Ohio also makes an easy target, specifically the city of Cleveland. (Which, as a native Clevelander, is fine by me, because it never fails to make me laugh.) The Cleveland episode of 30 Rock is one of the funniest episodes of TV I've ever seen.

Fire Emblem Fates was my game of the year for 2016—the Conquest campaign's battles were so good holy shit and beating it on Hard/Classic with no deaths was one of the most satisfying gaming experiences I've ever had—but the story was absolute, irredeemable garbage. It probably says a lot for how blindingly good the…

Yeah, when I talk about "anime bullshit" I don't necessarily mean that in a disparaging way. Obviously there are certain types of anime bullshit I'm never going to get on board with—sorry, Atelier series, I'm never going to be into the cute-girls-doing-cute-things moe thing—but when it comes to sci-fi/fantasy anime…

In the Madison area, Nueske's makes really good natural casing dogs, they're what I always buy if I can find them.

I think where I'd recommend starting depends on how immersed in SF/fantasy a reader already is. If someone's already a lifelong SF/fantasy reader, then yeah, I'd say jump right into Bas-Lag. You could start with Perdido or The Scar, really—The Scar is chronologically after, but it doesn't spoil Perdido, if I remember…

Oh wow, I can't imagine that at all. It's going to be really hard to nail the body language aspects of the two cultures in a way that works visually, if nothing else.

Yeah, The City and the City is a really great book and easily his most approachable (and least fantastical). It's a murder mystery at its core, but its setting has one "fantastical" element that Mieville uses to explore some pretty interesting cultural questions and the psychology of segregation. It's good stuff and…

That's how I felt when they cast Donald Glover as young Lando in the Han Solo origin story movie.

In the original novella, Deckard is explicitly not a replicant. Ridley Scott disagreed, though, so we really don't know what they'll go with for the sequel.

"While Donald Trump reinvigorated neo-nazis, the mainstream left fell in love with its own reflection."

The Quite Good UK Oven-Related Competition

There's no way it's about money. Channel 4 is throwing significantly more money at Bake Off than the BBC could. I highly doubt the BBC was able to outbid Channel 4 to keep Mary Berry around.

Yeah, this is why I love the show so much.

I coulda left off "reality" really, it's a pure competition show without all the injected drama we associate with "reality show" as a genre. It does have the "one person leaves every week" thing, but otherwise, it's just all about people trying to bake really difficult things and generally being very nice to each…

Can't help but agree. It's interesting—I like Paul Hollywood and I think he does add quite a bit to the show, but of all the people who could leave, I think he was the only one the show would've survived the absence of.

What amuses me is that PBS is so committed to "Great British Baking Show" that they actually went and digitally edited the trophy—a cake stand with the Great British Bake-Off logo on it—to read "Baking Show" instead. I can't imagine that was worth it.

In Mary Berry's case, at least, it's loyalty to the BBC. I think that's the case for Mel and Sue as well.

Ever seen the live performance of it? It's crazy good. https://www.youtube.com/wat…

I'm playing Bravely Second this weekend a couple months late. I loved Bravely Default when it came out a couple years ago, so it's kind of remarkable I waited this long. So far, the soundtrack is a step down from the magic that was Bravely Default's, but I'm loving everything else about it.

That could be interesting. The way the trailer frames him looks like he's meant to be a Giygas-like figure, something terrifying and incomprehensible (notice the way the trailer starts cutting out and cuts to black right after he appears). I hope that's what they go with—I'm kind of tired of the Ganondorf version.