Upthorn
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Posts posted by Upthorn
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I got two floors and 1 nerd room to put folks in. Provided they don't mind sleeping on an air matress.
I should be able to sleep upwards of 10 people.
This brings up a good question, though
Do you have some kind of supervan or stretch limo to get everybody from your place to magfest every day?
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Confirming that I'll be hitting the magfest this year.
Mad thanks to brushfire for hosting cheapasses like myself.
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Oh wow, I didn't think this was happening until, like, the first week of August.
Congrats, you two.
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can the birthdays djp?
Oh.
Happy daveday, djp.
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I am quite interested in going if I can acquire some cheap lodgings for the duration.
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My two fav. places are Tir Na Nog and Houlihan's; tend to be a little less crowded, as well.
Any thoughts on either, for lunch?
What's Houlihan's? I've been passing by Tir Na Nog for years and keep meaning to try it out.
Rare Candy will be playing at 3pm in Jamspace on Sat., that seems like something a lot of folks (incl. myself) would wanna catch, as well.So maybe lunch at 1:00pm at either joint, then shlep over to JamSpace afterwards to show some VGM support?
Sounds like a plan to me.
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Looking at the convention schedule, Saturday looks like a gigantic wasteland up until the OC Remix panel, so I think we should all meet somewhere for lunch and kill time together until the panel.
Any opposed?
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I think getting married and stuff is more important than hanging around with a bunch of anime-crazed geeks in costumes of varying levels of workmanship
Heresy. They should clearly move their wedding date so as not to interfere.
Or even better, get married at the con!
Edit:
o btw I'll b there agn this year, fwiw
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What? MANY murders that occur in real life are "crimes of passion". That's actually exactly how they happen.
Err, no that's a totally different thing.
A crime of passion tends to be what happens when a guy walks in on his wife with another man (or a girl on her husband), and has easy access to a loaded gun.
People who are griefstricken tend to behave very differently than people who are in the throes of intense jealousy and betrayal.
It was within his rights to maroon Kirk, but he put him near a Federation outpost. As for the latter, again, no one's going to give Spock shit over it when his entire race was practically just annihilated. In the real world we call that 'extreme emotional disturbance'
Actually, it wasn't within his rights to maroon Kirk, as Kirk notes in his log about the precise regulation it is in violation of. Brig, yes. Maroon, no.
It realy isn't, and it's hardly as if Spock took out a phaser and started firing. It was a fistfight. You really must not have much experience with real-world crime. "Attempted murder" is when you plan to kill someone, get your weapon, and then execute it - it's well-thought out. An explosive rage is what happens when you find your wife cheating on you with another man, you get in a fight with him, and it gets out of hand. They're VERY very different.It wasn't a fist fight, it was spock grabbing Kirk's throat and squeezing it with all his strength. That is very much attempted murder. It's not premeditated, but he was definitely trying to kill Kirk.
The reason would be that, you know, people are close to their mothers and Kirk knew that she had just died.Oh, please. His bringing up Spock's mother doesn't even flow from what he was saying 5 seconds before. It's just like "hey man, your planet was destroyed, people would understand if you need a break." "no thanks" "well I guess you never loved your mother then" *STRANGLE*
There is literally no leadup to Kirk doing that, no reason that he should jump to that without trying other things first. The way it plays out is as though Kirk had been watching the scene of Spock's childhood along with the audience.
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the way most real people react to tragedies or major traumas is usually with shock at first. It doesn't often "sink in" until later. We can relate to Spock's facade of calmness, knowing that his mind is really in complete turmoil processing what just happened, and that his emotions are actually really affected.
Yeah, but I'm pretty sure people don't usually go around randomly attempting to choke other people to death, even in their most intense grief.
And how much sense does it make that he marooned and then literally attempted to murder a cadet, and nobody even gives him shit about it. I'd really think that attempted murder of a trainee would be a court-martial offense, even given the circumstances.
Shock I have no problem with. Vulcan external calm while a roiling storm of grief tears him up internally is A-Ok. Making illogical command decisions because he's emotionally compromised, good in my book. Attempting to murder a cadet with bare hands, in front of the entire command staff of the ship... that's not just a breach of character, that's blatantly unrealistic, even if it weren't Spock.
And let's not forget that there was really no reason for Kirk to even think of Spock's mother as far as his line of attack for getting Spock to show that he's emotionally compromised.
