miffy495

This is now rectified! Picross!Picross!Picross!Picross!Picross!Picross!Picross!Picross!Picross!Picross!Picross!Picross!Picross!Picross!Picross!Picross!Picross! *gasp* Picross!Picross!Picross! Now, thanks to the miracle of storage devices on portable consoles, there are almost no situations in which I ever need to be more than a few feet from a game of Picross! So happy!

All the DLC talk lately, as well as this game being $15 during the Steam summer sale a couple of weeks ago, persuaded me to drop into this game. Holy shit, why didn't I play this earlier? I'm more than 12 hours in and I still haven't even seen the strip. I was really worried before that the survivalist aspect of Fallout would be reduced because of the proximity to a relatively unharmed city, but that hasn't been true at all. In fact, between things like harvesting plants and being able to make my own ammunition, it's been increased a fair amount. Reading some of the earlier posts on this page, it seems that I completely missed some cool stuff around Helios One, but finishing the "Fly Me To The Moon" quest plastered a huge smile across my face. I'm doing a bunch of stuff around Freeside right now, with my current save at the door of a run-down robotics facility where I'm going to try and find a sex-bot to sell to a casino/whorehouse. I really like how this game has managed to combine the bleak, desolate world of Fallout with the debauchery of Vegas. It makes more sense to me than Fallout 3, which despite everything still seemed a bit too clean for a post-apocalypse. New Vegas is more of the mind that: Hey, if shit goes down and society is all fucked up, the need to blow off steam, get real drunk, and lose yourself for a while will probably go up, not down. The way that you see people embracing that and making a huge profit in caps while they're at it is really cool to me. I never thought of it at the time, but the majority of people that I dealt with in Fallout 3 were just so damned noble that it's refreshing to see this side of it. Since the first 2 DLCs were on sale for about $2 a piece with the game, and the third is only $10, I have now purchased all of the expansions for this game that are available. This gives me the complete experience for less than $30. When the last pack comes out, I will have had the complete experience for less than $40. At 12 hours in and the end nowhere in sight, as well as not having touched a single piece of DLC yet, I'm very happy with the value this game is giving me.

I think I had about 3 times your number of deaths. I also got way more of the trinkets though, including that damned-near impossible one where you need to fall up through 5 screens and then fall back down through them in quick succession.

As an aside, it seems that having a non-livejournal-esque conversation about the topic has encouraged subbes to say some things. Real discourse can make any subject more palatable. Yay!

I personally would find it weird to not be able to call myself a feminist but instead have to call myself an ally. In GLBT circles, I am classified as an ally because I am a heterosexual who believes in their cause and fights on their side but is not actually queer (unless having a preference for girls with short hair/shaved heads counts, which I don't think it does). In philosophical circles I am an incompatibilist because of what I have elected to believe. As I understand it, to be an ally is to fight alongside people who didn't have a choice in what they feel, to be any kind of -ist is to make the decision to believe a certain way and try to live by it. If I did not personally believe in feminism but supported feminists (a weird situation), I would define myself an ally. As it stands, I believe in feminism, so I figure I must be a feminist. I have produced a picture of Patrick Stewart, so I must be right. At any rate, whether you want to call us allies or not is sort of irrelevant unless you don't want to let us in on the conversation as a result, so I suppose it doesn't matter. As I said back on the first page, I believe that allies have a significant role in plying the more stubbornly resistant members of society (and here the term "allies" I find more appropriate as well, because it would also apply to racial issues and I certainly never chose my race). If a woman begins to tell a stubborn anti-feminist white guy that they may actually have feminist leanings or have said something totally out of line, it's far too easy and socially acceptable for this guy to say something like "Whatever, you must just be on your period or something. Talk to me in a week when you've calmed down". Similarly, an anti-racist argument could be shrugged off with "Man, you guys are always so sensitive. I'm not racist, so this totally racist thing I just said is cool. Check out my culturally appropriated dreamcatcher tattoo, I'm obviously sensitive". These people find it way too easy to dismiss arguments that come from the people they're putting down. The sad truth is that the only way to get through to them sometimes is to have a fellow white guy say "dude, not cool". The shock of that can sometimes be enough to make them think a little. I believe that to be my role and duty as an ally. Sort of a straight-white-male feminist sleeper agent.

...and by action you mean solving abstract puzzles.

