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There's a fat little squirrel dancing around in the road of our cul-de-sac in front of our house, while a young squirrel capers about under the front window.
The dog is naturally on high alert in the window.
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Must... vent!!!!
For those who haven't seen me ramble on about it before, I despise "Reply All" storms, where people are too clueless to understand that the entire department/division doesn't need to see their, "Me too!" or "Stop Replying All" or "Please remove me from this list" e-mails.
So, my manager sent out a department-wide, "Are you using this user ID? Please reply directly to me."
Our second-most-senior guy immediately Replied All with, "Not me".
Grrrr...
In much more cheerful news, we were trying to put out Impus Minor's old bike for giveaway (a huge perk of this neighborhood is that you can put out stuff with a "Free" sign and people happily haul it off for you), so I moved the Celica to make space. A blue SUV immediately grabbed the space. I was rather livid. Until the guy got out and asked, "Is it OK if I park here? I'm going to be doing some work on that house over there for the day, so I'll be gone by tonight."
How could I say, "No," to such a polite request?
I responded, "OK, well, I was just about to put this bike there, so..."
"Oh, are you giving it away for free?"
"Yeah, it needs some work, but..."
"My son just turned 10. He'll love it! Mind if I take it?"
Two problems solved immediately, and I decided I really like the guy, and he's welcome to my parking space.
Let no good deed go unrewarded.
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Oh, definitely. I just don't want to give my kids an unwarranted bad rap.It's mildly frustrating, but it's really more funny than anything else . The kids are great, and the vast majority of them do their work and follow instructions.Nobody wants to hear the story of the decent man who lived an uneventful life and died of old age content in his accomplishments. It's the outliers who are interesting and exciting.
You do not.
This sounds pretty much exactly like all students (honors or otherwise) who are approaching... anything. Week from holiday? Tomorrow tuesday and standard class day? Project due? This stuff. This wonderful stuff. It makes me smile.
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Watching the munchkins present on their Industrial Revolution inventions.
"...so that is the first steam locomotive. Any questions?"
"Do you like trains?"
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(I see and understand the arguments in favor of getting rid of long breaks to eliminate student forgetfulness, but at the same time I recall that working 60-80 hours a week for 38 weeks a year really ripped into me; I needed those summers to recoup. There would have to be a recognition that teachers work their a***s off and a reduction in hours to make it feasible, in my mind.)
This goes without saying, to my mind -- although the older I get, the more I realize that things that go without saying need to be said anyway.
I frequently find even 40 hour weeks to be onerous, nevermind the largely thankless 40+ hours plus unpaid prep & grading home-work hours that teachers must do. On a teacher's salary. While having to deal with quite a bit of politically-motivated stigma. (I distinctly remember a certain infotainment program whinging about how easy teachers have it.)
Anyhow, I'm 100% in favor of more frequent one-week breaks. But yeah, something's gotta give.
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At this point, I would like to not have classes next week for one reason: they are bouncing off the walls because CHRISTMAS!!!!!, and I just cannot.
Haha.
We're still on through next Thursday.And we're expected to have "normal" school days through the 20th.
Yesterday morning, one of the parents said to me, "I saw a meme that made me think of you. It said, 'We give teachers gift cards at the holidays because we can't give them apology notes and alcohol.' "
It was on the tip of my tongue to say, "The apology note really isn't necessary..." but it's against the school's sixty-page code of conduct for teachers.
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It largely depends on the size of the school. I'm in a rather small district, so I have less to grade than even at my old school. That cuts down on the work time immensely.
...I mean, the fact that I have four different preps increases it, but it's still a lot less time invested than a bigger school would require. I have approximately a third of the essays to grade that I used to.
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(I see and understand the arguments in favor of getting rid of long breaks to eliminate student forgetfulness, but at the same time I recall that working 60-80 hours a week for 38 weeks a year really ripped into me; I needed those summers to recoup. There would have to be a recognition that teachers work their a***s off and a reduction in hours to make it feasible, in my mind.)This goes without saying, to my mind -- although the older I get, the more I realize that things that go without saying need to be said anyway.
