Aderia

Hahaha, unfortunately I have a deep hatred of having anything sticky on my hands, including icing. I've been missing out on the biomechanical experience this whole time! 😱

Aww, look at that sweet lil smile - what a handsome pup.

Now, I don't consider myself a coffee aficionado - perhaps a begrudging semi-dependent. My palate isn't sharp enough to really get into deep and/or subtle flavors and variations.

A few factoids I've gleaned over the years that I've found interesting:

1. Light roast has more caffeine than dark roasts. 

2. You might enjoy different brewing methods, depending on how much you want to get into the process. Some of my friends really enjoy pour-over coffee, AeroPress, french press, among other methods. I do have a few who like to buy and roast and grind their own coffee beans, and one who has some coffee plant seedlings that she's growing. It can be a very involved hobby! 

3. If you eventually find yourself nauseous after drinking coffee, there are low-acidic versions on the market, and I found that helped me. 

4. Instant coffee is fun to use as watercolor for art, and useful in a pinch for all-nighters, but beyond that, consume at your own risk. 

5. Adding cardamom apparently reduces or negates the caffeine's effect if you want some coffee before bed.

6. Adding a dash of salt negates the bitterness - I've tried this one. It's ...weird? Maybe I added too much salt 😂

Have fun on this new venture! 

Wow, it's so gorgeous and bright! To echo the sentiment, you definitely have a lot to be proud of here, and I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg !

Wow, it's so beautiful! My first honeydew is finally on its way - this is a nice size to aspire to. After the gopher mishap of last year, I'd be happy with anything, though! 

Aww, what a handsome boy. It sounds like you have him a wonderful life full of love from day 1,  I'm sure he couldn't have asked for more. Sorry for your loss!

On 2/3/2023 at 1:11 PM, confused piraka said:

I love stuff like this

Thank you! Haha, I do plan to get back to finishing the entire story when life calms down eventually (hopefully?). Knowing that people are still finding the content interesting and ideally, entertaining, is really nice to know and good motivation to pick it back up

This is great to read! I picked up a creative writing hobby (mostly Bionicle fan-fiction) back in the day that was really brought to life by BZP, and I definitely learned a lot - about writing, finding what I like to read and how it can inform my writing, and do's and don'ts of being part of a writing community. From someone who was never able to break away from fiction - kudos! 

Awesome track record you've got, and it's definitely something to be proud of! It's always very satisfying to look at collected word counts. Keep up what I'm sure is great work : ) 

On 12/16/2022 at 11:16 AM, confused piraka said:

join the club! are you the dm or player?

Player, for sure, I'm trying out a Gnome ranger to start. While the mechanics are fascinating and intricate, I have no desire to run a campaign. 

On 12/14/2022 at 11:18 AM, confused piraka said:

you might like dnd if you're into open world games

Funny you should mention that, we just had session 0 of our first campaign (my first, other people's 2nd or 3rd), and got to do a lot of the character creation. It was so intricate! 

On 12/7/2022 at 8:05 PM, Nescent said:

Awesome list! Coup is one of my favorite games ever, and I highly recommend the sequel "Coup Rebellion." It's the same structure, except there are a couple dozen different cards which are randomized each session. Makes the game way more dynamic.

 

Settlers is great too, had a lot of fun times with that. I'll have to check out some of the ones you highly recommended, they look fun. You ever played Dominion?

We'll have to try Coup Rebellion - I think we have been swapping out our Ambassador with the Inquisitor from Coup Rebellion for a while, but just never played the full version. 
 

On 12/9/2022 at 1:40 PM, Valendale said:

Coup and Red Dragon Inn are definitely favorites around my college, or at least they were since one of the recent changes for me has been getting out there less. We like the gambling rounds though and generally get excited whenever someone plays one of the gambling cards. Codenames is another fun one I've been playing more lately.

I'll echo the Letter Recommendation. It's basically an ideal travel game. All you need is the 15 card deck and the rounds are quick.

Nescent mentioned Dominion and I'll say that it's my personal favorite game. It's amazing for a 1v1 game and can scale up to 4 players for a nice more casual experience as well. Not easy to travel with though given the shear number of cards.

Catan is a good game; I've played plenty of it in the past, but now really only bust it out a couple times a year. Always play it at Brickfair though, and things can get a little cut-throat as I'm sure TMD can attest to. 😜

Hmm, maybe I just need more practice in the gambling rounds. We do enjoy getting into playing our characters for Red Dragon Inn, definitely enjoyable. 

And since so many of you are recommending Dominion, I'll definitely have to bump that up on my priority list (on top of the other recommendations!) Kind of a shame I'm done buying Christmas gifts at this point, but birthday season is in the spring, so this is helpful!
 

On 12/13/2022 at 12:36 AM, Ta-metru_defender said:

There's a certain point in Catan where it stops being about winning and more about making other people lose.

And also trading.

17 hours ago, confused piraka said:

it sometimes feels like you aren doing stuff just to spite others in late game catan

not trading so much just alliances

Yes to both, we definitely gang up on the top threat completely out of spite. Haha but usually that just allows the underdog to win while we're all fighting 😂 Good times.

Yes, 110% recommend Firefly - we were very pleasantly surprised because it was one of those "go to the bookstore to see if there's anything cool, and hey look we recognize those characters on the box, wanna try it? yeah why not?" things 😂 

Amazon keeps recommending Love Letter and a few others to me, I'll have to add it to a list officially! And yeah, I'd be willing to learn 7 Wonders again, but there's so many other options out there, it may take a while to roll back around to it. 

I also have heard good things about Pandemic - haha maybe we'll play with masks on for authenticity. I'll also have to look into your other recommendations! Thanks!

Yeah, I totally get the pandemic throwing a wrench in your academic plans. I think I'm in a similar boat, my school I was going to start at went online, which was a bummer, but I'd personally rather have it that way than the whole become a petri dish.  But yeah, sad solidarity. 

Yes, ahh, I'm kicking myself for not getting a picture of the painting pre-droid-ified, but alas. 

Oooooh! I just started the Thrawn trilogy (technically, started Heir to the Empire) for the first time, after liking the Republic Commando series more than I ever thought I would, and then buying way to many used books from the internet and feeling like I'm saving money by buying them used haha

Merry Christmas, and we'll all have a grand old time being alone together for the holidays. But I'd much rather that than accidentally give Covid to relatives as a gift instead of, you know, joy and stuff.  Social responsibility oh yeah 

Oh, wait I didn’t realize TSO did a Grinch version. No, I meant the original from the old cartoon. But yes, I know what you mean - it’s not in the playlist with the traditional carols. It’s usually listened to on repeat on its own 

While my personal favorite is the Grinch song, TSO (not The Shadowed One haha) is definitely a staple of the holiday season, I agree. 

6 hours ago, Bambi said:

Hm, never thought of disguised gifts. Interesting concept.  I don't think they'll have any idea what's coming lol.

Also Matoro is best Matoran.

Yes! I saw one a year or so ago that was super intense, I'm pretty sure it's a broom, but disguised to go 'boom'. (I forget where its originally from, but I googled 'disguised christmas presents, and it popped up) And yes! Putting Matoro together was actually the first time I've built a set! Hhaha about 15 years too late, but that's okay!
 

3 hours ago, SPIRIT said:

I've been staring at this for five minutes and I still can't understand how you got it in there.  Are you sure you aren't a witch?  We have ways of finding out, you know.

Hahaha, I'm sorely tempted to let you believe I'm a Christmas witch. But I also enjoy revealing the method to the (probably underwhelming) madness, so voilà! 

D: 

Travesty. 2020 has demanded a terrible price from us all. 

Looked like it would have been a good harvest, too

Hahaha that sounds awesome though!! I love both noodles and dragons! That's a great idea to enforce social distancing, actually. Measure six feet and have something (mostly) non-damaging to smack people with if they don't comply! 

Haha, it definitely looks like the others sacrificed their potato friend for Halloween. And the cucumber is much too happy about it XD 

Great gardening work!! Glad it paid off! I honestly never would have guessed a cucumber could be lanternized! There must be something just so satisfying about disemboweling produce and stuffing them full of fire  Happy (belated) halloween!

On 10/22/2020 at 4:56 AM, Bambi said:

Climbing was always against the rules, but none of the supervisors really cared if they caught you because everyone did it and sometimes it was a lot more convenient then doing it the right way. But after that guy fell there was a company-wide crackdown on following the safety rules.

That's the same problem ours had, they were always losing connection when you were in the middle of something and it would cause you to have to start over. And for some reason a (very loud) alarm would go off on them every hour. I think it was to make sure they didn't get lost.

Uh oh, looks like you're enjoying work too much. I've seen it happen before. :b

I totally wish I could climb things all day. It would be so much more exciting. Like, climb to the top and throw things down at passersby. We actually had this crow that lived in our building for a few months and lived off of dog food and rain leaks near the loading docks. This was way before my time there, but I'm told he was named Edgar Allan Crow XD Eventually, he got confident enough to divebomb pickers who came onto his turf, so they had to actually set up a task force devoted to catching him and getting him out, not just leaving doors open on nice days and trying to shoo him out. Our building mascot is a crow. Unfortunately, most covid/corvid jokes go unappreciated, for one reason or another. 
 
And yes! The exact same problem with our scanners! You have to start over, sometimes kick other people out of aisles to get out and restart. So inconvenient! 

