Randomness XI: Rampant Randomness Randomly Rampaging

[Erifnogard]

I thought April 20 was already Rolling Day, or was that the 19th as preparation.

slow clap

[dsmiles]

So, it's finally official. My last day of active federal service is 31 July 2017. I guess I have to figure out what I want to be when I grow up, now.

[knarthex]

at least when I post a link you KNOW what it is.....

 

For Fuzzy....

 

IIAMIC!

[Erifnogard]

Somebody should run that Rick Astley video through some kind of glitter filter to make the ultimate Randomness Rickroll.

[Pingo]

Random things that happened while I was offline:

 

We got buzzed by Ospreys.

 

No, not the fish-eating bird of prey.

 

The big, scary rotor-powered aircraft that look like they dropped out of the Death Star's launch bay.

 

It was sunset. We were driving up one of the city's main arteries next to a museum campus. I thought something looked a little oddly-shaped about a plane way up ahead.

 

A minute later one of the kids cried out what was that, looking out a side window.

 

Then they crossed over the road, right above and in front of us, at least two and possibly four aircraft (I was driving and couldn't watch them too much). Very loud, very black, rather alarming silhouetted against the downtown lights, maybe sixty feet off the ground, hovering and apparently starting to land in the open area to one side.

 

A major world leader was going to be there the next evening, so we reckoned it might have been some sort of a practice run.

[Talae]

I found out today that USPS only attempts delivery once for items requiring signatures...even if you write otherwise on the slip they give you and have the mailman pick up said slip. They then hold the product for up to fifteen days, if lucky, and then return to sender.

[Froggy the Great]

I'm glad I was at home today then, considering I had to sign for the whistle that just arrived from France.

[knarthex]

And an awesome classical style guitar piece from one of the finest guitarists in the world....

 

Icarus' Dream Suite Op 4

 

(Yes, I am biased, he's a Swede!)

[Unruly]

 

I was never fond of the twisting-the-knife aspects of the show.

 

I hated when Angel's curse went from a great curse (a vampire given a soul and a conscience and a sense of morality) to an insanely stupid one (which soul goes away if he ever attains happiness -- what?), just for the sake of a knife-twist.

 

I think what finally blew it for me was the knife-twist of Buffy's resurrection which blew their own aesthetics.

 

The show had already established that Hell was a terrible, traumatic place, and people who came back from there were twitchy damaged goods.

 

Then Buffy came back from Heaven and was twitchy damaged goods because Earth was Hell by comparison.

 

I think I recall yelling at the screen you can't have it both ways!!!

 

If Hell is a traumatic vision of horror that leaves you broken then Heaven should be a great vision of good that gives you hope and strength the rest of your days.

 

Contrariwise, if being pulled from Heaven is shattering and horrifying, being pulled from Hell should leave you liberated and rejoicing. Earth should be Heaven by comparison.

 

At that point the show just seemed sullen and bent on taking nothing but gloom from any situation. Who needs that?

 

 

Exactly. As soon as you make Sarah Michelle Gellar a soulless, emotionless automaton you've killed the show.

 

 

Well apparently the New York Times considers it to be a marketing ploy. (They called it fake news, but really it's real news just with a hefty serving of spin.) I mean, they flat out say that production continues to increase. They also say that prices have gone up a little, but that could be due to increased feed costs which is what happens when you have weird weather affecting your crop yields. (That last bit is total speculation, but it has been known to happen.) So I guess the real story is probably more along the lines of "food prices continue to inch upwards". And that's a less exciting headline.

 

Really I'm only bothering to look at all this because BACON! I think I might go make myself a BLT....

 

 

No, it's all about this.

 

 

  

 

/ponders what a boardom might look like.Something piggish, with horns like a triceratops, and maybe a long spiked tail. Thick wool-like coat covering only the front torso like a bison.

//Autocorrupt is taking advantage on my bleary eyed state. Want to be sleeping. Trying to work instead.

 

 

Now I want a large mini like that!!!!

Suddenly I am thinking of the lystrosaurus -- It didn't really look like that, but it was kind of piggy, with a beaky face and little tusks, and may have had hair (it was one of those intermediate between reptiles and mammals thingies.).

 

The main thing was that, 250 million years ago something very bad happened to the planet, the end-Permian mass extinction when almost everything died. For no clear reason the lystrosauridae survived and then thrived. Lystrosaurus was almost all of the land animals ( seriously, like 95% of all land animals) for millions of years during the very early Triassic.

 

Fossil hunters in South Africa were said to groan every time they found still yet *another* lystrosaurus skull. The critters have been found from Antarctica to Russia. They were little, solidly built guys -- about pig-sized, actually, maybe pony sized for the very largest and medium dog size for the smallest -- but there was nothing larger than them on land, and nothing seemed to prey on them.

