ariskany_evan

I looooooove the-toast.net. Mallory Ortberg is one of my favorite writers: http://the-toast.net/2014/05/20/time-ive-ever-connecticut/ (her misandry reads a bit harsh at times, but articles like this (http://the-toast.net/2013/09/24/lullabies-misandrists/) make me laugh uncontrollably)

There was something about coming to an obstacle that was tall enough that can't be jumped over, but short enough that I can easily imagine climbing over (if the game allowed for that kind of input verbiage) that felt so inelegant. The solution was equally inelegant: Prior to that I had just been wandering around, exploring the space, marveling at the twists and turns and surprises. It's a beautiful game to experience in first person, but as soon as that tool was chunked onto my screen, the immersion crumbled. The acquisition of a fixed object on my screen in a world that is all about disorientation seemed antithetical to what I wanted out of the game. I didn't want to master the space, which is where it seemed I was being pushed. And again, totally happy and positive on this game. It just feinted in a way that told me the rest of my time wouldn't equal up to the joy of the first hour and half.

I was worried going in that it would be a Jodorowsky love fest, and it certainly starts that way with all the talking heads whispering their accolades about meeting him at a party, etc. But as the film goes on, I noticed that the filmmakers weren't editing him entirely positively. It felt like a true capture of a man and his project. The more we find out about the project, the more impossible it sounds. So there was something in me that cheered at the fact that it didn't get made. It revealed an ugly part of myself that quietly believes that we're not capable of affecting the kind of massive-scale positive change through art that Jodorowsky prescribes. I'm also the kind of guy whose wife calls stifling because I ask questions about when she thinks she'll have time to make a pie crust when we already have a busy evening planned. So as the movie unfolds his growing ambitions, I'm the guy going "You're crazy. There's no way you can pull this off and stay true to your vision." So I left the theater with an ugly feeling of self-satisfaction. But then again, someone more optimistic than me could leave the movie feeling bummed that it didn't get made. Awed by Jodorowsky's ambitions. The filmmakers did a great job of presenting as much of a neutral palate as they could (while still telling a story). The music is fantastic. Spacey krautrock makes everything amazing.

They've been tweeting recently to that effect. Steam will be available at 10am pacific and "later that day" on PS4. My hope is that the PS4 is out by the time I get home from work, so I can start the download before I go out on the town for some birthday libations (whiskey, then ramen (then Transistor)). The joy of being on the west coast means that there's at least some hope it'll be out tonight before bedtime.

I just watched it, too! It had a scattered plot, I didn't like any of the characters save the snowman, and the world felt limited and unimaginative. It felt like a half-baked movie to me. The music lacked a stylistic cohesion, but I knew coming in that there's not much of a chance of a modern Disney movie having music I'll enjoy. I think I had set my expectations too high, having heard people proclaiming its greatness.

Quitting Antichamber. Gave it a solid hour and a half. Loved what I played! The exploration and level design was super fun. It was super good. The sound design was so nice. I loved being in the world. Just got to a point where every room I returned to felt like a dead end, so I'm happy to have stopped while I was still feeling good about it.

Hahahaha. I used to work interlibrary loan at a small liberal arts college, so I've been on the receiving end of some of those emails.

Was driving to yoga last week and saw a group of about 20 dudes running down the sidewalk on Sunset Blvd hauling heavy-looking tires and wearing crossfit shirts (there's a studio about 2 blocks away from where I saw them). Some had looped around a bus stop and were making their way back. Kind of terrifying! So that said, I'll stick with my yoga practice for now, though I need to start getting more aerobic stuff going on as my metabolism is finally giving out (and I don't feel like making changes to my eating/drinking habits just yet).

This has been my favorite as of late: U Talkin' U2 To Me? Scott (Aukerman) and (Adam) Scott talk all things U2! Recommended if you like those two people and think they're pretty hilarious. Liking U2 is not a necessity, and in fact can be more funny if you don't. They don't talk much about U2, in fact. It's so gleeful and energetic. Start with episode 1, as the series really tells a story, and they expect the podcast to have an end (hopefully for their sake) pretty soon.

Interesting that that's the case. Being as terrible/casual as I am at the game, Pilot Hunter plays like "Attrition Without XP" for me: I've only gotten pilot kills over 4 in a match once or twice in my time with the game. Cool that at a high-level of play it brings out a different feel!

Yeah! $3 is great, though the deal is now over... I've played it for about 30 minutes and am enjoying it as an interactive art space. Have just started coming upon things that resemble more standard first-person video game puzzles, though. YUCK!

Of course I'm not speaking with any certainty. Just thought it was a coincidence that people were noting here this morning about not being able to find matches anecdotally, then Respawn goes ahead and makes the changes to the match type selection screen. Sorry for my hyperbole!

Sony rolling out some sort of immediate Playstation Now public beta.

http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/16/5723996/titanfall-pc-ctf-pilot-hunter-removed-private-match-variety I guess this is another sign that the PC player-base is too small to support so many modes. Great that they're analyzing the data and making bold changes, though I assume this is going to anger whatever subset of players had a love for CTF. Pilot Hunter is just Attrition with a different scoring system, right? I personally tend to go for the campaign first as I haven't been able to finish up the militia side, then (when that usually fails) go straight to variety pack, so I'm not smarting from the change.

