Dosed

Apparently I never did this either.. which is odd of me. I've been a long time listener and listened to the original run of them not long after they were first released. I just remember randomly stumbling upon the casts while looking for other gaming sites to follow and then becoming instantly enamored with the whole Thumbs crew. I also remember writing in and having my mail be read by Chris was just the most amazing thing in the world to my 16-17 year old self. I was so proud I sat my dad down and made him listen to the Conf Grenade 1: A Fish Called Extreme episode where my mail was a "GDC miracle" and had somehow survived Chris' phone being in airplane mode. I then only recently got back into the cast over the last few months when I was chewing through so many gaming podcasts I needed some more to bridge the gap between release times, and just googled something like "gaming podcasts". Idle Thumbs turned up and I had no idea that the kickstarter had even happened, and was quickly filled with nostalgic glee when I discovered I had 30+ episodes to go back and listen to (which is strangely, and tenuously, what the beginning of my email was about...).

I've been listening to some past episodes (specifically 74) and I heard the guys talking about Neptune's Pride. Now I'm currently in the middle of building a g0d-lik3 RiG so I can play game, but I need something to satiate my hunger for some good ol' fashioned stinking multiplayer madness. I looked up the forum threads for any threads of this nature and found Neptune Bountiful Pride 6 etc. Some people seemed way into this game and it definitely seems like something I could get into, but I sensed a hesitancy towards starting games. Any chance anyone would be interested in starting a game? Lemme know!

The German voice reminds me of the German voice that the comedian Ross Noble does occasionally. And now this post is irrelevant because I can't find a clip of this on YouTube. Also I had a dream that I was listening to Idle Thumbs and they were talking Geordie.. bizarre.

I think one of my favourite things about this game as a whole was just the idea that Comstock has essentially built this city as a statue in service of his ego. The parts where you wander through the (mildest of spoilers) renactments were just beautifully put together, along with the Lady Comstock memorial areas.

Oh and to answer your question darth

Oh I love watching stuff like that trailer. It's fascinating to me to see how things go from conception and come to fruition. I'm super glad they changed it from balloons and they changed Booker's voice too.

Yeah, I see what you mean, and I would hate them to bring race in just for the sake of covering it as a relevant issue. But I feel like this game is so intelligently written, cleverly crafted as a whole and has a lot of weight behind it as a triple A title that I really liked seeing the downfall of Columbia tbh, I thought it was a good way to explore the effects that Booker has on the city I also tend not to play games as myself unless I'm playing an explicitly RPG, and even then I even have trouble doing so -- so for me at least I really didn't mind playing as a clearly shady and shifty character. I think it might have been on a recent Giantbomb Cast that they discussed the notion of video games being weird in the sense that they attempt to appeal (which changes into a misguided attempt to "relate" or "represent" their players) as many people as they can. For example it's no secret that many of video games' main protagonists are white, male, 25-40 year old, which just so happens to be the most prominent demographic which consume this content. However, novels and films are interested in making their audience experience life as a character, or through a character, who they may have no clear cut connection with e.g. age or sex yet readers/viewers connect with them in some other manner e.g. personality or just plain old human plight.

Yeah, I'd love to start a new 1999 mode but I don't really want to erase my old save just yet. I'm a bit worried that I'll start a 1999 play through, get a substantial way through and pack it in only to start a new hard mode play through and throw away all my 1999 progress. Also what did everyone think about the racism theme running throughout this game? At first I found it fascinating, and was really inspired that the medium was taking such a serious attitude to such a taboo subject of American history. Especially when films such as Django are beginning to become (arguably) comfortable with exploring this dark topic. However, I think the ending of the game

Having finished this game and reading some of that gaf thread I had to agree with a poster on there. I really liked the story Besides the game was super good looking and I haven't stopped thinking about the whole experience since I completed it several days ago. I'm really looking forward to the DLC which I've heard is all specifically story related. Oh and my brother had the exact same problem, but I hadn't found the book only the cipher. If I didn't accidentally run into the code book I never bothered with those things. I wonder how long the game would take to complete if you just ignored every single side mission/room/sky rail and just completed the main story line? I felt like a lot of the time the game was padded out by the fact I attempted to scour every single inch of a certain area before carrying on.. which I evidently didn't do very well because I missed out on just under half of the voxophones.

Well April Fool's is coming up... I bet that a rumour like that could do some serious damage

I know it's all I seem to blab on about but I'd really like to recommend Kurt Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titan as a potential Book Club candidate. It's one of his lesser known brilliant books, but it's utterly fantastic in my humble opinion. I feel like there'd be a lot to discuss about this one because while the premise is a bit odd it's one of his more stylistically grounded novels, and people might find it more accessible than his other more bizarre works. For anyone who's interested I recently described it to someone like this: it's about a guy who goes into space with his dog and his physical matter becomes displaced so he can travel around the solar system. Every 59 days he returns to Earth to tell people about his visions of the future. Obviously there's more to it than that, and I don't want to give too much away, but if you're not sold on the idea of "Physically Unstable Space Prophet With Space Dog" as a concept then I don't think we can be friends anymore. And it's quite a short read (207 pages I think) so if anyone is inclined to do so they could give it a few looks over.

