I've been with this group for 7 years, will be 8 in January.
This is only the second time I've DM'D. Not because I don't want to, we have a person dedicated to the role and he's pretty good. I'm doing this to give him a break and give the other players, who are all much younger, a look at what old school AD&D was like while playing modern rules.
Also, I've never considered myself a very good DM.
Oh I'm sure this is just going to go splendidly.
/s in case someone needs it.
First time in a month my Friday night D & D group is playing. I'm DM'ing a homebrew campaign I created on various adventures I've played over the last 48 years.
Had to go through my notes today and adjust a few things.
Why the hiatus? We're all adults with lives of our own.
Bold move Cotton.
Mitosis is connected to my fetuses.
Somewhat known fact:
In Return of the Jedi, Han throws a bag and knocks an Imperial Officer off the gangway falling to his death.
That officer was none other than Ben Burtt himself who was the sound designer for the Star Wars series and responsible for popularizing the Wilhelm Scream in modern cinema.
For chocolate chip cookies, go with Alton Brown's newest version on YouTube.
That recipe is light years ahead of any other recipe I've tried. Just make sure to rest the dough in the fridge for a minimum of 6 hours. It really does make a difference. Also get them in the oven when they are still cold, don't let the dough warm up.
My wife and I just started watching that show last week...
I finally get the reference.
56m here and I look like a simple farmer, a person of the land. The common clay of the Midwest, you know.... A moron.
The reality is I don't own a gun although I can handle one. My vocabulary is quite broad and I can use sesquipedalian words rather adroitly. I drive a hybrid Camry and my wife is highly intelligent and educated. She actually holds two doctorates. I didn't have a problem staying at home with our two boys while she got her career off the ground. Our oldest is starting at Northwestern in two weeks.
My political leanings got me disowned from my Maga loving family and I'm just fine with that.
But I still look the part of a Midwest redneck.
I like both to be honest.
With that said, I actually lean more toward the Fi end of things, because when a book or movie gets something obviously wrong it's really grating. Where as with technobabble it's true in that universe, so who am I to contradict it. It's easier to stay in the moment.
As a case in point, I actually turned Prometheus off at the point when it's stated the ship traveled a billion miles... Or you know, out to Jupiter. The writers could have taken 10 seconds to educate themselves that as far as distances in space go, a billion miles isn't even out of your own yard yet. Much less an interstellar distance. Given the reviews on the rest of the movie, I apparently didn't miss much. Yes, I'm aware that Prometheus is solidly in the Fi end of the spectrum, but come on... Some one actually thought a billion miles was an interstellar distance? JFC education is really going down the tubes.
Paper route when I was 14.
Yes, I'm aware that paper routes aren't really a thing any longer... I'm old.
Well, I hate to break it to them, I can't sustain it either.
So I don't plan on buying anything for the foreseeable future. Even if something experiences a failure, I'll just go without, or pull out an older device out of retirement. I don't really need the latest and greatest anyway. If it comes down to it and I do need to replace a piece of hardware, it'll come from the used market, or god forbid I get my soldering iron out and fix it.
Used to buy the 12 box from a local chocolatier that is absolutely fantastic. The owner was trained in France and Belgium and her creations are as good or better than anything I've eaten.
Six years ago, the price for a 12 piece box was $24. Today it is $36. I used to keep a box around almost constantly. Now it is only for holidays and birthdays.
Personal Computers: As an IT professional, I've always been a miser when it comes to computer hardware. I usually buy something 2 or so generations old and refurbish it myself, then use it for several years till it suffers a catastrophic failure. I'm not a serious gamer, so I don't care if it can run the latest games at trillions of frames per microsecond. Now, even 4 generations back the machines are abhorrently expensive. Costing as much as they did when new, which is ridiculous. The manufacturing burn through due to AI is idiotic. When the investment into AI finally crashes, which I'm shocked hasn't happened yet, these manufacturers are going to be scrambling to get back into the consumer market.
I saw one of those in my garden last year. They are absolutely gorgeous insects.
I love me some cookie dough...
With that said, it isn't the eggs that are the problem in raw dough, it's the flour.
You can get seriously sick from eating raw flour.
With that, you would change your tune if you had one of my cookies.
Chocolate chip cookies with brown butter.
It's based on Alton Brown's chocolate chip cookie recipe, I just added brown butter and replaced some of the milk with soy sauce...
Yes, soy sauce... Trust me it works wonders.
Back in the early 90's I managed a Radio Shack and had an employee that could get away with murder talking to customers.
One day he was at the counter showing one of our regular customers programmable police scanners. One thing about this regular customer was he was dumb as a brick. He often brought back items because he flat out could not figure out how to use them. My employee was DETERMINED to sell this guy a programmable scanner, not the easiest bit of kit to use, and not have him return it. On the 4th time trying to show the guy how to program it my employee looked the customer straight in the face and said this gem:
"Don't worry, you just have to be smarter than the product."
Fortunately, he was the only customer in the store. I was standing at the other end of the counter working on a display when I heard that. I had to run to the back room before exploding with laughter.
The customer never caught on. He even walked out with one of the most expensive scanners and he never returned it.
Flip Over Read Directions
Home Despot
Blood Bath and Beyond
Wally World: But not for Walmart. When I was a teenager I worked for a garden center called "Walnut Ridge" and everyone that worked there referred to as that.
That's exactly why my current employer hired me. I have 30 years experience in my field in a wide variety of environments.