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Just got back from 4 days in Vegas. We stayed at The Circa in downtown. It was fancy drinks, good food, and some very warm workouts.This one was called Paint the Town Red: One of the highlights was swimming at the UNLV pool. You can get a guest pass for $10, and it is a super nice campus and facility to check out: I peed on the Berlin Wall at Main Street Casino: My wife really wanted to make the run down to the Vegas signs near Stratosphere one morning, but it was about 97 degrees by 7 AM, so she was struggling. It is about 2 miles there and 2 miles back, but in the heat it can be a real grind. Heat doesn't seem to bother me as much. There is a beautiful memorial in the Arts district to the people who died in the 2017 shooting. I always like to swing by Oscar's steakhouse and order these meatballs. They remind me of my Italian grandmother. Art: It was a great trip. Now back to real life!

Has anyone tried a party of 4 SC rangers and a priest? Priest casts Spark the Souls on the party, then Withdraw on themselves. Rangers all cast Shadowed Hunters, then walk around invisible and untargetable with their animal companions, triggering their 8 stacks of Sparks on everything nearby. Enemies have nothing to target and can only watch as they all die

Spark the Souls of the Righteous is not only brilliant with the Least Unstable Coil or Effort+Avenging Storm for the Priest himself, this spell can generate an untouchable point of damaging pulsation. The effect (extendable because beneficial) continue to pulse even when the beneficial target (party or the priest) is isolated with Withdraw or Temporal Cocoon. Invisible, untargetable, damage dealer. With Beetle Shell, the allie is unvulnerable during the effect until the shell break, and he stay able to receive friendly effect ; the Spark the Souls of the Righteous effect also work well, like riposte effect etc. We cant target every summon with the spell, barbaric totems sadly cant be targeted by the spell (but by Withdraw).

It may surprise you to learn that 'Don't worry, they're not voting for the racist liar because of his racism or his lies, they're voting for him because they like that he prevents policies that protect the poor and vulnerable' does not endear his voter base to me.

Might just piggyback onto Lexx's point by reposting a previous partial list of Trump's actions leading up to being voted out: Calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals. Insulting a prisoner of war for having been captured Implying a journalist attempting to do her job by asking probing questions was PMSing Responding to an act of violence carried out by his supporters in his name not by condemning their actions, but by saying that the people following him are very passionate and love this country. Mocking a reporter about his congenital joint condition Saying a judge was unable to effectively do his job because of his Mexican heritage. Bragging that his celebrity status enables him to sexually assault women. Dismissing bragging about being able to sexually assault women as ‘locker room banter’. Being the subject of at least 25 separate accusations of sexual misconduct. Implying that some of his accusers were not attractive enough for him to sexually assault. Perpetuating the lie that vaccines cause autism. Asking a black reporter if they can set a meeting up with the Congressional Black Caucus, and if they were friends of hers. Labelling any unflattering news story as ‘fake news’ and calling those media outlets ‘enemy of the American People’. Barring those outlets from press conferences. Implying that in a clash between actual Nazis and Klan members yelling slogans such as ‘Jews will not replace us’ and counter protesters, in which a white supremacist killed one person and injured 19 others with their vehicle, both sides are approximately morally equal, and later saying there were very fine people on both sides. Calling athletes who peacefully protested against police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem 'sons of bitches' and suggesting they should be fired. Implying that media outlets who publish what he characterises as ‘fake news’ might lose their media license. Joking that his vice president wants to kill all gay people. Sharing anti Muslim videos posted by a member of a hate group. Suggesting that the USA should accept more refugees from places like Norway or Asia, rather than African nations. Inspiring a white supremacist website to write that he is more or less on the same page as them with regards to race and immigration. Suggesting it was treasonous not to applaud his speeches. Using a school shooting as an opportunity to criticise FBI investigations into himself. Saying that it was great that China’s president was now President for life, and suggesting that the USA should give that a shot someday. Siding with the leader of a foreign nation over the leaders of his own intelligence agencies. Mocking the testimony of a victim of sexual assault. Praising a congressman for assaulting a reporter. Suggesting that several congresswomen of colour who are American citizens, three of whom were born in the USA, should go back to their own country. Repeatedly downplaying the dangers of a global pandemic. Suggesting the use of untested drugs against the advice of medical professionals. Withholding pandemic aid from states with governors that aren’t ‘grateful enough’. Calling on protestors to violate lockdowns. Publicly speculating about the possible effectiveness of eating or injecting disinfectant to fight a virus. Suggesting he has been treated worse than presidents who were assassinated. Calling a congresswoman ‘Shamu’ and suggesting that she visited every buffet restaurant in the state. Suggesting that a 75 year old peace activist, hospitalised after being shoved by police officers, ‘could be an ANTIFA provocateur’. Sharing a video of one of his supporters yelling ‘white power’. Saying he might not accept the results of an election if he loses. Sending well wishes to someone who was arrested on charges of aiding a sex offender. Calling someone pathetic for accurately saying that a pandemic is widespread. Suggesting that a police officer mistakenly using deadly force is similar to a golfer missing a putt. Encouraging people to vote twice. Refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he lost an election. Ridiculing a political opponent for heeding the advice of scientists. Saying that people who tried to run a campaign bus of his political rival off the road ‘did nothing wrong’. Falsely declaring himself the winner of an election. Falsely claiming that election fraud has been committed. Urging a crowd at a rally to march to the capitol. Telling the crowd, after they commit domestic terrorism by entering the capitol building, erecting a gallows with the apparent intent to hang his Vice President, entering senate chambers and looting several items, ‘We love you. You’re very special’. Continuing, despite his words already having inspired a right wing terrorist attack on the capitol building, to utter the same rhetoric to cause that attack. Trying to have his Vice President overturn the election.

