Commenter Archive

So, I preordered Shadows because I loved Odyssey and Valhalla, and I loved Ghost of Tsushima. I basically didn't care about the delays in release. I figured if all they did was put the Valhalla gameplay in fedual Japan, that's good enough for me. That is pretty much exactly what it is with a couple of new mechanics that are good.

I have about four hours into it. Why so few? I'm a middle aged dad with responsibilities. Finishing Valhalla took me the better part of ... five months? Maybe six?

I am not woke or leftist in the slightest. I don't care about representation in games or the gaming industry. I just care about if I have fun because it's a hobby. And Shadows is fun.

You don't even have to play as Yasuke for much of the game if you don't want to. There's a prologue where you play as both him and Naoue, and then an extended section where you can only play as Naoue apparently. Then you gain the ability to switch between them. They have different abilities. He's all ground attack. A tank that just muscles through everything, including shut/locked doors. She's a ninja, stealthy and speedy. He parries, while she dodges. She has a grappling hook to reach high places. He can't climb/parkour as well as she can. You get the picture.

But regardless of what style you want to play, both characters seem pretty cool. Yasuke - a slave of some Portugese priests (I presume they're templars, we'll see) whom a Japanese warlord becomes fascinated with bc he's never seen a black man before. It's basically Shogun. Naoue, a ninja with a pretty dramatic opening back story that I won't spoil although you'll see it coming a mile away.

Look, ninjas and samurai are fun. I don't care if the makers of the game want to make a social statement by making the samurai black and putting non-binary NPC's in the game. It has no bearing on how fun it is to play ninja and go around making the markers on the map disappear, assassinate every bad guy on the island, explore feudal Japan, etc.

I refuse to tip at fast casual restaurants where you order at the counter. I used to be scared that workers would do something to my food if I didn't tip, but I don't care any more. I also don't agree with the apparent mantra now that you must, in all circumstances regardless of the quality of food or service, tip a certain amount.

The tipping point (rim shot) for me was going to a drive through car wash and being presented with an option to tip. To be clear - there was no person providing a direct service to me, like hand towel drying or anything like that. It was just a drive through car wash, and the machine was asking for a tip. I've also seen it at convenience stores, when I fill up with gas and run in for a drink or snack. The tipping advocates have overplayed their hand, and, understandably, consumers are responding negatively.

I think Nate Silver, in that tweet, has demonstrated that he has zero experience with or knowledge of college football fandom. In every college football fanbase, there are sycophantic fans and homer media who will interpret any criticism of the head coach/program as bad faith. "He's not a real Michigan Man," etc.

I would suggest that if he wants to see the crazy in sports fans in the United States (South American and Euro soccer take the prize), he needs to spend some time around college football. In the name of their team, college football fans do shit like poison trees on the rival's campus, assault people, make up false stories about a coach having an affair to get the guy fired so they can hire another guy, stalk high school recruits, .... The list goes on and on. And that's not even touching what the programs themselves do in the name of protecting the coach/team/program. Penn State literally covered up systematized child rape to protect Joe Pa. Baylor covered up multiple rapes to protect their team.

I bounced off Elden Ring after maybe 15 hours, and I had tried to beat Margit a dozen times or so. I had a ton of fun exploring. The oh shit moment when I was in that flooded ruin and I started hearing (and feeling in the haptics) the dragon running at me across the lake was a top five video game moment for me. It was followed up by me running down a stairwell into a cave for cover, finding a treasure chest, opening it up, then getting transported by a trap all the way across the map to a section I'd never been to where the enemies were much harder.

But I got so frustrated when I decided to buckle down and try to beat Margit that I just quit. It also didn't help that there are SO MANY mechanics and systems in the game, and it's extremely opaque if you don't have a walkthrough or guide open for you the whole time. Crafting, how ashes work, should I use these greases or save them, leveling up weapons, etc. I made it into that round table hold area, where the good guy knights are and the better blacksmith, but then I couldn't remember how to get back there later. I spent an hour trying to kill the big guard on the horse that you first encounter when you get into limgrave...

All the talk about the DLC makes me want to give it another try.

Can't get worked up about it because that site has gone downhill for years, as all Gawker/former Gawker sites have. Seems like there's a lot fewer substantive reviews, and a lot more outragey click bait about whatever the lefty cause du jour is. I don't even check the feed frequently any more, because I know there's so little of interest to me there.

