Selfsurprise

^ "You! Wanted this! MuHAHAHA..."

I don't know if this is the right thread for the question, but I don't see the need to start a whole new thread over it. I mentioned a couple o' pages ago that I'm getting involved in another of my mate Petes DnD campaigns - which he has informed me will be an "evil PC" game. I was thinking of playing a non-human Wight character (Wights being a type of undead in the game) but recently had some other character concepts in mind. Out of the following two concepts, which sounds the most interesting to you?

• A deformed one-horned Krynn Minotaur (from the Dragonlance campaign setting) Bardic Sage/Sorceror who turned to demonology to spite his more martially minded peers. Male, medium-sized, Chaotic Evil.
  
• A Chitine (from Monsters of Faerûn and Underdark) Druidic Avenger/Totemist orphan with an intense hatred of non-monstrous humanoids (humans, elves, dwarves, etc) due to childhood genocidal trauma. Female, small, Chaotic Neutral or Neutral Evil.

"What race are you?"

 

"The European Circuit."

Face The Master by Shroud Eater

Anybody else play this yet? I'm talking about the PS4 version specifically, but you PC master race gamers and X Box-ers are welcome here too... :3

I enjoy the fact that money in this game feels less like an absolute end goal and more of a resource that waxes and wanes, depending on your international relationships or how well managed your resources and trade routes are - you aren't going to immediately fail if your countries isand is low or even in the red. Unfortunately playing it on the PS4 with a pad makes you realize how ill-suited the console is a strategy/management game, laying roads in particular is a massive pain in the arse.

My favourite thing is the humorous dialogue, especially with your advisor Penultimo. Especially his comments on new technology and laws that you've successfully researched.

"Our research team - that is to say me - discovered the shovel. Forty times. If I found out who put it there, I will kill him!"

I did spot one just the other day, somewhere in the Misc. AF Stuff section. It was taken care of after a few hours. That was the only spam i've seen in this forum so far. Beats the Queenzone forum for me. At some point, you'd get a page full of spam/jumbled mess when you're looking for a forum topic there.

I find spam to only be a problem when the most recently updated threads on a given forum are on page thirty-seven... ;p

I've recently re-watched the two-part Revenant episode a couple of times this week, and some of the quotes in it tickle me in all the right places... :3

"Look out! It's the knife! It was the villain this whole time!"

 

"Wasn't it Descartes that said "I punch, therefore I am"?"

 

"Ohhh so you want to see your avatar AND your potions. Go fuck yourself."

 

"I still don't know if this slider does anything. It could just be a placebo."

 

"It will probably turn the grass magenta, just to teach me a lesson."

I know it's probably been said before but Ross's sense of humour just sits with my own sense of what's funny so neatly.

I'm thinking of writing some follow-up letters to letters I sent a month or so ago, as detailed in Ross's campaign for this video. I know that I want to go into more detail regarding alternatives EA could pursue instead of the business practice we all know and hate, in my last set of letters I veered more towards making the individuals aware of the moves made by Ross and other gamers regarding the indefensible modus operandi of killing games, as well as voicing my heartfelt concerns about the future reputation of big gaming companies.

I just thought I'd bring this up, as I hadn't heard much about this campaign for a while.

Is an extremely sober individual.

I might as well attempt to raise this thread from an early grave.

MÜTÄNTCÖRË

Rendered in a luridly colourful punk and cartoon inspired illustrative style, MÜTÄNTCÖRË (all caps and umlauts are necessary) is a radical resource management/side-scrolling beat em' up/visual novel game with lowbrow political and romantic elements thrown in for good measure. In MÜTÄNTCÖRË you take charge of a rundown underground music venue circa 2234, populated with the vilest, violent and comical ab-human scum this world has ever bore witness to. Hire and fire bands whilst promoting and organizing gigs, festivals and events. Give your rowdy clientele (many of which boast bizarre superhuman and supernatural powers) enough distractions to dissuade vandalism, or have your goons politely smash things over their heads. Keep track of your venues presumably nefarious reputation via media and reviewers of various backgrounds. Make alliances with various lowlives and cultural dissidents in order to bolster your standing in the D.I.Y independent musical community.

MÜTÄNTCÖRË WILL NEVER DIE!

~

INSPIRATIONAL TAGS: loneliness, space ranger/planetary watch, mystery

8/10 Harsh but funny.

