Chocolate. Vanilla buttercream.What flavor is the dinosaur cake?I'm assuming it's dinosaur-flavored.
But it's green?!
Chocolate. Vanilla buttercream.What flavor is the dinosaur cake?I'm assuming it's dinosaur-flavored.
But it's green?!
So we see. I'd have a word with the doctor, if I were you.
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Chocolate. Vanilla buttercream.What flavor is the dinosaur cake?I'm assuming it's dinosaur-flavored.
But it's green?!
Gel color. He wanted them playing soccer on a grassy field, so he asked me to color thr frosting green.
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I got a corporate email asking why I don't participate in the Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP).
Hmm...
...your program has me sock away 10% of my salary for 6 months for a whopping 5% return, so I get an extra 0.5% of my salary per year.
In exchange, I have to pay my accountant to deal with the paperwork, lose access to 10% of my salary, and assume I can't get a rate of return better than 5% if I manage my money on my own.
I wonder why so few people participate?
(FWIW, it's the worst stock purchase program anyone in my group has ever seen; usually the rate is 15% AND you get to choose the stock price at either the beginning of the 6 month period or the end so you have a strong financial incentive to make the stock go up. "You can buy it at the end for a 5% discount," is nice, but it's not nice enough to be worth the hassle.)
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How do people fall for some of these scam texts? I just got one that said "We temporarily placed your Amazon suspended." That's not even close to a coherent sentence. And "Contact in 2 days or your Amazon suspend permanently." What? Are they even trying to sound like a major corporation?
I go on a similar tirade pretty much every single time I get one of the calls/texts/emails. 99.99% of them are such obvious scams that it saddens me that some people are gullible enough to fall for them.
We have an 80+-year-old disabled woman living down the street. She got hit by a screen-blocking pop-up. Instead of following the instructions, she went outside, waited for someone she knew to pass by, asked him for help, he came and got me, and I cleaned up her computer for her.
If an 80+-year-old complete technical illiterate knows better than to respond to these things, you are left wondering who does...
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OK, this was an all-time first for the Cranky Calico:
Cranky Calico: Worthless human! Let me outside immediately!
NobodysHome:
Cranky Calico: Oh, hells Nope!
FTR, normally the cats absolutely insist on stepping outside, no matter how cold/wet/miserable it is, just so they can looked pissed off and give us accusing glares, then come back in. This is the first time she's taken one whiff of the outside air and just said, "Nope."
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Chocolate. Vanilla buttercream.What flavor is the dinosaur cake?I'm assuming it's dinosaur-flavored.
But it's green?!
Chocolate. Vanilla buttercream.What flavor is the dinosaur cake?I'm assuming it's dinosaur-flavored.
But it's green?!
David gets cookies.
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So, on the one hand one of the reasons I took a hiatus from FaWtL was to stop posting about other people; it is not my place to share other people's lives on social media.
On the other hand, I'm caught in an, "Am I the a**h***?" situation and I don't Reddit, so I will attempt to present information in as anonymous and factual a manner as I can, because I value FaWtL's input.
The GM spent the first 5 minutes of the meeting reminding us that players were not their characters, we were all adults, and the GM was hoping that we could have a calm, rational discussion about our concerns. Players C and D expressed their concerns. I expressed my concerns. Player B started talking, got out 3-4 sentences, and Player D exploded in an obscenity-laden tirade ending in a ragequit/storm out of the house that ended the campaign.
So, Player D did not express any serious concerns during their turn to talk. They never indicated any unhappiness with the campaign. Almost everyone at the table was stunned and baffled by the outburst.
This is Player D's second ragequit from a campaign I've been in with them, though the first was far more polite. (They got up and left the campaign, but without the obscenity-laden tirade.)
Just like last time, there is an expectation that we will pretend this never happened. Player D never apologized nor offered an explanation as to the first ragequit, nor have they done so this time. Our resident peacemaker tried to comply and reached out with an email suggesting ideas for the next campaign, and Player D politely and privately replied that they preferred not to be involved at this time.
Peacemaker reached out to us about building a new campaign and bringing in Player D when they were ready. I responded that I would not be gaming with Player D again.
