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825 responses to “Talk Amongst Yourselves”
Hey gang, I finished Oxenfree yesterday. So great if you’re into story games. It’s part adventure game, part walking simulator. The atmosphere is amazing. The music is great. The writing and banter? Excellent. Definitely recommend. 🙂
But did you free the oxen? That’s the real question.
My sister asked the very same question. 😛
I am a huge fan of banter, so that’s a few points on the review scale for me.
(This is probably also why I rate Dragon Age 2 much, much higher than everyone else does. Some of the best banter in gaming.)
Oxenfree is almost one long, continuous conversation. Even when you click on a hot spot and interact with your surrounds midway through a sentence, the characters will seamlessly pick up where they left off afterwards. You’re rarely alone in the game too, so there’s always someone to banter with. Really pretty impressive. 🙂
Mornin’
*tips hat*
Mornin’
Howdy
*glances at funeral procession*
Mournin’.
Well that explains all the sad people today, and here’s me thinking it was because it was Monday!
Good morning all, and welcome back Mark, hope all is well with the MKII.
(Insert mortal kombat jokes here)
Serrels wins…. Babality!
Good morning my imaginary lovers!
Hope everyone is well this fine day.
Saw a movie for the second time at the cinema for the first time ever.
Obviously that movie was Star Wars.
I could totally go watch it a 3rd time.
Imaginary?
It’s because I still imagine you even when I’m loving you.
I’m THAT romantic
Oh my. *fans self*
Mornin’ TAY!
Had a swell weekend. Went and saw The Hateful Eight on Saturday, then we went for ciders and dessert at the Sydney Festival. There’s another festival coming up in February, thinking it might be nice to gather some TAYbies for that one if it’s as surprisingly-not-busy as this one was.
On Sunday I bought a smart TV because the old one was, uh, old. It’s so shiny and new! Even Mario Maker looks completely different. Gonna take some getting used to with all the fancy new things this TV does. I can control it with my phone? Whaaaaa-
Anyway, now I’m eating out of the garbage for a few weeks. Big purchases panic me, even when I’m financially A-OK.
And now, Mondaaaaaaay
Haha, when I first got a HDTV I played Uncharted 2 and was blown away and thought the TV might have been too good and that I wasn’t worthy. That feeling passes. 😛
We went to go buy a new TV yesterday – 60″
In the end we didn’t get it though because Heidi started melting down, so we chose to GTFO the shop because it wouldn’t be fair to keep her in there while we went through everything.
Nicely done, Heidi.
Nicely done.
Now we’ll be waiting until the next sale comes.
Yay…
How was Hatoful 8? As good as it looked?
Is good. They are certainly eight hateful people.
Spoilers:
Technically, there was more than eight…May I recommend doing a thorough calibration on your TV? It’s probably set to quite high vibrancy settings, quite possibly with some form of motion smoothing, which I’d definitely recommend turning off for gaming. With all this you’ll lose a bit of the “pop” of the screen, but it’ll be a hell of a lot better at subtlety.
Now let’s all pretend that it didn’t take me until Wind Waker HD was released before I did any monitor calibration. >.>
Luckily I have a trusty Powalen who did these things for me.
I will be
ruiningfixing his TV settings the next time I am at his place.Is there actually a calibration thing it can run itself or do you just mean fiddling with the settings?
I had to turn off all the fancy motion settings because it was making Xenoblade look like poo.
Yeah, fiddling with the settings. Some TVs come with a calibration sheet, though you usually have to print it out yourself (and if you have a bodgy printer it can be a little bad). It’s a bit laborious, but worth it in the long run, if you ask me.
I’ll just crank the colour on the input that has my WiiU and he can worry about the rest of them 😛
Aw.
I can loan anyone a calibration probe if they want to set theirs up properly, it can make a massive difference to calibrate your telly, even just using a test pattern Bluray.
I usually end up ‘fixing’ anyone’s TV when I am at their house, most are set so far from ideal that it makes my eyes bleed.
Just something you gotta do, right? Like flipping the toilet paper around the right way.
The default setting for boxed tv’s usually isn’t too bad, but I tend to tweak mine anyway. It’s when you buy floor stock that you really need to fix it, cos they tend to set it to vibrant mode to compensate for the bright lights.
Good morning err body how’s every little thing?
My weekend was the opposite of a hoot.
Friday I had a job interview which I think went well and then that night we had fondue and a board games night that everyone thought I’d be really into…We played Family Fued and then Scattagories…I now know how @trjn feels when someone brings out monopoly.
Saturday I was sick so stayed home and watched movies with Cathryn, watched Havoc for the first time..that’s definitely a movie. Also watched Hotel Transylvania 2 which is really funny for an Adam sandler movie. Goosebumps is good too however the acting can be a bit annoying. Sisters is also a very funny movie, John Cena is surprisingly good in comedies.
Sunday I woke up late, and watched some how to get away with murder. Then we had to go to my parents for a goodbye dinner for my nan which was fine..until my brother got there. Within 10 minutes he had yelled at the dogs for play fighting and tried to hit them to stop which made Cathryn tell him to stop and then he went bezerk yelling at her which ultimately ended up me getting in his face and telling him to leave and if he ever does that again the next time he’ll see us is when hes getting taken away by police. So that was a real weekend killer.
Anywho question of the week what’s your one pet peeve? Can be gaming related, can be just in general anything
Just one?
Top one..I don’t want people going on a tangent about mice stealing their mail and the gathering darkness threatening to destroy our very existence
People who have more than one pet peeve.
I don’t get annoyed when people bring out Monopoly near me. People near me know not to bring out Monopoly.
This family had 5 types of monopoly and 3 trivial pursuits of which none were the base game!
I want to take a minute to talk our lord and saviour; Jackson Howard.
Jackson Howard is one of the most important cards in Android: Netrunner. He does one job and he does it very well. That job is to stop the Corp from losing. He’s not overpowered. He is not broken. He simply addresses a design flaw in the game and gives the players the tools to deal with it. He is so important that there will be three copies in most Corp decks. He is so important that the data pack he is sold in, Opening Moves, has been basically impossible to find for the last year. He is so important, he’s the only card tournament organisers will allow proxies of.
I don’t think Fantasy Flight expected a fraction of this when they printed him.
Which is why I find the short story revolving around him that’s included in the Data and Destiny rulebook pretty funny. Lots of Netrunners praised the story for giving this lovable looking scamp a more sinister look. He designed a toy that gave detailed psychographics of whole households and was rewarded with the role of Vice President of Child Programming. In the Android universe, that’s a pretty sinister thing because evil corporations are all evil corporationy.
The story isn’t from his perspective. It’s from his boss’s. His boss who was planning to grill him for going over budget. His boss that realised he had done so much to advance NBN’s goals without her knowing and looked to take advantage.
You know, kind of like Fantasy Flight that didn’t know what they had created with this card.
So. Goddamned. Meta.
Plus, the toy that he made is Dinosaurus. One of my favourite cards.
Damn it, Trjn.
I already have enough on my plate with Conquest.
DON’T GO MAKING THIS GAME APPEALING TO ME TOO!!
That card is sooo cool. I just LOVE the look on his face.
This store championship season (read from Feb to whenever), you win alternate art versions of him just by competing! Admittedly, that version looks a bit crappier but it exists. Did I mention that Melbourne has a thriving competitive and casual scene for this game? You live near there, right?
Also, their doing special editions of the world championship decks with full art version of all the cards used. That pesky yellow frame will be replaced with MOAR TOYS!.
Yeah – I’m literally living about 15 minutes from the CBD – SO yeah, you could say i’m close to Melbourne.
My FLGS does android leagues/store championships (along with a butt-load of other games).
I’ve actually joined the league at my FLGS for Conquest – I’ve never entered a league before , but the alt art cards, card boxes and play mats you can score this year look AMAZING.
Unfortunately I’ve still only got one core and about 4 expansions, so I’m not going to be competitive for the mat, but I’m hoping to at least score a door prize in the alt art cards or a deck box.
I’m quite keen to also join the X-wing store champs, but again, i doubt it would be competitive due to the whole needing multiples of the killer cards, which means more money than I will ever be able to spend.
15 minutes of the CBD in which direction? also whats the learning curve on this game because I’ve heard both “Its easier to get into if you have friends playing it” and “The learning curve is ridiculous and you need to spend the next year of your life 24/7 on it to be slightly good”
West – just over the bridge – in Kingsville bordering Yarraville.
The learning curve is quite forgiving. My 12 year old brother and i played a demo game at pax and we both picked it up really easily.
Plus there are card sized reference sheets that detail what you need to do each phase, which is really REALLY handy.
I’m not sure on what it takes to be good, but i think it’s less about time and more about money and knowing what you’re looking for. To be competitive at tournament level you need 3 of the core set, plus some expansions. To have fun and play casually all you would ever need is one core, anything else is a bonus. There are some really neat cards to be found in expansions, though.
Plus, cardgamedb.com have a wicked skilled community and a list of various deck builds from previous championships and messing about, so it’s easy to make a good deck, all you need to do then is learn how to drive it
Living card games aren’t about dumping a huge pile of money into your collection so that you can make the greatest deck in the history of decks. They’re about knowing the metagame and which cards are going to present a problem to you. Then you buy a handful of packs to get the answers (or learn to play around them with the core set tools) and you’re good to go.
Standard FFG not knowing how to balance. I have to admit though that the Netrunner setting is probably one of the better cyberpunk universes to have been created so kudos to FFG for that.
I really don’t think this is a case of imbalance and if it is, the imbalance goes back to Richard Garfield’s original design.
The game is won by either side scoring seven agenda points. The runner steals those points from the corp while the corp tries to advance agendas to do it. If the corp never draws those cards, they’ll find it increasingly hard to win as the runner gets more and more set up to steal them. If the corp draws too many too early, it becomes trivial for the runner to steal them.
Action Jackson merely plugs that gap. Literally the only problem with the card is that he is in NBN instead of a neutral card, so players not using an NBN ID have to spend precious influence to slot him into their decks. He should’ve been a one influence neutral card.
Huge weekend. Spent the last three days making use of the empty house by embarking on the gargantuan task of attempting to clean my room.
And was met with some success! Started just moving as much as I could out into the family room, and already started getting pretty encouraged by the newfound empty space. Didn’t quite get as much done in the end as I’d hoped, but there’s a whole tonne of floorspace now, so I at least have room to shuffle things around as I reorganise what’s there and continue putting things away. Came across one box that had a bunch of chilli sauces, a bottle of Herrljunga and a box of Lindors. Between the mid-2012 Best Before dates and the sealed 2012 calendar that was also in there, I guess they must’ve been 2011 Christmas presents. I’m sure they’re fine 😛
Best of all though I managed to have exactly enough space between the pinball machine and my door to move this corner unit of shelves that had been sitting out in the middle of the family room for the last ~ever, so Mum’ll be happy that’s finally gone once they get back. Brownie points get!
Speaking of, looks like they mightn’t be back til Wednesday now. Thankfully I’m supposed to be out the next two nights so won’t have to worry about dinner. Fridge is started to look pretty barren 😛
Also, yesterday I noticed I have a huge sore lump under my arm. I figure it’s just a swollen lymph node or something, though it feels like it’s gotten even bigger today. Surprising just how in-the-way it seems to be able to get. Good thing (sorta) I’m being forced to skip climbing tonight I guess, probably would suck to try and do that atm.
I’m still in bed getting cuddles from the new addition.
That was basically my weekend!
I fudged that a little – we finished watching Making a Murderer. Leaves me feeling highly disturbed.
There was also a home invasion down the road from me. 2 guys ended up shot, not fatally thankfully. Went to leave for swimming on Sunday morning and there were cops everywhere and the news trucks parked on the side of the road.
Time for more cuddles.
Yesterday my workplace had a catered lunch. So I sat down for my half-hour lunch, enjoyed a good plate or two of food.
Then I eloquently decided, since it was my last day there, “Fuck it.” So I sat in the lunchroom and kept eating for a hour more.
Oh yeah, that crazy psycho storm last Thursday. Walking to the station this morning, the path I usually take was covered in fallen branches, and at one point even an entire tree.
If I’d missed my train that afternoon, not only would I have ended up completely soaked I probably could’ve ended up squashed too :/
Be very, very, very careful around fallen branches and trees (especially near train stations), because that’s how most people die after storms – fallen power lines, usually hidden in debris.
The big gum just on the corner of the road did take down a power line that afternoon, though the guys were on it and had fixed it by the time my uncle came around. Thankfully my house isn’t attached to that line 😛
Hi all.
I have an interview at a gallery for possible work.
Also, I may need to get a new HDMI splitter.
Oh, and I’ve been watching Steven Universe in my downtime.
I’m about a dozen eps through Steven Universe and really enjoying it.
…Gallery? What is do?
Steven Universe is my go-to show for when I just want to have fun. It’s a nice comparison to Adventure Time (when I stopped watching it a few years ago) because while it does deal with some adult stuff, and does hit mature themes, it’s still quite happy to be a kids show.
Which has reminded me, I think there’s a few new episodes since I last checked, need to get on that.
Saw a cool mod the other week for the iPhone 6/6S where you replace the back Apple logo with one that lights up when the screen turns on & dims when the screen does. I’m kinda wondering why Apple hasn’t done that already given they have it on the MacBooks..
Probably power/space concerns. Space especially. Space is at a premium in smartphones; it’s a huge factor in everything they design in the thing, directly responsible for the end-result specs. Every fraction of a milimetre counts.
The replacement LED one is the same size as the plastic one in there though from what i’ve seen. Also I dare say 0.1w or how ever little it is would have barely an impact on the bettery 😛
Another Xbox Games with Gold review
D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die
I loved the style of this one, the gameplay was a bit odd at first but thankfully it’s point and click with very limited QTE “stunt” action scenes thrown in. The story really got me hooked with it’s batshit weirdness and intrigue and then… it ended. Season 1 was limited to a prologue and a couple of episodes which was all they had ready for launch as an Xbox One exclusive. I can understand why people who paid $15 for this game would feel ripped off, not because you don’t get $15 worth of content (in my opinion) but because with no season 2 on the horizon, you feel like your time got wasted. Most of the achievments are linked to collectibles and getting perfect “sync” which means nailing the QTEs and picking the “in character” responses to dialogue which is kind of a trial and error thing since there’s no real consistency to it. your character, David Young, is an asshole at sometimes and a nice guy at others. He reminded me a lot of Bigby from Telltale’s The Wolf Among Us, but at least that game let you choose your personality and only really penalised you for inconsistency.
I hope there’s a season 2 at some point, it’ll convince me to reinstall this game and chase some achievements. As it stands I have 285/1000 which includes finishing the story, finding some collectibles, and nailing one stunt sequence (which was the first one in the game – the rest were significantly tougher).
Pneuma: Breath of Life
A fairly interesting puzzle game with some kind of annoying narration which seems silly at first but you realise that every line of dialogue is really a clue to the puzzle, which makes it essential to listen. You get used to it after the first couple of puzzles. I guess it was trying to have a philosophical message about the nature of free choice and the illusion of self but it was ultimately a bit pretentious and underwhelming. 850/1000 achievements just for finishing it (which took about 2 or 3 hours?). The rest of the achievements were for collectible. Couldn’t be bothered even with a walkthrough. Fun, but in the sense that it was better than doing nothing. A very pretty game and I’m sure that some people worked very hard on it, but I wouldn’t have paid money for it.
Zheros
A beat ’em up sidescroller with an overly complicated fighting system. Combat feels unsatisfying and dull. The game gives you a gun but you run out of ammo so quickly and do so little damage that it’s pointless. You have to beat a par score on each level to earn points to buy upgrades which feels like artificially forced replay. Maybe if I’d stuck with it past the third level I might have seen something new and interesting but I feel like I gave the game a fair chance and got very little in return. I may return to it on a rainy day… actually no, that’s exceedingly unlikely. No.
In other news, went out on Saturday for my wife’s birthday, checked out the Spawn Point gaming bar and proceeded to the Retro since my wife and I haven’t been there since we got married. Dismayed that “retro” is now 80s & 90s instead of 70s & 80s. Several middle-aged women who were upset with their husbands insisted on dancing with me while my wife wasn’t around then getting upset and asking me if they were ugly when I tried to decline.
Stayed out til 4am for the first time in forever. Remembered how much Nightride buses sucked. Slept all day sunday because old and also have a toothache. :/
Morning,
So i had been feeling like garbage for a few days and decided to bite the bullet and go to the doctor on friday which i despise doing. The doctor told me i had a viral infection which means im gonna be super lethargic for over a month. The best part is theres nothing to do about it except drink some sugar free redbulls and hope they keep me awake. I dont feel as bad today but i was struggling on the weekend.
Had a rad time at DC’s birthday do, Teasing Mrs Freeze is sooo much fun.
Back to the ole grind this week i guess.
Moseys off
I’ve played 90 hours of xenoblade and I STILL haven’t found any auroran bones! I’ve have this stupid quest taunting me for 80 hours now…
I also picked up several games for my xbone care of that Harvey Norman sale. Dead rising 3 is significantly less fun than the first one, nick is less fun than frank, and the way kinect and smartglass integration is constantly pushed in your face gets wearing.
Sunset overdrive is better, it definitely picks up, but the tower defence sections are as lame as can be. Spiderman 2 didn’t have tower defence, why try to improve on perfection?
Forza 6 has my mr2 in it, so that’s pretty cool! Handling is a bit hilarious, and you can’t hear the supercharger, but the model detail is nice.
It’s very stupid that my Peugeot 205 gti isn’t in the game though, as literally every rival it had is (even the really bad ones, like the xr2!). They even have most of the model already in there thanks to the t16!
I have one single item missing from my collectopedia that I haven’t found in over 160 hours of game time 😛 I’ll find it one day…
The collectopedia is a nightmare, and yet I can’t help myself.
Also finally received a watch part from the Philippines that I ordered in November, I’d pretty much given up on it.
Here’s it installed on my pebble round, working as a screen protector:
http://i.imgur.com/x9aR78z.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/sws1wql.jpg
My boss left for good on Friday /o\ so now we’re without a store manager, the manager from the BWS in town is gonna be checking in on us, but officially we have no one in charge of us, and it’ll probably be at least 2 weeks maybe 3 or 4 until they find us a new one.
Edit: the area manager knew about this for months (like 6+ months) that my boss was leaving (transferring up Brisbane) and she still didn’t line up a replacement. Apparently they only started interviews for the position last week, uh…
Morning, TAY.
Went and saw some tennis on the “weekend” (technically Friday but I had the day off work, so…). It was great! Bit of rain but didn’t delay things too much. Got to see a Legends match too which was hilarious (basically they trot out some popular retired players, hook them up to mics and they just muck around). The womens final was underwhelming though. The loser just got dominated the whole time. No contest 😛
Saw Hateful 8 as well which was pretty fantastic. Not his best movie but it’s up there for me. Starts off a bit slow but ramps up really well and just tells a small, complete story which I liked. Doesn’t really leave any major loose ends.
Also, if any Sydney people go to the doughnut bar in the Sydney Festival village, get the “Better than Vanilla” doughnut. Easily the best thing they have! (Second favourite is the Bearded Lady ice-cream)
*tummygrumble*
Hi everybody, feel like I haven’t properly “checked in” on here in a while.
Weekend was good. I did the last of my unpacking and my bed frame got delivered so I’m now “fully” moved in to West End. What? Yes I still need to pick up my microwave, shut up! And… yes, part of that unpacking was putting a misc box of cables away in the cupboard, shut up! You’ve got a problem. I’ll tell you when I’ve had enough! *cough*
My reward for “finishing” unpacking and keeping up my exercise goals (Goal: M, W, F, Su swimming / T, T, Sa running) was @dc’s birthday dinner & drinks which was a blast as always. Was great to see those who were able to make it, lots of laughs, lots of smiles, lots of memories to be filed away and never spoken of again.
So Sunday I spent some time getting to know Netflix (still don’t have any chill though?) and then decided to do another photo from my balcony. I know, I know, they’re getting old, but I haven’t done a HDR stack yet and I’m again happy with how it came out considering I haven’t done anything like that in years. https://t.co/19eoo2PZDM – I particularly like the cloud motion. Feels “dramatic”
Monday question: What are you reading, and why?
A: Terminator Gene (Ian Irvine) – Sequel to a book I picked up in the early 2000s “The Last Albatross” and I’ve been trying to get in to it for ages but it’s just not capturing me. I’m at the stage where I’m going to give it one last go and then shelve it for good if I can’t slog my way through it. This feels bad to even think about.
Where are you keeping your bread without the microwave?
Thanks for coming to the dinner! <3
I keep my bread on top of the fridge like a normal person. 😛
Weirdo
freak and weirdo.
Thanks for the invite buddy! Sorry again that I couldn’t come, and I hope lady @strange passed on my gratitude to @transientmind for his kind offer.
I may have been able to make it had my dad been in mobile reception range, but he didn’t get my message til the day after, so as such, I didn’t even have enough money to get in there, unless I parked in Valley Metro and walked to the BBC, but with my leg the way it is, that was never going to happen.
Was glad to see people tweeting pics of the good times though 🙂 Not the same as being there, but at least I could feel somewhat included 😉
Who’s this guy?! :p
I feel it’s more appropriate to ask that of me these days, but I like jokes!
Vell, Zaphod’s just zis guy, you know?
I do know of zis Mr Beeblebrox guy!
Do you know zis guy? https://twitter.com/beeawwb/status/688881141034528768
LOL gold!
I really like Ian Irvine’s fantasy stuff but couldn’t get into his SF work.
Last Albatross / Terminator Gene / The Life Lottery aren’t SF. They revolve around worldwide eco collapse, and they’re set in the near future (e.g. 20ish years from now?) but … I dunno. I guess that sort of qualifies them as SF but they’re supposed to be about the people, not the science.
Raises an interesting question. At what point does SF become SF?
Science Fiction is any fiction that involves a change in conditions brought about by technology or anything else that happens either before or during the story, and then speculating forward what the impact would be on humans as a result of that change. There’s a grounding in theory and things are properly explained, theories put forward are used consistently etc.
I like Heinlein’s definition: “Realistic speculation about possible […] events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method.”
Works for me!
In that case, the Human Rites trilogy is SF.
I am in between books right now, im trying to decide if i read something fun or i delve into the world of battery enclosure design and battery protection circuits. I want to design a electric skateboard and i feel like i dont know enough about LiPo cells to work with them safely.
Battery enclosure design and battery protection circuits sounds electrifying. Read that.
Man.. that Haggis guy has just unleashed page 6 everywhere now! Dad jokes ahoy!
I was making dad jokes everywhere long before Haggis.
#DadJokeHipster
Same, but I was referring more to his early page 5 post last week 😉
It didn’t make page 6 and I had way too much energy to contain it in an enclosure so I had to discharge it.
eugh
Also i really love electronics books but the people who write them need to take a class in how to energize their writing. I know the subject matter isn’t dragons attacking a village but a joke or pun never goes astray when dealing with relatively dull subject manner.
I’m getting mixed signals here…
I think he got his wires crossed.
Sometimes, depending on subject matter, the capacity for jokes can be impeded. Given the reactance however, logic dictates that the impedance would be minimal, therefore hard to resist.
Ohm my god!
LOL most people just call me welbot
I’m reading World War Z. A podcast I listen to mentions it every time they talk about zombies and they made it sound really interesting. But I’m finding it a bit boring, too fragmented in its presentation and not engaging enough as a result. Some really cool ideas in it though, pretty inventive for a zombie narrative.
I’ve heard mixed things about it, I tend to be a bit hit or miss with zombie narratives anyway. But that does remind me that I need to pick up Vol 2 and 3 of The Walking Dead anthology editions. I’m “hit” on those ones.
I agree that the presentation is a bit wonky with it hopping around a lot. It reads more like an anthology of short stories set in a zombie apocalypse rather than a simple linear narrative. Some of the individual stories/chapters are downright fascinating (my favourite was the one about the ISS) but some of them were pretty bland.
What: The ring of Allaire
Why: Most likely so I can donate/discard the series
Unfortunately I couldn’t make it to @dc’s birthday on Saturday but it looked like everyone had fun. Sorry again about not being able to make it. I had to be involved in driving a Macharius Vanquisher in a long lapsed game after the GM was in a better mental state than he was a few months ago. His brother was up from Melbourne as well so it was good to hang out with them again after such a long time.
On Sunday I was former gang thug turned mercenary turned voluntary drug tester. And then I was mind controlled by a vengeful spirit and almost killed our priest. That was an interesting experience.
What up TAY?
I had a pretty cool weekend. Spent Saturday morning/afternoon binge watching Daredevil (TV series) with @rocketman. Spent Saturday night with the Brisbane TAYbies for @dc birthday. It was a blast, it’s been a while since we’ve done a proper meat-up.
Didn’t do too much on Sunday. I started playing Dragon’s Dogma(n) on PC and it’s a pretty cool guy. I love the combat in the game, it can get pretty hectic and climbing a giant cyclops to attack it’s eye is pretty great and makes you feel pretty epic.
