Lurker > MrMallard

I haven't tagged any. For a "Nazi" tag, they'd have to make a post about the Holocaust being fake or Jewish people controlling the media and faking sympathy and garbage like that with a strong implication that they should be ostracized or attacked for it. That, or they would have to type out the term "Heil Trump" or something along those lines, or make a "hard-hitting anti-liberal" topic about the alt-right's right to protest last weekend, saying it's no worse than a BLM rally and saying that they hope that it happens again.

I've seen hints of the above in some posts, and the worst, bottom-of-the-barrel conservatroll posters I don't have on block were getting pretty dicey in my eyes. But I didn't see anything quite as heinous as what I've laid out in this post. If there was shit like the above that didn't get the person banned, then I'm still down for visual proof to tag them, but to my understanding the really fucked up posters were banned and warned, and I dealt with the dregs myself.
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

Final Fantasy XIII and Shin Megami Tensei 3.
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

This season has been entertaining in its own right. The Vindicators episode was great.

I get what people mean about it feeling different, maybe losing its spark somewhere in its popularity, but it's still a fun show.
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

One last bump
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

Bump, with some links to potentually get you started:

http://campcomic.com/comic/62
http://campcomic.com/comic/66
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/08/14/boston-holocaust-memorial-smashed-to-pieces.html

(Yes, Fox News. It's a barebones article, but it gets the word across)

The Holocaust Memorial in Boston has been vandalized for the second time in less than two months, police say.

Police say one person is in custody for vandalizing the Holocaust Memorial Monday evening.

The memorial had been vandalized less than two months ago, according to police.

A witness tells Boston 25 News someone threw a rock at the memorial, shattering the glass. Police have not released any information on the person in custody.

It was just over a month and a half ago when the memorial was vandalized. A 21-year-old from Roxbury was arrested and charged for that destruction.

America is going to the fucking dogs.
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

Zikten posted...

Seems kinda in poor taste to name a pool after the guy

We named a colloquialism after him. To do the Harold Holt is to disappear in the face of a bad situation, like an awkward dinner or something.

We use the disappearance of our Prime Minister to describe making a speedy exit. A worthy legacy for a legend of the game.
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

I like webcomics. They're free entertainment by fairly unique people, that try not to bend to corporate demands (though Adsense likes to fuck over NSFW content). If you can find an author who resonates with you, you can have a constant source of entertainment from a cool person - in that sense, webcomics can feel closer than traditional media.

Recently, I managed to sniff out Camp Weedonwantcha. It won a Penny Arcade contest or something, and I think it's under the Penny Arcade label despite being hosted on its own site. The webcomics focuses on 12 year Malachi, unknown years old Seventeen (I don't think that's her age, but it is her name) and Barry, a big guy animal lover who doesn't speak much.

The concept is that Camp Weedonwantcha is a place where parents send their unwanted kids as a way to abandon them. There are no adults, and supplies are airdropped in when necessary - though the supplies tend to be unwanted supplies, like shitty celebrity autobiographies, shitty wigs or recalled medication.

The humor comes from the kids being these chipper, fun loving kids surviving in this lighthearted quasi-Lord Of The Flies situation, with its own dangers and cliques and angst being balanced out by goofy oddball humor. If a dumb "ate the wrong berries" joke is the sort of thing that tickles your rib cage, give Camp Weedonwantcha a look.

Also, the art is gorgeous. El Goonish Shive and Questionable Content are two of my favourite webcomics, but they started off looking pretty terrible - the artists were absolute beginners who taught themselves how to draw. I like that about them, but at the same time, it's such a treat jumping into this webcomic and swing amazing art from the get-go.
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

Are you planning to gift it to a girl?
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

David Bowie song:
https://youtu.be/ddn-5uKH6MU?t=1m21s

Sonic Colors song:
https://youtu.be/uIxr0RKor2w?t=23s

Of course, it could be a coincidence or homage. I remember when I first hit a boss fight with this track in Sonic Colors, I couldn't get the line "Earthlings on fire" out of my head.
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

AlisLandale posted...

Sonic sucks. All he does is run in circles and pick up cheeri-o's.

lmao
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

bump
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

FaytlessHearts posted...

Gotten us all killed already. And make rape a non-punishable offense. Cuz you know, she's pro child rape.

