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I have a friend, kind of an adopted nephew I've known for many years. He went off to the Naval Academy and graduated recently. We have spectacular political arguments come from diametrically opposed sides (he's a Bernie Bro, but I love him anyway). Since he's out at Charleston, he thought he'd swing by my virtual 5th edition campaign I'm running. He was hooked line and sinker! By the end of the first hour he was already downloading Fantasy Grounds. He created a bard and provided significant help to the party in the last major encounter of the night and also contributed to some of the exploration. I like puzzles in my games, so I truly value people who are willing to tinker with things and figure out new approaches. Modern technology is truly great. While I'd like to get back to in person gaming, I'll undoubtedly sitll use some of the tools I have now. I keep track of party character, npcs they've met, clues they've found, and my wife keeps a party journal. Then I put all these documents in my OneDrive D&D dedicated folder. Today, when they got started, one of the players mentioned one of the things I'd thought they'd overlooked. It was truly gratifying that someone had taken a gander at it beforehand. Players never find all the fun stuff you put into a campaign. It is, after all, their story as much as mine, but it's always fun when they get invested enough to think about things between gamedays. It's even better when one of my old friends can join my campaign from 3,000 miles away! Huzzah!

Haven't been here in a long while. Came to check out if I would see any members that I might remember. After the slight disappointment that was Pillars of Eternity 2, I didn't bother with The Outer Worlds. Grounded is not my type of games, and I don't know what to think about Avowed. Before that, I more or less loved all Obsidian games. Today, I have spent more than half the day watching soccer.

The thing about America media is that they tend to bundle minorities into the same groups. The reality is, that all minorities in the US have different opinions about everything. Now Cubans mostly lean right because we left a leftist authoritarian government. Yet despite that, there are Cubans that do lean left. My second mother who was a teacher is very left leaning, likely due to teacher unions having a big pull in S Florida. One of my other mothers, (don't ask mama was a rolling stone) could be diagnosed with Trump derangement syndrome. She just hates the guy no matter what and no matter how little she knows about procedures. We are talking blaming Trump for mistakes made by the state governor that has more authority over the state than Trump. It is a common thing with Hispanics, since we generally come from autocratic governments. That we can't fathom the idea of a state governor having more of a say than the president of the US. I can say that all around my neighborhood I've seen several Trump signs, very mixed signs when it comes to the local elections (both blue and red) but not one Biden sign. As for Trump deportation of immigrants...it is a tough issue but....Obama cancelled the privilege that Cubans had where we would be citizens on touching US ground (probably because we didn't vote Hillary) it is not that we don't care about other nationalities, because we share the same experience with them. Literally we work,met and share our life with almost everyone from South America, that's a given in South Florida where you can point to an area and say "Thats' where the Venezuelan live" and the same for other nationalities. The turning point for me personally was a story about a Salvadorian business owner that refused to pay MS-13 protection money. He sent his family to the US; his wife and daughter, so that they would be safe while he kept the fight for his business....The story is going to get dark now but....MS-13 operates within the US, they tracked his family took the daughter and...you can guess the rest. The full package mind you. So when it came to immigration I took the view that, those that are fleeing the horrors of their countries should be followed by them because of our support of illegal immigration. Quite frankly, a lot of people emigrate because of necessity not because of desire, the goodwill of the American people would be better spent in asking that Hispanic countries are helped to develop so that people have opportunities rather than allowing illegals to struggle in the US. It just goes back to that whole, the media bundles all minorities together, so the Venezuelan mechanical engineer is better of making low wages in the US than they would be if their country didn't fall. I'm not asking for some manifest destiny crap but it would be great if Hispanics in the US could both organize and have enough funds to aid their countries political situation. I don't think we were forced to leave Cuba...I mean we chose to. Some people that had the chance refused and some that made it to the US actually went back. Its always a spectrum, but the reason we left was because like a lot of people, we didn't have a future in Cuba. Particularly my family that had already been rejected by the government, literally: One of my mothers was a Cuban foreign diplomat that got to travel abroad until her gender preference was discovered. She and my biological mother then became outcasts, by which I mean that they weren't eligible for state jobs and their record had it marked that they were lesbians. As for the virus, we Floridians pretty much own the fact that we are the most corrupted state in the US and we understand that if you get stabbed to death but had a fever and coughs...you died of Covid. It is inevitable when you have a disease that keeps people away from hospitals but incentives cases of said disease. When people stop going to their regular checkup because of Covid you best believe that hospitals will have a lot of Covid deaths, just to get federal funding and survive. I dislike Socialism currently because after much study I understand that it and Communism fail because of a single individual; that's unqualified to make decisions on every topic, goes unchallenged whenever they propose something stupid. You only have to look at Lysenkoism or Mao's Four pest campaign to understand the failure of having only one option for the whole country. Despite having lived through socialism, I've met several Cuban leftists that do fall for the US media trapping of equating leftism with classical liberal values. Those are the ones that hate Trump but can't really support the left as it touts the banner of the socialism that they left behind. If I go back to Cuba it would be over a weekend and just to walk the city that I grew up in. See the sights, indulge the memories and revel in nostalgia...but I never have and I don't know if I will. I fear both that It will be marred by changes in the landscape and the fact that I no longer share the same life experience as my compatriots. It's akin to being born in prison, it is a culture within itself but once you're outside people just ask about what you can do for them. Trump was the anti-establishment choice, this was a thing long time coming. Same as Brexit and other swings to the right. People just had enough of both parties breaking promises and going against the electorate's will. Trump actually capitulated on this and ran as an Anti War, Anti SJW, Anti Establishment, moderate (except his promise to build the wall) All the people that were tired of the war and this forced insane political correctness voted for him. Honestly as far as my vote in 2016, I would have lost complete hope in the voting process and America if Trump didn't get elected. If the establishment had won back then I probably be just as outraged as Bernie voters are right now(Antifa). Anyways I hope that covers your doubts, sorry for the long post TL;DR: This is really just for Bruce but feel free to opine

