Orthos's page

Orthos wrote:

Drejk wrote:

Orthos wrote:

To quote Scint the ex-Catholic, "It's nice to see the first American pope is not a complete f#$%-up".

In Europe Catholics are some of the more conservative Christians. In America they are far more on the progressive side, in comparison to the... ce... sh... *refrains from commenting on evangelicals*... lots of Christians.

There's plenty of more reactionary Catholics over stateside. The town Scint used to work at was basically owned by the Sedavacantists. And of course there's All The Scandals.

....

Are you serious? I haven't heard that term in YEARS and the idea of an entire town dedicated thereby is...well, frightening.

Yes, completely serious.

The public school she worked at was basically only used by people too poor to go to the Sedavacantist Catholic school in town, and by the students who got kicked out of said school for being too "unruly", too "worldly", or having too-low grades.

They controlled the Catholic Church in that town and owned most of the businesses.

Accordingly, this made the whole town - already a rural location in a very red part of Kansas - very hostile to any kids who were LGBT, non-Catholic or non-believers at all, and/or otherwise a minority. Just looking at Scint's group of Babynerd students, of the five we're still in touch with four are some flavor of LGBT (and the fifth is a very overtly supportive ally, and/or we just don't know what their deal is). That was one of the biggest struggles we had to wrestle with when we were deciding whether or not to leave: knowing that when she went, the school and the town would lose one of the few safe havens for those kids, and it may be a long time if ever before something was able to stand in its place.

The main thing keeping them from being a bigger problem was that they only controlled that one tiny town, most of the people who worked there didn't live there, instead driving in from surrounding towns or bigger cities like Manhattan or Topeka, and that their influence was just a drop in the bucket compared to those larger nearby environs.

Pope Leo threatened them specifically and by name with excommunication, but that seems less over being reactionary and more over jumping the chain of Catholic hierarchy to declare their own officers.

Orthos wrote:

To quote Scint the ex-Catholic, "It's nice to see the first American pope is not a complete f#$%-up".

In Europe Catholics are some of the more conservative Christians. In America they are far more on the progressive side, in comparison to the... ce... sh... *refrains from commenting on evangelicals*... lots of Christians.

There's plenty of more reactionary Catholics over stateside. The town Scint used to work at was basically owned by the Sedavacantists. And of course there's All The Scandals.

To quote Scint the ex-Catholic, "It's nice to see the first American pope is not a complete f#$%-up".

Yeah I've done it twice now, the first time was horrible with the disgusting stuff they made me drink.

The second time was literally "take these two pills a day before the procedure, nothing after that but clear liquids until X time, then nothing at all after that" and while the restroom time was Not Great, everything else about it was fine.

Orthos wrote:

Here's hoping they're still alive after that.

No x in the eyes. They are still alive.

Oh you're right. I didn't realize we could still see their eyes.

Also, thagomizer.

I love Milo. His stuff is one of my new favorite YouTube haunts.

(Well, "new". Been watching him for over a year.)

gran rey de los mono wrote:

WEST FREAKIN' VIRGINA! ... But to miss by that much? Three states? That's a level of ineptitude I've not seen in a while.

Back around '08-'11, I was on a specialized help desk that assisted field technicians who would go to insurance agent offices to replace equipment for a specific insurance company based in Bloomington, IL.

Tech: Hey, this is (name). I'm in Manhattan.

Background information...this company identifies their agents with a numerical code. First two digits are the state, everything behind that is tied to a specific agent in that state. Some states, like CA, TX, NY get broken into multiple regions.

Me: So you're in New York?

Tech: Yeah.

Me: Ok, so what's the state-agent code there?

Tech: (gives code)

Me: (had memorized every state code and still remember a few of them) So you're in Kansas.

Tech: Yeah.

That tracks. Scint and I used to live just down the road from Manhattan KS. "The Little Apple."

Here's hoping they're still alive after that.

