Results 211 to 240 of 1478
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2020-07-22, 08:12 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2011
- Location
- Canada
- Gender
Re: Sermil and the Banter of Randomness: Random Banter #228
That's the dark, secret consequence of taking on the lofty burden of making the silly fun place everyone talks in.
Also today I made alfredo sauce... in part because if I didn't the pasta I'd just started cooking would have no sauce at all and that just won't do. The end result was pretty great actually!
I'll be honest, the past couple months have been stressful what with all this stuff going on in my life, but also pretty good. Book's getting good reviews, my cooking skill is increasing, my health is getting better... all in all, things are looking up for me. I hope I can share all that with you all.
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2020-07-22, 08:15 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2014
- Gender
Re: Sermil and the Banter of Randomness: Random Banter #228
The stars predict tomorrow you'll wake up, do a bunch of stuff, and then go back to sleep.~ That's your horoscope for today.
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2020-07-22, 08:23 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2013
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2020-07-22, 08:39 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
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2020-07-22, 08:44 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
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2020-07-22, 09:19 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2014
- Gender
Re: Sermil and the Banter of Randomness: Random Banter #228
The stars predict tomorrow you'll wake up, do a bunch of stuff, and then go back to sleep.~ That's your horoscope for today.
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2020-07-22, 09:35 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
Re: Sermil and the Banter of Randomness: Random Banter #228
So anyway my solo D&D 3.5 is going very well. My team went to the church of Heironeous and talk to the male human cleric Zachary about the devils and the devil-worshipping Asmodeus cult. Zachary was very helpful with the information. There was no fighting just to let everybody know. it was a great session.
It's time to get my Magikarp on!
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2020-07-24, 07:10 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2009
- Location
- In my library
Re: Sermil and the Banter of Randomness: Random Banter #228
Anybody got advice on how to find online groups who can feel with a strange and somewhat flexible schedule? Because I can only play most Mondays and Saturdays, or most Sundays and Fridays if late evening UK time.
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2020-07-24, 08:36 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
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2020-07-24, 11:55 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
- Location
- Derby, UK
- Gender
Re: Sermil and the Banter of Randomness: Random Banter #228
Ha. 2020 is clearly feeling it hasn't been pain enough, since the washing machine is now malfuctioning.
On the other hand haha, up yours 2020; I hated that washing machine, so Dad put me in charge of the determining the new one (which should, at least, be coming Sunday), and thus if I hate it, it's my own fault this time. Also, its bigger, so that's good.
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2020-07-24, 12:00 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
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2020-07-24, 12:19 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2013
- Location
- Where I am
Re: Sermil and the Banter of Randomness: Random Banter #228
Who here remembers the childhood game "telephone?" Or Chinese whispers, to use the kind of racist original name.
My first experience was in the first or second grade when I was in the "behavioral problems" classes(which were in the same room as the special ed classes, incidentally) where the Teacher made us play it and then yelled at us becuase the message was different at the end than at the beginning, then made us do it again with everyone knowing the original message.
Because of course a dozen children between the ages of six and eight who have problems ranging from being delusional to personality disorders to autism to clinical retardation are going to be able to keep a message straight between them.
Bonus points: The starting message was a compliment for the kid at the end, who was the only "normal" kid in the room.I also answer to Bookmark and Shadow Claw.
Read my fanfiction here. Homebrew Material Here Rater Reads the Hobbit and Dracula
Awesome Avatar by Emperor Ing
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2020-07-24, 01:13 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
- Location
- Derby, UK
- Gender
Re: Sermil and the Banter of Randomness: Random Banter #228
I never liked that game.
Actually, I never liked a lot of those sort of games, though the one I found most personally affronting and flat-refused to play ever was that silly one where you roll a dice or something and if you roll a six you have to put clothes (like a shawl or gloves or something) on and attempt to eat a piece of chocolate or something with a knife and fork before the next person did.
Yes, I am exactly as much fun at parties, then as now, as you're thinking, why does this surprise you?
(Somewhere, someone has to visibly restrain Pinkie Pie.)
It should not come as a surprise then, that the most wildly successful game played at one of MY parties (before my parties became Roleplaying Sessions) was Dad hiding all my Action Force toys about the house and sending us all on recon to report on where they were, and then tell us we were dead, because nobody had spotted the COBRA F.A.N.G parked on top of the cooker fume extractor above eye level.
