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I like to remind my co-workers that kids only retain about 5% of the content we teach. I don't get invited to a lot of staff parties.

Exactly. Nothing much happened, although I believe there were a few days when I didn't "win" the leaderboard.. I'm plowing along on the job hunt side of things, my father's had his second dose of chemo and adjusting to all that, and I'm further distracting myself keeping on with the Sith Acolyte armour before London Comic-Con in October.

When I was in high school I had a teacher, Mr. Philbrook, Who taught economics, American government, and honors American history. Whatever I have become in terms of education, self education in particular, I really owe to him. He discussed his subjects not in terms of facts and figures rather as cause and affect. Not only did it completely change the way I thought about his subject material it made me think about all of the classes I had already taken up to that point. By my junior year in high school I had realized I was pretty smart comparatively speaking and could get C’s and B’s with minimal effort and investment. So I was comfortable doing that. Mr. Philbrook managed to get me to really THINK about what I was learning. That made me want to learn more. Which leads to reading books. Which leads to reading more books. Your comment about teaching kids to teach themselves made me remember him again. I’m sure he has long since passed on. I wish I could’ve told him he made a difference.

Blast More Powerful Than Tunguska May Have Devastated Ancient City.

Honest opinion time... people today are soft 😠 Try spending the first 30 years of your life never knowing if you're going to wake up tomorrow or end up as the proverbial shadow on a wall before daylight. All that worrying about a virus that is both avoidable (if people could get out of their cozy little comfort zones) and at this point in time also treatable (as in treat the symptoms, not to be confused with cured) in those parts of the world where you can afford throw money at problems (like, having actual, workable healthcare systems). Yet, it's the latter part of the world that whinges the loudest for some reason.

I've been getting some mileage out of that combo vaccine I got some months back (whooping cough/tetanus/diphtheria), hanging out with my friends and their newborn daughter a few times now. They are quite adorable when not even two months old and of a happy disposition. Getting to cuddle a bit with "Uncle Gorth" and when it's time to leave, I can just hand her back to her parents with an "I'll be back and borrow her in a few weeks time again" 😂 I got the vaccine because newborns can't really be vaccinated against whooping cough and I sure as heck didn't want to drag something avoidable into their home.

Hey guys. I got home last night. It’s been a very interesting two weeks or so let me tell you. I started driving north with no particular destination in mind. I followed I-55 north as far as Bloomington IN. I didn’t feel like dealing with Chicago so followed I-39 until Wausau. Then kept going until I ended in up in a little town called Bayfield WI. I got a room in a crappy motel that cost way more than it should have and spent two days there doing nothing. And I do mean NOTHING. I spent the better part of two days sitting on the pier and looking at the lake. I’d never seen Lake Superior before so I can cross that one off my list. After the second day I decided to go home. I turned on my phone and texted my cousin and her husband and told them I was in WI and offered to take them out to dinner. I had not seen either of them in 10 years or more. They live in a little town in the western part of the state. Totally out of the way but what the hell. The next night I met them for dinner and had a great time catching up. They offered to let me stay in their guest house for a few days if I wanted so I accepted. I forgot how much fun they are. Anyway, he is a retired Minnesota state trooper, she is a retired teacher, and they have a business boarding and training horses. Plus a few of their own. Helping them take care of their horses and boarders was thoroughly enjoyable. This led to the best part of the trip… I met someone. They have an equine vet that visits and I got to talking to her and we just clicked. Her name is Gail. She’s a year older than me, divorced with an adult daughter. I asked her out. It went really well. I asked her out again for two days later. That one went well too. Her biggest interests are animals, books, and simplicity in life. That is definitely me. My cousin is all excited about this. She put her “match maker” hat on and you can guess what was doing there. I ended up spending a week with them and had three dates with Gail. It was great. Finally, the time came to go home. Gail and I decided to keep in touch and just see where things go. I live 10 hours and three states away and that won’t change in the near future. Anyway, when I turned my phone back on in Bayfield I got a VM from Stephanie. She finally saw my e-mail I guess. She asked me to please call her. Since I started the exchange I felt obligated and did so while driving to Sparta. We spoke for about 15 minutes and it was awkward but friendly. She asked if we could speak face to face because there was so much she wanted to talk to me about. I agreed and told her I’d meet her for coffee when I got back. I met her this morning. She is working as a supervising RN on the 3rd shift at a big hospital in Memphis. A very nice plum for her. I met her for coffee after work. It’s the first time I’ve seen her or spoken to her since mediation. It was… awkward. She started off right away wanting to apologize again for how things ended. I stopped her and told her it was all in the past. I had forgiven her and she should forgive herself. The remarkable thing is I had. Just then when I saw her I received whatever closure I needed I guess. We spoke for over an hour about Sunny, how we were doing, and happier times. I didn’t get the sense that she is interested in any kind of reconciliation. I tried to subtly imply that was not going to happen. She asked if we could keep in touch and just talk sometimes. I said I’d like that. Maybe some wounds can heal. I put a lot of my stuff in storage before I left. I really had no idea where I was going or how long I’d be gone. Or even if I was coming back at all to be honest. So I’m spending the day putting my house back together. I’m in a much better place now than two weeks ago. It’s hard to believe Sunny’s passing triggered a full on mid-life crisis but I guess that is what it is. Probably not out of the woods but I do feel better. Gail asked me to send her pics of my house and I’m doing it now. I printed and framed a picture of Sunny and put it on the wall next to pics of Bella, Tommy, & Desiree. It’s of her playing in the creek. A happy smile, a happy dog, and a happy memory. The world is going to keep turning… all we can do is go along for the ride. This got really long and rambly again. Sorry about that.

