JonCole

Oh, I also failed to mention the touchpad. Windows touchpads are awful by comparison. Did you actually read the reviews of the Inspiron 17 7000 touch? There were TONS of people who had hardware issues, bad software stuff, etc. I think that people buy Apple because their products are a safe bet. Build quality is good, failure rates are low and predictable, support is easy with tons of physical Apple locations for service, and the popularity and limited number of hardware SKUs means that economies of scale ensure better consistency and component sourcing than almost any other laptops. Also, Windows is just behind on stuff like resolution scaling for high DPI screens. I myself bought a Chromebook instead of a Windows laptop because there basically aren't any budget Windows laptops with high-quality screens and I just use my laptop for lightweight stuff while traveling and web browsing at home.

Good battery life, good keyboard, good screen. Most Windows laptops I've used don't even have one of these things, let alone all three. You could take or leave the software, most people just need a browser and office applications anyways.

The GG guys got kicked out of the expo, fyi.

I watched it all in about 24 hours and I really enjoyed it. It does take time to set the stage, but once Fisk becomes more of a central character it gets way more interesting. Also, I really think all the actors are very good and I just enjoyed seeing them interact.

Don't forget that Roosh is in the crazy MRA camp that earnestly believes stuff like powerful man semen can control the minds of inferior, girlish women.

I think I heard somewhere that there are three different runes that give bullets for VAs, so you can get something like 6 bullets per VA. Bullet factory for a bloodtinge build, I guess.

AHHHH AMELIA IS DEAD AHHHHHHHHHH i'm so happy :( I don't know why but it felt so easy this time. Maybe it was just a matter of resolve, or a matter of stats, or a matter of using fire paper + Arianna's blood but I took her out in what felt like a minute. So satisfying and I'm so happy to be moving on.

ME1 - Ashley (who I sacrificed) ME2 - Miranda ME3 - Nobody (stayed loyal to Miranda, I guess)

I beat the Witch of Hemwick! As it turns out, I just need to vigorously attempt to parry with almost every fodder dude with no regard for my quicksilver bullets and I actually do okay. With all the echoes I got from her plus finally burning a bunch of coldblood, I leveled to something like 38 and now I have 25 STR which is making my attacks so much more potent. I think I'll take another crack at Amelia tonight.

If you're going to have trouble paying it off, keep in mind that the IRS lets you setup payment/installment plans to pay it off over time.

Just beat the Battlefield 4 campaign for the second time, kinda just wanted a quick, dumb shooter campaign and was recently considering revisiting the MP of BF4 so it seemed a natural step. Not to mention I have a second pass at trophies, considering PS3 and PS4 trophies are separate. Still a pretty good campaign all things considered, though I'm reminded how much the needless choice at the end bothered me. Why offer absolutely no choice in a campaign until the last minute, particularly when it really doesn't matter (there are like 3 lines of dialogue that pertain to each ending) to the plot in any way?

Is that really true? I thought that USB headsets were totally a thing with the PS3. I guess you could get a optical -> stereo converter or HDMI audio separator, both would cost $30-40 each and could let you use headphones. Though at some point I wonder if it's really worth it. I will say that it's super convenient having the audio port right on the PS4 controller. I currently have my PS4 hooked into my computer monitor to more readily play Bloodborne and it's really nice to not having to work out some weird audio solution. Instead, I just plug any old pair of headphones into my controller and go. Console wars aside, that should be industry standard.

God, ENB is great. I had only heard of him before but I decided to watch him on a whim. I couldn't be bothered to read all the item descriptions like he does, but man do they add to an otherwise sparse, intangible story. I'm trying to watch videos from one zone behind the one I'm currently in as not to immediately spoil anything, but also eventually make sure I backtrack if I missed anything big. Still want to give myself room for discovery, but the game feels a lot more complete with his lore stuff.

I've been casually watching some Bloodborne LP's and the ones that edit out the load times are default 2x better than others. Can't wait for that shit to go away (or at least reduce significantly). Also, lol re: hand lantern. Totally ditching that shit for slot 2 hunter's torch.

I think that having sequelized choice-based games in which the first entry wasn't originally intended to be sequelized almost always results in incoherent storytelling. I think there's some kind of reasonable doubt barrier you have to put up in these situations, otherwise you just can't enjoy things. If Malik was such a good character, I imagine that DX2's story will be better off with her in it if it's possible she could have lived. The story from 1->2 may make less sense to certain people, but if she makes the story of 2 measurably better as a result than this incongruity is acceptable for me. It's kinda like TV shows that are wildly popular - you can tell me that you had brainstormed plot points and drawn out some grand arc, but if by season 3 pretty much every loose end from the past two seasons are wrapped up it turns out I'm not very convinced.

