jayseven

But you wouldn't be able to see sonic because he'd be loads smaller than the F-Zero crafts!

inny minny!

Aaaah got thrashed! Should've used that opportunity to play my noob keeper, really. Final game of the season on tuesday against Happenstance that I simply cannot lose...

IIRC wire s03 was my favourite. I'd say watch wire and then keep watching it because you can easily watch the rest of the series then watch BB before BB s04 airs

What I was concerned about, before starting s03, was that they'd never be able to top that climax from the second season. However, they, thankfully, didn't decide to even try and face it, but instead s03 just... phenomenally continues the excellent art direction and flawless character direction. I don't think I really spotted those things that you did, ReZ -- if I did, I certainly didn't remember it for the final episode. So glad you love the show too

Lol corp :P Yeah they're in embrace, soyo, and all those new 'upmarket' clubs/bars (players has opened since you left, and - lol - walkabout has one sometimes, as does yate's -- which has moved from one corner of a block on dev street to the other, now middling between a wetherspoons and a lloyds (which ar enow the same, I think)). I think that often the deal with these guys is that they actually pay the club/bar a fee in order to have a licence to spend all night in the loos propositioning people, and thus the lynx/chupa chups/bounty is all paid for from their own pocket and it is their genius idea of making money. I'm sure there are actual companies that 'provide' such gentlemen... I'm not really surprised that women don't have such a service in theirs. Essentially these guys are a communal handbag for blokes, who also act as a sort of overseer, ensuring that more men will wash their hands lest they be judged! I tend to over-tip them, while at the same time declining any actual interaction with them.

I've been playing Limbo, cussing at my internet connection and putting off tomorrow. Meant to meet a really, really boring mate in london tomorrow for a few hours because I'm too fucking nice to say no. It's been Bioshock 2 the last few nights, and will probably be Mass Effect 2 the next few. Or books!

... I managed to watch approximately 7 seconds before I stopped spasming and put the video on infinite pause. Just another reason why I'm hate-raining on Kinect.

Just finished the game after my longest session, nearing an hour. Found a few of the achievements, too! I can understand the criticism people have regarding the second half of the game; it seems to abandon the 'story' completely up until the final, final 'scene' -- which was quite powerful, I must say. I was annoyed that tha plot synopsis is so readily available as I think that harms the ending, but overall I was quite satisfied with the experience. I think Braid was overall the more successful at creating an artistic, meaningful game because of these flaws, but there's no taking away from the novel approach that this game provides to the platform genre; this game proves the power of art and sound over game mechanics, and is certainly the way XBLA games should go. I'm not sure I'll be able to do the game with 5-or-less deaths in one sitting. The HOTEL sign jump-timing bits really got me far too much, so I can't even see myself attempting it anytime soon... though I may look up where the hidden achievements are and try and figure them out from there.

If venting = feeling better, then a pattern can emerge where one vents about anything just to feel better rather than addressing the issue which causes the vent..? I think venting is important most when you have ears for it to fall on -- and not just nodding, agreeing ears but devil's-advocate ears that offer fresh perspective so that you can learn to cope with an issue that is causing frustration by actively looking at the situation in a different light as it happens rather than needing to vent in order to process.

I was about to write some sort of epic reply but truthfully I don't know what I'm talking about. Good luck!

Just finished this on medium today, and thought I'd read back over this thread. I think the main difference between this game and the previous game was the lack of backtracking - personally I was very much content with the change, but it did mean that there was less focus on plasmids being used to solve 'puzzles' or access previously inaccessible areas, thus many of the hidden elements to the game, such as power to the people stations, radio logs and even plasmids were fairly routine to find. I've started my second playthrough to scoop up some missed achievements - a 9 iron to model-Ryan's face, complete without using a vita-chamber, complete an ADAM harvest with a little sister without either of you getting hurt and, most infuriatingly, getting all of the basic plasmids. I was 15 ADAM short at the end of the game because I'd bought a bunch of useless shit that I never used. I'm already noticing that the areas are that much more foreign to me than the first game's because of the lack of backtracking, but conversely I think the level designs were less confusing and less annoying than the first game's were, again without the backtracking the areas were more compact and useful this time around. The game felt shorter than the first one because of it, and because the game's environment seemed more compact, but it took me three sessions to finish, each ranging from 5 hours up to about 8 hours. The finalé was much better this time, but the cliffhanger ending wasn't very satisfying, really. I've not been able to try the multiplayer yet as my internet's very sketchy. Has anyone given it a go? Yes, I know I'm 6 months behind everyone else. But that 6-month wait meant I only had to pay £8 for the game. So nyer.

