Enoch

Modest Mouse -- Tiny Cities Made of Ashes

I probably only finish 1/4 of the games I play. The last game I actually did finish was probably NWN2:MotB (either that or Portal; I forget which I played first). Since then, I've played Deus Ex (got to Paris, lost interest), Bioshock, NWN2:SoZ, Fallout3, some heavily-modded Oblivion, many unfinished games of Civ4 (although I have finished games of this in the past, I rarely bother to play out the string anymore), and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. I have also finished "Short Campaigns" in M2TW (and I'm getting close to doing so in E:TW), but I don't really see that as counting for much. As far as I'm concerned, if a game stops being fun or interesting, there's no point in me putting any more time into it. I've got enough pressure to complete projects at work and around the house without creating pressure to complete recreational projects like games.

Grrr... Just had my first crash, which of course came right after a nice victory over the Cherokee that took half an hour.

There's a pretty good argument from a public health perspective that the administration of flu shots in the U.S. is all wrong. We tend to focus on getting them to the elderly and infirm, who would be most likely to die if they got the bug (but whose compromised immune systems make the vaccine less likely to be effective). If we instead focused on vaccinating schoolchildren, who rarely have any long-term effects from the illness, but who are the primary hubs for transmitting it (and whose youthful immune systems take to vaccination readily), the overall effect would be far less serious.

Perhaps I should refine: 300 was all about the spectacle. (Most of which was seksay Greek dudes in loincloths. NTTIAWWT.) The plotting, acting, characters, etc., were craptastic filler that functioned just to get the audience to the next impressive visual image. If that's what you want in a film, that's fine. But if you want some entertainment from the storytelling, the only way to get any is to treat it as high camp and laugh your ass off. Which I did. Using the same spectacle-focused action scene techniques in a more plot- and character-driven story like Watchmen, though, is just jarring to the audience and pulls their attention away from what makes the film interesting.

Caught Watchmen this afternoon. I really liked about 85% of it. They nailed most of the characters pretty well, and the imagery was probably a little too faithful to the comic, but still well done. I actually liked the way they made the ending work. What sucked was: Every fight scene. I know this is kinda this director's "thing," but I hate, hate, hate how he shoots action scenes. The ridiculously over-magnified sound effects on every punch (and worse, every *crunch*), the slo-mo/fast-mo shifts, the crowds of 6 easily-dispatched assailants for every hero, the over-focus on the gore. Awful. It worked for 300, because 300 was a comedy.* But in a film where the audience is supposed to be following the characters and the story with interest, it just reminds them that they're in a theatre, watching a movie directed by a guy who is a little too impressed by his own clever tricks. Oh, and what goes for the fight scenes goes X10 for the sex scenes. The, erm, unconsummated scene was good, with some solid acting true to the characters. The other bootyknockin' scenes just made me embarrassed for the actors involved. What also sucked: Pretty much all of the music. It's like they spent about 10 minutes picking the first popular song to come to mind for each scene, and didn't think about the music at all after that. Almost none of it fit particularly well with what was going on up on the screen, and the ultimate effect was distracting, diminishing the impact of the film rather than increasing it. * I really don't see how anyone could possibly take 300 seriously at face value and not walk out of the theatre about 10 minutes in. As a comedy, though, it's quite entertaining, so I give the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt and assume that they intended it as such, with all the advertising, press, etc., supporting it as part of one big Andy-Kaufman-style joke at their audience's expense.

All my friends are married Every Tom and **** and Harry You must be strong To go it alone Here's to the bachelors and the bowery bums And those who feel that they're the ones Who are better off without a wife I like to sleep until the crack of noon Midnight howlin' at the moon Goin' out when I wanto, Comin' home when I please I don't have to ask permission If I want to go out fishing And I never have to ask for the keys (Disclaimer: Happily married.) (Disclaimer 2: I like my women like I like my coffee: Roasted, ground into a fine powder, and immersed in boiling water.) (Disclaimer 3: Wait... that's not it. Please ignore Disclaimer 2) (Disclaimer 4: I like my women like I like my coffee: Blonde, with enormous ****.) (Disclaimer 5: Much better.) (Disclaimer 6: I don't even like coffee.)

What ol' Sandy is missing is how a more aggressive stance would actually change anything about Chinese oppression of its people. Two options: 1) Talk to them and trade with them: Gets you an oppressive Chinese regime that is making more money (as are you), but that is focusing its efforts on commercial development and is extraordinarily unlikely to stir the pot internationally so that they don't risk endangering the success of their exports. 2) Shun them: Gets you an oppressive Chinese regime that is poorer, but that is focusing its efforts on military development because it feels like the rest of the world is allayed against it, and is quite likely to provoke international incidents through aggressive behavior. Viscy's conclusion is apparently that things have worked so beautifully with U.S.-North Korean relations that we should definitely try it again with a country that is 100 times as large and as dangerous!

I didn't realize that Feargus had a credit on Castles 2. That was a solid strategy game.

(Hotlinked like it's goin' out of style) Also: I like my women like I like my coffee: Uncompromisingly bitter, Jamaican, and likely to keep me up all night.

Well, they may not be butterflies and lollipops, but Flower has gotten rave reviews. Anybody here try it?

