SecretAsianMan

This is going to be long and horrible and depressing so feel free to skip everything I'm about to say, except the last bit. The last few months/year of my life has probably been the most stressful and depressing it's ever been. About a year and a half ago I bought a brand new house (new construction, not previously owned). It's the first home I've ever owned and it was one of those moments that made me feel like a real adult instead of some overgrown manchild. But of course owning a home is expensive. I make just enough to cover it and the other expenses I need and if that was the only problem I'd have been fine. Except it wasn't. One of the things I've been having trouble with but didn't want to talk about for a while was that my parents have a considerable amount of debt that they've needed my help with. My father was laid off a number of years ago and hasn't been able to find a steady paying job since due to his age. My mother doesn't work a regular job, instead she has a number of companies she's invested in. Right now they're both working on several projects but don't have a regular income from any of them. As a result I've had to make a number of financial moves that put me in a deep hole. On top of that, work has been extremely stressful for me lately. For the last 2 years or so I've been working on a large project (which I'm not at liberty to discuss). Normally this type of thing would require a couple of engineers to do but it's largely been just me. Because I'm working on one big project, on paper my output seems small since I'm not doing a different thing every week. As a result of this, I got a negative performance review for last year. The irony of this is I've never been busier. I'm trying not to let it get to me and am instead attempting to use it as motivation to bury my management in progress reports showing all the things that have been going on. But the work itself is requiring a lot of time and effort, including staying late a lot of the time (and because I'm salaried I don't get overtime pay usually, there are a few exceptions). Both of these things are the reason my presence on these forums has dropped off a bit lately. I don't have the time or energy to play a significant amount of games or talk about the other things I'd like to discuss around here. I've tried to chime in where I can to show that I'm technically still around but it's been tough. I'm aware that I'm complaining about things like my job and my house while many people (even around here) are having a much worse time than me with much less. One positive thing I can say about all the terrible crap that's been happening in the world of gaming lately is that it's made me look at what I have and realize how lucky I am that I have a lot of it and am even in a position to complain in the first place. I'm a straight, middle-class male (though I'm not white) so things could easily have been much harder. That said, this last year has possibly been the worst of my life. There's maybe some signs that it might get better this year but for now it continues to be a very trying experience. Finally, I'd like to thank everyone at this community. Chris, Jake, Sean, Danielle, and Nick (when he's around) have been one of the few constant sources of joy these past months. I keep promising to send more candy treats and I feel bad that I'm constantly having to put that off. I fully intend to rectify that someday. These forums as well have been a great boon. I'm so incredibly thankful that there's a community that's thoughtful, intelligent, supportive, funny, and perhaps most of all SANE that has let me be a part of it, especially in times like these. And last but not least, a special thanks to Tegan for being a better friend to me than I really deserve. Alright, I'm done for now. Resume normal banter.

Although I'm a Star Trek fan, I was never a huge fan of Spock as a character. Leonard Nimoy on the other hand was great. To repeat a paraphrase I've seen around on Twitter, "I have been, and always shall be, your fan"

If I remember correctly, it both begins and ends that way. The ending of the episode was a downer because despite "winning" the game, the kid was still trapped because it started all over again with no method of escape.

I'm not done with the episode yet but I'm also going to chime in and say the pinball episode is the only Are You Afraid of the Dark story I remember. I recall not wanting to go to the mall the next day. It didn't help that the mall had an arcade with several pinball machines in it. Also as an aside to what Tegan said about Gargoyles and Keith David, Gargoyles is my favorite cartoon of all time but now that I've played Saints Row IV I can't help but hear that version of Keith David instead of Goliath.

In a 3-2 vote in favor of, the FCC voted to pass the Open Internet Order which will basically reclassify the Internet as a Title II utility. As stated before, this classification does have some differences from a normal utility. For example, the FCC will forbear certain sections of Title II for ISPs such as sections regarding market entry/exit. The most critical rules are still in effect, such as the ones prohibiting unreasonable discrimination, the requirement for just and reasonable service and charges, requirements for consumer privacy, and processes for filing complaints to the Commission. The rules will also extend to wireless communications, namely mobile internet. ISPs like Comcast and Verizon are no doubt preparing to challenge this ruling in court but this is still a pretty great step forward.

I don't know if this is still a problem, but you if you have a valid license (not an OEM license) you can download the Windows ISO from Microsoft and put it on a thumb drive.

I posted about this a long time ago somewhere else on the forum, but Chinese sort of does this. The written form of him and her are different, but both are pronounced the same. The same with them.

Sleeping Beauty's parents don't die

Ha! Even better.

Completely dumb aside: I'm sorry, I couldn't help but laugh a little as I read this. For those that aren't familiar with Farscape, Chiana is literally various shades of gray.

Echoes is Prime 2, Corruption is Prime 3. I also didn't care for Echoes. It has all the guts of a Metroid game but it didn't suck me in nearly as much as Prime did. The story, the setting, the enemies, it just felt... off to me. I never actually finished Corruption. I should do that someday.

I can understand the skepticism, after all we are talking about the medium that spawned the women in refrigerators trope (granted that was DC and not Marvel but it was a common practice everywhere). But I agree with JonCole and tberton. Comics are trying to move more toward diversity, both in gender and race. It's a slow change naturally, but I think a radical swing is unlikely to happen, as much as we would all like to see that. I admit I'm somewhat ignorant about how they actually use those changes though, because despite how much of a comic book geek I sound like, I don't actually read them.

