SecretAsianMan

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Posts posted by SecretAsianMan

  1. Posted

    I just got back from a week in China and shotgunned a bunch of superhero movies on the flights.

     

    Justice League - :tdown:  A real mess.  Muddled plot, murky visuals, no character.  The only movie I've seen in this "universe" was Wonder Woman and JL does absolutely nothing to make me want to watch any others.

     

    Black Panther - :tup:  Pretty good.  Creative visuals, interesting characters, fun action.  I wish a little more had been done with the plot but otherwise I liked it.

     

    Thor Ragnarok - :tup:  Awesome.  Of all the Marvel movies thus far the Thor ones have been the low points but this one was fantastic, possibly the best Marvel movie yet.  I think part of what makes it so great is how much it contrasts against the previous "serious" film, but you can tell they knew what they were doing was silly so they just embraced the fuck out of it and it worked.

     

    Avengers Infinity War - :tup:  I went into the movie expecting a lot of mindless action and I got exactly what I wanted.  I wouldn't call it a good movie per se but it did the job of being entertaining which is ultimately all I need from it.

  2. Posted

    The first half of Season 5 of Arrested Development is out and I finished it up last night.  It's... meh.  The format is the old familiar one but the pace feels slow in comparison.  The story and jokes tend to drag quite a bit.  I got a few chuckles out of it but nothing made me really laugh.  Hopefully they can tighten it up in the second half.

  4. Posted

    I finished up Lost In Space.  Overall I liked it.  The momentum of the first episode doesn't quite carry through the rest of the season but there's still a good amount of tension and character.  The biggest disappointment to me was Dr. Smith.  I'm glad they went away from the silly, over the top portrayals of previous incarnations of the character, but I found this Dr. Smith to be really unlikable and off-putting.  Maybe that was the intention but I didn't love hating her, I just hated her.

  5. Posted

    I watched the rest of the season and the pattern continued.  It would be impossible to overcome the inherent flaws without filming more scenes so I'd say they did the best they could with what they had.  Still the fact that they recognized it at all leaves me with hope for season 5.  On a side note, it was really depressing to be reminded that a major plot point of trying to build a wall between the US and Mexico and how completely ridiculous an idea that is has now become a reality 5 years later.

     

    In other news I started the Lost In Space remake.  I'm only about 3 episodes in but so far I'm enjoying this more than I anticipated.

  6. Posted

    With season 5 of Arrested Development releasing this month, I've started watching the season 4 remix.  I wasn't a fan of the original season 4, the show just doesn't work without the characters to play off of each other as well as the interconnected storytelling that slowly puts a jumbled series of events together.  The remix helps this somewhat by re-editing the season to be more like the first three but since they filmed only a handful of scenes with more than 3 characters present it's still off.  The story moves along better and fewer jokes require you to watch an entirely different episode for the payoff but the fundamental problem remains.  None of the characters are really strong enough to stand on their own, they work best in small doses or when supported by the others.

     

    Still, I'm excited to see if season 5 can be a return to form.

  7. Posted

    Forgive me for doing a bit of promoting here but a friend at work told me a game he's been working on for a while was recently released to Steam.  I told him I'd help get the word out.

     

    KovaaK's FPS Aim Trainer is a game about learning the skills and muscle memory to play first person shooters.  It's a single player game where you play against bots that can be customized in a lot of ways.  Almost every variable can be adjusted so that the weapons respond like they would in any other game.  Bots can be given AI as well, allowing them to dodge and fight back.  Movement mechanics can also be adjusted; things like double jump and jetpacks can be added to further train for specific games.  Maps are customizable so you can create scenarios such as a sniper training alley.  At the moment there's no controller support or third person mode.

     

    I haven't played with it myself but it seems like a good way get some FPS chops without the pressure of online play.  I can also see it making for a good warm-up prior to a match.

     

     

  8. Posted

    The eye patch and Hulk in Ragnarok I was well aware of because they're impossible to avoid if you've seen even a second of the marketing.  And I'm familiar enough with the character of Black Panther to know he's the ruler of Wakanda.  It's mainly that I'm one of those nerds that likes to get all the references and such which is why I'm reluctant to see Marvel Infinite Warfare before the rest.  I've generally enjoyed all the Marvel films though so I'll probably like it either way.

