Say what you will about the chaebols running the country and the rampant corruption, Korean roadworkers are incredibly fast and efficient. There’s never some guy standing around doing nothing.

Not that he couldn’t have put together a droid, but that he put this very specific, very integral-to-later-events one together himself. It’s ludicrously coincidental.

This was the moment I checked out of the prequels. Vader, as a child, built C-3PO? I’m supposed to continue suspending my disbelief, now? Impossible.

Korea has the usual international suspects, but as far as local chains go, there is one: Lotteria. Their burgers are OK. Somewhere between Rotten Ronnie’s and BK’s. There are quite a few smaller, non-chain places that make decent burgers, though.

Ahh, but with a billion, you would be important enough.

I also have no clue whether Ethiopians need any rice

The Ethiopian famine was 30 years ago. Not that they haven’t had troubles off-and-on since then.

Sleep with pornstar. Excessive hush money. Boom!

I know it’s a bit of a silly example, but in the public school in Korea where I taught for a while, teachers would write their Windows passwords on post-its and stick them to the monitors. Haha!

I only pirate music and books anymore. I do consume it all. Well, most of it. Sometimes I’ll download a series of books and not jive with the first one or something. The music always gets listened to. More than once, too! I’m easy to please. Or I have good taste.

I think I remember making some in university. Probably with vodka. That was … oh shit… years ago.

It’s music! Screens are hardly a necessity. Many electronic producers these days are going “DAWless”. Mind you, dedicated hardware has come a long way. Things like Elektron’s Digitakt and Synthstrom Audible’s Deluge (and a bunch of other options) verge on being hardware DAWs themselves.

If you do everything via VST in DAW, then yes, you want lots of screen space. I downsized to 1 monitor recently, and I really miss the second when I’m in DAW.

I’m an Android user contemplating moving to Apple because of audio applications. Android’s audio implementation was absolute garbage for years and years, and as a result, all of the good, mobile audio production software is for iOS. Android is finally catching up in terms of latency and whatever else, but the software side is still a total shitshow.

Ahh yes, definitely. I should have said that isn’t strictly a traditional shmup. Bangai O definitely has many elements of shmups, but the level design and many of the mechanics are quite unique to it.

I actually played a bunch of that Star Wars vector arcade game at my local bowling alley. Yes, I am old…

Starfox never did it for me like Space Harrier. I’m not sure why. The primitive 3D maybe. Space Harrier creature design is just plain bizarre and intriguing.

I love Space Harrier. There are a handful of other third-person, on-rails shooters (Sin and Punishment), but nothing recent that I’m aware of.

Also, Bangai O on Nintendo DS is insanely fun. I can’t think of any other games where slowdown is a necessary mechanic.

Sexy Parodius is a bit sketchy, yes. But, it’s easily the most-fun shmup I’ve ever played. The music is fantastic, too. I’ve managed to 1cc the game, but I’ve never beaten the bonus stage which is just so ridiculously difficult, I question whether it’s even possible without a very specific strategy or something.

Unfortunately, the best version is the arcade one, and MAME doesn’t do the best job with it. Still playable, though.

Fantastic food. Entirely too rapey.

Pop quiz: four of the top five most anticipated games are Doom, Gears of War, Perfect Dark, and Assassin’s Creed: what year is it?

My older sister was supposed to get my name, but she was a she. It would have been fairly unique at her age. I came along five years later and got it at the height of its popularity, as a result there were three of us in my grade six class.