I frequently find even 40 hour weeks to be onerous, nevermind the largely thankless 40+ hours plus unpaid prep & grading home-work hours that teachers must do. On a teacher's salary. While having to deal with quite a bit of politically-motivated stigma. (I distinctly remember a certain infotainment program whinging about how easy teachers have it.)
Anyhow, I'm 100% in favor of more frequent one-week breaks. But yeah, something's gotta give.
Our school is year-round, except for two weeks at Christmas and one week in April. If we take any unpaid time off beyond that, we have to reimburse the school for that percentage of our health care premiums.
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It's mildly frustrating, but it's really more funny than anything else . The kids are great, and the vast majority of them do their work and follow instructions.Nobody wants to hear the story of the decent man who lived an uneventful life and died of old age content in his accomplishments.
You do?
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"I had the M-E-C-H-A-N-I-C-A-L Reaper."
"Why are you spelling it?"
"I don't have three minutes..."
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"Any questions on the combine harvester?"
"Why did you use white-out?"
"Because I can't spell."
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Granted, I think it's because since I called it their semester final due to being their last grade, they think it's worth about a letter grade...despite me giving them a rubric with the point values that shows it is not.A couple of the kids finally figured out that it is not worth 10% of their grade.
"Miss, why did you tell us it was 10%?"
ಠ__ಠ
is this teacher doublespeak or something?
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is this teacher doublespeak or something?Granted, I think it's because since I called it their semester final due to being their last grade, they think it's worth about a letter grade...despite me giving them a rubric with the point values that shows it is not.A couple of the kids finally figured out that it is not worth 10% of their grade.
"Miss, why did you tell us it was 10%?"
ಠ__ಠ
No, they just independently of me collectively decided it was worth 10%. I have no idea how they decided on that. I said nothing to that effect.
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I swear, the impii rival paladins in their amazing Perception rolls.
This morning:
Impus Minor: Hey, Impus Major! Can I borrow one of your coats?
NobodysHome: Where's your warm coat that we just bought you last month?
IM: I don't know. I can't find it.
NH: What color is it?
IM: Black.
NH: Isn't that it on the couch right there?
IM: No. I must have left it in my bed or something.
NH: Well, I don't want you losing any more coats. Understood?
IM: Yeah, Dad.
So I just started cleaning the living room (did all my handoffs yesterday and my manager's booked 'til 10:30 am, so it's housework for me) and sure enough, the coat on the couch is his.
*SIGH*
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Must... vent!!!!
For those who haven't seen me ramble on about it before, I despise "Reply All" storms, where people are too clueless to understand that the entire department/division doesn't need to see their, "Me too!" or "Stop Replying All" or "Please remove me from this list" e-mails.
So, my manager sent out a department-wide, "Are you using this user ID? Please reply directly to me."
Our second-most-senior guy immediately Replied All with, "Not me".
Grrrr...
I am currently trapped in an all-staff argument about "who stole the dish soap from the faculty lounge?" Aaaaaaaugh.
Must... vent!!!!
For those who haven't seen me ramble on about it before, I despise "Reply All" storms, where people are too clueless to understand that the entire department/division doesn't need to see their, "Me too!" or "Stop Replying All" or "Please remove me from this list" e-mails.
So, my manager sent out a department-wide, "Are you using this user ID? Please reply directly to me."
Our second-most-senior guy immediately Replied All with, "Not me".
Grrrr...
I am currently trapped in an all-staff argument about "who stole the dish soap from the faculty lounge?" Aaaaaaaugh.
>.<
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same.The only way I'll watch Star Wars again is if it's directed by Seth Mcfarlane.Oddly, that would be the surest way to turn me off of the franchise.
Thirded. Or more if I missed other replies.
I despise Family Guy.
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"So, are you guys staying after school for gaming?"
"Maybe?"
"K. I just never know till you all walk in."
"OH, we should add you to our group chat!"
"Few sentences in my existence have terrified me more."
