a group of adventurers on an epic quest
I have a few long-boxes of comic books I want to get rid of, mostly from the 1990s. Is there an orthodox way of doing so in this modern digital age? Ebaying one at a time, or even in batches, seems like a lot of work for limited return. Swinging by the local comic shop seems like very little work for almost no return. Our audience seems like the sort that must have encountered this problem sometime.
Oh, and have you seen comic book legends revealed? That one’s for you, Hudson!
: Zubon
Arnold Zwicky blogs at Language Log (and if you read only one linguistics blog, it should probably be Language Log). Earlier this year, he wrote about caring for his late partner Jacques. Jacques had brain cancer, and the best treatment available only moved him from impending death to inevitable dementia, an Alzheimer’s-like decline a decade down the line. Arnold spent twelve years caring for him.
This appeared on a linguistics blog because of Jacques’s particular problem: avoidance of evidence that he was in California. I encourage you to read the whole thing. He could read normally, but he could not consciously process the word “California” if it implied that Jacques himself was in California. For him, license plates were blocked, news reports were garbled, and postcards were illegible, but only the parts implying that he was in California. National news that mentioned California would have been fine; you could see those anywhere. His brain was effectively reading ahead, recognizing the word and the context, blocking it from his conscious awareness, and then rationalizing why the word was not there.
Prof. Zwicky has some comments about similar dementias. Others in the comments share their stories about caring for family members and their cases of implicit and explicit awareness. The dialogue draws out more details. It is a heart-rending account of loss.
And then one commenter tossed in, “TL;DR” Five characters, and I wanted to track the IP to put a brick through someone’s window or skull.
: Zubon
My occasional references to Kingdom of Loathing seem to miss many, so this is your briefing. Kingdom of Loathing is a silly browser-based fantasy adventure game with a limited number of turns per day. It makes mocking or ironic use of the familiar computer RPG tropes, and most of the game text is humor-based. The graphics are stick figure-based. Over time, it has developed a loyal following, an active economy, and a sort of meta-game developed by/in cooperation with the community.
You pick one of six classes: melee (Seal Clubber, Turtle Tamer), ranged (Accordion Thief, Disco Bandit), or mage (Pastamancer, Sauceror). A Sauceror might protect himself with a Jalapeño Saucesphere and attack with a Saucegeyser, while a Seal Clubber uses Musk of the Moose Ox to find enemies to beat down with his Lunging Thrust-Smack. The three types of classes each lend themselves to different play strategies.
Your goal is to save King Ralph XI, who has been imprisoned by the Naughty Sorceress. Along the way, you level up by completing quests like killing rats at the Typical Tavern, making a Bitchin’ Meat Car, or helping the Deep Fat Friars. Once you save the king, you can hang about and mess with whatever you like (content keeps going), or you can Ascend and start over. Ascending lets you make one skill permanent, and you can get your stuff back (eventually) from Hagnk’s Ancestral Mini-Storage.
Along the way you will fight monsters like filthy hippies, chowder golems, vampire clams, zmobies and zobmies (at The Misspelled Cemetary), and spooky gravy fairy ninjas. You might stab/club them with the ridiculously huge sword, shoot them with a bubblewrap crossbow, or channel your pasta spell through a Gnollish slotted spoon.
It might be worth checking out the wiki for more silliness. You will want that link anyway, because it is probably not possible to reach and defeat the Naughty Sorceress without some spoilage.
: Zubon
I rarely see someone hit almost every single thing I hate about idiots on the internet, and yet here it is. The anonymous commenter consistently calling Tobold “tob” is a wonder.
First, the writing style indicates stupidity, a complete indifference to expressing himself coherently, or most likely both. The random capitalization and punctuation, and lack thereof, is especially effective. Sadly, I do not spot a “u,” or better yet: “ur.” Second, he willfully misinterprets the author and then condemns him for the made-up version. Third, bonus, he interprets his lack of reading comprehension as Tobold’s dishonesty. Fourth, “why can’t you just admit I’m right?” Fifth, “I’m not a fanboi, you’re a fanboi, and you’re a hateboi too!” Sixth, the scorn for the VNBoards community is really quite touching given the context. Seventh, the classic “longtime reader, and this is not what I expect from you.” Eighth, repeating the same thing across multiple comments. Ninth, replying to himself twice in a row. Tenth, representative statistics in support of your position are laughable and shameful! lol!
I should stop at a top ten, but his last comment (as I write this) has its beautiful self-defense. Those disagreeing are “tobold fanboi lol.” He objects to being called a troll, calls the other commenters communists and McCarthyites, and ends on some confused notion of democracy and why must all you intolerant communists insult people who disagree with you?
I very rarely need the mod button here, except for spam. I want to be able to ban people on others’ sites. And IRL.
: Zubon
Back Alley Brawler, City of Heroes animations developer, combines awesome with oops:
When we were testing the invasions on the training room, I logged into Galaxy City while an invasion was going on, flagged the BABs trainer as invisible, stepped into his spot and made myself visible, and then joined in the fight against the Rikti.After it was all over I went back to the trainer to make him visible again, but being invisible…I couldn’t find him to target him. He was completely invisible, even to me.
A couple of days later we got a bug report through QA about the Invasion causing trainers to disappear.
: Zubon
Throwing things away unread is key to internet literacy.
To be able to focus on anything, you must immediately ignore 99+% of the content out there. If you are reading this, you are not currently reading about knitting, extreme kayaking, the history of Cambodia, upcoming metal shows in Berlin, the proper care of camels as pets, or homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck (actual Wikipedia topic). Once you narrow your interest to MMOs, you have dozens of games (in English), and once you have one game, there are still dozens of sites.
I cannot take it personally if you pass on Kill Ten Rats. There are literally millions of other blogs you do not read either.
: Zubon
The song that has been stuck in my head for a couple weeks is Maps from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. This is going to be another of my tortured analogies relating a song to gaming, and not just because the song is in Rock Band.
Let’s note first that the song is very repetitive. Continue reading ‘Maps’
Lori Drew convicted. Possible dismissal or appeal to come. Previous discussion.
William Roper: Arrest that man!
Sir Thomas More: On what law?
Margaret More: Father, that man’s bad.
Sir Thomas More: There’s no law against that.
William Roper: There is: God’s law.
Sir Thomas More: Then God can arrest him.
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!- Robert Bolt, A Man For All Seasons
: Zubon