And I was thinking about it yesterday but I didn't post about it. I'm well aware that it's not like this with many families (Shiro and Hi's immediately come to mind), but for GothBard's parents, the only time they ever contact us is when they need something from us. As I've mentioned, father-in-law insists on getting everything he mail orders delivered here because he doesn't trust his neighborhood; we've literally had stacks of boxes 3-4' high in our foyer waiting for him to pick them up. GothBard's mother only ever calls if she needs a ride or computer help.

And so we all dread hearing from them. Which isn't how a healthy relationship works.

If you've got kids and you want to have a relationship with them into their adulthood and your old age, make sure you contact them more often than just, "Hey, now I need this from you..."

I'm basically exactly the opposite of this, with me being not much of a small talker and especially not much of a phone conversationalist, and nine times out of ten I wouldn't even think to make a call unless it's father's/mother's day, their anniversary, their birthdays, etc.

But my parents wanted me to call much, much more often, and regularly complained that I didn't call enough.

I'm sure someone, somewhere out there thinks it's a useful intrusion. How about letting them opt in, instead of forcing the rest of us to block your number from incessant prescription harassment?

It's me, I'm the one that needs the constant reminders, but yes I agree that it should be opt-in.

I literally tell everyone, family and friends included, that I will not answer a call on my cell phone ever, for any reason. And yet corporations (and a few friends) continue to try. And at least for the corporations, I block their numbers.

I just let it go to voicemail, then check it at my convenience.

(Related side note: Yet again yesterday one of my meetings was interrupted by someone walking down the sidewalk outside, talking loudly on their phone on speakerphone while holding it like a drink tray, because modern "phones" aren't designed to be useful for phone calls. I was going to post how stupid it was. Then in under 24 hours I got three robocalls from my pharmacy so I changed topics.)

Yeah they're basically mini-tablets now, and actual phone conversations aren't even a secondary concern, but more like a tertiary one.

Games were had this past week.

Saturday game (COTCT/COTh/HReb mashup) had the investigators find their local coffeehouse abandoned at what should be near-peak hours, discover grimple gremlins in the storeroom and a secret passageway in the basement leading to what appears to be some kind of infernal cult hideyhole. They killed some lemures and are generally freaked out.

Sunday game we delved into the mine full of centipede swarms, poison gas, weird melded human-horse hybrids and not in the centaur way, and strange mole-goblin-people. We found the source of the problem being the second of a hag trio we'd already killed one of, and merked her. The first hag was weasel-themed, this one was centipede-themed, and there's a third one out there yet that's corvid-themed, and we just learned is hiding in our current home-base town in the guise of one of the villagers, so it looks like next chapter is sleuthing time.

I mean, at least you still have a family, seems like the sort of thing you should put in perspective.

Having a family and being able to love them does not mean that they don't do things that irritate you, and people have a right to complain about the things that bother them.

The idea of "don't complain, it could always be worse" is one of the most toxic parts of our society.

No Pathfinder this weekend, Scint and I were doing a thing during the holiday.

5e continues today!

NobodysHome wrote:

lisamarlene wrote:

WW got fired today.

Oh, no! "Laid off" or "fired"? 'Cause it's really hard to get fired these days, but I know there are some areas where he out-and-out won't back down, so now I'm nosy as f*** curious. Or you can PM me if you don't want to make it public. Or you can ignore me. You know me; I'm not offended when people tell me to f*** off.

The company has been slowly imploding for the past year and a half, rounds of layoffs, making up excuses to get rid of people, ever since they were sold to an Italian investment group.

So, yes, fired, for a bs reason because it's what they do.

I'm sorry to hear this. Hopefully things will be stable for you and you'll be able to get UE until he can pick something else up.

Fantasy Monster: Giant Stone Head

A big stone head to adorn a temple or block a corridor!

Or host a children's challenge show!

*googles bright iris pearl*

If my favorite color wasn't marine teal this would be a strong contender.

Oh no, he's learning!

Post-mortem is a bit late on the draw, but... he's learning!

