ariskany_evan
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Posts posted by ariskany_evan
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Downloading remotely on PS4, so it'll be ready to go for this evening! Making one of my favorite meals tonight, then playing the heck out of it with my spouse. V excited.
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Quitting Mushroom 11. Got it with the Humble Monthly pack at some point. RPS has a nice write up of the game, but it's not for me. Indirect control causes me true anxiety! Looks like it has good bones, though.
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Watched It Felt Like Love on Mubi two nights ago. A super potent coming-of-age story set in Coney Island area of Brooklyn. Captures a liminal moment really well. Doesn't deal in the aftermath, thankfully, which leaves it open to the feelings they're trying to convey. You finish the film feeling like she can move in so many directions; it could have been a summer for tough growth, but it also may have been the beginning of a downward descent.
I'm pretty sure Mubi's selection is region-specific, so if you're in the US I highly recommend! -
It feels silly to play a game like this for achievements/trophies, but there's one for completing the game without saying anything, and I'm really curious what that does to the relationships and fiction of the game.
I loved not responding. 50% of the time options popped up that I had no interest in saying, and the conversation continued just as I had hoped.
Thematically-speaking it works for me to not have Alex have much to say. I would be pretty shut down still if it was only a year after I experienced a loved one die like that.
And Jonas was kind of a dummy, and I didn't like talking to him. That time he asked if I thought he was a dummy? *crickets* It was perfect.
The interruption system worked so well! Sometimes I had no interest in what someone was saying and an item would show up to "look at/interact with", so I would interrupt. I found that the script wasn't always set to "keep going" after an interruption. Ren, for instance, would continue on, but Jonas a few times never went back to what he was saying. It felt like an extension of their personalities and not just a cool video game trick.
It was very linear, but I wasn't looking to play an branching DECISIONS-based game. The Telltale games I've played felt heavy-handed in this way, so I'm happy they stayed away in Oxenfree. Loved it.
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Finished! Loved the book up until
Lotto's play writing career took off. Purely personally, I hate experiencing art about wild success in art. Really gets me mad.
The perspective in the first half feels like a portrayal of Lotto, infected by Lotto. I hate him, but that feels like I made the decision. Lotto's section forgets and moves beyond bad moments as fast as Lotto could suppress them. There's a really nice feeling of accumulation by the time he dies. Hit that mortality button for me real strong.
I loved how before Lotto's success the book would shift perspectives halfway through paragraphs. It had a fun, wild feel. I figure she shifted away from that as Lotto and Mathilde became more isolated as they aged, it felt purposeful, but I missed it.
So, loved, then liked. Happy to have read it.
Question about the bracketed text:
[suspend them there, in the mind’s eye: skinny, young, coming through dark toward warmth, flying over the cold sand and stone. We will return to them. For now, he’s the one we can’t look away from. He is the shining one.]From the second chapter of Fates.I never felt such a strong presence past this moment from the bracketed text. I have in my head that it's a Greek Chrous? My Greek lit knowledge is not good, so I'm curious if anyone has any theories on its presence. And why it seems to dwindle in appearance and purpose as the book goes along...Also my alma mater is all over this book! They should have had better fact checking regarding the campus and Poughkeepsie, but otherwise I was happy to fill in the details with my own place-memory. -
I'm surprised sometimes at the quality of cards I see at Level 20 in the ladder. One person had ALL gold cards and a gold hero. I'm guessing they stopped playing for a few months so they got bumped down? Or maybe just started/quit enough games to be bumped way down the ladder so they could steamroll a bunch of games to get their dailys done?
Not that I should judge, as I occasionally throw a game if I'm about to get a win streak. I've found that if I get up to level 18 I tend to lose 6 games in a row.
I'm getting to the point where I have a good handle on basic class cards, so I can calculate when to throw down minions, when to hold back, that sort of stuff. It's a good deal of fun. It is surprising to me that I've solidly held my ground at levels 19 & 20 for the past few months. Figured I could start hanging with a few levels down after putting in this much time, but I still feel evenly matched at these levels. Makes me wonder what kind of commitment it takes to move further down the ladder. (Granted I haven't put down any money, so I'm sure I'm following the typical FtP curve).
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I wasn't really sure I'd end up liking this album as a first time K Lamar listener but out of everything I've heard of late this is the album I keep going back to.
