Lurker > CaptainOfCrush

Ashethan posted...

This is pretty illogical here. People don't refuse to vote, and then register to vote for an incumbent.

They would if they're pleasantly surprised by the incumbent's behavior and policies, which I doubt would be the case HERE, but upon deeper examination... who knows, sadly. I'm not a 55-year-old white person living in central Pennsylvania and have no idea if that person was questionable on Trump a few years ago and is now all on board his train.

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Yoblazer
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About as spiritual a journey as I've ever seen expressed in a video game.

I really wish I could recommend it to non-gamer and casual gamer friends, but the game mechanics and methods of progression are really complex. Wouldn't have it any other way, though. I really think the emotional impact would be lost if it were a cakewalk.

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Yoblazer
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We do not have much connection, you and I. Still, this encounter feels special. I hope you won't mind if I think of you as a friend.

Maybe my favorite line in the game. Hit me hard.

And yes, when approaching Solanum, my arms were covered in goosebumps. Can't remember the last time a game got a reaction like that out of me. Maybe endgame Mass Effect 3 over eight years ago.

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Yoblazer
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XIII_rocks posted...

I completed the puzzles, and it was fun, though I didn't learn that much new at this point.

Hmm really? What I learned there kinda blew my mind. It was probably a top 5 moment in the game for me.

EDIT: I suppose you may have already known what that Tower teaches you, but I'm honestly not sure where else in the game you learn it.

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Yoblazer
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ah fuck

My local gym is closing. The reason doesn't seem to be health related, as the email they just sent me cites a rental dispute with the landlord. That gym has been sitting there for years and is the only thing that keeps anyone going to that intersection... this strikes me as greedy idiocy from the landlord.

They've only re-opened for three weeks and I think I went every day except for one. It was one of my favorite parts of the day and helped me feel healthier and more normal the past month. And it was literally down the street... less than a two minute drive. =/

EDIT: Just called em up, and they say it's only a temporary lease dispute that they hope to resolve "in a few days". Here's to hoping that's true, but I have doubts.

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Yoblazer
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That bastard Feldspar took me forever to find.

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Yoblazer
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The 22-minute loop doesn't actually begin right away.

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Yoblazer
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It leapfrogged RE2 as my GotY 2019. Enjoy!

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Yoblazer
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Biden's giving speeches (and from the little I've heard, I like em for the most part) and running ads. He's not being invisible, but it's not like he can run a traditional campaign right now.

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Yoblazer
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Yeah, Senate odds are what I'd be banking on. My uneducated guess is that bookies would still favor a Republican Senate at the moment.

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Yoblazer
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Corrik7 posted...

How close is the GOP to losing the Senate because they seem to be trying to lose it.

There are gambling sites for this, right? I'd seriously consider a 3-way parlay of Biden/Dem House/Dem Senate if the GOP strings along unemployment benefits and allows millions of middle class suburban voters to actually suffer financially.

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Yoblazer
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I've really limited my chest workouts due to chronic shoulder problems that have plagued me for years. Specifically, I've entirely substituted traditional flat bench with decline (incline is in "forget about it" territory) and I'm using a close grip on all lifts to further limit shoulder movement.

It's working well so far (otherwise, my shoulder would be killing me, whereas right now it's just bothering me), but I'm worried that I may be doing some harm by limiting shoulder movements this much. I think I'll bring flat bench back into my routine, just with almost no weight on the bar. I don't want to completely forget the range of motion for that lift.

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Yoblazer
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Ah yeah, I do recall that Nomai clan conversation, but I guess it never really registered because I actually sped away from my solar system for thousands of kilometers and received a different death screen. My solar system simply disappeared like a blip in the distance, and none of the other stars reacted at all, though I suppose the Ash Twins project could have carried me back before I saw any of the other stars fizzle/blow.

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Yoblazer
https://imgur.com/gByqgPg

Gotta say, that was one of the most profound gaming experiences I've ever enjoyed. Yes, there were a few spots where I needed a walkthrough, or else I would have languished forever, but imo the game is better for it. It would have been far greater a sin for a game like this to be too straightforward - much of the mystery would have been lost.

And yeah, I agree @foolm0r0n , I'll probably replay this in several years when I've forgotten all of the specifics, just hoping that it'll hit like the first time (it won't!). That last loop had several moments where I noticed my arms covered in goosebumps, but I'd have to say my favorite was meeting Solanum. Talk about well designed payoff.

