Roderick

Couldn't make it, unfortunately, since I had some emergency things to do (dad in hospital), but look forward to the next round!

Train-ignoring is a hobby... But what my friend n0wak is trying to say is that it's a bit weird to call a belief that is based upon reason, logic and a sizeable volume of evidence 'faith'. Faith could be described as 'believing in something despite the lack of any evidence pointing towards it'. Don't put your own educated worldviews in the same category as beliefs based on gutfeelings and indoctrination, Nachimir.

Ah, the Donnie Darko Gary Jules connection. I was thinking of Brutal Legend and not understanding how they fit together.

This is all rather dangerous speculation. Memes, foremost, are the cultural equivalent of genes. Culture, as we know, can change and adapt within generations, so there's no reason why memes should adhere to the millions-of-years span that genes take to mutate, test the waters, are weeded out, etc. Next; reciprocal altruism is encoded in genes (instinct) and is a perfectly sound Darwinistic principle. That doesn't necessarily undermine the theory that religion may have been created as a ways to give some meaning and depth to our urge to do good, but I'd like to read more about it before I make up my mind. It doesn't sound very reasonable. Religion itself is a slowly mutating meme; it never just sprang up overnight, but evolved out of myths and stories of people trying to come to grips with the seemingly magical world. Ethics are the codified morals that people have had in themselves for as long as they have existed. But it is an interesting link. Undoubtedly, religion has been used to keep people in line by emotional blackmail (the promise of hell, an all-seeing eye keeping watch and keeping tabs or even some mysterious force like karma coming to bite you in the ass). But a direct correlation is one I hesitate to accept without some more reasoning. Thirdly, just because something survives in the grand scheme of evolutionary time, doesn't mean it is wanted, desirable or in fact needed at all. For every necessary gene that we use in our body to survive, there are numerous parasitic ones that do nothing for us but simply use us to survive (or in some cases, even harm us when they are activated if they're dormant or recessive). They're hitchhiking a ride and they managed to survive because there simply wasn't any direct pressure to remove them. Now, though I'm more willing to make a case that religion is akin to a hurtful gene that's been riding undetected in the trunks of our mind, that's not directly my intention here. All I'm saying; something surviving according to Darwinistic principles doesn't imply anything but that it is good at surviving in its direct gene or meme environment.* (* Why a gene/meme might be good at surviving can depend on many things. In the (for us) best scenario, it actually does something good for us by making us stronger, healthier, etc. But it might also simply be extremely proficient in not being detected and evading removal. Truly a selfish gene! )

Could you explain the Donnie Darko connection? I've seen it once a few years ago, but it didn't really stick (wasn't really too excited by it).

Haha, it may be a little disturbing (distrubing, even), but I have sometimes caught the attention of my girlfriend with 'dude'. But then we will occasionally go for the bizarre. Harmless, yet horrifying.

As soon as the word 'mmorpg' falls, I immediately expect a difficult to play, ugly, uninteresting game. Only World of Warcraft has managed to capture my imagination (other games that have failed in one way or the other were Age of Conan, Guild Wars and Tabula Rasa). The Old Republic looks comfortably uninteresting. I thought it was especially poor in their demonstration that they kept cutting back to footage of the same battle between two Jedi with the turbine or dam background. An MMO is supposed to lead us to an enormous richness and diversity of locations and events. This just looks pretty bland.

I actually liked the little Eddie monologue with the nun, it was totally Schaferish and reminiscent of Psychonauts' under-the-breath quips and remarks. The action was meh-ish at first glance, and it was a bit of a shame that three consecutive shots had a Jack Black WOOHOO in it, but at the same time I got really excited simply because it was Double fine showing me something. I usually get irritated when journalists look upon something good or preview something that has a high likelihood of being great, but then out of some misguided sense of journalistic integrity make some contrived criticism or introduce some misplaced understatement (like 'well, let's see if they can tighten everything up' or whatever). This isn't really the same scenario, as the Brutal Legend trailer does lead to some doubts, but as far as our trust in Double fine / Schafer goes, it is totally justified. If an artist manages to produce spectacular work for decades and has never let you down, why be suspicious? Someone like that has earned the benefit of the doubt.

Mentally, I'm still with Sinterklaas and his pagan origins. Though I will look out for the book with the ridiculously long title about New Amsterdam. (Even old New York was once New Amsterdam, Why'd they changed it I can't say, people just liked it better that way! - They might be Giants)

Also, Marek's future domain still sounds awesome.

