Chris

You should write in!

No, it was this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Grande_Illusion

Yeah, Space Alert is hilarious. I've played it before but not with other Thumbs. We should definitely give it a go.

I KNEW IT Man it bums me out if we gave that impression. We were definitely all aware of the actual history, which is mainly why it was resonant. Many Boss Tweed jokes were made.

Idle Thumbs 81: Happy Halloween In this spooktacular special episode, which is haunted, we discuss video games. The cast is coming from inside the pod. Games Discussed: Tennnes, Hotline Miami, Hawken, Dota 2, DayZ Direct episode download. iTunes page. Feed RSS. Episode page.

Welp.

I think Jake's impression of a smirky dad is quite similar to Jake's impression of Jimmy Stewart.

Other than the stuff about leaving comments or whatever, is there some key feature our website audio player doesn't have? http://www.idlethumbs.net/idlethumbs/episodes/xcom-obama

Great things are afoot. Idle Thumbs 72: Crazy Crane's Deceit As you contemplate the vast chamber's terrible sense-deadening magnitude, clawed machines grasp uselessly at your limbs, the distant hum of starship engines recede into the distance, and a dispassionate god enacts his ineffable plan. Please attend our PAX panel. And as promised during the reader mail section, please enjoy these fine links, courtesy of reader Robert Simmon of NASA's Earth Observatory: Every astronaut photograph ever taken of Earth's full disk Time-lapse videos of Earth from the Space Station, many at night Games Discussed: Dota 2, Team Fortress 2: Mann vs. Machine, FTL: Faster Than Light, The Binding of Isaac, Far Cry 2, Indiana Jones and His Desktop Adventures, Yoda Stories, Thirty Flights of Loving, games of crane. Direct episode download. iTunes page. Feed RSS. Read blog.

This was one of those books that made me extremely unsure whether the particular style of the prose came out of the author's original words, or the translator's. There was a particular tone whose effect on me I could equally imagine being a result of different cultural perspectives, deliberate affectation on the part of the author, or deliberate affectation on the part of the translator. It drives me bonkers.

Every week I go into a small room with two or three other guys and have stupid conversations about video games. We record the whole thing on computers and then we post it on the internet

Pretty sure he was talking about giving up on a specific heist attempt--the way Sean said he wished the end state would just assert itself when you become seen and the game starts to snowball downhill. I don't think he inferred you were giving up on Monaco as an entire game because you got caught once.

I agree with all of this.

These were almost precisely the same reservations I had, although they (similarly) aren't pronounced enough to significantly lessen my appreciation for or enjoyment of the novel. I entirely agree about Mantel being at her strongest when she goes off the rails a bit--"An Occult History of Britain" destroyed me, and was a big reason I rank Wolf Hall above Bring Up the Bodies, although the latter was excellent. The hagiographic treatment of Cromwell remains a nagging worry of mine--I sort of feel like I should be inherently distrustful of such a sympathetic portrayal. But even being aware of that, I'm ultimately won over. The one area in which I basically disagree with you is about the notion of "too smooth a read." I don't think that's a meaningful or useful metric of anything, not in and of itself. Vonnegut is rarely a "difficult read" but he's my favorite English-language novelist. I don't think layers of meaning have to be buried in syntactic complexity; they can reside somewhere deeper. I'm a little bit drunk right now and I just played Dota 2 for some terrible reason so I'm having a hard time typing and sorry if this isn't a great post!

For what it's worth, I remember people being tangibly excited as all hell about the N64 in a way that I don't think is even remotely comparable to the general apathy towards the Wii U. The N64 may not have had the strongest launch lineup, but it was still The New Nintendo Video Game System, and the Wii U doesn't have that palpable energy at all.

I think Mantel effectively communicates the aspects of More's character that have contributed to his historical appeal. Throughout his trial and up to his execution, he is portrayed as admirably firm in his convictions. The novel is obviously more sympathetic to Cromwell, and despite being historical fiction Wolf Hall has a strongly modern perspective, one from which it is much easier to relate to Cromwell's open-minded pragmatism rather than More's moralistic steadfastness. So while there are clearly recorded parts of More's actual historical life that invite entirely justified criticism, I think it's worth remembering that this novel itself is ultimately fiction and Mantel has chosen how to frame each of her characters.

"Some fashion or another" isn't really the same thing as "third most commonly represented piece of popular culture in astonishing fan art according to someone who claims to have considerable perspective in the matter."

Seriously?? Do you have any insight into why?

I only ever play 2v2. My friend Nick and I played 2v2 daily for about a year when WOL came out, and we've gotten back into it with HOTS. I just never want to play 1v1, it's too stressful.

He got a job at Telltale.

As a former Irrational employee I definitely don't think there was a connection--or rather, I don't think there was an intended or known connection on the part of the developers.

I think that's a totally bullshit figure, for what it's worth. Gladwell's methodology makes no sense to me and the notion of "greatness" Is too ethereal to quantify.

More directly, it was because someone requested it in chat. It's a great song though, and yeah I used to listen to that album a lot as well in high school.

Haha really? I just found the lyrics on the internet. What did I get wrong?

We should probably take some time and make watchable edits of some of these, including this one. You can't really do that with the Twitch highlight tools, because you can't edit and combine multi-part broadcasts.