Yeah, I've tried a few times to play on a Saturday morning and definitely takes a good 10 minutes to find a game. (pc) Got two rounds in last night with two of the new Expedition maps. Swampthing and VR training. Both are fun! Swamp has great verticality, and wall-running between trees is great. There's a lot of natural high-ground, so there's plenty of opportunity to pick off titans or jump down for some rodeos. Pilots feel nicely camouflaged (when they're not out in the open). The VR training map on the other hand is so clean, pristine, and well lit (my framerate skyrocketed up when I first fell in) that there's not a lot of places for pilots to hide. They didn't have to design for "believability" so there's tons of wall-running corridors. I almost never get in my titan, so I can't speak for how they feel in-titan. I'm only on gen 1, lv 34 and of course was placed against a team with a few gen 10s.... Let's just say that my goal in these games is to die as little as possible ala Dota 2 rather than trying to constantly get kills... Certainly has reminded me to just have fun exploring the maps and not just sprint to the red dots on my map at all times. I was secretly hoping that the expedition pack would update the main title background. Maybe it's that it's rendering it in realtime (my settings are on low since it's been so hot in LA), but it always looks like badly compressed video. Something about their font choice, too, just rubs me the wrong way.

Quitting Monaco! Came as part of a bundle; I don't think I would have bought the game otherwise. Curious nonetheless. I enjoyed some of the art (mission briefing screens), but it mostly didn't appeal to me. Characters had an abstract design that didn't communicate clearly. I had trouble parsing who were civilians, who had weapons, who would just run around and alert people. I also had trouble figuring out when I was carrying an item, how it worked, etc. I just ran through the early levels, and the fact that between levels/floors in a stage the guards don't carry over meant it didn't feel like there was much reason to not cause a bunch of chaos if you had a clear path. I also wasn't necessarily in the mood for stealth gameplay, so I wasn't as receptive to the game as I could otherwise be.

I love having a month or two between episodes. Makes the "previously on" sections useful. I played two episodes back-to-back within a few days in the first season, and I found the summation of something I just witnessed the day before to perform a strange "reduction" of the expansive space of each episode. I like having a bit of time to live in the experience of each episode, let it fade from my immediate memory, then have it jogged through the highlight reel. (I also play each episode over a week or two, usually in 20-30 minute chunks when my wife and I can find the time).

What do you with 9-5 desk jobs do when/if you have downtime? I struggle with feeling guilty and nervous about my time use when I have nothing pressing to work on. (And this might just be me), but I also find that prolonged periods of downtime in a day makes me feel detached and less capable of communicating when work/phone calls do pop up. Any tips?

Going to see Pharmakon tomorrow night! http://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/pharmakon-abandon (This review blew my mind how fun it is. (Still doesn't make me want to read more Derrida, though.)) Skipping yoga to go, so I'm thinking of it like a reverse yoga; ritualistic negative cleansing. Should be fun!

Excellent! Thanks for the heads-up! Getting near the end of 100000000000, so it's nice to know I have some pretty puzzling to move onto next.

Will be preordering the PS4 version tonight! Very curious to see how (if at all) Greg's love of Dota 2 manifests itself.

Congrats!!!! Wife and I scrambled into starting the second episode last night when we saw the third was releasing yesterday. Some of the shots and framing so far have been spectacular. Psyched to see your work!

It's a beautiful barn-like structure in upstate New York, outside of Cooperstown, a town only notable for the fact that it has the Baseball Hall of Fame. They still seem like a pretty small operation, and they do everything in-house. Thanks to the Duuvel ownership they have access to a nice bottling line and distribution, hence why I seem to find them everywhere these days. The one notable thing from the tour compared to my other tours was that they do open fermentation for a few days (or weeks?) when it's fresh out of the boiling kettle thing. That allows yeasty foam to build up, which they skim off the top and reinsert during the bottling process, which is I think what is the source of their bottle conditioning... My beer cooking science is pretty rough, though, so I may have mixed that up. Allagash is still my favorite. Tiny operation in Portland, Maine. Tons of experimenting with recipes and aging in different kinds of barrels. Which meant that the tasting at the end of the tour had all sorts of stuff you can't find for sale. The Ommegang tasting was just of the stuff you can get regularly and didn't even include their new Game of Thrones brew. Not that I'm complaining. Trying all their beers at once side-by-side is still interesting!

Good luck!! All the tours I've done at breweries (Ommegang, Allagash, Saranac, next weekend The Bruery) people seem pretty happy! Though it does seem like a physically demanding job depending on what you'd be doing. I've got too much of an addictive personality/weak constitution to work at a place like that.

Enjoying the new Gobby record! It's beautifully textured, deconstructed dance music. Great for a late-night swamp party. http://gobbymusic.bandcamp.com/album/wakng-thrst-for-seeping-banhee (it's on spotify too) Also this review is terrible! http://www.residentadvisor.net/review-view.aspx?id=14691 I want to quote the entire review. It's so bad! "It sounds like Gobby took whole songs and sent them through a shredder, and while that kind of reckless method can be fun, it could just as easily wear on your nerves." In summation: Depending on who you are and what type of person you are (I certainly did my best to make sure you were entirely confused as to what kind of person I, the reviewer, am!), you might like this album or you might not. 3/5