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Pet peeve: Writers who can't English.
Nu 'dea whatcha tawkin' 'bout!
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...I get incensed, because knowing proper English is supposedly their job.
You lost me completely there...
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...I get incensed, because knowing proper English is supposedly their job.You lost me completely there...
True Gen X story: When we were growing up, if you misused any of the Unholy Three on any paper (its/it's, there/their/they're, to/too/two), you got an automatic 0 on the paper. No ifs, ands or buts, straight-up zero. Starting in elementary school, then through middle school and on through high school. You misuse one of the Unholy Three, you fail.
So seeing them so casually misused on a daily basis in "professional" media (advertising, news, etc.) is fundamentally painful to Gen Xers. Somewhere between fingernails on a chalkboard and a splinter under the fingernail painful.
Yes. We get uppity.
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Is the AI-pocalypse coming near?
Grammarly:
Moments later chatGPT:
While both are far from perfect, they are usually better than that.
On the other hand, such moments mean that I still have a job...
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I don't think any of my teachers would have given an instant zero for that, but definitely lots of points off, and maybe extra homework. It is really frustrating to see it so often, although my main pet peeve is when people put the dollar sign after the amount. As in, 15$ rather than $15. Drives me crazy, especially the times I've seen it on fast food signs and such.
I see scholars defend it as a natural evolution of language in a digital age where Autocorrect always wants to use "it's", but my counterargument is that precisely because we're in a digital age where spell checking and grammar checking are ubiquitous, we should at least be able to manage consistent usage.
For example, I'd be happy to do away with one of the itses and use "it's" for everything, but at the moment I see texts where people intermix the two even when they have the same meaning. "I'm going to go to the store to see whether it's open, and if its not I'm going to drive over to the mall."
Grr....
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Tonight's game night, and "perplexed" is the best adjective I can think of. Both Shiro and GothBard confirm this guy's GMing style: He has a story in his head and he's going to tell it. Anything you do to further the story works. Anything you do that might derail the story fails. Bad GM'ing 101, Chapter 1. Shiro also says that we'll always be bit players; the NPCs will be making the major decisions and driving the storyline. Bad GM'ing 101, Chapter 2. They are both well aware that I hate that kind of s***.
And yet both of them are telling me that the last campaign was all kinds of fun, and I should sit back, roll with it, and give it a try and I'll enjoy it.
Color me skeptical to say the least, but they've gamed with me for decades so I'm giving it a chance. The first few setup sessions haven't been bad at all, but they've mostly been an AI-driven "tell me a story" setup: GM talks for 10 minutes, then asks a player, "Do you do A or B?", then talks for 10 minutes more, then asks another player, "Do you do C or D?"
I can't imagine this working, but I trust GothBard and Shiro enough that I'm giving it a chance.
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Back from "office" meeting.
Before anyone ask "Couldn't it have been an email?" – it would be inconvenient to sent the pizzas as an attachment.
I swear, if you ever want to understand the issues with copyright law, just work for a corporation.
I've already mentioned co-workers happily installing "free" software on their work computers just like they would on their home computers, not realizing that the moment you're using someone else's software to do for-profit work you're in a world of legal trouble. Then there are team meetings, where executives cheerfully pipe popular songs to their employees, not realizing that using someone else's song for a public performance is once again verboten.
And you look at the software and music industries, where if you create something and you manage to get 0.1% of gross you're doing incredibly well, and I'm like, "Erm, can we actually pay the creative people whose works we enjoy, or is that too much to ask?"
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I don't think any of my teachers would have given an instant zero for that, but definitely lots of points off, and maybe extra homework. It is really frustrating to see it so often, although my main pet peeve is when people put the dollar sign after the amount. As in, 15$ rather than $15. Drives me crazy, especially the times I've seen it on fast food signs and such.I see scholars defend it as a natural evolution of language in a digital age where Autocorrect always wants to use "it's", but my counterargument is that precisely because we're in a digital age where spell checking and grammar checking are ubiquitous, we should at least be able to manage consistent usage.
