Gromnir

we don't even do a particular good job pruning hedges, and that ain't requiring us to work bass ackwards with a mirror. am aware o' our limitations, thank you very much. had a professional cut our hair on the 25th, which were fifteen days following our second vaccine shot. were arguable the best money we has spent this year. HA! Good Fun!

in remembrance of all those men and women who have fallen in defense o' their nation and o' the Constitution. also, am henceforth official disliking the french 3% less.

of the tens of people in the US who heard 'bout such and cared, am suspecting half rolled their eyes at the news o' far-right l00ns objecting to lockdown efforts during a pandemic. am not certain what were the official government response under pompeo and trump. we didn't care enough. HA! Good Fun!

you keep repeating the same nonsense, so am not gonna repeat self other than to observe the repetition and to note you continue to create your own definition o' insurrection while also ignoring the actual events o' January 6. as to the need for a commission, if before january 6 we had told gd that a bunch of proud boyz and trump supporters (am knowing the identifiers is a bit repetitive at this point) would not only attack the Capitol but they would succeed in their efforts to interfere with the electoral process, driving the vice President and members of Congress fleeing to secure locations which were for a time anything but secure, he would suggest we were being over dramatic... and any normal person who is familiar with english definitions and/or law would recognize that if you had multiple people working together to achieve the goals we describe, it would be proper identified as an insurrection. the previously improbable happened at the US freaking Capitol. somebody should investigate to determine what went wrong. for chrissakes, if the Capitol were hit by a tornado, an actual unpredictable event beyond the control o' anybody in the federal government, and more than 140 police personnel were injured, there would nevertheless be some kinda commission to determine what could be done in the future to better prepare for tornadoes at the Capitol in the future. nevertheless, for some inexplicable reason, an avoidable and manmade calamity is something we all just need to put behind us, 'cause p00p happens, or some similar bit o' trite nonsense. will add meme worthy to keep gd entertained not actual meme worthy in retrospect... and we will note were unfair to say trump said people should inject bleach to prevent covid. trump said his science folks should look into the possibility o' injecting sunshine and bleach to cure covid... which doesn't make trump appear less ignorant or unhinged, but accuracy is important even in humor posts. HA! Good Fun!

there is a significant downside to the talking filibuster, which is why the rule were changed. a filibuster where minority senators need actual debate issues *gasp* stops all legislative business. we ended up with the silent filibuster 'cause the majority were tired o' a minority being able to hold up all legislative business. an obstructionist party may use filibuster to cripple Congress, which is kinda what mitch wants, yes? am in favor of bringing back debate and having folks like mitch mcconnell and ted cruz explain why, even though democrats agreed to all republican demands during negotiations for the proposed bipartisan january 6 investigation, republicans were nevertheless opposed to empowering a commission to look into causes o' the insurrection as well as considering preventative measures to avoid a future similar event. heck, way more than simple majority o' republicans polled believe january 6 were caused by antifa, blm and democrats. shouldn't they want an investigation to prove such malfeasance? 'course any sorta meaningful investigation is gonna make republicans look bad. is a reason kevin mccarthy has been dodging questions 'bout his phone call with the President on January 6. paul gosar, mo brooks and andy biggs were all instrumental in organizing the stop the steal rally on january 6 which preceded the insurrection, and am suspecting they do not want their dirty laundry aired and they sure as heck don't wanna be subpoenaed to explain a few o' their texts and emails. we warned folks following january 6 that get trump for incitement would be tough, but conspiracy to incite violence is another question entirely, and trump's failure in his duty to protect Congress also needs explanation. trump speech may be protected, but his actions still would normal have consequences. etc. mitch, as we noted earlier in the thread, is taking a rational and transactional approach. in anticipation o' the midterms, mitch needs to prevent democrats from being able to brag 'bout positives o' the biden administration, so he is gonna obstruct to an extreme degree. likewise, mitch wants to undercut and delay the truth 'bout how corrupt were the trump administration. a talky filibuster has the potential of working to mitch's advantage as he wants the senate handicapped. am in favor o' a talky filibuster. make senators speak in defense o' their actions at 3:00am is gonna lead to more than a few moments o' schadenfreude. gd likes memes. a talky filibuster is gonna be a meme goldmine. even so, am recognizing is not all good news for the majority to reinstate the talky filibuster. the fact a majority got rid o' the talky filibuster should give democrats pause before they embrace such a change. those who do not learn from history... HA! Good Fun!