Thanks so much for attending, bud. Was a great night! 🙂
I enjoyed your shouts of “really, REALLY” at dragons dogma while i was watching Lord of the rings. I was like “man nob really doesnt like Frodo or Sam.”
Maybe I’m just racist towards Hobbits?
Jerk! What did we ever do to you?
WEAR SOME SHOES MAN,
nobody wants your disgusting feet on our carpets.
I was going to write an article about my experiences with Android: Netrunner. How I bought into the game a few years ago and let the cards collect dust until I started recently going to my FLGS for casual game nights. How I went to a tournament and got completely trounced. How I initially blamed my loses on not having as many cards as my opponents.
Except a story about how I’m improving feels a bit silly. Every time I try to sit down and get all of this down, I realise that there are more areas that I need to improve on and, more importantly, there are areas that I have already improved on since last trying to get my thoughts together.
In a few weeks, the local Netrunner community is starting a league where you play a new opponent every week. I’ll be doing this (and losing, with gusto!). That seems like a much more solid thing to base the story around.
Also I’m learning to play bridge.
tell that to every sports movie ever made.
Pretty much anything I write about Netrunner (aside from the thing I just sent Mark) will be about how I’m improving. I just don’t think I’ve reached the point where I can give insightful commentary :p
I used to know how to play Bridge (I could probably remember if I tried) but I gave it up for Canasta. I think I just prefer matching games (Rummy, etc) to trick taking games.
I played a ridiculous amount of 500 in high school. Although one of the main reasons I’m doing this is that Freya’s dad has represented Australia while playing Bridge. Seems a waste of a perfectly good resource. There’s also a guy at the dog park who is apparently quite good at Backgammon.
Well, yeah if that’s the case you kind of have to. Would be like living next door to Bobby Fischer and not asking for help on your chess moves.
Plus, if I start doing a series on classic games I can finally bust out this pesky Mahjong set I’ve had sitting on shelf for the last 3 years.
I’ve only ever play Mahjong on digital devices. Don’t know what I’d do if suddenly faced with physical tiles.
Are we talking about proper Mahjong, which is basically Rummy, or Shanghai, which gets called Mahjong all the time because it’s a solo game that uses Mahjong tiles?
… Shanghai, I guess?
I’ve played Rummy with tiles (e.g. Rummikub) so if “proper” Mahjong is similar to that I guess I could pick that up easy enough.
@beeawwb real mahjong is very different. Not terribly difficult to get the basics, but man.. some of the people I met in Shanghai would walk circles around most people who ‘think’ they know how to play!
So rather than concentrating on specific improvement examples, a big part of how you’re getting better is the awareness of what to improve as well as what has already been improved.
Mostly, it’s that there’s always something that’s more interesting right around the corner.
Hi all! Spent entirely too much time in Warframe after vowing my weekends to SWTOR… Also worried I might annoy friends in party chat with my frantic button mashing… 😛 Upside: have my first two new frames crafting with a third to be kicked off tonight. Downside: I think I need to buy frame slots to be able to use them once I’ve crafted them… Time to look at the trade market.
Aiming is getting easier – the Boltor basically forced me to learn, but once I got the hang of it, Boltor is amazing fun – reminds me of the HV Penetrator from F.E.A.R (which I used at every opportunity :P). Moved on to try a bow now that my aim’s improving – still undecided.
Yeah, start doing those void missions with your tower keys ASAP so you’ve got prime parts to trade for plat.
I highly recommend that you do anything within your power to grind up a Frost. They’re invaluable for Defense missions. Borderline necessary for the harder ones.
I find Oberon is also pretty great for Defense missions. Certainly one of the better healer frames around unless they’ve added something else recently.
Trinity Prime is flat-out amazing. Energy Vampire, shield overcharge, the Armor debuff, and the best healer Ultimate in the game. Also has some of the highest shields, too. I put it ahead of Oberon, which I put a bit ahead of Nekros (which is too squishy).
Spent hours and hours trying to get Control Modules to drop for me – then I tried a T1 Survival, and got be about 8 in the one run, and a BP for a prime archwing part (most useless prime part :P). New bane is Neurodes – cannot get them to drop anywhere… Have Rhino and Nyx crafting now – heard Rhino was a good starting support, but more offense-focused; Gonna start putting Valkyr together tonight. Will look into Frost, but need to unlock the rest of the planets, first – only just unlocked Phobos and Sedna.
You really wanna make it rain prime parts and get great value-per-key, you wanna be doing the defense towers. Preferably with some friends. Pop the snow globe up on the middle part, then everyone just can sit back and plink away at oncoming hordes. One drop of something (rare mods or prime parts) every five minutes. Pretty great. Survival can be good too, but things start getting stupidly ridiculous at the 40min mark. As in, frost globe getting popped within seconds, finding it near impossible to kill heavy gunners.
Captures are AMAZING for blitz runs. If you simply ignore all the enemies, run directly to the target, capture, then run back out, you can probably manage a prime part per five minutes that way, too. Sabotages can be good once you’ve learned the tile-sets intimately. Every sabotage has three caches hidden in the level, which can also yield gold cores, credits, and prime parts in addition to the part you get from mission completion.
Oh, get a Loki ASAP, too. They’re one of the best frames to cheat your way through spy, sabotage, and capture missions. Get the mods which max out duration for invisibility. It’s a kind of god mode, really.
I’ve been strongly considering a Loki (and eventually Ivara) – the spy and rescue missions are starting to get ridiculous, after barely making it through the Corpus Spy mission for the artifact quest. Might look into getting some cyphers – the hacking in my most recent rescue missions (Alerts especially) have been insane. Sabotage is awesome fun, tho, just flying past everything in both directions. 😛 I guess that’s why the caches exist.
I’ve got a couple T1 capture keys, might quickly run them. Have something like 6x T1 sabotage missions, which I might save until I know the tilesets better and where the caches spawn.
Shitty thing about some of the spy missions is some terminals don’t actually have a Cipher option at all!
Don’t feel bad if you can’t get all three caches in the sabotages, though. Some of the maps seriously fuck with you on it. My youngest brother has been playing nearly every day for the last couple years and knows most tilesets like the back of his hand and STILL has trouble getting them all, sometimes.
Oh, and if you need more keys, then regular survival, defense, and excavation missions are great ways to get them. (More reasons to get a Frost. They make all of those easy-mode.)
TAY RPG Pathfinder on tonight at 7:30pm AEST, 8pm ACDT, and 8:30pm AEDT. Starring:
@redartifice @tech_knight @freezespreston @beeawwb
The party is about to board a whaling boat and head to the northern Cold Coast. The local whales are behaving oddly and the party is being paid to investigate why they beached themselves.
Is everyone still good for tonight?
I’m all set. Looking forward to it!
I’m all good, I’m magically armed and ready to burn… literally!
They’re whalers of the moon
They carry their harpoons
But there ain’t no whales
So they tell tall tales
And sing this merry tune.
OH GODS THE STENCH
And that’s just Lundgredolph.
I’ll be there
Hey popdart, I’m going to be running late tonight due to train trouble, I’ll be on as soon as I get home, which will be most likely after 8
All good.
I get married in one week! *Excitement*
Now that’s a pageget to be proud of!
Yep, I have no idea how I did that 😀
Do they know? 😉
Enjoy it. And do NOT let the small stuff take over the day – if the flowers aren’t *quite* right, if something is not how you want it, do not worry and move on – your guests won’t notice or care, and you’ll be too manic to give a shit once the day is happening!
All the best, hope it’s a fab day!
Thanks Man, I’ve finally got everything sorted, and going to spend the week working until wednesday then meeting family until the day. it will be good, and I’ll try not to freak out.
My little man is all growned up.
So exciting 🙂
Happy New Week.
Logged onto the PS4 long enough to have a brief chat with @os42 and fail to visit Xur who was behind a locked door in the Reef. Just get rid of the damned door, Bungie. He lurks in alcoves, he doesn’t need a door.
Other than that, Elite. I made it back from my grand expedition to the Core late Friday night (early Saturday, who am I kidding) while listening to the Bowie tribute on rage. Came in via the Lagoon Nebula, visited Thor’s Eye (big blue star with a black hole binary…), Shapley 1 (Wolf-Rayet star in the Fine Ring Nebula) and then headed to a system called Quince, a remote Empire outpost a couple of hundred lightyears from the edge worlds and a long way from the heart of the Empire systems. I’d visited before on the way back from another expedition, selling much exploration data there, so it’s a friendly system with a station – Miller Starport – only 110ls from the hyperspace drop point.
Uneventful run to the station – bear in mind my ship has no shields, no weapons, no countermeasures, and only 5% hull integrity after taking some damage hitting the ground so I was… nervous…
I also had the crappest thrusters on my Asp Explorer that I could equip as I was rigged for the absolute maximum hyperspace jump range. This meant that the Asp was very hard to handle in a confined space. Couple that with not being inside a station for months. I took seven minutes from being granted docking permission to having the Asp down safely on a landing pad. It will normally take 90 secs to 2 mins…
So, landed. Repaired my poor beaten up ship. Bought some shields to help get me to the next port of call – I wanted to sell my exploration data in a few stations to spread the benefits of having some friendly stations. Took a while, but the Empire loves me, and I’m friendly across a few systems I regularly visit now. I made 46 million credits from the expedition, and now I’m ranked Pioneer for Exploration.
And then I bought a Python. Rigged it for combat. Had to sell my Asp to maintain enough money in my account for the insurance.
Spent the rest of the weekend remembering how to be a normal pilot, doing some combat and winging up with @rize and @pixel_the_ferret_viking on Saturday for a while. Tried to catch up with them and @cakesmith on Sunday, but the wife wanted dinner and Supergirl so by the time I got back to the PC, their wing was going to bed.
Decided to refit the Python for trading – it’s the most versatile large ship in the game, I believe – and that leaves enough cash to get a Vulture for combat. I’ve also been gifted an Imperial Eagle and a Cobra Mk.IV so my next job is to fly in a throwaway Sidewinder to the stations those have been left in and courier them back to my home base. (One thing I hope happens in the future is the ability to “hitch a ride” with another player to get a lift from one station to another…)
So… who wants to come to the Pleiades Nebula and look at the alien barnacles that have been found (and look for some more…)?
We’re really great at missing each other when online 😛
Also, thanks for the tip with Gende. The travel between the station and the RES is slower than I was expecting due to the system layout (frequently having to get around the planet adds a lot of travel time) but it’s still much, much faster than Exioce. Plus, there’s so many dodgy companies there that it’s rife with crims/floating cash bundles.
I really have to get around to getting Elite going with the Rift.
I wouldn’t bother. You might as well just pack up the Rift and send it to me and I’ll get rid of it for you.
Sounds like a lot of effort for you. I’m happy to do you a favour…
I should. In all honesty, it is probably the only way it would get any use.
I’m happy to send you the DK1 if you want to try that.
Apparently it can be made to work with it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/2rda4p/how_to_setup_oculus_rift_dk1
Nah, all good. I’m holding off until I can get a good VR setup and a consumer Rift. I’ve tried the DK1 and DK2 so I’m super keen to pick up the full release…when I can afford it 😛
Thanks for the offer though!
Where are you? I’d like to try it out, if that’s not too rude a request (and Rize doesn’t…)? Happy to return it (along with a detailed review of How It Went and What Not To Do When Setting Up).
Payment in Beer/Games/Karma… 😉
Have you put your commander name in the Taytags sheet? 🙂
My what in the where now?
taytags.com has a link to TAY names – helpful list of our game IDs. 🙂 I recently added a column for Elite Dangerous names.
Yeah, it’s good, plus RES, HI RES, HAZ RES and a low intensity conflict zone all in the one ring system, so excellent for trying out loadouts, and then upping the difficulty.
I did have a hairy moment when I realised that the wing of two Cobras and an Asp I’d taken on were all Elite… oopsy. Three of us, no problemo, but solo I was lucky to get out alive…
It’s a bit counterintuitive, but when the RES is right over the other side, it’s fastest to take a long arc up and over, or follow the station’s orbit line round the planet.
It’s also really really dark in that one when it’s in shadow. Had the ship lights on just to not get killed by asteroids…
I’ve started doing planetary banks when approaching stations to try and get in faster, so I took the same approach getting the the RES the other night and it worked pretty well. Still slower than I thought it would be, but way faster than a direct line.
I’m apparently the only person who loves combat in a dark asteroid field. The added tension is great 😀
I don’t mind it dark, it really does give a different feel. That one is pitch black at full shadow. Have been out there long enough to see it go from dusk to night and that’s cool.
Station or outpost? 😛
Good to hear you made it back and offloaded everything safely.
Outpost in the sense that it’s an Empire system a long way from the Empire, but Miller Starport is a big rotating station. Was very bright inside…
Cheers! Would have been a little upset to lose that much time, money and rank!
Heh, figured an outpost would’ve been a safer option for a quick repair. No need to worry about a stray toaster grill or surprise exiting ship ruining your day 😛
Yeah, but random NPCs shooting at me. Zero margin for error! 😀 Figured a friendly station with hisec would be the way to go…
May be looking for a fighter escort for some trading runs if anyone wants to join me…
Man i really wanted to wing up last night but i had to go to bed as i was starting work at 5:30 this morning so i really couldn’t justify that 😛
Hopefully sometime again very soon!
Fair enough. That’s very very early.
Saw some Fallout 4 patch notes that said
fixed *something* – building? – the workbench for your house in diamond cityNow I think I need to go to diamond city next time I play.
Been doing some reading on Gamesindustry.biz… Plight of the developers and all that.
It’s got me thinking about reviews on Steam.
I’ve written a few. Mostly positive – especially when pleasantly surprised – but also some warnings to make sure my friends don’t buy regrettable crap (less of an issue now, thanks to refunds).
A couple of devs have actually sent me messages asking permission to use those reviews in some of their promotion. I’ve bug-tested a couple games out the process, too. Been credited by name, and even been offered free copies (which I’ve waved off and bought the full thing instead out of respect for the devs).
Despite the fact that my average number of ‘helpful’ ratings is like… 2, per review, I guess devs read them and make use of them?
Thinking a goal for this year might be to actively review every single game that I play. The (good) little ones certainly need for there to be more reviews, and a bunch of the ones already up are garbage. Not really a new year’s resolution, but close I guess?
Should be good writing AND critical thinking practice. I mean… it’s pretty crazy how often I’ve felt dissatisfied with some aspect but not been able to actually articulate the ‘why’ of it. Fallbacks like ‘floaty’ physics are borderline meaningless, but ubiquitous. It should be possible to do better. And there are lot of little indie titles out there that could probably do with an upvote that’s not just friends/family.
See if all PC gamers were like you, the master race would truly be on the light side rather than a clash of light and dark. I’d say go for it 🙂
I think I’ve only left one review on my own profile and that was for SPAZ, which I gave great amounts of praise.
Shucks. Well, it’s definitely an idea to try and keep things positive.
Not that I want to be ‘recommending’ that people buy things which I’m pretty confident they may not actually like. Although, I do wonder how many people actually see their friend reviews, how that shows up… if they read them at all, or just the ‘most helpful’ ones which show up on the store pages by default.
Well you got me on your friends list, look up SPAZ in the store next chance you get and see if my post comes up.
Good thinking, 99.
Working in the technology business, it always feels good when people say great things about something you were responsible for. Your kind words will most likely do more for the devs than you think, especially if it’s regarding indies.
Haha, man that’s so true. Even the tiniest little positive feedback is great.
At work once a client mentioned offhand that they loved the way a little button animated when you clicked on it (which I had done) and I was happy for the rest of the day 😛
Pretty sure that friend reviews are always shown on top. Although not sure what happens when multiple friends recommend the same game
It determines which friend you like more and shows you that one.
Oh good, so mine will always be at the top? That’s reassuring.
Whenever I’m looking at a game, and it shows me you’ve reviewed it, I ALWAYS read it! You always provide exactly the kind of feedback I’m looking for. I have reviewed a couple in my time (not as many as you) but being an ex-dev (especially one still so deeply ingrained in the dev community) I think it’s great that there are people out there who take the time to do good reviews. Sometimes (as a dev) it only takes one comment to spark something in your head to make you see things differently, or give you new ideas.
Like you, I’ve been thinking I’m gonna pick up my reviewing a bit more this year too! Spurred on a bit by the fact I’m spending so much time at home lately I guess, but we can do eeeet!!!
I think the biggest reason I haven’t reviewed so many game on steam is that there is no meh option, it is thumbs up and thumbs down.
So something like Sang Froid or Castle storm that I really do recommend people by gets the same rating as Majesty 2 which is a decent game but not one that I would actively promote.
I suppose you can do that within the description of the review, but the binary I recommend this or I don’t recommend this is harsh.
Yeah, I’m very leery of ‘Do not recommend’, especially considering that if too many of those drop a game into ‘mixed’ or whatever, it stops showing up on the ‘popular release’ pages and search queues.
Go for it I say.
Also I think not receiving free copies is best. when you had no skin in the game you’re not going to care as much, plus there’s the outward impression of being paid for a good review.
Alright, gotta get home and hang out the sheets, shave head, shower, pick decent clothes, make sure I know where the hell I’m going, then try and be off by 4. Got me a hot date to see the Hateful Eight. Can’t be late :p
DON’T TEST ME, FATE
Mate!
I think we should date.
Popcorn, a dollar a crate
*looks to the camera* What a deal! *thumbs up*
Boo, should have been “This Deal is Great!”
No need for hate.
Too much hate, not enough love, leads one to …
Masturbate?
Seems to be their fate
I don’t think it’s for us to speculate.
U wot m8
Depression is lame. I keep waking up late and have no desire to get out of bed.
Yeah it sucks giant nuts, no energy, always tired, sleeping in, no desire to do things its the worst and I know what it’s like. Are you seeing anyone about it?
I got through mine with the help of a super awesome psychologist and counselor (yes I saw 2 people at once to get me through it) and I still see the counselor occasionally to ensure I stay on track. It’s not easy to find one you connect with but when you do, it’s well worth it. Believe me mate, once you get the right help, life is pretty darn awesome.
The cure is lots and lots of dad jokes!
^Yep!
“Can I use your bathroom?”
“Geez, I hope so”
Hi, I was wondering if any xbone owners here are having the same problem as me.
It’s an xbox live party error, 0x89231806. I’ve looked into it and it’s something to do with terado tunneling, whatever that is. Basically I can’t talk in party chat.
I haven’t made any changes to my settings so I have no idea why it’s happening to my setup. I’ll try the workaround later but man this is frustrating. Especially when network tests within my xbone say everything is working fiNE!
Teredo is a protocol that allows computers behind a NAT firewall (most home computers are) and without a native IPv6 connection to access remote IPv6 resources using only UDP protocol. The idea is that home users can start accessing IPv6 web services before their local connection supports the protocol, making the transition from IPv4 easier.
I could help if it was PC, but fucked if I know how you’d fix that on an xbox.
Perhaps (if it’s possible) disable IPv6 on your router?
Yeh u see this is the thing, I’ve never touched my xbox settings otf any of this stuff, nor my PC either so I don’t know why changing settings on my Pc would fix it, unless like u said it’s something in my router settings. Oh god woe is me. thanks anyway mate
Well, changing the settings on your PC won’t fix your xbox issues. My comment meant if the issue was happening ON your PC, I could tell you how to fix it.
I don’t have an xbone, which is why I can’t say whether it’s something you can even fix via the xbox itself. I have no idea what options are available, but given it’s a console, it’s likely that it might be locked down in such a way that you don’t get access to the options you need.
Hence my suggestion of the router.
Just had a look in to that error you’ve been getting, and it sounds like you actually NEED IPv6 for the party chat. So, kind of the reverse of what I thought the issue was, and likely to be a UPnP issue.
Found this vid that shows a guy fixing it on xbone.
Watch through to about the 3min 14 second mark, and when he gets to the screen showing the list of routers, find your router, and it should have a guide on how to enable what you need in your router.
No guarantees it’ll work, but it’s likely to be your best shot.
Hey man you are a legend for helping me out! Above and beyond totally. So luckily I haven’t had to go into my router settings. I remembered you can power cycle your box by holding power down for 8 seconds and this seems to have fixed it….for now anyway. What an absolute phantom problem.
Thanks again man, appreciate the help!
no problem. it’s about all i’m good for these days! 😉
LATE! Ish. But compared to usual, practically on-schedule 😛
Should be ok, I factored this in…
Time for a bumper edition of…
NegativeZero’s New Season Anime Impressions
Watching the new season so you don’t have to
I’m a week late on this and apologize. Been super busy with life. Also, fair warning: this season is really< weak. I’ve watched an episode just about everything I think – two or three have slipped through the cracks. So this is a big post. I may have to break it up.
