
NobodysHome |
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lisamarlene wrote:Remember that it is OK to do nothing every now and again. Believe it or not, the brain needs that once in a while.I'm at a loss for what to do with myself this morning. WW is working on Saturdays right now, making crepes in a booth at the Farmers Market, Hermione doesn't have rehearsal today because it's a holiday weekend, the kids are playing in Val's room, and I railroaded them into deep-cleaning their rooms yesterday, so I don't really *have* to do anything.
So I've showered and had a coffee, but that's as far as I've got.
I'm in LM's camp on this one: I cannot be doing nothing. I go stir-crazy.
So I decided that this year I'll catch up on all 26 Marvel movies, in MCU chronological order.
So far:
Captain America: Worse than I remembered it being. Very meh.
Captain Marvel: Better than I remembered it being. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
EDIT: And if I'm sitting around doing nothing and watching movies, I'm going to do it nekkid, gosh darn it!

NobodysHome |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |

And a final note before I likely run off for the rest of the day, after maybe 10-15 years of GothBard telling me, "OK, this is what you're buying me for Christmas. This is what you're buying me for my birthday," (works well), I finally think I found something she'll really like.
The irony is rich in this one.

lisamarlene |

And a final note before I likely run off for the rest of the day, after maybe 10-15 years of GothBard telling me, "OK, this is what you're buying me for Christmas. This is what you're buying me for my birthday," (works well), I finally think I found something she'll really like.
The irony is rich in this one.
LOL, that does look cool, but I thought you posted recently that you two just threw out most of the drinks cabinet?

NobodysHome |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |

NobodysHome wrote:LOL, that does look cool, but I thought you posted recently that you two just threw out most of the drinks cabinet?And a final note before I likely run off for the rest of the day, after maybe 10-15 years of GothBard telling me, "OK, this is what you're buying me for Christmas. This is what you're buying me for my birthday," (works well), I finally think I found something she'll really like.
The irony is rich in this one.
LOL. Yes and no. We threw out all the stuff my father purchased back in the 1970s and that hadn't been used yet.
I figure any alcohol in an open liquor cabinet frequented by an alcoholic that hasn't been touched in 40+ years is well worth throwing out. We didn't throw anything that post-dated my father's death in 2007, so nothing less than 14 years old got tossed.

lisamarlene |
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lisamarlene wrote:NobodysHome wrote:LOL, that does look cool, but I thought you posted recently that you two just threw out most of the drinks cabinet?And a final note before I likely run off for the rest of the day, after maybe 10-15 years of GothBard telling me, "OK, this is what you're buying me for Christmas. This is what you're buying me for my birthday," (works well), I finally think I found something she'll really like.
The irony is rich in this one.
LOL. Yes and no. We threw out all the stuff my father purchased back in the 1970s and that hadn't been used yet.
I figure any alcohol in an open liquor cabinet frequented by an alcoholic that hasn't been touched in 40+ years is well worth throwing out. We didn't throw anything that post-dated my father's death in 2007, so nothing less than 14 years old got tossed.
Did I ever tell you the story of my bachelor cousin's cabin up at South Lake Tahoe?
My mom's cousin (who is around 75 now) inherited a two-story log cabin from his father, somewhere in the Strawberry/Kyburz area. Back in 2000, when I started working for the nuns, I had some vacation time but was utterly broke, so I asked him if I could use the cabin for a long weekend.
He faxed me seven pages of instructions, such as "The lights should work but I never paid the county to connect a line to the house, so there's no water, but the outhouse works just fine." Also, "The vacuum was broken so I raked the carpet," and "The key to the front door is underneath the seventh plank from the right in the front porch floor."
Before his death in the early 60s, my cousin's father had been collecting every brightly-colored liqueur he could find, no matter the flavor, to practice building the perfect pousse cafe. All of these bottles were in the little kitchen in the cabin. My cousin invited me to experiment with them myself, but I declined. Mostly because my second day there, I slipped and fell over a small waterfall on a hike, got a concussion, refused transport by the emt's because I had no insurance, and drove home early.
If the cabin didn't burn down in the Tahoe fires (which were right around that area), the bottles are still there.