There's no way they mean 50 substantive, comprehensive game guides a week. That's impossible.

I'm the father of an almost teenage daughter who loves Taylor Swift. I don't have a problem with it. She's relatively wholesome and traditional compared to a lot of popular music. Her songs are about wanting to fall in love and ride off in the sunset, the hurt of failed relationships, etc. The whole Travis and Taylor thing was the same. She was in a very public relationship with a traditionally masculine guy. It got my daughter and wife interested in the NFL, which is good.

Probably the only gripe I have about her is that her lyrics and music are mostly teenage girl drama all the time. And I don't necessarily want to encourage that sort of thing. Like the line about "promise to always be overdramatic" from Lover. No, don't be overdramatic. Being overdramatic isn't good. I also don't care for how much sexualization there is in her more recent albums, but she's a 30-something year old woman and, again, it's extremely tame by today's standards in a lot of popular music. "Tangled in bedsheets" and "the shape of your body" v. "WAP." And I feel pretty confident that Swift will not be twerking on stage in a thong or singing about her lady lumps.

So, all in all, there are much worse things my daughter could be into, and where I have problems with it, it's a teaching opportunity, a chance to teach how to evaluate and discern.

Also, I didn't end up a junkie or commit suicide despite years of listening to Nirvana, Alice in Chains, STP, GNR, Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, or all the other grunge bands of the '90's. So, the kids will be alright.

Can we all just agree now, after watching site after site get sold or shut down or fire off employees (Vice, Deadspin, Gawker, Vox...), that 1) all of these "journalists" doing internet click bait are not anywhere near as important as they think they are, and the "content" they "create" is largely interchangeable crap, and 2) maybe, as we also see streaming services aggregate together and/or cut budgets and add ads and drop plans for more expensive "content," we've reached peak "content."

On that second one, it's not just websites that are shutting down, and streaming services changing up their business models. The video games industry is also undergoing massive changes. Lots of layoffs. A slow but undeniable shift away from physical media. Predictions of the death of dedicated gaming consoles.

Sanderson has, since he became popular enough to do so, consistently taken back power from the big publishing houses/distributors. And, sure, some of it doesn't necessarily translate for much smaller writers. Not many can raise $40 million on Kickstarter to fund their new books. But it's all still steps in taking back control of the publishing industry, giving it to the content creators.

I find it noteworthy that, in spite of this, he is consistently mocked and outright attacked by left-leaning readers, writers, critics. He's doing the sort of trustbusting work that they would typically be in favor of, but they can't praise it because he's a square, normie, (dare I say, dorky?) Mormon dude. The Wired interview, John Scalzi's comments about the Kickstarter... It's baffling. They hate the guy for no reason.

Cards on the table: I'm a fan. I've read all the Cosmere novels except for the three most recently self-published ones. I eagerly await Stormlight 5. And this is maybe a hot take - but I think that what he's doing with the Cosmere is better/greater than what Stephen King did with the Dark Tower and related novels. But most fantasy readers will never acknowledge it because of who Sanderson is.

Establishing my bona fides before I comment: I am 6’ 5”, 330 pounds. At my fattest, I was 455 pounds. 17 years ago I dropped a bunch of weight, have gotten down to 290 at my adult lowest. Was a fat kid. Have been fat my whole life.

I tend to disagree with the trend of wholesale abandoning the “moral” approach for the “medical” approach. I get it. Shame is often counterproductive. People react to it in different ways. I understand, as I have and continue to do the comfort eating thing at times. But weight loss and sustainability is all about deferred gratification and thinking of others besides myself and my own desires, which absolutely are moral issues and a problem in many, many areas beyond weight loss.

I have a wife and kids who depend on me. I have friends and two aging parents. I have responsibilities related to my career. I have civic responsibilities. Poor health makes me less likely to be able to fulfill those responsibilities and more likely to become a burden to others.

At the end of the day, weight loss and health is about getting it through my thick skull that my own desires and gratification are less important than what I can and should do for others. That is a counter cultural idea in our society, on both the left and right. One side worships the market of self interest, the other worships self actualization and making one’s own truth.

And yeah there’s a lot of stuff working against us. I work a desk job. The American diet is shit, for the most part. Junk food is designed to hit every pleasure receptor and addict us. But navigating obstacles is what life is. Like I tell my kids, most of life is doing hard things you don’t want to do. I don’t see weight loss and health as any different. It’s just about acknowledging reality (I can’t eat and drink anything I want at any time and forego all physical activity if I don’t want to have these negative consequences) and accepting responsibility (the problem starts with me and the decisions I make, not with anyone/thing outside me). Finding a motivation helps with that, and my kids are a good one.

