Also, which group does not believe that the state of Israel should not exist until the messiahs comes? Do any of these anti-zionists actually live in israel? תודה

In the late 1980s and early 1990s when I was a young teen growing up in far North Austin, it was a popular custom for many boys in the neighborhood to assemble at the local Stop-N-Go after school on a regular basis for some Grand Champion level tournaments in Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat. The collective insistence of our mothers and fathers to get out of the house, get some exercise, and refrain from playing NES or Sega on the television only led us to seek out more video games at the convenience store down the road. Much allowance and lunch money was spent as well as hours that should have been devoted to homework among the 8 or 9 regular boys in attendance, often challenging each other to 'Best of 5' matches. I myself played Dhalsim and SubZero, and not very well, so I rarely ever made it to the 5th match. The store workers frequently kicked us out for the day only to have us return when they weren't working the counter anymore if not the next day.

There is something about that which has been lost in the present day. While people can today download the latest games on Steam or PSN or in the app store on your smartphone, you can't just find arcade games in stores and restaurants like you used to be able to. And so the fun of a spontaneous 8 or 10 person multiplayer video game tournament has been confined to places like bars, pool halls, Pinballz or Dave&Busters.

But in truth it was that ubiquity of arcade video games, how you could find them in any old 7-11 or Laundromat, which is what killed the original arcades of the early 1980s before the Great Crash of 1983 when home video game consoles started to catch up to what you saw in the arcade.

I was born in the mid 1970s so I missed out on Pong. I was kindergarten age when the Golden Age of Arcade Games took place in the early 1980s. There used to be a place called Skateworld on Anderson Mill Road that was primarily for roller skating but had a respectable arcade in its own right. It was there that I honed my skills on the original Tron, Pac Man, Galaga, Pole Position, Defender, and so many others. In the 1980s I remember visiting all the same mall arcades as others in my age group. There was Aladdin's Castle in Barton Creek Mall, The Gold Mine in Highland, and another Gold Mine in Northcross which was eventually renamed Tilt. Westgate Mall also had an arcade but bein

His name was Sir Render.

tl;dr at the end of the post. trust me, this is a doozy, although that mainly is because i overexplain everything too much.

let me tell you of what is probably the biggest shake-up in the Muppet fandom in recent years, a story that is, in every sense of the word, a mess. even now, people are split on who was in the right or in the wrong.

i'm of course, talking about the fiasco of the firing of Steve Whitmire.

It's Time to Meet the Muppets! (Context)

(note: links in this section are Muppet Wiki articles mainly for things that don't have a large impact on the story, they're just there for context and so I don't ramble.)

In 1955, Jim Henson created his first TV show: Sam and Friends. One of the main characters of this bizarre 5-minute local puppet show was Kermit, whom Henson would continue to use over the course of his entire career. Over the years, Kermit evolved from a weird, abstract lizard-like creature to a frog who made a name for himself on both the big and small screens; when he wasn't doing an interview with a big-name late night host or teaching kids on Sesame Street, he was the lovable host of the Muppet Show and a staple in all Muppet movies and shows afterward (that involved the Muppet Show crew.) Even today, Kermit the Frog is seen as a big celebrity, quite a feat for someone who was born from an old coat and ping pong balls.

On May 16th, 1990, Jim Henson passed away. It shocked everyone, and after taking the time to look back at his life and mourn his loss, there was a bit of a dilemma: there's no longer a performer for several characters, including Kermit. You see, with the Muppets, it's not just a character you "voice." Every Muppet is brought to life by their puppeteer; these puppeteers have years of experience performing their characters, and they know everything about them inside and out, you can't just get some random guy who can do a pretty good Kermit impression and say, "Hey, you're Kermit now!" That's not how it works. These are beloved characters to many people, and in the hands of the wrong person, they would just feel wrong. Trust me, fans will go crazy over this.

Enter Steve Whitmire. He had been working with the Muppets since the late 70s, performing characters such as Rizzo the Rat on the Muppet Show, and Wembley Fraggle on Fraggle Rock. He had known and worked with Jim personally, so he had kn

(True story, somewhat paraphrased)

I played through Crystal for the first time fairly recently. I decided to use Bill's gifted Eevee and I named him Evan. At first, he was one of my strongest Pokemon, but before too long he was struggling to get by. He wasn't warming up to me enough to evolve, he was really closed off.

After my battle with Clair, I like to think Evan saw how much I love him, despite his relative weakness to the rest of my team. So on the trek leading up to victory road, he finally evolved into Umbreon.