Drejk |

captain yesterday wrote:Last one to post one day and first to post the next day.
Shame on you all!
Shiro came over yesterday afternoon and helped Impus Major pick out a guitar. Once they all got back to the house, the Impii ran off and it was YouTube-Sushi-Cowboy Bebop-bedtime. No time to post.
And yes, I'll commit heresy here, but I'm enjoying the live action Cowboy Bebop more than the original because they rewrote it to make the episodes run together more smoothly, provide an overall plot, etc. The old version was ground-breaking in its time, but having watched it for the first time in what? 2018? It's really pretty disjointed and confusing.
And here I am, having never seen either.

Drejk |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |

Why I Love Cats Reason #∞: Impus Major came home with a brand new guitar and had to run off to a social event. He put the guitar on the foyer table. In under 3 minutes, the little fluffernutter was curled up on the (formerly) black case, purring up a storm, and she didn't leave until she'd thoroughly coated the entire case in white cat hair about 6 hours later.
EDIT: It's even better than I imagined: She also threw up on the case, but Impus Major had cleaned it up by the time I got up this morning.
Was that fluffernutter's opinion about the quality of the guitar or the Impus skill?

Drejk |

Vanykrye wrote:lisamarlene wrote:Remember that it is OK to do nothing every now and again. Believe it or not, the brain needs that once in a while.I'm at a loss for what to do with myself this morning. WW is working on Saturdays right now, making crepes in a booth at the Farmers Market, Hermione doesn't have rehearsal today because it's a holiday weekend, the kids are playing in Val's room, and I railroaded them into deep-cleaning their rooms yesterday, so I don't really *have* to do anything.
So I've showered and had a coffee, but that's as far as I've got.
I'm in LM's camp on this one: I cannot be doing nothing. I go stir-crazy.
So I decided that this year I'll catch up on all 26 Marvel movies, in MCU chronological order.
So far:
Captain America: Worse than I remembered it being. Very meh.
Captain Marvel: Better than I remembered it being. Thoroughly enjoyed it.EDIT: And if I'm sitting around doing nothing and watching movies, I'm going to do it nekkid, gosh darn it!
Well, the newly released Eternals, do have a sex scene, the first for MCU...

GM_Beernorg |

And a final note before I likely run off for the rest of the day, after maybe 10-15 years of GothBard telling me, "OK, this is what you're buying me for Christmas. This is what you're buying me for my birthday," (works well), I finally think I found something she'll really like.
The irony is rich in this one.
I second this choice, then again, we have been working on expanding our bar both in storage, classic bar ware (the wife has a fascination with uranium glass, TBF, the stuff is rather awesome, I have a big wine goblet made out of it, kinda love it) and drink options. So I am always happy to get more neat bar stuff, dunno about GothBard, but guessing she feels similar.

captain yesterday |

I haven't seen many MCU movies, to be honest...
Thor 2
Guardians Of The Galaxy 1
Iron Man 1
Thor 3
Black Panther
Captain Marvel
Avengers: Infinity War
Avengers: Endgame
Spider-Man: Far From Home
Black Widow
Shang-ChiI think that's all...
(those I have seen)
I've seen them all except for the most recent ones after Endgame.
My favorites are.
Guardians of the Galaxy
Thor Ragnarok
(The Suicide Squad)
Guardians of the Galaxy 2
The Avengers
Ant Man
Iron Man
Black Panther
Spider-Man Homecoming
Captain America Civil War
Ant Man And The Wasp.