For example, I'd be happy to do away with one of the itses and use "it's" for everything, but at the moment I see texts where people intermix the two even when they have the same meaning. "I'm going to go to the store to see whether it's open, and if its not I'm going to drive over to the mall."
Grr....
I shall be sure to refer to you as Nobody's Home in future.
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And I shall call him "Penelope, Pincher of Pope's Noses".I shall be sure to refer to you as Nobody's Home in future.I don't think any of my teachers would have given an instant zero for that, but definitely lots of points off, and maybe extra homework. It is really frustrating to see it so often, although my main pet peeve is when people put the dollar sign after the amount. As in, 15$ rather than $15. Drives me crazy, especially the times I've seen it on fast food signs and such.I see scholars defend it as a natural evolution of language in a digital age where Autocorrect always wants to use "it's", but my counterargument is that precisely because we're in a digital age where spell checking and grammar checking are ubiquitous, we should at least be able to manage consistent usage.
For example, I'd be happy to do away with one of the itses and use "it's" for everything, but at the moment I see texts where people intermix the two even when they have the same meaning. "I'm going to go to the store to see whether it's open, and if its not I'm going to drive over to the mall."
Grr....
Now I need that to be my next character.
Speaking of which, this really is one of the strangest campaigns I've been in. I liken it to listening to Critical Roll, but they're having an audience participation day where you can occasionally call out a suggestion. The best concrete metric I can give is that in this gaming system when you try to do something you roll between 1 and 5 dice as a test; 1 is totally untrained, 2 is you have some small skill in it (typically because of your race or background), and 3 or more is you actually paid points for it.
We're 2 pre-sessions and 2 full sessions in, and neither Shiro nor GothBard nor I have ever rolled more than 2 dice. The GM doesn't care how we designed our characters; he's going to tell the story and can't be bothered to actually let us do anything we're good at.
And yet it's not frustrating or angering; I lie in my cuddler and kind of nap while listening to storytime. I find it a very relaxing evening. But I wouldn't call it "gaming" per se; I'm usually lying there with my mic muted so they won't hear me snoring if I nod off. But having an evening with no responsibilities where my "job" is to just lie there and snooze is pretty nice.
Not really a "game", though.
I will admit, the biggest "Unforgivable Sin" of this GM is exactly that: He says, "You can build your characters any way you want! Make up any 30 traits that describe who you are, what you can do, and how good you are at it." It's the most versatile character generation I've ever seen.
And yet he will not adapt his campaign one whit to take into account what you did. You could spend your 30 points making yourself the greatest ballerina the world has ever seen. Use a thesaurus and look up every adjective or verb for flexibility, expertise, and whatnot. And he would not alter his campaign in the slightest to take that into account, then blame you for not choosing the best character traits for the campaign.
THAT part is frustrating. But it gives me more nap time, and I've given up on considering this a game, and more of soothing background noise while I catch up on my sleep.
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Pre-Session 1: We learn that we're on a fantasy version of Babylon 5 (on an island instead of in space), and the commander hires us as an extralegal troubleshooting team, because sometimes the wheels of bureaucracy move too slowly. We spend the session getting to know each other.
Pre-Session 2: We quite literally start the plot of Babylon 5, Season 1, Episode 1 when we're told an envoy from a powerful race is arriving and we need to make sure their landing area is secure. We are very specifically ordered to stay away from the landing area after that, because the envoy doesn't want to be around a lot of people. We find some squatters, bribe them to leave, then retreat to our specified location well away from the meeting place. The commander comes down, walks past us, and goes to the meeting. The commander comes down again. Uh oh. We race to find the envoy near death and our healer gets to make some rolls to stabilize them. The commander is arrested for attempted murder. (No, we weren't questioned nor depositioned. We said that we saw two commanders and that's not how the plot goes so it was ignored.)
Session 1: We were ordered to guard the unconscious envoy. As mentioned, we set up a trap but since that's not what happens in the episode an NPC betrayed our positions, the assassin ran, and the game system does not allow you to catch anyone in a footrace.
