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we did sunny side up eggs (wife demurred but the husband and daughter partook) and even found fresh sage in the local market, so we added fried sage leaves. the eggs, while served in a manner not common to most japanese kitchens, weren't deemed particular exotic so we didn't mention. am highly recommending fried sage leaves for this meal btw. is a minor thing, but is one o' those additions which not only is adding welcome color, thus enhancing presentation, but is surprising tasty... perhaps even unexpected. didn't come up with the sage idea on our own btw; is how a michelin breakfast place we visit often does it, so we stole the idea and make no apologies. @majestic biscuits and gravy does indeed appear unappealing, particular if you have never seen similar. is a whole lotta not-americans who would never choose to eat biscuits and gravy based on a picture o' the meal. am gonna note the family's daughter enjoyed her meal with visible and uncharacteristic gusto. she is probable graduating from college 'bout now and makes us wonder if she makes biscuits and gravy based on the recipe we left behind or if she perhaps used a search engine to replicate. while improbable, we like to imagine the oddball japanese girl grossing out her friends with the infrequent plate o' biscuits and gravy. HA! Good Fun!

As promised before, Kazakhstan’s oil to EU will start to bypass Russia, starting in september. https://www.euractiv.com/section/central-asia/news/kazakhstan-to-start-oil-sales-via-azeri-pipeline-to-bypass-russia/

Heh... "proto punk" Some old Australian pop music from around the time I was born. Must have made it internationally over the years, because I remember hearing the song on the radio as a child Edit: As for the B-52's... what's not to love about them? The sheer number of all-nighters pulled at university, listening to The B-52's and The Cult on an old tape recorder, brains addled by beer (because we couldn't afford food) and working on some truly innovative software projects while more or less parting ways with our brains in the process

Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition - I'd forgotten how *massive* this game feels and it's also surprising how well it's held-up over the years.

Grits are incredibly good and versatile though. I mean I can see turning down biscuits and gravy, but who in their right mind (besides those with shellfish allergies) would turn down shrimp and grits?

Man, I was just thinking that the CK3 DLC I've been playing hasn't been worth the purchase price. Evidently Paradox agrees. Yeah, just double the price of old, anaemic DLC, what's the worst that could happen? Feels like it's pretty much a skeleton crew running the game as it is, the pace of development, hell the pace of implementing trivial fixes, has been glacially slow. Has the Bloodlines 2 disaster hobbled the company that much?

Reported Assuming it's the sausage gravy that you find unappealing as opposed to the biscuit. American biscuit not a cookie or cracker or whatever wrong people (I kid) call a biscuit. It's super heavy so I rarely eat it but when I do I like it with over easy eggs and sometimes hot sauce.

is always good to keep in mind "exotic" is relative. in the past we visited japan every year or so. had an acquaintance and to pay 'em back for repeated hospitality, and per their request, we cooked his family a quintessential american meal they were unlikely to see on the menu at denny's or similar "western" family restaurants. we made 'em biscuits and gravy. make breakfast sausage with ingredients available in japanese stores weren't too difficult. "biscuits" cause consternation 'cause what american calls biscuits is an outlier, but make homemade biscuits is easy and quick and the dairy we use for the biscuits am also using for the gravy... which is perhaps the real mind blower for japanese and most other asians. dairy-based gravy? ... their eleven-year-old daughter loved the meal, but... biscuits and gravy were perhaps too exotic for the ordinary japanese palate. HA! Good Fun!

Helwalker/Shifter with max MIG and INT and a healing pet puts out enormous raw damage over time with the Boar form. For a Shifter the raw wouding DoT of the Boar form has base duration that is as long as the whole spiritshift duration (most likely an oversight). Prolong it with Turning Wheel and you can hit several enemies after another while shifted and they will suffer very long lasting raw damage over time. Also works with a Forbidden Fist who has the advantage of an alternative dmg attacks while shifted (crush) which also enfeebles which prolongs the Boar's DoT by 50% on top of the INT from Turning Wheel. Iirc Forbidden Fist attack also profits from Wildstrike lashes.

is what happens when you got earnest people who want justice for wrongs and they is so angry they don't care 'bout due process. speaking o' nogoodniks and due process... Lindsey Graham must testify in Atlanta 2020 election probe, judge rules baby steps update: Stephen Vladeck on the FBI's Search of Trump's Home is an excellent layman-friendly rundown o' the relevant issues and if you avoid the phone call answers, won't require much o' your time to indulge a listen. ten minutes. HA! Good Fun!

