mikemariano

Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter.

At the rail nomads camp, I keep making the mistake of walking to a location more than three squares away. Walking outside of camp, my team will step on landmine after landmine without stopping because I've made them walk too far. Also, inside the sacred temple of whatever, I clicked on a dude to talk to him, then turned away from the screen for a moment. When I came back I was in combat, being hacked and machine gunned to death. Apparently the dude I wanted to talk to was too close to the sacred temple's sacred object, so the entire security force warned my party, warned them again, then attacked, but my party moved too fast for those warnings to make any difference. I'm crossing a lot of invisible boundaries!

I joined a new non-social networking site and created a Twin Peaks Fan Site.

It's only benefits are aspirational and their funding almost definitely comes with strings attached that will cause them to betray their users. I have a few followers I wish I could block already! I can't imagine what it would be like to be harassed/stalked/etc. on there.

Oh no; even new forum users are getting into the off-season Christmas avatar game.

Um, one of the recruitable NPCs keeps shouting "Come and get it, candy-ass!" in combat. Is that pleasurable? The writing improves marginally; once I got into the Citadel it was obvious that they put a lot of though into the Rangers and their personalities. But I don't know how far that will get with you.

Oh, I forgot: Friday the 19th, the final evening I spent in my old apartment, I had a Chris Remo dream. I was at some party, I guess? Chris was leaving and said to me, "Hey, we're all going over to so-and-so's. Come with us." The group was random people, but one of them was Nels. Nels and the rest of the group went on ahead while Chris and I walked down a San Francisco street. Then we turned a corner and were in the woods. The cabin we were heading to came into view, but when I looked around Chris was gone. I had gotten him lost in the woods. I didn't want to go inside without finding him first. I rarely remember any of my dreams, and even those rarely have other people in them besides zombies or Count Chocula. Chris and Nels have now joined that illustrious company.

Tonight's episode apparently has a Don Hertzfeldt couch gag. He's one of the most entertaining independent animators out there. His Bill Trilogy is just powerful, captivating work. So tune in for the couch gag, at least!

When animals are facing away from me, I have been able to walk up to them and use my Animal Whisperer skill successfully before they begin combat. Maybe that's the extent of stealth in this game? For human enemies, I position my characters with long-range weapons first, but it's pretty useless to try and position my characters with shotguns, etc.

Like going one minute into the future? And never returning!

You and Nick Breckon make Telltale seem like the most depressing place in the world!

I also never played it after playing through the first two games twice, mostly because I didn't like the premise. I didn't want a downer opening. And apparently it's a downer ending, too!

That was what I heard, too. Even that was enough for my face to start melting from that epic sax riff.

I did the same thing but the dudes on my train were playing their music too loud for them to notice.

I haven't listened yet, but I will now have that Journey song in my head the entire time.

I am stuck there!

I booked an expensive hair appointment on my 30th birthday (years ago). I told the stylist, "I want to have gray hair." I felt old and wanted to look old! But the stylist refused. He said that you can't dye someone's hair gray—you end up with anime hair. ...or Final Fantasy hair?

Off-Topic: I was confused/amused by the main photo in this weekend's Double Fine newsletter:

I did not eat them, either. I sold all hamburgers and jerky that I found and only ate candy and non-meat products. For these purposes, I assumed that "Brain Food Lunch" didn't contain actual brains.

Someone put Star Trek and Saturday Night Live magnets on the 9th Floor refrigerator at work. This was six years ago. No one knows who did it. But no one will let me remove them. So I have to stare at Janeway and the Coneheads every day. So Data Base IBM guy might have a long and happy life on that corkboard.

I am only about a third of the way through this episode, and am amused by how much Nick is getting dumped on regarding his Disneyland behavior. I'm picturing Sarkeesian sitting there thinking "Who the hell is Nick Breckon?" Also I've only ever heard Sarkeesian talk about gross AAA games I have no interest in so it's cool to hear her talk about playing obscure festival and board games in the Idle Thumbs house style—and do a good job of it! Chris didn't understand her description of the mechanics of Guts to Glory but I thought it was very clear.

This is true. My sister was vegan but when she moved to New Orleans she became ovo-lacto-pescetarian solely for the local seafood. I guess I'm technically ovo-lacto-pescetarian, too, but I've lost my taste for fish and have only had eggs when they've been hidden in baked goods.

Yeah, I played Earthbound that way. Though I'm upset that I went vegetarian and lost a huge amount of muscle mass while every other vegetarian I know is really ripped. Oh well!

I don't wear t-shirts at all but I would wear this with all of your faces.