I like it. I watched the first and second ones before, but I wanted to watch them again before watching the third. It goes in very different directions, especially with the second movie. I get the impression that many people find the third movie disappointing, and that it wipes out a lot of the development that happened in the first two. I will be going into it with somewhat lowered expectations.
I have watched a few movies this weekend. I rewatched the first 2 Evangelion Rebuild movies, and I plan to watch the third later. I also watched the first part of The Colour of Magick.
Along with that, I have been watching Season 3 of Community.
Regarding reading, I started Book 7 of The Wheel of Time, so I am near the halfway mark. This week I got Volume 3 of IDW's Complete Chester Gould Dick Tracy, but I have not yet started to make my way through.
I finished The Walking Dead: 400 Days. Here is a brief, spoiler-free review (as requested).
Since it is a self-contained episode, meant to bridge the gap between seasons, it is a bit different than the other episodes. Each chapter focuses on a different character, and you only play them for a short period of time. Each chapter also takes place at a different point in time between Day 1 and Day 400 of the zombie outbreak. There are some connecting threads between the chapters, regarding other characters you interact with. It is also possible for an NPC from a chapter to appear as a walker in a later chapter.
The chapters were even more "on-the-rails" than the Season 1 episodes. There was not much by way of puzzles, only interactions and dialogue, with one or two critical decisions to be made. Also, since you get little time with the characters, there is less potential for emotional attachment to them.
Supposedly, the decisions made in 400 Days will be reflected in Season 2.
I got the game as part of a Season 1 package, and I was not disappointed to play it. I would not recommend its purchase as a standalone, but if you have played Season 1 and plan to play Season 2, it is probably worth getting as well.
Now that I am done with TWD, I am going to move on to either Pappa & Yo or To The Moon, which I have gotten from recent Humble Bundles. I will also get back to playing some DDO, which I have not touched in nearly a month. I might also make an effort to get back into Guild Wars 2, which I have not played for nearly a year.
Why does the owner need to defend his age restriction? If he wants to provide a place where people can eat without children present, and people wish to eat there, why does it need to be justified?
@kolohe
I think you hit on the most important point. It really should not come down to what people want or expect, as much as it should matter what rules the proprietor wishes to set. Of course, those rules will determine who wishes to come to the establishment, and ultimately how successful it is. However, parents with kids do not have a right to eat at a restaurant any more than others have a right to eat without children around.
Watched quite a bit this weekend. I am near the end of House of Cards. I would have finished it, but I had internet issues and could not get to Netflix. I also started on Season 3 of Community, after taking a lengthy break from watching it. I squeezed in a couple episodes of the original Batman TV Series.
I also got in a couple of movies, The Three Stooges and eXistenZ. I thought The Three Stooges was really good, but I wish it did not have The Jersey Shore cast involved in it. Not so much because of problems with the show, but simply the fact that it nails the movie specifically to a fad. I am also not any sort of Stooges expert, so I do not have an opinion on how accurately the recreated the characters.
I think someone at Ordinary Times wrote about eXistenZ, and that is where I first heard about it. I really do not have anything interesting to say about it. I liked the movie, and it kept me engaged. There were some disturbing scenes. I largely saw the ending coming.
I have been working on The Walking Dead: Season 1. I have about 1 and a half chapters left, as well as 400 Days. After that, I am not sure what I am going to move onto. I have way more options than I have time at the moment.
Yes. My son is staying back with my folks to finish up the semester, and he probably will not come here until the end of the summer. I figured some dogs would help keep the house from seeming too empty, so I got a pair of corgis. I happened to luck out and find a breeder that had an 8-month-old brother/sister pair. She had kept them to show, but she ended up getting a job that made that impossible. Since I was interested in both, she held them until I got up here to get them. They are two awesome dogs.
This weekend so far has consisted of unpacking some more of my stuff, taking my new dogs to get tested for heartworms, and getting some cleaning done. The rest of the weekend will probably involve more unpacking, more cleaning, and fixing a curtain rod that was pulled down by the previously mentioned dogs.
Well, I am not too bothered by the lack of Babylonia updates. Instead of being three episodes behind, I am only one episode behind. My copy of Endless Nights is still in a box somewhere, so I will not be getting to that in time to join the discussion on that.
On the bright side, I am finally established with a working TV, computer, and internet access at the new place, and I should be able to get caught up on my viewing over the weekend.
I love the Dream story, except… I find the entire Dream/Desire falling out entirely unbelievable. I simply think it makes zero sense for Dream and Desire to be so very close, and then have those events occur the way they did. It just fails as a plausible story point.
