TSM Episode 276: Tend the Garden

By Lusipurr
2014.06.16

Farewell to the best of all possible Imitanis Readings!

Download: Produced 2014.06.15

Freshly returned from E3, Lusipurr reunites with usual panelists SiliconNooB and Mel, and new panelist Iliya, for a retrospective look at the most important news to come out of the year’s biggest gaming covention–and, to finish Candide, of course!

***BUP DONATION CHALLENGE***
Bup has laid down a donation challenge: if Lusipurr.com receives a total of $100 in donations to the site in the month of June, Bup has promised to star on a podcast where he will be entirely serious: no jokes, no off-hand remarks, no irrelevant discourse, no distracting noises. Should he fail in any least degree, he will himself donate $100 to Lusipurr.com!

Readers, we need your help to Make Bup Pay Up: donate today by clicking the button on the right hand side of the page, and help us raise $100 in June!

June Donation Tally: $60 ($40 to go!)
DiceAdmiral, FIRST donator!
AbsurdistKobold, Donator PART II
Peter V., Tertiarius Patronus

23 Comments

DiceAdmiral
Posted 2014.06.16 at 13:33 | Permalink

INFO BLAST WINS E3!

This week’s panel:
SiliconNooB Late
Mel On Time
Iliya Moroumetz Early
Lusipurr ???

Donators
Donated this week: Peter Vanik AND Absurdist Kobold
$40 to Make Bup Pay!
Cumulative total record holder: Imitanis
Single Donation record holder: Brettsuo

Donators elligible for drawing:
Matt Dance
DiceAdmiral
KoboldDeKobold/Absurdist Kobold
Drachonous
Brettsuo
Peter Vanik *unless this person is already listed above, I’m uncertain of aliases*

Sri Lanka Cricket
I tried to make sense of the scores I saw on the search I ran to find this and was totally lost. Perhaps there should be a ‘Lusi Explains Cricket’ segment at some point. It could be quite informative and would help those of us outsiders to the game to appreciate the Cricket segment more.

BloodBorne

The Last Guardian

FF7 Motorbiking on iOS

3DS Smash Bros: October 3

Gamecube launch price was $199

LA Times “Nintendo’s White PS4 Debuts”
I think whoever wrote this article is one of the generation of people who think that all video games are “Nintendos”.

Inevitable. Dumb, but inevitable.

XBone ad controls listeners consoles
Hilarious.

XBox Sign Out prank
This is a pretty clever troll. I had no idea that the stories of 9 year-olds play Call of Duty were true, that’s pretty terrible.

THQ Rises From the Grave

Scott Imitanis Mundy literature corner
Candide
SPOILERS!
Poco Curante is a hipster, that’s hilarious
This segment has more kings than a poker deck!
Pangloss is just the worst.
What an anti-climatic ending…
END SPOILERS!

Next readings:
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Interview With a Vampire

My vote is for Interview With a Vampire. I can get HGttG on the amazing audio-dramas and would rather hear the other option.

If this is the last reading ’til Autumn then will the feature be the Scott Imitanis Mundy Feature? Are you valuing one kind of highest donation over the other?

DiceAdmiral’s Brettsuo Gaming Moment

This week I played Hive: Carbon. I played the physical version of the game, but it is also available on iOS and *I think* Steam. It’s an abstract strategy game for two players. Each player controls a handful of ‘Bug’ pieces such as a spider, a cricket and an ant. Each piece has different rules for movement in a chess-like manner. The major difference is that there is no board and there are no drawn out spaces. The places that pieces are allowed to move to are defined by the edges of the hexagonal pieces. It’s hard to describe well, but it’s quite a bit of fun and I totally recommend it for anyone who is a fan of chess/checkers/go/othello type games. The materials of the physical version are great: bakelite-like with a satisfying weight and engraved bugs denoting the piece.

I’d rate on iTunes but I don’t have an iTunes account. Can I do it without? I refuse to get one.
Lusipurr
Posted 2014.06.16 at 13:42 | Permalink

@DiceRecruit writes…
“Perhaps there should be a ‘Lusi Explains Cricket’ segment at some point.”
On weeks when there is not Cricket, sure. I can probably explain any individual facet of the game in less than five minutes.

“What an anti-climatic ending…”
Nonsense. Candide *finally* learned the important lesson, which we have seen demonstrated across the entirety of the novel. And, we as readers, learn a second lesson–that few people ever learn the first.

“My vote is for Interview With a Vampire.”
That’s one!

“If this is the last reading ’til Autumn…”
Last *long* reading. There won’t be any full books, but we’ll still have a poem or something very brief each week. As I did a ‘Tales from the Miiverse’ a few weeks ago, that may get a look-in as well.

“I’d rate on iTunes but I don’t have an iTunes account. Can I do it without?”
A person who has never bought an mp3 or an iOS game? You must be the last one on the planet. No, you cannot do anything on iTunes without an Apple ID.
RabidKitten
Posted 2014.06.16 at 15:41 | Permalink

Since I’ve read “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and “An Interview with a Vampire” is on my, too read list. I will have to put in a vote for the “An Interview with a Vampire”. While I enjoyed “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” I thought the later novels were rubbish. I would like to make a recommendation for a good book to read on a podcast, and that would be Peter S. Beagle’s “The Last Unicorn”. It’s a fantastic novel, and has an episodic story that would work well in a serialized podcast format. Not too mention that most people who enjoy fantasy have never read it and its considered one of the finest works in the genre.
Lusipurr
Posted 2014.06.16 at 15:45 | Permalink