I expect at least an explanation and some kind of assurance that Player D won't do it again before starting a new campaign with them. An apology would be in order, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
Am I being a jerk for expecting Player D to address their behavior before I'll game with them again?
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Nothing wrong with asking for an apology for an outburst.
More people should admit when they've overreacted or were out of line.
Admitting and acknowledging our faults is one of the best ways we can improve as people.
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So, on the one hand one of the reasons I took a hiatus from FaWtL was to stop posting about other people; it is not my place to share other people's lives on social media.
On the other hand, I'm caught in an, "Am I the a**h***?" situation and I don't Reddit, so I will attempt to present information in as anonymous and factual a manner as I can, because I value FaWtL's input.
** spoiler omitted **...
NTA.
It sounds to me like player D is a toxic person to play with, and no one needs that for recreation, and furthermore, that their behavior sabotaged what could have been a useful discussion about the GM's own behavior.
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for the gamers out there:
one of the most under-the-radar gems i've ever encountered: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. it was released on xbox 360, ps4, and pc, and can be accessed on some other platforms nowadays.
the wiki says that if you focus only on the main quests, you can expect about 31 or so hours of gameplay; if you're a completionist like me, you can easily go over 100 hours by chasing down the side/faction/task quests.
the real-time combat is great. the skill system is tight enough that leveling up can be frustrating (so many good options!). the dungeon crawls aren't excessive in length. the world is highly interactive and rewards exploration.
if you want a game to jump into, i highly recommend it.
2) R. A. Salvatore wrote the narrative. Todd McFarlane worked on the art. a few other movers-and-shakers in the Hierarchy of Greater Nerdery also contributed.
3) the company that developed/produced the game was headed up by Curt Schilling, the former Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher of note. it was the only game his company ever produced before closing its doors/going bankrupt(??). note the above statement about the timing of its release.
i won't say that it's a revolutionary game, but it is a lot of good fun. check it out!
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Player D was playing an INT-dumped character, and said character frequently made stupid tactical decisions, and our characters let Player D's character have it for playing so stupidly. I never thought anything about Player D's intelligence for playing a dumb character in character. But apparently Player D took it personally.
For a year and a half. Without saying a word. Before finally exploding at us, rage quitting, and STILL not telling us that we were being jerks.
I'm an adult. You're welcome to tell me I'm a condescending jerk and I'll try to be better. But if you bottle it all up, explode at me, and never tell me what I did wrong, I'll never change.
for the gamers out there:
one of the most under-the-radar gems i've ever encountered: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. it was released on xbox 360, ps4, and pc, and can be accessed on some other platforms nowadays.
the wiki says that if you focus only on the main quests, you can expect about 31 or so hours of gameplay; if you're a completionist like me, you can easily go over 100 hours by chasing down the side/faction/task quests.
the real-time combat is great. the skill system is tight enough that leveling up can be frustrating (so many good options!). the dungeon crawls aren't excessive in length. the world is highly interactive and rewards exploration.
if you want a game to jump into, i highly recommend it.
** spoiler omitted **
i won't say that it's a revolutionary game, but it is a lot of good fun. check it out!
I have it on Steam waiting for it's turn... Whenever that will happen. My Hard Drive isn't made of rubber.
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** spoiler omitted **
Meh. You can come across as condescending and prissy in game play, particularly when playing NPCs, but it's obviously an act.
Player D was still out of line.
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You know what's fun to deal with? Someone trying to have a personal phone call, in a public space, on speaker phone, while the person on the other end is also on speaker phone, and neither of them can hear each other so they just keep yelling. Over and over. And when you ask them to please keep it down, they yell at you because "This is a private conversation! Stop listening to it!"
Yeah; I've complained about that before. My work desk is in my dining room, maybe 50-60' from the sidewalk, yet at least once a week someone walks by loudly discussing their medical/financial/relationship issues, and I'm left wondering, "Do you really want the world to know all that?"
Truly bizarre. And I don't know that I've ever been in a hotel lobby where someone hasn't been doing that.