New thread

I don't think immunity to pull/push has anything to do with the wounds, at least from my experience... With Pull of Eora you can indeed get wounds in two ways - when the stride debuff misses or when it expires. When it misses you get only a wound, while when it expires you are also healed. The belt prevents only to be pulled. A thing to keep in mind however - later if you cast Pull of Eora with the monk it will stack Resonant Touch on him too. The FF can also generate wounds during WotW using Hylea's Talons bleed and Powder Burns from a blunderbuss - it's possible to reduce their duration to around 2s. A good way to increase the survivability of the FF is to use Voidward (to reduce the raw damage) coupled with items with %healing. Instead of using a belt giving some constitution it's more beneficial to use for example the Physicker's Belt. At Port Maje, using a brigandine + medium shield with modal + dagger with modal allows to spam FF and you can solo basically all encounters. (however you have to find the right balance between int/dex). The FF can also generate wounds while attacking with a blunderbuss and maintain Blade Turning all the time once you get Ooblit. The Dichotomous Soul can also be used in various ways to weaken/damage the enemies.

initially we used our grandparents record player for the couple albums we were gifted, but then in 1980 we got an early 60s 8-track player and THREE tapes, one o' which were a k-tel release: the rock album. as for oingo boingo, they were frequent visitors o' santa barbara during the 80s and 90s. caught a few o' their county bowl shows. possible our favorite outdoor venue. danny elfman is now recognized as a film score composer linked frequent with tim burton, but is ez to forget what incredible vocal range and control he had as the front man for oingo boingo... f1-c6. not complete unfair to mention him along with freddie mercury. an "older" (edit: not that it matters, but "older" is the wrong word, or at least misleading. were one o' the last songs elfman wrote before oingo boingo were final disbanding and is more like their 1978 stuff than most o' their later releases) oingo boingo tune channeling early performance art influences. by this point elfman no longer had the range he did when a bit younger, but still impressive. HA! Good Fun!

Heh, you should check out Paddington (and Paddington 2, which is even better) if you haven't yet. I saw someone comment on it once "it's like a Wes Anderson movie, but without the pretentiousness" - I think that fits quite well.

I was thinking about buying Farthest Frontier (it's Early Access), another town builder/management type game...made by Crate Ent, ppl who did Grim Dawn. I like the folks of that company and figured even if it took them 5-6 years to finish it, it'll at least be decent. Most things early on sounds good, with farming being more interesting mechanics wise and other such things. Then I read food storage ... spoils. There are things you can do to make food last longer, but it's "likely" most of it will spoil in the long run. eg, no giant food stocks for your burgeoning township making food management maybe a huge chore. Which is probably more realistic but I'm not sure I'd enjoy that as a city-management game mechanic. Maybe someone will mod it out. >.>

I think Oingo Boingo "officially" gets coined into the broad New Wave classification (probably because it's hard to define them), but they went through quite a few musical sound changes over the years, from musical theater to punkish to more melodic. Although they were always ... eclectic? re: sound, instrument use, and style. They were best seen live on stage, that type of band. Saw them twice, both smaller venues. Best experiences ever. Somewhere I still have the Farewell Live concert VHS tape (and music CD set). I was this close to going to one of those Farewell tour concerts but in the end they cancelled the San Fran one so... It at least somewhat captured Danny Elfman and the band's energy. I like those song versions better than the studio ones, imperfections and all, at this point. When the giant xylophones (whatever they're officially called) came out for Grey Matter, the crowd would go nuts. Ah, memories/nostalgia...

HA! Good Fun!

Good article. Their point about being able to "cheat" yourself during peacetime but then paying the price for it when in war strikes me as being just as relevant to the US as Russia. I believe the average American soldier today is incapable of standing and fighting in any competent form. In peacetime the generals and politicians are able to spin and cover up this reality. But soon war with China is going to happen, and then we the American people are going to be devastatingly shocked to learn of the extent to which our military prowess has been allowed to deteriorate and wither.

