Anthropomorphic_Bear

I look back fondly on the hours watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report and Craig Ferguson in my formative years.

Nowadays, the majority of my YouTube viewing comes from watching Colbert monologues, Seth Meyer's A Closer Look segments and anything by Full Frontal. On that note, Samantha Bee has come out almost from day 1 as being one of the most unique voices on American late night; yes it is because she is a female presenter in sea of dudes, but it's because of this that she can approach the same stories as the other hosts a week after the fact and still wring out some entirely new jokes.

Also, it isn't US late-night, but one of the best news satire shows we have here in Australia is Shaun Micallef's Mad As Hell, which has a certain madcap nature that I've not seen in any American show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82zCcYpIado (apologies for the potato quality of this clip)

I watch the big events like the Dota/CSGO majors and Evo, as well as the Magic: The Gathering Pro Tours.

Even though I only have a surface-level understanding of Dota/CS and fighting games, that basic knowledge as well as the spectacle of those games make them good to at least have on in the background (an aside: LoL is a little too slow for me to watch). That, and it's hard to not get swept up in the hype.

On the other hand, Magic has none of the spectacle -- it's as exciting as watching golf -- but it's because of this more understated presentation, and the fact that I play the game regularly, that I can accidentally go through a couple of hours with no issue. I will admit that it is much more impenetrable than most other esports; cards being turned sideways is much more abstract than a lifebar going down or a player headshotting three opponents.

Does anyone know what the track is from near the start of the Liverpool Travelogue (18 seconds in)? I can't seem to find it in the OP.

"Get this front wing out of the way"
- Kimi Raikkonen (presumably)

Not sure if it's been addressed, but why is so much of the lore and story hidden away in novels and logs? Did the developers assume that anyone left playing Halo now is already deeply invested in the universe? Could they not incorporate so much exposition in to the writing without it coming off as Exposition? Either way, it only serves to alienate non-hardcore Halo players like myself. I'm sure there's something to be had from the francise's universe, but I'm not prepared to read through ten or so novels to get there.

I've been wanting to get in to World of Warcraft for a while now, and every time an expansion has dropped I have tried. However, every time, I run in to an area infested with spiders or a quest involving defeating the little scamps and I simply cannot progress. If it isn't clear by this point (or evident by the topic title), I have a mild case of arachnophobia (heretofore known as spiderphobia, as that is easier to type). It's a pain in this context, as I have really gotten in to the WoW business leading up to these walls and I do want to see the endgame which everyone keeps on raving on about, except the spiderphobia keeps me from getting anywhere the good stuff. I'm sure there are many people out there in the same conundrum.
 
So I ask you, long-time players of the WoW, is there a path (racial or otherwise) in this game which involves as few spiders as possible (preferably none)? Or do I have to wait patiently and hope The Old Republic is a capable competitor to WoW?

Oh, but Dani California is also missing in Rock Band 3 - even if it's on your hard drive, it won't appear in the music library
 
*cue speculations of a Power Gig: RHCP spinoff*

I've just finished Halo Reach and there's one thing that annoyed me, more than the repetitive mission templates, more than the lack of autosave, more than that last horrible mission: The checkpointing system. From what I can gather, the game's checkpointing system seems to consist of 'whenever we damn well fee like it'; there was no logic to the checkpointing. Sometimes I would be checkpointed no less than three times down some hallway, others I would go for five minutes without being checkpointed. There's no consistency, no logic, no common sense whatsoever to Halo's checkpointing system, and it's something which has plagued the franchise since the very first Halo.  
 
Can someone explain how Halo's checkpoining system is supposed to work?