Best posts made by Auspice

(a) More a gratitude thing... Apartment building across the courtyard-y area from mine had a fire (from people not following the smoking rules GO FIGURE). I'm just so glad it wasn't mine, 'cause oh man my kitties.

(b) So I went to check out this "brewskeeball" thing after work today. It's like a bowling league? But... for skeeball. Tonight was the signup party. Only one other girl from the local 'Lady Geeks' group so we just enjoyed the free beer and free skeeball, but! We found out that Wed/Thur nights are free play all the time, so we're gonna try to get the other ladies interested to at least play with us on free play nights and who knows, by the time the next league comes around? Mebbe we'll have a team!

...but hey, for the first time since I moved... I went out blind (I'd never met any of these people before tonight and I've still only met one, but hey!) and hung out and did a thing.

But I learned about brewskeeball! And I talked to people! And enjoyed myself! I mean. The free beer helped. But hey.

ETA: Oh... the Full Circle Bars (other cities host skeeball leagues too and I guess that's like, the common bar names?) also host... Major League Dreidel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vsVnBQo31s

Oxenfree is only $5 right now and @Misadventure was kind enough to gift it to me. I've been wanting to play it for a while and it has not disappointed. I played it for 7 hours off and on today while I did chores and I've peeled myself away.... an hour after I'd usually have made my way towards bed.

It's really, really good. The story/gameplay (in how you interact with characters and solve puzzles) reminds me of Life is Strange, but more platformer style visually. It's also delightfully creepy and just enough horror elements to not be too much for night time play.

For all the friends I have on Steam, I'm sad only a few own/have played it. @Insomnia has at least!

I just have to call out @scar because I love Jacinta's PB.

She is so adorable. Frecklessssss.

'Totally Wrong' on Jupiter: What Scientists Gleaned from NASA's Juno Mission

Bonus Link: NASA's Jupiter Gallery

Spec Ops: the Line free on Humble

@scar said in MU Things I Love:

@auspice I know, right?! She's been in my arsenal for a little while. Glad I finally got an excuse to actually bust her out! ...even if she doesn't have any period-appropriate pictures.

That's the problem with period games. Both my PCs have v. few photos for the same reason.

Share 'em, ask for 'em, discuss 'em. Whatevs.

Anyway! I tried this InstantPot recipe for yogurt a few days ago and the only thing I want to do next time is a higher quality of 'starter' yogurt (you use a couple tablespoons to kick it off) and to strain the final result to make it thicker. Overall? It was super easy and I got half a gallon of plain yogurt for just a couple dollars of ingredients.

Considering yogurt is one of my primary go-to breakfasts, this is totally worth while for me. The effort involved was really low (it's mostly just 8 hours of wait time). The next step is just figuring out amounts of vanilla to mix in (a tricksy prospect).

My next is gonna be making chicken pho (using this recipe). Just waiting on a couple items from Amazon (primarily a small strainer so I can skim the broth). Considering how much the recipe I chose makes, I'll likely end up freezing half the result. I think that's the best part of the thing for me: as a single person, I can make a lot of food in an afternoon/evening and have plenty of leftovers. With my fibro and limited free time, that's a bonus.

So based just on the commentary in this video... I really really really want to play A Way Out now.

I hope I have some money left to buy it after I get paid on the 15th.
And uh, I guess someone to play it with.
(Also for anyone unfamiliar with streamers - that Cirno ! = our troll.)

@saosmash said in Regarding administration on MSB:

@misadventure My eyes are blue.

Fine. Soulless unblinking blue eyes. Happy, now?

Please make my food slutty.

@testament said in General Video Game Thread:

For those of you that saw the 'trailer' for the Skyrim Very Special Edition, it's an actual thing for those of you that have an Alexa.

I don't, but for those of you that do, try it and report back.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D6STSX8

Playing it now!

I'm avenging an orc baker's dead cobbler.

"Because you're Skyrim's chosen one, you will never have to ask to flee. No, someone as strong as you would never do that or ask your health."

THE SHADE.

"You ignore the useless junk in the bandit's inventory and take the superior war axe. Ooh, shiny!"

@miss-demeanor said in Regarding administration on MSB:

@surreality Its... MSB-ception!

@jinshei said in Good or New Movies Review:

The Commuter: 2 hours of fast paced tedium. Save yourselves. The people behind us had a conversation, breaking The Code and I was happy to have something interesting to listen to.

