About The Author

Riven

Riven

[riv-uhn] noun 1. a gaming, lifting, shooting, intoxicated, ravenous, and happily-taken nerd. 2. often aims to misbehave. 3. and though she be but little, she is fierce.* And rumor has it that she (and her husband) are also delightful dinner companions. You didn't hear it from me, though.

102 Comments

  1. SDF-7

    Hmm… so is the implication that the developers will have more time to roam the great outdoors?

    developer of the much-loved OlliOlli skating games

    Citation most certainly needed… never heard of this one.

    At least I’ve heard of KSP — though I don’t follow it intently and most of what I remember about rumblings on KSP2 is “sell out”.

    Given the sheer amount of overpriced crap flooding the market (at least it feels that way on Steam / PC), a contraction in an economic downturn seems expected. Wonder if mobile apps are getting hit at all — the casual gamer I would expect has less discretionary income. Most of the games I know of depended on whales though, and they may still have their money (don’t ask me why they throw it at said games though… )

    Happy Weekend Fun Time, Campers!

  2. SDF-7

    “It’s just going to hurt a little bit…”

    WAIT… WHO STEAL SEA SMITH’S SEA URCHIN PICKUP LINE?

    ALSO GO WITH — “STICK WITH ME, BABY” — AND “THIS ONLY LITTLE PRICK YOU FEEL TONIGHT!”

    WORKS ON ALL THE SHIPPING LANES!

  3. SDF-7

    “Economic Insights from Javier Milei’s 2021 Presentation for FEE”

    Millei to the south — Pierre to the north… never expected to envy the rest of the Americas when it comes to politicians.

    • Spudalicious

      I’m liking me some Milei.

  4. Nephilium

    They really need to stop it with the Exorcist sequels. The only one that’s even tolerable is the third.

    • SDF-7

      Just wait for ChatGPT generated scripts with the inputs from the money side. “I want a Western using the Jaws franchise! And put a chick in it… and make her gay!”

      I look forward to it all collapsing of its own weight and hopefully a new generation of indie film makers (given the power of hand held cameras and editing these days) working out new channels for getting found for streaming / on the net. I’m not an art film guy — but we need some sort of fresh writing and not just the raping of the corpses of past blockbusters. (HEY… SKULL SMITH RESEMBLE THAT REMARK!)

      • Nephilium

        The indie films are doing quite well. Especially in the horror realm.

        Although, I guess a sequel is a bit better than yet another remake/reboot.

      • R.J.

        Yes, they are. In fact next week I am showing one from an Argentinian producer not named Milei.

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        Hmm, A fresh water shark in the Rio Grande threatening the lives of migrants trying to get into the US. A gay woman trying to get her Latinx lover safely over is in conflict with the racist sheriff who is ignoring the shark attacks to keep the migrants out.

        This could actually get greenlit.

      • The Artist Formerly Known as Lackadaisical

        It has probably already been made.

    • ron73440

      The only one that’s even tolerable is the third.

      I thought the third one was exellent, but it’s been many years since I’ve seen it.

      • Nephilium

        My opinion may have been tainted by reading the book before seeing the movie. For some reason, my parents didn’t mind what I read, but still wouldn’t let me watch the movies.

  5. Shpip

    Horror maestro Mike Flanagan is reportedly in talks to direct the next Exorcist movie for Blumhouse and Universal Pictures.

    In this remake, Regan is dyslexic, leading to the famous line

    “YOUR MOTHER COOKS SOCKS IN HELL!!!”

    • Suthenboy

      Wait, wasn’t that from The Devil in Mrs. Jones?

  6. UnCivilServant

    New Fan arrived and assembled. Laundry on. Driver’s license renewal in.

    Now what?

    • R.J.

      I need help folding laundry. Stop on by.

      • R.J.

        I got all mine folded. Maybe you can help next time. I pay in steaks.

      • Sean

        Say what?

    • pistoffnick (370HSSV)

      Is it your Only Fan?

