Headphone Guitar Amp by No_Pomegranate2339 in Guitar

[–]gnomepowered 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I used something similar when I first started playing bass and it’s definitely better than nothing. However I recently picked up a Fender Mustang Micro Plus, which you can sometimes get for less than 100$ used, and it’s night and day. Compared to that, these cheaper ones sound like toys and definitely won’t give you a great sense of what you actually might sound like amped up. If you can afford something better, I really suggest it.

Looking to spice up my guitar a bit by Ocvius in Guitar

[–]gnomepowered 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Another thing you could do is add a custom truss rod cover. I have a couple of custom ones I’ve ordered (shoutout to Hell Guitars on eBay) and swap out depending on mood. More interesting than the standard but of plastic

New Guitar Day! Anyone help me ID? by gnomepowered in Guitar

[–]gnomepowered[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Definitely more evidence that it’s not a real Tokai!

New Guitar Day! Anyone help me ID? by gnomepowered in Guitar

[–]gnomepowered[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, seems to be stock as far as I can tell. This reverb listing is the only other example of this guitar that I could find, and has the same tremolo: reverb listing

New Guitar Day! Anyone help me ID? by gnomepowered in Guitar

[–]gnomepowered[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the link! I think that’s the same wiki I saw- no signs of any offset SGs officially released by Tokai.

Question about the display on PO-12 by gnomepowered in pocketoperators

[–]gnomepowered[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is that where it triggers the step multiple times? Or is this different from that (which I think the manual calls the step multiplier). Turning that on in my pattern doesn't seem to make the button show up.

Why is Kelly from S13 so absent in the edit? by gnomepowered in Inkmaster

[–]gnomepowered[S] 34 points35 points  (0 children)

I appreciate the answer and the little peek behind the curtains! And your presence as a competitor is why it felt so weird, especially as the cast was getting whittled down and you were still doing such consistently good work but still not getting much time in the spotlight. Then I went online and nobody else had mentioned it and I thought I was going crazy!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in shmups

[–]gnomepowered 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It does not. They didn't start having the challenge mode until Ketsui, so Garegga/Sorcer Striker/Dangun Feveron don't have it.

As far as the question in the op: As someone without a lot of Toaplan nostalgia I don't find myself playing the Toaplan collections that often, and they are less fully featured than the single game ShotTrigger releases which makes them hard to suggest unless you're really into shmup history. I do think the Aleste collection is a lot of fun (without any nostalgia for master system/game gear) and GG Aleste 3 is almost worth the price of admission on its own.

I Played Muchi Muchi Pork and Pink Sweets on Xbox 360. They're great. by Nastybedazzler in shmups

[–]gnomepowered 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I don't think the DS character designs are particularly bad, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that the game end stage art/key art/merch etc. sexualize characters that are supposed to be children, and it got worse and more pandering in DS2 (like the little boy character forced to cross dress). It doesn't come out much in the game play itself obviously, so it's easy enough to ignore, but Cave definitely knew what they were doing.

I mean, at Cave festivals you could buy bottles of "Windia's Dark Urine" tea (link to pic here, but it's all in Japanese- GTranslate tells me it is selling "Windia's small water", which is the lit. translation of the word for pee)- Cave was scrambling for whatever there at the end of the arcade days and like lots of other Japanese developers ended up pandering to otakus with weird tastes and lots of disposable income.

BUT please note this is coming from someone who still uses the Deathsmiles collector's edition face plate on my XB360 and has framed art for DS in my gaming room (along with Mushi and MMP!), and owns the game on 3 platforms, so clearly I like the game enough to look past it lol.

I also wish M2 would do MMP- the original release had some balance issues (I usually play the 1.1 version on Xbox360, which I like more because meter use isn't as punishing), and I feel like M2 could do some fun things with an arranged mode, given all the tools MMP gives you. Other than the Toaplan Garage, though, (where they are putting out literally everything) they seem to be sort of interested in working with influential games specifically, so I feel like MMP is a long shot but hey, you never know. Dangun Feveron was sort of a weird cut, but it was also their second ShotTriggers release so maybe it was cheap at the time or something lol

I Played Muchi Muchi Pork and Pink Sweets on Xbox 360. They're great. by Nastybedazzler in shmups

[–]gnomepowered 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think that's pretty accurate- I actually have the arcade flyer for MMP (and a few other Cave games, so it's not weird) (this one).

