriorates into an insect-like monster that acts on instinct, which is much more interesting to me. EDIT: also I forgot about that one little song by They Might Be Giants from the movie. So great.

I've always wanted to see one of the Alamo Drafthouse Mondo Mystery Movie secret Halloween screening things.

It's been a while since I read the book, but I remember Wybie being created wholecloth for the movie. The Other Father might have been given a larger role in it as well, but I can't remember. My theory is that since they're at least semi-autonomous modified copies of their original selves, they probably have some degree of their originals' free will and moral compasses. They also have enough sense to know that the Other Mother is bad news, since they've experienced her firsthand. Also, Zeus, has she seen Paranorman yet? It's the same animation team and it's saturated with the same mood and tone. Also, if she's old enough to read, she should totes check out the book.

Why do I always browse eBay when I'm broke? look at this amazing lot of GBA games goddamn (and I only count like three bootlegs)

It may interest you that Pacino is only in it because Keanu offered to take a massive pay cut specifically so that they could bring Pacino on. ...I have a certain appreciation for Keanu Reeves. He's a crummy actor but he's the single nicest person in the movies despite the absurd amount of tragic shit he's had to deal with.

Justify it by using it to replace the Wii altogether. The Wii U does some basic upscaling, so it's really my favourite way to enjoy Wii games now. As long as you don't mind losing Gamecube support, it's ideal.

I have a crossbite. The left side of my mouth is normal; but on the right side, some of my upper teeth kind of slope inwards giving me a slight underbite on that side. I want to have it fixed, but not until I take at least one opportunity to cosplay as gender-swapped Two-Face. I also have crazy eyes. They reflect light weird, so they look like they're entirely different colours depending on the lighting. My driver's license says they're blue and my optometrist records say they're hazel. They also see colours slightly differently (one has a slight yellow tint and the other has a slight cyan tint) and one of them has some slight astigmatism, too. Also: SCAR ROUNDUP. Right shin, oval shape: hit my leg on the steps getting into the school bus as a kid Right wrist, crescent shape: cut myself trying to shave my arm hair a month or so ago Left forearm, straight line: ran into a door Left forearm near elbow, jagged line: ran into the same door two additional times

My doctor only just sent Blue Cross a thing that they needed yesterday afternoon when they were supposed to have it sent on Monday, so that's all the more waiting time. Everything is stupid. Yesssss.

Hey, has anyone tried using the Wii U Pro Controller with the Virtual Console games? I've been considering getting one.

Other M including a "movie mode" that just plays the cutscenes with a few clips of gameplay in between is the icing on the cake. It's too bad all of that crap's in it, because I really did love the combat. There are very few games that have ever really taught me to improve myself towards mastery of its own systems the way that game has. The (completely wordless!) fight with Phantoon after the credits that's nothing but ducking and weaving while trying to get shots in is particularly fantastic. I'd be pretty pleased if they made a similar game that cleaned up the messy bits like the uninspired environments and crummy first-person aiming and took Yoshio Sakamoto away from the writing portion. Oh, also, I don't know if anyone's tried it, but the Metroid Blast minigame in Nintendo Land is incredible. I know it got written off by some people under the pretense of "just because Samus' spaceship is in it doesn't make it Metroid," but that's giving it way too little credit. It's cute and silly, yet very reverential toward the source material. There's a ton of really awesome Metroid stuff that wasn't in any of the demos they showed at press events, like Kraid showing up as a boss battle. The weekend after the Wii U came out I had a friend over and we ended up playing it for like five hours straight tag-teaming between who was on foot and who was in the spaceship.

I finally watched Arrietty! I loved all of the playing with scale in the movie; I'm a sucker for that kind of thing. I really liked the story and the generally relaxed tone of the whole thing. Really weird hearing music with English lyrics at points in the dub, though. So-so voice acting, but that fucking Summertime song was so distracting and off-putting. Also, there's a bit where a dude counts on his fingers in binary and I was all "how many people would even know what he's doing there?"

No we don't!

The thing is, Team Ninja isn't responsible for Samus' design. They handled the gameplay, but series creator Yoshio Sakamoto was responsible for the terrible story and character design issues. The high heels always bugged the heck out of me, too, though. Check out this concept art from Zero Mission: ...And now compare with the concept art from Other M. Ignoring the design getting slightly less skeezy overall (but being arguably much worse within the actual game), the heels went from "don't be an idiot and give her high heels" to "giant wedge soles" with no explanation. The Other M concept art in general is hilarious. Highlights include an apparent drastic change in personality for a flavourless character who has four lines of dialogue and is killed almost immediately, "I feel he should have a trait... SCAR ABOVE HIS LEFT EYE, an elaborate drawing of a machine that serves absolutely no practical purpose on a space station beyond being a boss battle, and casual racism (note: Samus is 6'3" and weighs 198 pounds). Don't forget button remapping!

what is animal?