Hello. My name is Stanley Seagull. Like many of you, I have long wished that I knew Portuguese so that I could speak with people from Brazil, Portugal, and Mozambique. However, I ran into the persistent problem that learning Portuguese involved learning all of these nouns and verbs and conjugations and grammar, and I don’t even do very well at those things what in English. But that’s also what led me to my new system, the All Languages I Don’t Speak Are Probably The Same Method. ALIDSAP is the acronym I use, which might mean “tree bark” in Greek because what the hell would I know?
Using my patented system, you can just smash together words and grammar to make a nonsensical mishmash that everyone probably can understand because English is the hardest language, right? And best of all, ALIDSAP is a system you can use for every language you don’t know. Here are a sample of a few phrases I don’t technically know aren’t Portuguese:
Arigatou, mais necessito un bano – The band will be named “Toxic Monastery.”
Clamble wamble hamble ramble – You will sign over all songwriting credits to me.
Watashi wa seagull a-go-go – I will make so much money.
Fascinating, isn’t it? Sign up now in the comments of What Are You Playing, and don’t delay. Be the first on your block to give me money for this amazing new system. As they say in Brazil, “Não confie neste americano estúpido, ele não deveria ter deixado sua assinatura do Duolingo expirar!”
Bonus question: What’s your favorite story (in any medium) about time travel?
​Andrew Ross (@dengarsw): Doing Splatfest this weekend plus some Pokemon Go raid day to keep burning the holiday calories.
Without hesitation, Chrono Trigger is my favorite story about time travel. To this day it still inspires me and my stories.
Andy McAdams: I have no idea what I’ll be playing this weekend. Probably at least some World of Warcraft and City of Heroes, but outside of that … I don’t know. But plus one to the sentiment that it feels safer to get invested in CoH than it did before.
Bonus Question: Um, let’s go with one of the 18 billion Star Trek time travel stories. Or Futurama which always seems to handle time travel with the perfect mix of the feels, the absurd, and the science.
Brianna Royce (@nbrianna, blog): City of Heroes for me! Still takin’ advantage of that double double XP. It has such a different feel now that it’s not “just” a rogue server anymore; I find I’m taking what I do there slightly more seriously. But not seriously enough to stop it with the silly pun names. Let’s not be too hasty.
I was gonna say I roll my eye at time-travel movies, but I forgot Arrival counts as time-travel, and I was obsessed with that, so that’s my answer.
Chris Neal (@wolfyseyes, blog): More of the same for me, which is to say continued leveling myriad characters in City of Heroes Homecoming (though I may shelve the Arachnos Crab I want to play because it feels like a Blaster made worse) and alt job leveling in Final Fantasy XIV. That just about fills my weekend I think.
I suppose any number of Doctor Who things would do well for the bonus. I might also talk up the movie Contact but that wasn’t really expressly about time travel. Still a dope film though.
Eliot Lefebvre (@Eliot_Lefebvre, blog): More CoH time for me, absolutely definitely, no question. Also some FFXIV stuff ahead of the patch… hey, Chris, stop taking my answers. Seriously, not cool. Eh, forget it, have it, we’re going to call Chris “Better Eliot” from now on.
There are a lot of really neat time travel stories out there across many mediums, so I just want to give some love to stuff people haven’t already mentioned. A Gun For Dinosaur is pretty easy to find online and a fun quick read about time-travel antics, Looper is still a master class in crafting a film, and while I don’t think it totally worked as intended I still think Final Fantasy XIII-2 was an interesting experiment in crafting a time-travel story in the franchise (something that has been with the franchise since the first game, let’s not forget).
Justin Olivetti (@Sypster, blog): I’m still making my way overland to Umbar in Lord of the Rings Online with my Minstrel and quite enjoying the tropical climate and baboons scratching their rear ends. I’m also trying to troubleshoot New World to see why it’s recently being so stubbornly against playing on my computer.
Mia DeSanzo (@neschria): It’s my birthday weekend! I am feeling some Black Desert this weekend. It’s been a while. But The Elder Scrolls Online is probably more appropriate, given the timing. When I get in there, it will be Elderly Scrolls Online.
Sam Kash (@thesamkash): I’m somehow holding my #3 House spot in the Hogsmeade Melee event in Harry Potter Magic Awakened. I’m playing way too much but I just can’t seem to quit. In single player world I’m probably going to compete Bramble The Mountain King. It’s a very dark but short game and exactly what I was looking for.
Bonus: I will go with About Time the movie starring Rachel McAdams and Domhnall Gleeson. I’m a big old sucker for romance and romcoms so it’s a great one for me. You just can’t beat that stuff.
Tyler Edwards (blog): I’m going through another phase of revisiting StarCraft II co-op. I decided to prestige Karax a few times so I can unlock the talent that makes his army more viable, but this has got to be one of the most masochistic things you can do in co-op. Low level Karax sucks. I may also do a few more runs at Legacy of Crassus in New World.
Bonus question: First thing that comes to mind is the Canadian TV series Continuum, even though it doesn’t actually involve that much time travel. It’s more like Terminator in that the premise is built off time travel, but it’s not the real heart of the story. Still, absolutely fantastic show. I would also like to give a nod to pretty much all the Futurama episodes dealing with time shenanigans, but especially The Late Philip J. Fry. Brilliant, touching story. Probably a bunch of good Star Trek episodes I could name, too; I do enjoy a good time travel yarn.
Every Saturday, join the Massively OP community and staff for What Are You Playing, our roundup of what MMORPGs and other games we’re hoping to play this weekend (with a bonus question or two for our amusement). Tell us what you’re up to! Go off-topic! And don’t forget to have fun!