Jesus, that hacker is a jerk, feeling all self-righteous for hacking a game someone has worked on for years and rightfully wants some money and credit for. I don't know Garriot, maybe he's a dick as well, but this hacker is a little snot for taking it out on Garriot and throwing around insults on his blog, while he was the one stealing and hurting. The irony is that this guy is just as sickeningly glib about his accomplishments as he accuses Garriot of being.

Santa Claus has its origins in the Dutch Sinterklaas figure, I believe. He was a Turkish bishop (now seen as Spanish for whatever reason) who gave gifts to poor children. Now he visits Holland every 5th of December. Santa Claus bears an uncanny resemblance to him and most likely originated with the Dutch immigrants in early America celebrating their feast. Meet Sinterklaas! He rides a white horse, holds a golden staff and has a book in which all the children's behaviour and wishes are listed. It's pretty easy to see how this shaped into Santa Claus's reindeer usage, book, candy cane symbolism and other stuff. But it surely has pagan origins as well. In any case, it's all mixed up. (Also, Sinterklaas has an army of black slaves called 'Zwarte Piet' (Black Pete) who are really playful, goofy and funny. They got replaced by politically more correct elves on the North pole. But what's a good celebration without some racist roots?)

We must have it! I do believe I have my share of embarrassing email correspondance as well with a select few game people.

In Europe, the Club Nintendo thing has gone down the drain considerably since the advent of the Wii. First there was a genuine sense of excitement: you could collect points with buying games, filling in questionnaires and just by visiting the site. I went there daily. After the Wii and Nintendo's new site, that all disappeared. Now it's just points for buying games. The catalogue itself has changed too. Though it has more paraphernalia and nicknacks, they're less enjoyable. Little games, too. But I don't know. I don't visit the site anymore. A few weeks ago I used up all my remaining points to buy the Mario Galaxy double-disc soundtrack. A great thing to have (even if I already have the mp3's)! But I won't bother with points anymore. Nintendo has lost a lot of its appeal to me since the Wii.

I think Yahtzee and his somewhat soulless sidekicks could make a really nice show, but this isn't it. It's way too fake. Every time Yahtzee comes with his conspicuously scripted monologues it's cringeworthy, because they're presenting it as being 'real'. Zero Punctuation doesn't have to be real, in fact it works because it's able to indulge in the most contrived sentences ever created. Game Damage needs something else. Also, all of the jokes fall on their face because the show cuts to one of the anchors laughing sheepishly. Come on, guys! The skits are unfunny (their absurdism doesn't work). The only thing I really liked was Yahtzee's Videogaiden-esque rant on the death of adventuregames (the other rants were watchable too!). I felt a genuine slice of passion there, the setting was good and it didn't matter that it was scripted. More of that; less of the wooden stiffs on the sofa, please.

Oh wow, thank you! It's fantastic! =D Tim Freaking Schafer and Jack Black are a fantastic combination. So psyched! Fall2009 is a ways away, but I hope the dripfeed of info starts now!

So the level of awfulness with which you're still willing to see a movie in theatres is 'pants', Wrestle? Low entry point, there.

That constituted about 50% of the reasons I want to see the thing, but the other half is Jack Black's further performance during the show. I dunno, I just assumed this was a web based effort with all the Gametrailers plugging by Geoff Keighley. On a related note, Keighley seems a very nice guy and I enjoy watching him do the Bonus Round and other bits there. The unwatchable Amanda McKay, on the other hand, remains as ever unwatchable.

Their countdown ended and everything! I don't know all those weird American times, so I assumed it was good.

I probably knew that since I saw the trailer and heard of it. The first movie was basically a simple, single philosophical idea. Remaking that and trying to make it exciting over the course of a whole modern movie would be a difficult task at best. Now I'm hoping it's SO bad I want to see it anyway. Is it?

So, who's gonna head for one of the many midnight launch parties? Anyone...? I'm dressing up as an Undead apothecary. Complete with green liquid in a glass vase.

Holy crap! SUPERB!! Baby Jesus just burped with happiness! (and threw up some milk in the process)

Actually, no. I'm really surprised because it's been a while since I saw starship Troopers and I'm amazed at how young he is here.

Omg, that's totally Neil Harris, is it not?

Will be joining as Roderick!