      Is it your biggest fan?

      • Aloysious

        Larf.

        You made it porny.

    • Spudalicious

      Crank the hog?

  7. The Artist Formerly Known as Lackadaisical

    “Derpetologist on May 3, 2024 at 2:55 pm
    I don’t feel great about pressing charges. I did it for the sake of other teachers and students.”

    You did the right thing. Any age is no age to be hitting teachers, but 14 is way too old, and he should already know better.

    • Sean

      Agreed.

    • Derpetologist

      He’ll probably plead guilty to a lesser charge and get community service. I’m OK with that.

      • The Other Kevin

        If he got the venue changed to DC, all charges would be dropped.

      • R.J.

        He’ll turn out to be an illegitimate Biden. All charges dropped.

      • Gender Traitor

        I thought the Bidens didn’t acknowledge those. Or is it just that they get no stocking on the White House Christmas tree?

    • Derpetologist

      I was able to de-escalate with one of the other troublesome students by showing him the scar on my head from the time 3 guys jumped me and 1 bashed me in the head with a club. I told him if I hadn’t pulled out a knife, I’d probably be a dead man.

      I’m a 39-year-old, 200-pound man and Army veteran. I’m not going to be a doormat for juvenile delinquents.

  8. The Other Kevin

    It’s funny how some people consider Milei to be just like Trump. No way in hell Trump could ever make a speech like that, even if he wanted to.

    • R.J.

      Agreed. Milei walks rings around Trump in both policy speeches and actual actions taken.

    • Fourscore

      “No way in hell Trump could ever make a speech like that, even if he wanted to.

      Why would he want to? Friends are made by spending.

      • R.J.

        Wise words.

      • juris imprudent

        And depressing. I hate humanity.

  9. R.J.

    I can’t believe I knew about “Another Crab’s Treasure” before Riven linked it. Does that mean… I am becoming hep?

  10. Ted S.

    Fuck slideshow lists.

    • rhywun

      +7

      • Beau Knott

        You won’t believe #5!

  11. R.J.

    “Exorcist 11: The Presidential Suite”
    Turns out the current president of the United States died 5 years ago and his rotting body is inhabited by a legion of demons that work him like a puppet.
    Oh wait…
    That’s too close to the truth. It will never get greenlit.

    • Nephilium

      I’ve heard Chucky Season 3 goes to the White House. I still need to finish the second movie.

    • Dr. Fronkensteen

      It might get greenlit if the President was a caricature of a Republican president taking place in the near future.

  12. CPRM

    “Mike Flanagan in Talks to Direct Next Exorcist Movie”

    He also created, wrote, produced, and served as showrunner on the Netflix series…Midnight Mass,

    One thing that made the original so scary was that it relied on real practices of the Catholic church, and the next one will be helmed by a guy who thinks Ash Wednesday is feast day.

    • SDF-7

      who thinks Ash Wednesday is feast day.

      Legitimate LOL for that one. Nicely done.

  13. Derpetologist

    I’m against compulsory education for various reasons, yet I doubt it will go away during my lifetime. I have to work somewhere. I enjoy teaching math and am qualified for it. It’s just a matter of finding the right school.

    • Shpip

      Bright, well-behaved kids who are interested in maths might be your forte, so here you go.

      • Derpetologist

        Thanks so much for that. I emailed the principal/founder my credentials.

      • Derpetologist

        Oddly enough, my application to Buchhholz was rejected yesterday. I guess Frazer doesn’t like that school much either.

      • Derpetologist

        Got a quick reply from Frazer. No math teacher jobs left. Bummer.

  14. CPRM

    This same time last year I took 2 weeks off for my birthday, because why not? I need to burn PTO before July. Those 2 weeks my internet went down, took the entire two weeks to get it sorted out.

    This year I took a week off starting next Thursday to burn the PTO around my birthday again. Last night my internet went down. Called in to the service line this morning got a service call set up for Monday. After I hang up I get a confirmation text, for Monday May 13th. How the fuck does this happen 2 years in a row the same fucking week?

