MedicineDan

2016 was a presidential election. This cycle is presidential also. I'm not obfuscating anything Grom. You can ridicule and disparage me all you want. Really, I won't hold a grudge. I won't. ...And I don't have time to get into a multi-post flame war. So, I'll leave it stand at this: you don't help your cause. Seriously, you don't. Harangue me on here and get some likes and be board royalty. All good. Your pugnacious manner, as Bruce likens it, is wonderful and undoubtedly gives you street cred here, but it's not an effective political tool. I mean, you need to have some people doing it, but it's overdone in the aggregate and the returns aren't merely diminishing, they're negative. That's an observation, not an argument. Folks here probably don't understand that very well or, if they do, they certainly don't act like it. HoonDing's posts are generally beneath my contempt and certainly beneath my response, but I don't mind crazy assed trawling posts. The more people talk like HoonDing, the more stock rises for my position with the only people who matter... voters. By and large, this is true for your statements also by now. Keep at it. Now, I don't want to be meanspirited to you, Grom. Heaven knows, you're a big guy and I don't want you to kick sand in my face. Console yourself getting some good licks on me, but pointed personal attacks like yours are really the only hope Trump has to win. Luckily, the left has been providing plenty of such arguments. Trump certainly isn't going to stay in office by the strength of his rhetoric. Anyhow, I promise to read your harangue when you post it. I won't reply, but I look over your Philippics with a smile. P.S. Comparing the chaos of Trump's policy decisions with the chaos and rioting of the "resistance movement" is either completely jaded or foolhardy. Either way, Trump hate has been built into the model already. Hate might win the day against Trump, but if it does, he's already lost. Piling on doesn't help your cause.

Hey @BruceVC, I wanted to answer you quickly because, heaven knows, I'll forget if I don't. lol I don't want to make this about me. I will say that it's ironic that people have accused, say, Captain Corcoran of being you. lol I don't know if you're an alt or not. You've always been friendly to me, Bruce. I even tried to sound more British once and you saw through that. What can I say? I'm a weird guy. :rueful grin: I find it interesting to discuss politics here, but it's also frustrating in that sometime people think I'm pushing a position when I'm making an argument. Don't get me wrong. I have convictions and I'll follow them. I'm voting for Trump. When it came time for Hillary, I didn't think she was any better of a human being, although with different foibles. So, why would I vote for someone with a different policy position? Because I doubt his character? I doubted hers! I never had personal animosity, I just thought she was crooked as a dog's hind leg. It's different now. I know people say that Biden is a Trojan horse for socialism. I think socialism would be disastrous, but that's a policy position and I would simply be against it. I wouldn't view it as existential. Biden won't usher in socialism. He will usher in chaos. I'm not saying that all people who will vote for Biden are lefty extremists who want to punish political foes, try to get them fired from their jobs, silence their voices, and take away their freedoms. Yeah, I know... "no one is saying that!" Well, at least some of Biden's supporters are explicitly saying that, and not just the tiny fringe. ...And it's not even as if the leftists who support this wave of destruction will benefit. As predicted and already happening, the movement will eat its own. Bezos, for crying out loud, has people protesting and bringing a mock guillotine to his house. How many business with "Black Lives Matter" posted have been pillaged and burned? So, yeah, I have a position. Never pretended otherwise. However, when I talk about polling and whatnot, folks treat that as if it's a larger argument for a position, but it's not. I think it was either Grom or Hurlshot who took me to task for making observations about the 2016 polls. Fair enough, but I'm not a poll denier. I think they've become a kind of tool to push voting blocks one way or another, but legitimate pollsters can't be blindly partisan in what they publish because people won't trust them at all if they're *always* wrong. It's just hard to get a good read much of the time and it becomes harder when folks are scared to answer honestly. Trump has the same problem Obama had in that they can't really influence a ticket much if they're not personally on it. Here is a statement of fact: people like me are an extremely small portion of the Trump coalition, but he simply cannot win without us. I'm not personally going to budge, but the left needs to push out their own crazy-assed base and then pick off as many people like me who hate the guy. I'm going to try to get as many fence sitters as I can to realize that this is the line now. If we can't get back to a semblance of normalcy, and Biden does *not* represent that, then we better have our people in office when we finally shed the last pretense. Trump's foibles are largely personal and unseemly, but, for all his bluster, he really follows more or less regular policy. Yeah, there are irregularities, but he's pretty much just a loud-mouth. His aids manage to stop him from acting out his worst inclinations. Biden, by all counts, is a nice enough guy, but the forces behind him... oh Lord, the forces behind him! Anyhow, I thought it would be rude not to respond to a heartfelt post, but I think I want to read this thread. I actually find it more entertaining to read a lot of them time than play in it. :wry grin:

Beerquakes for the win. If you've gotta die, a beerquake is how I wanna do it!

Screwball whiskey with coconut and chocolate milk. Kind of like an alcoholic Reese's peanut butter mixed with Mounds. a little sweet for my taste, but it's still damned good!

I've had a little extra time lately, which is always great. I did a blueberry batch of mead last night. I'm mightily sick of making blueberry all the time, but it's a popular flavor and so I've been accommodating people. I think I'll do a small plum batch or something also. My wife likes citrus, but that's really touchy. Sometimes it comes out great but other times not so much. I really should do a five gallon batch of ale, but it's a lot of work do to five gallons. I dunno. I need to find something I can do one gallon. I've more or less got my blueberry recipe down and I want to find something I can standardize and throw together relatively easily. EDIT: you guys in hurricane country be careful, for God's sake!

I missed the confusion. I prefer my ideas to be the point rather than my personality, but apparently the way I post is somehow *just* distinctive enough that various people recognize me, which is too bad. I want to have the give and take of ideas but kind of at the outside rather than in the middle. Anyhow, I was getting the impression that some people were mightily irritated with me, including someone for whom I have quite a bit of respect, and so here I am, stuck with the worst user name evar. I know my opinions are not always popular, but they are always sincere. I have no problem being associated with someone else. It would be wildly perverse if I did, considering my history. Enough about me except to say that I *am* indeed a real person and some folks around here have even met me. I'm in pretty regular contact with one of them. Mal asked for an example of something and I can't remember what. I *think* it was about Biden being fake. I'm actually not sure if he is being fake. Biden has made himself an irrelevancy by admitting he's merely a transitional figure. I actually doubt he makes it through a first term if he wins. His candidacy, however, while trying to appeal to a sense of normalcy, is a cover as it seems to me. I believe the left exemplifies something I believe Voltaire said. It goes something like this, I think...? "Some men employ words for the sole purpose to disguise their thoughts." Grom and Hurlshot had points I thought I might address, but I don't have time to go back and find them. Anyhow, the Blood War can continue without me providing one more victim for the moment. I'll come scrap with people later.

Clinton's primary claims to economic success were, policy wise, driven by the Republican Congress. Last time the Republicans had any real measure of fiscal responsibility. There isn't a place for a Republican like me anymore. There are never Trumpers who have thrown over all policy considerations because of personality considerations. Most are populist Republicans. The rest of us have to decide where we fall and we are woefully endangered as a species. Aw well, it was ever thus.

If Trump wins, I believe the senate stays in Republican hands. To be honest, the normal calculus eludes me this election. Too many variables. Too much mush in the polling. Too many people hiding their intentions and not enough people answering. If I *had* to make a prediction, by which I will stand by this statement and eat crow if I'm wrong, I would say that *if* Trump wins, the Republicans keep the senate and *might* retake the house. If Trump loses and the senate stays in Republican hands, then it's a push to the next cycle. If Trump loses and Dems sweep House and Senate, God help us all. I sympathize with voting for character. I truly do. I mean that without even a hint of sarcasm. This is the first time I have ever felt that an election was an existential fight in any meaningful way. Obama weaponized the FBI and IRS. In a way that would have made Nixon envious, he turned the executive apparatus against his political foes. Trump, for all his bluster and saber rattling, has never done that. Partly because he's a lot of talk and partly because his inner circle wouldn't go so far. The forces behind Biden have no such patriots in their number. All we have to do is convince a relatively small number of people like me to come out for Trump. That's it. I've thrown over a lifetime of speaking to people across the aisle. Seriously, if people like me convince one person to vote who might have sat this out, we'll win. If not... :shrug: history will right itself eventually, but hard times will follow. Hard times not just for conservatives. The useful idiots on the left will suffer right along with me. Some of them will even realize the error of their ways. The others will suffer for what they foolishly think is a righteous cause.

