Orthos's page

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

Waterhammer wrote:

Ferlintokezeirquizes wrote:

NobodysHome wrote:

I swear, my kids should be lawyers.

NobodysHome: Is Tuesday a good day for you guys to drop the Prius off for an oil change?
Impii: Sure.
NH: OK. I'm setting the appointment for 10:15 so you have time to sleep in.
Impii: OK.
...
NH: OK, it's time for you to drop off the Prius!
Impii: We never agreed to that!

Well, you see, "Tuesday" is derived from Middle English "Tewesday", from Old English "Tiwesdæg" meaning "Tīw's Day", the day of Tiw or Týr, the god of single combat, law, and justice in Norse mythology. And as I am not an adherent to the Norse pantheon, I do not acknowledge the existence of a day dedicated to one of those gods. Thus, I cannot be held responsible for anything that happens, or is supposed to happen, on a "Tuesday".

Super happy to learn this. Adds another holiday to my week.

Also, more rain. I do a pretty good drowned rat impression, if I must say so myself.

The same applies to Wednesday (named for Woden, another name for Odin), Thursday (for Thor), and Friday (for Frigg). Although, if you convert to following Norse paganism, I suppose you could claim all four of those days as being holy, and thus be exempt from working on them.

And if you're a solar or lunar worshiper, you can take Sunday (obvious) or Monday (Moon's Day).

And Saturday is, of course, Saturn's Day, of the Roman pantheon, and would also cover Chronos, his Greek counterpart.

Drejk wrote:

You ate what?!

He ate no dead. I thought you were good at English.

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

I ate'nt dead!

@GM: When possible, could you mark Kizzirark as inactive, please?

Absolutely. Again, always welcome to jump back in if life allows. Thanks for participating thus far!

Hey, I didn't know you could link Discord photos to non-friends! That makes life SO much easier!

Eeehhhh... only temporarily. Discord eventually cuts off access outside the app.

For example the first link is already dead.

Waiting for news of if the Ravenloft game is on tomorrow, or off on account of sick DM.

Life update.

Glad to see you and Crookshanks are doing as well as you can be in that regard.

A big OOF from me on the "born again" nonsense. Been down that road and I do not envy either of you having to be in that situation, and especially Milo being stuck in it. Hopefully they (he?) can get out of there ASAP and back into the sane(-ish) world.

<SNERK>

Scint and I went as Granny Weatherwax and Archchancellor Ridcully respectively.

Very unfortunate but also completely understandable. Wishing you well with what has to be an extremely stressful time for you.

I'll have Kizz disappear into the night at some point and if you ever feel up to returning can just have him show back up.

Happy belated BDay wishes Cal!

Orthos wrote:

So have a possible lead from one of my gaming friends. Will be checking with some people about it this week, seeing if it follows through.

If it doesn't pan out, I do have a potential alternative, but it requires being able to travel to Thailand, where apparently gender-affirming care is a bit easier to get (and is less expensive than some of the other options). The downside of that will be that we won't be able to go until Thanksgiving break at the earliest, Xmas break at the latest. Meaning I'll have to make my estradiol reserves stretch at least another month and a half, possibly two and a half.

We'll see how things go. Still welcoming any advice or recommendations from anyone familiar with gender-affirming care in this part of the world.

Took the words out of my mouth.

Medical tourism in Thailand is encouraged by the government, and travel there from where you are isnt so bad.

Yeah it's probably where I'm going to end up going especially if surgery of any sort becomes involved.

The good news is that I've found a source of HRT that can still be sent to me, though I'll have to navigate customs fees which is always fun. It's been rather a pain to arrange due to the differences in currency across borders but we finally have it worked out.

We're in the middle of Ace Awareness Week. If you're Ace, you are welcome and valid! I don't see you because I don't know who you are, but if I did, I would see you!

Hi!

