Moments when a piece of entertainment completely lost you.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Fri Feb 08, 2013 10:35 pm

Korgan0 wrote:The idea is that

it represents some program that Moriarty can use to break into basically any computer system, which it appears he's done after doing a bunch of Dastardly Things, when instead he just bribed and threatened people.

Yeah, that's impos- well, actually it is possible, but the amount of blackmail, gunplay, bribery, etc. involved in setting it up would be truly outlandish. And it would need to have been set up in the eighties or earlier.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Sat Feb 09, 2013 3:37 am

Prak_Anima wrote:I'm going into a movie completely disinterested. We (the school paper) got an invitation to a screening of Beautiful Creatures.

The lead chick in that sounds like Nicolas Cage to me.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Feb 09, 2013 5:29 am

The Dark Caster we see most (after the one who's pretending to not be so he can protect Lena) looks like my ex. The scene where she shows up in what is essentially a lace catsuit was... uncomfortable.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Sat Feb 09, 2013 4:37 pm

Whaddaya talkin' about? Lace catsuits rock, man.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Feb 09, 2013 8:56 pm

Certainly. When the person in them reminds you of an ex you're trying to forget (for many reasons), not so much...

Count Arioch the 28th · Sat Feb 09, 2013 9:03 pm

That's why I don't find redheads attractive anymore. Every woman I've dated since then have had black hair except for one blonde.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Sun Feb 10, 2013 5:37 pm

Prak_Anima wrote:Certainly. When the person in them reminds you of an ex you're trying to forget (for many reasons), not so much...

Ah, must've missed the "ex-GF" part. All I saw was "lace catsuit" and I blanked on the rest of the post because I was thinking about Pat Schroeder wearing one.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Feb 10, 2013 10:56 pm

...the politician?

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Thu Feb 21, 2013 9:39 pm

So, I watch NCIS: LA for a weekly dose of testosterone and Linda Hunt awesomeness.

It's a Shane Brennan show, so yeah, it's chock-full of American military wanking, jingoism, anti-intellectualism and plain racism. Whatever, I don't watch it for the rational discourse.

Except that as of this week, I'm done watching the crap filler episodes. I'll still watch the story arcs episodes, but I've had enough of the formulaic crap. I mean, sure, it's a procedural, but it's really come down to "Leftists/Muslims/Mexicans do a terrorist/murder/espionnage plot and are stopped by G/Sam/Kensi going undercover" over and over again.

So yeah... even a dumb action/propaganda show needs decent writers.

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Thu Feb 21, 2013 10:05 pm

NCIS: LA is a garbage TV show. It's the CSI: Miami version of NCIS.

What really lost me was the pilot or early episodes, where you hear that the one young guy supposedly was involved in the cold war. Then again, it was years since I saw it. But yeah, all the people in it do nothing for me.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Mar 02, 2013 2:35 pm

I still love SMBC and all, but is it just me or is the comic's attempt at creating a straw dystopia becoming increasingly convoluted and obnoxious?

I mean, there's setting up a premise and then letting it blossom outwards organically. And then there's continually micromanaging and contriving it to force a joke.

John Magnum · Post by **John Magnum** » Sat Mar 02, 2013 6:12 pm

Yeah, the latest one was just... really I couldn't tell what it was even going for. It's probably his least successful "A bunch of idiots are gathered together and are forced by circumstances to redevelop all science" too, for that matter.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Mar 02, 2013 7:07 pm

Disagree. I thought the Lunar Anarchy tirade was a funny shaggy dog story. It didn't really go anywhere, but it didn't have to as it had a fairly decent punchline density all the way through its meanderings. Shaggy dog stories don't have to go anywhere, it's kind of the point that they don't.

-Username17

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Mar 02, 2013 8:39 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:I thought the Lunar Anarchy tirade was a funny shaggy dog story. It didn't really go anywhere, but it didn't have to as it had a fairly decent punchline density all the way through its meanderings.

Hey, I like a good Shaggy Dog story, but I also feel that a Shaggy Dog Story should either lay out all of its weirdness/plot contrivances out at the beginning of the joke and/or dump it out near the end of the story. SDSes work because the narrative flows organically all of the way to the end For Want of a Nail style.

