Patrick R

I don't really have a lot of good examples, but the limited run podcast is a space that I wish were explored more. EDIT: Well, I suppose that Donkey Kong Country Sketch Comedy Podcast has ended. And The Best Show on WFMU is ending in just a few shows, but that's after 13 years of being on the air.

TOS feels like a dorm.

I watched Fistful of Datas on recommendation of my partner. I tweeted this, but it honestly feels like every other character on Next Generation has Aspergers. Worf is all "what are these human emotions" and Data is all "what are these human emotions" and Geordi is all "I exhibit no personality, but Captain, can we please please please run diagnostics? I love diagnostics." I guess I see why nerds tend to like a Star Trek show where every character is a nerd, but they seem to be way more loose and fun on TOS.

YOU CAN WHAT? This game. And that series of catastrophic events occurring off camera in the dark level was amazing.

That boulder must have messed up the shopkeeper's store right before you left the level. Last night was...interesting.

Anyone else have seasonal depression?

Double post.

WAIT. WAIT. "You must be in love." You can just TAKE the damsels from the kissing booths/whorehouses? That doesn't aggro the shopkeeper? I always assumed he was a pimp of some kind and if I tried to take her he'd open fire. Also: your time in the black market is crazy fun to watch, and return of The Perpetual Yeti Death Machine.

The only actual definition of hipster I've ever heard that made sense to me was "someone who makes you insecure about your own sense of whatever you consider cool". Because it explains why No one self-identifies as a hipster. Everyone hates hipsters. No one can agree on what they are.

The day I realized I was no longer really scared of the ghost was a good milestone. I normally don't ghost mine unless I can bomb open one of those vaults, because the chests the guy guards hold about 6 to 7 gems each, which means that getting a ghost to go over them equals a sweet 70K on average.

OBS as well. Pretty good run (and pretty good discussion of seminal 70's punk band Suicide) until I run into the most nefarious trap in the Ice Caves: the perpetual yeti death machine.

I don't really think explosive crates can touch enemies at all. I learned that the hard way.

The best niche podcast I listen to is The Antique Phonograph Music Program on WFMU. He's literally playing old 78's and wax cylinders live on the air, so it's pretty much all music you'd never ever hear anywhere else, unless you're a collector. One episode was just novelty bird whistling records. I'm not particularly interested in pop music of the 20's and 30's, but the sheer weight of the history mixed with the general light pleasantness of the music and the warm tone of the host make it a really enjoyable thing to listen to. And, I guess in the same ballpark, there are a lot of podcasts (the ones curated by Relic Radio are my favorite) that just post old (presumably now public domain) radio dramas of the early 20th century. I have an undying affection for horror shows like Lights Out, Suspense, and Beyond Midnight but some of those feeds can get very niche, like Relic's Radio At War, which is just old WW2 war-time programs, including old recruitment dramas about how exciting and rewarding it is to be in the Navy. So I guess I do have a taste for old-timey stuff, but it's less from being a history buff (when it comes to history I may be the most ignorant person I know) and more the effect of how surprisingly transporting listening to old radio can be. It's hard for me to hear some spooky tale about a haunted castle without imagining the 6 year old who stayed up past his bedtime with his ear to the radio, too scared to move.

I once found a podcast feed that was just people on a UFO forums responding to each other. Apparently they thought it'd be fun to do a thread in audio form, where every post was an episode of the podcast. T'was weird. Also, there's a sketch comedy podcast that is just parodies of Donkey Kong Country. EDIT: Found it. Warning: Not good.

Today during a random run in the mines I whipped open a jar and there was an alien inside. ???

No, but I was drunk. For hilarious disaster, see my run on the 8th.

I've always been fascinated by pinball, but too inept to ever uncover how any table is "supposed" to be played. Pinball Museum is really fun, I can see it being a good gateway.

The dead were so very restless today! Whooolllllle lotta chatter on my run today. I talk about Argo and Earthbound and God knows what else. Pretty manic.

When my insurance at my new job kicks in, I might finally get that hearing aid I've needed for the past couple years. That is, if it is even covered by my insurance. Yay America!

Computer Chess. Computer Chess. Computer Chess. Holy shit, Computer Chess. Computer Chess? Computer Chess. It's on Netflix Instant. You should watch it. In the deluge of nerd-centric media that we've been hit with the past several years, it's the only one that feels like it's actually honestly about nerds. If you have any interest in early 80's computer programming, the insane painstaking detail that has gone into recreating that culture here (down to being shot on a video camera from that time) is more than worth your time. It's...wow. You should see it.

Easily my worst Daily Challenge run ever. I feel like I'm regressing, doing worse and worse each run.

Well like I said, it's only occasionally effective. The hyperactive Tony Scottesque camerawork and editing get old quick. But the tone and approach of the movie is exactly as I described it. I just watched it again a couple months ago.

The forgotten 2006 Wayne Kramer film Running Scared. As a film, it alternates wildly between an effective and annoying riff on latter-day Tony Scott, but it'd have a ton of potential as a game. It's about an abused kid who steals a gun from his neighbors to kill his abusive step-dad and then runs away into the night. The catch is, the gun he stole was used to kill a cop, so the protagonist (played by a less-bland than normal Paul Walker) has to track down the kid and the gun before the cops do. Along the way, both traverse through a Grimm fairy-tale version of an urban environment, where various dangers of pimps, addicts, and gang members are portrayed as fairy tale counterparts. The blue fairy is a prostitute, a drug addict is a goblin, the witch from Hansel and Gretel becomes a pair of child molesting kidnappers, etc. In my head I see it as part adventure game, part open-world action.

I never got used to analog sticks. Even 3D games on the PS2, I preferred the D-Pad.

Question I ask in this video: I assume most, if not all, of you are using controllers. Are you using the D-Pad or Analog stick?