And watch out for the inscrutable Asians who're going to buy everything—the Japanese at the time. Ha, Black Rain. Glasnost meant Head of the Class had feel good episodes visiting the Soviet Union, but family in still Communist countries made enough of the cold war still real.

As someone who identified as a nerd for a long time, I took no heart in the fact that even in an idealized movie version, real bullying could be inflicted (he had the friend who left school?) but the happy ending is nerd as 2nd or 3rd tier friend. Huzzah!

I'm with you 90% of the time, that isn't this not common knowledge? But then I run into someone who somehow doesn't know and for some reason it drives me up a further wall than just disagreeing should.

I will probably play it in a year or so. I played AC2, loved it, bought Brotherhood, found myself burnt out. A year later played Brotherhood, bought Revelations, burnt the hell out.

So this is maybe a bunch of reference points that might not work for you, but have you played Far Cry or Just Cause 2? I was totally happy with the repetitive busywork/outpost clearing of the first one, bored beyond belief by the latter. Couldn't tell you why, but like you said, I don't need the game to reinvent…

I suffered through my compulsions through AC2, Brotherhood, and have dallied in Revelations, but for what it's worth, I thought Black Flag was toned down and approachable in this regard—never played AC3.

How do you resist? I wish I could resist. It's clearly some kind of OCD tic for me. I picked up every damn chest in Black Flag. I mean, I had a map, but that is dumb as hell.

I think almost uniformly they'd write terrible books.

I wanted to like it more than I did, and I think volume one is worth a try, but it's not quite there for me. It's got great ideas, a mythopoetic realized sense of place without feeling exotic, and maybe an interesting arc going on. On the other hand the character development feels rushed, though maybe that can be…

I know it is, I mentioned I had no connection to Polanski's films before learning more about him because I know it affects where I land. The argument that you consume other things via ignorance seems stupid though, because why isn't the response simply, "thanks for letting me know, I don't think I will support those…

The way through is to separate the man from the art if the answer people want is a way to watch Polanski films without ickiness. Me personally, I feel like I will never run out of amazing films so I can write off Polanski without a loss and feeling chuffed about myself—I didn't watch anything of his so I know it's…

A world destroying useless war aside, after Bethesda took it I don't think the Fallout world is that cynical anymore, which I actually find kind of refreshing—or maybe I just read this and the GTA essay. It started with Megaton—hey I can live here? And if I don't blow it up I can come back and people are still cool?

Just laying this out here:

Hmm, I can deal with the artificial worlds, but it's actually the romance of crime in most media about gangsters that I dislike the most—I mean I still watch and play and whatever, but it's the nihilism weirdly that makes GTA and Saint's Row a more effortless experience. I both tune in and tune out all the satire and…

Actually, I think the dog's death in John Wick is either silhouetted or off screen—because when I watched it a second time I was definitely surprised that it wasn't more graphic than the way I remembered.

This is where, even as a loyal Midtown customer, I pipe in to say Jim Hanley's—32nd on 32nd now or something?—is always good for here's everything everyone has and more.

I DO care for superheroes, and this is list generally tilts too much toward that material. Maybe they didn't want it to overlap, but Paul Pope's Batman would be a good call for wide appeal, though I love 100% more. And Brandon Graham's Multiple Warheads or King City. Wicked and Divine? And this is without venturing…

That's the one that has half the povs he usually puts in right? My understanding was that he was working on book four forever and was enormous (even more than his normal) and the publisher said "we have to publish something"—so what came out of book four was about half the manuscript. Book five is the rest massaged…

Yes! (Unless it happened more than once) I remember getting tested with 3 or 4 other kids at school and giving the wrong answer to the capitol of Florida just because it was a different answer, my weird logic was one of them had to be a trick question. A couple of kids from my school were picked and a lot of us went…

Was there he said/she said? I thought most of the contracts have been equal for quite a while now, and only Shearer isn't returning. Not that there couldn't be acrimony, but I don't think they've been individually negotiating for a while.