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Story Mash-Up! (whatcha reading/watching/playing/etc.)

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Jeroic's picture
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Depending on what comes into the library by Tuesday, the next book on my reading list is either a biography of Snorri Sturlesson OR Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson. 

I'm also gradually reading the webcomic Shlock Mercenary, then will pick through the list of World Fantasy attendees for authors to look up, so I can at least be somewhat caught up on the current state of the genre by November.

EDIT: Words of radiance came to my library a few days before I finished my reread. Started that today.

Xarnac The Conqueror's picture
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Did anybody else watch Leftovers? I suffered through it, giving it a fair shake like I try to do with most HBO shows, but it was just a bunch of claptrap Macguffin crap.

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Been really itching to have some good lore discussions lately, but the online community seems a bit starved of those atm.

In any case, I've recently seen The Mothman Prophecies, CHAPPiE, The Book of Life, and Big Hero 6.

Mothman Prophecies was a strong showing for Richard Gere. Quite suspenseful and a satisfying ending, but it didn't slam it out of the ballpark for me.

CHAPPiE was much stronger than Elysium but fell quite short of District 9. The heart was there this time, but the story was nonsensical at times, especially regarding CHAPPiE's developmental state, which poked waaaay more holes in the story than it should have.

The Book of Life had wonderful animation, but the whole story - though simple - just didn't stick with me as much as I had hoped. There just wasn't anything outstanding. Memorable designs. Forgettable characters.

Big Hero 6 though, wow, that blew me away. Props to Disney lately. The depiction of Baymax, the robot in the film, came across as a more accurate portrayal of how a sentient robot would act than CHAPPiE did, and won a spot in my heart as a character that CHAAPiE wasn't quite able to do. Easily the best film on this list.

Now I'm getting around to series again.

Just today I watched the Powers premier episode online for free (don't have Playstation so its gonna be pirating for me). Pretty cool pitch. Very much reminded me of when I watched the first season of Heroes. Hopefully I can forget about this until season's end. I'm more of a binge watcher than a active follower of stuff.

Speaking of which, I think the complete second season of Psycho-Pass has been out for a few months now. Given how much I liked the first, I don't know why I've put it off for so long. Or maybe I do. I didn't exactly like the new character idea that popped up in the very last episode. Japan, it would be perfectly okay to do a show without 14 year old girls. Perfectly. Okay.

That or I can hop on to Sleepy Hollow season 2. Another show which I'm not quite sure why I haven't kept up on.

Xarnac The Conqueror's picture
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Saw Birdman. Was super epic.

Fiore1300's picture
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Xarnac The Conqueror wrote:

Saw Birdman. Was super epic.

Birdman was a good film. Dat soundtrack though. Awesome.

Xarnac The Conqueror's picture
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Saw Interstellar. Was a return to form for Nolan.

 

Saw Nymphomaniac for some reason. Was nothing more than a dull porno.

Xarnac The Conqueror's picture
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After watching the second trailer to Star Wars VII - which also confirmed some (good) plot rumors - I take back anything bad I said about it.

 

Although in the same vein, it looks like Star Wars Battlefront is being dumbed down to epic proportions and will fail.  No singleplayer, no space battles, no galactic conquest mode, only original trilogy units and factions, you can't control AT ATs (Walkers) ... yeah. Only 20 vs 20 for online. And already 50+ bucks worth of confirmed DLC.

 

Edit. And OMG paid mods? Really, Beth and Valve? Shame on you.

Jeroic's picture
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Pretty much all the recent "let's beat the dead horse of reboots and sequels" trailers (read: almost all the recent trailers) I've found very underwhelming. Really the only trailer that's had me excited in any recent length of time are the RvB13 and Lazer Team trailers. Notably, one of those is a new IP. 

Although I still expect to enjoy Avengers 2 a lot. The trailers are just kinda "meh" in my opinion. 

Xarnac The Conqueror's picture
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Death to the paid mod!

 

 

Also want to see Ex Machina.

Fiore1300's picture
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Xarnac The Conqueror wrote:

Death to the paid mod!

 

 

Also want to see Ex Machina.

I'm going to see Ex Machina tomorrow with a good friend of mine. Should be fun! And should be a good follow-up to CHAPPiE which was the last movie I saw in theaters.

And yes, as we have discussed, allowing people to charge for mods is a terrible precedent. I doubt they know what they've unleashed.

