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Slarty Ranks Everything


Slarti

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Ella Fitzgerald: Good.
Billie Holiday: One of my favourite singers of all time.  Love her.
Bob Dylan: Not without his flaws, but he's done some great stuff.
Tom Waits: In theory, I like him a lot.  In practice, it often doesn't line up.
Whiskey: Usually the right spirit.
Beer: At its best, wonderful; and its worst, awful.
Wine: Why yes I will have another.
Chess: I can imagine being really into chess if I weren't more interested in other games.
Checkers: Sigh.
Playing Cards (meaning a classic 52-card deck): Points for versatility, but on the flip side, they are so standardized that they feel very generic at the same time.  Rarely something I want to pick up; other sorts of cards are so much more interesting.
Your favorite BoE scenario (you choose): A+

 

 

Dogs

Chrono Trigger

Cyberpunk

Bilbo Baggins

Cait Sith

Pet Sounds

"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"

Spirited Away

Exile II: Crystal Souls

Nethergate

Billie Holiday

"Nephil's Gambit"

Slartibartfast

Kierkegaard

The Tarot Deck

The Deck of Many Things

Bossa nova

Disco

Jiji (character)

File compression

Sliced bread

Bagels

Your favourite anime

Ducks

Prossis-Bok

Working out

Sea slugs

Ninjas

Jiji (in Nikki's lap)

Ice cream

The Northern Lights

Russian literature
70's cars

Georg Cantor

—Alorael

C++

Good grammar

Cor Blok's Tolkien art

Bacon

Henry Wallace

OK Computer

Speedy Gonzales screenshot

Sans serif fonts

Saunas

Linux

Vinyl records

The aesthetic qualities of the Greek alphabet

Maggie Simpson

The Queen is Dead

Shanti

Schuyler Colfax

Roguelikes

Chess

Lady Gaga

Lawsuits

Wine

Jeff Vogel

Ravens

Smartphones

Whiskey

The Evil Overlord List

Exile III: Ruined World

The last game I played

Bartenders

Sock puppets

Flamingos

Penguins

Civilization (human phenomenon)

Beer

Frodo Baggins

Bob Dylan

Ontology

Cluny the Scourge

Ella Fitzgerald

Pelicans

BitTorrent

Nevermind

Mexican food

Tom Waits

70's prog

Sliths

Avernum II: Crystal Souls

Slarty Ranks Everything

"...Gottfried Reads Fifty Shades..."

The Cranberries (band)

Donuts

Cats

Trombones

The Muppets

The Eiffel Tower

Solidarność screenshot

Civ II

Revolutions

Casablanca

Avadon series

Goldfish (snack)

Gilbert Gottfried

Football (American)

Nephils

Princess Peach

Avernum 4

Cinnamon rolls

Aretha Franklin

Homestar Runner

They Might Be Giants

Tennis

Posting games

Inspector Peanut

Subinfeudation

The Big Lebowski

Nelson Rockefeller

Goldfish (fish)

King Arthur

The aesthetic qualities of the Hebrew alphabet

Richard Cheese

Bark spider

Dolphins

Metahumor

Nixon's foreign policy

Sparkling water

Grant Wood

Paprika

Norman Rockwell

Nick Cave

"This is a Trent Reznor Song"

Spam (meat)

Cabaret (film)

Peanuts

Standard playing cards

Xian Skull (item)

Spam (e-mails)

Checkers

Pineapple pizza

The LP rendition of Slarty's voice

Vitamin C supplements

70's movies

"Lackadaisical"

Puggsy

Louis Armstrong

The aesthetic qualities of hierogylphics

Russian

Beowulf (character)

Angry Birds

Alf screenshot

Today's weather

Phantom stair step (bottom)

Word Rescue

Minecraft

Mechanical pencils

Vultures

The post that asks me to rank itself

KISS (principle)

Salty liquorice

Galactic Core

Gilmore Girls

Hockey

George Clooney

Getting a triple word score in Scrabble

Phantom stair step (top)

Turkey/cat video

Dieselpunk

AOL

Hipgnosis

Salt lamps

Bertrand Russell

My Little Pony

80's fashion

The War on Drugs (band)

Queen (band)

Fifty Shades of Grey

Jane Austen books

The Let's Play series

Runtz

Basketball

Baseball

"Acceptable in the 80's" (song)

Cats (musical)

Pirates

"Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros" (song)

Soccer

Robin Hood (character)

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Thomas the Tank Engine

Freefall (webcomic)

"2500 things Mr. Welch..."

Novelty mugs

ELIZA

Kitten/rat box

John Calhoun (politician)

Mr. Toad of Toad Hall

The Xavier Files

BGG Top 10

Johnny Cash

Sock puppets (fake accounts)

KISS

The Barber Paradox

Elfpunk

Wings (the band)

Steampunk

Turnips

Fictional names that use a lot of apostrophes

Twilight Saga

Anchovy pizza

"Stuff from the 90's!" (song)

The Olympics

The Crusades

King Leopold

Handlebar mustaches

Birthdays

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Mr Tambourine Man: I got it in my head that it sounds like "Hey There Delilah" and I can't unthink it.  Oh well

Mr Green Genes: Good, but I prefer the Beach Boys' "Vege-tables"

 

Windows 3.1: While there is nostalgia here, I ended up installing it a year or two back to play an old game.  It was... not all that my memory thought it was.  It did what it needed to.

U2: DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Their music isn't actually abominable, but still.

Reality TV: A secret guilty pleasure -- and a fairly deep one at that.

TLC: I'm pretty OK with them.

The Big Bang Theory (TV show): Utter despise for its pretend-reverence-masking-actual-denigration of geek culture; its infelicitous mainstreamificaction of geek culture; and its misogyny.

Curling: I don't know why everyone suddenly cared about curling this year but I still don't.

 

 

Dogs

Chrono Trigger

Cyberpunk

Bilbo Baggins

Cait Sith

Pet Sounds

"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"

Spirited Away

Exile II: Crystal Souls

Nethergate

Billie Holiday

"Nephil's Gambit"

Slartibartfast

Kierkegaard

The Tarot Deck

The Deck of Many Things

Bossa nova

Disco

Jiji (character)

File compression

Sliced bread

Bagels

Your favourite anime

Ducks

Prossis-Bok

Working out

Sea slugs

Ninjas

Jiji (in Nikki's lap)

Reality TV

Ice cream

The Northern Lights

Russian literature
70's cars

Georg Cantor

—Alorael

C++

Good grammar

Cor Blok's Tolkien art

Bacon

Henry Wallace

OK Computer

Speedy Gonzales screenshot

Sans serif fonts

Saunas

Linux

Vinyl records

The aesthetic qualities of the Greek alphabet

Maggie Simpson

The Queen is Dead

Shanti

Schuyler Colfax

Roguelikes

Chess

Lady Gaga

Lawsuits

Wine

Jeff Vogel

Ravens

Smartphones

Whiskey

The Evil Overlord List

Exile III: Ruined World

The last game I played

Bartenders

Sock puppets

Flamingos

"Mr. Green Genes"

Penguins

Civilization (human phenomenon)

Beer

Frodo Baggins

Bob Dylan

Ontology

Cluny the Scourge

Ella Fitzgerald

Pelicans

BitTorrent

Nevermind

TLC

Mexican food

Tom Waits

70's prog

Sliths

Avernum II: Crystal Souls

Slarty Ranks Everything

"...Gottfried Reads Fifty Shades..."

The Cranberries (band)

Donuts

Cats

Trombones

The Muppets

The Eiffel Tower

Solidarność screenshot

Civ II

Revolutions

Casablanca

Avadon series

Goldfish (snack)

Gilbert Gottfried

Football (American)

Nephils

Princess Peach

Avernum 4

Cinnamon rolls

Aretha Franklin

Homestar Runner

They Might Be Giants

Tennis

Posting games

Inspector Peanut

Subinfeudation

The Big Lebowski

Nelson Rockefeller

Goldfish (fish)

King Arthur

The aesthetic qualities of the Hebrew alphabet

Windows 3.1

Richard Cheese

Bark spider

Dolphins

Metahumor

Nixon's foreign policy

Sparkling water

Grant Wood

Paprika

Norman Rockwell

Nick Cave

"This is a Trent Reznor Song"

Spam (meat)

Cabaret (film)

Peanuts

Standard playing cards

Xian Skull (item)

Spam (e-mails)

Checkers

Pineapple pizza

The LP rendition of Slarty's voice

Vitamin C supplements

70's movies

"Lackadaisical"

Puggsy

Louis Armstrong

"Mr. Tambourine Man"

The aesthetic qualities of hierogylphics

Russian

Beowulf (character)

Angry Birds

Alf screenshot

Today's weather

Phantom stair step (bottom)

Word Rescue

Minecraft

Mechanical pencils

Vultures

The post that asks me to rank itself

KISS (principle)

Salty liquorice

Galactic Core

Gilmore Girls

Hockey

George Clooney

Getting a triple word score in Scrabble

Phantom stair step (top)

Turkey/cat video

Dieselpunk

AOL

Hipgnosis

Salt lamps

Bertrand Russell

My Little Pony

80's fashion

The War on Drugs (band)

Queen (band)

Fifty Shades of Grey

Jane Austen books

The Let's Play series

Runtz

Basketball

Baseball

"Acceptable in the 80's" (song)

Cats (musical)

Pirates

"Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros" (song)

Soccer

Robin Hood (character)

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Thomas the Tank Engine

Freefall (webcomic)

"2500 things Mr. Welch..."

