The entire app is a slow and clunky mess on our Roku TV. I’ve never seen a more poorly optimized and irritating service. Every time we’re subjected to it I’m dumbfounded that Disney would even greenlight such a thing.

Excellent deduction.

I came here from Michigan back in 2017.

As long as politics aren’t being discussed, it’s easy to forget you even live in a conservative province. For the most part everyone is just normal people going about their lives like anywhere else. I get real fucking tired of the Trudeau circle-jerk, though. I get the impression most people don’t even know enough about politics to explain why they hate him so much. A lot of them still think he controls the price of fuel.

It’s a good way to guage someone’s character, though. The moment a person you’re unfamiliar with starts talking about/blaming Trudeau, you usually know they’re not worth talking to.

I kind of hate that I wound up in Alberta of all places, as I don’t support the UCP or agree with oil hicks and seperatists on much of anything, but I’ll be damned if I haven’t put down roots, started a family, and made a beautiful life here. I guess someone has to stick around to offer resistance and try to keep these idiots from privatizing healthcare. Red Deer nearly flipped orange last election. Never imagined I’d see that happen.

I’m just relieved they finally fucked off with the mobile checkout thing in Canada. They were pushing it so hard for a while there that I dreaded even going into the store. You couldn’t get through checkout without four different employees wanting to explain it to you and asking, “Why not mobile checkout? But you get ten times the points! C’mon, try it!”

I did try it, too. Twice. The first time was confusing, unintuitive, and clunky. The second time was exactly like the first, except it didn’t beep with I had finished paying and the woman at the counter had a heart attack thinking I was running out the door with stolen merchandise. By the time she checked everything and confirmed that I had, I decided those 10X points could fuck off.

Oh no! Who will suck off Alberta?

I imagine he spent the entirety of the ban raging like Dennis Reynolds and counting down the days. “IDIIIOOOTS! IDDDIIIIOOOOTSS!!!”

Ah, I saw this posted in two seperate places, and the first instance stated they were from Syria. I thought this was the same article.

Should be a one-way ticket back to Syria. I immigrated here from America seven years ago, blend in seamlessly with the populace, and I still wouldn’t fuck with a Canadian in fear of being deported (I’m also not an asshole). It’s an absolute privilege to be here and I love this country. It’s crazy to me that anyone else would have the opportunity to come here and then squander it by beating the shit out of a peaceful lesbian couple who are trying to enjoy their night. How incredibly brazen.

I was stocking vending machines that night a few blocks away. They briefly passed by me and it looked a lot like cars.

I’ve always bought huge salmon fillets at Costco and chopped them up into maybe eight servings. It was always worth it. But just over the course of a year they’ve risen from around $25 per fillet to $40. I’ve told salmon to go ahead and go fuck itself.

They don’t have to do shit.

STALKER, Stardew Valley, No Man’s Sky, Skyrim, Morrowind, WoW Classic/Vanilla, Mass Effect, Fallout 3/New Vegas.

I shall make an exemption for my mother and shelter her in my attic, but the rest of them will swim.

Le reddit wins legain, m’fellows!

Something about this sentence really makes me want to be a pirate. Like a lot.

Bassin’s Black Bass with Hank Parker for the SNES. The best fishing game ever made.

Yeah, both Messenger Lite and Facebook Lite are fucked. Post a photo or video on Facebook Lite and it’s guaranteed to be blurry piece of shit. If it’s shot horizontal, it’s going to be low-res vertical with letterboxing on the top and bottom. I have to hop on the main app just to post a discernable video for my family.

If I didn’t live on the other side of the continent and Facebook were my only real lifeline to my friends and family, I wouldn’t use it at all anymore. But now there’s this sunken-cost fallacy shit on top of it all, and how I get daily memories from the deceased like my father and grandmother. “Hope you’re having fun in Canada, love you, Gram”. Some of these messages are still applicable today, and I don’t know how to separate from that.

Honestly, there are two mobile games I’ve really been blown away by: Night of the Full Moon, and Dungeon Boss Respawned. They’re very polished, very feature-complete games that are on the small and neatly contained side. For PC, Bastion is pretty damn good. Dungeon Keeper 1 and 2 as well, but it’s difficult to get those running anymore. Raft, Ori and the Blind Forest and Stardew Valley are also phenomenal.

