There's a specific vibe, like there's a je nai se quois about certain open world games that are have come up post BOTW. PokemonSword/Shield and Legends, Palworld, Genshin, the new Sonic game apparently, etc. Feels like Banjo Kazooie on steroids. Like those had a similar vibe that's distinctly different to Skyrim or Just Cause or Batman Arkham or GTA or Elden Ring but they're all similar to each other? I can't put it into words properly.

Like, I'd say Fortnite Battle Royale is a BOTW-ified PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. And it's not strictly the climbing/gliding, I wouldn't say Spider-Man or Batman Arkham are BOTW-like, nor just the soft(er) animation style, I wouldn't say Raft or No Man's Sky is BOTW-like, nor the combat/crafting system

Although it may not necessarily be strictly a bad thing, to throw a different type of subgenre into a genre that was going to be dominated by GTA/Just Cause/Saints Row like open world, or a Splinter Cell/Assassin's Creed like open world, or a Minecraft/Roblox like open world or an Elder Scrolls like open world, etc.

Pokemon Legends was quite heavily BOTW inspired

CCP agents have infiltrated the US and stole the secret recipe for fortune cookies! Such powerful divination magic in the hands of China will spell the end of Western civilization

Every single line there, too.

Describing not the voice or appearance, but lyrics as shirtless

Describing something as bong-rattling to your 8 and 10 year old children and their classmates.

Describing Don Brewer as competent after all the other outlandish compliments to the other band members

Such a good show.

Counterpoints:

1: the instruction manual for my guillotine is in French. How am I supposed to figure out where to put a king's neck and where to place his body if I can't read le manuel d'utilisation??

2: Debout, les damnés de la terre

Debout, les forçats de la faim

Or rural Louisiana, mon ami

You see the only way out of this 2 party system that even we admit is not ideal is to vote for either of the parties that will defend the 2 party system to the death, thereby legitimising the 2 party system further.

We can work on making things better once we get through this existential threat, which is what we've been saying every election since forever. But this time it's really real, guys.

Thank Allah I am not American.

Touching so much grass you attain godhood

Tom Bombadil is the grillpilled wife guy and is therefore unaffected by the the threat of Sauron, the temptation of the ring, or the plight of the Fellowship.

They also charge so much for so little here, it sucks.

To engage seriously, any ""serious"" opposition party or parties in Syria are going to be much worse (see: Mujahideen vs Socialist Afghanistan, the Shah vs Iranian nationalists, the Nicaraguan Contras vs Sandinistas, etc etc) and much like in the past, the more parties more friendly to the US are going to get boosted in the media and the sitting parties will get a magnifying glass to their misdeeds to the point of atrocities being outright fabricated. Assad is anti ISIS but also not exactly friendly towards the west, which is why the west pushes for his demise. Same as with Muamar Gaddafi. The current state of Libya speaks volumes. An authoritarian nation with guaranteed housing, healthcare and food vs a free one that has open slave markets in the capital? Gadaffi wasn't a saint, no, but you can't argue that the average Libyan is better off now than before he was ousted.

To the point that ISIS terror attacks against Syrian civilian populations being attributed to the Assad government?

Yeah every time you're about to bully a fascist, simply shoot them instead.

No more half measures Walter

Todd Howard: we hear you fans, we are currently working on updates for Morrowind, Starfield and Elder Scrolls Online which will break add-on/mod support and ruin the frame rate for those games instead of just FO4!

China will never understand the average American citizen's desire to roll coal down the middle main street, driving home drunk from a gender reveal party that started at least 3 wild fires.

Which is why BYD will never install a secondary diesel engine next to the electric motor for the sole purpose of pumping out black smoke that serves no purpose.

China is finished.

🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻

They're picturing milk straight from a happy, grazing cow earlier that morning, that's been put in a bottle and refrigerated till they purchase it, diseases are freak accidents. Obviously the wise old farmer wearing overalls with a piece of straw hanging from his mouth wouldn't sell you the milk if the cow seemed sick, right?

The reality would be thousands of cows in cages being milked with the same equipment as every other cow, sick or otherwise, and all the milk gets pooled together and bottled and possibly spends 2-3 days in transit.

Oh hey, I looked into this one when one of my friend's aunts went on about raw milk.

So basically, she's done research on the microbiota of raw vs pasteurised milk and concluded the beneficial bacteria of raw milk can outweigh the risks for non-immunocompromised people. People can still get pasteurised if they wish. Another argument is that products with a higher fatality rate are still legal.

However, the flaws in her research don't account for are this:

• If huge corporations are allowed to simply not sterilise their milk, they will do so, meaning raw will be the cheaper product and therefore more likely to be purchased by the average person, who may or may not understand the risks involved. A struggling family doing their groceries will choose the cheaper milk and possibly put their elderly/infant family members at risk.

• Her research is done with samples of raw milk that are a lot more controlled. The difference in risks between a sample of milk from a healthy cow directly into a sterile vessel into a lab environment is vastly different to milk produced en masse under capitalism, where cows are crowded together in battery farms, fed with the cheapest grains available, and milked with the same equipment that's milked a thousand other cows, and all the milk is pooled together where it's impossible to separate "safer" raw milk and contaminated milk from sick cows are then to be cooled and bottled. Her research simply does not account for the corners that will definitely be cut in an industrial capitalist scale

• Dying from alcohol poisoning because you drank perfectly legal 180 proof alcohol is different to dying from H5N1 milk because alcohol poisoning isn't contagious.

Foie gras, ortolan bunting, steak tartare, escargot

(CW: Animal cruelty esp on the first 2)

I think he was Azov, captured by Russians towards the start of the war, got traded back to the Ukraine and then proceeded to return to the front lines and didn't get lucky a second time.

I would like to take this opportunity to dissect one of the greatest joke writing in modern TV history (and thereby ruining it)

Homer Simpson (to a car full of completely disinterested kids): "Now, Grand Funk Railroad paved the way for Jefferson Airplane which cleared the way for Jefferson Starship."

The first layer of the joke is Homer being a typical uncool dad, talking about bands that were cool when he was growing up to kids who really didn't care. It's relatable, and in line with Homer not being cool. Most people can relate to this, it works on a surface level as a joke for the plot.

The second layer of the joke is that what he said doesn't make any sense, Jefferson Airplane predates Grand Funk Railroad by 4 years. It's in line with Homer being stupid and/or misremembering key facts while he's confidently lecturing kids about something seemingly important to him. The second layer of the joke for people who know about classic rock history.

The third layer of the joke is that he's talking about the band names: Railroad > Airplane > Starship. He was never talking about the music of the bands he was listing to disinterested kids, he was talking about the modes of transport in the band names. The third layer of the joke is probably missed by most people upon first viewing even if they caught the second layer of Homer stating something wrong as a fact to children he was trying to educate.

All this in less than 10 seconds. The line works for the scene, helps progress the plot, is in character both for Homer's intelligence/misplaced confidence as well as feeling uncool and dated. This isn't even the funniest thing golden age Simpsons pumped out nor the best episode overall.

God what a great TV show.