This looks jank as **** Hopefully it's fun, though.

Please don't suck, please don't suck, please don't suck...

So I did some more testing to figure out good ways of gaining wounds via hostile effects expiring on Forbidden Fists. Based on this recent thread by Tomucci, I can corroborate that using resistance affliction gear such as Defiant Apparel (for Perception Resistance) and also Engwithan Bracers (for Dexterity Resistance) will not give you a wound if it downgrades an affliction effect, which is really unfortunate. Using the test examples in that linked thread, hitting a Forbidden Fist with Chillfog while wearing Defiant Apparel and Web while wearing Engwithan Bracers won't give you a wound once their effects expire. Immunity to afflictions will also not grant you a wound, but that is to be expected (I tested it anyway in the hopes that it worked in the funky way that Immunity to Disengagement worked). However, the push/pull immunity from the Upright Captain's Belt will work with Pull of Eora and still give you a wound. I think I read about this in another thread by Boeroer, so credit to him for that idea, I just tested to confirm it works. Imagined Pain is also a great way of generating wounds as suggested by Constentin. It's not unique to Forbidden Fists, but it's really useful for this subclass since you tend to have high defenses due to stacking resolve and having Crucible of Suffering active most of the time. In fact, Imagined Pain makes Pull of Eora doubly effective here because you will now gain wounds even if it misses. The trick then becomes reducing the duration of each instance of Pull of Eora on yourself so that it can apply again for the next time it ticks and hits you. With Clarity of Agony active, I was able to get an average of 8-9 wounds from one casting of Pull of Eora. This was just with testing with affliction resistance gear so I'm sure you could get even more wounds with better optimization. I think with how quickly Pull of Eora ticks, the short duration of it's effect, and the relative harmlessness of having reduced stride, this is my ideal spell to use with Forbidden Fists for wound generation, and it's a spell that I tend to cast frequently anyway. This is slightly off topic, but I also discovered during testing that Soul Mirror reflects spells. I always thought it only reflected ranged weapon attacks, but I was using Necrotic Lance and Ninagauth's Bitter Mooring and was surprised to find that they bounced back to hit my friendly wizard when I used it against my monk. Ninagauth's Bitter Mooring is especially weird because I could also cast it on an enemy, have my monk step between them into the beam, and then it would start reflect back into my wizard. Moving my monk would then produce a separate beam that bounced back at the wizard (see the screenshot below). Not sure if that effect has been documented elsewhere online, but someone might be able to come up with a cool way of using this if it also applies to other beam spells. Maybe a way of first making the caster resistant or immune to the damage type and then creating an extra free beam?

As I imagine is the case for most people these days, I am a conflicted individual with a mess of feelings and ideas...which is particularly relevant right now because it is making it extremely difficult to effectively get across all of that which I am trying to convey in an intelligible manner. Like with the ongoing Ukrainian-Russian conflict, I personally occupy multiple perspectives that are at odds with each other. My previous post are two of those perspectives, the former of which (the first half of the post) wherein I keenly feel the fury of the anti-Trumpers, who are largely so completely beyond the point of caring about the particulars of the U.S. political and legal systems that have allowed Trump to avoid personal culpability for his actions thus far. We simply do not care anymore, the pain has been too long and too extreme for "don't hate the player, hate the game" to be enough, particularly when many of us already held a cynical disgust for the system that makes this the current reality in the first place (and again, when it is also simply not feasible for the system to be changed anyways). But as you pointed out, that is the exact feeling experienced by people on the opposite side with regards to Obama, Hillary, Biden, and so on...which is what the latter half (the second perspective) of my previous post was for: the recognition that on some level, we are all too far gone, that way too many of us are experiencing a kind of visceral wrath that is making what should be important (law and its consistent application!) feel a terrible obstacle getting in the way of actual justice...and with the way things are going (and being completely unable to affect it), it is only going to get worse. The first perspective also contains my anger at the current Supreme Court, where it is becoming increasingly difficult not to feel as though a tyranny of the minority taking away fundamental rights, regardless of their legal reasoning or process by which it happened, should be met with the exact response necessary to reverse it, and damn the consequences. And yet...not too long ago, by means of a third perspective opposite to the first, I also expressed a terrible fear of what might ensue if the Democratic Party gains a large enough control of Congress to finally eliminate the filibuster and seize control of the Supreme Court through it. Why? Well, I can only speak for myself: I am not for throwing the entire rule of law into the garbage can because I want to see Trump finally get his due...but is there at least one part of me that is, one that can speak louder than the others at certain times because I am not a judge or lawyer trying to take a measured approach to everything? Yes: in fact, that part of me is strong enough that I don't believe I could ever be either a judge or a lawyer, as I would be fundamentally incapable of doing my best to fairly view or defend someone I believe to be a murderer, rapist, or any number of other detestable qualities. As I said, you have a perspective and background that the rest of us do not, that many of us could not ever have because we're simply not that kind of person (or maybe because we've grown up in a different kind of social/political environment that has made that perspective all but impossible for us to attain). Too many of us are just tired and angry and want the problem to simply go away, and that's often the feeling that comes to the forefront when we're posting random crap we feel but do not think deeply about to a message board as a kind of outlet for said negative feelings. Which is likely why... ...responses like this are so often necessary to what people post in here - when it becomes obvious that while someone may have had a deep feeling that made them post something, they did not have deep thoughts behind it that would be able to fully rationally explain it to a non-like-minded person. You might be able to make someone as conflicted about these matters as I am see some reason (and to be clear, I do think I agree with everything you said), but...that's only me - it's pretty easy to influence me on political matters precisely because of how conflicted and unsure I am.

