syntheticgerbil

Phaedrus' Street Crew
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Everything posted by syntheticgerbil

  1. Super Mario Maker

    Your art style is super cute!
  2. Meow.

    Yes, good work! This also reminds me that our cat Fargo once was left alone for a weekend and could have potentially burned down the place with his idiocy because we came home and a lamp was knocked over from a table to a couch arm and the lightbulb was on and it had melted a big round indent into the arm. So glad it didn't catch on fire. We both swear we did not leave the lamp on. Our guess is since he's so playful he started pawing at the little chain, turned it on, and subsequently knocked it over, breaking the lampshade off.
  3. Life

    A classmate brought up networking being important (yeah like I haven't heard that before) when referring to the creative industry, but it could be about any industry really. She also brought up the importance of being likeable, which I have a hard time with because while I'm not grumpy, my real self, around people unless we are close, I often don't have the time or interest to work at trying to connect with a bunch of people at past companies I have been at. I also recently heard a lecture from a concept artist talking about how important making connections with people in the game industry is because it's not a meritocracy. But she was saying just going to events with the idea of networking is superficial and should not be done, you should be out to make real friends with people or everyone will think you are fake. This made my blood boil. Since I arrived in Austin, I was going for a few years to game developer meet ups where the strict rule is to not ask for a job. However I always thought this was stupid and disingenuous because that is why most people are going, considering half of the people are looking for work and if they get employed they tend to skip it. I stopped going late 2013 when I realized none of the connections I made ever led to me getting a job when I needed one. I think it's silly to expect one to go to these with the idea of meeting a bunch of random people and genuinely be interested in being friends with them. It's all a bunch of pretending, in general no one has time for this stuff, it's really hard as an adult to keep up a social life with your real close friends and family let alone a bunch of strangers that may lead to a job. Plus I feel like if you are gonna get a friend, it'll happen naturally as a good fit, which it has in fact for me from professional settings. Then this ties into how asking for job candidates to fit the "company culture" is a big thing in the tech industry now. Usually the company culture entails a bunch of twenty something white guys with nerf darts and who unironically ride scooters around the office. Basically that MOST FUNNEST PLACE TO WORK Pixar thing they always tout in their documentaries. That seems so miserable to me. And I am upset because I am bad at faking interest because I usually have a billion things on my end I gotta get to and it comes down to again handling my actual social life instead of trying to fit in with these people. Even though I'm a white guy, a lot of these types tend to be sheltered rich kids, which I've never got along with since my family didn't have a ton of money and I never did the stuff rich white kids are supposed to in their teens, like join youth groups and go to church, get involved with sports, have a car that is not some 1993 used Toyota (that I had to save up a lot for from a bad job), travel to foreign countries, live in a house with two stories, and not really work a day in their life until after they finish college. I spent most of my teens hanging out with a bunch of juvenile delinquents who tended to have less money and more problems than I did and our recreational activities were often just doing drugs or vandalism. I don't even understand fully why I gravitated towards people like this at that time, often they were bad and dishonest friends and this completely contrasted with me diligently doing my homework and good grades and doing those AP classes where I basically spent years not having a conversations with anyone and putting my head down in class with my Walkman on when I finished my work. I just didn't have anything to talk about with these shiny people in a completely different world and different zip code. Later they lightened up some (and me as well) my senior year of high school. Now I'm gonna be 30 in two months and I fear I'll be even further from connecting with 20 something shiny white dudes and I'll be obsolete at creative companies the more I age. I've talked to some people on this who are usually not the right skin tone or are "too old" who feel the discrimination when they are not people who can fit in with all the needed extracurricular activity to secure their jobs or are just simply and subtly discriminated against. Then the crunch becomes unacceptable for people who may have gotten married or have had children who could very well still do a 40 hours a week and do a good job, but it's expected of 20 something white dudes to make work their life. Work hard and play hard or whatever the fuck. I think this culture fit bullshit needs to disappear, it's just going to keep status quo ideas perpetuating which is even worse for creative industries. I suppose some would contest that to achieve the American Dream means you just try really hard and part of trying really hard is steeping yourself in a company's culture and giving up all your free time to social interactions for the sake of networking, but I think that sucks. tl;dr I'm sad I'm not whitey enough and I'm whining about networking.
  4. I Had A Random Thought...

    Actually now I'm just mad at airlines and I think all seat should be prereclined, or just stop stuffing too many people in a plane (but that's not gonna happen). I think I need to obtain rich with a private jet, and a yacht and then this wouldn't be a problem.
  5. I Had A Random Thought...

    Yeah man, fuck that shit, especially for 8 or so hour flights where you gotta sleep. The way to resolve this is to recline as well , then everyone puts their seats up for food time. It's a perfectly standard setup on flights. Well what would be perfect if they didn't jam so many god damn seats in an airplane. The knee room stuff makes me feel claustrophobic if the flight doesn't have enough room and they start hurting and then I have to do that thing where I'm constantly shifting, trying to put my legs out straight under the seat in front of me. Probably the only time in life where it sucks being tall. Although I am worse because I'm that asshole that takes his shoes off on the flight and will walk to the bathroom in my socks, because I don't give a fuck I guess. And I get up a lot because my fucking knees hurt. The pilot is gonna threaten to turn this flight around.
  6. Looks like someone owes some money.
  7. Idle Thumbs 227: Quiet The Clown

    Oh yeah, remembered to look up that rich kid tumblr: "Just an average #Saturday #miami #pj #jetlife ✈️ by jaredj22" Yuck.
  8. Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

    I wish they would have just hid P.T. in the game since you can't get it anymore.
  9. Where in the World - Idle Thumbs Map

    I didn't even know the gulf stream was a thing. I feel stupid, but now I am a little bit more enlightened about geography.
  10. Life

    That would annoy me to no end. I can't stand people who fail to reply or just can't give a flat out no in dating, job applications, anything. It's like if she leaves you hanging for two weeks, then you have to waste your energy wondering.
  11. One Evening Games!

