Orthos's page

NobodysHome wrote:

Y'know when your kid goes to live in an apartment on their own for a couple of weeks and you think, "Oh, good! They're finally going to learn about shopping, and housework, and all those good things!"

The shopping is a very interesting take, as he comes from an exceedingly-privileged family. As I've said both here and to him, we have the luxury of being able to choose our groceries based on quality, not on price. A good example is ham: We buy nitrate-free ham to avoid the whole ultra-processed foods thing, but it easily costs 2-3x as much as Oscar Meyer. But I'm old enough and rich enough that I don't want to eat crappy-tasting crap. Impus Minor shopped with his girlfriend, who's very obviously raised with Midwestern frugality in her soul. Her parents are well-off; I know that they own a large house in Minneapolis and are doing quite well for themselves. But... Midwestern. So the food he brought home is Target brand everything. Butter (shudder), ham, peanut butter. If it was available in the dirt-cheap store brand version, they got it. I can forgive the peanut butter. But dairy? Cured meats? Please, no! Such an interesting take, since we were paying for everything for them. Price didn't matter, but she still couldn't overcome her frugal sensibilities.

As for cleaning up after himself, the other thing he brought home was paper plates and plasticware. So much for frugality! And cleaning up after themselves!

An interesting juxtaposition, in my mind.

Having grown up firmly middle class, and living more or less just above the poverty line most of my adult life, eating that low quality processed crap for so long does something to your taste buds. Either that, or it has to do with being a smoker. When I started making decent money, I tried a few of the "higher quality" things I couldn't justify getting before. For most things I find that I either can't taste the difference or even prefer the taste of the supposedly lower quality things. I can't bring myself...

Never smoked, and very much in a similar position. I've yet to encounter a more expensive brand that is so immensely better than the cheaper stuff that it's been worth the extra cost - the difference just isn't sufficient enough to justify the expense. So I don't think it's the smoker part.

Also prefer margarine over butter, which has been something of an adjustment as actual butter is cheaper here. Thankfully the preference is only slight, so it's not intolerable and I've been adjusting just fine.

Drejk is playing Nioh 3. I can see him.

On steam? How do I not have you as a friend there already?

DungeonmasterCal wrote:

Ya know what I think might be fun? If we could somehow work out a plan for us to meet online and play a one off game. I know time zones are pain the assorted places, but I think we'd roll dice and laugh ourselves silly.

You can do play by post right here on this website. There is a 24 hour turn over as people from around the world post in, but if everyone actually posts each day the game can move along at a reasonable pace.

Play by post games usually die out because people don’t keep the posting schedule. There is initially great excitement, then it fades away.

Yeah that seems to be what's happening to my game. Lost a couple players to IRL, then lost a little under a month of posting due to holiday travel followed by airport sickness and busyness offline. Came back and it's been rough getting the game moving again.

Yeah Serini is a veteran adventurer from an epic campaign. She's definitely higher level than Nale's CL.

So is Belkar going to go out in a blaze of sudden heroic glory? FIND OUT NEXT TIME ON ORDER OF THE Z!

With slight adjustments - translating, and because we're going to have a room league of our own - I guess that would make me Theo(dora) Apple(s).

(That strikes me as a bit more baseball-y than ladies going with their grandmum's first name, though Anne Apple would make for fun introductions with the near homophone. :) )

Admittedly I'd rather be Kenna or Donna than Eugenia or Betty Mae >.>

Anyone else care to share?

Either Kenneth or Don

I haven't been an egg for a few years now, but ....

I do miss having a dishwasher. None here in this apartment, so it's back to washing things by hand, which is admittedly how I did things for the majority of my childhood - as soon as we were tall enough to reach the sink, our parents pawned off all the dishwashing duties on myself and my brother.

We went to Hokkaido for Xmas specifically because we wanted a snowy holiday. It doesn't get cold enough to snow in Sichuan. XD

Orthos wrote:

Mr. Granderson wrote:

Orthos wrote:

NobodysHome wrote:

FFXIV is such a cozy, polite game.

I miss it. My connection isn't good enough in this apartment to play right now, so at best I get on once a week to do Fashion Report and Cactpot and then don't touch it for a week. The times I've tried to do raids it's been so laggy I can't contribute.

Here's hoping when we move out and get an apartment that isn't on campus our network will be at least a little better.

Maybe your social credit score is too low.

Nah, this is an issue everyone has here. It's a campus apartment with the cheapest internet they can install. Some people have already sprung for something better, but we're going to hold off until we move out to somewhere we're comfortable spending over a year living, now that we know the area better and how things work here.

So, it's about actual credit score, not social credit.

I mean, it is housing.

Orthos wrote:

NobodysHome wrote:

FFXIV is such a cozy, polite game.

