Perhaps the Balrog underestimated Gandalf, thinking it could cast him into the abyss, then fly back up to deal with the rest of the Fellowship. Alternatively, maybe it calculated that its best chance of defeating the wizard was to grapple with him at close quarters. Either way, the Balrog falling doesn’t necessarily mean that it wasn’t capable of flight.

Money can be exchanged for goods and services!

You’re much better off not knowing, imo. Influencers are like Tinker Bell, in that they disappear if there aren’t enough people who believe they exist.

Hey, if we can make a pencil out of leaves, cephalopods can swim through our GI tract like species 8472 through fluidic space.

I’m looking forward to the inevitable Flop House episode.

Alan Alda’s got a pretty good podcast now. I watched a lot of MASH reruns growing up. Feels strange that kids now don’t have the experience of watching a bunch of stuff that’s not made for them at all, just because that’s what’s on TV.

I’ve just reinstalled Grim Dawn, having last played it some years ago, and am currently working my way through Act 2. I don’t frequently play ARPG’s, but I’ll try a new one when I get it in a bundle or somesuch. Mostly, they don’t hold my interest. Grim Dawn, vanilla and unmodded (I assume there’s some kind of modding scene; haven’t looked yet) still manages to scratch that itch for me. At some point I’ll pick up the DLC. Right now I just want to find something good enough to replace this crazy caster 2h sword I’m using, so that I can bring Albrecht’s Aether Ray back into the rotation!

Oh, crumb! I’ve gotten here way too late to make a joke about it not being a zero cum game. Ah, well. Next time!

That’s too bad. No autosave you can load from before it started? I love KC:D; it’s one of very few story-based games that I was motivated to play through more than once. I had a quick look, but I couldn’t find any mods that let you pause that section and come back to it later.

I really enjoyed Theresa’s DLC, but it can be an unwelcome change of pace if you’re not ready for it. There’s certainly no shortage of people that have had this issue, but it looks like the only fix is to power through it or load an earlier save. You do get a nice Skalitz shield from Theresa when you finish it, at least.

If you’re interested, The Flop House (long running bad movie podcast with three hosts and sometimes a guest; 2/3 hosts are former Daily Show writers [they are three cishet white guys, but not stupid or bigoted]) did an episode with Parker Bennett, one of the screenwriters of the '93 SMB movie. He’s got some pretty great anecdotes about making it!

I’m not in the habit of defending @UnderpantsWeevil, but it’s pretty clear that their point is that UBI cannot replace public infrastructure investment. You’re not really arguing that it can and/or should, are you?

Damn Uncle Scrooges Uncles Scrooge ruining the economy with their improbably swimmable money bins! Where’s Magica De Spell when you need her?

H.E.B. store brand toilet paper is like that. Haven’t seen any other companies do it.

My impression of r/menslib, formed when I was subbed there several years ago, was that it catered to people with more money than problems. The discussion there was never about real issues.

I had a science teacher that told us, “If you sneeze three times and nobody blesses you, the devil takes your soul!”

It’s science.

FWIW, I’m dual-booting windows and mint atm. Separate drives, but just one EFI partition, and this update hasn’t borked things for me.

I think it’s a RDR2 reference, but I couldn’t be more specific.