Kyir

All the daily challenges have been great lately. The last one I did gave one relic after each normal enemy encounter instead of giving you a card choice. I think I had something like 34 of them by the time I won, and some extremely amusing combinations. I've been making some progress in ascensions, but the dailies are definitely my favorite part of the game right now.

I really wish I had the same experience with Into the Breach. I'm not sure what about it failed to get its claws into me, since I generally like turn-based strategy type things, but after beating the game the first time I just lost all motivation to go back into it. Sea of Thieves seems rad though.

Somewhat related to the particular content of this episode: I feel like the lyrics to Andrew WK's song "Break the Curse" really captures the many axes of the Idle Thumbs podcast. Curses, tricks, and scams are fundamental elements at this point.

I think since possession of the wine bottle comes with immortality, the sommelier should also be forced to live forever. After thousands of years they might just beg you to drink the wine and free them from the hellish existence that their own genie wish has forced them into.

I wish there was some possibility of winnowing down the card pool after it's been unlocked. I feel like most of the cards for Silent have just polluted the card pool and reduced the change of getting stuff I actually enjoy playing (poisons, mostly.) Also, Ironclad is way easier to win with.

I can't help but hear Lore Lord Bean as "Warlord Bean," who I think has a very different backstory.

Backseating Nick is one of the great joys of life. Don't give up.

I beat Celeste (late to the game, apparently) and all but one of the B-Side levels. It seems like kind of a shame that a lot of the best platforming is hidden behind some secrets that can be a bit obtuse to find. Good music throughout, though a few of the remixes have been a bit iffy for me comparatively. The story's another one of those things about emotions I have to deal with in life, and it's really never been interesting for me to see fiction about it. 2018 has been a pretty good game year so far.

Your last spoiler will be answered for you in the near future (or at least my questions were all wrapped up nicely for me at the end.) Again, I can't disagree more about Black's storyline, but character preference is just one of those things. I spent another 7 hours today finding chests / doing extra bosses / challenge mode, and I stand by my 2018 GOTY statement.

I firmly disagree (as it seems clear I would from my initial post.) The bosses aren't wildly out of line with the platforming in my experience, though they are a bit harder. The last few bosses are probably noticeably harder, but they're the last bosses so I approve. People are going to disagree as much on writing as they do on comparative difficulty too obviously, but I found the characters to be extremely charming, the dialogue to be amusing, and the overall plot twisty enough to keep my attention. It's definitely better writing than anything else I've played in a long time, especially when Agent Black is concerned (who I would probably put as one of my top few favorite game characters of all time?) With how stale the characterization in most games I've played in the last few years has been, I would be shocked if anything that does it better comes out any time soon.

I bought Iconoclasts, sat down and played it for 13 hours, straight and now I'm left with the gnawing sensation that I already beat the best game that will come out in 2018. It's good stuff.

I've gotten fake robocalls that claim to be from the FBI and IRS before that are very clearly just PII scams. The "hey pick me up" calls are probably more related to this sort of thing: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2017/03/27/dont-say-yes-when-robocall-scam-rings/99709634/ With Chris getting called three times from the same number, it may be that some other robocall service (or related scam) is spoofing your phone number to call other people. I've gotten calls from other people that seemed to be suggesting that I had called them all the time, and that's the only explanation I can think of for that kind of thing.

Someone, somewhere, has committed a most heinous treachery.

I think I like wax house baby better than stay spicy. I hope it's here to stay.

Bad roommate story: So in my sophomore year of undergrad, I was in a dorm that was basically a converted Holiday Inn or similar middle of the road hotel. All of the rooms had individual bathrooms, but were otherwise fairly cramped with two people in each of them. My roommate didn't give any indication from the start that he was a particularly odd person, except maybe his possession of a really large amount of stuff that he never seemed to use (fancy shoes, several laptops, etc.) As the semester went on, he got home later and later, usually falling asleep at 2-3 AM with his TV on. I didn't say anything, mostly because I was fairly cognizant that I hadn't been the best roommate in my first year and was willing to cut him some slack. In addition to this TV habit, an odd smell started developing about a month into the first semester. I thought it was his trashcan at first, and asked him to empty it a few times (he complied.) When that didn't help, I assumed it was his fairly large pile of dirty laundry, and asked him to wash those (he eventually did.) The smell eventually got bad enough that other people on the floor complained, and we had to start keeping our door shut all the time. My brain was used to the smell at this point, but other people insisted that it was one of the worst things they had ever smelled. This went on until the last week of the first semester. Campus police showed up at my door like an hour before my last final and said they wanted to speak to my roommate, and when I said he wasn't there, to look through his stuff. Part of living in the dorms was agreeing that they could do that so I let them in. It turns out he had a bunch of stuff stashed that violated dorm rules (alcohol, drug paraphernalia, some other questionable substances. It was a Jesuit school) that they then asked me a bunch of questions about too. I was leaving for my final when he came back, and that was the last time I saw him. It turns out that the smell was caused by several large suitcases of luggage that had gotten soaked, but then were never opened to air out at any time during the semester. Either the police or the dorm staff dragged those off while I was gone. The rest of his stuff remained though, so I assumed he was going to show back up at some point. Then mail started arriving in our shared mailbox from the city courts, and then from the state courts. Eventually that stopped and the dorm ended up collecting the rest of his stuff. My ongoing theory is that he's a member of one of those distant Saudi royal families (based on some stuff he actually told me) and got involved in selling/buying drugs, then fled the country (or at least the state) once the police showed up. On the plus side, I got the room to myself in the second semester of that year.

It’s on Nick’s individual channel (if it hasn’t expired yet.)

With that technology, we could all relive Chris’s Christmas experience whenever we wanted!

Children are possibly my least favorite creatures in existence. When can we replace them with small robots?

Cancelling abilities is one of those things that I keep trying to remember to do but always forget in the heat of the moment (same with some of the more esoteric EX abilities.) No denying that it's effective though.

I generally avoid 3v3 because it means wrangling additional teammates. Getting two other people to cooperate with each other is much harder than getting one person to cooperate with me. 2v2 does have some pretty gross matchup imbalances at higher ranks, but I think it's worth enduring that so far.

On the topic of garlic troves, I’m feeling especially hoisted by Blue Apron as the bottom shelf of this cabinet continues to fill.

Any chance of new Nick streams from Canada? I want to taste that crisp air through my monitor.

Alternatively: Songsmith making very appropriate choices.

All you need to know is that the orb in the middle is the thing that needs to die. That's the most important thing.