Danielle

I've talked about this on the podcast, but I really can't stop playing. I'm about 68 hours in, currently determined to catch every single Pokemon in the game (and trade for at least most of the others). And find every hidden item. And then, finally, I will check out some of this breeding business!

Given my current obsession with Pokemon, I regret not defending it a bit better. I'm sorry, Tegan! Also, Shantae - this is a game I need to play ASAP for GOTY consideration, thank you!

I watched this entire thing, while eating lunch. I have this severe phobia of vomiting (I actually have panic attacks associated with it), so watching something like this or The LA Beast holds a bizarre, morbid fascination for me. It's like watching a horror movie!

I think you're right about a lot of this. Sorry, I should've clarified that I don't think there's nothing gross about Pagan Min/Far Cry 4's representation issues, more that I found the cover art somewhat less gross than it would've read to me if Min were a white dude. Levels of grossness! I should make a chart or something...

My secret wish: to become a Nintendo voice actor... Ok! Here's my explanation, and again, this is only based on having played a couple of hours of Far Cry 4. My initial mistake - and I admit, this was my mistake - was that the cover represented a white dude basically shitting all over both a culture (the desecrated Buddha statue) and a living people (the guy kneeling before him). If he reads as a white guy, then the whole "crazy but also sort of cool!" bad guy schtick that Ubi has been using for the last two games is full-on disgusting. It reeks of white imperialism, but worse, of appealing to some base instinct that celebrate the things that allowed that imperialism to grow (the desire to conquer, etc.) If he reads as a person of color, the context is slightly different. He's not all of a sudden a totally cool, nice guy, but it no longer reads (to me) as a racially charged statement. I look at the current cover art and say "look at that smug asshole!" instead of "Jesus Christ, that's gross!" Again, I think Ubi is trying to sell their chief antagonists as crazy, cool, fascinating, dangerous dudes. There's an appeal to them (or, at least, Ubi *wants* the audience to find them appealing, on some level). Ubi wants us to at least think they're cool and badass. This is all completely subjective, obviously, and other folks are free to read other things into it. Pagan Min is a pretty horrible person. Is he a stylish, more-interesting-than-usual horrible person? Yeah. I hope to have more substantive thoughts on this when I actually finish the game, but I wanted to clarify my thoughts here, since folks wanted to continue the discussion!

http://img.pandawhale.com/61427-George-Takei-oh-my-gif-Dzvp.gif Tegan... how do I breed Pokemon?

Tegan, you made my DAY with this chart. I've had a visually clunky version of it open in a browser window for the last ten days. Also, I think I didn't properly mention on the podcast, but! I have been unable to stop playing this game, to the point where it's 4am every night and I'm still feverishly hunting Pokemon. Is this normal?

Friends! Gritfish on twitter suggested I post my completely dumb little experiment (my dad joke game) to the forums, so here I am! http://danielleri.itch.io/the-wonderful-world-of-dad-jokes It's very short, and very silly. It's also quite rough - I basically made it to teach myself a bunch more C#, and to create my own framework for an adventure game (with a basic dialogue system, inventory system, etc.). It was actually a lot of fun to work on, and I felt releasing it on Halloween was really appropriate.

I saw this, and I was most pleased.

On the shit discussion! There's an entire section of the novel I Am Charlotte Simmons that describes the entire "shit patois" as Charlotte, the protagonist, encounters new uses of "shit" as a super naive (but gifted) college freshman. http://books.google.com/books?id=1EPdr5xFKfsC&pg=PA471&lpg=PA471&dq=shit+patois&source=bl&ots=4rtW1SrCSs&sig=AulO5BnR_enT0SyS9fHuPwmufFo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=YeNNVIX7KoquogTo5YLICA&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=shit%20patois&f=false It's possibly the best part of a book that is rather depressing in its dim (though not necessarily undeserved) view of college life in the 2000s.

One of the best things about Farscape (aside from all the subversive stuff you mentioned, and its attitude towards gender + sexuality) is how nuanced the tone can be, in balancing silliness with seriousness/darkness/trauma. There's an episode coming up for you (A Clockwork Nebari) that has very, very dark themes, some of the darkest implied stuff in the entire series, but Chrichton basically has to pretend to be high the whole time. Crackers Don't Matter is as hilarious as it is deeply disturbing. And Won't Get Fooled Again is... well, a masterpiece of mindfuckery, with a lot of goofiness thrown in. Watch for the pumps! (and this is all second season stuff. The third season of Farscape is my favorite 22 hours of entertainment ever made, bar none. I'm excited for you that you're experiencing it for the first time!)

