mikemariano

I was really depressed by the e-mail update last week, where it was announced that Schafer just finished writing Act 2 and the finale. Are they really going to have this recorded, animated, coded, etc. in a few months?

Regarding Chris's dislike of the term "xenomorph," as far as I can recall, the Alien is only referred in this way by Lieutenant Gorman in Aliens—trying to turn an alien invasion into dull military jargon. He's immediately mocked for this by his troops, and the word "xenomorph" isn't used in an Alien movie ever again. But the word lives on in thousands of message board posts by Alien superfans!

You Have To Burn The Nerds Rope

It was the first thing I thought of, too. But then I realize I didn't remember which game Lieutenant Carter Blake is from. I only know him from Jake's rendition of his name.

It was amusing watching her Missing Pieces scene cut out of Fire Walk With Me. Josie is suddenly speaking fluent English in a scene that supposedly takes place a day before she gets flustered over her malaprops with Pete.

Ahh, denial in action... OK...so... Teach me why you don't like my game, but keep in mind I will refuse to listen to the reason you don't like it!

I'll See You Again In 25 Years

THIS IS WHERE WE LIVE SHELLY

I can't watch the video at work. Why don't I just read these YouTube comments for it instead...?

The Masters and Margaritas sounds like how my uncle spends his favorite Sundays.

:chaste: :chaste: :chaste:

Oct Ides

One of my goals in life is to make a trip to all the Twin Peaks pilot filming locations. I spent this afternoon (through a fluke of traffic signals) walking straight down the middle of an empty 6th Avenue in midtown New York City and I am extremely geographically jealous of you. Also Grace Zabriskie does an excellent job in My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? It's a Werner Herzog film produced by David Lynch—two kinds of weirdness in one movie!

This is a fun episode to play "spot the changed haircut."

I'm trying to think of who in Twin Peaks isn't involved in some secret love affair.

Yeah, I'm feeling that, too. I just completed the dumbest fetch quest: "collect three piles of sludge on your way to the temple!" I arrived at the temple to be told, "just kidding, go back and collect three more piles of sludge." There was an interesting power dynamic in this area that I thought I'd learn more about, but instead it's just sludge sludge sludge.

FUN FACT: If any of your party members die in the midgame, reload immediately! Even if you can recruit a new ranger, they will never level up in time for you to pass a single skill check. Every Brute Force check and Smart-/Kiss-/Hard-Ass speech check now requires level 5 and above, which requires me pushing 8 more skill points (leveling up four more times and putting points nowhere else) into each of my rangers who are only at level 3 in any one of those skills. Since I've prioritized other skills I'm just barely keeping up with (Surgery, Leadership), I will likely never use Speech or Brute Force again. I'm seriously starting to think that you should put points into Assault Rifles only, except for one person for Surgery and Medical. Boring!

Yeah, deaths flowed so seamlessly into trying again that to play cautiously seems like it would interrupt the flow of the game. I guess I'll never get any sweet achievements playing so loosely, but it kept the game enjoyable for me.

Don't ask Capcom!

AMAZING We've all been thinking "Bigfoot." It's big-something, all right...

The Super Smash Brothers

I have been killed by honey badgers two nights in a row and made no progress.

Will Jake and Chris record the podcast, listen to it backwards, recite their backwards words, then play it forward for the final released version of the podcast?

I enjoyed The Last Ringbearer, a counter-history sequel to Lord of the Rings from the perspective of the people of Mordor. I also enjoyed the fake Howard Zinn/Noam Chomsky commentary track for Fellowship of the Ring.

Wow, that is an actual horse bag!