Yes! It's a great album. The live instrumentation throughout threw me a bit at first, but it didn't take long for that to wear off. I keep on coming back to the combo of "u" and "Alright". (record label is good at taking down youtubes of this stuff so apologies for no linking).
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My GF got in as well, but she's experiencing tremendous lag. This is apparently a common problem in this game. I occasionally glitch out, but nothing detrimental. Anyone else experience this?
Haven't played a TON of online matches, but the 10 or so I've completed have been fine lag-wise. Maybe a hitch here or there, but nothing note-worthy.
Been sticking to offline play mostly since the matches are shorter and it's building my dexterity with the characters. VERY happy that the daily challenges count AI matches towards their completion. My goal is to save up enough coin to get the four basic types, then get into online play more. Found myself a bit unmoored moment-to-moment decision-making-wise when I played online, and practicing is really showing me the strengths of the map types and AI camps. I do wish they had a slightly tougher AI. I imagine that'll come post-launch.
I love the free-to-play hooks. Same with Hearthstone. Gives me a wonderful focus for each day. If this was a normal game, I'd play it for a bit, then drop it because I "got it". Now I have a reason to play regularly, which also means that I'll become more skilled. It's a win-win!
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I'm enjoying it thoroughly. Got to the level where the daily challenge unlocks. Love that I gain something even in losing! I'm:
ariskanyevan#1504
I'll be adding you all tonight.
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Downloading HOTS now. I signed up for the beta ages ago, and was never notified that I got in. Happened to click on the tab in Battle.net today and saw that I could install. Psyched to give it a whirl!! Always really wanted to like playing DOTA2, but it never jived with my personality (also I have no real-life friends who play it, which makes the learning curve less enticing to surmount).
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Suspend feature had been amazing! I feel like it was made with Ubisoft open-world games in mind. By the time my tv is on, Farcry4 is booted up and ready to go. I can pick one of the million things to do, go do it, then pause and suspend the system and feel satisfied. There's no obligation to play more because I didn't have to sit through the 2 minute system start-up, then game start-up. My day can be peppered with mini-accomplishments now!!
It also feels so much more focused. No more decision-making when the system boots up. I'm not presented with my backlog. I'm not tempted by Destiny. It feels great.
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Uh what how is that even a thing and how did no one else want to pick it up over fucking Yahoo.
It's a super expensive show to make! And from the press around this new season, they've thrown even more money than NBC gave them. It's all part of Yahoo!'s attempt to get in on that Netflix/Amazon/Hulu/HBOGo/Sling/Sony/etc streaming channel game.
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They took an ensemble show and literally shot scenes where the actors were performing in front of green screens individually so their performances could be edited together into scenes. Dumb idea. It's kind of a miracle the season didn't turn out way worse than it did. Still, that's why you have to pay famous actors well for TV shows, so they can justify taking time out of their schedule to actually perform with each other.
I can only imagine scheduling a show like that is an absolute nightmare. Not so much about how much they could pay them, but moreso whether there's enough time in the day to make it happen with everyone's other shows/movies/contractual obligations.
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Thanks for posting that. I saw the article this morning re: only xbox360 and xbone maps for free. Happy to see that PC is on the list now, too! Time to dip my feet back in, especially since for the next week we'll probably see a much higher number of players.
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Has anyone mentioned Broad City yet? Best show on TV by far, it's great, hands down, I will fight anybody who disagrees with me, I don't care how into debt I go with plane tickets.
I did!!
"Speaking of comedy, BROAD CITYyyyyyyyyyy. They are my favorite and I can watch their show endlessly. Just bought a chromecast so I don't have to keep awkwardly plugging my computer into the television to keep up with the current season. BROOOOADDDDD CITTYYYYY"
(it's buried a few pages back)
With everyone so ambivalent about Unbreakable Kimmy, please go watch this show. New eps are on comedycentral.com (if you're like me and happen to have your parent's cable subscription login info), but alla season 1 is on hulu.
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Tina Fey is producing a new show on Netflix called Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. It's tone is really close to 30 Rock, and it's just about as funny.
Then
it's revealed that Jane Krakowski's character is a Native American trying to pass as white. Ugh. As you might imagine, it's not handled with a particular amount of nuance or grace. There's literally a "use every part of the buffalo" joke.
Still really funny show, but that unfortunate choice bums me out.
