miffy495

I may or may not welcome you. Calgary is a fine place I suppose. Being one of the most conservative places in Canada would probably still be a step up from South Carolina if you lean left politically. I suspect Kraznor may be with tourism though, as if I didn't have a good group of friends and a partner who doesn't want to leave the city, I'd be gone right quick for a different province.

Hell's Angels is one of my favourite books ever. I've also read Fear & Loathing and The Great Shark Hunt, and they're both fine books, but Hell's Angels is just so goddamned good and I can't recommend it highly enough.

Yeah, I've been getting my girlfriend into stuff recently as well, and Dominion and Carcassonne were our first two. Pandemic is also great, but you need a bigger group for it. She's been inviting co-workers over to have actual game nights now and is getting excited about it. I picked up Power Grid for our next one, as it's pretty simple from the games of it that I've played in the past and people should be down. She's also super excited to play Arkham Horror, but I fear it may be a bit too much for so early in her board gaming career. I've found that stuff that riffs off of better known games has gone over well. She really liked Kill Doctor Lucky, for example (reverse Cluedo. Everyone is competing to kill the doctor without being noticed by the other guests). I'm also in pretty early stages with her though, so I'll be keeping an eye on the thread for any other ideas.

My brain conflated two of the things you said and for a while there I was really happy that Dota 2 had a "Vanamancer". Make it happen, Valve.

...toblix, for so many reasons, you are the best.

Oh man, weird. That video was required watching for one of my courses two weeks ago.

Yeah, I paid for the HD downloads but still haven't watched a single one. I'll get around to it one day. At this point, I'm considering watching them AFTER playing the game as kind of a bonus feature.

I'm hosting, and I do own that game. Flee, I guess? That's not really a good game to use on people who are still getting into board games though. I'd considered Pandemic, but even that is probably too complicated. It'll probably just be something light like Carcassonne or Ticket to Ride. I do find it kind of funny that the specific board game is now a matter of discussion though.

I answered this! Did you not see my "die screaming" suggestion? Anyway, in response to TP, what she said isn't really the important part. Just the fact that we were able to have a mature and adult discussion about the serious possibility of having sex with people outside the relationship was weirdly reassuring that we may be emotionally capable of dealing with things. Further update: Main partner wants to know potential second partner better before things go forward, so some group board game nights and such have been organized for the purpose of my partner and very close friend getting to know each other mostly to determine if they can share a partner (me). That is weird to me. I've wanted them to be friends for a while, just because they're both important people to me, but these new circumstances are catching me off guard. Nothing is bad, it's just all strange and new for me. So yeah, life.

Spoiler policy is basically "use spoiler tags if the game is less than a couple of years old, and at your discretion/request if the game is older than that". It's [ spoiler ] spoiler goes here [ /spoiler ] without the spaces to do that. For example . See?

So my partner and I talked today, and it looks like we may go forward with this. We only talked about really preliminary stuff, basic boundaries things, but even just talking so seriously about it made me feel a lot better about things. Not a situation I'd ever expected to find myself in, and the first week of my final school year is probably not the ideal time to have this on my mind, but nobody gets to decide when shit like this will crop up for them so I may as well roll with it. This seems like it would be a very difficult thing to do without people getting hurt, but the potential for good is also pretty significant. Time will tell. I've also been re-teaching myself guitar steadily for the past month and it feels great to be able to pick up an instrument and make a song come out. It's been so long since I've done that. My partner dug out the bass that she'd given up on playing years ago as well and we're fumbling through stuff together. Fun times!

I've seen it a couple of times, but the last was over 3 years ago so the details elude me. All I remember at this point was the repetition being fascinating to me and becoming more and more convinced of what started as a vague feeling that I was watching a mundane but somehow more terrifying vision of hell. I suppose that's due to my interpretation of things actually repeating over and over rather than looking at it as changing of a character's recollections, though that could be equally valid. I'm actually really interested to hear your thoughts, if you'd put them out there. I never read a paper or watched it with the aid of a film studies lecture (my introduction to a lot of other French New Wave was buoyed by that), so I'd love to see what others think of it. It certainly bears re-watching though, preferably with another person. The second time I watched it was with my partner and just being able to talk things through while watching it instead of trying to remember everything later helped the experience amazingly.

Shit. Sean's an administrator. Will I have to change my name now?

Man, I have pretty great friends. I was unable to go to PAX this year due to circumstances, but my buddy surprised me today with a Walking Dead poster signed by the team from the Telltale panel. Seems like as good a place to post my happiness at this as any. He mentioned that Vanaman looked particularly embarrassed to be signing his name as "Famous" in front of everyone, so thanks in particular to Sean for doing so despite awkwardness. I may not have been able to attend, but due to a rad buddy I at least have some swag signed by Video Games, Famous, and the former EIC of PC Gamer (weird to realize that I was a subscriber back when he was running the show and that's still how he registers in my mind despite all the stuff he's done since). Hopefully I get another chance to make it down in person. I was at the 2010 meetup, but from the sounds of things this one was pretty fantastic. At any rate, thanks for signing a thing for me, guys!

