Aegis J Hyena's Super Hyena Fun Show: Random Banter Thread #215

[Teddy]

I'd forgotten how being unrested felt. When waking up, I managed to make a 180° crawl around my bed before I fell asleep (quite uncomfortably) on the large, round decorative pillow I keep at the foot end. Woke up againan hour later feeling a little more rested. Good thing I had nothing scheduled in the morning and merely was preparing an earlier morning for tomorrow, but I've got to relearn getting out of bed no matter what before I get on my first real job in a week and a pair of days more.

ION:
I'm currently in the long-term state of mind when music (especially of the wistful kind) affects me very strongly emotionally, and of course I keep finding such music. And while I like it when music provokes strong emotional reactions within me (my mental imaging abilities are pretty weak, so my inner world is half-composed of emotions, and emotion-heavy music helps giving it life), you can't walk around feeling wistful all day or it'll eventually spill over in loneliness...

IOON:

Spoiler: Got the most important step of my bed made:

Show

[Rawhide]

Well you weren't invited anyway! You are just jealous that we have an awesome club.

Oh, I eat chocolate normally. The point is just that your logo is completely the opposite of what you're trying to represent.

[FinnLassie]

Oh, I eat chocolate normally. The point is just that your logo is completely the opposite of what you're trying to represent.

Hey hey, don't judge the book by its covers, there.

[DJ Yung Crunk]

I totally read the title of the thread "bike power generator" as "black power generator".

I was all "Damn yeah! Give whitey what's coming to him!" and everything.

[Aegis J Hyena]

Whew. Did two gaming sessions on roll20 over the weekend. The first one, that Tailiu is a part of, is all but on life support. There's just no soul to it. I think part of it is the huge group, part of it is the linear track, and that we didn't get as far as I wanted. I'm half-tempted to call it quits now because I'm not having fun with it either.

The other one with the all-anthropomorphic cast though... holy crap. The PCs mission was to break a siege through a series of hit and runs or lures to keep the main force separated. Instead the "alpha wolf" of the group goes for the commander. Alone. Said commander is a golden eagle in enchanted Zerchesium (a metal of my own invention) Half Plate and is AC 24, almost experience level 10 or so. The PC is inches from... level 2. He vaults a wall with a crossbow modified to fire nets, snags the commander so he can't fly off, manages to knock him prone when the hawk-taur of the group cuts him off, and rolls four natural 20s in a row with a bastard sword, dealing upwards of 20+ a hit (He's a scout with a greatsword for 2d6, +1d6 for Skirmish, +4 Strength, +crit damage, and he gets extra damage on top of things by being a wolf, who gets a Howl that adds to most rolls).

This was a guy the heroes were only supposed to glimpse and get a monologue out of before the protagonist's parents were killed in front of his eyes; his fight isn't until far in the future towards the climax! Well, that was the idea anyway.

Now, the protagonist's parents are saved and they're bringing him in alive to the capital city... 180 miles away, in a freight airship to avoid detection. The next part of the storyline will be very very interesting indeed...

[Gnomvid]

IOON:

Spoiler: Got the most important step of my bed made:

Show

Is that Snorkfröken? or is it just a hippo with a fancy hairdo?

[DataNinja]

I'm half-tempted to call it quits now because I'm not having fun with it either.

Really, that's what you need to know. If the GM isn't having fun... then at best, the game will be a hollow shell. You always put something of yourself into a game, so if you can't feel enjoyment towards it... then there won't be any to be found.

It's always best to think about such things, but if things don't look like they'll improve, sometimes it's better to just end it quickly than draw it out in hopes of an eventual salvage.

[FinnLassie]

Is that Snorkfröken? or is it just a hippo with a fancy hairdo?

*screams* Moomins are not hippos nor related to them in any way!

[DJ Yung Crunk]

-snip-

Glad you're having fun with that second game, at least.

But that DM wants you dead. Don't drink anything he offers you.

EDIT: Disregard above post. I am a stupid.

