aphoenix's recent activity
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Comment on Halloween night! in ~talk
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Comment on November 2026 Backlog Burner: Week 1 Discussion in ~games
aphoenix LinkI don't have tons of time this November, but I am hoping to try for 3 games to get a bingo of some sort using a small card. My card: Flow, 0/9 Flow Custom bingo 0/9 Threshold Fleeting Morality...I don't have tons of time this November, but I am hoping to try for 3 games to get a bingo of some sort using a small card.
My card: Flow, 0/9
Flow Custom bingo 0/9 Threshold Fleeting Morality Adaptation ★ Wildcard Bizarre Gentle Beauty Courage I'm going to pre-claim no gimmicks this time, just low key attendance, and I will of course read all the other journeys that people take.
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Comment on Do you think you're special? in ~talk
aphoenix (edited )Link ParentI'm going to make this a combined response to yours and @macleod's comment below, "Of course, and you don't then you're not human". I think both of them are anathemic to good discourse. If you...I'm going to make this a combined response to yours and @macleod's comment below, "Of course, and you don't then you're not human". I think both of them are anathemic to good discourse. If you don't believe in someone when they answer a question, or if you deny their humanity when they answer differently, then you aren't really open to learning or understanding anything about an opposing viewpoint to your own.
It is certainly possible to feel that one is not special and still be human, and not just paying lip service to some idea of what it means to be or not be special. It comes down to whatever definition one uses to define "special" and there's a lot of meat on the bone in that discussion.
"Self" and "Special" are very different things. I understand the concept of self, and I know that my "self" is different from every other "self" on the planet. I think that is what the two of you are talking about when you say "special". However, to me, that does not denote special. "Special" is comparative; there should be something not normal, something important, something extra to being thought of as special.
I am not special; I am one of eight billion. There are no physical, cognitive, psychological, social, behavioural, or biological measurements by which I could be thought of as special. The degree to which I excel at any measurable trait in the measurements I just listed is what makes me different from any other person, but that difference is not necessarily remarkable, and the understanding of my lack of remarkability is not lip service to an idea, or inhuman. It's just an understanding and acceptance of myself.
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Comment on Wikipedia's list of the best video games: how many have you played, and what's missing? in ~games
aphoenix LinkI have played 193 of 371 (52%). 125 of 184 from before 2000 and 68 of the 187 from 2000 onward. I definitely skew towards Atari & the Nintendo system games, since I had those, but I guess I played...I have played 193 of 371 (52%). 125 of 184 from before 2000 and 68 of the 187 from 2000 onward. I definitely skew towards Atari & the Nintendo system games, since I had those, but I guess I played a fair bit at friends houses who had Sega / PC games. I wonder if other (old) people will have a similar spread; why am I twice as likely to have played a good game from the last century vs this one?
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Comment on What's the oldest piece of clothing you own and still wear? in ~life.style
aphoenix LinkI have a dress shirt that I bought in 1997 that I still wear occasionally, though my preference now is generally for French cuffs instead. If I'm wearing just regular cuffs, I sometimes choose to...I have a dress shirt that I bought in 1997 that I still wear occasionally, though my preference now is generally for French cuffs instead. If I'm wearing just regular cuffs, I sometimes choose to wear it.
I still have the shirt I wore on my first date with my wife, and it is in good condition. It's a nice short sleeved button up that is now wildly out of style. Heck it probably always has been. I bought it just as I stated university in 98.
I have a kilt from 1997 that I will wear again goddamnit I just have to lose a few more pounds...
My good leather coat is the same one I have been wearing since I bought it in 1998.
Everything else I wear is from this millennium.
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Comment on Taskmaster Season 22, Episode 1 - 'In my mind there’s a river.' | Full episode in ~tv
aphoenix Link ParentHer dynamic with Paul Williams was pretty funny, so I'm excited to see how she reprises that with Tom Cashman.Her dynamic with Paul Williams was pretty funny, so I'm excited to see how she reprises that with Tom Cashman.
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Comment on Brad Pitt returning for ‘World War Z’ sequel at Paramount with Edward Berger to direct in ~movies
aphoenix Link ParentThe main issue is that it's not really an adaptation of the book. The book is "An Oral History of the Zombie War" and is an anthology of stories; the movie is an action thriller zombie movie with...The main issue is that it's not really an adaptation of the book. The book is "An Oral History of the Zombie War" and is an anthology of stories; the movie is an action thriller zombie movie with a single character throughline. The book zombies are your typical plodding abominations, and the movie version are more like victims of the rage virus in the 28 Days franchise. Ultimately, the secret they learn to defeat the zombies isn't from the book at all. The only thing they really share are the locations, but they're all visited by Pitt in the movie, whereas in the book they feature different people.
