Mawd

Saying this as someone who kind of enjoyed Attack of The Clones when it came out (to be fair I was celebrating my 9th birthday at the time). I feel safe in the assumption that whatever they do with this movie, it can't be worse than AotC. As a more modern watermark I think these movies even when average will be better than Transformers. I'm not too big on the whole reminiscing thing because I'm not a part of that demographic who grew up with it in the 70s and absorbed all that cultural myth stuff about how awesome it was (even though I was the hugest SW nerd for a while and my Dad made sure I saw all the Lucas greats and did a lot to build them up with me). Seeing some of the old stuff come back is cool but If The Falcon just crashed into a planet and became completely unsalvageable I would be fine with that. Of course nothing bad will actually happen to it because it's fan bulletproof. I think that's actually going to be a main suspense killer. Basically any time you see a beloved call back character in danger you can rest assured that they won't really die unless the music track changes from exciting to mournful.

Concerning the meta-discussion: There's a difference from high school horseshit and bullying. I'll trust that N1njaSquirrel can tell that it's being crossed and if someone's being broken by the behaviour. Personally after knowing a lot of isolated people going through shit in their teens I would say that calling some sort of hotline would be a great help for him as a way of equipping himself to directly deal with the problem. Other than that I'd say that you should just help to be part of a safe space for the kid. Sometimes people don't need to say everything on their mind to feel better they just need good healthy interactions with people. I think Miffy's idea would also be great in that case.

Well I live in New Zealand fyi. I've just moved to a new place so my Wellington Central Library card has become costly to use since I would spend about $8 to bus into the city. I've thought about signing up to the local library but the bus timetable isn't very sympathetic as it comes only every hour during most times I can go. I would walk but it's six Kay over Coastal roads with no sidewalk and cars travelling at 70km. So basically until someone has a reason to drive there or I have a bunch of time &emergy to spend I won't be signing up and getting things out. Libraries are great but it's a bit of a hassle this time around.

I finally read The Colour of Magic, my second DW book after Morte. It's not as striking as Morte but it's been pretty wonderful so far. After that I think I'll go back to reading warhammer and warcraft books until I find something serious again. I have a whole list of cool contemp fiction writers I want to look at but not moolah to buy them with. So I'll just sit here with my at times trashy sci-fantasy collection.

My femshep was a mostly good centred paragon who dated Carth Onasi Kaiden Alenko for most of ME1. He was a boring character but I've always felt pity for how much of a dickbag Revan I was to him. So much that in a sea of meh he was my fallback. That and paragon femshep's french vanilla mixed well with his regular vanilla. By the time ME2 rolled around I had been forcibly put back together & had been reborn into the world a shattered version of what I once was. As a harsh and bitter renegade my outlook quickly infected my work thereby destroying all of Kaiden's love and trust in me. That was fine. The only solace for my harsh fucked up world was Garrus and presuming that I eventually reinstall with my old save file; I will romance the shit out of that wonderful man. In case you can't tell I tend to RP my characters. For DA:III my female Inquisitor isn't interested in anyone.

What I get out of it is that it's basically all team fight. That and I haven't found a hero in any LMG that plays as well as Brightwing. As a healer/support at least.

My computer screen finally died. It's thankfully still under warranty but until the new screen ships in 2-10 days I'm using an eye destroyingly fuzzy 32" tv screen. So hey after that discussion about needing Tv screens it looks like I've finally found a use for one! Awesome!

Yeah they were awesome plants : ( The landlords weren't super mean or anything they gave us a whole bunch of greek import olives as a parting gift and aside for the usual landlord weirdness things weren't sour before (they asked for the carpet to be shampooed and complained of a weird smell that already existed when the house was closed up with no air) But one of the wives from the greek family decided to pinch one of our more awesome ferns, a desert shrub, and our poinsettia. The plants were pretty much our pets before our recently arrived kitten so everyone was invested in them. Suuper bummer.

Well if you already have the view that most other people are warped sheeple then magic bullet/hypodermic needle theory plays quite well I suspect.

Our old landlords have stolen a bunch of plants we had left at our old place to pick up later. It's a weird thing to feel upset over but I mean really, helping yourselves to our garden and saying "too bad" when we ask for our plants back?

My next few weeks are busy between two tests and two other hobbies that other people have already invested time into. But I will try to make a thing on the side anyway. I have my sights on The Ship Economy; where players have to balance the ship and crew's resources as they try to make a delivery on time. I'm planning to use Game Maker Studio or Twine depending on how wisely I budget my time.

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.

