Thyroid

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Posts posted by Thyroid

  4. Posted

    Movies:

     

    Okja: because I'm crazy for Bong Joon-ho.

     

    But I really want to watch Private Life, Fundamentals of Caring, Land of Steady Habits, The World is Yours, Meyerowitz Stories, First They Killed My Father, and Crossroads: One Two Jaga.

     

    Series:

     

    Bojack Horseman starts out great and gets better and better and better. Lots of non-traditional, even avant-garde storytelling. I was sure the show'd peaked by season 4, but season 5 started analysing the actual show and the people who watch it and use it to justify their own behaviour to themselves.

     

    Hilda is as good as you've heard. Great family fun.

     

    American Vandal is immature, mature, stupid, intelligent, touching. It's one of my favourite shows. The fact it's a parody but so ridiculous is what makes it amazing. And then it actually has something to say! Twice! Hoping we somehow get a season 3 (and 4, and 5).

     

    Everyone watches Black Mirror and I love it so much I pace it (watching an episode every few weeks). In case you needed my stamp of approval.

     

    On 08/11/2018 at 12:16 PM, I_smell said:

     

    I'd also agree that American Vandal is a fun, weird show. I've only watched season 1, season 2 seems gross.

     

    Season 2 is as good as the first one. It starts out with a spectacularly disgusting scene (they just went for the jugular), but it tones it down. 

  5. Posted

    Great thread!

     

    Annemarie Jacir is a great director. When I Saw You and Salt of This Sea are essential.

     

    I also like Mais Darwazah's My Love Awaits Me by the Sea; hokey title, but the movie eventually makes fun of itself. Not sure if that works in translation—the deconstructive character is an Arab archetype—but I think it's worth the watch.

     

    Cherien Dabis's Amreeka was good. May in the Summer was filmed across from my old house, but I've yet to see it.

     

    On 12/2/2018 at 11:52 PM, Erkki said:

     

    Nadine Labaki is the Lebanese director responsible for Capernaum ( کفرناحوم ). This is a really harrowing story of a 12-year-old boy who has to take on more responsibility than even adults around him can handle.

    Glad to see Nadine Labaki get some love. Where Do We Go Now? had my theater in Jordan sobbing. That movie really hit home for a lot of us.

  6. Posted

    On 10/31/2018 at 12:28 PM, marginalgloss said:

    (I stumbled on some crazy stuff last night which I won't dare to mention, even with the spoiler tag. There's weirdness in this game that rewards exploration.)

    Ugh, the temptation. I know I shouldn't, but I'm so curious.

  7. Posted

     

    38 minutes ago, RubixsQube said:

    I got married a few weeks ago. Here are two images that I thought were pretty neat. 

     

    The mountain behind us features the MMT, which you can see as a little white dot on the left side of Lara here (upside down, because it's artistic)

     

    Also these are my groomsfolks all looking like an ad for indochino. I am 100% sure that I used the code Thumbs at checkout to get my wedding suit.

    Hey, congratulations! Those are nifty (and decidedly different) wedding pictures. You and your wife (and everyone) look elegant as all hell.

     

    What shoes are you wearing, if you don't mind me asking?

  8. Posted

    I resented the first game for having around 300% more snake oil salesmanship than I wanted and about 100% less train robbery and saloon fights. I pushed through it because I was promised a good story, but the writing was awful, too.

     

    Does RDR2 have wild west stuff, or am I going to spend my time riding a carriage with a sleazy oil salesman and chasing a random man who :devil:MaY oR maY noT be GoD?:devil: I can endure a smidge more "Go to Point A, to be told to go to Point B, shoot someone" if there's a mission where you, I dunno, strategically stick-up a bank or something.

  9. Posted

    Same here. I never got my boxed Sam and Max and Strong Bad games, because I was always worried about the shipping costs, and I could never get the Sam and Max soundtracks or art book.

     

    But my lovely friends knew how much I loved these games, and I have Surfin' the Highway in hardback and a Tales of Monkey Island mug because of it. Let that say something.


    From 2007 through 2013, I was suffering through an acute clinical depression. Mixnmojo, Idle Thumbs, the LucasArts library, Telltale, and Double Fine were a lifeline. I don't know if any of the people who made those games knew that they were creating something wonderful, but they did, and I can't overstate how important they were to me. 

     

    As with Udvarnoky, the Telltale I loved is long-gone, but I felt strangely sad on the day of the announcement, as if an old friend you hadn't seen for years had just passed away.

     

    At least we have Double Fine and Campo Santo. (And Supergiant and Wadjet Eye. Rest in peace, too, Team Ico.)

     

    Here's to you, Telltale Games. You kept me sane at a time when little else did. I only wish you fared better.

  12. Posted

    I'm bumping this from oblivion because I just finished Full Throttle for the first time. Which essentially wraps-up my twenty year journey into the LucasArts and LucasArts+ adventure game library. 

     

    It was a good game. Harmed by a poor design choice or two, sure; I couldn't find the junkyard crane because the game did everything in its power to make sure I didn't notice it. Odd criticisms, here and there. They don't really matter.

     

    As denouement, though, it is fitting. Flawed, a little rough, but wonderful. Much like the LucasArts+ catalogue.

