Keyrock

Herpes. The reviews are starting to come in and they seem somewhat encouraging. The consensus, from the few reviews I've read, is that there is a metric ****ton of content and that the combat is tactical and engaging, but that the story is paint by numbers, vague, and ultimately disappointing. Some years ago, I would have considered that last part ironic, but I haven't considered BioWare's strong suit to be writing for quite a while, so it's hardly surprising. Still, what I've read is overall encouraging enough that if by some miracle this game ever gets a Linux release (fat chance) I'll buy it.

Under the recent-ish democratic regime, federal government has pushed its fingers deeper and deeper in every facet of my life. The guise of making sure everyone is covered for basic human needs has worn very thin (read: disappeared completely) in my eyes, it's pretty clear it's about control. Just how far the democrats of today (I'm speaking in broad terms, of course) have shifted away from the moderate left leaning days of decades past toward the socialist far left end of the spectrum scares me. Both extremes of the spectrum, the far left and the far right, are scary as hell, but while I've personally identified most closely on the majority of issues with the moderate left, especially on social policy and foreign policy (the biggest exception being fiscal policy, where I've always leaned a bit to the right), the far left has always scared me more than the far right, and especially on social policy. The far left, which is where I see the current democrats shifting toward, absolutely frightens me. Gorgon is right, though. The two-party system is so utterly corrupt and broken that the right having firm control of the federal government isn't going to improve things a whole lot, but at least maybe the illusion of a shift away from the socialist left will help me sleep better at night, or so I tell myself.

While it was not really surprising, it still was eye opening just how thoroughly the democrats got their asses handed to them. And you know what? I'm happy about that. In fact, I contributed to that. I've been a democrat my entire life, since I was old enough to understand the difference between democrat and republican. I became more moderate as I got older, but I always continued to identify myself as a democrat... until somewhat recently. I've been steadily losing faith in the party for many years now. I was never very hard left, in fact, there have always been issues I tended to lean right on, but even the issues I've been heavily in with the left on, like foreign policy, they've lost me. I wouldn't call myself a republican now, but I also sure as hell don't consider myself a democrat either, whatever the **** that even means these days. Hopefully the dems get just as thoroughly routed 2 years from now as they did a couple days ago. I have no illusions that a government firmly in control of the right will bring miraculous changes, the fact is that the two party system is so utterly broken that neither dems nor republicans are really the answer, but I sure as hell want the democrats out of power.

Still in the grips of my Bayonetta 2 addiction. I'm up to chapter 4 on my 3rd climax difficulty run through. There are a few enemies on this difficulty that put up force fields quite often (the centaur looking angel dudes), making it very hard to pull combos on them, even in witch time, with my big ass hammer and whips weapon set that I prefer. Those weapons are just too slow for me to pull off a whole combo before witch time expires. I should probably wise up and switch over to a much faster weapon set, like my quad-rakshasa swords set, when I encounter those enemies. That's what having 2 weapon sets you can switch on the fly is for, right? I'm also having fun with Tropico 5. I'm up to the first campaign mission that brings me into the World Wars Era and I'm getting invaded by a neighboring island. Good times. Hopefully I'll have a chance to see to it that said neighboring island's leader happens to have an "accident."

Hopefully Carolina scores about 30 points in garbage time just to **** over your FF team.

Holy **** the Panthers suck! The worst part about the NFC South is that one of these awful teams is going to get in by default.

Absolutely, the harrasment was despicable as were the death threats. It should be noted that the threats have never actually been linked to GamerGate and that GamerGaters even identified and tracked down the man responsible for the threats against Anita, she just decided to ignore that information since it would damage her narrative. And those people came to be many and go under the banners of GamerGate and NotYourShield. It absolutely is disappointing that these Social Justice Warriors would engage in so much harassment, bullying, advocating bullying, hurling of racial slurs, etc.

The next step is obviously Mountain Dew flavored Doritos. Also, I can't help but see this as another piece of the puzzle toward the Demolition Man future where all restaurants are Taco Bell.

No, this is not a joke. Yes, this is for real. Status of Activision Call of Duty Doritos Flavored Mountain Dew double XP promotion unconfirmed.

That ass whoopin' the Packers put on the Bears... Damn.

My best chapter performance in Bayonetta 2 yet. 3rd climax difficulty (hard): 5 pure platinum verses, 2 platinum verses, and 6 gold verses, with nothing below gold The harder difficulty can actually help you get a better score if you're good because enemies tend to be more aggressive, giving you more opportunities to trigger witch time and build your magic gauge for powerful umbran climax attacks that massively raise your combo score. There are still certain enemies in later chapters that give me particular trouble, but I've gotten the hang of the patterns and timing of a good chunk of the bestiary. I'm still light years away from truly mastering the game, though. I'll get there eventually.