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You know what's fun to deal with? Someone trying to have a personal phone call, in a public space, on speaker phone, while the person on the other end is also on speaker phone, and neither of them can hear each other so they just keep yelling. Over and over. And when you ask them to please keep it down, they yell at you because "This is a private conversation! Stop listening to it!"Yeah; I've complained about that before. My work desk is in my dining room, maybe 50-60' from the sidewalk, yet at least once a week someone walks by loudly discussing their medical/financial/relationship issues, and I'm left wondering, "Do you really want the world to know all that?"
Truly bizarre. And I don't know that I've ever been in a hotel lobby where someone hasn't been doing that.
It could be worse, you could look like white Jesus and everyone tells you their problems directly.
At least once a week someone I don't know or barely know just unloads all their problems on me.
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So, on the one hand one of the reasons I took a hiatus from FaWtL was to stop posting about other people; it is not my place to share other people's lives on social media.
On the other hand, I'm caught in an, "Am I the a**h***?" situation and I don't Reddit, so I will attempt to present information in as anonymous and factual a manner as I can, because I value FaWtL's input.
** spoiler omitted **...
Sounds like something is up with player D. Not thinking it's anyone's fault per se but I could see you refusing to play with player D again. Maybe there was something up with player D that others were aware of but you weren't.
** spoiler omitted **
Yeah someone isn't telling the whole story here. Not necessarily you. It sounds like there was a lot of interaction between this guy and the peacemaker and not a lot of interaction between this guy and you. Are you all friends outside of this game or strangers? I had a similar experience years ago, which is why I don't really play with people I don't know.
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Yeah someone isn't telling the whole story here. Not necessarily you. It sounds like there was a lot of interaction between this guy and the peacemaker and not a lot of interaction between this guy and you. Are you all friends outside of this game or strangers? I had a similar experience years ago, which is why I don't really play with people I don't know.** spoiler omitted **
As I said, I'm hesitant to provide any further identifying information, since so far even LM couldn't tell who the heck I was talking about.
But yes, you're right. What it really sounds like was that Player D was complaining privately about our behavior, nobody ever brought it up with us and we didn't pick up on it, and Player D finally exploded, walked away, and doesn't want anything more to do with us.
So as I said, it's pretty hard to change your behavior to make someone else more comfortable if they won't even mention to you that your behavior makes them unhappy until they explode and cut all ties.
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*SIGH*
So all of you have probably heard about big tech's move to get everyone back in the office for reasons known only to the execs; both productivity and employee satisfaction have increased since the move to hybrid/remote work, so I've heard only two rational explanations:
(1) Petty dictator-style managers are unhappy going to the office and having nobody to micromanage
(2) Cities are losing billions in revenue from the lack of office workers, and are threatening to cut companies' sweet tax breaks unless they get more employees back into their offices.
Since my general approach is, "Follow the money," I'm thinking the latter is the case.
I despise poor management decisions. If productivity and employee satisfaction are both up *and* you're not paying for office space, you're in a win-win-win situation. Letting your personal biases dictate business decisions is bad business.
Yeah someone isn't telling the whole story here. Not necessarily you. It sounds like there was a lot of interaction between this guy and the peacemaker and not a lot of interaction between this guy and you. Are you all friends outside of this game or strangers? I had a similar experience years ago, which is why I don't really play with people I don't know.** spoiler omitted **
As I said, I'm hesitant to provide any further identifying information, since so far even LM couldn't tell who the heck I was talking about.
But yes, you're right. What it really sounds like was that Player D was complaining privately about our behavior, nobody ever brought it up with us and we didn't pick up on it, and Player D finally exploded, walked away, and doesn't want anything more to do with us.
So as I said, it's pretty hard to change your behavior to make someone else more comfortable if they won't even mention to you that your behavior makes them unhappy until they explode and cut all ties.
This is a long long time to be upset and for noone save the peacemaker to know. Why didn't they say anything? Is Player D so adept at their poker face that you and the other guy were completely in the dark?
Yeah someone isn't telling the whole story here. Not necessarily you. It sounds like there was a lot of interaction between this guy and the peacemaker and not a lot of interaction between this guy and you. Are you all friends outside of this game or strangers? I had a similar experience years ago, which is why I don't really play with people I don't know.** spoiler omitted **
As I said, I'm hesitant to provide any further identifying information, since so far even LM couldn't tell who the heck I was talking about.