Interesting cultural poll:

** spoiler omitted **

In your country/location:
(1) If you leave something valuable (a tool set, purse, wallet, etc.) in plan sight inside your car, is there a societal expectation that someone will break into your car because you were stupid enough to leave something valuable in plain sight?

(2) If you leave something valuable on the ground in front of your house, is the expectation that someone will walk off with it?

Late to the party but:

In Kansas, yes and yes. Package thievery/"porch piracy" was a particular problem in our area, and I think we only got away with it not happening to us often because we had a large, loud dog who would bark the instant someone not us approached the porch. Big Dog is the universal dissuader of thieves.

In Sichuan, mixed and no. I've heard stories of break-ins of vehicles but they're uncommon and don't come with the victim-blaming justifier. As far as packages go, people here are overwhelmingly apologetic if they grab the wrong package and will go out of their way to correctly deliver it once they realize the mistake.

No game last week due to sick players and out-of-town players.

Tomorrow we go see Project Hail Mary with some of Scint's coworkers.

Should play again on Sunday.

Yeah, I use those cards and while they're fun as heck when done well they do require some common-sense arbitration - it's why I only use the physical decks and not the automated online ones available on d20PFSRD. That way if I get a card that is useless or outright debilitating for the player then I can just draw a different card.

I also made a houserule that you can only get one card from each deck per turn (so chain-critters can't get four crit cards all at once, and you don't get f~+@ed over as a meleer if your dice betray you on a full-attack) and that basic enemies are all considered "one turn" for that rule - bosses and other unique enemies get their own turn separate from the minions, but you can't get a crit card drawn on you five times because the gang of level-1 bandits had hot dice that round.

Any time you crit or fumble after already having a card used that round from that respective deck, the result is just vanilla: double damage for a crit, auto-miss with no other side effects for a 1.

My standards for corporate America, despite already being what I thought was rock-bottom, continue to burrow lower. F~%~ing hells.

If Global Megacorporation is the company I think it is, per the articles I saw last night before bed, the layoffs were done in a supremely shitty way too. 6-AM mass emails? What the f%&$?

(And if that's not NH's GMC, it's still a shitty way to do things.)

Orthos wrote:

captain yesterday wrote:

I mean running away from the US is going to help, I think this administration has made it pretty clear nowhere is safe from them, so why run away when you can fight them?

Fear is why.

To each their own, but I'm not going to run or hide.

Enjoy the fact that you have the privilege of being able to do so. Not everyone is so lucky. For some escape is the only option that doesn't likely lead to death or worse.

There are those who don't have the privilege of being able to choose and must stand and fight, but that's not the same as choosing to.

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **

Coin toss if the Saturday online group will be gaming, two people already out.

No Saturday evening group this week, it's our off-week.

Should be back to Ravenloft on Sunday though!

Hard to say! We haven't had a session since yet, so we haven't been able to find more info.

Yep, same. My school being as small as it was was the only reason that kind of overlap happened, schools that were larger than us it was much more distinct in my experience.

Orthos wrote:

Ivan Rûski wrote:

Orthos wrote:

Ivan Rûski wrote:

Orthos wrote:

Grew up in the 90s and barest early 00s, can concur (but see below). We had...

Also being from small town Texas, I can confirm all of this. Graduated high school in '03.

SAME! I'm guessing not likely the same small town though ^^

Venus

Yoakum here

Heard of it, never been there. Chances are we've been in the same place at the same time due to band at some point.

Very likely! Sadly there was very little opportunity to interact with kids from other schools at the time, as best I remember.

Orthos wrote:

Ivan Rûski wrote:

Orthos wrote:

Grew up in the 90s and barest early 00s, can concur (but see below). We had...

Also being from small town Texas, I can confirm all of this. Graduated high school in '03.

SAME! I'm guessing not likely the same small town though ^^

Venus

Yoakum here

Orthos wrote:

Grew up in the 90s and barest early 00s, can concur (but see below). We had...

Also being from small town Texas, I can confirm all of this. Graduated high school in '03.

