It’s like Max Payne 1, only better in every conceivable way. It’s the perfect sequel.

Edit: I envy you getting to experience it for the first time!

I’ll take “fucking duh” for $100, Alex.

Ooh, ooh, is it “being a giant piece of shit bigot”?

Max Payne 2 is one of my favorite games of all time. It’s the only game I ever finished, then beat 2-3 more times in succession on increasing difficulties just to get a different ending.

Absolutely. It definitely takes some delightful liberties with WHY Blackbeard takes a liking to Stede and why Stede leaves his family in the first place, but the overall arc is based on a true story.

Stede Bonnet was a wealthy landowner who walked away from his family to buy a boat and become a really bad Pirate of the Caribbean. Blackbeard ran into him, took his ship, decided for some reason he kinda liked the guy, taught him a few things about piratin’, then went his own way. Bonnet did better after that, but he was eventually captured and hanged.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stede_Bonnet

Were you looking for a story of inspiration and success instead of history’s worst midlife crisis? If so, oops.

Don’t forget renowned piss baby Elon Musk.

Bet you’re fun at parties.

There are several Apple Watch apps and such that rather than use a timer, use various biometrics and movement sensing to try and identify when you’re out of REM and start a vibration alarm that increases over time across a 30-minute window. Depending on what smartwatch you use, there might be something.

Edit: on Apple Watch I have an app that does this called AutoWake (it has a companion sleep tracking app called AutoSleep) but I don’t wear the watch to bed anymore.

The option to sleep an extra half hour when you don’t want to get up is key. I recommend it for anyone. It’s so worth it.

I vote this. The 90 minute REM cycle is no joke.

My personal sleep therapy approach:

1. Deduct 30 minutes from when you need to wake up. Set one alarm for this time, one alarm for your normal time. If you do nothing else, do this. It’s awesome, trust me.
2. Deduct another 30 minutes then figure out how many 90-minute periods fit between now and that time. Go to bed at the beginning of one of those periods.
3. If you need to go to sleep 30 or 60 minutes earlier for some reason, add another “snooze” or two at the end.

What this does:

• Prevents getting up in the middle of REM, which is what causes you to feel like death even though you got enough sleep
• Gives you a 30-minute window to fall asleep first
• Wakes you up 30 minutes early in case something messed with your cycle and you feel like crap. Hitting snooze on your alarm clock gives you a bewildering 9-minute, 11-minute, or other arbitrary bit of extra sleep, but giving you a consistent 30-minute snooze period starts your morning with a reliable power nap instead of just gambling on your timing. You always wake up feeling good from a power nap.

Example: it’s 9 pm, I have to be up at 6. I set alarms for 5:30 and 6:00, then go to bed at 9:30 so I have 30 minutes to fall asleep, followed by 7.5 hours of sleep, which is 5 cycles. I wake up at 5:30, immediately kill the alarm, then wake up again at 6 and start my day.

Note: In general, I wouldn’t have three 30-minute snoozes. I’d just go to bed later. I try to avoid stacking two or more power naps at the end, but sometimes I will if I’m not going to be getting much sleep otherwise, like if I go to sleep NOW, I might get 3 hours.

I have so many complaints about that movie but THIS is number one. The entire thing is a complete waste of time, all set about because Poe got turned into an insubordinate, hotheaded moron. Doesn’t help that Holdo has a perfectly functional plan she won’t share with anyone instead preferring to let them believe they’re all going to die, but frankly the movie is just a series of stupid, terrible decisions in a row from every character and above all, the director.

Can you tell I hate this movie?

I’ve been saying for a while that Microsoft’s best bet from here is to turn the Xbox into a Windows box, update Windows to work decently on handhelds, and launch an Xbox portable. Kill the console/PC distinction and leave Sony flat-footed to compete with Nintendo.

The only challenge to this approach is Valve beating them to it from the other direction.

Ugh. This is why we can’t have nice things.

Alternative perspective: Buy the most intrusive, ad-subsidized set you can find and disconnect/block it so you get all of the benefit and none of the privacy invasion?

I feel like the term “thinktank” is misapplied here. It’s more like a schemetank or a ratfucktank.

As long as you don’t mind blood and guts in a lighter context, Cabin in the Woods and Tucker and Dale vs Evil are both incredibly fun comedy horror. Neither is really scary (though CitW has a stretch where it emulates classic slasher tropes), but both are quotably hilarious. Considering Shaun of the Dead is on your list and it includes a full evisceration, you’re probably fine.

If you’ve seen Bubba Ho-Tep but not at least Evil Dead 2 if not also Army of Darkness, then you’re woefully deprived.

Zombieland and its sequel are both delightful popcorn fun and very funny.

Happy Death Day is a slasher, but it’s also Groundhog Day and a likable, fun, PG-13 romp without too much meanness or darkness. The sequel is… fine.

Slither is a brilliant horror comedy but it’s a bit of a gross-out type, so it’s iffy if you don’t like seeing people swell to bursting with alien slugs and stuff like that. But the tone is always light and it’s just so much fun. Nathan Fillion in his peak Firefly days is the immensely likable hero.

There’s also a movie from the 80’s called Night of the Creeps that’s a cheesy, schlocky, gooey slugfest that is the spiritual predecessor to Slither.

Speaking of the 80’s, Return of the Living Dead is a super fun and funny 80’s zombie movie that actually has the honor of originating the “zombies eat brains” trope as far as I know.

If the 90’s are in play, Idle Hands is a fun, slightly gross, thoroughly silly stoner horror comedy that’s especially fun if you’re a fan of The Offspring (IYKYK).

I would also add Coraline and Nightmare Before Christmas as spooky atmospheric fun that aren’t obnoxiously kid-focused.

And segueing into Christmas horror, Krampus is a really fun movie that is both very funny and, but also works as a solid proper horror movie AND a family Christmas movie (for freaks like me).

I don’t want him feeling “shaken”. I want him to know, deep down, undeniably to the very core of his soul, that he is a blight on humanity. He is devoid of honor and value by any moral measure. His existence on earth and in this society has done vastly more harm than good and humanity would have been better off if he had never been born. I want him to wake up every day and feel that more deeply and truly than he can feel his own breathing.

Then the rest of the list, too: Trump, Mitch McConnell, Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity. Alito, Kavanaugh, Thomas, Barrett. Gym Jordan, Mike Johnson. Steve Miller, the list goes on and on. Selfish monsters that I only wish knew how little they deserve the lives they live.

I definitely got a poll a few years ago from a GOP senate candidate that was a bunch of questions like “How TERRIBLE has Joe Biden’s economic policy been???”

It was literally damn near impossible to select responses that actually conveyed any reasonable favor toward a Democrat policy or action. Now granted, this wasn’t a national pre-election poll that any reasonable aggregator would include, but it’s still a reminder that statistics can be whatever you want.

Is this the new “I’m not a racist, but…”?