I did a quick search and couldn't find a post about this.. So I was wondering if anyone had tabbed out the intro song or if Chris has done so himself? I'd try and learn it by ear but I'm shit at guitar. I put a question mark in the title so as not to excite any one who thought that I was a guitar wizard and had provided said tab. Cheers.

Ahoy hoy, I'm currently reading my books in this order: Vonnegut, someone else, Vonnegut, someone else, etfreakin'cetera. I'm currently on a life long goal (read 2 month long goal) to read an author's full works and I decided to choose Mr. Vonnegut. I just managed to finish Mr. Rosewater today after roughly 2 weeks or so of dragging myself through this book. Has anyone else had the misfortune of reading this little story? As you may be able to tell I was thoroughly disappointed with the novel as a whole. I felt that it was incredibly dull, the protagonist wasn't anywhere near as interesting as his other novels and the supporting characters were nothing but irritating. Normally I find them all to be very bizarre and unrealistic characters but at least they're interesting. I also found the criticism of "rich peepl r bad" was just incredibly heavy handed considering that's essentially what the entire story is about. I feel like this story would have been better off as one of Kilgore Trout's stories that Vonnegut has the habit of affording 2 or 3 paragraphs to illustrate some strange little tale. I realise that he's written plenty of stuff so obviously there's going to be lesser quality writing somewhere along the line. Did anyone else have similar gripes to me? Or is this anyone's favourite Vonnegut book?

Yeah, I've just finished reading The Sirens of Titan and god damn is that a good book. I would say it's not only the best Vonnegut book I've read so far but one of my favourite books I've ever read. It's so much more colourful than his other works, as in there literally seems to be a lot more descriptions of colour and this really brings the back half of the book to life. The descriptions of life on Titan were beautiful, incredibly vivid and also unbelievably sad. I would say I hope I've not read his best book so early on my quest to read all of his works... but I think The Sirens of Titan might have just won that award.

I think it's funny that my email about MMORPG's never reverting back to an older version of the games was written around Jagex doing this... Man, 13 year old me freaking loved Runescape. Also, to the point of the whole gendered violence debate: while I don't personally feel any satisfaction or see any attraction in violence being mixed with sex there's plenty of people who do unfortunately. As feelthedarkness said the world has been portraying women (especially nowadays) as sexual objects and we can't just pretend that it hasn't happened. And in regards to the "Drake's gut shot" vs. "Lara's rebar to the gut" I think it has a lot to do with the tones of the games; Uncharted is way more whacky, cartoony and bright compared to Tomb Raider's new dark and gritty lick of paint.

I'm not too sure how well appreciated posts like this are.. but I'll give it a go anyway and then you can all just hate me if it goes wrong. So.. recently I bought components so I could build a gaming PC from scratch. However, I have encountered a few problems a long the way. I'll cut to the chase; I have this motherboard - ASUS M5 A99X EVO - and initially I had Corsair XMS3 RAM. The motherboard has a handy set of LEDs on it which light up next to a component if said component is causing a boot error. The light was constantly next to the RAM and I was confused as to why. However, I, not being very tech savvy (read being a fucking moron), discovered I had damaged one of the pins on a stick of RAM. So I purchased the exact same sticks of RAM and had the exact same error only to discover that they're not compatible (according to the motherboards manual) with the motherboard. So I then ordered some RAM which was in the Qualified Vendors List of my MoBo's manual. Again, I put the sticks in and still nothing... The LED indicating that the RAM is causing the boot error is still glowing away. Any one got any ideas as to what the problem could be? Anyone got any experience with a similar problem? Or any suggestions on how to fix it? I'm sorry to post this here but I'm at my wit's end now.

I'm gonna do all this stuff when I get back from work tonight and let you guys know how it goes. I realise I'm letting my stupidity show here.. but how exactly would I go about flashing my PC? Even a link to a guide would help. As you can tell I'm new to this stuff.

Nah, it doesn't make any beeps at all when I turn the PC on. I've got this RAM which is listed in the QVL in my motherboard's manual. Like I mentioned above the MoBo has a bunch of LEDs on it which light up next to the problem component and it always seems to be the RAM causing the problem. I was thinking though.. if it is the motherboard being a turd why would the error light just show up next to the RAM? Maybe I'm missing something really obvious because I am incredibly new to this whole dealio. Sorry to be so useless at this stuff, and thanks for even trying to help me out! I appreciate it. Oh and there's a MemOK! button next to the RAM which I think allows you to tell your motherboard that the memory is acceptable if there is any problems. But when I press it I still get the error light. I've got my PC hooked up to a TV via an HDMI cable and I just never get any display at all on the TV, and the red error LED just remains on the motherboard. Just thought I'd give you guys as much detail as possible.