Returning shows:
Gate (Season 2)
Season 2 – or rather it’s the second cour of what was probably not originally planned to be a split-cour show. You can go back a few months and find what I said about the first half. People from a fantasy world invade Japan and Japan responds by sending the JSDF in to fucking annihilate them in the most polite way possible. This half has seemed like it’s shaping up to have some darker tones to it. Still a really good watch and one of the high points this time around.Fairy Tail Zero
There was much song and dance about this but it turned out to be all smoke and no fire. Mainline Fairy Tail is kind of on a hiatus, and to pad the gap while they wait for the next arc to be finished in the manga they’re adapting Zero, which was a 13-chapter side-story that shows the origins of the guild and stuff. But it’s running in Fairy Tail’s timeslot and is basically just a new arc in the show so business as usual.Akagami no Shirayukihime
Season 2. It’s more of the same, as you’d expect. Shirayuki is taken in by the second prince of a neighbouring country who falls for her. There are a ton of other shoujo fantasy shows I’d rather get another season of, but it’s an entertaining enough series and avoids the trap a lot of these fall into where the chick constantly has to be bailed out by a penis.Lupin III
I put this in ‘returning’ but it’s not really. The new Lupin III that started last season is finally being streamed with subtitles as of the start of the year and you should watch it because it’s fucking awesome. Has a stunning visual style to it and feels like it draws quite a bit from the more humorous take on Lupin we see in The Castle of Cagliostro. The whole team is back, same cast as The Woman Called Fujiko Mine series from a few years back (which is also great by the way). Easy to jump straight into I think – the characters are iconic but pretty simple and you don’t need prior knowledge.New Stuff:
Active Raid
More like Actively Shit. Angry girl gets assigned to a ragtag group that apprehends criminals using power armor. It constantly attempts to be funny, but constantly falls flat each time. I was kind of reminded of Rail Wars, though that show was about ten times better while still being mediocre. Boring characters (one of them is obsessed with sorting trash, what the fuck?), poor voice work, bad plot… don’t waste your time.Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm
Eroge adaption and fairly standard for that. Sets it up that one of the girls is the lead character but we all know that Our Hero is the first guy she sees. Anyway, the conceit of this one is that she always wanted to fly and she’s returned to some island chain where she grew up and they have installed this weird system that lets people fly around using anti-gravity shoes. Competitive sports using these shoes are involved. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t good either. Feels a bit rote. Not like there’s a lot that’s better though.Bubuki Buranki
This one is fucking weird. I’ve seen two episodes and I barely know what’s going on. For starters, it’s a 3DCG series and they still haven’t nailed doing that. Same studio that did Arpeggio of Blue Steel, so it’s not bad, but still a bit stiff, has awkward angles and the hair looks like it’s made of plasticine. Plot-wise it throws you into the deep end with no exposition at all which might be a plus in the end because it’s kind of intriguing. Main character grows up with a twin sister on an island in the sky and their mother uses some kind of science / magic to pacify the giant robots / creatures that wander there, but some shit happens and they fall to the surface in a giant robot and now it’s ten years later and there’s a redheaded witch lady that seems to run the place and main dude’s sister’s disappeared and his mother’s reviled as a witch and there’s a bunch of kids with superpowers and he can make a robot appear and what the fuck is even going on? I’m giving it a few more episodes to see if it can hook me properly. I suspect that if it wasn’t 3DCG I’d be more into it.Dagashi Kashi
Saw a lot of anticipation for this but I don’t know why. Is it because the two girls in it have eyes like fucking psychos? Who knows. Main character is set to inherit his father’s candy store but he wants to be a manga author. Out of the blue, girl with crazy eyes appears to recruit his father to their candy company, but he refuses unless she can convince main dude to take over the shop. The show then devolves to long-winded discussions about various types of Japanese candies which isn’t exactly foreigner-friendly TV. It’s well-made and mildly entertaining but I haven’t seen a hook at all yet so probably going to drop in an episode or two.Dimension W
Insert clip of Immortan Joe yelling ‘Mediocre’ here. About a decade or so ago there was a shitty gonzo show called Solty Rei. I was immediately reminded of that. Set in the future where humans have solved the energy crisis by tapping the fourth dimension (see title) the main character is paid to hunt down illegal energy coils. He’s a weird anachronistic dude that moonlights as an auto mechanic and drives a petrol-based car. He meets a robot girl who might actually be a real girl in a robot body that was built by the guy who invented the energy system and is hiding out for reasons and immolates himself at the end of the first episode and there was much not caring. Is this a Gonzo show? It feels like a Gonzo show. It’s boring. Dropped.Divine Gate
Sad sack protagonist recites emo poetry while wallowing in how shit his life is. Also there’s some other people. They fight crime or something using elemental weapons that are given to them by elemental spirit people and they want to recruit the emo dude and I wanted to turn it off about halfway in but I kept going because you guys need to know the truth. It’s pretty shit. Unlikely to watch more unless very bored.Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash
Awkward Title: The Show. So there’s these Japanese kids right? And they wake up in a generic fantasy RPG world with no memory of how they got there. Actually no memory at all. Stuff bubbles up sometimes and they’ll refer to things but not know what they are. A group of them form a generic Dungeons & Dragons party but it turns out that doing that shit in real life is super hard and stressful and they struggle to murder even a goblin. Background art has a watercolor style that’s striking. Characters are okay if a little bland. Needs to grow a bigger plot beyond kill-goblins-so-we-can-afford-to-eat. Also feels like a darker and more serious take on stuck-in-a-fantasy-world than most. Killing a goblin takes a lot of work and psychologically takes a toll too. This seems very promising.HaruChika
PA Works show and I always have a soft spot for them. That said this is doesn’t have their usual feel so far. Chika decides to join the school band and learn to play the flute so she can be a mature and refined girl. Instantly gets a crush on the teacher. Then her plans are dashed when she meets one of the other band members, her childhood friend Haruto. Shocking twist then occurs: turns out he’s gay and also has a crush on the band teacher. Hah. This is well animated (PA Works after all) and entertaining, but it feels like a poor cousin of Hibike Euphonium, and a lot like PA Works are looking at Kyoto Animation and yelling ‘us too!’. Still, one of the better shows of the season.Koukaku no Pandora
Low budget crap but was kind of a fun watch in spite of that. Main character is a naive airhead who is a full-body cyborg for some reason. On her way to an island to live with her aunt she encounters a lady who is probably a very bad person, and her apparently super huggable adorable cat-eared loli cyborg. Stuff happens and the protagonist ends up helping them with stuff. That’s really it. Not much special here but execution’s good. Doubt I’d watch more though.Luck & Logic
Utterly unremarkable show that I can barely even remember the details of. Your bog standard Chuunibyou-style action anime which is probably based off a shitty mobile game or something. Lots of dumb jargon about ‘logic’ (read: power level) and yeah, seriously just don’t bother.Musaigen no Phantom World
Kyoto Animation runs their own light novel imprint and they sometimes adapt stuff from that. Which is a problem because a lot of it doesn’t deserve to be animated. This feels like one such. Boring main character and a few cute girls run around capturing monsters that people can suddenly see now because a virus altered human perception. It’s really average and feels like the worst KyoAni show in a long time. Been ages since I’ve seriously considered dropping their work, they’re usually such safe hands.Niji-iro Days
Show about four hot guys that are basically fujoshi stereotypes, and the awkward everyman has a crush on a girl because she talked to him once. She appears to have either an extremely advanced case of Kuudere. Yawn. I’m not the target audience here, maybe this appeals to girls or something.Norn 9
Otome game adaption, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing since sometimes they can be pretty decent. Main character seems a bit lacking in personality or ability to think for herself which could be a problem, but this is actually kind of interesting. Setting looks to be a weird mix of SF tech and what looks like Meiji-era Japan. Side note: they peel their peaches. Who the hell peels a peach?Nurse Witch Komugi-chan R
Went in dreading this. Komugi-chan is an old fave of mine. This is a pale shadow of the original. New Mugi doesn’t even attempt the cutesy style that Momoi’s voice has and just plays it deadpan, which is a shame because it sounds like if she bothered she could have similar tone. Koyori’s replacement is utterly bland too. Visually it’s Akio Watanabe’s style at least, but that’s cold comfort when they’ve taken off all the sharp edges the original had and turned it into a generic Magical Girl show. That wasn’t the point of the original. Don’t understand why this exists at all. Probably will watch it anyway. FML 🙁Ooya-san wa Shishunki
2 minute show. Dude moves into an apartment complex where the landlord is a cute middle-school girl. Can’t say anything about it beyond that. Not watching more.Oshiete! Gaiko-chan
8 minute gag show. Characters are all dumb stereotypes – Galko is a Gal, Otako is an Otaku, Ojou is a rich girl. Most of the gag topics are stupidly perverted, like the very first thing in there is asking if bigger boobs have bigger areolas. And all the jokes play out with Galko saying one thing when she knows it’s the other and then being found out in a hilarious (not hilarious at all) gag twist. Don’t waste your time.Phantasy Star Online 2
“Oh rad, a show set in PSO’s universe!” I thought to myself. “Maybe this will lessen the sting of not being able to fucking play the game because Sega are lying assholes.” Nope. Amazingly, this is actually about a Potato-kun that goes to Seiga Academy (no really) and gets drafted into the school council by a pushy girl who then tells him that his one and only responsibility is to play Phantasy Star Online 2 and make regular reports on his progress. She also totally wants to jump his bones once he starts playing. It’s like a fucking infomercial in anime form. Of all the ways to do a PSO2 adaptation this is the worst way. And this is streaming in English but we still can’t fucking play the goddamn game. Sega are such assholes.Prince of Stride
I confess, I didn’t watch the whole episode. It’s about a dude in a running club or something, I’m not quite sure. It’s also very boring and the animation has this blown out overexposed look that was straining my eyes so dropped and not going back. Seemed shit even outside the awful art decisionSaijaku Muhai no Bahamut
Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before. So there’s this guy right? And he’s kind of boring. But he lives in FANTASY LAND. And he’s secretly special. So special that he manages to have an episode where he falls through the roof directly onto a cute girl with a bad temper who then challenges him to a duel to recover her honor but it turns out that because of First Girl He Sees principle she falls for him. And now he’s going to be the only guy in an all girls school because it turns out he has SPECIAL MAGICAL TALENT and I think I’ve described about thirty shows. And the sad fact is I tend to always watch them. Main girl is kind of cute. This is actually a spinoff from the Rage of Bahamut mobage so we’ll see if it goes anywhere. It’s watchable and I give it 3 episodes to prove itself to me.Schwarzesmarken
I was pretty interested in this one going in and it definitely seems to be one of the best of the season. A spinoff from MuvLuv Alternative, set in the late 1960s during the initial invasion of the BETA. The story is set around a mecha squadron, the 666th, that are an elite squadron of East Germany. It’s dark as you’d expect being from the MuvLuv Alternative setting, though they seem a little less willing to go all 90s anime on the gore. There’s some massive potential for strong human drama as well, as East Germany is basically ruled by the Stasi at this point so the squadronmates are at each other’s throats as much as they are at the enemies. Solid mecha action (side note: in this setting the mechs are named after contemporary jets, which is why they’re referred to as piloting MiG-21s) and they hired a solid character designer – I’ve always liked Carnelian though she does tend to go for overly elaborate long hair a bit too much – so this is looking like it could be what Total Eclipse had the potential to be before it dropped the ball. And who knows, between the big success of the MLA kickstarter and this, we might finally see a proper adaption of Alternative if this does well. Definitely on my regular watch listSekkou Boys
8 minute show. Former art student fed up with seeing sculptures everywhere gets a job as a producer for a hot new male idol troupe… except the idols are four marble busts, St Giorgio, Hermes, Mars and Medici. They talk. It’s weird. What did I watch?Shoujo-tachi wo Mezasu
Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before. So there’s this guy right? And he’s kind of boring. But he’s very observant or something. And a pushy girl decides to recruit him into her club. She’s got a four step plan to being filthy rich. 1. Make visual novels. 2. Sell them. 3. …. 4. Profit. Not the worst strategy. Anyway this is apparently going to be about a visual novel creation club and that sounds dreadful. Show is well executed but not sure the subject matter will warrant it. Probably dropping it.Tabi Machi Late Show
Don’t know what this was because it’s a 2 minute show that I didn’t last all 2 minutes of. Seemed like we were watching someone cook food at like 0.5 frames per second. Super low budget. Don’t waste my time.EDIT: Double post?
I’m always very happy to see these posts.
I’ve only really watched Schwarzwhateverken, Gate S2, and Dagashi Kashi and it’s a bit of a shame that Schwarz is at the top of your list. It’s pretty darn generic in my eyes and I’m mostly watching it because I like historical/military anime. That said, I am completely unfamiliar with Muv-Luv so maybe I would appreciate it more if I knew more going into the show.
I saw someone else comment that Dagashi Kashi is like Food Wars but for candy and I kinda have to agree. It has that same sort of manic obsessiveness about what they’re talking about and it is pretty ridiculous at times. You’re correct though that Westerners will miss a tonne of stuff due to all of the Japan-specific candy.
Gate S2 hasn’t wowed yet but I really hope it does. Splitting the season really killed the momentum for me and the first episode didn’t really help to try and rebuild it. The new opening and closing songs are also pretty meh in my opinion.
Gate S2’s second episode picks up the pace significantly.
I wouldn’t say that Schwarzesmarken is top of the list. Lupin III is I think. But I do like what I’ve seen so far. However I’m a fan of Muvluv Alternative and that definitely makes a difference. It’s kind of generic, sure, but a lot of things seem generic in the first episode.
EDIT: For me, Food Wars was like a do-over of Yakitate Japan, and Dagashi Kashi doesn’t really have much of the same feel to it beyond being similarly animated. Needs another season of Food Wars.
What I’m getting out of this is that this block is probably a good chance to catch up on a few shows I missed in the past.
Yep, good time to do that.
But give Lupin a go as well.
Yeah, I was also about halfway through the first cour of Gate, so I’ll probably have a look at it once the second bit’s halfway done.
I’d been watching Space Dandy on SBS lately. Bloody weird show.
Couldn’t get into it at all. It’s a bit too obviously aimed at a US market for me, not why I watch.
Re: Gate 2: YESSSSSSS.
Re: Shirayukihime: Well this’ll be interesting, I thought, remembering that they’d actually finally done with the ‘will they/won’t they?’ by the end of first season. Taking it into actual dating territory instead of tension? Magnifique. Hardly anyone ever goes there in Anime, it’s all about the confession = endgame. Still prefer World is Still Beautiful… wish there could be some combination, because you can’t get into any kind of romance when one of the characters is a child.
Re: Dimension W: What is a gonzo show anyway?
Re: Grimgar of depressing alt-universe: Hm. So far the most interested I’ve been in this list.
Re: Saijaku blahblah Bahamut: I am… really done with these shows. That entire premise shits me right off on hearing about it, now. It’s far more than 30 shows you described. And I don’t care how well-animated/cast/directed they may be, I’m not watching a single god damn one more.
Re: MuvLuv Total Eclipse: So when do you reckon it dropped the ball? 3rd episode when it turned out it wasn’t going to be bleak mecha and actually high school harem rom com?
The World is Still Beautiful needs a second season way more than Akagami does. But I’d turn it down in a heartbeat for another outing of Akatsuki no Yona, and I’d throw that under the bus for a continuation of Saiunkoku Monogatari (I suspect you’d like that one by the way).
‘Gonzo Show’ as in a show made by the Mediocrity Factory that was Gonzo. From about 2001 through to 2009 or so they churned out 2-3 shows a year that were aimed half-heartedly at the US market and were more miss than hit. All flash and no substance, felt very rote and were forgettable. For every Last Exile or Noir or .hack they did, they had 3-4 trash shows like Speed Grapher or Solty Rei or Burst Angel or Pumpkin Scissors. It felt like they were assembling shows in a factory, completely lifeless. And then they went bankrupt and no one really cared.
Total Eclipse’s opening bit with Kyoto falling to the BETA and stuff was fucking rad. Most of Alternative is like that. But the whole premise of MLA is that it’s an alternative universe where the group of friends / lovers from high school are mecha pilots, plus they weren’t in school in Total Eclipse. I think the bit where it went off the rails was pretty much from the point they dropped an interesting protagonist for Generic Action Man and turned the character they just spent time developing into effectively a golden trophy. Also it deviated significantly from the original novels it was based off apparently.
Huh. Akatsuki no Yona didn’t grab me in its first three episodes. Which is funny, considering that whole ‘exiled royal with plucky band of exceptionally talented supporters’ thing normally gets me on the hook.
Awh, man… that’s a shame about Gonzo. I loved the hell out of Last Exile. Saw a pic not long ago that was just textbook example of how diverse good character design can be: http://i.imgur.com/4efp7.jpg And that soundtrack and premise and plot weaving and character intersections… it was standing head and shoulders above a lot of the other stuff coming out at the same time. Hard to believe they were doing crap.
That said, I’ve never actually watched a lot of Pumpkin Scissors but always felt there was something intriguing there. Caught a couple episodes mid-season at some point and it had a great mystique to it. Shame that it’s considered bad.
That’s the thing – Gonzo would adapt stuff that had promise, but crush out all the life from it with their process, whatever it was. They don’t do it any more but in the early to mid 00s that was their M.O.
Last Exile stands out because they farmed out character design to Range Murata who is an incredibly good artist. Couldn’t make lightning strike twice though, the sequel was pretty bland. They ended up driving a lot of their better people to leave and found other companies. Started to get it together again around 2008 or so when they had a big roll of the dice and were the first to start releasing stuff for paid English streaming online (Tower of Druaga and Strike Witches) but then they went bankrupt halfway into animating Saki (which was one of their better shows, sadly) and since then have kind of been on life support, only doing 1-2 shows a year. Actually Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm is Gonzo.
Oh damn, I really loved Tower of Druaga, too.
Have you watched Boku Dake ga Inai Machi? No idea what that translates to but looks to be interesting. Quite mature themes.
And yeah, man, so many shows disappointing this season. Same old s**t everywhere you look. Haven’t decided yet if Schwarz… fits in this category yet.
I missed it in my initial pass through getting everything. Also Ajin, and I haven’t watched one other one because the first ep was 45 mins. Garakowa also came out and that’s an hour-long movie or something, haven’t done that either.
Always love reading these!
I’m glad Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash is okay because to be honest, I’d have checked it out for its power metal name alone. 😀
I caught up with Fairy Tail just before Zero started so it’s a nice change of pace from the recent doom and gloom of that show.
Probably won’t check out much more, I started watching Bleach recently so that’s taking up all my viewing time.
Ah well work was good. Customer told one of the ladies from Woolies i’m much better to deal with than that “other young guy who is always grumpy” heh…
Okay, so to anyone who is playing (or has played) Dragon’s Dogman, are the -I guess- Warrior Bandits, sort of bullshit? They seem to kill me in three hits (by which I mean they stunlock me in a combo and I die), and take about ten minutes to slowly whittle down as I run in a big circle to revive the pawns that are littered over the landscape in their wake.
Also, when you’re fighting enemies who are completely immune to physical attacks, it’d be really nice if EITHER OF THE TWO MAGE PAWNS I HAVE CONSIDERED FOR A SINGLE MOMENT ABOUT BUFFING MY WEAPONS WITH MAGIC, INSTEAD OF STARING GORMLESSLY INTO THE ABYSS.
I honestly can’t remember any especially problematic bandits… maybe strayed into too high level an area? If not, maybe try stunning them/doing knockdowns? I seem to recall one particular type being a bastard until you did that. Taller shield ones perhaps?
Shame the Pawn AI didn’t get an upgrade in the last few years. I definitely remember fine-tuning the skill/AI/behaviour sets to ensure that my pawn was primarily focused on buffing and then anything else, but hell if I can remember where all those options were… there should be some, I remember spending enough time on it. I think the wikia has some information about the conversations you need to have with them in the inn (the questions to answer and their order/number of times asked t increase/decrease priority) to get them to behave the way you want, re: picking shit up, focusing on healing, staying close to the group etc.
I believe you can change all those settings for your personal pawn in places you can sit down and talk to your pawn. I believe the main city (Gran Soren?) inn has a place you can do that. (@Blaghman)
You mean the jerks using two handed weapons? because they are the jerkiest jerks ever. My advice is if they start targeting you just run around and kite them until you can revive a tank to soak up a couple of its. Also I find they take more damage AFTER they have done an attack/combo.
Nah, one handed swords and shields. These just seem a bit dumb because I 90% kill all the other bandits in the area with one ability, and it does like 5% damage to them.
Oh, I’ve never really had a big problem with them. If you’re playing as a Strider/Archer/Assassin if you headshot them with a bow they take a pretty decent chunk of damage.
I was doing that too, and (aside from the bits where they’d get stunlocked) it felt like wet blankets.
I think pawns have to have the right inclinations in order to actively enchant weapons.
That’s the thing, they’ll happily enchant my weapon when I’m fighting a wolf or bandit or whatever, but perish the thought that they actually help me damage goddamn spirits.
My pawn will enchant my weapon with ice right after telling me an enemy is weak to fire. The game could really use a Dragon Age style tactics menu for pawns, though I guess that would sort of go against the idea of “training” them.
I bought it but haven’t played it yet.
Does that help?
Yes!
…
No.
Levelling actually helps.
Like, I remember murdering things effortlessly at level 20 when I had trouble at level 16. This is no Bloodborne.
Also manual control of pawns helps. My pawn, bless her, was useless at casting spells on her own, but when you manually did it it was thunderbolts and lightning, very very frightening.
It sucked the fun away from being an Assassin though. Too much managing of the pawns, and less stabby-stabby.
Hey all. Been busy the past few weeks doing family stuff since reletives were visiting from New Zealand. Spent a lot of time hanging out with my cousins aged 9, 6 and 3. It was good to see them all again.
Gaming wise I just finished a replay of ME3. I recently bought all the DLC for it and decided that I may as well play the whole game again rather than just doing the DLC. Omega was ok, Leviathan was better and Citadel was great. Now I’m really hyped for Andromeda. It’s a shame there’s so little info on it out there. Also I’d forgotten how damn great ME3’s soundtrack was.
I’ve also been playing Dragon’s Dogma on PC. The combat system is excellent. Probably the most fun I’ve had playing a fantasy RPG. It’s just a shame the story is sort of average and there’s so many MMO style collection quests in it.
Also my Uncle lent me a copy of The Martian to read. I’ve only got about two chapters left in it. It’s ok. I said before that I was disappointed the movie didn’t have much psychological stuff in it regarding being strandard on Mars all that time, and so I’d hoped the book would go into more detail on that sort of stuff but sadly not. 80% of it is just the main guy talking math, which while interesting enough from a science point of view doesn’t exactly make for a compelling narrative. One big negative I have to give the book is the dialogue though. It’s just so bad. It all reads like robots talking to each other trying to imitate humans and failing completely. The book also breaks the show don’t tell rule a lot with lots of “he said angrily / she said sadly / he was tired” type of stuff which probably helps contribute to the wooden feeling of the dialogue. The author’s strong suit is clearly the science. Hopefully he improves on his dialogue, description and characterisation in future novels because he clearly knows his stuff to write great hard sci-fi, he just needs to humanise it more.
For a self-published novel, The Martian is quite an achievement. It wasn’t perfect but it really did explore a lot of the technical challenges, which was fascinating (at least I thought so).
Oh, I didn’t know it was self published. That’s pretty good then.
Personally I really enjoyed The Martian. It felt “authentic” to me, drawing on a lot of familiarity with manned spaceflight / history. Maybe it’s just that I enjoyed the science and math and whatnot but I didn’t find the dialogue bad in the slightest. Quite the opposite, I found myself often stopping and laughing out loud or otherwise commenting on how normal and real I found it. Interesting how our perceptions of the same medium can be shaped by our expectations etc.
Going out on a Monday night is weird 😛
Despite thinking I was running late, I managed to time things pretty well. Got to work about five minutes early to pick up Pizza Thief. I think I could see Costa in the foyer, dressed as a garden gnome. God damn that is a lot of beard.
Turns out Pizza Thief is horrible at directions, and being able to tell left and right turns on maps 😛 But we managed to get to the cinema alright, with only one wrong turn on the way. And scored a park straight away too!
So Hateful Eight was pretty rad. Almost spent a little too long getting something to eat beforehand, but still managed to get a seat right up the front of the upstairs section. Slightly cramped for leg space though, but great for viewing. I don’t know if it was part of the presentation itself or just something the cinema threw on, but at intermission they started playing something I recognised after a moment as The Crave by Jelly Roll Morton, a piece I used to play. Never would’ve thought I’d come across that in the wild.
Went around trying to find food afterwards, but the both of us are ridiculously indecisive. And then every time we did make a decision, the place was no longer serving food. Bah. Got one eventually, and their food was good.
Great night, would do again.
It’s DirtGirlWorld – the musical!
http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/whatson/kath_2016_get_grubby.aspx
(No thank you)
Hahaha that is exactly what I saw.
So which cinema did you see it at?
Ended up going to the Ritz, since she’s back in Newtown again atm. Missed the start of the second half actually, wish they would’ve sent someone out onto the balcony to announce the movie was starting again.
I hope you call her pizza thief in person.
Its all i hope for.
What else would you call her? 😛
🙁 Glenn Frey of the Eagles has passed away. That blows. Sadly his passing was due to complications from Rheumatoid Arthritis, Acute Ulcerative Colitis and Pneumonia.
Well I guess that means no more Eagles tours..
They’ve had about twelve comeback tours so that was basically the only way to stop them from reforming again and again. 😛
I think that’s KISS & John Farnham you’re thinking of 😛 They seemed to just tour on & off since the Hell Freezes Over tour 20 odd years ago lol.
aw man that blows…. another one bites the dust…. 🙁
I know. Such sad news.
Obligatory Lebowski.
Heh.
My mate who quipped about the Eagles losing a guitarist next a week ago is feeling a bit guilty now.
Also Mott The Hoople’s drummer died yesterday. This has been a shithouse few weeks for musicians I like…
I always thought Joe Walsh would be the first one from the band go, guess I was wrong..
Yeah, it’s been rough. Just saw a mate of mine who used to be the drummer for Dope one of his musician mates passed away today too.
Im sure some of you have already caught onto this, but Square Enix is giving away copies of Omikron : Nomad Soul for Steam in memory of David Bowie. Its an incredible genre-mash of a game
I think it’s happened…
Last night my 360 red ringed.
It’s been a helluva time, buddy… rest in peace…
time for a PS4 upgradE?
It’ll be a while until i have the spare cash for that – until then either a cheap second hand 360, or continue to go through my PS3 backlog.
not sure what ur budget is, but you can find used ps4s in fantastic condition sub $300
Out of my budget, unfortunately
I literally have next to no budget for this at the moment.
The only reason i would be looking at getting a 360 is know i can find them for $30-$50 on ebay
I’ll ask my sister if she’s doing anything with the 360S I left her in Melb if you’d like? I also have an old Asia-region one but probably less useful.
…
DC vs Hayley, battle to the death.
My new PC case is ready for pickup \o/
All I’m missing now is the graphics card, RAM and a power supply, and maybe a new CPU fan, not sure on that one yet as my new processor didn’t come with one and my current one might be too old to be reliable.
In preparation for when I finally play Dragon Age: Inquisition on the new PC, I’m going through a playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins and I’m on the final mission. It’s becoming hilarious when I’m oneshotting most of the bad guys with a single fireball xD. This is for my good guy Elven mage. I’m thinking of doing two more playthroughs, my Elven rogue who hates humans with a huge passion, and my Dwarven warrior who will always want to pick a fight, even recklessly.
Man, all these people who talk about additional playthroughs of 60+ hour RPGs.
My pile of shame can’t allow that.
my minecraft/cod/rocket league addiction wont allow that.
Are you any good at Rocket League yet?
http://tinyurl.com/k9kk3r9
http://blog.outofcommissiongame.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/When-you-can-t-think-of-a-witty-comeback_db41f9_4547416.gif
A lot better since we last played! Only just started to play around with aerials though, so taking some pretty risky shots of late!
Best comeback 😀
I only jump into it in small doses these days. Partially due to the distraction from other games, partially because so many games I’m in have incredibly vitriolic chat and behaviour (usually from grouped players) which kills the fun mood of the game.
Also coming from a guy that plays LoL regularly, and that’s a giant time sink too 😛
i may have a spare Intel fan (brand new) if that helps… what CPU/RAM/GPU are you going for?
RAM I haven’t decided yet (Definitely going to max it out though), but for GPU I’m going for MSI GeForce GTX 960 4GB and processor that I’ve gotten is an Intel i7 6700 Quad Core
Edit: And yes that would be great if you can spare it for me, I’ll buy it off you if you don’t need it.
not tempted to jump to the 970? i think its about a $60ish difference
At the shop I’m looking at, the difference is more than $60, more than double that. I’m trying to avoid getting these online. I’m going for the Gaming Graphics card, not the normal one, just to ensure I’m not confusing here.
what exact model are you looking at and at what price.
This one at $369. The 970 equivalent is showing at $525 at the same site.
The jump to the 970 is really worth it. Gets you within 80-90% of the performance of a 980 for half the price.
I’ll sell you my GTX970 for $389 🙂
Only had about 4 hours usage, I ended up having to get a card with more than 4GB RAM for my graphics work.
I think I also have a bunch of DDR3 on the shelf, eithr 12GB or 16GB.
@poita Seriously!? Hell yes I’ll accept that offer!
As for the RAM, I’d love to hear more on that too.
