Gwardinen

That is more or less what I'm assuming too. Since the only thread we don't have an explanation for is who killed Caspere and why, the kids and revenge seem like the obvious answers. I wasn't really into the first half of this episode, but I tuned back in once weird shit started happening in the back half. Upon reflection, this is how I've felt about most of the episodes of this season that had something action heavy happening in them. I'm not sure whether it's the dialogue or the acting or what, but I only really buy this show when shit is going down. When people are sitting around discussing things, it mostly seems somewhere between pointless and unbelievable.

Damn, sorry dibs. Hopefully the biopsy brings better news. Oh well, who likes gluten anyway? Every time people get gluten free snacks for a party I end up eating them because they're usually genuinely good.

I actually have this and was just waiting for coop to come in. I would be up for making soup with some Thumbs!

Agreed. Not least because it means I don't have to watch the same couple of minutes of titles with the same theme every episode as with most shows.

Do you recall whether the reset offered you a choice of installation drive or just immediately reinstalled on the current drive? If it offers I may do that rather than my plan below. Currently I'm planning to do the standard upgrade, then use the media tool and a USB to fresh install on the SSD. My only concern is that it won't recognise its authenticity after changing drive, but apparently there is a tool that will show your product key after updating to 10, so I'll probably do that and write it down so that I have it during the manual reinstall.

I'm currently planning to upgrade and then fresh install once I get back in the country, so I'd be curious to hear how anyone who's done that finds it. Also, does anyone know whether there's any issue with fresh installing into a different primary hard drive? At the moment I have an SSD as a secondary drive but I'd like to end up with Windows installed on it to get the proper benefit out of it.

Just curious, did anyone else actually use that lamp as a lamp? I wandered through caves with it out all the time.

I'm so glad to have empirical evidence that Vinny is the best person. I always knew, in my heart.

This has always been my assumption as to why HL3 has never happened. Since at Valve most people are supposed to get to choose their project, I don't know why anyone would choose to be on such a lose-lose endeavour.

Oh yeah, I actually did notice she's smoking real cigarettes now. I meant to ask the forums or cast what they thought that might mean, but forgot. Is it a sign of her supposed hypocrisy being washed away, or that she's just too upset to use half measures, or are we simply not supposed to think she's cool anymore?

I actually have a few things to bring up about this episode - which is a sign in itself that it's the first one I've been particularly invested in. There has been a lot of talk around here that the last few episodes have kind of been treading water, with just endless scenes of us learning that Caspere was into weird sex stuff, and I finally feel like the show has gained a bit of momentum back. Firstly, Paul's scene with his mother contained a line that resonated with me a little. His mother says something about him being a good looking white man, and how he could have been anything. She says something along the lines of, "if I was a man, I'd have ruled the world." This is weirdly something I've thought a lot in regards to my own life, especially when we're talking about social justice and feminism and race on these boards. As a straight, cis-gendered white man, have I failed if I've not totally risen to the top of society? Shouldn't I have, considering my advantages? Anyway, the line struck a chord. Like most the Thumbs on the cast, I've been enjoying Frank and Jordan's relationship, and I thought they had some good scenes this week. In particular, the scene with them in the club in which Jordan basically lays everything out and says the equivalent of "all right, so we know all this shit about each other - do we still love each other? Are we still doing this?" was great. I really liked that challenging style of love that they seem to have - this is me, this is you, are we in? The other scene that stood out was them in bed later in the episode, when Frank says "you don't wanna grow anything." He's talking about farming, but there is instantly this sense that the line might apply to pregnancy as well, and she seems hurt and he seems regretful. Rather than that being explicitly discussed, however, he just immediately kisses her in what seemed to be to be a conciliatory manner, and then there's a slightly awkward pause. I thought that was a very believable reaction, and was one of the few times the show really seemed like it was being directed rather than written. The dialogue actually pulled back entirely and let the performances speak. I was initially excited for the possibilities of the Velcoro rapist revelation, but was left disappointed by the ending of the episode. When it first came to light I had a genuine "oh shit" reaction as the consequences for Frank and Ray spun out in my head, but that last shot totally killed it for me. When Ray shows up at Frank's door the shot cuts to Frank before cutting back to Ray for the very last shot of the episode, and it is terrible. It genuinely looks like they took a break from filming and then Colin Farrell was told to stand in the doorway and look melodramatically menacing. His entire facial expression has changed, his head is at a different angle and he's doing a really forced looking glower from beneath his brows that seems like it should be on a movie poster. It was a huge let down for an episode that had made me excited for the season again.

I believe that is currently the case, but they're trying to find a way to make it possible. I snapped and bought it. Had a couple good games with AndyB earlier on, and am up for more teaming up with Thumbs if you drop me a line on Steam.