And that Umbreon was my ace after that point, beating down half of the inconsiderate Silver's team, crushing Will mostly by himself, and holding his own against Lance, who was the fight of my life up to that point.

The journey to Kanto, however, was when Evan really shined for me. Sabrina nor Koga were a match for him, and after learning zap cannon he played a huge part against Misty.

Blue was the first battle in a while to give me trouble, but Evan didn't dissapoint. He took down Exeggutor, finished off Gyarados, and almost beat Alakazam 1v1 before falling to it. The rest of my team cleaned up shop after, but the mvp was clear.

As I'm sure you all know, only one thing was left. Red. After climbing to mount silver, I was confident in my plan to defeat him. Evan played a huge role in that plan, taking down Espeon and finishing Snorlax with a crit return, the moment I knew training him was worth it.

Blastoise and Evan were the only ones left before long. I had tried to fight the Blastoise with my Kadabra, but he got one hit off and stood little chance thereafter. It was raining, and I wasn't sure Evan could win it for us. But he did. Zap cannon crit right out the gate, and in a string of full paralysis and bite flinches, I chipped away about half of it's health.

The Blastoise broke through though, and Evan nearly got ohkod under the rain. I knew I needed to do something there and then, and once again, my dear Umbreon didn't dissapoint. A crit zap cannon put him barely outside healing range, letting 1 more bite finish the job, winning me the battle.

Do you guys have a Pokemon to ramble about? Whether it's a regional ace, a competitive Pokemon, a shiny...I'm curious to hear your stories down below!

So I saw that for once dps was in need for a roulette, so I queued into Expert roulette as Red Mage. As soon as we load in the healer is having connection issues and can’t even load into the dungeon and it’s clear that we’ll have to kick them. Everyone sits down patiently so I wait with them.

Then the tank pipes up ‘look for a new healer!’. Bearing in mind it’s a minute into the duty and we obviously still have the healer on our list. I tell them this and they finally decide to go ahead and take the first pack to actually use our time wisely. Our other dps is a Red Mage (and a Mentor with Cryptlurker gear), and fair enough they’re using Vercure to keep the tank alive so I focus on dps. We eventually get the second pack down and I can finally votekick the healer (don’t think the other two realised that they could also have done it without being part leader).

During the second pack the tank randomly decides to take off their stance, and despite me asking them to put it back on we don’t see it until the first boss! Possibly just a missclick, it happens right?

We quickly get a healer midway through the next pack, and things seem okay. Then we get to the first boss and I realise our Red Mage buddy isn’t quite doing so well for themselves. They’re still spamming Vercure like their little Verheart depends on it, and inbetween I see... was that an aoe combo? Nope! It was Impact spam! Not even using a spell to proc it, just sending out Impact after Impact with the occasional Vercure for flavour!

At this point our healer (who is doing a great job) calls out our Red Mage buddy asking them to stop insulting them with Vercure. This falls on deaf ears. After our Burger King Red Mage steps in a few aoes we make it passed the first boss, and we get through the next add phases and second boss doing pretty much the same. Plenty of aoe spam o that second boss, of course.

Then we finally get to the final boss, and our healer warns them that if they see another Vercure that’s it. The next second old reliable Vercure comes out and fair enough the healer did warn them. All healing stops on the Red Mage, and I think they may have rescued them to their death? (Maybe a bit extreme but would have happened sooner or later without the rescue). And in silent solidarity me and the healer leave the Red Mage on the floor and just go about business as normal, and the boss takes pretty much as long as it would have with the Red Mage.

After the fight I politely suggest that the Red M

I have referred to this sub as sitting around the fire with the guys, drinks in hand and the stories flowing freely. So you might want to grab a cold one cause this is gonna take a while. But atleast everyone get's 3 Ruckles for the one story.

There is something therapeutic in writing it down for everyone, it helps alot more than I thought it would. So when the bag of 3 Feral Cats, 10 Ferrets and 1 Woodchuck (some bastard snuck that it when I wasn’t looking) that sits beside the computer in my head starts rumbling around and knocking things over, this is probably a good place to try and let some of it out. The memorys bouncing around will hopefully wriggle less if they are on the page.

It is either write it down or go blow something up, prob not the best idea in the suburbs. Satisfying, but not smart.

There will be enough information here that if someone I served with reads it, you will have a rough idea who I am and who the three Ruckles are. Keep that to your self. I have been out for years as have atleast 2 of the 3 Ruckles, not sure where number 3 has ended up. But no one needs to be Doxed/ outed. I will respond to DM's but please don't be offended if I don't answer for Persec reasons.

