Sampson

“That’s the badger!”

“Party isn’t a verb” Weird how it’s just accepted as a regular word when used as a vern now, when in the 80s or 90s it was seen as a running joke to use it as a m kind of cartoonish ironic use of the word.

The biggest thing Orwell got wrong in that regards was that people would need to be coerced into an authoritarian post-truth surveillance state, and not that people would happily vote for him as long as Big Brother told them it’d help them keep out foreigners.

I’ve been reading the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. Great sci-fi/fantasy page turners. I’m just starting book 7 now, book 8 coming out in May. No doubt they’ll make this in a tv show at some point as it seems really popular.

While I agree, I also don’t like it when people try to dismiss the old games like monopoly or Cluedo which are still a perfectly nice time with family. To me the appeal is just the social time, in a time when everyone is addicted to their phones, friends or family sitting round a table together, not checking their phones for 2-3 hours and just laughing and enjoying a game together is what life is all about. It doesn’t matter to me if people are playing the old familiar games like monopoly or rummy or enjoying something new. I think board and card games (and tabletop RPGs for us real nerds) feel even more refreshing nowadays because they’re so face-to-face social in a way the modern digitalised world isn’t. My favourite games tend to be ones with lots of table talk like negotiation, diplomacy, bluffing or social deduction games for that reason.

Been really enjoying Magical Athlete recently with my nieces and nephews. It’s a very silly and funny dice rolling family game which is great for young kids and elderly parents who aren’t into board gaming (and still great fun as an adult too).

Carcassone is an old favourite of mine too. Don’t play it as often these days, but everytime I do, it’s always a “I forgot how good this game is, why did we stop playing it so regularly?” reaction. Some of my favourites are Cosmic Encounter, Dune (the original one not Dune Imperium), Nemesis, Unmatched, Dominion, Arcs, Root, Libertalia, Blood on the Clocktower, The Resistance, Survive: Escape from Atlantis, Stationfall, Captain Sonar as well as a good Texas Hold ‘Em night. Used to love Diplomacy back in the day too, but it’s so hard getting 7 people together for a full weekend game these days.

Wordle 1 743 6/6 ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ 🟩⬜🟩⬜⬜ 🟩🟨🟩⬜⬜ 🟩⬜🟩⬜🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 That is, in my humble opinion, a complete bullshit word.

Got tunnel vision on the blue group and couldn’t find the right combination Connections Puzzle #1021 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨🟦🟦🟨 🟨🟦🟦🟦 🟦🟪🟦🟦 🟨🟦🟪🟦

Especially if I can’t pick the Riverfolk otters in Root. Bartering and offering diplomatic promises to your friends only to later reneg on them and stab them in the back in a board game is truly one of life’s great pleasures

I think about death every day. Some days I think it’ll be ok, no scarier than before, but then I think of my friends and family, playing board games together or watching football together or having a nice meal together or a pint in the pub together. Or I read a good book on my own, or I feel the wind against my skin, hear the birds chirping, hear the sea lapping up against the shore and see the beauty of hills and mountains and grass and plants and bogs and marsh and waterfalls. Then the feeling of never getting to experience any of that again fills me with utter dread deep in my stomach.

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Connections Puzzle #1020 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟪🟪🟪🟦 🟪🟦🟪🟪 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟦🟦🟦🟦

Wordle 1 741 6/6 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜ ⬜🟨🟨🟨⬜ ⬜⬜🟨🟨🟨 ⬜🟩🟨🟩🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Almost failed. Got it by just continuously plugging in all the combinations I had left. Never would’ve got it otherwise

One of the toughest I ever remember. Only got 1 category Connections Puzzle #1019 🟪🟦🟦🟦 🟪🟦🟦🟦 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟪🟩🟪🟩 🟩🟪🟩🟩

Interesting read. Reminds me of the classic pc game Deus Ex - humans have biological need to be judged by others or else society and working together - which evolutionary helped us survive would not be possible- first that was fulfilled by God, then in the 20th century it got fulfilled by fame and mass media - then in the games dystopian future (and thus game was from 1999) it got fulfilled by AI and mass surveillance through data mining algorithms “The need to be observed and understood was once satisfied by God. Now we can implement the same functionality with data-mining algorithms.”

Like most things - the social internet has ruined its original purpose. You see MPs sitting there on their phones after they said something scrolling twitter to see if they’re trending. It’s all about getting the social media 15 second “zinger” out of context clip nowadays and nothing else. Still think it’s utterly absurd that smart phones are even allowed in parliament, let alone that mps are allowed to sit there looking at them.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg547ljepvzo You can see all the bets come in just before he makes his announcements - which you’d assume only very high ups in the government would have knowledge of his pending announcements. This war, the announcements, the chaos, the scapegoating, it’s all just a rigged gambling game where they know the outcome beforehand and it’s all just designed to make him and his mates richer while everyone else suffers the consequences. It’s what Putin does too, it’s all out in the open too, they don’t exen try and hide it.

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This was ended my 8 day streak but was probably the most American centric one yet. No chance with a couple of those categories Connections Puzzle #1018 🟪🟩🟦🟩 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟨🟪🟩🟨 🟪🟩🟩🟩 🟪🟩🟩🟪

nm

I think there are specialist websites for that

Impressed you got purple first. There’s way too many “ow” words for me to have spotted it first

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Connections Puzzle #1017 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟪🟪🟪🟪