How so?
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

bump
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

If nothing else, I feel like she'd be quicker to denounce the actions of a group of Swastika-touting degenerates.
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

Yeah, I feel like the people who were trying to discredit his American citizenship by claiming he was born in Kenya, calling him a Muslim to smear him and trumpeting "Barack HUSSEIN Obama" were the people setting back race relations.

Obama was articulate, charismatic and he got shit done - more shit than I can probably list - and a lot of small stuff was accomplished by the Senate during his presidency that Trump's cabinet is trying to strip away, like a law allowing nursing homes to be directly challenged in a court of law for negligence. The people who maintained that he was worsening race relations and driving the American people apart were the people emphasising his middle name to associate him with Saddam Hussein, and people who saw the color of his skin, learned the heritage of his parents, and tried to maintain that he wasn't born on American soil because his folks came from Kenya. The latter party, funnily enough, was led by Donald Trump.
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

Damn_Underscore posted...

Coffeebeanz posted...

Damn_Underscore posted...

It seems to me that the general opinion among professional game journalists is that classic Sonic games weren't that good, so this is interesting and also good to hear

i just want to play it for myself

Classic Sonic games are still top tier platformers. Fantastic mechanics, amazing music, infinitely repayable.

I definitely agree, but there has been so much Sonic hate recently.

It started with "the Adventure games were actually bad" and moved on to "the Genesis games were actually bad"

I mean to be fair, the Adventure games have aged like milk. They were ambitious for the time, but they don't hold up - someone who was into the games at the time can still enjoy them with no strings attached and that's fine, but I sincerely doubt that someone playing the games for the first time in the year of our lord 2017 is going to give them the full two thumbs up.

Also Sonic 1 is hit and miss, and Sonic 3 & Knuckles is pretty overrated. But they are good games with fucking rad aesthetics and music, and Sonic 2 is a god tier game. Hell, I even like 3D Blast - the gameplay isn't the series' finest hour, but the Genesis soundtrack is fucking rad.

I like Sonic, but while the Adventure games were ambitious for the time, they really don't hold up all that well. The Genesis games? They hold up decently. The Adventure games are mostly jank.
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Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

*calls murder victim a useless, childless, government-leeching 32 year old slut less than 24 hours after her death*

*domain provider cuts ties with them*

"b-b-b-but free speech! oppression! SJWs!!"
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

Talk shit, get your platform taken away. They have every right to say whatever they want, but if they're piggybacking off of another service and that service is opposed to what you're saying, they don't have to support you.

They can easily throw their bullshit up online - no rights have been infringed upon. They just need to find a server provider who doesn't give a shit, or pay for their own servers and maintenance or something - I dunno. They can speak freely about anything they want, they just lost one platform because the garbage they were spewing was too much for their server hosts.

Is the government busting their balls for their bullshit? I don't think so - so by all means, their rights aren't being violated.
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

Before I get into this part, I want to make something clear. I'm aware that John Doe is The Joker. The reason I dance around using "The Joker" is because in the initial trailer/interview piece, the Telltale staff have been calling him the proto-Joker and stuff like that. I think this take on The Joker has some sense of humanity, and a life outside of his monstrous dick moves as The Joker - so until we hit that point where he snaps and starts to call himself The Joker, I'm thinking of him as John Doe or the proto-Joker.

Now, with that being said - how does the proto-Joker come back into the picture? He shows up at Lucius' funeral and starts cracking inappropriate jokes to his bereaved daughter. I know you're meant to hate him, because he's being telegraphed to become the Joker, but I found it to be in incredibly poor taste from a meta standpoint. Introduce a shitty legacy character, kill off the old one, then have someone attend his funeral and make it all about them. Fuck that story decision, Lucius deserved better.

Also, I'm not hot on the Joker storyline. For what it's worth, the way Telltale have been doing the story so far? I commend them for it. They're not afraid to fuck with canon in order to tell their version of a Batman story. I also acknowledge that with John Doe's existence, a Joker story was inevitable - hell, even if he didn't appear last season, a Joker story was inevitable because he's one of the most well-known aspects of Batman. Despite that, I mention it because we all know the way that Joker stories go - one of the reasons I appreciated season 1 is because they made something of an effort to make a compelling Batman story without the Joker, and I appreciate letting Lady Arkham take the main stage instead of shoehorning The Joker in right at the very end. It was the Children of Arkham's show through and through, and they made a great choice by not letting the Joker hijack it. Now we're doing the Joker story, and while I like where it's going and acknowledge that it was going to happen sooner or later, I can't help but be a bit wary because I've already seen how this goes more than once. This is more of a YMMV nitpick if anything, but I thought it bore mentioning.

