BrainHurtBoy...2

http://www.actionbutton.net/?p=3006 Tim fucking Rogers. I really despise the guy, but I agree with most of this review. Of particular interest is Chapter 5. If you don't want to read the whole thing (and chances are you don't), just hit Chapter 5. Issues like those outlined in that chapter really illuminate the massive distance I think games (or at least many mainstream, big-budget games) as a medium have to traverse before... being better, I suppose. The complaints in Ch. 5 really limn a dichotomy between gameplay and narrative that isn't obvious for many of us (not us personally, obv., but us as "gamers", or whatever). Good stuff. I'll say again that I fucking hate Tim Rogers.

I recently read this series called "Lone Wolf and Cub", which may be the best comic I've ever read. Has anyone else heard of it? I know very little about it, outside of its content. It's... it's *really* fucking good.

I just read "Black Hole", by Charles Burns. It was thematically pretty shallow, but stylish as all hell. Is anyone else interested in alternative comics? On the more mainstream side of things, I've been reading Mark Waid's run on Daredevil, which is okay.

Jesus, I completely forgot how great this album was.

Just bought Ni no Kuni. So... that.

Thursday is so right about this. In the developing market, at present, piracy is probably the largest thing keeping games from being widely purchased in the developing world (that is, piracy is so widespread that buying games through legitimate means is simply economically uneffective). The vast, vast majority of stores in India, Pakistan, Thailand, and Vietnam (the developing countries in which I have a bit of a basis) legitimate or otherwise, all sell pirated software and pirated consoles. There are a few ways out of this scenario, and greater restrictions on software may be one of them. Another may be the facilitation of access to said software, or the removal of always-online DRM (which lost Diablo 3 quite a few potential sales in India, where infrastructure doesn't insure that one will have consistent access to electricity). That said, the latter is highly unlikely, as we don't live in a world where capitalists care about their product more than their money.

Are you a Cantonese-type? Have we talked about this, before? Do you speak Cantonese? A note on casual racism: some people can take it, others can't. Stuff like Wally is describing is good for Wally, but sometimes it can get overwhelming, particularly when you're in an area isolated from others like you, and see no other people of your particular... strain. It may be entirely psychological (I would argue it certainly is not), but I think it fair to say that racism is absolutely still around, and that casual and humorous racism (as one sees, for example, in shows such as 30 Rock, The Office, Girls... most TV comedies, really) can tend to institutionalize and, to an extent, reify the notion that we live in a post-race society, and that xenophobic japes are broadly 'okay', which they are not. My college experience was fraught with racial tension and strife, on a personal plane, and I have had innumerable experiences where I have encountered physical abuse due to the color of my skin; I do not mean to suggest others in this thread haven't, and I think it reasonable to draw some sort of causal thread between more overtly oppressive abuse and lighthearted, though much more pervasive jesting in small groups. I only mean to suggest that we should be careful when using race-based humor, no matter what the context.

Stoker. Best female protagonist I've seen in a long time. Most intense film in a long time. Better than anything I saw last year, possibly better than anything I've seen since There Will Be Blood. If you can find it playing, you really need to watch it. Try and spoil as little of it as you can for yourself. Brace yourself, because it is *very* intense.

FDS is just the most unlucky and misunderstood person in the world. Or autistic. But I don't mean to connote anything negative.

I think it has literally been years since I've gone on speakup. Does no one else miss the old Kotaku?

Chewie is underrated.

Ivan's Childhood (Criterion Edition) Faust (Clear Album) on clear vinyl Not Available by Residents on vinyl Knowledge, Mind and the Given (A Book) Metalogic, by Geoffrey Hunter (A favorite from my undergrad days; don't think it's used much, anymore)

Rocket From the Tombs >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Rocket From the Crypt

I agree with Ethan, though his film metaphor only extends to about the mid-80s. I also agree with Strangelove, that these games very rarely approach the technical or mechanical complexity of those produced in the aesthetic's "actual" epoch. However, I don't think this is because those making the games these days are "cheap asses", nor do I think it's wholly due to their being unable to fund a full-3D game, and I also doubt the reason to be the fact that non-retro type games are harder to make. I believe modern retro games' successes are predicated upon nostalgia, feigned/cultural (as in the case of those too young to have played "actual" 8- and 16-bit games) or genuine. This isn't a negative thing, I don't think, as I personally enjoy Retro City Rampage, Cave Story, and Megaman 9 and 10 quite a bit.

It's lazy advertising to use a song like that in a commercial. They're emotionally manipulative and make everything in the ad feel slimy and corporate. On its "utility": It's a real-life, minimalistic HUD. Why on Earth wouldn't you want it?? It's enthralling and horrifying at the same time.

It says that you're running in the right circles.

Tarantino doesn't make films as much as he does mash-ups. He makes his films as much as the sandwich-man makes the ham, bread, lettuce, mayonnaise, or cheese in his sandwiches. But Tarantino does splice together a mean sandwich. I saw Stand Up Guys, which I almost put in the "Okay" thread. The script is aggressively bad, and the direction is simply inept, but just *looking* at Chris Walken, Al Pacino and Alan Arkin hanging out together in their old age is worth the price of admission, in my opinion.

