When I was 18, 18 years old, I saw for the first time in my life, I saw a vision of clarity. I saw a comic strip, a three panel comic strip that, though simple as it seemed, changed me, changed my being, changed who I am, made me who I am, enlightened me. The strip, Garfield, the comic strip was new, no more then maybe a month and a half since inception, since... since coming into existence, and there it was before me in print, I saw it, a comic strip. What was it called? Garfield. The story here is of a man, a plain man. He is Jon, but he is more than that. I will get to this later, but first, let us just say he is Jon, a plain man, and then there is a cat, Garfield. This is the nature of the world here. When I see the world, the...the politics, the future, the... satellites in space, and the people who put them there, you could look at everything as a man and a cat. Two beings, in harmony, and at war. So this strip I saw about this man, Jon, and the cat, Garfield, you see.... yes, hmm, it is about everything, this little comic is, oh... lo and behold not so little anymore. So yes, when I was 18, I saw this comic and it hit me all at once, its power, I clipped it and every day I looked at it and I said, okay, let me look at this here, what is this doing to me? Why is this so powerful? Jon Arbuckle, he sits here, legs crossed, comfortable in his home and he reads his newspaper. The news of the world perhaps. Then he extends his fingers, lightly, delicately, he taps his fingers on an end table and he feels for something. What is it? It is something he needs, but it is not there. Then he looks up, slightly cockeyed and he thinks... his newspaper in his lap now, and he thinks this: "Now where could my pipe be?" This... I always come to this, because I was a young man, I'm older now, and I still don't have the secrets, the answers, so this question still rings true, Jon looks up and he thinks: "Now where could my pipe be?", and then it happens, you see it, you see... it's almost like divine intervention, suddenly, it is there, and it overpowers you, a cat is smoking a pipe. It is the mans pipe, it's Jon's pipe, but the cat, this cat, Garfield, is smoking the pipe, and from afar, and from someplace near, but not clear... near but not clear, the man calls out, Jon calls out, he is shocked. "Garfield!" he shouts. Garfield, the cats name. But let's take a step back. Let us examine this from all sides, all perspectives, and when I first came across this comic strip, I was at my fathers house. The newspaper had arrived, and I picked it up for him, and brought it inside. I organized his sections for him and then, yes, the comic strip section fell out from somewhere in the middle, landed on the kitchen floor. I picked up the picture pages and saw up somewhere near the top of this strip, just like Jon, I too was wearing an aquamarine shirt, so I thought, "Hah! Interesting, I'll have to see this later." I snipped out the little comic and held onto it, and 5 days later, I re-examined, and it gripped me, I needed to find out more about this.

They've had this for the past year but yeah, it gets updated very often

Everyone needs to be warned about the danger of Beefbrain

My dad told me he'd love me always before I came out and hasn't spoken to me since, I wish for others to have a better experience than me cause this shit's brutal

Ha I sent a letter to my representative about this a while ago and got back a reply that amounted to "thanks but we don't care"

Yep! It's real bad, I had to wait in a line around a building on a Tuesday morning the first election I voted in. One of the big things too is that there are fewer polling centers in the city, and usually more in the suburbs (proportional to the amount of people there).

So while you have a quarter of the eligible voting population in a city go to a single voting center, in the suburbs you have a much smaller group with a less crowded (& usually more convenient) polling area.

Since I moved from a red state to Colorado it's been mind blowing how painless and accessible it is to vote in this state.

Before every election all registered voters automatically get a mail-in ballot, as well as a detailed book explaining every issue & candidate on the ballot with sample arguments for & against. You can then either mail the ballot or drop it off in very convenient drop boxes that are usually less than 10 min from your place. In some ways it's difficult to not have at least some idea of the political landscape for most voters.

It's funny cause for how well remembered this quest is, it's one of the most bugged & easily broken quests in Oblivion. I recently played through and found that for some reason you can just straight up kill guests in front of the others and they react the same as if you were sneaking around

Yeah I grew up around that region and you're absolutely right it's halfway between suburban and rural. Everyone I know from the area that's read the book says he comes across as a middle class person cosplaying as Appalachian poor.

Are the bugs really initiating the attacks? Because with the distance between Klendathu & Earth it seems pretty obvious the movie is trying to imply the bugs aren't the ones sending meteors at the humans.

When I rewatched the movie with a friend recently he was surprised that the movie ended with what felt like an anticlimactic resolution - because the war keeps going forever (or so it seems). I really like the interpretation that Starship Troopers (the movie itself) is an in-universe propaganda film used to recruit soldiers to feel important and make a difference in the war effort.

Wow I just beat this game today, what a nice coincidence

Pathologic 2 is a game that makes you feel like the entire world is against you. From the moment you start the game you're presented with a scenario in which you've already failed to stop the deadly plague infecting the city, and you get a chance to do it all over.

You are Artemy Burakh, a surgeon coming back home to his home in the Russian Steppe at the request of his late father. From the moment you arrive in town, things are off. You are quickly branded as a criminal and must hide away or risk being attacked by citizens. Slowly but surely, you keep encountering strange things in the town: an impossible spire stretching into the heavens, a building where an infection has seemingly taken over the walls, a band of children who have broken away to form their own gamg, and the plague itself speaks to you - warning you about the devastation to come.

The game is brutally tough. It has difficulty settings if you struggle too much - but the intended difficulty is meant to crush your will to continue. While fighting off the plague you must manage your own hunger, thirst, and health. Which becomes increasingly harder to do as the plague grows in strength. In addition - at the end of every day the game randomly rolls who in the town gets infected with the plague and for those already infected they could possibly die. Everyone, including you, and I mean everyone in the town has the potential to die. You are tasked with keeping them alive.

On top of that the game is an excellent journey into the psychology of those you meet, and comments on the blend between the supernatural culture of the steppe and the growing industrialization of the city. There's so much stuff there in the game (mind you there is some jank), and its the kind of game I think about all of the time. Also the soundtrack is beautiful and haunting, with the perfect emotion for each scene.