I don't know. Dream has shown himself to easily get his feelings hurt, and to hold a grudge, and to generally be a big baby at times. He is prideful, and bad at forgiving. Remember Nada?
And leave it to Neil Gaiman to be pretentious enough to weave his characters into the origin stories of some of the largest DC characters.
This is the opinion that I hold. Even then, I only see it as a final option. Person A murders Person B in a fit of rage? I am not sure I could support the death penalty. On the other hand, a person with a high body count will probably always be a danger to others.
Then again, these days I find myself more and more pondering alternatives to prison for dealing with criminals. I have a not come up with any good ideas, but as time goes on, a retributive justice system becomes unappealing, and I long for a system that would effectively rehabilitate.
The current system of prison, where a person comes out losing several years of his life, and lacks the means to integrate into society, seems like a system that breeds recidivism. Maybe there are statistics that indicate otherwise, and maybe the current system does prevent crime, but that is not the impression that I get.
I am not even sure how much prison acts as a deterrent. I believe most people would not engage in criminal activity even without the threat of prison. Speaking for myself, I do not steal from my neighbor because it is wrong, not because of the fear of getting caught. In times where I am presented with an opportunity to do wrong, where I feel fairly confident that I would not get caught, I still choose not to do it. On the other hand, those that currently engage in criminal activity are only forced to do it discreetly. I am certain there has to be a better way, I just do not know what it is.
Yes. I am being transferred to Houston. It had been discussed a few times over the past few years, but the timing was not right. I wanted to go, but I could not make it work. Now, things have finally fallen into place. There is a lot more opportunity for me there, and it will also get my son into a better school system than what we have here in FL.
This weekend will be doing some of the final prep work to get things ready for the movers to come pack on Friday. I have an aquarium that needs to be dismantled, a lawn mower that needs to be cleaned and drained, and various other tasks. I am also taking the car for an oil change and to make sure it is in shape to handle the long drive from Florida to Texas (though that does not happen until after Christmas).
Maybe I will be able to squeeze in some fun activities into the weekend too.
I think the increase in phones with actual keypads instead of number pads contributes to longer sentences. The difficulty in using a number pad always kept me to as few letters as possible in a text.
The only ones watching high school musicals and plays are the parents of the kids involved. Most of them are not likely to go to theatrical productions otherwise.
I do not care for texting, though I cannot say why.
You can have my CDs when you pry them from my cold, dead hands. I like albums. I like album art. I like when they come with a nice booklet, containing lyrics or pictures or whatever. If I am going to pay for music, I would prefer to have the physical media.
I thought the Drazi thing was amusing, but it does not hold up under scrutiny. So many ways to pick it apart, and I am not the kind of guy that likes to try to pick my fiction apart. I want to accept the world that creators provide to me. However, when things just jump at me, it leaves me annoyed.
The Technomages are a neat idea. I do not remember if they come up again in the series or not. I believe they feature in some of the novels. I liked Vir's interaction with them, chanting his Mantra in the face of the monster.
This was my philosophy. They have to be very durable to survive the uncoordinated early years. If babies were extremely fragile, I doubt many of us would have made it to adulthood.
I spent some time playing DDO. I have one character at level 10, which is midlevel, and I started playing through the Vault of Night adventure pack. A friend said it was really good, and he was right. There are a variety of adventures, including an arena fight, a journey into someone's mind, and trying to rescue someone who is being pursued by an Inevitable. I have not finished the whole thing, but so far it has been challenging and exciting.
I also spent some time playing through the Attitude Era mode of WWE 13, and I finished up the Rise of Degeneration X storyline, with the exception of some bonus matches that I need to unlock. Considering I watched WCW with my dad at the time, I like getting caught up on the WWE stuff that I missed.
It is a place where you go to watch a movie when you want to spend a lot of money on drinks and snacks, and you want the bright glow of smart phones to keep you from getting too focused on what is going on.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Sunday!”
I like it. I watched the first and second ones before, but I wanted to watch them again before watching the third. It goes in very different directions, especially with the second movie. I get the impression that many people find the third movie disappointing, and that it wipes out a lot of the development that happened in the first two. I will be going into it with somewhat lowered expectations.
"
I have watched a few movies this weekend. I rewatched the first 2 Evangelion Rebuild movies, and I plan to watch the third later. I also watched the first part of The Colour of Magick.
Along with that, I have been watching Season 3 of Community.