I'm not sure if you are serious or if you really didn't see what happened? Here, just some stuff off the top of my head + 30 seconds of google: - He is openly racist - Crapton of nepotism - How he handled Covid-19 - Immigration politics - Lied constantly and got away with everything - Insurrection, and got away with it (so far, we'll see what happens next) - Withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement - Wanted to get out of NATO - Is obviously a russian puppet - Enlisting Foreign Officials to Help His Candidacy (remember Ukraine) - Dismantled the Iran atom deal - Generally anti-science - Is part of some weird religious cult (ofc he is not religious, but he and his people don't mind using whatever they can to get power and money). Does all of this affect the rest of the world? No, but yes. America has become untrustworthy. Their word means nothing. They tell you one thing now and in 4 years, **** it. Now give those people the most powerful military in the world. No thanks. What year was your high school time? /edit: By the way, I'm not saying that Biden / Democrats are better. Most of them are the same coin, just different side, which makes all of this even worse.

EA pulls a “reverse Ubisoft,” makes some old BioWare DLC free | Ars Technica

For me Ubi games lack “meat” - their games are extremely repetitive and core gameplay loop is just too shallow to make those enjoyable to me. They are pretty but the glamour disappears after a session or two. The closest I came to enjoying a modern Ubi game was FarCry3 - shooting was enjoyable enough and it wasn’t padded that badly - I still started to get bored with it halfway through. I didn’t bother trying AssCreed reboots as while they shake things up a little bit, they seemed to add stuff I tend to hate, like grindy power progression in an action game.

Theres only 39 hydrogen stations in the entire US: Fact of the Month #18-01, January 29: There Are 39 Publicly Available Hydrogen Fueling Stations in the United States | Department of Energy Luckily he lives in the state with 37 of them.

Good to know bankers are all going to hell! Keeping it light... because funny and stuff... is going to hell light?

Probably discussions about politics and religion belong in another thread. They always devolve into something non-funny and tedious.

Deuteronomy 23:19 ESV - “You shall not charge interest on loans to your brother, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that is lent for interest." Luke 6:34-35 ESV - "And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil." Leviticus 25:35-38 ESV - “If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God." There are, I think, a few more admonishments about loans and money lending. That said, I'm not sure fighting a wrong with another wrong is a good idea...