Limeylongears |
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On the one hand, I work in the industry, so I understand the idea: When someone gets a new credit card, you start the anti-fraud AI with a blank slate, and you want to be excessively cautious until it's been trained to recognize unusual activity on an account.
On the other hand, if you go too far, you risk losing all your new customers.
With our transition away from Amazon and Disney, GothBard got herself a new credit card with rewards she'll actually use. On Black Friday, she tried to use it to buy our typical annual stuff: European heavy metal gear for Impus Major (...)
The first thing I thought of when I saw this was:
1) Red and black leather trousers
2) Combination bracers and fingerless gloves, covered in metal spikes
3) A belt made out of bullets
4) A cut-off denim jacket covered with band patches - Samson, Helloween, Michael Schenker Group, etc.
5) Bandana(s)
However, I bet that's not what you meant, more's the pity.
In other news, it DID snow this morning, as well as there being a mighty wind all day, thanks to Storm Arwen. I like that name - Arwen Storm also sounds like an adult entertainment professional, but that's by the by.

lisamarlene |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |

I spent a good chunk of today photographing and cataloguing Miz Daisy's old books for sale on her online book shop on Biblio. I can't say that I'd recommend it. Once you factor in the time you spend on each separate listing, including the time you will spend taking it to the post office if and when it eventually sells, any book that goes for less than what you make in half an hour really isn't worth your time. Unless, of course, you're doing it for an elderly family member, in which case your personal time is meaningless.
Now I'm on my way to my classroom to feed the turtle and then to the grocery store to pick up a couple up things. Tonight I'm feeling lazy and we still have a bunch of turkey left over, so I'm just going to bake a bunch of big jacket potatoes and then we'll just put turkey and gravy over the top. I'll cook some Brussels sprouts or something on the side.

NobodysHome |
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NobodysHome wrote:Was that fluffernutter's opinion about the quality of the guitar or the Impus skill?Why I Love Cats Reason #∞: Impus Major came home with a brand new guitar and had to run off to a social event. He put the guitar on the foyer table. In under 3 minutes, the little fluffernutter was curled up on the (formerly) black case, purring up a storm, and she didn't leave until she'd thoroughly coated the entire case in white cat hair about 6 hours later.
EDIT: It's even better than I imagined: She also threw up on the case, but Impus Major had cleaned it up by the time I got up this morning.
Neither. It's how she welcomes all new objects to the house.

NobodysHome |

The first thing I thought of when I saw this was:
1) Red and black leather trousers
2) Combination bracers and fingerless gloves, covered in metal spikes
3) A belt made out of bullets
4) A cut-off denim jacket covered with band patches - Samson, Helloween, Michael Schenker Group, etc.
5) Bandana(s)However, I bet that's not what you meant, more's the pity.
You're not far off. I know she got UnderWar for both herself and Impus Major, so that'll be a hoot...

NobodysHome |

Disadvantages of not having a large pile of money for transportation and hotel:
I am sitting at home instead of being in a city
350 km420 km (the faster roads go a bit around) from here and participating in Gorbacz's birthday party.The pictures that already hit the facebook are rather tame...
You're a better man than I, then. 420 km is outside of my, "Travel to see someone just for their birthday" range. My brother's more of a roamer. He used to travel the 1300 km from Seattle to Albany every year for a joint birthday party with GothBard. His new girlfriend's much more of a traveler though, so he spends his time gallivanting around with her instead of visiting us. Can't complain too much since we never go up there, but the cost difference between one (or two) people traveling and four is significant.

Drejk |

Drejk wrote:Disadvantages of not having a large pile of money for transportation and hotel:
I am sitting at home instead of being in a city
350 km420 km (the faster roads go a bit around) from here and participating in Gorbacz's birthday party.The pictures that already hit the facebook are rather tame...
You're a better man than I, then. 420 km is outside of my, "Travel to see someone just for their birthday" range. My brother's more of a roamer. He used to travel the 1300 km from Seattle to Albany every year for a joint birthday party with GothBard. His new girlfriend's much more of a traveler though, so he spends his time gallivanting around with her instead of visiting us. Can't complain too much since we never go up there, but the cost difference between one (or two) people traveling and four is significant.
If I had the money for travel and stay I'd made it a three day visit to go around the city as well. I was there twice for gaming conventions, but I was too busy working at a stall to see more than the short break to grab some food and the way from the convention center to the hotel and back.

