@wizz said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
If I see one more dating profile about a married polyamorous woman just seeking a "belaytionship" or a TRUE THIN BLUE LINE patriot who just wants to square dance and sneers about vaccinations and masks I am going to hurl my phone into the sun and surrender to my fate of being a wild mountain hermit.
God, the dating scene is miserable out here.
....What the fuck is a belaytionship??
@wizz said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
Sums it up nicely. It's mostly a cultural thing in the states around the Rockies from what I gather. You aggressively pursue outdoor hobbies every waking hour that you're not at work and...pretty much nothing else. Day drink, I guess.
That word alone makes me hate these people on your behalf. Carry on peeving, sir. Carry on.
@ominous said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
I would hold off on that strategy. When I was in college and grad school, that was still a thing, but it was dying out. Now hitting on people at a bar is considered creepy.
Someone please send this memo to the men who have hit on me while I'm on public transit, wearing headphones and visibly doing schoolwork.
Yes, self, I am aware of the irony of studying fiscal and monetary policy while listening to punk songs about fighting the system.
I am keenly aware, thank you.
@lilli said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
Your DM is.... not very bright. So long as somebody else is hiring, and paying more....
That was an issue before the pandemic. Doubt it has gone anywhere.
Remember, folks! Minimum wage is your employer saying "If I could legally pay you less than this, I would."
If there is one thing that is super awesome about working for a finance company, it's being able to blurt out the following when dealing with my husband's former employer and the bullshit they pulled with his 401k.
"Yeah, sooooooooo.... the action that you've taken with his account is definitely a violation of ERISA regulations passed all the way back in 1974, the fiduciary obligations you're bound by, and ignores successor plan requirements that would prevent exactly this sort of forceout, not to mention the failure to even notify us of any of this. Will you be sending over the paperwork needed to correct this and transfer the funds to our custodian of choice or should I begin our written complaint to the Department of Labor now?"
The dog startled himself awake with one of his own farts.
Again.
This will never stop being funny.
JAMES MCAVOY WISHED ME A HAPPY BIRTHDAY.
IN PERSON.
TO MY ACTUAL FACE.
I also tried the new FFG dice system for several sessions. While I do generally like the idea of 'succeeding but with interesting narrative complications' (see: my general love for all things Burning Wheel), I really, truly hate the fact that -- as @Sunny said -- they elected to be gimmicky with their dice. Worse, they elected to be gimmicky with their dice in a way that actively slows down gameplay as you sit there trying to figure out what cancels out what and then looking it up on some chart to determine what happens. Like, way to add to the most annoying bullshit from D&D and find a way to charge me more money for it, guys.
@krmbm said in Why are there so many MUs set in Maine?:
Our last game was set in a small, economically depressed town in the Pacific Northwest (listen i like tropes don't judge me you don't know my life), and we definitely ran afoul of that: why would this town have a four-star Michelin restaurant in it? Oh right, it wouldn't.
Yes! And these things drive me crazy!
I had two PCs on the Reach and I put some solid thought into "Why would these concepts I want to play live in this little town?" and would strip out or add things to their background as needed. Like, my Mage's cabal was there because they were a two-bit shitty punk band that was "on tour" (read: living out of their van as they drove from dive bar to dive bar in towns no one ever heard of) when it finally broke down and they had to get jobs so they could fix it. They ended up squatting in an old farmhouse on the end of town where a major icky rip in the spiritual fabric was because they figured the horrible atmosphere would keep pretty much everyone else away.
Bu then I would run into the max Resources and max Fame actual literal movie star and be like, "....This is hurting my heart whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy please stop. Stahhhhhp. No. 
:("
...I spent most of a decade working as an administrative assistant before someone explained to me that the little rectangle thingy on fax machines and copiers, which has a folded down corner and lines on one side, is an indication of which way you're supposed to load the paper in the machine to get it to scan/copy/print correctly.
I'd feel bad about this, except I pointed it out to my boss yesterday, who has graduate degrees from two Ivy League schools and is an officer at one of the largest financial companies in the world.
He thought I was a goddamn genius.
Fact: The things that playing half a day of CKII makes you mutter under your breath are not things you should ever, ever, EVER say out loud in front of other people. Especially when you are playing as Catholic Asturias.
Honestly....
....I really just want to WoD by Night my city. Because Philadelphia is full of truly amazing and weird shit that you might not ever know about, even if you actually live here.
