Amentep

No, it isn't wrong. Why would you keep playing if it isn't fun anymore? It'd be equivalent to getting to page 600 of a 2000 page epic and going "You know, I've not enjoyed the last 400 pages...but I'm too far in to quit now!". It's just silly.

^Life is overrated. I have PoE. Just kidding. Am playing PoE, though. Finally settled on a character/class combo and heading into the game "for reals" this time.

May be misreading your post, but Peta Wilson played Nikita in the first TV show. Watson played Madeline on LA FEMME NIKITA (and Senator Madeline Pierce on NIKITA). No less saddening news about her death (from cancer, which she'd had during the production of LA FEMME NIKITA as well; undergoing chemo at the time) though.

One thing is for sure - Romantic First Person Shooters would be pretty different. Also I'm a little worried what resources you'd be building for the RTS romance...

Liked the helium bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK5S-IuzIt8#t=16

? Why would I want christians in gimp suits??? Or force romance into video games??? He probably meant you'd force video games into gimp suits when played by romantic Christians in public. Or something.

The problem (IMO and I could be wrong - I don't propose this as a "magic bullet" cure all) can be outlined somewhat thusly: The First Amendment states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." So everyone has religious freedom and the freedom to exercise their religion. Yay, 'Murica! But within the tax and legal codes (federal and state), they government supports marriage (giving benefits to married couples, inheritance rights, etc.). This is where things get murky; there are two types of marriage in the US - Union in the Eyes of G/god(s)/G/goddess(es) dependent on your religious affiliation and Union in the Eyes of the State. They're both called "marriage" and generally they're inexorably paired and linked. Treating them as the same concept because the language is ambiguous leads to a conceptual identifying of marriage as being a universal concept regardless of state or religious origin. In short because the state issues a marriage license for a couple who were also married in the Hindu faith and the state issues a marriage license for a couple who were also married in the Catholic faith, the state says these marriages are equal. Things that are equal are interchangeable, so the challenge with this conceptual correlation is ensuring that the religious marriage remains unequal (based on faith - the state doesn't say the Catholic church has to recognize a Hindu wedding) while the civil marriage remains equal. Part of the big push for legalization of gay marriage is due to the state sponsored benefits. A lot of the push back from religious groups is because of an increasing feeling that they'll be mandated to provide gay marriages (because, again, the state marriage makes all marriage equal in the eyes of the state, or so they fear). But if, for example, all state unions (gay, straight) were called "Civil Unions" then it'd be harder to argue against, say, selling flowers for them. And this is the crux of it, if a Southern Baptist florist had a gay couple ask for flowers for their marriage in a Unitarian church, it'd be easier to argue (and demonstrate) that requiring that purchase from an open-to-the-public business isn't having their personal faith violated because the Unitarian Marriage isn't "in" their faith and the "Civil Union" isn't in their faith, They're not supporting marriage in the Eyes of their God by providing an open service for the couple (who ultimately, remain heretics in relation to their own personal faith). What this does is remove the concept that marriage equation through the state makes it about Southern Baptist Marriage (which is the ultimate argument of these religious freedom movements) and the dialogue is clearer because marriage doesn't mean multiple things (and the hinge point being, the state no longer becomes an equivocal point between the Southern Baptist Marriage and the Unitarian Marriage in the example by having them both endorsed by the State and seen as equal to one another - which they just can't ever be as the religions themselves aren't equal). If that makes sense.

I suspect I'll be voting Pogo for President and Alfred E. Newman for Vice-President the way things are going.

I got my PoE boxed set with snazzy signatures. Haven't opened it yet, though. Also looked through some recipes on the .pdf cookbook. Might try some, particularly the easy looking ones because I need more easy food to cook.

There was a spate of cases over the last few years where a farm that allowed weddings on its site was forced to provide gay wedding despite the owner claiming to be a Christian and therefore unable to support gay marriage and a florist who referred a regular to another florist stating she couldn't make him flowers for his gay wedding due to her religious beliefs being fined for discrimination. A number of people felt that this went against religious freedoms and that, in fact, the government was discriminating against people's right to practice their religion. There's a number of problems with this argument (not the least of which is the government has always limited the freedom of religion when it infringed on others liberties, which is why polygamy, pedophilia and human sacrifice aren't allowed even on religious grounds in the US). The root of the problem, ultimately, is that the state recognizes (and indeed promotes through benefits) a religious concept (marriage) which, unfortunately, won't actually be challenged in any of this.

