I do not remember [spoiler]Scorpion-style kelp lashes[/spoiler] in Beaton's comics.

Saw Pirates: On Stranger Tides last night.

It's... not very good. I suspect it suffers primarily from bad editing; there's a lot of plot holes (I'm very confused about mermaid physiology), but I get the feeling that a lot of those holes were probably resolved in scenes that didn't make it into the movie.

Having said that, it's not terrible, either. There's some good jokes, and Penelope Cruz is all kinds of fun.

There is not a single naval battle. In fact, I don't think there's even a single cannon fired in the movie.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't a major public works program provide more skilled labor jobs, not more skilled labor workers? Employment opportunities alone simply aren't going to fill the hole - there's a deeper cultural issue that we have to address first.

I liked Thor. It was as good a visual adaptation of the crazy Kirby shit as anybody could hope for, the writing was good, and they made good compromises between mythology and story, which is prudent - there's just too much mythology for them to have actually kept it all. No prophecy, no mention of Ragnarok, and a fairly limited cast of Asgardians; a few nice bits if you know what to look for (Sleipnir makes a cameo); and good writing. The only point which I have actual objections to is the fairly explicit implication that Odin lost his eye in battle with the frost giants.

It did not work in 3d very well at all; the insane color palette of the cosmic scenes just don't agree with the glasses. I'll see it again in 2d next week, and I suspect it will look a lot better that way.

I also like how they worked Donald Blake in. Very cute.

The credit candy was disappointing, though - [spoiler]I didn't know what the Cosmic Cube was until just now, and there's no apparent link between it and anything else, although apparently it's the source of the Red Skull's world domination plans in Captain America (hence Fury's mention about history?)[/spoiler]

THAD EDIT: Tagged for spoilers.  Dude, seriously?  The movie came out TODAY.  You are literally describing the LAST SCENE IN IT.  You should not have to be told that is not okay.  Fuck you.

They should have just spent the money on putting a Mjolnir standee on every street corner.

That the Son of God died is to be believed because it is incredible; that He is risen is certain because it is impossible.

I couldn't be bothered to do the math and try and figure out how that compares to other moves, and just discounted it as a gimmick; is the damage return really great enough to make them worthwhile?

I do like that neither move can be learned by any pokemon with either Technician or Sniper.

But I have a part-time minimum-wage job!

Got my NDS Adaptor Plus from Hong Kong, promptly gave myself max IVs and manually set EVs and natures in all my Pokemon. Also gave myself a hundred Rare Candies. The ten-level gap between the Elite Four and everything preceding them is kind of an oversight given the new XP scaling.

Tried to change the nature of the Japanese Golett I got off the global trade from Klutz to PunchyPunchPunch, but it didn't go through; I'll have to experiment with that a bit.

Now I can start really moving forward with the rest of the game and catching everything in sight. Biggest obstacles are going to be catching Ghost, Rock, and Steel pokemon, as my False Swiping Haxorus won't be too helpful there; anybody have any good advice about that? (Worst-case scenario, I hack my Haxorus's ability to Scrappy; oddly enough, none of the naturally Scrappy pokemon can learn False Swipe.)

I don't plan to create any pokemon out of whole cloth (with the possible exception of level 1 Reshirams who will have Truant and know only Splash, just to dick with the assholes on the global trading house who ask for them), but if anybody's got a favorite pokemon whose IVs they'd like to change or EVs they'd like to reset or whatever, drop me a line and I'll see what I can do about that!

I'll be free tonight beginning between 9 and 10 PM, PST.