On the idea that you get more for your ticket in your neck of the woods - I was genuinely *shocked* by how kind and considerate security and other airport staff were when I traveled to Australia and New Zealand. Smiling, friendly folks actually helped me with my bags instead of, say, berating me for opting out of the scanner machines. It was the best flying experience I've ever had in my life. I flew... ten times in two weeks during my trip to NZ and Australia, and it was consistently wonderful. I say this as a fairly frequent flier. I also used to fly from Boston to SF and back at least once a month and have many wonderful and terrible airplane stories. But that 22 hours at LAX was pretty annoying.

This thread makes me so happy, I don't even know where to start. Season 1 is really, really rough, but as a superfan, it's always interesting for me to go back and watch the show learn to crawl, then learn to walk, and finally (towards the end) learn to run. But if you're a first timer, use that skip list!

So much good ST discussion in this thread! All of the Treks have wonderfully progressive elements, and plenty of sexism, racism, light homphobia (or at the very, very least, excessive heteronormativity) and other deeply problematic elements. I am a massive Trek fan, but it's difficult to ignore the issues. The original Trek put a woman of color at the controls of a spaceship's communications board in the 60s! That's so amazing I am still awed by the decision. But, in every other episode, there's a lady in a miniskirt screaming and clinging to the nearest Heroic White Guy (often Kirk, but any HWG will do), instead of acting like a professional officer. TNG had some remarkable episodes about race and sexism and gender identity. And it also positioned Worf as The Klingon . Even Worf had weird ideas about gender. In one episode, he tells a human boy something along the lines of "human women are equal to men," and in another, he talks about the use of trickery/acting as a weak "woman's exploit." I'm paraphrasing, but there are huge inconsistencies wrt race, gender and sexuality within each show. DS9 probably has the better track record here, since it actually humanizes some of the Ferengi characters (like Rom and Nog), and actually presents a feminist revolution in Ferengi culture (they are known as being a very sexist culture). Even DS9's big "gay allegory" episode - where Dax meets up with a former lover, only they are now both in female host bodies, and there's actually a really awesome lesbian romance angle to it - has a few lines that are pretty icky, hiding homophobia/intolerance behind the shield of cultural relativism. All of Trek is fascinating, from this point of view. Each show is generally progressive, and each made huge strides for TV. But each is also shackled by the constraints and crappy reigning attitudes of its era.

Oh goodness, this brought me back. I just realized that Honey, I Shrunk the Kids was one of the first (maybe the first) movie I actually remember seeing in the theater as a child. It also had a Roger Rabbit Cartoon short - Tummy Trouble, I think? preceding it. Hooray, 80s babies!

Fake geek guy alert!

Yeah, seriously! I happen to love Donkey Kong Country 3, *despite* Kiddy Kong. But just look at that model for Candy. Just look at it!

Some how, some day, I would really, REALLY love to make this happen.

Ok! I shared this on twitter a few moments ago, but here it is. The DEFINITIVE Farscape skip list. The first season, I've highlighted what to actually watch - skip everything else. Farscape is my favorite sci-fi series of all time. It's creative and weird, it does interesting, progressive things with gender and sci-fi tropes, it's colorful and funny and sometimes incredibly dark. Star Trek, it is not (though, John, the central human character, LOVES Star Trek). But! The show really fumbled around to find its footing early on. So here are my recommendations for Watching the 1st season. Skip everything not listed here. 1. Premiere (note: this episode sucks. But you should probably watch just because it does, however clumsily, set up the entire premise of the show.) 2. P.K. Tech Girl 3. DNA Mad Scientist 4. They've Got A Secret 5. The Flax And then, from episode 15 -- Durka Returns -- on through the end of the first season. Alternatives! If you are enjoying yourself, and can stomach some season 1 goofiness, there are a couple of episodes that have *some* importance for later events, and they aren't bad. Add episodes 11: Till The Blood Runs Clear and 12: Rhapsody in Blue back in if you think you can handle some intense goofiness and are starting to actually like these characters as you go along. Season 2 has a few clunkers, notably Vitas Mortis, Picture If You Will, Home on the Remains and Dream a Little Dream. Feel free to skip the hell out of them, but the show is remarkably strong outside of those outliers. Don't skip a second of season 3. Season 3 of Farscape is my favorite sustained sequence of entertainment/art in the universe. I'm completely serious. Season 4 has some rough patches, though by this point, you'll know exactly what you love and hate about Farscape. If you *must* know, A Prefect Murder was the only Farscape episode to bore me, and while I find Coup By Clam campy and entertaining, it's not the show's finest hour.

This can be arranged!

Jv3nal is correct - http://www.twitch.tv/patriciaxhx! Though, we do sometimes stream on other friends' channels when the 4chan threat level is high. We always tweet it out before streaming, if you're interested.

Yes! I'll play some more this weekend and come prepared for the next episode!

Ahhhhhhhh! I love it! (that's totally going in the game)

Can I use this one in my dumb game too? This thread is full of GOLD!

Can I seriously use this in my dad joke game? I actually lol'ed.