The Comcast Center is the tallest building in the city, run by an absolutely massive telecom giant that has extended its creepy monopoly tentacles into so many areas of the city. It claimed responsibility for lifting the Curse of Billy Penn. It has massive, massive video screens all throughout its lobby and hosts public events there, from concerts to sporting event-viewing, and so on. The screens are so large, they're a tourist attraction. People come into the building just to look at the giant TV-screens. You legit want to tell me the Technocracy DOESN'T run that shit?
Or South Street -- South Street that's home to Tattooed Mom's, and the Digital Ferret (basically the physical manifestation of Metropolis records), and was home to Zipperhead (punk shop of Dead Milkmen fame), and Harry's Occult shop (which was a creepy occult shop in the 'Leave It to Beaver' days, and that's just weird and amazing), and the super weird condom store that has a dick fountain, and the Wiccan store that's been there forever, and the home that Larry Fine of the Three Stooges was born in, and god knows how many skeevy tattoo shops, and head shops, and weird little bodegas. South Street is bounded by a neighborhood full of Federal-era houses that some of the richest people in the city live in, and South Street is a solid nine blocks of where they shoved all the 'freaks' into a self-contained neighborhood. It's like there's literally a barrier of containment around the place.
Or the Mutter Museum -- a museum of medical oddities founded in 1858, which was once the center of biomedical research in the city during the 19th century. The building is all Victorian gorgeousness, and yet houses the death cast of Chang and Eng, the original 'Siamese' twins, and the world's largest colon (it's super gross!), and Grover Cleveland's tumor, and jars full of organs, and wax models of syphilitic skin infections. I'm, like, 99% sure that the Ordo Dracul sleeps in the basement.
The Skulls fraternity they made that shitty movie about? It's a real thing. It was founded at UPenn in 1850. It's had wrongful death suits in recent years. What are they doing in there?!?
Eastern State Penitentiary -- the first true 'penitentiary' in history. It was abandoned by the city in 1971. It's been turned into a massive haunted house every Halloween since the 90s. It is supposedly truly haunted, and as someone who has worked there, I can verify that the place is eery and terrifying, even when you know it well. Ghost Hunters did an episode there.
The Mummers. They're Changelings. I just can't decide if they're Spring, or Summer, or both given their penchant for grand, ecstatic display -- and violent, drunken racism run amok.
The Pagans MC -- an outlaw, 1%-er motorcycle club located mostly in the mid-Atlantic. They generally fight with the Hell's Angels for territory, and their headquarters is in Delaware County -- just outside Philadelphia. They are so hyperviolent that they've run the Hell's Angels entirely out of town, and firebombed one of their bars.
You want to do gritty and ugly and violent and corrupt buried under a veneer of colonial beauty and respectability and history? You do Philadelphia. It's a weird, wonderful town.
Ugh. Take your fucking upvotes for Bill & Ted and get out, both of you. 
@Cupcake -- This is why I have (legal) drugs. Ones that I take daily, and ones I can carry around in my bag in the event of the sudden onset of panic. I very rarely use the latter, in no small part because carrying them around and knowing I have them if I really need them alleviates some of anxiety. Huzzah, psychosomatic nonsense?
I recommend having something -- not necessarily meds, but whatever works for you -- that you can carry around and know it's there if you need it. Even if you end up not needing it, that reassurance is surprisingly helpful.
@fortydeuce said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
- I'm still not sure how journals work (not white vs black, but the thematic nature of them). I play a PC that probably wouldn't do much writing in journals, and I don't OOCly see the point, to be honest. But, from references made, they seem to be IC as much as OOC. Will I get penalized for not using them?
Journals are, in fact, considered IC material. White journals are IC material that has been publicly published in the Archives. The Great Fire at the Archives and the loss of so many journals is a fair part of why there's so much missing history, IC. If your character is a history nerd or the investigating sort? There's some motivation for journals. If your character is the religious sort? Journal please Vellichor, and there's more motivation for journals! If your character just really loves attention being paid to him and his life/opinions/fancy wordsmithing? Motivation for journals.
On an OOC level, they act as reminders and record of what you've done on the PC -- for yourself, for staff, and since it's a roster game? For future players of your character should you drop the PC and return him to the roster. You also get a nice XP bribe from staff for doing them.
I fixed the plumbing. By myself. LIKE A GODDAMN GROWN-UP.
Lookit my manly muscles. flex
Also, screw you, guy at Lowe's who asked me if I was picking up things "from my husband's shopping list." You probably don't even know what a cartridge puller is.
crawls out of depression hole
I'm back, if anyone on the game needs a Mia. Or back at least until I fuck off to South Carolina for five days.