"Transgression does not deny the taboo but transcends and completes it." - George Bataille

A nostalgic look through books from our childhood.

If you're sensitive as all fuck, I recommend not reading the following.

 

In my Computer Science class, we have just four people. Me, two of my mates, and a mentally disabled person. I don't mean just a simple 'can't concentrate' disability or anything either. I mean he REALLY struggles with just normal day life. My complaint is, as harsh and cold as I sound... Is... I don't think he should be in this class. Why? He is a massive distraction, he is loud, he has an extremely short temper, he complains non-stop and he doesn't understand how to socially behave. I get it, he can't help it. I understand. But... If he's distracting everyone else, and can't help it, I think he should get a more private setting.

Also...

 

 

This happened. He got angry just because the laptops were not in the usual order. Banged on the door SO hard that it was smashed. If he does this ACCIDENTALLY, and does it from just as small of a reason as that, what is going to happen when I accidentally say something that offends him? Like, I'm not usually afraid of people, but this guy SCARES me. But I try to not be rude at the same time. He would throw a fit and I want to move away from him but I fear it'd be rude of me to. I really REALLY don't want to piss this guy off cause he can BREAK me. This is only term 1, already had at least... 1 of his panic attacks every class. I don't know... I get so nervous around him...

He's also very invasive. Randomly gives me hugs, even though I barely know him. I just hold still and freeze up, afraid to say or do anything.

Eesh. /rant over.

Sheesh.Talk about annoyances.

This reminds me of a classmate who has the same problems and is even MORE annoying.

If you wanna talk about it,i'm listening.

It's one of the ever present pitfalls of living in a (thankfully) progressive world. As awkward and disconcerting having individuals with severe social or learning difficulties can be for anyone present, the alternative is rather morally indefensible. I find it helps if those with the kind of problems you've mentioned have someone familiar at hand to manage their myriad issues, partly as a calming mechanism and partly to compensate for their behavioural conduct. That being said, it's equally indefensible to expect a handful of individuals to take care of vulnerable people, in a sense we are all responsible for their well-being if we want to continue thinking of ourselves as a sophisticated, modern culture. This is an especially pressing matter for the many "abler" people with disabilities. I hate to say it Jeb, but it looks like there isn't a solution to your worries regarding the guy other than to adapt, just embrace the social craziness of the situation. You might want to try talking to some of the teachers if his overt friendliness is making you that uncomfortable.

We just got spammed. Is it just me or is this the first time we've been spammed in quite a while?

We've had a few spammers recently but us mods are usually so quick to catch them that nobody notices they came.

They haven't caught me yet! >:3

But seriously I'm pleased by the noticeable lack of spam on this forum. That being said I spent almost a decade bumming about on last.fm's general discussion subforum, a place neck deep in bizarre spam regarding Haitian love magic.

I know sod all about phones and graphics cards, so I hope you don't mind if I skip those. Otherwise, here are my following choices...

Coke: The love of my sedate lifestyle, nectar of the gods, manna of heaven, the elixir of bacchanalian joy, etc. Pepsi is alright though.

Playstation: Having owned each iteration of this console, I suppose I've just grounded myself into a nice comfortable rut with Sony's products.

Dogs: Who can fail to love such a diverse cast of aberrantly mutated ex-wolves?

A brief (and admittedly not very thorough) search of these forums yielded no book threads, which I felt was a pity seeing as I'm a shameless bookaholic. What book/s are you currently reading or plan to read sooner rather than later? Any favourites you'd like to share? Although I've placed emphasis on books, really any kind of reading material is welcome on this topic. Fiction and non-fiction, poetry and crit-lit, comics and graphic novels, magazines and other periodicals, even blogs and online archives - any source of stories and/or articles you can think of is welcome here.

I'm currently reading Hal Foster's Bad New Days: Art, Criticism, Emergency, a rather well-written and rigorous attempt at summarizing certain trends and tendencies in a post-movement, post-"school", disparate and multimedia art world, something that often seems impossible to define in the glare of contemporary novelty. This probably isn't of that much interest to most of you here, so I'll avoid banging on about it too much. So far I've read the first two chapters, entitled the "Abject" and "Archival", respectively. The second chapter in particular was the more convincing argument for a genre of modern art that involves historical inquiry and multiple mediums. This book should prove extremely helpful to future art critics and historians attempting to define at least some of our eras output.

