The mannerisms of the Edward Norton playwright character reminds me of someone that I knew in the past, and I think it made more of an impact on me because of that.

For me it wasn’t so much the dialog as the overall emotional content and context within a few of the theater scenes. I honestly can’t remember much of the dialog that stood out to me, but I mostly enjoy Anderson’s movies for the vibe I get from them.

I would absolutely choose this mode without any shame. I already spend plenty of time in “Story Mode” difficulty; I don’t care to spend hours of frustration trying to hit just the right dodge pattern for a boss because I no longer have the finger dexterity that I did when I was 20.

“Mallyhacked” - meaning something that is broken or destroyed. I heard this phrase a lot from older folks during my childhood, but never by anyone who wasn’t from my area. My SO didn’t believe it was a real word so I did some digging and I think that it is likely a very regionally accented version of “malahack”.

Urban Dictionary says that malahack comes from the Lumbee-English slang of southern North Carolina. I don’t think that’s quite accurate because I’m not from anywhere close to North Carolina. My preferred reference is from The Vocabulary of East-Anglia: An Attempt to Record the Vulgar Tongue of the Twin Sister Counties Norfolk and Suffolk, as it Existed in the Last Twenty Years of the Eighteenth Century, and Still Exists: with Proof of Its Antiquity from Etymology and Authority; in Two Volumes · Volume 2 by Robert Forby, 1830:

Malahack, v. A word ludicrously fabricated, which means to cut or carve in an awkward and slovenly manner.

Is a heat wave literally burning the giant piles of lobbyist money that they get to pretend climate change isn’t happening, along with their children? No.

Here’s what politicians do, because it’s what they’ve been paid to do:

But the government quickly began to back down after a meeting in June with officials in the oil-rich province of Alberta…

The task for the government is to make it appear that as much progress as possible is being made (to appease the fifth of Canadians too worried to have children) while causing as few political problems as possible with the industry.

…politicians want to be seen doing a lot about climate change, but not so much that it lands them in any kind of real trouble with the industry.

Finally, this:

But this moment feels as if it calls for something larger—comparable to the Earth Day demonstrations of a half century ago, which brought ten per cent of the American population into the streets. It’s eruptions on that scale that change the political reality.

The only way to get them to do something meaningful is to have enough constituents screaming in their faces to do something or get replaced by someone who will. If you’re not screaming at the people who represent you in government to make real change (including restricting fossil fuel companies), then you’re wasting your time doing anything else to “fight” climate change.

Also, because I have more to complain about, I see we’re still doing headlines that comply with Betteridge’s law.

Several things are regularly in my “ponder and wonder” list, the most recent being:

• Chaos theory
• Higher dimensions (>4)
• The actual scale of space versus our normal human scale
• The idea of social/societal evolution (how can we be better together as a species)

I can get lost for a while in any of these topics.

I beat my head against Hollow Knight when it was released and set it aside after a while. I recently went back and somehow was able to get through it (I’m convinced they made it easier vs me getting better).

Make sure to explore and find all the story and world building tidbits. It’s definitely worth digging into, and I love some of the little side stories and character interactions as you go deeper into Hollownest.

I finished a playthrough of the legendary edition of the trilogy earlier this year. Still great and after all the time that’s passed since the original ME3 release I can almost accept the ending(s).

Grinding through nightmare dungeons in Diablo 4, and because I fell down a YouTube tutorial hole I’m retrying Frostpunk. Hopefully I can stave off the guilt from slapping makeshift prosthetics on orphans long enough to finish it this time.

I’m really excited for the first season, especially that they’ll start us with the altars and map cleared. That’s always annoying to do on a new playthrough. Now I just need to get my current character to tier 3 and finish hunting down the rest of the altars.

Modal or bamboo underwear - soft, stretchy, silky, the solution to everything I hated about cotton underwear. They are usually more expensive than Walmart (or other box store) brands and take more care when washing, but to me are definitely worth it. You can find them for fairly good prices on Amazon if you don’t want to splurge on name brands, but you have to do the research and check the reviews. You can get them in boxers, briefs, and thongs for men and even more styles for women.

I love Frostpunk but it’s one game that I have to play in bursts because it makes me completely depressed after a while. Definitely excited for the sequel but I’m going to have to psych myself up to actually play it. :)