Is it possible to see crow lady if you missed her first appearance? I just heard about her a couple days ago after missing her completely the first go-round and when I went there to check for her she was gone. I played a fair bit yesterday after having taken a break for a few days, totally missed that area right by the Cathedral Ward lamp that opens up after you do the spoiler thing. Long story short, my weapons are much better blood gemmed out, I've got a +3 Ludwig's Holy Blade that I'm tooling around with, switched to half of a Tomb Prospector's set, and I put a handful of points into Vit so hopefully I'm a little more hardy to the extent that it might let me eke through some of these boss fights. Also, I practiced parrying against the big axe Executioner-type dude in Central Yharnam a few times and think I've got it. Instead of fighting Amelia some more and frustrating myself at a greater rate, I think I'll go through Hemwick once more from Cathedral Ward to farm some more blood echoes/blood shards for my Holy Blade/look for missed items and eventually take out the Witch. My poor attempts at handling the Chalice Dungeon has destroyed my Antidote stash, so any extra echoes to restock would be great. This is definitely possible, or if you have PS+ you can always back up a single save file to the cloud and upload it/download it at will. Kinda like a save state.

Why exactly wouldn't they logically be able to do it? Certainly they're choosing a canon ending for DXHR to set the stage for this game, why wouldn't they choose a canon for Malik's fate?

I actually already have that item and managed to handle that whole area, sans the boss who destroyed me in no time at all. To be sure, is the item - However, the range on it is so short and the lack of transformation has made it seem less useful than my axe in most situations. Are there any particularly notable Phys-resistant guys with whom I'd want to actually make an effort to use it with? I really should practice the parry and backstab more. Maybe I'll do some laps around Central Yharnam to get my bearings with guys with predictable, learned attack animations.

I'll keep that all in mind, thanks guys. Trying really hard to not quit this game, because in the moments I'm enjoying it's the best thing ever but man is the loop of dying, loading screens, loss of momentum, generally dour themes/color palette pretty oppressive.

After 5 years of being in my current house I'm finally getting a third chest of drawers (already have one for myself and one for my wife) so now I can actually properly put away linens and overflow clothes. I'm also getting a new bed frame with built-in under-bed drawers from IKEA. I'm pretty stoked to actually theoretically have enough storage for all my crap!

After BSB. I actually managed BSB with very little trouble, mostly because I summoned Alfred. I keep getting wrecked by Amelia, not doing much better in Hemwick Charnel Lane (keep getting to that area with the huge guys with Axes, can't manage to parry those guys to save my life). My Hunter's Axe is +6 and my Hunter's Pistol is +4 and I've dumped pretty heavily into Str/Vit/End.

I really feel like I'm in a rut after BSB, keep getting killed, losing all momentum, and quitting after 30 minutes of play multiple times this weekend. Kept bashing my head against the first Chalice dungeon until I faced off against the first boss, who crushed me time after time. Is it normal for me to feel vaguely like restarting the game with a skill/arcane class now that I actually kinda know what I'm doing and hopefully I'll spec/spend blood echoes better and keep my momentum?

Holy crap I just listened to that whole thing and props to Jeff for actually letting it go that far and not losing his cool.

I think that there are a lot of factors in play here, the foremost in my mind is that due to the fact that this is a hobbyist industry a lot of the coverage of it is lighthearted and not to the journalistic standards of more serious news like NYT or something. This creates a weird tension when you have something that feels ethically foggy due to that levity. What would this story have been if he registered the domain and instead hosted a text file on it that was a brief piece on the challenges of branding on the internet? I honestly think that he was making an earnest attempt to shine a light on the silliness of a company that doesn't secure the domain of a brand that they're about to publicly rollout. He did it in a not too classy way, sure, but I really think intent is important here. I'm also finding it hard to square what people expect out of a person/website whose job it is to cover game companies. There is no responsibility to make Lego "look good"; Lego is not Polygon's client and deserves no special treatment. The idea that McWhetor shouldn't have put egg on Lego's face strikes me as in a similar vein to TB's rant about how game developers are superior and game journalists owe their jobs to devs for making the games to begin with.