Random non sequitur posts catch-all thread

For dusting hard to reach nooks and crevasses, do yourself a favor and pick up one of these bad boys. It'll change your life*!

*This statement has not been evaluated for accuracy.

I have one like that. It's fully capable of disassembling any Lego set in seconds.

You have to use the kragle.

I am kind of sad they fixed the sonic movie. It looked so bad it would work as a low key horror movie. Now it just looks like a kids movie. Netflix out if 10.

I think it was the teeth and the nose that did that for me.

Alright, I've started on The Adventure Zone (or at least, I will in earnest once I finish Seven Blades in Black), but I'm curious, those of you familiar with Critical Role, where would you advise a newcomer to start? The podcast on Spotify? On YouTube? And what episode?

Not familiar with Critical Role, but if you're asking where to start with TAZ, probably just at the beginning? Things are a bit rough and ready for a while as they figure out how to play the game and tell stories in a way that suits the format of podcasting, but I suspect it would be more fun to see how they develop than to jump in somewhere else.

If there's anywhere else to start, though, it would be at the beginning of the Amnesty story. Reasons to do this would include:

- You don't want to listen to them fumble around with D&D rules they barely understand.
- You want to see how they operate once they've figured out how to do things well.
- You don't feel like listening to stories in a more traditional D&D fantasy setting, or really like the idea of a monster of the week style story set in a fantastical version of West Virginia.

Do be warned though: it's really more of an improvised story telling show that uses various game systems as tools to aid in the process of finding stories together. If you're looking for crunchy, mechanical actual play stuff, TAZ is NOT that. (They do try to be more of that at the very start, but one of the things they learn is that they tell better stories when they let the emphasis on mechanics slide into the background.)

I am pretty sure he was asking about Critical Role. TAZ of course start at episode 1. For me Amnesty and their other stuff has been much weaker than the original story, start at ep 1 and enjoy the next 70 episodes.

I can't speak to the best place to start with Critical Role.

Prederick wrote:

Alright, I've started on The Adventure Zone (or at least, I will in earnest once I finish Seven Blades in Black), but I'm curious, those of you familiar with Critical Role, where would you advise a newcomer to start? The podcast on Spotify? On YouTube? And what episode?

I'd start with the beginning of Campaign 2 - the party is playing new characters, whereas the first campaign was ported over from a home game that had already been going for a few years. Once you're caught up, if you want to go back and listen to Campaign 1, it'll still be there. Both are set in the same world, but on different continents, so there are only a few callbacks to C1 in C2.

Because Critical Role left the Geek and Sundry network partially through C2, the first 160 or so episodes are on one feed, and the most recent ones are on another.

Prederick wrote:

Alright, I've started on The Adventure Zone (or at least, I will in earnest once I finish Seven Blades in Black), but I'm curious, those of you familiar with Critical Role, where would you advise a newcomer to start? The podcast on Spotify? On YouTube? And what episode?

Ok, I've seen most of Critical Role. There's the first season which is 115 episodes ranging from three to four hours long usually. They do end shorter or go long sometimes, but not all that often. They started filming mid-campaign, but Matt Mercer does a really good job of catching the viewer up. If you want to start there, it's a good place.

KNOW THIS! When they first started it, it was pretty bare bones in terms of budget, so there can be some sound issues because they didn't have sponsors or all that many viewers so they only had a few mics. After about 20 or 30 episodes, they start spending more on their set and it gets much better in terms of sound quality. If I'm being honest, it also works better as a visual thing. It's great to have on a second monitor while I do other things, but it still works as just a podcast.

Now if you want to skip the first campaign, the second campaign is now on episode 84. They all started at level 2 and this one takes place in the same world as the first campaign, only 20 or so years later, so while there are a few callbacks to season 1, it's nothing that you need to know.

As for the type of game being played, Matt Mercer can be a stickler for the rules but he loves improvisation from his players and always finds a way to roll with it if possible. They're all actors as well as voice actors, so that's a fun part of it, but Matt Mercer puts them all to shame with the sheer number of distinct voices he can do. It truly is a sight to behold. Since they were all theater kids growing up, they really do consider things like "what my character would do?" as opposed to "what would I do?" But while role playing is king in their game, it never (in my opinion) gets to be too much. They just seem to love the improvisational nature of the game. They also tend to use stats as a general direction as how to play their characters. For instance, Travis' character has a very low INT score, like 6 or 7, so he plays they guy as not understanding what's going on sometimes, or has him trying to sound or seem intelligent and failing spectacularly.

