Bartimaeus

It's on Steam. People on this forum don't like Steam equals troll stating how great Steam (and by extension, Valve) is at every turn. Heh. Back in the late 2000s (when I actually liked Steam to some degree), I remember when a bug with the Steam chat window started occurring, where it would erroneously say that the person you're talking to was typing a message for forever when nothing had been typed at all. Some of my friends and I all noticed it starting to occur around the same time, and a couple of times it occurred to both of us at the same time, so Steam would tell us both that the other was typing for forever when neither of us were. Incredibly, it still has not been fixed in all that time since - about ten years. It's just such a little thing, but in hindsight, I guess that was a pretty good sign of the things to come from Valve.

Since you're enjoying Deadfire and that's my only point of reference, and I rather dislike Bethesda(-developed) games, I guess Tyranny, .

Not sure how you can say that the same sale that has occurred roughly every 6 months for the past...decade? is phenomenal. It's fine, it's whatever, it's expected at this point. The allure of giving Valve piles of money for piles of games I'll only seriously play a minority of faded many years ago for me personally. Now I just mooch off of ShadySands while occasionally buying indie games instead (preferably through other outlets where available, though), .

And that's why I never play team-based multiplayer games anymore unless I already have people (i.e. friends) to play with that aren't terrible, . Online gaming - for virtually every game - has just gotten sooooo incredibly toxic and awful that I cannot stomach trying to be teammates with random strangers. It's a shame, too, since there are still some pretty decent people out there...but there are just too many not. Older games where the community is smaller and more tight-knit can be an exception, but anything even remotely newer can almost always go straight into the trash can.

On that note, I wish games (singleplayer shooters especially) had difficulty settings more like Metro 2033's, where playing on the hardest difficulty means both the players and enemies have like no HP and die in only a couple of shots.

​ Uh...what?

If you're buying on Steam, there's always the two hour refund window. And...you can just go into offline mode where time doesn't accrue anyways (I THINK?) if you want to extend it a little beyond that to figure out an edge case.

Planet of the Eyes. It's a 2D platformer that basically only has atmosphere to really go for it, since the actual platforming and puzzle elements are pretty minimal and it plays itself most of the time. Pretty similar to INSIDE, actually, but probably less striking. It was pretty short (an hour), and it was basically okay. I like my platformers more Super Mario Bros. style, though, and this was not that - though I had already guessed that, I was in the mood for some kind of platformer. Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight. I played this a while back but never wrote about it (I don't think). A fun little 2D Metroidvania game that I thought was actually pretty good, and I usually don't care for Metroidvania games. I may try out the previous entries at some point. Thanks to ShadySands for both.

I gave it a whirl when it came out. I thought the music was the best thing about it. Did not think much of the gameplay, main character, or world - I was really, really bored and annoyed for about the hour and a half I played it. I heard that it gets better the longer you're playing it, but much of the game seemed to be the antithesis of what I'd ideally want to be in a 3rd person action RPG to me (and still contained many of the problems I have with other 3rd person action games out there already), so I did not continue. Very disappointing.

your dog is why games suck today. it's all graphics over gameplay and narrative

I'd like to order one pepperoni pizza, too, please

I haven't had a McD burger in probably around 15 years, but from everything I've read, pretty much no fast-food place has anything gluten-free here in the U.S., and things that should be are usually contaminated. So even though you should be able to get like a burger without the bun and stuff, or fries, it will really just be up to how strictly individual employees adhere to keeping stuff from getting contaminated. And I don't know what wages are like in Finland (I presume better), but a lot (not all, but an understandably large amount given the generally terrible pay and working environment) of minimum wage employees here in the U.S. just don't really care that much. From a quick Google search, I certainly see nothing of the sort offered here.

I think that's only a small part of the problem. Most people don't want to eat a bunch of raw fruits and vegetables every day...and furthermore, it's difficult to survive on only them (especially vegetables, which are by and large incredibly calorie-light). So you have to figure out how to integrate them into actual meals...and there's the problem. The time it takes to cook and prepare meals, the time it takes to figure out what you want to cook (most people don't want to eat the same 2-3 meals every day for forever), the initial time sink required to actually learn how to cook (preferably with skill!). You know what's not difficult to survive on? Hamburgers. If there has been any great loss as a result of the disintegration of the "traditional family structure", it's probably been decent home-cooking and nutrition. People just don't have the requisite time for doing it (properly) anymore when there isn't at least one person dedicated to the job - and I don't think it much matters whether it's a man or a woman, just that there has to be somebody. I have celiac disease, so I can't eat anything BUT home-cooking pretty much, and I absolutely loathe it. Not that I ever much ate out or had fast-food to begin with, but the loss of so many other prepared foods on top of it has made it even more acute.

that 25 million mexicans comment is just gold

Top Agent Said F.B.I. Would Stop Trump From Becoming President. Yeah, that guy's a clown. Mueller kicked him off of his Russian investigation for exactly that reason. Also, while it's true that Strzok was a dummy with issues of impartiality, the actual FBI Director (Comey) nevertheless came out on the opposite end by making the Clinton investigation as public as possible while making the Trump investigation as secret as possible, so that doesn't really match up with the idea that the FBI was in it for Clinton. I think he did the best he could in impossible circumstances. He had a duty to report his findings to the Congress intelligence committees, the Republican members of which (especially in the House) kept immediately running to the press and leaking favorable lines and tainting the investigation and causing an appearance of impropriety on the part of the FBI. So he tried to get ahead of it by going straight to the public (especially as a result of a compromised and non-recusing AG)...which may have had the effect of throwing the election in favor of Trump when he was forced to announce the investigation's re-opening days before the election, when all he was trying to do was maintain the integrity of the FBI. There wasn't a good solution, so he just took the one that was (I think) the most consistent and honest. Fair enough, I says.

What're you talking about?

Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort was sent to jail today for witness tampering-related charges - his other current charges are conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act) statements, false statements (separate occasion).

Yep. Poor authenticity and rather insane, IIRC the Eastern church did end up rejecting it, and so Greek Orthodox bibles have never included it to begin with.

that happened to me circa 2012-2013...and it's only gotten worse since

It's pretty silly that gaffes like this salute seem to always get an inane amount of coverage while clearly deliberately awful and/or dishonest actions and words are just another Monday. ...And in this administration, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday as well, .

Yeah, I see that, his "Death Gaze" ability uses the "Replace Creature" effect, so it's not a normal death effect. However, it does provide a save vs. death with no penalty, which isn't too bad. I can't really remember ever having much trouble with that fight, so I'm not sure what to tell you.

Hm. You didn't have a level 7 priest that could cast Death Ward?

Yeah, I was responding to Guard Dog, who did say that they apparently found his prints on the bag. Theoretically, the perp could've re-used a ziplock bag already in the car for the drugs - about the only explanation I can think of. So...possible, but not exactly what I'd consider probable - I definitely would not send a man to prison for it either way, though, especially seeing the nature of the crime. He could've literally written "(his name)'s ILLEGAL DRUGS" with his social security # on it and I still would say not guilty.

It's probably a reasonable assumption that it's the car owner's, but I'm not going to send anybody to prison for personal use-related drug charges, so jury nullification it is.