P4: Gritty Reboot

YMMV but Phantom Hourglass was more enjoyable than Minish Cap. I can't beat Minish Cap for the life of me because I get lost and bored every time.

Interesting take on the whole thing below. I don't think the model is in danger of dying out or anything but it's certainly time to start talking about oversaturation. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/01/09/a-better-mousetrap-building-bundles-of-joy/

I used to have that problem and Dean's solution works. Chrome and some websites seem to pull the fully formatted URL but you need to use just the plain text or it won't work.

Just grabbed all of them. Why not.

They're metal...ish. One of the chicks from LC sang with Megadeth on a remake of A Tout Le Monde back on their 2007 album, so I assume there is a relationship there. I'm not a huge fan of Volbeat or Lacuna Coil, but I'm glad there's some variety as opposed to the typical metal show with 6 metalcore bands. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn01nSG4cvU&ob=av2n

Bought tickets for GIGANTOUR 2012. \m/

A few fine local eateries if anyone is ever in the Inland Empire: Flo's - Amazing biscuits and gravy served on hash browns with a side of eggs. Total bill comes out to about $7/plate including a beverage. Donut Club - Typical Chinese mafia-owned little donut shop. 6" sub, any donut, bag of chips, large drink for $5.25 no tax. Centro Basco - Awesome Basque restaurant. $20/head family-style supper weekends only, 7:30 PM sharp when they ring the bell or you don't get served. Lunch is $15 at noon. Unlimited wine and massive amounts of food. The Back Abbey - Fantastic Belgian and world beer and the best burger around. Pricey but worth it. Heroes & Legends - Pub with a great fish & chips menu item and good beer on tap. Love the atmosphere here. I'm sure there are more that I'm forgetting or that are a little bit of a trip to get to... Roscoe's Chicken & Waffle comes to mind. Then of course we've got the decent fast food joints like In-N-Out, Five Guys, The Habit, Chipotle, etc.

Sorry to be the nooblet here but a couple more questions: Every time I switch weapons with the number keys it clears all my number presets. No idea why. Why does it level my one-handed skill when I'm using two weapons?

I'm on the fence about bosses: I can remember some good ones, but often when a boss fight comes up in a game I'm just hoping to get it over quickly so I can get back to the meat of the gameplay. Still, here are a few that were done right: Just about every Metroid Prime boss was a joy, but this one sticks in my mind: The Ocarina of Time Ganondorf/Ganon double-punch is of course legendary: Portal 2's final boss was great in that it didn't abandon the gameplay concepts that came before it, but instead integrated everything the player had learned up to that point into its challenge. EDIT: ME2's boss... I dunno, I about single-shotted it with my nuke gun. It seemed kind of silly and over-the-top, even for the Mass Effect universe. The overall ending was satisfying, just not sure how I felt about that particular boss. Not sure if intentional, but upvoted all the same.

That sounds really interesting... I'll have to see if I can find a copy.

Ha, all this talk reminded me of this post from the fine Reasoning With Vampires blog. Actual stuff from the Twilight novels:

She isn't even the most messed up character in the books. I'd argue that the Tributes from the other Districts, particularly the richer ones, are pretty fucked up from the start. Ditto Haymitch. this is true. Poor Finnick. One of my favourite characters, I really meant like the Tributes like Cato and the others from Districts 1-3. The ones who embrace the madness and who look forward to and are excited by the prospect of killing others. --- Regarding the memory thing, it's not that I haven't done anything half-conscious before, but it's gotta make sense with the character and situation. Katniss is a hunter, extremely aware of her surroundings, so you'd think she wouldn't go blank much. I also feel that authors ought to be more careful with their phrasing; saying something like "Suddenly I became aware that I was blah blah blah" makes it sound as if the narrator is a total dunce. Something using phrases like "half conscious" or "not fully aware" or "zoned out" probably describes those scenes better. Remember, if your narrator isn't interested in his surroundings, why should your readers be?

So finally cracked open my copy of Skyrim. Made a Redguard female. One question: is there a quicker way to switch weapons than Q, scroll, click, Tab?

That reminds me of something annoying that Collins wrote into the book just a couple of times, but it's become a pet peeve of mine: narrators who become unaware constantly. Phrases like "The next thing I was aware of, I was back in my house" or whatever. With the possible exception of drunkenness or freaky drugs, I can't imagine not being aware of walking five city blocks back to your house. I'll dig around for the relevant passage but it drives me batty.

I guess it was even before that though, just something about the way she never seemed to want for herself, always thinking of others, it made her feel like a one-dimensional character. But she grew a bit in the book. Really a minor complaint, and it's certainly not as pronounced as in some YA books.

Yeah books 2 and 3 really smooth over my main complaint, which was that the protagonist was too unbelievably altruistic.

The primary theme of the series is the brutality of war from what I took away. Book 3 really hammers that idea home. It's nice that there isn't really a big good rebels/bad dictatorship dichotomy, but you'd have to read through to see what I mean. Edit: And I guess Collins claimed to have never heard of Battle Royale before writing the book. BR wouldn't really even be the first thing of that nature (as staySICK pointed out, LOTF did something thematically similar), as I've read a few books/short stories with the combat for others' pleasure type thing. I guess you could look all the way back to the Roman gladiators for the real life counterpart as well. Anyway I'll probably have to check BR out if it's that good.

Did you read the whole HG series or just the first, Saturnine?

But why is the response to pirate rather than to not play it at all? I'm usually on board with that type of argument, but in this case there is zero loss to the hard workers at the publisher, zero loss to the hardworking developers, zero loss to anyone associated with the production of the game--unless there's something I'm not seeing here. Edit for clarity: there isn't even potential loss as all piracy technically is. If every single person in Iran pirated Battlefield 3, EA generates the exact same revenue as if no one did, a statement one could not make if the game were legal there.

Aw, I was hoping you looked like Arya Stark

In other words, the site is cluttered like the front page of a newspaper rather than sensible like a chronological blog.

Burger King Kids' Club anyone?