Hurlshort

JA2 is at the top. Quest for Glory was the first game I ever fell in love with. Tracking hours is a fairly new phenomenon.

Speaking as a Californian, this is a bit of an oversimplification of very complex issues. I'm not going to bend over backwards to completely defend my state. I still grumble about state taxes, cost of living, homeless policies, and plenty of other issues in the sunshine state. But the issues you brought up have some big question marks. First off, Elon Musk is posturing. He is using the threat of leaving California to get what he wants out of the state. But take notice that Tesla was started in California for good reason. California is not going to collapse if Tesla leaves. Silicon Valley is still the tech capital of the world. Hollywood is still the entertainment capital of the world. Handfuls of celebrities and companies leaving for greener pastures is not going to change that because they keep getting replaced by new celebrities and companies. It's the same reason I can't get the housing prices to go down in this area. They are building new homes, and people keep talking about leaving the state, but at the end of the day the population keeps growing up, and a good chunk of that is wealthy immigrants. As for the green policies, wildfires, PG&E, and all that jazz, it is super complicated. https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/01/why-isnt-california-using-more-prescribed-burns-to-reduce-fire-risk/

I think it's fun to compare the judicial record of Garland, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh. Because we make it seem like these are some sort of polar opposites, when the reality is much more minute.

What I really got from that clip was the capital gains taxes are going to be raised on the wealthy. Which is great, since middle class wealth is shrinking and the wealthy are living it up.

Yeah, *bleep* Obsidian! Long live the Obsidian Forums!

The rest of your post was awesome and insightful. But this line is a silly dig. History teachers aren't experts on every geopolitical situation that has ever happened across the history of the world. We might have a few certain content areas that we are more well versed on than the average person, we are hopefully capable of looking at it through a historiographical lens, and lastly we should be able to teach it in an engaging manner. Pretty simple job, really. They pay me too much!

Oro is great and I always appreciate his perspective. He has made it very clear where he is coming from and why.

Eh, seems pretty reasonable, given some of these actors seem to have very little reason to be so heavily invested. I mean, look at Skarpies signature, and then try to figure out why he cares about all of this from the other side of the world. Has he even vacationed in the US? Does he have family in the US? It's pretty weird. How invested are you in what is happening in Poland?

That's crazy! I don't think it means Obsidian gets another Fallout game. I'm not entirely sure what is means for them. It was kind of nice that they were really the main RPG studio in the Microsoft portfolio. What happens when the next Elder Scrolls game is compared to Avowed? Outer Worlds compared to Fallout? I mean, I'm happy to see both studios putting out games, but I'm worried from a business perspective the underperformer will be in trouble.

Subnautica: Below Zero - I decided to bite on the beta, since I was in the mood for a peaceful swim. It is coming along nicely and looks to be a solid follow up to the original.

The problem is the Republicans have control of the senate, so they have no reason to stall. I mean, of course they will look like hypocrites after stalling 4 years ago on Garland, but nobody seems to care about hypocrisy if it helps their team win. Go political sports team go.

I'm not sure that it is a shame though. Your average 12-year old is blessedly naïve about the about the world around them, and I don't know that we need to really rush to crush that with realities of power and manipulation in government.

Fun Fact: My lesson on Machiavelli is one of my favorites. Less fun fact: Very few students remember or understand it.

No.

Magnum Dopus - The Making of the Jay and Silent Bob reboot. This was better than the film. I am a big Kevin Smith fan. He is just a positive guy, and he tells a good story. His podcasts are still the gold standard. Sure, he isn't recapturing the magic of his early films anymore, but I still love to hear him talk about the process, pop culture, and superheroes.

Unwilling and incapable are two dramatically different situations. I will bend over backwards trying to help the incapable kid find some success. There is always a path forward, it just might not look like it did for the rest of the class. Special education teachers basically live in this world. They are all excellent at celebrating the small successes instead of focusing on the failings. Unwilling...eh. If a kid wants to space out all period, there is only so much I'm going to do to try and engage them. People need to own their education. I'm bummed when a kid fails because of lack of effort, and I will extend plenty of opportunities to jump on board the learning train, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it. Heck, it gives me more time to focus on the kid who needs and wants the help. That all being said, I do see it as my job to engage the students. If a good chunk of the class is not picking up what I'm selling, then it is on me to shift gears. I swear some teachers just assume it is the students job to always be attentive, no matter how boring they are being. My attention span is a pretty good indicator. It is not long. What were we talking about again?

So what would voting for Trump be like voting for?

Yep, the reality of diabetes in this country. I do a charity ride every year called the Tour de Cure. My father-in-law died last year of diabetes related causes, and one of my ride buddies has a son who lives with type 1. Our ride is coming up. http://main.diabetes.org/site/TR?px=15363308&pg=personal&fr_id=13008

I think you mean RomAces, flight jockey.

At first I was like, oh a spelling error. But then I got it.

That would be interesting though. Flight Sim RPG for the win! The planes have backstories now.

Apparently Kamala Harris has a very divisive way of going down the stairs.

I finished Xcom: Chimera Squad. It was an excellent game. I feel like Firaxis has been slowly getting closer to the formula that made Jagged Alliance 2 my favorite game ever. Growing up, the top two games in terms of gameplay for me were Xcom UFO Defense and JA2. I had plenty of other favorites, but it tended to be because of story much more than gameplay. Firaxis really nailed the Xcom formula for me with their first game. But with Enemy Within and Xcom 2, they started to allow more depth of personality in the soldiers. The colorful cast of mercs has always been one of the main things missing from games not titled Jagged Alliance, but I could tell Firaxis was getting closer. So now we get a little side quest Xcom with a colorful cast of characters trying to clean up their city. First off, the gameplay was great, but that was no surprise as Firaxis has shown they know how to keep the gameplay fresh. Each soldier felt very different from a gameplay perspective. But I also enjoyed their banter and the backstories. It wasn't super deep, and I think the 25 hours was probably about right, because a longer campaign may have started to feel grindy, but it was a fun and fast adventure with an interesting roster. Godmother, Axiom, and Blue Blood were absolutely deadly by the end of my game, and Terminal was huge in support. I also had Verge, Shelter, and Patchwork stepping in nicely. Cherub was a bit boring, but he did have one really good mission where he stood in the middle of a room with his shields up and drew all of the attention while his heavily injured teammates slowly whittled down the overwhelming odds.

This just in: Not getting shot is safer than wearing a bulletproof vest.

The DLC is definitely cosmetic, but given that the best part of the game is building awesome fortresses, those cosmetics are pretty nice. But don't rush into buying anything, if you are just starting you have plenty to explore. They've been releasing content updates for free since launch though. The newest DLC is really the first content you have to purchase to get access to more than cosmetics. But it is a brand new map and starting point, so that makes sense.