JonCole

I have a renewed outlook on jokes on Twitter due to the fact that one day I noticed a lot of people I follow tweeting at the community manager of a game company. Her name was familiar to me and I saw that she was into Japanese culture, so I was primed to follow her. When I attempted to, I realized that I was blocked by her. For a brief moment I considered the possibility that I landed on some blocklist, but was able to count that possibility out. Seeing as I have never before known of myself being blocked by someone I actually would want to tweet at, I looked through my tweet history for any mention of her previously. I noticed that a week before I made a joke to someone I follow emulating the stupidity of a GG person. I gather that my emulation seemed like genuine GG status to this third-party who blocked me offhand. In the moment I'm sure it seemed clever of me, but it's pretty clear in hindsight that I'd be the only person to really enjoy that joke. It's a pretty specific situation, but it just demonstrated to me that even a topical joke made to someone I'm moderately familiar with has opportunity to put someone off that's not even related to the conversation at hand. If it can have that effect on a third-party, the potential for a poorly worded or timed joke to put off someone I'm trying to be friendly with is real. So now I just look both ways before I joke, mostly to make sure that it's really worth doing.

Is this not what you're talking about?

Killzone Mercenary Started this game on my Vita and was having a good time, but decided to switch to my new PS TV where I enjoyed it even more. It's a pretty barebones FPS campaign, but I enjoyed the feel of the weapons and I liked the B-movie plot. Killzone takes itself very seriously, so I appreciated a version of the game that was serious but self-aware. I imagine that it being on a handheld meant that the story didn't need to be the big-budget, super-huge scope thing that can ruin an otherwise good shooter.

I use Glad Press & Seal plastic wrap and put it in the fridge. I wouldn't keep it in there for very long, maybe around a week at most.

Sometimes canned olives are near the condiments, because that's where you also find pickles and pickled veggies.

Yeah, from everything I heard it's basically Trozei + Candy Crush Saga. I'd say that the ideal F2P Nintendo game would be a Nintendo Puzzle & Dragons, but that is actually happening weirdly enough and I feel like since it is a boxed game it won't be F2P in its design.

Man, I'm jealous. I need to get some potatoes. I was going to microwave a hot pocket for dinner, but I decided that I am an adult. So now I'm baking a hot pocket for dinner, because why not?

I think the market for it is people who read a NeoGAF review roundup thread that has all the review scores of each publication and submits a comment like "all 7s, I guess I will buy this when there's a Steam sale". I don't think that this is a theoretical, rhetorical person. Why I'm asking if it matters is because I don't think there are many Thumbs, at least, that prescribe to that way of thinking. "If you don't like it, you can always quit" isn't my defense. I don't think that the ability to quit as a means of protesting the system is a good option, I'm just saying it exists. I think I've sufficiently stated that the reviewer has plenty of room to veto a score they don't agree with and I don't think that changing the wording of their review is their only method of doing so. Maybe I'm just more willing to accept this direction having listened to every episode of Quality Control, their podcast hosted by Justin McElroy where he interviews a reviewer about their review so that they can talk about their process. I've never detected any degree of animosity towards a chosen score. I just don't understand the revulsion of someone saying "this is the score that your text reads like". I've tried my hand at writing game reviews and damn if it isn't hard to crystallize my opinion into a readable format let alone tag it with a score that is supposed to be the sum of my thoughts. I think that the system has practical, business-y reasons for existing like the Metacritic thing, but I feel like I'd appreciate it as an editorial tool. What staff reviewer would outright reject the input of other staff to bolster clarity and consistency?

I don't really understand why this even matters. If practically everyone on this forum agrees that score is insignificant, why does it matter what the site decides to do with them? Score only seems to matter to aggregators like Metacritic and the person who looks at the front of the box and says "oh cool Polygon gave this a 9/10 I gotta get it!" I'm just saying that if some part of the audience is only going to care about the score as it pertains to "what Polygon gave it", I don't see why Polygon as an institution shouldn't have some control over what that number is. Ultimately, if a reviewer cares that the score next to their byline is not what they want (which they can even fight for if they choose to), they should find some other outlet to write for.

I think this assumes that "Reads like a 7, not an 8" is equally (in)valid when stated by commenters versus the editorial staff of the publication. I get why that'd be an annoying thing to hear from readers, but I don't think it's pointless when you're trying to achieve "consistency". Now, I think you could argue whether or not that consistency is valuable, but I do think that if you assume Polygon is trying to achieve some form of collective voice then it's logical for an editorial board to interpret an individual written review in some way. I guess what this comes down to is what Polygon's vision is. Other publications/websites have chosen not to have their scores (or lack thereof) represented on Metacritic, but Polygon has chosen to do so. When this is what people see: They're not seeing the score next to the reviewer's name, they're seeing it next to Polygon's name. When you go to Polygon's website, you see the score at the very bottom of the review and the text has clear priority. I think this is a valid way to adapt to conform to honoring the reviewer's intent on the website and Polygon's "consistency" on Metacritic.

Because readers and Metacritic both interpret whatever number is put down as a number for what Polygon the institution thinks of the game. Please let me know exactly how you'd recommend an institution writes the text of a review as a group (of course with every single person who contributes to that written text having also played said game), unless you're using that suggestion rhetorically.

