Roderick

Gamescom was so good! I was therefor two days, played a new build of Diablo 3, played the new Mass Effect, saw Skyrim, played Rayman Origins, Deus Ex, Dance Central 2 (DO NOT KNOCK DANCE CENTRAL)... all great.

Yes yes yes! =) It's great, though there are definitely some cheesy moments in there. But holy shit the Londo / G'Kar stuff is so good.

I considered.

Wolpaw is a man very much (autistically so?) set in a certain rhythm in which he operates. Apparently he wakes up every day early in the morning, goes to work and then works and then goes to bed really early. At Valve, this [peculiar] behavior is tolerated and worked around. At any other gaming company it is less accepted. Apparently, at DF there was such a crunch during Psychonauts that it broke Wolpaw. When you read the stories of the troubles DF had starting up (a horrible place with overflowing toilets, rats and no airconditioning or heating), it's easy to see how that turns into a bad experience, especially for someone less than flexible. I empathize with Wolpaw since I too have my peculiarities and wouldn't be able to work under just any condition. How much influence Tim Schafer's personality had, it didn't state. Either there isn't anything personal between the two, or Wolpaw is being a gentleman about it. I suspect the former and that it was the company trouble and general video game production malaise that did him in. I recommend reading the Final Hours. It's a great view into Valve.

It's not so much the slowness as the lack of direction. On the other hand, I may have tolerated Moby Dick more because I knew where the story was going and that my time and investment would be well worth it. So, you seem to have liked it. Does it get remarkably better as the book goes on?

There's a really interesting piece on Wolpaw and why it didn't work out with Double Fine in The Final Hours of Portal 2.

I was set to go, but then I lacked the funds for the hotel (two nights), and decided just to attend Gamescom on Wednesday. No sausage stew for me, please!

That sounds great. I wish you luck in your new apartment!

I am reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and having a boring time with it. I was on the cusp of closing this book forever, about the hundred-page mark, when finally something remotely interesting suddenly happened. This is a bother, as I have to read on now. I honestly don't know how a writer could have taken such an interesting period (London in 1807, the Napoleonic wars) and such an interesting concept (magic is real, but forgotten, yet there are a few gentlemen that strive to reintroduce it) and fashion such an utterly boring story with it. It's 1000 (not so dense) pages long and I wouldn't be surprised at all if it turned out that 2/3rds of that could've (and should've) been cut. I may be spoiled by Tolstoy, but this shit really doesn't do it for me anymore. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and the case of the missing editor.

I was playing Oblivion the other day and this randomized gossip came up. Video Games.

That's exciting! How many square meters do you have and how much did it cost? This is always of interest to me!

Book of Eli really didn't do it for me. You'd think that with Gary Oldman as a creepy villain you'd at least have some mileage, but... Unstoppable, on the other hand, was super fun. I saw it in cinema and it was sex with trains. I loved those trains and how they shot them. The movie was predictable, but you knew that going in. To me it was just such a perfectly unsuspecting movie that did exactly what it wanted to do. I have nothing bad to say about it.

It's like ballet, but better!

That's a work of art, Elmuerte Thanks everyone! Also Subbes despite failing the all-important birthday pun-test!

Thanks guys. 28 is a good age, I like that number. It feels very solid.

Fank you!

Crib away, good sir, crib away. I'd like to read whatever you write!

Video games. Are they art?

Well done, sir Scrobbs!

Fun, and helpful!

The whole forum has been!

I don't know anything about the hat, but I do need to point out that Joe Kucan is enormous in size, making me look like Peter Dinklage. Speedy, how might I recognize you on the Gamescom, on the off (way off) chance that I see you? (I say off because Gamescom spans square kilometers mapped across about ten huge hallways.

My thinking has been shallow. I've read up on the situation a little more because I was frustrated with my lack of knowledge about the whole thing. I understand that race is not entirely the correct way to describe differences between people if you discuss it in the familiar way (blacks vs whites vs asians). So, I'd like to know how that will pan out. As long as humans have eyes they will see the difference, but how to put that into words? Can I say 'Asiatic people'? Yeah, probably. Even though I didn't learn any new information today, I have readjusted my terminology. That's profit to me.

Of course the differences are physical, what other differences could there be? The only differences between humans and pigs are physical too! We obviously have different ideas of what constitutes race. I use race perhaps more as a way of describing that there are (physical, visual) differences between different peoples. That might not be wholly correct and at no point do I consider the differences especially huge. But the conversation will be much strained if I'd have to avoid mentioning the word 'race' mainly because its historic connotation with bad shit happening.

Speedy; that's even better, because now you can get me in there and we can both take a pic with Kane from C&C! And I didn't shake Joe's hand I believe, but did take a picture. Warning, it's not that charming ; I'm the surprisingly small guy on the left: http://www.captainaugust.com/ftp/joekucan.jpg