Bane

I'm concerned about faithless electors.

It would be no surprise at all if Trump were trying to get as many electors as possible to vote for him regardless of their pledge. You'll note Georgia and Pennsylvania don't have any faithless elector laws. The laws that are in place in some states are toothless anyway.

Do you want a civil war? Because this is how you spark one.

Biden got the most votes in US history. That’s awesome! I'm glad to see that level of participation. Keep it going into the Georgia runoffs and beyond. Every vote matters every time!

Trump got the second-most votes in US history. Fuckin' what?!

I'm shocked / angry / sad that after four years of this Nazi clown shitting in the Oval that 70 million of my fellow Americans voted for him again! I'm not sure how to move forward with this reality.

On one hand I agree with Biden’s sentiment that it's time to unify and heal. That’s what civilized people should say. That’s what a progressive people would hope to accomplish. I truly hope he succeeds.

On the other hand, I'm over appeasing my conscience by trying to reach out in solidarity only to be told “fuck your feelings”. Trump weaponized the willfully ignorant and rallied the alarmingly large number of hateful bigots that call themselves Americans. They tried to turn this country into a fascist state. They don’t deserve to be mothered; they deserve to be crushed until there’s nothing left of Trump’s cult and their Republican enablers but dust.

It’s a paradox of tolerance that I think I'll be struggling with for some time.

Here are the roles: https://www.rockstargames.com/reddeadonline/features/roles

Disclaimer: I haven't played RDO since like April or May so my info may be out of date.

As far as having to deal with real people: it's totally fine, and I don't like or normally play games with a multiplayer component (except co-op).

The more aggressive someone is the more visible they are in the world and on the maps. The less aggressive the less visible. This makes it fairly easy to be able to mind your own business and be left alone out in the wilderness if that's what you want.

You can also set yourself as passive which means other players can't lock on to you when shooting at you. If you fight back, though, all bets are off.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they also lowered the maximum number of people in a session. Hopefully that fixed the camp spawning issue they were having the last time I played.

From my perspective on the outside looking in there seems to be only one option: unions.

Crunch has been happening for years and years. Publishers and development studio management are not going to suddenly change on their own out of some newfound sense of humanitarianism. If the folks who are being crunched want change, they're going to have to do it themselves.

Hopefully, their new labor union charter includes one of my favorite quotes:

Poor planning on your part does not necessitate an emergency on mine.

- Bob Carter

I surprise myself with how fast I've let their reputation and goodwill towards me as a customer become tarnished because of this delay.

Is it because I took some vacation days between November 19th and Thanksgiving to play it? Mmm, that has something to do with it even though this gives me more time for Valhalla.

I think most of it has to do with me thinking they were one of the good ones. Now they've proven themselves to be just like the rest of the crunchers and liars in this industry. Sad.

I bounced off the previous Watch Dogs. There's something about this series that turns me off. I don't know what it is. So no, I doubt I'll get Legion.

Carrion

I played through Carrion over the weekend. The number of mechanics and the length of the game are perfectly matched to make it a fun weekend binge. And the ending is superb.

Personally, I love the fact that enemies don't respawn. It makes exploration so much easier. There were a couple of times where I put it down for a while, came back, and it took a bit of exploring to remember where I had to go next. If enemies respawned I think it would've been too much of a slog for me.

One thing I wish it had was fast travel. You're this blob monster spreading your biomass all over the place so why not have the ability to enter one save point and exit another? They're all a part of your biomass. I guess there isn't a good reason to backtrack through the levels unless, like me, you realized you missed some upgrades but were too far away from that part of the map to remember how to get back there.

Overall, awesome game. It's on Game Pass. I recommend checking it out!

Spiritfarer

It's very charming and has some neat ideas. My cat really liked the fishing!

It's also way outside my wheelhouse. I gave it a whirl because Vinny (I think) said he really enjoyed it. There's zero chance I would've played this if not for Game Pass. So, kudos to Game Pass for allowing me to try a game I normally wouldn't have even though I probably won't play any more of it.

Journey to the Savage Planet

I've been playing this co-op and it's fun! It's been a good game to pop into for an hour or two at the end of the day.

We've been focusing on the main mission which is pretty short. We're about six hours in and it seems like we're near the end. I'm guessing we'll get around eight hours out of it. There's quite a bit of side stuff we haven't touched though.

It's yet another Game Pass game if you want to check it out.

One of our favorites is Dominion.

In Dominion, each player starts with an identical, very small deck of cards. In the center of the table is a selection of other cards the players can "buy" as they can afford them. Through their selection of cards to buy, and how they play their hands as they draw them, the players construct their deck on the fly, striving for the most efficient path to the precious victory points by game end.

Dominion is not a CCG, but the play of the game is similar to the construction and play of a CCG deck. The game comes with 500 cards. You select 10 of the 25 Kingdom card types to include in any given play—leading to immense variety.

If it sounds like a good fit, I'd start with the base game. If you guys end up liking it there are a lot of expansions that add new cards and mechanics to the game.

The news story about Dr. Fauci's kids not coming come for Thanksgiving prompted me to ask my mom if we had any plans yet. We usually have a decently sized gathering (20-ish people), but I didn't think that was a good idea this year. I'm not sure if she spoke with anyone else or just made an executive decision, but we're not having a normal Thanksgiving this year. It'll be just my parents, sister, and I.

The same people gather for Christmas, too, but I don't think that'll happen this year either. I can see my mom and her sister doing something with FaceTime on their iPads instead.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla and Gears Tactics.