[enderlord99]

Glad you're having fun with that second game, at least.

But that DM wants you dead. Don't drink anything he offers you.

Are you claiming that Aegis is suicidal and shouldn't accept drinks he offers himself, or is one of us mis-reading?

[DJ Yung Crunk]

Are you claiming that Aegis is suicidal and shouldn't accept drinks he offers himself, or is one of us mis-reading?

I am. I thought he was the dude who got a bunch of natural 20's.

I don't know man. Didn't you know I was illiterate?

[Aegis J Hyena]

Heh. We'll see. I'll be talking to some of the players off and on. (Tailiu, you still interested in sitting in this upcoming sunday? Or even join; Ren'd fit right in, trying to educate the newest player, who's new to gaming period as he's only 16 -- and he plays a Barbirdian with a higher charisma than strength...)

But yeah, 4 20s. The RNG gives and the RNG takes though, so I expect it someday to come crashing down for the poor wolf...

[DJ Yung Crunk]

But yeah, 4 20s. The RNG gives and the RNG takes though, so I expect it someday to come crashing down for the poor wolf...

Metallica had four "natural 20s" in a row, too.

Look what happened to them.

[TaiLiu]

@TaiLiu! And why not others too!

Check my sig. Finally!

Yes! Send me the image, lass! We'll spread it all over the forum! One of us should start a Gentlefolk's Chocolate Club thread. We'll be opposed by the Commoner's Association of Chocolate Consumption, which Rawhide will head.

Ooh... looks quite delicious. But, perhaps a mite too fancy for me. (Plus I'd look silly trying to wear a monocle over my glasses. )

Hey, why not try it out? It'll only cost some signature space.

Heh. We'll see. I'll be talking to some of the players off and on. (Tailiu, you still interested in sitting in this upcoming sunday? Or even join; Ren'd fit right in, trying to educate the newest player, who's new to gaming period as he's only 16 -- and he plays a Barbirdian with a higher charisma than strength...)

Yes, I will attend to my holy duty of telling the players and the DM that they have misinterpreted the D&D 3.5 rules, and that no, what are you doing, the rules say this.

Anyway, sure. I'm not so certain I can play Ren, though - I don't think roll20 lets you move character sheets from game to game.

[Aegis J Hyena]

Yes, I will attend to my holy duty of telling the players and the DM that they have misinterpreted the D&D 3.5 rules, and that no, what are you doing, the rules say this.

Anyway, sure. I'm not so certain I can play Ren, though - I don't think roll20 lets you move character sheets from game to game.

I'm "paid" level, meaning I can import if I wanted. Failing that, open two tabs and be in each game and copy over manually when the time comes. I tried using pathfinder sheets for the game, and they're moderately roughly-coded (some sheets add con bonus in a couple places, others only do it once and one or two not at all for some reason). Enough that things are sort of an eyesore to me, so.

They just secured the workings of The Creationarium -- run by a lavender rabbit who is one part gnome, one part kender, three parts cyborg (one ear, one hand, one breast are all iron) and the rest tinkerer. She was never a major character in my main story (I ended up killing her off because she took up space, that and to piss off her boyfriend, the protagonist). I'll pass an invite in Skype.

[DataNinja]

Hey, why not try it out? It'll only cost some signature space.

Okay I'll try tha*SNARF* uh... oops. Apparently that's why not. At least I have a top hat and monocle?

[Gnomvid]

*screams* Moomins are not hippos nor related to them in any way!

Yes I am aware the Moomins are trolls and not hippos nor related to hippos, I did enjoy the comics and cartoons as much as anyone, although I enjoyed the live action somewhat less as they had to dispense with the magic and remove the heads as the costumes were too warm....

[Teddy]

Is that Snorkfröken? or is it just a hippo with a fancy hairdo?

It's a hippo with a very tattered bow. More specifically, it's Flodhäst.

