Old Man

I have a collection of "selfies" starting from the mid-nineties, when I started having to travel for work. I realized that I should take advantage of the free travel, so I made a point of seeking out local landmarks and scenery. To document my travels I took to taking quick self-portraits from arm's length with my Canon point and shoot, with the landmarks in the background. I would get the funniest looks from people when I did that. Often people would come up and offer to take a picture for me, apparently assuming that I was too pathetic to have a friend or SO to travel with. Sometimes they were quite insistent. Today, to my amusement and annoyance, selfies are a thing. Got lots of good pics though, like the one at the Albuquerque balloon festival. Anyone else been anywhere interesting?

AIUI healing is defined and costed for superheroic, which is fine. But if you're playing a heroic game with the above optional rules, it becomes very unclear how healing should work. Does my healing spell work once per wound or per person? Cumulatively or not? Or can I just keep trying per wound until I get the maximum allowable on the dice? What about non-localized wounds like large burns, or poison? Does my 1d6 of Healing stop all the bleeding from Balabanto's severed arm? Right now these decisions are left up to the GM, which is sort of okay, except that it tends to break the cost/d6 balance. And of course it also means that every Fantasy Hero campaign is unique. Healing really, really matters in fantasy campaigns, and especially in Fantasy Hero which already has something of a reputation for lethality.

I kind of wanted to go the other way and increase granularity. For years I've wanted each point of STR and DEX to matter in Fantasy Hero. Dividing characteristics by 5 would, for heroic games, give an approximate stat range of 1-5. Implementing such a change is easier said than done, of course. It could involve tinkering with the dice to get a wider range of possible results. I know the 3d6 to hit roll is iconic, but sometimes I wonder if it isn't an unnecessary constraint. Also, healing (and its relation to optional rules like hit location and bleeding) needs serious fixing.

Sounds like a perfect excuse to mount tasers and sentry guns on all the ATMs.

Probably not a cold or flu this time, but something gastro, like a rotavirus. Glad you're surviving okay. Stay hydrated.

What if I told you I don't like hot drinks?

Did you see the first one? Pretty good wasn't it?

Too awesome?

Dragon dragoons?

Isn't that what the dragons were for?

Reality warping is a special effect. The actual powers described could be Transforms, Summonings, or Extra-Dimensional Movement. To handle all the possibilities of a four-year-old's imagination would require a very expensive VPP. I might consider some kind of limitation on the power, like not being able to affect living things directly. It's hard for me to see how anyone in the vicinity of that kid would survive for very long. Including the kid.

Origin story in 3... 2... 1...

People actually watch that?

Having spent one summer trying to recover irreplaceable astronomical data from disintegrating 9-track tape, I always wonder if not making hardcopies is such a good idea.

A 6.5mm projectile seems like the sweet spot for ballistics performance right now. But the benefits of cased telescoped ammunition are striking, and I'm not sure what changes need to be made to the actual projectile for such a load to work. For example, can you put a boattail bullet in a cased telescoped round and expect it to work?

This is pretty typical for IT I'm afraid. Sure, the head of IT can do network stuff, and the CAD guys can help out, but didn't they already have full time work before this was added to their plate? It's fine of the reduced headcount is temporary, but it might behoove the head to make sure vacancies get backfilled in a timely manner. I've gotten myself into a lot of trouble this way at points in my career, because there's all kinds of things I can do, but if I work more than 50 hours a week, it all gets done pretty badly.

/googles strabismus Best wishes. Seems like the kind of thing that barbarian Western medicine should be pretty good at fixing, but still.

Nah, I'm sure nothing ever goes wrong with the network. My helpdesk admin is on vacation this week, and I swear if I get another weird Windows login problem I'm going to go mad. Well, you know, more mad.

Absolutely. I've seen data for 6.5mm Grendel and (especially) 6.8mm SPC that clearly show better range, better performance at range, and better terminal effects at almost any range, than the current 5.56mm standard. (And that's with a full length barrel for the 5.56mm, not the carbine barrels on the M4s that rob the bullet of all its velocity.)

As long as he's active somewhere. Some of his dialysis stories are awful.

Cased telescoped ammo is coming... http://kitup.military.com/2014/06/army-awards-contract-7-62mm-lsat.html

Speaking of dialysis, the Collie hasn't posted since April.

Well, that puts my doomed marriage into perspective. Sorry to hear the news. I do hope that you are spared the cycle of ER visits that we went through with the mother-in-law, one way or another.

I hate my life.

Your plan was elegant in its beauty and simplicity. Could there be a simpler plan? Get involved in a land war in Asia, perhaps?