The only way to win the pendejo game... is not to play.

I believe the idea was that we have now all posted in a thread which expresses sympathy towards (NON-PRACTICING!!!!) paedophiles.

Missed that. I too am pro-affirmative action, pretty much for the reasons 'blix and Nach mention. It's easy to pick flaws in the execution of these measures, but it's way easier out there for a white guy, and I'm all for balancing the scales.

My avatar is the poster for The Muppet Movie from a Northern-European country which I can't remember right now. It is a bizarre rendition of Animal, I assume because of the climactic scene in which Bunson Honeydew and Beaker feed him a solution which causes him to grow gigantic and destroy an old-west-ish town. I love that movie and Animal is one of my top 3 Muppets, but I have had it for about 3 years now. Maybe a change is in order?

I find it really interesting how on the Thumb our comical threads turn into heated debate very quickly. The youtube became really angry political discussion and the pictures turned into a discussion on feminism. And everyone seems to walk away without hating each other. I like this forum.

That depends on whether you simply think it's super cute or whether you are harbouring an unrequited love for her. Unless I'm misinformed about the terms?

Yeah, I think I'm done talking about paedophiles. Particularly given that I'm about to start my practicum to be an elementary school teacher, an internet search that can link my email address to a thread called "Paedophilia" is probably a really bad thing to have, no matter the actual context.

I got as far as her vomiting goose silhouettes. What the hell?

I wasn't trying to delay the deadline, just explaining my own slowness. The schedule should be fine. I'd have had no trouble if I hadn't been at a music festival and then arranging for someone to rip out my bedroom walls. I'll catch up sooner or later. Besides, though it was years ago, I did play through to the end of "Encounter" back when the game first came out. Don't worry about spoilers for me until at least then.

Hahaha. Makes sense, subbes. I know that I have a similar determinism-fatigue at this point when it comes to discussing my thesis with others, so I totally understand. As long as we're explaining where we're coming from: I have the benefit of being about to celebrate my fourth anniversary (Wednesday! Yay!) with a girlfriend who has spent the last two years as a women's studies major (and lets me read her books), as well as having taken philosophy courses beforehand that greatly illuminated women's/minority issues for me, starting with an introduction to eco-feminism in an environmental ethics class and getting interested from there. Before having professors introduce me to the subjects I was also in the "ugh, feminism" camp, being massively ill-informed about the breadth of thought and perspectives on the matter. I will caution you about being too wary of the pendejo game though, as early on I was asking those questions about language as well (there are still barriers to me understanding the issues as well as I would like, and thankfully my girlfriend is helpful in explaining) from a legitimate stance of wanting to be able to translate for myself. Sometimes the people that want you to define your terms really do want to know, and aren't just dicking you around. I was one.

Very strongly agreed. High five, 'blix! Oh shit! Welcome, wife of Kingz! I had no idea.

Yeah, I'm quite behind as well. Mould was discovered in my apartment and I've been getting shit out of the bedroom so they can rip out the walls to fix stuff and replace them. As such, game time took a massive hit these past couple of weeks.

That's the Kevin ***** movie, right? I remember wanting to see it, but never did get around to it. EDIT: Haha. B-a-c-o-n censorship.