Drejk |

But such trip would cost me about about a half of my monthly expenses (I guesstimate at least 100 each for one-way transportation, and each day in a cheap hotel, plus probably another 100 for take out food and other things, so 600 złoty total), so it is unlikely in a foreseeable future.
Ah, well, and the weather is not terribly suitable for going around the city.

Limeylongears |

Limeylongears wrote:You're not far off. I know she got UnderWar for both herself and Impus Major, so that'll be a hoot...The first thing I thought of when I saw this was:
1) Red and black leather trousers
2) Combination bracers and fingerless gloves, covered in metal spikes
3) A belt made out of bullets
4) A cut-off denim jacket covered with band patches - Samson, Helloween, Michael Schenker Group, etc.
5) Bandana(s)However, I bet that's not what you meant, more's the pity.
O good.

Freehold DM |
3 people marked this as a favorite. |

I have finished Assassin's Creed: Origins...
The game is very good and a big step forward compared to the previous Assassin game I have played (Unity, taking place during French Revolution), becoming an actual open-world rpg, instead of stealth game with only superficial crpg elements (Unity's skills were a poor joke, and gear progression was a mess).
The ending was a sort of let down, switching from the protagonist to another key character forcing you to fight the final combat without the gear and skills fine tuned over the course of the game. There was also some drama that felt forced too...
** spoiler omitted **
I have already started the next AC some time ago, and I can say that the next one (Odyssey) is generally even better, though the skill tree in Origins was more interesting than in Odyssey.
Both games suffer from the classical case of Ubisoft open world games, though - with terribly uneven quests, clearly a lot of them added just to pack the game, having clunky dialogues, and some non-sequitur progression (particularly people skipping from being strangers to being trustworthy friends between sentences, or suddenly referring to things that they haven't told the other character yet, as if they were known to both*).
*it made more sense in Assassin's Creed, where individual quests were implied, though very poorly shown (if at all), to be taking place over actual time skips, and happening over multiple days.
According to my wife, world champion Assassin Creed player that she is, Bayek and Aya represented two opposing thoughts on Rome as Egyptians at the time. Bayek, being the last Medjey, represented the "F!*~ Rome!!!" mindset of traditionalist old school Egyptians, while Aya, who is actually half Greek, represented the "We use Cleopatra to get Rome to leave us alone via all the sex she is having with Caesar" mindset of "new" Egyptians(who often intermarried with Greeks and others) at the time. As Caesar was not an inherited title, many Egyptians were a bit confused by/upset with a new Caesar, as they were used to inherited rulership, and wanted Julius to stay with Cleopatra as that was they they were used to, Augustus really didn't have Egypts best interests at heart, and Julius already had at least one kid with Cleopatra. So it wasn't so much as Bayek is an Egyptian Vampire(which is HILARIOUS), but he was operating with a pro-Egypt mindset that wanted Egype to remain Efyptian- and far away from Rome, who were seen as weirdos with their new Caesar.

Freehold DM |

captain yesterday wrote:Last one to post one day and first to post the next day.
Shame on you all!
Shiro came over yesterday afternoon and helped Impus Major pick out a guitar. Once they all got back to the house, the Impii ran off and it was YouTube-Sushi-Cowboy Bebop-bedtime. No time to post.
And yes, I'll commit heresy here, but I'm enjoying the live action Cowboy Bebop more than the original because they rewrote it to make the episodes run together more smoothly, provide an overall plot, etc. The old version was ground-breaking in its time, but having watched it for the first time in what? 2018? It's really pretty disjointed and confusing.
HERESY!!!!!

