Seconded. Very possibly the finest season of TV he's ever done (which I'd probably also apply to the rest of its cast).

Seconded. Very possibly the finest season of TV he's ever done (which I'd probably also apply to the rest of its cast).

Hadn't heard of that one, but new leads are always good. Thanks.

Well said, and that's why the enjoyment is always intertwined with the maddening stuff. It was an inevitable self-contradiction to apply his usual on-the-fly "fuck logic" approach to a series designed to be big and epic. That kind of story always requires some degree of consistency, or at least forethought, and that…

Of course Steve had the right to do as he wished with his story. But he didn't have grounds to abandon all logic, coherence, quality control and internal consistency, and *then* repeatedly scold the reader (DURING THE FUCKING BOOK ITSELF) for being dissatisfied because of it.

It's not compromising when both sides want the same thing.

Me either. I mean, once you rot and die in prison, then that means at some point it's ended. Right?

Beg to differ. Remember how much backlash and public anger there was about Bush's policies when it was his primate mug on the tv every night? At least there was resistance with a Republicrat in office. Those same angry folks mostly just went to sleep once there was a Demican in charge… which is exactly why Obama…

That's just the thing. He doesn't compromise with the Reps, he collaborates.

Definitely true. That's the reason that while I try to stick with things a little when something doesn't seem to work at first, I'm willing to give Steven more of a chance than most.

Well, I can partly see it. It just seems like those influences are too obvious, not really spun together into something new the way Porcupine Tree does. Grace more often has me thinking "this is the generic lush movie-trailer moment" or "he must have absorbed this from mixing the early King Crimson stuff" or "here's…

If anything by Wilson ever got noticed by the AV Club, the shock would make me choke on my corn flakes.

And still not a mention of Collapse Into Now. Good Record of the year by far, to me.

silly buns: "To me this book showed what a less talented person would do if they like Harry Potter. JK's world had a lot of detail and possibilities. … Grossman's world wasn't fully realized."

Batmandu: [Julia]'s got me curious. So I might read it. But not if I have to put [up] with Quentin's "Holden Caufield with magic powers" routine for an entire book again.

Oh yeah, and the existence of telephones always bugged me.

Well, granted, it was an impressive feat within Game Boy limitations. It just seemed like there were too few elements that weren't recycled or repeated from past games, and too many of the new ones were duds to me—the ongoing item exchange, the meta-appearances of Yoshi and Princess Toadstool, the ability to jump…

Well said. I liked it, but it didn't belong as a Zelda game. Which it really wasn't—as I recall, it was originally a generic RPG that they slotted Link into in order to produce a Zelda sequel quickly & easily. Or was that what happened with Super Mario 2? I think it was the same deal with both.

You hit on it. A huge part of this game's greatness…
…is how it manages to be so straightforward and challenging at the same time. The controls & format are simple enough to learn in maybe a couple minutes, but it's almost ingenious how convoluted they could make the puzzles. Especially within such simple…

And could you ask them to send up a spare room too?