I’m dealing with the anniversary of a traumatic event and that’s probably making me especially tender, and I can acknowledge that, but that doesn’t ease the pain too much.
My qparents went to visit family out of town this weekend. None of them take covid seriously, none of them wear masks, are vaccinated, nothing. I’m supposed to meet with my dad later in the week. I texted him a few hours ago to let him know I can’t. I just had a family member diagnosed with emphysema and while she’s fully vaccinated, I’m freaking out about it.
When I’m stressed, I tend to want to consume media relating to Christmas. You know, Christmas music, movies, stuff like that. It’s even colder this weekend! It feels like Christmas! But all I can really think about is how lonely this year is going to be. My cousin is getting into the anti-vax stuff, so the only family we have in the area won’t be around for the holidays. I know I won’t mind it much when the holidays come around, hell I enjoyed being alone last year! But I just so desperately want for things to be how they were before all this shit happened. This pandemic has ruined my relationship with the few family members that I have outside of my immediate family and grandparents. I’m so tired of this.
Haven't missed a Roo since 07. Bought tix for '20 (best festival lineup that never happened), let them rollover to '21. Now, this year, my wife and I have decided to take the year off.
Not because of the lineup. I would argue this lineup, for me personally, has more bangers on it than the '21 lineup. When I saw Herbie Hancock, Femi Kuti, Sons of Kemet, Lettuce, The Dip, Andy Frasco.. I wasn't disappointed. I'm definitely more of a "band guy" millennial / gen x'er, but I can get down on some EDM and I totally expected a surplus of new DJs I've never heard of.
But, after looking up all the names on the lineup, what disappointed me was the amount of what just sounds like mediocre SoundCloud rappers who somehow garnered a following. It's just really difficult for me to understand the appeal of lazy, rehashed rap cadences being done by every high school sophomore with a DAW app. I'm happy for the artists, but for me, it's such a departure from what Bonnaroo lineups have always been about. I know I just sound like the old guy yelling at the cloud, but still..
And no more Kalliope is just.. sacrilege. I understand that the other stage is supposed to go all night, but anyone who has experienced Bonnaroo in the last two decades understands how integral Kalliope is to the farm.
But the main reason we are taking this year off is simply to see if the festival actually happens. After two years of lineups, hype, then letdowns.. we are going to wait for the festival to get back on its feet and then attend the following year just to be safe. We decided we can't take another year of catastrophic disappointment, especially after last year when we were all packed up and got the cancellation notification literally as we were pulling out of the driveway.
So Godspeed to all my fellow Bonnaroovians, give a high five for me and my wife. We will miss the farm and all of you, and I hope you all have the time of your life at the best escape from reality to ever exist. Happy Roo!
So, a little background here; been a lifelong fan. I was born in ‘88, liked tool thanks to my dad growing up and then 10,000 Days came out my senior year of high school and it was all over. I was a full blown addict.
I have twice purchased expensive tickets and planned to see them; once at the gorge and once at Key Arena I believe, and both times random catastrophic circumstances forced me to give up my tickets.
Leading up to last night, we checked our emails and tool news everyday nervously anticipating cancellation. My dad and two younger brothers (19 and 26) came with. Amazingly, I ended up with an awesome partner who does NOT like tool, lol. She is very tolerant of my eclectic love for music which is all I ask.
The opening band was killer! Very 80’s pop vibe but with a brooding sensibility akin to maybe Bon Iver at times. Pretty fascinating stuff and they pack a big punch for being a small group. We were impressed.
I love the newest record (though admittedly in a lesser way than in the past) so I was thrilled with the opener. Then, they played FUCKING OPIATE!!! Are you kidding? I turned to my little bros and said “you weren’t even alive when this came out.” Mind blowing, and I found myself amazed at the modern relevance of the song.
The big highlight for me was “The Patient” which is my favorite Tool song by far. Second on that list is Pushit, and we got a scorching version of that song too.
I can die happy. They blew me away. I’ve been to 30+ concerts in my 33 years, lucky enough to experience many of the great live bands (Pearl Jam, QUOTSA, Deftones, shit, Tom Petty, Daltrey and Townsend, Vedder solo), and this one is definitely in the top 3. I will never miss them in the NW again!!
I had been recently out of an eextremely abusive relationship, and feeling kinda lonely and isolated, I decided to keep myself busy by running a dnd campaign with some of my friends.
One of said friends supplied to me the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, and since all of us were mtg fans and I fell in love with the city and factions as I read, I thought it would be perfect.
I collected a total of five friends, and we had good times! For several months I planned out mysteries and intrigue, set up maps and the world, as the players genuinely explored and seemed keen on figuring out what was going on! I still look back on these sessions fondly, even after what was about to happen...
