Earthbound.

The game itself is a quirky but endearing turn based RPG with enduring graphics and score. The game came with a full strategy guide that was set up like a tour guide to the various locations in the game. It was intended to be a companion piece to the story and fleshed out characters and towns. I was so excited to get it as a kid that I measured the box a video rental place with a tape measure and compared it my Christmas presents to make sure one of the wrapped ones was actually it. I replay it once every 10 years or so.

The game was one of the strong inspirations for Undertale.

I encountered him a long time ago and started watching him in earnest a few years ago. Really sad to see how he was affected by the Asheville floods but happy that he has been so resilient.

As annoyed as I was I laughed when he deployed that one.

In college, my roommate did the following one evening:

• Drank the better part of a case of beer
• Tried to get into a frat party but was rejected for being raucously drunk
• Punched his way through a wooden fence in frathouses’s back yard and ran into the party, breaking his hand in the process
• Kicked in a hall closet door and found a can of black paint, opened it and threw it at a wall 3 feet in front of him
• Got thrown out of the party again, covered in black paint and returned to our apartment
• Woke me up looking like Ken Jeong from Community as a Dark Elf because he was having trouble taking his pants off (his boots were still on)
• Got really mad that I wouldn’t help him so he committed another act of closet violence and ripped all the shelving of his own closet
• Called his ex-girlfriend and played the entirety of Amazed by Lonestar into her voicemail and yelled “Amazed at what a BITCH you are” at the end
• Fell asleep in his clothes which he profoundly soiled with blood, piss, vomit, and black paint.
• Woke up in the early morning to move to his bed, which received the same treatment
• Got up the next day and bought a Condolences for your Loss card which he signed and delivered to me.

He dropped out a few weeks later, joined the military, married his ex, and is apparently a sysadmin now.

One weekend when I was in high school, back when burning CDs was popular, I had a little extra space so I downloaded “Enter Sandman” and threw it as the last track on the CD. My dad asked me to go run an errand on Sunday so naturally I got my new CD and put it in his car’s CD player, listening to the first half of it before I returned.

That Monday, he gets home from work and he storms into my room absolutely furious and with no other context yells “SUCK A CAMEL’S ASS, HUH? REAL NICE!” before slamming the door. I have no idea what he is talking about but I wasn’t about to question my angry father and just stood there in shock. A couple weeks later I add that “Enter Sandman” file to a playlist and only to find it is actually the song “Suck a Caribou’s Ass” by Wesley Willis at a horrendous bitrate so it is super loud. I went to tell him it was an accident, but trying to explain to your dad what Kazaa was and how prevalent mislabeled songs were on there worked as well as explaining Islam to your pet hamster. He was adamant I did it on purpose.

To this day if I bring it up he still gets super annoyed and refuses to believe me.

I bought a cheap barcode scanner and scanned all my books and physical games and put it into a spreadsheet. I gave the spreadsheet to ChatGPT and asked it to populate the titles and ratings, and genre. Allows me to keep them in storage and easily find what I need quickly.

I have been working through adding things to a pegboard wall with the help of a 3d printer. Sure it’s not the most exciting but this corner of the universe is not going to shit.

Oh, I wasn’t thinking at all. It was a mistake my body won’t let me make again though.

I have a coworker that has two monitors on a free-moving desk stand and he has monitors as far apart as possible. The monitors are pretty small (24") and there is over two monitor widths between them. He has to whip his head around like he is trying trying to dodge a fly all day to do his work.

He complains about back and neck pain all the time.

Years ago I went to a small bar within walking distance of my place to watch a couple games with friends. There was a beer rep there for one of the big brewers debuting some new seltzer flavors, but no one was interested. I felt bad and the game wasn’t terribly interesting so I talked with him and over the course of 4-5 hours ended up drinking ~8 different flavors of fall themed seltzers (e.g., sour apple, cinnamon, pumpkin, flannel(?!)). A few included a shot of vodka. It was all free so I wasn’t saying no and ended up quite drunk.

The bar was also hosting a fish fry that day and the bartender brought over the leftover fish after the party left and offered it to everyone. In retrospect, this must have been sitting out for hours, but in my drunken state it was ambrosia from heaven and I ate a couple fillets and a bunch of shrimp and walked home.

The next day I was violently hungover and had food poisoning. It was the worst I have ever felt by a wide margin. The absolutely abominable combination of seafood and potpourri flavored alcohol made it an exquisitely miserable experience

Pharmacy. The patients that are the worst at managing their conditions are the ones you have to deal with the most. Add to that the issues that stem from insurance, addiction, neglect, or end of life care, it can be really tough.