Session 2: The envoy woke up and we escorted him to the trial. We were then kicked out. The commander was exonerated by the envoy offscreen. A powerful wizard showed up to conduct the investigation. We were thanked for our service and we're done with this plot arc.
My favorite bit about Session 2? I'm an aquatic creature. So much so that I have to disguise myself as a merman just to explain why I constantly have to immerse myself. The healer identified all the ingredients for the antidote for the envoy as items from the ocean (seaweed, jellyfish, etc.). I offered to go get them. The NPCs said, "Nope. We have them all. Don't do anything."
Shiro's favorite bit? We were the only witnesses to see both commanders, and we were carrying around the (attempted) murder weapon, and nobody cared. Once we walked the envoy to the trial our role was done.
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Now I need that to be my next character.I shall be sure to refer to you as Nobody's Home in future.And I shall call him "Penelope, Pincher of Pope's Noses".
Interestingly, "Penelope, Pincher of Pope's Noses" is a phrase that gave me ZERO search results. It's completely new! Or at least, it is new on the INTERNET!
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At this point, this is my dream for my character for this campaign.
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Speaking of which, this really is one of the strangest campaigns I've been in. I liken it to listening to Critical Roll, but they're having an audience participation day where you can occasionally call out a suggestion. The best concrete metric I can give is that in this gaming system when you try to do something you roll between 1 and 5 dice as a test; 1 is totally untrained, 2 is you have some small skill in it (typically because of your race or background), and 3 or more is you actually paid points for it.
We're 2 pre-sessions and 2 full sessions in, and neither Shiro nor GothBard nor I have ever rolled more than 2 dice. The GM doesn't care how we designed our characters; he's going to tell the story and can't be bothered to actually let us do anything we're good at.
And yet it's not frustrating or angering; I lie in my cuddler and kind of nap while listening to storytime. I find it a very relaxing evening. But I wouldn't call it "gaming" per se; I'm usually lying there with my mic muted so they won't hear me snoring if I nod off. But having an evening with no responsibilities where my "job" is to just lie there and snooze is pretty nice.
Not really a "game", though.
Seems more like a live Choose Your Own Adventure book, but with less flexibility.
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The abject stupidity/cluelessness of some organizations knows no bounds.
GothBard had outpatient surgery a few months ago but needed anaesthesia, and for those of you in civilized countries, anaeshetia is done by a different group, typically not associated with the surgeon, and so bills you separately.
Their idea of "billing", I kid you not, is to send you a text message from an unidentified number saying, "You owe $xxx.xx. Click this link to pay." It doesn't even provide any identifying information such as type of service, date of service, or even your name, because HIPAA privacy laws.
They don't send a physical bill. They don't email you. They don't call you. They send you the most blatant phishing text you've ever seen... then they wonder why nobody pays them.
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Impus Major just described pet ownership perfectly:
Owner: "Here, beloved pet! It is a can of expensive pet food specifically designed to be tasty and satisfy all of your nutritional requirements!"
Beloved Pet: "Bleah!"
Owner: "Ugh. I just found some mixed greens from two months ago and they've rotted into a stinking green slurry. Down the sink it goes!"
Beloved Pet: "Om nom nom nom nom nom."
The abject stupidity/cluelessness of some organizations knows no bounds.
GothBard had outpatient surgery a few months ago but needed anaesthesia, and for those of you in civilized countries, anaeshetia is done by a different group, typically not associated with the surgeon, and so bills you separately.
Their idea of "billing", I kid you not, is to send you a text message from an unidentified number saying, "You owe $xxx.xx. Click this link to pay." It doesn't even provide any identifying information such as type of service, date of service, or even your name, because HIPAA privacy laws.
They don't send a physical bill. They don't email you. They don't call you. They send you the most blatant phishing text you've ever seen... then they wonder why nobody pays them.
Be very, very careful. Companies like this use annoying, fake seeming billers so that when they are ignored, they can put a lien against you for the full amount of money owed. This works well with folks of means because they sometimes dont realize they have been billed until they discover months later the money was taken out and its too late to complain.