When I saw The Last Jedi, a guy near me remarked of The Commuter's trailer: "I saw Taken. I don't need to see Taken 15."

I shared the sentiment.

Metro 2033 free on Steam today.

@collective said in How should IC discrimination be handled?:

And when I asked if people were willing to put a notice like that in theme, the reply was variations on 'No'.

@collective said in How should IC discrimination be handled?:

How willing are you to put a notice on, say, your log-in screen and/or very prominently in your OOC rooms/Character Generation rooms that says something like, 'By playing here, you agree to deal with as many racist, homophobic, sexist and other slurs as your fellow players feel like slinging as long as that slinging stays IC.'

People said no to putting a notice prominently on the login screen / OOC room that said this. Which is extremely heavy-handed. Ganymede's suggestion, however, was to put something much more reasonable within poli-

Why am I even trying? This is you moving the goalposts again. This is you, yet again, saying something wildly unreasonable, having people react, and then acting the victim when it comes up again later. This is precisely the behavior I am talking about.

You don't want a reasonable debate.

You don't want a constructive discussion.

You want to make people look bad. You want to find excuses to retain whatever ideals you've constructed of 'gamers are bad' (in which case why are you playing?).

And I've quoted you, yourself, so you can't pull another 'don't put words in my mouth.' You didn't ask if people were willing to put a notice in theme, you asked if they were willing to put a (rude, tbh) notice on the connect screen or OOC room, not as part of policy or similar.

@firepuff said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

That's why I'm afraid of instacart or the local chain's "curbside pickup" option. I've done Instacart once, and fortunately I was available to approve/deny swaps, but what if I wasn't?

What if there's allergies? My husband is allergic to chocolate. If the store doesn't have a good butter pecan ice cream, are they going to swap it to some caramel chocolate swirl? I could eat it, but my waistline says I shouldn't.

Just give it to me. >.>

So I picked up Book of Demons on Steam today (it looked interesting and I got a 66% off coupon as one of my little things in the winter sale) and... holy crap I like this game.

It's like Darkest Dungeon meet Diablo meet CCG. It's definitely a rogue-like, so if you aren't a fan of those, I'm sorry. But it's not a stupidly hard rogue-like (unless you put it on that difficulty!). The art is fantastic and I love it so much.

All of your abilities/equipment are dictated by the cards you find, which can be upgraded and improved over time (Shadow Sword is OP, forreals). You start out as the Warrior, but there's also a Rogue and Mage that you can unlock (pretty early on). I haven't played as them yet, so I can't speak on their playability!

One neat thing is that it estimates how long a dungeon/area will take and even lets you pick the size of it (bigger dungeon = takes longer = more lewts). It's a great background game (I played off and on today during the slower work hours).

But seriously, isn't this art great?

@arkandel said in How much Code is too much Code?:

useful IC secrets

<handwiggle>

I drop plot hooks in my RP all the time. I ST. I love to ST. I leave hooks for plots in progress. Fledgling plots. Hooks to things in my character BGs. I run NPCs in general scenes to provide atmosphere and they have hooks dangling, too. Something, anything for people to chase after.

People rarely ever do. I mean, unless you're wanting me to deliver said secret ala hammer straight to the head.

Because, man, you have no idea how excited I got when @scar reacted to the little glowy things I was referencing in RP the other day (@Seraphim73 can tell you >.>). It was an 'omg yes someone is ACTUALLY PICKING UP ON THINGS IN MY POSES THAT CAN CARRY ON TO FUTURE RP YESSSSSSS.'

And I think giving XP/skill progression just for going out and RPing with people is kind of silly. You should want to RP with new people.

So, doctor visit today. Went over lab work. I am... not diabetic! I am not even pre-diabetic. My numbers on that front are, apparently, great! High cholesterol, tho I'm imagining anyone even remotely overweight is in that camp.

I do have a vitamin D deficiency. Easily resolved.

We're gonna up my topiramate and hope it helps this recent spike in migraines. Also going back on the ambien for insomnia. Woo.

I like L&F less as a system to run an entire MU with and more as a system to run within a game.

I mean, a lot of us play MU characters who are nerds themselves and L&F is perfect for when your PCs wanna sit down... and be RPG nerds. Yes, it gets hella meta, but sometimes your BSG chars are stuck in the field and wanna nerd it up.

...I have used L&F for this purpose. And it's hilarious and works.