miffy495

Yeah, don't disparage Rare Replay. That was most of my August/September right there. That is a great pack of things.

Pabosher/Speedy, I'm sorry to hear that. At least she had the decency to not leave you hanging any longer than she already had. I'm a generalist in the 5th grade, which means I teach Language Arts, Social Studies, Math, and Science to 10 year olds, as well as being responsible for an elective course (French). I'm the only member of my team that isn't specialized, due to that being what was needed two years ago when the school was hiring. It means twice as many meetings and less ability to actually get involved with anything as I'd really want to, but it's a foot in the door. A few years down the line, I'd like to specialize Math/Science and maybe look at a higher grade as well (my school is grades 5 - 9, and I think the older kids could be pretty fun to work with). I feel like you're reading what Zeus said pretty uncharitably. I don't think that he said anything about raising your child to believe in a higher power being anywhere near child abuse, and would very much agree with him that raising a child to constantly live in fear of being sent to hell for any slight should be considered as such. There are enough real things to be neurotic about without adding old-testament style bullshit to the mix. When you work with kids, it tends to come up a lot. I don't hide my atheism from my students, and encourage them to correct me if I ever misrepresent something that they believe. I like to learn about all of the different traditions, whether they make sense to me or not. I also make it perfectly clear that anyone pushing their beliefs on someone who doesn't share them isn't welcome in my classroom, and I would categorize what happened to Zeus' daughter as such. It makes me very sad, and I would absolutely raise hell (heh) were I in his position. In North America (and completely anecdotally, mind you) belief is so normalized in schools that I personally find it kind of distressing. As non-believing teacher, I've had two reactions from parents. Very devout parents of various religions give me a bit of a side-eye but don't say anything. Atheist parents have come up and thanked me for being an example to their children and showing non-belief as something to neither be ashamed of nor obnoxiously proud of. A parent volunteer once came up and shook my hand after an artist-in-residence helped my grade 3 class paint eggs in traditional style when my response to a student who asked why I don't paint eggs at home was a non-chalant and matter-of-fact "Well, because I'm not a Christian." I'd say that 90% of the teachers I know are, which is incredibly disproportionate to other groups I know.

She is a gorgeous cat. Had a lot of health problems as a kitten that have kept her permanently small. She is 5 now and still only weighs about 5 pounds despite being very healthy. Also pretty neurotic due to having to spend the majority of her formative weeks in a vet's office. She enjoys pressure though (tight hugs, etc) and actually really seems to like being bundled up in things. Purred like crazy the whole time I was putting the hoodie on her. My girlfriend came home from a bad day at work with a friend and the two of them lost their minds laughing at Juniper as she ran up to say hello all dressed up. Success.

I may have gone to a store in China Town on the weekend that sells pet-sized things and bought Juniper a pikachu hoodie. MAYBE.

Congrats! Personal career news: I have completed my evaluation period for my permanent teaching certificate! Once my principal signs a letter and sends it off to the Alberta Teacher's Association, I am now a fully certified, continuous-contract-ed teacher! All teachers in my province have a probationary period of 400 school days after completing their degrees after which they are eligible to get their permanent certificate. This roughly translates to two full school years. Due to a bit of time spent subbing at the beginning, I didn't hit my 400 days until now, midway through my third year on the job. I spent the last month having my principal sit in on random classes that I taught, taking notes and evaluating my effectiveness as a teacher. He likes what he sees, so I'm now set with a certificate that says I'm good at shit and am out of the probationary period! I now have practically guaranteed job security (once on a continuous contract with a permanent certificate, a teacher MUST be placed in a school at the start of each September) in a career I really enjoy working at one of the best-paying school boards in Canada. It's a good week.

I always buy Nintendo systems because I love Nintendo. Other systems usually have some kind of catalyst game, but I always end up owning all of them eventually. 360 - Dead Rising. Played this at my now-stepdad, then mum's boyfriend's house trading the controller back and forth with him when I was like 17. Went out and got a 360 pretty much as soon as I could afford it to play more. PS3 - LittleBigPlanet Seriously. That game was so much what I was looking for when it came out. That E3 presentation with everyone on the skateboard was mind-blowing at the time, and sold me on the system. Preordered the game and picked up a refurbished PS3 that fall. Xbone - Sunset Overdrive I don't care if everything about a game is "meh" except the traversal. If a game has excellent traversal, I will enjoy it. Watching the way that players moved around that game got me hyped, and the fact that I could get a white Xbone with a copy of the game pre-installed for what was actually LESS money than the standard model at the time pushed me over the edge. Game was decent but not amazing, but I have a shiny white Xbone now and really like the system overall, so no regrets. PS4 - Infamous Second Son I know it's regarded as a B tier Sony franchise, but I love Infamous a lot. Second Son is definitely the weakest of the games, but I still really enjoyed it. The Neon powers were great, and the Fetch-centric DLC was very cool. My first year teaching, I needed a release from how stressed my class was making me REAL bad, and Infamous happened to come out a week before spring break when I had a class from hell. Having a career that paid well for the first time in my life, a week off, and Infamous coming out just in time meant that it was an insta-buy.