Novelty mugs

ELIZA

Kitten/rat box

John Calhoun (politician)

Mr. Toad of Toad Hall

The Xavier Files

BGG Top 10

Johnny Cash

Sock puppets (fake accounts)

KISS

The Barber Paradox

Elfpunk

U2

Wings (band)

Steampunk

Turnips

Fictional names that use a lot of apostrophes

Twilight Saga

Anchovy pizza

The Big Bang Theory (TV show)

"Stuff from the 90's!" (song)

The Olympics

The Crusades

King Leopold

Handlebar mustaches

Birthdays

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I said early on that I wasn't going to include items I had basically no opinion about (unless that in itself was interesting).  To make a comparison, the birds that someone suggested were all birds with symbolic significance; lions, tigers and bears were clearly suggested on the other hand because they are all in the phrase "lions, tigers, and bears, oh my" -- which is a common thread, but does not make any of those items interesting on their own.

 

So, the way to get me to rank your entries is to post ones that I have meaningful opinions about already, and/or ones that I can develop meaningful opinions about based on a cursory amount of googling or wikipedia-ing.

 

(Also, there are some other reasons I am omitting items, e.g., if they are basically just about me, or about another member here, or if they break the code of conduct, etc.)

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The rabbit that "attacked" Jimmy Carter: Too much is unknown about this rabbit.
Willow Rosenberg: Through season 5, a likeable, nuanced character who grows in interesting ways, and is definitely one of the most interesting geek-archetype portrayals I can think of on any TV show.  In theory, all the elements of her progression in season 6 could be good, but -- as with everything else in that season -- it was just made a little too frivolously over-the-top.  Then with season 7, Kennedy and "you're a goddess" -- ugh, not going to go there.  But I weigh the first five seasons more heavily.
Subway (transportation): I've always been fond of them.  Not sure why exactly.
Godwin's Law: Godwin's self-fulfilling prophecy.  It also feels entirely out of place -- once upon a time people _did_ make unwarranted references to Hitler as an extrema, but the English-speaking Internet is now much more likely to bring him up because there is an actual comparison being made.  So, meh.  Dintiradan's Law is obviously superior.
Life of Brian: I don't love it.  Whereas Holy Grail delivered comedy manacled to incisive social criticism, this movie is basically a fart joke about religion.
Seinfeld: Probably the best sitcom ever made.  There's real artistry to the way memes loop in and out, and it captures individual moments of human interaction in a way that is really unusual.

 

Ranking Lists: Generally afflicted with unfortunate judgments, yet so tempting.

 

Square One TV: The smartest, funniest educational program ever made.  It has a special place in my heart.  (Eight hundredths of the time, it's the only show I'm dreaming of.)
Waving Hands: A truly ingenious game.
Madeline Kahn: An amazing actress with just the right combination of quizzicalness, confidence, surprise, quietude, and -- that thing she does with her voice...
Egizia: A very good board game.

 

Fedoras: I truly don't understand why anyone thinks these look good.  Even on a purely aesthetic level -- even putting aside the negative associations they conjure up for many people.
Coffee: <3
The Chronicles of Narnia: There are things I appreciate about it -- and I am the last person to criticize something for involving pretentious theological allegories -- but, man, Aslan at the Stone Table, come on.  And then there is _the problem of Susan,_ which really is a big problem.
Basic solitaire (Klondike): I give it credit for filling a niche, and that's about it.

 

 

Dogs

Square One Television

Chrono Trigger

Cyberpunk

Bilbo Baggins

Cait Sith

Waving Hands

Pet Sounds

"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"

Spirited Away

Exile II: Crystal Souls

Nethergate

Billie Holiday

"Nephil's Gambit"

Slartibartfast

Kierkegaard

The Tarot Deck

Madeline Kahn

The deck of many things

Seinfeld

Egizia

Coffee

Bossa nova

Disco

Jiji (character)

File compression

Sliced bread

Bagels

Subways (transit)

Your favourite anime

Ducks

Willow Rosenberg

Prossis-Bok

Working out

Sea slugs

Ninjas

Jiji (in Nikki's lap)

Reality TV

Ice cream

The Northern Lights

Russian literature
70's cars

Georg Cantor

—Alorael

C++

Good grammar

Cor Blok's Tolkien art

Bacon

Henry Wallace

OK Computer

Speedy Gonzales screenshot

Sans serif fonts

Saunas

Linux

Vinyl records

The aesthetic qualities of the Greek alphabet

Maggie Simpson

The Queen is Dead

Shanti

Schuyler Colfax

Roguelikes

Chess

Lady Gaga

Lawsuits

Wine

Jeff Vogel

Ravens

Smartphones

Whiskey

The Evil Overlord List

Exile III: Ruined World

The last game I played

Bartenders

Sock puppets

Flamingos

The Chronicles of Narnia

"Mr. Green Genes"

Penguins

Civilization (human phenomenon)

Beer

Frodo Baggins

Bob Dylan

Ontology

Cluny the Scourge

Ella Fitzgerald

Pelicans

BitTorrent

Nevermind

TLC

Mexican food

Tom Waits

70's prog

Sliths

Avernum II: Crystal Souls

Slarty Ranks Everything

Ranking lists

"...Gottfried Reads Fifty Shades..."

The Cranberries (band)

Donuts

Cats

Trombones

The Muppets

The Eiffel Tower

Solidarność screenshot

Civ II

Revolutions

Casablanca

Avadon series

Goldfish (snack)

Gilbert Gottfried

Football (American)

Nephils

Princess Peach

Avernum 4

Cinnamon rolls

Aretha Franklin

Homestar Runner

They Might Be Giants

Tennis

Posting games

Inspector Peanut

Subinfeudation

Solitaire

The Big Lebowski

Nelson Rockefeller

Goldfish (fish)

King Arthur

The aesthetic qualities of the Hebrew alphabet

Windows 3.1

Richard Cheese

Bark spider

Dolphins

Metahumor

Nixon's foreign policy

Sparkling water

Grant Wood

Paprika

Norman Rockwell

Nick Cave

"This is a Trent Reznor Song"

Spam (meat)

Cabaret (film)

Peanuts

Standard playing cards

Xian Skull (item)

Spam (e-mails)

Checkers

Pineapple pizza

The LP rendition of Slarty's voice

Vitamin C supplements

70's movies

"Lackadaisical"

Puggsy

Louis Armstrong

"Mr. Tambourine Man"

Godwin's Law

The aesthetic qualities of hierogylphics

Russian

Beowulf (character)

Angry Birds

Alf screenshot

Today's weather

Phantom stair step (bottom)

Word Rescue

Minecraft

Mechanical pencils

Vultures

The post that asks me to rank itself

KISS (principle)

Salty liquorice

Galactic Core

Gilmore Girls

Hockey

George Clooney

Getting a triple word score in Scrabble

Phantom stair step (top)

Turkey/cat video

Dieselpunk

Life of Brian

AOL

Hipgnosis

Salt lamps

Bertrand Russell

My Little Pony

80's fashion

The War on Drugs (band)

Queen (band)

Fifty Shades of Grey

Jane Austen books

The Let's Play series

Runtz

Basketball

Baseball

"Acceptable in the 80's" (song)

Cats (musical)

Pirates

"Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros" (song)

Soccer

Robin Hood (character)

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Thomas the Tank Engine

Freefall (webcomic)

"2500 things Mr. Welch..."

Novelty mugs

Fedoras

ELIZA

Kitten/rat box

John Calhoun (politician)

Mr. Toad of Toad Hall

The Xavier Files

BGG Top 10

Johnny Cash

Sock puppets (fake accounts)

KISS

The Barber Paradox

Elfpunk

U2

Wings (band)

Steampunk

Turnips

Fictional names that use a lot of apostrophes

Twilight Saga

Anchovy pizza

The Big Bang Theory (TV show)

"Stuff from the 90's!" (song)

The Olympics

The Crusades

King Leopold

Handlebar mustaches

Birthdays

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The Microsoft Office Assistant

Carmen McRae

Nina Simone

Greek Yogurt

Biscuits

Croissants

The city you live in

MMORPGs

Star Wars original trilogy

Star Wars prequel trilogy

Star Wars new movies

Garfield (cat)

James Garfield

Richard Garfield

Edited by Jawaj
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Salmon:

On 3/8/2018 at 8:36 AM, The Voices of My Education said:

I said early on that I wasn't going to include items I had basically no opinion about (unless that in itself was interesting).

