mikemariano

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Posts posted by mikemariano

  2. Posted

    1) Mike, outside of the New Mexico car breakdown, how was the drive?

     

    It was decent!  I drove along I-40.  I thought Nashville and Memphis were cool cities; Tennessee overall is a really nice state.

     

    The drive got kind of monotonous after that, but once I hit Albuquerque and the mountains there, everything became gorgeous and stayed that way all the way here to Santa Barbara.  California comes across as too narrow and crowded, but it's scenic, relaxed, and the people are really nice.

     

    If anybody likes driving just for the fun of driving, a cross-country drive is definitely something to consider and the I-40 route might be the best way to do it.  Though maybe take a detour and go around the area I broke down!

  3. Posted

    I picked up Hong Kong in that recent bundle and I'm not ready to jump right into but I am excited to check it out in the near future for sure.   

     

    I rushed through my second playthrough of Dragonfall and got stuck on the final mission, so I think the slow, steady approach you took is best.

     

    Hong Kong is also fun and they took the companion progression even further.  I need to replay it!

  6. Posted

    Congrats Donk, Badfinger, and the disease ravaging Osmosisch!

     

    I drove cross-country and now live in beautiful Santa Barbara, California.  My car broke down in the middle of the desert of New Mexico and I had to buy a new one, so I am starting this job more than $20,000 in the red.  Fun!

     

    What is there to do in Southern California?  I went to the Vasquez Rocks where Kirk fought the Gorn and that's really the only reason I moved out here.

  7. Posted

    What would we do with those voters then?

     

    Love them.

     

     

    Could you link a few respected journalists saying, effectively, these things? Absent the specific examples, I basically cannot imagine what this means.

     

    I'll try to find a good example when I get back because the only person I can think of off the top of my head is John Aravosis who I basically never heard of before and might have always been awful.

     

    A good counterexample is Vanaman when he tweets about Obama and Biden, because it's both "They did something cool." and "They did something not cool." and that's fine.

  8. Posted

    I've seen some liberals (exclusively on twitter) profess conflates supporting Hillary with murder.

     

    This is 100% my belief.  Clinton will do all the murderous things she shouldn't do before she does the inclusive, progressive things she needs to do.  And people twist themselves to support this.  I have been revolted to read reporters/writers I've respected say basically: "Maybe poor people DO need to die if they make her health policies look bad," and "Maybe Ukraine DOES need a bloodier civil war to make her look tough against Putin."  At that point, it really is a vote for murder.

     

     

    Is it possible to cast a "blank" vote in the US? As in, a vote that is for none of the available candidates but which still counts toward the total voter count? 

     

    Yes, this is possible.  As far as I know, though, blank votes in national elections haven't been part of anything significant.

  12. Posted

    This is all really good advice; thanks so much!  I'm getting the car-packing part finalized, and it looks like I'll have to do it all solo.  Now I just have to plan the route.

     

    Ben: Flight was an option, but I'll need a car in California and enough people here and elsewhere told me the drive is doable.

  14. Posted

    Do any of you have advice for driving across the US?

     

    I am currently in North Carolina and got a job in Southern California!  I am figuring out what to pack in my car, then I'm either going to spend 5+ days driving alone or shipping it all and flying.

     

    Have any of you done this before?  Are there good places to stop?

  18. Posted

    Just watched the first episode of the new miniseries and it was dreadful. So clunky and empty, in every aspect - the acting, cinematography, dialogue, editing, mythology...

     

    I linked this article about the greedy nature of this revival a few times (maybe here?) but it set my expectations so low that I rolled with this miniseries and escaped all right.

     

    I do like that Rance Howard's character dismisses the original run's conspiracy in its entirety, which is unnecessarily cruel to longtime fans.  But he's the police detective from The Burbs and Ron Howard's dad!  I can't stay mad at him.

  19. Posted

    I keep meaning to listen to Next Picture Show, as I loved the Dissolve Podcast, but now it seems to be very movie specific and I'd rather listen to episodes about ones I've seen.

     

    That's why I force myself to watch each of the movies they discuss, just like when they had Movie of the Week articles on the site!

     

    Actually, that's not true; I've skipped a lot of episodes.  We haven't had a real Tasha Robinson/Scott Tobias throwdown yet, though!

  20. Posted

    Yesterday I finished Firewatch on my second sitting. It was a really sunny afternoon and our living room overlooks a nice neigbourhood garden, so I opened the windows to enhance the nature vibes using real life bird cheeps which was unexpectedly cool. That said we are also close to one of the main roads in the city and the occasional passing truck kind of burst the illusion a bit!

     

    The highly anticipated Firewatch / Euro Truck Simulator crossover.

  21. Posted

    Used this bundle to finally get Shantae 3ds.

     

    Me too!  I gave a criminally low amount solely for that and Retro City Rampage.  I've only played some of the latter game which is pretty clever!

  22. Posted

    Just to bump this thread, there was an announcement of all(?) cast members for the entire upcoming season of Twin Peaks!

     

    The Brad Dukes Show podcast discussed this news with Jerry from Twin Peaks Archive.  What I didn't know is that a lot of filming has been done for the show in locations far beyond the Pacific Northwest.  They speculate that this means that up to half the show might take place outside of Twin Peaks, which sounds odd to me.  Maybe these far-off places are more for dream locations?

     

    This is all fun news to release because while it suggests some characters are out of the running, it actually makes the show even more puzzling than when we knew nothing.

  25. Posted

    Since I'm between jobs at the moment, I should really hang onto get off my butt and participate this year... I have a lot of self doubt and conflict about my career/role in the industry however, so I might have to make it a solo effort so as not to expose this rad community that I appreciate to my baggage.

     

    None of the episode titles are leaping out at me just yet, but we'll see what develops...

     

    Hey, I'm unemployed right now, too!  I am bad at everything but I'm willing to team up!