Skooshjones

Backyard baseball, loved that game as a kid.

1. Interestingly, my spouse found out that the lead vocalist now works as a graphic artist and has done work for some huge groups like Twenty One Pilots and Underoath. I found his webpage and have thought about sending him a message, but I haven't ever done it, nervous I guess lol. Your prompt might give me the needed "oomph" to actually go through with it tho lol.

2. It's tough because I barely remember anything specific from it. To make it worse, the game had a saved profile when I got it, (it was second hand.) I only ever played that save file which was already at endgame content, so I don't even remember what the intro/early game was like. Here's all I can remember:

The color pallet was pretty bland. It had lots of random encounters and when they happened, there was a quick sequence where the edges of the screen spiraled inwards in a kind of striped, spiral pattern. There were lots of odd creatures, like these kind of rock worms/snakes if I remember correctly? You had a party of 3-4 people and lots of different spells/abilities. I remember I got lost for a long time wandering through some ice caves and kept having to fight random monsters every 10-20 seconds. I can't really remember the story or lore even. But I'm pretty confident I'd know the music/sounds if I heard them.

1. Dead Poetic band merch. A little-known post hardcore band from the early 2000's. I've got all of their CDs and some limited press Vinyls, but I would kill for some legit shirts. Years ago I found a sketchy site that claimed to have a handful left, but they were all too small. I wish now I still had bought them anyways, but oh well.

2. A GameBoy game I played as a kid that was some kind of JRPG. It wasn't a well known one like Chrono, Mother, Final Fantasy Tactics, etc. I have searched through lists online and tried finding screenshots and videos of gameplay, been through several hours of vids, but nothing I've found has been it.

3. A stupid video from the earlier days of YouTube called "The Poop." There is a "The Poop 2" but it's not the same. My friend and I found it randomly on some late night YouTube binge and cried laughing. It became an inside joke between us for years and we would link the video to each other or sing the music from it for instant laughter. It either got privated or deleted. I've spent hours and hours combing through the depths of YT and the internet at large trying to find a copy/reupload, same for my friend, but we've never found it.

Number 2 is SOLVED!!! Holy crap, I literally just randomly found it. Talking about it here inspired me to try some more Google-fu and I happened across an ebay listing for Quest: Brian's Journey and the cartridge artwork immediately jogged my memory. Looks like I mis-remembered some details, that makes me even happier that I found it!

Going to be totally NOT downloading a ROM to play on my Steam Deck this evening...I would never...

Vivo brand monitor arms, the simple pole clamp ones. 40 bucks give or take, I've had them for 6+ years and they should last for another 10+ I would think, awesome value.

Sennheiser Momentum 3 wired headphones. Used and abused, replaced the cord and ear cups after about 3-4 years for 35 bucks total and they work as well now as they did brand new. Sound is great, they are comfy too.

Sony A6000 camera. Works great, awesome pictures.

IFixit multi-bit screwdriver set with the hard case. Had it for around a decade so far. Nothing broken, nothing worn out. Use it all the time on computers, furniture, electronics, etc. Plan on having it for another 10 years easily.

Steam Deck. Best general purpose gaming handheld out there. Moddable, repairable, high quality, super fun, runs everything I want.

Magic Earth. I've tried every other major OSM google maps alternative and none have been as good as Magic Earth.

Osmand, Maps.me, Organic maps, and one other I can't remember now, used them all. I still use Osmand because I'm trying to support the project, but Magic Earth by far has the best address searching, best UI, best directions, and limited but existing live traffic data to help you avoid really bad backups.

Now I'm in the USA, and some folks say some of these apps work better in Europe, that's fair, but that's still my point, Magic Earth. Not FOSS, but privacy respecting and uses OSM data. If you wanna break away from Google but aren't willing to deal with a bunch of jank, Magic Earth is your friend.

So is a coffee mug.

Be careful, your child may start to take extremist actions with their fellow lefties such as:

1. Organizing or joining a union.
2. Voting for increased taxes on the ultra-wealthy.
3. Marching to protest police militarization and restrictions on women's rights.
4. Pushing for better pay, hours, and benefits in their workplace.

I remember hearing years ago, an Australian gal talking about visiting the US and what she thought. One of the first things she mentioned was how easy it was to buy booze. It's in most of our gas stations, grocery stores, and local markets.

At the time I assumed that was the norm across the world lol.

You've taken your first step into a larger world, welcome! (Technically a smaller world but bigger in spirit, ya know?)

In college, I was in a geology class and randomly in the middle of a class session, one of the students decided to stand up and start yelling at the professor about creationism and how the earth is only a few thousand years old, all that crap.

You could tell that he thought this was his big moment of "fighting for his faith" and expected some dramatic showdown with the professor in front of the class because he kept glancing around at the students expectantly as he ranted.

Instead, the professor just quietly said something like, "well, I'm not telling you what to believe, I'm just teaching what I know from my profession." The student said some final snarky line, I can't remember what exactly, then sat down again and after a few seconds of awkward silence, the professor just started again where he left off lol.

It was super cringe.

Capitalism codifies the acquisition and control of capital by an owning class separate from the workers (employees). The owners always want to see their profits grow, because in a system that is zero sum, where competition is glorified as the primary mechanism for fair pricing and business success, if you aren't growing, then other competitors will eventually extinguish you.

Capitalism mimics evolution in that way, where all organisms compete against each other in a winner-takes-all setting. Talk to any hardcore Capitalist and they will talk about Capitalism being the "natural order", "human nature" etc. I know, I used to be a hardcore free market capitalist.

A system that places profit and private ownership of capital above all else will always result in the kinds of oppressive systems and company practices we see today.

It's like how fundamentalist religious institutions are having abuse scandals over and over for literal centuries. They are built in such a way that makes abuse easy to get away with. Even if it starts out perfectly clean, safe, and incorrupt, eventually the very structure of the organization itself will cause abusers to join or allow already abusive people to commit those acts without significant consequences. It is a negative feedback loop that perpetuates itself until it collapses totally or is extinguished by an outside force.

Lol the French gov can lean down and kiss my big, jiggly, juicy, giant, stanky, sweaty, uBlockOrigin browser extension.