the duration o' the album version is more than fifteen minutes. too short. HA! Good Fun!

saw this one back in april. at the time, our first thought were, now Gromnir knows what boc would sound like if axl rose were their lead singer. HA! Good Fun!

am losing patience. those is not equal. you make fundamental correlation v. causation fails and then demand absolute disprove of a negative to refute a conspiracy theory? what? the appeal o' conspiracy is such explanations provide simple and complete answers when there is a paucity o' evidence. you mistake the absence o' evidence as support for conspiracy rather than recognizing such lack o' evidence is crippling. circumstantial evidence is not compelling unless you are able to show a meaningful causal link AND your evidence (collective) is compelling enough that it exceeds some meaningful burden of proof, but you don't care 'bout such showings. you ignore causal and you somehow mistake absence o' evidence as the proof which makes conspiracy more likely until disproven. whatever data crunching you do for a living, you is doing in spite o' some basic misunderstandings 'bout evidence and proof... or you are an economist. A ‪‎physicist, an ‪‎engineer and an ‪‎economist are stranded in the desert. They are hungry. Suddenly, they find a can of corn. They want to open it, but how? The physicist says: “Let’s start a fire and place the can inside the flames. It will explode and then we will all be able to eat”. “Are you crazy?” says the engineer. “All the corn will burn and scatter, and we’ll have nothing. We should use a metal wire, attach it to a base, push it and crack the can open.” “Both of you are wrong!” states the economist. “Where the hell do we find a metal wire in the desert?! The solution is simple: ASSUME we have a can opener”… HA! Good Fun!

nope. is conspiracy. period. if you had evidence, then it wouldn't be conspiracy. btw, we work with facts and evidence, and we recognize when people is ignoring the need for such. HA! Good Fun!

is just another conspiracy theory from dp and zerohedge. the absence o' proof is what drives the narrative o' deflection. that said, bruce is correct that it don't matter. trump's response to the pandemic were all wrong 'ccording to a majority o' voters and the china stuff did nothing save solidify the nativism o' the trump base. inevitably somebody will roll the tape where trump were praising china transparency regarding the virus and such don't help trump with independents, educated white women and others who helped make 2020 a loss for trump. china is not a good topic for trump in general 'cause every time there is an uyghur story, some helpful reporter from ap or axios will include links to trump support o' xi and his indifference to the plight o' those persons in the reeducation camps. trump "kung flu" bs gets mentioned every time some rando korean american gets attacked by an idiot in florida or texas... retribution for the pandemic, a pandemic which were never a big deal 'ccording to trump and nobody would talk about the virus after the election anyhow, right? find proof that the virus did indeed escape from the wuhan facility? wouldn't shock us at all, but is also nothing more than conjecture the virus were lab created/enhanced, which is exact what makes the conspiracy theory appealing to folks like dp. as long as the conspiracy theory can't be disproved (HA!) it will be used by zerohedge and trump and the typical rogue's gallery o' nogoodnicks who thrive on deflection. but bruce is correct-- doesn't matter. still ~600k dead americans and is not hard to find science folks say the deaths beyond the first 100k is disproportionate the fault o' trump's incompetent response. make the trump base feel like their nativism were justified won't bring back independents and educated white women in enough numbers to make any kinda difference. heck, dp is kinda missing the point o' the conspiracy theory anyways. virus origin theories is not being promoted to change the narrative on china. the point is to undermine trust in medical experts and the media. HA! Good Fun!