My email is sdcdragonman[at]hotmail[dot]com
You’re the greatest! 😀
nah all good man its yours, will find it when i get home.
its the one that came with my i5 4690K CPU… i already had a Thermaltake V8 CPU cooler so i used that….
ill have a good look as i have a few coolers, i think i even have a Noctua cooler that i used for a little bit.
Sure thing, happy to see it go to a Taybee rather than sticking it on ebay.
Check your inbox 🙂
Hm, didn’t get anything yet, did you send it the the hotmail I specified above? If that didn’t work try the same [at]gmail[dot]com instead
Edit: Nevermind, a refresh just showed me it! 🙂
Rant:
You know what sucks…
When i was in high school my three best friends were the smartest kids in my school, I did okay but they were amazingly intelligent. I was always the dumb one.
In my family my older sister did well at school and my younger sister got an OP 1, so in my family i was also the dumb one.
My Mum is a banker so shes pretty amazing at maths and my dad was by all accounts a genius, My Mum has always called me stupid, she thought my opinions were dumb and even now she tears me down and tells me my job is easy and she could do it. to her I’m the dumb one.
When i started my apprenticeship i was pretty clueless, i didn’t know how a lot of tools were used and even though i was pretty quick to pick up on how electronics stuff works it took a while for me to understand how hydraulic systems worked. I was the dumb one.
When i started talking to TAY people, i was grossly uninformed about a lot of stuff, my world view was terrible, i didn’t really understand anything. On top of that i had a tendency to play the character of the goof. I made myself into the dumb one.
Fast forward to now, i am fucking good at what i do, I would put money on me being one of the best radio technicians if not in Australia, definitely in QLD. I work so hard to get better, i read books on electronics in my time off, I watch any tutorial on anything i can find. I even frequent a Russian electronics websites because they have amazingly detailed tear downs of stuff.
But…
Im still the dumb one. I will never rid myself of that tag. I enjoy being goofy or stupid to let off steam, i dance and sing and do awkward shit and because of that im just silly ole rockets.
I worked so hard, to prove to myself I’m not the dumb one. Yet i still get brushed aside as the dickhead who cant spell words correctly. Its infuriating and there is literally nothing i can do to change it.
I should probably add, this is the first worldiest problem ever.
I could complain about being branded “the smart one” if you like.
Doesn’t amount to much when I’m a long term unemployed freelance writer but my sister is a lawyer, my best friend has a PhD and my girlfriend’s a doctor. Results and effort matter much, much more.
I tried to cultivate an appearance as the smart one, but missed the mark and landed squarely in “wanker” territory. So there are always worse positions. :p
I’d say it’s abundantly obvious you were not the dumb one in this example.
Yep.
Although she like me thinks she is very smart and hates being told otherwise.
Ever done much reading on the Dunning Kruger Effect and Imposter Syndrome?
Anyone who has ever worked in IT or had to deal with road rage will be very familiar with the Dunning-Kruger effect, if not by name…
Very valid point…. this… so much this.
i know of them, when i started work at my last job i had a major case of impostor syndrome, nearly to the point of thinking i was committing actual fraud.
Own it.
You know that you’re not dumb when you give a shit. The stuff where you are the dumb one is trivial, it’s pointless or it’s just fun. Nobody who matters cares about that.
We’ve all seen you grow tremendously over the last few years. We all respect you. Anyone who doesn’t isn’t paying attention.
You are far too kind.
FAR TOO KIND.
Nope just honest.
Don’t take the dumb tag, let it slide, shed it and certainly don’t wear it when you meet new people.
Anyone new only knows the you they see know, if that person is capable, intelligent and good at what they do, then that is who you are.
The smart tag also sucks, you feel like you are nevr living up to expectations, and it is horridly hard to fail publicly, or even privately, you can beat yourself up for years over a failure that no one else remembers or even really cared about at the time. It can stop you learning new things, because you feel you have to be great at it quickly.
Tags suck, they aren’t real, and are often self imposed as much as imposed from the outside. Shedding them is a really powerful thing, and you can then go through life as a diverse, wonderful, flawed person, and just get on with living.
Sounds like a way to exert power over you, bud. I’m sorry. :'(
no offence rockets, but you need to surround yourself around some new people that appreciate you. by the sounds of it you are surrounded by egotistic morons. be around those that appreciate your skills, and leave the rest behind.
its kind of horrible that this kind of response is also garnered by your own mum. In your position, id continue what im doing and if my mum or other friends want to have anything to do with me, it would be on my own terms. If you keep running to them, you make it a point that you look up to them, and they look down on you expecting you to constantly tail them.
show less of an interest in them, and maybe they’ll show more of an interest in you.
my issue is similar albeit different; because im 31 and I play video games, and have LAN parties, i am always looked down upon because “games are for kids”. and that pisses me off to no end. cause you know, i need to sit around and drink beer at peoples houses every night. You get drunk, I play games. Fuck off. (mainly coming from sis in law and hubby)
Do what makes you happy, and socialize with those that appreciate you, your hobbies, skills. stop trying so damn hard to please people dude, their not worth your time.
This one time I tried to pull a door open and it said “Push” on it and I have a university degree.
I have also caught myself doing things such as making hand gestures (like ‘thumbs up’) to communicate with people over the phone.
Nodding in response to the person on the other end also seems to be quite effective.
One time while working in a helpdesk job, I was trying to spell out a password or URL for something to someone who’d called, and all of a sudden had a brain-fart when I couldn’t remember the NATO phonetic alphabet… The next character was K, and my brain apparently can’t remember Kilo… so it went for the next available “K” word…
Me: “…next letter is K…as in… Knight!”
Internal Monologue: “You’re a special kind of moron…”
At Telstra one of our guys earned the unfortunate nickname ‘Afer’ after being overheard saying, “A for Orangutan.” I felt so bad for him.
Spent 15 minutes in the cinema, freaking out that I lost my phone, it was dark so I was searching everywhere, under the chairs, down the backs, in the aisle using the torch function on my… oh fuck.
I know the hazards of ‘playing the clown’ and getting stuck with that… branding.
Still very hard not to do, sometimes. I mean, when jokes are just sitting there, their potential untapped…
A rep is a slow, hard thing to change. But if it’s something you really want to work at changing… go for it.
The criminal unfairness is that ‘perception is reality’. It’s not so much what you do or achieve as much as what you’re SEEN to achieve, or portray.
And really, it applies even here.
It can be changed. But not quickly.
I dont really want my rep to change, im a good kid and everyone knows that. I just get a little tired of my voice falling on deaf ears. Thats all.
Who cares what other people think?? All through high school I had the some of the best grades and thought I was one of the smartest people in my grade; fast forward to uni and looking back I realized what a complete idiot I was socially.
Your grades; your job; your personal level of knowledge don’t mean anything in terms of whether your smart or dumb. No matter what you know about what you know; there’s always going to be a group of people that understand things that you couldn’t even begin to wrap your head around. Believing you are somehow inherently smarter than anyone in every aspect is a sure sign of stupidity and ignorance.
A few weeks ago I worked through the AU/NZ practice Mensa tests at work and was going to try and apply for the actual exam but stopped and realized I’m a whole lot happier thinking I’m just average. In fact my level of intellect doesn’t even matter as long as I’m good at what I do and I’m happy doing it. My point is rocket; be happy being you. You got nothing to prove to anyone but yourself.
P.S. Also I think intellect is grossly over-rated in our society; passion and determination can trump natural intellect any day.
Edit: To summarize transient’s comment – Cogito Ergo Sum; I think, therefore I am.
Dr Karl always says he’s someone who has average intelligence, the only difference is he reads hundreds of journals each year.
Love you bb. You’re one of the good ones, Ross
It really doesn’t matter what people think of you. What matters is that you are being true to yourself, who you are and what you believe in. There is no point trying to change others perception of you as you can’t control what they think and it doesn’t matter either as long as you’re happy being you.
I have a very strange sense of humor and because of that, there aren’t many that get me either but I really don’t care anymore. I used to but no longer, I’m happy with who I am and those that understand me appreciate that.
Try not to let people’s opinions or what you think they think of you get to you. Just be you mate 🙂
Nekrogoblikon are a great little band i’ve been listening to for quite a while and enjoying their stuff. Their gimmick is that they are obviously a goblin themed band, with their very own guy dressed as a goblin that features in their clips and at their shows.
Increadibly entertaining.
I’ve only recently stumbled across a song and clip they released last year, though, called “we need a gimmick”.
This is easily my favorite film clip for a hell of a long time, plus the song and lyrics are pretty damn entertaining.
I encourage you to check it out and bear with with just for the clip alone – the ending itself made me cackle uncontrolably for a moment.
A few of the PAX pokemon gym leaders (including @novacascade) have started a small draft tournament for a bit of fun.
I feel like I’m going to lose every match but I’m going to have fun and try to at least look good while losing badly. Plus I get to raise a new team now that I’ve finished the latest round of shiny hunting.
Edit: part of the reason why I expect to come last was my drafting strategy. This involved crossing everything off the list that I’ve already used and know what to do, and then … picking other things that had something interesting to me.
It’ll be more fun to raise a new team, battle with something different and learn more about the game. Might turn out a bit like my poker strategy – it’s harder for the opponent to predict what I’m going to do if I don’t know what I’m going to do either.
Are you the shiny themed legendary gym leader we fight at the end of the yellow brick road?
Something like that for the challengers at PAX last year.
Minus the legendary bit.
And the yellow brick road.
And the ‘end’ bit – I could be taken as a reasonably early challenge out of all the gym leaders.
You ruined like 3/4th’s of my imaginary pokemon gym battle!
You should totally be a gym leader that uses only shiny uber league pokemon =D
Minecraft…. ehhhhhhhhhhhh….
So I’ve thought about shutting the server down a few times, as its been running for about 3 years and has seen only sporatic use over that time. So about two weeks ago i thought to myself ok, time to shut this baby down. I logged onto my Admin portal, lo-and behold… there is a discount on servers.
a few clicks later, my server is renewed again, on an upgraded plan with double the memory, an SSD, half the price, and so begun my new downward spiral back into minecraft. Two days later, I am joined by another 6 people, who have joined me int the sandpit…. 2 weeks later and yeah this is going to be a thing for a long while…
if anyone wants in, deets are still the same.
plan is to run this server for a couple of years. i will be relocating it in a couple of months, and will be hosting it myself on a 500/100mbps fibre backbone. Nothing will be deleted. Also if you’re into that sort of thing, we’re usually on TS (own server) if you need deets, let me know.
Don’t you dare tempt me back! I have too many things to play already! 😛
(thanks for running it all this time though)
ill just leave this here
mcserv.syndicateofgamers.com
also incidentally, our site, http://www.syndicateofgamers.com is up!
*eye twitch*
hahahaha!
Whitelist or open server?
whitelist but im using the same whitelist config on the server so you’re good to go
good seed too, horses near spawn as well. already found the end portal but no one is activating or going through it until we are all ready to go as a group
Did that ‘ready to go as a group’ ever actually happen on the last server?
nah it didnt cause everyone was all over the place… but we’ll set an exact date soon that agrees with everyone…
Mighty tempting offer.
drop me ur MC username if interested and ill add you to the whitelist!
best to tweet me if you have that!
@Zetrox2k
I’m trying to get stuff done at work and keep falling behind because I get distracted by doing and redoing builds for Elite Dangerous. I blame someone who is going to remain nameless. Let’s just call him “Pixel F”.
No, wait, that’s too obvious.
Let’s go with “Mr the_ferret_viking”
THAT GUY
He is the best
I mean worst
I really mean the bestWell, this was an emotional rollercoaster.
…what kinda builds you lookin at? >.>
Initially looking at options for combined space/planetary exploration based on various price points but at this point I’m just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks.
EDIT: At this point I’m kinda stuck on the idea of making a full-on smuggler and just going for it. I’ve been keen to do smuggling as it seems more up my ally than legal trading but working out how best to make money.
Ooooh. I’ll share my Asp fly-me-to-the-core-but-don’t-reverse-into-the-ground build with you later.
I discovered my “cover my trading Python with class 1 pulse turrets set to fire at will” strategy worked in principle but then a Diamondback gave me a good kicking so I’ve given it class 2 beams now… Got a nice 350k per leg 2-system route going at the mo, 3 or 4 jumps between the shops. So 700k every 15 mins, 2.8mil an hour. Will do that until I have cash for exploring again…
That route sounds pretty damned nice…
I’m tossing up so many different ideas and can’t decide on what I want to do yet. Exploration sounds fun but I want lots of money to try out the FDL and Python and Conda and Corvette and Cutter and and and…
We should wing up, run some trading for a bit in convoy and get some wedge, and then do some mission planning. Exploration is fun to the near nebulae. The Core really takes some commitment (as in I should have been committed…)…
Tuesday is “Raid night” when the wife goes out and drinks all the wine with her bestie, so I’ll be on much earlier than usual.
I think this is what I had. I did need to shut down thrusters and fsd to activate the auto FMUs, and do a repair cycle on ship systems.
I’d probably add an SRV and some shields instead of small cargo bay and one of the FMUs next time. Still wouldn’t take guns until there are more dangerous threats than my own incompetence out in the black.
[Asp Explorer]
BH: 1I Lightweight Alloy
RB: 3A Power Plant
TM: 4D Thrusters
FH: 5A Frame Shift Drive
EC: 4D Life Support
PC: 3D Power Distributor
SS: 5D Sensors
FS: 5C Fuel Tank (Capacity: 32)
6: 6C Fuel Scoop
5: 5A Auto Field-Maintenance Unit
3: 3A Auto Field-Maintenance Unit
3: 3A Auto Field-Maintenance Unit
3: 3E Cargo Rack (Capacity: 8)
2: 1C Advanced Discovery Scanner
2: 1C Detailed Surface Scanner
—
Shield: 151.75 MJ
Power : 13.37 MW retracted (111%)
13.37 MW deployed (111%)
12.00 MW available
Cargo : 8 T
Fuel : 32 T
Mass : 323.8 T empty
363.8 T full
Range : 34.62 LY unladen
33.86 LY laden
Price : 29,377,990 CR
Re-Buy: 1,468,900 CR @ 95% insurance
Ṱ̲͖ě̫͗s̫̱͓̣̅͊̐ͨͨͬt͉̻̻̘̠̝̮̾͗́
H̘̠̮̬̗ͬ̚m̈̾͌m͎̻̳̤̩̳̓, ̳̙a͊p̎ͪ̾̐̅pͯͯ͊ͥ̏a͔̬̮̞̪͋ṛ̝̝̘͇̻̆ͥͩ̎͌̈̅ė̫ṅ̞̗͉̱̗̄͗ͯẗ̗̘́̏ͣͅl̜͆̾ͬ͌̐y̮̋ͮ̿͆̽ ̓t̟̭̪ͥͤ̅͐ͭ̏h͓͉̥͒͑i͍̼͙̼̞̙̬ͭs̥̝ ̱̙̱̞̈́ͥ̍̓w͚͈͖̱͋̀̽ͭ̄o̠̼̊̐̓̑ṙ̲̝͚̊̌ͦk̟̫s̟͎̳ͥͭ͊.̰̜͉̫̫̿̔ͦ ̺̑̒͆g͚̪̺͒̏̃̒ͮo̝̘̟̘͙̱̪ͬ͋̋͋̅͆o̼̙ͦd̥̻̟̺̓̒ͤ̊̋̅̎ ̟͍̜̌t̼̖̟̼o̯̰̹̭͒ͤ̊̒̃ ̘̦͇̇ͣ̄ͥ͌k̖̤̠̮͓̪̮͐̋ͯn̘̼̯ͅỏ̠̬̬͖̘͖̝ͧͯͨͯͤ̋w͑̑ͬ͊̆
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE
J̹̘̯̦̺͓̬̠ͣ́̍̔Ó͉̦͕͇̻̳̯̹̩̌ͮͫ̐̌͋̍̀͌̿͛ͦ̈̚Ị͎̝̣̈́̍̓̏̈́̓̃̉̋͋̉̋ͫ͋̀N͙̲̤̪̰̰̭̦͖̹̖͓̯̹̳͈̞̟̱ͮͥͬ͌ ͍͍̼̗͔̫͙̰̈ͣ̄̿ͯ̍ͅT̼̘͍̰̥̙̖̰̞̟̐̍̑͛̌̋̂ͯͧ̒̚̚ͅH̥̟̫̲͋ͦ̌̀̒̀̍ͫͤ̐ͪͬ͂̑E͔̼͔̠̮͓͕̋̋ͬ͑̑̈́̎ͤͬ͊̋͒ͩ͂̔̔̚ ̝̭̘̣̰̻̹͇̞̹̬̎̀͑̎̓͑̈ͧ͗͗G͇̱̣̪͇ͬ́̋̽ͮͤ̏͑͌͑ͤͮ̐̂̈̄̎̂ͅͅĒ̹͓̲͓̳͍̝̳̪̖͗̈̓ͥ̌͐S̟͔͓̖̼̬̮̳̞̳̩̱̜͕͖̜̔̊̾ͬ̏̿͊͐ͧ͗͐ͭ̈́̿ͯ̊̽̚T̮͔̯͉̭̝̫̞̗̩̬͎̦̲̰̆̍͊̉̋͊̍̌̚ͅA͚͓̦̙̫͎͖͕̾̑̾ͭͅL͎̟̞̥̹͍̙͕͍͍͖̣͕͉̹̰͛̇̓̌ͣ̃ͪ̊̇T̖̻̯̻̜͈̫̺͔͂̉͗̉͑ ̗̬̫͎̱̬̙̻̍̊̂͌̒̀ͤ̄I̤̹͖̤͈̳̻͎̙͕ͫ̏ͪ͋̀ͤN̻̰̘̹̩͕̙͔͚͚͚̝̞̰̠̪͕̿ͪͤ̓͌ͮ͐ͭͦ̎͌T̩̥̜̟̜̯̐̈́̓̃̇͛̈ͨ̄̋́̎̅̚ͅE̝̜̣̟͍̯̔͆̅͛L̙̳̞̦͖͖̺̘͖̱̳̹̦̜̜̣̤͌̉͌̄͑ͣͤ͛̍ͪ́͆ͯ͒͌̐ͪ̚L̩͔̫̜̪̗̼̼̺̰͎̬̖͋̈ͣͬ̋̿̑̓̇̄ͬ̔̈̓ͣͅḬ͎̲͔͈͕͚̬̠̥̹̅̆ͧͫ̈G͎͙̯̼̻̞̞͙̗̝ͧ̓̾ͭ̉͗͛̄ͤ̓͆ͮ́ͪÈ̠̝̳͓̤̼̬̥̭͓̤ͣͩͦ̔ͯ̏͊N͇͙̥̜̫̯̞̤͕ͤ̆̄ͯ̈́̃͐͂̚ͅC̠͇̜̘̰͙̜̮̜͇͖͖͔̰̟̥ͣ̎͌ͦ̄̋̿̒̏̀ͦ͌̉É̬͉͓͍̹̲̤̘̳̪̠͇͓͕̣̝ͦ̂̓ͯ́̃̀̽͊ͩ̉̄̂̐͛͆ ͇̰̯̱͕̠̦͕̅͊͊͆̿͒͒ͯ̊ͩ͌̽̒̋̚O̺̦̱̣͍͓͒͆̊̌̈́̃̉͋ͨ̏R̳̫̟̺̙̰͖̦̯̆ͫͯͨ̄̅̎̽ ̘͍̮͉͚͉̺̖͙͎ͫ̄͊̑̍̐̾̓̊̽̐ͬ̽̏ͨ̊͑P̺̩̳̫̙͎̗͍͈̒ͭͮͩ͂Ẹ̙͍͈̮͗ͫ̾̇͌ͥ͆͂̒ͯ̐ͤ͊ͦR̰̙̙̦̗͑̿ͣͮ̈́̊͑I̖̲̫̫͇̼͓̻͍̜͎̙̭̰͚̞̎̓͊̃͊͂̌̓ͪͨͬ͌͒͑̍̋̾͗S̼͈̟̺̦ͬ̇ͭ̉̀̋ͨH̘̜̮͓͉̩͙͚̩̪̺̤̘̠ͩ́̌́̇ͧͣͮͭ̽͋ͫ͌͌ͩ̈ ̣͎͔͔̠̰͕̓̊̀ͤͩͣ̍ͪ̃̎ͯ̑ͭ̄ͭ̍̽ͦ̚P̠͎̬̼͍̱̣͎̫̰̹̩̬̟͍̺̞̯͋̎̄ͥ͑ͧͩ͒ͮ͋̿ͯ̽̽͂̐Ú̜͉͉͉ͣ̉ͣͥ̏͌̾̓̈́͗͑̈́̐ͦͬ̅N͓̪̘̖̪̮̳͎̘̐̓̍ͮ́ͣ͆Y͔̩͈̟̖͐̏̏ͫ͐̊̄ͦͦ̓ ̘̰̝̬̬̦̙̹͔̓ͩͬ͂̐ͫͨ̿̀̽̂ͭ̈ͧ͗ͭ̽M͙̼͖̳͙͕͚̥̪̩͖̳͂ͬ̌̀ͪ̉̒ͫ̽ͭͦ̇O̪͔̻̫ͫ̃̆̅ͤR̳͚̩͉ͨͣͮ͗ͪ̏̋ͯͫͭ̿̾̓ͬ́ͦ̑̚T͉̳̘̟̭̤̤͚ͯ̇̅͌̀ͭ̌A̰͚̯͚̯͉̲̜͎̭͈͎ͪ̈́́ͦͧ̒̃̔̃͊̊ͅL̲̯͚̱͍̤̜̗͓̠̲̘ͥ̏̂͐ͧ͂̋́ͮ͐ͩ
H̤̭̗̭ͤ̀͊m̥̮̭̣̀ͧͅͅṁ̭̜̙̮̙͍̃̌
O̫̗͖̼̓͊͑͗͂͋ͣH͉̟̥̞̳̣̘̏ ̤͈̻̤͆ͨͅͅG̺̯̮͍̜̼̱̒̇ͅO͔̘͔̘͎̳͔̠̓͛̓̃ͪ̂̌͋D̺̤̦͙̂ͅ ͕̞̙͍͔͍̭̟͑͑Ị̲̤̓̄ͨ̐̈́̀ͭ͊T̰͎̦̫̎̽̊́̾ͬͭ̇S̘̩̅͌̑̐ ͍̦̮̺̟̦̀ͬ̏̅͛͂S͈̫̲̣̙̦̥̺̼ͫ̅P͎̬̖̙͔̫̗͆̇ͧ̆R͔̘̣͉̃̔E̳̫̩̪̼ͧ̿͛Ā͈̙̝̦̥ͭ͛̑̓͐̚Ḓ̼̫̪̀̃̈̀̇ͅỈ̜͙ͬ̉̄͗̍͒N̰ͪ̎̾ͪḠ̖̤͇͈͖̜̖̱̯!͓͔̈ͥ͊̅̈!͖̙̳̩̩ͧ̔!̹͚̹͉̺͓͆
P̖͉̖͍̰͕̪̭͎̈́̆ͥͯ͛̔̈͋̅ͬͩ̌̐̃̾̀͞h͚̙̟̬̻̗̎̅ͨ͌ͧ̒̇̀͜͝’ͨ̐̆̈́͂͑̓̓ͣ̀̚҉̩̣͕̙̤̲͈̥͖̗̜̯͓͈͉͖̜̕͢n̈̔͂̿̒ͤ͂͛͑͊̋͗̉͢͜͏͕͔͎̜͉͕̦̭͔̩͕ͅg̴̡̳̗̟͍̼͈̞̮̩̥͕̥̼͙̓̌̽͌̆̋ͪ̽̀͞l̶͔̪̱̠̲͇͙͙̝͊̈́̓̽ͮͦ̂̆͋ͩ̈́͂ͪͯ͆̀͞u̶̲̱̮̜̙̘͂͋͗̌̀̍ͨ̂ͤ̈́ͮ͝ͅi̢ͧ̅ͦ̍ͦ̈́̊ͮ̒͂́͏̛͎̦̫̮̯̙̳̺̪̠̖̺̼̮͡ͅ ͎̭͓̤̘̄̇̾ͧ̋͟ṁ̓̉ͣͨ̄́̓͊̉͌̍͋̒ͪ́҉͎̜̥̠̩̦̼̬͝g̷̸̛̱͈̣͖͓͓̝͉͈̊͆́̓ͭ̀ͭ̔͛ͦͪ̅̐͂̎́̚͞l̸̸̨͍̬͓̤̯̜͚̳̭̟͕͇̯̩̦̈͛͒ͦ̐ͨͮ͒ͪͭ̿̋̽͘͝w̨̩̣̰̩̟̰̬͈̲͕̱͓̟͗͆̆ͧ͊͗̏͑ͥ̃̇͌̅̚’̷̲͇̼͎̜̻̩̜͉̬͔̗̫̱̙͕̈́͗ͫ͌̿̊ͧͯ̓͋̑͐ͤ̃̓ͨͬ̚ǹ̶̶̺͓̹̳͖͔̥̲̳͉̄ͯ̈̂̓ͪ̈́̽́̚̚͞ͅa̲̘͕̻̝̝͇̯̭̲͓̮̱̟͖̗̣̽̋̔̌͒̓̃ͮ͐̃͒ͭ̌ͦͫ͛͝ͅf̉̃ͦͬͦ̔ͬ͂͏̷̢͍̹͉͕̙͉͇̤̦͚̀͡ͅh̑̏͛ͭ̌̂ͤͤ͏̷̧̛͎̟̦̬͔̹̘͇͖̠̫͍̠̱̭ͅ ̵̤̺͉̱̻̤̤̦͍ͦ̋̐̽̿̋͜Č̟̪̤͙̝̱͚̱͎̭͕̙̮̗̝̒̄ͪ̍̇̚͢͢͝͠ͅt͋ͯ̽̓͑̽ͪ̓̿͌ͮ̿ͮ̅ͦ̀̒҉̸͉̺̦̗͙̝͚̮̼̟̣̀͢h̢͖̠̱̜̻͚̞̪̘̙̮̺̱͕̫̑͊̀ͬ͞͠ͅu̵̘̖͍̺̣̺͙̩̻̯͐̀ͬ̄̎ͫͨ́l̢ͩͦ̓̌̿̌͊̐̄͑ͨ͞҉̞̭̮̪̮̝͚͈̝͈͖̣͓̠̮̮̟̬̀h̙͖͉̲̗̩̲ͩͬ̌ͧ̽ͯ̽ͣ̂͜͡u͐ͤͩ͂ͧͤ̆̄ͤ͛̿̿͌̿ͩͯ͢͠҉҉̢̟͕̜̣ ̨̢̛̭̪̱͍̖̮͉̘̫͈̫̰̭̜͑̃̆͊̐̿̑̿͒͛̈̓̌͂ͫ̀͝ͅR̳̘͖̥̞͉̺͎͍̞̗͕̞̋͐͛̌̈́̔̾͆̅͆̂́͘͠’̶̸̬̩͎̤̜̗̬͖̯͉͇̼͋͆ͤ̊ͥ̐̐ͣ̕͘l̸̛̩̬̫̗̺͙͍͇̭͖͖̝̦̫̦̟̜̂ͣ̄̿̉ͪ̆̂ͦ̔̾̿͒̓̀͘͘ͅy̸̨̠̺͓͓̜̬̱͍̻̭͚͚̻̮̞̻̪̏̏͊̓͒̍̋̾ͩ̒̂ȩ͂ͣ̀ͯ̅͋ͥ̈͒͗́͏̜͓̭̣͔̼͉̳̟̼̭̭͇̳̹͙͎h̵͍̬̦̼̰͉̮̤̺͍̝͍̮ͦ̀̍̔͐ͩ̈ͯͨ́ ̡͇̙̫̟̰̪̯̘̘̞̦̦̹̬̝̘̣͙̗̄̋̋̄̌̇̄͂ͩ͌̒͡w̅̀͂͌ͥͤ͆ͬ͒̋̿̇̃̃͡҉̞̼̼̥̪̳̪͔̹͍͕̻͕̼̖̟͝͠g̵̶̪͍̥͕̬̳̣̮̪͔̞̮͒ͥ̿ͦ́̍ͩ͌̍̔̈́̇ͣͬͨ̅ͮ̓̿ͅa͋̈̑̃͌̀̽͏̛̻̘̙̮̻̥̫͓̙̠̞͍̳̠̲͘͞ͅh̞̭̘̖̗̰̤͙͍̹͉̺̬̗̘̳̺͑͛̄̏ͫͨͥ̓̍̿̌̋͛͊ͥ͗́̚͝͝͠’̖̜̝̰͚̠͍̟̩̙͉̳͔͚̣͚̜ͥ͑̂́̈́̿̋̃̽͐̅̕͡n̢̞͎̝̗̫̖̞̝̠̬͙̈̅̏̉́ͬ͒ͣͦͩ͂ͫ̄̎̓̿̍͐͐͢a̶̡͔͓̯̜̟̳͚̼͙̠̟̣̳̪͎̅ͥ̊͌̑͑̆̋ͣͤ͢g̶̴̨̗̗͚̙̫̠̘̘̭͓̮̲̞̳̱͖̗͆̏ͬ̎̏l͛̒̈́̅͗̓́҉̺̥͍̞̖͚̝ ͈̭̦̯̳̞̺̪͒ͨͧ̊͋͢f̢̢̞͎͓̱̺̄ͪ̋̽ͪ̔ͧ̎̎̽ͤ̓̓̊̕h̛̾ͪ̾͂̿͗̾̾͌͋͞͠͏͍̖̠̣̯̝̥̭̖̥̳͈̯̯̥̻͚̬ẗ̵̡̪͍͍̙̹̤̼͙̦̺͎͉̗̖̯̖̓̋͗ͥͦͮͬͬ͊ͣͧ̑͟a̵̡̪͈̻̩̬͚̥̹͓͉ͦ͑̎̈͋̐̎̾̃ͭ̓́ͅǧ̶̢̅̀͒͛͡͏͓͎͙̤̙̺̟̠̟̺̱̮̯̖͕͉̫n̷͕̥̘̗ͪ͊ͧ͒͑̌̾ͨ́̾̒͆̇͆ͪ̍͞ͅ
A̛̳͔͚͔̤͓̲͎̹͕͍ͧͭ̿̽̒ͨ̀͘Ǎ̵̢̩̻̠̜̠̙̱̟͓̼ͥ̄͐͊ͫ͗̃̂ͬ̽͌̑̐̆̕͠͞A̴̤̪͉̹̙̼̲̪̜̲̦̖̠̫͈͓̻̿͛͛̒́͜͠͠ͅĄ̼͚͈̝͎̤͈̊̋̃ͨ̎̉̅͛ͮ̾̀͠R̸̡͛̾ͯ̂̈̃̈́̅̃̈́͏̮̝̟̲͇̼̩̠͇̗͉̭Ŗ̡͍̝̳̰̭̻̩̥̻͓̩̺̫̮̭̖̐̃̑̇̎ͯͫ̔̍̅̏͗̕͢G͑͛͌̑͊̈ͧ̒̚҉͍̫͍́Ǵ̴̨̩̭̼̦̓̒̔͛̏ͤ̉͊͛͌̿̂͐̎̐̍͘͢͜Ḣ̨̧͈͉̻͕̮̣͖̤̰͕͍̝̬̩ͬͣͤ̄̋̑ͪ̎͒́͊ͤͦḤ̙̝͔͍͙̹̱̙̩̖̥̭̳̽ͭͭ̌͛̎̇̂̈̔̏̈́̿̇ͨͥ͗̌̀͜͜ͅͅḨ̴̶̼͇͕͓̙̥͙͍̥̑̑ͤ̍͆ͣ̔̿͊̔ͭ͂͗́̔ͥ͋͜Ḩ̬͖̭̳̘͑͛́͐́̑͒͊̉̈́͗ͨ̽̂͘͡͠!̸̢̜͙̥̣̝̣̭̮̲̳̠̥̫̻͕̠̯̾ͫ̅ͫ̑ͪͭͩ͋̑ͣ̔̃ͨ̃͜!̛͔̙̘̙͓̠͕̺̺̭̟̺̥͖͚͚̹͉̂̄̋͒̈ͪ̆͗̂̐̏̈́̈́̒́͜!ͬͥ͌̍̉ͣ̐҉̶̴̡̟̫̖̰̳̻͉̹̲͖͓͡
Anyone else getting told to turn off their adblockers? Mine’s disabled here but that doesn’t seem to stop this shiny red bar from appearing.
