SecretAsianMan

I'm just going to quickly say that DoggCatcher also does these things.

I made this discovery early on, but I'm impatient and don't have the real world time to sit around and wait for the payoff. Plus I often end up finding crew members that already have some kind of specialty so I never bother doing it.

The invalidation of the EU as canon thing made me laugh. I've only ever read 2 Star Wars books (Shadows of the Empire and Truce at Bakura which I stopped reading halfway through) so the loss means basically nothing to me, but I can totally see some hardcore fans interpreting the move as a giant middle finger. "Hey, you know all that stuff you've been reading for the last 2 decades or so? Well none of it REALLY happened. Here's what actually happened..." That is of course a gross exaggeration but it amused me to think of it that way. As for the movie itself, I'm about as excited for it as I am any other movie blockbuster. I'll probably watch it at some point but I'm not more vested in it than any other film series that probably should have stopped years ago.

Don't forget Mr. Smee

What exactly is the Thumbs' deal with Nature Box? Do they have a subscription? Do they get complementary boxes because of how much they mention it on the cast? I'm not making any kind of shady accusations here, but I would feel weird sending them things they already get from other sources.

Don't forget that this happened

I use DoggCatcher. It's pretty easy to subscribe to feeds, the built in search has found every podcast I've tried looking for (although I only listen to a handful). I also hear good things about BeyondPod but have never used it myself. Neither of those are free, but they both have trial versions if you want test them out. I don't know about synching from iTunes, I sort of doubt you'll find that.

I can understand that. As much as I like the books, I never bother to keep tabs on the release dates. I probably would have forgotten about this one for a while longer if you hadn't brought it up. .....aaaaaaaaaaand now I've read the second chapter. Waiting sucks but being teased like this is in some ways worse.

I'm gonna be the guy who points out that there was a thread called Idle Tongues that was about food

Not only that, but I also expect content providers to increase their prices to help pay for the right to keep service at the current speed. Netflix already agreed to pay Comcast for high speed access months ago and it later raised prices for new members. There are probably other factors at work here as well, but I can't believe that paying Comcast had nothing to do with it.

In order to maintain my candyman cred, I'm preparing another candy package for the Thumbs. I've got a box of Nerds Ropes for Jake and tegan suggested Licorice Babies for Nick. I need something for Chris and Sean. Any ideas?

I agree. Hearing the native language also helps me greatly with immersion. Hearing a bad accent or acting job in English will completely pull me out of the moment and is very jarring. On the other hand, when I don't understand the actual words or have a clear idea of what "bad" acting is, then it's much easier for me to lose myself in it and just enjoy the thing without getting hung up on little details like the nuances of the actor's performance. Sometimes this also works for games where English is the native language.

I would suspect having a Crystal crew member would make the quest easier since you could theoretically skip the stasis pod portion of the quest, although I suppose it's possible that you still need to obtain the pod for the later parts of the quest appear at all.

Dang it Bjorn, stop tempting me. Fair enough. I actually watched the series before I started the books. I thought at the time it was ok, not great, not terrible, but naturally the books are vastly superior.

I'm not a big fan of the slug ships because they don't really come equipped for my play style, but there is one thing I like about them and that's how well they complement mind control. The slug's ability to see the enemy even in nebulae and their inherent immunity to mind control make it quite powerful. I haven't unlocked the B or C layouts, but I know the C layout starts with mind control and hacking. I'm curious to try that out that ship. Side question: how do you get the slug cruiser achievement for having vision in each room of an enemy ship? Does being able to see the crewmen count as having vision, so that I only need to teleport crew members to empty rooms?

Following up on this, the garbage pile disappeared soon after I made the post, but recently a poem sprung up in it's place, stapled to telephone poles around the area. It says "Throw it away, at home or at work. Not out the car window, love the Earth"

In general I prefer hearing things in their original language, whatever the thing is. Not to say that there aren't good English versions, but it tends to feel very artificial trying to cram English speech into scenes that were clearly not animated with English in mind, resulting in many awkward pauses, phrases, and speech patterns. Although on occasion the localization proves more entertaining than the original.

I don't know which one was first, but the Cold Stone is still there while the Curves has now become a yoga place. Also not shown in the picture was a cupcake place to the right of the entrance to Curves. That picture is a screencap of a Google Street View from 2008. I also learned that you can go back in time with Google Street View.

Just had a great run with the Slug cruiser. By the time I reached the flagship, I had 3 shields, mind control, cloaking, defense II drones, a burst laser III and a couple of other 1 power lasers, and a weapons pre-igniter. I got the burst laser and the pre-igniter in 2 consecutive jumps, the laser was given to me and the pre-igniter was purchased. That let me get through several sectors with almost no hull damage and tons of scrap. The final fight took a little longer than I was expecting because my lasers kept missing, but between my cloak, defense drone, and mind control the flagship could barely touch me. I've now unlocked the Rock crusier and am one step closer to the Crystal.

I enjoy that this thread is right next to Idle Workouts. It reminds me of a Curves I once knew that was located above a Cold Stone Creamery.

Man, I must have lived in a weird place. I also spent time in Cincinnati (high school specifically) but I never found it that much of a problem. And being one of the two Asian and less than 10 non-white kids in the entire school you'd think I'd have encountered something but I never really did.

Personally, I would probably not use the chain laser because it will mess with the timing of the other lasers. Same for the pike beam. The dual, burst, and burst II have pretty similar cooldowns (10, 11, and 12 seconds respectively) so you can get off a large volley each time. It looks like you're using a Federation Cruiser too, so combine that with the main weapon and you should be able to take down ships pretty easily, possibly the flagship too. Maybe keep the chain or pike around and depowered until the enemy's shield system has been damaged, then switch out a burst laser for it, depending on your available power. One volley of the dual, burst, and burst II will give you 7 shots, enough to punch through anything short of a full Zoltan shield. I'd target shield systems first, using your cloak to dodge the first volley of enemy fire or letting your shields absorb it if they can. Then maybe use the combat II drone do more damage, switching out the anti-drone since you have pretty good shields, or possibly the anti-personnel depending on your crew. The anti-drone would be useful during phase 2 of the flagship and the anti-personnel during phase 3, assuming anyone is left alive by then. The ion drone doesn't seem like it would be useful given your firepower, but I've never actually used it myself.

I was expecting something more like nanites, especially when Chris started describing the Grey Goo Scenario.

I am disappointed there's no codehunks.com. I think what disgusts me most about the site (besides, you know, ALL OF IT) is the last point in their "philosophy" Like that's a legitimate excuse for anything.

Jake's scenario of Viscera Cleanup where he accidentally spills his bucket of blood and guts on the immaculate floor then freaks out and trashes the place reminds me of Minotaur China Shop. Also I would very much welcome a stream of multiplayer Viscera. Remember when there used to be weekly streams? Those were good times.