My body has decided to remind me that I am not in control of it after 8 weeks of going to the gym regularly.
Yesterday I came home from work feeling like crap after coughing really badly the 2 nights before.
I attributed it to running on no sleep and reclined my couch to take a nap.
As soon as I reclined, without warning, I vomited halfway across the room. I ran outside, it was closer than the bathroom. After I finished, I felt a little better.
When I went to bed, as soon as I laid on my back, I started puking again.
I was able to lay on my side, but I am unable to sleep like that for more than 45 minutes.
Went to the Dr. and after about 3 hours, he was able to see me and gave me an anti-nausea drug that seems to be working. I am going to bed now because I am exhausted.
Monday I should be back to working out.
Hope you are all doing better than me.
take care
I was taken down one day of work this week by a cold. My wife just came down with it. She’s not super happy with me right now.
Feel better!
Bonus Japanese. One doesn’t “catch” a cold one “pulls” a cold.
Which is worse? Being sick or having a sick wife?
Hope you both are better soon.
I’d think the worst case is you both sick at the same time.
Being a woman and having a sick husband, or so I’m told.
Damn. That’s actually impressive.
Hope you feel better soon.
All I can think of is the awful chore of cleaning that up. I’d end up vomitting again just trying to get it off the floor 🤮
Accuracy would be more impressive than distance.
Spew is an area of effect attack. You just need to catch the target in the spray
It’s spelled “spiw”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Purpose_Individual_Weapon
Get well sir!
2 weeks ago I had a scheduled colonoscopy. While I was knocked out, I had acid reflux that went all the way up into my throat and down into my left lung. X-Rays said I had pneumonia the next day. My voice is just coming back now.
Then my wife totalled her car couple days later.
I think I’ve been pretty level headed and stoic through it all.
I will pat you on the back for your excellent application of what you’ve learned here. Great job Drake.
It’s also hard to yell with no voice.
Yikes. I have one next month. I did not know that was possible.
If the prep crap gives you heartburn, proceed with caution.
It didn’t last time. 🤞
Woah. That quickly escalated. I hope you and the Mrs. are doing ok.
Thank you! We are good. Not pleased, but will endeavor to preserve.
“I attributed it to running on no sleep and reclined my couch to take a nap.”
I hate it when that happens. You’re in denial about it, but deep down you know something’s wrong. Hope you feel better soon.
Better get boosted.
Hope you’re feeling better, Ron.
I’m not a doctor nor do I play one on TV but it seems rest/sleep eat a little when you can and slowly begin to to feel better.
Get well ASAP!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf2GR_byL7A&list=RDNf2GR_byL7A&start_radio=1
I think I’ve been pretty level headed and stoic through it all.
Could be worse
Hey, buddy – stop doing that. Your body is trying to tell you something.
“You have Norovirus”
If it were Norovirus, you’d be projectile vomiting from both ends. I do not recommend this.
Middle age sucks.
The only thing worse is old age.
Trump’s tariffs just struck down by Supreme Court.
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2026/02/20/scotus-strikes-down-tariffs/
The obvious conspiracy theory is:
1. Trump is in the pocket of Big Corporations.
2. Trump imposes illegal tariffs.
3. Big Corporations pass the tariffs onto consumers.
4. Tariffs overruled, Trump gives the taxes collected back to the Big Corporations.
5. Trump raises taxes on the consumers to make up for the lost tariff revenue.
6. Consumers pay tariffs THREE TIMES!
7. Lucky Howard Lutnick gets lucky again.
https://x.com/i/status/2024880571336507885
They were struck down under IEEPA. Apparently there are multiple other statutes he can use to impose tariffs.
Good on Congress – give away that power to tax as many ways as possible. WCPGW?
Trump press conference interrupted the wife’s soap – she is not pleased. He’s also just being a bigger ass than usual.
https://x.com/whitehouse/status/2024919975870202368
Trump is petty and vindictive when he feels people aren’t loyal to him.
We already knew that.
The man’s been an asshole his entire adult life.
I could have used some stoicism yesterday. I called the IRS four times yesterday trying to get them to mail a refund that is owed to my mom from 2024. Four times I got cut off when they put me on hold after waiting to talk to someone and going through their whole verification process.
I call the IRS and state tax departments frequently. The scam now with some states (not the IRS yet at least) is they direct you to online portals to place your complaint. After months of waiting for a response, they give you a few days to respond, which if there is no response they close the case. My Maryland case from the fall got sent to spam when I was on vacation and they were just “lol, open a new one.”
