James

That's kind of movie logic, though. I don't know how they expected to break into a well-guarded facility using explosions and not get shot at. It's almost as bad as the Matrix's "shoot anyone who might be an agent; anyone might become an agent; shoot anyone" crap. I guess the organization are portrayed as pretty shitty, but I find it difficult when a film making an attempt at seriousness allows its heroes to kill more people than most humans ever have.

If we're doing non-games stuff, Do or DIY by People Like Us is generally a refreshing break from chart music and playlists, even if it will sometimes break or be sick on your eardrums.

I happen to be listening to old episodes RIGHT NOW and I can tell you that part of that baboo explanation appears somewhere in the region of episode 33 or 32, albeit a small part: somebody e-mailed in asking how the sound is made, and the Thumbs commented that there is no one way, like the Arrested Development thing. I don't remember the full sound test explanation thing, but there's a lot of things I don't remember. Also, this thread and our participation in it denotes a kind of messageboard/nerd event horizon thing. Beyond this point lies wikis. I've seen it happen. SUGGESTION: "Did you beat it?"

For me it's almost always almost exactly two hours: we start at nine (well it's usually some time before we actually get going) and I aim to leave at eleven.

HOT

OR you could refer to this unwieldy list.

The Giant Bombcast, Out of the Game, and a Life Well Wasted (if that counts) are the three others that I actually look forward to. Other than that I listen to stuff like Rebel FM, Geekbox, and the Gamespot podcasts, but they're more for noise at work than anything else. I get really annoyed at the people on Geekbox quite frequently, and possibly to an irrational degree, so I've been avoiding it recently. I used to listen to a couple of 1Up podcasts, but most of the people I liked left, and I got fed up with Garnett Lee's infuriating earnestness (that may be the wrong word) about some stuff. On the whole it got pretty boring. I'm not into all that NPD stuff, for example. Sometimes it's good, but I generally can't be bothered to listen on the off-chance that I will be entertained. I should probably retire some of those in favour of something better, but I've never gone to the trouble of properly looking.

Find your location or an equivalent in this list. Since we're a fairly Anglo-centric bunch, after the last Sunday in October we switch to GMT proper, which means it's an hour earlier (although you have to adjust for your local summer time situation, of course).

Oh, totally. As I said, as the film presents it, everyone would be better off if the aliens went home. This is not in itself problematic, but I guess I have difficulty separating the elements intended to apply to humanity from those that don't, or possibly I just don't like it because it seems messy and detrimental to the clarity of either idea. If you're going to make a film about such a politically-charged subject, people are going to expect you to have something to say about it, and I'd be very wary of sending out the wrong message. Then again, if you go too far down that road you get tedious preachy bullshit that serves better as a pamphlet than a work of drama. Which is why it's probably good that I'm not making films. I'm pretty certain that some racial separatists claim that segregation would be better for all parties, and elements of this film could conceivably be taken to be compatible with that way of thinking. On the other hand, the aliens do not appear to have arrived deliberately, so I guess the analogy doesn't fully stand. It was just an impression that struck me as I watched the film. Yeah, I think I expect too much of analogies. With those sorts of things I often wonder whether the people behind the film had a panic about keeping things exciting, and threw in some explosions and guts (or nudity and sex or whatever) to keep people's base desires satisfied, or if it was more a matter of personal gratification, or if the writer really had two different concepts in mind and just crammed them both in there for efficiency's sake. Or perhaps it was a conscious effort to maintain some sort of connection with the canned Halo project. The specifics might not be identical, but if people can at least associate the guy who was going to do the Halo movie that they expected to be awesome with this new movie that has aliens and shooting in it, they'll probably secure a good portion of extra ticket sales.

I'm not criticizing the film on biological grounds, or in terms of realism in general; I'm saying that, taken as an analogy for human racial conflict, it has some uncomfortable implications (if you read enough into it). The group that the people are upset about are genetically predisposed to lesser intelligence and greater violence. There are those who believe the same of certain races of humanity.

I don't think these things ruin the film or anything. I tend to have difficulty divining the meaning or message of things, so when I understand something I might latch onto it a bit much. If a film is about something, I expect it to be very consistent and thorough and clear about it. Well, to a certain extent I do. Sometimes. Maybe. In actuality, District 9 is as much about cool stuff happening and personal drama as it is the politics and morality of racial segregation and so on. I think. Perhaps.

I just remembered something else that made me somewhat uneasy: the apparently genetically-programmed caste system. On the one hand it gives the film something of an excuse for depicting the aliens as somewhat savage (which the writers may have considered a narrative or tonal necessity), but again, when taken as an analogy for racial tensions in human communities it evokes some depressingly familiar ideas. It might be that I'm dwelling too much on over-extending the analogy (I think I may have a tendency to do that), but these are the things that struck me as I watched the film.

Is that the one people were saying looks kind of like Little Big Planet but sad? (Not to make any judgements or claims of actual similarity or anything.) Yes, but was no-one else uncomfortable with the implication that everyone would be better off if they just went home? That seems to have a rather risky analogue. The film was good, but I kind of felt like the allegorical setting and the action film ending were a little at odds with one another.

I wasn't anywhere near there; I just mean at the end of this video.

a) Thanks! You can click it for a larger and very very slightly different version. PRO TIP.

Yeah, I once got curious about the respective Thumbs' appearances, and that was pretty much the only likely candidate I could find for Nick. It should be noted that I'm bad at searching.

Am I mistaken, or can he also be seen just missing out on asking a question at the end of the Giant Bomb panel?

OH GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE? Happy birthday.

Yeah, I noticed an assault rifle icon on the mini-map immediately behind the start position, and banked on nobody else going for it. It seemed to be in the spirit of the game at first, but after I'd killed everyone at least once and continued to stick around shooting guys instead of starting to race I was definitely being a horrible dick. That did not discourage me. No, there was a fair group of you (five or six). It gradually diminished, though, until at the end I was just trying to make sure you never got anywhere.

That was hilarious for everyone involved. Trust me.

Is there a time limit on the offer? It seems like a ridiculous excess, but it intrigues me, and I sometimes indulge myself in such stupidity. I need time to decide!

You're just jealous because I'm awesome and take out full cop cars with a lowly pistol. POW POW! Also, I deserve it.

Yes they were. Yes we were. It was n0wak's last week before departing for Paris, no less.

Yeah, but I'm not too keen on their ballady stuff, which they seem to be focusing more on recently. The Wizard.

Yeah, I tend to use that for audio stuff, as it doesn't make you muck around with download limits and so on, and has an integrated sound player.