Luminara

I step out of the cabin to go to work Monday morning and see them in the trees. Vultures. Dozens of vultures. Trees all around my valley, ten or twelve vultures in each. I've seen vultures plenty of times, and, in fact, I actually think they're pretty damn cool... as anus-munching, bald, creepy looking jerks go. If it weren't for vultures, we'd all be up to our ears in the stench of death and putrefaction. They're natures roadkill clean-up crew and they do an awesome goddamn job. But I don't like vultures around the cabin. Something most people don't realize is that vultures will take live prey. They snatch fresh lambs and calves, they'll go after chickens... and I have a colony of 50 hanging around the cabin. These are my friends, and, like most of my friendships have shown, while I may not be very good at fulfilling the role of being a friend, I'm still trying. There's no documented evidence of vultures attacking or carrying away cats, but I'm not going to take any chances. So I meander around the valley for a couple of minutes, scaring the vultures away. I leave for work, come home a few hours later, and they're back. I know I should look for a reason they might be attracted to this spot, other than cats, but finding anything in several acres of heavily wooded area, even in winter, isn't easy unless it's incredibly obvious. It's almost 3 p.m., I'm two hours late for my afternoon coffee, I'm tired from doing grunt work for the last few hours and I don't want to run a search pattern right then. A few "G'wan now!"'s and "Getouttaheeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrre..."'s is all I'm really up for, and enough to send them all flapping away. Tuesday, they're back, and landing on my roof. I'm beginning to grow irritated. One of my favorite colony cats, Chester (he's a hugger (most cats aren't)), likes to hang out on the roof. Despite the fact that Chester has reached sexual maturity and is making everything within 100' of the cabin smell like something that came out of a bear's ass, I still have to protect my huggy buddy, so I drive away the winged dicktips again. Once more, I make no effort to find out if there's something drawing them here. I'd had a headache since I went to bed Monday night, and when it finally eased off around noon, exhaustion came down on me like a hammer, so my "job" for the rest of the day was to stay awake until bed time (otherwise, i would've been up all night). Today, I come home, see the vultures again, and I suddenly had the moment of existential confusion serving as the title of this thread. Now, I'm pragmatic, I'm rational, I'm analytic... but I also lean toward animism, so there's a side of me that responds to odd natural occurrences with a less than scientific mindset. I know that vultures typically home in on carcasses, not cats and certainly not people, but I haven't smelled or seen any dead animals... and before I could take a closer look around the valley to see if there was something, my lizard brain, out of the blue, suddenly suggests I was already dead and this was my mind's way of letting me in on the secret. My flight-or-fight response instantly kicked in, and, predictably, defaulted to fight. Just, *boom*, "RRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHSMASHSMASHSMASH!" Remember, I've also scolded squirrels, lectured possums, argued with trees, and yesterday, I yelled at the wind (it was being an asshole). I love nature, but sometimes, it pisses me off and the less sane part of me takes over. So when that vestigial caveperson element of my thinking mind told me that Death was a-comin', I was ready to kick its ass. Nothing is going to take me away from this little piece of paradise I've made for myself until I'm damn well ready to leave, and today isn't that day. I took one step forward... and all of the vultures flew away. A couple of minutes later, I saw what was left of a dead possum down by the stream. Big one, too. Had to have been at least three years old. I tossed the remains further into the woods and ignored the vultures after that. I'm still not sure if I'm relieved or disappointed. I didn't have to beat the ever-loving shit out of several dozen large birds who'd come to carry off my soul, but I also didn't get to beat the ever-loving shit out of several dozen large birds who'd come to carry of my soul.

Rescue cats. Rescued cats reproduce. Rescue more cats. Rescued cats reproduce. Resort to superhuman feats in order to keep the rescued cats fed. "Fite me!" "I have 52 cats." "please don't hurt me"

According to some very reliable sources, psychic powers are acquired by being invited to a "special school" and having your brain chopped up by government scientists who wear blue gloves.

That's a result of the transfer process. Transferred characters aren't physically moved, they're just copied, and both character order and creation date are shard-specific attributes. The character data is copied, a new character which is otherwise identical is created, using the copied data, on the selected shard, and the original is deleted. The timestamp on the transferred character is the date of the transfer, not the original creation date, because it's a newly created character on that shard.

It's not random. When the character slots file can't be written to, the server defaults to displaying characters by creation date. Make sure the file isn't set to read-only, make sure the drive that it's on isn't full or erroneously reading as full, and run a drive integrity scan (the file could be in a bad sector).

Contact: "Yo, Lumi, I have a fantastic mission for you! There's a huge outdoor map where I need you to go and arrest every bad guy. All of them. Every last one." Lumi: "Let's not, and say we did."