But yes, you're right. What it really sounds like was that Player D was complaining privately about our behavior, nobody ever brought it up with us and we didn't pick up on it, and Player D finally exploded, walked away, and doesn't want anything more to do with us.
So as I said, it's pretty hard to change your behavior to make someone else more comfortable if they won't even mention to you that your behavior makes them unhappy until they explode and cut all ties.
I honestly don't want to know.
I'm fairly certain that Shiro or Hi wouldn't pull that nonsense, and the Ersatz Russian has a ton of crap going on in his life right now, so if it was him, I'd say it was life stress, and anyone else I don't really know well enough to care or comment.
*SIGH*
So all of you have probably heard about big tech's move to get everyone back in the office for reasons known only to the execs; both productivity and employee satisfaction have increased since the move to hybrid/remote work, so I've heard only two rational explanations:
(1) Petty dictator-style managers are unhappy going to the office and having nobody to micromanage
(2) Cities are losing billions in revenue from the lack of office workers, and are threatening to cut companies' sweet tax breaks unless they get more employees back into their offices.Since my general approach is, "Follow the money," I'm thinking the latter is the case.
I despise poor management decisions. If productivity and employee satisfaction are both up *and* you're not paying for office space, you're in a win-win-win situation. Letting your personal biases dictate business decisions is bad business.
seeing the uglier aspects of this on my now very infrequent trips to Manhattan town. So many places out of business, including to my deepest regret, my former employer. Lots of Space Available/Lease Now signs up in places where I would gently argue they should not be, and some parts of the city are starting to look mighty grey.
What it really sounds like was that Player D was complaining privately about our behavior, nobody ever brought it up with us and we didn't pick up on it, and Player D finally exploded, walked away, and doesn't want anything more to do with us.This is a long long time to be upset and for noone save the peacemaker to know. Why didn't they say anything?
I can't speak for others.
Is Player D so adept at their poker face that you and the other guy were completely in the dark?
Yep. Player B and I had long conversations about the game every week because we were unhappy with the way the GM was running it. Neither one of us ever thought anything was up with Player D. So great poker face.
This has to be a joke
The top picture is an illustration created for the article, but from what I can tell, it's not a joke.
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This is a long long time to be upset and for noone save the peacemaker to know. Why didn't they say anything? Is Player D so adept at their poker face that you and the other guy were completely in the dark?Yeah someone isn't telling the whole story here. Not necessarily you. It sounds like there was a lot of interaction between this guy and the peacemaker and not a lot of interaction between this guy and you. Are you all friends outside of this game or strangers? I had a similar experience years ago, which is why I don't really play with people I don't know.** spoiler omitted **
As I said, I'm hesitant to provide any further identifying information, since so far even LM couldn't tell who the heck I was talking about.
But yes, you're right. What it really sounds like was that Player D was complaining privately about our behavior, nobody ever brought it up with us and we didn't pick up on it, and Player D finally exploded, walked away, and doesn't want anything more to do with us.
So as I said, it's pretty hard to change your behavior to make someone else more comfortable if they won't even mention to you that your behavior makes them unhappy until they explode and cut all ties.
All I can say is that I have 100% been that guy before.
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Greaaaaat... now my Private Messages are filling up with spam. Just what I always wanted...
...in other news, the more I deal with DVC's math department, the more I agree with Freehold that math teachers are monsters. Impus Minor's current teacher assigns the homework for a section of the course in bulk, so for the first 4 weeks of the course you have one giant homework assignment due and one midterm. Fine. Except...
- When Impus Minor tried to turn in his homework, she declared it "too messy, and show your work" and told him to turn it in on Monday. He spent 5-6 hours over the weekend adding work and turned it in on Monday. He still got a 0. So, what was the point of having him try, exactly? (I'm still pushing for him to fight this, but so far he's resisting.)
