Lurker > DarkBuster22904

Steffenfield posted...

Emergency Declaration was a terrific film.

https://www.metacritic.com/movie/emergency-declaration

It was produced shortly before Covid though.

TC, you might give this a look if you're into such disease stories.

It not that I'm necessarily interested in disease stories, or movies totally about covid. This is more in regards to Covid becoming just sort of a passive thing in the background/world of otherwise unrelated movies.

A romamce about rekindling a failed relationship, that just happened to fall apart during lockdown. A character that put on 50 ibs when he sat at home for all of 2020. Extras or even important characters wearing face masks in certain scenes. The story wouldn't necessarily be ABOUT covid, but elements would reflect that, yeah, day to day life has looked a bit different ever since. Shit exists now that didn't before.

Basically, when does the post-covid world supplant the pre-covid world in the zeitgeist?

TheSuperLotion posted...

Why don't they make something new and original, then they can have as many black people as they want and nobody should care.

When they remake an old movie its literally like, "I can't wait to see which characters they're gonna make black to fit their contractual quota". It's disingenuous af and shits over predefined characters.

Black hunchback incoming
Did we get a black Peter pan yet? That's coming
Surprised simba wasn't black, but ig Beyonc and Scar was good enough

Simba was literally Donald Glover

See, all these racists are missing the point. The movie's gonna suck, but... not because ariel's black.

It's gonna suck because all these live action remakes suck. All the underwater scenes are gonna look washed out, to try to be realistic. Sebastian, Flounder, and the eels are gonna be the stuff of nightmares, because there's no way to make a realistic looking talking crab be anything less than nightmare fuel. And shrill as hell Melossa McCarthy screeching Poor Unfortunate Souls will be the worst thing to happen to the song since the Jonas Brothers.

Fuck, Halle Bailey is probably the best thing in the movie. At least she has the pipes to carry the music.

I suppose the fact that it's become so politicized hasn't helped. You've got half the country thinking ita a hoax, half the country thinking its a weaponized Chinese germ Warfare experiment gone wrong, half the country thinking Faucci invented it to get rich, and half the country not caring that this is four halves, because Trump told them that's how numbers work, and he maths good. The best math. Beautiful numbers, you wouldn't believe how beautiful the numbers are. That's what people are saying.

And it's pretty much impossible to feature the effects of covid without showing some kind of stance on it.

... in movies.

Right now, I suppose the logic is that COVID, the lockdowns, etc are all too fresh to cover or reference in good taste, especially with new variants still forthcoming. Which... yeah, checks out. That said, it was, and still is, a pretty monumental event.

I remember in the wake of 9/11, cinema felt the effects almost instantly. Movies changed in response to it (most notably in my memory, Spider-man's rumored "big reveal" scene of webbing up a criminal chopper between the twin towers that was featured prominently in the trailers was cut). Plenty of movies, crime dramas, etc, especially ones set in New York or DC, often had some reference to it. And it made sense. It shook things up nationwide, in a big way.

But for the last two years, most fiction I've seen in theaters has more or less... pretended like covid never happened. To be honest, I'm hard pressed to think of a character so much as wearing a face mask on screen. For capeshit or things obvipusly taking place in another universe, sure, I get it. But even very grounded flicks are eerily silent. It's almost bizarre how little it's referenced, considering how huge an effect it had on everyone's lives, one way or another.

That said, it's entirely possible I just haven't seen the right movies the last few years, so there's always that. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Eh, I dunno. Was just musing to myself, a little bit.

alphapipi posted...

https://youtu.be/v1CJxhaBcbg

lmao

K181 posted...

Man, after a certain point as a Trump crony, I'd just ditch my phone and get a new phone/plan.

Most of these old school boomer-types barely know how a cell phone works. All that newfangled techno-crap is the devils work and turning the kids into gay communists; no need to know how any of it works.

DarkRoast posted...

That's big swag energy to work a deal inside a GameStop

perfect place to get a lowball accepted, though. Seller doesn't know what it's worth, and the only other bidder literally isn't allowed to compete, lol.

TBH I'm just glad I was able to save these gems from whatever landfill gamestop was gonna send em to.

DoctorPiranha3 posted...

And this being after Bulbasaur rekt RB (not Y since Pika is the starter)

Considering you could still get one before the second badge, it still rekt yellow.

I've basically completely phased them out, by now. Best Buy's gamers club was way better, back when it was around. After it was gone, Wal Mart's $10 discount on new games brought me in. Now that that's gone on all new releases moving forward, I just go wherever closest, which isn't gamestop.