Now I am a cats person but this one of the cutest dogs I've seen to date and man, what a nice dude:

Bruce's views are exactly those you'd expect from a white South African banker. The dude trolls like long lines behind a fleet of Chinese tuna boats denuding the Pacific but him being terrified of anything even close to 'violent left wing anarchists' on the streets is and has always been 100% consistent. eg his views are also absolutely consistent with those he has expressed about more local issues like the Marikana massacre.

missed all the blm t-shirts in those pictures o' people cleaning? https://blockclubchicago.org/2020/06/03/thousands-in-north-side-march-told-if-serious-about-helping-come-to-south-and-west-side-cleanup-events-this-week/ regardless, your bs 'bout the difference 'tween peaceful hk protests v. blm protests evaporated in an instant and you then retreated to some kinda cleanup effort story in an attempt to distinguish. turns out the same stories exist for blm. so, now what? you efforts to legitimize is transparent. you approve o' the motivation and goals o' the hk protesters who has resorted to violence frequent. converse, you disapprove o' blm motivations, so you see unconstitutional police state tactics employed by the government as a legit response to the blm protests. you clear ain't self aware enough to realize the hypocrisy and boarderline insanity o' such a position. am not surprised oro and skarp_one glomp onto the fox narrative. a few o' the other trump supporters is indulging in the sunk cost fallacy we mentioned earlier as a way to justify their mistake. how do you continue to support trump w/o believing he represents the last defense against an existential threat? if such a threat don't exist, then one must be imagined. the threat doesn't need be reasonable; just needs be plausible enough to allow trump supporters to sleep at night w/o having to face their personal colonel nicholson moment. am uncertain 'bout bruce. am disappointed in bruce. again, given his awareness o' the sa apartheid government tactics, one would think bruce would be particular suspicious o' a government narrative which frames protesters as seditious terrorists. we would expect a doubting thomas approach from bruce. am not over surprised by bruce and others buying into the +100 days of rampant and uncontrolled lawlessness reducing dozens o' US cities to smoking ruins narrative. am disappointed. HA! Good Fun!