When the author has to repeatedly intrude in the story to nudge it the direction that they want, it loses the pacing plus climax subversion that good SDSes have. The comic could have worked if it cut things off right near the corporate sponsorship joke, but by continuing to keep things rolling past that it felt less like a SDS and more like a Seltzer and Friedberg movie.

One Froggy Evening is pretty much the apex of the SDS. And a gag where the original owner after several decades rediscovered the frog along with a new sap could be funny... if it occurred near the end of the cartoon. Several more scenes in which the original elderly owner along with his new apprentice trying to re-exhibit the frog would have made the story functionally weaker -- regardless of the quality of the gags.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Tue Mar 12, 2013 7:19 pm

Let me tell ya, Erfworld has felt like a Shaggy Dog story. Rob's managed to average just under 1 page a week for the last three and a half years since Book 2 started, and we still haven't finished the battle for Jetstone's capital. It's one thing to bring in new rules (exploding green dwagons), it's another to contradict explicit ones by having a battle bear armed with only a paralyzed caster (who can apparently cast with his face, unless reanimating that doll is only spending juice?) NOT get attacked by a fistful of unled dwagons as he walks by in plain sight.

And I know the forum will counter any and all complaints with "it's a free webcomic," despite the fact that it's supposed to be his source of income.

Of course, complaints of tardiness are nothing in comparison to the guy for Dresden Codak (three months since his last update?). That guy publicly announced his entry into making the comic his full-time job and sole source of income starting on X, and the moment that day started, he announces a two-month vacation. Hell, it seems that he's riding his old work even harder than the VG Cats guy.

Meikle641 · Post by **Meikle641** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 5:01 am

I dunno, isn't Piro from Megatokyo still up there on tardiness? Dude goes 'professional' so he can 'focus entirely on the comic' and... generally produces nothing. And fans lapped it up.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 6:05 am

I stopped reading Megatokyo when the last vestiges of the inspiration for Largo left. If I wanted to read about a mopey, nerdy, effeminate guy who has no clue how to talk to women, I'd keep a diary.

erik · Post by **erik** » Wed Mar 13, 2013 9:11 am

virgil wrote: Of course, complaints of tardiness are nothing in comparison to the guy for Dresden Codak (three months since his last update?). That guy publicly announced his entry into making the comic his full-time job and sole source of income starting on X, and the moment that day started, he announces a two-month vacation. Hell, it seems that he's riding his old work even harder than the VG Cats guy.

What intrigues me is that on his art blog he mentions that if his kickstarter were to reach $800,000 (goal was $30,000) then he could hire a partner/assistant to help put out bi-weekly webcomics. For a year.

Graciously assuming cuts to kickstarter and stretch goal expenses come out to $300,000 that still leaves half a million bucks to put out 26 webcomics in 365 days. I just cannot swallow that math. His art is pretty but, um. Yea.

If I had piles of disposable income I likely would get in on the $45 level of the kickstarter to pay 60 bucks for delivery of a high-production quality book of his webcomic art. But I do not. Instead I shoe away 20 bucks here or there to get legos for my kids and to occasionally dine out with my wife instead.

[edit:]

Whups, Dreden Codak just updated and now at $700k he will update weekly for a year. It's still a pretty hefty cost estimate, but I can't deny it is a move in the right direction. Good on Mr. Diaz.

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Wed Mar 20, 2013 7:18 am

Hellboy: Blood and Iron lost me at that end. I was entertained through most of it, but the ending? When everyone failed at the end, all of a sudden they all got super powers (or put down the idiot ball for a few seconds) and won at the last minute. To the point where it didn't make any goddamn sense.

the part where Abe Sapien is getting tortured, and all of a sudden he breaks free. Why didn't he fucking do that at the beginning before the harpies were carving him up? If I'm making a noob mistake because I haven't read any of the graphic novels, correct me. Does Abe Sapien get stronger as he's injured or something? Is that a thing he can do? Because if not, it doesn't make any goddamn sense why he got better so quick.

Although I like how the vampire was beaten by The Professor, and how the priest ended up not having enough faith and falling.