Be very, very careful. Companies like this use annoying, fake seeming billers so that when they are ignored, they can put a lien against you for the full amount of money owed. This works well with folks of means because they sometimes dont realize they have been billed until they discover months later the money was taken out and its too late to complain.The abject stupidity/cluelessness of some organizations knows no bounds.
GothBard had outpatient surgery a few months ago but needed anaesthesia, and for those of you in civilized countries, anaeshetia is done by a different group, typically not associated with the surgeon, and so bills you separately.
Their idea of "billing", I kid you not, is to send you a text message from an unidentified number saying, "You owe $xxx.xx. Click this link to pay." It doesn't even provide any identifying information such as type of service, date of service, or even your name, because HIPAA privacy laws.
They don't send a physical bill. They don't email you. They don't call you. They send you the most blatant phishing text you've ever seen... then they wonder why nobody pays them.
As I said, I have full physical and electronic records that I paid the full amount to the company in question. And a lien requires filing legal paperwork against me, and I pay a legal firm to monitor that s*** for me. They chose someone with too much experience in bureaucracy.
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As opposed to my anti collection plan of just not having any money....
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How bad is the Wednesday campaign?
I was complaining to Shiro that his PC's constant requests for me to translate stuff are annoying because they wake me from my napping.
His response?
"That's kind of the point!"
So his entertainment for Wednesday evenings is to try to catch me when I'm asleep. I mean, it's kind of hilarious that this campaign is such a train wreck and instead of mass quitting we're all entertaining ourselves in different ways in such a way that we're actually having fun. It's kind of like kids finding their favorite playground in the ruins of an abandoned building.
EDIT: My favorite description of the campaign so far: "You know how you have the main characters on the bridge, like Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Doctor McCoy? And then you have the supporting characters like Yeoman Rand or Nurse Chapel? And finally you have the nameless extras in the background who sit there and twiddle knobs and no one ever notices them or interacts with them? Well, in this campaign we're the knob-twiddlers."
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You should try Star Trek Adventures, it has mechanic for that.
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It was a warm day and the kittens spent all of it napping happily in the studio, so the house filled with flies sky raisins. Impus Minor complained that he's running at game at 4:30 pm and it'll be disgusting if the house is full of flies sky raisins. I woke up the hellions 4 minutes ago and brought them into the house. The kill count is up to 2 already, and Morrigan hasn't even started her vertical ascents of the walls yet.
I think the house'll be clear for the game.
EDIT: OK. If it weren't flies, I'd be feeling pretty awful right now. Mephisto's in full-blown "brain off kill all things" mode and I'm going to need a broom. Boy is a sky-raisin-killing engine right now, and they're too dim to stay out of the room o' doom.
EDIT 2: The horror... the horror... Mephisto finished off anything stupid enough to move or make a noise in the kitchen. Morrigan saw the fun and headed to the living room, where they were out of Mephisto's reach. Didn't save them. We've gone from 20+ flies to one known left alive in under an hour, and that one just flew towards the kitchen where Mephisto is still looking for prey. Watching young cats actually hunt is a scary, scary thing.
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Star trek: lower decks. Nodwick edition.
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Star trek: lower decks. Nodwick edition.
Actually it's Star Trek Adventures: Lower Decks Campaign Guide.
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Secretary to the party
"you're going to meet the mayor looking like THAT!?" Peasant clothes, travel stained, haven't had a bath in a week, mud on the boots dragging in all over the silk carpets.
Druid "oh.. right..." POP! turns into a raccoon
MUCH less mud on the carpet that way. Probably the cleanest party member...
Well, apparently I've acquired gran rey de los mono's luck with the Postal Service.
The very first Kickstarter project I backed (two years ago), the Good Omens graphic novel, FINALLY shipped from London, cleared customs at O'Hare on Thursday, and was supposed to be transferred to the post office to be sent on to Texas. The package STILL hasn't been checked in at the post office after three days. I assume it's just sitting on a loading dock at the airport?
