Okay. Good.

What’s this “we” you’re talking about? I would rather not even have to think about his privates, let alone involve myself with the inspection.

How can anybody make jokes about this knowing what’s at steak?

To be honest, I don’t get a lot of time to game as an adult. For the past several years, my gaming is mostly restricted to fall/winter, like November through early March and even then, it’s primarily around the holidays when I have extra time off work. Even during my “gaming season”, I’m usually only able to get in a 45 minute session a few times a week. The rest of the year, I’m lucky to have the down time more than a couple times a month.

So, the big thing is: I have to really consider my time limitations and that restricts the types of games I play. No point in trying to play games with super complicated control schemes, complex story lines, or which require a lot of time dedication to “get gud” because I’m going to forget how to play, what I need to do to advance, and I’m just going to suck compared to kids who play 18 hours a day 7 days a week.

The Steam Deck actually did help me do a bit more gaming. Like you, I sit in front of a computer all day for work, so being able to game elsewhere and in a variety of locations is nice. Plus, I can fire it up when traveling.

I also stick to games that I feel like there’s a good chance I can “beat” over the course of my gaming season or games with simple mechanics and limited stories. Like this past winter I played Doom. The year before it was Cult of the Lamb. The year before that it was Hades. Short enough games (at least the main story line) and simple enough controls. Then there are games like Vampire Survivors that offer short, simple, self-contained and satisfying mini gaming sessions if and when I have a random bit of down time and feel like playing something.

I’m too lazy to look up the details now, but I’m pretty sure the SNES almost sort of did nearly have an add-on. Sony and Nintendo were looking to create a CD-ROM add-on / upgrade for the SNES. I somewhat remember the rumors from back in those days and I was, at the time, very excited about it. Granted, my parents wouldn’t have been able to afford it, so who knows if I would have gotten to play it. I’m still bummed that I never got to play the Sega CD or the 3DO. Practicality and foresight aside…

I think a CD-based SNES could have been pretty cool, especially if there were some additional technical upgrades (i.e. updated processor / 32-bit / etc). I suspect that the library wouldn’t have leaned so heavily into full-motion video like the Sega CD, and certainly the first party Nintendo titles wouldn’t have gone that route. SNES had some great RPGs and fighting games and tons of amazing first party titles, so long as the system had enough RAM, those genres would have benefited from more storage. Had there been extra processing power, that would have been a nice step up as well.

On the flip side, Nintendo hardware is basically just a door to the Nintendo software experience. Lots of great stuff, don’t get me wrong, but also lacking. So, the fact that the Sony collaboration fell through and ultimately resulted in the Playstation probably worked out so much better for the video game industry and gamers.

I don’t think that photo is from 1886, not with those vehicles in the background. So I assumed it was a joke comment or AI, but all the subjects had normal finger counts, so I assumed joke.

Is that a joke I’m too dumb to get?

I know what you mean, Vern.

Are you asking about things that weren’t considered dangerous when I was a kid, but are now? I always thought that was largely a cliche? Pretty much everything that I did as a child that is, or could be, considered dangerous today was considered dangerous then, too.

One thing that does come to mind: I don’t think the general public back then was as aware of the danger of second hand smoke. So, exposing kids to cigarette smoke (by smoking indoors, in cars, or even going to public places with smoking sections) didn’t seem to be considered risky or dangerous.

Otherwise, pretty much everything I did as a kid that would be considered dangerous today would also have been considered dangerous back then in the days when dinosaurs ruled the Earth and the wheel had only recently been invented. That includes activities sanctioned by adults, like riding in the bed of a pickup truck, and those which weren’t, like mixing random chemicals together to see what happens.

I don’t plan on making any last minute purchases at this point.

The tariffs (and other recent economic decisions) are purposefully inflicted economic chaos and disruption. I am not smart enough and do not have enough inside information to make truly informed decisions. I do not trust my ability (or really anybody else’s ability) to make long term, last minute plans around the deranged actions. Most, if not all, good plans should have / would have been executed a while ago anyway.