I have one major question, though

Did our entering the Eye of the Universe trigger the universe's heat death? Obviously, the entire universe dies and is created anew, but throughout the game, ours is the only star in its final stages of life, yet the whole freakin cosmos dies in the last few minutes of gameplay (signified by all those lights going out in that trippy forest), so I'm thinking our interaction or mere observation of the Eye had to be the catalyst (though since we exist in a different quantum state entirely by that point, I suppose it's possible that the last few minutes of gameplay span billions of years in game time).

Also holy shit there are multiple endings

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Yoblazer
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muddersmilk posted...

In fact, Im fairly sure the Michaels match at 25 is the consensus greatest WWF/E match of all time and if not its splitting hairs with the winner.

I still remember that match giving me a pit in my stomach because I thought there was a real chance Taker paralyzed himself. That bump (everyone knows the one) looked horrific.

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Yoblazer
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Xenoblade had some gem sidequests. Can anyone seriously tell me they weren't surprised by the entire drug lord quest line? It was like 10 quests long and fucken hilarious.

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Yoblazer
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It's gotta be Pierce.

I either know something about all of the others, or their very names tie them to other, more memorable Presidents.

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Yoblazer
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VintageGin posted...

What did you learn?

I'm in the High Energy Lab on Ember Twins, and I just read that the Nomai researchers confirmed their hypothesis about time travel - namely, that an object exists the white hole a split second before it enters the black hole. One of them then poses whether a delay of 22 minutes would be possible (here's where I had to pause and take a breath). They speculate that it would it's theoretically possible but would require energy on a new scale.

I have my own theories as to what that last bit implies, but I won't post them here because I don't want to risk spoiling myself in the ensuing convo. So glad I'm savoring this. =)

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Yoblazer
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omg this game

I had to pause and take in the most recent knowledge learned, and I don't think I'm even near the end.

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Yoblazer
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I've seen multiple people hyping up this Redskins thing, whatever it is. Unless the organization has been sacrificing children to Cthulhu, I doubt it'll be THAT incendiary.

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Yoblazer
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Ewoks won't stop RotJ from destroying this diluted competition.

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Yoblazer
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I do remember that even Flair came in claiming to be the "real world champion" back in the early 90s, so they were obviously selling the story that he was from a rival competitor. What really separated the nWo angle for me is the way the commentary team and "known" WCW wrestlers sold it as a real life incident. Hall and Nash didn't have their names acknowledged for weeks, and when Hall first appeared, the guys in the ring wrestling actually stopped.

I was 10 years old and what the fuck.

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Yoblazer
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Yeah, I know the idea was done in Japan first, but how many American wrestling fans knew that at the time? For me as a 10-year-old, it was probably some of the most captivating TV ever!

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Yoblazer
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Were I forced to rewatch, I'd probably enjoy 1996 WCW a lot more than 1998 WWF. So much of that era's WWF programming would be cringey, bizarre, or plain offensive today. Conversely, the nWo in 1996 is probably my favorite angle ever, and perhaps the most timeless. I'll still occasionally look up those first Scott Hall promos where he walked in through the audience, or the segment where Hall and Nash left a portion of WCW's roster damn near dead in the parking lot.

Considering Bret was off TV during that time, there was absolutely nothing WWF could do to compete with that, at least for my attention.

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Yoblazer
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Same, and perhaps he just never made a serious attempt into mainstream Hollywood entertainment, but I imagine he would have at least given it a shot (he does live in Los Angeles).

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Yoblazer
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scarletspeed7 posted...

I think it gets lost in the shuffle, also, that quantifiably, Austin at his peak was bigger than Hogan at his peak. Hogan drew more over a longer period of time, but the true lightning in a bottle was Austin, who was the biggest merch mover outside of South Park in the era where that revenue stream was the strongest. And Austin repeatedly got WWF newer contract deals - Austin's very existence is what started TV as the profit center in wrestling, not to mention turning WWF into the publicly traded company it is today. In the nearly ten years where Hogan is at the top, he certainly has a few clear moments where he pulls in a larger number of viewers on network television, but that can also be attributed to Andre's presence as well. Austin was a consistent market-defining worker, and it really can't be ignored that, if anyone brought people to wrestling in a measurable way - it was Austin. With him, there was a huge trend upward. When he left, the downward trend never leveled off. Ever.