Yeah, I'd say that's probably how it's going to shake out. If only because, fuck it, I'm 24 and young enough to make mistakes around stuff like this. In other news, I started my last year of teacher's college today and am stoked to get into a classroom. Over the weekend, I read the Amulet series of graphic novels that the fifth grade class I was working with in April was super into, and found it pretty charming. Reminded me a lot of Bone, which was my intro to graphic novels when I was that age. My plan to read a bunch of the children's/young adult stuff that has come out since I was of the age for it has resumed after my summer detour of reading heavy grown-up novels. Gotta be able to relate to the kids, right?

Ron Silver will kill them?

Die from screaming so hard you forget to breathe? Castorp, is getting a lap dance from a dude really an unsettling experience for you? In terms of people I actually want to have sex with, I'm straight as an exceptionally straight arrow, but getting involved with that shit can just be fun. Gotta expose yourself to situations to know what you like, right? And if something isn't your thing but isn't objectionable either, no reason not to just roll with it and have fun. Pride parties are kinda the best parties anyway. Never been to a disappointing one. Go have some fun! It's not like you have to have sex with the guy if you don't wanna. MASSIVE EDIT: Y'know what? Redacted a whole lot. I've had a bit to drink tonight, am conflicted, and feel like I just over-shared a lot. Long story short (and bullet points!): - long term partner wants to experiment with same-sex, offered me side girlfriend as well so I don't feel left out. - really not sure if I'm comfortable with the "being in an open relationship" thing. Have been struggling with this for months. Still have yet to reach verdict. - confided in very close friend, which resulted in her not giving advice but rather deciding and making it very clear that she wanted to get in on this situation - REALLY don't know how I feel about that - relationships are complicated and frustrating

You should have had/eaten a better cake.

So I just finished this. Started it in Mid-July, so it's been a long time going, but goddamn if it wasn't worth it. Realizing how important the first 20 or so pages are to the end of the book when for the longest time they had seemed like total non-sequiturs just blew my mind. I really don't know what else to say about it, but am sure that re-reading it when I approach my 30s in another half-decade (don't think I could give it another go before then. My brain is kind of exhausted after this run) will illuminate much more. I feel like I just need to sit down and digest what I've been cramming into my head for the past month and a half, but unfortunately I only have a week before my final year of university, so too bad there. Weirdly, I only picked it up because my partner had a copy that she had long since given up on. For whatever reason, it never grabbed her. Oddly, her bookmark was right in the middle of , a point I couldn't imaging stopping in the middle of. Having the copy just sitting on the shelf above her bed and this weird storm of people telling me I should read it added up to me borrowing her copy to see if I liked it. So glad I did. Holy shit. Great, great book.

EDIT: So, there was this whole "page 2" thing I didn't see existed before I posted. Looks like the conversation moved on. Whups. As for "not-being-on-Steam" = "no buy", I see AAA games that way, as I figure they have no excuse. That said, I have a bunch of indie stuff on my desktop that I bought straight from the source (your game included, I_smell). I'm kind of shocked more people don't scale their expectations for release in similar ways. Really? You're interested in this low-budget, independent thing but you still expect it to be on this giant service that occasionally caters to "bigger" small productions as well?

Oh shit, you made that? I totally bought and played that. I think it's charming as hell and super promising, but the controls continue to frustrate me. Any tips for making my guy not fall to his death all the time due to a poor understanding of the way my gun propels me? At any rate, voted for it to be on Steam, 'cause I am fond of the game.

This game feels a tad "spelunkish".

I voted up McPixel, because I really want that in my steam library. Otherwise, I don't really know anything about most games on the list and feel disingenuous voting for them one way or the other. Demos or something would be nice, but I suppose that's a lot to ask.

You stalking me, dude? Yeah, I played both Ac!d games. The first is definitely better, but both were pretty rad. The only real gameplay criticism I'd level at them is that I'd find myself too often getting into situations where I'd look for ways to just cycle my deck to get the one card I really wanted, but then I sometimes play actual card games that way too, so at least it's realistic.

Well, it's a standalone Quake 2 mod (I believe) so pretty much anything that worked in that game should work in this one the same way. Honestly, I hadn't considered using anything like that in the game as it's such a tightly controlled experience, but I guess it makes sense that they work. As for "the devs should...", it's one dude and he posts here a fair bit, so he may. Don't really think it suffers for a lack of knowing exactly what Abel looks like, but I guess it would be neat to know what Brendon thinks of him/her as. Or maybe the fact that I'm not even 100% sure what the character's gender is is part of the point. I really am just kind of rambling aimlessly now. Still, I am curious to check out that debug room now that I know it exists.