Really, the most egregious thing about The Joker taking centre stage is that he had to kill off The Riddler at the end of episode 1. What a waste - Robin Atkin Downes' Riddler was a delight, and it sucks to see him check out so soon. I think, whether the season ends up being good or bad, that this season's Riddler is going to stand out as one of the better aspects of it. It's a great depiction, IMO.

There are a couple things I didn't get to mention, like the kickass music, the new Relationship aspect and Alfred's re-design, but I think I'll leave it at that. I really enjoyed this episode, and I hope the season is good, but fuck what they did to Lucius and I hope that the rest of the season's villains can carve out their own niche independent of John Doe. I recommend grabbing it if you liked season 1 of Telltale's Batman, but be prepared for some story fuckery if you do - the Telltale canon was pretty benign and even awesome in Season One, but so far in Season Two it's been hit and miss.
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Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

Last year, me and a friend of mine played through Batman: The Telltale Series. I was wary of it at first, but by the end of the first episode, I was hooked - honestly, Telltale's Batman might be their best game since The Walking Dead season one. If you haven't played it, then stop reading this and find a way to get through it - watch a playthrough, grab a copy for yourself, anything. It had some hiccups, starting around episode 3 there were a bunch of glitches and technical issues and the last gen port was delayed for a good while (which is no longer an issue, as I think Telltale games are now exclusively current gen). But overall, I loved that game - it wasn't afraid to fuck with canon in some interesting and unexpected ways. Thomas Wayne as a corrupt asshole, who willingly injects mind-altering drugs into people so he can institutionalize them and buy their land? That's super fucked up. We've had Thomas Wayne as Batman, but we haven't had Thomas Wayne as a bad guy - at least not to my knowledge. And the Vicki Vale twist? That was awesome. Establish a brand-name character as the series' big bad. Loved it.

So, season 2 kicks off with a treat. The Riddler is instantly introduced, voiced by Robin Atkin Downes, you have your obligatory Batman action scene, and then when Gordon busts in, he's followed by Amanda Waller who jumps on his ass and berates him for however he entered the premises. So far, it looks like that's how Gordon's subplot will play out - Amanda Waller and Jim Gordon are at odds with each other, and you have to toe the line between them.

Alfred is shown to have some sense of PTSD, and it's done very tastefully. During the Batcave segments, you get snapshots of him struggling with feelings of hopelessness and irrational fear. Looking at the Children of Arkham mask with what I interpreted as anger, fear and maybe a little bit of shame on his face, struggling to get through the Lucius Fox recording and trying to keep busy - it's heartbreaking to see how the last season affected him.

However, there are some aspects of this first episode that I didn't like so much.

First of all, Telltale's ability to forge their own canon strikes again, and this change wasn't something I liked. Lucius Fox has a daughter who's coming to work for Wayne Enterprises, and it's here that Bruce asks him to take a look at this device Riddler left him - a device that emits micro-particle frequencies or some shit. What do you know, it's incredibly dangerous and Lucius ends up dying. The reason I'm not a fan of this is because Dave Fennoy's surprise appearance as Lucius in the first season is one of my favorite moments - I love it when Dave Fennoy shows up in a Telltale game, Lee was fucking awesome and I always love to hear the hints of his voice in the characters that Dave Fennoy portrays.

But it's also because the game has gone through the trouble to give Lucius a young, wisecracking daughter character who - according to him - is even better at developing tech than he is. I know people are going to get pissed at the young black female character who's depicted as so much better than her father, the well-established canon character that most fans know and love, but the reason I don't like this isn't because "Mary Sue! Feminism!! SJWS!!!" - it's because I fucking hate "the next generation" plotlines. Mortal Kombat X? Hated the story for the most part, because I hate D'vorah as a character and for the bullshit she gets away with in the game, but mostly because Cassie Cage, Takeda, Kung Jin and Jaqui Briggs rubbed me the wrong way. It's always "I have to overcome this difficulty and live up to the reputation that my well-established parent character is known for/gain their approval!", every time it appears, so you know she's going to be a cheap replacement for Lucius. I hate that.

