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A Thread for Random Musings


Old Man

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Factoid: I'm a bicycle commuter. 
 
So, yesterday afternoon it was super-low tide when the ferry docked.
 
I had been standing on the dock for a while so I rode on with my helmet off (oh no!).
 
One of the other cyclists comes up to me as I settled in up-top and said "I saw you ride onto the ferry." 
 
I said, "Oh, yeah?" 
 
He says, "You didn't have your helmet on." 
 
I say, "Oh, yeah." 
 
He says, "That's kind of dangerous, isn't it?" 
 
Riding in traffic is hairy as hell, helmet or not. Riding down a ramp onto a ferry with no cars around you? Not so much.
 
I manage to keep a straight face: "Well, yeah. Born to be Wild. Easy Rider. Right here, man." 
 
After a pregnant and dour pause he recriminates: "You're dangerous." 
 
I smile: "Not to display outmoded machismo or toxic masculinity, but you and I appear to assess risk in radically different ways." 
 
He chews on that and gets suspicious: "Is that supposed to mean something?" 
 
I told him, "You should meditate on that somewhere else because this conversation is the riskiest thing you've done all day." 
 
He walked off in a huff.
 
I admit that, in the words of a motorcycle commuter friend, I ride my bicycle like "a fighter pilot on a fat-boy," but.... really?
 
Who is this guy? What alternate universe did he step out of? 
 
My wife rides like a demon out of hell. I mean, she makes me nervous the way she rides. Navy Seals cry for momma when she blows by.
 
When I related this anecdote to her she grimaced and shook her head: "Gamma-male. Welcome to Seattle."
 
Too much machismo can be a problem, but none at all? That's just plain tragic. 
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Wife found Breakfast at Tiffany's on Netflix and insisted that the ten-year-old watch it with her.  Having never seen it, I watched it too.  Breakfast at Tiffany's is a movie about a gigolo and an insane, alcoholic, mob-connected call girl who host wild drunken parties and go to strip clubs together.  Yet the parts I was most offended by were the constant smoking and Mickey Rooney's yellowface.

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2 hours ago, tkdguy said:

It isn't the sheer amount of things I don't know that dismays me; it's the fact that so much of it is beyond my ability to understand.

 

I find my ignorance oddly comforting. It reminds me that the arrogance of modern human civilization lies in a demonstrably false belief that we understand what everything is and how it works. Every once in a while something drops a humbling dose of reality on us.

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I've never been a wargamer. Don't get me wrong, I've played wargames.  I've enjoyed playing wargames. I have a knack for wargames. But I'm not a wargamer. The price point, time spent painting, fiddly bits, and shelf-space... its not for me. I prefer my books and dice and characters and stories. So, last week I'm in the game store with my wife, who I have been running in an FFG Star Wars game. She's started to enjoy being a geek.  Anyways, I'm looking for a board game we can all play as a family. While looking at The Red Dragon Inn series she calls me over and points at the wall of X-Wing and Armada. My RPG buddies of the last 26 years have gone totally bonkers for X-Wing. I played it. It was okay. I played Armada. I liked it quite a bit. But... the price point on these games. Its why I've taken a pass. So I explain the concept to her and she says "huh, weird." I end up not buying anything. The next day I come home from work to find my wife standing over stack of boxes and says "hey honey, look what I got." I go to the dinner table to investigate and find she has an Armada core set and like six expansions sitting on the table. Um.... I'm flabbergasted. She's never wargamed. I pointed out the price point when we were at the store. I ask, "just how much did you spend on all this?" She grins with an ingratieting smile and holds an Imperial Star Destroyer out to me and perly says "Look, honey, Star Destroyer!" As though that explains away everything and cannot be argued. Did I mention she is Jedisexual? In for a penny; in for a pound. We are now playing "angry space triangles." She absolutely loves it. Wait a minute, I married a wargamer?! Whaaaaat?

 

 

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I'm toying with the idea of creating a role-playing game in which the Player Characters are research scientists. They struggle to find grants to fund important scientific research projects while battling crackpot Internet conspiracy theorists, evil megacorporations with billion-dollar media misinformation budgets, and a government whose attitude toward science ranges from merely indifferent to actively hostile.

 

My working title is "Feldspars & Pulsars".

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