I loved Gunslinger, possibly even more because I could beat it in like 5 hours. That game was a super tight, fun, brief experience. Absolutely nailed the genre feeling as well. I want more games like it to exist.

They've done "What it is" videos before. Usually they're pre-release interviews with the person who's reviewing the game before they're able to post an actual QL. I'd expect a QL at some point as well, I just think this was too good for them to resist. EDIT FOR PROOF: "What It Is: Street Fighter X Tekken" "What It Is: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning"

I have not played Syndicate. Unity was fine, but I needed a break from AC after playing so many.

Did he ever find his mother?

MGSV was some of the best gaming I've done this year. I have not played Fallout 4. As for AC, if you like the lady with the cane then you should play Syndicate, not Unity. Unity is the French Revolution one. It's just ok.

Yeah, I've had a couple of 360 controllers die as well, but over the summer decided to quit messing around with the PS4 fan drivers and plug in an Xbone controller to see how it works. Turns out it's great, and I've played 50 hours of both Just Cause 3 and The Witcher 3 on it. It's an awesome PC controller, especially if you're already a fan of the 360 button placement.

Good luck on Witcher 3. I'm 50 hours in right now, no DLC, and still feel like I'm forever away from the ending.

SotC was pretty good for that because the commitment was "one colossus per week". I was able to keep to that despite being in my final practicum of my degree, because it wasn't a crazy investment. My biggest problem with these has been that each time we've tried to run them it has been in one of the busiest times of the year for me. For example, if one were to start up now, we're in the thick of the junior high school basketball season and I'm coaching my school's team. Not a good time for game club. If we ran one while I was on summer vacation, rad!

We tried this a couple of times in the past with Killer 7 and Shadow of the Colossus. I had to tap out of K7 about three weeks in, and was one of 2 people who finished SotC. People tend to lost steam fairly quickly. I'd be down, but I'd say that shorter games may be the way to go.

Chrono Trigger plays fine but has loading times that are a bit of a pain. Your call on how much that bothers you.

My advice to anyone who isn't a drinker and is considering trying it out is this: Drinking does not change your mood, it intensifies it. If you start out in a happy place, drinking will lead to a good time until you have gone too far for your body to handle. Once you've done that a few times, you start to know yourself better and get better and better at finding the right balance for yourself. Don't drink angry, you'll get angrier. Don't drink sad, you'll dwell on shit you don't want to. I found as I got out of my teen years (28 now, for the record) that the majority of my drinking has become simply for the taste of it. Just like I really like and have become good at distinguishing different types of coffee, I have developed a pretty good taste for straight alcohols. As such, I usually now will have small amounts of really good wine, beer, or (especially) whiskey and will very rarely get drunk. Getting loaded is now reserved for special occasions, mostly birthday parties. From what you have posted so far, sounds like you're younger and still live at home. Mistakes to be made, etc etc. If you're gonna go for it, just do your best to learn from your early misadventures rather than become the person who repeats them every time they drink.

Is Rockstar really that ambitious? I can't help but feel like GTA has just been remade but more polished every time for the last decade.

I also got this for Christmas. Have put in 18 hours so far (just finished up the main story stuff in Velen). I'm playing entirely with an Xbone pad and find it mostly ok. The camera was REALLY sensitive at first, but after turning the right stick stuff down to minimum it controls like a normal game. I find that the game and I disagree about when I should be able to hit A to use something quite often though. Interface needs work. Really liking the game itself though.

Shouldn't we be putting these in the Christmas 2016 thread now?

Then you haven't REALLY finished MGSV, have you?

Clyde, the earlier videos you posted and now these are super interesting to me. I love to play things, but have learned everything I've done without formal instruction and want to learn theory stuff really badly. Do you have some master list of links like this or anything? I would love to see what your playlist of this kind of video looks like.

I'm a good 12 hour drive away, but I visit family around there pretty regularly. I'll grab a beer with you if you're still around the next time I'm down.

Nintendo DS: Game Boy Nintendo DSi: Game Boy Nintendo 3DS: Game Boy I will never not call a portable Nintendo system a Game Boy, apparently.

WHOO!