    Went down to my cell provider and got a cellular wifi device to test out. So far the speed doesn’t seem any faster than my slow ass DSL connection that is down. Highest data is 75 gigs, I used 85 last month just on my desktop and that was a light month, that doesn’t count whatever data I used on the laptop that I zoom on.

  15. Evan from Evansville

    Wowza. First check. End of week. Extended hours again next week, again all legit optional. I’m enjoying them.

    I kinda have legit chill time. W bro’s fam, which is perfect timing! Hrm. Many realms of my brain are swamped in curious ways, all extremely positive. I’m gonna have to get used to this. Ha! Legit note I wrote to myself. Off I’m sharing it here. It’s part of my constant social inner tension. I’m legit great around folk. It’s always waiting on-deck that gets me:
    “*Huh. Ppl are almost Annoyingly polite!!! Learn that. It’s just reality here. Look ppl in the eye. GET FUCKING USED TO IT.”

    I’m quite bossy w myself sometimes.

  16. trshmnstr

    Chris Hanson on differences between male and female pedos

    The part about the females validates what my thinking has been, which was that they’re trying to take a second shot at their school years, but as the popular girl.

    The other bucket he brought up is interesting. They’re still emotionally attached to some sexual event from when they were a kid and are trying to recreate it.

    • slumbrew

      That last point was drilled into me from years of listening to Loveline.

      Abused become abusers.

      Also, “little girl voice” is usually associated with being sexualized at too young an age – sort of locks them in, mentally, at that age.

      • Mojeaux

        Listened to a podcast with a self-described abstinent pedo who was 19. He said (essentially) his body outgrew his sexual preferences. His sexual maturity stopped at about age 12, when he was attracted to 12yo girls.

  17. The Late P Brooks

    Silent death

    Using a gas stove increases nitrogen dioxide exposure to levels that exceed public health recommendations, a new study shows. The report, published Friday in Science Advances, found that people of color and low-income residents in the US were disproportionately affected.

    Indoor gas and propane appliances raise average concentrations of the harmful pollutant, also known as NO2, to 75% of the World Health Organization’s standard for indoor and outdoor exposure.

    That means even if a person avoids exposure to nitrogen dioxide from traffic exhaust, power plants, or other sources, by cooking with a gas stove they will have already breathed in three-quarters of what is considered a safe limit.

    “When you’re using a gas stove, you are burning fossil fuel directly in the home,” said Yannai Kashtan, lead author of the study and a PhD candidate at Stanford University. “Ventilation does help but it’s an imperfect solution and ultimately the best way is to reduce pollution at the source.”

    Cooking with gas? It’s suicide, I tells ya.

    • ron73440

      NO ONE IS TRYING TO BAN GAS STOVES!

      • Rebel Scum

        They are just touting “study” after “study” like this for no particular reason, obviously.

      • B.P.

        And the study findings just happen to dovetail with the overarching climate policy aims.

      • juris imprudent

        WHY WON’T YOU ACCEPT OUR EVIDENCE!?!?

    • rhywun

      people of color and low-income residents in the US were disproportionately affected

      I… just can’t even.

      🤡🌎

      • juris imprudent

        See, they’re not smart enough to figure this out on their own, so we have to decide for them.

      • B.P.

        “The study suggests that size of the home is an important factor, with people living in residences less than 800 sq ft showing chronic exposure four times the rate of people living in homes with 3,000 sq ft.”

        Okay, I don’t buy the overall premise, but this part at least has some logic. Poor people live in smaller homes, and older homes are smaller and more likely to have gas stoves, or so says the article. (Counterpoint: They’re also likely more drafty/ventilated.) But…

        “While this study looked at stovetop pollution from cooking, which is a relatively short period of exposure, some people who struggle to afford utility bills rely on stoves and ovens for heat during colder months.”

        Huh? Do “some people” think the fuel used for stoves/ovens is free?