 

whaling: It's had its better and worse moments in human history but in general it's hard to get excited about killing things, especially when it gets awfully close to killing all of the things
bimetallism: "Revolution is a trivial shift in the emphasis of suffering." -- Tom Stoppard, still
the Byzantine Empire: I give it credit for having a name that sounds, frankly, quite cool in English, though I suppose it really has the development of English stress patterns for that, and of course it wasn't a contemporary name in the first place.  Beyond that -- I mean it's a massive political entity that concentrated wealth and power and oppressed people, what is there to love here
Hallowe'en: Anthropologically fascinating but annoying and vapid to actually live through.

 

The Microsoft Office Assistant: I think my feelings are implied
Carmen McRae: Doesn't move me quite as it could
Nina Simone: Does
Greek Yogurt: I might not care, but the Greek yogurt fad has taken over basically all of the shelf space from good non-Greek yogurt, which is annoying
Croissants: When done right, it's hard for any other baked good to compare
The city you live in: I used to say "It's not you, it's me" about this city, but I'm still here, years later.  It could be a lot worse
MMORPGs: Such a good concept, ruined by people
Star Wars original trilogy: Alec Guinness, Carrie Fisher, and James Earl Jones carry this, despite gradually increasing quantities of stupidity in the second and third movies
Star Wars prequel trilogy: So many problems, so much creepiness, so many artistic choices that I just can't understand
Star Wars new movies: Haven't bothered to see them and probably won't
Garfield (cat): Subject of an extremely pointless comic strip.  On the plus side, not a human
James Garfield: For a U.S. president, he was relatively non-sucky; anti-corruption and pro-civil rights is pretty much enough to do that
Richard Garfield: Ahhhh... well, he's had a hand in one game that I have an exceedingly high opinion; some other good ones; some total crap that I don't understand why people like; and then there's MtG.  I don't agree with all of what he's expounded about game design but it's interesting

 

 

 

Dogs

Square One Television

Chrono Trigger

Cyberpunk

Bilbo Baggins

Cait Sith

Waving Hands

Pet Sounds

"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"

Spirited Away

Exile II: Crystal Souls

Nethergate

Billie Holiday

"Nephil's Gambit"

Slartibartfast

Kierkegaard

The Tarot Deck

Madeline Kahn

The deck of many things

Seinfeld

Egizia

Coffee

Croissants

Bossa nova

Disco

Jiji (character)

File compression

Sliced bread

Bagels

Subways (transit)

Your favourite anime

Ducks

Willow Rosenberg

Prossis-Bok

Working out

Nina Simone

Sea slugs

Ninjas

Jiji (in Nikki's lap)

Reality TV

Ice cream

The Northern Lights

Russian literature
70's cars

Georg Cantor

—Alorael

C++

Good grammar

Cor Blok's Tolkien art

Bacon

Henry Wallace

OK Computer

Speedy Gonzales screenshot

Sans serif fonts

Saunas

Linux

Vinyl records

The aesthetic qualities of the Greek alphabet

Maggie Simpson

The Queen is Dead

Shanti

Schuyler Colfax

Roguelikes

Chess

Lady Gaga

Lawsuits

Wine

Jeff Vogel

Ravens

Smartphones

Whiskey

The Evil Overlord List

Exile III: Ruined World

The last game I played

Bartenders

Sock puppets

Flamingos

The Chronicles of Narnia

"Mr. Green Genes"

Penguins

Civilization (human phenomenon)

Beer

Frodo Baggins

Bob Dylan

Richard Garfield

Ontology

Cluny the Scourge

Ella Fitzgerald

Pelicans

BitTorrent

Nevermind

TLC

Mexican food

Tom Waits

70's prog

Sliths

Avernum II: Crystal Souls

Slarty Ranks Everything

Ranking lists

"...Gottfried Reads Fifty Shades..."

The Cranberries (band)

Donuts

Cats

Trombones

The Muppets

The Eiffel Tower

Solidarność screenshot

Civ II

Revolutions

Casablanca

Avadon series

Goldfish (snack)

Gilbert Gottfried

Football (American)

Nephils

Princess Peach

Star Wars original trilogy

James Garfield

Avernum 4

Cinnamon rolls

Aretha Franklin

Homestar Runner

They Might Be Giants

Tennis

Posting games

Inspector Peanut

Subinfeudation

Solitaire

The Big Lebowski

Nelson Rockefeller

Goldfish (fish)

King Arthur

The aesthetic qualities of the Hebrew alphabet

Windows 3.1

Carmen McRae

Richard Cheese

Bark spider

Dolphins

Metahumor

Nixon's foreign policy

Sparkling water

Grant Wood

Paprika

Norman Rockwell

Nick Cave

MMORPGs

"This is a Trent Reznor Song"

Spam (meat)

Cabaret (film)

Peanuts

Standard playing cards

Xian Skull (item)

Spam (e-mails)

Checkers

Pineapple pizza

The LP rendition of Slarty's voice

Vitamin C supplements

70's movies

"Lackadaisical"

Puggsy

Louis Armstrong

"Mr. Tambourine Man"

Godwin's Law

The aesthetic qualities of hierogylphics

Russian

Bimetallism

Beowulf (character)

Angry Birds

Alf screenshot

Today's weather

Phantom stair step (bottom)

Word Rescue

Minecraft

Mechanical pencils

Vultures

The post that asks me to rank itself

Greek yogurt

KISS (principle)

Salty liquorice

Galactic Core

Gilmore Girls

Hockey

George Clooney

Getting a triple word score in Scrabble

Phantom stair step (top)

Turkey/cat video

Dieselpunk

Life of Brian

AOL

Hipgnosis

Salt lamps

Bertrand Russell

My Little Pony

80's fashion

Whaling

The War on Drugs (band)

Queen (band)

Fifty Shades of Grey

Jane Austen books

The Byzantine Empire

The Let's Play series

Runtz

Basketball

Baseball

"Acceptable in the 80's" (song)

Halloween

Cats (musical)

Pirates

"Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros" (song)

Soccer

Robin Hood (character)

Star Wars prequel trilogy

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Thomas the Tank Engine

Freefall (webcomic)

"2500 things Mr. Welch..."

Novelty mugs

Fedoras

ELIZA

The Microsoft Office Assistant

Kitten/rat box

John Calhoun (politician)

Mr. Toad of Toad Hall

The Xavier Files

BGG Top 10

Johnny Cash

Sock puppets (fake accounts)

KISS

The Barber Paradox

Elfpunk

U2

Wings (band)

Steampunk

Turnips

Fictional names that use a lot of apostrophes

Twilight Saga

Anchovy pizza

The Big Bang Theory (TV show)

"Stuff from the 90's!" (song)

The Olympics

The Crusades

King Leopold

Handlebar mustaches

Birthdays

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The best and worst RPGs you've played: Honestly, it's hard to even figure out what these are.  There are some names that come to mind easily, but a lot of the games I love or hate I love or hate in a given context.  Chrono Trigger _might_ be the best -- and perhaps is, if you mean "best" in any overall sense that goes beyond personal favourites -- but it also might not be.  On the other hand, how do I evaluate something like Angband, with all its variants, sprawling and sometimes stunning?  Or a game that is a little smaller and more niche, but completely exquisite?  And as for worst, well, there's even more competition for that
Alphabets: so much potential -- <3
Abjads: Rather than getting into the weeds on this somewhat ambiguous term, I will just say that tri-consonantal roots are such a great idea in theory and such a nightmare in practice
Abugidas: Annoyingly unphonetic in writing; I hate to say it but I find syllabaries more intuitive

 

Jury nullification: I have very mixed feelings about this, because it has a very mixed impact in terms of power gradients -- it is a mechanism which supports the populace against the government, but also one which supports the majority against the minority.  Historically it seems to be a net positive, so I'll lean that way, but it makes me a little uneasy
Tiki drinks: Yes please

 

Stubbing your big toe: Not good, but there are worse things
Stubbing your little toe: Potentially worse, because of the nail.  (Though that can come up with the big toe too)

 

Les Miserables (novel): This I support
Charles Dickens: Hate him.  Words should be weighed and not counted
Harry Potter: It's fine.  You know, there are some neat things about it, and other things that feel a little gauche, like a lot of the spell names.  Frodo lives
The Matrix (ignore the sequels): I watched this in English with French subtitles and I was pretty bored, but amused by how inaccurate some of the translations were
Westerns (movie genre): No interest
Film Noirs: A vague genre that has more style than substance
Apple: How the apple has fallen.  That said, Steve Jobs was always a very bad person.  I have stories, I do
Google: I have problems with them too (including how they are ruining all their interfaces currently) but I guess they are less dumb than your typical dumb company, and they have done some very neat things here and there, like Google TiSP
Microsoft: Sighhhhhhh
Amazon: Amazon killed the biblio store
Facebook: I wish I could hate them more.  My feelings here are complicated
New York City: Too extraverted and overlapping for me

 

Felafel: Yummy
Bumper stickers: My other bumper sticker is also dumb
Expensive wristwatches: Even an expensive wristwatch is right twice a day
Friends (TV Series): I won't be there for you (except you Lisa Kudrow, I will totally be there for you)
Cologne (fragrance): I find most colognes to be too strong and vaguely unpleasant.  Not a scent fan
 