am not a fan o' the eternals in comics. kirby brought his dc new gods to marvel and the resulting story just kinda died. we did read the gaiman update, which made the eternals mess coherent if not particular interesting or enjoyable. kinda weird as am a fan o' gaiman, but were never all that whelmed with john romita jr. however, for eternals we thought j romita jr did excellent work while it were the gaiman story which left us unimpressed. go figure. kinda vague and unspecific generalizations? *shrug* don't wanna spoil. is an ensemble cast o' demigods who is themselves little more than minor custodians for the celestials, which is fine if you are trying to make a comic version o' d'aulaires' book of greek myths or perhaps something like the prose edda, but am not envying the writers trying to do a movie-length story with the requisite compelling character stories while simultaneous needing deal with keyrock's fundamental questions as to who and what is the eternals and why he should give a damn 'bout them. alternative: make a forgotten one movie. introduce the forgotten one as a member o' the avengers in some other marvel movie or show. next, do a forgotten one movie, and if that works, then do eternals. HA! Good Fun!

ga, tx, fl, az, etc. is nothing surprising. red state republicans is embracing a rational transactional approach. covid resulted in more people voting as 'posed to fewer. states, recognizing the need for easing of voting restrictions during a pandemic, passed legislation to make voting easier. also, numerous states which pre-covid had instituted automatic voting registration laws, saw spikes in minority voting, though is worth noting the percentages o' minorities voting for biden were often worse than those who voted for clinton four years earlier. still, the overall numbers were a boon for democrats in the Presidential race. so, how does republicans react? tentpole party is not gonna be the approach as long as trump is the face o' the party. if you are selling grievance and fear, you are gonna have a difficult time expanding the base further than it is today. so, if you cannot increase your base, then the obvious approach is to handicap your opponent's efforts. is rational even if is kinda despicable. however, is easy to sell despicable to your constituents (again, you aren't trying to increase popularity with democrats or independents at this point) when virtual every poll shows that republicans has since november 2020 become more convinced the election were stolen/rigged. way more than 50% republicans believe the ga republicans is the heroes as 'posed to the villains. however, there is ~30% o' republicans who is, at the very least, tending to believe the election were fair, but keep in mind some % o' those folks is nevertheless convinced the democrats represent an existential crisis... a crisis which is protean in nature and shifts depending on what tucker carlson or others is current blathering on 'bout on fox. is republicans who know trump were lying 'bout the election and that republicans manufactured the hate which led to the storming o' the Capitol, but as 'tween the insurrectionists and the democrats, the hardcore republicans will remain true to their party no matter what. 30% o' republicans don't give a damn 'bout the republican party, but they follow trump. drop support o' the big lie alienates the folks who were attacking lindsey graham in an airport after he were critical o' trump following january 6. rational. lindsey response were cowardly and despicable, but rational. republicans cannot win w/o the 30% o' republicans who is diehard trump faithful. lindsey's constituents want the voting restrictions 'cause they either believe the lies 'bout election fraud, or they don't care 'bout fraud and are more convinced the democrats need to lose no matter what the price. again, none o' this is surprising. is rational and were predictable. more people than Gromnir were doing cassandra impressions as we made guesses 'bout how republicans would react to the november election. of course there were gonna be an effort to make voting more difficult. worse, we also predicted how disappointed people would be when they realized those heroic conservative judges and republican state officials who stood up to trump when they were asked to commit or support outright fraud in 2020 would nevertheless be part o' the effort before the next elections in 2022 and 2024 to limit voting rights. the trump campaign lost many cases and the standing issues which were so common part o' predictable auto-fails is gonna be obstacles to minority groups attempting to bring cases against the ga, tx, fla, az legislatures and republican secretaries o' state. HA! Good Fun!

on a more positive note... HA! Good Fun!

