Gromnir

am not a stephen a. smith fan (understatement) but he has a point. http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/16761817/nba-players-react-kevin-durant-decision-join-golden-state-warriors HA! Good Fun!

HA! Good Fun!

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/1999/0405/6307082a.html article date is 1999. HA! Good Fun! ps w/o emotes some o' you folks don't get sarcasm, so just pretend we included whatever is the current snark tag.

dear lord. from april through october, our community has a weekly event involving gourmet food trucks. every sunday we gets five or six local gourmet trucks peddling their culinary wares at a park within our gates from 4-8PM. one or two such vehicles is having traditional truck food such as burgers or barbecue. is typical one desert-specific truck in the convoy. the remaining three trucks will be unique. mexican-korean fusion. personal wood-fire pizzas. peruvian cuisine. etc. the july 3rd event were a bit different in that we also had live bands, extended hours and ten trucks... including a bacon truck. bacon. everything bacon. "Bacon brownies, topped with whipped cream, drizzled with Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup, and more Bacon bits." "Slow-Cooked Pulled Pork, mixed with Hickory Smoked Bacon, tossed in our Bacon BBQ Sauce, then topped with a tangy Carolina Slaw, topped with chipayo sauce!" "Sharp Cheddar Cheese and Hickory Smoked Bacon Crumbles, fried to a crispy chip. Served w/ Sour Cream." "Our most delicious bacon-wrapped bites of brilliance – Our famous Mac ’n Cheese balls wrapped in applewood bacon and deep fried." etc. we ordered multiple items from the menu, including the deep-fried mac n' cheese balls, wrapped in bacon. ... am feeling our age this AM. we can no longer overeat w/o suffering consequences. long gone is the days when we could make management cry at an all-you-can eat breakfast joint, followed by a slab o' baby-back ribs for lunch, and topped off with the lion's share o' a pizza for dinner. nope. we need exercise moderation or feel the wrath o' gastro-intestinal rebellion. in our defense, the mac n' cheese balls were delicious. 'course we current feel as if there is a large rock rolling 'round in our gut... a bacon wrapped rock. ah well, happy fourth. am gonna take a prilosec and endure severe bloating and cold sweats for the next 24-36 hours. it were worth it. ... perhaps we shouldn't o' had so much homemade guacamole for lunch? HA! Good Fun!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSkOyhmt_-g just 'cause your visit to deadwood offers us an excuse. enjoy the 4th. HA! Good Fun!

https://www.thesun.co.uk/living/1360547/the-countries-where-women-have-the-biggest-natural-boobs-in-the-world-and-the-smallest/ HA! Good Fun!

a smidgen sweary HA! Good Fun!

if you ain't in a raid guild, operations will serious test your faith in humanity. the problem being that being in a raid guild will almost definite destroy your faith in humanity. pug for ops? HA! chances are you spend hours on a pointless endeavor that ends up costing you ridiculous credits on repairs to your gear as you endure wipe after wipe after wipe afterwipeafterwipeafterwipe. raid guilds would be ok if you didn't need have to interact with your fellow guild members. the drama-free guilds peopled only by mature gamers may not be complete mythical, but they is having a life span measured in a handful o' months. kinda amusing , but we did mostest o' our ops stuff when we were still doing serious pvp. many pvp folks were in raid guilds, and when they were short a few bodies, they would frequent ask Gromnir to fill in at heals or tank. when we stopped doing pvp regular, we also stopped doing ops. we don't miss doing ops. miss the gearing opportunities a bit, but not enough to do pug or join a guild. actual, we haven't played swtor for months. the game has more appeal for us if we take the frequent multi-month hiatus. the dvl event looks idiotic, but we ain't too smart. gonna take one empire and one republic character through eternal level to be acquiring the new companions. got a guardian and marauder each to level 25, but is already becoming a slog. am kinda curious 'bout the new companions, so thanks to our ocd we will likely stick 'round 'til we get both new characters to 65. am assuming that the companions is actual imp v. pub as 'posed to dark v. light, but we ain't bothered to check. HA! Good Fun! ps well that is mildly interesting... and dvl naming actual now makes sense to us. seems companion choice is resulting from global dvl point totals at the end o' the event. if more folks play ls, then we all get ls comp. if folks 'cross all servers play more towards sinister, then the ds companion will be the choice. rif