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...how do I always manage to wear a white shirt on meatball sub day?
...how do I always manage to wear a white shirt on meatball sub day?
Good fortune, mostly.
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...one of the children is passionately listing off every kind of juice they can think of.
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"So, are you guys staying after school for gaming?"
"Maybe?"
"K. I just never know till you all walk in."
"OH, we should add you to our group chat!"
"Few sentences in my existence have terrified me more."
Oh, gods. Trying to chaperone a group of teenage guys with a flip phone while on their group chat.
Day 1: 43 messages from the group, all describing the horrible ways in which one member of the group was going to die.
"Guys. I appreciate being included. But can you create a new chat WITHOUT me?"
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So, Tiger and Bunny is surprisingly good, and very different than I thought it would be. It's very trope-y, yeah, but that's anime in general.
The world-building is... quite interesting. It's like someone attempted to re-interpret New York as if it were Japan. Which, admittedly, is pretty much exactly what they did.
In an alternate reality, New York was destroyed or something and was rebuilt or something - it's unclear, but it's really not important to the plot, other than it's "kind of like New York, but totally rebuilt to look kind of more like Hyper-Modern Gotham as interpreted by Lego Batman City (+) Midgar" (i.e. a city on a plate or stilts or similar something); also it's been renamed to Bilt City or somesuch. About ~45 years ago super powers started cropping up (the people are called NEXT for some acronym reason I can't recall), and have super heroes have gone all Captain Amazing, and hold a ton of corporate sponsorships in order to fund their costumes, activities, and similar. There is a tv show that follows their exploits and awards them points based off of specific criteria.
Primary character is an "older" hero () who is a widower, absentee father (due to his hero work), and who has a propensity for collateral damage. He deeply cares about others, and doesn't particularly care about stuff (he also secretly wants gratitude and popularity, but not the mobbing adoration). His name is Kotetsu which has something similar to the Japanese word for "Tiger" so he goes by "Wild Tiger" - his powers are 1/hour the ability to "multiply his physical abilities by 100 times" (most often used in displays of strength, but does, in fact, apply to everything).
Secondary character is a "new" (not "young" just "new") hero, 25 years old. He tends to refer to Tiger as "Old Man" as a result. He is super-handsome, kind of stand-off-ish, and obsessed with points (curiously, it's points, rather than fame). He has a dark, tragic and mysterious past that drives him. Tiger calls him "Bunny" (due to his suit, and propensity for leaps/kicks).
Title drop.
SPOILER FOR THE FIRST THREE MINUTES OF EP1: they meet, immediately dislike each other, and, of course, get partnered together as part of a publicity stunt. As super-heroing is an actual job, they're forced to accept this.
From there it's a semi-typical buddy-cop show, but Gibson's and Glover's archetypes are kind of blended in different ways in each of them - it's the father who tends to be reckless and destructive, while the new guy tends to be more methodical and procedure-bound and methodical - plus anime-variants of Super Hero tropes.
And... it's good. It's actually entertaining. I have some problems with Blue Rose's character (seriously, DID SHE NEED TO BE A HIGHSCHOOL STUDENT), and Fire Emblem is... as exaggerated, as such characters tend to be in anime... but the characters are enjoyable, and interesting, and there is some surprisingly nuanced characterizations and occasional examinations of things like what it means to have super-powers and what it means to have stuper-powers, and how politics, media, and similar work to influence humanity at large... though mostly that's just a thing going on in the background while you enjoy the personal drama (both good and bad) and struggles of the super-heroes in question.
Fun show. And all of the characters, in fact, are pretty awesome.
WINTER MADNESS (sort of)
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"So, are you guys staying after school for gaming?"
"Maybe?"
"K. I just never know till you all walk in."
"OH, we should add you to our group chat!"
"Few sentences in my existence have terrified me more."Oh, gods. Trying to chaperone a group of teenage guys with a flip phone while on their group chat.
Day 1: 43 messages from the group, all describing the horrible ways in which one member of the group was going to die.