I would recommend trying to start at season 1. If it doesn't strike your fancy, maybe try skipping to season 2. They're a lot more comfortable by then and if you do fall in love with season 2, when you catch up you can always go back to season 1 while waiting for new episodes.

Forgot to add, they lose a member of the cast around episode 25 or 26 and, if you ask me, it was a welcome loss as I saw him as kind of a toxic element to the game by then. Nothing distressingly bad or wrong, just one of those I guys I really wouldn't want to play with.

edit* Forgot to mention, I did all this watching on Youtube. Geek and Sundry channel for season 1, Critical Role channel for season 2.

I've heard so many good things, and i really want to... but 500 hours is just so much of a commitment.

thrawn82 wrote:

I've heard so many good things, and i really want to... but 500 hours is just so much of a commitment.

It's not Game of Thrones. You don't really have to worry about catching up. Do what I did. Listen/watch at your leisure. You may never catch up, but on the bright side, you'll always have more Critical Role to consume.

thats a good way to look at it.

Grenn wrote:

If I'm being honest, it also works better as a visual thing. It's great to have on a second monitor while I do other things, but it still works as just a podcast.

That's pretty much the plan. Something I can put on a second monitor and watch while I'm doing something else or putting together my own D&D games.

I'm not mega-interested, but I've heard such good things and the fans appear to love it so much that I figured I might as well see what's what before the animated show drops.

EDIT: Also, I am truly at peak content right now. The list of things I'd like to watch/read/listen to and the amount of time I have are completely incompatible.

I love TAZ, but I simply could not get into Critical Role. I listed to 3 episodes of the second campaign and realized it just wasn't for me. I think the question may really come around to "are you listening for the gameplay and mechanics, or are you interested in the story?"

The thing I loved most about TAZ, both the Balance campaign and the Amnesty campaign, was the story and the characters. But after the first 3 episodes of CR, I simply could not get into their characters or the story.

Prederick wrote:

EDIT: Also, I am truly at peak content right now. The list of things I'd like to watch/read/listen to and the amount of time I have are completely incompatible.

I realize the irony of saying this the week before taking my daughter to see Frozen 2, which she's suuuuper excited about (and I'm vicariously excited for her), but, dude, you gotta...

Let It Go! LET IT GO-OooH!

I've mostly given up watching TV, barring a couple of shows my wife and I watch together and an occasional kid's movie snuggling with my daughter. And honestly, I'm not missing it, my free time is being spent on things I'd rather be doing, instead of the easiest option of TV. I'm reading more, I'm playing more, and I'm regretting less that my precious free time is being "wasted".

ThatGuy42 wrote:

I love TAZ, but I simply could not get into Critical Role. I listed to 3 episodes of the second campaign and realized it just wasn't for me. I think the question may really come around to "are you listening for the gameplay and mechanics, or are you interested in the story?"

The thing I loved most about TAZ, both the Balance campaign and the Amnesty campaign, was the story and the characters. But after the first 3 episodes of CR, I simply could not get into their characters or the story.

I've expressed similar here before; I liked TAZ but couldn't get into Critical Role. Luckily I discovered Glass Cannon and that is another great actual play podcast and it hit the spot after TAZ finished. If you haven't tried it I recommend it starting with episode one. After listening to it for the past couple of years I think it is actually better than Adventure Zone.

Whereas I liked the first arc of TAZ, couldn't get into the second, might try the third at some point, but have binged every bit of Critical Role hard.

Is this the right place to just vent about some random bullsh*t? I hope it is, because I've got some serious venting to do.

Let me know if I should take it elsewhere though.

FedEx is the absolute worst.

Multiple times in the past we’ve had large and/or expensive packages delivered by FedEx with signature required where we’ve had to burn a vacation day to receive the package. Each of these times we’ve only realized it would be signature required when we were past the window of time where we could request an evening delivery. Not really sure WHY there is a window of time for that, especially when a first delivery attempt has failed, but still, within the frustrating parameters that they’ve defined for their business, that’s on us.

A week an a half ago we decided to order a TV, and the second we realized it was going to be shipped by FedEx, we remembered that in order to save a very valuable vacation day we would have to act early. Since the package would likely be too large to transport in our cars we couldn’t have it shipped to one of our offices, so as soon as the seller provided the tracking number, we logged on to FedEx’s website, found the evening delivery option, and choose it. They charged us like $5 or $6, which seems a bit petty, but hey, it is asking a driver to deliver off hours AND it will save us a vacation day, so whatever, why not.