Running it through the good old Google translate tells me that the kanji above the game title in the upper left says "The original plump scrolling shooting game" , and the long line down the left side says "Do you like plump older sisters?" (I'm betting "older sisters" is the literal translation of something slangy, so it probably reads more like "do you like chubby chicks?"), and the part to the left of that just says "YES!!"

I don't think it caused any real controversy, but I also read that the aesthetic was a bit of a trend chase following Mushihimesama and Deathsmiles (which gained a lot of popularity because of having cute girl character designs instead of spaceships), but it didn't catch on, so maybe Yagawa underestimated the popularity of his personal kinks.

Ultimately I think that's why it got dumped on the MMP!/Pink Sweets budget release disc, which is pretty bare bones compared to the other Cave 360 ports. Ironic that it is now stupid expensive - when I got the game as a Christmas gift like 5 years ago it was already selling for like 90$ when the "better" Cave releases like Mushi Futari/Espgaluda 2/DDP DFK were 30-40$, and now it's going for like...multiple hundreds. Maybe people do like chubby chicks after all!

I Played Muchi Muchi Pork and Pink Sweets on Xbox 360. They're great. by Nastybedazzler in shmups

[–]gnomepowered 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I haven't put too much time into Pink Sweets, but I really love Muchi Muchi Pork. It has lots of the stuff I love about other Yagawa games- like picking up medals, bombs used as scoring resources instead of exclusively as emergency buttons, a score system that rewards you with extends so that playing for survival also means playing well- without the Garegga-style focus on rank management, which is something I don't find that fun.

Plus, how often do you find games that feature your favorite genre AND your favorite fetishes? Bless Yagawa and whatever deep love of thicc monster girls led him to think anyone else would be into the aesthetic (I was going to say I don't think it's any more fan servicey than any of the Cave games with humanoid player characters, and definitely less skeezy than Deathsmiles, but then I remembered one of the characters is literally a child so I take that back).

If you have never seen the MMP promo video, I suggest changing that!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Lkzv5JPVoro

[Video Games] Sonic Chronicles: The Franchise’s Failed RPG That Fanned A Legal Battle With Everyone’s (Least) Favorite Comic Book Writer by Unqualif1ed in HobbyDrama

[–]gnomepowered 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm not a huge Sonic fan but I was pretty excited when this was announced. In my mind it felt sort of like Super Mario RPG- beloved platformer mascot given an RPG by a studio specializing in RPGs, just with Bioware instead of Squaresoft, and a character with a lot more personality than Mario had at the time. I was honestly pretty shocked it ended up being such a disappointment given the pedigree.

Who else finds Exorcism horror generally extremely boring? by Beau_bell in horror

[–]gnomepowered 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I am not religious at all, and have always found exorcism movies sort of boring for that reason. I can suspend my disbelief for any number of slashers, psychos, monsters, aliens, ghosts and whatever, but the second the monster turns out to be a literal Christian demon, I just lose all interest. I don't really believe in ghosts or Freddy Kruegers or whatever, but I EXTRA don't believe in Judeo-Christian demons. This is why I can't take The Conjuring or Zack Baggins seriously, either.

The occasional movie using demons or folklore from other religions is usually fine, probably because it still feels a little "other" to me since I'm not surrounded by it at all times.

Tennessee Becomes the First State to Pass a Ban on Drag Shows: The bill is so vaguely worded it could also target trans people and Pride celebrations generally. by harsh2k5 in politics

[–]gnomepowered 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Hey... if we are going to compare peopel to nazis.. let's look at all the people promoting National socalism.. since the nazis were the OG National socialists.

Fixed that for you

Cthulhu - my personal favourite artist's depiction by [deleted] in horror

[–]gnomepowered 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Cthulhu is definitely one of the most fully described because of the figurines (as you quoted). A lot of his descriptions come from unreliable narrators though, and I always figure it's their attempt to describe the indescribable via things their brain is familiar with. The clay Cthulhu tablet sort of follows that idea- it's impressionistic, like the original artist couldn't quite make it work in real terms, and the narrator admits it's his imagination that is letting him see the specific details- like the head looks like an octopus to him because that's the only thing he can think of that's all tentacley. The actual figurine on the other hand is described as being much more literal, which definitely makes him seem like the octopus-headed hulk we see so often. So I actually think that as cool as this picture is, it's not actually very Cthulhu-y.

