scops

Imagine 12 2-liters of soda. It’s a lot.

As someone who actually played these games on the Genesis and Sega CD, I’m guessing someone said, “We need to compete with the Mortal Kombat movies. Find me another fighting game franchise that’s got the same level of violence. Bonus points if there hasn’t been a new game in 30 years so we won’t piss off as many nerds when we butcher the lore.”

And it might work. As much as I enjoyed the games back in the day, it really doesn’t take up much space in my brain. I really wouldn’t lose any sleep if it bombed.

1, given to me in a Secret Santa exchange. I’m not following the connection you’re trying to make between a goofy action movie and a toy line.

Out of curiosity, how old are you? I hold up Scott Pilgrim as the Fast Times at Ridgemont High of my generation (older millennials). I could see it not hitting the same for older and newer gens.

Of course it’s a perfectly valid opinion even if we are in the same gen. I’m sure Fast Times had its detractors, too

It was hugely freeing for me to realize this. I didn’t really care for Death Proof and I absolutely hated Inglorious Bastards. My friends thought I was crazy. After loving Kill Bill and everything I had seen before it, I thought Tarantino had just gotten too far up his own ass. Then Django came out and was just fun and cathartic and I realized I just needed to take each project as it came

I highly recommend one with a heated seat if you’ve got a reasonably accessible power outlet nearby. Just be aware that it will totally spoil you and make pooping away from home even less fun than it already is.

I have an ex with the same name as one of my sisters. You do that once, and it gets confusing and awkward. Twice? People start coming to really odd conclusions.

Yeah, I haven’t been clean shaven since I could first pull off a beard. Last time I saw my naked face was 15 years ago.

That said, I have started to put more effort into my beard to try to keep up with trends. Growing it out, oiling it, shaping the edges. It’s fun, but I still find myself trimming it down after too long just to make it easier to manage.

All computers were beige… unless you were a smoker, then it was an ugly yellow-brown color after a few months

I’m going to claim the family PC as my first computer. It was a 486 running DOS and Windows 3.1. I got my first taste of Windows 95 when my dad bought my sister a new PC to take to college. I remember installing Jedi Knight on there then having to wait years for an upgrade to the family PC where I could load Windows XP and play newer games.

First phone was an old blue Nokia, possibly a 3310, looking at old pics. I called it a Blueberry to make fun of the flagships of the day. I got it at 16 when I got my license and was told in no uncertain terms that I was not to use it unless I was hopelessly lost or wrapped around a tree.

Yeah, I just set it up because I don’t want Meta’s shit on my phone and my friend group insists on using WhatsApp. I still had to install the native WhatsApp client but I was able to remove it as soon as I had confirmed the account creation. It also means I can stop giving out my cell number when I want to meet someone from Facebook Marketplace to buy something.

They advise against removing the apps on your phone, but at the least, you can turn off notifications for everything other than Beeper and use it as a single interface. On the desktop app, it makes a bit more sense. I’ve stopped running the Telegram, Signal, and Google Chat apps. I just wish Google Voice played nice with integrations and could be added to the platform.

Unintentionally playing the housing market.

Using some first time home buyer incentives about a decade ago, I was able to buy a house on my own. I had to pay mortgage insurance, but it still wasn’t too bad. Cheaper than renting a two bedroom apartment. Five or six years later, my city keeps popping up on Most Affordable Cities lists and the real estate turns into a feeding frenzy.

When the market was at its peak, I listed my house for sale for about 70% more than I paid for it. I had an offer for it at 10k over asking and they’d buy the house sight-unseen within three days of it hitting the market.

Now, this was clearly a buyer’s market so you’d think selling was easy but buying would be a nightmare right? Well, you’d be right and it took 10 months of living with my parents and a shit ton of getting outbid on houses, but I was able to get into a slightly bigger house by putting half of the value down at closing for a house that was brand new, on a bigger lot of land and closer to my family, and I was able to pay off my car loan, resulting in lower monthly payments overall for a house much better suited to my lifestyle. Since moving in two years ago, it’s already appreciated another 15%, not that I’m moving out any time soon!

Bro, we lost that fight. I was watching a Youtube video of a guy clearing games from his Steam backlog and introduced one with, “So, many of you watching probably weren’t alive when this game came out. Everyone talks about what a classic this is, but I don’t think I’ve met anyone who has actually played this game.”

I died a little inside when it turned out he was talking about the first Half-Life.

Death Stranding Director’s Cut via PlayStation Plus membership. I had a healthy amount of skepticism about it at launch, but it got its hooks in me deep. I’ve got 80 hours so far and I’m planning to Platinum it before moving on.

It’s one of those games that will either bore you to tears or suck you in. Half of my gaming sessions are just spent building infrastructure. The game progression is on point.

I’d say Hitman III (now called World of Assassins) or No Man’s Sky. Both are really great values for their price.

I think I’m mostly done with the Hitman franchise for now, but I’ll probably come back to NMS next time Starfield has some big update and I need to scratch that exploration itch.

I’ve played everything in the bundle outside of Gotham Knights. I get it if you don’t like fighting games, but I had fun with every one of them (besides GK, as mentioned). They are all solid games, even Mad Max.

In other words… that’s just, like, your opinion, person.

Pickle

My old pup Packie was never what you would call a smart dog. He did impress me though with one learned behavior. I had started him out in a crate as a puppy, and would entice him in for the evening with a milkbone. Once the crate went away, we continued the tradition with a regular dog bed where I’d have him lay down and wait for his treat.

Fast forward a few months after I got him and had lost my job. I had to move back in with my parents while I looked for a new one. My dad and I were both night owls, him even moreso than me, so most nights ended with me saying to my dad, “Alright, I’m going to bed. Love you.” Packie heard that enough times that as soon as I said it, he would perk up from wherever he was in the house and rush down to his dog bed to wait patiently. I could brush my teeth, shower, whatever. He would wait 30+ minutes for me to appear with his milkbone. When we moved back out, I could reliably tell him, “go to bed” and he would move through multiple rooms to find his bed and wait for me.

I got a former coworker an interview with my company. It was an IT job with an on-call rotation. During the interview, his phone chimes. Instead of apologizing and putting it on Silent, he pulls it out in the middle of the interview to type a reply. We ask what he’s doing and he says it is work, he’ll just tell them he’s got a flat tire or something.

He later admitted that he had just gotten back from vacation and was severely jet-lagged, but let’s just say he didn’t give them a great impression. My team elbowed me for years about that one guy that I got to interview for the team.

Damn, beat me to it. Well, at least here it is in visual format