Mothra

I'm in two DnD campaigns, different people. I've always felt the table in campaign N.1 has a very "American Chopper" energy, maybe the "woman yelling at cat +american chopper" meme mashup could be a great way to describe it. Chaos, mess, heated arguments, flying chairs, unfinished dinners, it's perfect.

It bothers me that I can't find a meme that represents the environment at the other table. So here I reach out to you, dear lemmings, and your meme knowledge.

Campaign N.2 couldn't be more different. Everybody is organized and civilized. There's hardly any arguments, ever, outside of roleplay. Any objects on the table are clean and in excellent condition. There isn't a lot of physical contact though, in spite of everyone getting along well.

Any meme suggestions?

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/28480950

In 2015, Cookie Monster filmed a viral video titled "Simply Delicious Shower Thoughts with Cookie Monster" for the Mashable YouTube channel. In the video, he explores various New York City museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim, while pondering deep "shower thoughts" about food.

...eat as much [food item 1] as you want, without suffering any unwanted consequences

... always find [food item 2] at a bargain price, discounted or on sale (but you can't resell them)

...eat [ food item 3] and be sure it will always be be of excellent quality, rich and full of flavor

My three items would be chocolate, steak and cheese. Maybe. I'm not too sure about the steak, maybe I should say eggs instead.

What would be your three blessed foods?

Basically looking for people's experiences across multiple playthroughs in this game. Tell me all about the unexpected things you found, especially after more than two playthroughs.

I'm currently on my second run, close to the end. The first run I played Tav. I thought myself pretty thorough with map exploration, and by the time I finished I had a pretty good idea of which quests I had left unfinished and which characters I wanted to interact more/less/differently in my next run.

I wasn't expecting the game to feel this different though, and I'm loving it for it. So now on my second run I am playing Durge, I recruited Laezel and Minthara (previously I didn't...) and I made sure to find all pieces of Dribbles. I set myself to antagonize the Emperor in this run, unlike in my previous one. Oh and I made sure to keep the windmill gnome alive in the blighted village, since previously I accidentally pulled the wrong lever and yeeted him away, lol. I thought that was it, that would be most of the missing content I was interested in.

I... didn't expect to find so many different bits and pieces here and there or because of the order in which I did things. I realised I could recruit Scratch, an owlbear, and also an intellect devourer. I was surprised to see that entering the shadow cursed lands from the mountains as opposed to the grimforge would give me the opportunity to join the drider's caravan. Straight to moonrise, skipping the Inn. I rescued the prisoners and Minthara and was surprised, again, to see I could take them all, and myself and the party by boat to the Inn even if I hadn't yet been at the Inn.

I also realised I pretty much sucked exploring the map in Act 3; so many doors left unopened. For example I discovered there are mausoleums one can actually break into and explore in the graveyard. How come I missed that before, I don't understand. There is a mindflayer in the windmill in Rivington, and I should have taken the emperor's advice regarding it. In this run, my companions actually pointed at the shop Jaheira said would be the safe place, so I brought Jaheira with me and oh boy I discovered she actually has content exclusively for her. Her little questline was totally unexpected; previously I just let her tag along at camp but mostly ignored her. Discovering this as Durge I guess added extra flavor.

Etc. I could go on forever, but I want to hear what surprised you. Bring it on, maybe you can inspire me to try something different in my next run.

Someone had to ask the questions that matter.

So there's this post I saw, and the headline says Meta is now arguing uploading pirated books would be considered fair use.

Is it possible to use someone's use of an argument against them in the future? So for example say in the future, in a different case, Meta argues that someone harmed them in some way by uploading pirated books. Can the other party retort with something akin to "ah but that's not what you said about pirated books three years ago, you only complain if it's unfavorable to you"?

Also I noticed this would be the third post in a row about legal questions. I feel like I'm unintentionally contributing to a pattern/trend here, apologies

This morning I found out someone broke into my car and stole some low value junk I had in my glovebox along with a jacket and other stuff. I was home all along and didn't hear it happening. I am usually one to check twice that the car locks when I leave it, and if for whatever reason I don't then it auto locks after a while.

Now I'm a bit clueless with this stuff so I'm wondering 1) how they opened it without triggering the alarm and 2) can I do anything to prevent this from happening again? Any contraption/device I can use ?

TIA

I rarely use over 2GB of data per month. Usually most of my data traffic happens over wifi. Curious.

If you want to know why I'm asking:

My phone provider just decided to upgrade my subscription plan some ridiculous amount. I was on a cheap prepaid 18GB every 28 days plan, with data rollover. (I got nearly 900 GB of rollover data just sitting there, accumulated over the years).

Now they increased both their price and data cap about +60%. For me this is absolutely unnecessary. I was already paying for more than what I used.

Then I tried to switch providers, and realized this is the new baseline in the country, at least for monthly prepaid. Eventually I found a few providers that offer something more affordable, but it's only long expiry plans with a lot less data. Works for me though, not complaining.

I'm just surprised with the sheer amounts in most monthly plans, am I some kind of low usage freak?

Edit: so far Shuma Gorath (from Marvel's Dr Strange in 1973) is the only example. Know another? Please let us know

According to Wikipedia, the Beholder is a Dungeons and Dragons original creation and it is copyrighted. Its first appearance was in 1975.

In case you are not familiar with these, a beholder is basically a floating eye with tentacles that also have eyes, often able to shoot rays off the eyes. You have probably seen some similar creature type in a myriad other media such as videogames, tv shows and whatnot.

Now I'm really surprised something like this only surfaced in the 70s. Is there anything similar in any type of media or culture prior to the 70's? The only thing that pops to mind is the ancient biblical angels with abstract forms and many eyes, but I'm hoping someone here can show me more and better examples.

Or not. I don't know.

I'm a casual gamer so perhaps this has been made hundreds of times and I just ignore it.

So let's say you play your game, things don't go well so you go back and reload a save. Now, with your current knowledge you can get things right and that's usually how it goes with games.

Is there any game that takes this into the plot as something necessary by design (say for example, the main character is supposed to be clairvoyant or something)? You play, your character gets things wrong the first time, but now when you reload your character will obviously do everything right, almost as if they were clairvoyant/psychic/etc because that's exactly what your character is. The only way to beat the game is to explore a variety of outcomes in order to gather information until you get it right, but instead of this being immersion breaking it's actually supported by the plot itself.

Not sure if I'm making sense here or maybe I ate the wrong kind of cookies, you tell me...

I'm just a casual gamer, I absolutely loved the score in Skyrim and Oblivion but when trying to find other good ambience music for caves/ruins/dungeons I was a bit stumped. I've found people creating this kind of ambient soundtracks and that's great, but I'm still curious about the videogame ones. I tried searching for that and failed.

I'm looking for eerie, natural or mysterious types of tracks, nothing too high energy. The platform or genre of the game doesn't matter.

Have you got any good examples?

What do you call someone who is mediocre at best on a variety of fields but likes to pose as a polished and cultured person?

I'm not sure if I'm explaining this well. This person has a "I'm better than you" or "I know better and say it best" attitude, likes to pass as sensible and intellectual but when you contrast how they try to come across with what they actually do, how indifferent they are to others, and the quality of the skills they like to boast about it doesn't add up. It's all superficial, there is no substance to them, and no apparent self awareness ever of any of these shortcomings.

It's like a special brand of "full of it". Is there a word for it?