I'll still swing by occasionally. Tons of people trade in stuff they don't know the value of. I've found a fair few limited physical print games in their Used section that I know go for hundreds online, always selling for like $15 bucks (pretty sure they just use the digital price as a reference point).

Once I saw a guy at the counter trying to trade in about $1000 dollars worth of n64 stuff. Console, Conker, Pokemon Stadium 2, collector edition carts for Ocarina and Majora, paper mario, both castlevanias, good stuff. Guy at the counter offered like $100 for it (was surprised they even accepted that stuff, tbh). I told the guy I'd give him $200 cash, walked out with a nice haul. That was fun.

MICHALECOLE posted...

Size?

I mean, we have a sprawling landscape where you can travel basically anywhere, littered with places to explore. Lots of optional collectibles that you can seek out if you want, that make you stronger. A relatively sparse plot that doesn't get in the way of the journey. Nonlinear progression, as there's always ways to tackle dungeons in different orders.

So... yeah, size. And crafting, I guess?

rexcrk posted...

Its actually a shame tbh. Open world games arent really my thing, so if thats how the series is going to be going forward, then I guess Im done with Zelda

(Aside from replaying the older games)

Every Zelda except 2, and 2 out of 3 cdi games, has been open world

Try to get him to pay for my student loans.

I'll tell him he's great, and ask for $100k for lunch at mcdonalds so we can talk about how much I "admire" him. He'll believe that.

Mew posted...

You have to tip on top of that?? Fucking hell that app/industry is a scam lmao murica

Why is the delivery fee so low compared to the 'other fees'? Are any of these 'fees' going to the driver at least?

Nope. Not a one.

Using campaign funds to pay off a porn star, though? GOP's all for that.

voldothegr8 posted...

Correct, what you describe is a fee not a tip

Actually, considering it's a variable amount meant to entice them to take the job, it's more a bribe, tbh.

AlCalavicci posted...

And in cases like these, the driver is at fault if delivered to the wrong address (barring any outstanding situations where the person's house number was wrong or instructions they gave didn't make sense or something), and they should not be able to keep the tip they received or get a 5 star review

I agree, but the point was regarding "you aren't supposed to call the driver after delivery." I'm not saying the driver shouldn't be dinged. I'm saying there's literally no point in calling them

LinkPizza posted...

Thats the whole point. When a waiter/waitress fucks up, you can tell them, and they fix it When a driver fucks up, youre not even suppose to let them know So, thats why people would be mad at drivers and not a waiter/waitress. Because in one case, the problem is resolved.
In the other case, the person who fucked up doesnt care to do their job correctly

The difference is that, unlike a waitress, there's absolutely nothing the driver can do.

Is a food item missing? Most restaurants are tying or otherwise sealing their bags, and drivers are explicitly not allowed to open the bags to check them on pickup. It's meant to prevent tampering, theft, contamination, etc. Sucks, but other than reading the receipt there's basically nothing that the driver is allowed to do. They will get immediately deactivated if a customer reports their food bag was opened.

Wrong order? Sucks, and the driver should be dinged, but there's absolutely no point in sending the driver back to pick up an order that 1) was already marked as picked up on the restaurant's side, and thus thrown away, or 2) cold as hell in the best case.

Delivered to the wrong place? Again, shit move and the driver should be punished. But the driver isn't going to go back and get it. Especially since there's a decently hight chance whoever it was left with now has it, and probably won't just give it back. That's a potentially dangerous confrontation waiting to happen.

I get that it sucks, but after the delivery is done, there's basically nothing more a driver can or should do. It's down to the app's support to make it right. Unless you just want to yell at the driver. Which is exactly why they don't take communication after delivery.

AlCalavicci posted...

The tips should be conditional. The driver should be able to see the tip, but that tip shouldn't be charged to the consumer until after the order is delivered. Let the successful delivery activate the tip, but give the user a way to update/remove the tip if they received poor service.

I've had food deliveries delivered to the wrong house before and the driver stopped answering messages and wouldn't answer the phone even though they said they were going to come back and re-deliver from the house it went to. I then had to re-order my food.

I always tip on my doordash orders and very rarely make an issue with the driver, but there are times when a tip should be revoked.

UberEats does do that.

That said, it comes with its own problem: tip baiting.

