Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

After roe, women are no longer free.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

It’s a doggy dog world.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Republicans don’t trust women.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

The willow is too close to the house.

In my day, never was longer.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

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Reader Interactions

138Comments

  1. 1.

    BethanyAnne

    I hope my copy of the expansion comes in by tomorrow, but I don’t really expect it until Friday. Bioware has ticked me off with a couple of their recent releases, but I do have high hopes for DAI. Gonna wait unti Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a review up, and until there are significant Metacritic scores to look at before I buy. Even beyond Bioware, anything sporting an EA logo needs a little time out in the real world before I put down cash.

  2. 2.

    spencer neal

    It is hard for me to understand what anyone would spend time on such an exercise as games. It seems to be such a passive waste of time.

  3. 3.

    srv

    It’s good you bros have a way to release after all those losses.

    gaming ventrilo server address

    I assume that’s code for your GG hangout?

  4. 4.

    Johnny Coelacanth

    “It seems to be such a passive waste of time.” There’s the clue you’re missing; watch gamers in action and you will see that it is ~not~ passive. It is very, very engaging; addictive even. Don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s passive just because it happens in front of a screen.

  10. 10.

    Jeff

    Yeah, people will watch six hours of TV and then comment about me playing an hour of video games. Everything in life is just counting out time.

  11. 11.

    Redshift

    @spencer neal:

    It is hard for me to understand what anyone would spend time on such an exercise as games. It seems to be such a passive waste of time.

    It’s even harder for me to understand people who read threads for enthusiasts of an activity or medium and feel compelled to post about how they don’t like it. Talk about a waste of time!

  13. 13.

    Hal

    I think I’m going to back into gaming. Some of the games I’ve seen for PS4/X-box look really interesting. I fell out of it for awhile when I was broke as a joke and sold my console for gas money. Now I just have to decide if I want the PS4 or the X-box.

    Also, I’m trying to figure out what the difference is between gaming and any other hobby. Aren’t all non pay the rent, casual activities time sucks, and more importantly, isn’t that the point? When I have had a console, I’ve moved between playing games, reading books, studying for exams, and vegging out in front of the TV. Maybe stamp collecting or Origami is considered my intellectual, but meh, it’s still a hobby to distract from the world outside.

  16. 16.

    BethanyAnne

    @spencer neal: Because putting yourself into situations where you have to solve fiendishly hard problems while you determine the rules of the system you have been thrust into increases your ability to problem solve? Because stretching your mind relentlessly increases your cognitive capacity and keeping a nicely active brain helps offset later life brain decline? Nope, mainly cause stretching your brain is fun. No clue where the “passive” bit comes in, unless you can’t tell zombies from focused humans.

  17. 17.

    Hal

    @Major Major Major Major:

    That’s terrible. I saw the story earlier and was wondering about suicide. Has that been confirmed? A friend of a friend took his life a few years ago in SF and the story was very similar. Tech worker, left work, everything seemed fine, and then he killed himself. Condolences to his family.

  19. 19.

    Morzer

    @efgoldman:

    Sometimes I think that there ought to be an internet rule that the quality of a product is inversely related to the degree of hype accompanying its release.

  22. 22.

    Redshift

    Off the main topic, I’m getting to experience the joy of the American health care system. Fell and (I thought) dislocated my shoulder. Went to the nearest urgent care, thinking it would be quicker than the ER (which it probably was.) Got to spend probably an hour dealing with check-in and insurance for my five minutes with the doctor. They had a touch screen sign in system and then copied info directly from my insurance card and driver’s license, and still managed to get my name wrong and had to fix it later.

    Turns out I have a separated shoulder and broken collarbone, and if it was dislocated, they would have sent me to the ER anyway, or more specifically, if I hadn’t been able to move it so they could do xrays.

    Sent home with a sling & painkillers to see an orthopedist in the morning. I had to remind them to give me discharge instructions. Asked the doctor about anti-inflammatories or icing, and he said no, just painkillers. The discharge instructions suggest anti-inflammatories and ice. (Though weirdly, it doesn’t seem to be swollen.)