Bull Sand Fort: Humber defence to be sold to highest bidder - BBC News

Bruce was forced to become a Drump supporter to fit in at the KKKodex.

It's impressive that he manages to have 4 visible guns, and still look like an unthreatening dork

If this happens in liberal california, imagine what happens elsewhere in the country.

Until Mononoke, most of Miyazaki's work didn't get released in the US. Pre-Ghibli Castle of Cagliostro had a very small 1980 release but until it had a bigger 90s release was probably better known to US audiences due its use in the Cliff Hanger laserdisc game, and Nausicaä had a hugely edited release that cut 22 minutes out of it and was released as Warriors of the Wind in 1985 (and is the reason Miyazaki is adamant about no cuts) Ghibli's Totoro was released in 1988 for airplane viewing on US-Japan trips and I think Grave of the Fireflies also got a very small festival release that year. Both got a second distribution through VHS releases in 1993 (Troma distributed Totoro theatrically but I can't remember if Totoro played locally or not - I didn't see it if it did). My understanding is that post-Mononoke, the direct-to-home releases of Kiki's Delivery Service (and to a lesser extent, Castle in the Sky) did really well for Disney and led to their continuing with translating the Ghibli back catalogue (but not for theatrical release). Lassiter championing Spirited Away probably save the deal, ultimately, and the awards nominations didn't hurt as they could be used to promote the home releases which, AFAIK, did decent. I'm not surprised to hear Weinstein scuttled Mononoke's release schedule, I had to hunt a showing down, traveling to an intown art theater* to see it on an exclusive week engagement. That week and that theater was the only place locally it ever played. Compare that to Akira which was released in the US in 1989 and was shown in some of the bigger chain theaters locally, albeit for an equally limited time frame (but I think Akira lasted more than a week). *the original definition of "art theater" theater, and not a porn theater using the 'art theater' name, to be clear

Yeah nice. Unfortunately kills from Darcozzi fire shields are quite rare because the damage is so paltry.

I started playing Sea of Thieves with my son. He's much better at it than I am. Basically I get to steer the ship while he runs around doing the important stuff. It's a strange game.

Yeah, I do seem to remember him occasionally saying that things were taken out of context, but I honestly can't remember any examples where he provided context that justified what he'd said or done. Personally, his record does not inspire me to give him the benefit of the doubt that such context exists. I think the more likely scenario, given everything he's consistently shown about who he is, is that every time he says or does something awful, it's because he's an awful person who says and does awful things.

Its a long list i guess, and I am not keen on doing wall of text but few examples (which might seem insignificant but are not for me) ban on petrol cars required driving assistants in cars (including speed limit imposer) energy market requirements and it goes on and on

American politicians are actively working on dismantling even the crappy form of democracy they currently have. It baffles me how americans don't realize where they are heading, and if you try to speak about it, they don't take it serious and / or laugh about it. Kinda how it went in the 1930s in germany, I guess. American children are pledging allegiance to a stupid flag and talk **** about "one nation under god" every day at school - everyone who doesn't participate gets bullied into it. How you can not see that this is step 1 in fascism and indoctrination is beyond me.

Yes, and this is the same thing about why a Priest, with the Least Unstable Coil, can get some inspirations per pulse, even himself he's not affected by SSR. The Fire Shield from Darcozzi Paladin work in a same way.

Just gonna come back to this one. Personally I think, long term, the best thing for most people would be Trump in prison. I think it would be best if he saw some serious consequences, because the more time goes by without consequences for his actions, the more it seems like a good idea for someone to try it again.

