Shylock

This came out a few weeks ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hTB9H24Yt8 And I honestly cannot wait for the new season to start.

This TVHM is insane sometimes. I go through pretty easily up until I fight Wilhelm. I die a whole bunch of times, so much so that I'm back near 250 grand of money left and then I finally beat him. Then I realize that there's three things coming up: Stalkers, the giant thresher, and that battle in Overlook. I couldn't kill the stalkers on my way there, because this stupid fucking Rabid Stalker wouldn't goddamn die. I even had it in phaselock, with the Ruin skill and I was unloading on it with the best gun I had and it still made it out of phaselock and wound up killing me. I got killed once, tried running and got killed again, and finally my "flee the fuck away" strategy worked, because I ran into some loaders along the way and they started fighting the stalkers. The goddamn constructor was a pain, until I realized I could just phaselock it from across the way until it was near death and then bombard it with that legendary grenade I got from beating Wilhelm. I did the same thing pretty much with the thresher. I am not looking forward to the battle in Overlook one bit. Also: Is it just me or are Assault Rifles and Machine Guns worthless-as-fuck in this game?

So I'm on TVHM as the Siren and I'm wondering: What's the best way to go through this? I've heard that it's a good idea to wait to do the sidequests until you beat the main story or are at level 50 or something, because the game scales up and thus any good weapons you could get from doing the sidequests will be at level 50. So do I just wait and do all the sidequests, or is it a wait and do the sidequests with the rewards you want leveled up to 50? And on another TVHM note: It's harder, but the Siren's been a pretty badass character for me so I've been doing better than I thought I would. So good, in fact, that for the first time ever I actually downed that one constructor holding Roland and it didn't haul ass to 'Friendship Gulag'. I never had any success with that on Normal mode, but on a harder mode, no less, I actually killed the damn thing. Probably helped to have a 13k x 3 rocket launcher. And I managed to survive the next few waves of loaders.

So since I was through with the main quest and I'm taking a time out on the Tiny Tina DLC as my Assassin, I decided to do another playthrough as a Siren. So far I think this might be my favorite class. Although I did respec my Assassin to where he's more of a melee fighter and I was messing around with it a bit in an area full of enemies. "Execute" + "Many Must Fall" = fucking badass. I'm not sure if I'll go into TVHM with either or just try out some of the classes before going on, but yeah. I've been having a good time with the Siren. Just tonight I got, I think, three E-Tech weapons in the course of two or so hours of playing. And I feel like I'm managing my inventory much better this time around. I have 27 slots, but I usually have 10 or so free spaces. I'm around level, I think, 26 as the Siren and I got the Maggie around level 18 and it's still a damn efficient killer. Also the one grenade, whose name I do not recall, that throws out five other grenades after landing and has a circular area where electricity just spews out. I don't remember when I got it, but I've been using it for a long time and it's always pretty fucking great at crowd control.

I don't know why there would be theories, it seemed pretty clear that:

White Collar's final season premiere came up on me by surprise. I'm lucky I caught it when I was looking around to see what's on. I'm utterly disappointed it's only getting 6 episodes.

I'd stopped my first playthrough of Borderlands 2 (GOTY version) a few months ago and picked up where I left off about two weeks ago. Playing as Zero in normal mode. Got further in the main quest, then beat the Scarlett and Torgue DLCs then I finished the main story, and tonight I tried out the Tiny Tina DLC and I'm instantly regretting even touching this piece of shit. Every. Fucking. Enemy. Is near unbeatable at times. I got to the part where you are supposed to get blood oranges and I'm at level 36. And there was a level 40 Duke of Orc there and it killed me around five times and after I finally made my way around it due to luck, I go on and get killed by those flying dragon things even more, then that fucking King skeleton thing that Roland takes you to. I managed to off his skeleton guard a few times and down him, but not before getting killed twice more, and then five more times by that flying head thing that completely saps my shield and damn near kills me with one hit. I swear I lost about half the money I had before starting this due to dying so many times.

Finished Friday Night Lights. Didn't mind S2 that much, but S3-S5 were just a total different level. I also think that Lyla was much more tolerable in S3. I like how there's a bunch of actors on this show that were either on The Wire or would go to be on Breaking Bad. Landry just has absolutely no luck with women on this show. I don't know how to word this real well, but his reactions and general confusion to things that happen to him or around him are great. I'll definitely give the show repeat viewings in the future.

I started watching Friday Night Lights the other day, and while I'm enjoying the show I have to say that Lyla is just the fucking worst. I can totally sympathize with how Tyra hated her. I'm on episode 2 of S2 right now.

Enemy Unknown or Enemy Within? Enemy Unknown.

Found XCom for PS3 at Target on clearance for $10. I'm enjoying it, trying to get a handle on it. What's the best way to develop your soldiers? Stick with a core crew, or spread the action around to other soldiers you have?

So that finale was pretty damn good. Although throughout the last half or so of it, I was kinda distracted by: I'm also assuming that next season is

Didn't Don screw something up with Jaguar, which was the account where Joan had to sleep with that one guy for SCDP to land it (in exchange, she got a piece of the firm and a voting stake)?

