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Just completed the Ultimate Grocery Run of Ultimate Destiny. I now have everything I need for sweet and sour broccoli tofu, lemon cranberry muffins, lemon poppyseed muffins, vegan fettucine alfredo, and vegan parmesan substitute (with the exception of white miso paste, which is on mail-order and will get here tomorrow). The next two weeks are gonna Rock.
I have become the sort of person who heavily annotated cookbooks. Usually with nutritional information, but sometimes with "how about no" or "and some garlic".
The Spud is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
I eat it beside the green veggies, I eat it while drinking still waters.
It restores my soul; it leads me in the path of deliciousness for its name's sake.
Yea though I walk through the restaurant of the shadow of minimal vegan options, thou art with me. Thy warmth and thy starch, they comfort me.
Thou hast prepared a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my plate with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely ketchup and mustard shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Spud forever.
I shall not want.
I eat it beside the green veggies, I eat it while drinking still waters.
It restores my soul; it leads me in the path of deliciousness for its name's sake.
Yea though I walk through the restaurant of the shadow of minimal vegan options, thou art with me. Thy warmth and thy starch, they comfort me.
Thou hast prepared a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my plate with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely ketchup and mustard shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Spud forever.
I am currently at Which Wich, a delicious sandwich joint in Indianapolis.
The good: they have lots of awesome [thing to put in a sandwich] options, including black bean patties and hummus.
The bad: there is a poster on the wall attempting to 1) coin the word "vibeology", and 2) define it as an adjective. Yikes.
The weird: they sell chocolate chip cookies with yellow m&ms in them, which is so heavily Pittsburgh Culture I keep thinking I'm already back there.
The good: they have lots of awesome [thing to put in a sandwich] options, including black bean patties and hummus.
The bad: there is a poster on the wall attempting to 1) coin the word "vibeology", and 2) define it as an adjective. Yikes.
The weird: they sell chocolate chip cookies with yellow m&ms in them, which is so heavily Pittsburgh Culture I keep thinking I'm already back there.
Schools should have more small "try it and see if you like it" classes. Instead of having everybody take four semesters of literature, let people take half a semester each of literary analysis, psychology, programming, and statistics, and then another two semesters of just the ones of those they liked. Or four more little trial classes, if they didn't like any of them. High school should be when you dabble in lots of shit before settling down in college and specializing hard in a major, or going into the work world with a solid knowledge of your interests and hobbies. My high school went a bit farther in this direction than most and I really enjoyed it. You could take this pretty far, IMO. Maybe there should be requirements like "at least two things under the general heading of math, two under the general heading of science, and two under the general heading of humanities", plus mandatory civics and health, and then no further restrictions.
I saw a Christmas-themed theater production last night, and it portrayed Christmas as having two aspects, one Good and one Evil. And the Evil bucket was consumerism and stress and worry, but also things like sparkly lights and baked goods and children getting presents (visiting family was not categorized either way, or mentioned at all). The Good aspect was volunteering and donations and political activism. And I guess that's how it is for some people, but it's not how it is for me. For me, Christmas is solid Good. Donating to charity and making your house a work of art and baking brownies with my husband and picking out a present my grandparents will love and Peace on Earth and snow and little kids yelling joyfully over new chemistry sets and listening to choirs singing carols and making beautiful things and hanging them from trees is all one big bucket of Correctness and I love it so much. Merry Christmas, everyone; enjoy it with a clear conscience.
Unicorn Science Time
Dec. 18th, 2018 07:55 pmPotterverse unicorns are never killed except by Complete Fuckers, yet their horns end up in potions with surprising regularity. Therefore, unicorn “horns” are actually antlers, shed every year. The spiral structure is actually two antlers that grow very close together and twist around each other.
The below are links to pictures of forms I think it would be excellent to take on when I am a shapeshifting postsapient rocking out in the galactic computronium-pile.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
A petty complaint
Dec. 13th, 2018 09:01 amMy bus was late enough that I didn't have time to go to the gym before work today, and the sense of Wrongness is intense. On the one hand, it's good that I have this habit ingrained enough that it feels like "having to" skip my workout instead of "getting to". On the other hand, ugh.
Update: stayed after work and got it done. Balance is restored to the universe.
Update: stayed after work and got it done. Balance is restored to the universe.
