I don’t attribute a lot of positive things to social media, but I will give it credit for turning me around on spiders. Arachnophobia scared the crap out of me as a kid. For years afterward, I’d never sit down on a toilet without first getting down on my hands and knees to make sure there weren’t any spiders lurking underneath the bowl. Thanks to years of spiderbro memes, now I generally view them as comrades.

Perhaps the Balrog underestimated Gandalf, thinking it could cast him into the abyss, then fly back up to deal with the rest of the Fellowship. Alternatively, maybe it calculated that its best chance of defeating the wizard was to grapple with him at close quarters. Either way, the Balrog falling doesn’t necessarily mean that it wasn’t capable of flight.

Money can be exchanged for goods and services!

I think you’re right. But it’s also apparently true that there exists a critical mass of uninformed fucking dipshits flibbertigibbets, who could be swayed by this kind of thing. The true believers are unreachable, but so much political theatre is directed at that segment of the population that just can’t be bothered to assemble more than one or two data points at a time.

I’ve never visited Asheville, but I know it by reputation as the Austin of NC—a liberal enclave. Is that inaccurate? If not, that doesn’t seem to signify anything.

You’re much better off not knowing, imo. Influencers are like Tinker Bell, in that they disappear if there aren’t enough people who believe they exist.

Hey, if we can make a pencil out of leaves, cephalopods can swim through our GI tract like species 8472 through fluidic space.

I’m sure that’ll work, provided there aren’t any meddlesome kids about!

I’m looking forward to the inevitable Flop House episode.

Alan Alda’s got a pretty good podcast now. I watched a lot of MASH reruns growing up. Feels strange that kids now don’t have the experience of watching a bunch of stuff that’s not made for them at all, just because that’s what’s on TV.

I’ve just reinstalled Grim Dawn, having last played it some years ago, and am currently working my way through Act 2. I don’t frequently play ARPG’s, but I’ll try a new one when I get it in a bundle or somesuch. Mostly, they don’t hold my interest. Grim Dawn, vanilla and unmodded (I assume there’s some kind of modding scene; haven’t looked yet) still manages to scratch that itch for me. At some point I’ll pick up the DLC. Right now I just want to find something good enough to replace this crazy caster 2h sword I’m using, so that I can bring Albrecht’s Aether Ray back into the rotation!

Hold your breath, so you don’t blow me

Away dude—I’m dust

I really appreciate this take. It’s good-hearted and makes good sense. I’ll try to remember it going forward, when cynicism overwhelms.

I really wish I’d just taken your word for it. That’s depressing.

Oh, crumb! I’ve gotten here way too late to make a joke about it not being a zero cum game. Ah, well. Next time!

That’s too bad. No autosave you can load from before it started? I love KC:D; it’s one of very few story-based games that I was motivated to play through more than once. I had a quick look, but I couldn’t find any mods that let you pause that section and come back to it later.

I really enjoyed Theresa’s DLC, but it can be an unwelcome change of pace if you’re not ready for it. There’s certainly no shortage of people that have had this issue, but it looks like the only fix is to power through it or load an earlier save. You do get a nice Skalitz shield from Theresa when you finish it, at least.

Can you see that you’re arguing against fictitious strawmen? You seem to be operating under the delusion that for all the dumb normies who have “bought into” the existing two-party system, politics is just a game that they play without understanding. You’ve reduced them all to NPC’s who lack the capacity to reason; obviously their only motivation could be mindless conformity to their “team”.

Is it your contention that it doesn’t matter what party controls the branches of government, because they’re both the same? While this is factually inaccurate, it would at least be in line with the actions you’re advocating. Speaking of which, how exactly do you imagine a “protest” vote would deny the subsequently elected government legitimacy? What force and effect do you foresee that action producing? Because anyone with a working knowledge of our electoral system can tell you that the only discernable result will be the empowerment of the minority party, which in this case seeks a fascist overthrow of our democratic system.

What you’re doing here is applying shallow, childish logic to a complex and nuanced problem, while pretending to have some high-minded motivations which—if they exist at all—clearly haven’t been thought through.

If you’re interested, The Flop House (long running bad movie podcast with three hosts and sometimes a guest; 2/3 hosts are former Daily Show writers [they are three cishet white guys, but not stupid or bigoted]) did an episode with Parker Bennett, one of the screenwriters of the '93 SMB movie. He’s got some pretty great anecdotes about making it!

No…no. See, 1+1=2, so we can see that 2 is double the amount of 1. 2+2=4.

It can be—and usually is—both.