It doesn’t make sense to me to go ahead and buy stuff like a laptop, cellphone, car, etc right now “just in case”, spending lots of money I might not need to spend and which could be put to better use later. And for less expensive necessities, I already stock up on that sort of stuff as much as I can afford to buy and store because I live in a disaster prone, rural area so it’s always been a reasonable and rational thing to do for folks that have the means.

My plan, which began pretty much as soon as the election results were clear, was and is to make do with less. I’ve put off all non-essential “big” purchases I was considering. I’ve given up or significantly reduced luxury and impulse purchases. I’ve switched to less expensive brands, even if I like them less. I’ve switched to cheaper alternatives where applicable. And now I will buckle down, encourage and support others to do the same as best they can.

Where I live in the USA, I mostly only see them for sale at Chinese restaurants and in the Asian supermarkets. Every once in a great while, but not often, they’ll show up on the menu of a seafood restaurant but I think they’re a seasonal thing in that case.

Why not?

Two words:

Leprechaun 4: In Space

Okay that’s slightly more than two words.

Point of clarification: I believe there’s a good chance of “aliens” in the universe (i.e. life on Earth isn’t the only life in the universe). When I used that term, I was referring to people who think aliens are visiting the earth.

Regardless of what I need to do, I’m going to do it. I do lots of things I don’t need to do.

SCORE

On the one hand, yes, yes, yes, absolutely.

On the other hand, way too often people are absolutely vile here and nobody sticks up for themselves or for others. Really a shame that r-word-it bullshit behavior is often times totally accepted and approved and even rewarded here.

On one hand, yes this would hurt a lot of people and corporations. On the other hand, we’re already hurting, so fuck it.

One of my most embarrassing habits is that I sometimes go to the R-word site and read through the comment section there. Way too often, there are askr-word (or other sub r-word) posts where the comment section ends up being a bunch of bullshit supernatural responses. This one kind of reminds me of that. If you believe in ghosts or extraterrestrial aliens, I think less of you. You are dumb. Sorry, but it is what is is. I still drink alcohol sometimes, even knowing it causes cancer, so I’m not claiming I’m better than you. We can both/all be stupid. But if you believe in that supernatural crap, you’re stupid, too.

For some reason, I was doing dishes today and thinking about how dumb humans were to put lead in everything back in the 1900’s despite the fact that we were well aware of the dangers of lead on human physiology. We literally put that shit in our fuel and pumped the exhaust into our air. We put it in utensils. UTENSILS people. Seriously? It had been known for eons practically that lead is poison to the body.

Same here.

I literally spent a few minutes after typing those two words trying to decide/determine the exact moment I lost my faith in humanity, if such a moment actually existed. As a homosexual who grew up in a southern state of the USA, there were probably hundreds of such moments, but for some reason one particular interaction sticks out to me.

Totally random, and at the moment I don’t know why, but I think the day was Saturday September 15th, 2001.

I was working in retail at the time, and in specific, I was in charge of “customer service”. A customer showed up at the counter and he wanted to return a bag of dog food that our store didn’t even sell. He claimed he bought it at our store, but did not have a receipt. Despite our policy being that a receipt is required because of how much the dog food cost, I actually wasn’t worried about it at all. However, he wanted to exchange it for a more expensive name brand dog food, and felt like he shouldn’t have to pay the difference. It wasn’t even a situation where he was asking me to help, he was literally demanding that I give him the more expensive stuff for free.

Needless to say, I was not in the mood. He turned into the biggest asshole of the day. Screaming, throwing shit, called me a faggot, etc. Claimed he was veteran, and that I was unamerican for not giving him the more expensive bag of dog food for free because things have changed after 9/11.

And here it is, 25 years later, still sticks with me how giant of a cunt that sub-human scum was but also how much of a harbinger he was for the direction my country was heading.