Fixed just in time! That Last Azlanti competiition would be on an entirely different level though.

Nurmanurma was a good book but the combat and most of the gameplay was terribad. You'll be glad it's mostly skippable.

Is that part of the purpose of your reminding them of such things? 😏

And then people wonder why nice guys feel entitled to a date for being nice guys

That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence Bruce. If you think that the Russians killed lots of civilians it's up to you to prove it, and anecdote != data. The US did 'bomb Fallujah to the ground'. OK, they mostly used artillery to do it rather than aircraft, but so what. That was the whole point of telling civilians to leave and declaring it a closed military zone. Hardly matters whether you use precision weapons targeted solely at militants if the net effect is killing as many civilians as an indiscriminate attack. About 1% of Fallujah's civilian population was killed in roughly 3 months. About 1% of Aleppo's civilian population died too, over 5 years. To put it in perspective, when the decidedly imprecise Iraqi army retook Fallujah from ISIS in 2016 the estimate of civilian deaths is... ~0.05% of its population, or one twentieth the number the US caused. And that army was meant to be a rabble of whacky shia dervishes looking for some sunni babies to turf out of incubators and impale on their helmets while flagellating themselves and chanting Ya Ali. Same thing for Aleppo, the total number of civilian casualties after the Russian intervention is way way lower than you'd suspect from the coverage, about half the 5 year average for the full battle. Conversely, the casualties in Mosul and Raqqa (proportionately, since it's also way smaller than the other two) are way way higher than you'd think from the reporting. The total number of civilian deaths for 2016 in Aleppo- including the nearly 1000 killed by the rebels using decidedly non high tech/ aerial mortars, snipers and rockets- is 'only' ~3000. The number killed in Mosul by coalition airstrikes alone is just under 6000 per Amnesty International, and as with Fallujah (and Aleppo for that matter) an awful lot more were killed by bog standard artillery than airstrikes. The independently assessed upper limit estimate of civilian casualties caused by Russia in 4+ years is ~6000, per Airwars.

Hero U, of course:

So when there is a literal "notice to burn" on a library's books, they were rescued by the fictional alias of a fictional character played by Bruce Campbell on "Burn Notice"... Is that someone working a little bit of meta into it?

I have only played Azata through chapter 4 of the beta and maybe I played half of chapter 3 with Trickster and the best way I'd describe the difference is CG mostly concerned with good (Azata) vs CN with more of a focus on chaos rather than morality (Trickster). That's the most spoiler free way I can describe it.

