Roderick

GODDAMN YOU PEOPLE TO HELL I thought this was about a new Phoenix Wright game too. I support Toblix in his motion to start some serious decapitation. Other than that, the movie is brilliant news and I can't wait to see what Takashi Miike does with this. I'm actually really tickled that it's live action, I like that a lot more than if it were animated for some reason.

Surprising! That's the only track I skipped because I found it rather obnoxious. I'm partial to much of the rest though, it's pretty good and hope they release vol.2 quickly. More testing needs be done!

Unmissable.

I was kidding, it's on my desktop as we speak But thanks!

It's been too long since I read Moby Dick (or Dorian Gray) for me to say anything about it other than generalities. You probably know how the story will unfold, and that's exactly what happens at its own laborious pace. The cetology-chapters are tough, but if you're really not enjoying it you can just put it down and read a book you like better. For me, I love the maritime story, so explanations on how whaling is done exactly are icing on the cake for me. At times hard to digest icing, but it still fits. I think it does pick up the pace eventually. Once the characters are set up there's some interesting stuff going on between Ahab and Starbuck.

I'm not popular enough to download it, apparently

It doesn't matter what you heard, 'cause I'm the mo- therfucking wizard.

I'm a fan of both Dorian Gray and Moby Dick. Moby Dick was to me a wonderful experience, because I had such fun with the story in the miniseries with Patrick Stewart. Then when I read the book I felt rewarded by the extreme breadth of topics and styles of writing. It was one of the most difficult books I read (but not more difficult than Thus Spake Zarathustra or Origin of Species (I had such a hard time getting through that one, I thought it was so dry)), but well worth it. Then after that I felt compelled to adapt Moby Dick in my webcomic Captain August, which was megalomaniacal and fun. Dorian Grey -I'm sure I said this in this very topic earlier- felt so devious and wicked when I first read it, I couldn't put it down. It felt like I was delving into a tome of twisted morality that tickled me in very strong ways. That alone made the book special to me, but I can easily see that it wouldn't if you've already had a lot of those insights on morality in other places. I can't really judge.

Funny kittens you have, Brkl =) They're so playful when they're young.

Happy birthday!

I can't find a European release for this game anywhere. Any info on if and when?

Let's not get into a JRPG discussion right now I'm gonna keep an eye on Catherine.

I'm wondering whether the puzzle bits (i.e. the majority of the game?) will be really fun, or something I would slog/rush through in order to see the story which might be actually really interesting. I've never played Persona because most JRPG's are toxic to me, so a puzzle game could be good in this case.

Quite amazing that they managed to record the podcast on a crowded street in India!

Biology is what keeps us from being inbred. Living creatures have a natural instinct not to mate with their direct relations. The only thing I can directly think of that Christianity did that had a profoundly positive effect was during the middle ages, when monasteries were the preservers of literature from antiquity and places of learning. But one can argue that Christianity was also a factor in the rise of the dark ages itself, so I guess that balances out. The thing is, it's impossible to tell whether the 'boons' of religion wouldn't have happened without it, whether it's quite easy to point to the excesses that religion directly gave rise to, from giving legitimacy and cause for people to go on countless wars and slaughters to hindering the use of condoms in AIDS-ridden Africa.

The only sound I'm hearing is the scribbling of religious nuts, hastily recalculating the next date that's sure to bring the rapture. It is, of course, thoroughly too much to ask for that these people start realizing that they may have been barking up the wrong tree all their lives. That'd require nothing short of a miracle.

Forever until the end of time will I read 'Little Big Adventure' whenever this game series pops up.

I'm about three to four hours in and I still have to come to grips with the game. It feels disjointed, like they took Heavy Rain and tried to cram it into GTA. I haven't really made up my mind about L.A. Noire yet, it's way too weird for that. I'll have to play a lot more to make any sense out of it.

That's just unnecessary information. I could understand it if he were a 'masturbation wizard', i.e. a person with masturbation-based magicks. But to be a wizard of undefined talent who also happens to be masturbating to some degree, that is something I don't see as relevant information towards his profession.

Storywise part 2 and 3 were terrible and convoluted, but they did have sparkle, a charm, something anarchic. I enjoyed watching them even when I resented all the missed opportunities. A movie can exist on that strength alone. On Stranger Tides lacks even those redeeming features. Will Turner was bland, but sometimes a straight man is needed to ground the world into something believable. That was something I feared when first hearing of OST, I thought the movie would crumble because it was all Sparrow wackiness. In that regard it actually does pretty well, the character at least never becomes tedious to watch (despite his presence in the film being completely superfluous).

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is not a good movie. Half of it is amusing enough, the other half is awful. I'm frankly stumped that Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, the prolific writers of the original movies who usually have this sort of action romp down (Mask of Zorro, Aladdin, El Dorado), wrote this. It comes across very strongly as a fanmade movie, trying to copy all the Pirates bits but never able to make it sparkle quite as much as even the second and third movies -in all their wonky scriptiness- did.

I had read that, and it is very interesting. I don't drink coffee myself, as I shy away from any addicting substance out there. The point here is that they assume it's an unknown compound in the coffee that creates the salubrious effect (I had been waiting for a good chance to use that word!). Once they find it (it might be some antioxidant) they'll be able to synthesize it into other foods and/or pills. It just so happens I'm scrutinizing my diet at the moment, spurred on by my recent conversion to pescotarianism (no meats, but still fish), which does require a careful approach not to miss out on vital compounds like proteins, but also things I read about diet. Has anyone seen the recent documentary Forks over Knives? Apparently it stresses the importance of changing our diets and points towards our eating habits as the main cause of most of our prominent Western diseases and ailments (cancer, cardiovascular problems, etc).

Oh shit, I can't deal with horror of any kind, I am way too scared a person. I'm afraid of the dark enough as it is That makes it tough sometimes, because some horror is extremely fascinating. Once I heard about Ringu, for example, I had to see it. It was just too interesting to pass up. I saw it in broad daylight and was afraid for days and weeks afterwards. Generally I shy away from horror though, I know I can't deal with it. I will play some scary games though. Especially the Silent Hill series is, again, too interesting to not play. Games like Resident Evil I don't consider horror though, zombies are generally a lot less scary than weird poltergeisty shit. Dawn of the Dead is something I can easily sit through and be fascinated by.

Started reading Jared Diamond's influential Guns, Germs and Steel. I saw the documentary last year, so the content of the book is largely known to me. However, there's much more granularity and case studies involved, which is very interesting. Can't say much more about it yet, except that I read it with Diamond's solemn voice in my head all the time.

I think there is something wonderful about this sort of (mostly) harmless silliness. Quoting Oscar Wilde; we should treat all the trivial things in life very seriously, and all the serious things with sincere and studied triviality.