I’m sure there are other small games worthy of mention, but I’m struggling to remember them. I usually play large open world games. On that subject, absolutely try Valheim if you haven’t.

I’ll be happy to summarize each of these games if you’d like me to.

I really enjoyed what I played of Primal, and I hope they do more historic ones like it. One set during the Dark Ages would be sweet.

American ex-pat/Canadian permanent resident here. This is all pretty accurate in my experience, though I can’t speak on using Imperial for work-related measurements or pool temperature. Just this morning I had to describe our current bout of cool weather in Ferenheit to my friends back home, and was reminded all over again how ridiculous it is that the US still isn’t on metric. This rings especially true whenever I call my mom. Seems like I have to “Hey Google” conversions in every conversation we have. Before my dad died he would keep his weather app on Celcius to report the weather to me in metric. I honestly love that he felt compelled to do that.

It was a little weird getting used to the metric system initially, but I honestly prefer it at this point. I used to argue that you could be more precise with Farenheit, as the scale was broader. However, I’ve since come to realize that no one cares whether it was 74° or 76°.

I was thinking of Arx Fatalis. I could have just looked that up in the first place, but for a moment I forgot about search engines.

Is that the one where you draw signs in the air with your mouse in order to cast them?

I don’t know if Gothic 1 and 2 qualify as true cult classics or not, but clunky controls and interface aside, these are two of the best games I have played in my life. Gothic 2 especially. The games offer an atmosphere like nothing I’ve ever played. The soundtrack, themes, and overall color pallete provide this rich and stirring ambience that always manages to make me feel as though I’m exploring an ancient pine forest on a dark, rainy day. See for yourself.

https://youtu.be/HZ1tyNFODM4

You can feel the spirit of the entire franchise contained within the first two minutes of that audio track, perfectly encapsulated. It was an entire world apart and years ahead of its time. If it resonates with you, then these games are absolutely worth the initial difficulty of figuring out those ridiculous keyboard controls. But if you’re really struggling with them, just read up on the Gothic 1 storyline and then skip straight to Gothic 2. It picks up right where the first leaves off. You won’t miss a tremendous amount, and the controls and gameplay are infinitely improved. However, sticking G1 out long enough to figure out what you’re doing will make G2 far more rewarding when you reunite with various characters and revisit previously explored areas.

A studio is remaking Gothic 1, but everything I’ve seen of it so far is about as faithful to Gothic 1 as The Dark Tower movie was to the books. They’ve massacred it. So stick with the originals.

I’m with you on that too. I was thinking more “click on the map and appear there” kind of fast travel, but stationary transit between hubs is fine by me. Awesome you mentioned Morrowind anyway since I just started modding it again this week for a new playthrough.

I never fast travel in games that allow me the option not to. I find them infinitely more engaging that way. Skyrim got it just right with their well-balanced mounts.

I definitely get a kick out of young families who gloat about their custom built homes on social media after their disgustingly wealthy parents financed them. Meanwhile most families still have a long (and often impossible) road ahead of them before they can claw their way out of rentals and into something they can proudly call their own.

My wife has an unhealthy exposure to an old acquaintance of hers who lives that Instagram aesthetic lifestyle. Doesn’t work, owns a lavish million dollar home that she #livelaughloves, color coordinates all of her poor children’s clothes and possessions to be compliant with her beige aesthetic. She’s certain #blessed.

I got in a fight with a guy on reddit earlier this year who kept circling back to my post history (because of course he did) and the fact that there was trace evidence that I was a gamer. It didn’t matter where that conversation turned or what was ever said. It didn’t matter that most of my posts at the time were about life, marriage, and fatherhood. All that mattered to that idiot was the perceived smoking gun that I was a gamer.

I never once engaged with him in that matter, which I’m sure only pissed him off more, but I remember wondering how a person could be so out of touch that they believe gaming in the year 2023 is some kind of fringe hobby. I figure that person was either an aging Gen X or Boomer, or a an absolutely colossal boner who missed out on some critical social development in their youth.