To be fair to Marvel, I presented those panels out of context (although I think the context was she's foiling a robbery and this is their first time meeting). And the story and character are still new so maybe they're going somewhere with it. But then again it could just be a one off thing that never gets referenced again and the character basically ends up as an attempt to cash in on a hot topic. As an aside to this, a couple of other characters have used the hammer in the past (though none on a seemingly permanent basis except for perhaps Beta Ray Bill). One of particular relevance to this discussion is Storm of the X-Men

This is correct. The new series just started (those panels were taken from issue number 5) so it's hard to say how the character being a woman will change things. It hasn't even yet been revealed who she really is or what happened to the old Thor. In this specific instance, they were very much trying to be on the nose and responding to criticism over the decision. To get into it a little more nerdily, it's worth noting that Thor is mainly identified by the hammer Mjolnir. The hammer carries an enchantment that only allows the worthy to wield it. Something happened to the old Thor that made him unworthy (at this point its still unknown what) and its picked up by a mystery woman. The reason this could be important is that Thor isn't just a character, in a way it's an ideal, one that's gender blind.

In case you weren't aware, the new version of Marvel's Thor is a woman. Naturally this has been met with lots of outcry about feminism ruining the character and other idiotic sentiments. The latest issue features these scenes So what does the new Thor do in response? She punches him in the face and breaks his jaw for "saying 'feminist' like it's a four letter word". Oh, and also a robbery or something.

The Wavebuster is a lot of fun to use, but it eats up your ammo really fast. If memory serves, it takes 10 missiles to initialize and consumes about 5 per second after that. It's extremely powerful though because once it finds an enemy it will stay locked on. The Flamethrower doesn't work quite as well because it's kind of hard to gauge the distance and the plasma beam is already so powerful. I also really like the visual effects generated by the Ice Spreader. Shooting a wall with it will basically cover the entire screen in ice.

I'm going to reply to this here instead of the completed games thread. There isn't a direct version of wall jumping, shinesparking (the boost thing), or crystal flash (the health=ammo thing) in Prime so you didn't miss them. You can do some tricky jumps using the lock on mechanic to do some sequence breaking and because it's a 3D game you can clip out of bounds if you know how but those aren't intended features (maybe the jumps are). The closest thing to the special techniques is probably the beam combos for each weapon. The Super Missile is the Power Beam combo and the only required one. The Ice Spreader is the Ice Beam combo that shoots a bigger version of a charged shot with a slight homing effect and a huge blast radius but an extremely slow projectile. The Wavebuster is the Wave Beam combo that shoots a stream of electricity. It fires continuously for as long as you hold down the button and have ammo. It homes in on targets and paralyzes them (think of the proton pack from Ghostbusters). The Flamethrower is the Plasma Beam combo and acts like the name suggests. It shoots a short range stream of fire out and like the Wavebuster will continue to fire as long as you have ammo. Prime 2 also has beam combos for each of the weapons. Prime 3 has a different mechanic that replaces the beam combos. Also as a bit of extra trivia, the screw attack was originally planned for the game but had to be cut due to time constraints. It does appear in Prime 2 and 3 and incorporates the space jump into it allowing for several consecutive jumps (but not infinite). It also allows for wall jumping, but only off of certain walls.

I loathe scores in general. If I were to ask a friend who's playing a game what he thinks of it, I really don't think they're going to respond with a score unless I ask them to. Every time I see a discussion about scored reviews it just makes me want to do this idea I've had forever for a user driven website where the only score is a "yes you should play it" or a "no you shouldn't play it" along with a list of games the reviewer likes or dislikes so you can compare tastes.

I wanted to try out my new mandoline So I got some potatoes and made fries Then I decided that wasn't enough so I took it a step further It was a horrible but delicious idea.

I beat Saints Row IV. I've never played a Saints Row game before so I didn't understand what was happening most of the time (although I suspect that would have been the case even if I did play them all). I completed every side mission, though I didn't get a gold in them all. I doubt I'm going to go back and try, some of them are really dumb and I didn't have fun doing them. Overall it was fun and wacky but it also suffered from the main issue I have with most open world games which is the repetitive side missions used to pad out the game.

I was planning to go in to work today and get some overtime, but it's snowing out and the roads are terrible. Guess I'll just stay home and play video games instead.

This actually got me to thinking. In the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight series of games, there's a place called the Valley of the Jedi. Jedi Knight II has the antagonist using the power of the Valley to grant his followers Force powers. If the midi-chlorians are the source of a person's connection to the Force, that means that the Valley basically puts a bunch of midi-chlorians into you. Of course the games are no longer "canon" so who knows what's going on.

I've heard some horror stories about people slicing their hands open using a mandoline before so I plan on being very careful. The guard on the one I got is rather large compared to the mandoline itself so it does a good job of keeping your hand away from the blade. The button to adjust it and change the guides is also far from the blades. Plus it can lock in a safe position and includes a holder for the other guides which snaps into the main unit, keeping everything together and covered.

Brianna Wu's indie studio Giant Spacekat is no longer attending PAX East over fears of death threats. Brianna herself will still try to attend in a limited capacity to take press meetings and be on panels.