I hated Myst as a kid. Not just because I disliked the gameplay, but because its inexplicable popularity heralded a shift in the adventure game market. Instead of more Sierra or LucasArts-type games, there were, for years, scads of shitty, boring Myst-likes.

I was on the ride last summer, and the only name that I remember being mentioned is Davy Jones, of mythical locker fame. They did add him to the ride in 2006, but he was created for the movie in 2003.

Fyi, it’s martial law.

I tried to get into Fallout 4 for the second or third time recently, and have just given up, and uninstalled it. It’s the simplified dialogue that ultimately robs it of any meaning for me. Nobody has anything very interesting to say, and the player just has a few one-word prompts to respond with. I don’t suppose that’s any different in Fallout: London? I imagine they’d have had to go to unreasonable lengths to change it.

This is from Waterworld, right? Troublingly relatable.

The single-player NWN used 3rd edition. I played a lot of NWN2, which was based on 3.5.

Samesies. I think it didn’t help that I played the sequel first. It’s just really damned dated. Some older games age really well, but NWN did not.

Yeah, I don’t worry too much about my GD builds being “end-game viable”, I just like finding combinations that are fun to play, and there are enough unique item sets and abilities to keep me entertained for a while. I’ll check out Last Epoch—looks like it might be up my alley!

Have you by any chance played Grim Dawn? I really enjoy the mechanics and aesthetics of it, and I’m wondering how PoE2 compares. I don’t think I’ll ever be in the market for Diablo 4; the P2W cash-grab of Diablo Immortal really soured me on the franchise.

People are saying it. Many great people.

I mean, what else are you gonna wind a piece of string around?

I think 75% is far too generous an estimate, tbh. Every policy I’ve acquired through the ACA-mandated marketplace has been garbage, right from the start. For-profit health care is evil, and the ACA just served to further entrench this evil in our lives. It did some marginal good, and I’m certainly not advocating for its repeal in favor of ‘concepts of a plan’. But 75%? I can’t get on board with that.

I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but what the fuck is normal? Nobody’s really normal. Even the so-called neurotypical are riddled with undiagnosed disorders. Normalcy is just a social fiction. Don’t let it limit your options.

I think that you’re probably right. I also think I may be projecting a bit, and conflating my country’s apathetic embrace of fascism with my own executive dysfunction. Seems all of a piece. Anyhow, thanks for the words.

The headline is a little ambiguous, but he didn’t give in; they relaxed the dress code.

The thing is, it can be really hard to accurately assess why you feel an aversion to things, and whether or not that aversion is misplaced. I can come up with scads of seemingly reasonable objections to, for example, going to the gym. That doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t benefit from it.

Overcoming an innate aversion that you’ve convinced yourself is a part of who you are can be life-changing.

The big caveat there is that knowing things doesn’t change the world. Scads of people are acutely aware of the problems facing society—maybe more than at any time in history. Vanishingly few feel empowered to do anything about it.

I’m not pro-ignorance by any means; education is the silver bullet. But we urgently need to find better ways of translating our spectacular surfeit of knowledge into individually actionable mechanisms of social change.

Can we rule out some kind of transporter accident? Has anyone checked to see if his beard comes off?

I listen to ‘I Ain’t Marching Anymore’ pretty frequently, but am not familiar with most of his catalogue. I’ll check it out!

He is, to quote Dan McCoy, a prolific motherfucker! I always enjoy his work.