Strae

I semi-regularly dream that I'm playing a video game, but it usually is a more like a hybrid between controlling a video game character, and being the actual character.

It usually manifests itself as some alternate reality version of WoW (because I've played that more than any other game, I assume). Sometimes I even think to myself, "it's amazing that I've never seen this part of WoW before!"

Maybe a stupid question, but does it count if he wasn't there for the game? A player wouldn't get credit for a win if they didn't play, so should the manager get credit for the win if he wasn't managing the game?

It forces replayability if you're the kind of person who needs to do everything.

It's absolutely enjoyable. The choices feel like they have a lot of weight. At the end of the day it's just a video game, so you just have to pick a choice and see what happens. You can also save scum if you're super unhappy with an outcome, but I try to avoid that.

There are absolutely irreparable consequences to your actions in this game. You have to "plan ahead" in the sense that you have to be sure what path you want to go down because other paths will become closed or non-existent. It also is sometimes not obvious which path makes the most sense to take, which is by design.

Without trying to spoil anything, I made a mistake with one of my characters which caused them to permanently leave the group and I can't get them back.

I have similar nightsweat problems, so I did something close to this once: https://www.wikihow.com/Clean-a-Bed-with-Baking-Soda

If you Google "clean mattress with baking soda" you'll find a bunch of similar recipes. Lots suggest using essential oils, which I didn't use.

The results were decent when I did it. Definitely de-funkified the mattress a bit, and removed some of the stains. It was hardly like new, but it was definitely better than before.

When six newbies struggle to figure it out, then it isn't well-defined. Or at the very least isn't well structured to find the definition quickly. I will die on this hill.

My friends and I started playing DnD during COVID. We're all at least normal intelligence, college educated people (I even work in a job where I regularly research federal regulations, so I'm used to navigating complex rules). Our biggest complaint was how obtuse and difficult to pin down some of the rules in this game are.

Six of us spent a half hour trying to figure out how darkvision works, and the answers we found online didn't seem to match up with what we were reading in the handbook. You would find something mentioning darkvision, but it wouldn't explain how it worked. Then somewhere else would say something different about darkvision. It seemed like you needed to go to multiple different sections of the handbook to piece everything together. We encountered multiple instances of this.

Our one friend defended it all saying it's deliberately obtuse to allow for DM flexibility, but most of us disagree with that approach. The rules should be explicitly stated, and then a caveat added that all rules are flexible if the DM wants them to be. There should not be a debatable way to play the game, as far as official rules are concerned. How you bend the rules is entirely up to you.

My wife and I gave up after two episodes. Neither of us have read the books or played the games. We just think the show sucks.

This is a microcosm of how employment works in the world at large.

You aren't paid based upon how difficult your job is, nor are you paid strictly based on how much value you add. You're paid based on a function of value added, AND how replaceable you are. Essentially supply vs demand. If your job is hard and you add a ton of value, but you're easily replaceable, then you won't make much money. There's just too much supply. It doesn't matter that RBs are important if you can just throw a rock and hit someone who can fill the role.

Likewise if you're difficult to replace, but don't add a ton of value you also won't make a lot of money. My best guess for an example of this would be long snappers.

That's sort of exactly the point. People believe it to be true, and it's sort of impossible to prove them wrong. Nature vs Nurture still isn't proven either way, regardless of how strongly you feel one way or the other.

The simple fact that someone believes it's possible to "make people gay", almost necessarily leads to them believing there are people out there actively doing it.

I thought it was entirely fine and enjoyable as a popcorn, action movie. But other than that I don't really understand why it deserves any awards.

Also what is the distinction between "movie" and "television movie"? That line seems pretty blurred in a world of streaming.

The thing that always shocks me, is how fucking vile cigarette smoke smells. It's almost like they intentionally engineered it to smell like death.

I think cigar smoke and pipe smoke actually smells sort of pleasant. Why do cigarettes smell so bad? Is it just all the preservatives and other nonsense they put in them? I went to France a few years ago and thought the cigarettes smelled significantly less horrible than they do in the US. Maybe they smoke more natural cigarettes?