I am ready, I just need to pick matching colour. Any advices?

did he just asked to pimp for him?

I'm not German. Lexx is. Ben was too, wherever he went. I'm living in what essentially amounts to a gentrified suburb of Vienna. My opinion on whether I would like the US or China to be able to collect my data, in which case the answer is easy: Neither. On how to deal with Antifa? Leave them be. Looters and people who damage property? Arrest them and deal with them according to the law. And... fix the underlying issues. Violent protests are a symptom, not a cause. Although that one is considerably less easy. *shrug*

what is curious to us personal is how many o' the folks here who see on tv the hong kong protesters and sympathize with them is nevertheless calling for more police state when is blm protesters in portland. sure, a couple obsidian posters is channeling the david duke fringe element o' the republican party and we consider such folks a lost cause, but other folks at least claim to be motivated by conscience, and bruce should have the extreme real example o' how the apartheid government o' sa used brutality under the guise o' law and order to suppress protesters and dissent. we mentioned at the time o' ferguson, the protests are symptomatic o' larger societal concerns beyond what eve the protesters claim is their raison d'être. bruce is looking at unrest and seems to think law enforcement is a solution. he should know better. law and order may be effective in suppressing the protests but such is only exacerbating the problems if there ain't simultaneous efforts to fix the underlying causes o' the protests. and no, am not suggesting lawless behaviour should be ignored. don't need to search very hard on these boards to see where we complain 'bout the failure o' any kinda protester leadership which might disavow and help control those behaviours which do not lead to progress and would make john lewis weep. protests is a symptom. past Presidents have failed to adequate address the causes. is no question the problems is massive. however, trump is the first President in our lifetime to encourage the divisiveness which is one o' the causes o' the protests. trump has ignored the Constitution and sent federal troops to enforce his view o' law and order in states and localities where his efforts has been categorical and overt rejected. there has been arrests by individuals claiming to be fed who refuse to identify selves and who routine fail to observe due process and miranda rights o' those detained. labeling o' protesters as domestic terrorists and purveyors o' sedition? really? as such, why would anybody vote for trump if they is genuine concerned 'bout protests? is so the Opposite o' law and order, but it is consistent with police state behaviours. but perhaps we misread bruce. perhaps he does see blm and hong kong protesters as analogous and mayhap bruce thinks more Chinese style police state behaviours is the appropriate response both in portland and hong kong. HA! Good Fun!

I'm playing Deus Ex GO. I've played all the other GO games from Square Enix, and Hitman is still the best, imo.

I'm back with another dose of obscure video game trailers that nobody asked for, featuring a game only I am likely to play:

I'm very happy that I've got some really nice perks from my job when it comes to costs, first the medicine is cheap since it's ubiquitus, and my employer pays for any medication that you have to pay for aslong as it is on a prescription (So... basically, not paracetamol, ibumetin or aspirin unless you need mega doses, they come with a prescription). So... my employer paid for my morphine; because I thought it was funny, and my felodipine, candesartan and spironolactone. I did go to the apothecary and by a new BP machine, since my father destroyed mine in his constant efforts to "make it better", and it's way, way, waaay off. My real BP at the moment is 150-160 over 100, and the new machine shows 90/50... I was measured around the bicep by the personell at the apothecaries, and they told me the old one was to small. The one I used before. Should've listened to myself. That would be a feat! I'm glad that you got it under control though