I put my bona fides for a reason. Because I get the shame. I feel it. But the thing is, I deserve it bc my choices have brought me to where I am. And when I see people on social media posting shit like “be fat inclusive” or showing morbidly obese people and saying “this is healthy,” I think some shame is appropriate and beneficial for us all.

I love a god craft beer. I have homebrewed in the past, and I did some pretty ambitious stuff, I think. It was well received by my friends. Just establishing my bona fides as an amateur who knows beer, probably better than the average consumer.

I am not a beer snob, in that there is absolutely a place and time for these type of cheap American lagers. Some in the comment section have already noted that. Tailgating before a football game on a hot September Saturday in SEC country? You don’t want a thick juicy IPA or a sour or a stout. You want something light and crisp and refreshing that gets the job done. After mowing your grass. At a summer cookout. At a large family gathering. On the beach. At a fish fry. At a crawfish boil. On the lake. Tons of times that I would rather have a Miller Lite than the craft beee I would otherwise drink on your average Friday night.

That being said, this reveals why Bud Light’s marketing decision here was so stupid. Most/many of those settings have a particular stereotypical market in mind. Bud forgot their target audience. In fact, if you believe what their since-fired marketing person said, she didn’t want that target audience. She wanted a new clientele, without giving any thought to whether that new audience would adopt the product in sufficient quantities to make up for the group she didn’t want to sell to any more. And from a business standpoint, that strategy is just… baffling.

I don’t particularly care, because I prefer Miller lite anyway.

I spent two hours last night trying to play Castlevania: symphony of the night (didn’t get it; got a half hour in and quit after I died bc I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to do or where to go), and then plowing through the first 18 levels of portal.

I have played games since the NES. I got a switch a few years ago, and my wife and kids bought me a Xbox series s for Christmas this past year. In the four months since Christmas, I finished one game - Far Cry 6 - and last night finally played something different as a palate cleanser before I jump into Elden ring, which I’m sure will take me several months to finish or get to a quitting point. By then starfield will be out, and I’ll probably do another quick palate cleanser before jumping into it.

This is gaming in my mid forties - take the small bits of time when they’re there. Know I won’t play everything. I’m okay with that. I got the Xbox, rather than PS5, specifically bc I want starfield and elder scrolls 6 when it eventually comes out. I got the series s, rather than x, bc my wife got it for $200 on sale and given my low rate of finishing games, digital only is fine.

I use the switch on the go, and it’s great if you’re an old school rpg fan. I want to play the final fantasy pixel remasters at some point. I’ve got octopath traveler 2 but haven’t started it yet. I put probably over 100 hours into the first one, finished all but the secret final boss, but over the course of 18 months.

I have been lurking and reading this website for years. I occasionally comment, but definitely not frequently enough to be recognized by any of y’all.

I wanted to comment to say that this post is why I like Jaybird’s comments and posts - he’s just writing about normal life and doesn’t seem fishing miserable about everything like some of the people here do. Many of the writers and frequent commenters here seem like they can’t take pleasure in anything and actively resent anyone who does. “How can you talk about Costco pasta dishes when *this* bad thing is happening in the world?!?!?!” That sort of thing.

Jaybird catches a lot of shit from you people because he tries to look at things from what he perceived as the perspective of normal people. But it seems like he’s one of the most normal here in that when he writes it’s obvious that his politics is downstream from the everyday trappings of his life. What are we doing this weekend? How can I stretch these bucks into a really tasty meal? Am I using my leave at work like I should? I really should exercise more. Etc.

Idk. This is more combative than I intended. I just see a lot of frequenters here give jaybird a hard time, and I see a kindred spirit. Just trying to live life, make the mortgage payment, love my friends and family, enjoy the leisure time that I earn…

I don’t do lent, but I am exercising more and making changes to my diet. Have lost two belt notches since Christmas and want to keep going. I despise running but it’s the most convenient form of exercise. So doing that and then some basic body weight stuff - push-ups, squats, sit ups, etc.

Rumble predictions?

I don't think the Rock will show up. It would be hard enough to get him to do one PPV, and we all know they want him for WM.

I'm predicting Cody Rhodes wins the Rumble. I'm also predicting he does something epic. Maybe not go the distance from #1 epic, but close enough to that. Then he faces Roman at WM.

