This is one is genre specific, but Caesar 3. I love city builders and have played them for as long as they've existed. I've learned all the little tricks and systems of the ones I've played, exploiting esoteric mechanics and optimizing my little utopias and creating epic, sprawling empires that far exceed every metric asked of me. That said, Caesar 3 is a challenge I still relish after (oh wow, has it really been) 25 years. It's the only city builder where the "peaceful" branch in the story is harder than the "wartime" scenarios. I revisited it recently wondering if I was just missing something back when I was younger, but nope. On the harder levels it asks you to sustain larger and larger populations with increasingly limited resources, and reaching the level of getting patrician housing (only achieved with sustained, stable access to literally every amenity) is extremely difficult but oh so satisfying. Every other city builder I've played, I barely have to think about every house becoming the top tier, but in Caesar 3 it's impressive if even a single block achieves it. It stands out even now after so many new entrants into the genre. Hell, it's still worth playing haha.

I've had to make the call on senior pets about four times now, and it's tough. Sometimes it's easier, when they're in visible and obvious pain and sometimes it's hard, when there's no one thing you can point to. The lovely home vet who helped my last senior kitty pass said it helps to keep track of the good days and bad days. If your pet is affectionate, playful, can get excited, that's a good day. If they hide, lie in quiet places and aren't interested in things they usually love then that's a bad day. When the majority of their days are bad days, it's time.

I wouldn't think your dog would have better care in a shelter, even if you're feeling guilty about being away a lot. Maybe there's a way to shift your schedule to have more time with your dog when he's most active, or maybe there's a local kid who wouldn't mind hanging out with your dog on certain days. It's worth exploring more options because a shelter will almost certainly be a worse experience for him.

I've been extremely impressed with the longevity and all around toughness of my Dell Precision. I think it's gotta be 12 years old now, it weighs a ton, been dropped multiple times, and while I replaced its disk and memory at some point it has never suffered a hardware failure. The thing is a tank, I love it.

The one I eat most often is overnight oats, just steel cut oats and whole milk with some fruit if I have it. Favorite to eat is probably bananas foster french toast made with home made brioche. Nothing like starting your day with a brown sugar, caramel and rum sauce haha.

Oh is that the term for it? I've been calling it "super smooth scrambled eggs" which doesn't adequately describe the texture. Egg curds is pretty close but it's almost like a creamed egg. So soft and fluffy, I like to add cream cheese into it while it's cooking and serve it on toast with melty cheese and a bit of tomato salsa. Yum!

I appreciate the shout out to Guild Wars there. Aside from the opaque learning curve it's one of the most player friendly live service games going.

I spotted She Ra PoP (Catra and Adora), Owl House (Luz and Amity) and Stephen Universe (Sapphire and Ruby)

Edit: Harley Quinn & Ivy, and Charlie and Vaggie from Hazbin Hotel

I had a therapist who specialized in working with ADHD adults and she was very good about calling me out on my "shoulds". She would say "who told you that?" or "why do you feel that way?" or "where does that belief come from?" just about every time a "should" came out of my mouth. It was a really good practice in reframing, and making me realize I was feeling external pressures by comparing myself to others, or not giving myself the time and space I needed to accomplish the things that would satisy me. I'd encourage everyone in this thread to try getting to the bottom of your "shoulds", it's helped me understand and be kinder to myself.

Yeah Dreamfall was a much darker game in setting and themes, and I remember that while the protagonist tried some humor here and there it was just not as rewarding to interact with certain impractical things or be goofy like you could with April. April's journal was also worth reading for some funny summaries of events, but Zoe's was generally pretty dry and more pragmatic.

I still remember getting stuck on some underwater puzzle in Arcadia and dropping the game for a while before coming back and admitting defeat with a walkthrough guide. Definitely a game where you need to hang up your pride sometimes haha. I enjoyed both games, though Dreamfall was sadly missing some of the humor and silliness (it did try... a little). I have fond memories of the series though.

EV driving really shines in local trips, which is the majority of most people's driving. My husband and I have solar panels and a plug in hybrid, so his commute to work every day is essentially free for us (aside from wear and tear). If you're regularly driving long hauls then fully EV doesn't seem to make sense yet, but for every day driving, the trade off of having cheaper daily trips with occasional higher expenses for long hauls probably still nets a lower cost per mile.

It basically describes the idea of a digital replicant though. Your body dies but you'd have a perfect copy of your consciousness to continue on without mortal constraints.

I'm quoting the article since you said you weren't able to read it. For the most part I agree most animals are happy to live and let live and most animal attacks are easily avoided.

But, then I've also met Canada geese, so I'm reserving judgement, myself.

Makes me think this is like most animal "attacks" and the result of a human mistaking reality for a Disney movie. The vast majority of the time the human starts it intentionally or be thinking wild animals are tame and pissing them off.

The victim was a jogger in a park, the article was positing that it was territorial behavior based on protecting their young but they "came out of nowhere" as far as she was concerned.

This is really well articulated and puts into words the reason I stopped playing. I was one of those non FPS players who really thrived on Sym and Moira and Mercy and I felt welcomed and appreciated when it first came out. I just had fun and that made me want to try to get better and kept me coming back. As they kept retooling things, especially with Sym 3.0, I felt they were deliberately pushing me and people like me out. Instead of having a fun, wild and playful team game for my friends to all have a good time in, it became just another FPS game.

Ear mites are also a thing, and they're highly contagious. Kittens are especially susceptible to them so I would definitely read up on them if I were you.

A "crescent" moon 🥐

There are so many great tasting cheap wines! My favorite is about $16-18 or so but I'm perfectly happy with $4-8 wine too. I will agree though that there are some extremely interesting and complex flavors to be found in the high end stuff that I find very compelling, and can understand the appeal of, but I ain't paying for it.

This is a common misconception but it's just not true. As you can see in this video mobility is hardly a problem. It certainly would be possible that a piece could be bent or damaged badly enough to hinder you, but a properly fit set is going to let you do whatever you need to do in a battle. You are certainly right that it was expensive though, full plate was similar to buying a luxury car. It was rare but not that rare, a sign of wealth and social class but not like only kings could wear it. And it certainly was not strictly ornamental.

I agree with your assessment of Picard, but haha yeah you're alone in that opinion of the Good Place. I recently rewatched/binged the whole series again and I found the overall story arc held together well, with a clear vision throughout. My criticism of it would be against the points where they tried to be too slapstick or absurdist because HuMouR plus some minor filler that could have been trimmed. The ending, though, was a natural culmination of the themes they talked about, and I thought it was poignant and beautiful and suited the rest of the content. It wasn't perfect but whenever the subject of finales or series endings come up the Good Place is held up as an example of how it's done.