I have to disagree.

Ready Player One the movie is a dumb 5/10 flick I can throw on my second monitor while I get stoned and play video games while looking over and going “hehe” every now and then as I LOOK AT popular things doing stuff.

Ready Player One the book is an infuriating grind where each scene starts with Wil Wheaton (the audiobook narrator) listing off names of popular things for a few minutes before the incel-adjacent main character reveals that he actually spent months practicing the one specific popular thing he needed to succeed right now.

It did prompt me to try Joust when I came across it at a barcade though, and that was fun.

… goddammit, it’s been 20 years and I never caught that.

Bisexual, heteroromantic.

The funny thing about this comment is that, having read the other comments, I know that you’re extrapolating ridiculous things about a field of study that helps enable modern life from a simple game. But if I hadn’t read them, I would still know that you’re extrapolating ridiculous things about a field of study that enables modern life, but I would also still be wondering what the hell these Tetris looking squares have to do with anything! You failed to even address the question you’re responding to!

Subaru for the commute, Miata for the weekends!

The problem with microblog posts like this is that by now extrovert and introvert have lost a common meaning. I was taught to think of "social energy" as a battery. Introverts recharge their battery by doing activities alone then spend that charge by being around others, and extroverts recharge inversely by being around others then spend that charge when alone.

But a lot of people use the terms to mean being anti-social/socially anxious or being social/charismatic. The uses are related but they carry different meanings and implications, so unless the post contains the definition the poster means or a commenter specifies what they mean in their answer every conversation ends up meaningless because nobody can be certain what other people are talking about.

The context is different, but my mind always goes back to a line from the Ben Folds song Mister Peepers: "What's the rule of law if we can't agree on what a fact is?"

To get the full effects of DMT it’s best to have it in a powder form (I think) then take a hit from a crack pipe. When I had a functional vape cartridge I had to take 3-5 pulls in rapid succession to get close to the same effects. That’s the point where you start seeing geometric shapes and maybe an extra dimensional being. The one I met the one time I hit from a pipe suggested I lay off the chocolate milk.

Like you suggested, I don’t think it’s very recreational, but it is a very interesting substance.

It’s a “survival city builder,” so it’s easier to lose than most. It has some serious style and in the first game has some tough decisions between doing what’s humane or doing what benefits you mechanically. As an example, for dealing with the dead you can create a cemetery where the dead can be remembered, reducing the malus to the hope of your people when someone dies. Alternatively you can create a snow pit out in the cold to preserve the bodies for organ harvesting, healing the sick faster and preventing some deaths but reducing hope overall.

I’m biased because I’ve played the first game for over 200 hours, but if it’s on sale definitely give it a try if you think the art looks cool or like city builders. It’s best played in winter when it’s already cold outside. I first played it during the polar vortex a few years back and it was awesome feeling the cold creep into my room as I tried to keep the cold from taking my people.

I’ve also played two playthroughs of Frostpunk 2 the last week and it feels like a larger scale escalation of the first game. If you play the first game enough you learn build orders and what to research first which can become rigid, the sequel feels a lot more fluid in deciding what to build toward next. A law or building has a smaller impact overall but there are enough of them that it feels like building a house of cards that you hope can weather the literal storms that hit you.

Wow, I’ve never seen someone try to link bidet use to intelligence before. It’s almost impressive.

Two terrible, groan-inducing puns for the price of one? I love it!

I’m seeing a lot of comments telling you how to feel, to “be okay with it,” which I think is lame. Feelings aren’t something to be controlled, only understood and maybe channeled toward something. When a couple of my good friends began a polyamorous relationship, it really weirded me out, but eventually I came to accept that it worked for them, even though it would not work for me.

My advice is to first understand why you don’t like it. Give it some personal thought, then do some reading on what polyamory is and how it can or cannot work to compare and contrast with the thoughts you had going into the situation. In the process, you will not only gain better ways of understanding and expressing your own feelings and concerns, you’ll also have learned useful advice and guidelines to share with your daughter.

Then sit down with your daughter and share your more refined understanding of your feelings and how they lead to your approval/disapproval of her polyamory and share the guidelines you found to keep such a relationship healthy should she decide to pursue it. I think the middlingly fortunate reality is that she is reaching an age where she will do what she wants, whether it is behind or in front of your back. At least she’ll know that you tried to understand.

It’s a nice touch that the bottleship’s sail is sagging due to not getting any wind.

We just got done establishing that tariffs are not a presidential privilege! What contrivance will they think up this time to “justify” it? Or are we officially past the stage of pretending now?

As an American, there’s a chain of instinctive thoughts that pass through my mind when I see another news article about the US losing another piece of world dominance:

Oh no, this could hurt me! Wait, I don’t make money from these companies.

My country will lose tax revenue! Wait, massive corporations pay minimal taxes anyway, this doesn’t affect the ability for my government to function.

The Visa/Mastercard employees working internationally will lose their jobs! Corporations have mass layoffs willy nilly anyway, this isn’t different.

The executives and corporate owners will lose revenue! Wait, they’re the ones who can afford to lose income the most out of anybody.

They’ve really done a good job dismantling any reason for me to give a shit about US corporations losing money.

It’s not super creative but I named my mom’s network “The Internet” so when she asks for help with getting online I can ask if she’s tried connecting to The Internet.

I’m a big fan of contronyms, words with two opposite meanings. I first learned looking for a word to describe the change in “literally” from meaning, well, the literal meaning of something to also the figurative meaning.

Another good one is dust. You can dust your house to remove dust, but you can also dust a cake with powdered sugar.

This reads like one of my brother’s brainrot videos being read by an AI.

Caffeine has a metabolic half life of 6-12 hours. This means that after a 24 hour period, there could be 1/4 of the original caffeine amount you drank in your system. If you drink the same amount of caffeine again at that point, now after a 24 hour period you ‘ll have up to 1/4 of that 1.25 amount in your system. If you consume caffeine daily, this can lead to an accumulation of caffeine that your body adjusts to always being there, becoming the new baseline normal. This would feel fine until you stop, at which point the caffeine your body expects to be there is gone, and it needs to take time readjusting to that absence. That leads to withdrawal symptoms.

I agreed to fly across the country to drive my dad’s car back home while he drove the uhaul with his stuff. The day I fly out, he calls and tells me he’s been drinking again, the movers canceled on him, and he’s a loser.

I get there and he’s puking up blood as he detoxes, hasn’t eaten in days, and I’m stuck with one driver and two cars. I had to ask my uncle to fly out to help instead of spending time with his son who was on military leave while my stepmother called around to find movers last minute, all while my dad complains about the pain he’s in and how he can’t sleep while taking constant naps and he’s such a loser.

Halfway back he has a seizure in the car I’m driving and I have to help him get the bile and blood he’s choking on out of his throat while operating a vehicle at 80mph to the next exit. Afterward his memory is frazzled and it takes a couple hours for him to remember where he is and what we’re doing.

We get home, I tell him I’m never helping him move again, his response is “but we listened to your music 90% of the way here!” This was three weeks ago.

God I hate needles. I bet if Spiderman hated needles, he’d be brave and face the needle anyway. I’m going to be brave like Spiderman… and dressing like him will help!