"Guys. I appreciate being included. But can you create a new chat WITHOUT me?"
Deady?
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Deady?"So, are you guys staying after school for gaming?"
"Maybe?"
"K. I just never know till you all walk in."
"OH, we should add you to our group chat!"
"Few sentences in my existence have terrified me more."Oh, gods. Trying to chaperone a group of teenage guys with a flip phone while on their group chat.
Day 1: 43 messages from the group, all describing the horrible ways in which one member of the group was going to die.
"Guys. I appreciate being included. But can you create a new chat WITHOUT me?"
Nope. He's in fencing, not choir.
But ironically, the guy the singled out collapsed from a medical issue on the last day of the trip and I had to evacuate him.
Cue the rest of the group feeling horribly guilty, 'cause, y'know, even though you do it 100 times without incident, the 101st time you do it and the guy really does get sick, it's obviously your psychic powers at work...
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Ah, assumed the group chat was for SS.
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"Oh, excellent, another essay turned in early!"
ಠ__ಠ
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same.The only way I'll watch Star Wars again is if it's directed by Seth Mcfarlane.Oddly, that would be the surest way to turn me off of the franchise.Thirded. Or more if I missed other replies.
I despise Family Guy.
it has lost whatever it had.
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In a related thought-train, you know what I would find useful? A similar model of the D&D adventure and AP. 'Cause I'm great with rules, but writing adventures are still a challenge for me. The prospect of writing an entire AP is outright overwhelming, though I'd like to someday.Honestly, it's more interesting to me because so many things follow genre patterns. It makes whatever twist the author puts into place stand out all the more.
But I'm a big proponent of story structure and archetypes as a useful tool and shorthand. They're Thought Legos - what new thing can I build by switching these two blocks while mostly following a preset structure?
Sometimes, restriction breeds the most creativity.
That could be really interesting! I'd imagine you'd start with a fairly standard story setup (rescue the princess, kill the dragon, etc.) and have a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure of common plot threads/sidequests to customize and flesh out the story somewhat.
Let's go with the dragon.
If blue, turn to the page about common desert creatures and plot seeds (djinn, merchant raiders, pyramids, malevolent mirages)
If green, see forest opportunities (fey, witches, mad druids...)
If white, see tundra seeds (winter wolves, weather mages...)Then have common plot hooks in place for those sub-creatures before you actually face the dragon, standard dungeon designs for the terrains, etc.
I really like this idea!
This needs to be a thread all of its own, if you don't I will sometime today.
I'd like to start a bit more general, like "If we compare Paizo APs, what common structure reveals itself...?" But yes, this very much needs to happen. :)
Just started the Adventurers' Journey thread, please chime in if you have something to say!
Maybe I should have posted it in General for more traffic, but I figure the AP forum is more appropriate. :/
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I will definitely be keeping an eye on that thread when I'm not preoccupied.
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Another thing about anime: the anime portrayal of a person's relationship with their memories and emotions is fascinating to say the least. Thinking about the show, anime protea gals of a person's emotions and how they are handled remind me a lot - a looooooot - of the Psionic maenad race. Which is a sudden and fascinating comparison.
And then thee thing with memories. It's fascinating how such an emotional relationship is so often played out with those - to the point where when people get something "wrong" it's often a kind of mind-bending question-all-reality thing.
It makes me wonder what is exaggerated stereotype - like our Western productions do for our culture - and what is actually common in Japanese culture.
And then there are just baffling assertions that everyone just kind of accepts as true. Is that just fake stuff that gets repeated in media (like we have), or is it a real thing in Japanese culture? I don't know. It's interesting.
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Apparently, my Fluttershy impression terrifies this class.
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Watermelon Update:
OK. This is more bizarre than I could make up, so...
...apparently, what a lot of the kids decided to do was make physical representations of their favorite memes, box them up, and leave them as "presents". So one girl picked out a present, opened it, and it was a photo of someone giving the U.S. "OK" sign (apparently an obscene gesture in much of Europe) and a $5 bill. She was disappointed. Then someone stole it from her so she got to open another present.