But the thing that bugs me the most is how they use Lucius' funeral as a way to bring John Doe back into the picture.
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

EnragedSlith posted...

90s is dad rock now?

Have you heard their output since 2012? They've been going for a jammy folk-country sort of vibe for years now, I'd argue the seeds of this style were being sewn as far back as Recovering the Satellites (Daylight Fading, Mercury) but especially This Desert Life. But with Underwater Sunshine being a cover album of various songs you could consider to be dad-rock (including a Grateful Dead cover) and Palisades Park going along those same lines, I would argue that Counting Crows has become a dad-rock band. No argument that their earlier alternative and pop records are what they are, but the band today is dad-rock as fuck.

And I mean Counting Crows have been together for 25 years, and is made up of aging men. Adam Duritz was in his late 20's/early 30's when Counting Crows took off, dude is old. They fit the dad-rock profile visually and sonically.
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Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

Bump for Counting Crows
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topic

inb4 grateful dead, mostly making this thread because I'm really into counting crows
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Better choice than The Admiral.
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
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I should note, the guy uploads his full streams to Youtube. This stream is from like 2015, and halfway through the playthrough Square Enix announced the FF7 remake. It's pretty dope.
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

It started last year, I was grinding in Runescape and had a brainwave. I wanted to see Vinesauce's Crisis Core streams but I didn't want to just sit and watch a dude play a video game, so I shrunk down the browser window and played Runescape in windowed mode. I had a blast grinding for once, and I got to see one of my favorite internet personalities have a good time without getting too bored.

From there, I decided to watch his Final Fantasy 7 streams. I've always been interested in FF7 to some degree, but I tried the PC version and it wasn't to my liking, and honestly the game is super overrated so I wasn't so hot on the game for a good while. But after seeing past the point of the game that I had quit at, I began to really enjoy what FF7 has to offer.

First of all, the translation is pretty ass, but it's kind of endearing. The whole jive-turkey thing they have going on for Barrett is kind of stupid and a bit insensitive to say the least, but I love how stupid it is when he says "mebbe" instead of "maybe". Like what the actual fuck is up with that? Why? It's so stupid. I love it.

The graphics are servicable. Sephiroth's pose after The Cutscene is fucking awful, but honestly I like the low polygon art style. The Gold Saucer is absolute cheese, with the Chocobo Race taking place in all these glitzy, fake locations as well as a translucent rainbow path. It really feels like one of the first 3D titles of the fifth generation, and there's this unique disconnect between the fucked up subject matter and the beginner-level simplified chibi graphics. It's an interesting dichotomy. I understand the complaints, but I'm really into it. It also makes the fucking bonkers Materia system stand out even more, because such a massive, intricate system is hidden behind a mess of untextured polygons and artifacted jpegs.

The music is god tier. I remember a year or two ago when I discovered Ahead On Our Way - it was a really special song to me for a long time, I love this theme. Of course, I didn't know that it was the default town theme for a lot of places. I've grown to really appreciate a lot of the game's music, especially this one song that's really low and depressing, but gives off this feeling of intrigue and getting to the bottom of something. I think it plays the most in places where the plot thickens, and the characters need to spout exposition.

And dude, the plot - it's a giant, convoluted animu mess, but I fucking love it. It's kinda dumb in places, of course, but the story is crazy. Cloud going missing, so you have to play as other party members? Cloud potentially being a Sephiroth clone all along (even though I saw Crisis Core first, so I know this is a red herring)? Fucking rad. I haven't played or heard about other games with a surprise like the latter example, so it's kind of awesome. I love the twists and turns of the game's plot.

It's still overrated, and I still laugh about it losing to Undertale in the Best. Game. Ever. contest, because whether it's awesome or not the fanboy hype around it is annoying. But I'm starting to understand why it's such a special game to a lot of people.