This is hilarious, but people in the comments seem to be misinterpreting his criticism. The complaints people make about Girls (it's self-obsessed without being self-aware, the characters are unlikable, etc.) are mostly true, but are too easily countered by the show's proponents ("it is self aware", "it's an honest representation of life", "it's just the world through her eyes", etc.) So if we actually want to win arguments, or make people realize the show sucks, what we have to do is look a layer deeper. I personally believe the show is self-aware, and that's part of what makes it so dangerous. It makes people believe that, as long as they are aware of how horrible they are, not only is it okay to be horrible in the day-to-day, but they could make it big on T.V. by being horrible and writing about it. In truth, (and this is, I think, a very obvious fact to anyone willing to think about it) being aware of your flaws doesn't make them any less glaring. So so what if it's an honest representation of their lives? Their lives are vacuous, empty, and narcissistic! So what if this is how people actually are? We shouldn't glorify the lives of the horrible! Girls' humor (I don't personally find it funny, at all, but this is subjective) is independent of the meaning of its existence as a show. I think that the fact that a show like Girls exists and is successful represents a larger societal desire to gaze into our flawed reflections in the mirror, and feel better by simply being *aware* of these flaws. Maybe we laugh at them, or maybe we find them hard to look away from, like a train wreck, but the fact of the matter is that when we watch them on a T.V. screen, we are implicitly glorifying them. Girls quashes all potential desire to self-improve; "Dunham could get on T.V. by writing about her shitty empty life -- that means my living it is okay!" Before a fan of the show comes on and tries to rebut by saying: "Oh, something like Honey Boo Boo is on television, yet no one says they want to live their lives like Honey Boo Boo" -- come on. This is a different situation, and you know it. Honey Boo Boo isn't a media darling like Dunham, and she isn't constantly being glorified (Dunham was on the cover of two magazines I know of this month, alone). Sorry for rambling. I just really hate this show.

Weirdly cathartic game to play. Long brown hair, symmetrical face, a small amount of freckles on her nose, blue eyes, slight build. Into art of all media, generally knowledge-seeking, clever, has a telos worked out for herself, even-tempered, likes going to the movies, playing video games, reading, etc. Young, but eager to self-improve, so I can do the whole Woody Allen - Diane Keaton thing. Not arrogant enough to do what Diane Keaton does to Woody Allen in his films. Generally curious. **sigh**

Didn't post in the thread, but the resolutions I made (and all of these continue into next year) were: 1. Keep up with my annual game replays (I replay EarthBound, SMTs 1&2, PS: T, and Baldur's Gate 2 every year). I pulled this one off. 2. Read one hundred and fifty books. I somehow swung this one, so for next year, the goal is two hundred. 3. Make time for socializing. This one was a miserable, miserable failure. 4. Complete at least one online course. I did eleven. 5. NaNoWriMo. I failed this year, the first time I've ever failed at NaNoWriMo. 6. Start playing in a band, again (I play guitar and bass). I've been playing with some guys my age for a few months, now. Very fun, very relaxing. Even been writing some stuff. 7. Write one poem a day. This was an exercise in discipline, and I failed. I ended up with more than 365 poems, but I hardly did one each day. Kind of defeated the purpose of the whole endeavor. 8. Get out of whatever country I'm in, for a little while. I do this one every year. I went to China and Taiwan, last year. I have a trip to India scheduled for this year, and may be able to go back to Hong Kong, as well. I might work Ho Chi Minh City in somewhere. Conclusion: A productive year, but not a fun one. Next year I'll hopefully pick up the resolutions I missed out on, and generally allow myself some more leisure time.

Some clothes, the Putrifiers II EP by Thee Oh Sees, Shiro Fukai's "Songs of Java" and "Creation", Sonic Generations from Strangelove, replaced my old PS Vita, got Persona 4 the Golden, got a new copy to replace my destroyed one of the Marx-Engels Reader, "Philosophical Logic" by John P. Burgess, the writings of Charles Sanders Peirce, and a textbook on aerodynamics.

Strangelove got me Sonic Generations -- a game I have pined after since its release, which was (holy shit) over a year ago! I removed it from my wishlist because I had planned to purchase it for myself come holiday-time, assuming that everyone I knew hated it and wouldn't think of buying it for me. I'm one of the few lucid Sonic fans left (hell, I even loved Heroes). Turns out I won't have to get it for myself, after all. I'm glad to hear someone liked this game, finally. As I said, I liked Heroes, so I may already be pretty deep down the fanboy rabbithole. (I was a Genesis kid) Infinite thanks, Strangelove! Jesus, I love Secret Santas. Christ, I hope I didn't cause you any stress by removing it from my wishlist, Strangelove! Merry (happy?) hanukkah, or however you say that, to all!