- For his second homework, we worked together and got all 44 problems done. Except, somewhere in the last ten days she added another 24 problems... AFTER telling the class that she'd post the assignments in bulk. To her "credit", she blindsided enough of that class that she extended the deadline by a week, but no. If you say, "This is the assignment," you don't then get to change it without making any kind of written announcement.
- Since he's struggling, I reviewed his third quiz with him. It wasn't brilliant work, but it was in the 60-70% range. She gave him a 40%.
So she fits every mold of "tin-plated dictator" Freehold describes in his loathing for math teachers.
I want to put on my cape and tights and go back and fight the good fight, but then I look at those salaries and Bay Area prices and... eeew!
EDIT: Direct quote from Impus Minor: "I used to love math. Now I hate it."
All it takes is one.
What it really sounds like was that Player D was complaining privately about our behavior, nobody ever brought it up with us and we didn't pick up on it, and Player D finally exploded, walked away, and doesn't want anything more to do with us.This is a long long time to be upset and for noone save the peacemaker to know. Why didn't they say anything?I can't speak for others.
Is Player D so adept at their poker face that you and the other guy were completely in the dark?Yep. Player B and I had long conversations about the game every week because we were unhappy with the way the GM was running it. Neither one of us ever thought anything was up with Player D. So great poker face.
Maybe, or maybe people terribly overestimate visibility of internal distress, especially when one is used to hiding it.
...in other news, the more I deal with DVC's math department, the more I agree with Freehold that math teachers are monsters.
Cue Dr.s Evil vile laughter in 3... 2... 1...
EDIT: Direct quote from Impus Minor: "I used to love math. Now I hate it."
All it takes is one.
Yesss, come to the Dark Side Impus Minor, you know you want to! Unleash your hatred!
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Today I got to listen to Dokken.
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EDIT: Direct quote from Impus Minor: "I used to love math. Now I hate it."
This kind of behavior didn't make me hate math, it just made me hate academia.
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You know what's fun to deal with? Someone trying to have a personal phone call, in a public space, on speaker phone, while the person on the other end is also on speaker phone, and neither of them can hear each other so they just keep yelling. Over and over. And when you ask them to please keep it down, they yell at you because "This is a private conversation! Stop listening to it!"Yeah; I've complained about that before. My work desk is in my dining room, maybe 50-60' from the sidewalk, yet at least once a week someone walks by loudly discussing their medical/financial/relationship issues, and I'm left wondering, "Do you really want the world to know all that?"
Truly bizarre. And I don't know that I've ever been in a hotel lobby where someone hasn't been doing that.
It could be worse, you could look like white Jesus and everyone tells you their problems directly.
At least once a week someone I don't know or barely know just unloads all their problems on me.
Curiously, this doesn't happen when (according to some people) you look like Trotsky.
So, what's everyone's favorite childhood memory? Mine is all the times I didn't have to pay bills.
If you ever wanted proof that fear and anger are the most powerful emotions, this here's a frightening example.
I thought of "childhood" as "pre-puberty" and I thought, "What's a really sweet event from my childhood that I can post here?
...and I promptly came up with more than a dozen traumatic memories, from, "Wow, you were a really pathetic kid," to, "OMG, I can't believe that really happened to you!"
And not a single really solid, "This was a truly happy singular moment of my childhood."
So I'll have to go with less of a singular event and more of a period of time that was an absolute joy: We got 5'-6' (around 2m) of snow at our rental cabin at Silver Lake, and the 4 of us kids dug snow tunnels between all of the cabins, so there was an entire warren of tunnels running under the snow. For several days, every morning we'd suit up in our best waterproof clothes and go sliding around the tunnels...
...until we learned that it was equally fun pouncing like a fox on a mouse from above and trying to land on someone in the tunnels. Within the day, all of the tunnels were collapsed.
But oh, what fun we had over those few days!
EDIT: Post-puberty, my first kiss wins, hands-down. But that might be true for most people.
I had a pretty miserable childhood but I had a few good memories like going down to my grandma's house every summer and watching Disney channel all day and B horror movies with my cousin all night.
