Growing up in the Midwest, I was generally unaware of maintenance dangers like water pipes freezing in cold weather. My father just took care of it and never mentioned such things to us kids.

I bought an 8-flat in the inner city at 30 and had to learn the hard way, with an unheated 2500 sq. ft. basement. I knew about the dangers of propane torches, having visual evidence of fire from previous residents and/or owners. Nevertheless, I had to learn of the various vulnerabilities in the ground, the walls, and the ceilings. It helped immensely that lots of old men hung out at a local heating company and could offer advice and assistance when I had hard questions and issues. Thawing out pipes with fire is a skill like any other, just requiring care. My most challenging winter activity, however, was rodding out a frozen sewer line at -25. That took 23 hours.

Well, my place is scummy. They have an unfinished part of the underside of the vanity which goes to a gaping hole in the wall. It's theri fault for not a.) taking the initiatve when we told them this in freakin' June, b.) not then, come November and werather was still okay, installing the vnaity underside wall 3.) using, at this point, the heating, like you said, to unfreeze the pipe. It's going to burst and then run freely, and they are just acting like "we'll just put a space heater by it" when there's clearly a blister forming, and they called a plumber. The plumber is going to chew them out, I know, because it is a very preventable issue, he's going to take one look and say "What the hell?! There's your problem! Why do you dumbhats have this giant hole" Ugh I dunno! Dumbhats.

This place is scummy. I risk even violating my NDA the case manager advised I sign. That is another issue.

I was evicted due to my roommate's negligence back in February 2022, so we had TWO evictions that were consecutive, leading to us being here. Anyway...I'm not mentioning apartment complex, because if I don't I'm unlikely to violate my NDA, but it's better than being te car or a hotel room for $2,200 a month. I did so much just to get here, and it's nightmarish..

</vent> Toilet is fixed. Tub has been de-iced (there was ice in the bathtub!) I only found this out after I ran a hot bath. So, I've got out crud going on, but I'm safe on that front.

And winter is doing a seriously good job of kicking my ass this year.    Not only is the cold feel colder than usual (to the point that I have to actually turn the thermostat up higher than an other year) but my depression picked the same time to drag me back down into the mire.

Ugh.

All you can do is take it one day at a time Hunter, and hang in there. I hope things improve for you soon.

Seriously people, if you're going to ghost a game - ghost it right. Don't log in, don't check posts, and most certainly don't go and read the PMs that the GM sent you because they were worried about you and hoping you were okay without bothering to even say 'Thanks for checking on me man, but I'm just not feeling it anymore'.

Like, do you somehow think that NOT sucking it up and saying that you're not feeling it is going to make the GM think there's any other reason for your absence than you deciding to quit?

In reply to SunRuanEr (msg # 2285):

I agree ≈100%. One user I know I'm truly worried for if Karack. I name drop because, to be discrete he has huge problems. As in one being a loss of job he needed, and another, as serious as it sounds, brain injury. I have been grieving like I knew him, because he shared his life, like I do. I didn't know him well, but I felt like I knew him enough to know that if he died, or had to BE hospitalized, that I'd want to know. I kind of keep this lump in my head another arises in my heart and gut when I think on that mental lump. So yes, that is the right thing to feel if someone doesn't log in, you worry. I'm not saying it's wrong to l eave it casual only, but yeah, if you care about your players as seeking friendship and comradery, you want to know that that is worthwhile, or especially that when they don';t log in, it's a failsafe that let's you know, okay this not flaking. They have place when they come back, if they want to.

On the main ghosting though, which to fair, we don't know how much so, but it IS the majority of these people. I seriously hate giving non-updates (I'm usually GMing and right now exlcusively). but when I log in, I may not read all posts, so I'll give an update. Players ghostign sucks, but a GM ghosting is, for me, just horrid, because you have to wait, like Karack for me, to breathe, or you have to see they post in another game and just scoff in disgust. So I am actually very bad the other direction, giving "non-posts" to let players know, why and how I'm on the game.

For players, I have a few acronyms, one is TBTP, Too busy to post. It's actually an acronym I forget, sadly, and wonder wtf, but it's at least a clue that the player made the bare effort. I also welcome players telling me "I want to quit" I don't guilt them. I don';;t take it personally, which on an aside some players are offended I don't "try harder to keep" them. Which is absurd and I think think the reason, however ill practiced, players don't admit, hey I'm just not interested. I let my players take indefinite breaks. I don't do "milestone" XP in games that are like that, but I do consult the players as peers, not subordinates, and decide with the returning player what's fair. Sometimes players will get a gift package even, to show they weren't just not punished, but missed!

