Bartimaeus

Funny isn't the word I'd use, but then me and chronic depression have a very toxic relationship. Didn't know the guy, but every mental illness related suicide is a tragic failure of society. R.I.P. Well, yeah, I didn't mean literally funny. I was speaking a little from experience, after all.

RIP. I was never really comfortable with watching his shows - I always found him just a little off-putting, and he seemed to often have an alcohol problem (e: and from what I'm reading now, he's had substance abuse problems since forever, which unfortunately fits with the feeling I already had). A few people I know that have been following him for forever are going to be devastated, though... Chronic depression is a funny thing, too - most of the time, it might seem bearable, but it only takes one night where you get into your own head just a little too much and there being nobody there to help you or pull you back from the brink, and that can be it.

Except it's not, but that is a whole different can of worms and wouldn't really belong into a political thread anyway. But it's a very human trait, looking for patterns and order where there might be none. We have the Big Bang Theory to explain the present state of our universe on a macro-scale. AFAIK, we do not really have any working theory as to why existence (basic matter and energy) is a thing at all - I've personally always thought the only logical line of thinking is that nothing should exist, since if you keep going back in "time" (i.e. prior states of the universe), at some point, something must've arisen from nothing. Maybe "time" is an illusion, and trying to understand the universe in terms of prior states is a completely wrong way of looking at things...but that apparently seems to be the way we're stuck with. Alternatively, how could matter and energy have always simply existed? Either way I look at it, the entire concept of anything existing is a fuzzy, incomprehensible, and utterly illogical mess for which there seems to be no answer...and I've never heard anything even approaching a working answer to solve it. Maybe you know something I don't, though. So it's not exactly a surprise that some people would prefer to put a little faith into a religion than think about these big money questions that have no answers (while still managing to be pretty existentially frightening by simply being asked). Jesus, for example, is pretty well accepted by historians to have existed - whether or not he did or said 99.99% of the things described in the Bible, or whether he was in any way divine(ly inspired), those are things that we cannot confirm to any degree. Still, just the fact that there's just that tiny little bit of consensus-accredited authenticity (his basic existence and its apparent effect upon the world) along with the fact that he existed only a mere hundred generations ago...and of course, the legitimacy effect of so many still apparently following him (if a billion people followed Scientology instead, it too would automatically have some legitimacy simply by the sheer numbers)...is enough to put a little pragmatic doubt and curiosity into even the most agnostic of minds. Me? I think anything being divine is horridly, dreadfully slim, Jesus included - though I do hope otherwise, although perhaps not in the way many of his followers might envision. But there's no way I'd make that leap of faith into proclaiming that I *know* there is nothing divine (or something like it).

It doesn't look like anything to me.

But that's easy to solve. You just make all your games control like floaty trash to begin with, and it'll be hard to notice the difference.

I cannot imagine any such thing being even near merely 10 years away. I might accept something like 30-40 years as being at least a possibility, but at least for the U.S., the percentage of people that live in urban areas (about 60%, and this is the target audience due to simple physical speed limitations) combined with our way behind infrastructure means that normal gaming PCs and consoles will still be around for a while.

Donald Trump Called Asbestos Poisoning a Mob-Led Conspiracy, Now His EPA Won’t Evaluate Asbestos Already in Homes: http://www.newsweek.com/pruitt-trump-asbestos-chemicals-trump-962703 In his 1997 book, The Art of the Comeback, Trump argued that the association of the chemical with health risks was part of a mob-created conspiracy. “I believe that the movement against asbestos was led by the mob, because it was often mob-related companies that would do the asbestos removal. Great pressure was put on politicians, and as usual, the politicians relented,” he wrote. wot

I thought it was the First Lady missing...now the president, too? It's a circus out there.

That's weird. I only played WoW for like a month like a decade ago (right before I realized that MMOs were ghastly dull and never played one ever again - thank you WoW for being so boring that I never wasted time on another), but for some reason have the same memory of some quest-givers voicing text.

Harvard Business School? The Historic Brass Society? Harry Benjamin's Syndrome? ...The Hogere Burger School? Screw it, I can probably just search online real quick. Oh, Harebrained Schemes. Right, those guys. (e): A classic reference, Sandy.

Did you read the actual report? While perhaps a little overstated at times, I really don't think the unclassified report itself is anything crazy, and certainly does not say anything like "Veteran = Libertarian = Conservative = Gun Owner = Terrorist". The bits on veterans weren't terribly large, and mainly concerned themselves with previous attempts during the 90s to recruit veterans for terrorist activities. If anything, with time, it's (overall) proved a little more true than I would've expected it to have at the time of publishing... (e): My post was directed at Guard Dog.

I thought the original was alright. I personally hate the setting, and I'm not terribly keen on either of the two main characters. And Disney sequels...well, we'll see. (e): On a side-note, I'm not sure what "the Deadpool of kids' movies" actually means. I haven't seen Deadpool and don't know what it's about, though, so that might be why.

Ehh. Hmm. Maybe it'll be alright.

*Picard face*

It was a bipartisan decision, and it was made with pretty good reasoning. It is a limited ruling that doesn't set precedent due to issues with this specific case. While this baker wins, the issue has more or less been punted down the road.

Yes...the difference, I feel, is that past administrations were, for the most part, rational actors. Not always on every issue, and just because they were rational doesn't mean they were kind or just or lawful (just the opposite in many cases!). There are some benefits to having a federal government that's acting like a chicken with its head cut off (there's not much permanent legislation going through, for example - that's both good and bad in different ways), but there are consequences as well (these executive "czars", Trump included, are massively empowered in acting policy in the face of legislative standstill, just as it was the case under Obama - for better and for worse under him, and I would personally say almost entirely for the worse under Trump, but I'm sure people have their own opinions on that). These past three presidents (in all their own ways, starting with Bush and including Obama but now especially Trump), have really proved that we need to reign in the executive branch something fierce...but uh, Congress collectively has shown no interest in doing that, and in fact has pretty much encouraged the opposite...so screw us, I guess?

Don't ever buy anything online from WalMart. They sent me the wrong item, and for whatever reason, they have absolutely 100% steadfastly refused to authorize a return and refund for their mistake over the past month. Thankfully, I never go to WalMart to begin with, but this cements it as policy.

"Oh, don’t forget: He has 962 days left in this term." ****

I remember that dog, surprisingly. It's funny how seemingly totally incidental occurrences can play such large roles in our identities and life courses. A username is a smaller one such of those occurrences, but the realization that such chance events can do so much is difficult to comprehend at times.

Heh, compared to the current state of affairs, it's easy to have your perspective warped to the point of thinking the previous administration was perfect. It doesn't help any of us to not remember clearly, though - to not do so just means things will become more and more far-gone as our standards for normalcy and "rightness" get lower and lower.

was her name "rasputin" by any chance

but the embarrassing visage that is that thumbnail tells me not to listen actually I listened to it and it wasn't that bad

Yeah, I'm more of a 60-70F (16-21C) kind of guy, but the difference between 100% humidity 90F and 0% humidity 90F is the difference between "it's a bit too hot" and "I'm about to die of heatstroke". It's the same thing with sub-freezing temperatures and wind - air is a pretty terrible conductor of heat EXCEPT when it's moving, so I'd always rather have a -10 day with no wind than a positive ten day with anything more than occasional breezes.

And here I am wishing it'd be windy and rain every day. The world's so much prettier...

the real version of this song is blocked on youtube, but this one's not bad