ION:
Yesterday was definitely one of the more interesting days in my life. We had a kick-off with my new job over in the capital, and by my standards, I was up quite early to head over there. We started the day with a RIB ride out to a small island in the Stockholm archipelago. The headwind at 50 knots is pretty strong, even though it was a dead calm. Well at the island we got to ride by zip-line over a small straight, and traverse a high level obstacle course (basically different balancing obstacles using ropes and wires fastened between trees at 10-20 metres' height. From this, I discovered that I have next to no sense of vertigo, being perfectly fine with looking down, and among the full group of 36, I think I was the only one to traverse the final obstacle (a rigid log set between two trees at the highest available height) without holding my safety lines for balance. It was really fun to challenge myself like that, and I'd gladly do more courses like that.

Afterwards, we went back to the city to visit a special restaurant run by a Swedish star chef. He and his friend had built their kitchen around a spanish grill-oven called "josper", which is possible to heat all the way up to 1200°C (although they only brought it up to 600°C for this event). and used as a stage for showing how they cooked up appetisers using it while explaining every step in the process. The food geek factor of the cooking was high and brought out my engineer self, as I asked many questions about temperature and what happend to the food when you cooked it.

And it was all quite spectacular. They started by taking a whole leek and putting it right on the coals in the josper, letting it just lie there for over 15 minutes while they went on with the program. When they took it out, it was charred to coal with a layer of ash on top, but this was only the outside. As they cut off the outer two layers, they revealed a core which had turned sweet and creamy, completely rid of the sharp onion taste, and definitely the best leek I've ever had. We were also served grilled oysters (a first for me. They were edible, but I'm never going to serve it myself), fennel pollen, cold-smoked rice, freeze-dried soy cubes (which they filed over the rice), Kobe beef (technically from a neighbouring province, but the same type of meat), roasted, boiled duck tacos ("duckos") and a number of other things which I'm probably forgetting. Very tasty, he was a really good (and fun) chef. I'd probably skip a few ingredients myself, like the ubiquitous fennel, or the chili in the duckos which made them a bit too hot for my taste (I'm not very fond of spicy food).

All throughout the show and the subsequent dinner, their sommelier served us wine, sherry and their own brand beer, a really good IPA made by a friend of them only for them, so I had a bit of alcohol in me.

As the night grew late, the last of us went to a pub where the recruiters bought us beers. I stuck to only one glass, since I was good already (and I'm a slow drinker anyway) before the night grew late enough to break up and head home. Before this happened, though, a guy came and begged to buy a cigarette from another in our group. He talked in American English and called the person he was talking to "home-boy". Since he insisted to pay for the cigarette and not just accept it as a gift, they eventually settled on that he'd get two for 10 kr (a little more than a dollar). After this, he promptly went over to his table just a few metres away and retold the story in Swedish. I think he also sold one of the cigarettes to a second person in our group on the condition that he'd pay the first. We were all very confused and amused by the whole incident.

When I finally started my journey back to Uppsala, it was late enough that the trains had stopped, and I had to take the night bus. I either missed the first bus by a matter of minutes, or there simply was none, because I had to wait for a full hour at the bus stop. Oh well, I had a book, I was fine. Half an hour into my wait, a, and I merely cite the various sections of his life story, hard-rocker drug seller came by to accost the two of us who were waiting for a ticket to Solna. Since I wasn't going there, I could just shake my head without removing my gaze from the book, but the just-turned-freshman next to me quickly got wound up in his aforementioned life story. First they bonded over their common origins in southern Sweden. Then they bonded over their love for hard rock and hate of Axl Rose. And finally, the kid found himself turning more and more uncomfortable as a pair of foreigners (and presumed recent immigrants) asking a question in English about the bus destinations prompted the guy to launch into a pretty racism-laced tirade about immigrants and "their unwillingness to be integrated into the Swedish society". By the time our respective busses arrived, it seems the kid wasn't particularly willing to pay for the man's bus ticket any longer, as they somehow split apart going for the same bus, and the man started accosting other people for a ticket instead. Since he claimed he had cash, I don't quite understand why he wouldn't just head over to the station across the street and buy a ticket. Based on what he said, it sounded like a "****-the-system" kneejerk reaction, but he might as well just have been trying to run a con...

