Baba was probably the worst contestant they’ve ever had. I was hoping to warm up to him over the course of the series, but he brought precious little to the table. Jack was fine—a bit disappointing in light of how obviously excited Alex was to have finally got him on. Loved the other three, top marks for them!

Wasn’t a huge fan of the pub quiz. Loved the goose, and all of Andy’s prize tasks. Found Alex’s blatant efforts to tilt things Jack’s way kind of off-putting. Ignoring Baba’s obvious running in the maze task was disappointing. Glad Andy won, look forward to seeing him on CoC.

Most SF guys I’ve known have been pretty chill. Some of the young guys are dumb assholes, but that’s hardly exclusive to the special forces community. They’re certainly given a lot more latitude than the rank and file, and that can go to their heads. Shitheels like this are not the norm, based on my limited perception and sample size (mainly us army SF).

Literally every guy I knew in 10th group that went out for CAG came back with some ankle injury from the land nav course. Didn’t help my gopher-hole paranoia. Why is seemingly every stateside DZ just teeming with some kind of burrowing creatures?

I don’t attribute a lot of positive things to social media, but I will give it credit for turning me around on spiders. Arachnophobia scared the crap out of me as a kid. For years afterward, I’d never sit down on a toilet without first getting down on my hands and knees to make sure there weren’t any spiders lurking underneath the bowl. Thanks to years of spiderbro memes, now I generally view them as comrades.

Perhaps the Balrog underestimated Gandalf, thinking it could cast him into the abyss, then fly back up to deal with the rest of the Fellowship. Alternatively, maybe it calculated that its best chance of defeating the wizard was to grapple with him at close quarters. Either way, the Balrog falling doesn’t necessarily mean that it wasn’t capable of flight.

I mean, it’s worth a shot.

Yeah, certainly there are many different kinds of bread. I’m sure I was overly broad in designating all dough made with butter as pastry. I was responding to the previous comment , which I interpreted as implying that butter(or bonemeal, in a pinch) is a necessary ingredient in bread.

But… you don’t use butter to make bread. Flour and water, maybe some yeast. If you’re using butter to make dough, then it’s some kind of pastry.

Money can be exchanged for goods and services!

Nothing to do with cryptocurrency. Great podcast, though.

I think you’re right. But it’s also apparently true that there exists a critical mass of uninformed fucking dipshits flibbertigibbets, who could be swayed by this kind of thing. The true believers are unreachable, but so much political theatre is directed at that segment of the population that just can’t be bothered to assemble more than one or two data points at a time.

I’ve never visited Asheville, but I know it by reputation as the Austin of NC—a liberal enclave. Is that inaccurate? If not, that doesn’t seem to signify anything.

You’re much better off not knowing, imo. Influencers are like Tinker Bell, in that they disappear if there aren’t enough people who believe they exist.

Because the apparently straight lines contradict the labels. As drawn, the unlabeled bottom vertices are clearly 90°, not 80° and 100°. We must either conclude that the labels are incorrect, or that the figure is not drawn to scale. Either way, it’s insoluble.

Hey, if we can make a pencil out of leaves, cephalopods can swim through our GI tract like species 8472 through fluidic space.

I’m sure that’ll work, provided there aren’t any meddlesome kids about!

I’m looking forward to the inevitable Flop House episode.

Alan Alda’s got a pretty good podcast now. I watched a lot of MASH reruns growing up. Feels strange that kids now don’t have the experience of watching a bunch of stuff that’s not made for them at all, just because that’s what’s on TV.

I’ve just reinstalled Grim Dawn, having last played it some years ago, and am currently working my way through Act 2. I don’t frequently play ARPG’s, but I’ll try a new one when I get it in a bundle or somesuch. Mostly, they don’t hold my interest. Grim Dawn, vanilla and unmodded (I assume there’s some kind of modding scene; haven’t looked yet) still manages to scratch that itch for me. At some point I’ll pick up the DLC. Right now I just want to find something good enough to replace this crazy caster 2h sword I’m using, so that I can bring Albrecht’s Aether Ray back into the rotation!

Man, I’ve been wanting to pick up Rimworld forever, but I’m pretty scrupulous about only buying games at a steep discount (making exceptions for supporting indie devs I like), and I’ve never seen it more than 20% off. I guess we’ll see who blinks first.