Regarding reading, I started Book 7 of The Wheel of Time, so I am near the halfway mark. This week I got Volume 3 of IDW's Complete Chester Gould Dick Tracy, but I have not yet started to make my way through.
On “Saturday!”
I finished The Walking Dead: 400 Days. Here is a brief, spoiler-free review (as requested).
Since it is a self-contained episode, meant to bridge the gap between seasons, it is a bit different than the other episodes. Each chapter focuses on a different character, and you only play them for a short period of time. Each chapter also takes place at a different point in time between Day 1 and Day 400 of the zombie outbreak. There are some connecting threads between the chapters, regarding other characters you interact with. It is also possible for an NPC from a chapter to appear as a walker in a later chapter.
The chapters were even more "on-the-rails" than the Season 1 episodes. There was not much by way of puzzles, only interactions and dialogue, with one or two critical decisions to be made. Also, since you get little time with the characters, there is less potential for emotional attachment to them.
Supposedly, the decisions made in 400 Days will be reflected in Season 2.
I got the game as part of a Season 1 package, and I was not disappointed to play it. I would not recommend its purchase as a standalone, but if you have played Season 1 and plan to play Season 2, it is probably worth getting as well.
Now that I am done with TWD, I am going to move on to either Pappa & Yo or To The Moon, which I have gotten from recent Humble Bundles. I will also get back to playing some DDO, which I have not touched in nearly a month. I might also make an effort to get back into Guild Wars 2, which I have not played for nearly a year.
On “Bringing Baby to Dinner”
@kazzy
Why does the owner need to defend his age restriction? If he wants to provide a place where people can eat without children present, and people wish to eat there, why does it need to be justified?
"
@kolohe
I think you hit on the most important point. It really should not come down to what people want or expect, as much as it should matter what rules the proprietor wishes to set. Of course, those rules will determine who wishes to come to the establishment, and ultimately how successful it is. However, parents with kids do not have a right to eat at a restaurant any more than others have a right to eat without children around.
"
@kim
I imagine there are certain regulatory standards required to provide a space for children in a public place like this, making it nontrivial.
On “Sunday!”
Watched quite a bit this weekend. I am near the end of House of Cards. I would have finished it, but I had internet issues and could not get to Netflix. I also started on Season 3 of Community, after taking a lengthy break from watching it. I squeezed in a couple episodes of the original Batman TV Series.
I also got in a couple of movies, The Three Stooges and eXistenZ. I thought The Three Stooges was really good, but I wish it did not have The Jersey Shore cast involved in it. Not so much because of problems with the show, but simply the fact that it nails the movie specifically to a fad. I am also not any sort of Stooges expert, so I do not have an opinion on how accurately the recreated the characters.
I think someone at Ordinary Times wrote about eXistenZ, and that is where I first heard about it. I really do not have anything interesting to say about it. I liked the movie, and it kept me engaged. There were some disturbing scenes. I largely saw the ending coming.
On “Saturday!”
I have been working on The Walking Dead: Season 1. I have about 1 and a half chapters left, as well as 400 Days. After that, I am not sure what I am going to move onto. I have way more options than I have time at the moment.
On “Weekend!”
Yes. My son is staying back with my folks to finish up the semester, and he probably will not come here until the end of the summer. I figured some dogs would help keep the house from seeming too empty, so I got a pair of corgis. I happened to luck out and find a breeder that had an 8-month-old brother/sister pair. She had kept them to show, but she ended up getting a job that made that impossible. Since I was interested in both, she held them until I got up here to get them. They are two awesome dogs.
"
This weekend so far has consisted of unpacking some more of my stuff, taking my new dogs to get tested for heartworms, and getting some cleaning done. The rest of the weekend will probably involve more unpacking, more cleaning, and fixing a curtain rod that was pulled down by the previously mentioned dogs.
On “Babylonia!”
Well, I am not too bothered by the lack of Babylonia updates. Instead of being three episodes behind, I am only one episode behind. My copy of Endless Nights is still in a box somewhere, so I will not be getting to that in time to join the discussion on that.
On the bright side, I am finally established with a working TV, computer, and internet access at the new place, and I should be able to get caught up on my viewing over the weekend.
On “Somniloquy!”
I love the Dream story, except… I find the entire Dream/Desire falling out entirely unbelievable. I simply think it makes zero sense for Dream and Desire to be so very close, and then have those events occur the way they did. It just fails as a plausible story point.
