Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

[TiQuinn]

Are we sure?

There are two specific games whose fandom's I find to be aggressively offensive. Bringing them up in discussion has become a red flag for me. The fans who evangelize them have occupied an inordinate number of slots on my ignore list.

But I don't actually dislike the games. I would play them with people I know. I often wonder what the correlation and/or causation is. I have theories, but they're just guesses.

I don’t know - I think that’s throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There’s plenty of people who can have reasonable discussions about games. However, I have to wonder about those who do tend to fight about games exactly how many different games they play and whether there’s any kind of reverse correlation.

 

[trappedslider]

Let people like the stuff they like, sheesh.

 

[Autumnal]

I’ve been reviewing everything I know about stress reduction lately, since I’m having problems with critically bad cardiac conditions and have to be doing all I can on all fronts. One is relevant to both dining and gaming.

If it’s wildly unlikely that you will ever have fun with something, get away from it. Don’t talk about it. As far as you can, don’t read about it. (In my experience, 100% withdrawal is very hard. Cut way back, at least.) Don’t give it your time. If you’ve been trying to play it or eat it even though you’re sure it will make you miserable, knock it off.

There are two possibilities, once you start doing that.

1. You may have options you like within the same field. There’s a cuisine you like to read about, to eat, and to talk about. Do that. Look up subreddits and YouTube channels and Substack whatever-they-ares you may not have heard about. There may be a game you enjoy playing and thinking about. Same deal.

Reexamine options you haven’t taken seriously before. Maybe you could experiment with fixing crockpot pot pies or GMless games, if these are outside your orbit. Thinking about choices you haven’t thought about is often hard, but it’s doable, and you may find something that works well for you.

2. There isn’t any particularly viable alternative that, after some experimentation, suits you. In the case of food, this gets far too complicated for me to say anything meaningful about - I have large unusual constraints on diet that mean I have no experience of a lot of otherwise good options. But I can say something about when no gaming in reach seems worth pursuing.

Go ahead and do something else already. Paint minis, maybe. It’s fun, soaks up time well, gives you opportunities for developing mastery, and people talk a lot about it. Study an academic subject that interests you. If it calls for developing new skills, so much the better. Places like Khan Academy will help you with math for free, and some of the best universities in the world have syllabuses and lectures online. Take up an art, or music. Become a birdwatcher or field naturalist. Become of a fan of a sport team and learn about th game. (If you’re an American, do this in hard mode: become a fan of a cricket team.) become an informed fan of a prose or poetry genre. Read Victorian novel, and relevant histories and biographies. These all offer the same kinds of advantages.

I’ve lived on fixed and limited income and with big health problems, so I have no experience of traveling, or bicycling or running, or other activities that require more dough and/or bod. But they’re popular options for less constrained people. Becoming informed about fashion is cheap, and refurbishing a wardrobe is cheaper than many people think - becoming dapper or otherwise distinctive in appearance is a thing you can do surprisingly cheaply.

But it all starts with determining to put down and get away from what brings you misery, frustration, sadness, regret, and the like. Spit it out, already!

Jean-Paul Sartre observed that being precedes essence. That is, we are living creatures, people, before we have a clear identity - anything where you say “I’m an ___”, a Christian, a Democrat, an Angeleno, a vegan, a role player, a guru, a cowtipper. Identities accumulate out of actions and thoughts. And identities can and do change.

It may feel horrible to contemplate not being something you are now. But people have such things forced on them all the time and survive. They have to move, become disabled, have experiences they cannot be honest about without changing their worldview, find that they cannot tolerate (or must begin tolerating) something crucial to their political faction, find themselves in love without someone of a type they’ve never loved before, and on and on. Their identity changes but they don’t cease to exist or change in every way. And same deal with changes we choose.

It takes time. I don’t think it ever goes entirely smoothly and without any relapses. But it goes, and take you toward more happiness and less unhappiness.

 

[Scribe]

Wow. Greatness is awesome, and Ohtani is greatness, I dont even watch Baseball.

 

[Thomas Shey]

But it all starts with determining to put down and get away from what brings you misery, frustration, sadness, regret, and the like. Spit it out, already!

The problem is, of course, that sometimes getting away from it also leaves you with sadness, regret and the like. That can make it hard to bite the bullet, and sometimes it takes until getting away from it becomes clearly the lesser evil. I learned that when abandoning one of my two gaming groups about a year ago. But it was far, far from an easy decision.

It takes time. I don’t think it ever goes entirely smoothly and without any relapses. But it goes, and take you toward more happiness and less unhappiness.

You just may have to deal with some regret to go with it. But that doesn't mean its still not the better choice.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

You apparently get some very odd results when you have a puppy that was, essentially, raised by an adult cat. They apparently tend to grow up thinking of themselves as a big clumsy cat...

I have seen many a dog raised by cats- including in our own household. Ours mimicked the grooming behaviors and definitely deferred leadership to the boss cat.

The funniest of them all, however, was a friend’s red Dobie (60+ lbs) raised by a pair of smallish cats (both under 10 lbs). Not only did the dog swat preferentially over biting, he was fully part of cat-style zoomies.

IOW, as we’re sitting on the couch playing a video game or watching sports or monster movies, if you heard zoomies begin, you needed to be on alert. If the couch was going to be run across while you were on it, the 3 of them could all run over you, in any order, in any direction. And often, more than once.

For example, a zoomie sequence might be:

DOG => cat => cat
cat <= DOG <= cat
DOG <= cat <= cat
cat => cat => DOG

And so on. That dog would absolutely destroy your lap & legs and…everything.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The game is an inanimate object, most likely in the form of a book or boxed set. It has no intentionality. It has no consciousness. It's neither haunted nor magical. It's lifeless.

It is neither tarrying or running.

It is plain that it is not a soldier by its haphazard way of walking. It does not seem to be joking loudly or singing as it advances.

 

[Autumnal]

The problem is, of course, that sometimes getting away from it also leaves you with sadness, regret and the like. That can make it hard to bite the bullet, and sometimes it takes until getting away from it becomes clearly the lesser evil. I learned that when abandoning one of my two gaming groups about a year ago. But it was far, far from an easy decision.

You just may have to deal with some regret to go with it. But that doesn't mean it’s still not the better choice.

These are excellent things to add. Thanks. The transition is probably going to be hard, with regrets and frustration and impulses to stop and go back, if the thing you’re giving up has been a significant part of your identity. “Good to do” and “easy to do” don’t k ow each other, and the change becomes evidently worthwhile only with time.

It is neither tarrying or running.

It is plain that it is not a soldier by its haphazard way of walking. It does not seem to be joking loudly or singing as it advances.

And you can’t tell anything by the way it walks. It may be a ladies’ man, it may have no time to talks but you won’t know.