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Cake day: February 25th, 2024

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  • Some classics are good enough to read. The problem is in forcing kids to try to do in-depth analysis. Even Charles Dickens or Charlotte Bronte isn’t all that bad to read, until you are squinting at every third word and wondering if this could mean something in the context of the whole book and just maybe you can write about it well enough in your stupid journal that you really want a B in so your parents don’t whip you with the belt again.











  • I have a friend who has, give or take a couple, wrecked vehicles more than 20 times. Most were minor, barely involving damage to the vehicle he was driving or the vehicle/object he hit, but a couple were catastrophic. I think the majority were because he has roadway hypnosis/narcolepsy. I’ve had him fall asleep mid sentence talking to me when he was a passenger. A perfect candidate to have that license taken, right? The two ways I know of to take a license involve driving while intoxicated or a doctor personally notifying the licensing agency about a person’s inability to drive. Believe it or not, most doctors have a vested interest (because they want clients) in not personally notifying the agency. However, there is no set path to revoke a license for simply being a bad driver.




  • No, and yes. You can start a brand new account on the first day of a league and be at par with everyone else. The vast majority of the game is accessible with no demands on you aside from time and skill. Every purchase you make is cosmetic only, simply changing the way some spells look or giving you a pet that follows you around and looks cool while doing nothing extra.

    The one exception? Stash tabs. Tabs that specialize in holding certain items for you in your stash. Tabs that let you sell items to others with greater ease. It has gotten to the point where if you want to be best of the best, you should probably have the extra tabs. Why? Because at the endgame, you’ll need to start trading for items that make your build sing, or simply eke out the extra 15% damage that multiplies with other sources to make your dps soar into the millions, because PoE is all about finding something that you can push past where it was supposed to stop being good. Without those stash tabs, making cool items or easily trading with others is much more difficult.

    Now, how much would it cost you to be ‘competitive’ with tabs? Probably $10 at most. For a game that I’ve played for over a decade and probably 1000-2000 hours at this point, I think the <$100 bucks I’ve thrown their way is worth it. I have friends who love the game and likely have 3k+ hours in it, and they’ve only spent $150 or so. I think that’s pretty reasonable for that much enjoyment.




  • It’s the exact same phenomenon that several other fandoms or belief groups have gone through. First, start a satirical society and laugh about the foolishness with boon companions. Enjoy the companionship. Second, expand so that the society doesn’t die when you leave college or the location. Begin recruiting folks and telling them about your society. Third, watch as people join and some don’t realize it’s satirical. Disbelief dawns on the originals. Fourth, the true believers take over as the people in on the joke slowly leave due to all sorts of reasons, including no longer finding the society funny because of the true believers.

    I watched it happen with bronies (not the furry sexual folks, 4chan already had those, but just people who were really, really into the show) on 4chan, a ‘drinking’ club at my college that was a joke because they only drank water at the meetings (at first, anyway), and a local activity (can’t name it because it’s specific and would give it away) club that was truly supposed to be just a social gathering but is now populated by a gaggle of 70 year old women fervently taking part.