I was referring to claims that "new, patented X treatment is 15% more effective than old, patent-lapsed Y treatment." If treatment X's effect was to reduce the incidence further problems (e.g., heart attacks) by 20%, then only 3 people out of every hundred treatment Y users are getting any benefit for the additional cost. And here in the States, where people often end up paying for their own prescription drugs (or are in small private insurance pools where increases in others' costs result in higher premiums and deductibles you pay), the considerations of cost are quite relevant.

I seem to recall (although I cannot locate) an article arguing that the effectiveness of pharmaceuticals should be expressed in a similar fashion. The point being that the marginal increase in effectiveness between an older, cheaply available generic drug and the updated, still-patented version is usually far more miniscule than the pharmaceutical manufacturer implies in its advertising.

Also: First thing in the morning, and then again at regular intervals throughout the day.

I like my women like I like my coffee: So full of whisky I can taste it, and topped with whipped cream I can lick off.

I think I'm too indecisive to play this game. There are too damn many options (and too damn many potential consequences) that, when pressed to decide something, I tend to just freeze up and spend yet another turn quietly building my infrastructure and reinforcing my garrison troops.

I don't see it as a Cold War brinksmanship situation. China needs the West (as a market for its goods) far far more than the West needs China. Most of the goods China is exporting aren't necessities to consumers, and there are alternate sources of relatively cheap labor (i.e., every other poor country) that we could transition to. A disruption of trade would increase some costs in the West, but it would be absolutely catastrophic to the Chinese.

Inflation. A nation monetizes its debt when it follows inflationary public policies (fiscal, monetary, or both). Since the oustanding debt is accounted for in nominal dollars, the real value of that debt declines as inflation rises. If the value of the dollar goes down to $0.50, then the national debt is effectively halved. And, for the U.S., at least, because the Dollar is the currency of choice for foreign investors and governments seeking security, a fair amount of the cost of that inflation would be borne by foreigners. There are, of course, other consequences to inflation-- most notably that it tends to accelerate dramatically once a cycle of above-normal inflation is started, and the only proven way to stop said cycle of inflation is with a contraction in the real economy. (This happened most notably in the early 1980s-- double-digit inflation was squeezed out of the U.S. economy via a short but severe recession.)

Pour you a beer, Mr. Peterson? Alright, but stop me at one. ... Make that one-thirty.

I actually agree with KK-- although "harmless fun" is a bit strong, I suspect that this is coming from somewhere in China's military heirarchy, and not from the central government. Unless this is an attempts to assuage internal political instability by provoking an "us against them" foreign confrontation, I don't see that they have anything to gain from this. The possibility of an actual shooting war has been essentially off the table ever since China started getting rich trading with the West in the '90s. The problem for China is that their economy is now leveraged far to heavily towards making cheap products to export to the West (just as the West, particularly the U.S., is leveraged too heavily towards consumer spending). If, say, U.S. consumer spending falls from 73% of GDP down to a more sane level like 60%, lots of Chinese factories are gonna be closing (many already are), which means that the government has to find a way to employ lots of workers, or risk big problems (i.e., riots). Because the rest of their economy is so under-developed (take a look at the infrastructure outside the big coastal cities), and because their financial system is just as screwed as the rest of the world's, if not more (screwed in different ways, and the fact that there is zero public disclosure or accountability makes it easy to hide and deny, but still screwed), the Chinese government is going to be in for a very rough decade to come. Then throw in the very real possibility that the U.S. will end up monetizing its debt, dramatically decreasing the value of the T-Bills the Chinese government holds in its currency reserves, and all bets are off.

I hate scary games. And scary movies. I just don't really get the appeal. Horror films have the same rule that tearjerkers do with me--it has to be really really damn good in order to earn the right to terrify me. If it isn't, I will refuse to take it at face value, and hide my emotional vulnerability either by humor, scorn, anger, or intellectual/ironic distance. (Or, I'll just resent it for its attempts to crassly manipulate my emotions and I'll stop watching/playing.)

Yeah, one of these days I'll have to give the first one a try again, to see if I can get past the 3-hour mark before the "Not Fun"-ness of infinitely respawning splicers overwhelms my interest in the art direction and the setting. When I realized that the game was predominantly making me irritated and stressed, rather than inspiring the intended enjoyment, entertainment, and intellectual satisfaction, I put it on the shelf.

What kind of retarded design decision is that? Is it a bug? I could see it making sense in moderate to restrictive terrain. But on, say, cleared farmland, that's a bit too gamey.

OK. I suppose my choice of words was a bit strong (depending on how one reads "role-player"). Allow me to rephrase: His contract tells me that teams think of him as a competent starting WR, but not a star WR. Buffalo's current #1 WR, Lee Evans, is making more money than Owens is. Frankly, at the price they got, I think it is a good signing for Buffalo. T.O. can out-muscle the DBs and run the underneath and intermediate routes to draw the defense's attention while Evans, the speedster, goes deep. He'll also help a lot in their goal-line passing offense, where Evans' speed is neutralized by the short field.

Yeah, sounds like you're talking about either a Warlock (assuming the crafting feat fix has been done) or some variety of Eldrich Knight. A Wizard-based EK could work well-- you can adjust her spell selection based on the situation, depending on whether you want a blaster or a buffed-up backup fighter. They are a bit slow to start-- IIRC, you need 5 wiz levels, martial weapons prof (usually covered by 1-4 levels of a martial class, depending on your preference), and (I think) one or two other feats (which can make it tough to cover all of the crafting bases). But, in the end, they do get you close to the diversity you want.