      • Sean

        We do see this in Philly. Usually cuz their heater is broken.

      • R C Dean

        “and more likely to have gas stoves”

        Based on my very limited and casual observations, I doubt this.

        I can recall using the stove occasionally for heat when I lived in cheap-ass flats with wonky heating (radiators, if memory serves). But it makes no sense to use the least efficient way to heat your house otherwise. Assuming your furnace isn’t broken, of course.

    • Rebel Scum

      found that people of color and low-income residents in the US were disproportionately affected.

      You’re doing the meme.

    • Suthenboy

      Good Lord what a giant steaming pile of deceptions. What about the methane produced from that?

  18. The Late P Brooks

    Gas stoves also emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and cities across the US are adopting building electrification measures that would phase out gas stoves in new homes.

    Dorris Bishop, a resident of River Terrace neighborhood in Washington DC, said she recently joined a waitlist to trade her gas stove in for an electric appliance after a local advocacy group tested her home for NO2 and found elevated levels.

    “I’m hopeful that this report will push for all of the new homes to put electric stoves in,” she said.

    Nobody wants to take your gas stove away.

    • Rebel Scum

      elevated levels

      Uh huh.

      • Sean

        I have elevated levels in my pants.

    • juris imprudent

      They didn’t measure BS though, did they?

  19. Fourscore

    “power plants”

    So if I’m understanding this correctly switching from gas cooking to electric loads up the power plants but doesn’t create nitrogen dioxide,

    My house plants don’t know they are being attacked by that silent killer, I’m afraid to tell them.

    • Suthenboy

      Well, except for the larger amount of gas inefficiently transformed into electric energy.
      Like all energy schemes it’s just another con to steal our money and power.

  20. Derpetologist

    There’s an interesting book called The Village of Waiting. It’s the story of a guy who was a Peace Corps volunteer at a school in Togo. Corporal punishment was the norm. The slogan among the teachers was “pour l’african, il faut le baton” (for the African, you need the stick [for beating]).

    My experience in Tanzania was similar, though I never struck students and intervened to stop a particularly vicious beating. Children in the US who are raised at home with corporal punishment will run amok in schools that ban it. It’s a cultural thing.

  21. Aloysious

    Another Exorcist movie?

    If they’re going to revisit a classic, I want something set in the world of Christopher Walkens ‘The Prophecy’s.

    • Aloysious

      sigh.

      The Prophecy.

  22. Aloysious

    Speaking of business that have been shuttered, I miss Dragon Magazine.

    • R.J.

      I think Filmfax went out of print finally. I liked that magazine. But I had not read it in a few years, so obviously not that much.

  23. R C Dean

    From the Stoic comments:

    “Rottweilers/Dobermans/Boxers and the like are great examples of how “scary” breeds get the aggression bred out of them, while tiny yippy dogs are allowed to go on biting all the ankles they want. GSDs might be an exception to that. I expect the same thing will happen to pit bulls.”

    Because of their use as pit fighters, where the handlers would get into the pit with the dogs, pit bulls were bred to be aggressive toward dogs, but not aggressive at all toward people. They were known as “nurse dogs” before WWII. There’s a reason Petey in our gang was a pit bull.

    Like with any breed, you can abuse them to be aggressive towards people. And they are so quick and powerful that if they are triggered, they can do a lot of damage.

    • Pine_Tree

      Part of “bred to be aggressive toward dogs, but not aggressive at all toward people” was that, in the old days, bulldogs that showed aggression towards people were killed. That sounds kinda harsh to modern ears, but it’s true. They were used (mostly) for fighting and for hunting as catch dogs for pigs or deer. It seems to me that there’s nothing a bull naturally likes more than “pig-dogging” a hog, meaning grabbing it by the jowls to hold it for the hunter. Anyway, yeah, those were the main breeders, and that was the practice.

