n0wak

I prefer the Human League "Fascination" but their best was . Ahh, 80s. I dunno. There are several streams of pop there and I do like the kind of new wavey, early electronic type of pop that was popular then. In some ways I've grown to like that stuff as an antidote to the over-produced crap of the 90s, when I really grew up, and it's weird to see a sort of revival of 80s pop. It's rather trendy and hipster, but I do really dig the likes of Cut Copy and Ladyhawke. If anything, they're a good counter to the more esoteric things in my playlist.I remember reading, or hearing, a while ago a post on Blondie's influence on pop music. It pointed out that they were basically an aberration in North America, but highly influential in Europe. While Europe was more keen on the female led, rock-styled pop of Blondie, North America generally stayed more close with the funk/hip-hop styled line of pop. Which seems about right to me. The mainstream pop from outside of Europe seems, on the whole, more diverse than the stuff coming from North America. I imagine that there are a lot of factors to this and that's worth a book's worth of analysis, but I thought it was kinda interesting. And unfortunate. If more pop was like classic Blondie, I probably wouldn't hate it so much.

Same. But I haven't installed it and likely won't for a while. Too busy, and the freetime I do have is devoted to the five movies I rented.

I played it a few days ago and it's awesome. Still has some kinks to work out, but it's good fun. Anyone up for a game?

Don't forget also the fate of "Daniel": the "artist" cylon that was wiped out by John. There's talk on the TV Club thread for this episode that seems to lean towards the fact that Starbuck is actually half-cylon. Her father, it's pointed out, was supposed to be an "artist". It's an interesting idea. Seems to make sense in the context of the show. The first hybrid, so to speak. Also: duh. Hadn't realized that Cavil's side of the cylons is all men (save for Boomer). Without a resurrection ship, it would be kinda hard to reproduce... The episode was kinda weird though. A little TOO much exposition.

Technically, this will be GTA XIV Also, I just got a new 9-5 contract job and I don't know if I'll be able to make it anymore

OMG

It was me and ThunderPeel. We had some decent sushi and some FREE games of Soul Calibur IV. Kilik is fucking cheap. But now I'm 5 timezones away.

http://www.vimeo.com/1465284

That, and the fact that Roslin/Adama are now, basically, in power without any of the civilian checks and balances that they once had. Without a government, they're basically dictators. It'll be interesting what they do with this. But then there might not even be enough time (what's it? 5 episodes left?) to develop this. Who knows. I'm glad the series is ending. If it was pushed to a fifth season, it'd have just fallen apart.

It's probably the most real series around short of being an actual documentary, and it's very meta: * the reporter character is representing the guy that actually wrote the novel. * One of the Marines, Rudy Reyes, was actually playing himself. If you watch the DVD special features, there's a discussion in the end between the author and a bunch of the actual marines. The resemblance to the actors, mannerisms and so on, is kinda creepy -- except with "Ziggy", he doesn't look like the guy he was playing at all. And Lt. Fick wrote a book about the whole ordeal and life as a marine. He was probably my favourite character on the show, so it's good to see that the real Fick is doing well in post-military life.

I'm not a graphic designer but I work for ad agencies so I am certainly aware of this shit by proxy. It's, well, it's to be expected. "Whitespace" has no meaning to these people. If you get into a situation like this again, I suggest listening to this song. Also, dreamless.org, a forum I used to frequent in 2000 before it went down (lot of designers/new media types), had a classic "client quotes" thread that has lived on in infamy. So, yes, how many times do I hear crap like that? Every time.

http://ganggarrison.com/

Still trying to finish off all the puzzles in "MonoSpace" on the iPod. I'm going to be commuting regularly starting later this week, so I'll likely be doing a lot of portable gaming in the next few weeks. Want to get some of these bastard puzzles finished before that

Yeah. That one's been making the rounds in the Twittersphere. It's so painful to read. I'm sure the comments are even better, but I dare not venture into those depths. THERE BE TROLLS THERE.

The discussions at AV Club's TV Club aren't all bad http://origin.avclub.com/articles/blood-on-the-scales,23553/ I don't know what I think about this episode. It flowed at a good pace and was continually interesting, but the writing/plot was awkward to me. It felt a bit too "perfect". Too manipulative and obvious in places. Gets a from me.

It really is a great game. Anyone have any opinion on the new Party Mode features? I've been considering buying this on the PS3 since it's a nice, well priced bundle. It's one of a few games that I wouldn't mind goofing around in, starting from scratch (I have 100% on the 360 version ), but don't know if the new features are worth it and whether I should just wait for the new island instead.

Time for Street Thumb Fighter meetups. I've been looking forward to this game, but have been debating whether I want to get it on 360 or PS3. I just like the DualShock better for this type of game, but I might be getting one of those MadCatz pads instead (I considered the high-end stick, but it's almost $200 ) and stick with 360. I wasn't too much of a fan of Street Fighter 3, but I loved everything SF2 and look forward to jumping into a game built in that mold.

Correct. Which is precisely why I left that caveat on the end. But like gdf says, this isn't exactly CoD4. It feels slower, more animated (ie. less responsive), and less lethal. But yes, it's hard to judge the multiplayer based on how the campaign plays. We'll see. I think games like this benefit on being popular (kind of a catch-22). If it hits the tipping point and there's a large multiplayer community, it's probably worth a look. Doubt I'll ever complete the single player though.

I just played through the demo and I'm completely and amazingly underwhelmed. I was about 80% sure of this fact when I reached the part near the control room, but when my squadmate asked for cover while he "hacked" the door, that bumped me up to 100%. Is there anything more cliched at this point? The second he said "hold on" I knew music was going to swell up and enemy guys are going to respawn behind me. Lo and behold, this game lived up to expectations for once. The whole experience felt so rote. A pointless merger of one cliche (World War II) with another (stupid sci-fi.) What's the point of this setting exactly? Why have the sci-fi element if everything else is going to play like it's the 1940s? Is having a personnel carrier fly in that much more different from a beach landing on a boat? I wanted to give the game the benefit of the doubt, but it's resolutely on my "pass" list. Maybe I'll give it a rental to see how the multi is.

* So is it on? I figure that with you UK guys panicking over a bit of snow and staying indoors, hiding from the winter, there are no excuses this week. Usual time (21GMT?), usual deal.

Completely unrelated, but amusing

Is that anything like the Death By Distemper compilation? http://www.residentadvisor.net/news.aspx?id=9280 it has that suitably sci-fi-ish feel, especially the Depth Charge track which is almost straight out of a John Carpenter movie. But I don't know if I'd classify that as techno. I don't know. Genre labels confuse me These came in the mail today via Raster Noton So good.

Away?

I've been on the fence about getting this for months. If there's a regular group of people I could play with (ala GTAIV), it'd easily push me over.