Freehold DM |

NobodysHome wrote:Well, the newly released Eternals, do have a sex scene, the first for MCU...Vanykrye wrote:lisamarlene wrote:Remember that it is OK to do nothing every now and again. Believe it or not, the brain needs that once in a while.I'm at a loss for what to do with myself this morning. WW is working on Saturdays right now, making crepes in a booth at the Farmers Market, Hermione doesn't have rehearsal today because it's a holiday weekend, the kids are playing in Val's room, and I railroaded them into deep-cleaning their rooms yesterday, so I don't really *have* to do anything.
So I've showered and had a coffee, but that's as far as I've got.
I'm in LM's camp on this one: I cannot be doing nothing. I go stir-crazy.
So I decided that this year I'll catch up on all 26 Marvel movies, in MCU chronological order.
So far:
Captain America: Worse than I remembered it being. Very meh.
Captain Marvel: Better than I remembered it being. Thoroughly enjoyed it.EDIT: And if I'm sitting around doing nothing and watching movies, I'm going to do it nekkid, gosh darn it!
buys ticket

Freehold DM |

captain yesterday wrote:The General led me to a rule: backstory in twenty words or less. It's cool if you want to come up with an elaborate background (for a first level character!) but I don't want to hear about it beforehand, they'll just have to dump it in game (kids are exempt from this because they can drone on for hours if they're super excited and it's best to just let them go on while I do the laundry or what have you).I don't mind a good rich background. Heck; Raesh's in RotRL was what? 10 pages long? But it should be the player, not the GM, who has final say.
If I'm running a game, my job is to provide you with a world. Your job is to provide me with someone who will realistically interact with that world. If your character concept conflicts with my world*, we sit down together, resolve the differences, and start the campaign. If you want to put in a background hook that you'd like me to try to integrate, I'll see whether I can oblige you, but no hooks are necessary.
** spoiler omitted **
EDIT: And to address the eternal, "Why didn't you just kick him?" questions, he and LM were a package deal. Kicking one meant kicking both, and we were the only gaming group in town for her. We love LM. We stomached WW on her behalf.
Hooks are important but easy to mess up. I try to have players do hooks as a group as opposed to individuals. That said I would like players to have a private goal they want to accomplish to avoid groupthink nonsense.

Drejk |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |

Fantasy NPC: Visseyen The Helpful.
A false seer who happens to be a traveling demon.

GM_Beernorg |

GM_Beernorg wrote:Happy belated by a bit Thanksgiving to all! In a good mood this AM as I just put my order in for Hero Quest! GIMME GIMME!!Please post your experiences.
Will do Freehold, I shall give my thoughts on product quality when I get the set, and a breakdown of how the first adventure goes when we sit down to play, I suspect it will be amusing. (my wife is not a gamer, but is willing to play Hero Quest as it's rules are much easier for her to get into than say PF)

NobodysHome |
3 people marked this as a favorite. |

Today's second candidate comes from the, "I never got resume advice beyond high school" school of thought:
- Really funky font that's hard to read? Check!
- An incredibly broad summary to encompass any possible job they might apply for? Check!
- Mixing tenses between present and past, even in jobs they held twenty years ago? Check!
- Avoiding articles so that I have to read through two pages of caveman-speak? Check!
I swear, doesn't anyone have their friends check their resumes for them any more?
I am personally very fond of words such as, "a", "the", "that", and "is" to help me understand what the heck you're trying to say to me...

Freehold DM |

Today's second candidate comes from the, "I never got resume advice beyond high school" school of thought:
- Really funky font that's hard to read? Check!
- An incredibly broad summary to encompass any possible job they might apply for? Check!
- Mixing tenses between present and past, even in jobs they held twenty years ago? Check!
- Avoiding articles so that I have to read through two pages of caveman-speak? Check!I swear, doesn't anyone have their friends check their resumes for them any more?
I am personally very fond of words such as, "a", "the", "that", and "is" to help me understand what the heck you're trying to say to me...
So much changes over time with respect to resumes it can be frustrating for both the writer and the reader. There are some basics that should be followed, though.

