miffy495

This generation was the end of piracy and my acceptance of Sony. The previous gen (probably because I was in junior high school and early regular high school) I bought the occasional console game and pirated a tonne of shit on my PC. Weirdly, I subscribed to PC gamer, but mostly so I could keep an eye on what looked promising to pirate. I kind of sucked. The summer before the 360 launched, I got my first job. Now having money, my conscience caught up with me and I started trying to go back and buy games that fell into the twin categories of ( a ) pirated by me and ( b ) completed by me. I actually did this and bought everything I had pirated and finished. That was a lot of games, to my shame. In the years since, things like Steam sales and cheaper indie games have meant that, even if I'd been a guy who wanted to continue pirating, there really wouldn't have been a point to it. I've been able to buy more than I've been able to play, and have also started to care less about finishing games and more about just being finished with games. Steam wasn't really the reason that I stopped pirating things, but it coincided with it and made it so that I was never tempted to go back, so props to Valve. As for Sony, I used to hate them. Like, back in the N64/Playstation days, I was the hardcorest of Nintendo fanboys. I'm still a huge Nintendo fanboy, and camped out for my Wii back when it launched. That meant that, since Nintendo wasn't really competing with the 360 or PS3, I didn't have to care about the race beyond my petty remaining dislike of Sony. I bought a 360 and revelled in the early days of the PS3 being mocked. I loved that shit. Finally, critical mass happened and I bought a used PS3 to start playing some of the exclusives that I wanted to check out. I'd had a PS2 as well, as I got it free second-hand from my step-dad and played through a few notable games on it, so despite myself I was interested in a couple of sequels. Fast forward like 6 years and Sony has completely won me over and I'm pretty much just flabbergasted at how MS could have so quickly become irrelevant to my gaming. I honestly can't remember the last time I turned on my 360. It was at least 6 months ago. I used my PS3 last week, and my Vita two days ago. For my life, that's a lot. I'm a PS+ subscriber and love the service. I'm not sure how it happened, but over a long period of time, Sony got me. Good job, guys.

Yeah, I enjoy it a lot. In my opinion, the pinnacle of the Wario games was Land 3 for the puzzle levels and VB for sheer platforming. I love the hell out of those games. My virtual boy is sitting on top of my bookshelf with Wario Land permanently in it. Shake It was a fun game though, especially if you're down for a cartoony platformer. I don't like the "escape the level" mechanic that came in in Wario Land 4 though, and Shake It holds on to that, so that's the big drawback for me. Escape levels can be fun, but when it's EVERY level you start to get sick of them.

I've got a HL2 and Ep1 that I can toss to you. Hit me up on Steam, if you'd like. Pretty sure you have me on your list from old L4D games.

Preordered this game as soon as I owned a Wii U. I need no more convincing. I just need this game inside my Wii U.

I just.... wow.

King of Tokyo is a good fallback when my friends and I can't think of something better to play. Picking it up is definitely a good idea just for something to have on reserve.

Said it during Steam chat already today, but for posterity's sake, happy birthday, Teg!

As I understand it, the "talk to your doctor" thing in ads isn't because the doctors are on the take but so that the ad doesn't have to say what the pill actually does. If they say "This is a pill to fix x" they are then legally required to list all of the side effects. If they say "If you feel shitty, you should ask your doctor if our pill is right for you" but tactfully avoid saying what kind of shitty it's involved with fixing, they don't have to say that you may also vomit out of your corneas if you take it. ALSO: Happy birthday, Tegan! I hope your secret santa thing is rad!

Move to Canada? It's pretty sweet up here, guys...

...why can't I stop seeing these things in threads lately?

A few weeks ago I was espousing the virtues of this film to Tegan in Steam chat. One of my favourite movies ever, just for the sheer impact that seeing it for the first time had on me when I was 17. I haven't seen the others on your list, but holy shit is Save The Green Planet a movie.

Is there a way for plus members to redeem a PS4 game without owning a PS4, because while I fully intend to have a PS4 within a year of release, I will not have one at launch. Can I redeem those on my PS3 or their website and then download them later?

It was not. The meaning of this thread is still unclear.

I have patches for the Clash, Ramones, Vibrators, Germs, and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Buttons for the Buzzcocks, New York Dolls, Velvet Underground, a gay pride day showing of Rocky Horror that was giving out buttons for some reason, and a couple of indie cinema things I got while working at the theatre. Also, a Hunter S Thompson "Gonzo" fist with peyote patch and a button from some car dealership that's called "[my last name] Studebaker" which I thought was funny. Oh, and a Franklin Badge from Earthbound, 'cause gotta represent Nintendo. All of these things were acquired honestly, and I made absolutely sure that I had no patches from a band that I couldn't talk about. I know it's a costume, but posers suck and I actually like the music, so it's as real as it could be with fake dyed hair. I had to remove the Buzzcocks and Vibrators stuff for walking around an elementary school though. I actually really like how the jacket turned out. I have a messenger bag that was the place where all my buttons and patches went for years, so I pretty much just transferred that bag to a jacket, but now I'm thinking I may keep it for going to shows. Proud of this stupid thing. Also, the kids were mortified to hear that I'm shaving for Movember tonight before bed. I've only had the beard for 10 months, but they've never known me without it so it's super weird for them.