I do have to put my hand up and say that I nearly became a Ruckle. I can look back and accept that. I have a technical comprehension that is well beyond normal and really sucky people skills. (I only realized recently that being able to look at device and understand how it works nearly instantly is not normal.) Mix this with a young man’s overconfidence in his own self and left unchecked you have a Ruckle. But I was saved by the equivalent of the E4 mafia. I got grabbed by the scruff by this grouchy old CPL, dragged aside and set on the right path/ told to pull my head in.

And then later when I found my self in a dark hole that I couldn’t dig my way out of, I went to the same CPL, told him that I was in the hole and he helped me climb out and not fall back in with dignity and respect. I don’t know if this will make it’s way to him but “Barge” you set me on the right path and saved my ass when I needed it. And I will always remember and appreciate that.

So now for what everyone who clicked on the title is here for. The tale of the three Ruckles.

First up is Juckle:

Juckle worked out about a third of the way through his initial trade training that he didn’t want to be A Gunnie ( ordinance). Then after he had worked out that he didn’t want to be there, h

Hi all, Andreas from Fast Travel Games here. This contest is now OVER! Thanks for joining and great to see so much love for pets both in steel and fur! The winners of game codes picked at random are:

The Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets:

• u/PetrafiedMonkey
• u/tinnyBoi
• u/RodmanSan

Apex Construct:

• u/Ghost_VFX
• u/Pork3y
• u/fallinfrog

You will all get PM's with the codes. Stay safe out there everybody! /Andreas

---

HOW TO JOIN:

Apex Construct has robotic animals like spiders and birds, while the Curious Tale is all about the living ones. So what I want to know is: Would you prefer to have a robotic pet that you could program, or would you rather have a furry pet that you could hug?

Simply COMMENT with Robotic Pet (=gives you a chance to claim 1 of 3 game codes for Apex Construct) or Furry Pet (=gives you a chance to claim 1 of 3 game codes for The Curious Tale)

This contest ends on Sunday, March 22 at 7am PDT, winners are picked at random and will be presented in this post + contacted via PMs. Good luck!

https://preview.redd.it/e0zlb266xun41.png?width=3000&format=png&auto=webp&s=e45fc371841375dc1c17ff40bfc92cce4e83eff2

https://preview.redd.it/8u7zuu97xun41.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=409ceb19963baa084026211e74c03da4e19ed96d

Be you a love or a hate of this dead man's tale, one thing is for sure, the lore implications behind this mighty mission is huge. From its grim foreshadowing to its stunning visuals there are so many layers to the quest lore wise that it deserves a full writeup even without having full access to its forebooks and secret content. Writing this I hope to portray the strange goings on in this Calus ship and the deep amounts of theorisation that can occur behind it.

Bleak Botany:

Source for most of the ideas.

With how most of that quest went we can all agree it is incredibly interesting and dark, however what people fail to speculate on is the idea that all of these things are far too familiar to us, for example the spores and plant life contained on the ship. This vegetation on the ship we have seen before in both the form of the plants, the spores and even the tubular plants we see as a lot of these have been in places we have been before, for example:

• Egregore spores: We see an incredibly similar system in the leviathan raid as you would have to get the empowering spores from the royal gardens, of which it would empower light bearers when light was supplied to deal more damage to an exotic war dog, This however opposes the new Egregore spores which supplies you a way to remove the damage from darkness resonating spores. As we resonate with the light, We literally have to use them to resonate with the darkness (This is where it gets to theorising) which would be useful for Calus to obtain as it would allow him to commune with it as we know that royal nectar and wine allows him psionic abilities, to grind some of these plants into it may possibly allow him to link these directly to the darkness allowing him to "resonate" with it.
• Tubular purple/green/black plants: We see these inside of the drifter's ship, they can literally be seen behind you in gambit in these sort of containment pods as well as behind the drifter with a large dark mass behind him, we know this to have been found on the dark planet the drifter and his deceased crew came into contact with pure dark forces, even surrounding our guardian friend in the end whom we discover to have been consumed by it, this plant literally is in resonance with the dark and has consumed the light and the man's life, presenting a grim idea.
• Black mass: all of these plants lead and have a large base of black mass, of which can be seen in all forms of this plant of w

What would the Star Ocean franchise be like in this hypothetical timeline? Do you think it would even exist?

(for those unaware: Tri-Ace was created directly as a result of development drama between Wolf Team and Namco. Half of the staff left the project, formed a new company under Enix, and basically made the very first Star Ocean game as ToP: The Producer's Cut)

Its up on leviatan's site.

