Roderick

Wow, that was unexpected, and funny

Bah humbug, I was thoroughly unimpressed by Junot Diaz' Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Righto I can't help with the list though, I've read next to no modern fiction.

No, it hasn't. But it'll die down as soon as the economy gets better for most people. Or as soon as networks stop blasting news into everyone's ears 24/7.

Holy shit you made me remember the various evenings that I did in actuality fall asleep while scanning planets. Man, those were good evenings. I wish that happened more often, I'm not even joking.

It's not getting scary. It's just the same as always. I'm not scared, I'm concerned that a lot of people are getting scared and thinking that they should be scared of things that are nothing to be scared about. That's what's leading to the rise of the populists (who thrive on fear -V for Vendetta anyone?) and an unwarranted pull towards nationalism. But, I mean, don't mind anything I say, let's just throw all the gypsies out of our country and surely our perceived problems will instantly disappear?

Surely this is going to end in another huge spectacle about what is the definition of literature?

One of the things that I thought was lost with the second Mass Effect was that wandering across the stars and planets feeling. It felt too structured, too uniform. I hope this third game manages to loosen the stucture up a bit. Otherwise, I'm ready to go! I love that universe and I can't wait to actually land on Earth. I loved landing on the moon in the first game.

Pretty neat. Silent Hill couldn't have freaked me out more than the weird colorations of the landscape appearing, as if the world was bugging out.

This is pretty tricky, actually! If I had to make non-specified list of top games, it would go something like this: * Mass Effect 2 (gorgeous game, somewhat less impressive than the original but extremely good nonetheless) * Red Dead Redemption (I just really had fun roaming the prairie and shooting grizzly bears, even if I never did the multiplayer) * Starcraft 2 (incredible fun and a pulp story that had me hooked. Plus the most intense, nerve racking multiplayer I ever played)

If you go for the continent, as your attorney I advise you to steer cleer of Greece for the moment At the moment, all of Europe is shitting itself with a sweep of nationalism crossing through almost every country. It's a little frightening at the moment, seeing all those raving populists getting into power. We're also highly confused over the European Union right now, no one knows what direction it should go in and a frightening lot are saying we should disband the whole thing (which would be the worst idea of the century). Having said that, there's still mighty good living to be had here, if you can resist being swept up in the turbulence. Most of it won't take such a dramatic course and it's surprisingly easy to just stop reading newspapers and watch the news. It can dramatically improve your state of mind to tap out of the cycle of depressing newshype.

Besides the obvious of getting a job in that country and then having them pay for relocation... no, sorry. If you're not particular to mountains, I hear the Netherlands is a pretty organized strap of land. I mean, you'd have another queen above you, which would feel familiar.

Next to Alyx Vance and Jade, my all-time favorite heroine is Heather from Silent Hill 3. You want a non-typical, non-whiny, non-oversexualized girl? There's Heather.

Solid point. In any case, the movie obviously didn't go for the big shocks.

I read the comments on Moon earlier in this thread and I've been wondering why there's such a disparity between yours and my opinion. I've been trying to look at it from other perspectives. Most people here like Moon because it avoids all the clichés and focuses on something else than the tried and true themes of I wouldn't want this to have been an 'Alien' type of movie either, or something like Solaris. However, I still think the movie doesn't play to its strengths. I get the feeling that in trying to be original and avoiding the cliché, Moon's character(s) become disconnected from the human condition. This just isn't how a person would react to a situation like the one Sam finds himself in. There would, by way of illustration, be that shower scene. I'm not saying Moon should have been a different movie, I like what it tries to do. But I disagree with a lot of you in feeling the emotion/theme of the movie could've been exploited way more effectively, in a way that resonated more with the viewer.

I watched Moon yesterday. I had deliberately avoided any and all trailers and comments, because I suspected this to be a special movie. But it has, in a way, not managed to live up to the expectations. The movie is quite OK, to be sure, but what bothered me most about it is its ineffectiveness. It's an extremely ineffective movie. That might sound weird, but what I mean is that I could see there was a really good movie in Moon, but they never exploited it at all. There are so many plot points and moments that could've been chilling, grand or lovely, but it's all handled as if this stuff happens every day. It's all these moments that could've been terrific and terrifiying, wasted by not playing to their strengths at all.

Yikes, take it easy there, Snoogle. Also, there's tonnes and tonnes of slower-paced games. I mean, even stuff like Fable of Mass Effect should be fine, right? As long as it's not some hyperkinetic arcade game.

To be fair to all sides, I think a little scepticism about Lara Croft is deserved: she is one of the most milked and hyped characters of gaming (yesteryear). However, since no one here has played it, most of the criticism and scathing remarks are about the character and the media politics surrounding it. I don't think anyone here's already writing off the game itself, which may or may not be quite good and surprising.

Monkey Island was the original cake is a lie.

Sorry to harp on about this, but I'm so excited. I've ordered the game + keyboard at a local gameshoppe and it's coming in on Friday. I checked around and noticed that in a lot of places the game was sold out and no longer orderable (at least, not the keyboard bundle). So to get it still is a relief. It's 140 Euro tokens, so that's quite an investment. I hope it pays off in learning me the basics of keyboard/piano play.

Continuing my push to read lots of classics: as an interlude before finishing War and Peace, yesterday I read Hemingway's The old man and the sea in one sitting. It was short and very touching, and very interesting. I do love a good maritime story. Now that I've read it, though, I feel I've only probed the first layer of many underneath, that might only unveil themselves as I become older or experience certain things.

Not sure if I understand the concept of a puzzle without gears and switches, possibly crates and pressure plates.

It may be me, but it feels as if Lara Croft has been doing nothing but reboots for the past five years? Everything from Legends to Underground have all toted that they brought Croft into a new light. That may have been PR buzz at the time, but it certainly has caused me to be rather unimpressed at the announcement.

Glad to see that with all those wounds on her face, Lara still has the good taste to look rather voluptuously into the camera.

Thewithered vines display lambast!