So, over the next week we watched as the package crossed the country from New Jersey to California. And at first, we were pleasantly surprised — cost aside, it was relatively painless to place the evening delivery request, and while our initial delivery date was going to be one week after shipping (on a Tuesday) that estimate was quickly upgraded to a Monday. Well, Monday came and the package was still bouncing aimlessly around the Chicago suburbs (where it had been since Friday), so even though the estimate still said it would be delivered Monday night, we figured oh well, it’ll probably get here Wednesday or Thursday, but we’re in no rush, and as long as it’s an evening delivery it’ll be totally fine any night of the week.

And by early Tuesday morning, the package was in Nebraska, which was encouraging — with standard travel times it could potentially arrive Wednesday, and almost certainly it would make it by Thursday. Excellent! Yeah, the estimate still said it would be here on Monday, but I suppose those systems can be a big funky sometimes. But then there were no other updates on Tuesday, or even Wednesday morning. Well, maybe it’s on a train, and thus not getting scanned at various transfer depots? Or maybe it’s just on one long haul by truck? Still probably fine.

Then around noon on Wednesday, things get bad. There are still no tracking updates, but suddenly it displays a message that our evening delivery request has been cancelled. Well, we certainly didn’t do that, and there’s an outside chance that the package is already here in Sacramento, so if they’re going to try to deliver that day one of us might need to try to leave work early. So, at that point I make the category error of thinking that calling their customer service department might help.

Attempt number 1: The first agent I talked to seemed to barely understand what I was asking, even after numerous attempts to explain. Then she seemed to get it, and asked why I canceled the delivery request. Which, as I had been explaining, I didn’t. So then she puts me on hold while looking into things, and comes back and says something confusing about the package being in Pennsylvania (which had never been one of the stops on the tracking route, and the last update was WAY west of there in Nebraska). I confirm we’re talking about the correct tracking number, she says a bunch of other confusing things, and then I ask to escalate my call.

I’m put on hold, then after a few minutes she comes back on the line and starts talking to me like I’m the department she’s trying to transfer me to. Whoops! Back on hold a bit more, then she comes back and tells me that the technical department wants me to call back in two hours, because their systems are having trouble. Okay. Not terribly helpful, since there’s a chance the package is currently on a truck and I need to find out if I should be burning vacation time and heading home, but not much that can be done about that, so I hang up after maybe 25 or 30 minutes on a useless call.

Attempt number 2: Given how random and confusing the first attempt was, I decide to not wait two hours, and call back about thirty minutes later. I spend about 5 minutes explaining the whole situation, and the second agent says that while it’s too late in the shipment cycle for her to reinstate the delivery request, she’ll put me on hold and investigate a bit more to hopefully get more of an answer. Five minutes after that, I’ve dropped from hold and sent to a customer satisfaction survey. As tempting as it was to stick around and give zeros to every question, I decided I’ll try again.

Attempt number 3: Once again I explain the whole thing, and this person actually seems competent and helpful. I’m again put on hold for about ten minutes, and when she comes back she says they don’t have any more current information about the location of the package than the day and half old tracking data I see online, but she does see that the seller is the one who cancelled the delivery request order. I find this dubious, but if so, it’s not like I can get much more help from FedEx here, so I hang up and call the seller.

First off, the seller says they definitely did no such thing — surprise! I mean, maybe they were lying, but it seems far more likely that FedEx’s systems just screwed it up somehow. Thankfully, he seems genuinely interested in trying to take care of it for me, so he puts me on hold while he calls FedEx himself. When he comes back, he says they didn’t really explain why it was canceled, but he says they told him that if he wanted to place a new evening delivery request on the shipment it would for some inexplicable reason have to be returned all the way to the originating depot in New Jersey.

Yes, you read that correctly.

I suppose it’s worth noting that for me this is a second hand report, so who can say the veracity of it, but I also have no reason to doubt what the seller was telling me. Seriously, though, if true, what the flying f*ck is that about? How does that make sense for anyone involved? In any case, he said that while they also couldn’t give him exact location data, they were pretty confident that it would be at the local sorting depot here in California for delivery the next day (that’s today). So, while he was apologetic about the fact that we’d probably have to arrange to be around for the delivery, the best he could suggest was to just watch the tracking closely in the morning and react accordingly.

Ultimately that was over an hour on the phone to essentially be told by FedEx that even though we had done everything right, we were going to be forced to burn vacation time to receive the package because they couldn’t implement a simple request without shipping a giant box across the country two more times. Whatever.