Fish; I think Chairdriver's coincident-filled tale is far more interesting than if he had said three unrelated events had occured.

Shorty is the king of coincidences. At least once a week while I lived with him (three years) he'd have a freaky one. Of course I can't remember any specific ones but usually it'd be something along the lines of; "Don't you think it's really weird how nobody in sheffield has a mohican?" then the next day: "Dude I totally saw seven people with mohicans today. Here is pictoral evidence." Then the film Last of the Mohicans would start on telly as he tells me this. Seriously I wish I wrote some of them down because shit like that practically always happened.

Sorry, I didn't intend for it to come across as a disputing post or anything

I have to agree with Moogle - these are much better than CR! I like the quirky nonsense and the, correctly used, avoidance of explaining any of the zaniness! Keep it up. I'll probably watch a bunch each week, or something.

That's mental-good. How many hours would you say it took you? Do you do it while doing anything else? I also think you must be able to make a mint from selling it on, too. Awesome.

I'm refusing to watch anything regarding this movie. Being Arnofsky's next movie is all that's needed for me to tune in Any idea when it's out, though?

I 'enjoyed' this one, in very minute parts. The Bale sketch was, as has been said, completely dated/unnecessary/notfunny/awasteoftime. And, honestly, nearing 10 mins as it does, I just find myself waiting for the show to end so I can post in this thread rather than feeling sad when it's over. It's too long. Seriously! I can't reveal any praise until this crucial element is fixed.

Been meaning to make a thread for aaages! UFC 117 just finished with a surprising result -- one that gave Anderson Silva a bit of respect back after his shameful display last time he defended his title. I've Seen probably the last 5 seasons of Ultimate Fighter, and I'm eager to see Ross Pearson perform again in the UFC, considering he won the $1,000,000 contract, yet I think he's only appeared once besides his UF victory in the octagon, and that was in manchester at, what, 108? Kimbo slice, despite performing really, really badly in his UF, has already had, what, 3 UFC apperances? Gladly he's lost his latest one, as he's just a money-gatherer and not actually any good at the sport. Er, yeah, I'll hold off the actual discussion until I identify any other interested parties! General questions; do you have a favourite fighter? When did you start watching? What has been a memorable moment for you? *hopes there are other UFC fans here*

lol :P I actually went commando again today -- went to the xx's and got weed on by a guinea pig that soaked through... So I borrowed her brother's clothes, but thought borrowing underwear would be a bit too ew. Again I must say that it was a novel experience. To those above that considered it being somehow damaging; allowing your nuts to sit free means that your body regulars the temperature of your testes a lot more accurately, and without the layer surrounding your hips it can truly only be a good thing. As for walking through a seaside town on a drizzly late-summer's night... well, it's not that pleasant, for sure.

Well supergrunch made a thread fairly recently about one new form of art -- interactive fiction. Imagine a cross between the "choose your own adventure" books and wikipedia and you have a vague idea of the form, which steals from various media such as text, video and audio. Interactive, digital fiction has pros and cons; as an art form it is rewarding because it offers a novel experience while forcing the user to question their own established preconceptions of thos aformentioned forms, yet at the same time that medium is pretty much obsessed with subversion and the lack of any particularly scholarly take on the form means that, without discussed methodical use of the medium, it is all rather hit-and-miss and still very much in its embrionic (no idea what the correct word here is) stage. The digital age certainly demands a new artform, but again art, in its traditional sense, should be regardless of any such monetary evaluation and as such it is hard to recognise any forward movement in such fields as artistic, or at all relevant to our culutre, especially as this medium is very much secular and unknown to the vast majority of people. I think our society is still experiencing techonology such as the internet as a very new thing. Once it is truly the norm can we expect to see art florish without hindurance by monetary values. When I speak of art being reactionary to previous iterations, I think it is important to realise that there will be concurrant movements that will exist only to ensure classical forms of the art will continue to exist. There is scope for parodies as well as actual intellectual attempts to further the old-school of arts, such as those you name, of sculpture and paint. What is interesting about those fields is that they are currently seen as very finite and, in a way, exhausted methods of art. And it's a fair point - if you can say "well, the gratest writer of all time was shakespeare", then, really, why should anyone else bother? I read an interesting article today in a Times supplement from the weekend about a Norwegian chess player who, at the age of 19, is considered the greatest of all time. Before him there was Karpov, Kasparov and Fischer who were also given similar titles. Nobody could've predicted this genius to have arisen within the game, let alone that he could be, at such a young age, the greatest of all time -- yet it has happened. There is a certain unpredictability that is, in combination with the ever-evolving structure of the mind (we hope), means we can never truly say that we have experienced the zenith of human cacpability. Dan; I think you're bordering on the simplist definition of art; that all it needs is an artist with an intention. I think that art can be formed without intention, and without an artist, therefore I think your classificiations are erronerous. And Emasher; as I said above, movements are often named retrospectively. Similarly, if you examine any previous movement you will see counter-movements, traditionalists and radicalists. You never get one push without another group of people, whether they realise they're aligned together or not, acting the other way. I would personally shy away from any definition of art, because it is entirely possible for something to be perceived as art without the 'artist' ever intending it to be so.

