JonCole

Yeah, but I had already run Dragon Age Keep on my real Origin account, importing my saves from PC and building the world state choice by choice. If I had known that it was going to be this shitty process, I would have just run Keep on the old Origin account I didn't even want and forgot about the importing thing. On the bright side, now my primary Origin account has everything under one umbrella so it'll work moving forward. Frankly, I'm just annoyed that Origin has been so poorly implemented thus far. So many games on 360/PS3 had you log into Origin for no reason but to mine data for EA, so of course I didn't care what account was associated with what Origin login. Now they build a system completely dependent on something they've trained me to not give a shit about, so I'm just so goddamn annoyed that it doesn't work without being on the phone for almost an hour. On the other topic, I'd guess that more from Dragon Age Origins would tie in as there are just so many more decisions that it asks for in Keep. I mean, it took my about twice as long to complete the Origins section than that of DA2. I haven't actually played the game at all thus far though, so whatever.

Happy belated birthday syntheticgerbil

Margaritaville is a super bizarre place. Every time you order a margarita they pump it out of this huge vat of frozen margarita in a fake volcano that makes a volcano eruption noise when an order goes up. Jimmy's music is cranked pretty loud and it's not unusual to hear a lot of people singing along the whole time they're there. Also practically half of the menu is modeled after his music, with a "boat drinks" cocktail menu, a Cheeseburger in Paradise that was only really an okay burger, etc. I went to the one at Universal Citywalk Orlando, so I guess it's possible that crazy Floridian's crystallized the oddity of the place but it was still something quite special. Off-topic: I'm super excited about this movie.

Pretty sure Dan was once a guest on MBMBAM, but I can't remember for sure.

Dragon Age Inquisition can't get info from Dragon Age Keep because I have no Origin account connected to my PS4/PSN. Origin can't connect to my PS4 because you can only connect accounts by logging into Origin on the PS4, but DAI won't prompt a login. I boot up Battlefield 4 to hope to log into Origin there, suprise! I need a 4GB update that will take 3 hours to DL. Thanks, EA. GREAT 0 minutes in, my experience is pretty bad. I guess it's all uphill from here, eventually. Update: So, my PSN account is associated with an Origin account that I don't use for anything else. All my previous Dragon Age save data and now my Dragon Age keep info is associated with a different account. There's apparently a workaround way to make things work where you share the "world state" from one account to the other, but Origin is some broke ass shit and so I literally cannot "Keep Friend" my two accounts and thus cannot share my world state. In other words, their "quick fix" method doesn't work for me. The chat wait time for customer support was 30 minutes, so I had customer support call me. I've been on the phone for 15 minutes and I've just been passed to an account specialist since I guess the Dragon Age Inquisition customer support can't do shit for me. Origin is the goddamn worst. I've been working on this for two hours now to no avail.

I don't think anyone has mentioned either of these here, but I've been watching Star Wars Rebels and just got finished reading the tie-in novel A New Dawn. Taking the fact that Rebels is a Cartoon Network animated series, I think it's doing a fine job of following Clone Wars but with fresher characters I just generally care more about at this point. That made A New Dawn that much more enjoyable, as it was an origin story for some of Rebels's characters and gave me a real Corran Horn/X-Wing feel. Anyways, both of these post-EU-busting are giving me hope that Star Wars can still be relevant to me as a die hard fan.

I still really like that Samsung plasma and would dig it for myself, but I also use blackout shades in my TV room so it works. The LG I linked is basically the same as the one you listed, but one tier better with a matte/semi-glossy screen and 120hz refresh rate. Does your computer not have HDMI out? Pretty much no televisions have DVI, some still have VGA but that's definitely out of style. You can definitely get a cable or adapter (HDMI Male -> DVI Female, HDMI Female -> DVI Male) for DVI -> HDMI, as they're both digital formats.

Plasmas aren't perfect or preferred over LCDs for bright rooms, indeed, but they're generally recommended for budget gaming TVs because the way that plasma works means that they effectively have no motion blur due to high refresh rate. Usually on plasmas you won't see the 60hz vs 120hz paradigm because that really only applies to LCD televisions. I could go into depth to explain it, or link you to this article that explains it fairly well though exhaustively, but really all you need to know about plasma vs LCD as it pertains to refresh rate is plasma sets are generally better for gaming on the refresh rate front. Anyways, to get back to the point, I don't think that LG would be great for you because it has a glossy screen. Also, if you intend to be doing PC gaming on it, then 120hz is more important. In a bright room, you probably want an LCD with a matte finish and 120hz. I'd bump it up one tier to this LG which is only marginally more expensive and comes with the features I mentioned - http://www.amazon.com/LG-Electronics-47LB5900-47-Inch-1080p/dp/B00KVLT0HM/

At $550, I'd buy this - http://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-51-class-50-3-4-diag--plasma-1080p-hdtv-black/8239047.p?id=1218866283709&skuId=8239047 It's The Wirecutter's step-up $500 TV pick and it's one of the last glorious Samsung plasmas you can get. I love the black levels of plasma and I'm very satisfied with my budget Samsung plasma (even at only 720p and 42"). Color accuracy matters a lot in gaming where low-light occurs quite often, so plasma televisions (and in the future OLED) are great for it. 60hz vs 120hz is kind of a silly thing - the main thing you need to know is that PC gamers prefer 120hz because games running at a high framerate will have much more fluid movement and less tearing if the screen can refresh at the same rate as the framerate. Since most console games are locked at 30 or 60 fps, it's not going to make much difference in most cases. I'd prioritize display quality, ports, brand, etc all over refresh rate, personally.