 

 

Dogs

Square One Television

Alphabets

Chrono Trigger

Cyberpunk

Bilbo Baggins

Cait Sith

Waving Hands

Pet Sounds

"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"

Spirited Away

Exile II: Crystal Souls

Nethergate

Billie Holiday

"Nephil's Gambit"

Slartibartfast

Kierkegaard

The Tarot Deck

Madeline Kahn

The deck of many things

Seinfeld

Egizia

Coffee

Croissants

Les Misérables (novel)

Bossa nova

Disco

Jiji (character)

File compression

Sliced bread

Bagels

Subways (transit)

Your favourite anime

Ducks

Willow Rosenberg

Prossis-Bok

Working out

Nina Simone

Sea slugs

Ninjas

Jiji (in Nikki's lap)

Reality TV

Tiki drinks

Ice cream

The Northern Lights

Russian literature
70's cars

Georg Cantor

—Alorael

C++

Good grammar

Cor Blok's Tolkien art

Bacon

Falafel

Henry Wallace

OK Computer

Speedy Gonzales screenshot

Sans serif fonts

Saunas

Linux

Vinyl records

The aesthetic qualities of the Greek alphabet

Maggie Simpson

The Queen is Dead

Shanti

Schuyler Colfax

Roguelikes

Chess

Lady Gaga

Lawsuits

Wine

Jeff Vogel

Ravens

Smartphones

Whiskey

The Evil Overlord List

Exile III: Ruined World

The last game I played

Bartenders

Sock puppets

Flamingos

The Chronicles of Narnia

"Mr. Green Genes"

Penguins

Civilization (human phenomenon)

Beer

Frodo Baggins

Bob Dylan

Richard Garfield

Ontology

Cluny the Scourge

Ella Fitzgerald

Pelicans

BitTorrent

Nevermind

TLC

Mexican food

Tom Waits

70's prog

Sliths

Avernum II: Crystal Souls

Slarty Ranks Everything

Ranking lists

"...Gottfried Reads Fifty Shades..."

The Cranberries (band)

Donuts

Cats

Trombones

The Muppets

The Eiffel Tower

Solidarność screenshot

Civ II

Revolutions

Casablanca

Avadon series

Goldfish (snack)

Gilbert Gottfried

Football (American)

Nephils

Princess Peach

Star Wars original trilogy

James Garfield

Jury nullification

Avernum 4

Cinnamon rolls

Aretha Franklin

Homestar Runner

They Might Be Giants

Tennis

Posting games

Inspector Peanut

Subinfeudation

Solitaire

The Big Lebowski

Nelson Rockefeller

Goldfish (fish)

King Arthur

The aesthetic qualities of the Hebrew alphabet

Windows 3.1

Carmen McRae

Richard Cheese

Bark spider

Dolphins

Metahumor

Nixon's foreign policy

Sparkling water

Grant Wood

Paprika

Norman Rockwell

Nick Cave

MMORPGs

"This is a Trent Reznor Song"

Spam (meat)

Cabaret (film)

Harry Potter series

Peanuts

Standard playing cards

Google

Xian Skull (item)

Spam (e-mails)

Checkers

Facebook

Pineapple pizza

The LP rendition of Slarty's voice

Film noir

Abugidas

Vitamin C supplements

70's movies

New York City

Abjads

"Lackadaisical"

Puggsy

Louis Armstrong

"Mr. Tambourine Man"

The Matrix

Godwin's Law

The aesthetic qualities of hierogylphics

Russian

Bimetallism

Beowulf (character)

Angry Birds

Alf screenshot

Today's weather

Microsoft

Phantom stair step (bottom)

Word Rescue

Minecraft

Apple

Mechanical pencils

Vultures

Amazon

The post that asks me to rank itself

Greek yogurt

KISS (principle)

Salty liquorice

Westerns

Galactic Core

Gilmore Girls

Hockey

George Clooney

Friends

Getting a triple word score in Scrabble

Phantom stair step (top)

Turkey/cat video

Dieselpunk

Life of Brian

AOL

Hipgnosis

Expensive wristwatches

Salt lamps

Cologne

Bertrand Russell

My Little Pony

80's fashion

Whaling

The War on Drugs (band)

Queen (band)

Fifty Shades of Grey

Jane Austen books

The Byzantine Empire

The Let's Play series

Runtz

Stubbing your big toe

Basketball

Baseball

"Acceptable in the 80's" (song)

Halloween

Cats (musical)

Stubbing your little toe

Pirates

Charles Dickens

"Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros" (song)

Soccer

Robin Hood (character)

Star Wars prequel trilogy

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Thomas the Tank Engine

Freefall (webcomic)

"2500 things Mr. Welch..."

Bumper stickers

Novelty mugs

Fedoras

ELIZA

The Microsoft Office Assistant

Kitten/rat box

John Calhoun (politician)

Mr. Toad of Toad Hall

The Xavier Files

BGG Top 10

Johnny Cash

Sock puppets (fake accounts)

KISS

The Barber Paradox

Elfpunk

U2

Wings (band)

Steampunk

Turnips

Fictional names that use a lot of apostrophes

Twilight Saga

Anchovy pizza

The Big Bang Theory (TV show)

"Stuff from the 90's!" (song)

The Olympics

The Crusades

King Leopold

Handlebar mustaches

Birthdays

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22 minutes ago, The Voices of My Education said:

The best and worst RPGs you've played: Honestly, it's hard to even figure out what these are.  There are some names that come to mind easily, but a lot of the games I love or hate I love or hate in a given context.

Which RPG did you enjoy the most, and would most like to replay (even if the replay desire is just for now and fleeting), and which RPG stirs the most visceral hatred in you.

 

Also: no love for the PLC................................. they had the highest suffrage rate in Europe for all of the early modern era, and a higher suffrage rate than even Britain did until the Reform Act of 1832.

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Ugh.  That's still a difficult question.  I suppose I can answer visceral hatred though

 

Final Fantasy VIII: Whining Squall.  Squealing Selphie.  Rich kids at prom.  Gunblades.  A white mage love interest with "Heart" literally in her name.  The franchise low-point for translations of "genju" (as GFs), which is really saying something.  A stupid, pointless card game mini-game that for some reason people love.  A world with zero internal consistency.  And the most anti-climactic reveal ever, that the "big secret" of the game is that all the characters came from the same orphanage.  But worst of all is the !#@$@! Draw-Junction System.  No please no

 

Roller skates: Difficult and pointless

The Hubble Space Telescope: gets a bad rap

Elephants: I'm pretty OK with elephants

Pyramids: Can you be more specific

 

 

Dogs

Square One Television

Alphabets

Chrono Trigger

Cyberpunk

Bilbo Baggins

Cait Sith

Waving Hands

Pet Sounds

"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"

Spirited Away

Exile II: Crystal Souls

Nethergate

Billie Holiday

"Nephil's Gambit"

Slartibartfast

Kierkegaard

The Tarot Deck

Madeline Kahn

The deck of many things

Seinfeld

Egizia

Coffee

Croissants

Les Misérables (novel)

Bossa nova

Disco

Jiji (character)

File compression

Sliced bread

Bagels

Subways (transit)

Your favourite anime

Ducks

Willow Rosenberg

Prossis-Bok

Working out

Nina Simone

Sea slugs

Ninjas

Jiji (in Nikki's lap)

Reality TV

Tiki drinks

Ice cream

The Northern Lights

Russian literature
70's cars

Georg Cantor

—Alorael

C++

Good grammar

Cor Blok's Tolkien art

Bacon

Falafel

Henry Wallace

OK Computer

Speedy Gonzales screenshot

Sans serif fonts

Saunas

Linux

Vinyl records

The aesthetic qualities of the Greek alphabet

Maggie Simpson

The Queen is Dead

Shanti

Schuyler Colfax

Roguelikes

Chess

Lady Gaga

Lawsuits

Wine

Jeff Vogel

Ravens

Smartphones

Whiskey

The Evil Overlord List

Exile III: Ruined World

The last game I played

Bartenders

Sock puppets

Flamingos

The Chronicles of Narnia

"Mr. Green Genes"

Penguins

Civilization (human phenomenon)

Beer

Frodo Baggins

Bob Dylan

Richard Garfield

Ontology

Cluny the Scourge

Ella Fitzgerald

Pelicans

BitTorrent

Nevermind

TLC

Mexican food

Tom Waits

70's prog

Sliths

Avernum II: Crystal Souls

Slarty Ranks Everything

Ranking lists

"...Gottfried Reads Fifty Shades..."