Hope you feel better, ron. Wife and I both got sick about two weeks ago. Flu or norovirus. For me, similar sudden onset of vommiting, but made it to the porcelain throne in time to give it proper worship.
We’re all stuffy and feeling crummy for the last two weeks. Weather change, cat decided to come back in after three years as a 100% outdoor cat, new neighbors with lights shining in our windows all night. A flurry of changes in the household. I’m hoping we’ll get over it this weekend and back to normal.
I hope you feel better ASAP, Ron!
Fixed, at least for now, the issue of lacking access to my email after some difficulty changing my password. I now realize that I DO, in fact, need some stoicism in my life, not for anger management (ugly rumors/stereotypes about redheads notwithstanding) but for anxiety management. Dealing with all the little ways a mysterious data breach can rear its ugly head gets pretty darn stressful. 😟
What had actually gone wrong?
I’m still not sure what caused it, but the email provider kept wanting to send the security code to the email I couldn’t access (as I speculated earlier, I think it was because the phone number associated with the account is a land line.) Finally got a rep who could text the code to my cell.
😣
I was going to joke about “To finish resetting your password to your email, click the link in the email we sent you”
Whoah, the sidebar and featured image just disappeared
Yes. Yes, they did.
Just got the quote for Bro2’s hood house foundation repair. $11,300. LOLno.
That’s a decent chunk of change, but I expected foundation work to be costlier.
Go the Home Depot and dump a couple bags of quickrete down the hole and call it good. $20. Shovel some dirt over the hole.
I was going to go the whole steel wool and spray foam insulation route, but this is better, thanks. It’s been a long time since I DIY’d and could come up with decent workarounds.
I’m anti Spray foam, it’s amazing what people try to ‘fix’ with that crap.
I’m fairly handy and am suspicious of contractors as well as I’ve seen so much garbage work done by so called professionals. And plenty of missed stuff on inspections that I wouldn’t let slip by.
Street wool and spray foam? You’re not trying to fix a truck frame.
Nauseating
Late last month the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works held a hearing on the federal environmental review and permitting process for such infrastructure projects as pipelines, powerplants, fossil energy extraction, mining, refinery equipment, ad infinitum.
So broken is the process that — believe it or not — there was bipartisan agreement that reform is necessary. So broken is the process that a recent McKinsey study found that about $1.5 trillion in proposed projects are stalled in years-long permitting delays, imposing annual economic losses of $100 billion to $150 billion. And the McKinsey estimate is biased downward, because the permitting delays hinder investment in the underlying productive activities that would utilize the infrastructure projects delayed or not built.
So broken is the process that significant environmental damage is one obvious result, as older infrastructure not technologically up to date, physically deteriorating, and inefficient is left in place because the endless permitting delays create a large bias in favor of the status quo.
And, of course, “environmental review” is the biggest and most effective roadblock.
via wiki:
“Since about 1900, the Black Canyon and nearby Boulder Canyon had been investigated for their potential to support a dam that would control floods, provide irrigation water, and produce hydroelectric power. In 1928, Congress authorized the project. The winning bid to build the dam was submitted by a consortium named Six Companies, Inc., which began construction in early 1931. Such a large concrete structure had never been built before, and some of the techniques used were unproven. The torrid summer weather and lack of facilities near the site also presented difficulties. Nevertheless, Six Companies turned the dam over to the federal government on March 1, 1936, more than two years ahead of schedule.”
Get the feds out of “infrastructure”. End the epa. Let states deal with eachother if they have problems being downstream from a dam or any other project that may have cross border impacts.
Throwing up in chairs is bad. Definitely rest before you befoul any more furniture. Also, tubs and vomit don’t mix; i.e., Keith Moon. Definitely do not play the drums while ill and lounging in a tub.
Now, I know a lot of you people play Dungeons and Dragons. Who would be willing to spill their brains as to the ins and outs and intricacies of the culture, personalities, and possibly game play so I can construct a budding mage?
‘Scuse me. A budding serious villainous mage who is a legit threat but can also walk just on the inside of the caricature/cliche line?
A budding mage is really not a legit threat form their magic. It would need to come from legal/political/family circumstances.
The way I’ve set up my universe, being able to wield magic is a latent ability akin to being a whiz at higher math, with a functionally infinite amount of ambient energy floating around doing nothing productive.
My main character is an alchemist who’s been around long enough to be able to do whatever he wants, but he got stuck being a lawyer to other myths, folklore characters, legends, and whatnots who are at the mercy of a modern, legalistic, authoritarian, bureaucratic society. These beings see him as “the help” or their plumber or, rarely, their patriarch, but otherwise a magical ATM to keep them out of trouble and largely employed, and the majority of them resent him because they need him. His firm is pretty much the Island of Misfit Toys. He’s not some sort of “chosen one,” just one who had the IQ to identify the energy and started out in the right time period and headspace to be able to harness it, and the discipline to keep himself in check.