It sounds like you've had enough of the midwest anyway. And it would be closer to family. Eh, I like having the different weather, but Portland would give me that. Kind of annoyed that they didn't give me more warning about the branch I was moving to being terminated. it would appear that forty-one does not understand his value to the ship. row well, forty-one. HA! Good Fun!

the bugs could eat mammal brains to steal memories and intelligence and the horror they might inspire would still pale compared to the gut-churning revulsion we suffered when reality tv celebrities evolved back in the early 1990s. we spit on your centipedes. we laugh at them. there were articles in the freaking nyt and washington post telling us 'bout the conflict between some grimy bike messenger and a kid with aids... with comments from president clinton? freaking surreal world. bring on your sooper bugs and antibiotic-resistant diseases and chuds. our capacity for shock and awe died when paris hilton became a celebrity. HA! Good Fun!

am embarrassed to admit that we know the original twinkie were banana. 1930? original twinkie were filled with banana pudding instead o' that horrible white ooze that is utilized these days. unfortunately, there were some kinda south american banana shortage that led to a change being required by the makers o' twinkies. nowadays the banana twinkie is having the sponge cake flavored with banana, yes? the original sounds a bit more tasty to Gromnir. real sponge cake with banana pudding. bet it would taste even better deep fried. made mexican chorizo yesterday. always let our chorizo have a day in the fridge to fully absorb spices. gonna have chorizo breakfast burritos for dinner. gonna smell chorizo in our home for the next three days. as an aside, if anybody gots a good chorizo recipe they can recommend, we would be appreciative. the current recipe we is using is fine. just fine. we like "just fine " chorizo as we really do enjoy chorizo, but am always on the lookout for a better alternative. dunno. we do genuine labor with a mortar and pestle as we turn cumin, coriander and clove into powder. use good pork and spices. nevertheless, our chorizo is just fine. HA! Good Fun!

selective amnesia. our dialogue began after your critique o' poe leveling. you used wasteland 2 as a comparison in your critique. you see some special qualitative difference in your critique v. stated preferences preference, with examples and comparisons to existing games? ... okie dokie the boss at the foot o' the endless paths is representing a rather substantial increase in difficulty compared to your previous endless path encounters. boss has a couple attacks that do overwhelming damage. don't feel bad if you need/want to level and gear a bit before finishing her off. eat your food and use your potions... and scrolls. without getting into specifics, we will note that the attendant mobs possesses serious debilitating abilities. petrify and nasty aoes and all kinda badness. ideally, if you can get the mobs to attack the dragon, you is possible killing two birds with one stone. regardless, don't just ignore mobs thinking that your own aoes will neutralize 'em. ... HA! Good Fun!

then it makes your response and critique o' individual game mechanics a rather dubious proposition as you immediate retreat to a touchy-feely gestalt approach when questioned. am not sure how to progress. HA! Good Fun!

not a great vocalist, but hornsby is a virtuoso musician. is possible that the branford marsalis and bruce hornsby star spangled banner is still our favorite rendition, though is tough to find a good live recording. HA! Good Fun!

looks all bright and sunny. we got friends in jackson, wy. told us that they had t-storms this eve and are expecting more tomorrow. stay safe and dry. HA! Good Fun!

brexit does provide an ideal opportunity to consider becoming the 51st US... state. well, possibly 52nd as we suspect puerto rico would have a thing or two to say on the matter. would be a serious and instant boost for the brit economy. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/britain-would-be-poorer-than-any-us-state-except-mississippi-if-it-joined-america-9693240.html would finally get genuine free trade with an economy on par with the entire eu. far less less regulation than brussels. heck, less regulation than britain. your celebrities would not need feel embarrassment in getting caught in panama papers nonsense as you can get better tax shelter benefits in nevada and delaware. oh sure, you would likely need deal with more homeless and the socialist gravy train would come to an abrupt halt. soccer hooligans armed with ubiquitous american handguns could make for brutal television. otherwise, am not seeing much o' a downside from the brit end o' things. ... 'course the royals would no longer be royal. sorry, is a Constitutional quirk we got. am guessing that no royalty would kill any possibility o' #brit51orbust. be like michael caine, yes? “I decided not to become a tax exile, so I stayed in Britain, but they kept putting the tax up, so I’d do any old thing every now and then to pay the tax, that was my tax exile money. I realized that’s not a socialist country, it’s a communist country without a dictator, so I left and I was never going to come back.” and just observe how impressive he looks wielding a handgun. something to think 'bout. HA! Good Fun!