The Cranberries (band)

Elephants

Donuts

Cats

Trombones

The Muppets

The Eiffel Tower

Solidarność screenshot

Civ II

Revolutions

Casablanca

Avadon series

Goldfish (snack)

Gilbert Gottfried

Football (American)

Nephils

Princess Peach

Star Wars original trilogy

James Garfield

Jury nullification

Avernum 4

Cinnamon rolls

Hubble space telescope

Aretha Franklin

Homestar Runner

They Might Be Giants

Tennis

Posting games

Inspector Peanut

Subinfeudation

Solitaire

The Big Lebowski

Nelson Rockefeller

Goldfish (fish)

King Arthur

The aesthetic qualities of the Hebrew alphabet

Windows 3.1

Carmen McRae

Richard Cheese

Bark spider

Dolphins

Metahumor

Nixon's foreign policy

Sparkling water

Grant Wood

Paprika

Norman Rockwell

Nick Cave

MMORPGs

"This is a Trent Reznor Song"

Spam (meat)

Cabaret (film)

Harry Potter series

Peanuts

Standard playing cards

Google

Xian Skull (item)

Spam (e-mails)

Checkers

Facebook

Pineapple pizza

The LP rendition of Slarty's voice

Film noir

Abugidas

Vitamin C supplements

70's movies

New York City

Abjads

"Lackadaisical"

Puggsy

Louis Armstrong

"Mr. Tambourine Man"

The Matrix

Godwin's Law

The aesthetic qualities of hierogylphics

Russian

Bimetallism

Beowulf (character)

Angry Birds

Alf screenshot

Today's weather

Microsoft

Phantom stair step (bottom)

Word Rescue

Minecraft

Apple

Mechanical pencils

Vultures

Amazon

The post that asks me to rank itself

Roller skates

Greek yogurt

KISS (principle)

Salty liquorice

Westerns

Galactic Core

Gilmore Girls

Hockey

George Clooney

Friends

Getting a triple word score in Scrabble

Phantom stair step (top)

Turkey/cat video

Dieselpunk

Life of Brian

AOL

Hipgnosis

Expensive wristwatches

Salt lamps

Cologne

Bertrand Russell

My Little Pony

80's fashion

Whaling

The War on Drugs (band)

Queen (band)

Fifty Shades of Grey

Jane Austen books

The Byzantine Empire

The Let's Play series

Runtz

Stubbing your big toe

Basketball

Baseball

"Acceptable in the 80's" (song)

Halloween

Cats (musical)

Stubbing your little toe

Pirates

Charles Dickens

"Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros" (song)

Soccer

Robin Hood (character)

Star Wars prequel trilogy

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Thomas the Tank Engine

Freefall (webcomic)

"2500 things Mr. Welch..."

Bumper stickers

Novelty mugs

Fedoras

ELIZA

The Microsoft Office Assistant

Kitten/rat box

John Calhoun (politician)

Mr. Toad of Toad Hall

The Xavier Files

BGG Top 10

Johnny Cash

Sock puppets (fake accounts)

KISS

The Barber Paradox

Elfpunk

U2

Wings (band)

Steampunk

Turnips

Fictional names that use a lot of apostrophes

Twilight Saga

Anchovy pizza

Final Fantasy VIII

The Big Bang Theory (TV show)

"Stuff from the 90's!" (song)

The Olympics

The Crusades

King Leopold

Handlebar mustaches

Birthdays

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Deontology: Generally my preferred approach to ethics, at least philosophically
Consequentialism: I am one of those people who believes that the ends do not justify the means.  This is probably not a surprise
Virtue Ethics: It's like this entire branch is a relative shadow cast by the platonic form of the is-ought fallacy
Ethical Intuitionism: May we never be free from G.E. Moore?
Deconstructivism: From context it seems likely you meant deconstructionism (which I strongly dislike), but I'll answer both: I am not a big fan of deconstructivism either
Ennui: What rating exactly were you expecting here

 

Zombie (necromantic): One of the better versions of zombies, perhaps because, due to the nature of necromancy, there's always some kind of actual motivation behind the existence of the zombies (whether on the part of a necromancer, or past events that stir up necromancy directly)
Zombie (infectious): Overdone, generally implausible, and insufficiently undead for my tastes
Zombie (voodoo): To the degree that this is actually a thing, it's mostly just a special case of necromancy
Zombie (Frankenstein): Not a zombie.  Frankenstein's monster was animated, not reanimated.  While the other sorts of zombies here have different mechanisms of origin, they all share at least some behavior, but Frankenstein's monster doesn't have that either.  Zombie precursor, maybe
Zombie (Cranberries): As mentioned earlier, I think this song is a real masterpiece -- underrated, perhaps because it got so much airplay and had such a clear moral message.
Zombie (p): I generally agree with Nagel and Chalmers on consciousness and therefore see philosophical zombies as a useful concept

 

i dunno, let's say ziggurats i guess: Ziggurats are cool

 

Sorry guys, I... don't have a ton of opinions about eighteen uses of the word pyramid

 

Pyramids (with eyes on): Gauche, whether or not they are providential
 

 

Dogs

Square One Television

Alphabets

Chrono Trigger

Cyberpunk

Bilbo Baggins

"Zombie" (Cranberries song)

Cait Sith

Waving Hands

Pet Sounds

"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"

Spirited Away

Exile II: Crystal Souls

Nethergate

Billie Holiday

"Nephil's Gambit"

Slartibartfast

Kierkegaard

The Tarot Deck

Madeline Kahn

The deck of many things

Seinfeld

Egizia

Coffee

Croissants

Les Misérables (novel)

Bossa nova

Disco

Jiji (character)

File compression

Sliced bread

Bagels

Subways (transit)

Your favourite anime

P-zombies

Ducks

Deontology

Willow Rosenberg

Prossis-Bok

Working out

Nina Simone

Sea slugs

Ninjas

Jiji (in Nikki's lap)

Ziggurats

Reality TV

Tiki drinks

Ice cream

The Northern Lights

Russian literature
70's cars

Georg Cantor

—Alorael

C++

Good grammar

Cor Blok's Tolkien art

Bacon

Falafel

Henry Wallace

OK Computer

Zombies (necromantic)

Speedy Gonzales screenshot

Sans serif fonts

Saunas

Linux

Vinyl records

The aesthetic qualities of the Greek alphabet

Maggie Simpson

The Queen is Dead

Shanti

Schuyler Colfax

Roguelikes

Chess

Lady Gaga

Lawsuits

Wine

Jeff Vogel

Ravens

Smartphones

Whiskey

The Evil Overlord List

Exile III: Ruined World

The last game I played

Bartenders

Sock puppets

Flamingos

The Chronicles of Narnia

"Mr. Green Genes"

Penguins

Civilization (human phenomenon)

Beer

Frodo Baggins

Bob Dylan

Richard Garfield

Ontology

Cluny the Scourge

Ella Fitzgerald

Pelicans

BitTorrent

Nevermind

TLC

Mexican food

Tom Waits

70's prog

Sliths

Avernum II: Crystal Souls

Slarty Ranks Everything

Ranking lists

"...Gottfried Reads Fifty Shades..."

The Cranberries (band)

Elephants

Donuts

Cats

Trombones

The Muppets

The Eiffel Tower

Solidarność screenshot

Civ II

Revolutions

Casablanca

Avadon series

Goldfish (snack)

Gilbert Gottfried

Football (American)

Nephils

Princess Peach

Star Wars original trilogy

James Garfield

Jury nullification

Avernum 4

Cinnamon rolls

Hubble space telescope

Aretha Franklin

Homestar Runner

They Might Be Giants

Tennis

Posting games

Inspector Peanut

Subinfeudation

Solitaire

The Big Lebowski

Nelson Rockefeller

Goldfish (fish)

King Arthur

The aesthetic qualities of the Hebrew alphabet

Windows 3.1

Carmen McRae

Richard Cheese

Bark spider

Dolphins

Metahumor

Nixon's foreign policy

Sparkling water

Grant Wood

Paprika

Norman Rockwell

Nick Cave

MMORPGs

"This is a Trent Reznor Song"

Spam (meat)

Cabaret (film)

Harry Potter series

Peanuts

Standard playing cards

Google

Xian Skull (item)

Spam (e-mails)

Checkers

Facebook

Pineapple pizza

The LP rendition of Slarty's voice

Film noir

Abugidas

Vitamin C supplements

70's movies

New York City

Abjads

"Lackadaisical"

Puggsy

Louis Armstrong

"Mr. Tambourine Man"

The Matrix

Godwin's Law

The aesthetic qualities of hierogylphics

Russian

Bimetallism

Beowulf (character)

Angry Birds

Alf screenshot

Pyramids with eyes on them

Today's weather

Microsoft

Phantom stair step (bottom)

Word Rescue

Minecraft

Apple

Mechanical pencils

Vultures

Amazon

The post that asks me to rank itself

Roller skates

Greek yogurt

KISS (principle)

Salty liquorice

Westerns

Galactic Core

Gilmore Girls

Hockey

George Clooney

Friends

Getting a triple word score in Scrabble

Phantom stair step (top)

Turkey/cat video

Dieselpunk

Life of Brian

AOL

Zombies (infectious)

Hipgnosis

Expensive wristwatches

Salt lamps

Cologne

Bertrand Russell

My Little Pony

80's fashion

Whaling

The War on Drugs (band)

Queen (band)

Fifty Shades of Grey

Jane Austen books

The Byzantine Empire

The Let's Play series

Runtz

Stubbing your big toe

Basketball

Baseball

"Acceptable in the 80's" (song)

Halloween

Virtue ethics

Cats (musical)

Stubbing your little toe

Pirates

Ennui

Charles Dickens

"Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros" (song)

Soccer

Robin Hood (character)

Star Wars prequel trilogy

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Thomas the Tank Engine

Freefall (webcomic)

"2500 things Mr. Welch..."

