more info than you could ever want about Pitchford’s porn habits

In short, there was a legal dispute between Pitchford and a former counsel for Gearbox. As part of a pattern of suit-countersuit, the former employee alleged that Pitchford had left a USB stick at a local restaurant which contained proprietary company info as well as underage pornography. Pitchford confirmed that all of the above, with the notable exception of the “underage” part. Given nothing came of it, and he was remarkably candid about what type of porn was actually on the USB, I’m inclined to believe him.

At least Kirkbride’s fever dreams were entertaining…

It’s always odd to me when words develop parallel but distinct meanings based on context. Like, I know “to cleave to” something is to attach to it, but it trips me up (esp. in a Warhammer context where Saltzpyre would be hanging out) since I default to “he was cleaved in twain”.

As with most other English oddities, I assume this is holdover from my ancestors treating other languages like swap meets.

I don’t want to yuck your yums, since it’s sort of a subjective call, but I wouldn’t necessarily call 200 meters a “long distance” shot. It’s not close range, but hitting a mostly stationary human sized target at that distance is, if not “easy”, certainly achievable with a minimal amount of firearms experience. I think this holds true even without the assistance of scopes or other optics. For reference, basic rifle marksmanship qualification for the armed forces has you taking on targets out to 300 meters with iron sights, and, despite never firing a weapon prior to basic training, I was able to consistently hit the 200 meter targets (though beyond that range was a coin flip)

Furthermore, calling the weapon a high-powered rifle is, to some extent, redundant. Again, it’s subjective, but pretty much any firearm which fires rifle caliber ammunition is going to be by default “high-powered”, unless it’s .22LR. That’s the only rifle cartridge I can think of that is commonly available that would not qualify as “high-powered” by a reasonable definition.

The only reason I bring up this little bit of pedantry is because, as you mentioned in your post, calling it a “long distance shot with a high powered rifle” leads the listener towards certain conclusions that are not well-founded at this juncture. It’s not inaccurate or untruthful, but I do think it leaves out relevant context.

Josh Ritter’s Kathleen performance from Live at the Iveagh Gardens has far and away subsumed the studio version for me. The original track is fine, I guess, but there’s some kind of alchemy in that live performance that takes it from a kinda sleepy singer/songwriter ballad to a roots rock revival jam. Or something like that. Idk, I’m certainly no music critic, but I know which version I prefer.

We cannot get out. They have taken the bridge and second field. Johnny & Kris & Waylon fell there bravely while the rest retreated. Willie’s party went 5 days ago, but has not returned. The watcher in the water took George. We cannot get out. The air hums. Fiddles, fiddles in the deep. We cannot get out. Where did they come from? Where did they go? Where did they come from, Cotton Eye Joe??

I know it’s more agrarian eurodance, but “country metal” is a hard thing to find reference for…

Boo to all you naysayers! The first was a gloriously funky (and, you know, more than a little moldy) hunk of aged cheese, and I’m excited for the sequel.

I like Vin best when he’s getting to let his nerd flag fly, and it doesn’t get much more “Vin Diesel: Turbo Nerd” than a movie based around his personal DnD campaigns.

I’m reminded of the narrator’s distillation of his career from Fight Club. Paraphrasing, but the gist is “I’m here to apply the formula. A is the number of cars on the road. B is probably rate of failure. C is the cost of an out of court settlement. A times B times C equals X. If X is greater than the cost of a recall, we issue one and no one gets hurt. If X is less, we don’t recall.”

In this case, whoever counts Paradox’s beans determined the cost of issuing refunds was going to be less than the cost of staying the course (from a PR perspective, if nothing else).

Perhaps, but I think that misses the point of Gunn harkening back to Silver Age comics with this movie. Puzzling out the “logic” of who knows what and why is sort of antithetical to the exercise being conducted. It’s like the folks who get wrapped around the axle about the conclusion of Superman 1978 not making a lick of sense to someone with an elementary understanding of physics. Oh, Superman can turn back time by flying around the Earth backwards? That’s absurd!! Yes, it is, now shut up and pass me the popcorn.

If it is necessary for the story, Superman’s identity will become relevant. Otherwise, everything operates on a shrug and a hand wave, and I’m sort of fine with that. Secret identity management is a fun aspect of a character like Spiderman, for example, because his whole thing is the burden of being a gifted individual. Great power = great responsibility and all. Therefore, making Peter Parker suffer because of Spiderman is kind of baked into the text of the character.