Arcane Dampener is quite bad for a Nalpasca because you get the drug crash and it will not go away even once Arcane Dampener runs out. You have to take in a new drug to make it go away - or rest. The only thing that can prevent Arcane Dampener to crit/hit/graze you is your Will defense. But it is very difficult to get it so high that enemy wizards will mostly miss. You'd need high RES and INT (Duality of Mortal Presence helps of course), Bull's Will and all that. Interrupting the casters before they can complete AD also helps of course. Maybe Rooting Pain can help as long as you keep spending the wounds for interrupting stuff (like Force of Anguish) while gaining new wounds via drugs and damage. Rooting Pain should fire quite often then, interrupting your surroundings, too. Arcane Dampener becomes relatively common once you visit certain higher-level areas. Usually it's only cast by kith wizards (or kith wizard multiclasses). Iirc Elric's Balance Polishing Mod fixes this in a way that after Arcane Dampener runs out the crash will get removed, too (as one would assume). This would help.

I really liked him on White Collar

four levels (at least) o' rogue underground chemist is kinda the obvious synergy for multiclassing a bomber type alchemist, but we hadn't considered twenty levels via legend. HA! Good Fun!

“Elvira” comes out well bummer, turns out I never had a shot after all LOL!

Man, yall have it bad. My stomach is weird, any problems I have usually manifest out the other end. Which is a different kind of unpleasant, but more manageable. I do have a massive sweet tooth though and have to resist it hard. I try to eat protein stuff flavored like chocolate, but it's just not the same. I have no idea what pink lasagna is, but bolognese lasagna is the only one I'd be willing make. Anyways Steins;Gate....I haven't watched more yet because I'm trying to finish up TOS. But the 1.5 episodes I've seen have been very weird and there's a Cafe where they dress like cats. Lmao

I'll have to see how it works in WotR, but Studied Target and Sneak Attack should work with bombs as they are attack rolls. So if you're just looking to passively boost your bomb throwing, Slayer is the way to go for more bab and saves. It fits with your attributes to boot. Bard could be a good fit, but you're looking at some MAD issues. One of the 9th level Int casters would work better, though I imagine 1st level spells late game with low caster level would be lame.

Bwahahaha hilarious! And most parents teach their children to worship an omnipotent space wizard. "Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!" Imo between the Aegis ship picket offshore Japan and the THAAD batteries in HI, we could take down a NK ballistic missile. 👍 Anywho, whats the latest variant? Has it morphed into the Tri-Lambs yet?

Nope, it was definitely the spice stuff, because I doubled down and had more to make sure and that was a bad decision. Still don't really know why. There's not even anything weird in the ingredients. I have had an endoscopic exam, although not for that purpose. Presumably, if they had found something like that, they woulda mentioned something, but I don't know for sure, . Anyways, I'm perfectly fine as long as I don't eat stuff I shouldn't, so I think I'll be okay...I think.

I imagine it was worse for syndicated programs at the time since they might be pre-empted by other local station programming. It still could have made a light arc, without heavy episode-to-episode continuity. Comics at the time did that.

is not same as the quoted material, is it? sure, US has overwhelming retaliatory capabilities, but that is only half o' what you quoted. ballistic missile defense has been anything but reliable in tests and the terrible reality is that the most effective nuke delivery strategy for nk is gonna be low tech-- back o' an ice cream truck or in a cargo ship or even a freaking high altitude balloon carrying a smallish but indiscriminate nuclear package according to a few nightmare scenarios. the truth is scary and unfortunate is not particular reassuring. 'course, most american parents sell their kids on tales o' imaginary seasonal bringers of gifts, and they do so for years. am not an expert on parenting. we were brought up with a heavy dose o' folk lore and fairytales, but we were never lied to 'bout such stuff. but again, am not a parent expert. perhaps is best to sell 'em a fairytale rather than having 'em need face what those o' us who grew up during the cold war era had to live with. am suspecting is difficult to find anybody Gromnir's age or older who did not have nuclear holocaust nightmares more than once. HA! Good Fun!

