Phil

[Phil]

You know, I thought about writing a review, but yeah, with the final Breaking Bad airing tomorrow I didn’t think tonight would be a good time to post it. It’d just be shoved down too quickly.

Having said that, I’m considering reviewing all of the IT Crowd episodes next. No promises…maybe I’ll open it up to a vote or something, or otherwise end up picking a different show…but The IT Crowd would be a great one to do episode by episode. For a lot of reasons. Which I won’t list now, because then there’d be no reason to do it. :(

[Phil]

That was the best episode since series 2.

[Phil]

He raped me and then everyone forgave him because he was in a funny movie.

[Phil]

I watched it with the sound off.

I feel live I’ve eaten some bad beef.

[Phil]

I don’t think I’ve heard a truly negative thing about the finale yet.

I look forward to watching it. On Netflix. In a year and a half. :(

[Phil]

I haven’t caught any of it, and I don’t want to tune into the finale lest I accidentally expose my brain to Chris Hardwick.

That and I’ll just watch them all at once when they’re on DVD or Netflix or something.

Glad to hear it was good. I look forward to disagreeing with you some day.

[Phil]

I think I’ve only ever flown Delta and Frontier. I’ve had decent experiences with both. Nothing stellar, but certainly nothing too bad.

You need to terrorize Denver sometime, Pecos.

[Phil]

>Mario Kart 7 and Mario 3D Land are both fan-tas-tic games. The 3DS really has a wealth of awesome stuff. Kid Icarus Uprising, Fire Emblem: Awakening, and Resident Evil: Revelations are all excellent too. As well as a bunch I’m sure I’m forgetting.

Just want to add Shin Megami Tensei IV to that list. Because HOLY FUCK IT’S INCREDIBLE AND I USUALLY HATE THIS KIND OF GAME.

[Phil]

Saw it today.

I thought the first third of the film or so was legitimately great…but once it got all action-y it also seemed to get a bit mindless. Unlike Shaun and Hot Fuzz I didn’t think the physical chaos blended well with the character work and insight…it was one or the other.

It was also really bizarre to me that the characters in the previous films are in these awful situations because…well, they are. They’re stuck, and they’re going to get through it or die trying. In this case though they had every opportunity to walk away, and it’s odd that as a group they didn’t. I buy it for Pegg’s character. I don’t buy it for the others.

I don’t know. It wasn’t bad, but at some point late in the film I started thinking, man, I really wish there wasn’t a genre shift in this one, because I’d really enjoy this if it actually WERE about a group of friends rediscovering and divorcing their pasts. The bodysnatcher stuff just wasn’t as interesting to me, and as I mentioned — and as is clearly just my opinion — it didn’t complement the more human stuff. It was just some of one thing, then we’ll put that aside so we can do some of something else, and then we’ll put that aside to get back to the first.

I’d absolutely rank Shaun the highest, with Hot Fuzz giving it a pretty fair run for its money. I’ll see The World’s End a bunch more times, I’m positive, and it’ll grow on me. But I’d be shocked if it came very close to the other two.

The ending was also pretty lousy, but by that point I wasn’t expecting much else.

[Phil]

Wow, I think this is the first I heard of the title change. I’m sure most folks knew already, but last I heard it was something like The Muppets: Again.

This is better.

And I’ll definitely be seeing it. As much as I love the Muppets, I had planned to sit out the last film. I can’t explain why…I just didn’t have much confidence in it for some reason.

But I went anyway, and it was…well, maybe not great. But a hundred billion times better than I expected it to be. So I was happy. I’ll gladly check this one out as well, especially since the few plot details I read seem to slightly channel The Great Muppet Caper.

Which, as we all agree, is the greatest movie of all time.

[Phil]

Mother of shit, BH. I’d love to hear that talk.

[Phil]

Mario Kart 7 and Mario 3D Land are both fan-tas-tic games. The 3DS really has a wealth of awesome stuff. Kid Icarus Uprising, Fire Emblem: Awakening, and Resident Evil: Revelations are all excellent too. As well as a bunch I’m sure I’m forgetting. There’s some truly great stuff available for it right now.

Also, I am definitely a bit sadistic on the Mega Man front. :) My youtube channel (/felixdeckett) has videos of me playing through every Mega Man boss stage without taking damage. So far I’ve done 1 – 6 on the NES, 7 on the SNES and V on the Game Boy (since that one has unique bosses). I’ll get to the rest when I have a way to record them, but if you’re interested in seeing me punish myself, over and over and over again, there ya go.

[Phil]

Looks like I have to wait until late August to see it here. :(

[Phil]

Jo:
Before long you will have the ability to implement Town Ordinances. One of them is the Night Owl Ordinance, which allows you to have graphic sex with Silk Spectre while Leonard Cohen plays.