    I have it for free just waiting to be played, perhaps I should give in soon.
  12. The Witness by Jonathan Blow

    I don't see how those rocks could be anything else!
  13. The new Kindle Wildfire™, as featured in Firewatch.
  14. The Last of Us

    Ah, I think I was constantly gaming it because I noticed the more I used ammo the more people would drop it. Never bothered with health packs because everything pretty much killed me instantly anyway. But I was a little too conservative because on the last part, I snuck up to the second floor without being seen and then realized I had a bunch of ammo and bombs still unused and just didn't even bother with that final bit of stealth, so I didn't even get a chance to pick up the m16. Everything where you are Ellie having to fight alongside David is infuriating. In order to get through it's reliant on David's AI not being a dumbfuck because you need him to get between infected so you can do one hit kills. Sounds fine but often David likes to run into a wall and point his gun inside. Concerning the very end, did anyone
  15. Wasn't the issue with romhacks and not actual Mario Maker videos? Game Grumps is part of Polaris, which is Disney, which always secures the rights.
  16. The Last of Us

    Woo, finished all the single player stuff. Might return to multiplayer crap later, but I already tried it and was getting shoot every few seconds and spent most of my time waiting for respawn. I wish Naughty Dog would stop making multiplayer stuff honestly. I really loved that DLC, it had a lot of goofy exploration and conversations and was surprising me over and over. I beat the main game on Grounded mode, and fuck every doing that again. While it was amazing to see I could quickly sneak through large chunks of environment and be all super cunning with my bottle throwing skills, bow and arrows, and ducking, the stuff where it forced you to fight was shitty in comparison. In a lot of areas where you had to clear out enemies, one mistake would lead to more guys spawning so considering you have almost no ammo or supplies, I usually found some way to break the AI by doing weird things like running around a desk until the guy got tired of chasing you and suddenly went back into sneaking mode (or sometimes hilariously just abruptly leave the room). Also I would figure out what thresholds would spawn enemies so I could move back some and then pick them off since they wouldn't recognize you in certain areas of the environment. Also doing weird things to exploit so I could just get by generally led to bad guys often just running into a wall forever. Okay, I guess that's kind of harsh, grounded mode doesn't make you see the seams it just makes you laugh.
  17. The Ultimate Playthrough, Metal Gears!?

    I wouldn't recommend S Ranking everything like a crazy person I am, it's not that it's hard to S Rank regular sneaking missions, but S Ranking bosses and vehicles takes a bunch of supplies you don't get until near the end of the game when you beat all the missions you could have used them on, which is very silly and poorly paced. If you have a good friend to play co-op with (and will sometimes sit there for the cutscenes), I think it's a blast. There's still a bunch of random Japanese and US players online though. If you get super into it, this helps because you can develop two players weapons like the railgun that do a lot more damage when using teamwork. Otherwise if you just play the main game, I like the story and comic book art and it's all divided into nice bite sized chunks in a completely different mission structure than any of other Metal Gear games (besides Portable Ops and V). Also it has a bunch of weird Mother Base stat building stuff, which is kind of fun until you acquired the best soldiers and maxed out your levels early on but you are still playing and some missions require Fulton so you have to keep going back and clearing out all these new guys. You get some funny complaints from Miller on codecs about it though. I wouldn't recommend the Vita version because it's actually the PSP version which doesn't have the second analog stick to control the camera, not sure if that works when playing it on Vita. You can transfer your saves back and forth between the HD Collection though, but I think it requires using your PC to do it if going from Vita to PS3 as opposed to PSP to PS3. It sucks though because I feel personally I would have had more fun if I could have mindlessly loaded up a mission when on the go. Also Paz's diaries make me feel sad for what I know happens to her in Ground Zeroes, she was having such a good time. One of those diaries was like a super awkward lesbian penthouse letter though.
  18. The Ultimate Playthrough, Metal Gears!?

    I fucking finally finished Peacewalker last night. I have never spent 145 hours on a game fucking ever. So there, that took days of my life. I got all the weapons, all rare monster hunter drops, all the Peacewalker parts, and the development of everything finished. I wish I had four players to use the human slingshot with.
  19. Photos of things

    That is a wonderful spider.
  20. Plug your shit

    Can you go on tour?
  21. The Last of Us

    I'd be down with that. I haven't played the DLC yet so I don't know if it's good, but I imagine it's in that ballpark.
  22. The Last of Us

    I don't think a sequel would work well for the story, seemed like a rather self contained thing that said something about Joel and loss. That said, I suppose it doesn't have to be like that and I would trust something interesting to follow it. I also heard there has been rumblings of a movie, and that also seems pointless, since part of the feeling of the game is just the exploration of the decimination and dilapidation, and your comments on them among companions. The cutscenes are only half of the story. I feel the same way about an Uncharted movie. What can you do with a movie style game where just making it a movie only enhances it?
  23. Paz was pretty moe in Peacewalker and even had a dance promo video. But that was not in the actual game.
  24. Life

    I'll keep you in mind for sure if I hear anything. A lot of people I know are usually couples living together in a one bedroom as opposed to more spacious multiroom things.