Finally on my bus home, a very tired woman sat down behind me and asked me to help wake her up in Knivsta (the village/suburb before Uppsala), because she'd overslept twice and ended up in Uppsala by mistake twice. She then spent her entire trip speaking about how she wasn't drunk, how she wasn't allowed to drink because she was on antibiotics, how she ran into the deaf man who robbed her of 500 kr two days ago, how she talked to a rude cop and how she got two guys to fight the deaf man through some shenanigans I didn't quite grasp. I'm still not quite sure if she talked to me or to the person on the other end of her phone. She also slept on her phone, and pretended to sleep on her phone, and constantly dropped her phone on the floor of the bus, all quite surreal. When we arrived at Knivsta and I made sure she got off the bus (which she mostly handled herself, if barely at all), she thanked me and said she wouldn't forget me. Shesh, my contribution to humanity or even you wasn't that great, was it?

So, such was my day of eventful daytimes and fascinating night creatures. How was yours?

IRN:
Stockholm has a very different Pokémon fauna compared to Uppsala. From the moment I jumped off the train, I was swarmed by Magnemites and Voltorbs, Pokémon I've only been able to catch singular instances of here in Uppsala, and my walk to the gathering place turned into quite a catching frency. I even found my first wild Charmander! On the other hand, I didn't see a single Drowzee, who basically rule Uppsala (there's a joke here about a city believing itself to be a sleepy little town), and there's probably some other Pokémon I wouldn't find there either.

I caught my first Pikachu too at the central station, but those exist in Uppsala too, they're just rare everywhere. I also caught my second Porygon, same story there.

IOON:
Whelp, my Linux just committed suicide. I booted it up to draw some more pictures for my thesis report, and it informed me that there was a new Ubuntu update available. Since I've had a few idiot bugs and stability issues with my Ubuntu version (14.04), I went "Sure!" and begun the upgrade. As it was installing all the packages after downloading them, three failed. These were two Emacs packages, so they shouldn't cause any problems, and a to me unknown Click package which apparently already was up to date (bad error handling there). Nothing looked serious, but when it got to the end of the installation, it claimed an error had happened. It reassured me that my OS now might be in an unusable state, but that it would revert itself. It then informed me that it had completed the upgrade, but that an error had happened (your definition of "complete" differs from mine, Ubuntu).

I close the dialog thinking that this was a particularly time-wasting no-op and try to launch the programs I booted Linux for. The cursor was spinning for a while, then nothing happend. When not even the terminal wanted to launch (which flags for a serious problem), I tried to log out, which caused my computer to hang in a way which I only associate with shutting down (this is one of the aforementioned idiot bugs). I force a shut down and boot it up again, and now Linux got stuck in an infinite loop trying to load the logon screen, displaying a few generic version numbers on a pair of the flickering black screens.

Oh.
Joy.


I'll have to try and recover later, or at least find a way to mount its partition in Windows so I can retrieve the files I have on there. Linux does for some very tactical reason hide its partition from Windows, but I'm pretty sure I can tell Windows to find it again. Nevertheless, this is a wrench in the gears I was hoping not to suffer...

[FinnLassie]

*loud hisses at academic text and the 25 pages she still has to do*



I don't like you, but I guess I just have to sit with you for the next week... *spits on Word and moodle* *wipes spit off screen*

[LaZodiac]

*loud hisses at academic text and the 25 pages she still has to do*



I don't like you, but I guess I just have to sit with you for the next week... *spits on Word and moodle* *wipes spit off screen*

Oof, good luck Finn.

[FinnLassie]

Aaaaand my laptop is beginning to literally fall apart. There's the damn tape...

[enderlord99]

THIS SONG IS THE BEST!

Seriously.

[FinnLassie]

Doors to the campus have been locked but so far no one has come to kick me out and the cleaning team doesn't seem to give a damn. There's another woman in the study space who seems to be in the same amount of pain...