Now, why am I watching a dude play the game instead of playing it myself? Because I don't have the desire to play it myself, and because I like the personality of the guy playing it. I think RPGs would be a particularly good genre to watch someone else play, because the gameplay and grinding can get boring. Look at the North Crater part of the game, before you get to Sephiroth, where you have to navigate this snowy setting with a map. There's a part of the section where you can put down markers to help distinguish where you are, because the area is a detail-less white landscape. There's also all the forced minigames - they're one of the reasons I stopped playing it myself. Those aspects of the game haven't aged well, and I think it's a better experience - at least for me - to watch it rather than play it.
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Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

Christ, that fucking sucks. Condolences, dude.
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

I remember hearing about a blood vessel in the ass that can be torn open by a monster shit. Maybe your man-sized logs are ripping your asshole open.
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

They have the right to say something without the government chopping their dicks off for it, but frankly I think the world would be a better place if they didn't exist and I hope their rhetoric makes them unsafe. Fuck giving them platforms, their whole M/O is hurting people because they feel superior and entitled. They have the freedom to spout their bullshit without being silenced by the state, they have freedom of speech - and I'm just as free to say I want their speech to fuck itself in the butt and eat a turd, because fuck them. They are scum, and I hope their disgusting rhetoric is buried in the ground in the same way a steel-capped boot might become buried in their anus.

They have inalienable human rights, and I'm not down for taking that away from them as long as they don't aim to do the same to anyone else. You know, something the Nazis actually fucking did. But that doesn't mean I support anything they do. I hope their message dies, I hope they shrink and become scared, and I hope they shut the fuck up, because they are scum who don't deserve to have a voice. They have human rights, but fuck them all as people and fuck their message too.
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

sorry dude. I was probably still drinking.
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

I've got a hell of a hangover going on. I was drinking all night, ended up drinking a carton of alcoholic cider to myself, and then I went to the pub at 10 AM. Someone who was drinking with us got me to claim it was my birthday so I could get a free drink (it was on the 9th, but we were celebrating last night), and I did a shot of tequila and nearly puked. After that I went clothes shopping, came home and passed out while watching AMVs.

I have never felt this sick. Ever since I woke up, I've been feeling this ungodly combination of drunk, hungover and sick on a scale that I've never hit before. I can't eat, because my stomach is upset. My teeth hurt, so it's hard to get water or other fluids down. And as much as I should go to the bathroom, I can't get out of this bed for the life of me because it's the most comfortable place to be during this massive shit storm. My friend bought a terrible bottle of whiskey, tasted like salt, and just thinking about it is making my stomach go ballistic.

I am bent out of shape in a hundred different ways. Protip: don't stay up all night drinking, wait for a bar to open then drink more. The only upside is that I ate two kebabs, even if I had to force the second one down.

Any hangover stories from y'all, past or present?
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

i've been drunk and out of the loop for over 24 hours. I only just heard about the Unite the Right shit, and something about a car crash. Like a good ol Average Joe racist fuckface intentionally plowing through a crowd of people.
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Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

Sativa_Rose posted...

This was over a year ago.

shit, you're right. this is a massive oversight on my part.

i still love the story, because fuck Dylann Roof, but I didn't know how old the story was. Thanks for the catch.
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Bunch of people doing the hitler salute, popular right-wing youtuber wearing a swastika arm band. People are reporting the images to get them taken down, because they're scared about losing their jobs.

Discuss? I'm simultaneously too drunk, sick and hungover to get into the nitty gritty, but I want to see how CE reacts to the news.
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Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

bump
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Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

http://www.bet.com/news/national/2016/08/05/thanking-hero-punch-roof.html

The man accused of attacking Dylann Roof has been released due to crowdsourced fundraising effort.

The past two days have been quite the rollercoaster for Dwayne Stafford, who has now been released on bond due to a generous crowdsourcing effort.

As reported, just over 24 hours after a widespread call on social media helping raise bail money in support of his taking action against Roof, Stafford was released just before 8:30PM last night (August 5).

His bond was set at more than $100,000.

...

Stafford, who is being held on a strong armed robbery charge, was able to exit his locked cell door and approach Roof as he was about to take a shower at approximately 7:45 a.m. He then attacked Roof with his fists, causing bruising around his face and back. No weapons were used, but Stafford was able to give Roof a thorough beatdown.

Before people complain about it coming from BET, I first heard this through a Buzzfeed knockoff trash site called TopBuzz. I sought out a better source.

Honestly? Good. Fuck Dylann Roof. Don't give a shit about "so much for the tolerant left", Roof is a racist, mass-murdering shitbag and my day has been made substantially better by this news. It's a bit old, but I only just saw it and I want to see how CE reacts.
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

I hope it's as many classic Sega openings as possible. The voice, the chiptune from Sonic Spinball and the mid-90's shout, if nothing else.