Watched the pilot over the weekend and felt great ambivalence. Some really funny moments, but everything was way too clearly telegraphed. The editing felt breakneck, like they were running like crazy to set up the world/premise. Shouldn't the joy of being on Netflix mean that they can make episodes of varying lengths? Hopeful things will settle down for future episodes. Bummer re: your spoiler. Curious to see it for myself.
Finished up Parks and Rec last night. Such a bummer of a season. Felt like fan fiction. The show became way too much about the characters self-congratulating each other. It was so much more fun in the earlier seasons when everyone was fallible! Leslie used to tread the line between genius do-gooder and crazy, zany. Ah well. Super sad about the writer/exec producer of the show passing, Harris Whittles. Loved that guy's podcast appearances and saw him do stand-up once.
Kroll Show and Broad City are still fantastic this season. Look forward to those two every single week.
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The main benefit to two controllers is when one dies you can switch to the other and keep playing. The included charge cable is way too short, so unless you've got a longer one, the only way to play while it charges is to sit right beside your console.
My girlfriend doesn't really game so I don't need a second controller for that, though it'd be nice to have so if a friend comes over we can both play.
This is my situation verbatim. Second controller is hidden away plugged into the ps4 waiting for the first controller to die. I've recently made local friends, though! That second controller might actually come in handy!
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I loved the Microphones as a teen. Fell out of love once he switched the project over to Mount Eerie. Just didn't follow it. 10 years later and I'm madly in love with his music again and now have 5 albums to catch up on.
It's all in the vein of single-person recording-studio-project folk/drone/noise stuff. Really simple beautiful melodies and lyrics; mostly existential, very naturalistic take on things. My favorite track from the new album, Sauna, relates a solitary walk into town and the stories we sometimes tell ourselves:
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Here's my enemy hunter hitting themself in the face with their own Deathwing. Enjoy!
Oh man, I will never concede a game ever again.
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What does "thoroughly empty" mean in this context? They aren't exactly subtle in their politics I guess, but it's all over their tracks.
From a review that I enjoyed: http://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/run-the-jewels-run-the-jewels-2
"... let’s stop to consider that introductory phrase just a little bit more. “I’m finna bang this bitch the fuck out” is the studio-ad-lib-as-locker-room pep talk, a homosocial ritual wherein power is consolidated through denigration of the feminine. It’s an honest presentation of the ways men revel in their physical and social privileges when there aren’t any women around, and as such, it sets the tone not for righteous, radical anger, but for the reinforcement of the status quo."
"Ultimately, my frustration is less with the presence of such violently-gendered phrasing than with its prevalence and the binary system such phrases represent."
"For all the ways that it rightly articulates social justice concerns, RTJ2 refuses to utilize any rhetoric but that of masculinist invective, and the world has enough angry men in it already."
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I just came back from a screening of Inherant Vice.
It was OK. To get the good stuff out of the way: It looked like it was trying to re-create the 70's vibe, and it did it very well, I think. I say I think because I wasn't actually there in the 70's, or live in america, but it felt like authentic. I particularly liked the screen effects to make it look like it was shot on a reel. Also the music was good. Good choice Mr. music man, although no Greatful Dead? In a movie about hippies in the 70's? The fuck.
Now onto what I didn't like. For a start, everyone mumbled. It might have been because I've been watching a lot of anime, so have just gotten used to subtitles, or that I was tired so wasn't concentrating, but I missed out like 30% of the dialouge due to people mumbling, which wouldn't be so bad, apart from it's such a dialouge heavy film, the 30% of the dialouge that was mumbled meant I then didn't understand about 60% of the dialouge, because the mumbled stuff seemed to somehow be important to the rest of the conversation. Part of me thought that maybe this was the point, that it wasn't about the dialouge but about what's going on in the shot. Certainly all the comical gags were all visual, bar the pancakes bit. But no, I don't think so. I just think some of the performances were bad, because I could understand some people perfectly.