Yeah, might as well chime in. I think I might have dodged the bullet that is having to inject insulin last year. At least for a good while. Last year in January I went to the doctor and got a full blood work up to check if anything might be wrong. Turns out there was a physical reason for me being tired all the time and having hyperphagic episodes. Most of my blood work was okay except for some minor indication of liver damage and an HbA1c of 9.1. Blood pressure was pretty bad too, but not as bad as Azdeus'. That didn't come unexpected though, all of my family on my mother's side has type 2 diabetes and the family on my father's side all have high blood pressure. I just had to pick the best combination for myself. Got a nice little leaflet telling me that I should change my diet, a prescription for Metformin (500 mg, twice per day) and a referral for an internal medicine specialist for some follow up checks including an ECG. Luckily those came up negative except for a minor enlarged heart, a common side effect of long term high blood pressure (or being an athlete, which, let's face it, I'm not. Hurlshot might have Athlete's Heart though ), so some medication against high blood pressure was added and told to come back after a three month observation period. I began with a low carb diet and interval fasting (of the 16/8 kind, I start at 11 - the exact time our work cantina starts with lunch and end at 7), added some regular excercise and three months later was back at a healthy HbA1c of 5.3 where it's been sitting ever since, the liver values are within normal range now as well. My fasting clucose levels are around 85 to 95 mg/dl and it's been well over a year since I had more than 130 mg/dl after a meal, even if I splurge by having something that amounts to a carb overdose (i.e. pasta and a sugary dessert or pizza). I dropped the low carb diet after the initial three months and replaced it with something a little easier to sustain. Resting blood pressure is down to 110/70 (pulse 60), without the medication now. I feel fine. Better than in a long while. Except for never... and I really mean NEVER feeling as if I had enough to eat. That's probably in part due to the strict regimen of really only eating one normal meal per day (a workplace necessity, while we have a really good cantina you don't get special diet food there obviously), some fruit in the afternoon (mostly berries, avoiding high sugar fruits like grapes) and an evening snack that I actually really measure with a kitchen scale. 50 grams of bread, 100 grams of protein and whatever vegetables of the low carb/low calorie variety I feel like having. I imagine that this constant need to walk over to the fridge and eat everything at once is what recovering addicts feel. Just with unhealthy food instead of alcohol or other drugs. Well, can't be helped. I could have listened to my doctor before it got to that point but hey, where's the fun in that? Can't have me doing something without a bloody boot up my arse first. Meh. I wonder of that ever goes away? Probably not. Anyway, good luck getting your diabetes into remission LC. edit: Forgot to mention, I'm still taking Metformin. Not sure if I still need to, but I can't get free blood sugar testing strips without being on diabetes medication. Stupid commie healthcare. ^^

The blood sugar meter the hospital gave me, the meter device itself and the lancets can be bought almost anywhere and are retail $25 for 100. But the actual test strips that go into the meter are almost nowhere to be found that I've been able to discover and (retail) would cost $100+ per 100. Thus I am forced to depend on the hospital pharmacy/prescrip. to get the strips (they're much cheaper that way w/insurance etc. but it's just weird one aspect is widely available but the other is not). Since I'm a newbie I was testing constantly for a while. The pharmacy gave me a hard time when I wanted to refill because I'd used the 100 strips up faster than expected. I was all like "well how else am I supposed to gain knowledge of what my body does re: meals/foods and insulin dosage." I mean, I understand the needles, drug abuse and all that, but what, is there some worry about abuse of test strips by patients? I suppose I could sell them on the black market since they apparently can't be bought legitly almost anywhere. ...I'm suspicious of a deal between the company, insurance, and the hospital or something.