SAME! I'm guessing not likely the same small town though ^^

Drusilla Harkhartt wrote:

the boatman has a pouch full of several coins - many of which are unfamiliar, being of unknown denominations, unrecognized insignia, and/or unfamiliar materials... but always in matched pairs.

Because they are coins left on the eyes of the dead to pay for passage to the underworld, right?

We presumed that was the reference yeah, but this guy was leading undead around the swamp rather than escorting them to the underworld, so at best he was a knockoff. Wish.com Charon.

Qunnessaa wrote:

NobodysHome wrote:

fujisempai wrote:

Allowances are real and not something that just shows up on TV like the jock, band, and nerd cliques?

And FTR, in the 1980s the jock, band, and nerd cliques were absolutely a thing. So just assume all the writers are over 50.

Huh. Did they easily sub-divide, back then?

Those seem like awfully broad categories from my memories of high school, and I don't know if anyone could have rallied all the jocks or all the nerds, but then the '80s were before my time.

I would have fit under the nerd umbrella, but my people could be narrowed down to a more specific, secretive, and fantastically unpopular niche.

The few. The proud. The Library Club.

OMG. Watch old 80s movies like The Breakfast Club or Pretty in Pink. All the Molly Ringworm movies. From my discussions with my friends, my school wasn't nearly as bad as most, but we had:

Grew up in the 90s and barest early 00s, can concur (but see below). We had:

1) The Bullies. Specifically, these tended to be kids who were two things - large and strong for their age compared to most others, and not academically skilled enough to be in the Athletics class so they couldn't play football for the school. In hindsight it definitely seemed like that was why they had something to prove and could take it out on those smaller than them.
2) The Jocks. These were people who kept their grades up enough to participate in school sports and that was what they centered their lives around as a result. There was some significant overlap with Bullies in that there were a lot of Jocks who were just as interested in picking on smaller or less-athletic kids just because they could.
3) The Cool Kids. These were the ones who were good at everything. They were always athletic so they could get along with Jocks and Bullies, they were typically good at actual classes so they weren't skimming along with a barely-passing grade like a lot of Jocks were, and they tended to be involved in a lot of other things outside sports... though inevitably if there was a conflict, sports almost always won. (For example - band concert and football game on the same day? Definitely going to play football.)
4) The Ag Kids. These tended to be kids who lived out on farms or ranches outside town or kids who wanted to be associated with such. They spent almost all their time dealing with Ag stuff, handling animals, etc. and didn't interact with much of the rest of the school populace as a result, unless they also were part of another group. Some Bullies liked to harass Ag Kids, but it tended not to be endemic - a lot of Ag Kids tended to be strong enough to hold their own against Bullies (these are the kids learning how to handle horses, cattle, etc. after all), and a lot of Cool Kids were friends with Ag Kids so would come to back them up against Bullies and Jocks.
5) The Nerds. Those of us who were good at school but not involved in sports, is essentially what this group came down to. We had good to great grades but since we didn't like or want to play football (and to a lesser extent, baseball) we were on the outs. This would get further subdivided into specified Nerd groups - Art Nerd, Band Nerd, Drama Nerd, etc. - but there was a lot of overlap because we were a small school (my graduating class was just over 200). Specifically this was the group that Bullies and Jocks were allowed to target that Cool Kids would not come to their defense, unless you were a specific individual that a Cool Kid had "adopted" as a protected friend.

Due to the small size - in addition to the above, the population of the whole school didn't reach 1000 - there was a lot more overlap between these groups than you would see in a larger school where the groups were much more distinct and the lines much more firmly drawn. We saw a LOT of schools on our band trips - even only slightly-larger schools than ours - where if you were in the band you ABSOLUTELY WERE NOT involved in ANYTHING ELSE because you did not DARE associate with another group or participate in another activity that would impinge upon your obligations to the band, so they would NEVER have seen football players ditching band performances to play for the team or vice versa.