Okay, I didn't mind Wink Murder too much, but, I mean, it literally has murder in the name, what's not to like?Last edited by Aotrs Commander; 2020-07-24 at 01:58 PM.
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2020-07-24, 01:23 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2009
- Location
- In my library
Re: Sermil and the Banter of Randomness: Random Banter #228
I mean, I remember playing it at school (under the original name) quite a bit in groups of thirty, the point is to teach that messages get garbled in communication. You intentionally make the phrase hard to hear and work under the assumption that somebody is going to change it intentionally, you've probably had changes by the third repetition. I actually enjoyed the game, fun to try to predict the twists. It's probably the game we played at school with the best life lesson, even if 'Abigail is a smelly girl that nobody likes' never got through to the end or amused the teacher (not an actual example that happened, but at least one was on the same level).
Did you have any competent teachers at that school?
Bonus points: The starting message was a compliment for the kid at the end, who was the only "normal" kid in the room.
I'm going back to my fried chicken, I'm not looking forward to cleaning the wok later on.
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2020-07-24, 03:16 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2013
- Location
- Where I am
Re: Sermil and the Banter of Randomness: Random Banter #228
Unrelated: In my junior year of high school, I find out that my paternal grandmother has cancer. She was elderly and a life-long chain smoker(with a family history of both cancer and chain-smoking) so it's not surprising.
she lived pretty much on the far side of the country from me, so in the summers my mother flies down to see her(mom knew my Dad's family from the time she was a kid, my Aunt is still Mom's best friend,) but I can't go becuase I was in summer school(knocking out two mandatory classes.)
Mom calls back on Thursday of that week, I ask how Grandma's doing, Mom refuses to answer, so I spend the next few days worried until my mom gets home and when I prompt her to answer, explains that she'd passed early Thursday morning.
At the time I was mad at mom for not telling me when I first asked at the time, but she had a reason even if her reasoning was wrong so other than occasional teasing her over it I'm not really that upset anymore.
I tell you that story so I can tell you this: My elderly, chain-smoking grandma. The grandma who was such an addict that she was smoking in front of her own son when he was dying of cancer and was trying to quit to improve his odds... Beat the Cancer.
She beat the cancer and then shortly after passed from unrelated complications.
It's been about a decade and I still have to wonder what kind of Final Destination Bull**** was going on.I also answer to Bookmark and Shadow Claw.
Read my fanfiction here. Homebrew Material Here Rater Reads the Hobbit and Dracula
Awesome Avatar by Emperor Ing
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2020-07-26, 09:32 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2013
Re: Sermil and the Banter of Randomness: Random Banter #228
You know, sometimes cancer seems to play out like some awful mean-spirited melodrama.
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2020-07-26, 10:34 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2011
Re: Sermil and the Banter of Randomness: Random Banter #228
In Russia, "y" sound like you!
I use braces (also known as "curly brackets") to indicate sarcasm. If there are none present, I probably believe what I am saying; should it turn out to be inaccurate trivia, please tell me rather than trying to play along with an apparent joke I don't know I'm making.
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2020-07-26, 11:19 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2013
- Location
- Where I am
Re: Sermil and the Banter of Randomness: Random Banter #228
I almost died in freshmen chemistry in college.
The chemistry was divided into a lecture that was all four classes in a giant lecture hall and then the labs would be scheduled for different points later that day in more manageable sizes, handled by like, a TA or lab instructor instead of the actual professor in charge of the course.
I am in a group by myself, because I happened to sit at a lab desk that no one else sat at, and thus had to do most labs alone, so I don't really get around o the actual lab as the pre-work on this one is intensive, and becuase there's an error on the lab sheet that didn' get cought in time and so everyone else takes a great excess of one of the substances we're working with.
Detailed instructions were given for how to dispose of the products of the lab and any excess starting reagents. A group of girls who had messed up even more than anyone else were told to just start disposing of the materials(not yet reacted to) and they ignored the detailed instructions and just dumped all of the materials into the one disposal jar, causing a reaction that produced some kind of purple gas that we were all told would have killed everyone in the room if the fume hood hadn't been turned on as a precaution.