Basically, users will offer a $20+ tip. It rings through to the driver as a well paying offer, so it immediately gets snapped up. Then after it's delivered, the user has an hour to just zero out the tip and be on their way. And no, it's not for bad service, just scumbags being scumbags.

I did deliveries for Doordash, Ubereats, and grubhub for a while, for some extra cash in 2020. To this day, it is wild to me the way paying and tipping is done.

Tipless orders sit around and don't get done. That's common knowledge. What probably isn't common knowledge is how these apps try to get around it. Stacking a tipless order with a high-tip order, so when the offer comes through it looks like two mid-profit orders, for example. Or the fact that DD and UE both can randomly hide part of the payout in the offer, in order to temp drivers into gambling on low orders. Luckily, they have obvious tells/values they reduce to, so you can usually spot them on sight.

Moreover, to a driver, the most important part of the tip has nothing to do with the size of what you ordered. It's about distance. Travel time is the name of the game, and drivers need to maximize their cash flow per hour. I'd happily take a tip less order that takes 5 mins to complete, because 3 dollars for 5 minutes would translate to $36/hour, stacked. However, a $10 tip on an order with ten miles of travel? Between traffic, travel time, waiting at the restaurant, and turning around to get back to the delivery zone, that job may take an hour or more, in total. An hoir in which no other money is being made. The tip may be high, but in context, it may as well be nothing at all.

To say nothing of the logistics. Had a family order 5 milkshakes from a place like 45 minutes from their house. They tipped like $50, so I did the job, but at that point, it's not exactly a matter of money. Just thermodynamics...

And if you're ordering from a restaurant 15 miles away and not tipping, sorry Skippy. Your food's gonna go cold.

roguecanon posted...

I think you took some liberties there, but I don't have time to argue with you, at least not now. I need to get to sleep.

I really didn't. I have heard all of those arguments, many verbatim.

Tuck the Schmuck says some wild stuff

House_Of_Dragon posted...

Not sure she'd be well enough to post if such a tragedy happened hours ago on the same day.

the reddit post went live before any of the actual news reporting on the incident did.

It's real.

spikethedevil posted...

FMA: Brotherhood. You know the bit.

Obviously know the bit you're referring to.

That said, I'll nominate a significant chunk of the series, because it is FULL of moments that have stuck with me. Hot damn.

roguecanon posted...

I have two friends. One is a liberal and the other one used to be a liberal but is currently a conservative.

I haven't talked about politics with the liberal one since last year. I'll mention inflation and gas prices once in a while just to get his reaction, but that's about as close to a political discussion as we have these days. I did once try to convince him to watch or read the news from a conservative source so that he could see things from the other side's perspective, but he's pretty set in his ways so that ain't happening...at least not anytime soon.

I have watched news from conservative sources. My parents love Tucker Carlson, Hannity, Newsmax, OAN, and plenty of others, and ive had the displeasure of seeing many of their segments when I've gone over to visit. I have heard the conservative perspective, from their pundits own mouths.

- the left is apparently trying to enable sexual predators to sodomize kids and turn them gay. Schools are being used as gay indoctrination camps to convert unsuspecting children.

-trans people are deluded and diseased and need to be shut down

-the pro choice camp gets off on the idea of murdering babies. Also eugenics.

-nobody should care about Ukraine, because who cares about Russia. The left is bad atvhome, Russia is thousands of miles away (straight from Tucker's own mouth)

-Every criticism of Trump ever made is bad and wrong, and the left just wants to harass a saint among men. Also Hunter's laptop and Hillary emails.

-any school that's not exclusively teaching "Rah Rah America the best, always, forever" is instead encouraging kids to flagellate themselves for being as bad as slave owners.

-Climate change isn't happening. All these fires, floods, storms, hurricanes, etc are all just a big coincidence.

-The vaccine was the best thing ever and needed to be mandatory when Trump was in office, but possibly terrible and a personal choice and probably toxic and bad for you after Biden took office. Stimulus checks were a lifesaver to average Americans in 2020, and the root of an inflation apocalypse in 2021.

-Poor people are lazy and don't want to work. Also the ones that do work should quit if they don't like the low pay. Also the ones that did quit are probably welfare moochers. And the empty low skill jobs need done. but also employers shouldn't offer any better pay because the poor people who can do the jobs aren't worth it.