One fateful day, it all went wrong. I schedule sessions weekly at the same time every week and ask people to rsvp in advance. I got 4 back, which was fine.
The night before, one friend messages me that they were having bad anxiety issues and couldn't show for the session. I understood completely, and so rebalanced all the encounters for 3 people.
Then the session rolls around. One shows up. They're as confused as I am as to the whereabouts of the other two. I message both and wait for a reply. Shit happens, so I'm not expecting malice here, but it is kinda rude to cancel w/o letting me know. No replies after half an hour.
I'm mildy worried. As an anxious fellow myself, I tend to catastrophize (instantly assume the worst) and so I'm worried they got into a car accident or some shit like that. Then, I get the bright idea to go on discord to see what they're up to, if they're online etc, because that would indicate they're physically ok. And what do I find...
The two players are playing League of Legends. With my aforementioned abuser. Classy.
So I gave them the boot, and to this day, neither have talked with me, so I will never know why it happened I suppose. The campaign fizzled out then, as I was emotionally unfit to dm at that point.
Enough time has passed where I can look back on it and laugh, but at the time this was devastating. Players, if you intend to miss a session, let the dm know! And don't skip the session without warning to play video games!
Legend has it they're still playing LoL to this very day, the poor souls...
Ask anyone what they think about crowdfunding games and, more likely than not, they will bring up at least one well known disaster in the past few years. From controversial and disappointing affairs like Mighty No 9 to complete trainwrecks like Yogventures, many have had to learn the hard way how much of a gamble backing a project can be. Of course, there are also some projects so disastrous and poorly pitched that no one would likely support them to begin with. And in 2012, following the overnight sensation of titles like Double Fine’s Broken Age that brought video game crowdfunding to the mainstream, one company (or possibly one man) set out to create the most fraudulent campaign he could.
A Grand Dream
MYTHIC: The Story Of Gods And Men burst onto the scene in April, 2012. Created by Little Monster Productions, the company pitched a brand new RPG epic for PC and Mac platforms. Gamers could choose which storyline to follow based on their chosen fate (From Biblical figures like Lucifer to Greek gods like Zeus), and explore an open world across forest and mountains. Soon enough, they could fight the “Top Gods” of other religions, conquering the world and enshrining their beliefs across Earth. The player could even choose their morality, and thus which deity to support.
But the campaign wouldn’t just deliver a game, even if the $80K asking price seemed a little low for such ambition. In fact, the money would mainly go to securing a motion capture animation team and music seeing as outside investors had already nearly funded the base concept. Even better, 5% of profits would go to undisclosed projects on Kickstarter that interested the team, and merchandise (or shall I say SWAG) from shirts to swords were soon to be rolled out for interested backers. On top of all this, the company was being run by ex-Activision/Blizzard employees! This is 2012 so don’t worry, that's supposed to be a good thing.
Really, the opening pitch alone set the bar high.
>Mythic is and action/strategy based RPG brought to you by the same team that left Activision / Blizzard in search of something better! MYTHIC is an open world concept that will allow you to choose where you want to go even if it does not coincide with the story line and current missions list (hey, sometimes we ju
... keep reading on reddit ➡At the time that I filed my claim I had no idea that I would be moving. I wasn’t planning on moving until much later into the year.
But things just sort of happened and now I’m moving within the next week and all of a sudden EDD is ready to pay my claim. And technically it is all money that is from my job that I had here in CA.
I’m just terrified that something weird will happen. They’ll eventually find out that moved out of state shortly after. A letter they sent won’t get forwarded to the new address. I’ll get sent to collections and my could thousand dollar claim turns into a 30k collections case.
I mean I know I’m being dramatic but I’d honestly give up my EDD claim to be in the safe side but I can’t get through to those people to save my life.
After the USSR's dissolution, the administrations of George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton undertook considerable diplomatic efforts to prevent the Soviet Union's collapse from increasing nuclear proliferation. At that time, Ukraine inherited the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world: at least 1,900 strategic nuclear weapons. Then, the sole threat to Ukraine was the Russian Federation. Not NATO or the United States.
Ukraine's Nuclear Disarmament in Exchange for NATO-member's Assurances of Security
In exchange for Ukraine's agreement to disarm, the United States brokered a deal between Ukraine and Russia known now as the Budapest Memorandum. Parties to the Budapest Memorandum were Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the Russian Federation and the United States. The obligations were for Russia and others to respect Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, as the borders were currently drawn. The teeth were NATO's, even if implicitly.
Though not a formal defense pact between NATO and Ukraine, the sole reason Ukraine agreed to disarm was based on the United States' and other NATO members' readiness to provide security assurances. So, if the agreement was ever violated, NATO (and particularly the United States, who brokered the deal) would have to enforce it --- because there was no one else. Then as now, Ukraine lacked any viable defense against the Russian military --- other than that nuclear arsenal, which it gave up in reliance on the word of the United States.