sheesh. clear am doing something wrong as we just completed act 2... again. is a few hurdles which cause us to go slow and many such obstacles is bugs. took us literal an hour o' save and reload attempts to exit drezen citadel after the boss fight-- multiple party members had geometry fails and were "falling" through the floor immediate before the exit area. btw, am using literal to mean literal 'stead o' how kids these days use as euphemism. an hour. we still got the party management bug wherein we cannot adjust inventory, spellbooks or character tabs unless we exit camp. took a week or two off from gaming hoping the newer build would address a few o' our bug issues. didn't happen. etc. am playing tb core, and we can be a bit pokey when doing tb. even so... have spent nearly 1/3 o' our time playing with level 9 builds using respec and/or merc hires. the oracle/thug/bloodrager/scaled fist/paladin build (f'ing d&d and pathfinder *sigh*) looks solid. colluding scoundrel/crossbow sohei/ranger looks good as angel or azata... as long as we get all monk levels (need 11 for second flurry) in before the inevitable alignment shift for azata. am annoyed that most o' our favorite builds is ranged, 'cause nenio, arueshalae, and lann is already having great archer potential. could add wenduag to the list of we kept her 'round. regardless, have spent much time playing with level 9 builds. even so... am also doing a bit of real life landscape maintenance, which means our efforts to advance in beta is a bit on the paltry side. am serious considering ripping out most o' our plants and replacing with rocks. don't need to water rocks. don't need to prune rocks. wood peckers don't destroy rocks as they did our birch trees. keep the redwoods and the roof-high photinias which is functional an extra 30 metres of fencing on the one side o' our house... and maybe a few gardenias. the rest? rocks. not kidding 'bout the birch trees neither. we had six mature birch trees and four is functional hollowed out by wood peckers. gonna replace the birches with rocks. even so... am admiring shady's verve in being able to complete the beta. HA! Good Fun!

so, release in a bit over three months. HA! Good Fun!

the internet says you might be indulging in a bit of hyperbole https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Entry-Level-HVAC-Technician-Salary-by-State https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/HVAC-Technician-Salary-in-Memphis,TN but https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/High-School-English-Teacher-Salary-in-Memphis,TN am complete agreeing with most other observations, particular military service and community college. unless you are independent wealthy, or are going ivy league (or similar,) am not certain what is the reason for choosing other than the community college route, and this is coming from a true education snob. HA! Good Fun!

HA! Good Fun!

hmmm. over the past few years posting we may have indulged in a bit o' snark. maybe. HA! Good Fun!

ok, this is gonna sound like grumpy old guy pov, but this is an opinion we had since short after our matriculation. our advice for those considering university is as follows: don't. get a blue collar job, or join the military. especial as comrade is so enamored o' the cccp, then perhaps he should first get real experience as a worker and some part-time job doing pizza delivery or some such hardly counts. contrary to myths, repair a few miles o' barbwire fence line in sub-zero temperatures o' a dakota or wyoming winter or dig irrigation trenches for rich people's homes in so cal or arizona during the summer don't build character. hard work won't make you a better person. will give perspective and chances are if you then do go to university after a couple years, you will have greater appreciation for the opportunity. perhaps you is physical not cut out for physical toil? if you have the means, volunteer inner city food bank/homeless shelters. university ain't real. people condemn the safe place language linked to universities but universities should be safe for everything 'cept uncomfortable truths. am quite happy to have universities be a comfortable zone o' safety divorced from reality, but too many university students spend four years in fantasyland thinking they has learned the secrets o' the universe when fact is many such kids has never been in the real world. so, our advice is as follows: get a job. HA! Good Fun! ps full disclosure: we did not get a job after high school and before going to university as we were an athletic scholarship student, but we had worked on a ranch for years and we had summer and winter jobs from time we were thirteen including blm wild horse roundup, roofing supply and ranch hand work from people who paid better than our grandparents.

at some point we wanna do an oracle with nature and battle mysteries + three levels o' sacred huntsmaster. take lame curse and make certain we get travel domain from sacred hunstmaster to effective nullify the malus o' lame. the friend to animals nature power mixed with a couple of teamwork feats looked like a great combo if you like animal companions and/or summons. getting the charisma modifier added to ac is nothing to sneeze at either. few posts back we mentioned how am admitted kinda addicted to animal companions and trip. is not many downsides to nature oracle other than crappy skills and as such we might eventual breakdown and try just the nature oracle + sacred huntsmaster seeing as how the second mystery thing is still busted. am knowing oracle merges the angel spell book, so is obvious synergy, but we were thinking o' trying azata anyways. we kinda like owlcat's azata from an rp pov, but it does push you hard chaotic as you get deeper in the game and as we got further into the mythic quest lines we were recalling just how much we dislike d&d/pathfinder alignment. am kinda stuck pre drezen act 2 as a few bugs made progress tedious though not impossible. HA! Good Fun! ps am not certain if is still working this way, but in the previous beta build, the sacred fist ac bonus for charisma were stacking with oracle nature mystery ac bonus.