I’ve read The Last Unicorn. It isn’t bad–on par with the Prydain Chronicles of Lloyd Alexander: aimed at a younger audience, a bit sentimental, dialogue occasionally hokey. And, both Alexander’s and Beagle’s works had the misfortune of being made into film versions which were far, far worse than the books.
DiceAdmiral
Posted 2014.06.16 at 16:07 | Permalink

If you’re taking suggestions, then I recommend I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. The chapters are all dated and sometimes jump weeks or months, so reading one or two weekly wouldn’t cause much of a lapse in continuous story. It’s also just a great book, one of many which where destroyed by its film adaptation. It’s not terribly long either, I recall reading the entire thing cover to cover in an evening.
Lusipurr
Posted 2014.06.16 at 16:11 | Permalink

I’ve never seen a film adaptation that was as-good or better-than the original book (provided the original book was actually a solid piece of literature). I’ve seen some that were close, but generally the book is better because the story was designed for the book, and adapted for the movie.
DiceAdmiral
Posted 2014.06.16 at 17:07 | Permalink

No comment on the actual recommendation?
Lusipurr
Posted 2014.06.16 at 17:08 | Permalink

Haven’t read it, although I have heard of it. It is unlikely to be a reading, simply because I’m not going to do a podcast reading of something that I haven’t read myself beforehand, and I don’t really have the time for any more extra reading when I’ve got 120+ books to get through by August. Sorry!
LegendaryApple
Posted 2014.06.16 at 18:38 | Permalink

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is one of my favorite books of all time. I was going to vote for it, but I’d rather put in my vote for Interview With a Vampire. Haven’t read that yet. Haven’t even seen the movie.
DiceAdmiral
Posted 2014.06.16 at 18:39 | Permalink

@Lusi: Fair enough. What do you plan to read in the meantime (until September)?
Lusipurr
Posted 2014.06.16 at 19:38 | Permalink

@DiceRecruit: Poems, Tales from Miiverse, etc., (as I said in Comment 2 above).
DiceAdmiral
Posted 2014.06.16 at 20:39 | Permalink

I must have missed that, oops. You should read the Lusipurr poem from that RPGCast episode one week.
Lusipurr
Posted 2014.06.16 at 20:40 | Permalink

Oh, it is far too long, and not very good!

There’s much, much, much better stuff I’ve written since then. If I were going to read my own work, I’d go for something with some sort of merit.
Savante
Posted 2014.06.16 at 22:02 | Permalink

Never read Hitchhiker’s, wanted to for a long time.. Gonna vote for Hitchhikers instead of actually sitting down and reading it.

Off topic, is there any way to donate with Paypal where it gives you an option to enter an alias instead of your real name?
Lusipurr
Posted 2014.06.16 at 22:06 | Permalink

I don’t *believe* so, but I imagine one could change their displayed name in Paypal to be something else? I know I have dealt with companies before, instead of individual people, and it shows the company name instead of the user.
absurdistkobold
Posted 2014.06.16 at 22:41 | Permalink

Reading Douglas Adams was what started me down the road towards majoring in Creative Writing, so it probably goes without saying that I think that the Hitchhiker’s series of books is fantastic (though Mostly Harmless is a little less so). I think a worthy use of my money is getting BUP to play it straight for an episode, and I hope that some others pitch in as well. I am very interested to see if he can actually pull it off.

As far as the name switch, I switched from koboldekobold to absurdistkobold a while ago on twitter, and felt like it was time to make that switch here too. Not that it is particularly interesting.

I agree with Lusi’s point about the quality of a novel or series of books vs. movies. I even prefer the novel version of Neverwhere despite the fact that it started as a BBC series which was adapted as a book by Gaiman later.
Ferchu
Posted 2014.06.17 at 16:56 | Permalink

In regards of the quality of the book vs movie, I must remind everyone that the crappiness of the twilight books is very well done in the movies, you can almost smell the turd before entering the cinema.

My gaming moment: completing earthbound (my god it’s excellent) and playing super mario kart for the first time, both great games.
Lusipurr
Posted 2014.06.17 at 17:39 | Permalink

@Ferchu: I don’t know if the movies actually have Edward chewing a baby out of Bella’s stomach, so they may not reach quite the levels of artistry which the books undoubtedly possess.

And yes, Earthbound is one of the greats. I’ve never played anything quite like it. In an industry built almost entirely upon copying the work of others, Mother was very refreshing when it was released.
Lusipurr
Posted 2014.06.18 at 23:13 | Permalink

General opinion seems to be towards Interview. I wish I had the support from my staff to put together an audio drama, or at least a reading of parts, but I don’t think there’s a way to get most of them on the podcast regularly enough, and to put in the time beforehand necessary to deliver the lines without error.
Ethan 'Ethos' Pipher
Posted 2014.06.19 at 01:18 | Permalink

A Lusipurr.com audio drama is an excellent idea, but you’re right, it would require significant effort. If I successfully quit my job by the end of August, it could be a great short-term project to discuss picking up.
Wolfe
Posted 2014.06.19 at 07:01 | Permalink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fkF008b-_Q

The above is precisely how I imagine an attempt to put together a ‘radio drama’ playing out on this show.
Scott 'Imitanis' Mundy
Posted 2014.06.20 at 12:50 | Permalink

My vote would be for Interview with a Vampire, simply because I have never read the book or watched the film.
Lusipurr
Posted 2014.06.20 at 13:02 | Permalink

The film is terrible, and more or less shits all over the book whilst simultaneously ruining the plot, so my advice would strongly be to avoid the film entirely.

Tell your friends!

23 Comments