San Francisco dude was stabbed nine times for confronting man catcalling his girlfriend - http://sfist.com/2014/11/18/the_practice_of_catcallings_been.php He has a GoFundMe to help pay for hospital bills, I'll pitch a few bucks for a folk feminist hero - http://www.gofundme.com/hit31k

Found out about this site that does direct price comparison for domain registration, thought it might be of use to people who every now and then ask where to buy that stuff - https://www.domcomp.com/ That's to say nothing about customer service/quality of service, of course, but if you want the best price it's helpful.

If your budget is very low, Walmart is selling this 40" 1080p TV for $115 - http://www.walmart.com/ip/Element-ELEFW408-40-1080p-60Hz-Direct-Lit-LED-HDTV/35701682 Not available for shipping, but in-store pickup shows as available at all my local stores so stock isn't extremely constrained. Frankly, if I didn't have a TV already I'd probably buy as it doesn't get much cheaper than this.

I use GGautoblocker to block GG people, so I guess GGBlocker is the opposite as osmosisch is saying. That said, I'm really enjoying using it because frankly I don't want GG on my radar anymore. I don't really think it's important to engage with them on a personal level at this stage in the game.

I enjoyed this -

Oops, double posted.

The very best TV deals will be doorbusters, full stop. The hottest TV deal that I know of is a 50" 1080p 60hz Panasonic going for $200 (down from $550) at Best Buy with extremely limited quantities. Here are the ad scans for TV's that'll be on sale - http://slickdeals.net/blackfriday/category/tvs/97/ Largely the very best deals are for low-end panels, which isn't exactly a bad thing - you usually just get less ports, no 120hz refresh, etc. Saving 60% off a $500+ item is very nice, but it sounds like you're like me - unwilling to do that. I bought a 42" 720p Samsung plasma from Walmart when it wasn't on sale and it was only $400. I don't think I would have gone through the trouble to camp at Best Buy to get that same display or something even slightly better for less, but I just don't go to those lengths for deals. You might want to consider camping out on the Black Friday deals page for Amazon. In the past two or three years Amazon has been delivering doorbuster-quality sales at random intervals throughout the week prior to BF through the day itself. I don't think they sell a whole lot of TVs as part of the lightning deals, but you might get lucky and grab one. The BF Deals page shows a whole day's worth of upcoming deals, so you'll be able to see ahead of time if a TV is incoming so you know when to standby your computer. All you do is click the buy button as soon as the lightning deal countdown timer elapses and hope you get lucky.

I think there's a part of the agreement when a game goes on the Amazon Appstore that Amazon holds the right to put their game on sale x number of times and offer it for free x number of times as part of a running free app a day promotion they have. I'm sure the dev makes considerably less when the game is given away for free, but I think it's part of the deal so I don't feel so bad taking advantage now and then. SAM looked it up below! Looks like it's a fully voluntary promotional thing, which is probably best for devs.

I just did those a month ago or so! Very delicious indeed, I used half sweet potatoes and half butternut squash because that's what I had on hand but it was still really good.

Is there any popular zombie fiction right now that support reanimation of corpses? All the ones I can think of in recent memory favor the viral or parasitic varieties that'd only affect living or recently dead people.

Well, this is dumb. I'm loling so hard -

Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - This game was great! It's been a while since I beat a non-violent game but this one was just delightful. I played one Professor Layton game in the past for a couple hours before being relatively unimpressed with the actual puzzle gameplay, and I played the first and part of the second Phoenix Wright games. This one was particularly good because it took the mechanics and gameplay of both games and put them together to each others benefit. Plus, the whole Wright doing puzzles and Layton doing lawyer-y things didn't stop being charming the whole time. This was just the game to get me back into playing things on my 3DS, which is excellent as I can play it in bed under my electric blanket. ^-^

Bungie made a lot of changes to Iron Banner (which starts today) that makes it seem a lot more interesting - http://destinydb.com/news/posts/77-iron-banner-returns-a-simple-guide-to-whats-new Still bummed that there is no negative reinforcement for people that quit, only positive reinforcement for people losing that don't quit. Also, lame that they couldn't figure out a system for salvaging special event faction items for Ascendant Materials that wasn't exploitative in whatever way they wanted to avoid. I haven't played Destiny for a couple weeks now, but I might hop on to try some Banner granted I'm not instantly destroyed since I'm acclimated to COD gunplay again.

Meanwhile I have to charge my PS4 controller after every other play session *grumblegrumble*

I'm Filipino and most of the foods that I make I learned watching my grandmother cook rather than learning recipes, so it's all pretty fuzzy. In Filipino cuisine we really don't use a wide base of seasonings or spices so I've got it pretty easy. The stuff I do know how to make is pretty simple - most recipes don't get more exotic than soy sauce, vinegar, bay leaf, garlic, shrimp paste, calamansi (small Philippine lime), ginger, tamarind, and fish sauce. Bolded stuff is kinda hard to find without a Filipino grocery store (sometimes Thai or Korean grocery stores have these things, though they're harder to identify there) but I can usually make substitutions based on taste approximation that wouldn't please a Filipino but are close enough for me. As for Chinese/Japanese food, I just try to do my best. Honestly, my impression of these foods is mostly built on Westernized versions of the dishes so I don't let myself be too bothered by my own western preparations. I try to be as faithful as I can to what traditional recipes I can find, but it's honestly hard enough to procure some odd ingredients that I can't come all that close without a lot of effort or money. Lately I've been trying to perfect Katsudon using the Tonkatsu that SAM mentioned - it's just fried pork cutlets over rice with a egg cracked over it and a dashi-soy sauce over top to partly cook the egg. I'm not great with dashi so I'm still trying to figure out how much I should use (it's dried fish flakes used to make fish stock, so it's more about concentration than anything).