I'm pretty happy with where I am right now except for where I am in my competitive games sphere. I feel like I and my team are in a rut that after about 6 months of playing won't be escaped from. I took over a team that's existed for about 11 years from a guy who ran it for a decade. At the time of transition it was being played as a semi casual competitive team after several key players left and the team was formerly one of the most dangerous teams in Australian competitions. I think I'm finally seeing the results of doggedly choosing to continue a casual competitive angle in an environment where there aren't many new recruits and people are burning out and seeking to step off from our team into teams that may not be of a much higher rank but at least have a higher win rate. It feels like most people in the team just aren't trying too hard any more. Even if or when there are communication failures that cause us to make dumb mistakes and throw. Adding to that would be the low personal skill of most team members relative to other teams and the lack of participation (of late) of our higher skilled players I'm starting to feel really burned out with a game I've come to love. I've also got a problem that because I have to multi-task and make more calls than other players I play less well and have probably become a less valuable player to other teams than a player who largely just focuses on winning engagements. I'm feeling burned out and I'd like to go back to being a competitive player who doesn't have the responsibilities of team play on their shoulders all the time. But I'm loathe to disband my team and I'm not confident that I can find a replacement captain. Adding to that is the insight that even if I did have the gall to try to join another team right after leaving a captaincy and probably disbanding a team I'm both not good enough and likely seen to be lower skilled than I am that there wouldn't be a new home for me either way. I still love the niche game I play but I can't really stand the skill disparity and different dynamic that I find in public games and I don't think that I or my team (as a whole, some players would definitely still go on to succeed) have much of a future in the competitive scene any more because we've existed on a plateau for so long (of course due to my failings as a then newly minted comp. player turned captain possibly even moreso than other team members shortcomings). I've enjoyed the team I've been with for so long and I feel like I'll be letting down some of the friends who have stuck with the team as long as I have But I'm coming to terms with not having a future in the comp level of that game any more. Maybe I'll get into Nosgoth, CS:GO, or some kind of Lords Management game because I'm still a player who can be good and get better at those kinds of games but I think I'm just about done with my ~600 concurrent player competitive multiplayer game. Interestingly this kind of emotional quagmire is also making me less enthusiastic about becoming too attached to other niche multiplayer games (like possibly Nosgoth) because I'll probably become exposed to echoes of this situation a lot faster than more popular games with longer life-cycles. Urh I just feel so bummed out about this. I don't even want to speak about this with other players in the scene because we're in the middle of the competitive season and I don't want my headspace to affect my friends/teamates while we still have big games ahead of us.

I love voting. I don't like either of the two major parties and I don't like a lot of decisions made in local or nationwide government particularly the lack of transparency, public distraction, and the rushing through of unpopular bills (so standard stuff I guess?). But I absolutely hate that if you don't vote, then politicians and spin doctors will say that you're a part of this huge silent majority that implicitly supports them so much they don't even bother to vote for a party because the winners were destined to in because they're so great. Not everyone in my age group of young twenties hates the National Government or even has a problem with them (whether they're politically minded or not) But it always astounds me the amount of friends I have that do feel strongly for or against the three time winning government who don't even bother to vote for them. I had this hipster "Fuck John Key" friend of mine who was galled about the nationwide spying and hated a lot of the other scandals that came out But he told me that he didn't vote because he hates the system of voting and democracy we have because its so corrupt (something along those lines). But it absolutely astounded me that he wouldn't chose the lesser of two evils and vote for the party he did agree with more when politics and media in NZ is designed to tire or distract people away from politics. It's so geared to making sure people don't vote because the incumbents know the people who do vote for them are strongly motivated to. So when people say "fuck politics its a shit show I'm so tired about hearing of it" and decide not to vote, they become part of the next media talking point about how voter turnout is so low because everyone is happy with their government. I don't think I've articulated myself well in this but I hope there's some kind of useful message buried within the irate channelling. In summary I'll just post this David Foster Wallace quote and say that is literally how politics is run these days at least in my country.

I haven't played a whole bunch of Cities yet but in regards to it being a baby game I'd recommend imposing your own challenges on the game similar to how Dwarf Fortress/Civ/CK players limit themselves in their builds. I liked the idea of creating believable cities by bringing in the problems of expanding small towns beyond the scope they were planned for. It just reminds me of places like Auckland, New Zealand which has a real traffic nightmare because it's gone from being a city that supports a few hundred thousand citizens to 1.3 million (out of a 4.4 m total) in about 2 decades or so.

I really enjoyed getting back into Dota Today with this episode. I found it interesting hearing about his team/player dynamics and you guys talking about things like team re-shuffles and the like. As a competitive player and captain in a suuper niche game I still get how playing comp in any game can work to turn you into a dickbag if you're not careful as you work to establish (or bemoan the lack of) some kind of team synergy in a public game. Maybe I didn't learn a whole bunch about Dota 2 this episode but it did get me questioning about where I want to be as a player of competitive games after my current season and that form of discussion was what I found super interesting. p.s after listening to the Blitz and Aui 2000 interviews back to back I might've muddled up episode details here but both were super fun to listen to.

I didn't realise how much I needed this thread until it appeared.

Great list. Btw for Hiroyuki Imaishi you didn't actually list Dead Leaves which might confuse people drawn to that image.

It's not like female athletes exist purely in imagination though. Sure game characters found in fighter games are larger than life but you could find a starting point in female athletes. I know it's the wrong sport but you coul look at how someone like shotput Olympian Valerie Adams has built her body and apply observations to female characters in other sports. I mean she's just one example but if I was thinking 'built fighter game character' I'd start there. Obviously you don't have to go for one archetype for sporty characters.

I was reminded of a friend of mine as today he made a post implying he was a transgender male. Now I'm just reminiscing about how much of an awesome team we were while working as ecology project partners. The only bummer is that he works at UC Santa Cruz so I doubt we'll get to hang for a few years still. Also it's a really nice day out. So I'm going to go outside and work on a new art thing I've finally been inspired to do. Plus my brain is finally co-operating with me to design the looming episode in my long delayed t-Rpg episode. After feeling hemmed in narratively I'm finally drawing the connections for the party to progress.

This discussion reminds me of the recent Jimquisition on .

They're both really good.

Listening to DG's Jenny Death stream on pitchfork.

Good news: Free fridge! Bad news: It comes at the end of April D: Other bad news: Wasps and bees seem to love the new computer room! I'm not someone typically scared of them even though I don't know if I'm allergic. But having one hover by your hands and face can be just a little stressful.