Ethical intuitionism

Bumper stickers

Novelty mugs

Fedoras

Deconstructivism

ELIZA

The Microsoft Office Assistant

Kitten/rat box

John Calhoun (politician)

Mr. Toad of Toad Hall

The Xavier Files

BGG Top 10

Johnny Cash

Sock puppets (fake accounts)

KISS

The Barber Paradox

Elfpunk

U2

Wings (band)

Steampunk

Turnips

Fictional names that use a lot of apostrophes

Deconstructionism

Twilight Saga

Anchovy pizza

Final Fantasy VIII

The Big Bang Theory (TV show)

"Stuff from the 90's!" (song)

The Olympics

Consequentialism

The Crusades

King Leopold

Handlebar mustaches

Birthdays

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Share on other sites

With the list now up to 285 items, its scope has grown considerably.  As a result of its growing process being full of spurts, and comparisons inevitably not being made to every other item on the list, it hasn't ended up perfectly ordered, I think.  So I've gone through and done some tidying up.  For my sanity -- but I think it may be helpful to readers, too -- I've put breaks in between 25 different sections, ranging from "love" to "despise".  Items are still ordered within each section, but I think this will make it easier to keep the list well-ordered.

 

Items that have moved up or down are marked in blue or red, respectively.  There are more of these later in the list than at the top.  Items that moved to up or down to a different section are marked in bold as well.

 

I also noticed that I treated pointer items (e.g., "your favourite ___") inconsistently, so I've expanded some of those as well.

 

 

Dogs

Square One Television

Alphabets

Chrono Trigger

Cyberpunk

Bilbo Baggins

Waving Hands

"Zombie" (Cranberries song)

Pet Sounds

"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"

Spirited Away

Cait Sith

Exile II: Crystal Souls

Nethergate

Billie Holiday

"Nephil's Gambit"

 

Kierkegaard

Slartibartfast

The Tarot Deck

Madeline Kahn

The deck of many things

Seinfeld

Egizia

Coffee

Croissants

 

Les Misérables (novel)

Bossa nova

Disco

Jiji (character)

File compression

Sliced bread

Bagels

Subways (transit)

Sailor Moon (first anime)

 

P-zombies

Ducks

Deontology

Willow Rosenberg

Prossis-Bok

Working out

Russian literature

Nina Simone

Sea slugs

 

Ninjas

Jiji (in Nikki's lap)

Ziggurats

Reality TV

Maggie Simpson

Tiki drinks

Snakebird

Ice cream

 

70's cars

Georg Cantor

Shanti

—Alorael

C++

Good grammar

Cor Blok's Tolkien art

Bacon

Falafel

 

Henry Wallace

OK Computer

Zombies (necromantic)

The Northern Lights

Speedy Gonzales screenshot

Saunas

Vinyl records

Linux

Sans serif fonts

The aesthetic qualities of the Greek alphabet

The Queen is Dead

Schuyler Colfax

Roguelikes

Chess

 

Lady Gaga

Lawsuits

Wine

Jeff Vogel

Ravens

Smartphones

Whiskey

The Evil Overlord List

Exile III: Ruined World

The Cranberries (band)

Bartenders

 

Sock puppets

Flamingos

Cluny the Scourge

The Chronicles of Narnia

"Mr. Green Genes"

Penguins

TLC

Civilization (human phenomenon)

Beer

Frodo Baggins

Mexican food

 

Bob Dylan

Richard Garfield

Ontology

Ella Fitzgerald

Pelicans

BitTorrent

Nevermind
Tom Waits

70's prog

Sliths

Avernum II: Crystal Souls

Slarty Ranks Everything

Ranking lists

"...Gottfried Reads Fifty Shades..."

Princess Peach

 

Elephants

Donuts

Cats

Trombones

The Muppets

The Eiffel Tower

Solidarność screenshot

Civ II

Revolutions

Casablanca

Avadon series

Goldfish (snack)

Gilbert Gottfried

Football (American)

Nephils

Star Wars original trilogy

James Garfield

Jury nullification

Avernum 4

Cinnamon rolls

Hubble space telescope

 

Aretha Franklin

Homestar Runner

They Might Be Giants

Tennis

Posting games

Inspector Peanut

Subinfeudation

Solitaire

The Big Lebowski

Nelson Rockefeller

Goldfish (fish)

King Arthur

The aesthetic qualities of the Hebrew alphabet

Windows 3.1

Carmen McRae

Richard Cheese

 

Bark spider

Dolphins

Metahumor

Nixon's foreign policy

Sparkling water

Grant Wood

Paprika

Spam (meat)

Cabaret (film)

Harry Potter series

Peanuts

Standard playing cards

Norman Rockwell

Nick Cave

MMORPGs

"This is a Trent Reznor Song"

 

Google

Xian Skull (item)

Spam (e-mails)

Puggsy

Checkers

Facebook

Runtz

Pineapple pizza

The LP rendition of Slarty's voice

Gilmore Girls

Hockey

George Clooney

Film noir

Abugidas

Vitamin C supplements

 

Louis Armstrong

70's movies

New York City

Abjads

"Lackadaisical"

 

"Mr. Tambourine Man"

The Matrix

Godwin's Law

The aesthetic qualities of hierogylphics

Russian

Bimetallism

Beowulf (character)

Angry Birds

Alf screenshot

 

Pyramids with eyes on them

Moderate rain all day

Microsoft

Phantom stair step (bottom)

Word Rescue

Minecraft

Galactic Core

Bumper stickers

Novelty mugs

 

Apple

Mechanical pencils

Vultures

Amazon

The post that asks me to rank itself

Virtue ethics

Roller skates

Greek yogurt

 

KISS (principle)

Salty liquorice

Westerns
Friends

Getting a triple word score in Scrabble

Phantom stair step (top)

Turkey/cat video

Dieselpunk

Life of Brian

AOL

ELIZA

 

Zombies (infectious)

80's fashion

KISS

Hipgnosis

Expensive wristwatches

Salt lamps

Cologne

My Little Pony

Whaling

The War on Drugs (band)

Queen (band)

Fifty Shades of Grey

Jane Austen books

The Byzantine Empire

The Let's Play series

Stubbing your big toe

Basketball

Baseball

"Acceptable in the 80's" (song)

Halloween

 

Bertrand Russell

Cats (musical)

Stubbing your little toe

Pirates

Elfpunk

Ennui

Charles Dickens

"Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros" (song)

Soccer

Robin Hood (character)

Star Wars prequel trilogy

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Thomas the Tank Engine

Freefall (webcomic)

"2500 things Mr. Welch..."
Fedoras

Johnny Cash

 

Deconstructivism

The Microsoft Office Assistant

Steampunk

Kitten/rat box

John Calhoun (politician)

Mr. Toad of Toad Hall

The Xavier Files

BGG Top 10

Ethical intuitionism

Sock puppets (fake accounts)

Birthdays

 

The Barber Paradox

Turnips

Anchovy pizza

U2

Wings (band)
Fictional names that use a lot of apostrophes

Twilight Saga

Deconstructionism

 

Final Fantasy VIII

"Stuff from the 90's!" (song)

The Olympics

The Big Bang Theory (TV show)

 

Consequentialism

The Crusades

King Leopold

Handlebar mustaches (i.e., thin and spindly ends)

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Hippos

Hippies

Hipsters

Yuppies

Dinosaurs

Rhinos

Rats

Bats (animal)

Spiders

The Giant Intelligent Friendly Talking Spiders

Being a forum moderator

Mickey Mouse

Goofy (Disney character)

Donald Duck

The electoral college

Heavy-handed symbolism

Subtle, tasteful symbolism

Art museums

Science museums

History museums

Edited by Jawaj
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Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (pick a version): 2nd edition, despite its flaws, FTW.  Though I also have a soft spot for 1st edition with Unearthed Arcana, despite its MANY flaws.
Running (as an activity): I'm lazy and also prefer less jolty versions of cardio.
John Wayne: In many ways a pretty decent person, and I give credit to anyone who had an ongoing thing with Marlene Dietrich, but then there's HUAC and that whole "I believe in white supremacy" thing -- and as a cultural icon those things matter.
Samuel Clemens: Well, since you know what I think of King Leopold, that's clearly a mark in Clemens's favor.  Not my favourite author ever, stylistically, but someone I respect and usually find it difficult to disagree with.