People in those countries appear to have way less self entitlement issues, than people in more fortunate places. Edit: And the point wasn't about life in Hiroshima post 1945, but life in Western Europe post 1960, which just so happened to be located next to The Soviet Union and having at best, at any moment of every day, 30 minutes warning before your reality looked like the picture. Edit2: And yes, that was a bit of a concern and something people worried a bit about.

What's funny is South Africa is now part of BRICS, has an independent foreign policy, is no longer part of the Angloshpere (U.S., Australia, U.K., Canada), and its worlds largest trading partner is....China. Yet Bruce comes off sounding like some Englishman from the mid-20th century xD. Ye long for white colonialism of yore, God Save the Queen! *rollseyes*

Australia is probably one of the few places in the world that has no Burger Kings. Edit: When they wanted to start up franchises down here, they found out there was already a small burger place with the name and they didn't want to sell it 😁

I'm playing Lost Judgment on PS4 (Pro). Technically, it doesn't release until Friday, but since I "pre-ordered" it I get to play it early. I put "pre-ordered" in quotes since buying a game a few days before launch when reviews have already been out in the wild (RGG and SEGA have confidence in their game so they lifted the review embargo well before launch) is rather different than pre-ordering months ahead of time with nothing but trailers and media hype to go on. Anyway, it's a Ryu Ga Gotoku game, if you like their games, and I most definitely do, you will almost certainly like this. The Judgment series is in essence continuing what the Yakuza series did during the Kiryu Kazuma saga with action combat where you smash thugs with bicycles. Meanwhile, Yakuza is continuing with turn-based JRPG Dragon Quest-esque combat, presumably with the lovable Ichiban Kasuga as the main protagonist. The one... I hesitate to call this a misstep since it's critical to the main story, but one of the main areas the game takes place is a school and as Takayuki Yagami you get to beat the **** out of some kids. Granted, these kids are *******s but it still feels weird and wrong to be kicking the crap out of children as a middle-aged guy with a wallet chain. That quibble aside, you get to make friends with some of the kids, help them resolve issues, and get into wacky shenanigans like getting roped into helping the dance club choreograph their dance routine. It's the standard juggling act of crazy tonal shifts between very serious dramatic issues and hilarious hijinks that has no right to work but somehow always does because RGG are really good at this. It's how well the characters are written and acted that helps carry this. You meet a kid like Kyoko Anasawa from the Mystery Research Club and you can't help but want to get wrapped up in her story because she's so likable. As an aside, I wonder what will happen after this game. The rumor is that the reason the Judgment games aren't on PC is because the agency representing the actor who plays Yagami is blocking it (because... ??? ). If the rumors are to be believed, RGG and SEGA are rather unhappy about this because RGG is obviously quite capable and comfortable in putting their games on PC (all the Yakuza games are on PC minus the weird Japan-only spinoffs) and they are losing out on another source of profit. I heard they plan to cut bait with the actor after this game so we may get a different protagonist in future games.

Stats focused on INT PER and DEX, while CON and MIG were 8, and resolve dumped. In hindsight, I didn't need to use Bloodmage going the combat route, since most fights would finish in one 'round' of buffs. PER was not too bad, since I negated the debuff using Xoti's Dire blessing, or Aware from Witch Serafen.

At this point you'd probably want to go to Hasango, and from there continue the main quest line, doing side quests along the way as you wish.

I can only imagine that he didn't have that much control over the game direction for those 2. What's funny is that IWD2 is my favorite IE game.... Tbh I could have lived with the city and the story, because the art was gorgeous. Although I do agree that the city felt empty and a pale shadow of Baldur's Gate (the cities in Kingmaker suck too). I played PoE when the last patch came out and to be honest all the classes felt underwhelming. The mages didn't have any cool spells that make mages cool...Oh my god, you made me remember the health mechanic in the game...I had suppressed that atrocity. D:OS is a spawn of something unholy, I do not wish to think about...especially because BG3 is shaping up to be like it.

Sorry, I'd rather not be involved in any challenges. 🙂

This is definitely aping Betrayal at Krondor. Can it be anywhere near as good?

Yeah, and then he goes and attacks Dumb and Dumber and Beavis and Butthead, so maybe he was just a crotchety old man towards the end.