Well, apparently I've acquired gran rey de los mono's luck with the Postal Service.
The very first Kickstarter project I backed (two years ago), the Good Omens graphic novel, FINALLY shipped from London, cleared customs at O'Hare on Thursday, and was supposed to be transferred to the post office to be sent on to Texas. The package STILL hasn't been checked in at the post office after three days. I assume it's just sitting on a loading dock at the airport?
The administration changed the tariff rules so that shipments under $800 are no longer exempt, meaning they have to go through the much longer process of being inspected and assessed. GothBard ordered a couple of shirts from Australia and instead of the usual 3-4 days it's been 3 weeks and she's still waiting.
EDIT: And speaking of the tariffs, I don't know WTF the actual rules are (I don't think anyone does), but shirts from Australia were running a 47% tariff.)
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It's really interesting to observe memory in animals. Younger Brother and his S.O. came down to visit. S.O. hand-raised the hellions for the first 8 weeks of their lives, corresponding to a human age of roughly 2 years old. Then we tore them away from their homes and families, took them on a terrifying plane ride, and now they're around 12 years old in human terms.
So yeah, I know that I had a nanny for the first 2 years of my life and I hardly remember her at all, so I wouldn't've been surprised if the kittens didn't remember Brother and S.O. Instead,the kittens obviously recognized them because they were uncharacteristically skittish and nervous around them. The traumatic memories stayed, while the pleasant ones didn't (at least at first -- we'll see how they react today).
It makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint, but S.O. was rather distressed that their first reaction to her was nervousness and discomfort. I mean, of course, kittens, so the nervousness lasted all of 10 minutes before "Pet me! Play with me!" took over, but it was a concrete departure from their usual greeting to strangers of, "Pet me or I'll kill you."
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Fantasy NPC: Needler Fine, the Tattooist
He has such images to ink on you...
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Aaaaand, how it's done (semi)-correctly:
This time a different doctor's office sent an email with a link in it (STILL terrible, but...). It had a clearly-identified header saying, "It's time to pay your bill for the service you received on this date."
Then if you followed the link, before you did anything else you had to enter your name, address, and date of birth (all public information). It then looked up your information and provided an itemized receipt of thedDate of service, type of service, doctor's name, and payment amount. Finally, before you could pay it said, "Please review and confirm all the information to make sure this really is you and we're billing you for the correct service."
So, link in email: Automatic F.
Carefully-crafted payment site to reassure you you're paying the correct people: Still an F, but I don't beat them with a stick.
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Having neurodivergent stepkids means they both have their hyperfixations - Sonic has rekindled his obsession with the 'Toy Story' films, while Shanna is getting seriously into 80s/90s metal and alternative rock - Type O Negative, Megadeth, Hole, and (most of all), Metallica. She's got Sonic into that band to a certain extent, too, and we could hear them both singing along to 'To Whom The Bell Tolls' upstairs earlier on this afternoon.
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Some happy news:
Some of you may remember that, two years ago at Christmas, Hermione's godmother and her wife were trying to adopt a baby after rounds and rounds of IVF failures, were finally approved, flew to Philadelphia to pick up their son, and the birth mother changed her mind and kept the boy and they flew home to an empty nursery?
Today, almost two years later, they finally adopted and brought home a baby girl. They didn't even tell anyone that there was a chance it might happen until they got her home.
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Congratulations!
So, I know darned well this skims sideways into the "politics" lane, but this is one of those, "Is this just a California thing?" questions:
We were just told that as of September 30, Medicare recipients will no longer be eligible for telehealth calls at our doctor's office. They made it very clear that it wasn't their decision, but rather changes to Medicare. So I'm curious: Did anyone hear anything about this anywhere in the country? It's completely baffling to me, as I'd've expected some news outlet to pick it up, but just, "This is your doctor. Nope. No more remote calls for Medicare patients."