ACTUALLY NO but it does cause all of the shops to stay open a lot later, which probably makes it a good choice for your schedule.

Also, VERY mild spoilers here…

…you won’t have to visit Nook for long either. You’ll be able to make payments for the house and renovations at a machine in the post office, which is open all night. So that will help soon.

The first few days are a bit dull (I think they want you to spend that time getting to know / helping your villagers), but very quickly you’ll find a lot of things opening up, which allows you to do more.

As far as productivity goes in those first few days: do lots of fishing / bug catching. Donate everything to the museum. Help all your residents. Shake all your trees and hit all your rocks with a shovel.

That’ll be about the best you can do until…some other options make themselves available.

[Phil]

I’m about halfway through it now (it may not last me through the move after all…but I picked up a Bradbury anthology just in case, so I’m still good) and I’m genuinely impressed by the way the small moments of warmth manage to fight the larger, darker moments for importance. It’s very well handled, and it feels natural that they do so. There’s one particular scene (which I won’t spoil, in case anyone else here reads it at some point, though I guess the “one particular scene” will vary from reader to reader anyway) that’s just perfectly, sweetly naive…followed maybe two pages later by something thoroughly tragic…and I like the way they just kind of hang there, side by side, with neither being “the” obvious thing to remember. They’re complete opposites, and yet entirely complementary.

I think it’s depressing for me because an awful lot of those darker moments are hitting pretty close to home. After a step back and a re-read (or two) I’ll probably be in better shape to evaluate it for what it is, isolated from what I’m bringing to it.

Then again, I still have a whole half of the book to go.

[Phil]

Not to distract from Annie’s question (I’m curious too) but, oddly, my bookstore had no more copies of V today, even though earlier in the week they had a bunch. They DID have Daytripper though. So…hmmmm.

Anyway I picked it up, made it through a few pages, and can already tell this is going to be very, very good.

Also probably depressing.

[Phil]

Manny thanks Seb. Glad to hear V is a good next step…and that Daytripper looks very interesting. I know my bookstore has V but if it also has Daytripper I think I might be grabbing it.

That sounds like precisely the sort of thing I’d respond to…thanks for the recommendation. Not sure I would have heard of it otherwise!

[Phil]

I didn’t get it either. I remember when the Game Cube one was big over here, and my girlfriend and her friends all loved it. One day they booted it up and passed me the controller…

…and I had no clue why anybody would play this. They told me to go get some shells to trade for money, and use the money to add on to my house. And to catch bugs for the museum. And to talk to all the villagers or they’d get angry and leave. And a whole bunch of other stuff that really just sounded like a chore. It was obviously massively popular so I didn’t think they were crazy for enjoying it, but I didn’t really get it.

New Leaf is the first one I’ve owned and given a chance to, and I actually can safely say I love it. I have no idea what changed for me, but reading all the great reviews — and then seeing a bunch of internet friends enjoying it and realizing it might be fun for multiplayer — I decided to grab it.

Maybe it’s a bit of timing for me. There’s a lot of change going on in my life right now and not all of it is anywhere near welcome. Popping into Animal Crossing and rearranging my town and planting trees and such…it’s like a digital Zen garden for me. It’s a chance to take things easy and aimlessly with soothing music and cute dialogue. It’s fun.

My other video game therapy tends to be the Mega Man series…and this obviously couldn’t get much further than that. But whereas I like Mega Man for the chance to out-think the stage designers, I like this one for the sake of not thinking…and just being.

Again, if you don’t see the appeal, believe me. I know exactly how that feels and I understand completely.

But for whatever reason, this time something clicked, and it’s been pretty great.

[Phil]

Not far from Denver. Maybe 30 minutes, if you drive like a maniac.

In fact I’m going to be very close to this now:

[Phil]

Oh and turnaround time on this would be by the end of the weekend. Obviously if this turns into a longer discussion that’s awesome…but as far as actually recommending something to me for the move, that’s when I’d need it by.

[Phil]

I think you were wrong not to.

[Phil]

I think my game is glitched now. My game locked up online (with Ridley) and Resetti showed up on the top screen, just staring at me and not moving. Eventually it restarted on its own and I lost all my items and money.

So I went back to try to get some of those items again and the game froze again.

Then this morning I all of a sudden have a Perfect Town rating, despite the fact that there’s dead trees and flowers everywhere and I live in a hole.

No understand.

[Phil]

I felt a little dissatisfied the first time I saw Hot Fuzz…I still liked it very much, but it took two viewings to really cement itself for me as a masterpiece.

Here’s hoping that happens here too. I don’t think it’s out in the US yet, but I guess I’ll buy tickets to two showings instead of just one.

[Phil]

Cool. Can’t wait for the rest of the season, which involves crossovers with Bob’s Burgers, Archer, The Cleveland Show, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Allen Gregory, The Snorks, Kid Notorious, The Boondocks, Mission Hill and Sit Down Shut Up.

