Patrick R

I recently made Potatas Bravas, marinated in Great Lakes Nosferatu red ale, but they were much too spicy for me.

A lot of people get film degrees because they like The Matrix and Star Wars. Tons of work for people in the film industry that has nothing to do with appreciating the art and history of film.

I guess I can be an opposing voice and say that I can't believe The Guest wasn't DTV because everything about it, from the acting to the writing to cinematography, is super low-rent. But people really really really like that 80's-esque score. You're Next is pretty good but it is one of the ugliest looking movies I've ever seen. Adam Wingard is a pretty pedestrian director.

One was a PBS game-show, the other was a Saturday morning cartoon.

I've been playing through F.E.A.R. with a track pad because the USB ports on my laptop don't work. Not recommended!

I think games and films probably age the same, which is to say the amount they age is predominantly founded in your own literacy. I just think, because film and video games operate in different cultural spaces, there is more social pressure to be the kind of person who can appreciate the Godfather than there is to be the kind of person who can appreciate Doom.

I did the exact same thing, the same way, for the same reasons.

The answer is always Deus Ex. Though I think that is a harder game than others to visit in retrospect as someone playing catch-up, because the depth and density of that game only really reveals itself over multiple playthroughs. It's still incredible the first time (and much much more accessible, I think, than System Shock 2) but my love of that game grew and grew and grew as someone who has lived with it, played through on every difficulty, seeing 3 different endings, different paths, etc. AND THEN YOU LOOK UP A WIKI AND THERE'S STILL MOUNTAINS OF CONTENT THAT I SOMEHOW MISSED. IN A GAME THAT IS NOT OPEN WORLD.

I feel like the way I played Majora's Mask was that I sorta just lived in the world. At a certain point I was stuck and couldn't make any forward momentum, but I'd still play it for hours a day. It was a very compelling experience, even if I don't think I "enjoyed" it nearly as much as Ocarina, I definitely played the shit out of it.

Speaking of Majora's Mask being creepy, it is the setting for the scariest Creepypasta I have ever read (outside of Pale Luna), BEN Drowned.

I think I didn't explain my point well. If you aren't against killing mosquitoes because of the diseases they carry, is there a similar instance you can think of where you would not be against killing humans? Like "they pose a serious threat to other animals"?

Hmm. Can you name an instance in which human lives are not of paramount importance?

I think there is no good argument that one animal's life is more important than another's, except for the pragmatic argument that things become untenable otherwise. Even if I was a vegetarian my entire life, I would not be able to live in this world if I thought all animal's lives were equally important. It would just be far too horrible a world to consider, to live in. The weight of so much loss would constantly weigh on me. The first time I visited a grocery store that had live lobster I would break down crying for days, probably.My daily life would just be surrounded by murder at every turn. Even vegan restaurants, with their pervasive imitation meats made out of tofu, black beans, etc. would be constant reminders of the carnage, of the worldwide genocide taking place. It'd be overwhelming. If I woke up tomorrow believing what Tycho believes (or, at any rate, is asserting in this thread), I think I would take my own life in a matter of hours. Now, does that mean it's illogical to be vegan/vegetarian? I don't think so. Does that mean it's ethical to eat meat? I don't think so. I just think that human society is built on a couple of lies that are necessary for anything to function, and one of them is "humans aren't animals, they're something else, something greater".

Well CPU lag might explain why it happens on Steam, as I'm playing Skyrim which I think is a little too much for my laptop to handle. There has been stuttering and such before, but never on mouse clicks and never to such a crazy degree (I clocked about 8 hours into the game before the problem occurred). Maybe the Window's update that recently rearranged a bunch of stuff on my computer is taxing my CPU more? Or something? Apologies, I know nothing about computers. The game online is Gemcraft Labyrinth (http://www.kongregate.com/games/gameinabottle/gemcraft-labyrinth). The game is hardly taxing, though slowdown can happen in the late game with so many sprites. The weird thing is that that game registers clicks differently depending what I'm doing. Menu elements, UI, I can click with no problems. But when I try to place a tower down or grab a gem or whatever, I often have to click 3 or 4 times before it registers. Clicking is a binary thing right, it's not pressure sensitive is it? Is it possible the game is requiring me to use more pressure doing certain things than others?