Edit: Reported it.
I did on Lifehacker. I don’t use an adblocker at work
It was coming up a while ago on my home computer but I don’t have any adblock at all.
Yeah, but I ain’t. The red bar can go sit on a cactus.
I’m one of those writers the red bar is talking about :p
If I gave you the $5 my visiting here generates would all be okay? 😛
I turned it off, I had no idea they did away with the blinding ads, infact I don’t see any ads for outside product, that’s different.
It’s probably closer to $0.005 but I do like moneys :p
If I turn my adblocker off then the ad system starts playing giant fucking flash ads at me that slow my machine to a crawl if I have 2-3 Kotaku tabs open at once. 🙁
So I pre-ordered XCOM 2 deluxe edition over the weekend… Now to spend the next 2 weeks figuring out the theme of my merry band of resistance fighters.
You’re not planning to murder a bunch of TAYbies through poor strategic choices?
Only the shitty ones that throw a grenade into a wall next to another TAYbie. The rest I’ll keep alive =p
My machine chassis shall volunteer for the glorious battle to retake the Earth, if you’ll require me.
*Techy takes a 90% shot; misses and gets eaten by a snake*
The End.
God the new XCOM game looks to be so punishing with the Alien’s tech improving with your own 0,0
If I miss such an easy shot I deserve to be destroyed and replaced by Tech Knight v2, I never truly die, I just come back as a new model 😛
The machine ressurection ruleset states that you can ressurect in almost any *circumstance.
*except when eaten by an Alien snake.
Backups! 😀
Sigh. I think it’s time for another Enemy Within run.
You make it sound like that’s a bad thing
Why start another Enemy Within run when you can play the new game in 2 weeks :O
Because it’s NOT HERE NOW.
Okay, no, no, you need to do this properly.
Time to quite your job, and start a new game of Long War.
You’re right. I’d been putting it off, but I guess there’s no choice now.
I offer myself as tribute! Praise be unto ColdCamV
Well fuck today. It’s just been downhill since I woke up.
-First up I woke up late so I had to rush to get ready for work.-Then I realised I forgot to take my work shirt out of the washing machine last night, so I had to wear my other one which is smaller & isn’t comfortable to wear.
-Saw the sad news about Glenn Frey of the Eagles which bummed me out.
-Then I forgot my name badge.
-When I got to work, I got told off for how I left things last night, which I explained why it happened to which our acting manager said I wasn’t at fault and he would have a word to the other bloke who did it to me.
-Then several customers decided to be rude to me for my my happy nature toward them, it seemed to upset them so then they had a go at me for not having my name badge.
-Also the bloke I was working with today informed me someone yesterday saw me & the other guy doing nothing and were going to report us to head office and have our jobs taken away, which is strange cause I worked with him for maybe half an hour in total yesterday, of which I was filling shelves.
-Then after I finish work, I get a call from dad telling me the car won’t start and it had to do such somewhere other than home. It appears to be either; the crank angle sensor or the fuel pump (since that wasn’t initiating when the motor turned over.) (it’s gonna cost me at least $250 if it is the crank angle sensor, probably $350-400 if it’s also the fuel pump as well)
-So we got that towed to the mechanics ($88 later for a 2 minute trip)
At least today is pay so that’s nice.
Damn dood. Shitty day indeed. Mine wasn’t much better. I left for work feeling regular level of crappy, only to be overcome by a boiling blood feeling and a weird feeling I can only describe as a combination of nervousness and dizziness. Got to work drenched in sweat, and my boss took one look at me and said “What the hell are doing here? Looks like you just jumped out of a pool or something.”
I told her I was feeling ok-ish when I left home etc, and then her and the engineers team leader started fretting about, and organized for my boss and one of the engineers to drive me to the hospital.
Not my best day all!
Fucking hell man, any idea what happened? If someone started freaking out at work cause I was sweating i’d all “it’s normal when I wear polyester & closed shoes” haha
It’s happened before about 4 times, but I was either at work, or at home at the time, and I’ve never had the feeling I had along with it before. I sweat a lot in summer, but nowhere near this much. It was dripping off me like I was a sponge being wrung out, and combined with that feeling, it was quite disturbing.
First time it’s happened while driving too, but wasn’t sure what could have caused it. By the time the doc got around to seeing me, it was mostly gone too which probably didn’t help much. Entirely likely it’s something to do with my cyst, but won’t really know til they cut it out.
It wasn’t just the sweat though. Clearly I looked more sick than usual by that stage cos they were quite stunned when they saw me.
Shit man, well I hope it goes when they cut it out.
CAKESMITH ATTEMPTS TO WATCH 100 MOVIES HE’S NEVER SEEN IN 2015
The results are in!
At the start of last year I set myself a little challenge. Watch 100 movies in 2015 that I have never seen before. It didn’t matter when it was released, just as long as it was something I had never seen. Sounds simple enough. I ended the year with 101 movies.
I’ve kept a list of what I watched here: http://letterboxd.com/asharples/list/2015-100-movies/
Useless Information (that I find interesting):
Favourite Film: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015)
Least Favourite Film: Harbinger Down (2015)
Longest Film: Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy (240mins)
Shortest Film: Harbinger Down (82mins)
36 movies watched at a cinema. 65 movies watched at home.
Top 5 Films 2015
1. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
2. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
3. Inside Out
4. Room
5. Mad Max: Fury Road
Honourable Mentions (4.5+ stars): ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’, ‘Bridge of Spies’, ‘The Martian’, ‘Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation’, ‘Birdman’, ‘Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter’, ‘It Follows’, ‘Sicario’
Worst 5 Films 2015
1. Harbinger Down
2. Taken 3
3. Unity
4. Terminator Genysis
5. Fifty Shades of Grey
Dishonourable Mentions (1.5- stars): ‘The Lazarus Effect’, ‘Pixels’, ‘Fantastic Four’
I also kept a track of every film I watched (included movies I’d seen before): http://letterboxd.com/asharples/films/diary/year/2015/
Here are some fun stats (I like stats, okay…) about that:
Total films watched: 163
Hours watched: 309.7
Monthly Film Average: 13.6
Weekly Film Average: 3.1
Liked 132/163 films
Films by day:
Monday: 15, Tuesday: 15, Wednesday: 13, Thursday: 23, Friday: 14, Saturday: 47, Sunday: 36
Most popular week: Jan 29 – Feb 4 (8 films)
First film: Frank (2014)
Last film: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
Top Genres:
Action (64), Thriller (58), Drama (56) (sorry @alexpants), Adventure (54), Science Fiction (41), Comedy (38), Horror (31), Fantasy (25), Mystery (21), Crime (20)
57.1% of the films were released in 2015 (based on US release date).
38% were films I’d never seen before.
Most watched actor: Stan Lee (6) – Thanks MCU
Most watched director: Steven Spielberg (5)
Most watched film: Star Wars: The Force Awakens (5) – I’ve now seen it 6 times, but only 5 in 2015.
I have a question.
Why was Last Crusade on your list?
Follow up question.
Why was it not at least in the honourable mentions?
Because I’d seen it before and that only counted movies that I had not.
So it shouldn’t’ve been counted as the last film?
Also, my spellcheck is telling me that shouldn’t’ve is not a word. Bollocks to that.
It was the last film I watched in 2015. The last “new” film was “The Good Dinosaur”. I’d edit that in but I’m scared it will throw it into moderation again.
I think you might be looking for “shouldn’t have” =P
That’s not a word.
Compound contractions are perfectly cromulent.
So, what I’m getting from this is if I wanted to see a terrible movie I should watch Harbinger Down, because at least it’s short? 😛
Correct. I nearly turned it off. I can’t remember the last time I turned a movie off because it was bad.
I’ve decided to sign up for that site and keep my own movie diary. I’m setting a relatively modest goal of fifty movies I haven’t seen before, given that it’s already January 20th and I’ve only watched 4 movies this year, all of them rewatches.
I need to get on this.
Weird my hourly rate went up $0.40/hr the last 2 weeks I just noticed. Awesome though \o/
Adjusted for CPI? usually around 2-3%?
Maybe, not really sure to be honest.
I’m totally spamming it up, so deal with it 😛
Just bought a new collar & harness for Chilli online cause a) she needs said things & b) my favourite online pet accessory retailer was having a 15% sale off those things.
Funny thing is they’re already the cheapest on the brand I was buying (EzyDog) cheaper than the actual company too ha & they’re a family owned company that’s sort of local (an hour or so up the road) so even better. Plus their postage rates are easily the best i’ve come across as well for pet items $5 for upto 3KG nationwide, free if you spend $150 or more.
Was supposed to catch up with a friend and his girlfriend this afternoon, but she woke up sick today. Been trying to catch up for ages, since we haven’t seen each other since seeing Avenue Q mid last year.
He and I still met up though, and we went and saw The Revenant. God damn that was brutal. And gruelling. And strangely similar-feeling to Hateful Eight, though without any of the lightheartedness to balance things out. Or an intermission 😛
Twitter is borked tonight.
Hello TAY!
I have no problems with Twitter…
Hello CookingMama, how’s my third* favourite SydneySider going?
*This is a made up number
Very good. Hoping I’ll get out and see you and the other canberrans on Sunday at some point.
Oh, I was talking about Batboy. 😛
In all seriousness, I really need to solidify my weekend plan, since all I’ve done thus far is look at the calendar and think “yup, sure is a coupla days.”
Hehe
Batboy did great at his swimming lesson today – I was a very proud mama!
I’m not on twitter, am I missing anything?
(Genuine question, not being a “I’m too cool for social media” thing)
Incoming tweets *seem* ok, but I’m getting errors on outgoing tweets and my DMs aren’t loading at all.
You weren’t alone. Tweetdeck crapped out on me for a min, and when I tried loading twitter through chrome, it said there was a technical error.
Only seemed to last a min or two though, then went back to normal for me.
Too hot, and I’m losing interest in a lot of things I used to enjoy… 🙁
I know that feeling all too well. When it gets super hot up here for days on end, everything seems meh..
Pro: Going to NYC and Hawaii in June/July this year
Con: Not sure where my passport is, and I’m fairly sure my ESTA application from the last time I was in America has expired, so I need to fill in a shit-ton of paperwork again.
got some awesome news the other day! Missus just got a job teaching kindergarten! this will bethe first time in the 6 years weve been married were we’ll have the luxury of a second income.
the first 3 years after we got married she was finishing off her bachelors in education P-12, ended up finishing with high distinctions, year 4 she spent job hunting unsuccessfully, barely getting to the interview stage (only got 2 interviews). major blow to her self esteem; year 5 decided she wanted to teach kindergarten and spent it studying.
so she finished mid december, started applying for jobs end of december, and was swamped with interview requests. she got offered this job a week and a half ago, but the pay was abysmal, so we decided together that she reject it, considering she had a heap of interviews queued up.
it was a risky move, but they obviously really wanted her cause they were hounding her for 4 days, till they were willing to consider her salary expectations.
it will be nice for the first time in our lives to not have to struggle with finances, barely scraping through each month. for the first time in our lives we can actually start saving for our own house, and finally go on a holiday…
my car, a 2006 MG ZT 190, has been sitting in a garage for about 4 years because we couldnt afford to fix it, and ive been driving a beaten up 1989 MX5 which has massive ammounts of paint peeled off and has been hit from the rear, left, and right sides. cant even see through my rear window as it has completely blackened and torn.
hopefully this year turns around for us!
Congratulations, we have been trying to land a full time teaching gig for three years now, so that is indeed cause for celebration, it isn’t easy to get!
yeah so you know exactly what its like man… 🙁
teaching jobs are very scarce. when you consider how many jobs pop up, and how many thousands of new teachers graduate mid year and end year, it is insane. it wouldnt be a far stretch to say that with each opening thered be about 100 applicants at the least
Oh easily, and so many schools are moving from permanent positions to casual ones, and the new requirements for accreditation require at least a 10 week block, which is proving near impossible to get. Cutting the Gonski funding isn’t going to make it better either, class sizes are already well over 30 around here.. saves on teachers to have bigger classes.
*sigh*.
not wrong there. wish you guys all the best with it all. if you guys were considering kindergarten there are a lot more positions available. being early childhood, there is a class limit of 11 students per teacher…
Weird, all the kindy classes here are 23 and up, and just one teacher.
huh, maybe i got it wrong? i can ask the missus, she obviously knows a lot more about it then i do
EDIT *** DOUBLE POST SOMEHOW ***
Yeah, but worth repeating.
Over on Lifehacker, this is a good article for those of you who keep telling us how hard you find cooking:
http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2016/01/how-i-conquered-my-fear-of-cooking-and-got-comfortable-in-the-kitchen/
I started cooking at such a young age, which I thought I was pretty common, then I found out like no one I knew in school knew how to cook & even a lot I went to TAFE with. They liked to survive on toast, bacon & mcdonalds. They also didn’t like to eat healthy, or at least try vegetables other than potatoes which had to be in the form of either hot chips or potato chips like smiths, pringles or whatever. Also water was a big no-no to them, only coke or cordial.
If you ask me knowing how to cook is awesome, you can do so much! Also you get to eat the tasty tasty result 😛
Edit: I remember at a BBQ my mates were having one time I did burgers, snags & chicken breast on skewers marinated in satay. A) they couldn’t believe how easy everything I was doing was & B) they couldn’t believe how good everything tasted. All I used was top side beef mince I got from my local butcher (cooked on the grill side gives a great flamed grilled taste and lets the fat drip off), fresh made chicken & beef snags from the same butcher & skinless chicken breast which I used the Masterfoods bottle of satay marinade on. None of it was hard. But I’ve been cooking for uh.. 15 years I think? So more than half my life.
I agree, I grew up in a big family (5 kids) and we all learnt how to cook something, mostly out of necessity. My mum taught herself to cook, and passed that onto us. So by 12 I could cook a basic spaghetti for dinner (pasta, mince, sauce, salad), or how to make porridge or scrambled eggs for breakfast. The hardest thing I had to learn was to cook for 2! I still find it easier to cook for a crowd. My little brother was into food styling at 2 – he’d run outside to pick herbs and flowers to decorate the bowl of sour cream.
One of my favourite things is cooking at my friend’s house. She has a wonderful vegie garden, so I love raiding it (esp at this time of year) for eggplants, tomatoes and green beans, and cooking up a dinner from super fresh ingredients. She doesn’t mind either – she has 4 kids of her own and loves the chance to put her feet up.
It’s definitely a skill worth having 🙂
That’s how it should be if you ask me! Everyone eats, so everyone should know how to make basic tasty good foods to survive!
Fresh eggplant (especially the oriental ones) are great in so many dishes. I usually like to add fine grated carrot, zucchini & cut up eggplant to spaghetti bolognese.
I LOVE Teriyaki or Miso marinated eggplant. It’s best if it’s slowly roasted until it’s a bit char on the outside, and super soft on the inside. So. Good.
Reminds me I haven’t had it with garlic, lemon juice & olive oil in aaaaaages, which is awesome when done on the grill. Probably because we only just got around to installing a few eggplant plants the other week 😛
Tell me more about miso-marinated eggplant. That sounds awesome.
http://www.sbs.com.au/food/recipes/miso-grilled-eggplant-dengaku-nasu
It works well as a slow-roast in the oven, or on the bbq. Just keep an eye on the miso that it doens’t burn.
I reckon the first thing I learned to cook was an Omelette. Used to cook them on Sunday nights.
I think it’s always easier to cook for a group rather than for an individual or couple. Easier to scale a recipe up than it is to scale it down. I think?
Definitely. Also, cheaper!
That’s for sure! Having to readjust to cooking for 1… At least you can buy single chicken breasts from the deli these days.
My freezer becomes my best friend when I have to cook for myself.
Yeah, my mum was a home ec teacher so I was never not going to cook.
It was me and my brother’s responsibility to cook on monday nights when we were teenagers, and lessons were learned. He once famously tried to fry chicken without oil and dear god the smoke
Probably the biggest thing I learned once I started cooking for myself was that recipes knew better than I did/do and I should follow them to the letter 😛
So much “Oh, I probably won’t need that ingredient!” that ended up in a “why didn’t this turn out the way I thought it would!?” 😛 I try not to add/remove anything from a recipe until I’ve cooked it properly first nowadays.
That’s a good approach. Once you know which ingredients are structural (like eggs for binding or cornflour for thickening) and which are just flavouring (like chilli or garlic) then you know what you can mess with or substitute.
Next meat at your place I PROMISE that I’ll teach you how to cook something awesome. Like chilli, or okonomiyaki, or katsudon
*makes mental note to attend next meat*
WHEN CAN YOU COME OVER
When @dc decides to visit and stay at your place 😉
i LOVE cooking….
…and my missus hates cleaning after i cook…
If I had a dishwasher I would be like 80% more motivated to cook. I HATE doing dishes.
trust me, from a person who owns opne, its a bigger hassle to load and unload the dishwasher than just washing them urself…
You missed the bit where I HATE doing dishes.
We were latchkey kids as Mum used to work arvo shift so we all had to cook from a younger age. It really isn’t that hard but I think one of the things that article is good it explaining why it is hard and scary.
Although it still astounds me when people will have no trouble with chucking on a BBQ and doing some chops or steak but ask them to do the same thing on a stove with a griddle pan and suddenly it is the hardest thing in the world.
*looks down at empty plate* This doesn’t look so appetising.
I got a message from my parents on Monday saying they wouldn’t be back til Wednesday, instead of Tuesday. Then yesterday I got a call saying they won’t be back til tomorrow instead. Beginning to wonder if I’ll ever see them again at this rate 😛
Fridge is getting pretty bare (will need to go out and get some juice and milk this afternoon), but luckily I’ve ended up out the last two nights, and I think I still have two slices of frozen pizza left for tonight. And if they decide to not come back til Friday, I’m out tomorrow night as well. Home safe!