I have no real villain. I’m thinking about someone who’s on the rise and not looking for intellectual enlightenment.
I’m thinking about someone who’s on the rise and not looking for intellectual enlightenment.
Ayn Randian bureaucrat?
Legit LOL. No. Just a self-absorbed punk who coulda been a contenda in the real world, but sunk himself into the Neckbeard Nest life and fell into what he was only fantasizing about.
So there are a couple of tropes when it comes to evil mages in D&D (not counting crazed demon worshippers/evil-for-evil’s sake sadists and the like). One of the “I want power, magic is power, I want magic.” The other is “magic is beautiful and the only thing that matters.” You googled Raistlin, so you know he’s the first trope (with a heaping helping of resentment, fear and self-pity). His apprentice Dalamar is the second trope.
Oh, yes, precisely. Someone who can’t get along in society, doesn’t want to change, is chock-full of resentment, and wants to get back at it.
So, if I’m understanding the premise correctly (part of it being that it relates to D&D culture and gameplay), then regardless of what you choose to call it in the novel, you’re looking at a 3rd edition and forward wizard or pre-3rd edition mage/Magic user/MU. Now I mention this because rules-lawyering is a very big part of D&D culture, to the point where the players and the DM were seen as adversaries sometimes. So if the villain started there and it affects how he goes about developing, he’s going to adhere to class conventions, which are:
Intellect >> everything else
New powers come from research
Low level players learn spells created by earlier mages
High level mages can invent their own spells, but it takes time and money. Which means they’re mainly stuck with what already exists, so rumors of something new are important.
Physical combat = bad.
Oh, excellent! Thank you!
Culture, personalities, and game play of D&D players? Or of wizards in the D&D lore base?
Moj sounds like she’s talking about Raistlin Majere.
I googled Raistlin Majere.
I THINK what I want somebody who got obsessed/lost in the game and is ASPIRING to be an all-powerful sorcerer, convinced he can become that, and he’s started to have a little success.
Ah, I think I understand now.
Well, depending on the era, things are going to look very different in how the initial delusion manifests.
In the OG games, spells were very specific, and to be researched individually and your brain could only hold a limited number at a time (your 1st level mage could literally only know one spell at a time). Whenever you cast a spell you forgot it.
By the later editions you had wizards who worked basically like this (except that they could keep more in their head and just exhausted their magic power by casting), sorcerers who just had these spells as inborn knowledge and warlocks who got their abilities through bargaining with supernatural beings who lent them magic.
So you have a lot of freedom on how you want the magic process to look.
Present day or actually maybe about 10 years in the future. 4Chan and Reddit and the dark web are going to figure into this heavily. Part of my sorcerer’s worry is the number of self-appointed sleuths who don’t mind ruining people’s lives to hunt them down just to prove they’re right.
My thinking is that, it just so happens that one of these denizens of 4Chan/Reddit is ALSO using code somehow. Not run-of-the-mill malicious code. Something more intricate. Not sure of the architecture yet.
If you have someone who wants to become an all-powerful magician by becoming one, you’ll probably want to go with either the Wizard or Warlock class. The Sorceror class has their powers by virtue of their birth and they don’t work on their magical powers. Plus, their main stat is charisma, which is NOT something that 4Channers are famous for. Wizards who classically search out knowledge via books would seem to be readily adaptable to the internet. Warlocks rely on a patron, which doesn’t seem to be what you’re looking for.
I have thought deeply about the labels (which label gets their power from which source) and I’ve decided I just don’t want to deal with “wellackshually he’s a wizard” because to me, “wizard” says “Harry Potter.” Hart (my sorcerer) hates “magician,” because that’s Penn & Teller. His law firm is Warre & Locke because it was amusing to him at the time. He considers himself an alchemist (scientist) first and foremost, and an engineer secondly. Being a lawyer is a price he pays to be part of a community he never had.
I don’t know any of this stuff and *I* think that’s to my benefit. I don’t have to adhere to standard rules and definitions. What I need is how this might play out in real life with somebody who kinda tripped over it by accident.
Which is to say, my “evil” “mage” would adhere to whatever classes and labels religiously (maybe that’s what you meant, so if so, I apologize), but my main character doesn’t.
There was a very good series of Baen novels from twenty-odd years ago, that dealt with an expert UNIX systems programmer who was summoned into a magic-using alternate reality to defeat the Evil One.