Then the plot. Maybe not being able to hear all the lines meant that the plot was less obvious, but it seemed to meander about with little care or attention. Plot lines start seemingly randomly, and are forgotten about without any real closure. they seem to tie into other plot lines, but in such a way that it seems more accidental than anything. When things are resolved, they are resolved so quickly at the end, but not at a pace, or connected, just a bunch of scenes they tacked on the end to make sure that there's some closure to the larger plot points. The film had no peaks, it had no climax, it just had a flatline of emotionless 'events'. The end of the movie also made little sense the more I think about it:
Why did Doc save Owen Wilson? He said himself that he didn't get involved in family affairs, so why change things now? It felt so out of charachter, especially given that he had the option to just take the money and run, which would have been the more appropriate choice.
My friend said that 'that was the point, that it meandered' when I mentioned my thoughts after the film, which is a. ) a fucking rubbish argument, and b. ) if that was their intention, then don't take nearly 2 hours to prove that point
Seriously, 2 hours is a long time to devote to a movie, and when that movie doesn't engage you, it just made me space out, which is ironic given that the film is all about drugs. (I think that's the right use of the word, I'm sure Ben will pick me up on it.) The ending scene in particular, was nothing. I can't even remember what the last line of the film is, or what it was about, or even where they fucking were. The film could have easily been a good 30 mins shorter, and would have probably been better for it.
I could go on about the finer points of the plot that made little sense or were forgotten about just as quickly as they were raised, but I'll sustain from that because it'll probably bore everyone.
Maybe I should have read the book or at least watched the trailer before going in. It took me half the fucking film to realise what his job actually was.
My wife and I were transfixed by Inherent Vice. We came out of it in a daze. Found a local vegan food chain, split a beer and stared at each other for a while before we began to carefully unpack it.
I loved the structure of it. No Hollywood conflict! Just a maze-like narrative that disappears behind you. It captured the kind of immanence that being stoned brings on. I couldn't quite follow it, but it felt like the main character couldn't either, so I didn't feel alone.
Grateful Dead probably would have cost too much to license, and I think of it as a hippie apocalypse movie. The Grateful Dead culturally represents a desire to perpetuate the hippie culture at their apex, whereas this movie finds hippies as paranoid, capitalistic, and junkies. The frayed ends of the cultural explosion.
I do agree that the pacing slows to molasses towards the end. I started reading the book and got to about the same point and found myself putting it down in shorter bursts, so I think it's just a problem with the story as a whole.
Sorry you didn't like, but I just wanted to give it a thumbs up!
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I'm hearing delightful things about Broad City. I should probably watch it.
They sometimes veer close to doing that style of uncomfortable comedy, but it's balanced out by a vitality and sheer joy that just warms my heart and tickles me endlessly.
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Interesting, I also just watched Wet Hot American Summer and really enjoyed it. I mean, it was weird as heck and really felt more like a sketches layered on top each other, but it did it's weirdness really well and I had several laugh out loud moments.
I think the comedy landscape has changed dramatically since WHAS came out, or even in the subsequent years in which it became a cult hit. It blew me away 12 years ago. Now, yeah, it's just a series of short- and long-form sketch, with some great improv mixed in. Totally solid, but one-upped by everything going on right now. Everything is so blended form-wise now, though, that I think there's something great about how clunky it is. It's nicely raw.
Speaking of comedy, BROAD CITYyyyyyyyyyy. They are my favorite and I can watch their show endlessly. Just bought a chromecast so I don't have to keep awkwardly plugging my computer into the television to keep up with the current season. BROOOOADDDDD CITTYYYYY
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One thing about D3 is that you need to set it to the maximum difficulty possible almost immediately or you'll indeed be bored out of your skull by bulldozing everything.
That's of course not talking about aesthetics etc.
It's those darn developers gating off the harder difficulties. Played it as hard as I could, but my character felt consistently over-leveled.
The Idle Book Club 11: Fates and Furies
in Idle Book Club Episodes
Posted
Yes! The disagreement warmed my heart. The whole episode was wonderful.
On Chris's problem with the believability of Lotto not visiting his mother:
I do this with my family. Both my dad and my sister have had serious health issues pop up in the past couple of years and in both instances I was able to fully dissociate from the situation. Whenever someone asked, "how's your sister doing?", my face flushed and I realized I haven't checked in in months. It's my natural coping mechanism; internally obliterate the complicated familial relationships entirely.
I feel like Groff gave enough detail alluding to Lotto's complicated feelings towards his mother and the beach house that became her home, that it satisfied the fact that he never went to visit. Mathilde's complicated excuses didn't require much backing, they just needed to be present to allow Lotto to continue in his habit.