You seriously think a kickstarted, micro-budgetted game from a developer who was in serious monetary trouble when the kickstarter began (according to the documentary) would have enough money to pay people to praise the game? I'm not disputing that early reviews are skewed, but paid shills I find hard to believe. My guess is early reviews are a combination of people from the Beta and people who were like "I think this will be awesome! 10/10".

Sneaking isn't really a good choice if none of your characters are terribly sneaky (you'll always be spotted before you get close enough to engage in mele. Auto-Pause on Spotting an enemy is a godsend, though. Monks having to get hit in order to use their skills/powers leads to a trade off. Lightly armor a monk (more uses of special abilities, more liklihood that the monk goes down in a fight) Or heavily armor a monk (slower hit time, but hope strength and HTH stat increases make up for loss or spamming powers). That said my monk test got dropped a lot as did my rogue. I suspect that both were based on either poor build choices or trying to tackle things before I was ready to tackle them (in particular, I think I should have traded a higher interrupt weapon (perhaps weapon and shield) for my rogue. Or arrows.

I think its entirely possible to have negative review from someone who is not a troll. I think negative reviews that consist of "I hate it; you suck" probably aren't from serious critics, either, though.

That really just seems like stooping to the same level. Also isn't the Gamergate movement trying to clean up gaming journalism? Doesn't that mean you will be ruining people's livelihood? I'd think that what GG wants would be for ethical reforms that are followed by game journalists. Presumably the only people who'd have their livelihood ruined would be those who want to continue a culture of bribery and cronyism and reject the reforms. Would we really worry about ruining the livlihood of a politician who took bribes rather than worked for their constituents? Should we be worried about a (theoretical) journalist who only cares about getting money from a game company in exchange for his/her next positive review? I will say - more often than not - both sides of this issue have fallen into this category, IMO.

Seemed very much like that Alan did feel that way, which is why I wanted to quote his response. He probably won't have time to respond, but I think its a valid question regardless.

We know they did vet the tombstones. What I don't get is, specifically, what the problem with this tombstone is. Are we saying that in-game characters can't be transphobic? Homophobic? Racist? In other words (even though this is backer content) why does an in-game character being clearly transphobic* (to the point of killing themselves - not the trans in question) translate to Obsidian as a company, individual employees - or even the backer who made that content - being transphobes (or anti-trans) themselves? Because this kind of corollary logic (it exists in the game, therefore the makers of the game support this) is pretty unsupportable, IMO. Spoiler for POE: *I suppose this is transvestite phobic since the guy was able to find out she was a man. I haven't played PoE long enough to know whether the setting supports transexuality or not to be honest, but if magic can make someone a woman, I'm not sure how you'd find out she had ever been anything other than a woman. **Obviously I don't think this is true, but this is why I think this kind of argument is a slippery slope.

I liked Prometheus but I'll admit that it has some problems with it - some significant. I don't see it as the horrible violation of the series that many do, though (hey, I'd already seen AVP2 by that point, which is IMO the nadir of the related films so far). I watched IT FOLLOWS (2015) over the weekend. An interesting indie horror film. It plays against horror conventions, instead concentrating on a rising dread and creepiness factor over excessive gore or multiple jump scares. I can see some people going "that's supposed to be scary?" just because it is atypical in its way, so appreciation of the film might hinge on how hooked the viewer gets into the nightmarish quality of the narrative and central conceit. Also saw Airplane! (1980) for the umpteenth time - "Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue."

PoE a little last night. Can't wait to get back to it.

Mostly trying to inject some humor. Or some solipsism. Whatever.

Ditto. I might not have pledges as much if I hadn't planned to play the game, but I love what Obsidian does and would have been willing to pledge even if the game didn't appeal to me necessarily.

Well, can you prove that Russia is actively involved in Ukraine and Nigeria is holding elections? Posting news articles doesn't prove it, all that proved is that there are people CLAIMING these things are happening, but there is no proof they are. Heck there's no objective proof that Russia, Ukraine or Nigeria even exist. I can't even prove you posted the response I'm responding to, nor can you prove I posted this. Solipsism FTW!

If memory serves me, this was a segment of the original Banana Splits Adventure Hour.

The Irwin Allen shows always had the best themes (courtesy of Johnny Williams):

Checkmate!

Same. And this: Oh, hahah - I haven't seen those titles in ages!