"For Freud the paranoiac projects his meanings onto the world precisely because it appears ominously drained of all significance (systematic philosophers, he implied, are closet paranoiacs). Might archival art emerge out of a similar sense of failure in cultural memory, of a default in productive traditions? For why else connect things if they did not appear disconnected in the first place?" - Hal Foster, Bad New Days (Chapter 2: Archival)

"If there was a subject of history for the culture of abjection, it was not the worker, the woman, or the person of color, but the corpse. This was a politics of difference pushed beyond indifference, a politics of alterity pushed towards nihility. ("Everything goes dead," says the teddy bear in the aforementioned Kelley piece*. "Like us," replies the bunny)" - Hal Foster, Bad New Days (Chapter 1: Abject) [* refers to a Mike Kelley artwork entitled Dialogue 1# (Theory, Garbage, Stuffed Animals, Christ)]

Hopefully I haven't scared away everyone with my weird taste in reading material and habit of picking the least fathomable quotes from any given source Let me know what (if anything) you've been reading.

Lara Versus The Savage Pack by Midnight Juggernauts

Why the hell is learning to drive from a manual more complex and badly written than it needs to be. "Here is what you need to know by the way we'll talk about this later but mention stuff we left out before oh and we'll also word it almost entirely different enough to be confusing! This is a good way to learn!"

 

Like seriously, who ever writes New Jersey's drivers manual needs to be fucking fired, hell I'd say ANYONE who had a hand in this atrocity needs to be fired. Even the printing company.

You should hire a Finnish driving instructor. I've heard they actually teach new drivers over there to drive to an almost rallying level of skill, and that it takes a few years of training on icy hinterland roads and night sessions before they even let you apply to pass your tests.

Why are we still talking about condoms?

Because we can't help ourselves. I'm sorry.

Todo Por La Patria by Genocide Organ

Mountain will NOT return to rice paddy.

Mountain is NOT being unreasonable.

"UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA"

 

Which one was that - Tesco?

 

Oh, geez... the designers of that system should be lined up against a wall and shot. Such a big screw-up... Only a few things they've done wrong but, oh dear, that is enough!

 

This is what you get when you allow a programmer to design a system for normal people without proper supervision...

 

Regards

I certainly need supervision whilst attempting to fanny about with one those infernal machines. It was actually in Asda, I work there you see. I'm actually still quite surprised it happened at all. I usually can't so much as scratch myself without setting one of those alarms off. I never use them at all if it can be helped, but sans any other options that night I was forced to utilize one.

Hauntissimo (For Lucy & Richard Stoltzmann) by The International Nothing

I was slightly surprised to find out that Ross being a fan of the Wallace & Gromit films. I'm English, so obviously the characters are as familiar to me as Jesus is to the rest of the world. But it did make it wonder if the films are particularly well-known and/or well-regarded in America, or elsewhere.

Wonder no more! Wallace & Gromit are actually fairly well known, and very well regarded here.

That's actually useful to know. It could be extremely helpful if I ever have to try and explain regional difference in England to Americans, particularly in regards to accent. I now have an example of a northerner-cum-Yorkshireman that 'muricans might of actually heard of.

My family have banned me from playing Animal, Vegetable, Mineral with them or anyone else. I take it far too seriously.

I'm aromantic.

 

Which is weird when you think about it because romance is one of my favorite book genres.

 

Sorry kitty.:/

That reminds me of a bizarre article in the Fortean Times issue I once read regarding the bodily scent of various famous figures. Plutarch once described Alexander The Great as having “a most agreeable odor”, and that “his breath and body all over was so fragrant as to perfume the clothes which he wore.”

I just accidently stole some cheese. Nice stuff, Blacksticks Blue to be precise. I feel I must emphasize the accidently part of that statement. I finished work about half an hour ago and I had to go through one of those self-service tills to buy my dinner, because the usual ladies I make b-line for at the kiosk weren't there today. I could of swore I scanned the item in question, surely if I hadn't one of those "UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA" blurbs would of sounded out at me for my incompetence.

This is why I don't like adapting to modern technology! Not only does it confuse my caveman sensibilities, it's now made me complicit in a terrible crime!