It's that time of year again and our friends the PSVR Devs are helping us to spread a little festive cheer with another Christmas giveaway :)

https://i.redd.it/x0g4l9xl1n641.gif

The Prizes

Titles we are giving away include:

We have 28 copies of games to give away in total. Broken down into 23 single games and 5 games in one bundle.

How it Works

This year you have two chances to win.

1. Comment below stating which region you would like a code for and you could win one copy of one of the game titles.
2. Post us your most festive PSVR picture and one lucky redditor could win a bundle of all five games! It could a photo you've taken, a drawing you've made... whatever you like! The picture the mod team thinks is the most creative, most Christmasy and makes us smile the most will win.

We will aim to post the winners around 24 hours from the thread closing.

How to Enter

Entry 1: post a reply to my 'Random Draw' comment below, stating whether you would like an NA and EU code.

Entry 2: post a reply to my 'PSVR Picture'

I've been friends with this girl for a long time. It's one of those things where we have nothing in common anymore but we're still friends because of longevity (we met in elementary school). She and I have very different interests now - for example, I enjoy paying bills on time and she enjoys being $40k in cc debt at 23 and blowing all her money on weed.

I ended up doing pretty well for myself after high school. I graduated, did my masters and ended up getting a very well-paying job in a highly competitive industry. She is aware that my income is higher than the average person our age, and so whenever we go out to dinner, I "spot" her. I only see her every couple of months so I don't really mind just paying for her food, since she spends a lot of time texting me about how she's behind on bills (why she suggests to go out to restaurants then is beyond me, but sure). I live in a big city and she lives in a smaller town about an hour away.

Anyways, her birthday was last month. I took her out to dinner and bought her a present beforehand, but for her birthday, she wanted to go clubbing in my big city. She decided to hire a party bus to drive her guests to a club in my city (before she even knew what her guest list was) and charge her guests $20 to attend/pitch in for it. This number then became $40 per person (pretty sure she just pulled that figure out of her ass but ok). Now, when I got the invite, I never said I could make it. I texted her telling her I might not be able to meet them at the club because the bus was scheduled to arrive at the club (from her city) for about 11pm, which means we would be out till about 3am, and I had a big meeting at 7am the next morning. She said okay.

After about a day, I told her I wouldn't be able to make it due to work the next morning. The meeting was more extensive than I thought. She was VERY upset at me and sent me an etransfer request. I was confused because she said I owed her $40 FOR A PARTY BUS I NEVER EVEN WOULD'VE BEEN ON (it was driving from her city to mine, so if I was even attending, I would've just met them at the club).

Apparently this is what she wanted. She was expecting me to get off work at 7pm, drive an hour to her city, leave my car there, pay $40 to take the party bus BACK to my original city, go clubbing, then go back to her city, pick my car up and drive another hour back home.... all while I have work the next morning. Yeah, okay.

She told me I was selfish, I could easily afford $40, I sh

So last month before all this COVID-19 stuff turned the industry and my town (Las Vegas) into a baren wasteland we had 2 rooms booked on our first floor by a Mom and Daughter of a Smilton out in a neighboring state come stay with us to celebrate the daughter's 21st Birthday. Now they were friendly enough although progressively got worse over their stay.

Day #1- Just basically overall drunken fun (Partying in the rooms and Noise Complaints)

Day #2- One of the girls got so drunk she had to be wheeled to her room on a Bellcart

Day #3- Now this is where all hell breaks loose. First off I am training a new part time relief Night Auditer. She has experience at other hotels and I have known her for 2 years by this point. But it is the first night I am training her at this property. Everything is going smoothly until a little after Midnight the hotel fire alarms start to go off. Now this isnt just the normal (Someone smoking in a room....or burnt something cooking) But a full on every alarm in the entire hotel going off type of situation. I call my Houseman and he says that he sees smoke coming from down the hall on the first floor. So as with any evacuation situation i stay at the front desk to answer the inevitable flood of phone calls from the guests asking if this is a False Alarm or a real fire. I let every caller know that "Yes this is real and to please evacuate the hotel via the nearest stairwell". The new girl in training asks me what she can do. I let her know to call the General Manager while i call the Head of Maintenance/Field Guest Calls. As this is happening the guests slowly start to exit the hotel.

