The Sword band, and their second album Gods Of The Earth.

It is burned into my brain. Epic viking rock opera created by a garage band in Texas.

My apparently encyclopedic knowledge of early internet culture and deep cut 80s-90s media. I knew I was well versed, but thought that what I knew was near baseline. Just recently I had to explain the connection between Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid and the movie Escape From New York to someone astonished I was pulling out all kinds of details from an “obscure” old movie.

Read more better.

Ok, but if you are still tailgating me in the right lane because I’m doing the speed limit, I’m allowed to deploy James Bond style gadgets from my car at you.

All bags of pet food must be self sealing.

Your wish is granted. All pet food bags now have integrated AI to help with SmartSeal self sealing.

A finger on the monkey’s paw curls.

Just a phone camera. A little older. I keep the lens clean and take about a 1000 pictures and pick out the best few

The early use of this reaction gif was a little too new wave for my taste. But when wojacks started getting so many variations, I think it really came into its own, commercially and artistically. The whole reaction has a clear, crisp pixelation, and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that really gives the gif a big boost. It’s been compared to frogposting, but I think Buzzposting has a far more bitter, cynical sense of humor.

On the other side of the spike wall in an inner moat. I presume the inner spikes help trap people and creates a kill zone. Also arranging spikes in an X pattern is simple to produce.

Space Jam, for sure.

I really love when RPGs give unique dialog options based on non-dialog skills.

For example, if you are spec’d into a certain class of weapon you unlock dialog with a relevant vendor. Or if you have a high gambling skill, your character can talk about the finer points of gambling.

Taking this a step further, reactivity from having accomplished something requiring application of these skills allowing unique dialog.

This can all either be unique flavor dialog, dialog that gets the conversation to where it would have gone anyway, or dialog that opens up new quests or quest resolutions.

Always keep an updated resume. If you are at a current job and accomplish something or get some kind of skill, put it on the resume or a word doc. Just keep everything up to date so that when you leave you have material to work with. Similarly, make sure to have contact info for people who will have your back. (Not like most places actually call, but it never hurts to be prepared).

When actively tuning up a resume for a job search, I’ve always been told to keep it just to one page. Having many pages of bloat has been told to me to be turn off. I usually have made variations of a resume during job searches to cater to different jobs by highlighting different relevant topics.

Know what kind of work and environment you are most comfortable with when looking for a job. Know what kind of downsides you are willing to accept. Some jobs with unique downsides like weird schedules, travel, or some sort of physical demand can have upsides in terms of valuing people who don’t run off. Of course, sometimes those jobs have downsides and don’t value employees, so I suppose you have to feel that out. If it is a job requiring special skills plus having the downsides it is more likely to value you.

Naturally, don’t trust interviews where the place is trying to oversell you on the job. Don’t trust places where they highlight things like a nice break room over actual benefits.

If you are going through a job agency, you often get temp-to-permanent offers. These are often sketchy, where they string along the temp contract workers with the promise of a permanent position but never serve it up. In my experience, both cubicle grunt work and entry level manufacturing do this a lot to people. On the other hand, some temp-to-hire positions are legit, and the temp time is basically a probation period that the company wants to be done with if the person is a good fit. In my experience with this, look around the workplace to see if they have any other temp people getting strung along, look to see how specific your value is, and look at the overall size of the company.

FWIW, my current job was a temp-to-hire situation. I was initially skeptical, but the interview sold me. Much of it was the boss who did not sugarcoat the downsides to the job, to be very clear with what I was getting into and what was expected, and make sure I was okay with it. There was a short kind of demonstration walkthrough of what I could expect. All this gave me the signal he was looking for a good fit and not just a warm body. My temp period was “up to” six months, but got cut off at about 3 when it was clear I was ready to stay.

In my experience, the people who told me high school was the best time had very boring adult lives.

I imagine the people who said this probably did have a fantastic time in high school. Probably to the point they ended up socially aimless afterward.

Perhaps I’m just over imagining, but I picture them reminiscing about scoring two touchdowns in a single high school game. The kind of people who post about high school memories on Facebook.

My years in middle and high school were rough for a lot of reasons. The last thing I needed were adults telling me “these are the best days of your life!”. That was the most demoralizing thing I could have imagined back then.

Once I was 18 and in control of my life, things got so much better. There have been different chapters, but they’ve all been good or at least memorable in their own way.

What I would (and have) told kids who are clearly having a rough time is that things can and will get better. When you’re a kid, and bad situations that are entirely out of your control to change are happening, life can be miserable. Eventually you get some agency, and that goes a long way. Sometimes as an adult, things come and happen too, but telling a kid who is currently miserable to look forward to something better is a lot more helpful. Barring some outside tragedy, life as an adult is much less grinding than being a kid shaped cog.

No, but it was a good suggestion. I had a whole cache of photos to sort through, and just happened to get to the armor before I saw the comment.

Since I sat out the last few of these, here’s my go.

Best one so far.