natellite

I guess the discussion about industry secrecy made me realize that as much as I am desperately hungry for stories and insight from the development process, there's part of me that really does want to be surprised by all of it. That fact itself surprises me, if I'm being honest - I didn't think I could get excited about games anymore, but I guess there's a part of me that still is.

I absolutely support the right for Mario to marry Skinny Wario. Good luck, Ireland!

I love that "IT TALKS!" was one of the back-of-the-box features for the Game.Com. I guess that was a big deal for a handheld in 1997.

The Year of Bowser is here

rules of nature

It's absolutely a satisfying answer. Thank you!

I was not! Thank you!

Also, how often do you hear someone on a games podcast get really excited about music and composers? I think it's really under-discussed - even on Idle Thumbs! The last time I remember Chris talking about music was when they were talking about Gone Home. It was a refreshing change, all things considered. Music has such an impact on the tone and reception of a game, I wish we knew more about what goes into making music for this medium.

Gormongous, I'm curious as to your perspective of the more recent push for re-interpretive history - specifically "corrective" works like Zinn's People's History of the United States and things like Mae Ngai's Impossible Subjects. I read a lot of that kind of work for my Ethnic Studies minor, to the point where I actually feel like I was exposed to more re-interpretive historical study than actual "mainstream" stuff, but I don't know to what degree that would have been true if not for my particular interests. I don't think anyone in this day and age, for example, is approaching the Columbus story from the traditional perspective.

I'm not sure that this is quite the right place for this, but I thought Simon Pegg's response to some controversy surrounding some of his recent statements was thoughtful and thought-provoking. From the article:

In fact you will find that the pork literally falls apart at even the slightest touch! "Shredding" implies some degree of manual labor but after a crock pot roast it's really just running two forks lightly over it until it achieves the texture and consistency of carnitas. (By the way, advanced pulled pork technique: after you shred it, lay it out on a large pan and put it under the broiler for a bit. Hot damn.)

You know what I wanna hear some more opinions about? Defense of the Ancients 2

Yep, definitely this for me, too. I'm doing a low-carb thing right now so I swap out the potatoes and carrots for celery and mushrooms, which don't hold up so well, but still taste fine. Get a 2-3 pound chuck roast, salt and pepper on all sides, sear it, put it in the pot on top of the vegetables, use chicken broth as your liquid - I usually just use a can from the grocery store - and cook on low for 8 hours. Good stuff. Some people will tell you that a pot roast is impossible in the slow cooker because a roast necessarily implies dry heat, but these people are pedants and you can laugh at them in between mouthfuls of tender, juicy beefs. You can also just throw a couple of boneless, skinless chicken breasts in there with a jar of salsa (the cheaper the better for this purpose) and 4-6 hours later you shred it up and have taco and burrito meat for a week.

The whole idea of an article title is to get you to read the article. It's not a summary, it's a fishhook. This has been true literally since the beginning of journalism

Huh, yeah, reading this post about it, it looks like you're right. I've had that wrong for more than a year. I guess it downgrades the incident from 'actively malicious' to 'just dumb esports kid bullshit.' I don't know. I still kind of can't stand the guy. We saw Charlie Yang in a Bartell's buying four giant bottles of Smirnoff, some chocolate, and condoms after EG got knocked out of TI4 last year! That's my closest brush with esports celebrity. (He seemed really mad. I guess that's understandable.)

I'm watching this now. Wild stuff.

I haven't liked him ever since he went into a dota 2 cosplayer's stream and got banned for telling her to send nudes, then sicced his twitch mob on the channel until the cosplayer cried on stream He's a fine player, but the fact that he's just kind of a shitty little kid and has the tendency to act like a shitty little kid makes me not want to... support him or his team.

1 - 1 EG vs Secret in the Summit grand finals, fyi.

"design by list of features" is a hell of a thing

Yeah, I was a Political Science major. Math is something that other people did.

Hi, I'm a fan of managing lords, friend me on steam and we can defend ancients cooperatively maybe???

I don't know if there's a separate thread for yakking about pro dota, but The Summit is happening this weekend, which is significant because it's one of the last Big Tournaments before The International. Team Secret is playing the best dota of their lives, which is a real damn shame if you, like me, hate the ground that arteezy walks on.

I would go buck wild on those ginger ale kit-kats. Local news, neighbor interviews, crater in the ground, the whole deal. God damn.

How do you feel about 'almost infinite,' considering that any finite thing is so inadequate at approaching the concept of infinity that it might as well be 0

Exactly. And consider this: As a feminist and cultural critic, I could easily argue that I have a responsibility to be current on Game of Thrones. The show is a cultural touchstone for tens of millions of people every week, and quite frankly, I need to know what I'm going to be up against at the water cooler on Monday. I'm not going to be able to speak knowledgeably about it unless I watch the show regularly with a critical eye. Is that different than the guy who has a viewing party? How many people do I have to educate about the problematic elements in the show to cancel out that dude's contribution to HBO? I don't know. At the end of the day, I think you just have to get right with yourself first. Engage with things on a level that lets you sleep at night.