None of the rest of us are lawyers or have that background; most of us see obvious wrongdoing (from our own individual perspectives on what is 'wrong') and want heads to roll. It's been about six years since the clear Trump political wrongdoings started (not accounting for anything he did before that outside of the political realm, which would be mostly irrelevant to us since before that, he was just yet another bastard billionaire - one of many), and that's a damned long time with regards to a very distinct lack of head rolling appropriate to the level of harm done to our government, institutions, and society at large...enough for a lot of us to get enraged and start thinking that maybe mob justice is an attractive alternative to a broken system where people like Trump can "get away" with everything he's said and done. As for the issue of legal vs. wrong, that only makes it worse - if obvious wrongdoing is not actually illegal and the ones doing it don't face punishment, then it only reinforces that the system is broken (particularly in the face of not being able to change the law in any meaningful way!), making the desire for wrath all the stronger. Never minding the issue of 'the system' and what certain individuals get away with, the last ten or so years have made it pretty clear that both sides of the political aisle have been pushed well beyond their limit with their counterparts: the divisions are so immense that so many (too many!) of us do not want to live with, talk to, or really even see the other because it's become increasingly difficult to view your political opposite as being anything but despicable and divorced from reality. Divisions that deep, combined with the times not being nearly so good as they once apparently were, are likely to reach their boiling point sooner or later, and this ever-swelling mass of fury would seem to be just a symptom.

@Malcador Happy birthday!

The irony is how much effort the US government has spent trying to extradite Julian Assange on the same charges of violating the Espionage Act.

