A journal full bogus lore and ironic counter-intuitive gameplay tips that sells at vendors for 1 copper.

Eeeyup. Although considering every. single. person in both of my extended families needs them (if you include the few who merely need reading glasses) it's only a matter of time.

Maybe for like one day a month or something. There are lots of fascinating things we could learn from them, but could you imagine how annoying it would be going to work if the crows sitting on every power line and fighting over trash in every parking lot could shout at you? Just as one example...

Never longer than an inch if I can help it. I have a nice cranium.

Ho, yes. I don't want to think about how many times I've watched the Indiana Jones and BttF movies, or Hot Fuzz, or The Dark Knight. And I re-watch at least one Disney or Pixar movie a week most of the time.

Maybe Duck Tales or Darkwing Duck would have been appropriate, but... eh, they're used a lot. I decided to go with this one, because it's bright and upbeat and optimistic, but still sounds to me like it has this subtle undercurrent of wistful nostalgic sadness. Just like me!

Plus, it takes exactly 30 seconds to loop. Punctuality!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53taJgBM4z4

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About five rows down from the top.

I rarely play competitive games with friends, but only because not many of my friends play the same multiplayer games I do. I like to play them together whenever I can, but ultimately I just like playing and getting better at the game itself.

On the flip side when it comes to cooperative multiplayer games, I never play with strangers if it's more complex than "survive against waves of bad dudes". I'm terrified of being the one person who drags everyone else down, or doesn't know what they're doing, so I won't play without at least one guaranteed friendly face.

Not in person, but I clashed with Zigkirby a lot on the SnS forums and chat because his opinions are dumb and he's wrong about everything. Then I moved on to Vanor Orion until I just couldn't take it anymore and had to flee from the forums in resignation, and haven't really had a foil since.

Eat-More. Too bad I'll probably never eat-more of them :(

For today at least, I'm going to call it a tie between the various act breaks in Red Dead Redemption; the first one, which begins once the game allows you to sneak into Mexico (i.e. the other half of the map) for the first time, in the dead of night. And as you ride across half the province to the rising sun and the background music "Far Away", you begin to understand the enormity of the seemingly simple task you were given at the start of the game and how far you'll have to go to complete it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IkvAb6THQY

And the last break... well, it's too good to spoil, except to say it's where you realize the game doesn't stop with a short cutscene and a pat on the back once your mission is over, and the resolution and reward for all your troubles is actually a part of the game you get to play and live, for better and for worse.

God damn Red Dead Redemption is amazing. Everyone needs to stop playing shitty low-effort "art games" and play it instead, since it's both a better game and experience than any of them.

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I've never actually woken up to either or listened to them immediately upon waking... but I've often thought to myself "Man, you couldn't possibly have a bad day if it started with one of these songs."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHSRO6yiMeA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8rijem58Qo

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Cleaning bathrooms. Tedious and gross. Although if clearing the dead bugs from windowsills and things counts, I'm going with that instead.

Always err on the side of preventing long-term hearing damage.

I guess it depends on the boldness and consistency of the game's execution. If a game has to have a few big, unavoidable problems to pull off a really unique or well-formed aesthetic/mechanic/idea, I can live with them for the sake of the bigger picture. If a game has a lot of little cracks in the veneer that take me out of it, I'm more likely to get turned off of it as a whole. But as Spyda answered, it's really a case-by-case basis, and whether the problems compound each other, or can be individually dealth with or ignored.

Hutch and I do it every day!

Oof... probably... Evangelion. I really should get around to it, the longer I wait, the harder it's going to be to appreciate.

Probably Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell's account of his time spent fighting in the Spanish Civil War. Reading about the personal, first-hand experiences that informed and inspired the man who wrote 1984 is something special. And it's a hell of a dramatic setup, even if he describes it all in mundane, day-to-day terms.

A man who gave up almost everything and moved to Spain with his wife just to fight for what he believed in, and take a stand against fascism... who joined one of the lesser "factions" in the coalition of groups trying to beat back the fascists, merely by chance... who discovered how dull, yet terrible war could be in the trenches... who was shot through the throat and experienced what it was to nearly die and make his peace with the world... to survive and be discharged, and discover the war was won, the Communists had taken control, and he and the men he had fought alongside were declared traitors to be executed for political reasons decided before he ever left for battle in the first place. He and his wife escaped the country, but not before seeing many of his friends and allies imprisoned to be tried as traitors, merely for having been associated with the wrong party, regardless of their cause.

There are also lots of lesser insights and memories I recall from the book, like the laid-back, casual attitude of the average lower-class Spanish men, which was completely counter to trying to put together a militia or any kind of military organization (and goes to show how the fascists became so powerful), or the men who ridiculed and laughed away any women who wanted to join the fight on the front lines, despite women taking up arms alongside men in the first rebellions, where, as Orwell put it, "Nobody would have found anything funny about a woman carrying a gun". He mentioned the strangeness of watching for an assault by "the enemy" on the other side of the trenches as the war went on, and both sides realized the enemy was just as hapless, expendable, and clueless of the bigger picture as they. He mentioned what he felt and thought as he lay on the ground and resigned himself to the fact that he had shot and was going to die, and the experience (and tedium) of recovery and discharge. What probably affected me the most were his memories of one of the cities he stayed in as he recovered, where soldiers leaving to fight fascism were sent off with adoration and aplomb at the start of the war, and where now, the war had gone on so long people went about their business and treated it like an inconvenience of the weather. Yet, at the rumour of an attack, all the players in the city formed lines to defend their parts of it, and the city became a warzone waiting to happen, if just for a few hours... and then life resumed as normal.

It's easy to see where Orwell's worldview and fears came from, reading the book, and seeing how one idealistic men are led to fight just to replace one evil with another, war can become ordinary, and even the least efficient government can keep enough records of a man's associations to condemn him whenever it's politically necessary. But it's also inspiring to see that, after all the will-breaking, idealism-shattering things he went through, he remained adamant about the evils of fascism and the value of life and freedom. It really showed me the meaning of the expression that inside every cynic is a disappointed idealist.

Hah. Hahaha.

She doesn't do a lot, but Jen Taylor's voice has always tongued my ear in the most wonderful way. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZrAShIbzqM&feature=related

And they're hardly "voice actors" but after hearing Dustin Hoffman in Kung Fu Panda and John de Lancie in MLP, I really hope they do more voice work in the future. They're distinct and have great timing and they really give it their all.

Honorable mention: D.C. Douglas. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEUxd-PZpo8

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