That does sound sweet. But I think I'm glad no one had anything like that near me... probably would ended with me breaking into their apartment at night.

Politics is 99% posturing. The one who can make the biggest and boldest proclamations usually wins in the end... there's not enough time to debate every issue in detail, so candidates resort to soundbites and ridiculous simplifications. It can be a real mess, and the bigger the race, the bigger the bullshit. Local politics usually isn't like that; but unfortunately local politics is often very boring with just bickering over budget details and such.

I've seen the Nerd videos and such. That Castlevania game on N64 looked like quite a dish. Hilariously bad. I know all about 2D games being screwed over by 3D. Sonic. Need I say more? Luckily there were some fantastic 3D platformers on the PS and PS2, though, and they remains favorites to this day. Spyro the Dragon and Crash Bandicoot for the Playstation are still games I pull out and play through almost every year. Both met the same fate as Sonic and Castlevania after their initial trilogy though.

Yeah, I imagine in a city of 5000, murder wouldn't be a very common occurrence. If it was, you would be in a lot of trouble. Police generally aren't liked very much, and some people have extreme prejudices against them as a whole. I fall somewhere in between. I've never had a bad experience with police in my life, but it's very important to be constantly vigilant of abuses of their power. We grant them great authority in the name of safety, and abuse of that people-granted power is truly enraging. Of course, people who go around saying "FUK DA POLICE" aren't making things better; quite the contrary.

Aye, it's all about making it fit your schedule without too much fuss. If you're making watching anime into something that feels like a chore, you got to rework your methods. I guess it's about balancing your enthusiasm with other priorities.

I thought it was charming as well. There's this very wholesome quality, but it flirts with the macabre and frightening at times, and that, I think, makes it enjoyable for all ages. I solved around 100 puzzles, so I still got some left, might try to solve them all eventually. And play the next game too, a bit into the future.

Again, sorry I couldn't answer quicker, I'll try to be more regular. I made a post on the blog, finally, at least.

Damn. That's one lucky kid. Most of my friends came from way richer families than me, but none of them had arcade cabinets... thankfully.

There's got to be a happy medium somewhere, but hell if I know where it is. All I can do is protest the extremely outrageous cases and systems.

Ah, I've tried that, barely. Never had any first-hand experience with the series, but I know that like so many other franchises, it went 3d; and then it went to the garbage bin.

Only 5000, huh. That's a small community indeed. I've often thought about living in a small town. Sounds like a sweet deal to me. I'm sure I've romanticized the idea in my mind a bit, but it is something I would like to try at some point. God knows it would be a lot cheaper, if nothing else.

I never keep up with what's being released when. I just check the torrents sites from time to time and download whatever's been released since last. It's nice to always be surprised, but at time same time, it leads to very irregular watching.

I completed Professor Layton and the Curios Village by the way. It was great. Charming little story, good music and for the most part, very solid puzzles. I loved actually getting out my pen and paper and trying to solve stuff practically. Very rewarding.

I changed my sleeping schedule around and stuff, so I apologize for the belated reply.

I knew about them too, since I caught an episode at a friend or something. Such envy. :P

Agreed. Like all liberal approaches to crime (i.e. "soft on crime"), it's a noble effort, trying to see the best in people and viewing every criminal as a human first, and offender second. But when it's taken that far, it's gone out of control. After all, the safety of the innocent must be put before the liberty of those who have committed such violent crimes.

Yeah. Nothing like loading up some good old platformers and adventure games. Simple formula, but like you put it, extremely polished.

It's a real hassle changing my provider now, not worth the trouble or money. I can live with it. At least it forces me to be inventive with my time when it does go down. God forbid I actually sit down and read a book once in a while, right?

It's all about how you want to spend your time, I guess. If you love foruming, you'll enjoy yourself and do well. Helps if you're a fellow who gets along with people too, of course.

That's quite an investigation. I don't know how many officers would be on the spot for something like that here, but if it's half that amount, I'd be happy. Tragedies bringing people together can be the silver lining. It's sad that it takes something like that, but it's still a good thing we it does happen.