Have no fear, folks…they’ve got stories for years.

[Phil]

I got 122…but then I had to go to work so I didn’t have a chance to catch more and find out if it was high or low.

It was a Horned Hercules I think, which I found on the beach as soon as the Bug-Off started, which makes me wonder if they unleash rare bugs more frequently during special events like this.

Again, though, I didn’t have the time to find out. :( I did get to see the ceremony though. And then talk to some pissed off villagers who worked much harder for this than I did.

[Phil]

I won the Bug-Off.

[Phil]

Bump.

[Phil]

Birdman is back…and he’s getting married! Lister, Rimmer, Kryten and Cat all fall over themselves (and each other!) in the hopes of becoming his best man. In the end he tells them that they’re all great men…and therefore none of them can truly be the best. He then rides Pete into the sunset.

In a fun B-plot, Lister finds a stranded human being in need of aid. His actions directly result in her gruesome death and he doesn’t give a shit.

[Phil]

Posting this here for my own reference later, and just in case it appeals to you guys:

View post on imgur.com

I’m not using any of these yet because I want more public works stuff done before I start laying down roads and paths that I may have to end up changing later. But if you’re more advanced in your city planning, hopefully you’ll like some of these. They do look great.

Anyway I think the only fruits I need now are pears and persimmons. Somebody give me those.

I do have a question about my house…does the physical space it takes up in the town ever change? I know Nook told me to pick an area that left room for expansion, but I’ve added a second floor, a basement and a room in the back, and I don’t know if it’s actually gotten bigger.

If the house itself doesn’t physically grow I’m going to kill him because that’s the only reason I picked the space that I did.

[Phil]

Now I won’t be surprised in February. :(

[Phil]

It may be Ian’s birthday, but this post makes me feel like it’s mine.

[Phil]

Sorry! Had something unexpected to attend to.

I eventually returned and let all of the trapped people return to civilization.

All of the trapped people that you know of.

Also nobody go bug hunting with Ridley.

[Phil]

For budgetary reasons series 11 features a bottle episode that doesn’t include any of the crew. Instead they are forced to abandon Red Dwarf (off-camera) due to an asteroid storm (off-camera) and only return at the end of the episode (off-camera).

The entirety of the half hour is given over to Taiwan Tony, the Medi-Bot and the Denti-Bot in the same room, talking about past loves and generally being really fucking annoying.

Hilarity ensues when they are joined by Kerry Shale’s newest embodiment of a lazy stereotype, Rapey the African.

[Phil]

I haven’t seen them yet. Heard good things, but I never seem to catch it when it’s on.

[Phil]

I think that was the wrong link, Ben. Easy to do when you have multiple tabs open for sure!

Here’s the right one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS5boLWIVPM

[Phil]

Thanks Ben. Club LOL opened up last night, and I went in and was immediately depressed by the sight of a dog playing hip-hop variations on my shitty town theme to an empty room. :(

Si: That looks great! Let your sister know you can take screen shots by pressing L and R together, though, that may make it easier for her to share pictures when she wants to!

[Phil]

“the Dwarfers are given morphers”

I thought you were going to start rapping. :(

[Phil]

When the F does Club LOL open up? Some creepy-ass monster showed up and asked me to collect signatures, so I did that, and he said he’d be opening on main street and to feel free to check in on how he’s doing.

He’s never been back since. I feel like I’ve just been sold a monorail.

[Phil]

Canada will get back to you.

[Phil]

Not anymore. B-)

[Phil]

amber benson boobs

[Phil]

Damn, I have to follow Pecos Pete?

…uh…

I’m too intimidated. I got nuthin.

Happy birthday though.

[Phil]

I’m not clicking that.

[Phil]

My island only ever has the damn red one. Tortimer be trollin’!!!!

[Phil]

http://cn1.kaboodle.com/hi/img/b/0/0/70/6/AAAACwBLCGoAAAAAAHBkTg.jpg?v=1252594166000

[Phil]

Will pay good money for Hawaiian shirts (or “Aloha” shirts I guess) in anything but red.

…no I won’t. But I’ll give you some bells.

[Phil]

He masturbated.

[Phil]

I had a hard time “writing” my town theme. No matter what I did, Isabella would sing it back to me and it would sound beautiful. Then later I’d hear some grumpy citizen fart out its melody and I’d be faced with just how truly shit it was.

I like mine now, though. So does the lesbian teddy bear who’s always whistling it and tricking me into thinking I hear a rare cicada.

[Phil]

Another life lost to Dildonics.

[Phil]

How do the downloadable post office items work? Like, how often can I get one? I got yelled at every day for asking the pelican, but then today she gave me a palm tree that lights up when I rub it.

Is it the same item for everyone? How often can I get a new one? Will the pelican go out with me?

[Author]

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