Does Tycho have a moral obligation to try to stop the genocide of non-human animals? Is it immoral for Tycho to befriend those who contribute to it? Eagerly, even? Would Tycho be friends with someone that, fully aware of what it was, ate veal once? Would Tycho be friends with someone that, fully aware of what it was, ate a human baby once? Can Tycho in good faith continue on message boards that contain so many such unrepentant people? Is Tycho a sympathizer? In not freeing non-human animals from every pet store he sees, is he acting in conflict with his ethics? Would Tycho be justified in the murder of key figures in the meat industry? Would Tycho be justified in the murder of key members of the Nazi party in the 1930's? Would Tycho be justified in stealing slaves from a slave owner in 1815 in order to set them free? Would Tycho be justified in stealing pets from a pet owner in order to set them free? Would Tycho be justified in murdering a slave owner in 1815? Would Tycho be justified in the murder of a pet owner in 2015? What if that pet owner treated their pets well? What if that slave owner treated their slaves well? Has Tycho ever accidentally killed a non-human animal in his life? If so, how did he repent? If so, does he still think about this non-human animal? These are things I thought about reading this thread.

Ok, weird issue I wonder if any of you have encountered: While playing games (either on Steam or on flash portals online) my mouse (which, right now is my trackpad) is sticky and doesn't always register when I click it (or stop clicking). Other inputs work fine. When not playing games, mouse works 100% of the time, I have no problem surfing the web, using iTunes, etc.

I think the movie is an apologist for JK Simmons' character. It proves him right.

I basically said the same thing Chris did about Azkaban on my podcast when Sarah Argodale guested. There's no time in that (or any of those movies) to breathe.. I had a terrible string luck with cars. My last one was plowed into by a drunk driver while parked overnight, then plowed into by a sober driver while I was driving a week later. The latter happened while I was delivering pizzas and I had to walk home 6 miles afterwards. Then the rental car I got was slammed into while parked, knocked off the bumper. Didn't get rental insurance, of course, so I had to pay for that. Then the day after I bought my replacement car, it wouldn't stop accelerating and I couldn't put it into park or neutral and I couldn't turn it off. So I basically just had to pull the emergency brake, slam on my brake, and skid around the streets of Chicago at 5 miles an hour until the 911 operator I was talking to just told me to drive it into a park and do donuts until the cops could figure out what to do. Eventually it got stuck in the mud and the engine gave out and I was able to turn it off. The kicker is that if it had happened 10 minutes earlier I would have been right by The United Center the night of a Rihanna concert, which meant I would have for sure driven through crowds of people. So, needless to say, I have PTSD and can no longer ride in the front seat of a car, let alone drive one. Thank God for public transportation!

Just beat it today. Started the New Game+ and I can't see what's harder about it. If anything, my huge swath of abilities makes it easier.

I agree. I am so happy it's a movie about the civil rights movement that takes place after the civil rights bill was signed, because the comfortable narrative these movies tend to have is "Things were terrible, and then a few really brave people suffered tremendously and then they achieved their goal and that's why we are all living happily ever after", and that's not at all what Selma does. It's about the ongoing struggle. This movie doesn't make those kinds of concessions to white audiences in the ways prestige pictures usually do.

I cried for, like, 80% of Selma.

Ok I'm about halfway through with Shovel Knight and it is both my default GOTY (being the only 2014 game I've played) and a genuinely spectacular game I love.

AND WE FORGOT TO DO THE CLAP THING I JUST ILLUSTRATED AT THE TOP OF THIS PAGE.

For me the best touch in Serious Sam is that he's roughly the same speed as Doomguy but you hear every individual footstep so the entire game just has this manic sprinting in the background.

Didn't listen to any full albums from this year (outside of Mandatory Fun, which...yeah, whatever) but some pretty good songs came out: Almost forgot to include this, but I do think this is the best song (and definitely the best music video) of the year. DJ Snake & Lil Jon - Turn Down For What These too are also good: Future & Andre 3000 - Benz Friendz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Obz1Gnipv3k Kendrick Lamar - i: Vince Staples - Progressive 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsDrnIZkhaU TI feat. Young Thug - About the Money: But mostly I just listened to the same two albums over and over and over again: Suicide's self-titled from 1977 and Von Lmo's Future Language from 1981. Like, if you added up all the music I listened to this year, it'd be damn near 50% Suicide and Von Lmo. So... Suicide - Cheree: Von Lmo - Fire Eyes: