jaycifer

So am I to assume there was more to the story that didn’t click with you than the optional narrative sub-branch that you chose not to engage with?

It’s good. Like Olive Garden, it’s as good as fine can get. It’s a real-time turn based tactical strategy game, so while the game is paused you tell each ship where to go, who to shoot at, and what abilities to unleash, with options limited to what the ship can do over a ~6 second period. Then you end your turn and watch those commands play out and succeed or fail based on the enemy’s response. It strikes a good balance between puzzling out the optimal commands and the spectacle of watching spaceships blast each other apart.

Sometimes you smile as you press play because you know that barrage of missiles from two turns ago are going to take out the big ship you’ve been peppering down. Other times you realize there’s no way out for one of your ships and just try to use its death to lure the enemy into a worse position. At the end of combat you can watch the whole thing play out in real time over a minute which looks like you’re watching a battle from the 2004 show, only bigger.

The only thing is, once you get used to the controls and basic tactics, I feel like the game gets bigger in terms of fleets and ship sizes without getting more complex or interesting. But it’s still cool for a good few hours, especially if you’re a fan of the show.

Out of curiosity, who did you romance, and why?

I’ve got a new mechanical watch arriving soon. It’s a pretty cheap Chinese watch so it won’t be super pretty, but it has all of the stuff I want after getting my first automatic a couple years ago. A chronograph, which I don’t know I’ll use but it will look cool, a transparent back to watch all the mechanics moving, and a (hopefully) legit sapphire crystal face cover instead of the bio-plastic one my current watch has (it’s covered in scratches).

But the real selling point for me is the tritium tubes in each hand and each point on the face. This will give them a soft glow under their own power for ~25 years, letting me tell the time in the dark!

Is that always true? It’s been a few years since I set up a Switch emulator but I recall needing device keys dumped from a physical machine to get it working, similar to ROMs. Would that put the emulator itself in a similar position?

I think using the term “peaked in high school” is about as problematic a term as “former gifted kid” is. It sells a false narrative that there can be only one peak in a person’s life. I should know, because I am a former gifted kid who definitely had a strong peak in high school. I passed all 8 of the AP exams I took, was captain of the tennis team, and prom king. I don’t know I can say I could do all of that being who I am now, which does make me feel a little lesser than I was. But then I take off the nostalgia glasses and remember all of the pressure I was under from everywhere around me to accomplish those things, and the insecurity leading me to obsess over books and video games to escape life. That leads me to remember the feelings of burnout and inability I had to cope with life when those pressure sources were no longer present, and how much I have grown in dealing with those.

My point in saying all that is to show that, given only that info, I exactly fit the description of what you’re saying. And if that is all you know about me, maybe you’d think that you’re right, but I’ve had several peaks since then, all of them different. I could wax poetic over my first real relationship, and if that was all I said to you you might think “God, this guy needs to get over it, he definitely peaked in his first relationship.” But I didn’t because this thread is about “former gifted kids,” so that’s all you’ll read about when you enter it.

Memes are typically about one topic and one topic only, and assuming that the topic of a meme is all there is to the person posting it is (to put it nicely) kinda silly.

TW3: I like it, the base game provides a decent core roster of factions to play, and on sale there’s a decades worth of further factions that are fun to play. I have a friend to give this copy to so we can play together a little.

Another Crabs Treasure: I’ve heard good things, wasn’t going put of my way for it but I’m excited to try it.

No More Heroes 3: This is my buddy’s favorite game series, it’s a little strange for me to get into.

Etrian Odyssey: I’ve heard this game is good, I want to try it, I know I never actually will.

Pharaoh: from what I recall it has Caesar 3 vibes, so I’m down to try it. I’m always down to try a city builder.

Synergy: played a Next Fest demo a year or more ago. It was pretty if a little basic, so I’ll probably get a chill evening out of running through the tech tree once.

The other two: Never heard of them, they seem fine, maybe one of my casual (as in chill/cozy) gaming friends will like Paleo Pines.

On the whole, it’s a decent month, enough to keep my sub going.

Is that EU picture supposed to look more aesthetically appealing than the US one? Because I flip a switch on the US panel and feel super serious, like Kurt Russell about to flip the switch on all power on Earth. I look at the EU picture and think of the electrical outlets behind the teacher’s desk in the 80 year old school building I attended.

If you go back far enough, there’s a lot of Scandinavian heritage in Minnesota settlers, especially Sweden and Norway. Historically, Scandinavian foods lacked spice because there weren’t a lot of spices that grew there. The settlers brought the palette that comes with that with them.

I suppose it tells you that there is no male equivalent. I do think it’s interesting that there are so many fewer types of admission skewed toward women that fit the criteria of being skewed by 80% or more, especially when you consider the prominence of pregnancy related types.

I do also think it would be more interesting to see something like the top 15 admission types for men and top 15 for women without the 80% threshold requirement to get a wider spread of women-skewed admissions.

Instantly? It’s a somewhat vague term, but magnanimity, having “loftiness of spirit.” To me, it means that when they enter a room they carry a subtle gravity. Their eyes are focused on what and who is around them, taking in each in turn with a clear understanding of what they see but a respect for what they don’t. A trim smile that welcomes greetings and promises warm words in return. They breathe with the calm ease of someone healthy and comfortable in their own skin, and with each step they appear to not just approach their physical destination, but their own personal fulfillment.

I liked Stacy’s Mom when I first heard it, but after listening to more and Fountains of Wayne over the years, it just makes me angry because it’s the only song of theirs anybody knows! I like that most of their music is about everyday moments and emotions, but the only everyday moment people know is the milf one.

And then I start thinking about Bowling for Soup’s cover of Stacy’s Mom, which is by far the worst cover I have ever heard, not because it’s bad in its own right, but because there are no creative decisions taken, nothing to make it their own, they just do nothing with it and on Spotify it has an entire half of the number of plays as the original. The first time I heard the cover, I didn’t realize until the singing started and I thought the voice sounded a little different. And there are people who don’t even realize Bowling for Soup’s “version” is a cover!