JeffStray

I'm still plugging along (45-day streak!), but I've definitely gone back and done practice sessions at times to hit my daily goal instead of progressing. That said, I'm almost bewildered whenever it tells me how proficient I am in Italian. 25%? Really? Now I'm imagining that the stereotypical Italian gesticulation became a stereotype because most people there don't know any words and just charades their way through life.

Yeah, the technical issues have been a bit ironic.

Kinda bummed that, at the end of this, I couldn't go higher than $200. Super stoked to see that it all worked out, though.

I don't know if you Duolingo folks have noticed, but there are 3 "bonus skill" slots that open up. In the Lingots store, there are 2 available for 30 each. It turns out that the missing 3rd skill is Christmas, and is now in the store. Even if you're more interested in the other 2, you may want to buy it now so you don't have to wait a year until it's available again.

A. love the ice effects that you're doing B. love the gradient of the under-skin C. this is going to be stupid awesome when you're done

But, I mean, we can still be excited about the ~270 non-scenery, non-Pretty Deadly hero and monster sculpts that we're getting for what amounts to dirt cheap, right?

O-ring and cheap craft shop chain.

I'm a beer nerd, but in a former life (or just like 8 years ago) I mostly preferred bourbon. I've been aware of the bourbon craze that's going on, but I didn't realize that my favorite brand (Blanton's) got swept into it because of the distillery that produces it (Buffalo Trace). Last week, in a random conversation that spawned from a Pappy Van Winkle (the most powerful of the bourbon Pokemons) discussion, I was informed that getting a bottle of what used to be a shelf guarantee would now be next to impossible without severe mark ups and/or ordering expensive delivery from a web distro. Much like Bones and Kickstarter, my MUST HAVE IT instincts kicked in, even though I haven't even looked for it for the better part of a decade. Grabbed a bottle about 2 hours ago that was delivered to a store this morning, so I should be set for the year (or decade). I'm looking forward to pttttthhhhb'ing my coworker tomorrow morning.

Letting the days go by... edit: sorry about your hard work?

I think you've put more effort into the lichen than I put into an entire base last weekend. Something about how at least mine's done grumble grumble... *edit* sorry not sorry for like-bombing.

I think, more than the normal lessons, I'm loving the "strengthen skills" feature. Two lessons a day, and then a strengthen session to remind you of words that don't fit in with the current lessons. Should there be a separate DuoLingo thread? I feel like this is awesome enough to have its own ongoing discussion...

I love how consistently Manos is the episode that people talk about. Holy heck that movie was terrible.

Unless you would go with Joel over Crow/Servo. He's original, hilarious, and available. That said, and regardless of who's original and available, I have been considering the possibility, faint though it may be, that $100 for a custom voicemail message when I receive maybe 2 calls a month, and usually from businesses and not people who would appreciate it, might not be a sensible use of my money.

Bob help me, I think I may be in for $400.

HBO Go has all 5 original Planet of the Apes movies now...goodbye, Sunday... Re: Battlefield Earth. Saw it opening night with three friends. Occasionally one of the theater workers would come in and give us popcorn, but otherwise it was just me and three friends. We would get up and pace the rows from time to time just to fight off the hate. That was a good night.

Definitely going for plug away. Day 4, and I'm already better at re-doing day 2 stuff than I was yesterday, and missing fewer of the basics on today's lessons. I may try reaching the first "test out" marker and quickly re-doing all of the previous lessons to see how I'm feeling. 36 lessons I've already done, especially when many of them have been reiterated throughout, would take less than an evening, I would hope.

Like 5-10 minutes? I'm early in it, so it may get longer for all I know. I'll keep with the plug away method, and as a worst case scenario, I'll pick up a conjugation rulebook later in the game for reference. So far, I mostly have ah ha moments late in the lessons where I've made more mistakes.

Okay...I'm playing with this now. Have you found yourself just plugging ahead (right now sticking to a set of lessons per day) and eventually picking up the nuances as you make later errors, or are you repeating lessons until you definitely "get" all of it? I'm finding myself missing conjugations and definite articles and such, but seeing some progress when I see the context of the errors later. I want to make sure I'm playing the game (woo games!) correctly.

I picked Italian. In normal worlds, it's probably not super useful. That said, I work for an Italian company whose biggest profit centers are in my home office, so I feel like I'll get some immersion and (maybe) some career boosts. Either way, "io mangio zuchhero" is the most false sentence I've ever gotten right.

Have you tried it with seriously separated paints? I feel like it would take the heavier particles that have already settled and further separate them. After typing those two sentences, I did some Googlage and see that those are indeed meant for mixing. Did you by any chance get an extra? I may know someone in the market for it as of about 10 seconds ago.

Whoa...just started messing around with Duolingo. That's pretty neat, once you remember to turn on the volume ("Man, how do you pronounce any of this? This site is du...oh, wait...I'm dumb").

BATTLEKITTEN!

These are awesome (following).

Year two, shipment two. I finally got a danged ol' rock.

Well, I've had my original pledge locked in for awhile. I used the canon $30 on after-the-fact addons. I'm entertaining the notion of skipping the scaled up giants and the canon as my first step into the world of NOT buying all of the Bones just because they're Bones. I full realize that, by the time it's do or die, I'll just fork over the cash to avoid the soul-crushing FOMO, but it's nice to pretend for awhile that I'm maybe not hopeless...