 

Fossil pollen and spores suggest that not just animal life was devastated. After the end-Permian extinction most plant life was wiped out and mushrooms and ferns and other decay-eating plant life dominated the Earth for a long time.

 

Mushrooms? Piglike critters? No predators?

 

Sounds like a sim game of pig heaven to me.

 

 

Sounds like how GW Orks are made to me.

 

 

Tbh, so do I. I never understood people who were upset by it.

 

Back in the day, my group of friends and I would "JoBro" each other. Same thing as rickrolling, only the link would lead to a Jonas Brothers video. The horror!

 

I think it became a conditioned response because usually when you got rickrolled it's because you were expecting something good, something you wanted to see, and all you got was Rick Astley's decent song with a super cheesy video.

 

I'm not sure if I'm impressed with the trolling in this thread, or if I genuinely hate all of you. 

 

Mebbe a little of both. 

 

And now I gotta get Rick Astley out of my head.

 

 

 

 

... where's my drill?

Don't worry, he'll never give you up. However, I think that this will help solve the problem. It's a preview teaser for Battlefront minis based on the Maus, Panther II, Excelsior, and M6 for their upcoming WWII alternate history rules.

 

I nominate "Rolling Day", not quite like Boxing Day, but certainly fits in with what Goblins enjoy and what was done here today...

 

I was going to make the April 20th mention, but someone beat me to it! BAH!

 

 

We can't name the day Bob.... we named the planet Bob!

That movie is so underrated.

 

Random things that happened while I was offline:

 

We got buzzed by Ospreys.

 

No, not the fish-eating bird of prey.

 

The big, scary rotor-powered aircraft that look like they dropped out of the Death Star's launch bay.

 

It was sunset. We were driving up one of the city's main arteries next to a museum campus. I thought something looked a little oddly-shaped about a plane way up ahead.

 

A minute later one of the kids cried out what was that, looking out a side window.

 

Then they crossed over the road, right above and in front of us, at least two and possibly four aircraft (I was driving and couldn't watch them too much). Very loud, very black, rather alarming silhouetted against the downtown lights, maybe sixty feet off the ground, hovering and apparently starting to land in the open area to one side.

 

A major world leader was going to be there the next evening, so we reckoned it might have been some sort of a practice run.

 

Ospreys? I could talk about Ospreys, but it would end up in beekeepers, and I have so far avoided going there ever. I've intentionally not asked for access because I don't want to mix minis and politics. So to summarize and keep things clean, the idea of the Osprey is pretty cool. And they've gotten better. But their initial stuff was pretty well rushed and flawed. Like a lot of new flying machines...

 

I bought a form-fillable, auto-calculating, PDF character sheet for D&D 5e, and I love it. But at the same time, I don't know if it's totally accurate. Maybe it's just because I'm not 100% fully versed on the 5e rules, but does the bard's Jack of All Trades ability really apply to Initiative? I mean, I know initiative is a Dex check, and proficiency doesn't apply, but I was under the impression that it meant ability checks as in skills, and that initiative was different. But then I re-read the PHB and saw that it just says initiative is a Dex ability check, so it very much could apply. I really need to buy the 5e stuff for Hero Lab and compare.

 

But then I tried printing out my sheet, and I can't print it directly from my usb stick to my copier at work because the PDF page size is A4, and for some reason despite specifying to print to US Letter size, the copier lets the PDF override that choice. So I had to print from my work computer, which I don't like doing because it means I have to plug my USB stick into the work computer, and who knows what the work computer has contracted...

Edited February 2, 2017 by Unruly

[pcktlnt]

Are Jedi allowed to kill?

[Unruly]

Yes, they are. They actually do it quite frequently, though they tend to handwave it away as "I only severely maimed the guy, just because he died of his injuries later doesn't mean it's my fault."

[buglips*the*goblin]

Yes, they are. They actually do it quite frequently, though they tend to handwave it away as "I only severely maimed the guy, just because he died of his injuries later doesn't mean it's my fault."

 

Obi-Wan:  "Walrus Man had it coming.  And Anakin was a good friend... which is why I left him to be slowly and horrifically roasted alive instead of putting him out of his misery with dignity.  Also I totally tried to trick his son into killing him and cleaning up my mess.  Turns out Uncle Owen was right and I am just a crazy old man.  But not the old man you're looking for!  Force vanish!"

 

Tk-456:  "Sir, we can still see you... and the man's name was Ponda Baba.  We're going to have to ask you to come with us." 

[Glitterwolf]

Thorsday.

 

Why am I working?

 

We should hold a celebration in Thor's name with roasted boar, mead and wenches.

 

*** Stares at status charts and outstanding orders***

[redambrosia]

It's my Friday! Yay for a four day week! Just when I actually need a bigger weekend (because seriously, this poop is ridiculous). What a relief!

[knarthex]

I think I might ask for Monday off...