I many years ago was working in a pharmacy and a patient came in for a prescription for an steroid inhaler. Steroid inhalers can cause a fungal infection in your mouth if you don’t rinse and spit after using them. I told this to the patient’s mother but she said that the doctor told them to not inhale the spray and instead hold it in the mouth and then rinse and swallow. I told them that didn’t sound right and could be harmful but she insisted.

I called the doctor who told me the patient had a relatively rare condition called eosinophilic esophagitis that required they swallow instead of inhale to reduce the swelling in their esophagus and the chance of a fungal infection was manageable. Turns out that physician was performing a clinical trial which is now a recognized (off label) therapy for the disease.

I use that experience when I am training others on why it is important to listen to everything the patient/client/customer is saying, and not to immediately discount it because it sounds wrong.

I know a lot of people will tell you to expect boredom, but the last time I was called for jury duty it was actually a great time.

Once I got inside the building and signed in the jury room was pretty nice. It was set up with a bunch of large armchairs with a side table next to it with a charging station all facing toward a projection screen. In the morning they would show a concert and a movie in the afternoon. You could listen to or you could sit there with your laptop in your chair. They had coffee and snacks for free and a side room which was dark and quiet if you wanted to sleep. They encouraged people to bring in food or entertainment too. In the afternoon they had a field trip where we were given tours of the state buildings or meetings with the judges. We had to be available for 2 weeks unless we got empaneled which only happened once but the case was settled before any arguments. If anyone’s work complained that they were out or asked them to do work during the day the court would physically send one of the jury officers to go yell at your boss and he would come back and tell us about it.

By the end of the week we were all on a first name basis and people were bringing in legitimately good food. One guy played us some music and another guy was a radio host and offered to announce an Uno tournament like it was a professional sporting match. One guy needed help with filling out a bunch of paperwork for an issue he was having and we all pitched in to help him figure it out and it was done in a morning.

I still talk to some of those people and it was 5+ years ago. Hopefully you have a good time too.

During a particularly hard part of my life I asked my partner to take my car for an past due oil change while I was at school/work. When I got home at 11pm I asked how it went and they said that my car was a mess, which is not how I keep my car. Turns out someone trashed my car and stole everything the previous night including a bunch of school textbooks and a bunch of other related stuff. I have had things stolen before but this was in my driveway way outside the main city so it felt personal.

Luckily, I was able to work with the professors and my classmates who provided me copies or a spare book for the semester and I was able get by. Really sucked at the time but it was really warming to have other people pitch in to help me.

I worked a precinct that was right next to a huge nursing home. One guy who was 98, came in and after getting his ballot fell down and was unresponsive. Luckily the home had their own staff join the groups that came to vote and resuscitated him and he continued exactly where he left off at tortoise pace.

Also lots of people who were not registered or at the wrong polling place but insist on voting anyways despite me patiently explaining and showing them how to solve the issue. They demand to “vote” so they get a provisional ballot that we dutifully process which likely will be rejected. All of them are certain we are stealing their ballot, or trying to keep them from voting. I always say to them, “you seem like you are someone who knows a lot about the election process and has the time, we need people like you to volunteer” while offering them the volunteering paperwork. They leave pretty quickly after that.

Ultracrepidarian

An ultracrepidarian—from ultra- (“beyond”) and crepidarian (“things related to shoes”)—is a person considered to have ignored this advice and to be offering opinions they know nothing about.

The word is derived from a longer Latin phrase and refers to a story from Pliny the Elder

The phrase is recorded in Book 35 of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History as ne supra crepidam sutor iudicaret[1] (“Let the cobbler not judge beyond the crepida”) and ascribed to the Greek painter Apelles of Kos. Supposedly, Apelles would put new paintings on public display and hide behind them to hear and act on their reception.[2] On one occasion, a shoemaker (Latin sutor) noted that one of the crepides[a] in a painting had the wrong number of straps and was so delighted when he found the error corrected the next day that he started in on criticizing the legs.[2] Indignant, Apelles came from his hiding place and admonished him to confine his opinions to the shoes.[2] Pliny then states that since that time it had become proverbial.[2]

If you’re down for a retro RPG via an emulator, Earthbound. The overarching story is about dealing with traumatic events as a child and coming of age while hitting the endearing but quirky note similar to games like Undertale that was a cult classic on the SNES. It came boxed with a full color, complete strategy guide made to look like a travel guide so it’s intended not to be too difficult and really experience the story.

I will second Nethack. The depth of that game for it’s size is astounding.

The Mafia/Werewolf social deduction type games can be played without any equipment if someone knows the rules well enough. Alternatively you can use the free companion app that is meant for the One Night Werewolf version guides you through it.

Just listened to it and god she is amazing. Great recommendation!