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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

If I could sum up my disappointment in one sentence, it would be this: the movie has the staying power of a meme. That's how drawn out, overplayed and unfulfilling I found it. And I take no pleasure in saying that. Like I said, I can enjoy a less than perfect movie if it's decent - Iron Man 3 is awesome, Tony Stark just shoots dudes in the face, Ant Man was goofy and serious done mostly right (even if it borrows from Iron Man a bit too much in the villain department) and Civil War - while having its own hype-induced quirks (imo the parking lot fight was incredibly self-indulgent and overrated) - has a chilling final fight that sold the movie for me. To jump ship for a moment I even liked Suicide Squad in places - El Diablo and Captain Boomerang carried that movie for me. None of those movies managed to pull the same Denser and Wackier vibe than Guardians of the Galaxy 2. Sure, Suicide Squad felt hollow for most of its runtime, but it didn't have a good first movie to stack against it. It was just kind of its own shambling, mediocre mess. GotG2 felt like a telegraphed, cliched mess. Even the first movie had its rough edges, but those rough edges are only exacerbated here.

It was okay. Disappointing, for sure, but it looked nice and it had its moments. Regardless, I was really let down by it.
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

And them. you have the movie's attempt at capturing nostalgia. Something about the first major scene in the movie, where they're fighting a monster, feels like a Saturday morning cartoon in the best way. Then Mr. Blue Sky comes on, good choice, and... Groot dances. Okay. Then you have two heavy-hitter actors making appearances, one of which is completely unnecessary and hollow and the other which is a pretty good fit - to a point. You have a couple character cameos, a bunch of video game sounds to add a sense of cheese, and as it starts to pile up, it feels hollow and cheap. This person riding a spaceship sim to all these video game noises? It's funny to begin with, but three minutes later, any sort of magic the scene had is gone. Oh, another song for Peter Quill to talk about, another reference to an 80's thing, another gratuitous shot of Quill's Walkman. They try to ramp up the cool old vibes, but they try way too hard. They tried to fart, and they shat their pants.

Which leaves me with the character moments. The first movie wasn't too in-depth with the character moments, Gamora is Thanos' kid gone rogue and Star-Lord is a cool Han Solo type with a troubled past and Drax is angry and literal etc. But then you get glimpses of vulnerability and chemistry, and it's enough to glue the group together. Look at Peter Quill and Gamora, or Drax and Rocket's moment - it's all a bit on the nose, but they end up softening just enough to do business with each other. A lot of the character moments in the second movie, on the other hand, felt way too drawn out and asinine. Star-Lord and Gamora's thing continues, except it manages to get really fucking grating. You know how a character writes off all negativity aimed towards them as jealousy on the accuser's part? Yep, GotG2 stoops that low. Star-Lord and Rocket are fighting for dominance, and need to learn to be part of a team again. Crap like that permeates through the entire movie. There are some scenes that try too hard to be emotional or funny, but fall flat because it's either a stereotypical "I shall flay the skin from his bones", "ooookay, have fun with that" exchange, or a reference that another character doesn't get so the referencing character gets to have a field day. There are two scenes that try to be emotional, and kind of work, but they barely hold enough weight to support the movie. There's one scene right near the end that almost manages to pull it off. But ultimately, it grazes the first movie's most emotional moment.

My friend was quoting lines before characters said them, and he called a major plot point within the first ten minutes. It kind of sucked. I was hoping to like this movie, but it felt like the most well-reviewed parts of the first movie that were stuck together with masking tape and cranked up to uncomfortable levels. It lacks the finer points of the first movie, like John C. Reilly's family at the end, in exchange for wacky humor and an appeal to nostalgia. Most of it fell flat.
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

Disclaimer: this isn't some fucking Moviegate political shitshow between Marvel and DC. I usually like Marvel movies, even more polarising ones like Iron Man 3, Ant Man and Civil War, and I wasn't hot on Zach Snyder's Superman even before Batman vs Superman poisoned the well (actually, scratch that - it was mediocre at best, but the aforementioned political shitposters who nuthugged the movie at every turn made me want to vomit more than the movie ever did). Haven't seen Wonder Woman, I hear it's good and I hope it's a good sign for future DC movies, and even before that I didn't dislike Suicide Squad as much as I thought I would. This isn't some pissant firing shots over some nonexistent bow to make a meaningful statement about fucking superhero movies, this is a guy who was let down by a movie I expected to like.