Maybe I didn't word that correctly. I think that the writer essentially has veto power. If they say that it's an 80% and the writer disagrees, they could temper some stuff that might seem overly positive to a potential reader to enforce something lower. I dunno, I theoretically agree with the general blue sky attitude of "a writer should be able to write whatever they want and it doesn't need to be the voice of the publication they write for" but in a world where publications want to be included in Metacritic that attitude needs to be somewhat compromised.

I think that Polygon's system is basically an institutionalized reaction to Metacritic. If Metacritic wants to take a score from Polgyon and say "this is what Polygon thinks", then having staff rank it based on the written text of a specific writer makes sense to me. Not only that, but Justin McElroy has stated on the Quality Control podcast that this score selection process is not a one-way street. The review staff comes to a conclusion and the writer then vets it. If the reviewer thinks that the score doesn't reflect the writing, she/he can choose to revise the writing to suit the score in mind. To me the staff scoring accomplishes two things - 1) it brings the score and written text more closely in line with each other 2) it allows the score to be representative of what "Polygon thinks", so to speak.

There's also just the possibility that you're unlucky. Hard drives have a fairly perceptible error rate, you can see it pretty easily when you look at reviews where 10% of them report DOA or quickly dying drives. The only precaution you can really take is backing up regularly.

Be careful with the mandoline, always use a guard or a glove. I feel like they say that every chef only has to make that mistake once to learn, but as a person squeamish around blood who has made the mistake I suggest not making it to begin with. I only use my mine with the crappy guard, planning on getting a nice glove at some point but I keep putting it off. Edit: actually, gloves are cheaper than I remember so I might just order one right now... http://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00E4XSSDA/

The whole space wizard thing is pretty much one of my favorite things about the super deep EU catalog, because basically Luke spends a lot of time post-Empire just doing normal New Republic stuff but at some point he just becomes a weird nomadic Jedi who learns all kinds of crazy Force-user techniques from sensitives across the galaxy. Some Jedi could manipulate the density of matter, essentially letting them walk through walls and stuff. Mind Walkers could separate their minds from their bodies like ghosts or something. Jacen Solo could basically time travel using the Force.

What if the cheese wire was heated to something like 10,000º C? I feel like it'd work.

I don't really think the makes sense = cool thing holds up. How many people lost their shit when Darth Maul lit up his double-ended lightsaber? Every instinct in me says that two lightsabers would make more sense than that, but nobody is going to lose it watching that. TIE fighters and interceptors are cool, but make no sense. Their design makes them really fragile. The Death Star is cool but makes no sense. It's an enormous cost to the point where The Empire could barely afford it and it's far from invulnerable, but damn if its cool.

Groceries being a problem is just another product of car culture. Places with better public transportation and walking options have much better distributed grocery options. I'd much rather get a couple bags of groceries every couple days than have it be a production once a week with a drive and $100 worth of food every visit.

Tons of crazy PSN deals right now - Get a $50 PSN Credit for $40 via eBay - http://www.ebay.com/itm/50-Sony-Playstation-Network-Card-for-only-40-Email-delivery-20-OFF/261681290189?pt=US_Deal_Vouchers&hash=item3ced6b9bcd Buy $100, get $15 free - Critics' Choice sale going on right now, with deep discounts especially for PS+ users including Dragon Age Inquisition for $36, Far Cry 4 for $36, Shadow of Mordor for $25, Telltale Games Collection for $44 (includes Walking Dead S1/S2, Wolf Among Us S1, Tales of the Borderlands S1, and Game of Thrones S1 for PS4), Danganronpa for $20, Danganronpa 2 for $24, and a whole lot more - http://blog.us.playstation.com/2015/02/17/critics-choice-sale-oscar-sale-both-start-today/

Car stuff is so shitty. I always buy used cars because they basically all that I can afford. My credit isn't good enough to get good financing on an expensive used car or a new car. I need new tires and wipers. Hopefully when I'm done paying this one off I'll have moved to a new city/job that allows me to not need a car or be able to get by sharing a car with my wife.

Ugh, I looked at the dude's Twitter. That was a mistake. I got Ethan Carter a little while ago but haven't played it yet due to some PC shenanigans, but now I'm wondering if I should really play it at all. I guess the damage is done in terms of supporting the dude financially, I'll probably not buy whatever else he does in the future if he stays indie.

Do you have a friend with a Windows installation? You can create a boot disc within Windows, I think the option is within Control Panel > System > Backup and Restore.

Maybe the bootloader is messed up? Have you tried plugging in the Windows install disk and repairing your Windows installation? You could even install a non-Windows bootloader if you want. On a side note, Chris Plante's Verge article about buying a prebuilt PC with long-term service offered and everything just working kinda made me want to stop building and just start buying - http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/17/8051715/tiki-custom-pc-falcon-northwest-realizing-now-ill-never-be-rich

I hate children and bad children deserve comeuppance, but man... I was reading the plot synopsis of the movie on Wikipedia and it says that those children and their parents were "removed from the tour" but I never got any indication that those kids weren't just getting straight up killed by the crazy experimental candy that they couldn't resist. It just didn't seem... right? Was there any chance that Willy Wonka would have ever voluntarily picked any of those kids even if they didn't pass the obstacle course of the tour? Maybe I just have trouble suspending my disbelief.