Anyway, I hate ghosting. Especially when I make it very clear my players have three options. Post content, post that you're on delay from days to indefinite, or quit. Otherwise I take control, eventually of their character when they log in, repeatedly and don't even put a single word. Literally. Just "Busy." is better than nothing. It's vague and terse, but it shows the bare minimum. I may still remove them if they never give more information and they have history of other games' problems, but pretty much I'll just put them on hiatus.

Anyway, as far as it goes for me. I am guilty of not posting when logging in. It's not often, it's not rare, but it's seldom a case where it's twice ina row, and never thrice. I will, however, occasionally log in, read and RL just pulls me away, and I have no indicator to rem ind me, oh yeah! They're waiting on ME! I realize this, when it happens, when I log int to check hwy it's slowed. I can't do anything but apologize and move forward. If it's twice in a row, it's because the second time I KNOW I need to post, and RL just pulls me away. Literally a friend of neighbor or the appliances need immediate attendance. I always come back the next time with a buffer of someone to cover me, and make sure unless it's life or death (which thankfully it never has been) I post SOMETHING.

---

My own vent is this though. I had a birthday in  2022 I had planned to get myself a get together and invite a few people. In that year I was evicted and became homeless, and found out so many people on RPoL were friends and not justy buddies, but unfortunatewly so, so, sooo :( so many local people weren't friends. In 2022 I spent my birthday in a car. In 2023 treating my roommate. In 2024, it looks like I have to choose my movem, and ither way a piece goes off the board, as chess reference. These two videos really sum up the words I don't have, the thoughts I can speak, and certainly can't write. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...p7O-pwOM&index=1 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ3a2gvLcvQ

Next vent is my Parkinsonism. I take HAldol, and I knew this was a risk. I take Haldol for TS (Tourettes) and it's the ONLY treatment. PArkinsonims, if you (not just you Sunruaner but anyone) doesn't know, it's the umbrella un der which (kind of weirdly) Parkinson's Disease is under but most other Parkinsonism can be "cured:" because they aren't inherent/genetic/et cetera. It's from an outside controllable source, and can, often be lessened and sometimes reverted. I have the option to let my tics, which are in their own way life threaening, one I have under the surafec is getting sick, to put it lightly, another is head banging, only against a surface. So parkinsonism is better than that. One day it might not be, but it makes writing even harder, The tics still are there, but now the parkinsonism is too. So I might have to quit RPoL and writing in general.

Three days.

My son's been driving to school three days, and he wrecked the car today.

/headdesk

Hopefully everyone is ok.  I survived getting two teens on the road ... it does get better. Each one cracked their car up very soon after starting to drive.

I had one thrill-seeker type (tried to drift ... didn't work out and the car ate a fire hydrant)  and one space cadet (didn't realize the road turned ... so they drove right off of it, car was totaled).

Every family is different ... but what worked for us was to make the kids pay (as in, cash) a portion of the repairs / replacement vehicles.

There's something magic about spending one's own hard earned money on getting the car fixed that somehow magically makes them a more cautious driver.

...

Works for replacing phones too.  That is ... it gets dropped, parent buys a new one.  Drop the next one, parent buys a  replacement.  Wash, rinse, repeat.  The cycle never ends. The teen never learns to be more careful.

It gets dropped, however, and the kid is told to purchase their own replacement ... Brother, that next phone will LAST.

Everyone is okay.

It was a relatively low-speed rear-ending, but the car (compact sedan from the early '00s) ate a lifted truck's towhitch right through the grille and pretty much destroyed the front end. Luckily, the radiator and headlights were spared (barely, in the case of the radiator - scratched, but not busted) so it could have still been driven while beat up and saving for repairs, but the older sibling foolishly pried the hood open and rendered it now undriveable because the hood won't latch back fully. Yay!

They will be paying for repairs themselves. I told them in no uncertain terms when giving them the car that if they wrecked it, they'd be out a vehicle - it's so old, it doesn't carry collision (no point, since the listed value of it is barely $1000), and I couldn't afford to fix it myself even if I wanted to.

I expected fender-benders from a high school driver (especially given that my oldest managed five accidents within the first few years of driving, mostly with stationary objects but the one that involved another vehicle totaled both cars). I just didn't expect them on Day Three.

...oh, and for bonus, he managed to get a ticket. Which I probably should have expected because teenage boy driving old-school ricer, but given the complete lack of damage to the other vehicle and that it was Day 3, coupled with the serious damage to his car, I kind of thought the cop might let him off with a warning. C'est la vie.
This message was last edited by the user at 13:43, Wed 10 Apr.