Meanwhile, I think Gunn’s approach to Superman/Clark is that neither is burdened by the other. I’m not even really sure he views it as a duality in that way. The text of the film seems to indicate that, in Gunn’s view, Clark and Superman are indistinguishable from one another, or even that Clark (the human) takes primacy over Kal-El/Superman. This intentionally contrasts with the Snyderverse interpretation of DC heroes, which was much more interested in how INhuman the DC canon of heroes were, Superman most of all.

Per the article, Mid journey has signalled an intent to enter the traditional streaming and content production markets, placing it in direct competition with WB et al. I suspect that is the reason for it being specifically targeted.

I don’t really have a dog in the fight, but what about Shawn Levy, the auteur behind such visionary films like Free Guy, The Internship, and the Night at the Museum series, inspires such confidence in you? Or, rather, why is Tropper a red flag for you?

There’s the kernel of a pretty good 3 minute YouTube skit in here.

I mean, I guess I just don’t view entertainment options as a finite resource. Amusements abound. Games, movies, shows, books, lectures, theater, articles, podcasts, music, sports, etc. The means to dispense with my free time far far far exceed the amount of free time I have to fritter away. So, while you may view backlog management as unhealthy min/maxing, I would counter that your preoccupation with “running out” of entertainment is, at least, equally as unhealthy a min/max mindset.

Also, I can’t speak for others, but your clothing analogy made me think of this: when I talk about not wanting to purchase a game because of my backlog, usually I don’t mean “aw man, I’d really like to get Baldur’s Gate 3, but I haven’t finished my Madden dynasty yet”. Rather, it would be closer to, “I’d really like to get Baldur’s Gate 3, but I bought both of the Owlcat Pathfinder RPGs last sale and I haven’t even booted those up yet”. So, it’s less about deciding whether or not to buy a shirt based on how many pairs of jeans you own, and more about deciding whether you need the latest, most fashionable cut of Levis when you’ve got 3 pairs of Costco jeans at home still.

Ultimately, it’s neither right nor wrong of you to hoard digital games. It’s your money, you do with it what you will. It just seems like a wildly hot take to come into that conversation swinging around accusatory statements like “that’s an unhealthy min-max mindset”.

That’s not really what’s implied in that statement. A better comparison, using your streaming service analogy, would be that you subscribed to Apple TV because you heard Severance was really good. However, one thing led to another, and now it’s months later, and you still haven’t watched Severance. So, instead of starting a new series (say, Ted Lasso) you queue up Severance instead.

It’s still not a great analogy, because the streaming service implies a real, ongoing cost to maintaining access to the service, which is not the case with most people’s game libraries. That being said, with Gamepass and GeForce Now etc, it’s not necessarily out of the question.

The purpose isn’t to “deplete entertainment options”, it’s to utilize the options you already have financial investment in before sinking more money into more options simply for their novelty.

The “point of the product” isn’t to provide theoretical novel entertainment value by sitting, unplayed, on my digital shelves. Bold take here, but I’d suggest the point of a video game is to be played.

Agreed. If you’re gonna do the “put as much star power on the poster as you can, we shelled out for these likenesses, we’re damn well gonna market them” thing, you as well dress it up a little. Also, punk rock Dr who is rad.

They get eaten by velociraptors.

In context, this makes sense.

That’s an incredibly evocative simile that ultimately still has me unsure of whether it’s good or bad.

3/10, do not recommend

Review complete, the next 19 minutes will be spent processing existential dread.

Idk, I suppose you can argue that the binary morality system of the first BioShock was integral to the franchise identity, considering the time it came out and all, but I don’t hate that Infinite has one definitive ending to the story it wanted to tell. In fact, given the game’s emphasis on tropes and meta commentary, I’d imagine that setting a story in a universe with infinite possibilities and then removing the “choice” from the player to influence the ending was done deliberately. However, it’s been a decade since I played it, so I could certainly be misremembering some details.

I’m a homm2 guy myself ( shout out fheroes2 engine ), but I can’t sympathize with you on that front. Much like some folks’ relationship with Civ, I’m constantly in a “one more turn” loop when I play, to the point that I won’t boot it up if it’s after a certain time haha