Genuinely curious:

Is the author saying that ACO and VBC were decent ideas that got UHG’s fingers grafted into the legal structure, or are they just saying that ACO and VBC are bad in general?

And I knew that we had some awful structures within our healthcare system, but I LOATHE UHG and didn’t realize that they OWN our medical system. Disgusting.

I see someone has found the back alley of the Geoff’s Trash Anime restaurant.

The update has been queued for about a month on my work computer. No. I won’t do it.

My party went through a low level campaign and killed a dark mage boss in the same dungeon as a flaming skull. A party me came back for a side story later to take on a a necromancer with a flaming skull for a head. They split and attack from all sides.

Guess I’m no longer an Apple fan. Huh. I’m just locked in at this point. Switching would just spread my data around more and I’m already committed to not upgrading for a few years.

So Prey team made Redfall and Dishonored team is making the new Blade game? Good to know!

Been playing Dishonored for the first time and really enjoying it. I’m only at the bridge and trying to play a low/no kill game. I’m not succeeding just yet, but it’s been really enjoyable and they do stealth really well. I’m baffled that they mismanaged to get the team that made this and Prey to push out Redfall? Man.

Just picked up FFVII after the second or third hiatus or my third or fourth attempt to play it. FINALLY made it to the Nibelheim story and past Midgard. And that somehow still manages to work on me as a first time player.

Just beat Banner Saga 1 and have never felt so much like a failure after “beating” a game. That game is trying to unseat This War of Mine for decisions regretted/minute.

I’m wanting to start up my Nintendo series playthroughs again by either starting Mario Galaxy 2 or trying to remember what on earth was happening in Majora’s Mask (3DS) something about the water temple maybe?

Hmm…

So I only use Brave for YouTube. I definitely won’t be recommending it, but I’m torn between whether I’m being a leech of ad-free user generating what should be near zero revenue or if I’m being valuable as a number to ad to user counts.

I use “Observational Maintenance” all the time:

When you ask someone to look at a problem and it’s fixed by the time they do.

A friend showed me an issue they’d been having for over a YEAR. I did almost NOTHING and it was working by the time I looked at it.

More often than not it’s me that looks dumb, though.p

Never mind. See below.

I used to build my stories out of glass, but my players broke them and it hurt. Now I make them out of clay and we can all build it together.

I beat Hyper Light Drifter for the first time. And I think I spent some time on the new Mario kart levels, though that might have been last week.

HLP is a fascinating game with a novel approach to gameplay and world building. A few controls issues annoyed me, but they were growing pains and not fully learning the system. I love games that use that particular art style. I think I’m doing Mario Galaxy next.

I’m trying to figure out my second Voucher game to get.

My top choices are: Arceus - I enjoy pokemon, but it sounds like a lot of “research” busy work. Pikmin 4 - I haven’t clicked with Pikmin demos previously, but the idea has always seemed pretty interesting if I’d let it go farther. Mario Wonder - feels shorter, and more peripheral to my interest, but I’ve heard great things. Xenoblade 3 - I’ve only played XBX before and not all the way through. RPGs aren’t completely my thing, but I’ve heard great things.

None of them are THE game I’m after with pros and cons to each. The decision paralysis is rough and I don’t see anything worth waiting for before May.

Aldi’s Clancy’s chips. Name brand are just too greasy for me. Also, I just tried their garlic bread chips and those are dangerous.

TL;DR:

Stores that are closing in New York, Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco were all able to analyzed for a variety of theft crimes as compared to nearby stores in their cities. In each case, stores that are closing are less than or similar to nearby stores in reported rates of these crimes. Other locations mentioned by Target were not able to be analyzed, either due to insufficient data or no comparable stores in those cities.

In addition, “shrink” rates for Target locations continues a regular oscillation of between 1.2% and 1.6% of gross sales, often correlating with movement in retail sales overall. Of factors that contribute to shrink, retail theft is only one. Others factors include employee theft, processing, and administrative mistakes.

Popular Info points to these data and announced plans for smaller stores being built near to many of the closures as a possible indicator of other factors leading to these closures than theft. The announcement and blame came out the same day as an industry group’s report on the impacts of retail theft on sales.

They got a pandemic too. The “Spanish” flu hit right after ww1. AND they had their own antimaskers.

The key is that we started by pushing against it and the DM didn’t listen and made us get to the hook of the content before deciding.

Because he didn’t listen when we started trying to ignore it, we had fun we wouldn’t have otherwise had had he stopped when it seemed like we weren’t going to have fun.

Counting ammo creates a vibe. There are tools to get at that vibe without as much hassle, but whatever tool you use, you should be relevant to gameplay.

There also comes a point in the game where the vibe is established, the characters have advanced and you don’t need the tool as much or anymore.

I played in a game called Trudvang where part of the experience was tracking everything using decreasing tracking dice. We kept pushing away from it at first, but our DM enforced it and we had a lot of fun for it. As we leveled up, the tracking was less relevant and the conflict more, so we shifted focus there.

I still remember meticulous food, water, and ammo tracking, desperate health, and having to hunt and forage to keep up stock despite risking troll attacks. We even had to sit down and talk out whether to allow rescued people into our party because we were low on resources and didn’t have much time left before an event.

Tracking ammo on its own is usually meh, but that part of the game tracking everything, while harrowed and desperate, pushing against a time limit? That sticks in my mind.

It’s two halves of a bagel stuck together with jam and peanut butter to reform a solid torus. It’s math. They COULD have had an easy time eating your math, but the construction made it more difficult.

Came here to say The Locked Tomb is FANTASTIC meme humor and so witty in almost every way. However it’s a series that I’m convinced I’ll never actually understand. I’m on Nona now and things are barely better. Harrow had me second guessing every fact and almost pulling out a cork board, pins, and string to just understand when what happened to whom.

One of my favorite new series, though. And it’s been a delight to buddy read with my wife.

It seems like the issue is that the safety inspector ISN’T saving them any money by catching issues before they’re fined for them. If they were actually ever held accountable for safety issues, his job would pay for itself.

BNSF is absolutely a gilded age-level corporate villain. But no one is coming after them if Don doesn’t find these issues and that’s a problem too. If the rail safety bureau (or whoever manages rail safety) wants to hire him for the same job, I think BNSF would rethink that position VERY quickly.