I don't know. Dream has shown himself to easily get his feelings hurt, and to hold a grudge, and to generally be a big baby at times. He is prideful, and bad at forgiving. Remember Nada?
And leave it to Neil Gaiman to be pretentious enough to weave his characters into the origin stories of some of the largest DC characters.
On “Punishment Capital”
This is the opinion that I hold. Even then, I only see it as a final option. Person A murders Person B in a fit of rage? I am not sure I could support the death penalty. On the other hand, a person with a high body count will probably always be a danger to others.
Then again, these days I find myself more and more pondering alternatives to prison for dealing with criminals. I have a not come up with any good ideas, but as time goes on, a retributive justice system becomes unappealing, and I long for a system that would effectively rehabilitate.
The current system of prison, where a person comes out losing several years of his life, and lacks the means to integrate into society, seems like a system that breeds recidivism. Maybe there are statistics that indicate otherwise, and maybe the current system does prevent crime, but that is not the impression that I get.
I am not even sure how much prison acts as a deterrent. I believe most people would not engage in criminal activity even without the threat of prison. Speaking for myself, I do not steal from my neighbor because it is wrong, not because of the fear of getting caught. In times where I am presented with an opportunity to do wrong, where I feel fairly confident that I would not get caught, I still choose not to do it. On the other hand, those that currently engage in criminal activity are only forced to do it discreetly. I am certain there has to be a better way, I just do not know what it is.
On “Weekend!”
Yes. I am being transferred to Houston. It had been discussed a few times over the past few years, but the timing was not right. I wanted to go, but I could not make it work. Now, things have finally fallen into place. There is a lot more opportunity for me there, and it will also get my son into a better school system than what we have here in FL.
"
Happy Birthday!
"
This weekend will be doing some of the final prep work to get things ready for the movers to come pack on Friday. I have an aquarium that needs to be dismantled, a lawn mower that needs to be cleaned and drained, and various other tasks. I am also taking the car for an oil change and to make sure it is in shape to handle the long drive from Florida to Texas (though that does not happen until after Christmas).
Maybe I will be able to squeeze in some fun activities into the weekend too.
On “Stupid Tuesday questions, Strunk and White edition”
I think the increase in phones with actual keypads instead of number pads contributes to longer sentences. The difficulty in using a number pad always kept me to as few letters as possible in a text.
On “Labor Fairness: Unpaid Actor Edition”
The only ones watching high school musicals and plays are the parents of the kids involved. Most of them are not likely to go to theatrical productions otherwise.
On “Stupid Tuesday questions, Strunk and White edition”
The proper expression is "TLDR."
"
I do not care for texting, though I cannot say why.
You can have my CDs when you pry them from my cold, dead hands. I like albums. I like album art. I like when they come with a nice booklet, containing lyrics or pictures or whatever. If I am going to pay for music, I would prefer to have the physical media.
On “Babylonia!”
I thought the Drazi thing was amusing, but it does not hold up under scrutiny. So many ways to pick it apart, and I am not the kind of guy that likes to try to pick my fiction apart. I want to accept the world that creators provide to me. However, when things just jump at me, it leaves me annoyed.
The Technomages are a neat idea. I do not remember if they come up again in the series or not. I believe they feature in some of the novels. I liked Vir's interaction with them, chanting his Mantra in the face of the monster.
On “Sunday!”
Thanks for the heads up.
I definitely do not see this as a series that I will devour as rapidly as possible, but more of something to visit occasionally for a change of pace.
On “Context, It Seems, Does Matter”
This was my philosophy. They have to be very durable to survive the uncoordinated early years. If babies were extremely fragile, I doubt many of us would have made it to adulthood.
On “Saturday!”
I spent some time playing DDO. I have one character at level 10, which is midlevel, and I started playing through the Vault of Night adventure pack. A friend said it was really good, and he was right. There are a variety of adventures, including an arena fight, a journey into someone's mind, and trying to rescue someone who is being pursued by an Inevitable. I have not finished the whole thing, but so far it has been challenging and exciting.
I also spent some time playing through the Attitude Era mode of WWE 13, and I finished up the Rise of Degeneration X storyline, with the exception of some bonus matches that I need to unlock. Considering I watched WCW with my dad at the time, I like getting caught up on the WWE stuff that I missed.
On “Yes! It’s the Third Annual Mindless Diversions Unsolicited Shopping Guide For The Perplexed!”
It is a place where you go to watch a movie when you want to spend a lot of money on drinks and snacks, and you want the bright glow of smart phones to keep you from getting too focused on what is going on.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.