IF they can get Rock for WM, then I don't think they need to do Roman v. Rock. Bring back Rock as a heel assisting Roman. Rock was always best as a heel anyway. And if Cody wins the RR, like I suspect, then you could have Roman beat him by cheating, then the Bloodline piling on afterward. Then the Rock's music hits, you get the massive pop, and everyone expects him to help Cody. Then he pulls a Hogan at Bash at the Beach and drops the people's elbow on Cody. Then you get to build up to a Cody v. Roman rematch over a period of months.

I wish I knew what the hell they were doing with Bray Wyatt. That whole thing has been too slow of a burn, and it's annoying. I liked the Taker segment with him at Raw XXX, but every week I want to see something that actually moves that story and it never comes.

One more prediction: we're finally going to see the Bloodline turn on Sami Zayn. Roman will do something underhanded against KO. Maybe beat him clean in a decent match, but then pile on afterward, try to hurt him. Then Sami is going to hesitate when handed a chair or something to that effect, and Roman or Solo is going to take him out immediately. Jey will be sullen and disappointed.

The last month or two has been rough, no doubt. Word online is that so much of the long term and short term booking got ruined by injuries and other issues. Jeff Hardy’s DUI, injuries to Adam Cole, Danielson, Punk… And the MJF issues, which seems obviously not a work now that he’s been awol for so long.

And I won’t deny that it’s geared toward wrestling fans. That is part of what I loved about it immediately, the inside references and throwbacks. I also love the wide variety of wrestling styles from various promotions.

Probably the thing I like most is that everything doesn’t revolve around one guy. That’s always been VKM’s MO. If you weren’t the champ, you didn’t matter. Well, there’s a certain amount of silliness to that on its face when we’re talking about a scripted faux competition. Being the champ doesn’t mean you’ve won a competition, unless it’s the competition of just being more entertaining. Bc wrestling isn’t a competition. It’s a story.

It’s truly uncharted territory. HHH’s success managing NXT and return to WWE simultaneous with VKM’s retirement could be a sign things will improve, or it could be just a means of comforting shareholders. IMO, their product has been awful in recent years. I love AEW, though, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see WWE take some ideas from AEW. And talent. MJF’s contract goes a whole mother year and a half, and I bet TK won’t release him without some major concession.

Still working on octopath traveler. I’m at the point where it’s just obligation at this point. I feel like I can’t quit after 70 hours. So, here I am grinding to level some characters so I can beat the hidden final boss. Meanwhile I have a stack of other stuff I want to play waiting.

“If an author would rather take a chance that the audience doesn’t understand the word and won’t pick it up in context, that’s a pretty reasonable artistic decision. If people are angry about that they need to chill out. If she is angry that they are missing something because they don’t understand the words and refuse to look it up, she needs to chill out because she is the one that chose to put an unfamiliar word out there and expect the reader to do the work.“

This is the correct answer to the vast majority of social media kerfuffles. I’m sure she did have some assholes that gave her some racist “this is America we talk English here” bullshit, because surprise surprise it’s a big country and there are assholes. But rather than do the reasonable thing and block the assholes or mute them, she went the “you entitled white people” route and ratcheted up the conflict.

And I’m sure it can be hard to not respond in kind to bad faith trolls, that the constant bombardment is taxing. But that’s just another reason why social media is a scourge on society. It gives our worst an outlet to have outsized influence, whether it’s the racists in one end of the spectrum or the racists on the other. Like the good book says, surround yourself with fools, and you’re going to become a fool. Well, there’s a lot of fools on social media.

I agree that Quark-centric episodes that are not "Ferengi episodes," are generally pretty good. The one where he and Odo go up the mountain, and the one where he loses everything and all the crew of the station bring him barware, furniture, etc. at the end, both come to mind.

Is this even a real question?

Garak. The ferengi episodes were - for the most part - some of the worst ones. Up there with holodeck malfunction episodes. Wallace Shawn’s nasally grand nagus voice, the gross out humor… Doesn’t hold a candle to Garak.

I started it last night with a Barbarian, as I typically do for my first times through games like this. I will probably play through with either a Druid or Necromancer after I finish one playthrough with the tank.

I started it last night on Switch, and I had forgotten about the awful inventory system.

I don't play video games for realism, and I don't play dungeon loot-fests like Diablo so I can be selective about what I keep in inventory and what I sell/store.