      That’s not the way it is anymore. I really think the bloodline of the breed has been changed in the last 50 years by the loss of this practice. So you get what you see today. I’m also not totally one of those who insist, therefore, that today’s pits are not naturally more dangerous; I really think they seem more schizophrenic than others, more easily triggered. And then when they fall off into that reaction, they’re very, very strong and determined.

      Good ones are the best. But modern pits can also be the worst. It wasn’t always this way.

  24. The Late P Brooks

    Oh, what a tangled web we weave

    John Bozzella, CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents major automakers, said the updated rules make “good sense for investment, job creation and consumer EV adoption.”

    “The EV transition requires nothing short of a complete transformation of the U.S. industrial base,” he said in a statement. “That’s a monumental task that won’t – and can’t – happen overnight.”

    Long convoluted piece about the Ministry of Plenty’s “incentives” for EVs.

    tl;dr- it’s complicated and difficult, conjuring an industry out of thin air

    • R C Dean

      Sounds like the broken windows fallacy writ large and slathered in graft. “We have to invest billions to produce something with (at best) the functionality we have now!”

    • Rebel Scum

      consumer EV adoption

      I don’t want one so I’m not amped up about it. You’d have better luck adopting a ginger from a bad home.

    • pistoffnick (370HSSV)

      Binge watching “Clarkson’s Farm” on Amazon Prime video tonight.

      • pistoffnick (370HSSV)

        Assembling a 12 x 24 chicken run tomorrow from a used garage in a box frame.
        No more chasing chickens through the woods when it is time for them to go inside.

        I traded a couple 6 packs of cider for an automatic chicken door.

    • Rebel Scum

      I just cut the grass. That’s enough outdoors for me on account of allergies. I get a little aggressive with the trimmer, but you can’t argue with that clean edge.

    • Pine_Tree

      Once we finish supper I’m going to build out a 16″ .300 Blackout (PSA kit) on a stripped lower I’ve had for years. Then we’ll load it into the boat and go for a ride around the lake.

      Weekend’s supposed to be rainy – doing a party/barbecue tomorrow for our pastor for his 30-year service anniversary, but it’s indoors.

      • EvilSheldon

        This sounds like a good idea. I’m planning on blowing the dust off my old competition rifle on Sunday, in anticipation of the 2-gun match next weekend. Should be a blast.

  25. pistoffnick (370HSSV)

    I got my peepee slapped by the CEO, the CFO, and the President of Operations today for doing what my boss told me to do: write an unbudgeted Capital Expenditure Request. I knew it was a bad idea, but when your boss tells you to do something, you better do it.

    • R C Dean

      Huh. The places I’ve worked, requests like that go up through the chain of command. Meaning, if you wrote it, it goes to your boss, and doesn’t go any further until he signs off.

      • pistoffnick (370HSSV)

        Its this goofy MS Teams (*spits*) based app. I write it and attach my quotes and estimates to it. Everyone on the approval list can see it. My boss doesn’t approve it but his boss already did based on my boss’ recommendation.

        I predict more peepees get slapped on Monday.

      • R C Dean

        Oh, FFS. I have a powerful dislike of Teams anyway. In my limited experience, Teams and Slack chat-like functions are worse than useless. That particular process sounds like a great way to waste people’s time by putting stuff in front of them that ordinarily wouldn’t make it to their desk.

  26. robc

    EPL relegation update:

    Luton Town drew with Everton today reducing Luton’s survival chances from 26.2% to 19.3%. it raised the chances for Nottingham Forest from 57.6% to 62.4% and Burnley from 16.2% to 18.3%.

    Forest and Burnley play tomorrow. Forest is at Sheffield United so a good chance to push near 100%. Burnley hosts Newcastle United, so a good chance to crater their odds

    • Rebel Scum

      This should deflate the conspiracy theories.

      Bissell-Linsk

      I’m sure there is something here but I suck at puns.

    • Plinker762

      Perhaps it was a warning. “The next one will be on your house”

  27. Rebel Scum

    *vomits*

    You were supposed to destroy the Sith, not join them.