Don Rosco

The comics were terrific. I still remember the abject panic and fear that ran through GCPD when the joker resurfaced.

No, but I think I will, even though lockdown has put me months behind in podcasts.

That's a fair point, but it's still a waste of money. Which isn't disastrous in itself, they need to learn what wasting money is for themselves. I'd rather she spent it on new games, or the switch she's saving up for. Unless it's star wars skins.

It's all on topic, it's very interesting to read other people's experiences. Also, there's a galaxy of difference when there's a baby knocking around. Peppa did a lot of parenting for us in the early years. It's like toddler heroin.

Yeah, pretty much that. There has been some raised eyebrows. "What's Tac short for?" "Tactical shotgun, dad" "oh" She did her school project on Fortnite and drew a common assault rifle and an epic assault rifle for it. We thought it was funny, but I can see how some parents might be unsettled by it. The MTX are a pain though. We've held firm on only buying the battle pass as that is quite good value, until the other day when she begged for a single skin. She paid for it with her own money, but I certainly told her how much of a waste I thought it was. That will probably not be the end of it, but we'll see. She said a neighbour's kid told her he'd spent €600 on skins. Even if it's a lie, it's an example of how normalised it is to be pissing substantial money away on them. As for youtube, it's more or less banned as child's entertainment in my house, for many reasons. That's maybe a good idea - we tend to track the time for them, so we should get them to take responsibility. Might buy a kitchen timer or something. Thanks for the replies, all. Plenty to think about.

If there's another thread for this, by all means point me to it and i'll use that, but I couldn't find one. I have two kids, aged 9 and 6. They've really taken to video games in the last few months. We're allowing them an hour a day each at the moment (well it's an hour a day screen time, and they choose games). If they were playing single player games, that wouldn't be an issue, but if one of them starts a game of Fortnite or PvZ with 5 minutes of the hour to go, it turns into a row. My missus is maybe a bit less understanding than me about the nature of online play.... Anyway, do you use any inventive strategies for managing this? Or more generally, how do you manage their video game playing?

Good story from a guy called Ciaran Foy on Facebook about him:

Not a hope in hell.

You can if they're different games, with different context, different narratives, different characters...of course you can.

I thought it was pretty decent. Lots of new IP. Nothing massively "next-gen" but I didn't really expect anything like that, at least on this stream. The cat game, the moon thing, the Arkane game all caught my attention. The thing itself is a bit WTF though.

I haven’t watched one of these in years. Not even sure why I’m watching this one, but my hype level is slowly ticking upwards.

@kernow please keep your edgelord bullshit to yourself, thanks.

Yep, Satanus was the dinosaur and Shako was the polar bear. I think Satanus was the only crossover from Pat Mills' universe to the world of Dredd...

Ah yeah, the effects come in very handy for that kind of thing alright. Filters on the pioneers are definitely a weak spot, they stand out a mile I think. Loads of other really useful stuff on them though. How do you find the sound after your Allen & Heath? I think the first generation of the pioneers didn't sound great, but they've improved massively. I went for a Mixars Duo. I needed integrated serato so I could play Mp3s and vinyl in the easiest way, and that was really the cheapest option. Really pleased with it for the price I paid. Sound is great, serato controls are nicely integrated, filters sound lovely. The only thing is effects are all on Serato (though controlled through the mixer), so I can't use them on records, but I had to sacrifice something for the budget I had. I'm playing mostly footwork on mp3 and jungle on vinyl through it so I don't miss them too much, as they're both pretty wild to start with.

Are you buying the Case Files? General consensus is that it really starts kicking off around Vol 5. That has Block Mania, The Apocalypse War and Judge Death Lives. That is some absolute peak Dredd, wow. Wagner and Grant on top form with the absolute masters on art duties - Ezquerra, McMahon, Smith, Bolland... Outside of that, it's kind of hard to give you a steer. A lot of stories impact the time line a little bit, but you wouldn't avoid them because of that. On top of that, loads and loads of great (and hilariously funny) stories are one or two episodes and done, so even if we recommend some epic tales, you'll miss out on them. So while you should grab some collected epics, don't ignore the case files as they collect all the smaller stories too. One thing I will say is, I would hold off on Origins until you read a lot more Dredd. Hits much harder when you really get to know Dredd. Off the top of my head, these are the big stories I've enjoyed the most that I haven't mentioned: Any Chopper stuff America (wait a while to read this) Cursed Earth Judge Child Anything with Total War The Pit Tour of duty Mutants in Mega City One PJ Maybe stories Otto Sump stories Day of chaos (leave this til much later) I'm not mad on the Dark Judges, but the first storyline with Bolland on art is mint. Couple of one offs - Bury my knee at wounded heart, The Runner In general, John Wagner with or without Alan Grant writes the best Dredd stories. They worked under some aliases frequently: John Howard. T.B. Grover, Mike Stott, Keef Ripley, Rick Clark, Brian Skuter