I’m an average cook but I like to experiment every now and then. It’s mostly unsuccessful but at least I learn what not to do. 😛
My main thing with cooking is that I’m pretty lazy so I’ll default to stuff I know how to cook versus trying complex recipes. Still haven’t ever really gotten into baking for the same reason.
Baking is the one area I never really touch. I’ve done savoury muffins and some ginger biscuits, but I’m not a big cake eater so I’ve never ventured down that road
Dad always did all the cooking at home and I learnt from him; mum hates cooking, and I don’t know if that’s always been the case or if she just got out of the habit over 30 years. In the years after dad died, I kept on trying to pass on the easiest recipes that I came across to mum. So, in the spirit of easy cooking: Tuna Curry
1x Medium Tin (200g?) Tuna
1x Tin (400g?) Diced Tomatos
1x Large (or 2x small-medium) Brown Onion
2 cloves garlic
1tsp Tumeric
1tsp Caraway Seeds
0.5tsp Cayenne Pepper (or, chilli to taste)
2Tbsp Cooking Oil (olive, vegetable, canola, whatever strikes your fancy)
1. Heat oil in large saucepan
2. Add onion, garlic, tumeric, caraway seeds and chilli
3. Fry until onion is soft and semi transparent
4. Add tuna and tomato
5. Bring to the boil
6. Serve with naan or rice, or whatever!
Instead of the caraway seeds, next time try cumin seed, fennel seed or a mixture of both. Some mustard seed would be good in there too 🙂
Yeah, they are :). I’ve added cumin, coriander and star anise to this recipe in the past. But it’s a winner for having 7 ingredients, costing around $4 and taking 15 minutes.
Definitely!! My similar “we’re broke” recipe uses pretty much the same ingredients, but instead of tuna, it has potatoes and frozen spinach. 🙂
Bought a Weber a few months ago, so I’m in the process of discovering just how many things I can do by adding spices and fire. Did a rack of ribs the other night, texas BBQ meat rub, smoked them with maple chips for 2 hours, let them rest for 30 minutes, drowned them in BBQ rib sauce and put them back in (without the smoker) for another half hour. Like @Virus said up top, people are amazed at how easy a lot of this stuff is, considering the result, and it seems that we’re all like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
I don’t make curry /without/ cumin. Essential spice in my books. Actually I tend to use cumin in lots of things. I love cumin.
paprika, garam masala, oregano are my top 3!
Technically most indian-style garam masala contains cumin.
My Mum taught me to cook (she’s self-taught herself but is very good) from when I was pretty young. I generally prefer baking to cooking – recipes are more precise and come out well if you follow them correctly. My biggest issue is that when I’m cooking for just myself a lot of the time I simply can’t be bothered.
Taybies! So I talked myself out of getting Civ5 during the Steam sale…
… and it turned out to be a super-good decision! The current HumbleBundle is pretty fantastic – $8.25 for Civ3, Civ4 AND Civ5, + Xcom: EU AND EW.
Speaking of, would anyone like a CD Key for Xcom: Enemy Unknown?
Holy hell that is an awesome bundle
I know right! I’ve been pretty tempted by the last few, but was so determined to stick to my ‘no new games until I clean out the Steam backlog’ resolution…
… turns out, my willpower lasted all of 20 days. But CIVILIZATION V HYPE!
got my copy of CIV 5 i think a year or two ago for free just for voting for some games on the pc gamer awards thingy
EDIT: just remembered, it was the Golden Joysticks awards thing that was run with Green Man Gaming in October 2013
You lucky bastard! I have been keeping an eye out for Civ5 for maybe 6 months, this is the first time it’s been available for under $20. I am suitably excited.
Who has time for EU when XCOM 2 is so close!?!!?!
Unless you’re playing Long War (in which case… may God have mercy on your soul), you could comfortably fit in a couple of playthroughs between now and when XCOM2 drops.
But yes… XCOM2 needs all the hype.
Sure, I wouldn’t mind if it’s still going!
We have a winner! Shoot me an email at
redactedand I’ll send you the key.Just be sure not to install the long war mod… I don’t think @cookingmama will forgive me once it takes over your life.
So PS4 owners 2 questions. Anyone had the disc ejecting problem? My console is currently bugged by it, can’t get more than 15 minutes of gameplay done before my game pops out. Going to send it to Sony to get it fixed. Has anyone had any issues getting their console fixed/replaced?
Nope, haven’t had a single issue in the 2 years i’ve had mine. That sounds really frustrating though :/ I hope it’s still under warranty!
Hey @batguy – didn’t our one do a weird ejecting thing? I think there was a simple fix but can’t remember.
It did but it was just a random event that didn’t happen again. There’s wider-spread issues with things pressing too close together in the case, and removing bits of rubber can fix it – but that’s only worthwhile attempting out of warranty (which is apparently not the case here)
how long have you had it for?
6 months
id take it back to the retailer. pretty sure they should be replacing for you on the spot for first 12 months. I returned mine to target after 10 months and got a newy
Yeah, try taking it back to the shop and getting a swap out.
Seconding the call to take it back to the retailer. If you’re not using cloud saves and have a USB hard drive handy, you can transfer all your saves over to it through the storage utility in the system menu, which should be pretty painless. Not sure how long is reasonable for a repair, but if you ask how long it’s likely to take, you could suggest that you’d prefer a replacement instead.
Sorry, never had that issue, tho it happened to a couple of friends. Something about the eject button’s connections shorting against the chassis, iirc. It should still be under warranty under ACL (as far as I’m aware), so if it’s as consistent as it sounds, you should (*crosses fingers*) have no issues getting it fixed.
Yes. Drove me nuts.
Don’t send it to Sony until you have tried to tighten the optical drive screw.
Some instructions here: http://www.geek.com/games/how-to-save-your-ps4-from-the-auto-eject-disc-bug-1600574/
I did those a year ago and it’s been fine since.
So after a night of horsing around and talking absolute crap about 40K, it seems we are setting ourselves up to play an Imperial Guard mecha game with some totally-not-stolen-Tau battlesuits.
I expect this to happen a lot.
403 Forbidden
nginx
is all I see at that link.
Odd. The link’s working for me.
Does this work for you?
lol that looks like a Necron version of a Dreadnought xD
If we’re going to be heretical, might as well go the whole way. 😛
I’ll just call that a Deathnought 😛
Same problem as poita; the second link works though!
Works in Chrome, but not Firefox, weird.
Which is bizarre because I’m on Firefox and it works for me. Very weird.
So, Black Mesa is an absolute blast, and I’d thoroughly recommend it for all you poor saps that somehow never played through the original Half Life (not naming any names…. @scree).
I’m normally a ‘play it through once and then move on’ kind of guy with linear games like HL/HL2 – I like unraveling the story, and if it’s a really good game I might go back and replay it on a higher difficulty or something, but that joy of first finding out what happens is the real draw for games like that. That being said, HL2 is possibly my favourite game of all time (that title can’t really be decided until it can have a fight-to-the-death with MoO2). I have played it through at least once a year since it came out… and because it was just so damn good, the original HL kind of fell by the wayside despite being a quite excellent game.
Anyway, Black Mesa has reminded me just how good the original was. The gameplay is still great, the level design fantastic, but what really struck me was the sound design. The music is just so well done – walking in on an awesome new area and having that awe-inspiring music kick in was incredible.
So yeah, Black Mesa. Easy 5/7, great update on the original. It’s a shame they haven’t added the Xen endgame section yet, but that was easily the weakest part of the first game so I’m happy they are trying to improve it instead of just straight porting it over.
That’ll be the hardest thing to pull off well because of the “vastness of the void” setting that Xen had, try putting that together without it looking sloppy. With the rest, it’s all enclosed in walls and usually a ceiling (With the exception of the cliff face section) which makes it easier to do
I feel burnt out by video games in general at the moment.
It’s just like there’s too many releases, too little quality games, and not enoygh time to get into them.
Maybe it’s just me… :/
Your tastes are changing and you haven’t found another game that can capture your attention like games used to?
Just getting older: you start to notice how iterative everything is. Nothing will give you the thrill things used to because nothing will be as new to you as when you were a kid.
Just one of those things.
Play fewer games – just the ones you really care about and branch your spare time out to other, new things.
One of the few games I’ve genuinely enjoyed playing recently is Floating Point.
You’re a square block that has to fling to these pillars that get taller as you move faster.
You move faster by clicking on blocks and letting yourself get flung.
If you hit a block, the pillars become tiny and you have to start flinging yourself to try and get faster and get the pillars as quickly as possible.
It’s on Steam, it’s completely free, and it’s amazing.
There sure is a fuck of a lot more out there than I have the time to really savour. I’m looking at maybe 4hrs of free time per night, and I take up way too much of that in connecting with friends/family, cooking dinner, and watching mah stories.
sounds like you need a filler game…. sounds like you need…. minecraft!
I already have Terraria, and from I’ve played of Minecraft, it’s pretty much shit.
http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/2013/08/crazy-talk.gif
jokes aside as much as i love teraria, it just cant compete!
Fuck the endless AAA treadmill and fuck your pile of shame. You need to re-center yourself. Go find a game you’ve always enjoyed and re-play it. It’s the only way I’ve found to clear that sense of ennui.
I’ve seriously been thinking about ditching the release cycle this year entirely, maybe doing a @transientmind and only buying a couple of new games.
This year is actually a pretty good year though! There’s a few I’m definitely getting and quite a few I’m interested in following and deciding post release.
Yeah?
I know of maybe two AAA games I’m interested in.
XCOM 2? Fire Emblem? Far Cry Primal? The Division? Uncharted 4? Total War Warhammer? Ratchet & Clank?
Edit: That’s just for the next 3 month’s, there’s plenty more for the rest of the year that haven’t been confirmed! I think Mass Effect was due this year along with Persona 5?
I don’t know I’d consider Fire Emblem to be AAA.
Stuff on my radar:
– Deus Ex
– Uncharted 4
– Quantum Break unless it turns out to be shit.
– Fire Emblem Fates
– Bravely Second
– Odin Sphere remake
– Senran Kagura: Estival Versus
– Trails of Cold Steel II if I ever get around to the first one
– Maybe FF XV – I didn’t like the demo and am uninterested in the details known so far
– Maybe Zelda WiiU – depends on if it comes out and if it’s a proper game without stupid gimmicks and actively anti-fun design like Skyward Sword.
– Maybe SMT x Fire Emblem – depends on how it’s localized
– Maybe The Last Guardian, if it releases (lol)
If Mass Effect Andromeda is this year it’s news to me but that’s another maybe for me. The trajectory that series and Bioware as a studio is on ain’t great and the stuff they’ve showed and talked about left me less interested than I had been. If it’s as fucking boring as Dragon Age Inquisition was then it’s definitely not going to be a high priority.
I’ve got Xenoblade X, Trails of Cold Steel, Trails in the Sky SC and Rise of the Tomb Raider all sitting here waiting for me but honestly the biggest gaming time-sink for me recently has been World of Warships. Now that I’m set up with my desktop again I’ve gotten back into it and still loving it even though I’m super shit at it.
Yeah I’m wary of the next Mass Effect; the new BioWare have been less than stellar.
That said very keen for Persona 5; surprised it’s not on your list?
I don’t enjoy Persona much. They’re far too stressful for me to like playing them. The time management mechanic is a massive chore and my OCD sets in and I want to optimize it and that just ends up making things completely unfun and far too stressful. I always feel like I’m playing it wrong and constantly making mistakes.
EDIT: Persona’s also way too much of a time investment and I find the dungeon crawling to be frustratingly pedestrian.
When I play a game especially a RPG I want to wring the maximum possible amount out of it in a single run through because I’ll never re-play it and i hate thinking I’ve missed content.
I’m also currently a bit sick of throwing money at JRPGs only for them to either turn out to be mediocre pieces of shit or for me to simply not have the interest in investing the time in them. I’m sick of getting one and finding it’s got a shit localization or they’ve pulled out features I wanted or whatnot which has happened a ton recently.
Yeah, just played through the original Halo with my daughter recently (as in found the old xbox disc) and it was an absolute blast. Reminded me how much fun I used to have gaming.
Also, split-screen is the frigging best.
They fucked up badly by dropping split-screen from Halo 5 IMO.
So, Star Wars: Saga Edition RPG. Getting ready to start a campaign where the players will start in the Corellian slums just toward the end of the Empire’s reign and have to deal with the power vacuum created after the Battle of Endor. Should be interesting. First order of business: swoop gangs.
I always thought it was hilarious that for a planet that produced any number of professional gamblers, the Corellian “hat” in the EU was that they ignored the odds.
Except for Wedge Antilles.
I would’ve described Corellia’s “hat” as “substitute Earth”.
Shipyards and smugglers and gamblers and salonians and criminals and isolationism. Also a weird space station but eh.
That was d20 Star Wars right? Not the older d6-based one?
I always wanted to try that edition.
Yeah, that’s the one. I think that WotC was the publisher, but they let the Star Wars license lapse, so it might be hard to track down now. The ‘official’ RPG is from FFG now
https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/star-wars-edge-of-the-empire/
Yeah I have FFG’s stuff but I’m not 100% sold on it for various reasons.
I quite like Saga Edition – maybe you should acquire a “student copy” of the core book. I plan on posting session summaries here on TAY every couple of weeks. Depends on how much time I can bludge on a Monday morning.
Dangit. Almost went to leave, then I remembered I got in late this morning. Should *probably* stick around for a little longer. Maybe.
It’s a trap!
I used to feel guilty if left early, but then I remembered I work unpaid overtime all the freaking time.
I don’t. And am pretty slack throughout the day (as evidenced by my constant posting on things, and often near the top of articles too). So there’s no shrugging off that guilt 😛
Sydney TAYbie Dinner in Newtown Sunday Night. Meet at 6pm in front of Thai La Ong on King St. Hopefully we can get some tables in Thai La Ong for cheap, cheerful Thai (otherwise there are plenty of other options depending on numbers)
Then mosey on somewhere nearby for drinks after (let’s say from 8pm for those who can’t do dinner)
Tagging:
@35 @alexpants @anonymous_pessimist @batgirl @batguy @cakesmith @cffndncr @cj @cookingmama @dkzeitgeist @doc_what @effluvium-boy @fatshadylive @gingerchris86 @gorzilla @harli @hugo_the_hungarian_barbarian @mawt @morkai @markserrels @mrtaco @novacascade @powalen @pupp3tmast3r @ruffleberg @shiggyninty @trjn @rize @freyaWorks for me. I recommend Earls Juke Joint and I’ve been meaning to check out the continental (soup can martinis!)
Oo uncle hops is also great!!
o/
One day I will come to another Syd Meat. But not this one 🙁
Come on, mate.
I need more ‘berg in my life.
I think I’m supposed to be away this weekend, so am just a maybe while waiting on details to come through.
I have a sneaking suspicion that I have something on that night… but hopefully I don’t. I may just bail on whatever it is to come anyway!
The Bank is probably the easiest place for drinks. Right next to the station and they have a good sized beer garden.
Thats where Uncle Hops is, but upstairs.
I’ll be there!
Shit.
I’m out.
Anton and I might be able to make this. depending on how and what the families are doing. more for the after drinks than anything else
Sorry I won’t be able to make it due to work 🙁
I should be able to make it!
So turned out it was just the fuel pump that died in the car. But jeez, for a car as common as the VX Commodore is I was not expecting just the fuel pump to be $380 with labour. Then again it seems Holden charge $180+ for a genuine one, assuming the mechanic used genuine Holden or went for an after market branded one. Oh well, that’s that sorted I guess.
Holden parts are not cheap ever.
Holden servicing is even less cheap.
When i first got my commodore i took it to the dealer to replace the battery that was giving me some grief. I was 17 and hadnt ever touched a car so i thought it was the best option. The fuckers charged me $500 for a battery change. Luckily since i have learned enough to do easy servicing myself.
We just went to a local mechanic, not even Holden. Would hate to think what they’d wanna charge. $500 for a battery, wow fuck that man. A good battery is under $100 for the damn things, I can’t see how they can justify the rest. Maybe $150 in total including labour.
Yeah I hear you there, we recently just did the spark plugs, air/oil/fuel filter & oil cost me $115 in total for parts and an hour or so to do it all. Not too bad I thought.
Ha, I’m in the RAA so when I had a battery issue I just called them and they replaced it for the cost of the battery… and under normal cost for that!
Of course, I’ve been an RAA member for a decade, so…
Ha!
Reminds me I was chatting to one of the guys who works at the fruit & vege shop in the centre I work in this morning, he was telling me cost him $250 to have the RACQ come out to him when his car broke down just to have a look to see what was wrong.. Ouch.
Dunno how it works out there, but mine was part of my membership. Guy you were talking to may not have been one?
Anyway, dude came out to my driveway at like 9pm, diagnosed the issue, replaced the battery and took payment on the spot for pretty much parts only. Good times.
Yeah, I don’t think so since he broke down in QLD & lives here in NSW. But they couldn’t even diagnose the problem which sucked even more for him.
some of those orgs have a reciprocal arrangement, I know my parents got serviced in QLD when we broke down on Cape York
Yeah, I know the RACV works when you’re stranded in NSW, since that happened to a friend of mine from Victoria. I think they all do honestly, just you have to be a member to have that advantage obviously 😛
FWIW that is cheap. I remember my Mum having the fuel pump in her Volvo die on her and that was something like $800 to fix.
Fuck that. Makes you wonder how they can justify such prices..
Stuff just costs money. Light vehicle mechanics are possibly the lowest paid trade and a manager of a workshop I knew admitted he was making minimal profit.
You’re paying for labour and knowledge and most of it gets sunk into the many costs of running a business.
Some of them are totally there to rip you off however.
Not gonna disagree there, but with some cases stuff branded “genuine Holden” or “genuine Ford” a lot of the time can be & will be identical to one of the after market brands that’s anywhere upto like 75% cheaper, because that mob is supplying Holden, Ford whoever with the parts. I’ve come across that a lot over the years with brands like Honda, Toyota, Ford, Isuzu. Also sometimes the non-genuine stuff is a better quality thing & will last longer.
Yeah some mechanics are just there to rip you off. I’ve seen that, hell we even experienced it. Needless to say we only went there the one time.
Sometimes you want to make sure that genuine parts are going in though. Warranties and stuff.
Well if the parts are produced in Sweden or something and then shipped to AU that makes it more expensive.
Also depending on the design of the engine, replacing certain parts like a fuel pump might be a 5 minute job or a 5 hour job that involves dismantling half the car.
What we (and the mechanic) originally thought it was going to be was a more labour intensive job than the fuel pump funnily enough, also cheaper, so yeah heh.
European cars are notorious for requiring the half-the-car approach, as far as I understand.
I seriously don’t even have the words right now. Just a massive thank you to all Kotakians who have contributed thus far.
http://gofund.me/f6j6232k
I’ve been working on a kind of thank you rap for a week or so now prior to putting this up, as a more special way of saying thanks than just merely writing, simply to thank everyone for all their kind words and support throughout my battle with this, but now I’m thinking I might have to add a little more, cos damn… all this in one night. I’m just blown away. Don’t expect it to win any aira’s or anything, but it’s about all I can do for now, as with my issues at present, my artistic skills have degraded somewhat due to not being able to keep my body still *STOP TWITCHING LEG!!!* I’ll be sure to post a link in here when I’m done!You got a PayPal account?
yeah. normally I find it a bit hard to just hand out details when people offer things like that, but given the circumstances, I can’t really say no to anything atm!
welbot at polycount dot comEdited to spoilerize it in case of trawlers/spam bots.
Haha, yeah rough times indeed.
I’ll sling a bit your way when I get home.
Many many thanks! x1,000,000!
Ugh. My FIL is going to be staying with us in XCOM2 week, maybe I can move my computer to a spare room and be a hermit for a week?
Nonsense.
Bring him in as a tactical consultant, it will be fun bonding time!
One does not “consult” with my FIL; either you leave a job to him, or you shut him out so you can do the job. He stays with us when he’s back in the area because, quite literally, he’s burnt almost every other bridge with those that’d have him stay with them.
In fact, now that I can think about it – if he were an XCOM operative, he’d break concealment to go and tell the ADVENT troops how to subjugate the population better, because reasons. Every around him would understand that ADVENT doesn’t want his help and are probably offended by his interruption, while he’d take the general silence as a cue that someone hadn’t heard him and go about telling them his opinion again.
@freezespreston @beeawwb @cracks @gingerchris86 How did I miss that these were now a thing http://www.bullypulpitgames.com/games/fiasco/anthology/
Because I am a horrible person and forgot to tell you. I got all three PDFs 😀
You horrible person you. (I might buy the physical vers)
Jet City looks like stupid fun and I don’t know how anyone is supposed to play Nut City without devolving into innuendos after two minutes.
It’s Fiasco, you can turn ANYTHING in to an innuendo
Great.
Just got bitten by a boxelder bug that I was trying to get out of the water bowl.
I wouldn’t have noticed it had Max not been playing with the water. :/
Now the top of my finger is all swollen.
>:|
Next time use the prescribed flamethrower that comes with every household for bug related emergencies!
Edit: Also what Neg said; didn’t know they bite, you sure it was a boxelder bug? They usually just give off a stink.
Yep, it was definitely a boxelder bug.
@pupp3tmaster: some google research suggests they don’t bite per se, but that their mouthparts can pierce human skin as they’re designed to cut through fruit. So they’re not biting to envenom or anything. Probably want to get some antiseptic onto it though.
I didn’t know they could bite.
Crazyguy are you in AU? if so we dont have boxelder bugs (that i know of) we do however provide a nice home to their not-too-distant cousin, Leptocoris Tagalicus (Red Eye Bug).
As far as i know, they are not known to bite?
http://www.brisbaneinsects.com/brisbane_coreidbugs/RedEyesBugs.htm
@transientmind @freezespreston Hey guys; I recall both of you mentioned you had IP forwarding services for region swapping in Netflix, any chance you could refresh my memory as I’ve misplaced the sites/names you gave me last time D=
When I lived in AU I used unblock-us.com
Yeah, what Neg said. Haven’t tested it since the ‘crackdown’ though.
Might want to have a chat with @rocketman – anecdotally he had his service cancelled straight after swapping between US and AU regions.
Are you for real? Netflix actually cracked down on region swapping?
Yes, but not really…?
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jan/19/doubts-cast-on-netflix-plan-to-stop-use-of-vpns-to-get-around-regional-blocking
Yeah that’s what I was saying when they announced it. DNS-based unblockers like Unblock-us would probably be affected, but it’s very, very hard to stop a VPN working in an efficient manner.
Dunno, it’s anecdotal because I only saw Rocket posting about it on Twitter but don’t know the whole circumstance or what actually happened. Better to get it from the rocket-powered-horse’s mouth.
Yeah, I had a quick chat to him on TS, and as he put it, he went to US Netflix to browse their Musical selection, switched back to AU Netflix, and it told him that he needed to renew his subscription.
I use Getflix, still works fine with my PS3/PS4. They also have a VPN service, i’ve not had an issue with them since signing up 6 or so months back.
No matter how many times I just read that, I kept reading it as Getafix, and was like.. wtf does Asterix have to do with any of this? :0
Bahaha.
Getafix was, and still is, a great name for a drug dealer.
technically, in the asterix comics, Getafix IS a drug dealer! \o/
I’ve always thought that he was just handing Asterix and Obelix a bunch of liquid PCP.
‘Here’s a bottle of potion, it was make you super violent and disable the biological safeguards in your muscles, making you seem inhumanely strong! WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG!?’
There’s talk of Netflix combating the use of VPN’s in the coming weeks.
There’s no details yet, but the prevailing theory is that your account will be locked to the region you sign up in.
Which seems crazy but we’ll see.
My advice: don’t sign up for a long-term plan. Netflix have recently announced their intention to crackdown on these services.
This might have been a PR exercise, or it might be real. Either way, best to go monthly until the dust settles and we know what’s happening going forward.
And if worst comes to worst, you can always sail the seven digital seas.
It would be highly amusing to see the resultant news articles:
“Netflix geo-dodging crackdown corresponds with sudden increase in piracy. Industry apologists still confused as to why users refuse to accept regional unfairness, refuse to believe that respect is a two-way street.”
i use anonVPN. Paid $2 US for a lifetime VPN registration as part of some unique limited time deal, been working fine for about 3 months! loving it… 4 Servers in US, 1 in Canada, and 1 Prague. I achieve about 14mbps/0.8mbps whilst running the vpn, as compared to my regular local speeds of 19mbps/1mbps
So I just had this deliveed from a australian website cheaper than any other place on the internet – even international sites!
http://www.manticgames.com/mantic-shop/mantic-scenery-and-terrain/sector/product/battlezones-sci-fi-ruined-sector.html
Needless to say I’m pretty damn excited as this means once i’m done putting it together i should now have a full table for city battles for 40K… I have seriously been slowly working towards this for about 8 years.
Best of it, it technically cost me nothing, as I sold a couple of old citadel hills for $100 because I cant use them on city table.