 

Catharism: I think there were a lot of neat things about the Albigensians, as I first learned their name.  (Also, I'd prefer to avoid getting into rating any currently extant sects, denominations, or religions, but this is long enough ago that I'm OK with it.)
Video games, in general: Uh.... humm.  That's a very, very broad category, with some very high highs and some very low lows.  Possibly too disparate to rate.  I'll have to think about this.
Marie Curie: Extreme badass.  Also,   RETRIOACTIVITY IS IN THE AIR FOR UBB

 

goog, you're not going to stop asking me about Polish things, are you?

 

Rhinos: They've provided some great base material for legends, folklore, and art.
Rats: I prefer mice to rats, but I'll throw you some cheese and rate both.
Spiders: Now here's an animal that's tricky to rank.  Boonful and baneful, crafty and creepy.
The Giant Intelligent Friendly Talking Spiders: No.  No.  No.  No.  No.  You're not cute.
The electoral college: I don't hate this as much as everyone else seems to these days.  Is it problematic?  Sure.  Needs an update?  Sure.  But it originated not in an attempt to create a power gradient (its current impact) but to balance out power for minority interests, something I am down with at least in principle.
Heavy-handed symbolism: See The Chronicles of Narnia.
Subtle, tasteful symbolism: See... actually this hasn't really made it on the list yet, has it.  Well, you can probably guess where this is going.
Art museums: It really depends.  I like art, but hate a lot of its trappings, the bizarre social trappings around art museums definitely included.
Science museums: Again, it really varies.  My general rule is that the more oriented it is towards kids, the better it will be, and the more it is funded by industry, the worse it will be.
History museums: Well, this is complicated, because the museums are often lovely, but they generally entail artifacts having been stolen by major powers from other countries.  Actually, it's the artifact-in-case exhibits that tend to work better, rather than the here-is-a-life-size-reconstructed-diorama-without-enough-context-so-it-looks-sort-of-like-you're-visiting-a-theme-park ones.  So, meh.


 

Dogs

Square One Television

Alphabets

Subtle, tasteful symbolism

Chrono Trigger

Cyberpunk

Bilbo Baggins

Waving Hands

"Zombie" (Cranberries song)

Pet Sounds

"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"

Spirited Away

Cait Sith

Exile II: Crystal Souls

Nethergate

Billie Holiday

"Nephil's Gambit"

 

Kierkegaard

Slartibartfast

The Tarot Deck

Madeline Kahn

The deck of many things

Seinfeld

Egizia

Coffee

Croissants

 

Les Misérables (novel)

Bossa nova

Disco

Jiji (character)

Mice

File compression

Sliced bread

Bagels

Subways (transit)

Sailor Moon (first anime)

Marie Curie

 

P-zombies

Ducks

Deontology

Willow Rosenberg

Prossis-Bok

Working out

Russian literature

Nina Simone

Sea slugs

Samuel Clemens

 

Ninjas

Jiji (in Nikki's lap)

Ziggurats

Reality TV

AD&D 2nd Edition

Maggie Simpson

Tiki drinks

Snakebird

Ice cream

 

70's cars

Georg Cantor

Shanti

AD&D 1st Edition w/ UA

—Alorael

C++

Good grammar

Cor Blok's Tolkien art

Bacon

Falafel

 

Henry Wallace

OK Computer

Catharism

Zombies (necromantic)

The Northern Lights

Speedy Gonzales screenshot

Saunas

Vinyl records

Linux

Sans serif fonts

The aesthetic qualities of the Greek alphabet

The Queen is Dead

Schuyler Colfax

Roguelikes

Chess

 

Lady Gaga

Video games

Lawsuits

Wine

Jeff Vogel

Ravens

Smartphones

Whiskey

The Evil Overlord List

Exile III: Ruined World

The Cranberries (band)

Bartenders

 

Sock puppets

Flamingos

Cluny the Scourge

The Chronicles of Narnia

"Mr. Green Genes"

Penguins

TLC

Rhinos

Civilization (human phenomenon)

Beer

Frodo Baggins

Mexican food

 

Bob Dylan

Richard Garfield

Ontology

Science museums

Ella Fitzgerald

Pelicans

BitTorrent

Nevermind
Tom Waits

70's prog

Sliths

Rats

Avernum II: Crystal Souls

Slarty Ranks Everything

Ranking lists

"...Gottfried Reads Fifty Shades..."

Heavy-handed symbolism

Princess Peach

 

Elephants

Donuts

Cats

Trombones

The Muppets

The Eiffel Tower

Solidarność screenshot

Civ II

Revolutions

Casablanca

Avadon series

Goldfish (snack)

Gilbert Gottfried

Football (American)

Nephils

Star Wars original trilogy

James Garfield

Jury nullification

Avernum 4

Cinnamon rolls

Hubble space telescope

 

History museums

Aretha Franklin

Homestar Runner

They Might Be Giants

Tennis

Posting games

Inspector Peanut

Subinfeudation

Solitaire

The Big Lebowski

Nelson Rockefeller

Goldfish (fish)

Art museums

King Arthur

The aesthetic qualities of the Hebrew alphabet

Windows 3.1

Carmen McRae

Richard Cheese

 

Bark spider

Spiders

Dolphins

Metahumor

Nixon's foreign policy

Sparkling water

Grant Wood

Paprika

Spam (meat)

Cabaret (film)

Harry Potter series

Peanuts

Standard playing cards

Norman Rockwell

The electoral college

Nick Cave

MMORPGs

"This is a Trent Reznor Song"

 

Google

Xian Skull (item)

Spam (e-mails)

Running

Puggsy

Checkers

Facebook

Runtz

Pineapple pizza

The LP rendition of Slarty's voice

Gilmore Girls

Hockey

George Clooney

Film noir

Abugidas

Vitamin C supplements

 

Louis Armstrong

70's movies

New York City

Abjads

"Lackadaisical"

 

"Mr. Tambourine Man"

The Matrix

GIFTs (Spiderweb)

Godwin's Law

The aesthetic qualities of hierogylphics

Russian

Bimetallism

Beowulf (character)

Angry Birds

Alf screenshot

 

Pyramids with eyes on them

Moderate rain all day

Microsoft

Phantom stair step (bottom)

Word Rescue

Minecraft

Galactic Core

Bumper stickers

Novelty mugs

 

Apple

Mechanical pencils

Vultures

John Wayne

Amazon

The post that asks me to rank itself

Virtue ethics

Roller skates

Greek yogurt

 

KISS (principle)

Salty liquorice

Westerns
Friends

Getting a triple word score in Scrabble

Phantom stair step (top)

Turkey/cat video

Dieselpunk

Life of Brian

AOL

ELIZA

 

Zombies (infectious)

80's fashion

KISS

Hipgnosis

Expensive wristwatches

Salt lamps

Cologne

My Little Pony

Whaling

The War on Drugs (band)

Queen (band)

Fifty Shades of Grey

Jane Austen books

The Byzantine Empire

The Let's Play series

Stubbing your big toe

Basketball

Baseball

"Acceptable in the 80's" (song)

Halloween

 

Bertrand Russell

Cats (musical)

Stubbing your little toe

Pirates

Elfpunk

Ennui

Charles Dickens

"Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros" (song)

Soccer

Robin Hood (character)

Star Wars prequel trilogy

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Thomas the Tank Engine

Freefall (webcomic)

"2500 things Mr. Welch..."
Fedoras

Johnny Cash

 

Deconstructivism

The Microsoft Office Assistant

Steampunk

Kitten/rat box

John Calhoun (politician)

Mr. Toad of Toad Hall

The Xavier Files

BGG Top 10

Ethical intuitionism

Sock puppets (fake accounts)

Birthdays

 

The Barber Paradox

Turnips

Anchovy pizza

U2

Wings (band)
Fictional names that use a lot of apostrophes

Twilight Saga

Deconstructionism

 

Final Fantasy VIII

"Stuff from the 90's!" (song)

The Olympics

The Big Bang Theory (TV show)

 

Consequentialism

The Crusades

King Leopold

Handlebar mustaches (i.e., thin and spindly ends)

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Share on other sites

10 hours ago, Fluage de Style said:

goog, you're not going to stop asking me about Polish things, are you?

I asked about Marie Curie for reasons unrelated to her Polishness... it is not my fault she was Polish!!! (I was readin an article about Einstein that mentioned he sent a fan letter to Curie as a young man, then I got to reading about the Curies, etc, and they were cool.)

 

Also:

Isaac Asimov

Arthur C Clarke

Walter M Miller, Jr

Edited by googoogjoob
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Isaac Asimov: A great and persistent speculator, certainly.  When I'm reading his stuff, I am always nagged by a sense that it seems so implausible: he gives me a hard time suspending my disbelief, I guess.  But some of his stuff is perceptive and touching.
Arthur C Clarke: I like his ideas better than his writing, but I do like his ideas.
The Beatles: I don't care enough about them to rate them individually.  Some of their stuff is brilliant; some of it frustrating; but in the end I prefer the Beach Boys.
Elvis Presley:  I think Elvis is a "you had to be there" phenomenon, and I definitely wasn't.