I never watched any of the Sonic shows, but by God did I want to. I was a huge Sonic-fan growing up, but never had the right channels for the show. It was such a pain.

I remember that. I understand that psychiatric help can cure those who are truly suffering from horrible mental illnesses that cause true psychosis need help; not imprisonment, but three months? How could that possibly cure him? More-so, how could they possibly be sure that he was cured?

Games used to be much more children-oriented, but I think as the generation who grew up with NES and SEGA aged, the gaming industry began to realize that these people still wanted to be catered to. In recent times, it seems like the market is just mired in mediocre FPS games and God of War knockoffs, but like you say, you got to watch for those jewels hidden in the rough.

I guess they're pretty hard to produce with all the little parts, figures, cards, custom-made dice and whatnot. They probably take a long time to conceptualize and balance as well, at least the good ones. The Lovecraft game was a lot of fun, I love Lovecraftian lore, so it was a double treat for me.

It's just a cruddy provider. Net has alright (not great) speed when it's operational, but occasionally it just disappears for an hour or two, sometimes longer. I used to have problems with stability, I'd disconnect from matches when I played online and such, but I don't play online games any longer, so it's not an issue anymore.

Yeah, some people love to crank up the post-meter. I'm more reserved personally, best to just stick to what you're comfortable with. I only like to post when I feel I got something relevant to add, while a lot of people view the forum as more of a social experience than me. Nothing wrong with either view, I think.

At least it sounds like you've got more than enough police officers at hand to work on the case. If it can be resolved, it sounds like it will be, and that's obviously a great thing. I hope the service was a positive experience that helped you and everyone else who knew her purge those negative emotions. To the degree that that is even possible, of course. When those 70 people were murdered a couple of months ago, I was at a similar event downtown. Thousands of bouquet of flowers. It was beautiful, in its own way.

Hey thanks for the list man. Gonna grab Disgaea 4 and Eternal Sonata soon enough. Started Uncharted 2 today. It's a-w-e-s-o-m-e!!! ^^

Didn't know that, don't really know much about him at all except for his Urkel role.

Yeah, it's far from perfect. I'm not expecting perfection from any law, we can only do the best with the cruddy circumstances we're given, but I think we should be able to do a little better than this. I understand being soft on crime, but three years; that's just not right.

There are some people who just don't have an interest in video games, and sometimes I wish I was one of them. They're such a time-sink. But some of my best experiences have been with video games, and when done right, they allow for such incredibly immersive storytelling. I guess online gaming is what I don't have much use for any longer, I still like a good story told through a video game. Not to mention that some of the best horror experiences I've had (my favorite genre) have been video games. In the end, they're like anything else I suppose. Some of them absolutely fantastic and praiseworthy, most of them not. :P

I haven't had much experience with board-games except for the basic ones I played growing up, but it's something I would love to do if I had someone to play with consistently. Problem is, they're so freakin' expensive! The good ones, that is. I'm not going to shell out a huge sum for a game I'll get to play twice a year, you know? A friend I see far too seldom has a great Lovecraft theme board game where you have to work together as players to stop the oncoming threat; that was a lot of fun to play, but I've only tried it twice so far.

It's usually not this bad, but this week it's been just randomly shutting off all of a sudden. Drives me up the wall, but hopefully it'll stop in not too long. Layton is a lot of fun. I'm almost 7 hours in now, and have solved lots of puzzles. That "tower" is pretty ominous, I'm anxious to see what it's all about.

Congrats. I don't know him, but I've seen his posts around the forum. I thought of something I might want to write too, so maybe I'll get on that in the not too-distant future. :P

Certainly a convincing actor from what I've seen.

I understand that very well. I'm more inclined to outright rage and subsequent frustration when I think or read about that sort of stuff, although revulsion is certainly a bit part of it as well. I read the newspaper walking down the street just now. Assault rapist out after three years. Three fuckin' years... and now he's out on the street again, probably doing the same thing again soon enough. That frustrates me to no end.