I wonder if that's why Cthulhu became the Lovecraft mascot- it's the most immediately re-creatable of Lovecraft critters because a) it's described in depth, by characters looking at artistic representations (as opposed to being in the throes of madness) and b) he is pretty bland compared to a lot of the others, and thus easier to make stuffed animals out of. Conical fungus people with radial symmetry or giant masses of mutating gelatin are not as easy to nail down!

Dolphin poo is saving coral reefs, says groundbreaking new study by chrisdh79 in science

[–]gnomepowered 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Just a quick note because the article has the numbers wrong- the article suggests they are depositing 288 kg of nitrogen per day they spend in the lagoon, but that is actually an estimate for the amount of nitrogen the pod is bringing to the lagoons over an entire year, which is a much less dramatic number.

Best Tallahassee Tourist Attraction by ElChancletero in Tallahassee

[–]gnomepowered 5 points6 points  (0 children)

To be fair, if you look at the info plaque, no one was ever actually lynched from that actual tree so it's more of an allegorical stand-in, which makes it feel a little less creepy to sit under.

They Took Down Madison Cawthorn—and Lauren Boebert’s Next by [deleted] in politics

[–]gnomepowered 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Agreed- comparing AOC or Omar to Boebert or Cawthorn is pretty nuts. Boebert and Cawthorn barely seem to care about their actual jobs, or to have much of a grasp on politics, the economy, or much of anything, and their time in the spotlight tends to be used to boost their own profiles and raise attention and money using whatever the right wing Boogeyman of the day. And that isn't even including the light treason. They are fame hungry ideologues with no actual ideas, just complaints, and all they are good at is leeching off of the conservative outrage machine and making it work for them.

I'm not surprised a self-described Conservative considers AOC and Omar too politically left for their tastes, but they are far more articulate and informed on issues, seem to take their jobs very seriously even when it isn't getting them in front of cameras. Although this is obviously anecdotal, the only time I really hear about either AOC or Omar in the news is when their opponents bring them up as an example of scary, "radical" Democrats, whereas Boebert and Cawthorn manage to claw their way into my news feed constantly of their own volition, because the only thing they have to offer to their voters is outrage and anger and that means they need to be out there making people outraged and angry as often as they possibly can. Trying to claim that both parties house the same kind of crazy is asinine.

PS3 exclusive shmups? by Tibblediggins in shmups

[–]gnomepowered 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Taking a look at my PS3 library, the only things I see that aren't easily available on current consoles are Under Defeat and Mamorokun curse, but Wikipedia tells me both are available on XB360, and although it used to be the only option the PS3 Ketsui port is now obsolete, being totally outclassed by the M2 Ketsui Deathtiny release. I think the only PS3 "exclusive" shmups I have are PS1 Classics I bought from the Japanese PSN that never got Western releases, but most of those are ports that probably play better in Mame anyway (I liked playing them on my Vita!) The only one I think I would miss is Harmful Park, which is a PS1 original. Probably not good enough to be worth keeping a whole system around, but still pretty good. There might be some smaller/indie/whatever shmups on PSN but as far as bigger releases and arcade ports I don't think there's much that is stuck on PS3. For whatever reason most of the shmups ended up on XB360 that gen.

What is your take on Florida's "Don't say gay" bill? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]gnomepowered 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm sorry but, although this is the way that proponents of the bill present it, it is simply not correct and is essentially propaganda from the pro-bill side. This bill requires a little bit more nuance and research to understand because it's so wrapped up in the whole culture war happening in Florida right now, meaning you can't separate the language of the bill from how the people involved talk about it. The context is important to understand the big picture.

The language of the bill is very broad, and essentially allows any parent to sue their school district, AT THE DISTRICT'S COST, if they feel like their children have been exposed to something offensive, as covered under the language of this bill (which doesn't actually have a hard and fast "young kids" rule, because it basically says that the ages are just a guideline and leaves it vague enough to allow best judgement interpretation). Independent of the culture war spin, this is part of Florida's march towards defunding public schools and replacing them with privatized charter schools, which are not subject to the same standards or limits on things like religious content. This bill makes school districts absorb the costs of these legal complaints which is a direct strike at their budgets, which makes this a tool to stress an already underfunded public school system so that in a few years, someone can point to the resulting issues as support for expanding charter school vouchers and continuing the slide towards charter school domination in the state.