Robert Heinlein: A real Terror's Martyr, a Nietzsche, a real Fire.  Accordingly, as I seem to be saying a lot recently, I have mixed feelings.  Ultimately, I like him more than not.
Rudyard Kipling: Wittier than Dickens, but as long-winded, and even less sympathetic.
Upton Sinclair: A writer and thinker I greatly admire.
Traveler (RPG): I have no experience with this.
Blazing Saddles (Movie): I don't like it as much as everyone else seems to.  Brooks is hit or miss for me.

 

 

Dogs

Square One Television

Alphabets

Subtle, tasteful symbolism

Chrono Trigger

Cyberpunk

Bilbo Baggins

Waving Hands

"Zombie" (Cranberries song)

Pet Sounds

"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"

Spirited Away

Cait Sith

Exile II: Crystal Souls

Nethergate

Billie Holiday

"Nephil's Gambit"

 

Kierkegaard

Slartibartfast

The Tarot Deck

Madeline Kahn

The deck of many things

Seinfeld

Egizia

Coffee

Croissants

 

Les Misérables (novel)

Bossa nova

Disco

Jiji (character)

Mice

Upton Sinclair

File compression

Sliced bread

Bagels

Subways (transit)

Sailor Moon (first anime)

Marie Curie

 

P-zombies

Ducks

Deontology

Willow Rosenberg

Prossis-Bok

Working out

Russian literature

Nina Simone

Sea slugs

Samuel Clemens

 

Ninjas

Jiji (in Nikki's lap)

Ziggurats

Reality TV

AD&D 2nd Edition

Maggie Simpson

Tiki drinks

Snakebird

Ice cream

 

70's cars

Georg Cantor

Shanti

AD&D 1st Edition w/ UA

—Alorael

C++

Good grammar

Cor Blok's Tolkien art

Bacon

Falafel

 

Henry Wallace

OK Computer

Catharism

Zombies (necromantic)

The Northern Lights

Speedy Gonzales screenshot

Saunas

Vinyl records

Linux

Sans serif fonts

The aesthetic qualities of the Greek alphabet

The Queen is Dead

Schuyler Colfax

Roguelikes

Chess

 

Lady Gaga

Video games

Lawsuits

Wine

Robert Heinlein

Jeff Vogel

Ravens

Smartphones

Whiskey

Isaac Asimov

The Evil Overlord List

Arthur C. Clarke

Exile III: Ruined World

The Cranberries (band)

Bartenders

 

Sock puppets

Flamingos

Cluny the Scourge

The Chronicles of Narnia

"Mr. Green Genes"

Penguins

TLC

Rhinos

Civilization (human phenomenon)

Beer

Frodo Baggins

Mexican food

 

Bob Dylan

Richard Garfield

Ontology

Science museums

Ella Fitzgerald

Pelicans

BitTorrent

Nevermind
Tom Waits

70's prog

Sliths

Rats

Avernum II: Crystal Souls

Slarty Ranks Everything

Ranking lists

"...Gottfried Reads Fifty Shades..."

Heavy-handed symbolism

Princess Peach

 

Elephants

Donuts

Cats

Trombones

The Muppets

The Eiffel Tower

Solidarność screenshot

Civ II

Revolutions

Casablanca

Avadon series

Goldfish (snack)

Gilbert Gottfried

Football (American)

Nephils

Star Wars original trilogy

James Garfield

Jury nullification

Avernum 4

Cinnamon rolls

Hubble space telescope

 

History museums

The Beatles

Aretha Franklin

Homestar Runner

They Might Be Giants

Tennis

Posting games

Inspector Peanut

Subinfeudation

Solitaire

The Big Lebowski

Nelson Rockefeller

Goldfish (fish)

Art museums

King Arthur

The aesthetic qualities of the Hebrew alphabet

Windows 3.1

Carmen McRae

Richard Cheese

 

Bark spider

Spiders

Dolphins

Metahumor

Nixon's foreign policy

Sparkling water

Grant Wood

Paprika

Spam (meat)

Cabaret (film)

Harry Potter series

Peanuts

Standard playing cards

Norman Rockwell

The electoral college

Nick Cave

MMORPGs

"This is a Trent Reznor Song"

 

Google

Xian Skull (item)

Spam (e-mails)

Running

Puggsy

Checkers

Facebook

Runtz

Pineapple pizza

The LP rendition of Slarty's voice

Gilmore Girls

Hockey

George Clooney

Film noir

Abugidas

Vitamin C supplements

 

Blazing Saddles

Louis Armstrong

70's movies

New York City

Abjads

"Lackadaisical"

 

"Mr. Tambourine Man"

The Matrix

GIFTs (Spiderweb)

Godwin's Law

The aesthetic qualities of hierogylphics

Russian

Bimetallism

Beowulf (character)

Angry Birds

Alf screenshot

 

Pyramids with eyes on them

Moderate rain all day

Microsoft

Phantom stair step (bottom)

Word Rescue

Elvis Presley

Minecraft

Galactic Core

Bumper stickers

Novelty mugs

 

Apple

Mechanical pencils

Vultures

John Wayne

Amazon

The post that asks me to rank itself

Virtue ethics

Roller skates

Greek yogurt

 

KISS (principle)

Salty liquorice

Westerns
Friends

Getting a triple word score in Scrabble

Phantom stair step (top)

Turkey/cat video

Dieselpunk

Life of Brian

AOL

ELIZA

 

Zombies (infectious)

80's fashion

KISS

Hipgnosis

Expensive wristwatches

Salt lamps

Cologne

My Little Pony

Whaling

Rudyard Kipling

The War on Drugs (band)

Queen (band)

Fifty Shades of Grey

Jane Austen books

The Byzantine Empire

The Let's Play series

Stubbing your big toe

Basketball

Baseball

"Acceptable in the 80's" (song)

Halloween

 

Bertrand Russell

Cats (musical)

Stubbing your little toe

Pirates

Elfpunk

Ennui

Charles Dickens

"Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros" (song)

Soccer

Robin Hood (character)

Star Wars prequel trilogy

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Thomas the Tank Engine

Freefall (webcomic)

"2500 things Mr. Welch..."
Fedoras

Johnny Cash

 

Deconstructivism

The Microsoft Office Assistant

Steampunk

Kitten/rat box

John Calhoun (politician)

Mr. Toad of Toad Hall

The Xavier Files

BGG Top 10

Ethical intuitionism

Sock puppets (fake accounts)

Birthdays

 

The Barber Paradox

Turnips

Anchovy pizza

U2

Wings (band)
Fictional names that use a lot of apostrophes

Twilight Saga

Deconstructionism

 

Final Fantasy VIII

"Stuff from the 90's!" (song)

The Olympics

The Big Bang Theory (TV show)

 

Consequentialism

The Crusades

King Leopold

Handlebar mustaches (i.e., thin and spindly ends)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 3/11/2018 at 11:10 PM, Fluage de Style said:

Charles Dickens: Hate him.  Words should be weighed and not counted

I'm not trying to change your mind on Dickens in general, but just want to say in his defense that it is a myth he got paid by the word. He was paid by serially published installments, which was not uncommon in his day.

Edited by Jawaj
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8 hours ago, Jawaj said:

I'm not trying to change your mind on Dickens in general, but just want to say in his defense that it is a myth he got paid by the word. He was paid by serially published installments, which was not uncommon in his day.

"the author himself, who received payment each time he produced 32 pages of text (and not necessarily a certain number of words),"

So he did get paid for being overlong and florid... just not by the word? Same effect in the end.

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20 hours ago, googoogjoob said:

"the author himself, who received payment each time he produced 32 pages of text (and not necessarily a certain number of words),"

So he did get paid for being overlong and florid... just not by the word? Same effect in the end.

 

While this isn't usually how novels are paid for, pay by the word remains standard for short stories to today. The counterbalance is that if your use of words isn't actually good you don't sell your story at all, and the pay per word is low enough that rather than finding places to sneak in more adjectives you're much better off finishing the story and writing another one.

 

—Alorael, who tried to get paid by the word he didn't submit. His literary protection racket received a cease and desist letter, which ironically probably cost a lot more per word.

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What may be notable about Dickens' situation is that the amount he had to write was agreed upon in advance.  He might not have been chasing a carrot by extending his prose, but he was certainly chasing an inflexible target.  I note that this is not always the case with serials -- as Dickens was serialized in printings that contained nothing else.  Serials that appeared in newspapers and magazines had a little more flexibility.

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I actually find Dickens, and some other 19th writers (looking at you, Carlyle), harder to read and understand than some English prose written in the 18th or maybe even 17th century, it's like trying to read the Canterbury Tales without any sort of interpretive apparatus or translation.

 

Also more things to rate:

Franz Liszt

Muppet Babies

2001: A Space Odyssey

 

other good old heresies:

Nestorianism

Monotheletism

Donatism

Pelagianism

Paulicianism/Bogomilism/Waldensianism

Fraticellism

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There is a lot of variation in the length of Dickens' novels (Hard Times is about 350 pages in the B&N edition, Bleak House about 900), so exactly how much writing "32 pages" meant presumably had a lot of flexibility by the typesetting.

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