Not at all. It might not even be the best word to use. A lot of people consider it a negative thing, and maybe it is. I think the label is being diluted now that things that used to be nerdy, like video games, are completely mainstream anyway. Now you're weirder if you don't play video games.

If there's that little willingness to focus among them, board games, and certainly role-playing games don't seem like they would work. There has to be some enthusiasm and willingness to focus your mind on the thing you're doing if you are to engage in that sort of hobby. Maybe they will eventually become more willing to focus on something like that, or maybe it's just not their kind of thing permanent.

Sorry about taking my time with this reply, my connection is being difficult this week, going in and out, so I just gave up. Did give me time to play a little more Layton, though.

Ah, that's right, he wasn't originally a character on the show. I had forgotten about that.

How poetic. Sad, but true. The mob mentality is a fearsome beast. Put people who have even the slightest propensity for violence in one, and you've got a disaster on your hand before you can say "multiple stab wounds."

I don't necessarily consider nerdy a bad thing. It has a pejorative connotation, but I don't mind being called/labeled a nerd.

That's an ever-present challenge when it comes to games like these; lack of focus. When you're playing for a whole evening, it's inevitable that the focus drifts to something else now and then. I try to be permissive when this happens. I generally just sit silently and wait it out, if they don't stop babbling after 5 minutes, I intervene. Otherwise, I just wait and they'll exhaust whatever topic they drifted to. Jokes are much the same. I allow for out-of-character jokes, but if it gets out of hand, I'll give them a little nudge or friendly reprimand. :P

Huh really? I thought Europe don't even celebrate Halloween... Well that's new I'm not really used to the so called 'Halloween atmosphere' and I'm not even sure if I'm scared of 'scary' things

Yeah there's stuff like the intonation of how you speak one word... And I think they say that one word/radical has five meanings Yeah the 'Old' English is quite complicated for us modern people Unfortunately I have to know it for my English exam >.<

Haha guess so. Wow that's like... ages away? I wouldn't mind using a tablet, but adapting to it would be rather difficult... And games would be 'revolutionised' in a sense... BTW what does 'E3' mean? Not familiar...

It's known as a simulator isn't it? So it depicts like reality dating in a game or something? HAHA visual novels eh? How's he gonna carry a computer to a classroom?

Well she looks CUTE!!! But this is adorable too!! . Thats cool, 25 eps of awesomeness! Um for Working!! I think its ongoing...

Haha true I guess... MORE VARIETY!!!

Might have to take a look sometime... or at least rewatch that video.

Reminds me of something I saw when those riots were going on in England earlier this year. Some exchange student (I think) had been punched in the face. He didn't know what was going on and was bleeding all over the place. So one huge guy pretends to help him, while another guy goes behind him and robs his bag. There was a video of it and everything; makes you sick.

Just saying in general. It's definitely a nerdy hobby, I'm not denying that, but I think it gets painted with a bit too broad of a brush often. Like anything else, it's a matter of degree.
I was a little nervous about it the first time I led a session, because you do need to be in control at all times. You need to memorize most of the rules for situations, have monsters and NPCs, names and contingency plans ready at your finger-tips. But the people I play with aren't hardcore about it, so the pressure is more on making things enjoyable than getting everything letter-perfect to the finest detail. It's not something I think I would enjoy doing with people I didn't already know, though.

It can be incredibly fun, I generally think it's an awesome experience, but it's all up to the players, and even more-so, the Dungeon Master, to make it so. If you don't put in the effort, you'll get nothing out of it. In that sense, it's like most other things. What makes it great, I think, is that it's much like reading a book. When I describe a building, a room or roleplay an NPC, everyone makes up their own impressions of what said thing is like in their mind, and gets something different out of it. That's also one of its weaknesses. If you're not a person who can, or likes, to use your imagination in that way, then the game is never going to work for you.