A Few minutes later the Fire Department arrive and rush in. I hand them an occupied room list and direct them to where our Houseman is seeing smoke coming from. Now as this is happening the General Manager/Head of Maintenance/Local PD are pulling up and rushing into the hotel. While everyone is being Rock Stars and handling their business a couple guests were trying to rush inside to use the public bathroom. Seriously?? Yep. A lady was arguing with me that her mother needed to go pee. I tried directing her to a neighboring bar not even 100 feet away but she just wanted to argue because "How dare you not let my mother inside" SORRY LADY AS OF THIS POINT THE LOCAL FIRE DEPARTMENT HAS SAID NO ONE BACK IN FOR ANY REASON. She seriously argued with me for 10 minutes instead of walking 1 minute away to the bar next door.

Well 15 minutes later we find

One of the most controversial things in all my previous posts have been when I mentioned I am self insured as someone who FIREd in my 40s (now in my mid 50s). While I often get the predictable name calling and general questioning of my sanity, I also get a lot of questions about how it works in practice, so anytime something comes up, I try to post about the process to show exactly how it works.

Last week I developed some alarming symptoms. Top of my feet were numb, middle of my back was also tight, lower back was feeling mild pain, blood pressure was up, was getting dizzy when I stood up, etc...just a bunch of stuff that had me worried. So I walked in to my local Advanced Practice Clinic. No waiting, they could see me right away. Went over everything with the staff, they took blood to be sampled for full diagnostic. Cost for walk in visit and blood tests was a total of $180. They also sent me to an independent x-ray lab to see if something was out of place in my spine causing a nerve to be pinched. X-ray tech took a total of 16 slides from upper to lower spine. Total X-ray cost $70. They also gave me prescription for the back pain, $20 for a 90 day supply of muscle relaxers.

Blood test results came back next day. Turned out it was caused by mainly a lack of salt in my system, along with some other electrolytes being depleted. I don't add salt to my food, and it has been extremely hot here recently. I exercise outdoors, and try to get most of it done in early morning, but I still have been sweating buckets while getting in my 5 miles a day. Losing all this sweat, along with drinking lots of water and urinating a lot meant what little salt I get in my diet was all being flushed out of my system before it was being absorbed as it should be...so what seemed like scary issues turned out to be just an adjustment of me getting more salt and electrolytes in my diet during this heat wave. I made the adjustment, got almost immediate results. They said it might take a week or so for me to get back to where I should be 100%, but anyway...medical crisis adverted for a total of $270.

I usually get my blood work done once a year, but since this caused it to be done mid year, it was nice to see the overall results showed everything was great except that electrolyte issue. Said I had the lowest cholesterol level they had ever seen, even beating my previous low results. (I explained my diet to them)

I hope this doesn't start yet another debate about how stupid I

Companion is landmark ability, bringing a commander-esque effect to all forms of Magic. It may seem hard to evaluate at first because there appears to be no analog from Magic's history — no pre-existing mechanic is quite like Companion. No pre-existing mechanic that has ever been legal in constructed formats, at least.

Companion is actually extremely similar to the Conspiracy cards, a special card type designed for supplemental product that were never legal in constructed formats. Like companions, these cards give your deck access to some special ability from outside the game, and even sometimes include deck-building restrictions. These cards were designed for a very specific format: a draft, followed by a best-of-one, four-player, free-for-all game. Multiplayer formats have a naturally balancing effect that 1v1 formats lack — namely that if a player is dominating the game the others can team up on them — and the best-of-one structure also means a much higher tolerance for variance and power-level disparity. Most people are ok getting totally blown out once. With all of these factors combined, and the fact that Conspiracy was not meant to be played at the highest levels of competition, Wizards was able to print some seriously pushed Conspiracies without any issues.

I have a unique perspective on the game. I mostly play Cube, where the only rules for what can and cannot be played are dictated by each individual cube's designer. Some people put the Conspiracy cards into their cubes as a way to add some additional depth to the draft, and in all of my years of playing and discussing Cube I have seen players who have never played Conspiracies in best-of-three, 1v1 matches consistently underrate them.

Having access to an effect in every single game without having to draw it at random from your deck is extremely powerful, especially when you're playing a best-of-three match. I believe it's one of the reasons why Commander works: under normal circumstances, 99 card singleton decks would be very high variance and probably not all that fun, but the addition of one card you always have access to provides a ton of consistency.

The best example I can give is Sentinel Dispatch. When someone adds conspiracies to their cube for the first time, it's usually not that hard to convince them that some [o

My second patient of the day told me that we might as well be tattooed like the Jewish were if we have to carry this card and also he blames the Chinese for all of this 🙃

It doesn't get any better than this in rural areas.