    I guess it still sucked less than the ER. I spent the whole time desperately wishing we had socialized medicine, especially the time waiting for the guy to finish entering my insurance info while holding my arm up with my other hand.

    Makes me wonder, though — does “urgent care” exist solely to function as an ER that’s more profitable because it doesn’t have to take people without insurance?

  23. 23.

    marduk

    Y’all don’t even know about Wasteland 2. Time sink in an old skool way.

    Excited for the new Dragon Age as well- there’s a perfect theoretical CRPG out there that mixes Skyrim/Oblivion giant world with Dragon Age/Baldur’s Gate tactical party combat and decent plot. Maybe DA:I will be the one?

  27. 27.

    Suzanne

    @Redshift: No, urgent care is really more for things like flu and strep throat and rashes. Things you would normally see your PCP for, but don’t want to deal with the hassle or it’s at an inconvenient time. They’re not an ED, and some of them don’t have an MD on staff, just nurse practitioners or PA’s.

    There are stand-alone EDs. A dislocation is not really an urgent care thing.

  31. 31.

    Redshift

    @Suzanne: Dang; wish I’d known that. Lucky this one had an MD,
    I guess. I hope I didn’t miss out on some treatment I should have gotten immediately. Based on the info at the Mayo Clinic site, it doesn’t seem like it, though.

  33. 33.

    srv

    @Major Major Major Major: Condolences.

    I asked once on HN if startup groups provided counseling to founders and the hard core code crowd. Everybody thought it was a good idea, but wouldn’t know how to implement it.

    I wouldn’t even know what to look for in the 18-30 crowd. Most of my peers in older tech who opted out did so based on relationships or health issues. I fear the younger industry has a different set of issues and complexities to address.

  37. 37.

    ruemara

    This is the first expansion in years that I won’t purchase. I figure, with all the medical bills outstanding and the constant food thing, I really shouldn’t until I get either a job or become homeless. Wish I was though, usually I’m planning when to leave so I don’t have to stand in line too long. Full of the sads. Because I did get to play the beta and it was an interesting shift in how you play Warcrack.

    Enjoy! I’ll be on, but I’ll be playing old content for shits and giggles.

  38. 38.

    Anne Laurie

    @Redshift:

    I guess it still sucked less than the ER… Makes me wonder, though — does “urgent care” exist solely to function as an ER that’s more profitable because it doesn’t have to take people without insurance?

    Well, you had a much lower chance of being accidentally exposed to Ebola tuberculosis or MRSA or even the flu at the “urgent care” clinic, so that’s in your favor. And it saves money for all of us, as healthcare users & taxpayers, if all the very expensive equipment & personnel required for those patients who need the Emergency Room isn’t mostly going to waste being not-used by the daily trickle of people with sprains, cuts, bumped heads, urinary tract infections & asthma attacks. The hospital’s profit profile certainly is part of the equation, but it’s not the only part.

  40. 40.

    John Cole +0

    @srv: It’s a server where people can voice chat.

    @Redshift: Dude. Make SURE they give you a Bledsoe cold therapy machine. Then you can kick those fucking painkillers to the curb asap. If you need any advice, email me, because I have plenty of experience with both shoulders. Plus, you too get to learn how to brush your teeth and wipe your ass with either hand!

  43. 43.

    Mike in dc

    Catching up on my gaming. Halfway through Id Monster Fi…er, Grand Theft Auto V. I wonder if they could put a viable female protagonist in the next edition, but then I wonder if I should be careful what I wish for.

  44. 44.

    Suzanne

    @Redshift: Most likely, you didn’t miss anything. I’m not a doctor, I only do healthcare architecture, but I’ve learned a lot about this stuff from spending a lot of time in hospitals and learning about injuries and diseases and procedures. From what I understand, a dislocation hurts like a mofo, but typically isn’t actively critical or time-sensitive. With other issues, obviously time is of the essence. EDs often have long wait times because you get bumped down the line for those cases.