-The election was stolen, because they lost. and that just absolutely could not happen, because Trump said it couldn't. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar, a Communist, an illegal immigrant, or hates america.

like... the conservative viewpoint coming from their media isn't hard to understand. The problem is that so much of it is patently, flagrantly bogus that it's difficult to blame anyone for not wanting to include those sources in their news diet. It's like telling someone to go and eat McDonalds once a week to expand their food palette. Like... why? It's only food in the absolute loosest sense of the word, and almost certainly leaves you worse off for the experience.

Vegeta's final explosion. Future Trunks' first SSJ transfoemation.

Most of Yu Yu Hakusho's Dark Tournament

Gon vs Neferpitou

The flashback arc in Rurouni Kenshin (Samurai X Trust and Betrayal, for an anime version)

And that fucking final episode of Neon Genesis Evangelion. For all the wrong reasons.

Alucard188 posted...

Yep, which marks the last time I played an Ubisoft game. I got through Revelations, then never touched the series again. Shame, considering that Black Flag is the best in the series, and the last 2 games aren't terrible either.

About what my trajectory was, too. I gave 3 a shot when it came out, but it put me off all the rest, even with the good things I've heard about those same titles.

Alucard188 posted...

I haven't played a Ubisoft game in so long because of the bloated grind fest they have become.

Become?

as far back as AC2, every Ubisoft open world had basically hit their "stride." Huge, sprawling world packed with nebulous "content" so you could spend dozens of hours collecting 200 pages of pointless sheet music or somesuch, one at a time.

I am super far left, but still have a few right wing friends.

Most of them are vestigial. Made friends with them when I was much younger, when my politics were different and the environment was different. High school, mostly. When I talk with them, politics rarely come up, and I'm fine with that. I will say that I haven't made any new conservative friends in quite a long time. But I never saw the point in getting rid of the ones I have.

Like, one comes to mind. Known him since we were like 14. His home life wasn't great, so he'd hang out at my place a lot. Took a few vacations/road trips together. Enjoyed playing/talking Mass Effect with each other. I was a groomsman at his wedding.

And yeah, he's a conservative, and probably always will be. He won't change by what I say to him, and neither will I in the reverse case. I dunno, I just feel like, when he calls me to tell me he and his wife are expecting their first kid in a few months, and to grab a drink with him when I'm in town on business... what do I have to gain by saying "fuck off, conservative asswipe?" It won't accomplish anything. I won't feel any "better" about anything, and nobody/nothing is going to change from it. Don't see any benefit from burning down that lasting friendship just to make some nebulous "stand."

Ratchetrockon posted...

For single player game I've been playing dmc 3 to help reduce my stress levels since around 2013.

It makes for a good stress ball because of how mashy the game can get. Enemies fall to the ground quickly so the pace is faster than dmc 5 and wanna say even higher pace than dmc 4 but not as complex. especially the modded version of the game with style switching and recently the inertia mod which adds another layer of play.

That said this does fall in line with whatever that twitter dude is saying. I play dmc 3 because I feel anxiety and depression. I just use it as an escape really. I put on some music and mash away on dmc 3 for about 2 hours a day. I don't even play through the missions I just stick to bloody palace. Just a bit of relief for me.

Yeah, but a healthy dose of escapism to relax isn't "a sign of depression." It's being a human being. Everybody does it, whether it's through gaming, sports, movies, hiking, fixing cars, cooking, or any one of a million other things people do to unwind or enjoy themselves.

If anything, it's the people suggesting that you should be 100% engaged with your problems/stressors 100% of the time that have the problem. I'd imagine they're well on their way to a stress-induced heart attack by the time they're 35.

You think that's bad, try this one:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/5/0/AAOdzqAADqju.jpg

playing through chrono trigger and personas 3, 4, and 5 would EASILY break my top 100 moments. One of them would probably break my top 10.

Playing Mario Kart Double Dash with my dad when I was sick as a kid is up there.

Getting a gameboy color for Christmas when I was 6 years old was my Christmas Story, Red Rider BB Gun moment.

Not sure if it counts as a "moment," but I tracked down a near mint, complete in box copy of Chrono Trigger for the SNES, and it's probably my favorite thing I own.

And for what it's worth, I'm engaged, travel a lot with my fiancee, lost 150 ibs about three years ago, go out with friends regularly, landed a decent career, keep myself happy and healthy, feel pretty good in life, and still game pretty regularly. Hardly "depressed." If anything, I was depressed when I was in high school/college.

Gaming is just a hobby. It's time to stop pretending it's any different than literally any other hobby. It's not.

With Dynamax, Z moves, and megas all in play, it's astounding to me that the anime of all things is giving a battle experience so much better and more complete than gamefreak can be bothered with.