I'm actually with you on the paedophile thing, 'blix. It's my view that it's not someone's fault if they're attracted to children, but it is their fault if they act on it. Someone who can't prevent being attracted to a child but never acts on it is still a paedophile, but recognizing that it is wrong and harmful to the child and thus denying their urges I would say is actually worthy of some praise for the self control they exercise for the good of others. This is, however, ridiculously off topic. I don't know what I can say that I already didn't in the other thread. In my experience, everyone I've ever met who would say something like "ugh, feminism" is either grossly misinformed of what feminism is or a raging misogynist. I, personally, would class myself as a radical feminist. To bring latin back into it, this does not mean radical as in "I want to blow shit up for ladies' rights" but radical as in "radis" the latin word for "root". I believe that the problems of inequality in our society are so ingrained in our centuries of mistreatment of those who are not straight, white, and male as to be impossible to remove without uprooting a good chunk of what society is based on. Until that can be done, I don't think that true equality for other races and genders will exist and that saddens me greatly. As a straight white male, I feel that I have a duty to speak up when given the opportunity, as other straight white males are much more likely to actually take what I say seriously compared to the dismissive attitude they would take towards a woman or minority saying the same thing. I wrote a bunch more, but I just sounded preachy. I'll lay off here and wait for some more contributions from others. Hopefully subbes will get in here, as after seeing this come up after she posted that comic, I'd be interested to hear her thoughts. I always feel weird discussing feminism and women's issues without any women involved in the conversation (no offense, Joanna. Your posts were just offhand comments on what others said so I wasn't sure how to interpret them. By all means, write us an essay here), as I'm self-conscious of being a white guy speaking as if I know what's best for the ladies. EDIT: A bunch of things got written while I was typing this. I'd like to also throw in that I see feminism as a benefit to all genders. I've had my teeth knocked loose for wearing brightly coloured socks, and rocks/a slurpee thrown at me from a moving pickup truck because I was wearing a yellow shirt (the exclamation of "nice shirt, fag!" caused me to judge this as the reason). If I've been gay-bashed twice and I'm straight, I can't imagine how tough it must be for actual homosexuals. I see feminism as encompassing the fight for GLBT rights as well, as gender equality should work for all genders. If feminism were to succeed, gay-bashing would be out as well. Wouldn't that be nice?

This. I'm kind of surprised, El Muerte. There are plenty of factions of feminists, and I'd certainly include myself some. As a result, there are as many crazy feminists as crazy anything. As far as I'm concerned, if you're in favour of equal rights and respect for both sexes, you're a feminist. We're not there yet, especially globally. Even in the "enlightened" world, surely you'd agree that there is enough holdover from the days of institutionalized overt sexism that it creeps its way in to a large portion of the culture? If you want that to go away, you're a feminist. Certainly, some feminists believe in the earth mother, and others believe that women are inherently superior to men (for me, alarm bells start ringing when someone says that anything is inherently superior to anything), but that's no more a requirement than lynching gays is a requirement of being christian. In my experience, most people who say things like "ugh. Feminists." are either feminists themselves but don't realize it because they're only familiar with a definition which paints feminism as crazy or are raging misogynists. I'm hoping you're the former. 'blix, to you I'd say that ideally you're right. Unfortunately, due to the above-mentioned holdovers from overt institutionalized sexism, a lot of dudes think that it's totally cool to harass women regularly and we end up with things like "well, what was she wearing?" as a rape defence. A lot of women get inundated with this stuff in their daily lives, and so telling the sarcastic/ironic/joking from the legitimate threats becomes pretty difficult. Especially when it's coming from a stranger. In a perfect world, the regular harassment wouldn't be a thing and it would be obvious that it's a joke. In the real world, shit is messed up and this kind of thing can be taken either way. I wouldn't hold it against a woman at all if she felt threatened by that. That's even ignoring the more obvious point that when someone makes a cool thing that has nothing to do with sex and they get a comment that says "It was good. Sex now?" it would make them feel like their work was being ignored and they were being complimented on something that had nothing to do with them (what genitals they were born with) rather than their efforts.

Thereby successfully capturing common internet behaviour?

Ocarina is SO GOOD. I'm actually contemplating replaying it with Master Quest on right away, even though that's sort of silly given that I've barely finished the vanilla game. I would also recommend Pilotwings, though it seems to not be the favourite of a lot of people. And get Link's Awakening and Super Mario Land from the eShop. You need to log in there sometime before the 12th to get your free stuff anyway, may as well buy some sweet games while you're doing it. The more I think about it, the more this seems like a brilliant play by Nintendo. Not only are they dropping the price so that people who are casually browsing at an HMV or something will take notice, but suddenly all this free stuff (assuming a price point of $5 a pop, $100 worth of it) is enticing people to spend the $80 extra and get one now with the promise of getting more than that difference back in freebies. We've now seen this happen already. Crazy, evil-genius stuff here Nintendo.

Also, Capsized is really cheap on Steam today. Like, $3.40. This game is super-good, guys.

I'm actually playing Yoshi's Island 2 on my 3DS RIGHT NOW and it looks pretty damned good. I'd say that if you're working through a DS back catalogue, (if it were me) it would do more to offset the lack of more than a couple good 3DS games right now and make the system even more appealing. Just play those on a 3DS and they look and play just fine. The lowered d-pad takes a bit of adjustment, but I don't even notice it anymore.