arch_8ngel

There are anti-viral medications, depending on the specific type of virus. But "cure" is a really strong word.

Then your understanding is incorrect. The masks are MORE HELPFUL at preventing the wearer from GIVING it to someone else, yes. THIS is why we need EVERYONE to be willing to wear a mask in public, so that unknown carriers don't spread it. But they are STILL BETTER THAN NOTHING at mitigating how much virus the wearer comes into contact with. (and depending on the type of mask, if you wear it properly and don't touch your eyes/face, is actually pretty effective) Anyone claiming they are useless is flat out wrong.

What do you mean by "works"? A "cure"? It definitely is NOT. (and as I understand it, nobody credible claims that it is a "cure") As a "treatment"? My understanding of it is that there are conflicting studies, where MAYBE it helps, but there are other medications/treatments that appear to be more successful with fewer side effects. I certainly don't buy into any of the ridiculous conspiracy theories around it being suppressed by "big pharma".

Somebody needs to remake the AVP movie poster...

Don't even need to look at the opposing party... "like Trump with John McCain"?

Cool looking sci-fi equipment doesn't have real-world safety standards...

I'd give it a solid 9. Not in my personal top-10, but an absolutely epic movie that did things nobody had ever seen before. Also, Tom Hardy pulling a grenade launcher out of his pocket with a snarky quotable one-liner will never get old.

I only saw it in the theater once and haven't had a chance to rewatch it and chew it over, but I"ll give it a 6. There were some really creative parts, but just like the other movies of the sequel-trilogy, they follow too many character arcs compared to how compact the originals were. Also the Deus ex Machina of the Exegol fleet was over-the-top, even compared to the silly "chase scene" of Ep 8. But the imagery of the rest of the Emperor related stuff made up for it. At the time, on the big screen, it felt like the closest thing to Warhammer 40k imagery that would ever see that format in live action.

I had a great McGruff hand puppet as a kid.

Yeah, pretty sure most states are 21 for tobacco now.

Could be. But I think it reinforces the point that when the community cares about the issue, it really isn't as simple as "they're gonna get it anyway", without heavy caveats about what age that statement might become more accurate (i.e. seniors in high school, versus kids in elementary or middle school having unfettered access) I had cousins in much more rural areas, and they tended to have low-end beer access around senior year of high school from parents that would rather have the kids drink shitty beer, puke it up, and all sleep over at their house than have them out driving around. But the kids weren't just buying it themselves, and it wasn't YOUNG kids having access. I'm not saying that 21 years old is necessarily the right age barrier. But I absolutely think the world would be a worse place if a 13 year old could walk into a liquor store and buy hard liquor.

Just want you to know that this is not common anywhere I have ever lived, though I'm not saying there aren't places where it is possible. Stores take the risk of being shut down or fined very seriously here to where "a bit extra to get this stuff" is nowhere near worth the financial risk.

My thoughts exactly.

Well I'm curious to hear your actual thoughts, then.

Well that is a cynical oversimplification of reality. It is one thing for high school kids to figure out some kind of access to booze (obviously easier in a countries with an 18 y.o. drinking age, as well) But you think some curious 5th grader (or even an 8th grader) is "gonna get it one way or another"? SOME kids will have some kind of limited access through people around them being either shitty parents are delinquent older siblings. But is is FAR from universal, versus your vision of them being able to walk into a corner store and buy a handle of cheap vodka. There is absolutely zero legitimate reason for underage kids to have access to alcohol or any other recreational drugs for that matter. Adults are adults and can make their own choices about their comfort with the consequences of use and abuse. Kids are kids and fundamentally lack the judgment necessary for that kind of decision making. Part of society's responsibility to kids is to protect them from certain kinds of life altering stupid decisions they might make. Let's phrase the issue another way -- do you think the death rate, or even just the hospitalization rate, of kids due to alcohol would be higher or lower if kids could freely buy booze? Otherwise intelligent kids do all kinds of stupid impulsive stuff on a dare BECAUSE THEY ARE KIDS.

There is also the very reasonable stance of preventing children from purchasing things they can't make informed decisions about and may be much more damaging to them than to adults. Unless people are suggesting that parents should have some kind of iron grip on their kids that would prevent them ever having an opportunity to make a purchase in a corner store or grocery store alone. Or that somehow only failed parents would have kids that would make inappropriate use of alcohol in the first place while they are too young to appreciate the consequences. It's not some kind of nanny-state issue to have a minimum age for procuring drugs of any kind. It is reasonable recognition that kids need some amount of independence from the direct oversight of their parents, and during that time, we've collectively agreed that it is a societal good to limit their ability to make certain kinds of stupid decisions.

Really? You're OK with young-and-dumb kids stopping into the convenience store on their way home from school and buying booze?

If that is the same report I read a story about yesterday, it was that the MEDIAN AGE was 49, not "100 middle aged people". Included young and old in the group as well.

^^^ Nice! The Epic Megagames demo disc got a lot of use in my house, between the OMF demo, Jane of the Jungle, Android Pinball, etc.

Then just attach a 15" CRT with a VGA cable and hook up an old IBM clicky-keyboard and 2-button ball-mouse "Look and feel" is the absolute easiest part to do

Those compatibility numbers are probably better than most people managed on real hardware back-in-the-day It took a special kind of patience to get everything configured correctly and then cook up game-specific versions of autoexec.bat...

I have to disagree that there is much different about playing PC games on older hardware versus newer, beyond the monitor. If you want to emulate the old school feel, just set up a 15" CRT as a second screen through your VGA port, and get a classic IBM mechanical keyboard and, if you're feeling particularly masochistic, a ball-mouse to match. The only "space" issue is whether you can fit a small CRT on your desk. The reality of the older era of PC games is that NOBODY had the same system configuration as anybody else, so no two people had an identical gaming experience, even with the same game, due to a host of differences that impacted frame rates, load times, input quality, etc. So in all seriousness, you're best best is to just settle for making it "look old" with the monitor, and "feel old" with the period-correct keyboard and mouse. Under the hood doesn't matter as long as you have DOSBox properly configured -- if you want to go REALLY deep into it, you could probably either mask the DOSBox with a front-end that looks like old Windows, or take it a level further and nest all of your DOS games into a DOSBox hosted implementation of DOS Shell. But don't sweat the hardware... not worth the trouble IMO, and NOT a parallel for the differences between authentic console play and emulation where there are tactile and analog elements being lost.

Maybe not them specifically, but I have had a lot of hushpuppies from a lot of "authentic" BBQ places over the years. They're usually better than not having hushpuppies, for sure But something about LJS hushpuppies just can't be touched by those places. They're usually too small, or too sweet, or something else that isn't quite as good. (though the shared vat of rarely cleaned oil that was complained about earlier is probably a signature part of the flavor profile that obviously a BBQ place can't approximate -- though some southern fish fry places can come close, since we have a local chain called Skrimp Shack that does fried fish, fried shrimp, and hushpuppies and theirs are probably 2nd best to LJS)

Part in bold takes Zaxby's out of the running, since half the fun of Zaxby's is having a sandwich on Texas Toast with Zax-sauce...

Nah, they sell them by the box!