Haha, yes, I try not to enjoy work too much, because then I might end up wanting to stay longer than the pandemic necessitates.... that would not be good for the long run. 

On 10/24/2020 at 12:11 AM, Vorahk1Panrahk2 said:

For a short time, maybe three months, I worked in a sort facility. Mostly scanning and water spider. Favorite job was inbound because I got to just mindlessly toss boxes onto a conveyer. Least favorite was outbound because I am terrrrrrible at stacking those trucks.

Contrary to what I read online, I too found that there was a huge emphasis on safety, they were definitely trying to avoid any and all lawsuits, and I felt like they were moooostly taking the pandemic seriously? If anything I took more issue with other workers who would refuse to wear their masks properly, and Amazon didn't do much about it. They didn't do much about people getting within six feet, but honestly, given the nature of the job, that's just impossible to avoid. We had one trial lane that tried to establish one way paths to pallets but it was kind of a mess.

My bigger issue with Amazon is how tone deaf they are. They shove the message of teamwork and camaraderie down your throats with T shirts and facility mascots, and offer "fun" things like raffles and free food. But we all know how much they crack the whip- there's pretty much no room for anything they try to promote. And those raffles? Never got a ticket. Criteria for getting them seemed totally arbitrary. Other than that, can't argue with your negatives or positives.

The one good thing about the job is that it kept me physically active. I lost more weight in those three months than in three years of trying. And of course gained it all back as soon as I left for a desk job. I absolutely get why people work for Amazon. It's not a bad deal. And if I needed to I'd go back. But I wasn't happy working there at all.

Ha! Truck stacking was such a learning curve! I had stuff falling left and right for like the first two weeks before I learned the right tricks. The dude who trained me was like, "well, stacking isn't something we can actually teach you. You just kind of do what works." Like, really? That's all you got for me? But trial and error did work, eventually XD But yeah, they're big on covering their bases when it comes to safety stuff. Enforcing it, not quite as much. Part of it, I get, it's impossible to enforce on such a detailed scale so many workers over such large facilities. Especially with covid stuff, that's hard. Yeah, the people refusing to wear masks right or refusing to socially distance are kind of annoying/frightening/angrifying. Definitely impossible to stay 6ft apart at all times, even with the fancy one-way pedestrian lanes, and apparently for some people it's too difficult to even make an effort. Fun story - the $2/hr hazard pay went away the same way we got a free T-shirt. "You worked through a national emergency in the outbreak of a pandemic! We're taking away your bonus pay, but here, have a free shirt!!" Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of corporate stuff that I hear goes on. I definitely understand where the negativity comes from. But I also feel fortunate enough to be in a place where I think I can tough it out and keep my head down and work through the pandemic, at least. Overall, agree - not a bad deal, but definitely not a career. I hope to not have to ever go back once I leave, but if another pandemic pops up, at least I know I have a job to go back to XD 

On 10/20/2020 at 6:40 PM, Bambi said:

I used to use an order picker like that at my old job, except it was more of an electric pallet jack with no gate to protect you in case something you're grabbing falls (and I might have knocked stuff off a pallet before). :x And the sensor that was supposed to regulate your speed was broken so it was constantly going full throttle lol.

We used to have storage racks like that, but they were only about ten feet high. Used to climb them all the time until someone fell off... Fortunately he escape with only a concussion.

We also had those scan guns, which worked great until they upgraded them to those Honeywell ones. Man I hated those things.

Props to you for being able to hold a fast paced job like this. I thought about giving it a shot some time back, but unfortunately there were no openings.

So, some of our aisles have wire-guidance, where the picker machine can latch on to the wire so you can only go backwards and forwards, keeping you on a straight line so you don't go side to side, if you're familiar/if that makes sense? So the machines actually go like 20% faster (I think 7mph instead of 5? so maybe? I've never tried to race them, though) But yeah, it makes sudden braking more ... sudden XD 

Haha, we would get SO fired if we got caught climbing on the racks. The company does everything it can to avoid anything that could potentially even be lawsuit-worthy. Understandable, but yeah. 

And we actually just upgraded scanner guns from older ones to ones more like the picture I have up there. The new ones have sub-par wi-fi connection so it messes up and interrupts your picking path, and I don't like them,  Or, they don't like me. Probably both. 

If it helps, I took a break from the warehouse to take classes in the summer, and I found going back was a lot easier than I'd been anticipating! Haha, I didn't realize it would be fun to talk about work outside of work XD 

Yes, I think I would have enjoyed seeing the episodes more than the book - it's not always the easiest translating the integrity of a character from screen to page and vice versa. That being said, I think the author did a fine job. 

Maul-wise, it initially took me a little while to get on board that he was still alive (very confused watching Solo the first time XD), but yeah, he had a good arc. Also, I love Duel of the Fates. John Williams, man. What a legacy.