... you realize that what you said makes zero sense. *shrug* as for not having thought enough to discuss general principles without using an indie fallout clone with a handful o' sales as your only example, you were making general statements on the subject in any number o' earlier posts. is a smidgen amusing, no? is particular guffaw inducing as this all started 'cause you were utilizing wasteland 2 as your example o' level progression done right... a game which at release only had % skill increases at level-up, and as such no possibility o' such game-changers anyways. am suspecting if we respond further, PETA is gonna be giving us a call for our savage inhumanity directed at equine dead. HA! Good Fun!

you seem to be trying to talk 'bout a specific game rather than a general principle. but if you wanna backtrack a bit regarding game-changers, who is Gromnir to argue with you. *shrug* keep in mind that we recognize that any rpg with mathematics based combat will have game-changers. particularly when developers is producing large numbers o' customization options or has many levels, there is gonna be unforeseen player behaviors. an otherwise innocuous seeming level 9 ability, when coupled with a couple feats, a specific equipment load-out, and careful timed support spell casting and or consumable usage, will sudden become a game-changer. nevertheless, such is never a goal in good design. game-changers is inherently bad for reasons we already discussed, and they most often show in good games 'cause o' developer mistake. am also realizing just how difficult is the developer job regarding level progression. the player should feel as if he is becoming more powerful. simultaneous, the developer is attempting to prevent earlier acquired powhaz and abilities from being marginalized while also keeping challenges faced by the player from becoming too easy or too hard. is a near impossible balance to be striking, particularly as player skill is gonna vary. regardless, game-changers is a mistake. they happen, but is not a goal, save for stoopid developers. HA! Good Fun! ps you has identified a different but equal noteworthy developer mistake: if a battle is unwinnable w/o a specific ability/spell/feat, then developers is doing a poor job.

is hard to imagine that an aretha franklin album would be panned by critics even a "bad" aretha album is gonna have a few great tracks. HA! Good Fun!

so? *shrug* if an ability would otherwise become useless due to leveling, then one would expect that a non lazy developer would make such necessary improvement to be an integral quality o' the original ability. create a feat or ability just to keep a previous acquired ability from becoming useless is lazy design. bloats feats and ability lists unnecessarily. also, if such stuff is mere allowing an ability to keep pace with leveling challenges, then it hardly qualifies as a game changer, yes? is a return to previous status quo. HA! Good Fun!

am thinking that bg spell caster progression problems is something poe were trying to avoid. bg leveling is not a great example o' what is right, but rather o' what is wrong. with a couple notable exceptions, low level spells (and abilities) too often become useless in old d&d. magic missile is a nice spell, and is one o' the noteworthy level one spells that gets use as an arcane spell caster levels, but even magic missile requires sequencers to generate genuine impact late in the game. there is a reason why so many veteran bg sorcerers, in spite o' the enormous spell catalog available, has largely identical spell choices. most low level spells in d&d (especial the earlier editions o' d&d) become progressive less useful. bad. is the kinda badness poe attempted to avoid with some success. abilities available at low levels should not see efficacy diminish precipitous as levels increase. would be terrible as a poe monk or fighter if low level abilities became useless by mid levels. shouldn't be any different for spell casters. those low level abilities were paid for via considerable gaming hours. is dumb to make 'em diminish and dwindle... which is necessarily what happens when later-level game-changers become available. is no way to talk around this one. game-changer is an inherent relative measure. relative to what? is game changing compared to your current abilities. is game-changing compared to foe abilities. new abilities should never overwhelm past abilities and new abilities should never change the challenge o' the game. should never be a game-changer. such stuff is dumb. HA! Good Fun!

