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Eh, I think both themes had an excellent launch, for what they are. They have not been promoted the same way, and frankly they shouldn't be, since they are very different types of products. Not to mention, one is a reboot of a wildly successful theme from the past and one is a brand-new product line that doesn't have an established reputation to build on.

I wish we could type things in different fonts in search engines. Sometimes I search things and I'm surprised they actually exist. Sometimes I search things and I'm disappointed they don't exist. Sometimes I search things and I end up with completely irrelevant results. And for some reason, over the past few days, my mind has been wanting me to say 'Telephone' as if it were the pinnacle of all humour. What's so humorous about the word telephone, mind? I'd like to know why I giggle at the word telephone. Telephone. Telephone. Telephone. Te-le-phone. Why must I find this word hilarious suddenly? It'll go away eventually, hopefully, like the many other things I find humorous for six days and then stop thinking about. Almost posted a blog entry suggesting that anthropomorphic telephones are the enemy for BIONICLE 2017. Glad I didn't, that's a clear attempt at trying to be funny. Trying too little or too hard, and I find that humour ends up being forced and unfunny, you have to be told it's apparently funny. Granted, people have different senses of humour, but nobody thinks telephones are hilarious other than my stupid and unfunny mind right now. Once the 'hahaha randomness!' factor fades, so does the humour. Also, don't play things that are survival-horror-ish at 01:00 in the morning. Also, I'm suddenly curious to ask the following, about games, specifically, video games: What's your favourite genre of game? What's your favourite game series? What's your favourite stand-alone game not part of a series? What's your favourite expansion to a game (not downloadable content - an expansion is something much larger, at least that's how I choose to perceive the word)? What's your favourite DLC of a game? What's the worst game you've ever played that isn't that E.T. game or that superman game or any famous bad games? What games are you looking forward to? BIONICLE G2 gets a game. What genre is it and what is its defining mechanics? What game has the best music? Seriously: what's funny about telephones?

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Essays, Not Rants! 157: On Finales So Parks and Recreation ended a few weeks ago bringing an end to a particularly great show that I got into far too late. The finale was especially wonderful, elegantly tying a bow on seven years of stories. Rather than having some big hoorah, though, the episode has the former Parks Department take on an utterly inconsequential task (getting a swing in a park fixed) before going their separate ways. With the whole season serving as an effective wrap up to the current proceedings, there was no need for there to be a big artificially succinct Final Big Moment. Instead, Parks makes fixing the dumb swing matter by flashing forward with each character to see where they are in the future. Parks is far from the first; How I Met Your Mother did it in their finale first year. I’ve talked about my many qualms with it narratively, but it was a structurally solid technique. We got some closure on characters and know what Ted ended up doing, even if it went against everything that’d been built up thus far. But Parks goes further and arguably does it better by going to several different spots in the future for each main character (and even some lesser ones). We find out many of the key points events happens to them in the years afterwards. Some of their bigger decisions are prefaced with vignettes showing off key character moments and their growth. At the end of it all there’s this strong sense of resolution. If anything, Parks errs on telling us almost too much. It seems nearly as if we know everything that happens to these characters in the future. Little is left to the imagination, we know Andy and April have kids, we know Ron ends up happily in charge of a National Park, and we know that either Leslie or Ben became president. By the time the finale ends we’re left knowing that we’ve heard just about all the stories there is to tell about these people. Which makes me wonder what we want out of a finale to a show. There’s something fun about an ending that implies the adventure continues: look at Serenity (effectively the finale to Firefly) which has since spawned a couple comics, or even Chuck which remains open-ended enough for more to happen. But an ending like Lost's which firmly closes the door on anything else isn’t bad either. So what makes an ending satisfying? I think closure is what really matters. The ending of Serenity left a few balls up in the air while still resolving some subplots, like Simon and Kaylee’s romance and what happened to River. But even though we knew Mal wasn’t quite out of the woods and that the crew as a whole were a little worse for the wear, we’ve got this sense of finality. This adventure is over; even if there’s more to come, for now the major issues are resolved. What’s important is that the ending fits the story. Firefly’s works so well because the show has always been bittersweet. Lost is fundamentally mythic and Chuck was always about a romance and family. Parks’ fits because the show’s format has always been a little meta, so showing what happens ten to forty years down the line isn’t out of place. Lost couldn’t have Parks’ ending and it couldn't be the other way round either. It’s hard to get endings right. Don Quixote’s ending allowed for some guy to write a sequel, so when Cervantes wrote an actual sequel he had Don Quixote die at the end so no one would write another allowing him to have the final word on his knight errant. How I Met Your Mother undid (at least) a season’s worth of character development with its finale so even though we knew what happened to the characters we felt a little cheated out of our investment. Parks and Recreation had its cake and ate it too; we know that things work out for everyone in their own way, and we’re okay with that. We’re invited to fill in the blanks (is Leslie or Ben president?), but we’re told things are alright. And that’s good enough.

