Roderick

Phaedrus' Street Crew
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Posts posted by Roderick


  1. The problem, it seems, is that in every single country, every now and then the majority gets it into their thick heads that liberal government sucks and the country needs to be taken over by right wing extremists. This happened with Fortuyn in Holland [...]

    Although I agree with the consent, Ninja, I have to correct you. Fortuyn was NOT a right-wing extremist. He was wrongfully portrayed as such by the media and by bickering politicians, which eventually lead to his murder. But he was not an extremist. His views were, in fact, pretty balanced. He was a very nuanced, smart man. And demonised, literally, to hell.


  2. Related; it occurs to me that I find it weird that the US is still being all occupied with stuff that's so commonplace here in The Netherlands. Gay marriage, abortion; the kind of stuff that any free cosmopolitan society of this age should have. I can easily see a host of Americans looking at Asia and the Middle East going all "aaaww, they're still so undeveloped and archaic in how they think", while I'm thinking the same way about them. How can they competently rule the world when they're still so far behind most of the others, bogged down with things that aren't even an issue here anymore?


  3. This sucks so much. But we can't just blame the president himself anymore. He's just the asshole he is, we can't blame him for doing his best in the elections. But we can blame like, half of America. How could all those people vote for such a retarded man, unless they're retarded themselves? How could all those people not give a fuck about the environment, peace, honour and truth? Bush is the quintessential antagonist to all of those. And now he has another four years to fuck us all up even more.


  4. Crap.

    This monday I went to a local toystore. I saw there a budget rerelease of the two expansions for Morrowind, Tribunal and Bloodmoon, two cd's in one DVD-case. There was no price, so I asked how much it costed. Only 7,50 Euro's! For some reason I still don't know and which is making me kick myself right now, I didn't buy it then.

    I returned for it today, and fortunately, it was still in the store. But when I went to buy it, the display suddenly said 49,95! WHAT THE HELL?! Now I don't know whether the first dude was mistaken, but I may have been able to get it for real cheap back then! Why didn't I buy it on monday, WHYYY?!

    So I'm kicking myself right now.


  5. And for Rodi, if you fiirst watched citizen Kane as a small child, you should watch it again now. Its just good, and unboring if you listen to the dialouge.

    I watched it not a year ago for the first time, for semiotics on school. So it's not like I didn't like it because I didn't understand it or I thought it was boring because at the time I was only used to Transformers :) But thanks for thinking along with me, instead of taking an aggressive stance.


  6. (I guess that's also due to the lack of roleplaying of many of them, or am I mistaken?)

    Oh wow, Grand Theft Horse! GTA in a medieval world! A bustling stronghold where you can steal a man's horse, take it for a cruise and ram it into other quadruplets!


  7. I never really felt Lost in Translation to be stressing its art house roots. In fact, I'd describe the whole movie as really easy-going, laid back, not concerned with a great many things. I was just absorbed by the rythm, the otherworldly atmosphere. You can't call this movie badly written and 'failed on all fronts' just because you don't have a clue what the heck is going on. Lost in Translation is rightly lauded as a poignant and subtle story about friendships and loneliness in my eyes. I'm sorry that you didn't enjoy the movie, that's wholly possible, but it goes too far to present your opinion as a fact.

    Also, I wasn't bothered by how Coppola protrayed the Japanese. For starters this is how they actually are. Of course there were exaggurations (as a people I wouldn't want to be associated with that actress prostitute either!), but what offended you further? The talkshow host? The aggressive director? The kids playing weird games in the arcade? Or was it the traditional Japanese countryside wedding? Or the person Bob shared a laugh with in the hospital?

    Even IF it may have seemed that Coppola took a one-sided approach to depicting the Japanese, she never judged them. It's a theme in the whole movie; she doesn't judge what she sees. Not the strange culture of the Japanese (of whom all the examples in the movie are common place in Japanese city life!), nor the fact that Bob is on the verge of committing adultery (but refrains from doing so to sustain the idyllic relationship with Charlotte). The movie has a lot more subtlety than you credit it for :)

    Lastly, about Citizen Kane. Ha, I admit I was rather provoking in words. I have to say, I understand that the movie was revolutionary in its imagery and setup of the story. But I just found myself rather uninterested with it all. Revolutionary for its time it may have been, but that doesn't mean it's still up to par with all the rest from this time. Therefore, I appreciate that it was groundbreaking, but still see it as a rather boring movie. But from a cultural point of view, I'm glad I saw it. Once.


  8. Oh wow. Even just seeing those screenshots makes me realise again that these games rock. Really, the Lands of Lore system/engine was terrific, no 'real' first person game has ever been able to offer quite the same experience.

    My word it looks like an absolute blast to play! Just seeing all those characters makes me wonder in amazement what they'll have to offer and say! Of course my anticipation already makes it better than it can actually be, but what the heck ^_^

    There are some pretty gaudy screenshots in there though @_@ In the sense of art direction, I think Lands of Lore made a more consistent impression.


  9. Yufster: If you wanna see a boring movie, watch Citizen Kane. Lost in Translation may have been slow, but never boring. But I'm totally biased because I'm not just a Murray-nut, but also a Japan-nut. Bill Murray is awesome. We should have a Bill Murray-avatar that we use to award comic excellence in a post with.

    I'm not dreading Garfield, because there's no way I'll ever take the effort to see it. It's as simple as that.


  10. I happen to know that Eye of the Beholder, the Westwood series, were the spiritual and gameplaywise forefathers of Westwoods brilliant rpg Lands of Lore, which I love & cherish.

    Is this Obitus up to par? Can you donate some screenshots?


  11. I must be its advocate here though. I will not have you squander the name of that precious movie of which ilk there should be many more.

    Anyway, I thought LXG was a mediocre movie that was entertaining enough if you had the right set of mind. But the ending was so crappy it gave me a bad aftertaste.


  12. I think so. It's no surprise though. Besides the fact that it's just kerrazy exciting at the moment, there really are some very important things at stake here. No matter how much some may think that America is just another country, the fact is that they decide what happens to the world. Is it any wonder there's much attention to this, especially in the rest of the Western world? And quite so because there's a frighteningly big chance that we'll get the batshit dumbfuck president again, who'll exacerbate everything. The foulmouthing is all to blame on Penny Arcade or course.


  13. I'm going to buy the Collector's Edition just because I'm such a freak. And when I play it free for the first month, I'll report back on how awasome it surely is. I have yet to see the first time Blizzard ever let me down.


  14. It's the same-old same-old with me. I'm rooting for Kerry, but thinking Bush will make it. Because, as they said in some programs here, he's 'more eager to get it'. He stole the elections once, he'll do it again (courtesy of the Fox network again no doubt :shifty:).

    Last night, the 'anarchist' public network VPRO broadcasted a 5 hour show around the elections, covering not just the politics, but all things about America. It really gave a broad perspective on things, even though not every article was equally interesting and there was a HUGE bias towards Kerry (not that I mind from a personal standpoint :)). Of particular interest was an interview made by a Netherlandic guy I didn't know before and an American singer. He said some things that should really be described as food for thought. About how Bush was essentially the same as the people who couldn't accept or believe back then that the earth was round. In the same way, Bush still thinks in archaic notions of good and evil countries, and the justification of the only True Religion And God. He's an archaic man that is totally unfit to rule the modern world.