I'll throw this out there for folks. I know that my political views can be unpopular, but my ability to read the room politically speaking has been pretty good over the years. Not perfect, but better than the sizeable majority of talking heads on TV. Last cycle, I suspected that the polls were off for Hillary during the entire season. This was true. I suspected Hillary Clinton would win, but I was wrong. however, my assessment about the spread was actually perfect for the national election, just off in three states. You can guess which ones. The problem with this election is that there was a time when folks were scared to tell the truth to pollsters. I still think the polls are skewed, but I also believe the pollsters are trying to rectify the mistakes of the previous presidential cycle. That said, I think there's a real chance Trump can win this. Seriously, I know folks were all but writing his obituary a while back, but the Democrats can always be trusted to **** things up by going bat**** crazy. You figure that it really doesn’t matter who’s president. It does. Donald Trump is a sociopathic narcissist. Vote for him anyway. Biden is probably a nice enough old fellow, but don’t trust him. He’s the sheep’s clothing that hides the wolf. He’s the beard that masks an evil grin. I have this running bet with a friend. I say to her, “let’s count off the times my liberal friends tell me, ‘no one is saying ____x____.’ Then, in a few years, when it’s a mainstream Democrat policy point, we can have a bottle of champagne.” We’ve christened quite a few ships over the past several years. Biden is not a return to normalcy. Biden is normalizing the destructive forces of chaos that mean to destroy us. The Left’s desire to cancel anyone who doesn’t fall in line might make this unpleasant, but we better start speaking out before the freedoms that have been the bedrock of our society are swept away. I know! I know! “No one is saying that!”

Ah, okay! Many thanks, McSquirl!

I'm mostly playing Fantasy Grounds lately. Truly splendid! I've also been tinkering with Grounded, but I'm tempted to put it aside until the game ships. I prefer playing the finished product, but it has certainly been a lot of fun.

I didn't see this topic when I did a search, but I could swear someone posted something similar. If so, just fold my post into their thread and treat it as agreement. If not, then I suggest giving us some option to keep grass from growing through clay foundations. I built a nice base with multiple floors by clearing some of the grasslands around the strange machine. Now grass is growing all through it, which is a bummer. I can clear it out, and that's not such a big deal, but it's just plain jarring. However, the graphics are much better today. Looks a lot more polished. I also notice a few improvements in the visual cues and information. Nice job!

I have some insight into this that's perhaps a little different than Lady Rojas. As a recovering nihilist, I will say that I spend an inordinate amount of time sucking down adult beverages. By that, I mean ETOH. Okay, fair enough. That, in and of itself, should be grounds to take my posts with a grain of salt. However, I do what I gotta do in situations where I gotta do it. Doesn't make me important and sure as hell doesn't make me a hero. I'm just a guy doing a job. However, there's more to life than doing a job. I've become disciplined so that I can ruthlessly cut myself off from things in order to pursue a goal. Ask my family about that... at least the ones with whom I still speak. You should pursue the good. You should do good things. You should never sacrifice the good for the sake of the perfect. I honestly believe, Skazz, that your allotted days come from the Lord and how you dispose of them is for you to decide. I, personally, was in a deep dark hole. I dug myself out, but some part of me will always be in that hole. The part that dug himself out will always judge himself harshly. That's life, brother, but you gotta live it.

Many thanks, Sahib!

Been a while since I've had time to visit and now I come begging for money! :sheepish grin: Anyhow, I'm running this 5th edition campaign and one of my friends created an Extra Life page for it. Trust me, I did *not* come up with the name of the group. However, my buddy, Devenandar put it up. I figured, since I'm always donating to CHOC on the Obsidian thing I'd hit up folks. However, two things. One, I never want to try to shake people down for donations. If you have the cash, it's for a good cause. ...And CHOC and CH Los Angeles take low income cases too, so it's worthy. Second, I'm unsure if this pitch violates rules, so feel free to delete or edit this thread into conformity with board rules. Meanwhile, what did I do today? I was off work and no school until I start with my NP courses next semester, so I worked on my Fantasy Grounds Campaign. Simply awesome! I had hopes, but they were exceeded! Huzzah! EDIT: FG is good enough I'll probably keep using somewhat even after the accursed lockdown ends and we can properly play on tabletop again. https://www.extra-life.org/participant/414875

I agree with the idea of creating a bed. I've been steadily improving my base design. It's a shame to throw down some shabby looking lean-to in my increasingly nice looking house.