    Urgent care aims to fill in the gap created by the shortage of PCPs in this country.

  45. 45.

    Heliopause

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    The purpose of my question is not obscure, it is straightforward. Being a “gamer” is a hugely problematic thing on the internet right now, so how does the community here feel about being associated with it, even if just tangentially? And what about the many other associations we all have? Genuinely curious how people work these things out.

  46. 46.

    Hal

    I used to work in a transfer center for a big local hospital and we triaged calls for our pediatric ED. If someone took their kid to urgent care for anything more than an ear ache or cold, they always ended up having to be brought by ambulance to the ED. It just always seemed like such a waste of time to bring a kid with an obviously broken arm to an Urgent Care because they can’t do anything about it, but they would spend an hour there having x-rays and such before the Doc would call the peds line. Kid has severe abdominal pain? Bet on at least ruling out appendicitis, so again, just bring them to the real ED. It always struck me as a bit of a money grab when it seemed obvious those cases would have to go to the hospital.

  49. 49.

    Redshift

    @Suzanne: Thanks for the info. I understand what makes ERs suck so much (I once took a friend in with kidney stones, and she went straight in), but I’d still rather avoid them. I’ve rarely been injured enough to see a doctor (this is only my second broken bone ever) and the only downside is that I don’t have much experience judging severity.

  51. 51.

    Suzanne

    @Hal: The problem is the ridiculous costs. I had to take Spawn the Elder to the ED to get stitches in her forehead when she was two. They gave her one of those Uncrustable frozen PB&J things that look like (and taste) hockey pucks. I got the bill later and it was $60 for “food and drink”. I later went to the store and bought a box of the things for about $4. Urgent care is much more efficient and less expensive for things like strep throat or vaccines or not-severe flu.

  54. 54.

    esc

    I’m not staying up until 3 am for WoW. Probably won’t really get into it until Friday night when my husband and I can play together. We didn’t play Mists really, so we’ll see if Warlords of Nostalgia for Burning Crusade can hold our interest.

  55. 55.

    Morzer

    @efgoldman:

    I had a similar experience at Beth Israel when I went for a CAT scan. I drank (if that is the right word) 12 cups of lime-flavored mud, and then waited all day and much of the evening to be scanned. By the time they got around to me, I had spent so long perched on a cart in the corridor that I needed to drink 2 more cups of the mud. Not, obviously, as worrying as your experience must have been, but still not calculated to promote a feeling of being in the bestest, caringest, competentest hands in the civilized world.

  57. 57.

    RobertDSC (Quad Intel Mac)

    @Mike in dc:
    Getting 100% was easier if one opened an account at the Rockstar Social Club. The GTA V page had a checklist that updated as you collected items. Very handy.

  58. 58.

    Suzanne

    @efgoldman: I have been in hospitals that have facilities that are truly shameful. Like third-world-country shameful. Patients in corridors is not atypical, but it is really awful. Lots of them don’t have enough air changes per hour, don’t have HEPA filters, even in critical care areas, don’t have enough handwashing sinks, haven’t cleaned out the pneumatic tubes…..

    I am much choosier about where I go now. It’s worth the drive to a better hospital.

  60. 60.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Heliopause: You asked “Are you morally tainted because you participate in the same pastime as Gamergate people?” I am not a gamer; I am not tainted even if we grant your Cavuto mark suggestion.

  62. 62.

    BethanyAnne

    @Heliopause: Oh, I’m in the camp opposed to the #GamerGate idiots. Broadening the categories of who games are for, by, and about should benefit everyone.

  63. 63.

    burnspbesq

    @BethanyAnne:

    WADR, those sound like post hoc rationalizations. I’m willing to bet they were the farthest thing from your mind when you started playing.

    I, for one, am perfectly OK with the idea that you got into games because you like to blow shit up.

  64. 64.

    Suzanne

    @efgoldman: Lots of hospitals are building observation units, in which a patient can stay for up to 24 hours. It’s good for people who come into the ED, but might not need a full hospital admission. They can be watched closely until it can be figured out. The patient areas are often a bit more private than in EDs, where you might literally only have a chair and a curtain. All in all, it’s a good thing.