And hey, while we're at it, why is it that Chekov could get a transporter lock onto a falling Kirk and Sulu, but couldn't for Spock's mom? I mean seriously, that she even died is inconsistent with a scene from just 5 minutes earlier.
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The first occasion, he was just a kid. How is this out of canon? Other prominent Vulcans, such as Tuvok, also showed considerable emotion when they were much younger. It doesn't seem uncommon. The second occasion, his entire planet and the vast majority of his race had been annihilated and his mother was basically murdered before his eyes. It wasn't JUST his mother, it was the culmination of the emotions from all that. I don't believe that a young Vulcan could possibly be stoic through a gigantic genocide of his own race and the death of his mother. Even the older Spock said he was "emotionally compromised".
I'm not talking about "showing emotion". I'm talking about psychotic rage.
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Spock is half-human, and I thought that was something that was completely ignored in the TOS movies. I think it's great that they finally have shown some of the conflict of his two cultures.
Besides, such a look at Vulcans is not unprecedented. The name of the episode escapes me, but there was an episode in TNG where Picard took in the emotions of a Vulcan ambassador, and they were pretty intense there as well.
I realize this, but Spock's personality was well established by the original series, the movies, and some eps of TNG. And none of the time line alterning stuff should have had any effect on Spock's development until after he'd joined starfleet academy. Spock flying into a violent rage whenever his mother is mentioned is just inexcusable. I mean, it would be incredibly lazy writing even if it weren't completely breaking a well-established character.
I mean, since it was so incredibly clear that the only reason they put it in at all is because they'd written themselves into a corner regarding how they were going to get Kirk into command of the Enterprise.
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Right, so I saw the movie on Sunday, the 10th, but I've just gotten around to checking this thread. Here's my take:
The good
George Kirk
James Kirk
Pike
Bones
Uhura
Sulu
Chekov
Sulu's sword.
Old Spock
Scotty
Racist vulcans
some of the action sequences.
Beastie Boys - sabotage.
The updated viewscreens.
The bad
The "shields at 30%" cliche being invoked when the shields clearly don't exist at all, as evidenced by the massive explosions and hull damage whenever any weapon hits at all.
Romulans all being bald and tattooed.
That one Romulan using a collapsible battle axe instead of his gun
The new design aesthetic visible inside federation ships. (all exposed pipework and steamworks and 20th-century submarine-esque)
Vulcan gradeschool bullies.
The incredibly generic villain.
The dystopian future traffic cop, and actually the entire scene with Kirk joyriding -- Except for Sabotage.
product placement.
The utterly horrible
New Spock's entire personality (blame lies firmly with the writers/directors on this one, not the actor).
Sci-fi monster chase sequence on ice planet (Notably the portion which outright recycles the cloverfield monster model with a new head)
Scotty's wacky!!! alien assistant
the waterworks sequence. Completely unnecessary and unrealistic filler, outright shattered my willing suspension of disbelief.
the scene where Kirk emotionally compromises Spock. (Aside from being blatantly telegraphed, there was literally no reason that Kirk should have thought to say the things he said.)
Red matter
The supernova in the original future which threatens the entire galaxy. Seriously, that is just disgustingly ignorant on the part of the writers.
Now, the "shields" thing, the dystopian cop, and new Spock's personality being completely incorrect wouldn't be negatives if it weren't calling itself a Star Trek movie. So, if I were to grade it without taking the branding into account, it'd get a 6 out of 10 -- mildly entertaining, if mediocre and unfocused.
With the Star Trek branding, that drops to a 4 or 5, primarily because of the complete mischaracterization of one of the most important personalities in the entire franchise.
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Incidentally, a minor correction regarding what I told you guys the character on the back of Gouken's shirt means.
The one on the bottom is what is on the shirt. Yeah, I didn't look closely enough before speaking.
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I saw the movie tonight, and my overall feeling is that it pretty well did the graphic novel justice. Yes, some parts which would have helped to bring the story into a fuller light were cut. However, strictly speaking, they weren't necessary to follow the story.
In fact, when I read the graphic novel, I skipped over "Under the Hood" and "Tales of the Black Freighter" segments when I got to them, and then went back and read them after I finished the storyline proper.
Perhaps, though, it would have worked better as two 2.5 hour movies instead of one 3 hour film.
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Surprisingly most of the Watchmen were originally based off of Charlton Comics characters, and not DC characters. DC bought out Charlton, but still.. the Charlton created characters inspired Moore to come up with the Watchmen.