*imagines @lemming with a bunch of Bone Daddies floating around him*

I started having trouble sleeping when I was four years old. I'd wait until my parents were in bed, then sneak into the bathroom and read all night. I'd do that for three or four days in a row. When I slept, it was erratic, sometimes I'd nod off in the bathroom, sometimes I'd fall asleep in class. As I grew older and had to factor this in with having a job, I "dealt" with it by taking night shift work whenever I could and sleeping when I had to. Lost a couple of good jobs because I couldn't manage my sleep properly, too. It took almost 45 years to resolve the problem. I rarely allow myself any caffeine after 3 in the afternoon now. I have two cups of coffee when I get up, and I have two cups at 1 in the afternoon to stave off the mid-day nap ambush. Even with the early afternoon coffee, I'm close to dozing frequently, but I'm not laying down for a "quick nap" and waking up four hours later any more. If I can't shake the sleepies in the middle of the day, I get up and do something, anything, to stay awake. Sleeping in the middle of the day makes it harder to sleep at night, so I don't let myself do that. I spend a lot more time doing physical things than I used to. I work at three farms, a grocery/general store, and sometimes help a friend with catering (it sounds like a lot, but i only work a few hours each day, rarely more than 20 in a week), and all of them require physical exertion. At home, I cut and split my own firewood, bring water up to the cabin, go for walks in the forest or work on improvements to the cabin. I'm not constantly working, I spend a ridiculous amount of time playing games, watching movies and reading, but after I noticed how well I slept after getting out and doing things, I started making it a point to spend enough time every day doing something physical. My lifestyle probably isn't directly comparable with yours, but the point is, I found that physical activity helped settle my sleep schedule. Instead of being tired because I was bored (mind-tired), I became tired because I was exerting myself (body-tired), and that's the kind of tired that makes it easier to fall asleep and stay asleep. Go jogging, or even just walking. Work out. Swim. Start a kitchen garden. Stress played an enormous part in my insomnia. I have social anxiety disorder. Going to work stressed me out. Going grocery shopping stressed me out. Ordering a pizza stressed me out. A big part of why I live in this cabin now is because I couldn't live that way any more. Not being in a constant state of anxiety has definitely made it easier to fall asleep and stay asleep. Find the stressors and deal with them. Have sex. Or masturbate. Getting your rocks off is scientifically proven to improve sleep. So get your swerve on, even if it's with Rosy Palm and her five sisters. Make sure your bedding is comfortable. Most people don't think about their bed, the blanket(s), the pillow(s), they just use what's at hand and assume that's all there is. If you're not comfortable in bed, though, you're not going to sleep well. Try a firmer or softer mattress. Add another pillow, or take one away. Another blanket, or just a sheet. Sleep naked, then fully clothed, and figure out which gave you a better night's sleep. Maybe just flip your mattress, it could be all you need to give you some good sleep. Loneliness can kill sleep as much as any other kind of stress. If you're sleeping alone, get a body pillow. Or a love doll. Just having something to throw a leg over, wrap an arm around, snuggle up against, can make it easier to sleep, and we don't all have a spouse or SO to do that with. No shame in taking door number two. I'm broke, I'm cold, I need a bath, but I'm going to sleep like a boss after I post this. Right now. G'night.

The Secretary of Defense would be legally permitted to recall Sam Wilson to active duty. That's not a comic book trope, it's a real law, so despite Wilson being retired from military duty, he's in the same boat as Rhodes.

This doesn't sound like a costume toggle, it sounds like switching between two costume slots, same costume items on both, one set to maximum height and the other set to minimum height.

Gives you that temporary base where he hangs around, waiting for you. Even puts it on your map. In other words, he shows you where the G-spot is.

Kinetic Melee with 2x animation times.

This would punish players for other players' mistakes, underpowered builds, lack of teamwork and/or inexperience. It would also open a door for griefing (deliberately getting teammates killed so they'd be debuffed or forced to rez, pulling large groups and abandoning teams, kiting over-leveled foes onto heroes/villains in open zones), and critically devalue numerous powers. Only an idiot would put something like this in an MMORPG.

That's what she said.

Minors aren't allowed in Fort Trident. Longbow's last Take Your Child To Work Day... didn't end well.

Spinning Strike has a base 16 second recharge time. Cryonic Rounds, the attack in question, has a 15% Slow. 16 * 1.15 = 18.4 In order for a power with a base 16 second recharge time to be require 44 seconds to recharge, the character would have to be hit with ~275% -Recharge. This would require more than a dozen +4 Council Marksmen hitting. (15 * 1.44 (purple patch)) * 13 = 280.8

A level 39 character fighting enemies which cap at level 20 would experience 0.01% of the effects of the enemy debuffs. Consequently, it would require several hundred NPCs attacking simultaneously to reduce a level 39 character's recharge times on the order of magnitude described. So this player is saying that he somehow found a way to bypass the aggro mechanics and herd every Outcast in the entire zone, multiply them by about 10 in order to assemble a sufficient number of the described foes to cause the claimed effect, and negate the purple patch which reduced their hit chance to 5%. I say ban him for using exploits.

Just having a little fun with the misquote.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turok_(video_game_series)

That's exactly how it should work. Healthy social interaction is NOT drawing invisible lines around ourselves and exerting Herculean effort to stay inside those lines. That's not socialization, it's voluntary imprisonment. It's living in fear and lying about who you are, and that's not good for you or the people with whom you're engaging. Someone else drawing the lines and telling us when we're crossing them is what gives us license to be honest, to be who we are and say what we really need to say. It's more disappointing to see people apologize for having an opinion, beg forgiveness for disagreeing, dissemble and prevaricate about how they feel and what they mean, bend over backwards to avoid crossing the imaginary boundaries they've constructed for themselves. I'd rather be surrounded by honest assholes, and be an honest asshole, than cowards and liars whos personalities are entirely dependent on the prevailing winds. My warnings were for being myself, and you're goddamn right that I'm proud of them. They say that I have the courage to expose my true personality instead of hiding behind a façade, and explore the boundaries of what's acceptable rather than constraining myself to the limits I would otherwise impose on myself. This is me, in all of my magnificence and my flaws, naked before you and with my head held high, unashamed.

I've had numerous warnings, with and without warning points, for being aggressive, insulting and rude. I'm still here. And you're folding because you got a slap on the wrist?