At this point, however, my wife decided to do a thing that we hate and see if she could get traction on social media. Sure enough, within 15 minutes of making a grumpy post on FedEx’s Facebook page she had a social media manager clamoring to help her. This person assured her that while she couldn’t make it official in their system in a way we’d see when viewing the tracking status (due to ongoing technical problems), she would put in a request at the local sorting facility to make sure it would be an evening delivery. Great! That’s awesome! Now why the hell couldn’t I have gotten that with over an hour of peak frustration on the phone to their traditional support team? I mean, I fully understand the mechanics of why this is the case, but it’s still even more infuriating that there IS actually a way to make this happen, but the only way to be helped is to be angry in public. Complete bullsh*t.

Anyway, as the seller anticipated much later in the evening the package finally showed at the local depot in tracking, with a delivery date of the next day (today). At that point we decided to just go into work and play it by ear, giving the social media person the benefit of the doubt that they sorted things out. And sure enough, I wake up this morning and I get an SMS notification that says “Delivery scheduled today 11/12 between 5:00P and 8:00P. Signature at address req’d.”

So, great! Looks like the social media person DID sort out out! And, we both head to work confident that the package would arrive this evening, despite the fact that the web based tracking still didn’t indicate a special delivery option. Oh and also, that the date in that first text was somehow wrong — today is 11/14, yet for some reason the text said 11/12. But, you know, whatever, what does one more instance of them wearing clown shoes matter if the package arrives when it should?

Well, guess we should have known better, eh? A few hours later at work, I get a second SMS that reads “Delivery attempt: 11/14/2019 Time 9:30AM. A reattempt will happen on the next business day. Not going to be home? Tap link to see other options. Signature at address req’d.”

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/y7vsCZs.jpg)

So, you know, f*ck me I suppose? Guess we’re burning that vacation time tomorrow after all, eh?

I mean, there’s basically two options here.

1. My wife complains on social media again, they again promise to sort it out and make an evening delivery tomorrow, and then they again make an attempt in the morning when we’re at work. Then we have to hope that this is a class of package that will get a Saturday attempt, but probably the next attempt will be on Monday, and we’ll have to burn a vacation day then.
2. I take the time off tomorrow. Chances are they’ll probably end up delivering after I would have been home from work for some Kafkaesque reason, but at least with this option we’ll be sure to get the TV without having to be annoyed by this bullsh*t even more over the weekend.

So yeah, screw FedEx. If we still lived in a world where buyers got a choice how packages were shipped, I’d spend an extra $10 every single goddamn time to never give them my business ever again. Sadly, that’s not the case, and the next time we need buy something large and expensive, I’m sure we’ll be dealing with this insanity again.

But really, why on Earth was this so hard?
Why can’t a delivery time be requested within a day of the delivery, and especially after a first attempt?
Why does their system just randomly dump requests that actually are made? Especially when they charge extra to make the request? (Oh, pretty sure I didn’t get a refund on that either, but whatever, it’s $6.)
Why is their customer service such a confusing, demoralizing sh*t show? Like, why don’t they even have the most basic information about their business consistent and available even within their basic support team, let alone elsewhere?
Why does their social media team have magical abilities to solve problems that their support team doesn’t?
Why does their notification system not line up with their tracking system, and why does it deliver bad data and false information?

I had a signature required delivery from FedEx last week. Did not leave a note on my door. Did not reattempt delivery the next day as per their policy. Instead an email was sent informing us that our package was waiting at Walgreens as WE had requested. Which of course we did not request.

I wonder if FedEx is getting ready to crap the bed? Has anyone heard about their weird beef with Amazon?

Jonman wrote:

I realize the irony of saying this the week before taking my daughter to see Frozen 2, which she's suuuuper excited about (and I'm vicariously excited for her), but, dude, you gotta...

Let It Go! LET IT GO-OooH!

I've mostly given up watching TV, barring a couple of shows my wife and I watch together and an occasional kid's movie snuggling with my daughter. And honestly, I'm not missing it, my free time is being spent on things I'd rather be doing, instead of the easiest option of TV. I'm reading more, I'm playing more, and I'm regretting less that my precious free time is being "wasted".

Oh no, I have completely surendered myself to the fact that I will never ever be anywhere close to "keeping up" anymore. I still haven't finished Breaking Bad, i'm on Season 2 of GoT, I've listened to about 2 & 1/2 episodes of TAZ and MBMBaM, RDR2 is the only AAA title I've played through in the last two years. It is what it is now, and I'm okay with being decidedly out of touch. I'm not quite Tig Notaro bad, but it's all out of my reach now.