Diablo III, for all the crap it got from fans of the series, at least had a much larger inventory so instead of having to sort through things multiple times in a dungeon run, you could wait and purge after each run.

Our household's go-to salad:

Spring Mix
Sliced Strawberries
Feta
Sliced Almonds
Dressing of Olive Oil, Balsamic Vinegar, Dijon Mustard, a dash of Honey, a bit of Salt

Another salad we make less frequently but that is also great:
Spring Mix
Parmesan (grate or shave your own from a block, or the pre shredded kind; not the powder)
Sliced Olives (we usually buy a medley of olive types in oil and bay leaves and oregano)
Bell Peppers (I like the sweet ones)
Dressing of Olive Oil, Tarragon Vinegar, minced garlic, salt, black pepper, and pecarino romano

1. Batman - You've got to include at least one superhero that falls into the "perfection of a normal man" category. As absurd as some of the stuff he does is, and as ridiculous as Wayne's wealth is, Batman falls into this category. He's also got the "world's greatest detective" thing going on, and he falls into the dark, tragic antihero category. You've also got the "who's the real person and who's the mask" debate going on there. And he has the best rogues' gallery.

2. Superman - Yeah, whatever. I guess you have to include him. I've always thought he was boring. Too perfect. Too indestructible. Too powerful. But I guess he's pretty much the prototype.

Those first two are easy. Here's where it gets more difficult.

3. Spider-Man - I think this fills the "give a normal guy super powers" category. You get the struggle of juggling super life and normal life, the impact on friends and family, and the difficult question of what, if anything, do you do with those powers. The "with great power comes great responsibility" line is a classic trope of comics, and Uncle Ben is one of the handful of characters that can never, ever be resurrected.

4. The Hulk - The Hulk is basically the id, a giant rage-monster who is virtually indestructible. The struggle between Hulk and Bruce Banner is the same old "Jekyll and Hyde" story, although in this case Hyde is a hero of sorts, albeit one who sometimes has to be shot into space because he causes so much damage on earth.

Honorable mentions: Captain America, for the whole "chosen to be a superhero because of his character" aspect; and Iron Man/Tony Stark, for the superhero as tech-geek aspect.

No women? No, no women. The most noteworthy, high-profile female superhero is Wonder Woman, and I have just never found her particularly interesting. I'm not going to include a female superhero just to do so. My list is my list. If I were going to include a woman, it would be Captain Marvel, but I just like the above selections better.

1. Breakfast Burrito - Eggs, sausage, cheese, onions, peppers, salsa, maybe some hash browns, jalapenos, all wrapped up warm in a tortilla. Portable, delicious, perfect.

2. Biscuits and Gravy - I prefer sawmill gravy with sausage, but tomato or redeye gravy will suffice.

3. Pancakes with a side of sausage - I prefer plain old maple syrup and butter. Dip the sausage in the syrup.

4. Cereal and Milk - Once a year or so we will get a box or two of junk cereal (I love Golden Grahams) for breakfast on the weekends. Although our breakfasts typically run along the granola or raisin bran path, sometimes a bowl of sugary, carby junk food is nice. FWIW, some "junk" cereals have less sugar, calories, and carbs than "healthy" ones. Compare a typical box of granola (not some organic, fancy pants brand) to Fruit Loops, for example.

I have a friend that works for a non-profit, and he told me they had a recurring problem of enmity between white and black coworkers over punctuality. The white employees were punctual, and the blacks were not. It would eventually piss off the whites because wasted time, and thus the conflict begins. This occurred so frequently that they had to have special cultural differences training to get both sides to give a little.

My response? This is not something I could give up on. When one is habitually late, they are being inconsiderate of everyone else they are inconveniencing. They're basically saying that their time is more important than the person waiting on them. This offense is compounded by the fact that time is truly our only non renewable resource.

I am inclined to feel the same way about pedestrians obstructing traffic. I wouldn't go so far as to call it assholish. It could simply be absentmindedness or ignorance. But I don't think there's anything racist or culturally insensitive about saying maybe people shouldn't engage in this behavior.

And, really, everyone will draw a line somewhere and not let the "cultural differences" card trump all other considerations. Everyone will make a value call at some point. Genital mutilation, binding feet, slavery - all cultural norms of other cultures. Walking slowly in the street is obviously less extreme, but still, if you draw the line anywhere you're going to require a different rationale than "cultural differences."