I just bought the Grounded game. It's a Steam special right now. I also broke down and bought Halo Master Chief's selction of soemthing like that. I've played a little. The action is too fast. Not that it's hard, but there's no thinking about what to do or anything. You just kind of run and gun. I kind of miss DOOM levels and whatnot. I'll try Grounded after I get it downloaded and see how Obsidian's latest endeavor works for me. EDIT: the mouse is a little too sensitive, but I'm going to try to get used to it before I adjust. Being able to turn quickly is good as long as motion sickness doesn't get me and I don't over react. I might have to tone it down.

How does Halo stand up? I was thinking of getting the latest DOOM, but I'm not sure. I like FPSes, but any other suggestions. I guess I could start Disco Elysium I suppose. I only did enough of the original to realize the main character was an alcoholic and that kind of took the charm off for me, but I still like the idea.

I finally finished Black Mesa. There were certainly some differences between the original and the remake, as it seems to me, but I enjoyed it a lot anyway. I just used the default difficulty, which was way too easy, but I don't care about bragging rights. I think the last game I played on the highest difficulty all the way through was the Wolfenstein game where you had to fight some huge assed Goth giant at the end by ducking under his swipes or some such. That was stupid. Typically, I play them all at whatever difficulty to which it defaults. There were still some irritating moments and a couple times I got lazy and toobed the answer, but mostly I solved everything pretty quickly. The puzzles weren't very hard, but there were a couple times I overlooked something several times before I found it. Great game. I have a little extra time right now, so I'm considering what to play that I have or what I might want to buy. I will say that Sunless Sea was such a great game and a while back I played a lot of Sunless Skies and it was a real letdown. The idea was more or less the same, but the writing couldn't match up with the first. I really felt sad when the Presbyterian chick bit it. There was nothing even close in Sunless Skies.

Oh my God, I never realized that Redbone was a Native American Band. I saw this video for the first time and literally thought of you, Gromnir. I spend too much time on these boards! lol

Finished Darkest Dungeon and Almost done with the farmstead based xpac. I would say that it's great, but mostly just provides extra goodies, which aren't necessary. Plus, since I'm a completenic, I feel the need to play long enough to get all the town upgrades, and getting that one for the mill will be a real pain since I have not, as yet, gotten a single memory. Tons of shards. I've used the shard mercs, but I don't see why I really need them with a full roster. I'm going to wait to do the darkest dungeons until I've explored a lot more of the farmstead. Oh, and while I have the chance, I've been playing Black Mesa. Not bad. I guess it's just a spruced up Half-Life? At least I get to save some folks on this one.

Tell me about it! ...And Covid is looking increasingly more of a cardiovascular problem than pulmonary. Ugh. Not that it changes much about blood donations, but it's a topsy-turvy world. Take care of your health! We don't want *you* to need any of that blood! :broad grin:

I just got back from donating blood. I had to wait until I hadn't had 'Rona exposure for 30 days, so I haven't donated since the end of February. Double platelets and a unit of whole blood. A lot of blood banks are testing for Covid-19 antibodies for free, so that's an incentive. We really could use the blood right now. We could almost always use the blood. Also, platelets have a much shorter shelf-life, so if you can donate those, please consider it. Packed red blood cells are also vital if you have O-. Really, O+ or O-, but O- moreso. If you're in Southern California, you can go to LifeStream and donate much needed blood product *and* get a free antibody test. I'm sure there's an opportunity wherever you live to do the same. EDIT: When I say we could "almost" always use the blood, what I mean is, the need is almost always extreme. It's always needed.

Where your word speaks so swings my sword, brother. :big beefy grin:

Addictive as hell, at any rate!