I ended up "solving" my CK3 de jure drift problem ...by maximising my de jure drift. The size of my primary kingdom of Galicia was too far gone to ever be able to realistically convert it: hell, large swathes of Morocco and southern France are now fully parts of Galicia. So instead of trying to do anything about that, I encouraged it by manually trying to shrink the Kingdom of Andalusia to be as small as possible, then once it was down to a measly eight counties I had pre-converted to my culture, I would be able to finally end this silly struggle. But there was another stupid problem in that I needed to be in the Hostility phase to be able to end it, and one such phase had just concluded. It's like if I need to do something by midnight, but it's now 1:00 AM and I need to wait out the entire day for midnight to roll around again. Except the problem with that analogy is that progress to the next phase is dependent on actions by all characters involved - specifically hostile actions. And with full control of the region established amidst centuries of peace, that meant such progress was glacially slow. So began a long and stupid grinding phase, where essentially my only valid hostile actions were to upgrade every single castle in Spain over and over (worth 3 points), and to turn full puritan, spying on everyone to expose their love affairs and other secrets (worth 10 points). I need 1000 points to advance one phase. And I had to do this cycle twice over to get into the correct phase, so that's 2000 points required from spamming those actions. The game started in the year 867. I had essentially "won" by around 1040. It then took until around 1260, mostly sitting around waiting for progress bars to complete, for this torture to finally be over. So yeah, that's Fate of Iberia. The struggle system has potential in that it's an interesting journey, turning the Reconquista into more than just Holy War spam like it used to be. But the destination is idiotically arbitrary, requiring the player to jump through a series of hoops that bear little relation to sensible gameplay, and instead turn it into a grind-fest of nonsensical actions. I suppose that's better than the other way around, in that I imagine either modders or a future patch can fairly easily update the "win" condition to be less stupid, and that the mechanical changes that lead up to it are in fairly servicable condition. I don't necessarily think I'll ever play this particular struggle ever again, but if they ever port the system to other regions of the game, then it's fairly clear what needs to be improved.

Hm, I think it's probably my favorite concluding act to a Hayao Miyazaki movie - not that that's saying much, given that I tend to not care for the endings of his movies. I mean hell, for his movies, Princess Mononoke is probably my second favorite final act after Nausicaa. I like Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, My Neighbor Totoro, and Kiki's Delivery Service all at least a bit more than Princess Mononoke, but all of them have pretty anticlimactic final acts that left me somewhere between slightly disappointed and quite cold (with Howl's Moving Castle being the worst, which is especially egregious given how much I adore the first 2/3rds of that film - it would probably be my second favorite Ghibli movie after Whisper of the Heart if not for how much the final act makes the movie implode). Well, our opinions almost never align (and in fact, much more often they're diametrically opposed than not), so I suppose it's only natural we can't agree here, . On a side-note, I can't help but feel there's a pretty natural comparison of Nausicaa to Miyazaki's Future Boy Conan: Nausicaa feels like the more adult (or more precisely, treating the viewer more like an adult), more concise, and more satisfying version of their respective stories. If you like the longer form of a TV show combined with a more lighthearted tone and an ensemble of characters, I guess there's value to be had in Future Boy Conan...but I'll take one Nausicaa over the entirety of the cast of Future Boy Conan, thank you very much. Thanks for the article - some interesting background for the film there, and also I did not realize that Ghibli films have a history of failing that badly in the States. I'm kinda surprised they keep trying if it keeps going so badly, .

yeah this is a change from poe1. no more sneak attack bonus damage from a rogue with spark the souls anymore but it means priest can empower spark the souls and everyone gets a super charged zapper.

I believe that StSotR counts as an attack from the priest, not the companion or summon on which it is casted, which means it would proc hemorrhaging, etc. from Effort and so forth wielded by the priest, as well as proc inspirations from Least Unstable Coil.

Ha! He's back at it again!

That may be a purposeful nod, given how much DNA DMC and Bayonetta share.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1184370/view/3400797688635109882 august 11 is new dlc release. september 29 is console and enhanced edition release date. HA! Good Fun!

Is there a less violence button?