I could've probably stayed in the library for longer than half five since the library lady working there today didn't even come up and check if anyone's upstairs. I was the last one there, and she was just... I dunno. Fiddling with books and locking up the doors.

Bleh. I'm so done reading about legislation. I love this and hate it more than anything at the same time.

Why do I want to specialise in administration and management again?


Oh yeah. Because I don't want to have a job that's too social, is close to my weird interest with tables and diagrams and shoots up my employability rate to the max. Warbghrlalblb why do I still have two years 'til graduation...

[LaZodiac]

Good luck Finn! You can do it! And I hope your lap top stays stable as well.

[Feytalist]

Why do I want to specialise in administration and management again?


Oh yeah. Because I don't want to have a job that's too social, is close to my weird interest with tables and diagrams and shoots up my employability rate to the max. Warbghrlalblb why do I still have two years 'til graduation...

Harsh lesson learned: people with that skillset will always be in demand! And if you don't actively hate it, then that's even better


Related: my boss once told me; have more skill in databases/Excel than anyone else, and you'll end up the most popular person in the office. Surprisingly true.

[Lacco]

Related: my boss once told me; have more skill in databases/Excel than anyone else, and you'll end up the most popular person in the office. Surprisingly true.

That same goes for Word and other standard programs. I'm the guy who everybody asks for help when their word starts to mess their documents, and when their excel sheets go crazy. And I get lots of chocolate for fixing easy stuff like that

[Teddy]

Doors to the campus have been locked but so far no one has come to kick me out and the cleaning team doesn't seem to give a damn. There's another woman in the study space who seems to be in the same amount of pain...

I could've probably stayed in the library for longer than half five since the library lady working there today didn't even come up and check if anyone's upstairs. I was the last one there, and she was just... I dunno. Fiddling with books and locking up the doors.

Bleh. I'm so done reading about legislation. I love this and hate it more than anything at the same time.

Why do I want to specialise in administration and management again?


Oh yeah. Because I don't want to have a job that's too social, is close to my weird interest with tables and diagrams and shoots up my employability rate to the max. Warbghrlalblb why do I still have two years 'til graduation...

You're kicked out of your campus buildings at night? The only thing that happens to us is that the entrances lock after 17 and you have to use your keycard, but since we need those to get into the computer labs and project rooms, we always carry those anyway...

ION:
Went out to dance at one of the student nations this night. I was hoping to run into a childhood friend, but that didn't happen. I did, however...

• Spend four hours vigorously dancing.
• Have one girl tell me she liked my style of dancing.
• Notice another girl holding up her phone in my direction, and when she lowered it reveal that she'd been filming me. I don't mind, but I decided she deserved to be messed with a bit for sureptitiously filming people, so the next time she looked up at me, I gave her a short thumbs up and continued dancing along. Based on how she suddenly started discussing with her friend, I believe she got it.
• Run into a guy I haven't seen since kindergarten. He recognised me, which is a smaller wonder given that it was almost 20 years ago we saw each other last time (and he's younger than me). A fun surprise.
• Knock a glass out of a person's hand, accidently knock another on their head (or shoulder, can't remember) with my elbow, and have beer spilled on me twice.
• Get really, really sweaty. Also, my knees are going to hate me tomorrow.

All in all, a great night.

[LaZodiac]

You're kicked out of your campus buildings at night? The only thing that happens to us is that the entrances lock after 17 and you have to use your keycard, but since we need those to get into the computer labs and project rooms, we always carry those anyway...

ION:
Went out to dance at one of the student nations this night. I was hoping to run into a childhood friend, but that didn't happen. I did, however...