The girls joked about it and got pissy and blamed the instructor for telling them to dispose of their materials when people called them out and the actual professor came in, failed everyone for the mistake, and explicitly said that we "all" screwed up when I pointed out it that the group of two girlrl'ss stupidity that almost killed everyone.
It was at that point that I stopped working, becuase I'm not gonna finish an assignment I preemptively failed.
(Happy ending, the instructor apparently explained what actually happened to the instructor and everyone was unfailed, and the group at the next table over let me copy their data since I never did actually get todo the lab.)Last edited by Rater202; 2020-07-26 at 11:20 AM.
I also answer to Bookmark and Shadow Claw.
Read my fanfiction here. Homebrew Material Here Rater Reads the Hobbit and Dracula
Awesome Avatar by Emperor Ing
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2020-07-26, 03:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2011
- Location
- Canada
- Gender
Re: Sermil and the Banter of Randomness: Random Banter #228
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2020-07-26, 03:44 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2017
- Location
- France
- Gender
Re: Sermil and the Banter of Randomness: Random Banter #228
Forum Wisdom
Mage avatar by smutmulch & linklele.
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2020-07-26, 03:47 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
- Location
- Derby, UK
- Gender
Re: Sermil and the Banter of Randomness: Random Banter #228
Apparently, they were in dire need of my A-level chemistry teacher, who always used to start every experiment with "treat all chemicals as deadly poisonous" as part of his briefing.
He was one of those really good teachers, the sort of whom I've been lucky enough to come across more than once.
("Start by writing down the equation that gives you the answer" was one of his other favourites.)
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2020-07-26, 03:55 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
Re: Sermil and the Banter of Randomness: Random Banter #228
They start with the assumption that college-level students will have even the smallest modicum of sensibility.
They then guard against college-level students not having even the smallest modicum of sensibility by having detailed instructions on how to conduct the experiment, requiring lab-appropriate clothing, requiring lab-appropriate safety gear, requiring the lab be outfitted with fume hoods that are in use during appropriate experiments, requiring chemical showers, etc. etc.
Further, we're assuming that the gas would indeed have killed everyone. This sounds like a pretty large lab, and the concentration and dispersal rates are unknown. Even if this was a lethal gas (possible, I'm not ready to discount that), and even if the fume hoods were not turned on or properly functioning (which would be a massive liability for the university), and even if it went unnoticed and the entire lab remained exactly where they were for the entire lab period without evacuating, I find it hard to believe it would still be potent enough to kill everyone in the room. More likely than not this was a hyperbole on the TA's part to make the kids pay more attention to the dang lab. Maybe it could kill everyone in the room in the absolute worst-case scenario that would require practically every possible failsafe they had - including the common sense of every person in the room to not react to an unknown purple gas - to occur.Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2
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2020-07-26, 05:26 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2015
- Location
- London, UK
- Gender
Re: Sermil and the Banter of Randomness: Random Banter #228
Sounds to me like they mixed an iodide with an oxidiser and released iodine gas. You really don't want to inhale iodine gas, although it's far from the "kill you dead in seconds" camp.
As for where the fault lies, any practical task designed for undergraduates, especially in US-style universities where students who aren't necessarily studying chemistry often end up taking chemistry classes*, should come with a pre-lab activity to make sure that they've read and understood the lab manual. There will always be at least one stupid/lazy student and safety procedures should be sufficient to ensure that they either understand what they're doing or get filtered out before they're allowed near anything remotely dangerous.
Also, Rater, between this and your elementary school horror stories I'm beginning to think that you're somehow mystically attracting bad educators. Did your mother piss off a very specialised witch while pregnant or something?
*Which I maintain is a stupid system, but I can only sit on one pedagogic high horse at once and if I try to change mid-stream it'll bolt before I shut the stable door.
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2020-07-26, 05:44 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2013
- Location
- Where I am
Re: Sermil and the Banter of Randomness: Random Banter #228
Considering that it was five minutes before anyone notice that the fume hood was half-full despite being on and that the gas continued to be produced in a lab that had enough room for six groups of four students for another five minutes?
(The printing error on the lab sheet was a 1000 times multiplication of reagents due to a type in units. There was a lot of excess that was improperly disposed of.)