Also the time when my 3 oldest brothers saved up and got themselves battery powered Uzi squirt guns and challenged everyone else who just had cheap plastic squirt guns to squirt gun wars. I quickly realized the odds were not even so I rigged up a bucket on a rope and then used a tree branch to get it on top of the chicken shack and there I waited until someone passed by, my one brother that always picked on me and beat me up, technically we were on the same team but I still dumped the bucket of water on him.
The best part came later though when he decided to try it but couldn't figure out that I used the tree to winch it and so he kept trying to lift a bucket of water over his head and trying to put it on top of a slanted roof and got even more soaked. Good times!
Also when I was older had my first date with my future wife on my 17th birthday.
So, what's everyone's favorite childhood memory? Mine is all the times I didn't have to pay bills.
We were super poor so my mom liked to point out that instead of an allowance they would use that money to pay the bills.
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I miss being able to play video games all day long.
Haha, being too ugly to date for all of those years has finally paid off in my case!
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Greaaaaat... now my Private Messages are filling up with spam. Just what I always wanted...
...in other news, the more I deal with DVC's math department, the more I agree with Freehold that math teachers are monsters.
But aren't...you a math teacher?
Impus Minor's current teacher assigns the homework for a section of the course in bulk, so for the first 4 weeks of the course you have one giant homework assignment due and one midterm. Fine. Except...
- When Impus Minor tried to turn in his homework, she declared it "too messy, and show your work"
and told him to turn it in on Monday. He spent 5-6 hours over the weekend adding work and turned it in on Monday. He still got a 0. So, what was the point of having him try, exactly? (I'm still pushing for him to fight this, but so far he's resisting.)
- For his second homework, we worked together and got all 44 problems done. Except, somewhere in the last ten days she added another 24 problems...
AFTER telling the class that she'd post the assignments in bulk. To her "credit", she blindsided enough of that class that she extended the deadline by a week, but no. If you say, "This is the assignment," you don't then get to change it without making any kind of written announcement.
- Since he's struggling, I reviewed his third quiz with him. It wasn't brilliant work, but it was in the 60-70% range. She gave him a 40%.
So she fits every mold of "tin-plated dictator" Freehold describes in his loathing for math teachers.
I want to put on my cape and tights and go back and fight the good fight, but then I look at those salaries and Bay Area prices and... eeew!
EDIT: Direct quote from Impus Minor: "I used to love math. Now I hate it."
All it takes is one.
JOIN ME IN MY ANTI MATH CRUSADE IMPUS MINOR!!!
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...in other news, the more I deal with DVC's math department, the more I agree with Freehold that math teachers are monsters.Cue Dr.s Evil vile laughter in 3... 2... 1...
Yesss, come to the Dark Side Impus Minor, you know you want to! Unleash your hatred!EDIT: Direct quote from Impus Minor: "I used to love math. Now I hate it."
All it takes is one.
Once we stopped finding out what x was i really fail to see what the point of the math was passed that.
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Once we stopped finding out what x was i really fail to see what the point of the math was passed that.
One of the most frustrating "lies" in all of mathematics education is, "You will use this in the future."
You won't.
I can list the exceptions on one hand:
(1) Basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and exponents, for balancing your checkbook and understanding the other topics.
(2) Compound interest. Because every lender will take advantage of you if you don't know how compound interest works.
(3) Probability. Because every casino, street hustler, sports betting venue, or what-have-you will take advantage of you if you don't understand probability.
(4) The Pythagorean Theorem if you're in construction and for some reason can't use a measuring tape.
Beyond that math isn't for your use. It's for training your brain. There are hundreds of studies that show that an education in mathematics improves your critical thinking, your ability to draw logical conclusions, and your ability to follow sequential steps. The most recent one I found with a quick Google was one on how studying math is visible even in MRIs.
On day 1 of every class, I used to tell my students, "Once you graduate, you are almost certainly never going to use anything I teach you this semester, but..."
...then I'd select the buffest person in class, ask them how often they worked out, how much they could bench press, and finally what the point was: Were they really in a job where they had to bench press 300 pounds every day?
And I'd finish off with, "Math is weightlifting for your brain. I'll give you lots of real-world examples of where what we're doing is used, but the chances of you doing that exact thing are pretty minimal, so think of my class as going jogging with your brain."