WINNING!
For reference, this is the Game Mat I’ve got for it all
http://www.blackcultist.com.au/store/images/source/QZone6x4.jpg
Soooooo purdy
I really wish I (or mum & dad for that matter) could enter the Jack Daniels competition we have going at work to win this nifty little Jack Daniels charcoal BBQ/smoker. Especially since there’s one to be won in every BWS store nationwide, catch is you have to buy a Jack Daniels product, whether that is a can of shitty pre-mix or a bottle of their spirits.
Kinda lame that since I work for BWS that my parents, siblings, aunt, uncle, grandparents, first cousins, spouse or ex-spouse cannot enter. I mean I only have mum & dad these days as far as family go. SO yeah. Since I have no cousins, siblings, grandparents or spouse & I haven’t seen any aunt or uncle in 10 or so years..
You buy me a JD and I’ll send you the smoker if I win.
Whatever a smoker is. 🙂
meat smoker no doubt! mmmm smoked meats/fish/cheese *droool*
Yeah. Well that’s what I got from it, given it’s a tall-ish unit which has multiple grill layers & a bottom bit for your smoking chips & heat source. Even though they just call it a BBQ lol.
Can probably be used as both. I’ve seen combined units like that before. Friend of mine in US has one!
Yeah, it has a removable middle section which turns it into a regular BBQ now I realise 😛
Haha. One can of Jack Daniels & zero cola coming up then 😛
That’ll do, I’m not picky.
Hahaha.
Hopefully something like this
Good advertising there! :p I’ll be heading to BWS tomorrow for a bottle of JD. I have no idea what I’d do with the smoker, considering how much I’ve recently invested in a Weber and accessories, but having a dedicated smoker does sound fun.
And JD is currently $42 for a 700ml bottle this week! 😛
It’s actually a Weber one too http://web.jackdaniels.com/au/smokeycooker/form.php
Is $42 good?
The last time I purchased hard liquor would have been in the late 90s.
These days it is. Since Dan Murphy’s are $48 for a 700ml bottle (currently $39.95) and we’re normally $52 for a 700ml of JD. It’s a joke how expensive the stuff is. It always used to be around the high 30’s when I was working at Dan’s a few years back.
If I think that coke tastes weird without whiskey, am I an alcoholic?
Haha. I dunno, i’m not a huge fan of coke & spirits, always made me too thirsty D= I prefer dry ginger ale lol.
Not at all. I have for a long time been of the opinion that Southern Comfort is required to make Coke drinkable. But I don’t even remember the last time I had any 😛
We’re running a two-hour ‘Battle the Devs’ session this Thursday starting at 6pm UTC on the EU server. Ten Valkyrie devs will be online, so join in and prove your piloting skills against us here at CCP Newcastle!
YES YES YES!
Productivity be damned!
Now just waiting for 4.5GB to download over my crappy internet.
Ooooh. I may join you. Because SPACE BATTLES.
Yes. 😀
Went to a mate’s last night and played Commander. Descended in to proper battlecruiser magic, which is fun for a time, but I think I need to put more win conditions in my deck because while I cast a lot of stuff, I still wasn’t close to winning.
Still, it’s a lot of fun casting spells from other people’s decks
Really need to get a commander deck.. but $50…
Plus I’d really need two….
Making one is super fun.
If you’re looking at the latest pre-built ones though, the Green-Blue one is cuckoo bananas good. I have the black white one and it’s fun, steer clear of the Red-White one though as it’s pretty dull
Woke up to news that Rocksmith had its second Megadeath song pack for sale. \o/ Spent time I really should have been having breakfast and a coffee, instead playing the rhythm section for Holy Wars (cos that’s hard enough as it is :P)… Now if only my job didn’t involve typing… my fingertips are still sore.
Division beta next weekend, aaaaand early reports are a 26GB download…through Uplay…
Sigh.
*prays for preload on PS4* Otherwise I won’t actually finish downloading it before it ends…
Edit: *prays for preload on all platforms, cos exclusivity in non-first-party games is bullshit*
I’m happy to let it download overnight on Friday and play it on Saturday. My biggest issue is that with so many games bypassing Steam lately (and with me bypassing Steam more and more due to Steam prices) I’m actually getting very little unmetered content for games these days. My 100GB limit is really not keeping up these days.
I’m happy my steam games are unmetered, but considering the size of PS4 game patches these days, I’m extremely glad I my quota got increased. Doesn’t help bandwidth any, tho I may have been a little melodramatic… sans preload I should still get to start playing on the Saturday afternoon.
At least you got into the beta…
They’re apparently releasing keys leading all the way up to the weekend.
I’m still going to complain about it until I get a code… 😛
Sticking around all day today, so actually going out for lunch for once. With Pizza Thief. Gotta be all sneaky-like, so as to not let anyone think we’re going together 😛
…but don’t look like you’re being sneaky…
…but be sneaky…
…but don’t look like it…
Am I helping? 🙂
Silent Running activated!
…just watch your heat levels! 😉
Heat sink deployed? o.O
Nearly posted in the latest Sarkeesian article. Caught myself just in time. But I thought I’d share something here, in this safer environment and gauge response. Little Thursday Thought-bubble.
Metal Gear Solid V:
People who claim that the problem of exploitative female butts is old and is in the process of resolving itself have clearly not played Metal Gear Solid V. I love the game, but if I want to utilise the skills of crackshot Quiet, I am forced to have her near-naked body in unusual softcore poses right there in the frame when I’m trying to do admin work on the chopper. I feel – but I don’t know how accurate this is – that the game has imposed unnecessarily lengthy loading screens for the iDroid just to ensure that I don’t miss whatever weird pose she’s striking now.I swear, if the game gave me the opportunity to research a big bulky greatcoat for her that let her skin breathe (ugh for this ridiculous and transparently exploitative attribute), I’d devote everything I’ve collected so far to develop it. It genuinely makes me uncomfortable – even more than the insanely exploitative Beauties in MGS 4. (Though this could be me and my hang-ups as much as anything else, scenes featuring these characters make me feel a little shame for even having them on the screen.)I know the series has always had an issue with gender representation, but I feel like it’s gotten worse over the course of the series, which is kind of the wrong direction…I just got back from the comment section on that article and realised how tired these internet arguments make me, and I stopped participating in them ages ago. Can we require doing an online unit on proper argumentative reasoning before people have access to comment sections? Just time and again, “Here’s one example contrary to your statement, therefore you are 100% wrong”.
No.
Go away.
It’s insane. Clearly world hunger isn’t a problem because there are people out there who are well-fed. We had a cold snap last week, so global warming is clearly bullshit. Oh, and hey, this one game gives women sensible clothes, so the entire video game industry as a collective is clearly sympathetic to the exploitation issue.
This. Well said.
Every time I see an article about Anita (women in games, anything related to trans people or “big gay”, etc.) I feel like popping in, posting “”Hey, I bet there will be some reasonable discourse in the comment sections of this article.” – Nobody, ever” and sodding off, but I always think that no, maybe today is the day where everything goes well.
And I mean, sometimes the comments are less bad. Sometimes.
I don’t even open the articles. There is zero point to it. Not just not reading comments, but the article itself is going to be equally predictable.
Want to disagree, this article had a positive perspective:
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2016/01/consultation-with-indigenous-communities-a-must-for-game-developers/
buuuuut yeah, a select few doesn’t speak well for the whole.
I keep on opening them. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?
This. As a rule the moment I see the words Gamergate; anita or anything related to that crap I just ignore it all together because I know i’m just going to end up in some stupid argument walking away annoyed.
Largely the same group that seem to post mainly on those articles, don’t post much elsewhere, and try to drown out every one else. It’s amazing how different TAY is, and yet it’s just another comment thread on the same website.
Also you’re not wrong. And that’s the whole point.
Yup. Always the same old suspects. I’ve given up on the whole thing when you know the comments are going to be “I agree with Anita but don’t like her”, “Why isn’t she talking about this other issue that affects me!” “She’s the devil and cherry picks – or outright lies – to make her point!”
*yawn*
“She doesn’t even like games, she said so once”
*sigh*
It’s like there is some kind of signal that alerts them to contentious issues, or even just issues that work better with subtle discussion.
Probably the headline. 😉
Somewhere, in a high tech headquarters.
“Oh shit, the red phone is ringing! Quick, assemble the Sarkeesian Resistance Force!”
*slides down fireman’s pole in a totally hetero way*
5
4
3
2
1
THUNDERBIRDSSARKEESIAN RESISTANCE FORCE ARE GOAction Man-style “jump of the roof of a building, straight onto a motorcycle” somehow without immediately rendering themselves infertile.
I have nothing in common with those people, which is why I hate the term “gamer” as an identity signifier.
If the pool of that term is wide enough that it can include me, and them, I don’t want to swim there.
I never really got the whole anti-“gamer” thing at all. But Pizza Thief uses it a lot, and it kinda makes me cringe a bit every time, and I have no idea why. Maybe it’s that she has this idea of what gamers are and it feels like it doesn’t match what I feel I am, or something like that. But then I guess I never really use the term myself normally. Just kind of accept it as a “there in the background” kind of thing.
I feel like video games have become so widely played that the term has lost all meaning. Who isn’t a gamer nowadays? My girlfriend plays Candy Crush probably as much as I play other games, does that make her more of a gamer than me?
It made sense when gaming was more of a niche hobby. Previously you had to buy the console, or the gaming PC, or whatever platform you needed, so maybe it made sense then, but not anymore.
Oh, that side of it, I am still opposed to that line of thinking. To me, gamer is more of a term for a gaming enthusiast, just like how watching a movie doesn’t necessarily make you a movie buff, or putting on a set of headphones doesn’t make you an audiophile.
There is the… Gray XOF? Uniform for her, which is fine. You just don’t unlock it for most of the game. And yeah.Yeeeaaahhhhh.
Really, really didn’t like the whole Quiet thing in MGS V. Nearly as tone deaf as Batman Arkham Knight.
I clearly haven’t gotten that far yet. That’ll be a day one purchase. (Edit: looked it up. I’ve still got 6 main missions to go.)There ARE actually better outfits available, but I looked them up and you can’t really get them until you’ve damn near finished the fucking game, which kind of defeats the purpose.
THAT really annoyed me. If you play on PC I assume there’s a mod/cheat to switch that about and lose the requirement or something. Or just asset-swap in the packed files.
That’ll probably be one of my first mod pickups. I like boobs as much as the next guy but it’s just a bit creepy you know?
If I had it on PC I’d grab a mod that massively overemphasises her behaviour/body, then act like it’s not an issue…partially in the futile hope that an ignorant someone will actually understand what the issue is, mostly to shitstir.
Ah, who am I kidding. I’d be far too embarrassed to do that.
I’d turn her in to a My Little Pony.
What if there was a mod that swapped the models for snake and quiet? That could be amusing.
A quick Google search tells me (unsurprisingly) there is already numerous mod packs for single player that do just this, and a couple for multi.
Oh I don’t mean so you play as bikini quiet with clothed snake companion.
One that has you play as a fully clothed quiet with bikini snake as a squadmate.
And just like that, I have a new go-to name for man junk:
“Bikini Snake”
@liondrive
@transientmind
It’s going on the list!
I want to start by making it clear that I don’t disagree with you in the slightest, and that Quiet’s design and the flimsy argument for it are clearly exploitative and shallow.
That said:
it’s kind of an interesting idea. Like, what if a person was suffering from an affliction that meant they could only breathe through their skin? How would they manage that? What if instead of a broody softcore porn posing girl in a bikini and stockings we had a bombastic musclebound dude in budgie smugglers? I feel like that would never have been a social justice issue. Why? Because in that scenario the guy is in on the joke and we haven’t removed his agency, even though just as much skin is on display.If that’s the case (and I concede I am rapidfire strawmanning here, but play along) how do we know that a woman in Quiet’s place wouldn’t behave like this? If Quiet was a real person (and obviously she’s not) would you tell her she should cover up? Unlikely, because that would be oppressive and misogynistic. But because she’s a fictional character, she’s the one being exploited, because she’s clearly designed with visual appeal in mind, even though there’s no difference in the agency of one character in a game compared to another. You could make an equally valid argument about the perceived negative aspect of any character in any video game, and suggest they’re being exploited for visual appeal, or comic relief, or whatever. In order for a character to be relatable and believable and not considered exploitative, do we have to play by a set of socially constructed rules, finding the sweet spot on a modesty spectrum, or is it a matter of that character being properly developed.
Kojima (who is clearly a pervert) said we’d be ashamed of judging Quiet for her choice of attire when we learned the secret reason for it, implying her character development would justify the deisgn decision. When we found out, we universally looked in Kojima’s direction and said “really, dude?”. But what if it had actually been a really good explanation? What if Kojima was actually right? What would we be saying now?
Haven’t played but everything I’ve seen of it suggests that it’s not just her outfit that’s the problem, but also her being posed and depicted in a suggestive manner.So while it could have been as you described, that’s not how the devs played it.
That’s the thing, the devs cooked up a really flimsy and shitty explanation to handwave their eyecandy. I guess I’m trying to come up with some alternate reality where it was actually justified. What would you have to say to make that happen?
See my post below. I submit to you that it’s impossible to turn the gender tables to achieve an equivalent outcome.
I guess it would be a matter of the characters behaviour towards the situation, the way other characters react as well as shot framing and poses ect.The idea itself is not unreasonable. You’d just need to do a bit more work in showing quiet in a light that backs that up. Less ass shots and dancing in the rain and more defensive standoffish attitude. Maybe wear a light breathable cloak or something between missions.
And make it relevant to the story – have the whatever that caused this affliction a plot point so you can explore the character and situation in detail and give some depth to it.
I’d be interested to see a storyline where the player has the choice of curing Quiet or not, with no other gameplay benefits other than if you cure her, she puts some clothes on. I feel like the data on how many cured her and how many didn’t would be rather telling.The difference is that Quiet is literally the only female character with a significant role in the story. She effectively represents women in the story: to literally be seen and not heard. To turn the tables in the way you suggested, your mute budgie-smuggler man would have to be the only male character in a world populated by sensibly-dressed women.Edit: and I suppose that for true equivalence, you’d also have to be tapping into a dark history of mankind where men were seen as the lesser gender, and historically subjected to the ‘seen and not heard’ ethos… which is clearly not possible in the world we know.So in short, that scenario is simply not conceivable, at least in the scenario presented. Fair enough.
I didn’t realise Quiet was the only woman in the story, since I haven’t played it – and apparently in Ground Zeroes the only woman in the story is a rape victim with a bomb in her vagina?Yep.
And that’s the girl who drove Metal Gear in her underwear in Peace Walker. It’s a shame that it’s otherwise such a great series.See, I have (but have not yet played) Ground Zeroes since it was free on XBL and I want to check out Phantom Pain, but I just feel like I’m not on this game’s wavelength. Sure, I like my eyecandy in games but in an innocent way. Kojima seems to go too far with this stuff and then backflips and comes up with attempts to justify it that make it seem almost sinister, in a way. I guess if I was more of a pervert (or much less of one) I would be able to appreciate (or ignore) the objectionable content. As it stands, everything I hear just kind of skeeves me out.When I finished GZ:
I was sitting there in stunned silence. The only female character I remember interacting with existed as a maiden in distress and then a vagina bomb.That and the whole Quiet drama destroyed my interest in Phantom Pain.
Spoiler
She survived the bomb, apparently. Talking with her underwear-clad self in a hospital bed appears to be a hidden easter egg series of encounters in MGS V.MGS really started to feel a little pervy in MGS4 onwards. MGS 1-3 had their moments but at least it could be semi-justified or it wasn’t as full blown ass and boobs like the later games. Heck, Eva was probably the highpoint of having a sexualised female character that was still actually a person. All of the later female characters (barring a few, Meryl in particular) were basically displays for the player to stare at which is a terrible, terrible thing for MGS. If I wanted that, I’d go play DOA.More related to Quiet though, it certainly didn’t help that she was a mostly silent character. Having any sort of verbal personality would have certainly raised her from being eye candy to being someone that we want to know more about. Not having her own voice and relying solely on her appearance and second-hand accounts to inform us about her character is a terrible way of appropriately representing her.
I’d really, really like to think that the later MGS games were more a result of Kojima getting very lazy and not really caring too much about the games. I think it’s more likely that he started inserting whatever he wanted into the games because he’d built up his reputation as Kojima is MGS and no one could tell him otherwise. Which is a shame really. MGS3 was the peak of the series and even MGS2 was interesting in a direct reversal of expectations and playing with the genre. I could live without the later games existing.
I hold MGS1 and MGS2 up as two of the very finest games that have ever existed. Everything after that, though…
And don’t forget: Meryl was underwear eye candy in the first game, and ended up being not much more than a love interest for Snake. Sniper Wolf’s character was bewbs and pretty sparsely explained characterisation, and she was a love interest for Otacon. Rose was the epitome of a nagging housewife in the second game, and Fortune didn’t wear very many clothes at all. I guess the groundwork for an Eve, a Paz, a Beauty detachment, and a Quiet were always there…HA! Upvoted for safer environment =P
Just a message for Sydney Taybies I’m seeing on Sunday
@35 @alexpants @anonymous_pessimist @batgirl @cakesmith @cffndncr @cj @dkzeitgeist @doc_what @effluvium-boy @fatshadylive @gingerchris86 @gorzilla @harli @hugo_the_hungarian_barbarian @mawt @morkai @markserrels @mrtaco @novacascade @powalen @pupp3tmast3r @trjn @rize @freyaI’m buying Mr Welbot a bunch of groceries from coles online so that I know he can eat for the next month or so. I guess it’s the modern equivalent of dropping off a casserole. It’s about $100 worth, mostly pantry staples, and some cleaning products, but if you want to, you can sling me some $ on the weekend towards it. I’m also planning to do a similar hamper for the Freeze family the week he has his heart surgery. Someone did this for me once, and it made such a difference having one less thing to think about.Ta
I’m in. I’m still a maybe for sunday, but if I can’t make it, I can paypal it or direct deposit it or whatever.
I have a paypal acct, so we can def. work something out.
I am now not sure I can make it on Sunday… but I will definitely be chipping in.
Seriously concerned about my job.
I really don’t think I am cut out for sales.. not a single sale so far for this month… fuck i hope next month is better.. This is just insane – everyone else in my team have already made target…
Seriously starting to regret taking this “promotion”…
I’m terrible at sales. Terrible. Truly terrible. The only things I ever sold in my various sales positions were the things that I genuinely, truly believed would leave the customer in a better position after buying than they were in before buying. And not just having stuff because it’s cheap. (And that was always easy as breathing, because apparently sincerity is pretty convincing.) Didn’t happen often.
Terrible. Terrible.
Meanwhile, at one place, a guy next to me would read off the ‘script’ religiously, without a single deviation for personality or not sounding like an enormous wanker, and if he thought for a second he wasn’t going to get a sale, he disconnected 100% and didn’t try to ‘struggle’ to convince. His sales were through the roof. Dumb as a box of hammers, too… it was a pretty huge blow to my ego.
Some people just don’t enjoy or aren’t proficient at certain things. Different strokes for different folks.
I ended up being really good in sales, but I didn’t follow anything really, I just asked lots of questions and people ended up buying if it was right for them.
On a seperate note.. I can’t remember who said they were considering getting into Conquest – but you can get it on BookDepository SUPER cheap.
http://www.bookdepository.com/Warhammer-40000-Conquest-Lcg-Base-Game-Eric-M-Lang-Nate-French-Brad-Andres/9781616619091
Just a heads up 🙂
In the book depository of all places! 😛
They sell a few games, which is pretty great, because it’s all dirt cheap.
The price on their x-wing expansions are all amazing too.
Since Archer season 7 is due to start March 31st, I think i’m gonna binge watch it on Netflix again after I finish watching Burn Notice again..
Just remember that the latest season isn’t up on our Netflix. I’ve just finished watching through to the end of season 5. Man. Archer Vice. I’m glad they realised what a bad idea changing half the cast into far worse versions of their characters was. Shame it took half a season to figure that out.
Ah true. I thought it was on US Netflix, it isn’t damn.
I thought it was a fun detour, but it was definitely a relief that they brought things back for S6.
I really liked Archer Vice and wanted more come season 6, then again i’m a sucker for Magnum PI, Smokey & The Bandit, Miami Vice etc 😛
I tend to try an shy away from negative stereotypes, but sometimes they’re offensively obvious as unnecessarily large SUVs which, incidentally, were both the vehicles that tried to turn left into me on my bicycle today. Both were driven by absent minded, middle aged women; neither had been queued in traffic – both had passed me within the previous 5-10 seconds and then, what? Didn’t notice the guy in the high-vis singlet and the flashing tail light? Thought that I would just magically disappear? Or, somehow, thought they always had right of way turning left?
If you ever wonder why some cyclists feel the need to ride in a position where you cannot overtake them (and they frustrate me just as much, if not more), think about all the “almosts” you have on the road, that result in you yelling a stream of profanity as you drive away. All of the “almosts” for a cyclist are “I almost ended up in the ED or the morgue”. It’s a viscous cycle, where inconsiderate riding encourages aggressive driving which encourages defensive riding that encourages aggressive driving.
Those are the main reason I haven’t ridden to work in a couple of years. They seem to be getting bigger and bigger and the drivers worse and worse.
Yeah. “If you’re going to turn left, don’t overtake someone IMMEDIATELY before turning left.” fuck’s sake.
I disagree with one thing – I think that some people are dangerous and selfish whatever, and it wouldn’t matter if all cyclists were registered, licenced and covered in bubble wrap with halos and little angel wings, they’d STILL drive that way.
Anyway, glad you’re alright. Touch wood I haven’t been knocked off by a driver for years (plenty of close ones though) and I do around 7-10 thousand km a year on the bike.
Yeah, absolutely, there’s that 5% of all road users who are cretins, whether they’re on a bike or behind the wheel. Nothing is going to stop them besides some awfully specific doomsday device…
@tech-knight Hrmm. Last night I popped into League of Legends for the first time in roughly two months. Turns out my main, Poppy, has been completely re-worked. Looking at her new abilities, I don’t like them and the champion is completely different. it looks like I’m going to have to find a new champ to main. Not really sure where to start. Although I was only winning lane with Poppy like 25% of the time, I was improving and I had one game where I absolutely destroyed and I was hoping to re-capture that form.
Since I can’t think of a champion to directly replace her, maybe I’ll do what I did with Poppy and buy some random champ that hasn’t been in the free champ rotation for like 2 years, then use everyone’s ignorance of the champion to surprise them.
@tech_knight ?
The new poppy is actually amazing (She’s now one of my mains) and packs a huge punch while being a tanky DPS fighter (Built like Renekton or Garen for example), but more for Jungle and Support (I do Support Poppy a lot, she’s deceptively terrifying) more than top these days.
Her new kit is actually really good now, sure she doesn’t one-shot enemies anymore but she’s durable as all heck as a disrupter now with her new W. Her new W stops jumps/dashes, think things like Jax’s leap, Renekton’s charge or Rengar’s leap. The moment they touch the edge or try to move out of it, they get stopped immediately and the ability is put on cooldown, making their initiation or escape worthless if you catch them using it at the right time. For support, W is godlike to counter certain strategies, like Leona E dashing or Lee Sin dashing to your carry in lane, she just shuts down ganks with the push of a button at the right time, it’s hilarious. The biggest wildcard is obviously her ultimate, it deceptively has a LOT of uses, you can use it to disengage and stop losing fights by smacking your enemies back towards their base, you can use it to stop jungle buff stealing, you can use it point blank (Instead of charging it up, instant cast it) to hold an enemy in place so you can line up the perfect charging stun (Which I’ve done before, it’s amazing). Never use this as an execute though unless they have less than 100 health left, otherwise you could screw it up and save your prey from dying.
Just use the free champion rotation to learn new champs instead of buying, find which ones you can get a feel for and enjoy playing, then buy that and main that. Maybe try out Gnar, Sion and Mundo as they’re great top laners (Maybe not so much Sion but yeah). Pantheon I wouldn’t recommend that much, he falls off VERY easily late game, you just become a point-and-click stun bot late game.
Gnar is always a pretty good pick for top lane as Mega Gnar form can change any team fight when used properly, Mundo in top lane is always an unkillable terror mid to late game due to his ultimate and his damage is really high even when building tank, it’s absurd even when behind. Sion is more niche and not as great but he has some cool tricks of his own, AoE slamming knockup with his Q or ultimate (Which will take practice to get right as the camera angle change can disorient). Ultimate especially is situationally amazing as you can use it to make surprise lane kills cuz they don’t have enough time to react enough to be in a favourable position when you attack with an ally.
My main tops these days are actually Garen, Poppy and Cho’gath.
BORDGAMES
Tonight we played Game of Thrones. I chose to be the squids because of course I did. Had a strong start, took a lot of territory. But we got a whole bunch of shitty cards off the… whatever decks, which reshuffled the order of everything like three times and I wasted too much money bidding on positions there. Then wound up at the end stuck at the bottom on all three, so was extremely limited in what I could do. Tried to work my way back up and could have pushed on a bit bit we got to the end of the night which meant the everything-or-nothings came out, crippled me for the move I would have made next, and then allowed my boss to swoop in and win the game with the hole it created. Dangit.