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Some happy news:
Some of you may remember that, two years ago at Christmas, Hermione's godmother and her wife were trying to adopt a baby after rounds and rounds of IVF failures, were finally approved, flew to Philadelphia to pick up their son, and the birth mother changed her mind and kept the boy and they flew home to an empty nursery?
Today, almost two years later, they finally adopted and brought home a baby girl. They didn't even tell anyone that there was a chance it might happen until they got her home.
Huge congrats to them.
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So, I know darned well this skims sideways into the "politics" lane, but this is one of those, "Is this just a California thing?" questions:
We were just told that as of September 30, Medicare recipients will no longer be eligible for telehealth calls at our doctor's office. They made it very clear that it wasn't their decision, but rather changes to Medicare. So I'm curious: Did anyone hear anything about this anywhere in the country? It's completely baffling to me, as I'd've expected some news outlet to pick it up, but just, "This is your doctor. Nope. No more remote calls for Medicare patients."
As Gran said, any news coverage of it would trip the "negative coverage means I threaten your FCC license" stage of the current admin. So nothing has covered it at all, it's just been quietly slashed in the background.
The only place I was able to get telehealth for anything before I moved was from Planned Parenthood, which was already under fire, so this is just $#!% icing on the &%*# cake at this point.
The worst part is, when Medicare goes, a lot of insurance companies are likely to follow suit. So I wouldn't be surprised if people getting healthcare through sources other than Medicare suddenly find telehealth isn't being covered soon by their insurance either.
So one more thing for everyone to have to keep track of.
So, I know darned well this skims sideways into the "politics" lane, but this is one of those, "Is this just a California thing?" questions:
We were just told that as of September 30, Medicare recipients will no longer be eligible for telehealth calls at our doctor's office. They made it very clear that it wasn't their decision, but rather changes to Medicare. So I'm curious: Did anyone hear anything about this anywhere in the country? It's completely baffling to me, as I'd've expected some news outlet to pick it up, but just, "This is your doctor. Nope. No more remote calls for Medicare patients."
As Gran said, any news coverage of it would trip the "negative coverage means I threaten your FCC license" stage of the current admin. So nothing has covered it at all, it's just been quietly slashed in the background.
The only place I was able to get telehealth for anything before I moved was from Planned Parenthood, which was already under fire, so this is just $#!% icing on the &%*# cake at this point.
The worst part is, when Medicare goes, a lot of insurance companies are likely to follow suit. So I wouldn't be surprised if people getting healthcare through sources other than Medicare suddenly find telehealth isn't being covered soon by their insurance either.
So one more thing for everyone to have to keep track of.
That's pretty much exactly what my doctor said. "While people on private health insurance are currently still covered, the private industry tends to follow Medicare so we expect them to drop coverage as of 2026."
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"Get everyone back into the office" doesn't just apply to office workers anymore, apparently.
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"Get everyone back into the office" doesn't just apply to office workers anymore, apparently.
Well, unfortunately, from what I can tell, this one is more "stupid" than "evil":
(1) During COVID, Congress(?) passed an act allowing Medicare patients to use telehealth. In an astonishing bit of common sense, they put an expiration date on the law.
(2) That expiration date is September 30. And in an indictment of our current Congress/administration, they were as usual too dysfunctional to realize that anything was amiss and failed to renew the act.
So, telehealth calls are cheaper than in-person visits for both parties. I've seen no one screaming about fraudulent billing for telehealth. My belief is that Medicare was actually saving money and providing convenience to its clients, but our dysfunctional Congress dropped the ball.
I could be wrong, but if someone were hand-wringing about fraud and cost-cutting I'm sure I'd've heard about it, so this sounds more like incompetence than anything else.
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Some happy news:
Some of you may remember that, two years ago at Christmas, Hermione's godmother and her wife were trying to adopt a baby after rounds and rounds of IVF failures, were finally approved, flew to Philadelphia to pick up their son, and the birth mother changed her mind and kept the boy and they flew home to an empty nursery?
Today, almost two years later, they finally adopted and brought home a baby girl. They didn't even tell anyone that there was a chance it might happen until they got her home.
EXCELLENT news!