On playing clerics in DnD
Dec. 12th, 2018 05:28 pm I just realized why I always find playing clerics (and to a lesser extent, paladins) less fulfilling than it feels like it's going to be at the start of a campaign. It's because what appeals to me about the concept of being a cleric (and other people can have totally different, equally good reasons) is the relationship between a cleric and their god.
There's a real foundation of loyalty and devotion to the god's ideals, but at the same time, gods are embodiments of abstract principles and clerics aren't, so there are going to be times when the cleric and the god want different things. And they need to negotiate that over the weird medium of prayers and powers and dice rolls and so forth. It's an intensely personal relationship with a being you basically never interact with directly. And, not being a religious person IRL, it's not the sort of thing I can get outside of games.
But the problem is, DnD gods are, you know, not real. Worse, they're even less real than the PCs or even the NPCs, who at least get screen time and people controlling them directly. The real Great Powers of the game world are the GM and the other players, none of whom are going to be as interested in the embodiment of an abstract principle as the person who decided to play a cleric. So while the GM might be deciding your god's reactions to things, their decisions will be based (and rightly so!) on what makes sense in the rules, makes for a good story, maintains PC power balance, etc. So there won't really be any there there, and the cleric's player ends up playing both ends of the relationship. Which, if you were looking to experiment with a new way of relating to a being other than yourself, is not really ideal.
There's a real foundation of loyalty and devotion to the god's ideals, but at the same time, gods are embodiments of abstract principles and clerics aren't, so there are going to be times when the cleric and the god want different things. And they need to negotiate that over the weird medium of prayers and powers and dice rolls and so forth. It's an intensely personal relationship with a being you basically never interact with directly. And, not being a religious person IRL, it's not the sort of thing I can get outside of games.
But the problem is, DnD gods are, you know, not real. Worse, they're even less real than the PCs or even the NPCs, who at least get screen time and people controlling them directly. The real Great Powers of the game world are the GM and the other players, none of whom are going to be as interested in the embodiment of an abstract principle as the person who decided to play a cleric. So while the GM might be deciding your god's reactions to things, their decisions will be based (and rightly so!) on what makes sense in the rules, makes for a good story, maintains PC power balance, etc. So there won't really be any there there, and the cleric's player ends up playing both ends of the relationship. Which, if you were looking to experiment with a new way of relating to a being other than yourself, is not really ideal.
(no subject)
Dec. 9th, 2018 08:52 pmI have a weighted vest! I've been wearing it around, during exercise but also just in my daily life. It's only six pounds and I'm not quite up to wearing it all day yet, but eventually I hope to be carrying a significant chunk of weight around all the time. Then when I go touristing with a heavy backpack, or wear a heavy aluminum cosplay, I can take it off and it'll be like every other day and I won't be exhausted two hours into having a lot of fun.
I've been doing all my dreamwidth-ing on mobile, and my phone doesn't have the image saved. I'm not going to do the traditional Dreamwidth lots-of-icons thing, because icons are how I keep track of people as individuals rather than just part of the infinite stream of text and I'm probably not the only person who does that.
UPDATE: hahaha I lied, see the comments, I have three different icons now but all of them are this pony.
UPDATE: hahaha I lied, see the comments, I have three different icons now but all of them are this pony.
Discussion question of the day: memory
Dec. 7th, 2018 07:24 am Would you rather have a perfect semantic memory (the ability to recall any fact you've ever learned) or a perfect episodic memory (the ability to recall what you were doing at any past moment)? I realize your answer is likely to depend on implementation details, so feel free to make up some that make sense to you.
Pokemon headcanon
Dec. 6th, 2018 10:38 pm The reason you always start with the mon in your first slot is because, contrary to the animations, that's the one hanging out out of its ball, so that's the one that jumps in when a chance to spar arises. NPCs run around with mon outside their balls all the time; why not you?
Proposed new social convention
Dec. 6th, 2018 06:22 pmThe Dreamwidth version of putting ephemeral content in the tags should be putting ephemeral content in a comment on your own post.
In which I may start yet another project
Dec. 6th, 2018 03:15 pm I'm going to try poking my nose out of Google's walled garden and volunteering with a group of other Googlers on a project for the local courthouse. Wish me good skill; I expect it'll be an adventure.