Sandbox RPG, probably. Ooh. Mass Effect, I think? Crawl or Dishonored Dragonborn for Skyrim. Nice and big addition to the game. Old World Blues or Citadel for Fallout: New Vegas and Mass Effect 3, respectively. I don't even remember the name but it was something on Wii I could not figure out at all. Batman: Arkham Knight, eventual Mass Effect 4. Sandbox RPG with Character Creation, First/third person views, and a wide variety of combat/noncombat skills Hotline Miami series RING RING RING RING RING RING RING RING RING RING RING RING RING RING RING RING RING RING

I had the pleasure of going up to PAX East in Boston, Massachusetts from March 6th to 8th. As always, it was a blast and it was great to hang out with Than the Moa and Watashi Wa and meet a couple of WaWa's friends. I thought for a change I'd endeavor to take some more pictures and blog about it and share some of my experiences. The Lines PAX East is famous for its massive lines for everything. When you cram 70,000 or more people into a single space, you're going to have to wait for stuff. It's not unusual for people to line up for panels over an hour in advance, and lines to play popular upcoming games like Overwatch take two hours or more. With the lines being such an iconic part of the event, I decided that would be the focus of what I share. If you follow me on Twitter you probably saw some of my tweets rating the lines and sharing pictures. Below is a little more of the same, but not constrained to 140 characters. I was able to snag a Media badge for the event, which meant Friday morning I got to wait in the very short Media/VIP line. By PAX standards it was pretty tame, and meant I got to check out the show floor before most people. No regrets! Saturday, on the other hand, I had to line up with everyone else to get into the expo floor. The reason so many people line up is so they can rush in and get lined up for things like Oculus Rift, Gigantic, Overwatch, and other multi-hour waits. I was trying to line up for Rooster Teeth, but when I got to the booth they weren't even there. I didn't make the same mistake on Sunday and decided to wait and have some breakfast and not go into the expo floor until after the lines cleared. I snapped this from one of the catwalks that crosses the expo floor on the second level. Yes, there are a LOT of people... A much smaller and faster-moving line was the one to get swag bags. The bags were a bit disappointing this year, only containing the program guide, a deck of Magic cards, a promotional Superfight card, and some ads. Oh well. Overwatch I definitely took advantage of my early media access on Friday by going to play Overwatch, the FPS being made by Blizzard. Yes you heard that right. The gameplay was tight and certainly seems like it's getting ready for release. I only played three or four of the different classes, and of those, McCree was by far my favorite. I'm intrigued to play more when it comes out. Harmonix The day before PAX East started, they announced Rock Band 4! The game wasn't on display, but you could preorder an exclusive PAX East guitar controller, which I did. They also had Amplitude available to play, which was interesting, but I definitely need more time to really learn it, and not play with a group of people that cranked the difficulty up to expert. Gabe and Tycho We caught part of the Gabe and Tycho panel where they basically spent an hour answering people's questions and making us all laugh. As the minds behind Penny Arcade and PAX, it's great to see that they stay so involved with their fans. Rooster Teeth The reason we caught Gabe and Tycho was because we wanted to get good seats for the Rooster Teeth panel, which we succeeded at! The panel was pretty great and we got to see some awesome videos, including the Red vs Blue Season 13 teaser, a Minecraft Let's Play rap (the content of which isn't really BZP-safe), some rough work for the next season of X-Ray and Vav, and a hilarious Funhaus video. The Q&A sessions were a bit groan-worthy at times, but overall I had fun as always. Rooster Teeth Line Of course I also wanted to go to the Rooster Teeth booth to buy some stuff and get them to sign other stuff. Any time Jack, Adam, and Jordan were there though, the line was super-long. I probably went by the booth fifteen times all told seeing if they were there, and if they were, trying to get in line. It was frequently capped though, and when I'd go back to see if it was uncapped I ended up missing the opportunity. Eventually I got in though, and scored some swag and got some signatures. Halo Cosplay One time while I was walking by the Microsoft booth a group of Halo cosplayers had gathered. Those costumes are incredible and I wish I had the time and talent to make one of my own. Major Nelson Radio Another staple of PAX East for me is the Major Nelson podcast panel. The whole crew was there, consisting of Larry 'Major Nelson' Hryb, Eric 'e' Neustadter, Laura 'lollip0p' Massey, and Jeff 'Jef United' Rubenstein. They were joined by Eric Pope of Harmonix to talk about Rock Band 4 and Jeff from Undead Labs to talk about State of Decay: Year-One Survival Edition. It was a great show and I definitely enjoyed it. Halo Championship Series Season 1 Finals By a stroke of luck, after I finally decided to go to PAX East, 343 and ESL announced that the finals of Season 1 of the Halo Championship Series, the competitive Halo e-sports league, would be held at the event. I've been a competitive Halo fan since 2003 or 2004, so I was super-stoked by this. It had been a while since I had been to a LAN competition in person (honestly it has been a while since competitive Halo was really worth watching) so I made a point to watch as much of the event as I could. I was not disappointed, as the nine teams (top eight seeds and a wildcard from Europe) all put on a great show. The Losers Bracket Finals was quite possibly the best series I've ever seen in the history of the game. CLG went down 2-0 to Noble Black but then tied up the series at 2-2. Game 5 would decide the winner and who would go play in the championship match for a grand prize of $50,000. And then the two teams tied! The official rules stated that there would be a shortened replay of the game, in this case Shrine (Sanctuary) Team Slayer, but that ended up in a tie too. Long story short, the two teams tied four times total before CLG finally won to advance. The crowd at the event was massive and everyone was on the edge of their seat watching (if they had a seat - there were so many people it was standing room only). Even though CLG ended up losing to Evil Geniuses in the finals, it was amazing to be there in person and feel the energy of hundreds of other Halo fans all cheering when a sick play was made. It was definitely the highlight of my weekend and a memory I hope to never forget. All in all PAX East 2015 was a rousing success. There were a lot of other things I did that didn't make it above, like Elite Dangerous with Oculus Rift, a bunch of indie games, the Harmonix party, and good times with friends. If you're a fan of gaming, I definitely recommend making it to a PAX event at some point, as they're second to none.

well that just hurts my feelings oh well

But... it is a real entry ;__;