Random Thoughts: The Return

flowersofnight

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Went and saw today: a stage adaptation of "The Machine Stops"
https://www.kevinrayworks.com/the_machine_stops/

Not bad for a zero-budget production, but one guy kept forgetting or botching his lines.

The director was very nice and came out and greeted all the guests individually before the show. He asked everyone "who are you here to see" because I guess it was assumed the only people going would be friends of the cast XD
 

flowersofnight

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~Z e n c h o u~

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landed Madonna tickets so I guess I can say i'm seeing her live in my lifetime, 3 big musical pop acts in one year is crazy for me!
 

Hampo

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Evangelion was a mistake, I just want to reiterate for everyone who hasn't already heard me say it a million times.
It was, but the theme song wasn't.

I'm in the understanding that Hideaki Anno didn't want to use a pop song like that for the show's intro. I quarantee you the entire TV series would've flopped without it.

I think the same applies to Basilisk as well.
 

~Z e n c h o u~

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I don't get Eva hate but then again I do understand people's exhaustion with the way it all went down through the years.
3.0+1.0 was great though.

Bring on the rest of the Shin reimaginings in a timely manner Anno!
 

flowersofnight

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I don't get Eva hate
It was just such a waste of time, which was a slap in the face to anyone who went in expecting otherwise. And back in 1996, that was a lot of people XD None of the symbolism meant anything, the themes on the postwar breakdown of the Japanese family were old hat in Japan and incomprehensible to westerners (few having read "The Anatomy of Dependence" back then or even known it existed), and the moral of the whole thing was "I, the director, hated making this show and hate you".
Also half of the premise seems to have been cribbed from a Super Nintendo game, as I recently and unexpectedly found out.
 

flowersofnight

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You can't end of a detail like that and then not tell us what the game in question is!
Well, spoilers for old-time anime and old-time games follow:

It turns out that in Square's "Live A Live" (now available in English on Switch) one of the scenarios involves fighting robots which are powered by liquefying humans and filling the robots with the resulting substance. The final confrontation takes place over a lake of the stuff.
This is stated up-front in the game, whereas in "Evangelion" it's a big reveal what LCL is actually made of.
The game protagonists are orphans too, but they take it more in an "Akira"-style street punks kind of direction rather than digging into the breakdown of the Japanese family.

When I played it I was like "Pretty bold of them to rip off such a famous cornerstone of Japanese culture", but then I looked it up and it was actually the other way around.
 

sanctum

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Is that game worth playing? I've heard good things about it, but much like the similarly praised Xenogears, it has never made it on to my 'to-play' list.
 

flowersofnight

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Is that game worth playing?
On the whole I'd say yes, although the final and longest scenario reverts to a tedious "JRPG with random encounters every 5 seconds" model.

But seeing as ETRIAN ODYSSEY ORIGINS was just announced, I can't imagine anyone having time for anything else XD
 

faith

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Forgot about scape for a bit. In all honesty, I have not seen Evangelion - my mom did.
I would pop in to listen to the theme song and then leave from boredom.
But don't let me interrupt you two gamers.

My manager completely went to town on the guy who kept telling me I suck at this year's review, so now he keeps telling me I'm doing a great job on stuff.
I wish he would say nothing. His opinion on my work is completely irrelevant and he needs to realize that.
He looks and talks like the manager from Office Space.
 
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flowersofnight

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Here's a bit of improvisation: make your own "scanner flattener" using a 6x6" porcelain tile and an "anchor ring". Plain old Gorilla Glue is enough to secure them together.

upload_2023-2-15_15-35-17.png

Now I can flatten things out for scanning easily. The anchor ring adds plenty of weight on its own without having to glue on more junk.
 

faith

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Uuugh I really messed up and Hanachan doesn't seem to understand why this is so bad. So here I am.

I have to travel to another city 2 days a week to be on-site at a client.
Sometimes the team goes out for dinner and this one guy is OBVIOUSLY into one of the girls (to me at least, dunno about everyone else maybe they're all too exhausted to notice anything really).
So this week, there's only one cocktail menu. I want it. Except he's over there with her and for some reason the cocktail menu doing whatever, and I don't get to see it before the waiter comes.

Now I'm pissed.

At the end of the dinner, to let him know it's obvious and to tone it down, I go, "So do you like that girl or what?"
And he replies, "Yeah, I told her how I feel 2 weeks ago and she still hasn't responded I don't know what to do..........."

...man. I just wanted my cocktail.

I mean good luck to him, really, but I hope to all that is holy that I don't end up implicated in this, though I kinda feel like it's too late fml
 
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faith

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wanna make a bet? You have to save another kedi if I do get dragged into it
 

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It doesn't particularly bode well when I get an email telling me that my order was "significantly delayed due to shipping issues" and then the tracking number doesn't pull anything up but maybe I'm just paranoid.
 

sanctum

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Amazon seem to be extremely aggressive in giving me refunds lately, either that or something has changed in their customer service.
I bought a record, arrived fine but the packaging they used was lousy - sent them an email telling them so and they gave me a refund and told me to keep the record.
Bought another record, gold in the product photo but the real deal was closer to a creamy yellow colour - full refund, keep the item.
Different record, minor warp that doesn't affect playback - full refund, keep the item.
Another record had some wax remaining in the hole that I had to cut away to actually play it, complained to amazon about it and they sent me a replacement and told me to keep the original.
Bought a book and it was delivered with a dinged corner, partial refund.
 

flowersofnight

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Amazon seem to be extremely aggressive in giving me refunds lately
"Lately"? I thought they were always pretty obsequious. I've returned huge pieces of furniture that they had to send a truck back for, and they didn't bat an eye.
(Note to self: ordering furniture on Amazon is for dummies)
 
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Hampo

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Also half of the premise seems to have been cribbed from a Super Nintendo game, as I recently and unexpectedly found out.
NGE was borrowing quite a bit from Space Runaway Ideon as well. I suppose it's part of the whole deconstruction of the genre as Ideon itself was a lot like Gundam (made by the same dude after all), but still.
Tomino later on made his own answer to NGE called Brain Powered which was even worse.
 
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