WickedCestus

Oh man, speaking of movie adaptations messing with a kid's head, I had imagined Hagrid as the big blue giant from "Monster By Mistake" (which i originally just googled as "whoops i turned into a blue giant") and was absolutely baffled by the relatively normal-looking dude that showed up in the movie. Here's my image of Hagrid: And I'm sure everyone had the "Oh, that's how you say Hermione" moment while leaving the theatre.

I would like to mention that I also found it, for the most part, pretty interesting and just really wanted to make a dumb joke.

I'm excited to listen to this! I was literally a baby when the first book came out (2 years old!!) but I started reading them in 1st grade and was caught up by the time the 5th book came out in 3rd grade. After that, I read them as they came out, and then re-read them all constantly forever. My brothers, being 4 and 6 years older than me, convinced me that they were baby books for babies around the time the 7th one came out, so I read it but pretended I didn't like it Didn't see any movies past the third one either...I think the third book is my favourite one though. I liked books 5 and 6 because I was in elementary school and was way into people smoochin' (okay I guess I still am), but the last one just got a bit too crazy for my tastes. Don't know if I'll have time to re-read with the show but I think I've read the first 5 enough that I can just rely on memory.

This thread is the least chill hell.

I really like this idea! I am taking a creative writing course this semester and I'm just getting used to sharing my writing for the first time, so this sounds like fun. And less pressure because I won't have to get a grade at the end! I think 5000 words sounds like a good maximum for me, but something like 3000 would probably make sure everyone reads everyone's work. Of course, this depends how many people end up submitting.

They mention a timestamp at the start of the discussion that you can go to to skip all UC4 talk.

I have the same sort of experience. All throughout high school I was completely sure of the fact that Giant Bomb stood as The Last Word on all games, and based all my opinions on what they said on their podcasts and reviews, which led to me often being a jerk to my friends about games they liked that I'd never even played. It took multiple examples of the Bombcast thoroughly ripping into games I loved before I realized that my tastes were diverging from theirs, to the point that now I have extremely different opinions than them about basically everything.

I've got a lot of time right now so I think I'm gonna finally check out Twine and see if I can make something neat. Really excited to see what everyone comes up with!

That's a really interesting video series. Really makes me think about the way I play games.

I deleted my ex on a few social media things the other day because I sorta realized that I'm not really that interested in becoming friends again (we broke up 8 months ago) and I was only keeping contact so I could try and compare who was doing better, which is just a dumb, unhealthy thing to do. I think she's an OK person but there's just not really a place for her in my life and it's not worth the emotional weirdness it was causing me.

Awesome! That seems like a really interesting route. Man, I bet Japan is so beautiful this time of year. Unfortunately, I only got to experience the death heat of late Japanese summer and the winter. Definitely want to go back in the springtime.

I did not see that video and it is amaziiiing.

everybody's got somebody to hide except for me and my monkey

I started playing tennis again recently; first time I've played a sport in a few years. I forgot how fun it is! Going to the court is now the highlight of my week.

If anybody sees this, we're screwed.

Also http://www.theverge.com/tldr/2016/4/1/11345654/why-did-webcomic-artists-all-post-the-same-comic-today-making-fools

Google Japan did one I thought was actually funny. The most popular way of typing Japanese on a phone is a system with twelve squares, and tapping one and flicking it in any direction will give you a different character (it's very efficient for Japanese). So, Google announced a mechanical version of this style of keyboard for use with your PC, etc. And here it is.

I love the look and style of the environment; it looks like it would be a very interesting place in which to not kill people.

Canadian here, so not that international, but this election is getting pretty heavy coverage up here. I've heard some discussion about "Could this happen in Canada?" in regards to Trump on the national news and speculating on how our PM (Trudeau) would deal with the various nominees. Every primary gets a fairly large article in the politics section of my local paper (Vancouver Sun) and a few Op-Eds. Don't live in Japan anymore but from what I can gather most US election news there is about Trump's constant bashing of Japan which is unsurprisingly not going over well at all.

Spent the last few months trying to job hunt while keeping my anxiety at bay. Eventually found a job through some connections, but it was in a rough part of my city. Like, first day, one of the other cashiers got assaulted by a shoplifter. By the second week, I was spending my entire days off just worrying about what could happen at work and entertaining fantasies of just running away and hiding somewhere. Started with a new supervisor yesterday; maybe the most toxic human I have ever encountered. Went out of her way to embarrass me in front of customers, and just generally made me feel like shit for six hours. At the end of my shift I just went to the manager and quit. Honestly, it makes me feel hyper-aware of my privilege that I can just back out of a toxic situation like that without much repercussion (I live with my parents and am going to college). So, back on the job hunt...Really gotta learn how to talk to other humans without exploding at some point.

Re-writing Firewatch. This time as a Sleep No More-style theatre production set across the entirety of Yellowstone National Park.

I agree with Problem Machine here, and I'd like to add that what's valuable about learning and acquiring skills often isn't the actual knowledge or the skill, but the way it was acquired. In elementary and high-school, we spend most of our time learning things that we forget a few years later, but what is important is that we are learning the very process of learning, which will allow us to acquire new knowledge easily later in life and become adaptable. So, when I spend time learning the intricacies of Mario's jump, or the logic of the puzzles in The Witness, what I'm doing (aside from having fun, which is of course the main thing) is training the parts of my brain that allow me to make connections and acquire new knowledge, some of which might actually be useful to me later. For example, as a kid I learned the name and type and abilities of every Pokemon in the original 151. While this actual knowledge didn't help me, I do think that practice helped me a lot when it came to learning languages and new words later in life.

Is this the right thread for things that went wrong or the wrong thread for things that went right?

Great episode. Good to hear Sarah's opinion about the book. I definitely had a similar journey to Chris throughout the episode; I came in not liking the book (especially the ending, probably more so than Chris) and came out, well, ambivalent? I still don't think I regard the book positively but I definitely have a more complex understanding of the book and what about it I think works and what I think doesn't. It also allowed me to have a good think about male privilege and the relationships I have with the women in my life. I was excited to have a new book to read next month so I was a bit disappointed to hear it was a book I've already read . However, I came out of Never Let Me Go feeling a similar way to how I felt coming out of Fates and Furies, so it'll be neat to see if my perspective is changed at all by the podcast. Maybe I'll skim through again because it's been about a year since I read it. I'll be waiting patiently for the next episode and excited to hear what you choose for Episode 13.

I agree completely with most of the opinions presented here about the second half of the book. Overall, I'm left ambivalent. If it had been more focused, I think it could have been quite a good book, but the plot just got a bit too ridiculous. Ridiculous plots are all well and good, but it just didn't seem to fit the tone or scope of the novel. Really interested to hear the podcast; I hope you guys will help me think about the book in ways I hadn't considered.