Yeah, I've tried every possible position for the RAM but that still doesn't seem to have made a difference. I've tried them both in the blue slots, both in the black slots and singularly in each slot but it hasn't made a difference. Does anyone think that it might possibly be my motherboard rather than the RAM? Because if it is I am so done with this shit.

I've read God Bless You, Mr Rosewater (obviously), Mother Night, Breakfast of Champions and Slaughterhouse-Five. I think my favourite one so far has to be Mother Night, I just found it fascinating and I felt so much pain for the protagonist. I've heard (perhaps from you) that Cat's Cradle is another one of his stronger novels so I'm leaving that until nearer to the end of my goal. Have you read all of his works? What did you like in particular about Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions?

My PSN ID is SpittingVenom117 and I tend to play a fair amount of BF3 if anyone is interested. I only have the B2K DLC though so that may be an issue for some people. Add me on there for some good ol' fashion gun shootin' warfightin' times.

I'm definitely up for some Battlethumbing. My PSN ID is SpittingVenom117 if anyone fancies adding me on there just to play some TDM, SQDM or Conquest let me know! I'm online now playing so come on down.

Has anyone else read this? I really, really enjoyed it. In fact I think it was my favourite Vonnegut book I've read so far. That being said I've only read Slaughterhouse V and Breakfast of Champions so far. I do actually intend to read his entire fictional works so that could very easily change. I think I liked the fact that this one was a bit more grounded and not quite as zany as the others I've read. Don't get me wrong, I really like the oddity of the other two I've read, but it was a nice change in style and quite refreshing. Are the rest of works as grounded? Or will we I be zipping across time and space and watching Vonnegut get personally involved in his stories again? I don't mind either way I'd just like to know. I also had no idea what the novel was about until I started reading it so I liked the fact it had so many twists and turns, and it genuinely had me guessing as to what would be revealed next. It also hit on a lot of other themes which intrigue me in general, like the reasoning behind human behaviour and emotional responses, and how we are constantly attempting to define and categorise nations and races by their historical actions rather than viewing the people of those nations as actual humans who lived through these tragedies. Anyone else enjoy this novel? Or hate it?

I've just finished reading TYotF by Margaret Atwood which is the sequel to Oryx and Crake. I found the first one way more interesting simply because of the main character, Jimmy. I found his fight for survival way more interesting and the first novel just seemed to have better pacing than the sequel. I liked the fact that he was kind of a jerk but you still wanted him to succeed and survive. I think it helped that the first book was also more focused on simply the present Jimmy and the past Jimmy, unlike the sequel which jumped around between Ren, Toby and Adam's sermons. I think there was a better distinction between the two states of the character, and these past and present chapters helped to illustrate a better sense of character growth. Ren and Toby seemed a bit stale in comparison to Jimmy. Adam One's sermons were both excruciating and thought provoking, and provided an interesting perspective of what it must be like to hold a religious faith. His sermons confused me slightly (not being of any religious faith) and I did wonder how any one could hold maintain these belief systems so strongly even in the face of death. Although, I guess that's what faith is for; something to bolster the spirit in times of great struggle. I also found his poetry very beautiful (they were some of my favourite parts of the novel) and they helped me to consider some of humanity's attitudes to the Earth and the environment. I think it's a shame that I struggled with the second book so much as I really liked the first one. Atwood seems to be very hit and miss for me. I really, really, really liked The Blind Assassin and The Handmaid's Tale by her and I thought she'd have nailed the whole dystopian thing by now.. but this one let me down. I also think I would have found it more interesting if one of the different narratives focused on the Crakers a bit more as they seem like one of the more unique aspects of this world. Both books do cover incredibly interesting topics and Atwood mentions in the acknowledgements section that while the books are fictional a lot of it is based in reality. It's terrifying to think about the utterly disgusting disregard that gigantic corporations have for fellow human beings and the environment, and just how far people are willing to go for wealth and power. It's amazing to think that the economical and social structures which support this destructive culture have survived this long and these novels made me think about how long they can continue. Anyway.. what did everyone else think of these novels? Has anyone even read them? What does everyone else feel about Jimmy, the Crakers, Ren and Toby? Has anyone else found anything they like by Atwood?

Hello fellow Thumbers I've just recently completed Turn of Mind which I picked up on the based on the recommendation by (I believe) Chris from a recent podcast. Just wondering if any fellow readers had managed to read this? And what their thoughts on the whole dealio was. I found it to be a decent enough read. I don't think it works particularly well as a thriller or suspense novel, but it was incredibly interesting to see through the eyes of a dementia sufferer. I loved the fact that the novel was just cut up into short bursts of random scenes and dialogue, and that she managed to keep this theme fresh throughout the entire novel even though Jenny practically forgets who everyone is at the start of each new segment. It's interesting to see a depiction of the mind in such a shattered state, and how Jenny's mind all boil down to the passions, interests and hatreds she has harbored all of her life. It kind of made me wonder what utter nonsense I'd be spluttering out if I reached that point in life. What would my life boil down to?