6.2d happened in the wee hours this AM, 'cause there were a problem with 6.2c. so far it looks like class fixes are not a priority, although a few classes have been rendered... humorous. demonslayers now have favored enemy: outsiders. the thing is, favored enemy: outsiders is applying to hit and damage bonuses 'gainst all outsider but for demons. to get bonuses v. demons you need select one of three new demon-specific favored enemies: slaughter, strength, magic. am having no idea what demons correspond to which category save through guessing. regardless, the demonslayer cannot choose those three options. demonslayer gets vanilla outsiders for favoured enemy, which is literal all outsiders but for demons. a class feature o' the nomad (ranger) is a horse animal companion. no animal companion for nomads, horse or otherwise. am continuing to have camp issues with companion inventory and spell book access, but such is no surprise. am a bit discouraged by how respec is still busted if you have an animal companion. as far as am able to tell, is more than a few aspects being bungled by animal companions. of course Gromnir has been playing animal companion focused builds, so... mythic second spirit and second mystery is still not capable o' selection for shaman nor oracle. loremaster is now on the prestige class list. cannot select even if you meet prereqs. etc. it does appear a few o' the geometry fails has been addressed. no specific patch notes for 6.2d, so am not certain what were fixed, but am s'posing the 6.2c link included should cover numerous fixes. the snow in the beta looks nice. makes us more (if only a tiny bit) convinced next ap will be reign of winter. HA! Good Fun!

martin short and steve martin are such good friends, am suspecting if pbs came to 'em and told 'em they were redoing the joy of painting, but wanted martin and short to host it together and said, "just do whatever you want," they woulda' jumped at the opportunity. only murders looks just a bit less contrived than our bob ross revival idea. martin and short wanted to do something. am not certain how picky were short and martin 'bout the vehicle. HA! Good Fun!

unfortunate, this does not surprise us at all. perhaps it is wrong, but am expecting more than a few people in the military is unwell, 'cause there is a whole lotta unwell people in the general public. have had multiple bosses over the years, individuals running multi-billion dollar businesses, or in charge o' facilities doing dangerous stuff, and am gonna admit we were initial shocked they were promoted to their positions given their obvious character flaws and dubious mental stability. so of course am no longer shocked when a soldier, sailor, marine, police officer or even POTUS (with access to nuke launch codes), not only gets job o' defending the public and/or america, but is allowed to continue their work for days, weeks, months or years. the guy in question didn't slip through the cracks in any ordinary sense-- his condition were diagnosed by the us navy. a diagnosis o' paranoid schizophrenia disqualifies a person from joining any branch o' the us military, even the us navy, o' which the marines is a part. thank goodness there is marines like shady and others who is able to take matters into their own hands when unwell people is put in positions dangerous for themselves and those 'round 'em. corporal bone spurs needed similar kinda oversight, but were pentagon brass who alleged took away the firing pin. HA! Good Fun!

you don't get to alter if you don't bother to read the link. "the alt-right and no-compromise gun folks aren't afraid of needles or masks. they is afraid of the government, but only the wrong government. the same folks angry at being forced to wear masks is perfect ok with the government stepping in and limiting the first amendment rights of big tech, or the voting rights o' predominant minority communities in pennsylvania or arizona. oh, and don't forget the muslim ban." HA! Good Fun!

is noteworthy the cdc never required mask wearing. is no cdc mechanism for requiring mask wearing. the cdc offered guidance, and nothing more. even under the unhinged socialist regime of comrade biden, there has never a national mask mandate, so cdc guidance change had no legal relevance. as you observe, states, counties and private entities has implemented mask mandates, and CA has not immediate changed its mandate. mentioned in the covid thread, am disappointed by the mask resistance, but not surprised. were utterly American and depressing predictable the pandemic would lead to more than a few people becoming enraged by perceived government overreach, even when were private entities demanding reasonable behavioral limits to slow the spread of a deadly disease. sweary guy: "it ain't the point of the mask." 'cause next thing you know, they are going to try and take away your guns. HA! Good Fun!