Magic, in this alternate reality, could theoretically be used by anyone, but casting a spell required extremely complected verbal and somatic components to be repeated *perfectly* or else the spell would fail. Hence, being a wizard required decades of intensive training, a near-photographic memory, and autistic levels of hyperfocus.
Our hero was initially cast off as a useless mistake by the summoner, but he spends most of the book applying junior-high-level programming principles to the magic system, and eventually ends up with a functional operating system for spellcasting.
I’ll try to remember the name of the series, if that sounds like something in your line…
ES, my search fu points me to https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/631233.Wizard_s_Bane
I’ve been buying 3.5 books but haven’t played since the late 90s.
Would love to find a game group and get my son playing.
I would also love to get into a new game. I’m picky about systems though. 3.5 is way too rule-heavy for my liking (on the plus side, 3.5 came out before most of the woke bullshit really got spun up.)
That’s why I settled on 3.5.
Plenty of the older art in the books too.
When my buddies and I played we played adnd2, which was pretty rule heavy but we played more story, less rules. So much depends on the DM
3.5 very much appeals to my inner munchkin. Though I hate that it got taken over by LNs. I mean, a rod of wonder? AYFKM?
I’m not married to this idea. I’m doodling.
Speaking of sleeping on your side…
I got a BiPAP the other day.¹ Apparently I have a large and unruly tongue that, when left to its own devices, prevents me from breathing several hundred times in a given night. This probably has something to do with my insanely high blood pressure.
My sleep doctor also suggested that I sleep on my side while using the CPAP. I usually sleep on my right side anyway, but for some reason while wearing the BDSM mask I can’t sleep on my right side. It’s just weirdly uncomfortable. So I’m trying to train myself to sleep on my left side. This isn’t something I expected to need to change at 47.
I also think that I’m swallowing air a little bit. Or maybe more than a little bit. When I woke up this morning (slept great, BTW) I was uncomfortably bloated, and I proceeded to let out a fart that belongs in the Guinness Book of World Records (for duration and frequency range both.)
Why yes, I do live alone. How could you tell?
–
¹ – A BiPAP is similar to a CPAP, but BiPAPs like boys and girls both, while CPAPs go for one or the other.²
² – I tried that joke on my sleep doctor, and she literally blew a snot bubble laughing. She’s great.
Because another person would diminish the gun storage capacity of your residence?
Oh please, I don’t own that many guns.
*counts on fingers*
I could make do with six, but ten would be better.
(I actually have 37 if you count unfinished AR lowers and airguns…)
[It had to be said…]
You’re gonna need a bigger boat.
Differences from CPAP: While CPAP provides a single, constant pressure, BiPAP offers higher pressure during inhalation and lower pressure during exhalation, making it more comfortable for some users.
That’s cheating. You just need to be a man and learn how to breathe out against 16 centimeters of water pressure.
Guys that use CPAPs tend to get into dick measuring contests. I never met anyone that could top my setting of 16.
The doc said that they usually start people on a CPAP and only switch to a BiPAP if they can’t manage it, but my sleep apnea was severe enough that they’re not fucking around with possible half measures.
So far I haven’t found it terribly hard to get used to. I’ve paid way more money to wear uncomfortable stuff in bed.
We did also talk about an Inspire implant (basically a pacemaker for your tongue) but they don’t work quite as well, and also the insurance company is more likely to pay for the implant if you try a PAP and it doesn’t work. It’s on the back burner for now.
Say no more!
I can’t sleep on my right side for long. Gives me a stomach ache.
“Apparently I have a large and unruly tongue…”
It’s not the size of the tongue. It’s what you’re doing with it.
I’m still not sure if I know what the sidebar *is,* let alone if I’ve seen it. Desktop and phone. Or if I have seen it and it’s just ‘normal,’ it’s never been big enough for me to even think of commenting on it’s woefulness.
I’m glad I live in this world without such drama. Ignorance isn’t always my enemy! Off to work. Yesterday eve was dead. I predict the same.
*whispers*
I’m not really sure what everyone is bitching about either with the sidebar
Add me to the list of people who DGAF about the sidebar.
Adahn, I want to know what this sidebar is that concerns people. If I knew what it was I could form an opinion on it.
I’m guessing it’s a PC thing.
It’s gone again. No worries.
Me too.
I did a bunch of all nighters at work then ended up with three days off to compensate. Yesterday was day 2. Had a sour throat which I just figured was from vaping, then the other usual shit set it. Probably flue.
