You'll have to make a recording or something, not about to sign up for this

Yea this is pretty much it. I meet online weekly to play something with some friends, after the third or fourth session I was just completely done with the game. It doesn't feel like there's a whole lot to do after you've tried every mission type.

Great recommendations, I've only played about a third of these, I'll dig in a bit!

Being a huge Movie and TV buff I'll definitely push back on movies being shallow husks. The year is only half over and we've already gotten a bunch of exellent original movies. Love Lies Bleeding, Last Stop in Yuma County (favorite movie of the year), I Saw the TV Glow, Problemista, Challengers, Ricky Stanicky. Even the franchise stuff has been pretty good, Dune 2, Inside Out 2 and Bad Boys Ride or Die was tons of fun. Last year was even better, I think it was one of our best movie years in a long time. Oppenheimer, Past Lives, Killers of the Flower Moon, The Holdovers, Zone of Interest, Society of the Snow, All of Us Strangers, The Killer, Iron Claw, Boy and the Heron, Elemental, American Fiction. All original or adapted from a book. The earlier 2020s were a little softer because we stopped going out in public but even still we got Everything Everywhere, Aftersun, the start of the X/Pearl trilogy, Talk to Me, Bodies Bodies Bodies, Worst Person in the World and my favorite movie of the 2020s Pig.

TV as well. I feel like there's constantly something well worth my time. In the same year (2022) we got some absolutely top tier television The Bear, Severance, Andor, The English, SAS Rogue Heroes and House of Dragon. Once again the past year has been full of excellent stuff Beef, Ripley, Shogun, Sugar, Bodkin, Baby Reindeer, The Gentlemen, The Curse.

I could go on like this for hours but the point I'm trying to get across is there's a huge supply of good eating but if you only look to the biggest budget commercial products, you're going to get big budget commercial products. I guess for me watching everything at the Summer Games show left me feeling a little bit empty. Except for Mixtape, that looks fucking sick.

Calling film watching mindless consumption shows you're missing the point, perhaps the same way your parents are missing the point of video games. Hell even Tom Cruise is working on a level of craft that no one else in the industry is doing as consistently as him.

Each medium has their strengths and weaknesses. I love video games, I was born in 85, the year of the NES so I lived my life with controller in hand. I do however recognize games still struggle to keep up with story telling in other mediums, mostly because gameplay and story telling are frequently at odds with eachother. And yes of course I know there are games with good story but rarely to they ever stick with me the way multiple films and shows do every year. Even a story like Last of Us was simply told better as a show. The best part of that show was the Frank and Bill episode, something that simply won't translate back to a game at all. The only game to really stick deep in my soul was What Remains of Edith Finch. So often I'll pour hundreds of hours into a game with nothing lasting on the other side. It's why I've given up on grindy games all together.

Games also have a barrier for most people on the outside. It's tough to look at an Xbox controller and not get a little daunted by the buttons, sticks and triggers. Credit to Nintendo for historically finding ways to bring the whole family together for a game night. There's a reason grandma was playing Wii Bowling.

I remember a comedian making a joke about this. It's like getting a signal from your dog to come out to the back yard.

Don't forget DVD playback. Most people by the year 2000 still only had VHS. DVD players were prohibitively expensive at the time so a lot of people were holding out. PS2 had DVD and cost about half the price of dedicated players. I know a lot of homes bought them purely as a movie machine.

I bet if Dreamcast had DVD playback the history of the Dreamcast would've been very different.

Penny, morrowind and dishonoured are a really solid bundle alone for $20

Lucky

He's mentioned somewhere (believe me I'm an internet enthusiast) that he doesn't like writing, he's just a master at adaptation. And I get that. Being really good at visualizing a story well is really hard.

Yea when it came out it got a lot of attention because us in the N64 camp were starved for a good RPG. Unfortunately it was just a lot of nothing.

I really like it. It's pretty simple but the small city feels dense and fun to explore. Reminds me of something you'd find on the Dreamcast. If you have gamepass give it a shot.

Nah, you can always rely on the Hilbert Hotel for a good night's rest. Your room is down the hall, just keep walking, you'll find it.

I only run TempleOS

Used to have a pair of these. Motorola S305. They were the perfect running headphones. Big chunky buttons for volume and track skipping, a plastic band that wrapped the back of your head and over your ears so it would never fall off but otherwise wireless. The only downside was really old Bluetooth tech so connection was sketchy at times. Also audio has improved a lot since then.

Modern buds don't stay in my ears. I'm using the pixel buds pro right now. The right ear stays in pretty good but the left is completely unpredictable.

Looks like there's a box of YoYo Balls and Pogs. Can I have a go?

Snitches get GoFundMe to pay for stitches

"Take this code and give me jest tests with 100% coverage. Don't describe, don't scaffold, full output."

Saves me hours.

Funny, it's a word I've never seen before but immediately knew what it meant

Pixar hasn't had Pixar money in a long time. Their last huge success was Toy Story 4 and that was 5 years ago. Of course you can blame Disney+ for a lot of that.

Holy shit, yes. That's a game I haven't thought about in a while.