I miss it. My connection isn't good enough in this apartment to play right now, so at best I get on once a week to do Fashion Report and Cactpot and then don't touch it for a week. The times I've tried to do raids it's been so laggy I can't contribute.

Here's hoping when we move out and get an apartment that isn't on campus our network will be at least a little better.

Maybe your social credit score is too low.

Nah, this is an issue everyone has here. It's a campus apartment with the cheapest internet they can install. Some people have already sprung for something better, but we're going to hold off until we move out to somewhere we're comfortable spending over a year living, now that we know the area better and how things work here.

I have my first ever sernik (Polish cheesecake) in the oven, because American-style cheesecake is gross and anything containing cream cheese should be banned under the provisions of the Geneva Convention.

Send me any American cheesecake you don't want, I will happily devour it to the last crumb.

Speaking of ens****ification, we broach the topic of toilet paper. [snip]

The hotel we stayed in during our Japan trip had a bidet, as did most of the public restrooms. We have considered everything since a disappointment.

EDIT: OMG. They're even worse. They're of the "AI can do everything for me cult." "Oh, I just love that answer the conversation I can use the Zoom AI notetaker to track what was said.

Have you USED that notetaker? It's epically awful. We pitted it against my notetaking in a John Henry-style competition, and it wasn't even a competition; the Zoom AI notes were terrible.

In my experience, these sorts of people don't care about the quality - the appeal of AI to them is that it does the thing they want, with no work put in from them, and with no complaints, disagreement, or expectation of treatment.

They don't care that, in actual practice, they have to take two or three times as long to get the job done, and the actual quality of the work will be noticeably worse.

The AI giving vanilla answers is even often a plus for those sorts, as it means they don't have to deal with difficult questions or responses. It's all very plain and straightforward and simple for them.

Also hi I'm back.

We've had one game since the new year started. First week back, we gamed one person short.

Second week, more people were sick so we cancelled.

Third week was a school function happening at the same time that we were all attending, so obviously no game.

Next week we should be back to normal schedule.

Also I'm working on setting things up for a second game on Saturdays running PF1e, running a conglomeration of COTCT/COT/HR/HV, with a big focus on the players being underclass unfortunates, thieves guild types coming up from the bottom rung. Should be fun!

quibblemuch wrote:

The American South.

I recommend it. Sure, the humidity makes Satan wilt, but I can count on the toes of one foot the number of times in the past two decades that snow has created actual problems.

That is okay, I'd rather deal with the snow than people and politics from the south every day.

AND HOW.

FFXIV is such a cozy, polite game.

I miss it. My connection isn't good enough in this apartment to play right now, so at best I get on once a week to do Fashion Report and Cactpot and then don't touch it for a week. The times I've tried to do raids it's been so laggy I can't contribute.

Here's hoping when we move out and get an apartment that isn't on campus our network will be at least a little better.

The trip was great! Had a lot of fun, got to see a lot of interesting stuff, and got a proper white Christmas which we do not get where we currently live.

The ensuing two weeks of airport crud/possibly COVID that followed, on the other hand, was not.

That's why I've been not on Paizo, so once again my apologies. Happy belated new year! I hope everyone else had a nice holiday and a nicer beginning of January than I did. ^^

Today (December 4, 2026) marks the 65th anniversary of Erwin Schrödinger's death. Or does it... he had a closed casket funeral, so we can't really be sure.

You mean January?

Best of luck and get well soon Cal.

Not nearly as dire here but similar news, two players are sick this week so was no Ravenloft game on our expected resuming day. Thankfully here just seems to be a cold.

Yeah I only use my wireless headset on my phone when I'm walking the dog, otherwise it's typically connected to my computer at home, or not in use at all if I'm traveling anywhere else, since I don't drive anymore.

Definitely had it always-on when I lived in the states except when I needed to connect bluetooth to the computer instead.

Upselling is so exhausting.

At my age, my nurse practitioner recommended I get a hearing screening. Checked the local pharmacies. Nope. Googled. Apparently I should see an audiologist. I call one and leave a message that all I want is a hearing screening. Nothing more. And the receptionist calls me back to welcome me to my "hearing improvement journey". I ask, "Can I just get a screening?"

And I know they're going to try to sell me about 15,000 different hearing improvement items once I get there. It's like, "Can I just have a basic test and go home now?"

Apparently not.

They do similar here, the difference is they don't charge for it. It's all covered by the same one payment as part of the comprehensive wellness care program.

NobodysHome wrote:

After tirading yet again about my cell phone, I realized I'd probably save time by just doing what I suggested: Turning off cellular data and bluetooth at home, and turning off WiFi and turning on cellular when I leave the house. Takes a few seconds and remembering to do it, but suddenly my phone's performance is spectacular.

Still irritated that I have to do it, but it works...