For those who wanted to see it, here's Punk Rock Pete. Wore it in class today, all the grade 4/5 teachers dressed as rockers and put on a lip sync show for the kids on the gym stage. It was awesome. In, of course, the cheesiest grade school kind of awesome.

Whether you mean it or not, it's what you're doing. While unconscious, the cultural implications of that are damaging. Words mean things, so think about them. You're not a horrible person for mistakenly saying something that contributes to a bad thing. I do it all the time too. I may however start to think less of you if you insist on doing it after having the problem pointed out to you and defend this by saying ridiculous oversimplifications like "If I stop saying problematic things, I may as well never talk again!". That is needlessly reductive and makes it look like you aren't interested in having a serious conversation. EDIT: and then the post below showed up and proved that the last sentence is true. Disappointing.

I tried typing like three different responses here, but then this one showed up and I think we're good.

Idle Thumbs founder, actually. Waaaaaay back when the site had words, he wrote a bunch of them. Also, shit I need to play this. When is it out?

For me, there is a line between saying that you prefer a certain look (in general, I like the punk look and girls that embrace that have a style that appeals to me) and fetishizing it ("punk girls are sexy"). Certain looks appealing to you is a totally natural thing. In general (and it's always "in general", in case that wasn't obvious enough), for example, humans appear to be inclined to seek out partners that don't look too similar to themselves or family members. This may be biological or social conditioning, but either way, less inbreeding happens and we're better off for it. When these statements get problematic is usually when talking about another race. SecretAsianMan's example about his cousin's wife is a good example of how this works in other countries. In North America, this usually results in things like always seeing the black woman in a movie in some kind of animal print, implying a wildness or similar animalistic quality. Hopefully the problematic racial tones of that are apparent. Similarly, Asian women are often portrayed as either very child-like or very submissive. That's problematic. When people make a blanket statement like "I like Asian women", they're not saying they like their style. That's not possible, because the range of styles is limitless and you can't prefer all of them. You're also not saying you like their features, because Asia is a huge place and across different regions features can vary greatly. What they're saying (again, in general) is that they dig on their culture's popularly conveyed portrayal of that race, which is degrading. That's not to say that is their intention, and maybe they mean something different by it. I assume in most cases that they do, because I like to assume that no one intends to say problematic things. What people need to do though is not just deny that they're saying something problematic, but unpack the statement and maybe uncover what combination of things it is that they're actually attracted to. If it's sharper or rounder facial features, sure, you can have a preference for one over the other (I go for sharper myself), but if it's one race (especially when we're talking about an entire CONTINENT of variations) over another, I don't even really know how to read that ASIDE from as a result of internalization of popular racial portrayals.

Unless they were biker mice from mars, missed opportunity.

Damn, thanks Jon. That actually looks about right with my price range and needs. Skipped the HDD, which is a thing for me because that was part of what got lost in the flood, but otherwise hell yeah. I may need to wait a little bit longer before I pull the trigger, having seen my cheque and then the credit card bill I racked up living for a month (this one paycheque a month thing is going to take some getting used to, life-wise) but I think that (or something very similar) is what I'm going to go for fairly soon. Looking forward to being able to play things for reals. Any dissenting opinions or other tips? Also, it's always (letter designating province [unless you're in Ontario, because that's populated enough to have 4 letters]) (number and letter designating forwarding station) SPACE (number, then letter, then number which as a group designate delivery unit). I have no idea if your crazy five number system breaks down into anything sensible, but I do know that everyone I know in Northeast Calgary lives at T2E number letter number, and everyone in Northwest lives at T2N number letter number. Makes perfect sense to me.

Love you too, bro. One of the stand-uppin'-est dudes I've had the pure luck of encountering in my life.

Yeah, the fetishization thing is also kind of creepy for me. Especially when white guys talk about Asian women being "submissive" and all that stuff that tends to be implied along with it. Feels archaic and gross. Also, my spell-checker wants to turn "fetishization" into "nationalization".

So back when Calgary flooded, my computer died. I've been on laptop only gaming for the past 4 months as a result, but the fact that I'm now employed in a grown-up job rather than being a starving student means that I can finally afford a new desktop. The desktop I'd been running up until it died was top of the line when I built in in 2008, but that's the last time I put together a PC. I'm looking to get something right at that line where the performance increase/cost increase ratio starts to get shitty. Between $1000 and $1400 (Canadian). Probably around $1200. It's been so damn long since I've even looked at PC hardware though, I have no idea what I'd be doing. Whenever I see this kind of question posed on IT, it seems to get answered pretty completely pretty fast. I get my second grown-up paycheque tomorrow. The first one went to fixing up my car, and the second has been earmarked for forever as my computer replacin' cheque. The time is now, thumbs! What do I build?