NobodysHome |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |

NobodysHome wrote:So much changes over time with respect to resumes it can be frustrating for both the writer and the reader. There are some basics that should be followed, though.Today's second candidate comes from the, "I never got resume advice beyond high school" school of thought:
- Really funky font that's hard to read? Check!
- An incredibly broad summary to encompass any possible job they might apply for? Check!
- Mixing tenses between present and past, even in jobs they held twenty years ago? Check!
- Avoiding articles so that I have to read through two pages of caveman-speak? Check!I swear, doesn't anyone have their friends check their resumes for them any more?
I am personally very fond of words such as, "a", "the", "that", and "is" to help me understand what the heck you're trying to say to me...
I'll politely disagree. I've been on hiring committees for 25 years now. Resumes do indeed change a lot, but the basics don't:
- Is it easy to read?- Does it provide useful information? (I loathe blurbs like, "Facilitated learning design in order to maximize training efficiency," because they mean absolutely nothing.)
- Is it grammatically correct?
Amusingly enough, our #1 candidate right now had a resume I hated because it looked something from a kids' menu at a UFO-themed chain restaurant, but it managed to hit those three points even though it took a lot of scrolling to do it (it was a single-page PDF that printed to 7 pages long).
Format-wise and appearance-wise, yes, resumes evolve over time. But their purpose, and therefore their core content, hasn't.

Freehold DM |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |

Freehold DM wrote:I'll politely disagree. I've been on hiring committees for 25 years now. Resumes do indeed change a lot, but the basics dontNobodysHome wrote:So much changes over time with respect to resumes it can be frustrating for both the writer and the reader. There are some basics that should be followed, though.Today's second candidate comes from the, "I never got resume advice beyond high school" school of thought:
- Really funky font that's hard to read? Check!
- An incredibly broad summary to encompass any possible job they might apply for? Check!
- Mixing tenses between present and past, even in jobs they held twenty years ago? Check!
- Avoiding articles so that I have to read through two pages of caveman-speak? Check!I swear, doesn't anyone have their friends check their resumes for them any more?
I am personally very fond of words such as, "a", "the", "that", and "is" to help me understand what the heck you're trying to say to me...
So...you agree with me?

NobodysHome |

NobodysHome wrote:So...you agree with me?Freehold DM wrote:I'll politely disagree. I've been on hiring committees for 25 years now. Resumes do indeed change a lot, but the basics dontNobodysHome wrote:So much changes over time with respect to resumes it can be frustrating for both the writer and the reader. There are some basics that should be followed, though.Today's second candidate comes from the, "I never got resume advice beyond high school" school of thought:
- Really funky font that's hard to read? Check!
- An incredibly broad summary to encompass any possible job they might apply for? Check!
- Mixing tenses between present and past, even in jobs they held twenty years ago? Check!
- Avoiding articles so that I have to read through two pages of caveman-speak? Check!I swear, doesn't anyone have their friends check their resumes for them any more?
I am personally very fond of words such as, "a", "the", "that", and "is" to help me understand what the heck you're trying to say to me...
I misread your point. As the first clause was, "So much changes... it can be frustrating for both the writer and the reader..." I inferred that you were tut-tutting me for chastising a resume that was "different".
But then you mitigated your tut-tutting by acknowledging that some things you just shouldn't mess up on.
So my misinterpretation, nothing more.

Andostre |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |

And a final note before I likely run off for the rest of the day, after maybe 10-15 years of GothBard telling me, "OK, this is what you're buying me for Christmas. This is what you're buying me for my birthday," (works well), I finally think I found something she'll really like.
The irony is rich in this one.
We had a subscription to this! (And my wife will still occasionally buy an additional kit if she likes the drinks.)
In fact, we made apple brandy drinks for Thanksgiving from this. It's a fun thing to try, and I haven't been disappointed by any of the drinks we've tried, but some of them are a little tedious to make, so very few of them enter any sort of regular rotation.