Problem is, it falls into the category of something not being great but not being terrible, and no one anywhere seems able to discuss anything with any middle ground opinions anymore.

“I played this 100+ hour game for 1 hour and I already knew it was shit” is about the same level of irrelevance as “you have to play at least 40 hours to understand that the game is great”. Opposite ends of the spectrum, both extreme views.

In reality, you’re right. A game should hook you from the start, and most truly great games do. I’ve got something like 30 hours into Starfield. It’s obviously not a truly great game. It is also not however a shit game that has no merit or value playing. It does take a while to sort of get into, and that’s a major flaw. But for me it did pick up and I started enjoying it.

Some of my favorite open world games bodged their openers. In particular Horizon Zero Dawn and The Witcher 3 come to mind. So far Starfield does not appear to be as good as either of those. There are too many aspects of the game that feel half baked, especially in comparison to truly great games.

But it does somehow have its hooks in me despite its flaws. And I do think if anyone wants to really give the game a fair shake and have discussions about it in good faith, they have to invest a little more time to at least be able to experience enough of the game to get a real picture of it. I don’t know what that number of hours is. I don’t think it’s 40 by any means but it’s definitely more than 1.

My problem with every bit of it that I’ve seen, is that they try to make their characters every type of nerd all at once. That’s not how it works. People are obsessed with a couple niche things, they are nerds about their little area. All the characters on BBT are into, like, everything that non nerd people find nerdy. It’s absurd. No one is like that.

And from what I’ve seen, it has a tone of laughing at nerds, not laughing with them. Maybe that changes from season to season, but what I saw was enough. Just a very grating show to watch that feels like it was made for people who have that one nerdy niece or nephew that they don’t really understand but hey, this must be what they’re like with their friends!

Absolutely untrue.

Ikea is not the same grade as custom made real wood furniture, that is true. But it is exponentially cheaper and easier to transport. And on top of that, speaking specifically about Ikea vs other similar options, it is roughly the same cost but in my experience higher quality.

If you go buy flat pack consumer-assembled furniture from a big box store like target or Walmart, in my experience you’ve got at least a 40-50% chance that you are missing a piece, it’s damaged, the instructions are shit, etc. Since we started buying stuff at IKEA I have done quite a few builds. Never once have I even had a missing piece. But on top of that the quality control on the machining and fit of parts is head and shoulders better than equivalent options from other big box stores. I never have to force things, they fit as designed, etc.

I’m not here to say Ikea is super high quality furniture compared to real, heirloom quality furniture. But it’s laughable to claim that it doesn’t occupy a very useful and necessary niche between real furniture and Walmart crap.

How to ruin* a bahn mi in two steps.

Screaming trees was the first one I got, mostly just because I know the band and that made it a super obvious clue.

Good band, check them out!

Or at least listen to the Mark Lanegan era of QOTSA.

Last report I saw had traffic numbers to their ad space still down about 20%. That’s definitely an amount they notice, though I’m sure they hope and believe it’ll go back up.

I definitely do not think they are calling any of us back per se, but on he other hand the way spez talks is definitely like someone who is in denial about being dumped.