I’m sure you’ll recover just in time to return to work. (That’s how it works for me)
As long as it is an open post, I would like Tonio to comment on the moon bears:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCP3LZoxABs
I have been having these recurring nosebleeds. Same place, just won’t completely heal before I aggravate it again. It’s just a giant fucking nuisance. Back in the olden days, some crabby old GP could weld it up in two minutes. Now…
I finally got the idea of calling a fight studio to see if they had any useful suggestions or recommend a doctor. I got a name, but they’re only open Mon-Thu. What’s a few more days at this point?
https://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/ear-nose-and-throat-disorders/approach-to-the-patient-with-nasal-and-pharyngeal-symptoms/epistaxis
Also- found these handy little things from “Bleedstop”. A little cotton(?) nose plug infused with a coagulant. $10 for a box of three at Walmart.
You sure it’s not called Tampax?
You sure it’s not called Tampax?
Much smaller, fortunately. I believe there is a product called “nampons”.
These are used for nasal surgery. They’re cheap if you don’t get the ones pre-soaked in anticoagulant. Use Afrin for that. Something with Oxymetazoline.
Eric Berger tells us that 75% of the world’s population was not even born yet when men last walked on the moon.
Dang.
Personally, I remember watching the moon launch from Mrs Fortunado’s preschool. She brought in a TV and we all watched together. I made a fort to watch from out of those giant cardboard blocks with brick patterns painted on them.
What about you guys? Anyone else remember the launch and where you were? How about Apollo-Soyuz (on the living room floor. Gold shag carpet).
Link for Berger
https://x.com/i/status/2024896837719666721
I was born in 1982. We’d stopped going to the moon by then.
One small step? I was an infant.
The moon landings were all before I was born.
I do remember where I was when Challenger and Colombia were lost (my aunt and uncle’s apartment in Rhineland, Germany, and my futon in my apartment in West Lafayette, Indiana, respectively.)
I remember watching the Challenger blow up live on the AV cart with the BIG TV on it.
Teacher in Space..!!
::imagines Ron as Mr. Creosote::
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxRnenQYG7I
What about you guys? Anyone else remember the launch and where you were? How about Apollo-Soyuz (on the living room floor. Gold shag carpet).
I don’t remember the lunch but we watched Armstrong on the moon at my grandparents’ house on their antiquated black and white teevee.
We were back in the home town on vacation. The middle of summer. The grandparents did not have air conditioning. I remember lying on the floor in front of a big box fan waiting for Armstrong to take the first step.
Stand up for democracy
The first two months of the new year have shaken American political and civic life. The immigration crackdown in Minneapolis that led to two deaths and thousands of arrests sparked widespread public backlash. Degrading public discourse by our leaders and violence against lawmakers has become ubiquitous.
The White House’s proposal to use “military options” to acquire Greenland had both Americans and our European allies on edge. President Trump’s overreach in attacking Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, coupled with his recent call to nationalize elections, only fueled American’s distrust in our institutions.
——-
Many Americans are rightly distrustful of institutions that seem unable to deliver results, frustrated with a political class that appears disconnected from their daily struggles, and unsettled by a pace of change that feels overwhelming. This unease is understandable. But the answer is neither nostalgia for an imagined golden age nor the abandonment of liberal democracy itself. The response is recommitting to our foundational values and doing the hard work to ensure our leaders and institutions live up to them.
The day-to-day work of policymaking and reform will never go away. But we must do that work in service of something larger: a vision of American democracy that protects individual rights, constrains arbitrary power, treats citizens equally and fairly, and remains open to new ideas and diverse voices. These principles are not preferences to be traded away when politically convenient. They are the only thing standing between us and chaos.
More vapid whimwham boiling down to “democracy is what and who I say it is”. I’ll bet she doesn’t want any bad old extreme right populists deciding what constitutes liberty and justice,
It never occurs to the everyday Dems that the “chaos” and “constant crisis” and “scandals” are all manufactured by their side.
Good god who can slog through that pompous flapdoodle.
It tedious bullshit like that which leads people to be “rightly distrustful of institutions” you twit.
I have a headache.
I think my brain is trying to escape my skull again.
Probably just brain worms.
They need to pay rent by giving me psychic powers.
A few bumps of coke off the toilet seat should fix him up.
I only have Pyrolized coal.
I would recommend putting the target veloces on the Shadow 2, but IME close-range visual focus isn’t good for headaches.
Sorry Ron. I hope you feel better soon.
It never occurs to the everyday Dems that the “chaos” and “constant crisis” and “scandals” are all manufactured by their side.
Or that the vast “outraged masses” are actually a tiny segment of the population.