As for where the fault lies, any practical task designed for undergraduates, especially in US-style universities where students who aren't necessarily studying chemistry often end up taking chemistry classes*, should come with a pre-lab activity to make sure that they've read and understood the lab manual. There will always be at least one stupid/lazy student and safety procedures should be sufficient to ensure that they either understand what they're doing or get filtered out before they're allowed near anything remotely dangerous.
Trust me, these two girls were in the midway point where a Heather starts metamorphosing into a Karen and...
Look, they did worse than I did and that was the year that the financial aid department lied to me abut how many classes I needed to keep my scholarship so I had to reschedual at the last minute to takes third again as many classes as I was supposed to with a super creative schedule and barely any time to get work done and get sufficient sleep.
You know what sucks? Having three hours between classes but no assignments that can be worked on from the library.Last edited by Rater202; 2020-07-26 at 05:47 PM.
I also answer to Bookmark and Shadow Claw.
Read my fanfiction here. Homebrew Material Here Rater Reads the Hobbit and Dracula
Awesome Avatar by Emperor Ing
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2020-07-26, 05:52 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2009
- Location
- In my library
Re: Sermil and the Banter of Randomness: Random Banter #228
I mean, my knowledge of Chemistry basically extends to 'it's the thing that makes the boom boom materials', but I do remember dealing with High Voltage labs at uni.
These were the labs Electrical Engineering students weren't allowed into when the lab wasn't scheduled, the only bared were those required for the computers to functionor, in a section behind a second airlock, those required for some third year labs, and you spent most of it playing with dials.
Yeah, considering the tight control over getting and returning components in the other labs (and I once managed to fry about four chips in quick succession during my Final Year Project, and I'm still surprised they let the dyspraxic student near the soldering irons), I'm shocked that there was neither a pre-lab drill or tightermonitoring of how people disposed of stuff.
And while I don't get a lot about the US university system, particularly how they seem to do half their A-levels there, I do think poaching the idea of Majors and Minors would be great. I'd have loved to minor in something like Literature or Games Design alongside Engineering. Just avoid this idea of being able to take random elective classes or things aboutside your chosen subjects.
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2020-07-26, 06:00 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
Re: Sermil and the Banter of Randomness: Random Banter #228
Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2
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2020-07-26, 06:06 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2013
- Location
- Where I am
Re: Sermil and the Banter of Randomness: Random Banter #228
The professor was actually okay other than this one incident. She apparently thought that everyone screwed up instead of just following misleading instructions and reversed the decision when the TA explained it was only the two girls that messed up i a way that could be blamed on them instead of whoever wrote the lab sheet.
And no, I asked my mom and she didn't piss off any school witches 27 years ago, so... Yeah.I also answer to Bookmark and Shadow Claw.
Read my fanfiction here. Homebrew Material Here Rater Reads the Hobbit and Dracula
Awesome Avatar by Emperor Ing
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2020-07-27, 12:44 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2013
Re: Sermil and the Banter of Randomness: Random Banter #228
do you ever get cravings for stuff you're not supposed to have? In my case, I stopped dining out and quit drinking for a while so I can save money. Now I really want to eat an irresponsibly large burger with pint of beer. I've been good so far, but dang I want it...
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2020-07-27, 12:54 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
- Location
- San Francisco Bay area
- Gender
Re: Sermil and the Banter of Randomness: Random Banter #228
Only most hours.
In my case, I stopped dining out and quit drinking for a while so I can save money. Now I really want to eat an irresponsibly large burger with pint of beer. I've been good so far, but dang I want it...
I also gave up alcohol back in February for thing I give up stuff for awhile that time of year...
...and then "shelter-in-place" was ordered and since I have a rule not to drink in front of my wife and her sons, and the law forbids it in my car or in public, and now that all "in-dining" is closed, that leaves - nowhere for me to drink alcohol, well a few outdoor sitting places opened last month, but I'm scared of being close to unmasked folks, less from getting sick myself than bringing the new plague home (which I already worry about 'cause of work).
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2020-07-27, 01:21 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Gender
Re: Sermil and the Banter of Randomness: Random Banter #228
And then they get into the working world, where they'll have you changing out live connectors on a high-voltage motor test rig using your bare hands. (Yes, this actually happened to me while I was on summer jobs during holidays at university--to be fair, the company in question required you to ensure the resistance of your shoe soles was decent before they let you do stuff like that, because if there's no path to ground the current won't pass through you).