Swallow Whole used to be my favorite mechanic with large creatures like dragons, hydras, or what have you.

I mean, it’s both narratively and mechanically a powerful ability. Usually the creature gets a bite attack with Improved Grab, so they get a free grapple if they hit. Then the next turn if they have a grappled creature in their mouth, they swallow them. From there it’s usually continuous acid / bludgeoning damage, but the swallowed creature gets a chance to fight their way out or get rescued.

Being grappled was already somewhat debilitating, but you could usually ignore it. But when you get swallowed it immediately raises the stakes. It also means you can’t ignore getting grappled because it can become so much worse so quickly.

Then one day one of my players noticed I was using the ability a lot and accused me of having a vore fetish. Now I don’t really use Swallow Whole at all

I try to win as the DM.

“Winning” in this case being that everyone had a good time.

If only I could be a work-from-home dildo dipper…

Goodbye

I don’t remember where I heard it, but I do remember hearing that one of the signs you’re in a dream is that your phone doesn’t work properly. Which leads me into this dream I had recently:

I was asleep, when my phone wakes me up. I don’t remember it actually ringing, just thinking “someone is trying to call me,” so I answer it and do my best to pretend I wasn’t just sleeping. We don’t have an actual conversation, like no words are exchanged, but through the inscrutable logic of dreams I ascertain that the caller is an old acquaintance setting me up for a job interview. We hang up and I go back to sleep.

Next thing I know I’m at the mall wondering if this was where my interview was supposed to be. I try to think back on the conversation but I don’t remember anything other than being really sleepy. For a moment I suspect that I must have imagined the conversation, maybe it was all just a dream. I don’t remember who I’m supposed to meet, where I’m supposed to meet them, or what job I’m supposed to be interviewing for. Then I reason that I wouldn’t have come to the mall unless I was supposed to, so I decide to fake it til I make it.

Sure enough, I find my old acquaintance who introduces me to someone I’ve never met about the job. We start chatting for a bit, and then the job interview turns into a scavenger hunt and I’m sent off into the mall with my prospective employer’s shopping list. I wake up before I find out if I got the job.

I did this one campaign which was a hexcrawl where the party was shipwrecked on an island purported to hide the lost city of gold.

The site of the shipwreck was home base, but the party obviously wanted to explore. There were some NPC crewmate survivors, so they would assign them to work on projects while they were exploring. I would always tell them that “some guy” was working on their stuff.

Cut to a few months later when they have a sort of mutiny on their hands. It seems that one crew member in particular was fed up with how much work they had to do while the party went adventuring that they turned the crew against the party.

The mutinous ringleader’s name? Sum Gai

There’s this ad I keep seeing that I really despise. It’s for teeth-whitening toothpaste. The actress is wearing a white coat then holds up a tissue to her teeth, lamenting that her sparkling white teeth are ‘still yellow’

They cut away to teach you how toothpaste works, because surely you’ve never heard of this newfangled thing, and when they cut back she’s no longer wearing her white coat and says how much whiter her teeth are.

It’s transparently obvious that the wardrobe and tissue are just to give you something whiter to look at. But like… your teeth aren’t supposed to be freakishly white. It’s just something that Big Toothpaste wants you to feel bad about the way your body is. Also, using whitening toothpaste when you don’t need it can damage your enamel and cause you long term problems.

Well as long as Bill says it’s cool, I guess I don’t have to form my own opinion

Fucking hell, this damn shit-ass is making us read this bitch-dick piss /s

Maybe it’s because I listen to some pretty dystopian stuff, but I’m surprised Hell isn’t more popular. Then again, I suppose the billboard hits are usually a bit more bubbly than all that.

I have the D&D 3.5 core rulebooks on my shelf in the nerd nook. I know that I’m never going to play 3.5 again, but it’s the system I first got into the hobby with. It would feel wrong to get rid of my personal history of nerdship.

This feels relevant:

I am not a biologist, but the way I was taught was that monkeys have tails and apes do not.

As far as the spelling, “monkeys” is correct.

You may be thinking that you want the plural of monkey, but because it ends in y the ending should become -ies. For example: berry -> berries

However, that rule is a little more complicated, and the ending of monkey is -ey. Because there is a vowel before the y the ending you don’t have to change the -y to -ie and instead simply add -s

English is stupid.

Looks like the author forgot the header for number 3: Snowpiercer.

Anybody here subscribe to the theory that Snowpiercer is a sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Once heard I can’t unsee it.

Last week I bought a gallon of water and while transferring it from the bag to the car I dropped it on the pavement. Helplessly watching as the bottle burst, and it all drained away.

Let’s pour one out for each other

My understanding is that no amount of anti-virus software replaces common sense. As long as you’re not downloading sketchy programs and giving them permission to run, you’re pretty well set.

Some people might tell you that there’s no viruses on Linux, but that isn’t exactly true. Linux has something like 2% of the desktop market, which makes it less attractive to develop malware for - but 2% of a few billion computers is still millions of potential targets. Not to mention that Linux dominates the server market, and arguably that’s where malware is more valuable. To think that there’s no malware targeting Linux is naive.

Many anti-virus suites are effectively malware though. If you decide you do need AV software make sure to do your research before installing any.

Anyway, long story, I don’t personally use an anti-virus, and for your stated uses I’m not sure I’d recommend one.

If you’re mostly using it as a web browser then I would definitely recommend a solid ad blocker. UBlock Origin is free, highly esteemed, and can be installed as an extension to whatever browser you’re currently using.

I used to have really bad chicken-scratch printing and I wanted to improve.

The exercise that really stuck out for me was to find a font I liked in a book on calligraphy and started practicing the alphabet.

Before I started practicing, I didn’t pay much attention to how I was forming a letter, I’d just draw it - and it would look messy. Once you start looking at each letter as a discrete number of strokes you start paying attention to the small parts and the whole looks much better.

If you’re really lucky, you’ll find a guide with arrows showing which way to draw each stroke. Super helpful. Note that this font uses a fountain pen, so it’ll look different with a standard ballpoint:

Okay, but corpos aren’t training one model and being done with it. They’re training thousands of models, tweaking hyperparameters to find the correct fine tuning needed.

Also, putting the scale at 180,000 miles of driving makes it sound more insane to me. The earth is like 25,000 miles. If you could drive on the ocean, you could circumnavigate the globe seven times over!

So does this mean that the “Second Breakfast” contingent of the Fellowship can be stored in one Hobnibble? Seems apt.

I suppose if you’re going to die of the beetus it might as well be in your sleep

Vincenzo, beati sumus?