You lost me on not having bluetooth turned off by default... o.O

I turn it off on the regular, mostly to either keep it from conflicting with my computer when using bluetooth there (as most bluetooth things want to default to the phone) or just to save battery.

For Christmas, my nieces gave me a "LEGO" "Serenity" from the show Firefly. It's actually much better quality than I would have expected from a knock-off brand. Anybody else get anything fun?

Besides the trip to Hokkaido and all the souvenirs I got there, I got this Pokemon "Ugly Christmas Sweater" (It's adorable not ugly but you get the idea), some fuzzy slippers, and the heavy coat I needed for the trip.

Orthos wrote:

Yep. Summer vacation has already been planned to New Zealand, and we have a long list of other places we'd love to visit that we're considering just putting on a spinning wheel to decide.

I've heard that the US is a good place to visit. Or, used to be, at least.

Been there done that

Yep. Summer vacation has already been planned to New Zealand, and we have a long list of other places we'd love to visit that we're considering just putting on a spinning wheel to decide.

Jargon has a place, but it's usually in the space of "field-specific language" where words are created or repurposed for use in the specific context of a working field, niche interest, or complex subjects.

For example "code blue" means one thing to a soldier, and another thing to a physician.

That said, I wouldn't call leet and jive jargon, they're more slang or argot, or just culturalized linguistics which kinda overlaps with both, especially the latter.

There's definitely still some things about the early internet I look back on fondly and think are sad that they've been lost to the annals of its history and the changing landscape of the web.

Leet is not one of them.

I hope everyone had a merry Christmas and/or happy holiday time!

Apologies for the lack of activity here over the past week. My partner and I went on vacation to Japan this year for the holiday, and I expected to be able to get online and make some posts during the evenings.

Unfortunately, despite expectations to the contrary, we did not have suitable power outlets in our hotel room, and thus no internet for the duration of the trip.

We're back home now so I'll be able to resume posting. Thanks for your patience and I hope you have a happy holiday season of your own. :)

Scintillae wrote:

Orthos and I are back from Hokkaido!

Was it beautiful and snowy?

It was! And the park and Christmas market were gorgeous.

It rained the first day and the last day we were there, but snowed every other day at least some of the day. Temperature was consistently in the 5 to -10 range Celcius (~40 to 15 F) the whole time, mostly on the lower end.

The one thing we wanted to do that we missed out on was the snowmobile trip, because we didn't have enough cash on-hand at that moment. We got to see the rest of the tour fine, including Jigokudani and a farm with some really nice ice cream (yes, in snowy winter), as well as an aquarium trip, the Pokemon Center, and a lot of other fun stuff.

Did you see monkeys?

No monkeys, and at the one stop where we had the option to see bears (or as the guide kept mispronouncing it, beers) we elected to get lunch instead because it was 2:30 in the afternoon and we were hungry. The only animal displays we saw were in the aforementioned aquarium. Which is a win for me because I got to see my favorite animal, which happens to be stingrays (In this case specifically a Xingu River Ray aka "Polkadot Stingray"), and get a plush of one.

WOOOOOOOOOO

So, what did you get me, your close, personal, Japan loving friend?

Alas, international shipping is expensive, so we only sent some small gifts to family (specifically, Scint's parents and my aunt and uncle in Chicago who are my equal black sheep in our mutual familial relationships). We specifically limited our budget to keep our own purchases down and essentially only got what we could afford on that and could fit in our suitcases.

'Sup, FaWtLfolk?

Hiya! Long time no see :)

gran rey de los mono wrote:

And just for funsies, a pipe at work started leaking, so they had to shut off the hot water to the whole hotel late last night. It's still off, so pretty soon people are going to start waking up and trying to shower with cold water. I do not look forward to this.

It's been fixed, but apparently the first plumbers they called said "Last time it took 4 months and us threatening to send it to a collection agency before you guys paid us. So if you want us now, you have to pay by credit card as soon as we finish." Instead, the owner found someone to do it. I don't even know if they are a licensed plumber, or just a guy who knows some stuff, but it's (currently) fixed.

Oh that is a bad sign.

"He" is the one pronoun I prefer not used for me ;D

I just realized I never did update things here.

I did successfully get refills of my E through customs and into my hands, so I'm back on full doses at a regular schedule. Here's hoping for more steady progression and visible results now that I'm not having to ration.

Legendary Planet today was cancelled due to multiple players unavailable. We'll be reconvening in January.

Ravenloft 5e tomorrow is still on, short only one person thankfully, but then we're off for a week or two for the holiday (uncertain about the week after Xmas, will know for sure after tomorrow).

Otherwise a quiet day at home today, will be getting some housework done then playing Expedition 33 and walking the pup.

Hi, all. Strange doings are a-foot. I'll elaborate more when I, in fact, know more. Doctors sure love their tests...