On another note: If I'm not mistaken, I think one of the cartel goons was played by one of the cousins from Breaking Bad.

The only thing I really didn't like on this episode was the end to Barney's story. A whole season+ worth of development of him becoming the type of guy who could settle down and so on was blown up in this episode. Him going back to being a shit head who winds up knocking up some random woman was a waste of a potentially better gag. They should have had the whole "perfect month", "knocked up a random girl" thing be an elaborate prank on the gang before he sets up a bigger reveal: He got back with Quinn and she's pregnant. The whole thing with him knocking up a random girl and the child winding up being Barney's whole world felt a little empty to me.

The state's attorney had stated that he had probable cause to go through with it, but didn't because of the fragile state of Mia's daughter.

I imagine the whole thing is going to be contrasted with the various amount of court documents that can contradict nearly everything he claims.

The "pill whore" was previously on the show. Just in case it might wind up being significant, I'll spoiler tag it:

I just bought and played most of Assassin's Creed 3. And while I like some of it the whole bug-ridden nature of the game is off putting. Mission icons not showing up or just flat out disappearing (I lost the last assassination contract I had in New York because of this), other such things like that. Another example: I just did a mission where they spotted me (red icons above their head, but not yet "detected") and the icon went to white and the guy just kept looking at me and wouldn't go back to his old post even though they usually turn away after a while. Is Black Flag plagued by the same problems? I'm interested in getting it eventually, but if it is I might put off until I find it for as cheap as I found AC3.

I remember enjoying the game around the time it came out and playing it rather often, but upon revisiting it about a year or two ago I felt like the controls were a bit clunky and definitely hadn't aged well.

So on my first save I went to the Los Santos Docks briefcase. I got that. I tried going after two others, the one under the bridge nearby and the one on top of the sub on the west portion of the map. Nothing at either. On this new save I got going (so I don't stupidly spend money & shoot and kill Packie and his cohort without knowing I could get them in my heist). I tried going to the one under the bridge. The package was there. Then I went to the Los Santos Docks one, that was gone. So was the one on the sub and the one I checked out north of there on the main deck of the sunken ship. The hell?

I just got this and I'm kinda pissed that the only way you can get any real money in this game is convoluted stock market bullshit. I'm holding off on the Lester mission for Franklin, because both Trevor and Franklin have sub 100k and I have no fucking idea of how to try and get them more money so that the effect of the stock going up has greater effect. Trevor's got the missions for his airstrip that net about 7k each one, but Franklin has no equivalent. I bought the towing station which was probably a fucking stupid idea, cause then I have to do a lot of those missions and they're dull as fuck and the pay is nothing. What is with the whole "Your guys do missions for free" bull?

During the Black Friday sales, I went and got Far Cry 3 for $14.99 and Dishonored for $7.99 online at Best Buy. I haven't gotten around to playing Dishonored quite yet, because I've been completely taken by FC3. The three things I love about the game are the flamethrower, the way the driving (and crashing into other cars) feels (along with hunting animals with whatever vehicle you want) and taking over Outposts. I've had two takeovers that I really loved. One was the first one I got to do after the one they have you do in one of the first missions. I was going to some outpost, I got down, took out that viewer thing to tag all the pirates, and then all of a sudden I hear this growl. I look around, and there's a tiger not too far from me. Not only did the thing not notice me, but when one of the pirates came around the back area of the compound (that was open to the forest) the thing just ran in and pounced on the guy, killed the two dogs that were guarding the place, and then killed the other rest of the guys in the compound. It basically did all the work for me. It was pretty amusing. Then the second one I loved was just the other day. I'm already on the second island so I'm pretty deep into the game. I came to some compound, scoped out all the guards, wasn't quite sure how I was going to go about taking everyone out undetected. I'm waiting by an open hole in the fence and there was a building in front of me with a guard on top. Then all of a sudden I guess some of the Rakyat drove up, the gunfire starts and I just decided to get in there. I got up on top of that building, did a takedown on the guard. Whaddya know? There's a mounted machine gun in front of me. So I fired that thing up, took out the guy immediately in front of the building and the guard on top across the way, then I shot one of the exploding cans near one guy, and the one in the middle of, IIRC, two fuel pumps and took them all out and got credited for doing it undetected. This game is pretty great. I doubt it's an option, but I wish I could do all of the outposts over again from the beginning with all of the stuff I've gotten (eg. special moves & guns).

It was a blink and you missed it moment. That is why it was strange. I mean Katie Holmes must be really bored that she agreed to do it. I thought it looked a bit green screenish, as if they edited old footage of her in there.

Playing Assassin's Creed: Revelations and constantly having the spy you're supposed to confront get stuck in a corner and then nothing fucking happens. It just stays that way. So I have to redo EVERYTHING. Going to the city, climbing up to get that one viewpoint, finding the spy. And having to do it all over again because this stupid fucking game doesn't have a "Restart from Checkpoint" option.