Roderick

A few years back when I got my wisdom teeth removed I was chomping away merrily at a bit of slavink that very evening again. It really differs from person to person. I had local aneasthesia and even though the dentist had to pick a few shards out, it was done in no time and with zero pain or discomfort. About the podcast: it was great and Sean's story at the end was the perfect way to end it. Thank you for a great run, and hopefully Idle Thumbs... will live again some day! (As it always has.)

In order to get the 'Pretentious!' achievement I'm reading Tolstoy's War and Peace and it's really good. It's a massive, sprawling chronicle of Russian life in the time period of the Napoleonic-Russian wars seen through the eyes of multiple high society families in St. Petersburg and Moscow. The scope is jaw-dropping. [EDIT] Bah, I'm already angry at myself for my faux-irony and false modesty in this post. Yeah I'm reading War and Peace, and no, I don't think that's pretentious at all. I'm reading it because it seemed super interesting and I like this sort of book. So I can just go fuck myself

These cutscenes have piqued my interest, even if it's the typical Japanese bullshit version of European middle ages pushed to an extreme (I bet even Diablo isn't so heavy with its religious idiom... although...!). I'm a little afraid that the gameplay is going to be God of War-esque, which has historically bored me to pieces. Is anyone really that interested in pulling combos?

Shadow! Colossus! In my office, now!

You're right that they forgot a bunch of core Mario games --as did I. Mario Land 1 & 2 belong in that list. The kart games not so much. Galaxy 2 is probably the only direct sequel in terms of gameplay, straight-up. That's hardly a strong case for the rigidity of the series!

The core Mario franchise is actually one of the least 'milked' things. Nintendo always made sure to space these out over the years pretty carefully and never seemed content with offering the same thing twice. Every core Mario game has different features and strives to bring something new to the series. The same obviously can't be said for the endless stream of sports and party games featuring Mario, where it became a joke in itself how much Nintendo milked its mascot. Considering this movie was about the core games though, I don't know why it irritated you so much. Even from the perspective of a newcomer it should seem rather that Nintendo were quite conservative, releasing only 8 real Mario games over 25 years.

Have an irrationally boostive birthday!

Damn, seeing that Toonstruck intro (and the outro and credits) again made me remember how much this game means to me. So much fun memories! Bip-bo-bip-bo-bippety-boo!

I want to play Hopkins FBI.

That's weird. Didn't you have other games to play that you liked better, then? It sounds desperate. 14 years later, I can still recite bits and pieces of the conversation with the Footman ,,'Best King of Cutopia'?" ,,O yes! That one was quite an honor: it was bestowed by the king himself."

That is insane, Jennoa. That really shouldn't happen, ever. Today I tried out Jodo after a year of Kendo. Jodo is Japanese stickfighting, disrespectfully speaking. And it was pretty great. I really liked it. I especially liked that it wasn't so damn competitive as Kendo, which can really get on my nerves.

I'd love a Toonstruck 2, especially if it's made from material that was already made (i.e. completely in synch with the tone of the original). I loved Toonstruck, it was one of the first games I bought with my own pocket money. Petition signed!

Like I said, it's a really funny movie, even if it had potential to be so much more than that. I don't think it got a release here in the Netherlands at all. Of course we did get "Vampires Suck"

I saw Black Dynamite last week, and posted a story about it on Captain August today: http://www.captainaugust.com/hams

I think it just has it's ups and downs like a sine wave. That's what happens with most of my interests. I had a bit of gaming mehness a couple years back, followed by a great interest in it since 2007 again. It depends on my own mood, and stuff like where we are in the console generations, what particular games are coming out and a million other factors. Maybe you'll grow out of gaming altogether, maybe it's temporary. It's impossible to say. Just do what your heart tells you. These things happen.

I bet Emilio Zerg and his beautiful boyfriend Dave are going to be super pleased! y2P6vAmZyjo

The Thief and the Cobbler definitely dragged on at certain points. Especially the Looney Tunes bits (the thief trying to get to the golden balls) went on for too long. Even the elaborate Rube Goldberg machine-ending dragged on a bit, though animation-wise it was amazing. Since animation is super costly studios usually throw nothing away, instead taking a lot of care to plot everything out in advance. But I guess Williams was such an eccentric that he just did whatever That's kind of cool.

Great art style. Still hoping they'll incorporate a bunch of really braintwisting time puzzles in there instead of going pure linear adventure.

Really fun podcast to listing to.

My mistake about SA, I don't know a whole lot about the origin, I thought I saw it mentioned in the credits. Regardless, it's super obvious how much Aladdin stole from this movie in terms or character design, visuals, plot devices, fucking everything. The two movies are very different as well, of course, but it's a shame that Disney seems intent on leaving a trail of corpses behind it wherever it goes. Some of the animation in Thief and the Cobbler is so beautiful and surprising. How could you not laugh out loud at that scene where you first see the old woman the thief is trying to rob?

Yesterday I watched the original, sort of restored version of Richard Williams' epic animated feature The Thief And The Cobbler, which was in production since the 60s. Or, development hell, rather. The film was never finished, so at long last Something Awful people [EDIT: not Something Awful people but the dude in the post below this one] took the footage and edited it as best as they could to reflect the vision Williams had (there was also a supposedly mediocre edit made in 1993). The film is wonderfully bizarre and goes from serious fantasy to Looney Tunes goofs. What's especially wonderful (and very telling of Williams' style) is that the world isn't consistent and stable, but warps to the demands of each specific scene and character. Animation styles differ between characters and locations bend and morph as the scene requires it. That alone is such a pleasant departure from the rules of every other animated feature that it's worth digging into. At times it gets a little repetitive and chaotic like a horrible nightmare, but it's worth the lesser bits.

I'm especially looking forward to reading my own PDF's directly on the machine, as it costs a bundle to keep printing out screenplays and whatever. How is the purchasing of books, do you need a credit card, or are there like Warcraft points or what?

It's bizarre: after a career of abandoning us, the end of the Idle Thumbs podcasts still makes me supremely sad. You never quite get used to it! Though as always... Idle Thumbs WILL find another outlet to do something insane. In the future. We'll just have to wait for it a couple of years. I was in stitches, strangely enough, because of the story of Vanaman's sleeping arm falling on his face!

Expendables was fun. I agree with ElMuerte that it didn't satisfy on all accounts. The finale (and whole of third act) was shit. Not in a good 80s B-movie way, just really boring (apart from the ). My mind switched off and starting wandering. The bad guys were pretty terrible too. Angel Batista just didn't make for a believable generalissimo. Eric Roberts was saved by his goddamn evil face. I loved that this movie featured no obligatory sex scene with at least a 50+ year age difference between the two participants.

I loved Broken Sword 1 (and 2 a little less). I guess for me, the lure of nicely rendered exotic locales, subtle music and good atmosphere was more than enough. I found the characters engaging enough to go along. I see parallels between this and the Starcraft II discussion. In both cases, people say how awful the story is, while I didn't see it at all. Perhaps it's a case of where if the game can sell me the characters, I'm willing to go along. Perhaps I'm less demanding of games, because I still see story as something of a welcome extra? In any case, Broken Sword is great in my book.