I'm roughly halfway through Yakuza Kiwami 2. It's standard Yakuza where the main story is a gripping serious drama with Kiryu being the most stoic man of all time and the side stories are a mix of heartwarming and completely ridiculous goofball comedy. There are the tried and true mini-games like karaoke and darts plus others, and a variety of gambling games; western ones like poker and blackjack, as well as a bunch of Asian gambling games that I have absolutely no idea how they work. I always tell myself that I'll learn at least one of them, but I never do. There are 2 reasons for this: First, there is so much other content that I not only fully understand but also enjoy that, why would I waste many hours learning a game that I may or may not wind up enjoying when I can instead do the gravure photo shoot mini-game? Second, I don't even understand what I'm looking at. I would first have to spend an undetermined amount of time learning what all the cards in a hanafuda deck mean before I can even attempt to decipher the rules. Since I have zero desire to 100% this game, or any other, for that matter, why waste my time on completely optional content I don't understand in the slightest? Anyway, besides the smaller mini-games, Yakuza always has 1 or 2 big... I hesitate to call them mini-games, given that they're so deep and meaty that they could easily be standalone games. ThIs time around it's Majima Construction Company and Club Management. Majima Construction is essentially a RTS while Club Management is, well, a management game. I am completely and utterly dog$#!+ at RTS, so I'm not going to bother with Majima Construction. Club Management, on the other hand, is super fun, so I plan to see that through to completion. I haven't looked up a guide or wiki, but I'm guessing that the rewards for completing these are Rush Style and Beast Style, given that I've only had access to Kiryu's basic Brawler Style. With any luck, completing Club Management grants Beast Style, it's always my favorite. I have no clue what would grant Dragon/Legend Style, but that usually isn't available until late game.

Yeah I actually read German government report. Like in that politico article mentions EU has already imported more gas from Russia this year than they have budgeted for entire year. Norway has increased amount of gad they export. Meaning that Germany and Europe aren't running out of gas this year, but fear is how next year would look like. Even then it is gas price hike that they fear more than lack ofgas

Well, got the offer A bit perplexed as I really thought I bombed the interviews or at least didn't come across as all that competent. The 30% pay raise is very hard to turn down, even worrying about the job sucking in other ways.

Started the new job today. Would have been a lot easier if I hadn't spent saturday and sunday basically doing two 11 hour shifts walking and talking as a Handler for the Mando's at LFCC raising money for charity. Didn't get back from London till about 22:40. Then was up this morning at 0600 to get sorted and train into the new place. Still, the weekend was an interesting experience, and I did get to shake Simon Kassianides hand when they made him an honorary Merc.

Couldn't agree more on vertical half-walls. I also love other suggestions - half-stairs (I build stores at 1.5 height just as the person above), more anchor points for pillars, and vertical triangle. But vertical half-walls is a must IMO. I'm not sure what else we could do for the devs to hear this, but I really think those things should be in game.

Since we have room for one now, we found a store that sells used/refurbished (or whatever) gym/and higher quality home version of exercise machines. Because I still refuse to pay $3k-10k for such a thing. So we got this older Precor elliptical that's taller than I am for $675. Pros: both hubby and I felt comfortable enough on it despite our height/size difference, the motion is very smooth, it is VERY QUIET/build quality seems great, it doesn't make my knees hurt, and it has a spot to hold the tablet/phone. Possible cons: the lowest incline setting is still an incline (although I think I personally prefer that anyway) and the leg "stride" length might be a little short for some ppl's desires. The motion feels like a cross between a stair stepper and a stand-up cycling motion, if there was such a thing. We just want it for 20-30min. at a time sessions, nothing major. Anyway, for the price. even if it breaks in a few years, or it turns into a clothes hanger half the year, we won't cry about wasting thousands. More importantly, now I don't have to go outside, even more.

Owlcat games are far from perfect, but they're good enough to pour 100 hours into each game. Perfect is the enemy of good. I am glad to see somebody tackling a tactical RPG in this setting. Some day perhaps we'll even see one for WFRP.

I read faster than the characters talk, I skip a lot of dialogue.

That sounds a lot like Obsidian.