  65. 65.

    burnspbesq

    If there was a version of Assassin’s Creed that allowed me to simulate decapitating Jonathan Adler and disembowling Michael Cannon, I’d be all over it.

  68. 68.

    Suzanne

    @Morzer: Some EDs now let you look at their expected wait time online. EDs are ridiculous. I went once when I had a seizure and a physical breakdown from staying up working for 56 hours, and I was so unbelievably exhausted that I slept for over 24 hours, interrupted only by vomiting. They were worried that I might have a brain bleed, and yet it took them over 10 hours to establish that I did not. Some of them are awful. I also won’t go to any Catholic hospitals.

  70. 70.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Heliopause: You directly asked me the question as well, didn’t you? Or does this have some other meaning? I am beginning to suspect that you are a rather silly person.

  71. 71.

    Morzer

    @efgoldman:

    I wonder if Atul Gawande has taken an interest in this topic. I’ve enjoyed and admired his writing on medical practice in the past and a cousin of mine who is a surgeon raves about it.

  73. 73.

    Steeplejack

    @burnspbesq:

    What is a good compromise audio format for putting music on my cell phone? That is, better than MP3 but not entailing huge file sizes, and keeping in mind that this is not going to be a peak listening experience.

    I was thinking about this because, as a byblow of my recent (and ongoing) home reorganization/decluttering, I found a set of cheap portable earphones, and even with those YouTube music and some MP3 files sound amazing on my Moto X and my laptop. I realize that I’ve been living on a starvation diet lately with regard to music.

    Now listening to Freddie Hubbard’s “À Bientôt,” which has just showed up on YouTube.

  74. 74.

    Pee Cee

    Are baseball fans morally tainted because they participate in the same pastime as George Fcking Will?

  77. 77.

    burnspbesq

    @Steeplejack:

    The tradeoff, obviously, is sound quality vs. the number of songs you can have at your disposal vs. spending time transcoding. In most environments where you will be using a portable source, there is going to be enough background noise that “audiophile” high resolution is a waste of space.

    My personal choice for my iPhone and iPad (both of which have 128 gigs of storage) is 44.1/16 (CD resolution) Apple Lossless, but I could certainly live with 320k mp3. Anything less than that, and I can hear soundstage collapse, loss of transient information, and inaccurate instrumental timbres (if, for example, you can’t tell the difference between a tenor sax and a bass clarinet, you need more resolution).

    HTH.

    ETA: I subscribe to both Spotify and Tidal, and love the vast resources they make available, but I only use them when I have access to wi-fi. Cellular data overages get expensive.

  78. 78.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Heliopause: Oh, I have an opinion on the question. It was, as I have mentioned, a Cavuto mark statement, and I think that those statements are dishonest and cowardly.

  79. 79.

    Amir Khalid

    @Heliopause:
    As Omnes said, he’s not a gamer, and not the person to answer that question.

    Morzer has noted that gamers =/= Gamergate. The behaviour of the latter group has been shameful, maybe even criminal, but his point seems obvious: gamers who didn’t join in have no reason for shame on that score.

    Let me ask you something: You and I both comment here. Does that ever make you feel like a fifty-plus Malaysian?

  80. 80.

    Morzer

    @Amir Khalid:

    Some people comment approvingly on Red State.

    Red State is a blog.

    Heliopause comments on a blog.

    Therefore Heliopause comments approvingly on Red State.

    It’s a pretty obvious logical fallacy, but some people would rather make boorish fools of themselves defending a fallacy than admit that they said something stupid, take their lumps and enjoy a spell of personal growth.

  82. 82.

    cckids

    @Suzanne:

    EDs are ridiculous.

    Truth. With our son, I’ve been in & out of about 12 different EDs over the years. The worst, by far, was here in Vegas. We took him in because he had an injury to his leg/knee, caused by an aide lifting him out of the tub (not her fault). We waited 6 hours for a room, while the leg swelled & he started going into shock (probably from the pain).

