MrHoatzin

When we went to Serbia last, I brought back all my Legos. I haven't thouched them yet, but it is good to know they're here. The most important part of my collection (and the reason I lugged it across the world) is the plotter Technic set which comes with a ton of gears and two motors. I've been meaning to make automata and some mechanical paintings/sculptures and have had a hard time visualizing the most eficient way of doing them, so Lego. I may have to make some custom gears but by and large that set delivers. This for example: Before I set out to grab my old bricks I looked at what the current Technic offering is like and it seems the focus has completely left the mechanical—there are all of these sensors and motors and programming and robotic stuff, but they really don't make them with as many gears as they used to.

Saw a bumper sticker the other day that said something like "Central Catholic Gives My Child The Advantage" and my first thought was, "DAYM LADY—way to advertize your kids flea problems."

Why is the metaphor and the function of a card even necessary? Why not make a card game?

A lot of those you mention are way way more than escapism.

It was not an ad hominem attack, it was a one-sentence summary of your stance (and its implication) in service of dismissing the premise that you can be impartial on the topic to begin with. This is not a dis of your intelligence or whatever—this is a feature of your privilege.

Wow, has Lobotomy42 actually had that avatar for six whole years?

Also, while you're at it, you should invest into your own video streaming backend and custom Idle Thumbs codexes, just to be safe.

Being a dude who hides behind a banner of free speech to perpetuate a status quo of psychological oppression—your sense of (entitlement to) objectivity is false false false.

I like how you stone cold called the dude a Losef.

Hmm! You might be right. Might as well keep it ribald to boot.

And probably neither Decameron nor the Decalogue make for a good format for Idle Thumbs' Terrence Malick's Sid Meier's Civilization...

I have never read the book, though what I know about the discrepancy between it and the film makes me think that I cannot respect the opinion of anyone who prefers the book to the movie—esp if they frame their critique in terms of "worst adaptation ever."

U: < Oh noes, I am being oppressed by people who hate levity! EXAMPLES! I DEMAND EXAMPLES OF THESE HYSTERICAL JOKES THAT HUMAN CULTURE AT LARGE WOULD SUFFER WITHOUT IF THE FEMINAZI HAD THEIR WAY. You keep talking about jokes while we're talking about BULLSHIT NOISE in the service of INSTITUTIONALIZED OPPRESSION. There s nothing to agree to disagree about when we're sortof not even talking about the same thing.

We understand what you're saying. We're not talking about THAT side of the joke. THAT side of the joke may be the entirety of your personal experience, but we're talking about the OTHER side of the joke, the not incidental SUBJECTS of your horrible thoughts, the people you're horrible AT/ABOUT/TO.

The thing with most jokes about women made by dudes is that they come from a position of entrenched power. "HA HA MAKE ME A SAMMICH" is not funny because the punchline is, "WOMEN, AMIRITE?!" There is no content to it that is not plain and simple bullying. Public feminists tend to be strong-willed people who get a lot of stupid backhanded nonsense from the internet and the society at large and they have grown calloused and impatient with everything that smells of patriarchy. It is false to boil it down to women/feminists have no sense of humor just because you stepped on a landmine that one time. Amanda Marcotte once chewed my head off when I gave her shit for her horrible flash-photography of food. To my defense, I wanted to offer advice on how to take better pics without much effort (she has since started using instagram which goes a long way). Sometimes (often?) I fail to engage the correct filters and talk to people I've just (or never) met with the same rough playful tone I reserve for my closest friends. On top of that, when the topic at hand is critiquing art I turn all filters off—stupidly unaware that people outside of art circles will read it as so much random hostility. Though my goal was ultimately to be helpful, I opened with "ARGH, please never photograph food again!" —which pretty much closed the conversation before it opened it. She ripped me a new one and accused me of mansplaining—and she was correct! There was absolutely no way for me to give her unsolicited photography tips without it coming out as patronizing. None. I shouldn't have even bothered—not to mention with that aggressive ass opening salvo. I have no idea what I was thinking. It made sense at the time, I suspect. This doesn't make her humorless or whatever. It makes me a random jerk on the internet—a random jerk who just wanted to give her photography tips—but a random jerk all the same. It doesn't matter that Amanda Marcotte is unable to have a correct opinion on certain topics—music, for example—and she's often unwilling to entertain counterpoints when she's made up her mind. This fundamentalism is not a factor of feminism per se—it is due to the fact that the women who chose to be public feminist figures have to wade through hurricanes of patriarchal shit every fucking day of their lives. It takes an epic level of stubbornness and strength to hold that ground. They have developed a mode that takes no prisoners. Your bruised dudely ego will just have to shut the fuck up sometimes and pay attention to the nature of the jokes that are being made. Inform yourself of where the mines are before you blissfully take a stroll through that minefield.

: : : : :

I like this thread. It is super civil considering this is an overwhelmingly male gaming community on the internet. Maybe I haven't been paying close enough attention, but I don't think there's anything antagonistic enough going on here to merit the closing of the thread.

Also, were you maybe thinking of The Decalogue by the Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski?

Idle Thumbs's Terrence Malick's Sid Meier's Civilization is a thing of beauty. They don't even have to make it. The little vignette from the podcast is on its own. For what it's worth, I might maybe prefer to see David Simon's Sid Meier's Civilization... although a more visual and abstract storytelling style does have an undeniable appeal, and might be more effective at telling such a large story. I wanna throw Tarsem Singh's name into the hat too, but that dude's narratives are always somehow rough in an annoying kind of way. Malick is a bigger master at the same kind of game anyway. Jesus, you've painted such a crazy vivid picture of this movie.

I was kidding about the feelings bit. I have no sympathy for the MRA bullshit. You need to stop shutting the conversation down. You can just go away, dude. No one is compelling you to hang around here.

I find your additions to this conversation to be all over the place. Also, men have feelings too, you know.

I think you're being obnoxious as fuck, but whatever.