Hey! First and foremost I just wanted to say thanks to Eric Galad for this awesome mod (https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/438?tab=images) that builds on the community patch. Those two mods are basically essential (along with the UI mod) in my opinion. I just wanted to start this thread to ask for some clarifications on priests (with this mod + community patch) and make a feature request 1) I noticed Xoti doesn't have the Tier 9 'Summon Incarnate' spell. I checked without mods and this remains true. Maybe I'm misremembering - but I could have sworn this was not always the case. I noticed that C Lee's Game FAQs (https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/priest) mentions that the Gaun incarnate is the same as the Eothas incarnate suggesting I remembered correctly - so was this changed at some point and removed from her skill tree in a previous official patch? As a feature request - can I suggest either way giving the 'Eothas Incarnate' to Xoti at Tier 9. I think it makes sense - not least because one of the Dawnbringers that's summoned seems to wield a sickle (and so is clearly representing the Gaun aspect of Eothas anyway). 2) I realise this is perhaps beyond the scope of your mod, but equally it could be added as an additional package (just like summon rebalance) but would you consider changing the automatic spells that the priest subclasses get from vanilla? There used to be several mods on the Nexus that attempted this - but they all seem to be discontinued. I remember in particular Stardusk's Dynamic Priests mod - but it looks abandoned (the file is set to hidden on the Nexus as of 20/09/20) and was unfortunately quite overpowered and unbalanced the last time I played it (despite overall being an impressive achievement). It was also a radical change from vanilla which is not what I'm suggesting here. I'm thinking just slight tweaks to the automatic spells that Berath, Eothas, Magran and Gaun get. (I think Wael, Skaen and Rymrgand are good as is and don't require any changes). If you'd be up for doing this - perhaps we could use this thread to discuss possible suggestions for what those could be. Woedica is complicated - I think their automatic spells are fine as is - what's more difficult there is they don't get 'Symbol' or 'Incarnate' spells. It would be great to add their own versions of those - but I expect that would be almost impossible to do. 3) Finally I remember about a year ago reading that there was a plan to add trinkets for priests (and also druids) with bonus spells. Was this ever added as a mod on the Nexus? I can't seem to find it anywhere

You are correct of course. But where do the traditional conservatives turn? Certainly NOT the goddamned Democrats. They are even more hostile to traditional conservatives than the new Republican party. They will be happy for your votes but offer nothing but scorn, derision, and hostility in return even of those votes bring them to power. The Democrat Party of today is NOT a Big Tent. "Taking back" the Republican party is likely a futile as third party support. I've said before Reagan and Goldwater would vomit if they saw it but the neo-cons LIKE what they have created. nd there are more of them than "us" as it turns out. So where do the traditional small government conservatives turn?

We're back to mandatory home office or at the very least an office rotation that makes no sense for our team of three people. I dunno. I like being at the office more. It's less convenient but it's a lot easier to absorb what everyone else is working on, who they were talking to and picking up bits and pieces here and there. We interact a lot on Teams but that's not nearly the same. Well and the other two guys have the video conference discipline of five year olds. The absolute highlight last week was a short talk where one of them went to make himself a coffee on a frickin' freight train (or at least it sounded like freight train running through my eardrums) and the other one had his mic attached to his shirt. Which would be okay if that thing had any noise cancellation, but it doesn't, so it was a litany of rhasping sounds whenever he moved. Which.was.all.the.god.damned.time. It's occasionally hilarious too. Like Friday when one of the guys got told off by his wife for making too much noise. She just showed up and talked to him like he's a retarded five year old. Ugh. I'm beginning to understand why recruiters like to see MMO raiding experience on resumees. Pull off something like that on TS or Vent during the raid and it's a f'ing 50 dkp minus and the bench for repeat offenders.

I will be starting Shadow Run Hong Kong Extended Edition in few minutes. I have wanted to continue Dark Souls II into NG++ today, but kind of not really in the mood for that game at the moment Maybe because, I'll go to work tomorrow for the first time after my vaccation Anyway, there are still three fights from NG+, with which I would like to show-off to you So here we are Again I arrived at Throne of Want, and first as always were the Throne Guys. This time, I've decided to summon both NPCs in front of fog gate, and fight with them this way. And as before, they went down on the first try in only 1 min 42 sec

That reminds me of a NSFW comic strip: https://www.sexylosers.com/comic/283/ (that one's mostly harmless, still probably not a good idea to show it directly)

People Are Coming Together Across The Country To Clean Up Neighborhoods After A Weekend Of Protests same stories o' destruction. same stories o' rebuild. you see blm motivation as insufficient and thus police state action is warranted. predictable. would be tragic if not so predictable. please do, 'cause at the moment you would appear to be doing same shtick as skarp_one and approving police state tactics o' protest suppression. bruce is buying into a narrative much different from what is actually happening. HA! Good Fun!

Go with the green. You don't live in the States but everyone knows green is the official color of money.