She chose Impus Major's. She excitedly opened it, there was much laughter at the watermelon, and then... IT GOT STOLEN!! TWICE!!!!!!
Apparently the watermelon was so much better than all the meme-related items that, even though it was opened, people still coveted it.
Now that there's a sad, sad white elephant event.
And it turns out it was for his choir, so I KNOW I'm going to have some "interesting" texts from the director later today...
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Apparently, my Fluttershy impression terrifies this class.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So, Tiger and Bunny is surprisingly good, and very different than I thought it would be. It's very trope-y, yeah, but that's anime in general.
The world-building is... quite interesting. It's like someone attempted to re-interpret New York as if it were Japan. Which, admittedly, is pretty much exactly what they did.
In an alternate reality, New York was destroyed or something and was rebuilt or something - it's unclear, but it's really not important to the plot, other than it's "kind of like New York, but totally rebuilt to look kind of more like Hyper-Modern Gotham as interpreted by Lego Batman City (+) Midgar" (i.e. a city on a plate or stilts or similar something); also it's been renamed to Bilt City or somesuch. About ~45 years ago super powers started cropping up (the people are called NEXT for some acronym reason I can't recall), and have super heroes have gone all Captain Amazing, and hold a ton of corporate sponsorships in order to fund their costumes, activities, and similar. There is a tv show that follows their exploits and awards them points based off of specific criteria.
Primary character is an "older" hero () who is a widower, absentee father (due to his hero work), and who has a propensity for collateral damage. He deeply cares about others, and doesn't particularly care about stuff (he also secretly wants gratitude and popularity, but not the mobbing adoration). His name is Kotetsu which has something similar to the Japanese word for "Tiger" so he goes by "Wild Tiger" - his powers are 1/hour the ability to "multiply his physical...
i told you it was awesome.
Also world's biggest eyeroll for blue rose complaint.
Fire Emblem is ASTONISHING representation considering the medium and country, I prefer Bobby from Macross Frontier minus that one joke that was not translated too well into english.
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...apparently, what a lot of the kids decided to do was make physical representations of their favorite memes
Okay, I'm a sad nerdy person who lives on the internet and enjoys communicating solely in Spider-Man memes whenever I can get away with it, and even I fail to understand the millennial obsession with memes.
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SWIRLING BOLTS, GATHER AND STRIKE WITH POWER! BOLT 2!
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Okay, I'm a sad nerdy person who lives on the internet and enjoys communicating solely in Spider-Man memes whenever I can get away with it, and even I fail to understand the millennial obsession with memes....apparently, what a lot of the kids decided to do was make physical representations of their favorite memes
been attacked by any sandwiches lately?
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Watermelon Update:
OK. This is more bizarre than I could make up, so...
...apparently, what a lot of the kids decided to do was make physical representations of their favorite memes, box them up, and leave them as "presents". So one girl picked out a present, opened it, and it was a photo of someone giving the U.S. "OK" sign (apparently an obscene gesture in much of Europe) and a $5 bill. She was disappointed. Then someone stole it from her so she got to open another present.She chose Impus Major's. She excitedly opened it, there was much laughter at the watermelon, and then... IT GOT STOLEN!! TWICE!!!!!!
Apparently the watermelon was so much better than all the meme-related items that, even though it was opened, people still coveted it.Now that there's a sad, sad white elephant event.
And it turns out it was for his choir, so I KNOW I'm going to have some "interesting" texts from the director later today...
There isn't a kid alive that wouldn't sell their family members or a kidney for a whole watermelon.
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Yay! Friday!! I don't work tonight!!! Galt!!!!!!!
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TS, you should not have given me a thread to textwall about story structure.
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I have my dad wanting me to keep track temperature to warm the house to not have the heater on so I set a timer.
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TS, you should not have given me a thread to textwall about story structure.
link me, I could use the insight of a teacher of a different mindset than myself.
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Watermelon Update:
OK. This is more bizarre than I could make up, so...
