tberton

Die Hard definitely.

That's really interesting. 12 is also the last unique number in German (zwölf). However, once you get up to big numbers, more unique words show up in each language (hundred, thousand, million, etc.).

At the risk of repeating myself, I don't think that Mitchell overuses the fantastical, at least not in The Bone Clocks. Where I think he runs into problems is in over-explaining the fantastical, which is an entirely different issue.

Agreed. Not only is that quote representative of a misunderstanding of science, it's also representative of a misunderstanding of postmodernism.

I was nine years old when Pokemon was realized in North America, so I was square in the target demographic and got super sucked into it. The best part of that was that because the first two games were so big for Game Boy games, Game Freak had to pull all sorts of weird programming tricks to make them work, meaning that the games were exploitable as hell, with the most famous exploit probably being MissingNo. This combined with playground logic in an awesome way, sometimes adding unnecessary steps to exploits (I'm pretty sure the MissingNo trick I'm familiar with is twice as long as necessary) and creating ones out of whole cloth (like the myth that you could find Mew by using Strength on the truck behind the SS Ann. Even though I don't play a ton of Pokemon anymore, it holds a really special place in my heart as one of the first games that made me realize that video games could be something more than just "complete this stage" or "get the high score." The sense of wonder I felt in the first few minutes of Pokemon Blue as I leveled up my little Bulbasaur is still something that keeps me going in this hobby.

I will say that the fantastical stuff in Thousand Autumns falls flatter than it does in The Bone Clocks, mainly because it feels more out of place in the former, whereas it's pretty central to the plot of the latter. To put it another way, I can see Thousand Autumns being improved by the removal of that stuff (and Cloud Atlas working without literal reincarnation) but I don't think removing the fantasy elements in The Bone Clocks would have improved the book. Although, as I mentioned before, I think it would have helped had he not spelled out so clearly what was going on. Also, feelthedarkness, that was my reading of Thousand Autumns too. However, The Bone Clocks makes is clear that Mitchell's intention (at least now, maybe not in 2010) was much more literal.

Hmm, I guess it's just a difference in taste then. I quite enjoy fantastical stories and think Mitchell does a good job of weaving fantasy and reality. In fact, I'd argue that the main theme of his books, at least the ones I've read, is that the seemingly overblown fantastical elements do not diminish the importance of the everyday. To take The Bone Clocks as an example Likewise, there's a reason that Thousand Autumns ends on Jacob, not Enomoto and that Cloud Atlas ends on Ewing, not Zackry. The bad and the good, the important and the petty, the fantastical and the mundane: they all exist together, and given that each person is limited to their own perspective, it's the lived experience of events that matters, regardless of the events going on around them.

Yeah, I found the analogy quite apt as well. It's something that's been rattling around my mind for a while. And, like Nick, I'm having to re-evaluate my sentiments from 8(?) years ago when that whole Jack Thompson thing was happening.

No, Danielle, don't! That way lies madness!

Just a warning, teg: the Thumbs have never sounded so old as they do when talking about Pokemon. It's pretty funny.

Double post because I just listened to the cast and I had some things to add. The stuff with Jacoby and Bobby is interesting in light of Audrey's scene in the department store earlier. Jacoby seems to be saying that Laura exploited people's weaknesses in order to manipulate them and that's exactly what Audrey does to the store manager. That parallel is also interesting given the implied relationship between Audrey and Laura that you guys discussed last episode. Continuing on Audrey for a bit, for some reason I assumed that she was the one who turned on the music at the end. The combination of her seeing her father and Catherine in the previous scene, her screwing up the Norwegian deal earlier in the season and her crying at the end made it seem like she turned the music on specifically to ruin her dad's deal. Finally, did anybody else notice that, in the scene with Maddie finding Laura's secret shoebox, Sarah is calling for Leland? I thought that was super creepy.

The best shot in this episode is Andy eating Cooper's donut. Are Pete and Catherine supposed to be married? If so, I completely missed that earlier.

Whoa, I hadn't realized that Asmodee acquired Days of Wonder too. That certainly is a lot of concentration. I guess they're like the European Hasbro now?

More like the moon chose to come to us. Or a mask chose to force the moon to come to us.

I know this is a joke, but not only does Unity take place in a different country than Ass2, it's also nearly 300 years later. The time difference between the two games is almost the same as the difference between Ass1 and Ass2. Now, Ass3 is almost contemporaneous with Unity, so that's a reasonable complaint.

Having finished the book, I understand your complaints. I definitely think the book lacks the sublety of something like Cloud Atlas or Thousand Autumns. That said, I think it's a fantastic book and I really recommend it to anyone, although if supernatural stuff isn't your bag you should probably stay away.

I'm pretty sure TF2 went up to at least 8v8 without server modifications.

I would definitely play some L4D versus at some point. Like Problem Machine, I'd also need notice for reinstallation.

Lucy and Andy are the best. I love them.

I haven't dug into Argobot's complaints yet, but so far, I am loving The Bone Clocks. Mitchell has such a fantastic knack for nailing a character's voice. I'm in Hugo's section right now and he and Holly feel completely different from each other, yet equally engaging. So far the supernatural stuff is pleasantly intriguing too.

I just discovered that there's a scholarly journal dedicated to games. It's called Games and Culture. Unfortunately, like most scholarly journals, I'm not sure if it's accessible outside of a university library system, which is too bad because it seems really interesting.

And yet no women who aren't a Size 1. Katana Robot looks cool though.

The thing that appeals to the most about that trailer is the emphasis on verticality. TF2 allowed for a fair bit of vertical movement, but this seems to emphasize that a lot more, what with grappling hooks and characters who can fly and stuff.

That's what I figured. Still, I'd be interested to know where he and his brother are from specifically. And what they're doing out west (running drugs, I guess.). I know that these questions don't really have answers, I just think it was a weird character trait to give somebody and it hints at a lot more. Basically, I want a Twin Peaks spin-off about these dudes.

Speaking of the Bookhouse Boys: I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Bernard's hilarious accent and huge overacting. It was amazing. I wonder where that character is supposed to be from.