Posts made by Auspice

@Seamus said in What's your monitor setup?:

I have 6 monitors at home and 3 at work. So I use my bottom middle monitor as my primary.

TIME FOR ANOTHER RANDOM POLL.

I'm curious which monitor is your primary (as in has your desktop icons, etc etc). I tend to assume it's the left monitor but realized: it might not be the case for everyone.

Yeah, totally pointless poll but sometimes we need some more lighthearted banter around here.

@Admiral

Considering how much of their own history they've just outright destroyed just to build shit (or to try to get the populace to forget...)... yeah.

I mean if you want to argue 'modern culture' maybe. There is a definite modern culture that the new (70 year old that just celebrated.....) government is trying to enforce but there is also an older one too.

But that's a whole different thread I think.

But I don't think 'oppressing people' should be accepted as part of anyone's culture so y'know. I'mma support Hong Kong and Taiwan and.....

@Tyche said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

@Auspice said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

Word of warning if you get this head cold that's been going around (here in Austin at least....): sure day 1 seems fine. Bit of vertigo, congestion, etc... You're still mostly functional.

Day 2 is where it goes bad.

I'm going back to bed to die now. Those deadlines at work can wait.

I remember being somewhat miserable in Texas during October/November because of what they called "cedar fever", which was an allergy to cedar pollen.

Wrong time of year for that. Ragweed sure. That's really bad right now in fact.

Cedar pollen is January/February.

@Snackness said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

@Auspice One characteristic of flu is that it hits you like a mack truck.

shhh no.
Not the flu.
Just a bad cold.

If I deny it it can't be true.

Now excuse while I debate if I can fend off vertigo long enough to make soup or if this is an 'order Chinese delivery' kind of day. I think I'm all sleep'd out for now even tho bed is still a wonderful mistress.

Also, wow, had anyone else who has had mono (I had the pleasure of getting it at the age of 27) experienced a thing where their spleen gets all irritated when they get sick other times? Is that normal? Or something I should ask my Dr about?

@Lisse24 said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

@Auspice Seconding this.

Whatever is going around put my niece in the hospital and took me forever and a day to recover from. Don't mess around this year, yo. Get flu shots, use antibacterial solution. Take care of yourselves.

I am fairly certain this isn't the flu. Tho yes, flu shots. Still need to get mine (have a dr appt in a couple weeks). But this thing is....ugh.

It blindsided me from the get go and I thought day 1 was a breeze.

Ha ha.

Watching other pro gamers start voicing support for Hong Kong and more canceling their Blizzard subscriptions is pretty great.

I'm guessing Blizzard did not expect such an immediate response on this scale.

The answer to freedom of speech is not 'sorry we prefer foreign money'. Americans are pretty vocal about that sort of thing.

Word of warning if you get this head cold that's been going around (here in Austin at least....): sure day 1 seems fine. Bit of vertigo, congestion, etc... You're still mostly functional.

Day 2 is where it goes bad.

I'm going back to bed to die now. Those deadlines at work can wait.

@Sunny I am so glad to hear it!

I found someone that looks perfect who does virtual visits through that site which is what I need. It means that I can schedule on my time and even if it means tucking away in a corner at work with my phone, I can still make time.

I'm really really glad it helped. I was just like holy shit this exists and it is affordable and how have I never known about it before????

So in my local 'geek' group's discord, we have a venting channel. It's honestly a healthy, good channel (tbh the Discord for the whole group is and I love them). And the other day I just had to.... vent about this round of depression I'm in. Today, one of the ladies reached out to me to let me know about the service she uses for therapy, in case it'd help me out.

Which, it does! I've struggled to find anything locally because, ugh, so many therapists in Austin have turned to that 'pay up front, bill your insurance yourself' method and yo, $200-300 out of pocket to then fight my insurance for reimbursement is just not viable for me. And when you have anxiety and depression: is just a huge burden to ask!

But the service she suggested is called https://openpathcollective.org and I mention it here not just to share my shit but to also share: it's available nationwide. You search your area and you also search what you need. What do you need treatment for? What type of treatment (group therapy? individual? couples? for a child? adult?)? etc etc etc. And they provide low-cost counseling and some of their counselors will even do virtual (video) visits so you don't have to leave your house.

I put in everything I need (so instead of just having to be like 'okay I guess I'll look for...... depression even tho I need help with a handful of things') and I was able to narrow down to find someone who fit everything I'd like to focus on and is accepting patients and she looks like she'd be perfect.

So, yay for me but: the resource is there in case you or anyone you know might need it.

I watched Murder House, couldn't get into Asylum at all. I really liked Coven....... and haven't watched any of the others since.

@Ominous said in Should Rinel become smol birb?:

@smolbirb

@RDC said in General Video Game Thread:

@Auspice said in General Video Game Thread:

Mario Kart Tour released on iOS today.

I'm coming in 1st every time despite the controls feeling really weird and feeling like I'm really terrible. I'm awesome at Mario Kart on platform but I feel like I'm terrible at it on mobile.

