Bartimaeus

It's because Arkham Asylum created, or at least popularized, that type of combat system where you just hit a button and your character magically parries or floats over to another combatant, regardless of what they were doing previously or where they were, which, while nonsensical, looks pretty from a cinematic standpoint and was really fresh and novel at the time. That and Assassin's Creed, which actually came out a year earlier.

Yeah, I actually wasn't going to watch The Thing because I figured it'd be more of the same, but I talked to a friend and they said it was better and still worth a shot, so I'll still be trying it.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975). Really good and a very wacky performance by Jack Nicholson. John Carpenter's They Live (1988). I did not care for it: way too much "dead time" throughout the movie, where nothing is really happening and there's nothing interesting to look at or anything to contemplate. Hopefully, Carpenter's The Thing is better than this one. Little Women (1994). Hm. It was a sort of Gone with the Wind-type life story, but not nearly as long or expansive, which was probably for the best. Winona Ryder was the star of the show, while Christian Bale felt...almost out of place in comparison. A decent watch, but not really my style.

feeling good being the only person to pick the packers and cowboys correctly in my pick'em today.

packers beat the bears I am content for the rest of the season

I have not - it was something I had wanted to watch for years as it's supposed to be one of the jewels of Soviet-era film-making, and I'm a big fan of the Roadside Picnic and STALKER series.

Actually, yeah, re-reading all of that:

Yeah, quoting and linebreaks are a disaster here, and the BBCode Mode doesn't really make things any easier.

Stalker (1979). It was more of a philosophical and art piece than entertainment. Beautiful, with lots of camera shots and extraordinarily long takes set in some really cool locations and environments that were positively filthy and decrepit unlike anything I've ever seen in a Western film...but slow and hard to digest at times, and rather boring at others - it also doesn't help that it's nearly 3 hours long. I can cross it off my bucket list, at least.

for comedic purposes

Star Wars Battlefront II: It Takes 40 Hours to Unlock a Hero https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7c6bjm/it_takes_40_hours_to_unlock_a_hero_spreadsheet/ Looks like their worst form of micro-transactions yet.

The real funny thing was Putin's office announcing that they didn't discuss "election meddling" at all right after Trump said that: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/359893-putin-trump-did-not-bring-up-election-meddling

It also helps that what Louis did is probably the mildest out of everything we've heard so far. Kind of crappy and exploitative of your star status, but it's not to the same level as actually assaulting other people/children.

Too quick on the draw: FX just fired him from everything he's on there. (e): George Takei is next, I guess. Which, in retrospect, actually makes sense, as he's made comments about not always waiting for consent and trying to convince straight men to "try it out" before. Hopefully a whole bunch of other known predators in Hollywood, like Jared Leto, Woody Allen, and Dan Schneider start getting some bad publicity as well.

or get rid of terrible thursday night football altogether

Well, yeah, they weren't just gonna retroactively delete people's current copies...but you can't get any more. (e): ninja-ed

five guys burgers?

"It comes just weeks after a mischievous parrot used Alexa to order itself a set of ten gift boxes while the owner was away." not sure if that's better or worse than this story

I think most of us would like to see better working conditions for video game developers, too. Not likely to happen until mass unionization happens, and attempting unionization in the tech sector is a career death sentence at this time.

No, you cannot. If I recall correctly, Valve did it to help reduce scamming (of both users and Valve itself).

Is "Bulgarian" a slur here of some kind, or..? Just confused as to whether or not we need to give Basil the Second a call here...

i noticed

Blade Runner (1982). I thought it was mostly good. Actually, my biggest problem was with Harrison Ford, to be honest. I watched the "final cut" if that makes any difference, but man, it seemed like he just wasn't really into the role...on top of his character being a bit of a jerk, too. Don't really understand what was going on there. Besides that, it was pretty good.

Yeah, I liked Brazil. Well, thanks for the recommendation: I'll try watching it when I get a craving for something weird.

They got a lot of what they wanted. A job well done to them, I think.