...apparently, what a lot of the kids decided to do was make physical representations of their favorite memes, box them up, and leave them as "presents". So one girl picked out a present, opened it, and it was a photo of someone giving the U.S. "OK" sign (apparently an obscene gesture in much of Europe) and a $5 bill. She was disappointed. Then someone stole it from her so she got to open another present.She chose Impus Major's. She excitedly opened it, there was much laughter at the watermelon, and then... IT GOT STOLEN!! TWICE!!!!!!
Apparently the watermelon was so much better than all the meme-related items that, even though it was opened, people still coveted it.Now that there's a sad, sad white elephant event.
And it turns out it was for his choir, so I KNOW I'm going to have some "interesting" texts from the director later today...
And once again a valiant attempt at villainy has been foiled by accidentally being heroic.
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The ranger just punched a vampire to death.
...So, Tiger and Bunny is surprisingly good, and very different than I thought it would be. It's very trope-y, yeah, but that's anime in general.
The world-building is... quite interesting. It's like someone attempted to re-interpret New York as if it were Japan. Which, admittedly, is pretty much exactly what they did.
In an alternate reality, New York was destroyed or something and was rebuilt or something - it's unclear, but it's really not important to the plot, other than it's "kind of like New York, but totally rebuilt to look kind of more like Hyper-Modern Gotham as interpreted by Lego Batman City (+) Midgar" (i.e. a city on a plate or stilts or similar something); also it's been renamed to Bilt City or somesuch. About ~45 years ago super powers started cropping up (the people are called NEXT for some acronym reason I can't recall), and have super heroes have gone all Captain Amazing, and hold a ton of corporate sponsorships in order to fund their costumes, activities, and similar. There is a tv show that follows their exploits and awards them points based off of specific criteria.
Primary character is an "older" hero () who is a widower, absentee father (due to his hero work), and who has a propensity for collateral damage. He deeply cares about others, and doesn't particularly care about stuff (he also secretly wants gratitude and popularity, but not the mobbing adoration). His name is Kotetsu which has something similar to the Japanese word for "Tiger" so he goes by "Wild Tiger" - his powers are 1/hour the
1) Blue Rose has managed to become one of my favorite side-characters: there are definite cultural... issues, however, and unfortunately relatively relevant ones, given current events in our country. It is worth mentioning that she looks older in her costume; but still.
2) Fire Emblem is, actually, surprisingly progressive. It just reminds me of an 80s or 90s progressive, rather than a 10s.
As I noted at the bottom - the characters are actually surprisingly good.
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Shepler's has without question the most incompetent customer service staff I have encountered recently.
Whingey Wizzard's oilskin duster (yes, he has an affectation for cowboy coats) was threadbare and full of holes, and Shepler's was having a massive cyber week sale, so I ordered him a new one on Nov. 29th.
Five days later, the website still said "order processing" and my bank card hadn't been charged, so I called. (Our bank is tiny, and some companies (Barnes and Ignoble for one) don't like our cards and reject orders, so this is a red flag.) After waiting 40 minutes, I was told, "No worries, it's shipping out tomorrow."
Two days later, still no charge on my card, still "order processing", I called again and waited 30 minutes to be told, "Oh, yeah, they picked it in the warehouse then put it back. It's supposed to ship tomorrow. Call us on Friday if we don't email you a shipping notification."
Two days later (nine after I placed the order), still no charge on my card, still "order processing". I wait 45 minutes on hold, then get asked, "No one told you it was backordered?"
At which point I blew a gasket. The rep takes my email address and phone number again and says someone should be in touch within 24 hours.
This doesn't happen, but on Sunday night I got a shipping confirmation email.
Wednesday I received the coat, at my home address, not the shipping address I specified (which was my school, to keep WW from seeing the box). But it was 2nd day express. I figured they expedited it and goofed.
Today I received a second coat at my school address.
Happily, my card was only charged once.
I debated just saving the spare for when WW wears this one out and not saying anything, but it's against my nature, so I emailed them asking for instructions.
Idiots.