Ish

So… I’m in the process of painting my daughters’ bedroom. It’s turning out to be a much more time-consuming project than expected and we’re on a time-crunch. If any member of the Ordo is looking for a bit of extra cash and willing to help me out today, I’d be most grateful. I live in the Alberta neighborhood, near NE Killingsworth and MLK. The room is about 12 x 10. We’ve got primer, paint, and so forth. I don’t get paid until this coming Friday, so any reimbursement would have to be deferred. Shoot me a PM here if interested.

It’s also something most people only ever heard second-hand (or even further removed) like in a Discovery Channel show or in some sort of fictional story about wolves. Since most people don’t really have any reason to study deeply into the topic, it sounds pretty plausible, and they keep hearing references to it… They just assume it must be true. It’s likely a variant of the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effects Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know. — Michael Crichton

I subscribed to the WH40k app when it first launched, stuck with it for about six or seven months, but found it tedious to use, riddled with errors, and lacking many of the features we were promised prior to launch. I watched the one free preview animation (the one that massively retcon’d the Third War for Armageddon). I hated every single frame of it. If that’s the example of these new shows they want to use to sell me on it… Ugh.

It’s actually pretty well established in Marvel canon that the people of Latveria adore Victor von Doom. After six centuries of terribly oppressive rule by the Fortunov dynasty (the last monarch, King Vladimir was a Nazi ally and friends with Baron von Strucker), Doom’s usurping the throne was seen as liberating. Doom also implemented universal public education, universal healthcare, and licenses his patents for robotics and other technologies to other governments and shares the revenue. Doom also ended the Fortunov’s policy of conscription for military service. The Latverian military is a purely volunteer force of about 2,000 people and 500 robots. (Assuming that Doctor Doom doesn’t just decide to handle any threat to Latveria solo). Yeah, yeah, he’s an unelected absolute monarch who regularly gets into destructive brawls with super-powered foreigners and occasionally tries to destroy New York City… But that’s also true of Namor, Black Bolt, Thor, and the Black Panther.

All aboard the hype train!

Why do you think the caution sign is gold?

Just watch C-SPAN on any given day.

Those models don’t have nearly enough oil.

The simple past tense and past participle of “eighth“ is “eighthed.” Halved and quartered are the only terms that get special names, everything else is just really boring: thirded, fifthed, sixthed, seventhed, eighthed, ninthed, and tenthed… The reason behind this isn’t mathematical, it’s linguistic. “Quarter” and “half,” and all the various tenses and participles of them, come to us via Latin; “third,” “fifth,” “eighth” and what have you come to us from Proto-Germanic. “Quartered” and “halved” are also far more common ways of dividing stuff, so the special words for dividing things into those specific quantities get a lot more usage. Heck, my phones spellcheck isn’t even recognizing “thirded” or “tenthed” as words. If you want a real maths rabbit hole to get lost down, go read up on how the old British monetary system, pre-decimalization, worked. Twenty shillings to the pound sterling; twelve pence to the shilling; and 240 pence to the pound… It was a far superior system to decimalized currency. But, alas…

We can count on Warlord Koyote to bring home four shiny new trophies, right?

*cough*Oathmark*cough*

That’s exactly what I saw in my mind’s eye when reading about the rookery at Castle Black in the Song of Ice and Fire novels.

Palanite Enforcers would treat Sergeants as Champions and Patrolmen as Gangers for these rules, yes?

I think the “game cafe” business model of a coffeehouse that has dedicated space for gaming might be the most sustainable… But that’s pure speculation on my part.

I genuinely love it when I buy something from someone overseas (most recently, a miniatures Kickstarter from Poland) and they include a little piece of candy or cookies or something in the box. Yeah, I know it’s just a 75¢ chocolate bar not all that different from what I can buy at the corner gas station… But, I dunno, something about the packaging being covered in words I can’t read just makes it more fun.

The WOW clubhouse fills the niche, but let’s face it… It’s also got that Cluttered Musty Basement Aesthetic, which while an authentic part of geek culture isn’t exactly the most broadly appealing. Something that was more, well, “upscale” might not be the right word, but it’s all I can think of. I’d love to see a similar gaming/community space opening that wasn’t a game shop… More options for the consumer are always a good thing. This does seem like a challenging project, but I wish you well (and if the Power Ball breaks my way, I’ll happily invest).

I’m interested in trying Grimdark Future, I mean, even if the rules are terrible you can’t beat the price. However, a lot of people who’s opinions on these sorts of things I generally trust have had very positive things to say about Grimdark Future. I’m less interested in their fantasy offering, since I generally prefer “rank and flank” to “individual base” for mass combat games.