Dargor's picture
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Even though the current format is horrible (Though given that they're testing the waters, its not something I'd say is shocking), I'd hesitate to call it irredeemable. Ideally it'd help increase the talent pool and actually incentivize Beth (And maybe devs themselves on a individual basis) to actually create a extensive modding tool. 

The whole thing needs to be worked from the ground up and establishing some form of rules with paid for mods, especially where refunds and assets are concerned.

Xarnac The Conqueror's picture
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Add donation button, death to paid mods. Donations now become an impulse... donation, through the ease and security of Steam. Valve/Beth don't get 75% of said donations. Modders don't get black listed and go into hiding like Chesko. The community is no longer outraged.

Dargor's picture
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I'd probably be fine with that. I'm sort of at the point where I just want them to do something,  and not because of the mods actually being paid for, but the "community" acting like its the literal heat death of the universe. 

 

 

Xarnac The Conqueror's picture
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It could very well be the beginning of the end for free mods, or it could end up being a popcorn fart in the history of PC gaming. But it truly is a community. A community of interest to be exact. And unlike a spatial community, the former is rarely immune to internal tribalism and herd mentalities. 

Xarnac The Conqueror's picture
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F4 announced. Wondering how dumbed down it will be. Some of the rumors are already painting a horrible picture.

Cordate's picture
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At least they can count to three.

Xarnac The Conqueror's picture
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Is that a Rick Perry joke?

Cordate's picture
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It's a joke about Valve

Cordate's picture
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It's a joke about Valve

Xarnac The Conqueror's picture
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New season of True Detective starting tonight. I'm hoping it's better than season 1.

 

Edit: Well, TD was slow and by the numbers. Ballers and Brink however were excellent.

Fiore1300's picture
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Really enjoying being a member of Audible. Got through three books just this past week. Listened to Childhood's End, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The last one turned out to be really good. Way better than I ever remember enjoying Blade Runner. Although maybe I should watch it again just to be fair. It has been a long time.

Also finished up the 2nd Season of True Detective (solid, but lacking) and I watched In The Mouth of Madness, which was okay. Nothing really all that memorable though. 

Currently reading up on my Chinese myths, although I've lost track of all the unfinished books I have at the moment. Have to prepare for the Age of Mythology expansion coming out (presumably) sometime next year!

cpt.Od's picture
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Going back to Philly? I was reintroduced to Always Sunny, and this time I actually like it. I don't remember what I was watching back in high school, but it should have been more of this. Story of my life thus far.

Fiore1300's picture
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Battlespire is hard. :(

Jeroic's picture
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I got The Shining and Doctor Sleep from the library. I plan to read them back to back to see what 35 years of other work between installments does to a writer. 

Proweler's picture
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Fiore1300 wrote:

Battlespire is hard. :(

Sinder once told me to stack up on reflect/absorb magic stuff.

Just finished a Ian M. Banks binge. Culture series is kinda good. Manages to kick just about every sci-fi trope and be more sci-fi at the same time.

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Fiore1300 wrote:

Battlespire is hard. :(

If you're really desperate and not too far along, best I recall there's a bug in the character creation screen that allows you to max out you skills at the very beginning.

 

Because I'm almost a decade behind in my video-game playing (aside from TES and not including TESO), I finally finished the first Mass Effect last night, and started a character in Bioshock. I should probably wait till after finals before actually doing any more video-gaming (though technically, I should probably wait till next summer).

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The Prisoner (1967)

The '60 and '70 were weird.

Fiore1300's picture
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Proweler wrote:

The Prisoner (1967)

The '60 and '70 were weird.

He he... no quarrel with you there.

Here's a quick update of currently watching from me:

Watched recently:

The Revenant (in theaters)

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (in theaters)

Gargoyles (Animated Series)

Angel's Egg (1985, Japanese Anime w/english subs)

Currently watching:

Mr. Robot (T.V. series)

Thrilling Intent (Youtube series - hilarious)

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Xarnac The Conqueror wrote:

Saw Interstellar. Was a return to form for Nolan.

 

Saw Nymphomaniac for some reason. Was nothing more than a dull porno.

Nolan and Rian Jonson are the strongest cinematically bent directors in the mainstream. Watch Brick. These two can write and shoot film noir, without the set pieces telling you "this is noir".

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double posted

I'm reading The Discovery of France. I assumed a necessary stage before Imperialism was first, the conquest of a people's nation, or subduing it's "wilds". Not that I couldn't point to Rome, if asked for a counter to that, but the assumption was there, that nation building came first, and hadn't been corrected. This book does that from the perspective of one who's cycled a helluvu lot of France. The book's a tour guide in the adventurer's sense.