  9. Posted

    How important is it to have seen ALL the movies prior to watching Infinity War?  I haven't seen Ragnarok or Black Panther yet.  I very much want to see both but my time is rather limited these days.  Would I be best served waiting until I've seen everything first even at the cost of missing Infinity War at the theater?

  10. Posted

    On ‎4‎/‎8‎/‎2018 at 2:51 AM, Gwardinen said:

    I watched SecretAsianMan's recommended episode list from this very thread and was very happy with it: 

     

     

    I'm glad to hear that!  It's weird, I went over the list to see if I had any updates to it and discovered I have no recollection of making it at all.

     

    @Saltimbanco

    One nice thing about TNG is that apart from a handful of major events, the episodes are largely disconnected so there's not much to be gained from slogging through the first two seasons.  And most of the major plot episodes are good ones anyway.  Voyager has a lot of standalone episodes too but there's much more overall continuity.  DS9 is almost a serial (especially in the back half) so skipping means missing out on a lot.  If you're interested this thread also has a Voyager skip list (compiled by me with addendums by others) and a DS9 list (compiled by Gormongous with addendums by others).

  11. Posted

    I appreciate the support.  I just wish I had an idea of where to go from here.  Heck, I don't even know where I WANT to go much less where I can.

  12. Posted

    My company announced today that they're going to close down the plant I work at.  It'll still run for a couple of years and decommissioning will take time after that (I'm sure a lot of you already know this but I work at a nuclear power plant) but we're essentially done.  I'm not entirely sure how to feel about this.  I've been wanting to get out of this job for a long time now and this is probably the push I need to actually do it.  I'm not exactly eager to start the job seeking process though.  I don't want to work at another plant, or even in a related field, but I'm not really sure what else I'm qualified to do.  It's entirely possible that some other company will come and buy the plant and if that happened odds are I'd end up working for them since you need qualified people who know the plant and you can't bring in a completely new staff to do that.

     

    I feel like I should be nervous or scared or anxious or something but mostly I'm just unsure.

  13. Posted

    3 hours ago, Vainamoinen said:

    I played it in English for the first time last weekend... which means that it was the first time I actually got to listen to "A pirate I was meant to be" in the actual game. For some reason the song is cut from the German version (probably the other FIGS languages as well).

     

    It was cut because the "solution" relies entirely on the English language and isn't something that can be translated without losing the point.

  20. Posted

    I also love the Wirecutter, at least in theory.  In practice only about half of the things I get based on their recommendations turn out that good.  That being said, I completely agree with Nick about the Coway air purifier.  That thing is great.  I like to cook but the design of my house means that most of the fumes and smoke from my kitchen go up the stairs where the main house smoke detector sits.  I used to set it off all the time, but I put one of the air purifiers at the top of the stairs and now I hardly ever have it go off unless I really burned something.

  21. Posted

    I also recently rewatched AoU and had a similar takeaway as Roderick.  I think it's because at this point I'm more used to the dumb goofiness that is the MCU.  In general I like the Marvel movies.  I won't pretend they're good cinema but I enjoy them for what they are.  What I find interesting is some of the ones I'm down on are the ones that everyone else seems to like.  I thought Guardians 1 and 2 were fine but I don't understand the love.  And I flat out hated Iron Man 3.  I'll admit I initially wasn't interested in Black Panther just because I don't find that character interesting and something about the visuals is off-putting to me but I'm reconsidering my opinion and am thinking about watching it in the theatre rather than waiting.

  22. Posted

    57 minutes ago, cooljammer00 said:

    So you assumed yall was a wax house but then you hoisted yourself.

     

    This is super confusing to an outsider, btw.

     

    While listening to this episode, I did start to consider if making an Important if True wiki would be a good idea.  I've been listening to Thumbs related media since Idle Thumbs Episode 1 and I still get lost among the reference to a reference to a reference (to me to me to me).

  25. Posted

    Backing up Chris' endorsement of an extra long shoehorn.  I own the same model and it is legitimately nice to have.  It came in especially handy when my wife was pregnant and bending over became more and more of a challenge.

     

    On the topic of messing up verbs, there is a similar thing I do in Chinese all the time.  In English, everything on your person is "worn", be it clothing or accessories, unless you are physically holding it in your hand.  In Chinese, only certain articles of clothing are "worn", others are "brought/carried".  For example, you would "wear" a shirt but "bring/carry" a watch.  I constantly fuck this up.