It surprises me that a guy as marketable, intelligent, and affable as Austin has spent his post-wrestling career hosting a relatively small-time podcast and no-name cattle ranch reality show. It seems to make him happy and that's great, but as you said, in his peak, Austin was a supernova. He should have enjoyed mainstream Hollywood success to at least rival Hogan and freakin' Cena.

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Yoblazer
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Sorry muchachos, Coke Zero has long since converted me.

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Yoblazer
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I missed this story and am sincerely not trolling, but there's no way to ask this in a serious-sounding manner so

Why is the president's family posing with beans?

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Yoblazer
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185-190, trying to drop to 180 and stay there

I remember when I used to be one of the bigger guys here. Getting older often means getting bigger as well, so it makes sense.

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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The students I spoke to last semester seemed to strongly prefer traditional in-class instruction. They disliked the "covid semester" despite the boon it provided to their grades.

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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REMake

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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I don't think it's a stretch to say that U.S. culture might be the most capitalistic/individualist (and least collectivist) in the world. The moral arguments we've often heard against piracy in this country would sound like alien speak to someone from the Middle East, the rest of Asia, or Latin America.

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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Nice vid! I left the Middle East as a six-year-old, so I never experienced gaming culture there, but it makes sense that piracy would render Nintendo a non-player there (the same way they seem to be in the Philippines).

You mentioned a large building that basically functioned as an indoor mall for bootleg games - was that the primary place to get games in the whole region? Did legit large retailers sell games (legit or bootleg) the same way Wal-Mart and Target do here?

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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I'm fucking in love with this game. I don't think I've ever seen anything strike such a balance between the intimate and the vast.

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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Brawl

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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metaIslug posted...

Oh wow. There's that saying that everyone knows each other by six degrees. This is weird that Tucker Carlson to a degree has a link to Gamefaqs lmao

Only two degrees of separation between Tucker Carlson and Board 8, which means there are only three degrees between the board and Trump.

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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Ocarina of Time

(it's also my favorite game ever, but it has left such an indelible mark on all "greatest game" discussions that I have a tough time thinking of anything else)

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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Six days in and I've noticed more people wearing masks. It's like 75% of the people here now. I've also just noticed that the gym requires masks upon entry, but I guess some people ignore that once they're inside.

Getting quite acclimated to masked cardio.

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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Animal Crossing

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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x12

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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Xenoblade

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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Or you can have conversations with them in the hopes that they'll change for the better (unlikely the older you are, but not impossible). My parents were homophobic when I was a kid but wound up voting against Prop 8 (and thus, in support of gay marriage) in California in 2008. People can change.

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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I had a great time at my first con (though I imagine referring to Magfest as a "con" may be a stretch) early this year, but the hotel room parties are pretty similar to college dorm parties... a significant difference being age ranges. At high school parties, you expect an age range of 15-18 (and rightly ostracize the one weirdo in their 20s). In college, the range is generally 18-24.

At these events, you conceivably have a range of like... 15-45, so you're left with this huge mix of impressionable young people spending time with much more mature people, and the larger social contract has limited stuff like this for generations because deep down, we know it's a recipe for trouble.

I'll say again, the parties I attended had people having a great time, but fuck if I know if some of those people I talked to were half my age.

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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I weigh 185 and MIGHT be able to push two plates up these days, so 26-50+. At my strongest, it was probably around 75 lbs over body weight.

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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2 (Goldeneye and Diddy Kong Racing)

DK64 might be fringe top ten, not sure.

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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Not trying to poke fun at these smaller communities, but just so I understand the scope - how big is something like the BK speed running community? 30 ppl?

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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It is a new viral strain. It's reasonable to expect that more will be discovered about prevention and treatment as it's studied more.

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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Oh, I'll also note that in two sessions, I've seen only one conversation (aside from couples who go and exercise together). The gym is maybe 10% as social as it was before the virus. Unsurprising, but just wanted to point it out.

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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Two days in and I'm trying to follow my usual routine, which is 30-35 minutes of cardio followed by a real quick lifting session (if I have the energy). Wearing a mask while on an elliptical isn't a comfortable experience, but I'm acclimating. It seems to be quite doable.

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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Barack Obama

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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