Rorschach - The Question
Nite Owl I and II - The first two versions of the Blue Beetle
Dr Manhattan - Captain Atom
The Comedian - Peacemaker
Ozymandias - Thunderbolt
Though these origins don't throw out the idea that you can see aspects of Batman in most of these non-super powered heroes.
I would only ascribe Batmanism to Rorschach and Nite Owl.
Comedian I see as more like The Joker than like any hero, and The character of Ozymandias resonated more with Richard Reeds for me. But then, I'm totally unfamiliar with Charlton Comics characters.
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It's penises because the -us -i ending is used for first declension Latin words, which penis is not.
No. It's not "peni" because the -us -> -i pluralization rule is used for words that end in "us", which penis is not.
Also, the proper plural is "penes", but nobody would actually understand you if you used it, so "penises" is probably the better choice.
I didn't like how Rorschach sounded like Batman.I haven't seen the movie, but when I read the graphic novel a few years back, I got the distinct impression that Rorschach was supposed to be based on Batman. 1940's Batman, who solved crimes via detective work, had no compunction with busting a few heads if that's what was necessary to get the rats to talk, and had serious psychological issues from being an eye-witness to the murder of his parents.
(And Night Owl was clearly 1960's Batman, who solved crimes via impossibly contrived gadgets.)
Though it would not have been unreasonable just to read Dick Tracy into Rorschach, instead...
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Oh yeah, I should probably post that I'm totally down for this as long as scytheful is still willing to pick me up from Davis on his way down.
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OCR is not and will never be "wrong" with their perception of what a ReMix is. to Nekofrog.
Sometimes I like to pretend that
is Hitler, for humor value. This is one of those times. -
"Now, if the whole game had those kind of graphics..." I've been thinking that same thought since Sonic Adventure.
Uh, in Sonic Adventure all the cutscenes were rendered in-engine, so the whole game did have those kind of graphics....
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I'm going to reiterate what I already said, only a bit more boldly. I bet over 99% of you jokers whining about FLAC can't even tell the difference between it and 256kbps mp3s.
Different people's ears are differently sensitive to quality loss, so there are probably a fair number of people who can tell the difference between lossless and 256kbps mp3. But even if you can't (and I can't), the mp3 release isn't going to be in 256kbps, it looks like it's going to be in 192. And I can tell the difference between 192 and 256. AND you can create an MP3 of any desired quality from a FLAC. Or you can go the extra mile and make OGGs instead, which give better quality at lower filesizes than MP3, but wouldn't be provided by OCR because it's a less supported format.
why bother with the extra hard drive space, not to mention hosting space and bandwidth. That stuff's not free, you know.Well, if you make the FLAC version torrent only, then the site only has to provide the hosting space and bandwidth for a single like 30 kilobyte file...
Furthermore, who really makes wav CDs anymore?You'd be surprised how many audiophiles there are out there who really care about the quality of their audio. Chances are the FLACs wouldn't even be for burning to CD, but as their permanent listening copy.
Plus, how many of you are really going to sit and even attempt to scrutinize quality of the music once you're actually listening to it?Isn't one of the site's goals to educate people about the quality of video game music as a form of fine art? Like, y'know, classical symphonies?
The attitude you're expressing here is very much not in alignment with that goal...
And since you're probably NOT going to be running them through high-end studio monitors (or even decent headphones I wager), I say again, why so adamant?If you do the torrent FLAC idea, it's not very much extra effort on your guys' part, and it satisfies everyone's needs.
Stop pretending like you have some sort of highly evolved sense of hearing guys and come back down to us here in the sensible world.Stop pretending like anything you're not interested in is a waste of time.
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any1 no the song the piano guy(not martin lueng) played the jazzy one?
Not sure the song's exact title, but it came from either Outrun or Outrun 2
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Woah, crap. You're right. I just checked ticketmaster again and it looks like purchasing tickets at this point will require physically venturing out to the box office
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Concert is on Friday, February 22nd, at the Nob Hill Masonic Center, it starts at 8. I know there are some other west coasters here, who among us is planning to go?
I haven't purchased tickets yet, so we can try to get seats as a group. Also we could maybe meetup/party before and/or after. Who's down?
This post will be updated with a list of attendees, as they express interest/confirm.
Edit: Because I am a douche, I forgot to provide links to the Video Games Live show schedule and online ticket ordering for this event.
OC ReMix @ PAX 2009!
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So, any chance of getting an OCR group hotel room together so a cheapass like me can go?