The other big difference is that - for me - most of this was a junior high thing - by high school, most of the lines had blurred even further and overlap was significantly wide-spread. Bullies' and Jocks' advantageous early growth spurts had been evened out as more and more kids hit their own stride, and the push toward academics "because college" in high school started making it less of a socially pariahic thing to have good grades and be dedicated to your studied. It also meant that you wanted or even needed to be involved in more stuff to increase your chances for recognition which might lead eventually to a scholarship or invitation to higher education.

As a result, Bullies kinda faded out of being a thing by high school, either folding into Jocks (because they got their shit together and kept their grades up), subsiding into a sort of small sub-clique of non-athlete Jock-alikes, or dropping out. A lot of Jocks became Cool Kids when they got their grades up above barely passing and were too focused on classes to pester Nerds.

A lot of Nerds became Cool Kids when they grew into being able to participate effectively in sports or found a thing they could do that was equivalent, and/or when they grew into themselves in their mid-teens. And the rest of us Nerds that didn't just got to breathe a sigh of relief that it wasn't really considered "cool" or "fun" to abuse us anymore now that high school had people too busy doing a thousand other things instead, and we could get recognition that the school and our peers actually approved of in other ways than football now (even if football was, by a huge margin, the most important one).

The one stereotypical clique we never had was the Mean Girls/Hot Girls clique, but I'm going to say that was more just because of our small size again and those girls tended to be folded into whatever other clique best suited them.

- Being bored makes you comfortable with being alone in silence. It's frankly astonishing to me watching all the people walk down my street and every single one of them is either having a conversation on their phone or listening to music on their earbuds. When did being alone with your own thoughts go out of style?

While I mostly agree on the rest, I'll push back on this one - just as many of the people you see with their headphones on/earbuds in aren't doing it to keep the silence away but rather to keep the outside noise away. It's a neurospicy thing, one that I'm admittedly particularly prone to myself. Yes it's nice to have music, a podcast, or something else running to keep my attention, but just as often the primary purpose is to keep the surrounding ambience at bay.

It also helps (at least, helps me) with tinnitus, as long periods of silence are one of the things that prompts it to kick in, and steady noise helps to "re-establish" audio "normalcy" and allow it to subside.

The session was also dedicated to our dear friend Tamela who passed away in 2023 from ALS. Her most memorable character in all our years of gaming was a Ranger named Diana Brownsparrow, and the Oracle of Itea was a devotee of Diana, Mistress of the Hunt, whose holy animal is a sparrow.

That is so adorably sweet. You're all good friends.

Getting dressed on St. Patrick's Day always reminds me how much I loathed this holiday as a kid.

My Depression-era parents gave me nothing but hand-me-downs from my older brother, and they preferred to buy darker shades to hide the dirt to reduce washing. Plus 1970s. Clothing with any trace of green on it was hard to come by. Plus, even as a shy child who could never self-advocate, I was a non-conformist. Why the h*** do I have to wear green just because everyone else does?

So I got pinched. A lot. So I hated St. Patrick's Day.

This reminds me of my own hatred for April 1st.

I don't enjoy pranks. I don't enjoy performing them, and I don't enjoy being subjected to them.

I'm sure there's some flavor of neurospiciness involved that results in or exacerbates my distaste for what is, essentially, an entire day dedicated to a disruption of the daily schedule by a series of what are usually poorly-performed jokes, small-scale lies, and annoying mini-assaults.

Of course, having two younger siblings meant that my disdain for the day made me an easy target, and my parents were not particularly sympathetic to my irritation, so that also contributed and essentially created a feedback loop of dislike.

Needless to say I do not bemoan the complete lack of April Fools' involvement in my life as an adult.

Same~

(Technically it's teal, specifically a darker teal that's closer to the green end of the spectrum than the blue.)

NobodysHome wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

Many people saw machines and automation take their jobs away too, and they weren't exactly happy.

It's almost like the Luddites had a point and weren't just the industry-hating terrorists they keep getting portrayed as.

Cyz has an anonymous survey for her course this semester if anyone doesn’t mind helping out. Link.

Done~

Fantasy Monster: Ghostly Muncher

Not all dogs go to heaven. The Earth is too much fun for them.