Appreciate all the good ideas here, guys. I did some testing with all of your suggestions and also tried a few other things that I was curious about. This is on a hired adventurer cheated up to level 20 if that makes any difference. Works with Forbidden Fist ability Turning Wheel Tuotilo's Palm Helm of the White Void Kahako Nihi Lover's Embrace Does NOT work with Forbidden Fist ability Swift Flurry / Lightning Strikes Heartbeat Drumming Hylea's Talons Two Weapon Style One Handed Style (?) Reminder that this is with the vanilla game of course. Some of these findings like Helm of the White Void giving accuracy to affliction attacks and being able to get Frenzy from Lover's Embrace just by having it equipped while using other abilities are probably already known or apparent, but I figure I'd mention it here as confirmation that it still works with the vanilla Forbidden Fist ability. What's interesting is that the other gear enchantments that work with Forbidden Fist (or at least the ones that I experimented with, which are Precision Striker on Tuotilo's Palm and Always Armed + Overwhelming Assault on Kahako Nihi) are specifically said to be applicable to unarmed attacks. So Forbidden Fist might be coded as an unarmed attack but not a weapon attack, which possibly explains why it interacts with these item enchantments but not weapon attack abilities like HBD or items like Hylea's Talons, but I'm not sure if that's an actual or relevant distinction in the code. What's really confusing though is that Forbidden Fist will get the burn lash from Turning Wheel but not the shock lash from Lightning Strikes. Really not sure what's going on there. Another thing I tried testing is Two Weapon Style, which I believe doesn't have any effect on Forbidden Fist. I tested it before and after taking the ability and didn't see a difference in the recovery time. I tried this with two fists, two plain daggers, fist with Tuotilo's Palm offhand, and a plain dagger with Tuotilo's Palm offhand. For curiosity's sake, I then respecced and took One Handed Style and equipped a single dagger to see if that would have an effect on Forbidden Fist, which it doesn't as far as I could tell. I didn't see the added accuracy you would normally get from single wielding get applied to Forbidden Fist nor did I notice any hit to crit conversions, though I admit the testing might not have been extensive enough. I didn't test Two Handed Style, either. I'm thinking that Forbidden Fist is just it's own thing and none of the styles apply to it, but this might bear more testing and corroboration by others. Some other miscellaneous testing. 1) The proficiency modal for dagger and quarterstaff does indeed work the way you've both said it would, so you can get all of the benefits for free while bypassing the negatives by spamming Forbidden Fist, which is a really great idea for this build and particular play style. The small shield modal, however, doesn't work; it looks like you don't get the extra accuracy after blocking an attack if you then use Forbidden Fist, unfortunately. 2) Dance of Death will not get cancelled by the self damage you take from Forbidden Curse. 3) Crucible of Suffering and Rooting Pain seems quite strong with Forbidden Fist spam as mentioned, giving you a practically constant defense bonus and regular interrupts in an AoE. I got Forbidden Curse down to 2.8 seconds with this test character, but I'm sure you could generate wounds and these effects at an even faster rate with some more optimization.

0.14.0 Public Test - 3813 to 3816 Changes Updated art of the Cool Fashion Nugget and Rad Fashion Nugget to not use the same mesh as the regular Fashion Nugget. Firefly legs no longer randomly stretch super long. The Pause Menu can no longer be triggered in between level loads by spamming ESC / Start. Hosts no longer get two notifications when taming a pet. Fixed Mutation icon quality being very low on Xbox One. Lab chest loot added to the Haze and Pond labs. Achievements no longer unlock after loading a custom or a creative mode game. Spider webs spawned by spiders no longer grant negative faction rep when killed. ARC.R shooting has updated audio. Fixed small memory leaks. Relocating an armor dummy and customizing it no longer puts the camera back to the old location. Fixed issue with Xbox and Windows Store builds where you could constantly keep getting a syncing data popping up from the Xbox OS while playing the game.

Looking at pictures of the stuff, not just for the average Japanese palate.

Are you implying that ELEGANCE is a meme? Decidedly un-elegant.

Yawara! This show is so silly...and also very obvious with where it's going at times, it almost hurts - almost. The issue is, even though it is what it is, I'm still enjoying it. So far, the show maintains a driving storyline and consistent characters while not quite going too far into absurdity, and...well, I guess that's enough to keep my interest so far. Actually, even with its few fundamental design issues, I'm rather starting to enjoy it. Right, now for SpyxFamily...episodes 3 through 5. Three and four more or less kept walking the same line as the previous two - a lot of absurdity, but most of it serves a purpose and keeps the story moving along without trampling on the characters or plot, so it's enjoyable and fine. Episode 5, on the other hand, was a classic "the characters are puppets to the premise" kind of episode, where you have a wacky premise that takes center stage over everything else and the characters no longer behave in line with their established core characteristics for completely arbitrary reasons (i.e. to make the premise play out how the writers want it to...no matter what it takes to get there). It must be said that this style of episode in shows is almost always complete anathema to my brain, even for a show as silly as this one...actually, with the relatively short run-time that this show has along with it being pretty tightly scripted up until now, it feels very inappropriate indeed. The good news is that I think the show promises to treat this episode as if it never happened (because it's obviously filler) while getting back on track for episode 6, and that should prove to be more enjoyable. Anya, so far, continues to be the core of the show that makes it work, .