In some ways, it actually reminds me a bit of The Lawnmower Man which I actually wrote about the other day, hating on it for the same reason though I don't have quite the same negative association with World War Z. I think it's because I knew that it was only tangentially related going in.
Overall as a zombie movie it's actually not bad. It's better than a lot of the Resident Evil movies, for example, but not really on the same level as something like Dawn of the Dead. I'd give it 3 stars of 5.
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Comment on Taskmaster Season 22, Episode 1 - 'In my mind there’s a river.' | Full episode in ~tv
aphoenix Link ParentGreat point, I'd forgotten about those. I also just checked New Years treats and double checked that nobody had been on those had gone on to a full series or alternate series.Great point, I'd forgotten about those. I also just checked New Years treats and double checked that nobody had been on those had gone on to a full series or alternate series.
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Comment on Taskmaster Season 22, Episode 1 - 'In my mind there’s a river.' | Full episode in ~tv
aphoenix (edited )Link ParentI believe she is the first to officially compete twice, yes. Urzila from NZ2 is going to be on the next season of TM Australia as well. There have been incidents where previous contestants...I believe she is the first to officially compete twice, yes. Urzila from NZ2 is going to be on the next season of TM Australia as well.
There have been incidents where previous contestants returned to fill in for contestants in the studio when a contestant was unwell, but that's not quite the same obviously.
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Comment on What are the genuinely worst films of all time? in ~movies
aphoenix Link ParentI don't remember disliking the movie as a movie per se, so it could very well be an acceptable one. I got pretty caught up with why it was called The Lawnmower Man and why it wasn't an absurdist...I don't remember disliking the movie as a movie per se, so it could very well be an acceptable one. I got pretty caught up with why it was called The Lawnmower Man and why it wasn't an absurdist horror with a guy who ate all the grass while naked and then killed the homeowner. I think it was the first time I got mad about how movies were advertised, or advertisements in general, and that stuck with me.
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Comment on What are the genuinely worst films of all time? in ~movies
aphoenix Link ParentActually, I don't think that's the movie I was really thinking of when I wrote this out, based on a my just now IMDB lookup of that movie; I definitely wasn't thinking of Jack Black and Gwyneth...Actually, I don't think that's the movie I was really thinking of when I wrote this out, based on a my just now IMDB lookup of that movie; I definitely wasn't thinking of Jack Black and Gwyneth Paltrow when I wrote it down. But I don't remember exactly what I was thinking either.
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Comment on Taskmaster Season 22, Episode 1 - 'In my mind there’s a river.' | Full episode in ~tv
aphoenix LinkTastkmaster NZ Season 7 has just started, and it's already shaping up to be a pretty good one. I find with NZ that I usually know either less than half of the contestants, but this season I was at...Tastkmaster NZ Season 7 has just started, and it's already shaping up to be a pretty good one. I find with NZ that I usually know either less than half of the contestants, but this season I was at least somewhat familiar with all of the contestants, mostly thanks to Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont-Spelling-Bee. Also Morgana O'Reilly is on White Lotus, and Rose Matafeo was famously on TM UK and was the Taskmaster on TM JR. If you can find it to watch it, I think this will be one of the better seasons of english speaking TM.
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Comment on What are the genuinely worst films of all time? in ~movies
aphoenix Link ParentI guess "so bad it's good" is a personal thing, and we're on opposite sides for Troll 2 and also Masters of the Universe, which I still enjoy, but mostly in a very nostalgic way. I never watched...I guess "so bad it's good" is a personal thing, and we're on opposite sides for Troll 2 and also Masters of the Universe, which I still enjoy, but mostly in a very nostalgic way.
I never watched the second Lawnmower Man, but I had the (fairly standard) visceral hate reaction to the first one. I still can't believe that they marketed it as "Stephen King's Lawnmower Man" for quite a while, and I had just gotten into King and his short stories when it was coming out so I was expecting something weird, and we got whatever that movie was supposed to be.