I was generally grateful that my birthday was in the summer holidays. Seeing people who had to go to school on their birthday was saddening, even if they were treated as a little special that day. That said, I only really remember having two big birthday parties as a kid. In one my friends and I were taken to Laser Quest (which is like Quasar, laser tag, whatever), and in the other my mum rented out the local pool and we had lots of weird floats. I honestly don't remember much of either now, but I get the feeling they were pretty good.

If I had slightly more money or a guaranteed team to play with, I would be all over this. Every video I've seen of it everyone has been having a great time. The East Coast vs West Coast Giant Bomb games were hilarious and tense and exciting.

Nice. Happy birthday, also. It's my birthday in a couple of days and I'm struggling with the desire to either ignore it or do something with it. I've been feeling pretty low lately, so I imagine being around others would be healthy, but that same feeling kinda just makes me want to stay at home and forget about the whole thing.

I dunno, how else can that situation be played unless you're in an 80s action movie or the character is insane? Bringing a knife to a gunfight is a fun joke only up until you imagine an actual human doing it, at which point it becomes suicide. That said, while I think the director and actor pretty much played it the only way they could, that doesn't explain why the writer put that bit in in the first place. There's barely reloading or recognition of ammunition as a prerequisite for gunfire in the rest of the scene, so why is Ani the only one who has to worry about running out of bullets and being disarmed? Is this all some bizarre continuing tease of her character handling and talking about knives but never actually using one? Is it some kind of weird reiteration of how she's constantly in greater physical danger doing her job than the men around her? If so it's a strange stretched metaphor, because as far as I know the Y chromosome doesn't increase the amount of bullets in your magazine.

It's gross that she has to plan being honest to her family about who she is tactically in that way, though likely smart. I'm glad it's going at least somewhat well so far. Good luck to you both in the next steps.

I haven't seen the film yet, as it hasn't started showing in the UK. But my thought after watching the trailer was that the mix of genders in the child might be due to incomplete social programming. As adults her parents have already been taught and internalised their gender roles, whereas as a child she still has the freedom to express attributes from multiple segments of the gender spectrum.

The different epilogue actually sounds like it might be good, but yeah I imagine they really have to cut/compress that storyline to get it into a short film. What you said about the epilogue reminded me of one of my favourite Luthor observations of Superman, I'm trying to remember what it's from... possibly one of the Earth One books? Basically, Lex Luthor said he was initially suspicious of Superman because he thought Superman had some grand plan for humanity, and didn't think an alien should be allowed to execute such a vision for his species. However, after analysing the pattern of Superman's actions, he feels this isn't the case. Superman topples a warlord somewhere, but someone worse takes his place and the situation deteriorates more, so he doesn't do so again. He prevents a natural disaster or something somewhere else, and that actually does seem to improve things, so he continues to take that action. Luthor realises that Superman doesn't have a grand plan, he's just working on trial and error like most people. And this bothers him more. He's even more annoyed that someone with so much power is just trying to muddle through like the rest of us, interfering with humanity in whatever way he thinks is best at the time. I think Superman and Lex Luthor and the relationship between them are absolutely concepts and characters that scale with the ingenuity and skill of the writers who frame them. As thefncrow said, they are actually boring to the point of uselessness when devoted to a standard comic book story. Despite, or perhaps because of, their archetypal construction they really need an unusual perspective to shine.

Penny Arcade started off doing D&D podcasts with Wizards of the Coast at the launch of 4th edition, and has since evolved it into stage shows at PAX. Some of those videos can be quite entertaining if you want to see some high production quality adventures being run through (their DM is a full time DM for WotC so his shit always looks fantastic with great maps and miniatures).

:/ That was not an enjoyable clip. This makes me sad, because I'm usually very hopeful when a DC animated thing shows up. Bring back Young Justice!

That looks way more interesting than the actual campaign. Unfortunately I just don't think I enjoy first person shooters anymore. I'll probably just listen to the Jeff Goldblum dialogue on YouTube.

I agree with most of what you said, and have to add my support of All-Star Superman as one of the, if not THE, best Superman volumes in existence. I believe there's also an animated film version of it, but I haven't seen it to know how much it lives up to the book. The only thing that makes me at all hopeful about Batman vs Superman is that it's apparently about Batman taking Superman to task for exactly these reasons. I've been told the idea is his beef with Superman is that Supes made basically no effort to protect all the people being put in danger by his huge battle, and as a result a bunch of Wayne Enterprises employees died.

Drew is great. At some point when I have money I will get a premium account mostly for Metal Gear Scanlon.

I may try these answers at my next interview.