Well, I thought episode 3 was the best yet. Still not particularly good, but at least it's progress. At least they're starting to work in some semblance of an overarching plot and not just having a self-contained procedural every week. Or maybe that's just the optimist in me that wants that to be the case? If nothing else, it was good to see Papa Midnite introduced into the show. The pacing of the show needs a lot of work, though.

Things I learned from today's early games: The Cowboys are a playoff team with a healthy Romo, they are not without him So much for the Steelers sudden and shocking resurgence KC just finds ways to win The Dolphins are impostors 6-10 may win the NFC South

Not to mention that stylized graphics almost always wind up being significantly less taxing on the hardware than striving for photorealism.

The delicious irony is that a significant portion of these moral crusaders and defenders of justice are some of the most bigoted people out there. That doesn't really come as any surprise as history has shown again and again and again that those that engage in aggressive posturing and preaching so often are doing so to compensate for and draw attention away from the skeletons in their own closet. One of the most wonderful byproducts of this whole GamerGate consumer revolt is so many of these crusaders outing themselves as the hateful bigots they are to the world. Many of use have know or suspected as much about some of these people before, but now everyone can see it for themselves. This ordeal has put pressure on them, and it's much harder to effectively wear a mask when under pressure as people naturally and instinctively revert to their innate behavior and personality in such times.

Welcome to Isla del Keyrock A lush tropical paradise that's equal parts the ideal vacation destination and the residence of your dreams. This veritable utopia is overseen by the wise, beautiful, talented, magnanimous, and just Carmelita Tavarez. Rest assured that any and all rumors of executions and extortion are completely and utterly false, your benevolent ruler would never ever eeeeever consider stooping to such shameful acts.

Ricky Rubio is out 6 to 8 weeks with a severe ankle sprain. Man, the injury list is growing quickly this season. Maybe Ricky can spend those 6 to 8 weeks figuring out how to shoot the basketball? Wishful thinking.

Given the nature of the comment referenced, your ire was quite understandable, Nonek.

I finished up the story in Bayonetta 2. There are several chapters to do after the final story chapter called Witch Trials. They are basically a series of Muspelheim or Alfheim-like arenas where you fight increasingly more powerful foes each verse one after another. You can't use any items in the witch hunts, so it's all about taking the least amount of damage you can each verse in an effort to get to the end. It seems like they are 6 or 7 verses each. The first witch hunt was a piece of cake, the second one was tough, but I got through it eventually. I'm on the third one now and it's kicking my ass. The first 2 verses are easy, but the third verse is a pair of Pains (essentially demonic tank robots) and I'm terrible against those enemies. It's going to take some time to get the dodge timing down on them. Beyond that, I'm going to start running through the story chapters again on 3rd climax difficulty (hard) so that I can unlock the chain chomp. I also played The Talos Principle public test all the way through. It took me about an hour to figure out all the puzzles. I'm pretty impressed, I like these kinds of puzzle games. I look forward to the full game, whenever it arrives. Lastly, I fired up Tropico 5 for some relaxing banana republic dictator sim goodness to offset the frantic fast paced action of Bayonetta 2. One thing I really love about the Tropico games is the music. It's hard to not have a good time when they play music like that.

Some screenshots from The Talos Principle public test. I made sure to not include any puzzle solutions.

I'm definitely a bigger fan of Gabriel Era Genesis than Post Gabriel Era Genesis, but they absolutely did release some good stuff even when they went heavy into pop.

I'm an advocate of no bounds in comedy. No subject is off the table, including things like murder, rape, the holocaust, Jonestown, etc. That said, if you're going to incorporate one of these subjects into your jokes, you better make damn sure that the joke is very clever and very funny (Mr. Tait's comments fits neither of these criteria IMHO) to make it worth the potential wholly justified backlash you may receive for it.

In my opinion Genesis' output from the early to mid 70s can go toe to toe with any band's output in a similar stretch of time. They put out some amazing stuff during those years.

I'm Polish and while my family isn't Jewish, I did have family die and suffer at the hands of the Nazis. Needless to say, I don't find holocaust humor to be the least bit funny and Mr. Tait, whoever he is (should have I heard of him?) should be ashamed of posting such things whether it was meant in jest or literally.

I downloaded The Talos Principle public test (essentially a free demo) on Steam and gave it a quick spin. It's kind of Myst-y with religious and philosophical undertones, from the brief bit I played. It's cool to see Croteam put out something that doesn't involve shooting hundreds of aliens, plus I really like weird puzzle games where they essentially drop you somewhere with no instructions and just let you figure out what it is you're supposed to be doing on your own. I think they're using the same engine from Serious Sam 3, probably with some tweaks and upgrades.