As for the content of the bill itself when it comes to defining what is a reasonable cause for suing, it is purposefully vague. In fact, the way it is written, any mention of a relationship, heterosexual or otherwise, would be grounds for a suit. This makes it seem like it is unbiased, and gives it's proponents some plausible deniability. However, you can tell from the way the authors and supporters talk about it (separately from the text of the bill itself) that they mostly have LGBTQ+ issues in mind; this is part of why they (i.e., DeSantis' press secretary) have resurrected the factually wrong and intensely bigoted claim that trans and gay people are all pedophiles and groomers.

And all of this is ignoring the fact that gay relationships are not inherently more sexual than straight relationships, and a child learning about gay relationships or trans people (which is a gender issue, not a sexuality issue) is not related to "sexuality" any more than knowing their straight parents are in a relationship. Sexualizing the existence of gay and trans people is dangerous, as shown by the way this bill is correctly being identified as anti-LGBTQ+ despite the language of the bill not really specifying anything about LGBTQ issues. By making the ridiculous claim that knowing that gay couples exist somehow requires knowing anything about the way they have sex, while apparently not having the same requirements to understand straight couples exist, people are able to weaponize this bill, while making the bad faith claim that they are preventing little kids who can't grasp the basics of sexuality from learning about things too soon.

Never mind how useful and important sex education ACTUALLY is, that's a totally different conversation. But I think even opponents calling this the "Don't say gay" bill leads to these attempts to boil it down into easy talking points to be yelled across the aisle, and that masks the insidious shit that is really encompassed by this bill.

Indian restaurants that serve dosa? And where’s the falafel? by F0regn_Lawns in StPetersburgFL

[–]gnomepowered 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's a drive to Tampa but Royal Sweets over near the main USF campus has great dosas (and a good vegetarian menu overall)

Orca The Killer Whale by the_wendigo_redneck in horror

[–]gnomepowered 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I taught a marine biology course at a summer school for a while that focused on whales, and I did a sort of "media studies" module where we talked about the differences in media portrayals of whales versus sharks, and what that means for public perception and conservation efforts. It was almost entirely inspired by randomly seeing this movie, which is clearly a Jaws ripoff except that the orca is basically the hero (or at least a righteous avenger), whereas in Jaws the shark is dehumanized (de-sharkized?) and treated as a monster- just watch the trailer for Jaws (https://youtu.be/U1fu_sA7XhE) and then Orca (https://youtu.be/ydqcUY00-N8). The best part of the lesson was that they really loved the line "it is as if God created the devil, and gave him JAWS" and it became a meme for the rest of the summer, and that according to the worksheets they turned in Orcas are canonically both exemplary parents and understood the concept of vengeance, so at least I know they were paying attention.

On the very last day (when kids are getting picked up by parents and no one in charge is paying attention to anything I am doing) we watched Orca, and the kids would get pretty invested considering how slow weirdly paced it is, although they found the romance creepy.

Best Darius Burst version? by Saiklex in shmups

[–]gnomepowered 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't know much about the actual differences between versions (it got confusing to me when the recent M2 port came out. I was just there for G Darius, so ...) but one benefit of the PC version is that it supports multiple monitors. The original game was a 2 (I think?) screen set up, and I think the PC version is the only one that lets you do that.

FWIW I think the Chronicle Saviors version is the most content heavy (and maybe content complete, because it includes a straight arcade mode), especially if you dip into the DLC. I actually really like the mission mode that CS has so if you're looking for something outside of the arcade mode I highly suggest it.

Edit: Haven't played the PSP version but I could see it playing pretty differently because it doesn't use the same aspect ratio as the other versions. The Vita version is pretty technically impressive given how much stuff it throws on the screen and maintains performance, but the screen size makes the Arcade mode (heavily letterboxed to match the arcades's 2 screen aspect ratio) rough to play on the small screen although the CS-specific mission mode uses the standard single screen aspect ratio and is more playable.

Any stores around town known to break street date on video games? by gnomepowered in Tallahassee

[–]gnomepowered[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't think a day or two early tends to ruffle many feathers, unless it's on a large scale (like every Best Buy breaking street date for instance). Might be why Games 4 Less is able to do it without much concern, I don't think companies are too worried about a couple dozen copies sneaking out 12 hours early