game-changing abilities is stoopid. developers should be lauded for not having individual abilities that is game-changers. sadly there were a couple poe class abilities that were altering the gameplay dynamic once your character acquired. such developer miscalculations is a flaw to be avoided. just saying. HA! Good Fun! Why do you say that? Don't those kind of abilities give you a real sense of progression? ridiculous. is one o' the common mistakes in bad crpgs that you don't get meaningful abilities 'til some point deep into the game. you don't feel powerful until level X? wth? why even have all those hours grinding to levels previous to X? this problem is exacerbated with game-changers. *chuckle* d&d 3.5 were a fantastic example o' this problem. classes would have game-changing sooper abilities at level 2, 5, 8 or whatever. so sure enough we would get ridiculous multi-class combos where players never takes more than 2, 5, or 8 levels o' a class, 'cause is not the class that is compelling to play but rather is the game-changer that folks is pursuing. terrible. awful. antiquated. what an utter waste o' class progression. make class progression meaningful. give players useful choices at level-up (as 'posed to nothing save a % skill increase that becomes pointless past X% anyways.) make challenges match player power so that there is no freaking game-changers. level X should never result in a fundamental change in the class gameplay dynamic. is one reason why so many star wars games fail. become jedi = win. well screw that. got a bunch o' unique and intriguing classes that is largely made pointless when Jedi becomes available? why? yeah, if becoming a jedi is part o' the story and all playable characters necessarily becomes jedi, then we get why a developer would go such a route, but is still a waste o' resources. instead o' attempting to makes, for example, three base classes and three jedi prestige classes, it makes far more sense, and is offering the player far more choice, if you instead have six equal viable and fun classes that is equal fun all the way through a game. game-changers is dumb... is causing many balance issues (duh) and is largely antithetical to the presumed goal o' maximizing choice in a crpg. of course you choose the game-changer. is no actual choice if choice is a forgone conclusion. HA! Good Fun! ps sooper-dooper weapons available at some point deep in game is likewise terrible. poe did a good job with customization options and upgrades so that weapons found early in the game would be equal (and often superior) to weapons found late in the game. durance's staff were, for Gromnir, an endgame weapon. crushing/burn quality made one o' the earliest available magic weapons in the game useful from start to finish. find out 2/3 into the game that as a priest we were stoopid not to focus on weapon class X or Y? bad design. just as bad to have game-changing weapons.

craters o' the moon and snake river plain leading to yellowstone make Gromnir shiver. is beautiful country. heck, we got a christmas tree farm in the area that we is likely gonna retire to in the not too distant future. even so, that yellowstone caldera is scary when you think 'bout it, particularly when you look at craters o' the moon and realize that it were more than 10 million years ago that the yellowstone hotspot were in south-central idaho, yes? and the hotspot is already overdue. yellowstone is one o' the more amazing places on earth, so enjoy the visit. HA! Good Fun! ps if you ever get the chance, visit yellowstone in late october/november before the roads close for winter. is breathtakingly beautiful in a whole different way than is summer.

is current 41 C and will be another 1.5 hours 'til we see 4pm and the likely high temp o' the day. highpoint o' the day is the moment we escape from blistering concrete sidewalk reflected heat and walk into a climate controlled building. we did roofing supply and roofing for a few summers when we were younger. am pretty confident that on a day such as today, the current Gromnir would last 'bout 20 minutes on tar paper and bats before keeling over with heatstroke. #@%* dry heat. HA! Good Fun!

While I did enjoy PoE, I must agree that it is not that fun without grasping the mechanics, which are all too obscure and arcane for most players (including me, who had to resort to the forums to understand things) to learn on their own without boring trial and error. Truth to be told, it kinda stabbed itself in the back when it came to character building, as it offered an ocean of flexibility... and dropped you on a lonely island with all the materials to build a whole fleet of boats but an incomplete manual. as we noted earlier, we believe that the great poe flaw, if it is a flaw, is the fundamental design philosophy to try and be hardcore, but not too hardcoe. doomed. poe is too dense for many casual players. the mechanics is indeed lacking transparency, but more problematic is simple the complexity. four or five different abilities, spells, conditions and lord only knows what else might affect any given accuracy v. defense resolution. 'course spell accuracy is generated different than weapon accuracy. trap accuracy uses different math and the math has changed multiple times since release. hazards? many players don't even know what is hazards or how to calculate hazard accuracy. priest seals were original traps for purposes o' math, but now they is hazards, and even Gromnir is baffled by actual in-game priest seal spell accuracy when all buffs, debuffs and other conditions is to be considered. can be more than a bit overwhelming. poe is dense. is too dense for casual. is too hardcore for casual. what makes worse is that hardcore crpg fans is tending towards limited notions o' proper crpg development. is no way to please even most hardcore crpg fans if hardcore is your goal. poe is too dense and hardcore for casual and is wrong hardcore or not enough hardcore for many/most o' the crpg snobs. doomed. Gromnir weren't discouraged by poe density and we did not find obsidian mechanic choices to be too casual or heretical. is too bad more folks ain't more like us. ... that were a joke. nobody wants more Gromnir. HA! Good Fun!