Genuinely curious:

Is the author saying that ACO and VBC were decent ideas that got UHG’s fingers grafted into the legal structure, or are they just saying that ACO and VBC are bad in general?

And I knew that we had some awful structures within our healthcare system, but I LOATHE UHG and didn’t realize that they OWN our medical system. Disgusting.

I see someone has found the back alley of the Geoff’s Trash Anime restaurant.

The update has been queued for about a month on my work computer. No. I won’t do it.

Guess I’m no longer an Apple fan. Huh. I’m just locked in at this point. Switching would just spread my data around more and I’m already committed to not upgrading for a few years.

So Prey team made Redfall and Dishonored team is making the new Blade game? Good to know!

Been playing Dishonored for the first time and really enjoying it. I’m only at the bridge and trying to play a low/no kill game. I’m not succeeding just yet, but it’s been really enjoyable and they do stealth really well. I’m baffled that they mismanaged to get the team that made this and Prey to push out Redfall? Man.

Just picked up FFVII after the second or third hiatus or my third or fourth attempt to play it. FINALLY made it to the Nibelheim story and past Midgard. And that somehow still manages to work on me as a first time player.

Just beat Banner Saga 1 and have never felt so much like a failure after “beating” a game. That game is trying to unseat This War of Mine for decisions regretted/minute.

I’m wanting to start up my Nintendo series playthroughs again by either starting Mario Galaxy 2 or trying to remember what on earth was happening in Majora’s Mask (3DS) something about the water temple maybe?

I use “Observational Maintenance” all the time:

When you ask someone to look at a problem and it’s fixed by the time they do.

A friend showed me an issue they’d been having for over a YEAR. I did almost NOTHING and it was working by the time I looked at it.

More often than not it’s me that looks dumb, though.p

I beat Hyper Light Drifter for the first time. And I think I spent some time on the new Mario kart levels, though that might have been last week.

HLP is a fascinating game with a novel approach to gameplay and world building. A few controls issues annoyed me, but they were growing pains and not fully learning the system. I love games that use that particular art style. I think I’m doing Mario Galaxy next.

I’m trying to figure out my second Voucher game to get.

My top choices are: Arceus - I enjoy pokemon, but it sounds like a lot of “research” busy work. Pikmin 4 - I haven’t clicked with Pikmin demos previously, but the idea has always seemed pretty interesting if I’d let it go farther. Mario Wonder - feels shorter, and more peripheral to my interest, but I’ve heard great things. Xenoblade 3 - I’ve only played XBX before and not all the way through. RPGs aren’t completely my thing, but I’ve heard great things.

None of them are THE game I’m after with pros and cons to each. The decision paralysis is rough and I don’t see anything worth waiting for before May.

They got a pandemic too. The “Spanish” flu hit right after ww1. AND they had their own antimaskers.

It’s two halves of a bagel stuck together with jam and peanut butter to reform a solid torus. It’s math. They COULD have had an easy time eating your math, but the construction made it more difficult.

That game should be mailed directly to dictators and war mongers everywhere.

“THIS. THIS is what you want for your people? For ANY people? “

For me, my “misery is the point” game was This War of Mine. I got it just before Ukraine, but still couldn’t stomach it. My first character had a kid that was constantly crying and whimpering and I just couldn’t do it. I was bad at it—if you can be good. I couldn’t help others in the ways that I wanted to. I couldn’t stop the whimpering. Then I went out as someone else and came back and the dad and kid left. And I had to stop there for a bit.

I set it down to come back later, then Ukraine happened. Where it was hard to stomach while I knew this was hypothetical and the Euro-setting was pretty abstracted from the current reality there—though still very present elsewhere—knowing that people on the ground were looking and sounding similar to what was happening in game and seeing that in news daily just cut off any desire I had to play. It’s powerful and DEEPLY empathetic, but that spiral of misery and failure was the point and it made it in spades.

At the funeral home for my FiL talking about urns. We ask about the little ones they have. While doing their little pitch, the funeral director says that “they hold a spoonful of the- the-“ and one of my FiL’s children finishes “spoon full of dad”.

And now I can’t think about cremation without thinking about “spoon full of dad”.

That man put out fantastic videos. I’d love to see him continue to do so.

This is one of the finest.

To your edit, OP said ONLY the melons, no other fruit.

This is a gross overreach. Just stop.

I feel like the sci-fi trope of an ai that chews through everything in its way to achieve a single goal with no consideration for complexity or other factors isn’t sci-fi, but it also isn’t the ai that’s doing it. There are groups like the ESRB who simply want to reduce their job to a single goal with no consideration for complexity or other factors likely these children’s privacy (which should be one of ESRB’s goals, arguably).

Just like in those stories, these groups are chewing through other aspects of life that are absolutely significant in order to optimize a single metric to the exclusion of all else.

This week? I barely grabbed a few minutes on TotK, about to grab a few sage masks.

Currently, though, I’m playing TotK and Garden story. I finished Shredders revenge last week and am about to start Planet of Lana.

TotK is all consuming and so incredible, but I take breaks with other stuff and have REALLY been enjoying Garden story—cute, kind, and delightful.

I second Transistor as an INCREDIBLE game.

Gris and Crypt of the Necrodancer were great too. Though I’ve yet to finish either. Loosely in the vein of Gris, I enjoyed both monument valleys too.

I enjoyed the chill, stylized vibes in Sable. Coming of age, botw-inspired exploration, beautiful world. No (?)Combat—I don’t remember fully, but very little at least. Just explore, experiment, and engage the world around you. A passable world-build/story too!

I was super excited to hear they’ve got another game coming! I’ve done all of their others and had at least a good time with each!