I didn't expect that. At least not so soon.

It's a good sign though - I take it to mean that it's going to focus on real issues of building a relationship rather than the typical manga bullshit of not even communicating in the first place.

And I'm looking forward to the next brain cell board meeting.

It's a neat trick - an amusing and effective way to illustrate internalized struggles. It sort of reminds me of B Gata H Kei's personified "sex gods."

That was adorable.

I happened to run across a CD of the fourth one used, a couple of years after it released. I didn't even know it existed before that, and definitely didn't know it'd end up becoming my favorite. And I still don't have a copy of the fifth. I do have the last two though.

25 On is sort of reminiscent of Tornado or The Good News and the Bad News - a return to form. It's pretty good on its own, but sort of suffers by comparison. Monster Movie is odd but interesting. It feels kind of self-indulgent, but in a good way - just a bunch of guys sitting around playing what they want to play just because that's what they want to play. It's a bit disjointed, but I like it.

I happened on them when they put out their first album and have been a fan ever since, and that's even without ever getting a chance to see them live. Bob Walkenhorst is easily my favorite songwriter.

Flirting with the Universe is their fourth album - after a bit of a recording hiatus after The Good News and the Bad News, and it's far and away my favorite. It's obvious that they took their time and carefully crafted an album designed to showcase their talent. It's unfortunate that it still didn't manage to bring them the recognition they've always deserved, but I appreciate it.

Presumably, yes. It's scheduled to end next month.

And her goal is now his goal too, so it's just a matter of him saying it out loud.

Because it's basically saying that you're so dull or lazy or unimaginative that you can't even manage to come up with a post of your own, and so pathetic and needy that you're just going to copy someone else's.

It's rare that someone can and will reach inside themselves and tear out a big chunk of pain or doubt or longing or fear and show it to the world, and that much rarer that they'll manage to do it without seeming self-indulgent - in such a way that it's ultimately not about them, but about what we all share.

Mike Ness is one of the best at that. Obviously, at some level, he writes and sings about himself, but it never really feels like it's about him. It feels like it's about me. And you. And all of us.

Ah... I love this thread full of people smugly congratulating themselves for not being the sort of people who would smugly congratulate themselves for being intelligent.

To the question:

The three broad alternatives available to me are to present a simplified version of a thought, which will potentially fail to do it justice and will likely fail to really communicate it anyway, since understanding it will require background knowledge the listener likely doesn't possess, to present a full explanation of the thought, which will be long and ultimately dull, or to keep my mouth shut.

I used to do a fair amount of the second, with predictable results - either listeners grew quickly bored, or they were genuinely interested, which would encourage me to continue until they grew bored.

Now I mostly do the third, and would that I had started sooner. It's far and away the better way to live. As a general rule, people just don't want to know about, for instance, my proposed method for reconciling the need for some measure of absolutism in moral judgments with the reality that moral judgments are necessarily highly subjective and situational or my assertion that institutionalized, hierarchical authority is fundamentally illegitimate since there is no nominal justification for it that isn't arbitrary, self-contradictory or self-defeating.

When I want to communicate those sorts of ideas, I write them out in long posts that are likely not read. Day to day, I just smile and exchange pleasantries and otherwise keep to myself.

Here's a thing I don't think I've ever admitted online since the world is divided into the majority that neither know nor care and the minority that would vehemently disagree:

My favorite Shriekback song isn't Underwaterboys or Gunning for the Buddha or Nemesis or Fish Below the Ice or Faded Flowers or Malaria or My Spine is the Bassline or any of those.

It's Go Bang.

So yeah.

So I'm just scrolling though All New when I see the entirely unexpected phrase "Shriekback spam."

Really, I don't expect to see the name Shriekback at all, other than when I post it, but I definitely don't expect to see a reference to spam. So that was just sort of surprising.

Truth be told, I've been mostly unimpressed with their newer stuff, though it's also true that I haven't really given it enough of a chance.

In any event, this is pretty good. So thanks, spam or not.

Oblivion. It's been a few years since I sat down and added it all up, but between all of my characters, I had just short of 3000 hours into the game. Nothing else is even close to that.