So final conclusion: Lots of things that I found entertaining, but kind of falls apart in act 3 with a semi-good climax.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Mar 21, 2013 9:31 am

Meikle641 wrote:NCIS: LA is a garbage TV show. It's the CSI: Miami version of NCIS.

You shut your whore mouth, CSI: Sunglasses is the best one. Mostly because of the joke that came out of the sunglasses & The Who routine.

And honestly, all flavours of NCIS are right wing, pro-Israel, pro-military-intervention, pro-Patriot-Act, racist and so on. Fuck, at least LA actually had a black guy in the team. The main one, by the point I stopped watching it, had:

A black guy (eventually, many seasons in) calling the shots
An Asian-American ("acceptably white for American TV!") who turned out to be the traitor anyway and died.
An Israeli ("the brown people that America approves of!") played by a Spanish-American ("acceptably white for American TV!")

Colour me unimpressed. How whitewashed can you get?

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue Mar 26, 2013 2:10 pm

So, I picked up some of the WH40K Space Marine Battles books, one of which is Wrath Of Iron.

So Wrath Of Iron is about the Iron Hands, who are big on prosthetics to the point of deliberately replacing healthy organs with bionic augments that are not superior. They also are all about purging emotional weaknesses like pity and compassion. The problem is, they're blithering idiots and a central plot element is based on a completely incorrect understanding of the way IG-Space Marine coordination (dys)functions. Namely, the author believes the Iron Hands captain would have overall command on the planet and the IG Lord General is under his authority. That is, uh, not how it works. At all. When both Space Marines and Imperial Guard are on a planet, they're under the joint command of... either an Inquisitor or no one.

This is important because the Iron Hands captain gave orders that appeared to outsiders to be completely idiotic, got thousands of guardsmen killed for no reason, and refused to explain why exactly it was so damned important to complete the campaign to take the capital spire of a hive world in less than two months. So naturally the IG commander eventually decided "fuck that" and began doing things the slow but much better way. Even though the reason is explained eventually, the Iron Hands commander was still kind of an idiot:

The reason, as it happens, is that a Slanneshi Daemon Prince got summoned and is opening a warp portal, and once it opens they're all fucked and it's Grey Knights time, only they don't have any Grey Knights with them. So the Chief Librarian needs to get there real soon.

Thing is, the Guardsmen can't exactly help much against the daemons already summoned, and the Iron Hands don't bother to protect them. More importantly, their monomaniacal obsession with moving forwards and letting the ordinary soldiers get fucked means that the daemons manage to overrun and destroy two fucking Warhound Titans. Titans which, it should be noted, are pretty effective against daemon hordes as long as they're kept at a distance. Unsuprisingly, the Titan commander is something pissed about this.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 4:06 pm

The ending of Bioshock: Infinite made me so very, very angry.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 4:28 pm

angelfromanotherpin wrote:The ending of Bioshock: Infinite made me so very, very angry.

I was an idiot and shelled out for the season pass. So I'll hang onto the game for long enough for stuff to come out, and let folks know if it makes a difference.

I'm sure you googled aroung looking for the bit where you went wrong, but as near as I can tell, there isn't a diverging point.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 6:30 pm

angelfromanotherpin wrote:The ending of Bioshock: Infinite made me so very, very angry.

Share the details. I don't have it so I only have a quite inoffensive synopsis at my disposal. NEED MOAR RAGE.

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Fri Apr 05, 2013 6:33 pm

virgil wrote:Let me tell ya, Erfworld has felt like a Shaggy Dog story. Rob's managed to average just under 1 page a week for the last three and a half years since Book 2 started, and we still haven't finished the battle for Jetstone's capital.

He recently posted that Xin (the artist since Book 2 started) is leaving once Book 2 is completed and, in a post by her, stated that the horrendously slow updating has been more-or-less her fault because her home life crumbled into ruin. Leaving the personal tragedy aside, I'm really hoping that Rob is able to hire an artist who can keep pace and that the sooner Xin is gone the sooner the comic might, might, get back to updating regularly. Xin's art is really nice, but I tell ya, these delays are killer. I bought the large-sized printing of Book 1 and while reading it I suddenly remembered how much I liked that comic, which has only made the slow updates all the more disheartening.