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Comment on What are the genuinely worst films of all time? in ~movies
aphoenix (edited )LinkThe Garbage Pail Kids Movie (1987) is garbage nonsense, unfortunately. It's based on an 80s toy, and it should be nostalgic for people of my demographic, but even when I tried to watch it almost...The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (1987) is garbage nonsense, unfortunately. It's based on an 80s toy, and it should be nostalgic for people of my demographic, but even when I tried to watch it almost 40 years ago I couldn't really get through it. It's not "so bad it's good" either, it's just terrible writing and utter nonsense.
Troll 2 (1990) is maybe worse. It makes less sense, has worse acting, and is meta-nonsensical, since it's not a sequel and doesn't feature any trolls. Some people do hold this to be "so bad it's good", but I find that pretty questionable; there are lots of schlocky B movies that I love, and this one is bad.
North (1994) is probably less bad, but it's one that hurts more, because it's made by a filmmaker that I love. Rob Reiner made some of my favourite movies, and there are things that I say and things that I believe because of the effect that his movies have had on my life. And he made North, which is definitely in the top 10 worst movies I have ever seen. I don't always agree with Ebert, but his review on North is spot on.
Battlefield Earth (2000) is L. Ron Hubbard Scientology apologia crap, but it's also poorly made. I haven't watched it in 20 years, but I remember feeling like the whole thing was dutch angles and cross wipes. The story was nonsense and the acting was worse; everything about this movie is garbage.
There are a few that I haven't seen, but that I know have a reputation for being absolutely terrible. Gigli, Catwoman,
Shallow Hal, a number of things like Date Movie, Movie 43, Remember the Spartans. I can't really say that these are bad because I haven't seen them, but I think they're pretty universally looked down on.Edit: I crossed out Shallow Hal above because it's not the movie I was thinking of when I was writing it out, but I no longer remember what I was actually thinking of.
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Comment on BlizzCon discussion thread in ~games
aphoenix Link ParentNothing really momentous happened, it was just a "death by a thousand cuts" sort of thing. Reddit get worse and worse, I had less and less time for community stuff. Then WoW: Shadowlands finished...Nothing really momentous happened, it was just a "death by a thousand cuts" sort of thing. Reddit get worse and worse, I had less and less time for community stuff. Then WoW: Shadowlands finished up and I realized that I wasn't enjoying WoW much at all, and I stopped playing. I gave up other Blizzard games as well because of various things the company was doing that I didn't agree with. I got really into exploring my backlog and realized that instead of spending the bulk of my time on one game, I could play 5 or 6 different games every week.
Sometimes I get a slight nostalgic itch for raiding, but it usually passes pretty quickly. Same for HotS, which is my favourite MOBA of all time. I don't think they'll get me back though.
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Comment on I'm addicted to Slay the Spire and am looking for a new game in ~games
aphoenix (edited )LinkThese are the deckbuilders that I have enjoyed. I can only evaluate based on your first 4 criteria; I don't typically play with a controller. Aces and Adventures (currently 90% off!) - for...These are the deckbuilders that I have enjoyed. I can only evaluate based on your first 4 criteria; I don't typically play with a controller.
Aces and Adventures (currently 90% off!) - for $2.59CAD this is well worth it. It's not as good as STS, but it's a decent poker-based deckbuilder that is pretty cool. There are several classes and each class has different abilities, so it has good replay value.
Monster Train and MT2 are great. You stack monsters on a train, holding off the hordes of monsters. Good difficulty scaling, lots of replayability.
Guild of Dungeoneering - it has been a while since I played this, but I did put in 25 hours or so when I was playing it. It did not grab me like any of the ones above, but it is cute, has cool cartoonish art, and IIRC had what felt like really natural deckbuilding and progression. It has a demo.
Beneath Oresa - I wrote about it a while ago, and said this:
It's a pretty good roguelike deckbuilder in the spirit of Slay the Spire or Monster Train. I'm digging it quite a bit - the gameplay and animations are in a comic book-y style that I really like, and they're clean and smooth. There are two zones - near and far - and enemies are either close or far away, and there are a lot of mechanics in the cards that rely on this. Each of the three character types has something unique going for it, and each of the individual characters within a type give you a bit more control over how you approach the playstyle for that type.
I eventually found it to be not quite as good as STS or Monster Train (but what is?) but found it very enjoyable overall. I'd put it above Aces and Adventures or Guild of Dungeoneering.