... okay I want to play a White Necromancer with one of these as a familiar.

I believe we're resuming the 5e game tomorrow. No idea what to expect beyond that we're picking up after we all recuperated from taking out the vampire-devil cult.

I have so many emails I just never get around to reading. I could probably just mass-delete them all and lose nothing of value.

That's two. Is the one remaining one of the longer ones, or the short one from the necromancer?

Went on a hike yesterday. I am so out of shape, and it was a rougher one than expected - we went thinking it was a moderate but still appropriate for novices challenge hike (so 3-4 out of 10 difficulty) but it turned out it was more of a light expert hike (7 out of 10). So I only made it about 20% into the hike before I just plain couldn't walk anymore. So I ended up crashing at a rest spot and playing Pokemon on my phone until the cars arrived to take us back down the mountain and the rest of the hikers came back down to meet up with us.

Scint made it about 80% of the way before she had to call it quits as well.

I'm both excited I got to go and highly disappointed with myself in that I only made it such a short distance in.

So I guess if I needed more motivation to keep going to the gym, there it is... because I definitely don't want this to be how things go next time. And there will be a next time.

At that point, just watch the show yourself >.>

My sister, codenamed girlboss. Has to be the best example of LE around.

"All you've been doing this week is sleep.

"Yeah. You didn't move the cars like i asked. SO shoveling the drive way was harder, and i was tired from that. And then I had to stop a car from rolling you over, and stopping that hurt, and then I shoveled the driveway at 2 am and 6 am."

The common mindset of "It doesn't count as work if 1) it doesn't benefit me in some way and 2) I don't see it actually happening" continues to vex me.

I apologize for my absence. Various things have come up and were taking lots of time. I'd hoped they'd be behind me by this point but that doesn't seem to be the case. I think I'm going to have to quit this game.

Good luck and I hope you all have a great game

Unfortunate to hear, but I understand how life goes. If things change you're always welcome to return, as I said with the others who've stepped out. Thanks for participating thus far. :)

I downloaded my W2 from TurboTax and won't be touching them further, even though I could theoretically file for free using their services since my taxes are nowhere near as complex as Impus Major's.

But given we're dealing with international taxes and me not working for half the year and all the other fun stuff as a result of our move, we're going to actually look into having someone take care of it for us this year.

NobodysHome wrote:

Yeah, just checked in with Shiro because he has much broader work experience than I do (he was a 1970s line worker at an auto factory, for example), and he has the exact same life experience I do: You get 10 paid holidays a day, and they're aligned with Federal holidays as much as possible. So seems like this is yet another, "Screw you, Millenials and younger!" moment...

Every company I've been employed by? 6 at most.

New Year's Day
Memorial Day
4th of July
Labor Day
Thanksgiving
Christmas Day

Yes, the big 6 federal holidays are there, but not Presidents Day, MLK, Veterans Day, Juneteenth, etc.

I worked for the State of Kansas before we left the US, and this was my experience as well, plus Veteran's Day and - for 2024 and 2025 - Juneteenth. Rumblings from On High suggested that Juneteenth might get un-holidayed for 2026, but I left well before that was determined one way or another.

When I worked for a private company in Tennessee, it was just the Big Six plus Black Friday, with half-days on Thanksgiving Wednesday and Christmas Eve.

Orthos wrote:

Nothing this weekend which is good because I picked up a stomach bug somewhere and spent all morning and early afternoon here sleeping.

I catch those damned things at the drop of a hat. I hope you feel better with much quickness!

I slept hard on Sunday as well, but have pretty much recovered completely now, and am more or less back to my normal schedule.

Nothing this weekend which is good because I picked up a stomach bug somewhere and spent all morning and early afternoon here sleeping.

I say this, while planning to go into getting an accounting degree in the next 2-3 years (basically waiting for Scint to finish her Masters, then a wait time to give us a financial buffer), so there's a part of me that's strongly concerned that any possibility of getting a degree in that field is going to be competing against robots.