    Were in the little ER room for another 4 hours before they did an X-ray, (found out later that it was blurry & useless), during which time we couldn’t give him any of his seizure meds, nor did he get any painkillers. His heart rate was over 160; his blood pressure went to 220/150. A resident stuck his head in the door & said “his leg’s not broken, you can take him home”. It took us pointing out his vitals to see an actual doctor & get him admitted.

    Though we were sorry we didn’t just leave with him & go elsewhere. The whole story is way, way too long, but when he was finally dismissed (to rehab) 3 weeks later, he had MRSA, was on oxygen, (permanently, as it turns out), a stage 4 pressure ulcer, heart & blood pressure issues he’d never had before, and was blind in one eye.

    Yes, ERs suck. Many hospitals suck just as hard.

  83. 83.

    Steeplejack

    @burnspbesq:

    Thanks for weighing in. After I wrote my previous message I remembered reading something that said MP3 could be acceptable at a higher resolution, but I couldn’t remember what that level was. And I was wondering about AAC.

  84. 84.

    VincentN

    @Heliopause:

    being a “gamer” is a hugely problematic thing on the internet right now,

    Ok, I’ll bite.

    I imagine the non-GamerGate gamers think these people are idiots and are making everyone else look bad. But since they aren’t the ones being idiots they have no reason to feel bad about participating in a hobby they enjoy that isn’t hurting anyone.

    Also, asking whether participating in “X” morally taints you because some people who also do “X” are assholes is a strange question because you can ask that of anything. Readers, football fans, religious people, dancers, artists, etc. I’m not going to stop reading books or feel bad about doing so just because Pat Robertson also reads books.

    Also, wouldn’t this line of logic mean that the female gamers who are largely against GamerGate are also morally tainted by being associated with gaming? That means that they should stop gaming, right? That would be a rather convenient result for the GG folk.

  86. 86.

    Heliopause

    @Amir Khalid:

    Morzer has noted that gamers =/= Gamergate. The behaviour of the latter group has been shameful, maybe even criminal, but his point seems obvious: gamers who didn’t join in have no reason for shame on that score.

    I agree.

    Let me ask you something: You and I both comment here. Does that ever make you feel like a fifty-plus Malaysian?

    See above.

  87. 87.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Heliopause: That is one of the most disingenuous comments I have read this year. Walking away from something because of the brutality inherent in it and condemning an activity because some of the people who participate in it are assholes are not remotely the same thing.

  88. 88.

    burnspbesq

    @Steeplejack:

    AAC is probably overall the best-sounding lossy codec (OMG, here come the Ogg Vorbis hordes!). I’ve heard a lot of 256k AAC files (the default resolution for “mastered for iTunes” stuff you buy from the iTunes Store) that are noticeably better than 320k mp3 files of the same track.

    The issue is that a fair number of non-Apple devices don’t support it (less now than a few years ago, but be sure your device supports AAC before you go on a bender at the iTunes Store).

  90. 90.

    Heliopause

    @VincentN:

    Also, asking whether participating in “X” morally taints you because some people who also do “X” are assholes is a strange question

    Oh, I don’t think it’s a strange question at all, since guilt by association is extremely common behavior on the internet.

  93. 93.

    VincentN

    @Heliopause:

    Ta-Nehisi Coates has stopped consuming football for moral reasons. Coates feels that the physical brutality of football outweighs its positive aspects in a moral calculus. Can a similar calculus be brought to bear on “gaming?” Why or why not?

    One could make the argument that watching football or going to games is financially contributing to an industry that harms its players. To make a similar argument with gaming you would have to show that playing video games somehow leads to making death threats to female gamers, writers, and editors.

    And again this argument ignores the existence of female gamers unless you’re arguing that video games will cause them to make death threats against themselves. Or that they’ve become morally tainted by being the victims of the idiots who caused this problem in the first place.

