It did feel weird, but I think it's just a confluence of the Hickey character finding his place and the absence of Troy. Someone on /r/community made the point that one of the best jokes (Chang's reply to "and it rhymes with Not There"... "Times Square?") would have been a Donald Glover line in any other season. I'm still very happy with the season, though. Though admittedly they could probably give me four seconds of Alison Brie smiling coyly and I'd call it a success.
That Times Square off the cuff comment made me actually laugh out loud as it seemed it was perfectly timed and caught me off guard. What did happen to Troy? I don't think I've seen the show in a season or two so I've missed a few things.
Also Chevy Chases befuddled racist comments got replaced by angry enforcer ala Breaking Bad comments. He seems a little too angry for the show at the moment..
I liked instantly liked the D&D episode because David Cross was in it.
Yeah. Game Grumps (www.youtube.com) is a Youtube channel I follow, who host a number of "Let's play..." series. Kind of a MST3K, but where the guys are playing through a video game. In this case, they're playing Shadows of the Colossus, where in order to bring back your dead girlfriend you have to slay a number of animalistic colossi that roam a desolate world.
In that episode (www.youtube.com), one guy is trying to defeat a colossus, and the other is giving the colossus a voice. The video I posted was where one of their animator fans rotoscoped their episode, and drew a silly face on the colossus, and synced the voices.
Gah, this album is like candy you can't stop eating. You know it's not good for you, but your mouth just wants more. This is completely by the numbers metalcore, but pulled off with a degree of skill that makes it listenable.
3.0/5 - I rated all the individual songs quite highly, but there are really no standout tracks because it's all the same syrup-y metalcore formula.
In my place of employment, I would have been chided for not holding the hand rail. Then, the person chiding me would have entered the conversation into a database to track their monthly proactive safety measures and gotten brownie points for being so safety conscious . I envy your workplace freedoms.
A few songs from this album will become gym staples, because man they just make me want to destroy things (the title track, for instance). However, pretty typical Dino Cazares output (of Fear Factory fame).
3.0/5 - good, only one ballad really mixes up the style presented on the album. Better than their first offering, but I don't see where they would go from here. At least it will be fun to work out to!
I have started reviewing books for a magazine and for a well respected graphic novel website. It's fun, but I don't talk about it much on twitter or online because I don't want to invite the wrath (or commentary in general) of authors.
However today I saw one of my reviews blurbed on a book (though not as me, but as the magazine). That was cool!
Not anonymously, I just don't link them on twitter because too many authors have twitter alerts and respond to every mention of their book ever. And I've heard horror stories from other reviewers. I get blurbed as the magazine and not as me because my name doesn't really have cachet with readers.
If you look at the "editorial reviews" listings on amazon pages, I pop up. I write for School Library Journal and then my name is at the end of the review.
Example: http://www.amazon.com/Byrd-Igloo-A-Polar-Adventure/dp/0545562767/ (www.amazon.com)
Amorphis has been steadily popping out albums every 2 years or so ever since new singer/growler Tomi Joutsen (those dreads!) joined the band... and the output has been pretty consistently awesome, especially Silent Waters and Skyforger. Things got a bit stale on The Beginning of Times, so for this album, they decided to mix things up a bit by having Peter Tagtgren (one time vocalist for Bloodbath, who owns a fucking village (www.ultimatemetal.com)!) produce instead of Marco Hietala (who produced all of the aforementioned albums), and writing about an original story rather than the Kalevala.
3.5/5 - while still not quite as good as Silent Waters or Skyforger, it gets up there, and is better than The Beginning of Times. A nice return to form!
Google Talk network is down: http://www.google....2ce88ca138c4af8915d (www.google.com)
Improbably, idkfa is still up.
Indie Alaska (www.youtube.com)
These videos are... pretty great, I think. Interesting slices of life from people/places across Alaska. Shot well, edited well.
posted in this section because carpentry & etc are a hobby/interest of mine:
[& copied from twitter, so apologies if this is 2nd time for you]
Karen: Did you pick out a pretty color for the nursery? Or is that Elizabeth?
Me: All paint goes on the wall the same way.
Karen: I feel like that statement should be studied by philosophers.
Me: I'm here all week.
So....Robbie?
I offer a few interpretations:
Platonic: The ideal form of "paint" is applied to the ideal form of a "wall," yet the individual instantiations of those forms in reality only exhibit the specific qualities particular to themselves. The form of "paint" contains both the specific qualities of "pretty" and "not pretty."