Dicefolk is the game that I'm currently using to scratch this itch. It is not bad but it's not as good as others that you have mentioned. I feel like it's a step down from Dicey Dungeons, which you mentioned having enjoyed. The art style is cartoonish in a way that doesn't gel for me (which seems silly when I suggested Guild of Dungeoneering for being cute and cartoonish, but here we are), but the overall gameplay is fairly solid. I've unlocked each of the characters and have been doing the trail runs (similar to Ascensions in STS) and it can be fairly challenging. I feel like it is more random than some of the other games here, and it has less overall deckbuilding; it is a dice game. I think it has a demo as well, so it might be worth checking out.
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Comment on BlizzCon discussion thread in ~games
aphoenix LinkHeroes of the Storm is getting a Xal'Atath, the first new character for the first time in six years, which is pretty cool. Xal'Atath is from WoW. I have a personal musing: in 2019 I went to...Heroes of the Storm is getting a Xal'Atath, the first new character for the first time in six years, which is pretty cool. Xal'Atath is from WoW.
I have a personal musing: in 2019 I went to BlizzCon, and I was fairly involved in various Blizzard communities around the internet for a lot of years. This year, I didn't even know that BlizzCon was happening. This isn't a slight on BlizzCon or anything, but more just an observation about how things can change in a few years time; I've changed from someone who was spoiling BlizzCon news live to someone who barely cares about it in seven years.
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Comment on A24 boards SCP Foundation movie from Spooky Pictures and Image Nation, sets 2027 release in ~movies
aphoenix Link ParentI don't think that it has been made public from the studio, but what I have managed to glean from various online sources is that the movie is likely to also be released with the same license,...I don't think that it has been made public from the studio, but what I have managed to glean from various online sources is that the movie is likely to also be released with the same license, which means that they are banking on it doing well commercially. As a studio, they have not been as litigious as other studios have been, but just earlier this summer they did do some automatic copyright claims, so this would be an interesting direction for them to go. If they do manage to make a commercially successful CC-SA movie, that would be pretty amazing.
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Comment on Taskmaster Season 22, Episode 1 - 'In my mind there’s a river.' | Full episode in ~tv
aphoenix Link ParentI hope I wasn't taken to be the "pro" stance for Ayoade; there are probably people who are fans of him that would actually mount some kind of defense for him. As it is, this is likely to be my...I hope I wasn't taken to be the "pro" stance for Ayoade; there are probably people who are fans of him that would actually mount some kind of defense for him. As it is, this is likely to be my least favorite series of the show and that's going to be mostly due to his involvement.
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Comment on Taskmaster Season 22, Episode 1 - 'In my mind there’s a river.' | Full episode in ~tv
aphoenix (edited )Link ParentI agree with your overall point, though I disagree that the other points I raised were meaningless. Also I did slightly change some wording in my post to specify that I don't consider Ayoade to be...I agree with your overall point, though I disagree that the other points I raised were meaningless. Also I did slightly change some wording in my post to specify that I don't consider Ayoade to be an LGBTQ+ ally (changed "I prefer my celebrity allies to be staunch and vocal" to "I prefer my celebrities to be staunch and vocal allies" which is what I meant but not what I originally wrote) since he hasn't actually done much in the way of allyship. My points in defence were mostly to provide both sides to @cfabbro since I originally started out in the post by saying that I had reservations about Ayoade as a contestant and only provided one side of the situation.
We have a few neighbours that go all out for Halloween, so our neighbourhood is a candy destination in our town. The roads were packed, and we had 317 kids trick or treat over the course of the evening. We keep a tally every year, and that was the biggest year by far. We handed out over 800 pieces of candy, 97 glowsticks, and about 50 temporary tattoos, evenly split between minecraft, spiderman, and unicorn themes.
We have never really kept track of the ages of kids that we got, but it felt like there were more teenagers coming around this year, and I am all about that, especially as they were unfailingly pleasant and polite. This is perhaps unsurprising as a Canadian, but I did not have any experiences with rude or obnoxious teenagers, and I think there were about a hundred teenagers total.
My two younger kids (kid2 and kid3) are teenagers and went out together with the middle kids' friends. They had matching costumes - Mabel and Dipper from Gravity Falls. Their costumes were pretty awesome; kid2 spent a lot of time on both fo them, including having an arduino board with lights underneath the Mabel sweater that lit up, and a hand stitched Dipper cap for kid3. They had a ton of fun; it's probably the first time that kid3 has really enjoyed Halloween. I think that kid3 has somehow ingested my general dislike for Halloween, and I feel a bit bad about that; kids should enjoy the fun things.
Overall, it was a pretty good time.