Hah! I hadn't heard of that, thanks for mentioning it.

Well, that's my point. If winter is six months away, everyone is screwed, but if winter is still six years away then there's no problem with growing more crops.

I remember laughing out loud (repeatedly) at how stupid some of the solutions in Sam and Max were, back when I first played it. The whole point wasn't to guess them so much as to be flabbergasted that that was the real solution all the time. The humor was predicated on a good-natured acceptance that you'll be…

I finished 2, heard the backlash against 3 and just sort of never bought it. I still haven't bought it. 2 was intense and solid and I feel satisfied with my overall experience where it's at right now, as far as ME goes.

Does HoI 4 do that thing the other games did where you can just sort of play without knowing what's going on and somehow things work out? It's an alien way to play a Great Big Strategy Game but it really grew on me with 3/Darkest Hour.

Oh man! I keep eyeballing that but Transformers:Fall of Cybertron was exhausting enough in its way that I haven't squeezed the trigger yet. T:D is worth it?

I think gaming culture has moved a long ways away from the type of thinking (and humor) that drove those old Lucasarts adventure games. Everyone reveres them in a historical sense, and justly so, but actually playing them the way they'd play back then is…well, a lot has changed. I mean, I adored the first Sam and…

Not much to report on bargains, frankly. I remain thuddingly unimpressed with this Steam sale, at least partially because I already bought all the stuff I'd want that was "really" discounted (whatever that means, but it does mean something or other to me.) However, I did pick up the Summer Sale Turn-Based Strategy…

I recommend Gunnerkrigg Court very strongly to roughly anyone who will listen: http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/…

Echo Looper. JGL's demeanor and facial prosthesis drew a lot of attention, understandably, but Willis didn't phone that in. His mounting, helpless irritation with his younger self was beautiful—and crucial.

I didn't really appreciate what a bizarro alternate universe the VODscape is until we cut cable and got a Roku a couple years ago. It's like a Star Trek parallel universe where all these grade-A movie stars are, like, making crap films I haven't heard of at a clip of six or seven a year.

Even that header image says, "Did you forget your sunglasses, too? Because I forgot mine and it's surprisingly bright in here."

Man… I mean, I love that you type this under the nom de guerre of "captainrumcask", but come on. If nothing else, try not to use the phrase "I simply cannot abide," okay? Apart from the elevated language suggesting that you're attempting the profound when you’re out of your depth, it immediately begs the question…

Granted that Clancy never really went for that whole nuance thing, but comparing them still seems unfair. Later Clancy got caught up in his own machinery, sure, but his early stuff was very different than le Carre's. That's not just in subtext, but also in scale, perspective and authorial intent.

Brienne's wonderful! I dearly hope that whatever protagonist-shield it was that saved Arya a couple weeks back extends to Brienne, because I dearly want her to either have peace and joy or else some top-level awesomeness before this is over, not just "oops, dead" unexpectedly. In this show, that's a dangerous…

…Or Sansa. (Obviously it's really Dany, but Cersei seeing Darth Sansa should be good, too.)

Yeah it was. The books suggest that she's an outlier of some type even within the red ranks, but even if that's not true, she's a fanatic by any measure. If she can't have her man on the throne, will she kill him? Go start a war she thinks he should have? If you must let her live, at least imprison her or…

You don't think the series has one last gasp of the smallfolk running riot through the streets of King's Landing, destroying things incoherently and murdering living things for no reason? Because that is seriously what I expect. The High Sparrow represented the people learning there's another way to power besides…

Actually, now that you say that I'm struck by how even in the books I'm terribly unclear on how much time passes—and the show can get downright gonzo on the point. The books start out with the Others killing people in the snow and the phrase "Winter is coming"; sure, the seasons take longer there than here but the…

With apologies to his hair, Jon as a character hasn't really interested me yet on-screen. He still makes way more sense to me as a taciturn 15-year-old than a mopey 30-year-old.