@trikeabout GERMANIUM!
This is the best planet. Also found Tin and Molybdenum which I’ve only seen one of before. And just found some Antimony. Enough Germanium for 10 basic boosts now, which would also use up all my Vanadium.
…so with a couple more boost jumps and some extremely strategic draining of the fuel tank (last jump I did emptied my reserve tank entirely) I’ve managed to push it to 1186.8ly above Sol. And still have further to go.
Oops.
!!!
I’m doing some trading at the moment, but that’s only 35 jumps in an Asp, so I might load up with fuel and head out there Just In Case… 😀
I almost wish I’d specifically built to do long jumps and get as far as possible. And maybe actually get to some points others haven’t been 😛
But eh, still a challenge. I just wish there was a Dump Fuel option. Also the galaxy map seems to be a bit screwy with actually showing routes that you can only take below a certain fuel level. Even moreso when it’s a boost jump.
Yep, the map can be a bit screwy. Caution needed…
Dump fuel would be good…
If you drop back down a couple hundred LY then point at the core and go a few hundred ly most systems will probably be undiscovered.
Morning all!
Well, the cosplay for my daughters is coming along, I have Rey’s staff all modelled up and have printed nearly half of it now. I made pieces that will slide over two pieces of 20mm plastic PVC pipe from Bunnings, so it can break down into two halves for transport.
The Jess Pava costume is a lot more work, but the modeling of the helmet is coming along
http://i.imgur.com/OXWMKZt.png
http://i.imgur.com/EJ87gmM.jpg
I’d love some feedback as to accuracy.
Still trying to work out the best way to do the pleated effect on Rey’s shoulder-wrap thingos.
You must have a pretty sizeable 3d printer.
470 x 435 x 690 mm build volume
Raining, at work, feeling drowsy…
I should have stayed in bed and faked a sickie.
Stay, but play it up and then call in sick Monday. FOUR DAY WEEKEND!
I’m still trying to come to terms with how quickly this all came together.
https://www.gofundme.com/f6j6232k
So far, including paypal donations, I’m up to $2100!! I know a lot of the people who have been so generous are TAYbies, some facebook friend, some real life friends, and even some strangers I don’t know!
I am absolutely humbled by the response. Can’t believe this all happened in the space of 1 day!
You guys are amazing, and I just want to let you know I love you all! A lot of you have been like a second family to me for a number of years now, and many met me during the happier times of my my life, and have seen me go through hell and back a number of times over the years, but your kindness and generosity never ceases to amaze me!
I know @freezespreston is also going through some tough times atm, and also has some upcoming surgery, and I know that it might seem dumb for me to say this given my situation, but I feel bad that I can’t give him a little something to help him out too.
Even though he was not among the group that I first met during the happier times, he’s always been quick to jump in and help out, and even just given me random gifts at times, so I just want to let him know that my thoughts are with you bro! Your surgery is likely to be a lot more complicated than mine, but just know that my thoughts will be with you, and you’ll always have my love and respect!
TAYbie’s ARE the BEST PEOPLE!
You are welcome, I’ve been through the wait lists and medical fun and games and, well, it isn’t fun and games.
The Taybie community is the best, and I have never met a single one of you in person 🙂
What state are you located in?
If memory serves me correctly, he’s in Brisbane? (This would be a major win for my memory if I’m right.. else.. move along.. nothing to see here)
Nope, NSW, out in the sticks.
ah well.. like I said.. nothing to see here 😉 I’m having memory issues atm, so that’s excusable. I mean shit.. I got up to make a cup of tea last night, and came back with a cup of coffee…
Cripes this went right over my head and I didn’t even know it!
I want to chip in 🙂
Much appreciated if you can man! 😀 Every bit will help at this stage!
Hey I’ve done it before, I can do it again 🙂
I’ll sling you some after next pay
Mrs Tigs wanted to check that you are keeping track of all your medical expenses. If you get over a certain threshold you are able to claim it as a write-off. This is over and above the safety net stuff. You might be all over it but worth mentioning in case you were not aware.
I haven’t been keeping track really, but I’ve been keeping all receipts and stuff, so when my mind is a little better, I will certainly look in to it! Thanks for the reminder!
… and now I feel bad for donating less than everyone else. How dare you put this up towards the end of the month! So selfish…
LOL don’t feel bad man. Every cent means the world to me right now! As much as I appreciate the huge donations some people have made, I give each and every one of them equal weighting, as I know that sometimes it’s just all they can afford!
Don’t worry buddy, I have been plotting things for the freezes too.
@poita er, I think something went wrong. That post of yours has disappeared.
Which one?
nvm. The one about your cosplay efforts must have gone into moderation.
Hi all. I hope this post finds you all alive. Yesterday, I nearly died!
I am functional, close enough. Happy you’re okay though
Indeed! It would have been a terrible shane to lose a TAYbie like Shane
#Page6Represent I’ll see myself out…
Thank you, come again! 😀
Nothing like a near death experience to make you realise how precious dad jokes are. Umm… I mean, I’m glad you’re OK man! It’s best to try and not die if you can avoid it.
I’m not sure if people are upvoting this because you survived, or because you nearly died.
Because he hoped I was alive. It’s the 2nd-nicest thing anyone’s said indirectly to me today.
Gotta admit, I wondered the same thing.
I upvoted cos you survived. Can’t speak from the others, but I’m guessing you probably figured that out from my previous comment anyway
Really stupid question:
I’ve been trying to wean myself off of iced coffee (too much sugar) which is ok because in reality I prefer black coffee anyway. Only problem is, I’m in Brisbane so hot coffee isn’t exactly the first thing on my list of things to drink (which is why I went to iced coffee in the first place).
I do have a drip filter coffee machine though (like one of these) sooooo could I use that to make cold brew? Probably not, right, because cold brew is about dripping cold water whereas this I’d just technically be having hot coffee go cold and then drinking it later. Or is that the same?
Like I said, stupid question.
Different things, but it’s only a matter of taste – I just chill hot coffee when I want ice coffee. Espresso shot into a glass of ice, milk (though, if you’re having it black, a little bit of water I guess?) and a bit of vanilla essence if you want some sweetness. Work is a little trickier, I guess – you could just put a few shots of espresso and vanilla in a drink bottle and dilute with cold water as required?
You can do this with a Vietnamese coffee filter http://www.trung-nguyen-online.com/brewing-coffee.html which you can buy from a chinese supermarket, or with an Aeropress because they rock.
<3 Vietnamese Coffee.
1 shot “knock your face off strong” drip coffee, 1 shot condensed milk. You will get the shakes if you have two of these.
Yeah it’s super great but I find the milk is a necessity.
I’ve got a big full cup filter here at work, works great for just a normal long black. I’ve moved to the Aeropress now.
A hotel I stayed at in Cambodia did a similar coffee – the drip coffee was so strong, and the “milk” supplied with it was sweetened condensed milk. It was a great way to start the day – chicken fried rice and viet-style coffee.
Oh, all vietnamese coffee uses the condensed milk, it’s so good.
simplest way to make cold brew is actually with a plunger.
basically you put a metric cup of coffee in a big plunger (reasonably coarse grind) and then fill it up with room temperature water. put the lid of the plunger on but only plunge it about an inch. then you leave it for 12 hours (or longer if you put it in the fridge) before the final plunge. Once plunged, decant the liquid into a jug or bottle. This is your concentrate, which can then be either added to hot or cold water or mixed with milk/condensed milk/whatever.
Realistically iced coffee is just any coffee based beverage that is served cold. Names like “cold drip” are just technicalities in the recipe.
Drink whatever takes your fancy. Agonising over the fine details is what makes a coffee snob :p
yeah, but you can make iced coffee a bitter mess. doesn’t take too much to make it much nicer.
and to answer your question: A cold extraction is different to a hot extraction because you’re extracting different oils and aromatics from the coffee. if you let drip coffee go cold you’ll get that coffee gone cold bitter yuck taste, you need to do a lower temperature extraction.
Yeah, that’s what I thought. Just wanted to make sure. Might look around for a big plunger and try your method above.
I’ve done it, and it does work nicely, I just prefer hot coffee. or FUIC
Mmmmmmmm, gotta love that FUIC.
It’ll work well enough (and it’s fine if all you want to drink is, well, cold coffee), but there is a taste difference between hot and cold brew coffees.
Your hot coffee will taste more of coffee, will have the bitterness most people associate with the drink, and will probably have a higher caffeine content than a cold brew (caffeine is more soluble at a higher temperature, which is why the cold brews sit for a loooooong time, and even then they’re probably getting less). A cold brew will end up a lot smoother, though potentially with a slight acidity or sourness, and will probably have slightly less natural sweetness than a normal coffee.
So, it’s a matter of taste, in all honesty. I say give it a shot, and if you don’t like the results, try something new.
Is that place in the Valley just near the Judith Wright Centre on Brunswick St still there? I think it was called Ltd or something like that… They had this cold-pressed ice coffee that they made themselves and ohmygod it was awesome.
I used to go to Ltd every weekend until Luke sold it. It’s still there, but it’s not the same.
Luke sold it? Fuckit then, he was the only reason I went there.
I went in nearly every day, since it was just outside my bus stop on the way back home from working night shifts and by that point I would really, really need a coffee. Luke was very cool, he would give me a free sample whenever they brought in a new blend.
Sigh… one less reason to visit Brisneyland. I mean, my family is there so I will still visit all the time, but still… sigh.
Yeah, he essentially got an offer he couldn’t refuse, and after 2 years of working 6-7 days a week… Well, you can understand his selling. One of the things with the sale though was a non-compete clause so he was precluded from opening or working at a coffee shop within (I forget how many) X kilometres, though that might have expired. I think I saw he was working with Chris (one of the old baristas) somewhere. Must check.
Whacking two espresso shots into a banana smoothie is pretty tasty.
New weekend goal! Bananas are on my shopping list for this afternoon.
There’s nothing stupid about that question. I’m keen to know too! I’ve heard and seen so much about cold press coffee, but have no idea what the fuss is all about or how to do it. Mostly cos it’s …. not my cup of tea! :0 I don’t like cold coffee. If it’s too hot for coffee, I either stupidly drink hot coffee anyway, or I go for something like Pokka Lychee Tea (so nice in summer!!)
@trikeabout I swear I’m not intentionally avoiding you in Elite, but every time I’m either about to log off or travelling back to a specific point to log off, you come online 😛
I don’t usually get to the PC much before 9pm and if the wife is watching telly more like 10pm. Last night “I’m shattered, I want an early night. Ooh Arrow is back, let’s watch that!”
…and then normal people are logging off and going to bed because work. 🙂 Whereas I rarely sleep before 1am…
Ooh, Arrow is back!
Yep! Good stuff too. The DC series are silly fun. Although it’s getting hard to keep the crossovers in the right order…
I used to go to bed well after 12 each night but lately have been non-functional at work without sleep.
I would say we should do a thing over the weekend but I’m gunna be in Sydney over the weekend and nowhere near my computer 😛
You can entertain yourself while I play Elite though, right?
I definitely won’t hold that against you and hunt you down when I get home.
Fair enough. I actually have NOTHING on this weekend so if the weather continues being shite like today, I’ll be on a fair bit. Pew pew. 🙂
I’ve been on a bit of a Resident Evil binge lately. I’m powering through Revelations 2 because I never got around to playing it when it came out. I’m not sure if I want to go through and play 6 because of the stupid sounding plot but I might jump in.
I much prefer Revelations 1 than 2. 2 reminds me more of the later style of RE games which I’m not a huge fan of. I might even go back and pick up remastered RE0 to sate my nostalgia.
Move day! Frantically copying 120-odd GB of development VMs to my laptop in case the movers break my workstation… have to be out in 40min. Gonna be close…
Should go to doctors.
Don’t want to go to doctors.
Just do what I do.
Don’t go, and instead complain to anybody who will listen.
It’s been working out pretty well so far. Except now I’m not too busy being at work or having to go out somewhere to really have much of an excuse.
Sure you do.
It’s not really a problem. Everything will be okay.
Your pee is supposed to have red in it.
Nah. Unless it seems moderately serious, just take some over the counter Meds, rest and drink much water and you’ll be right.
*Sigh* I’m really sorry to have to do this but do this I must. It begins. #DadJokePage6NowPage5Temporarily
I can cut a piece of wood in half just by looking at it.
It’s true, I saw it with my own eyes.
My wife and I had a huge row last night.
She called me gullible and financially irresponsible.
I can’t wait to see her face when I tell her that I have just won the Nigerian lottery!
In the shark infested waters of the Caribbean, two prawns called Justin and Christian are discussing the pressures of being a preyed-upon prawn. “I hate being a prawn,” says Justin. “I wish I were a shark.” Suddenly, a mysterious Cod appears. “Your wish is granted,” he says. Instantly, Justin becomes a shark. Horrified, Christian swims away, afraid his former friend might eat him.
As time passes, Christian continues to avoid Justin, leaving the shrimp-turned-maneater lonely and frustrated. So when he bumps into the Cod again, he begs the mysterious fish to change him back. Lo and behold, Justin is turned back into a prawn. With tears of joy in his tiny little eyes, he swims back to the reef to seek out his friend Christian.
As he approaches, he shouts out: “It’s me, Justin, your old friend. Don’t be scared, I’ve changed, I’ve found Cod. I’m a prawn again Christian!”
This is amazing.
The Highways Agency found over 200 dead crows on the A34 in Cheshire recently, and there was concern that they may have died from Avian Flu. A Pathologist examined the remains of all the crows, and, to everyone’s relief, confirmed the problem was NOT Avian Flu. The cause of death appeared to be from vehicular impacts. However, during analysis it was noted that varying colours of paints appeared on the …bird’s beaks and claws. By analysing these paint residues it was found that 98% of the crows had been killed by impact with trucks, while only 2% were killed by cars.
The Agency then hired an Ornithological Behaviourist to determine if there was a cause for the disproportionate percentages of truck kills versus car kills. The Ornithological Behaviourist quickly concluded that when crows eat road kill, they always have a look-out crow to warn of danger. They discovered that while all the lookout crows could shout “Cah”, not a single one could shout “Truck”.
I went to a fight the other night and a game of ice hockey broke out.
What do you call a woman with her knee stuck in a fence ?
CourtneyI can’t upvote that cos it was apailing
Fairly offenceive, yes.
News: Boy George’s Reptile Bites 5 People In One Day…
He needs a calmer chameleon.
I dated a tennis player once, but love meant nothing to her.
Maybe you two should talk over a delicious cup of deuce
Maybe I should but I don’t want to take advantage of her.
Yeah but it’s possible you were both at fault in this situation, a double fault, if you will
*sigh* well no matter how you slice it, the ball is in her court now…
Don’t think that way, she’ll get angry and then you’ll cop a serve.
A second serve of deuce? That would be ace!
I’m sure it’ll be fine if you take her Out for a lovely dinner. Maybe send her an invite over the net if you’re too nervous to call.
This set of jokes has got so much game nobody could match that. #page6love no strings attached
@welbot
Edit: I only just noticed you got all three, dang it! 😛
You’re really on the ball, boy!
Enough of this racket.
Yeah, we’ll have to take them to court if it keeps up.
Nah Jocon, that would be pointless. We aced it!
Damnit, what is going on?
Get? Pfft, you need another 20 top level comments here to pageget.
I can’t wait, just about to leave work and will miss out on page 6, it had to be done ;(
This late in the day you would be safe to leave it until tomorrow. Wait is it Friday.
How are we not on page 6 by friday
Waiting room is less bad with a whole bunch of internet to read. Though I’d much rather be furthering my space exploration efforts.
…I’m not sure I’ve actually been to the doctor’s since before I had phone internets. Long time.
My biggest mistake last time I went to see my GP was forgetting that he always runs super-super late.
I tend to turn up early to things, so I ended up waiting for like an hour, because I’m an idiot (my sister’s smart enough to ring beforehand to find out how late he’s running. He’s a lovely guy, but you have to accept that he’ll never be on schedule).
We do the same with our vet – one of the cats gets super-stressed if he’s stuck in his carry cage for too long, so we call. Today I was waiting about 30 seconds. Helps that we’re 3 minutes away…
My old GP was like that. To avoid it, I’d book in for first appointment at 8am. Would be lucky if she arrived before 8:30. Any time after that could result in a 2 hr wait at times :\
Hmmm. Time for a beer. I’ll be at the Mint opposite Flagstaff. 😉
Man.. I finally come here and post some good news, and then the universe is like NOPE! That’s enough for you!
Heard back from the rehab mob at work today, and between them, my manager and other parties, they decided that in the interest of safety, I should remain off work until at least after the results of my brain scan. I get those results on February 18th 😐 FML Better part of a whole month with no pay.
Super wont help due to 60 day waiting period. Centrelink.. well… we all know what they’re like. You can bet if I apply (and I still will) for sickness benefit, they’ll start paying me just as I return to work because they FUCKING USELESS and take FOREVER to do anything :\
Tears of Joy from yesterday have turned to tears of frustration, desperation and angst. WHY U DO DIS UNIVERSE?!
Shame you can’t take that xray in and be all: “This is my brain, give me moneys.”
Sure would be nice. (btw, it was an MRI, but close enough)
I got plenty of proof, but I have to get the centrelink med certificate, and have my doc’s fill it in, and then go back to them for them to runs their checks etc. Gonna be a nightmare.
Even though it’ll likely be all for nothing, I’m going to put myself through it anyway, as I will be able to get back paid at some stage, but according to the website, the “benefit” won’t even cover my rent. 😐 So even if they did get it acted upon quickly, I’d still be in trouble :\
Yeah, centrelink is useless. Well hopefully those donations should help you through a bit.
Still better than not having it though.
yeas as I said below, i will be going there on…Monday to get the forms I need etc. I began the application on line, but can’t print the forms, and one I need the link was dead.
I spoke to Centrelink, as I had to go there today anyway, they said to definitely contact them as the wait time for support in your case may only be one week.
Cheers. Will be heading there Monday to get the forms I need anyway, as my printer is out of toner, and one of the forms online is a dead link :\
Yeah, just echoing the sentiment here, but even if they take their sweet fucking time processing your application (and I mean… they will… it’s centrelink), they back-pay you to the date of application, so you should at least get something back.
Yeah. My issue is mostly in covering the gap. As much as my landlord has been good to me so far, I’m not friendly with them or anything, so I can’t see them allowing me to not pay rent til I get anything from Centrelink :\
I’ll figure something out I’m sure.. I usually do. Just totally the opposite outcome to what we were hoping for to begin with. Had we not engaged the rehab group, I’d still be allowed to go to work on days when I feel capable :\
Having absolutely no idea what you do, is it possible to work from home in any capacity? Not the same situation at all, but I had a friend who did some part-time admin-y stuff from home while she was on maternity leave.
Just, whatever you do, don’t stack bills up on a credit card. I have read so many stories of people that get into crippling cycles of spiraling debt because they put huge medical bills on a credit card, couldn’t afford the 20% interest each year, and just got driven into the ground. Granted, those stories are mostly from the US (with their dysfunctional healthcare system), but the sentiment remains the same.
That was what we were HOPING for. I do work mostly work via pc, and rarely make/take phone calls.
It would seem that there’s a company policy that stipulates that while on the clock, and working from home, my employer is responsible if I were to injure myself. So if I have a narco attack or get dizzy and stack it down the stairs, they are liable for the damage.
Given that, I understand why they wont allow it, but to me, that’s just the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. :\
As for the credit card, it’s already full of my medical expenditures thus far. Hence the gofundme campaign, to help clear it off so I’m not paying 20% interest on it (and also to hopefully cover some of the future expenditures, like the over $500 in specialist appointments I have booked in the next fortnight alone.) And there WILL be more :\
Just as an added bit of info, in September last year, my credit card balance was $0. Thankfully I have a limit on mine of around $2400 or something, but still, it’s filled up that quickly due to time off from work which I haven’t been paid for. (I’ve used bits of annual leave here and there to ease the burden, but as of last week, I had about 8 days left, and 4 of those days got used to cover this week)
Woo, notcancer!
But uh…
Cold sore/herpes?? WTF is that doing in the middle of my back?! This is dumb and doesn’t make any sense 😛/popcorn?
Naturally 😛
I mean it is pretty funny. But still.
Yay for not cancer at least! I was glad to hear that following my colonoscopy, but they did find other stuff they took biopsy of, which I’m still waiting on results for :\ Waiting SUCKS!
I totally read that as NutCancer, and was confused by the excitement.
No that was the other time. It turned out to be like ringworm or some kind of fungus like that instead. Just totally out of nowhere. Yay for mystery disease.
So it turns out Tap King is exiting their Australian market. So any Woolworths staff member can get the Tap King unit from BWS for $2 & any of the Tap King bottles for $5 hahaha. So I ended up getting 2x James Squire 150 Lashes Pale Ale & 2x James Squire Chancer Golden Ale.
I got a Tap King for free, and I still felt ripped off. Those things were such a waste of money.
Haha yeeeeep. I’m gonna investigate putting homebrew into the kegs at some point to take proper advantage of them 😛
So if anyone wants some quality Sony headphones Sony are currently having a “carton damage” sale on MDREX150APB EX Monitor In-Ear Headphones $32 & MDRZX330BT Portable Bluetooth® NFC™ Headphones $70
Not a bad deal at all!
I think i’ll buy the bluetooth headphones cause I assume being bluetooth they’ll work with the PS4 & if not they’ll work with my iPod. They’re apparently a damn good pair too according to Lew from Unbox Therapy.
@chrisjager what about this for a Deal Hacker or something along those lines? 60% off is a pretty good bargain 😛
Sold!
Life Updates:
– I have a working TV again \o/ Ended up buying a new one to replace the one I broke – cost to repair wasn’t worth it & overall cost to claim insurance would have ended up costing more. 🙁
– I finally managed to get Android Auto to talk to my car properly. Had to try six different USB cables before I found one that it liked. So now my car has navigation via Google Maps and I won’t get lost as easily \o/
– My car’s number plates finally came in so I can go in tomorrow and get them fitted. No more temporary plates! \o/
Also last night I started Trails of Cold Steel (@jimu) and I like it a lot so far. Initial impression was that I absolutely hated the dub, but once I got a little way in I realized that it’s generally free of the annoying anime dub tropes (all the grunts and stuff), the dialogue’s been translated to read really well and the actor delivery is way higher quality than, say, an average Tales game. I still don’t like a couple of their choices for voice talent – as usual, the male actors are fine and the female actors are a real mixed bag that generally don’t come close to their JP counterparts, but expected that. It’s still an okay dub, when stuff is actually dubbed. Played through the prologue and immediately after that I started hitting bits where the dialogue had bits where one character had some lines voiced and others silent, while another character was silent throughout. I know that the JP version had a full dub so it’s doubly disappointing that we end up dub-only and the dub is only partial. Seems like a fun game regardless though and I can tell I’m going to get sucked right into it, much more so than I did with Trails in the Sky at first.
It’s weird how Rean is often not dubbed but has lines. And then in other scenes he is dubbed. It’s like they couldn’t decide of they wanted a silent protagonist even though he clearly isn’t.
Otherwise yeah, there’s no one actor that clearly stands out as an annoying twat.
I’ve probably got more issue with the fact they employ the same actors for every game. Its not a bad job though.
Nee combat features are fun, but you’ll have barely scratched the surface yet. Stuff is slowly introduced.
I like the simplicity of the quartz system now. Not sure I ever truly understood what I was doing in TitS. Unless I did & there was less functionality.
I’m not usually in favour of 2D over 3D or the reverse, but the world seems much more fully realised. Environments seem much more varied & interesting. There’s also some genuinely beautiful locations.
Also, I’m digging the soundtrack more overall. The card game theme gets me pumped!
The dub is partial. XSeed said they couldn’t afford to dub the whole game so tried to keep it to ‘important’ lines.
EDIT:
Soundtrack’s good too, and you can see where they’ve got to it from the previous games. Main diff seems to be that they stepped back on the violin and have more piano and guitar-driven stuff. I guess reflects where they’ve gone with Ys recently too.
Cutting one voice in a conversation is weird
I was just informed that a bunch of you were responsible for a care package that just arrived on my doorstep! (arranged by the one and only wonderful @cookingmama!)
I seriously can’t thank you all enough for what you have done! Not only will this save me a bunch of $, but also a lot of effort and difficulty of walking around the shops! (I have to use a walking stick some days since my leg twitches so much) So a supermassivebighuge hug to all who were involved in this! TAYbies ROCK!
Hey at least with a walking stick you can hit/trip those annoying little brats who run around beating on everyone & tearing open packages 😛
I’d rather both arms be free to I could just lift em up and bitch slap em like their parents should do 😉
haha, as a retail worker you’re the type of customer I love.
First day of the long weekend! And there’s no better way to start it than…
… catching up on some work. /o\
Yay for long weekends! I have a reeeeeeeeeeealy long one apparently…
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1280002828/air-bonsai-create-your-little-star so tempted to back and get one of these.