So, GotG2. Minor plot spoilers (I mention some subplots), a couple scene spoilers that I try to explain as vaguely as I can.

I liked the first movie because it was a bunch of funny, goofy setpieces with a soundtrack that knocked my socks off. It was pure, pulpy fun, with rainbow people and telegraphed dialogue and dumb stereotypes that the main cast ended up rising above. The movie's strengths were mostly about how it took such a cavalier, goofy attitude about the MCU's first space movie instead of trying to balance that with a human story full of danger and personal stakes - like Iron Man, even kind of like Thor when he's on Earth in the first movie. Nope, Guardians of the Galaxy was about this dickhead trying to get a MacGuffin to help destroy the galaxy, and a bunch of scrappy outcasts rock his shit with the power of friendship. It's pop-culture cheese, and it's awesome.

The second movie feels like it takes the boldest elements of the first movie - humor, music, nostalgia, cheese - and runs them so far into the ground you can see bedrock. Just about all of the sequel's big moments, as far as character development and humor go, fall completely flat. It felt like an absolute rehash, with the best aspects of the first movie turned up to 11 at the expense of the rest of the movie.

GotG2 is plagued by the worst running jokes in just about any Marvel movie. If you saw any GotG2 trailers, you'd notice that Drax is a lot more vocal about his emotions - you know that Drax laugh at the end of one of the trailers, about Peter Quill feeling so embarrassed? I swear to fucking God, he laughs in that exact same "lol he has trouble with emotions but hes trying to overcompensate lol" way like eight separate times. It's fucking annoying. Remember how everyone fawned over baby Groot at the end of the first movie? Well, pretty much all of his scenes are "look at baby Groot! isn't he funny? Aww, how cute!" - which I guess can't be avoided, but it reaches a point where it's just pandering.

The soundtrack has its ups and downs. Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain" is used to great effect, but it's not exactly the pop hit that Moonage Daydream is, and it isn't nearly enough of an ear worm to even come close to Hooked On A Feeling. The soundtrack felt a lot more subdued, and maybe people liked that better compared to how on-the-nose the first movie's soundtrack could get, but I feel like unless you're already familiar with the songs used in this movie, there's not much of a kick to be had. Practically no-one in Marvel's demographic knew what Hooked on a Feeling was, at least that's what I think - but that song fucking crushed. The Chain doesn't command the same level of attention. It does, however, fit the movie particularly well. Not a lot of the other songs really stuck out to me, though.
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Rayman Origins

My friend talked all the way through the therapy scene at the end, I was super pissed.

One thing I gleaned from this episode is that Beth's more selfish, dare I say villainish traits, are starting to come out of the woodwork. She's spent the last two episodes being outright negligent towards her kids, the latter moreso than the former, to the point that Morty and Summer expressed interest in going to counselling and Beth outright ignores them because she can't stand it - partially because she's clearly insecure and shitty, but also partially because she's emulating Rick and/or trying to seek his approval. She also spends the episode lashing out at Morty and Summer for forcing the situation onto her by getting caught. I get that the humor of that subplot was the therapist's straight-faced insistence on focusing on Rick being a pickle before Rick actually shows up as a pickle, but her behavior throughout this episode was just disgusting.

It also serves to make Jerry more sympathetic. I thought he was scum at the end of season 2, in the Purge episode - he spends the whole episode trying to be Summer's friend just so he can ask her for money, that was awful. In earlier episodes, he was the straight-man foil to Rick and Morty's sci-fi shenanigans - you can see that he has a point about Rick, but Rick's funny and the adventures are good so shut up Jerry. Beth also started to slip a bit in season two particularly, but she was almost always fairly balanced in the face of Jerry's flaws and neuroses - I don't think she really had a point that was as sucky as Jerry's behavior in the Pluto episode, nor as desperate and uncomfortable as Jerry asking Summer for money. Maybe the first Interdimensional Cable episode, now that I think about it. But this season, she's already crossed that line.
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And outside it's ninety-two degrees, and KROQ is playing Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Currently playing: Yakuza 4, Okami