Topic: The Chit Chat Thread

@RogerRoger I will hope my knee can be fixed. Multiple doctors have all said "Well SOMETHING is wrong...we just dont know what." Not even X-Rays helped show anything.

But today I did 4 hours overtime (Yay) since the store opens in just a few days, and...well lets say I couldn't walk very well. Doctor's appointment tomorrow afternoon after work though so...

@Knuckles-Fajita That sounds rough. Sorry you're experiencing these hardships. Mysterious medical issues are always worrisome.

@Knuckles-Fajita Ouch, sorry to hear you are in pain. I have trouble with my knees too (it has severely restricted my mobility recently) so I understand what it is like. Hope all goes well with your GP and they can sort something for you!

@Th3solution Have you ever read the novel Speaker for the Dead? It's the sequel to Ender's Game, and it's an intelligent and deeply humanistic examination of how difficult it might be for two basically well-meaning but incredibly different species to co-exist and understand one-another. I find it to be an incredibly morally uplifting book.

But the author, Orson Scott Card, is... let's just say, to keep from getting too judgmental, he's "hard to love." I still admire the book, but man, was I disappointed when I found out about his personal viewpoints on stuff.

@Ralizah Ender’s Game is probably one of my favorite books of all time! I’ve read the whole Ender series — Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind. All wonderful. A fascinating exploration of intolerance, prejudice, and perspective. Card is a masterful storyteller and quite adept at spinning moral dilemmas in his writing and making one ponder the subject matter. I never read the ‘Shadow’ books, which I think followed Bean and the goings on back on Earth while Ender and his sister run around the galaxy (it’s been a while since I read these so the details are fuzzy but I remember the positive impressions I had) and supposedly was his attempt to recapture the excitement of Enders Game that the subsequent books lacked. The casual reader didn’t have the patience to make it through the more philosophical follow ups with Ender and his journey to make up for the genocide of an entire species.
Uh, so yeah... I’ve read them 😅
But yes, that’s a good example of the artistic or entertainment product being able to be enjoyed despite the author or artist’s personal views, if it’s done right.
It’s like Tom Cruise. I enjoy his movies. The guy is way out there, from what I understand, in his personal life and beliefs, but I can still enjoy his work.
Or Christian Bale (Dark Knight haters pounce!) is one of my favorite actors, he does good work, but evidently is a tool.
But this brings up another point — much of what we know of these people : famous authors, actors, politicians, and yes, even video game developers - is a lot of hearsay, conjecture, and quotes being taken out of context. I always just think about what if a bunch of people tried to judge me based on just a few small sections of my life taken randomly without backstory. Pretty sure most of us would fail the internet ‘court of public opinion’ test if people only knew the small portion of the story of our lives that sounded juicy.
But believe me, I draw the line somewhere. I refuse to play any games made by those godless people at EA.

@Th3solution I've read all the main books, and Shadow of the Hegemon, but I'll admit I started losing interest halfway through Children of the Mind. The series just got too metaphysical for my tastes.

I guess part of what saves OSC for me is that, despite his troubling views, he's not constantly out there in public being a jerk about it. John Scalzi, on the other hand... I don't own any of his books any more, and he'll never get another dime from me. Easily one of the most unpleasant public figures on social media. And yes, his constant douchey behavior ruined his work for me.

You're right that it's easy to judge people out of context, though. Especially when you're famous and you have the eyes of the world on you. I feel like, barring truly grievous acts, people should be allowed to make mistakes, learn from them, and move past them. But we live in a time where our behavior is permanently recorded on the internet and we're becoming comfortable with destroying people for words or deeds that they said or committed decades ago.

Man, so many mistakes were made with Birth By Sleep gameplay-wise. 2.8 is coming in the mail, will be happy to move on from this game.

i think this will make @get2sammyb and a lot of people here excited....

@BAMozzy Yessss!!!!

I hope it's not severely limited. I'd like to get multiple. One for myself, one boxed and one to give away for Christmas.

@Fight_Teza_Fight Not really my thing in truth - Only liked Ridge Racer of the 5 (out of 20) games announced so far and that is very dated compared to modern racers and with so many 'new' experiences coming up, I can't see myself wanting to relive 20+yr old games. I know there are a lot of fans of 'retro' gaming but in general, I do prefer to play 'new' experiences more - not exclusively as I added Lemmings to my laptop recently as an example but rarely do I play 'old' games and certainly would rather spend money on new games. Each to their own but I thought I would share this news as I know a LOT of PS fans will be very excited by this.

That's cute. Thing is though, the only reason I got the Nintendo Classics is to get games I never owned.

Witb this, my PS1 is still on the shelf and some of the games I dont own are upcoming buys in 2019 elsewhere and on PC.

So...cute for those who want it.

@BAMozzy Well I'm glad you did! I'm hoping Chrono Cross & MGS make the final cut.

It also depends on what games are on the system. Megaman Legends? Crash Bandicoot? Metal Gear Solid? Resident Evil? Chrono Cross? I think that will make a huge difference too.

Knee update...

Well...good news is, progress has been made...

Bad news?

My GP doesn't know what is wrong, so I'm referred to physiotherapy and orthopaedics...which may result in surgery just to find out what's wrong.

@RogerRoger My GP did question just why the actual hell I hadn't been referred to orthopaedics before**.

Said the stiffness and general pain and discomfort could be a fairly common issue found in us young folk, but that then doesn't correlate at all with dislocation and weakness causing me to collapse when lifting things.

So she reckons they'll need to stick one of those fancy cameras in there to see if it is the common condition primarily before exploring....other things...

@RogerRoger They may want to go straight to the camera because of my age. I mean that's fair. If it is that condition and it's a factor, by all means.

Good god....can't wait to be done with Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep. Aside from Terra's story, the gameplay has been so awful....

@Knuckles-Fajita Would MRI not be a better first step rather than digging around in your knee?

@Thrillho Depends what they want to look for.

Man, my backlog is out of control. Feel like I'll never get caught up.