...either I really am that good or everyone else playing is just that bad. I should not be winning. (But I'm glad I am because I am hella competitive in racing games.)

ETA: I unlocked the ranked play. Add me! 4627 9523 0045

The reason you are winning every game is that Mario Kart Tour on iOS doesn't have multiplayer. Despite having a ranked play mode. It just names bots like players (including names in other languages). It plans to EVENTUALLY have multiplayer but it does not right now. You're playing a single player game.

I realized this later on.

I'm an idiot is all. ;.;

@Ganymede said in General Video Game Thread:

@Ghost said in General Video Game Thread:

Is it wrong? Ethically, yes. Contractually this play appears to be within the boundaries.

Lawful Evil is still evil.

says the lawyer.

@Autumn said in General Video Game Thread:

@Auspice I am irrationally enraged by how many organizations that've been happy to rake in the "socially conscious" cred as long as it represented an opportunity for free positive publicity are now not only refusing to support people who badly need that support -- but are actively undercutting and sabotaging them.

Pretty much. And people wonder why some of us are sick of companies putting out stuff like cutesy rainbow in-game loot (to use a random example).

It's like sure. Yeah. Give them your money for something easy because they'll turn around and do something like this. This kid spoke his support in a very real, very hard situation. All he did was say a single sentence.
And Blizzard pulled their support of him.
A company based out of the US.
A company that was just.........afraid of losing money. Not of legal ramifications. Just money.

@Autumn said in General Video Game Thread:

Blizzard suspends Hearthstone player for ‘liberate Hong Kong’ statement

Pathetic.

And I was sad enough this morning to find that Apple agreed to hide the emoji for the Taiwan flag in Hong Kong and Macau (it was already hidden in China).

So I see a doctor on the 25th.
For allergies.
I plan to bring up the ADHD.
Maybe.
We'll see.

In the meantime... Microsoft's todo (http://to-do.microsoft.com) has been helping. There's also a mobile app. I like it more than other apps because it's not overly complicated, but it nests the categories to levels that work well enough for me and the reminders are appropriate enough. I have categories for work, for myself, for groceries, and for MUs. I can put stuff on 'My Day' as needed (in addition to giving things due dates). I can give each task 'Steps' (which is nice for breaking down bigger tasks). I can add notes to things. I can even attach notes to stuff. Heck, I can set a due date and then repeat it (for stuff like bills).

The only issue is that I can't.... remind myself to check it? But I can set an alarm on my phone to do that, I suppose.

So it's not perfect, but it helps. So long as I remember to add something to the list and I remember to check the list, I'm on the right path. So it's a tool. It's not the perfect tool, but when you have ADHD I guess nothing is perfect.

Also, I recently bought one of these and keep it at work. It helps.

@Tempest said in L&L Options?:

Social and political stuff does not work like that. If you win a roll, but can't write to save your goddamn life, people are going to lose interest in playing with you, and in playing with their character, since they now have to go along with your awful shit because the dice said so.

It's also a scale of 'work' involved, too.

If I'm RPing a lawyer, a lot of it is off-camera (unless I'm playing on Court Room: the MU and no one wants to play there). The number of times I have to roll for that on-camera is slim. I can get away with not being a lawyer IRL.

I remember on Firan, if you were a Guard, you were expected to actually go out and be a Guard. To investigate stuff. To arrest people. You had to actually do the job on-camera. You couldn't just say you did. You couldn't just roll some dice and rely on your sheet. You had to actually do the thing and play it out.

Political stuff, IMO, should be the same way. You want to be a political character? Do the thing. Don't just handwave it away or roll some dice or submit a +job and have staff fiat dictate that you won. You chose the role. You do the work because it is an on-camera position (at least in the context we're discussing here) that needs to be played out.

The problem I've had re: political RP is when there IS no 'sheet' option for it (either it's a non-statted game or there just aren't +sheet options) and it all comes down to 'who staff does and doesn't like.'

So those of us who are politically savvy and can make stuff happen IC find that everything occurs 'behind the curtain' by people either @mail'ing staff or putting in +requests to say 'I want X' and then X happens. No actual RP. No IC messengers. No actual legwork at all. Just buddying up to the right Staffers. And then they preen and flutter and claim they're a political genius.

Meanwhile, someone who did the legwork, RP'd their ass off, finds that weeks of work is thrown out the window because you woke up one morning, sent off a +request, and didn't leave your IC room all day.

Awesome.

And I guess, arguably, it could be called political savvy to not lift a finger and get everything you want but yeah. It's why I am hella picky about where I actually pursue political RP (even tho I love political intrigue) because it's just not fun when you realize that there's people out there who claim to want political RP but what they really want is 'Staffers that I can beg to give me things without any effort on my part whatsoever.' aka 'I don't want to ever actually risk losing.'

"I'm gonna ask a question and I don't care what the answer is-"

"8."