I've had isolated occurances of psoriasis that don't itch. Mine mainly occurs within my hairline boundaries, and only earlier this year did I get a severe case under my beard. It wasn't exactly like ReZ's picture, and it wasn't itchy, though. Or, at least, not as itchy as mine has been. I'm pretty sure that my itchy scalp has made my tolerance to itchiness fairly high!

Postmodernism is the name given to that sort of idea; 'hey, everything's been done, so let's be over-aware and self-aware of it!' You raise a lot of points at once; the idea that one becomes immune to ideas or thoughts that for previous generations may have been taboo, but art as a form of expression will not die. Art concerns an artist attempting to express an idea or an emotion through a medium, and as it is not a science it is not something that can ever be conclusively finite. That society and culture and technology are still evolving is further proof that art still has a job to do. Each technological development provides an artist with more reason, or more mediums with which to express oneself with, to express onself about. Returning to the over-exposure angle; the information age we live in creates a sort of ADHD nature for the 'audience'. That we can simply stumble through the internet, through images created with photoshop or snapped with a camera or written with the ease of a mouse-click we find that we are potentially numbed to the deposit meaning an artist may have invested, but while an artist's intentions may be harder to be noticed it does not remove the demand for the novelty that art instills. Labelling a movement in the art world is often done retrospectively, once it is easier to ascertain when a style wholely occured. Perhaps we are just experiencing a certain lag between art and the modern world, or perhaps (and is more likely) we are unable to notice that which defines the world we live in because we are living it day-in, day-out. Think about when you see a 'period-drama', or a movie set in an era that we consider the past. The costumes and the architecture are specifically chosen to echo that phase of humankind's culture. Try to imagine what a move of 2010 would look like should it be made in 2050. Everything we consider normal now will, then, be ancient, maybe even quaint. Banksy is a good example of how the transition of art-within-a-frame has become art-is-everywhere. Consider how the politics behind his work is now, and thus temporal and eventually becoming another body of work that will be considered a part of art-history. A lot of culture is reflective of the immediately-precursive generation, usually a rebellious attempt to distance itself from what has been. This is clear in art, which is, of course, a generic label that can be applied to many different forms -- again, these forms are becoming more and more diverse. Computer games (as topical as anything on this forum) are a good example of how the art 'world' has new forms to shape. I started playing Bioshock 2 yesterday, and my mother was horrified at the opening scene. I had to explain to her how computer games have evolved from the simple "shoot that, win the game" into a story-driven piece that attempts to immerse the 'audience' further than a movie does. Another thing to think about is how art fits in with the commercial world we live in. From the basic idea that even fonts go in and out of fashion, art helps to drive our consumerist nations by being so pro-active about countering the past. It's hard for me to elaborate on this point (for it is late and, yes, some cider has sought its way into my soul), but consider advertising especially, and how a product seeks to label itself as freshly and novelly as possible. Anyway, blah-blah; there's a lot to the history of art and the purpose of art (don't ask Oscar Wilde to agree with me, here) that should essentially suggest that art is something that helps to define our species. Many people would argue that a free society is one which holds a freedom of expression in high regards. Art is the utmost form of expression, and successful art is that which can achieve a universal appeal, something which can tap in to the shared consciousness and relay a feeling or emotion which we can all identify with. As the world changes, as new stimuli are shaped, then we as a species have new reactions, new cocktails of ideas that can be captured and expressed. AND STUFF. Such an almighty topic.

Murr; you can use spoilers like so; [spoiler=OMGWTF]spoilerific details go here[/spoiler] EDIT: Ok so I can never get that code thing right --