PiOverlord posted...

Nah, I'm pretty sure we're not supposed to know who the Anti-Christ is because they aren't nearly as divisive as Trump. I don't think any president can ever be the anti-christ as only a small minority of the living is supposed to be against the Anti-Christ during the end-times.

If you ask any of the Big Lie folks, it IS only a small minority supposedly against him.

Which means the prophecy would still be true. From a certain point of view </obiwan>

Can't wait to see old man Laffy being brought out in a wheelchair for season 32 of the live action show

Biblical signs of the Antichrist:

1. A man

2. Will arise from a "Restored Rome" (biblical scholars take this to mean a western empire)

3. A powerful politician

4. Will assume the role of a spiritual leader, and will liken himself to god/Jesus

5. A liar who will nonetheless be believed by the masses

6. Will emblazon the mark of the beast in red on the foreheads of his faithful

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/8/1/AAOdzqAADqip.jpg

Trump is the antichrist confirmed

They did. In 2006.

Say it three times, and a new one releases.

As much as I'd like this to be the death knell for lootboxes...

...more likely i see it opening the floodgates to make AO games permissible.

Which I suppose was inevitable, given how popular M rated games are with elementary school kids. Have to keep pushing the boundaries at some point.

If anything I personally still think red dead 1 is better.

Sure, red dead 2 has more, but it's so much more... bloated? Slow? It's so detailed that it ironically makes it worse as a video game.

Smashingpmkns posted...

Also, I wouldn't underestimate James Cameron lol

I would. Great as his '90s output was, the first Avatar was straight up just a tech demo movie. It was built from the ground up to show off his purty grafix and 3D flying. Beneath that, it was a generic, flat, boring Dances with Wolves ripoff with none of the heart. And... sorry, but its not 2009 anymore, and Avatar's CGI isn't nearly mindblowing enough to carry the day 13 years later.

And given the only trailer we've seen for it is just straight up landscape shots and CGI characters/animals silently mugging for the camera, devoid of any story amd all but one line of dialogue... and the fact that the movie's long filming cycle was owed almost entirely to Cameron wanting the water physics to be good enough... yeah, it's gonna be another tech demo movie.

And if Terminator: Dark Fate is anything to go by, Cameron's days of writing good screenplays are VERY far behind him. He hasn't written a good movie since 1991.

So I assume Peter Dinklage is Grumpy?

Employees are a cost of doing business. No different than utilities. If you can't afford your utilities, the utility company turns them off. You don't get to plead that you need to pay less so your business stays afloat.

Same story for employees when it comes to living wages. If you can't afford to keep them alive, you don't get to have them. Sorry, small business owners who "can't afford it," your lifelong dream of owning a laundromat or antique store doesn't mean you're owed the right to pay literal starvation wages.

"Oh, they're just for TEENAGERS!"

Bull fucking shit. Once these places close Monday-Friday from 7-3, then I'll buy that line of garbage. Until that time, they're hiring grown ass adults to work these jobs, many of them full time; and they have to, because teenagers will never have the availability these places need. And grown ass adults need to be able to afford to live.

HovaRex posted...

Not really. Not even Melkor was evil originally.

Sure, but I mean, to use the star wars analogy, neither was the emperor if you go back far enough in his early childhood/infancy. Neither was Lucifer, before his biblical fall.

For our purposes, the first time we ever see or hear from Melkor by name, he's sowing discord, and it takes him all of the first 5 pages of the book to get bitter and dedicate his existence to fucking up creation. That's as close to "always evil" as you get.

no matter how many racists bandwagon-hate the movie (let's be real, it's inevitable)...

... live action Ariel can rest safe knowing she'll only be the internet's second most disliked underwater redhead.

Yes.

He was the chief follower/lieutenant of Morgoth, who's basically the LotR equivalent of Satan.

Zikten posted...

I started watching it last night. The opening scene made me think about The First Age. Or an origin story for Sauron. As I understand it, his story is similar to Anakin in star wars and Arthas in Warcraft. He was apparently once just some guy. And not evil

Not evil is debateable

"Some guy?" no. He was a minor deity. Like gandalf.

Ricemills posted...

yeah, it fits the theme of live action villain movies they released before.

still waiting for Jafar's.

Holding out for "Gaston: Hot 'n Hairy"

Adam posted...

You pick the cheapest character in the game lmao

How many matches did you lose to a Roy?

Be honest.