RawkGWJ wrote:

I had a signature required delivery from FedEx last week. Did not leave a note on my door. Did not reattempt delivery the next day as per their policy. Instead an email was sent informing us that our package was waiting at Walgreens as WE had requested. Which of course we did not request.

Story checks out 100%.

Cleaning.

Found $113.00 in change. Also about $600.00 in un chased checks. I'll have to see about them getting reissues. Most are tax returns. Also found some one dollar coins that are gold in color. They are the size of quarters. Oh and one has a native american on it.

Found notebook for a language I made up.

Found teen Baron's book of poems. Can't read much of it.

----------------
Soon there will be nothing left of me
I will dissolve into the void
Dark Matter
Back to All
Back to Nothing
Soon there will be nothing left of me

Return to sand
lost in a million like minded specs of dust
we return to dust
we seek embraces
we seek our self
untitled by dumb teen
--------------------------

Empty, all, nothing
you

When all things were one
The land was all for one

The only thing I know is nothing at all
This is what you know also
I know this to be true
Creation by future fan of My Hero Academia
-------------------------------

Where are you Ignorance
I've come for you
Truth has my back
Justice is raising his fist
Ignorance isn't always bliss

Is Hate your leader
Or does he follow you
We'll take him out too
Untitled by future fan of Jeru the Damaja
--------------------------------

What power do dreams hold
What secrets live in the mindscape of the other world
What is it
What does it mean to dream
This leads to man and woman
made for one another
one completes the other
Do you see the cup
the sword
Can there be god without a goddess
love without hate
We hate the things we love
We love the things we hate
Love and Hate complete each other
keeps the other in check
What chaos would reign if one grew to strong and ate the other
And all this came from dreams
Untitled by a fan of Radio Raheem. You got to fight the power.

------------------------------------------------

Found a story outline about werewolves from teen me. Did I not have the internet. Oh I didn't have a pc.

Found a rice cooker I forgot I had. This is funny because I later bought another rice cook and replaced that one with a instant pot. Instant pot, everyone should have one.

Thrown out a bunch of game cases and many controllers that aren't needed.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck I threw out a bag of stuff instead of garbage. Don't sort stuff using trash bags.

Check those coins to sew if they have any collectors value.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

Cleaning.

Found $113.00 in change. Also about $600.00 in un chased checks. I'll have to see about them getting reissues. Most are tax returns. Also found some one dollar coins that are gold in color. They are the size of quarters. Oh and one has a native american on it.

Found notebook for a language I made up.

Found teen Baron's book of poems. Can't read much of it.

----------------
Soon there will be nothing left of me
I will dissolve into the void
Dark Matter
Back to All
Back to Nothing
Soon there will be nothing left of me

Return to sand
lost in a million like minded specs of dust
we return to dust
we seek embraces
we seek our self
untitled by dumb teen
--------------------------

Empty, all, nothing
you

When all things were one
The land was all for one

The only thing I know is nothing at all
This is what you know also
I know this to be true
Creation by future fan of My Hero Academia
-------------------------------

Where are you Ignorance
I've come for you
Truth has my back
Justice is raising his fist
Ignorance isn't always bliss

Is Hate your leader
Or does he follow you
We'll take him out too
Untitled by future fan of Jeru the Damaja
--------------------------------

What power do dreams hold
What secrets live in the mindscape of the other world
What is it
What does it mean to dream
This leads to man and woman
made for one another
one completes the other
Do you see the cup
the sword
Can there be god without a goddess
love without hate
We hate the things we love
We love the things we hate
Love and Hate complete each other
keeps the other in check
What chaos would reign if one grew to strong and ate the other
And all this came from dreams
Untitled by a fan of Radio Raheem. You got to fight the power.

------------------------------------------------

You should start a black metal band. You already have the lyrics for four songs. 8)

Zero, I've had many issues with FedEx in the past (unlike UPS; as I recall, the difference is UPS is unionized). So this is not to excuse. But I had a friend flying from Boston to California at the same time that your package was traveling, and the entire center of the country those days was a mess of snowstorms, redirected flights and all sorts of weather-based mayhem. My guess is that the package was delayed and/or landed in a different city than was planned, and that probably kicked off the issues.

No excuse for bad customer service, but then, that's FedEx. FWIW, their contractors are worse.

the sun’s a miasma of incandescent plasma

The sun is a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace...

Robear wrote:

The sun is a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace...

That’s what scientists use to think. But the theory has since been updated.

Tomatoes never improve a sandwich, they only make it worse.