     

    I'd postponed Full Throttle intentionally. Once Telltale stopped being Telltale, I held onto it more. It was the last of the LucasArts classics—sans Loom and the B-ist of B-sides, The Dig—and I wasn't ready to quite let go. Those games meant—do mean—the world to me; they were a comfort and a joy, and I looking back at them I feel the same warm happiness that an old favourite book or movie inspires. Watching the credits, I got a little nostalgic—you see names like Jonathan Ackley, Larry Ahern, Mike Stemmle, Peter Chan, etc. knowing the great games they'd done and have done since. Got my nerd on there.

     

    Anyway, it's a surreal, bittersweet feeling; I've been in this fan community for 20 years (since I was eight), and I feel something precious has been lost. The upside is all the wonderful stuff being put out by other people (many of whom are members on this forum). I can't wait to try Time Gentlemen, Please! (I loved Ben There, Dan That) and the few Wadjet Eye games I have remaining. Campo Santo. Odds and ends.

     

    But I'll miss the LucasArts library. I do wonder if they ever realised they were creating something wonderful, back then. I suspect they didn't.

  13. Posted

    I'm a few years late to this, but I just finished episode 3 (from season 1) and feel traumatized enough to be unable to sleep.

     

    Good job Jake, Sean, and all. I feel awful. In a good way.

     

    I'll hate you in the morning.

  14. Posted

    There was a point during Torchlight II where I realised I honestly just didn't care anymore, and ended-up running past monsters in the last or second-to-last dungeon just to get to the end. Speed spell, then run.

     

    It's a good game. It's a very good game, in fact. Even when it's generic.

     

    But it's way, way too long.

     

    Definitely one for the multiplayer. I was enjoying it a lot more when I had someone to play it with.

  15. Posted

    On 12/03/2015 at 9:14 PM, dium said:

    This is a fucking goofy, almost embarrassing thing to admit, but I think the two cultural artifacts that most informed my personal development were Monkey Island and Discworld. I know that I'm not unique in this.

    EDIT: of course this starts a new page. Damnit.

    You know, I've done some "high-minded" reading.

     

    I love intellectual ping-pong as much as anybody.

     

    But the sincerity and heart in Monkey Island and Discworld both are damn fine constituents in anyone's formative fiber and beautiful works of art.

  17. Posted

    Not sure if anyone cares, but look into Edward St. Aubyn's Patrick Melrose books if you like tragicomic novels. Bit of Zadie Smith mixed with Ian McEwan, so far.

     

    Almost done with MY BRILLIANT FRIEND and I can confirm that Ferrante is super-rad.
     

    Further, stronger confirmation awaits in the second one.

  19. Posted

    The Arab world has been producing interesting music for the past few years. Here's a list of good indie artists if anyone cares. I myself have already listened to just about half of these, and encourage you to try all.

     

    If anyone wants me to translate lyrics to a song, just ask. If I don't reply, PM me.

     

    And hey, some Arabic music I like:


    Yasmine Hamdan

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7RkHEB7wLs

     

    Hayajan (trans. "Frenzy")
    Alaa Wardi also performs solo; I've met him, and he's a pretty nice guy, so I'm a bit extra enthused to share this:

  22. Posted

    Also, if anyone wants a pretty, long poem that ends with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer but still somehow remains pretty, try The Conference of the Birds. I recommend a strong tea and a rainy window. Maybe a hint of melancholy. But choose your own poison and enjoy.

     

    I'm also reading some Ghassan Kanafani in Arabic. Not sure how well it translates, but Returning to Haifa is beautiful and quite a bit sad. I'm a bit biased, but there you go. The only English translation I can find is here. (Though the title is better translated as "A Return to Haifa".)

  23. Posted

    I think you may be misinterpreting Argobot's comment.

    I don't think she being dismissive because a novel has fantastical content in, but how that fantastical content is sometimes used as a crutch or a cope-put to "enhance" a novel when it's not needed; and, I have to agree with her.

     

    Right, but then the question becomes whether these elements are problematic because they're misapplied tropes, or because they're fantastical and inherently broken in Argobot's eyes. Mind, I've yet to read The Bone Clocks (and suspect it's still a few years down the line), but I'm curious.

     

    Background to this whole thing: if you measure your intelligence by your books (and I'm not sure if Argobot does), you're more likely (I've found) to be dismissive of things traditionally, well, dismissed. I'm just trying to figure-out how Argobot comprehends her literature, as she seems rather well-read.

  24. Posted

    Many fantasy tropes can't intellectual justify themselves. What does a race of immortals who literally kill children to stay young forever tell me about humanity except that cartoonish evil is cartoonish. Myth, magical realism, and other styles of writing can be extremely powerful and moving, but writers can go overboard and rely on those tropes to the point where it feels like a cop out and a way to avoid saying something meaningful. There are plenty of books that I've read that have used fantastical elements well (Toni Morrison is definitely one of them), but I think David Mitchell is increasingly letting his fantasy obscure the actual interesting parts of his writing.

    The old eating the new so the old continues living seems like an apt analogy for a lot of things in the modern world. It doesn't take a huge stretch of the imagination to land at possible candidates, but I haven't read the book and therefore do not know.

     

    I feel like you're dismissive of them because they're fantastical and therefore juvenile, though. I know you and I interpret things pretty differently, which is why I'm pursuing this argument.

  25. Posted

    Overall I am not a fan of fantastical stories, especially when the description of those fantasy elements overpower other interesting parts of the story. 

    Do you find that fantasy reflects sides of humanity which don't interest you (for example, on African-American identity as espoused by Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon), or is it because the trope itself bores you? I'm sitting here suspecting it's because you can't intellectually justify fantastical tropes (even ones based on myth).