There were plans and I pitched some ideas for trinkets (covering the basic premise that Priests and Druids need more flexibility when it comes to ability choice - like Wizards have with their grimoires) in order to discuss and find a good consensus. Unfortunately not everybody in the "mod group" (so to speak) was sharing my opinions on how those trinkets should work. I mean I wasn't expecting that everybody would be like "wow cool ok let's do that" - I just wanted to say that sorting those things out takes a bit of time (and a lot of posts ). Before we could make a real job of it @MaxQuest and @Phenomenum who did the actual implementations pretty much vanished from these forums and thus the trinkets mod couldn't get finished, sorry.

The housework is done. The work work is done. Today I'm breaking out the muzzle loaders and getting in some range time. Hunting season for archery and muzzleloaders starts on two weeks. I think this year I might buy a hunting license for the first time in years. My property shares a border with the Hatchee River WMA and Anderson Tully is only a 20 minute drive. I see deer around my place all the time. But I'd never consider harvesting one of them. I KNOW them! I'd rather hunt deer I don't know.

We may be living in times of pandemic and tumultuous social disturbances but when you can have some fun like this with D&D and its so enjoyable ....you realize its going to be okay

Tulips actually tastes very much like green peas. A friend and I once got kicked out of a place for nibbling a bit on the table decoration

You will not believe this, I was just about to respond with about an 8 paragraph post and I accidently shut down the session.....sorry Orog, I will respond later...I will respond because I wanted to say several things because your post has got interesting questions I didnt know where to respond But later I will redo the response in a better way

The focus of the far left rhetoric pretty much involves race and gender; at least at face value, qualifications never come into play when they demand that more POC, women and LGTB should hold positions of power like CEO. Why would they care that a POC, woman or LGTB doesn't accurately represent their views anymore that they care if a business fails?

Ok... I mean, the principal of hitting something from an angle to push it aside seems pretty straightforward to me, and seems like something that would be a lot less complicated to pull off than a "perfect block." As for it not happening, there's a certain American sport that revolves around the principle of redirecting an incoming object by striking it the right way with a weapon. I'm talking, of course, about baseball. This technique would translate really well in melee combat, and is a skill that the teenagers would believably have, as baseball is a common backyard game in the US. As for dodging, while in the real world this is a valuable and commonplace strategy, in a videogame it's limited by factors such as hitboxes, how well the hit detection syncs up to the visible animations, and of course lag.

I like how they inverse characters and show the different perspectives. It would have been easy to make one the good and one the bad guy, but they didn't went that way. It's especially good because if you rewatch the old movie, the "good kid" comes off as a real ass now (it was covered by some other youtube videos as well a while ago - basically showing examples of why he is actually the real bully). tl;dr - pretty good so far.

Everyone is talking about Cobra Kai, and I don't have anything else to watch right now, so I booted it up .... I was never much a fan of Karate Kid, etc. but man, that show is pretty good. Certainly going to keep watching it.

My nomination for the coolest desk lamp of September goes to:

the Shrek inspired sexual fantasy is inverse. he should be in the donkey costume and she in the dragon costume

Probably only makes sense to old farts now.

https://gizmodo.com/anti-maskers-forced-to-dig-graves-for-covid-19-victims-1845046526 At first I read that as dig their own graves. Thought that was harsh even for Indonesia.

"Man, that Dune trailer was so amazing I felt like I was the one walking through a desolate landscape, wearing a mask to stay alive, while political machinations that threaten the planet are at work in the background of my life."

https://kotaku.com/halo-fan-builds-25-000-brick-frigate-out-of-lego-1845006422 Steve Witt has spent the last five years building a Paris-class UNSC heavy frigate from Halo that is over seven feet long.

My solution to GOG's lackluster Linux support (they're still better than Epic et al in this respect) is that I buy from Steam. It's GOG's prerogative to support or not support whatever OSs they choose and I'm sure it's a business-driven decision where they feel developing and maintaining a Linux client for Galaxy is likely a net negative in terms of revenue. I can't fault them for that. Rather than get angry about it and vent on their boards and/or social media I simply choose to give my hard earned money to Valve instead, on account of their stellar Linux support. Seems like a much better solution, but that's just me.