• Spend four hours vigorously dancing.
• Have one girl tell me she liked my style of dancing.
• Notice another girl holding up her phone in my direction, and when she lowered it reveal that she'd been filming me. I don't mind, but I decided she deserved to be messed with a bit for sureptitiously filming people, so the next time she looked up at me, I gave her a short thumbs up and continued dancing along. Based on how she suddenly started discussing with her friend, I believe she got it.
• Run into a guy I haven't seen since kindergarten. He recognised me, which is a smaller wonder given that it was almost 20 years ago we saw each other last time (and he's younger than me). A fun surprise.
• Knock a glass out of a person's hand, accidently knock another on their head (or shoulder, can't remember) with my elbow, and have beer spilled on me twice.
• Get really, really sweaty. Also, my knees are going to hate me tomorrow.

All in all, a great night.

Jeez, I know I said this before but you should go dancing more often.

[FinnLassie]

Good luck Finn! You can do it! And I hope your lap top stays stable as well.

Damage control has been good so far. Electrical tape has done wonders to my laptop...

Harsh lesson learned: people with that skillset will always be in demand! And if you don't actively hate it, then that's even better

Related: my boss once told me; have more skill in databases/Excel than anyone else, and you'll end up the most popular person in the office. Surprisingly true.

I'm quite glad about the decision I made - it's just a tough road to get where I want.

Oh lord no... that reminds me that when I get to the specialisation courses I've selected stuff like database management and design. DELIVER ME FROM THIS PAIN.

You're kicked out of your campus buildings at night? The only thing that happens to us is that the entrances lock after 17 and you have to use your keycard, but since we need those to get into the computer labs and project rooms, we always carry those anyway...

It's a small city with small city amenities. We don't even have keycards for the building, it's just the way it is and I think it would be hard to fight the system. This is one sleepy town...

The uni library isn't open during the weekends and even the main library in the city centre isn't really open during the weekends. Not even on a Saturday... only the "magazine hall" is open from like 10 to 14. I've been utterly spoiled by my hometown AND Strathclyde University opening hours.


Ah, well, time for me to leave again to get some work done. I was supposed to go there by nine o'clock, but the neighbours kept me awake for far too long. Really hoping that they're renting the flat and would get evicted if this still keeps on going... I mean I've called the po'po on them twice last month and now they've began to continue their crappy ways. It's not loud enough to call the authorities, but loud enough to make me lose sleep.

[Teddy]

Jeez, I know I said this before but you should go dancing more often.

Heh, yeah. I did have to look like a loner in the corner with a single glass of beer while waiting for the dance floor to open, though. My curse is always being at the club way too early.

Oh, and one more thing I forgot to list:

• Had a girl come and ask me if she could crawl between my legs, presumably as a dare with he friends. I was accommodating.

Also, turns out it's my back and not my knees which hate me today. Oh well, at least it feels like a good back pain, not a bad one.

I'm quite glad about the decision I made - it's just a tough road to get where I want.

Oh lord no... that reminds me that when I get to the specialisation courses I've selected stuff like database management and design. DELIVER ME FROM THIS PAIN.

Ah, the good old DB course. One of the few courses I didn't manage a top grade in, and one of the majority of such courses I deserved a top grade in but got stumped by the circumstances. In this case it was a crazy strict grading of the exam (the other overachiever in my year got the lowest passing grade).

Databases were fun, though. I like the puzzle aspect of selecting the best keys and avoiding duplicate entries.

It's a small city with small city amenities. We don't even have keycards for the building, it's just the way it is and I think it would be hard to fight the system. This is one sleepy town...

The uni library isn't open during the weekends and even the main library in the city centre isn't really open during the weekends. Not even on a Saturday... only the "magazine hall" is open from like 10 to 14. I've been utterly spoiled by my hometown AND Strathclyde University opening hours.

Sounds inconvenient.

Ah, well, time for me to leave again to get some work done. I was supposed to go there by nine o'clock, but the neighbours kept me awake for far too long. Really hoping that they're renting the flat and would get evicted if this still keeps on going... I mean I've called the po'po on them twice last month and now they've began to continue their crappy ways. It's not loud enough to call the authorities, but loud enough to make me lose sleep.

Ooof, rough. Here's hoping they calm down. Barring that, go louder so you can call the authorities on them again...