ThunderPeel2001

Woo! I think "Lowering the Bar" is the Special Feature I'm looking forward to most. (Partially because I've already attended a top secret screening of the "prequel" audio diary excerpts.) I'm going to wait for it to come down in price, though.

That would explain why you can clearly see things that aren't there. Like the word "Portillo" in the last clip.

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It's a miserable experience. I don't think it's possible to ever intellectually completely come to terms with your own mortality. And note: You shouldn't ever really attempt to while you're unemployed and spending 90% of your time alone (hindsight is wonderful thing). If you're feeling overwhelmed, I think the most important thing is to focus on life and living, and not spend time dwelling on something that. Notice if you're being overly negative and stop yourself. In dark moments (when I've found myself dwelling on such thoughts for far too long) focussing on living and keeping good personal relationships have helped lift me, and helped me stay on what's important: Enjoying my life, and paying attention to the lives of those around me. After all, surely focussing on life is more important than focussing on death. Also, Zen Buddhism has been a great friend when I've needed it.

I was about to post the same thing, but I didn't want to start another big argument. I'm glad somebody said something.

HMV in the UK has got a bunch of PG Wodehouse in nice editions for sale really cheap. Any Wodehouse fans got any recommendations? The guy has written so many it's difficult to know where to begin. Also, I think I heard somewhere that his non-Jeeves stuff is possibly his best? Thanks, Thumbs Also, in comic book news: Buffy Season 9 has just started. It's going to be told in two titles: Buffy and Angel & Faith, which is fine by me. Oddly enough the first issue of Buffy, by Whedon himself, is a bit weird... and not all the great. I probably need to re-read it, but it felt a bit all over the place. I also never got a sense of what was going on with the characters. I'm sure it will improve, but I wasn't particularly grabbed, and it unfortunately featured some of the ugliest and garish Buffy artwork I can remember. Very strange. Angel & Faith was oddly enough, much more satisfying and felt like a continuation of Season 8 -- answering a ton of questions that really should have been answered in that series. Plus there was a lot of Giles, which was great. So, while Season 8 certainly had its major bumps, it seems as though this series is going to retro-actively attempt to fix them -- it's already done a fairly decent job. I'm sure I'm the only who cares about this... but I'm going to keep posting about it anyway

Best thing is to just never turn them on. Are they still replacing RRoD'd machines? I thought I heard they'd stopped that years ago? Glad to hear about it if they haven't!

I remember that feeling...

Quote: "The same goes for the reaction to that horrible programmer code on the Steam forums, but what's worse is that the author has taken these dregs of the internet..."

This guy managed to put across everything I want to say in a paragraph. The bast.

Ok, I got to Chapter 6, I think I've got the gist and I can't be bothered to read any more. I apologise in advance if that's not enough to formulate the opinion below. I don't think it's a bad article at all (although it probably doesn't need to be that long and it is a little preachy). I liked parts of it. For example, I remember seeing my favourite things through the eyes of my (then) wife when I was 23. Suddenly realizing how crappy women were generally portrayed, and then feeling embarrassed by things I hadn't before... (Women in hip "guy" comedies are nearly always either, totally crazy or spoil the guys' fun by being super-uptight -- ever notice that?) But that's got nothing to do with someone writing a deliberately mean article, nor has it anything to do with mob mentality. 1. If the girl mentioned in the article did publish a horrible account of their date, negatively judging a man entirely by his hobby, then it is not unreasonable to judge her as shallow. And mean. 2. There is a limit to how far bashing someone should go. Even on the internet. When a point has been made, and it's been understood, then it's time to move on. This second point is just maturity, but neither of these things have anything to do with personal revelations about how women are portrayed/treated by society. The same goes for the reaction to that horrible programmer code on the Steam forums, but what's worse is that the author has taken these dregs of the internet (you know who I mean -- they tend to flock to high profile sites that don't employ good enough moderation: IMDB, YouTube, BBC, etc) and given them far more credibility than they deserve. Their vitriol is no more about being anti-women than it is about being anti-everything. For example, I remember seeing a video on YouTube of a disabled young man who had apparently, against all odds, garnered respect from major players in the music industry for his abilities as a DJ. It was an incredibly heart-warming thing. It was I home video, as I recall, posted by the kid's father to proudly show to the world what his son had achieved. The first comment beneath the video said, "Fuck off and die you fucking retard". Ah, YouTube. *wipes nostalgic tear* There is nothing to learn from these angry and bitter people. They are isolated freaks who make a lot of noise when they're given a soap box and allowed to congregate. They're most likely people in very dire situations who use the internet to vent their frustrations. Probably teenagers, too (and so all the more powerless, and without life experience to boot). At least that's my guess. One thing I know for sure, you can't use them as an example of anything but themselves. So ultimately, despite some nice bits where I was reminded of how it felt to suddenly see the world from a different perspective, the article seemed pointless to me. *tosses his 2c into the jar* Edit: I see that once again BBX and I have more or less agreed, but put it in slightly different ways.

*cough* (Although I may have removed my slagging because I was afraid I was being too negative too often. For the record: I hated that comic.)

I have read the first one. They're very much children's books, but I seem to recall a semi-creepy atmosphere. The fourteenth book in the series, Glinda of Oz: In Which Are Related the Exciting Experiences of Princess Ozma of Oz, and Dorothy, in Their Hazardous Journey to the Home of the Flatheads, and to the Magic Isle of the Skeezers, and How They Were Rescued from Dire Peril by the Sorcery of Glinda the Good, is supposed to be quite dark.

Did I make a boo boo?

And then all of a sudden, BAM! gP5mWgbgCEc

I liked Thor. Plenty to recommend in my books.

You shouldn't be.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was masterfully made. Very slow and beautiful. But it didn't knock my socks off. The ending felt pretty obvious, and it didn't emotionally resonate with me. But it was still very good. I kind of feel I need to watch it again..... But maybe with a less restless audience.

Yes, I found the movies to be so bad that I couldn't watch them. They were even worse than the "piracy is bad" episode. But I'm heartened to hear from several people that the new series is as good.

Yikes. It's also pretty worrying that Virtual Light and Idoru are rated the same as Neuromancer... :-/

Do any of these fit your bill? http://www.goodreads.com http://www.lovereading.co.uk http://www.librarything.com

LibraryThing is a community based around books, and Amazon already has a butt load of reviews for things. If it's just book reviews, why not just use a blog?

Last night I watched Kevin Smith and his wife record an episode of their podcast, "Plus One, Per Diem". It was cool

Muddy is absolutely right. What everyone else described is inherently bad game design. If the player can make decisions that force them to have to restart or replay areas that they've successfully completed in order to progress, that is the very definition of poor game design. (Although we tolerated things like that in the 80s, I think games have long since moved past that.) Imagine if you were playing an RPG and you decided to be a wizard, then at one point in the game you couldn't progress because you needed to be a barbarian to defeat someone. You'd think, "Why did you let me play as a wizard if I can't complete the game?" It reminds me of InfoCom or Sierra adventure games. Note: I haven't played this game, I'm just going entirely from people's descriptions, so forgive me if Deus Ex is different.