Take care of yourself, man.

I passed through Texas briefly last Friday. I made a point to mess with it while I was there.

It says something that people have completely forgotten within the span of 30 years that the "Don't Mess With Texas!" slogan started as an anti-littering campaign. It got co-opted by political opportunists so quickly that its original purpose was little more than a footnote.

And at this point I think any anti-littering campaign would get a large portion of the state's populace to litter more just to thumb their nose at the "environmentalist wackos".

As a new yorker, they will have no choice but to listen to me when I critique it.

The only group Texans disdain more than New Yorkers is Californians. You have been warned.

That whole gag in commercials for Old El Paso salsa where they s#!t on other salsa brands for being made in NYC and then threaten to lynch the guy who brought any brand other than Old El Paso? That's how people in Texas actually talk. If anything, the commercials and the violence they (imply to) inflict on the people using NYC-made products is tame compared to how real-life Texans talk about anything from NY or CA.

This is not a joke. If you are going to travel to Texas, be very careful about talking about being from New York. Unless you spend every moment of talking about the state ensuring everyone around you knows you hate it in NY and are taking any and every opportunity to leave, you WILL risk violence against yourself.

And that goes [u]double[/u] if you make it well-known to too many Texans that you're from there and think ANYTHING about it is better than Texas. And that goes quadruple if you're in a rural area or smaller town.

I know this looks and reads as hyperbolic but I assure you I am not in any way joking.

Meanwhile, I'm too lazy to find and copy the relevant passages, but as one of the resident Texans on the thread (I know there are a few of us), I for one feel you cannot bash the state vehemently enough. Rotten governance and deregulation have made this a miserable place to live. I could say more, but I would be $mu^f3d for politics.

Strong second as an escapee thereof. I spent the first 18 years of my life in Texas and have returned only twice since, both times for funerals.

It's basically in the same box as Tennessee for me: a (mostly) beautiful physical place with gorgeous scenery and large expanses of lovely terrain, but I NEVER want to live there again.

Condolences, all things considered.

Similar happened with my maternal grandfather. He was in and out of consciousness after we got the news he was in the hospital and terminal, and we were in the RV and heading on the two-day trip from Tennessee to Texas.

He passed minutes after Mom spoke to him on the phone. We all were pretty convinced he was just waiting to hear from her as she was the only one of his five kids who lived out of state and thus wasn't yet in the room with him.

I cannot seem to get the forums to display posts relative to my current non-US timezone.

I've changed my settings in my account to Asia/Shanghai. It's still displaying forum post times on US times.

I feel like I'm doing something wrong but can't figure out what.

EDIT: And no, I have no idea how my icon got sm*^fified, but I am delighted.

Gary always did say there were hidden triggers beyond just using the Sm-word.

Rest his crazy soul.

Orthos wrote:

I'm happy for you that you got to see her one last time, even though the end is near, and that your relationship with her is as good as it has been, even if your siblings and other kin are pieces of work.

I'm a little jealous, even. I know I'll never be able to have that kind of relationship with my family again, and as I never plan to return to the states if I can help it I'll probably never see them again even if I wanted to.

Im sorry, Orthos.

It is what it is. I managed to get out of the cult and find myself in the process. Not everyone is so lucky.

I want to know what mood Serini was in when she set that trap up.

I'm happy for you that you got to see her one last time, even though the end is near, and that your relationship with her is as good as it has been, even if your siblings and other kin are pieces of work.

I'm a little jealous, even. I know I'll never be able to have that kind of relationship with my family again, and as I never plan to return to the states if I can help it I'll probably never see them again even if I wanted to.

Drejk wrote:

Most of the time I get utter crap...

And the situation is getting even worse recently with more and more really s!$*ty AI-made ads... Urgh.

I hate youtube ads so much that I pay for premium. Had it for years, and I have never regretted it.

Same.

Yeah it REALLY sounds like this guy isn't interested in running a game, just wanting you to be there for the ride of the story he has to tell (which is, as you've mentioned, just cribbed wholesale from an existing source so it's not even his own story).

Also I get the vibe from the "there's always NPCs around" thing that the guy isn't comfortable letting you just interact, he always needs to have some way for him to be involved in the conversation. Ergo, always an NPC present.

Also also, the hells is with this system that it relies on the GM to decide what skills your character has??

*SIGH*. Someone at the care facility convinced her to start eating again. I should sue them for elder abuse.

I imagine it's considered their official policy, and the workers could likely get fired for doing otherwise, for fear of accusations of neglect.

I wish I had some advice to give or even just something to say. I presume you've already pursued all the potential legal options. The best I can offer is to hope her suffering ends sooner rather than later.

(1) Do any of you remember just how tedious Season 1 is?

I mostly remember