    Unless you’re really asking whether being a male gamer is morally tainting because of GamerGate. In which case you could just as easily ask if being a man is morally tainting because of GamerGate.

  96. 96.

    Morzer

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Rush Limbaugh takes showers. Heliopause takes showers. Therefore Heliopause is tainted by sharing the practices of a racist,misogynist drug-addict.

    And down the irrational slope we toboggan faster and faster!

    Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee………..

  99. 99.

    NotMax

    @Morzer

    Rush Limbaugh takes showers.

    Pictures or it didn’t happen.

    Inclined rather to go with him being sponge bathed and anointed with oils and unguents by a coterie of liveried toadies.

  106. 106.

    Morzer

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I don’t even want to imagine the sort of horrors with which NotMax is now tainted by association. I mean, what sort of people want pictures of a nekkid Limbaugh?

  108. 108.

    PIGL

    I’m old school….rogue, for me. I avoid the new fangled games like WoW for much the same reason as I avoid cheap sources of abundant cocaine: a man’s got to know his limitations. That said, I am planning to reconnect with that world a little later in life. Write now, I spend enough time cursing at computers for my day job—which bleedz into nights and weekends.

  112. 112.

    Morzer

    Well worth reading, as Konczal always is:

    http://bostonreview.net/books-ideas/mike-konczal-profits-state-legitimacy-parrillo-goldstein-balko

    Consider merit pay schemes whereby teachers are now meant to compete with each other for bonuses. This mirrors the 1770 Maryland assembly’s argument that public officials “would not perform their duties with as much diligence when paid a fixed salary as when paid for each particular service.” And note that the criminal justice system now profits from forfeiture of property and court fees levied on offenders, recalling Thomas Brackett Reed, the House Republican leader who, in 1887, argued, “In order to bring your criminals against the United States laws to detection” you “need to have the officials stimulated by a similar self-interest to that which excites and supports and sustains the criminal.”

    The dissolution of the old system, and its return with a vengeance, are the subjects of three recent books on the everyday lives of our front-line public employees. In Against the Profit Motive, legal scholar Nicholas R. Parrillo documents how the original system of commission-based public service grew ripe for corruption and was eventually curtailed through the bureaucratic innovation of the salary. The theories and history Parrillo documents form the perfect background for tackling the radical changes taking place in policing and teaching in recent decades, stories told in Dana Goldstein’s The Teacher Wars and Radley Balko’s Rise of the Warrior Cop.

  113. 113.

    Suzanne

    @efgoldman: An observation room wouldn’t have been the answer for you, from what you’ve described. It would have been perfect for my problem, if the hospital had had one, because they ended up admitting me and I woke up the next day feeling great, and they couldn’t find a problem and I was bored as shit. If they had had one, they could have watched me for twenty-four hours and seen that I was okay and just needed to sleep it off. EDs aren’t conducive to sleep. I had to sleep on a recliner.

  115. 115.

    Morzer

    @Suzanne:

    O’Reilly. IIRC, he meant to say loofah. And he tried to take it beyond a fantasy, to the point where he got slapped with a lawsuit.

  116. 116.

    BethanyAnne

    @burnspbesq: Oh, sure, those weren’t my reasons. I play games because they are fun. What I was (obliquely, I guess) arguing, is that there are actually significant benefits from gaming, and that gaming isn’t a passive activity. I got into it because I like playing pretend, and dress up and solving problems and whacking things. But it turns out that all the puzzles help your mind, too.

  119. 119.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I’m so sorry. When a friend of G’s did something similar, G said that Kay Redfield Jamison’s book “Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide” helped him better understand what had happened and, frankly, how little he could have done to prevent it once his friend had made his decision.

  120. 120.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @VincentN:

    Also, wouldn’t this line of logic mean that the female gamers who are largely against GamerGate are also morally tainted by being associated with gaming? That means that they should stop gaming, right? That would be a rather convenient result for the GG folk.

    I would really like Heliopause to answer your question. Are women who game really morally obligated to do what the GamerGate assholes want women to do and stop playing games?