But at the time, Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin were of the belief that a new era of friendship between the United States and Russia had materialized and would represent the future of US-Russian bilateral relations. Vladimir Putin has since falsely claimed that a component of those negotiations was something like an implied covenant that NATO would not expand. George H. W. Bush made no such concessions. Nor did Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright or anyone else.
Why Ukraine Matters
Nuclear Proliferation
If Russia invades Ukraine, Iran's nuclear hardliners will be emboldened and Iran may never dismantle its nuclear weapons program. Consider Libya. Recall that Libya voluntarily dismantled its nuclear program.
- Gaddafi stated repeatedly that the Administratio
Reminder that I am not OOP. This is a restop bus.
Original: I (43M) royally screwed up my anniversary and upset my (42F) wife HELP! by u/throwrabrewmaster
Tomorrow is my 25th wedding anniversary with my wife. I love my wife more than any words I could type here. She is beautiful, funny and smart. She is everything I have always wanted, and truth be told, I do not deserve her.
When we first got married, I was in the Army. I missed more birthdays, holidays and anniversaries than I can count. And as much as I know this upset her, she never once got angry at me for it. She would just smile and tell me to go save the world. Even though I know behind that smile was a broken heart, she never once let that show. She is probably the strongest person I have ever met.
I've been separated from the Army for ten years now. And I have tried my best to be there for every birthday, holiday and anniversary, even if it meant we celebrated on the day before or the day after.
This year I planned on taking her on a trip for our 25th anniversary. We never got to have a honeymoon, we never even really had a vacation together. I thought that since the kids were grown and moved out (oldest is 22 and youngest is 20) that I was going to take her away for the weekend, just the two of us. I booked the hotel, the cabin, the dinner reservations, everything I could think of to make this special for her. It has been all she has talked about for the last month. She was so excited about this trip. She bought new clothes, got her hair done. I truly had never seen her so excited about anything before.
Cut to Wednesday night. An emergency happened at work. All supervisors (which is me) and all hands on deck to fix this mechanical problem. We end up taking shifts sleeping at work to get this fixed. It is a catastrophic failure and nobody is leaving until we troubleshoot the problem and get it fixed. I call my wife and tell her that I am not coming home. She makes sure I am not hurt, nobody else got hurt and then offers to bring us pizza.
On Thursday afternoon we figure out what the problem is and what we need to do to fix it. At this point my general manager is here, I get the parts ordered and then he drops the bomb. We are all working this weekend so that we can install the parts to get he machines working again. My sto
... keep reading on reddit ➡Hypothetically speaking of course. I want a super fan to interview him and ask a bunch of our burning questions one day. Here’s some I came up with:
Prior to writting Come Along With Me, did the entire AT crew consider PB and Marcy being exes canon?
Why wasn’t PB and Marcy’s romance confirmed before the series finale, when Steven Universe was being more explicit with LGBTQ rep years earlier?
If you considered Bubbline canon as Rebecca Sugar stated, why wasn’t it important for you to include a confirmation in the outline for Come Along With Me?
Did HBO Max give you more leeway in being a bit more “adult” than Cartoon Network did?
Did Finn get his arm back in Breezy due to executive mandate?
While writing Breezy, was the plan to eventually have Finn loose his arm again and get his robot arm or was that decided later?
Why did Cartoon Network cancel the original plans for Water Park Prank as an internet short and why did you decide to revive it for a ful episode?
Why was the Adventure Time puppetry episode for season 6 scrapped?
Can you elabortate on the cancelled plans for Don Hetzfeldt’s guest animated episode?
Was there ever talks of doing a live action episode?
What other guest animation styles were considered? Anime? Sprite?
What would have the scrapped miniseries that Distant Lands: BMO was based on have looked like?
What was the idea for a PB and Marcy miniseries that later became Obsidian have looked like?
How did the plot for Wizard City originate?
How did the plot for Together Again originate?
Why did Cartoon Network cancel Adventure Time?
What is the status of Finn and Huntres Wizard’s relationship during the events of the final season?
Was more Huntress Wizard development planned before the series was cancelled?
Was there plans to bring Dr Gross back before the series was cancelled?
Was Whispers intended to be the final Lich appearance in the original series?
Were there any miniseries ideas that were scrapped or cancelled?
Were there ever plans or consideration to further develop Flame Princess in a miniseries, two parter, or Distant Lands special?
Why didn’t Flame Princess appear at all in Distant Lands?
Why did Marceline and Flame Princess never get an episode together?
Why and when was it decided to break up Finn and Flame Princess?
Was a romance between Finn and Marceline ever considered?
How much did international censorship impact how you wrote the series?
Why is the opening dialogue in Jake the Starchild different
... keep reading on reddit ➡