Taoist: Paint and wall are part of the 10,000 things. The 10,000 things are the Tao. The Tao is not the 10,000 things.
Christian: The paint adheres to the wall by the grace of God and the sacrifice of his son, Jesus Christ.
Kantian: The quality of color is inherent in the noumenal world of the paint. The physical phenomenon of putting the paint on the wall is a result of our limited perception of all noumena by way of space and time. The paint goes on the wall only in our limited perception.
Liberation Theological: We should embrace and accept the pretty colors and the ugly colors, for they were all made by God. Jesus' sacrifice has freed us from the social condemnations of "ugly colors."
Existentialist: Absent the "gods" of our forefathers, we are left to choose why we would paint, or not paint, the wall.
Oprah-ist: If you make a vision-collage and really believe there is paint on the wall the universe will vibrate hard enough to attract your painted wall. That's how Henry Ford invented the car. If it doesn't happen, it's your fault for "wanting" instead of "believing."
Nietzschean: Paint is a flat circle.
Frenetic gypsy punk. I suppose I got this mainly for the song Wanderlust King... and that is definitely the standout. The rest of the album is consistently interesting, but nothing else (well, maybe Forces of Victory...) quite stands up as much as that front-loaded track.
3.0/5 - Good, but this kind of frenetic energy is really enjoyed more in a live context than on an album. These guys would have to put on one hell of a show!
what are my top 10 greatest games ever? my previous post made me think of what is definitely on the list. I wouldn't rank between these games, in other words, the number is just making sure i have ten.
2. Half Life 2 (& episodes) (Valve)
5. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo)
6. Super Mario 64 (Nintendo)
7. Tetris (Dorodnitsyn)
8. Gran Turismo 5 (Polyphony)
9. Counterstrike (Valve)
10. The Last of Us (Naughty Dog)
Other games I contemplated for this list (so, honorable mentions?):
Desert Combat (an original Battlefield 1942 mod that was bought by EA to make the rest of the games)
No wonder we're friends, we have a lot of these games in common!
Goldeneye was so fun, as was Super Smash Bros. Ocarina of Time (and A Link to the Past) both make me almost tear up with nostalgia when I think about them. Civilization 5 is probably the game I've put the most hours in... ever.
Randomly, though, I think I liked Saints Row 2 better than any GTA I've played. Part of that might have been Michael Dorn though.
In no particular order and primarily based on if I replayed the game or not:
The Need for Speed (on 3DO)
I haven't played games with enough dedication in many many years to really have an opinion on modern games. The two I remember with the most fondness are Halo and FFVIII. Somewhere banging around in there is also Alpha Centauri. I also remember playing Quake II on a modem-to-modem connection and thinking I was the smartest bastard on the planet for getting that working. How little I knew...
I can't really do a "top 10." There are way, way too many ways to slice a video game for comparison. Instead, here's the list of games that, when I am murdered in 2018 by the time thieves, the person that has to go back in time with my clone will need to have Josh Prime play these games in order to produce a reasonable simulacrum:
That takes you through about 19, and should have addressed by my love for dialog trees, subtle, wry humor, dark narratives, and my fascination with humanity in aggregate.
Pray that I am ready by then.
Pregnancy gives you crazy dreams and mine have been epic.
Last night I dreamed I had the ability to slide through dimensions to alternate realities through portholes I could see. Sometimes when you slid through a porthole it was by accident, othertimes on purpose to run away from danger. And sometimes you were still yourself, but most of the time when you slid through a porthole to a new reality/dimension you were someone new. Thus for most of the dream I was Captain Kirk going between versions of the Enterprise and other starships. At one point I stole a gun that allowed me to create my own reality/dimension portholes and it created a bubble atmosphere so I could fly through space without a space ship. So awesome. Because I kept accidentally trying to fly my spaceship through portholes only to discover on the other side that my spaceship was now stuck inside a building or cave or what not.
I woke up sad that it didn't exist even as a tv show. I've always loved alternate reality stories, episodes of tv where they go to an alternate universe, and even Sliders (well up until the third season).
I have a weakness for albums whose entire existence is based on criticizing religion.
3.5/5 - Like their newest, a well-executed concept album (the second half... I need to give Heliocentric a listen sometime soon). The evolution in sound shown on this album paves the way for their newest, the latter of which is somewhat better (given that this is pretty preachy). Still a very good album.