    It seems awfully … convenient, is all I’m saying.

  124. 124.

    BlueDWarrior

    I dunno, a lot of people have WOW as their MMORPG crack, mine is Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn right now.

    Still working on getting all my combat classes to Lv30 (out of 50) [though my main of Thamaturge/Black Mage is at 50], haven’t even touched the gathering and crafting classes yet.

    Not to mention I’ve only done the base story, none of the expansion plots…
    and the lack of sidequests done…

    I’m going to be some time if I want completionist achievments

  125. 125.

    Anne Laurie

    @efgoldman: Whereas the Spousal Unit took me to the closest open “urgent care” (Lahey Burlington) on a Saturday evening, when the week-old seemed-like-it-was-healing puncture wound on my right hand suddenly puffed up & turned ugly. I sat around waiting, first in the common area & then on a gurney, for 14 hours… but at least by the time I did see a physician, the morning shift was coming on, and I’d been fasting long enough they could use general anethesia when the orthepedic surgeon dug around removing infected tissue. So, in that case, urgent care was by far the better option (waiting was boring, but I’m sure it would’ve been much worse at any ER on a Saturday night!).

  126. 126.

    Morzer

    @NotMax:

    I do worry about these lurid fantasies of yours. First Limbaugh naked without even the excuse of mopping, now a divine being on a crostini.

    Where will it all end?

  127. 127.

    Villago Delenda Est

    It’s two minutes to midnight, I’m sitting at a loading screen that I assume will delver me to Draenor at the stroke of midnight.

    I’ll have a lot of questions for Khadgar if something else happens.

  133. 133.

    NotMax

    Sailors must be blushing worldwide over some the the language burning up vent accounts currently as WoW experiences significant opening day jitters.

  134. 134.

    dance around in your bones

    @Morzer: Yes, I LOVE Jeeves and Wooster.

    Oddly enough, it was someone linking to the final episode of Blackadder (on Veteran’s Day) that started me on my Fry and Laurie expedition. I always knew about those guys but that Blackadder finale reduced me to tears and I had to go searching more.

    One needs some comic relief these days.

  135. 135.

    Singular

    I’m going through a phase of scouting for good old games that I missed… and playing them :)

    Shadowrun (Dragonfall) at the moment, it’s so dated graphically but the writing is a cut above…

  136. 136.

    Medicine Man

    @Heliopause: The comparison isn’t quite analogous, Heliopause. As others have pointed out, consuming Football actually contributes financially, however indirectly, to the managers and owners who are inflicting damage to their players. The situation with GamerGate is actually more the opposite. Many of the primary victims of the GGer’s lack of positive social skills are game developers, especially female game developers. Just look into how most developers have reacted to GG to get a sense of their growing siege mentality. Social media has become an increasingly hostile and unusable medium of communication to them and they are starting to fear a significant portion of their own customer base. While it is true that I am less inclined to *identify* myself as a Gamer these days, I am in no way going to stop playing games. I would just be punishing myself and the victims of GG.

    A second, more broad point: This whole stupid shit storm that is known as GamerGate is actually nothing new at all. Gaming as a whole has been becoming a broader more inclusive pass time for decades, just due to the growth of the industry and its consumer base. The people who once were the dominant demographic in Gaming no longer are. The Gators’ unwillingness to accept any social commentary on their hobby and determination to make the community as hostile a place as possible to “outside” groups looks pretty familiar if you compare it to past events, such as women being allowed into university. We’ve been here before.

    Though largely unacknowledged by the belligerents, much of the angst pouring out of the Gators is due to ownership of the medium being steadily distributed to a broader and broader group of people. With this distribution and balkanization in mind, why should I feel personally ashamed if some small subset of my larger group can’t behave like upright walking mammals?

  137. 137.

    Darkrose

    @BethanyAnne: I made the mistake of pre-ordering DA2, and swore never to do that again. I’m cautiously optimistic about DAI, based on the commentary I’ve seen. I still have to wait for someone to do a No Spiders mod, though.

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