Fizzzzle

No, like you aren't facing entirely forward

Meaning, are your hips perfectly aligned with the toilet bowl? Something I've noticed recently is that I sit on the toilet "aimed" slightly to the left. Even after realizing this, I still do it even when I try not to. It's like if you aimed a laser from my crotch in an angle relative to the horizontal tank of the toilet, it would be like an 85 degree angle.

I kept my power, so did my dad. Thankfully.

Switching to EVs isn't much of a solution. If anything it's a way for auto manufacturers to keep that sweet, sweet car -centric infrastructure while people don't have to feel guilty about it. The solution is getting rid of car centric infrastructure as much as possible, not switching to electric cars when most power grids use dirty power anyway and it doesn't do anything to solve the problem of tire and break particulates contaminating the ground.

In fact in some ways it exacerbates the problem

This time of year, time of day (and days in general) have no meaning to me. I pretty much sleep the entire time the sun is up and exist mostly in darkness. My work hours are roughly 6pm-3am. Time and the concept of weekends kind of lose all meaning, I just go from one work shift to the next and ideally sleep somewhere in between. It's one big blur. For example, it's 9:50am and I'm just about to go to bed. My little brother is visiting today, I want to hang out with him later, then I'll have time to sleep one more time before I have to go to work again.

The way they measure success is so fucking... weird. Like, take the Rings of Power. They would measure success based on 1) how many people watched the show, 2) how many people who watched the show were new subscribers, and 3) how many people unsubscribed after watching If EVERYONE who watched the show was already subscribed and it didn't bring in any new subscribers, then the show is considered a failure, even if 100 million people watched it. If 70% of the people who watched the show unsubscribed after watching, it is also considered a failure, since Amazon's streaming content is basically meant to be an advertisement for Amazon Prime. If it doesn't funnel people into the part of the business that actually makes money, it failed. It's such a wildly speculative and reckless business model. Like, at least Netflix isn't using their streaming service to sell their other services, so it's a little bit less nebulous, but even they are like "if it doesn't bring in NEW people, then it's worthless." capitalism, babyyyyy. If you're not growing, you're dying. Sustainability is never an option. edit: 100 million people DID watch Rings of Power, it turns out. If that came out as a movie, it would have grossed over a billy.

Right?! The lack of linear succession of time scale is decidedly unsatisfying.

The game, comrade.

I forgot about that movie, I haven't seen it since it was in theaters. I should give it a watch

Okay, but can we please stop with the jingoist anachronization of the "founding fathers" (another term we need to do away with, in my opinion)? The introduction of that speech had so much 'Murica boner that I cringed. "They vowed to never again bow to a King." No, the fuck they didn't. Plenty of people wanted George Washington to BE king. The American Revolution was not a fight for Democracy and the Constitution wouldn't be adopted for almost a decade after the war ended. In fact, one could argue that America only partially became independent (part of the peace deal meant American ships couldn't trade with other European countries without Britain getting first dibs, essentially still granting Britain most of their mercantilist privileges, and also Britain still regularly press ganged American sailors - two things which wouldn't get resolved until 1814) - point being, the founding fathers weren't a monolith, they weren't fighting for democracy, they weren't ordained by God, and George Washington had a lot of great qualities but also some of his fake teeth may or may not have been forcibly ripped out of the mouths of enslaved people he owned. The way every politician tries to evoke the founding fathers reeks of "divine right" and I hate it every time they do it. Stop it (that's aimed at Biden, not you) Sorry, that had nothing to do with this thread. On topic, @SaysWho? is right. Also I have no idea where I was on Jan. 6. I think I was at home? I remember talking about it with my roommates in our group chat, so maybe I wasn't...

Cut my mom out and then she died and I never said goodbye. Unfucking that shit has been.. a thing. She died in 2019 and I still have dreams about it all the time.

"We need more people or the economy will collapse in 20 years!" ".. sooo... open your borders?" "NO!" It's kind of wild to me that basically every country does this. Australia is pretty much the only first world country that it's fairly easy to immigrate to. Even the United States is insanely easy compared to anywhere in Europe or Asia. People forget that up until 1924, if you wanted to emigrate to the US, you could just, like... show up (as long as you weren't from Africa, because that would have been confusing). Asians were mostly banned in 1882 with certain exceptions for Japanese people. Chinese people weren't really allowed to move to America again until 1965. Imagine how shitty that would be if we had no Chinese food @Commissar SFLUFAN

Yeah, I suppose there's an ideal that the ultimate expression of sex is completely egalitarian, and if you've ever been in an relationship where you and your partner cum at the same time almost every single time, that is the ideal. But it takes time to get to that point and some/most people never get there. That doesn't make their sex invalid or abusive. I DO agree with the younger people that we need more platonic relationships between sexes depicted in movies. That is absolutely a thing. But I fear that we're going too far into the demonization of sex because people can't separate sex from power dynamics. Those two things are a venn diagram, not a flow chart.

I have also been confused by that. It's kind of concerning that there is an entire group of people that equate sex to power in any context. I feel like it's an overcorrection, not l but I suppose that's the way of things.

To be clear I'm not saying @Xbob42's analysis of games is wrong. Just like... he looks at games very analytically from a gameplay perspective. That's fine. I'm just like... sometimes I don't care if the gameplay is shit if the world and characters are immersive enough. I have well over 1000 hours in Skyrim and it isn't because the gameplay is good. I'm approaching 1000 hours in The Sims 4 and someone could get their PhD in how buggy that game is.

Idk I typed that in a fugue state.

@Xbob42 treats games like a robot, don't listen to him either. If he says a game is a 9, it's because the flower picking gameplay loop is a 9/10, but the story and world are shit. Take the average of both.

PRAISE GENERAL MEADE, the unsung hero of Gettysburg (For those who don't know, Grant did not control the army of the Potomac during Gettysburg, it was Meade) Meade was a complete practical badass. He actually remained in control of the army of the Potomac throughout the rest of the war, Grant just superceded him and became his boss, but Meade never fucked up.

I encourage you to actually read about any of those things, not least because I massively oversimplified things and almost assuredly said something wrong. But the story of the beginnings of laws based on race and the story of Bacon's rebellion are fascinating and they do intertwine.

You got it. Ain't nothin to it but to do it.

There isn't really anything I can add to that. Checkmate Lincolnites is one of the greatest repositories of civil war history in existence. I even own a checkmate Lincolnites tank top.

Indifferent? Hopeful? How about on a personal level vs. a global level? Any plans you have specifically?

Vesperia If you managed to get through all of the cliche animu bullshit (the biggest barrier to enjoying these games), you'll have a blast with Vesperia.

Like @Bacon said, it's perfectly... fine. It is supremely acceptable. I wouldn't recommend it as a first Tales game. If you're going to jump into the series, I'd say Vesperia is the one to get into. Xillia would also be great but given that the game is still frustratingly a PS3 exclusive, that makes it hard.