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

The new Fallout show is so frustrating.

It's really good as a show. But there's one tiny bit of lore that seems to retcon out the entirety of Fallout: New Vegas.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)

According to the show, Shady Sands gets nuked. This is not the problem. The problem comes with the date of the nuking -- 2077. In other words, four years before Fallout New Vegas could have happened.

There's other gripes I could mention with how the NCR is portrayed in the show, but they're not relevant. This, however, opens a huge can of worms.

I'd have been perfectly fine if the nuking happened in 2297 and the show were set in 2316. That's enough time for the events of FNV to have happened and then a new status quo to have settled in. I'd have even been okay with it happening in 2287 (with the show taking place in 2306). That's a quick stab after The Second Battle of Hoover Dam, but it's still in the future and because of who was behind the bombing, it makes sense as a sudden event coming out of nowhere to kneecap the NCR.

It's not lost on me that 2277 is also right around FO3's events. Yeah, that feels like some rather deliberate retconning.

---

It's so frustrating. The show is a great watch. But this little, spiteful-feeling blip took me totally out of the experience and soured something I was really enjoying.

I felt the same way about the wheel of time series, which I am late to the game for. The first season has serious structural issues which took me right out of my suspension of disbelief. I was actually angry about differences between the series and the books, which I haven't read for decades. What a weird emotional place to be for a nerd culture renaissance.

I have similar issues with the WoT series. My spouse hasn't read the books, so they -loved- the first season...which was all right. Some of the things they did bugged me, but not to an 'I can't watch this' extent.

...and then Season 2 happened, and it was like they just chucked the books out entirely and started making stuff up. I was so annoyed, I couldn't watch it at all. Why make a movie/show based on a book/books and then not follow the book?

Makes no sense.

If you're not interested in luring in already-existing fans of something, then just make something NEW. If you do want to lure those fans, don't insult them by making something DIFFERENT.

You haven't payed much attention to anything Hollywood has put out in the last decade or so.   There's just so many YouTube channels talking about how Hollywood is destroying many of the legacies/franchises over the past decade.  This list includes, but is not limited to: Doctor Who, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Marvel, and DC ...just to name a few.

Needless to say, I've taken up sticking to services like Tubi which show a lot of "older" (i.e. 30 year old) content that's actually worth the re-watch.   Plus I've dusted off some of the stuff I've had lying around (like the Monster High movies) in order to watch again.

This message was deleted by a moderator, as it was inflammatory, at 05:13, Sat 13 Apr.

This message was deleted by a moderator, as it was moot, at 05:13, Sat 13 Apr.

This message was deleted by a moderator, as it was moot, at 05:14, Sat 13 Apr.

This message was deleted by a moderator, as it was moot, at 05:14, Sat 13 Apr.

I can understand the complaints about changing beloved franchises.  You grow up imagining it a certain way and there's a period of estrangement when you're confronted with the way someone else imagines it.  When we're talking about turning books into movies, it's pretty easy (although not very interesting) to just ascribe any changes to something that you don't have any respect for, lazy greed, trying to force "woke" culture onto others, or whatever.

In reality I think the main shock comes from the difference between what you expected and what you are given.  We can argue about whether the quality of today's entertainment is greater or lesser than yesterday's, although I think if you were objective you would find that storytelling is a LOT tighter today on average.  People are more world savvy, and less forgiving about inconsistencies.
This message was last edited by a moderator, as it was moot, at 05:17, Sat 13 Apr.

This message was deleted by a moderator, as it was moot, at 05:15, Sat 13 Apr.

In reply to AugustusGloop (msg # 2298):

It isn't the case of changing a franchise; it's completely mutilating it to the point where it's barely recognizable.    It's comparative to having the X-Men be about a group of white female rappers who's stage names are the same as the comic characters.   And as this post will likely get deleted too, I'll just stop here.
This message was last edited by a moderator, as it was against the ToU, at 06:48, Sun 14 Apr.

In reply to Hunter (msg # 2300):

Afraid you're wrong.  You're post won't get deleted, since most of it doesn't break any forum/site rules, unlike the first post in the set that were removed.  It has however been edited to remove the one comment that does break the site's rules.

Apart from that first post, only posts that were rendered completely irrelevant by the removal of one or more previous posts were deleted (ie: those replying to posts that no longer existed).

Oh, I don't know. A polynesian is king of Atlantis. I seem to be the only one to realize that's two different oceans on opposite sides of the world.

OK that's a fair argument, and it's clear that as a species we still have a ways to go.

I’m sure people probably complained about Virgil ripping off Homer in ye olden days too