Thanks for the heads-up! I'll not expect any significant activity here until after that point then. o7

Yeah I've been on too many group trips where other kids will damage the tape or whatever other tracking system is put in place by chaperones just for the fun of getting other kids in trouble. My school stopped using it because it just wasn't worth it, and moved to a system of "if you're the kind of kid we would have to put tape up for, you don't get to go on the trip to begin with".

I have a lot of things to say about the shitty state of Texas public education, but in this one field, my hellhole small-town school managed to get the right answer.

I was going to apologize for the past week and change unexpectedly being super busy IRL and not being on Paizo during that time, but it seems I wasn't the only one who's been occupied this October.

Hope everyone's doing well and has a happy Halloween!

That's as I understand it as well.

The tier list usually goes something like:

Money
> Long-term nonperishables (cans, etc.)
> > supplies (non-food stuff)
> > > short-term nonperishables (things like rice, etc. that last a long time but aren't sealed in cans that will last for years)
> > > > perishables

My favorite: Choose your favorite LLM. "Tell me a story."

It does a decent-enough job.

"Tell me a different story."

Um... that one was pretty darned similar.

"Tell me a third story."

Now you learn that its creativity is extremely limited, and you really start hitting a wall unless you start getting into detailed prompt engineering to tell it exactly what tropes to avoid, which to include, what the story should be about...
...and suddenly it would be just as fast to write the story yourself.

(They asked me at work why I didn't use AI more often. I pointed out the only areas it was available to me, and how it cost me more time to use it because I had to fix its responses, and they backed off.)

I've met multiple teachers who have filtered out AI by saying "your homework is to write a story" then including the qualifier "if your story is about a girl named (I can't recall the name but it's always the same) who lives in the forest, you automatically get a zero."

O-Chul's massive CON score is showing again :D

So have a possible lead from one of my gaming friends. Will be checking with some people about it this week, seeing if it follows through.

If it doesn't pan out, I do have a potential alternative, but it requires being able to travel to Thailand, where apparently gender-affirming care is a bit easier to get (and is less expensive than some of the other options). The downside of that will be that we won't be able to go until Thanksgiving break at the earliest, Xmas break at the latest. Meaning I'll have to make my estradiol reserves stretch at least another month and a half, possibly two and a half.

We'll see how things go. Still welcoming any advice or recommendations from anyone familiar with gender-affirming care in this part of the world.

Fell and hurt myself Wednesday. Doesn't seem to be anything serious, but aches like a b+*$& and makes it hard to sleep in the positions I usually prefer.

Went to the doctor today and got an X-ray and a long massage and feel better-ish, though still not great. Hoping another decent rest will put that somewhere back toward "normal". Back to the doc on Tuesday.

Game tomorrow, provided I'm not hurting too much to go.

Orthos wrote:

NobodysHome wrote:

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Crunchyroll ain't what it once was.

*pours one out for RightStuf*

The saddest thing about that video was the statement, "In Japanese business, seniority is everything." It's hard to imagine running a company that way. You'd boot the best-qualified in favor of the oldest? Sounds like Congress, actually...

I was gonna say, this sounds like plenty of businesses - public and private - in the US.

It surprises me because Global Megacorporation acquired us and had us sit on our hands for two months solid while they did a side-by-side comparison of all the redundant positions and chose the better-qualified person. It ended up being a bloodbath for the incumbents because we were a smaller company whose CEO's directive to managers was, "If your report isn't kicking a$$, fire them and we'll find a replacement."

We were a brutally efficient team, so the side-by-side comparison was a no-brainer.

Seniority had no impact on the decisions.

And, having been through around ten rounds of layoffs now, seniority hasn't had an impact there, either. Maybe it's just the companies I work for.

I would definitely say your company is the exception rather than the rule in that regard. Which is a good thing, for all their other flaws.

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Crunchyroll ain't what it once was.

*pours one out for RightStuf*

The saddest thing about that video was the statement, "In Japanese business, seniority is everything." It's hard to imagine running a company that way. You'd boot the best-qualified in favor of the oldest? Sounds like Congress, actually...

I was gonna say, this sounds like plenty of businesses - public and private - in the US.