Mr. GOH!

I love predictive markets because they can be great encapsulations of the money's wishful thinking.

So it looks like Brexit will happen, if the polls are to be believed. My condolences to all you Brits. I am very worried by the rising tide of somewhat poweerful nativist and neo-fascist political groups across the globe, from Hindutva to Brexit to Trump supporters. It's appalling that the reaction to failed global neoliberalism is global nativist fascism.

Isn't it available via streaming? I've never used Redbox and never will; seems like a huge hassle.

HotHeart:

inXile just made the beat free for all backers. I've played it for an hour or so and I really think they have nailed the "Torment" feel, including huge chunks of text. I have really enjoyed the writing so far, and the bizarre world and people who inhabit it. The first few areas really pummel you with the idea that the Ninth World is full of weird, inexplicable shit, very much like Planescape: Torment did, except this is a little more sci-fi/fantasy than straight-up fantasy. I'm really digging it. I have had only one optional combat encoutner so far, but I think the turn-based system is intuitive. It reminds me of the Shadowrun style of turn-based comabt. The underlying character system is still bizarre to me, and I haven't found much in-game to make sense of it. There are a lot of optional characters builds, however, and the high-level descriptor of your character helps encapsulate what s/he's good at (and what s/he's not-so-good at). There are three parts to this; every PC is an [adjective] [class noun] who {actions]. You can be a talkative wizard who wields deadly powers, or a mystical warrior who can see information. The last part, the focus, is determined after the game's start, I imagine; I was only able to generate the first two ; I'm doing my first beta run as a mystical nano. The character creation is interactive; you play through a short intro area and how you respond to different challenges and options will determine your descriptor and class (out of glaive [warrior], jack [rogue], and nano [wizard]), which further determines your abilities and skills. You get the option to change all of this before you proceed to the main part of the game, however. It also feels like a Torment game in how bizarre the world details are even though the characters themselves have knowable, human motivations. There is not the same focus on belief shaping reality as in Planescape. Instead, the game really focuses on the unknowable past and its artifacts shaping the current civilization. I mean, the motivation for action in the game is to understand the being that previously used your character's body and its trips through deep history in order to avoid or defeat a different powerful entity that seeks to devour your mind.

Brazil is a great movie for more than its effects, as long as you're not watching the 'love conquers all' American cut.

Well-put, Dean. As long as the extremist homophobes, and the ignorant and intolerant of all stripes, have access to tools of mass murder, there is no true safety. It makes me so sad that for every tiny step we take towards an inclusive society, there a many maniacs willing to slaughter innocent strangers in protest. I am sad for the LGBTQ community.

Yeah, we don't have all the same tropes, and they tend to be more, uh, multicultural here, but it is called children's theater. A cousin of mine used to write for one in California. It is not ubiquitous here by any means and it is mostly amateur. I think A lot of community theaters put on broadly similar types of shows. I thought they were dumb when I was a kid.

We just call it children's theater. That video seems elaborate and has a much larger audience compared to what I saw growing up, though. I think our tradition of of that sort of theater for adults died with vaudeville.

Prey was a mid-to-late 00's game, not an early 00's game, FLD. It dropped in 2006.

I wonder if shortbread got less sweet when Scots immigrants came to the U.S., or if it got sweeter in the U.K. over the years. My family's shortbread recipe is definitely not very sweet and it dates from the late 1800's. The joke about Scots being skinflints is and old one from the Scottish side of my family (proud members of Clan Campbell). But you're right; I've definitely had sweeter shortbread, but due to my childhood hatred of the family recipe, I don't think of it as the same thing and just assumed it was Americanized or non-Scottish shortbread. This does not change the fact that digestives are gross.

There was a KOTOR 3; it was called Star Wars: The Old Republic and it was a bland MMORPG.

I would imagine graham crackers to not be good subs for digestives because graham crackers are so much sweeter, even the ones that aren't the popular honey graham crackers. Digestives are easy to get at most grocery stores here in NYC. I have no idea why somebody would waste their time with them unless they needed them for a recipe when so many better baked snack options are available. The only worse baked snack good is shortbread, which only exist because Scots are too cheap to sweeten their snacks.

So will WD2 actually be any fun?

Steam chat is bad because I'll be at work.

I was and I can't. I remember it mostly for being a very early digital purchase because about six months after I finished it, the digital store I got it from folded and sent me a physical copy so I wouldn't lose access.

HotHeart:

Arya: I really liked this past episode.

I'm surprised you just don't take out another mortgage to buy more Apple products. It's the sort of thing Apple fans do all the time. But, seriously, what's your price range? In loonies or quatloos or seal hides whatever the hell you use for money up in Canada.

Witcher 3. Fantastic game all around. Got to the final sequence of battles last August but put the game down to play other games and just picked it back up tonight to finish the main quest since I want to try the DLC expansions.

I find CPU recs bizarre these days. I'm running a mid-range i5 from 2012 that is below recommended specs on a number of games and have had zero issues. I think there are some poorly-optimized or very CPU-dependent games out there, but most multiplats won't be among them. Edit: SSDs are getting cheaper than they ever have been and I have noticed serious improvements in load times in a number of games since switching.

Jubilee had 2 lines. Maybe 3. Also, the movie doesn't make a lick of sense. Quicksilver needs a solo movie.

X-Men: Apocalypse. It's messy and no character has a full, satisfying arc. Tons of lazy writing, from the Wolverine inclusion, to the stunted arcs for Cyclops and Jean Grey, to the way MAgneto is given a family that is almost immediately murdered in order to establish his resurgent hatred of non-mutants. And then, after Magneto has killed countless people, Xavier invites him to stay at his school. Everything felt airy and insubstantial and done by writer fiat rather than like these were actual characters with real relationships. Oscar Isaac's villain is a dick just to be a dick, it seems. And the deus ex machina at the end is telegraphed in the most bland way possible. There's so much for me to hate on. I did like the action scenes (even if Magneto's world-ending use of his power seemed both bizarre and really slow to destroy everything; I'm sure we could come up with cooler ways to level-up Magneto's power use) and of course Quicksilver is pretty great. A lot goes unexplained, like why Apocalypse, or anyone, would consider Angel to be among the most powerful mutants alive. And why Angel is a jerk. And why Psylocke is considered to be a powerful mutant. And why Psylocke would wear such an uncomfortable-looking outfit. But the action and X-men-iness of it is enough to keep it out of the bad movie thread.

Wow, Ethan, your state is totally fucked up: http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/yael-t-abouhalkah/article81199182.html