This absolutely tracks with my experience after having a kid. Suddenly I have little to no time to waste and so every hour I have to myself I feel that urgency and pressure to get as much done as possible. I’ve never had less free time or been so consistently productive as this last year. I think the demands are not so intense that I’m going to crash, but I do chafe against the limitations. I’m frustrated that I’m unable to excuse the time for my favorite leisure activities, and I miss video games. However I have gotten so many projects done, some things that have been sitting around for years, that I have to give myself a bit of credit for once.

I read those books over and over again just to spend more time there. I still remember more details about the cultures, cities, and fashion in those books better than I could ever remember the plot. The magic and higher moral themes were very simplistic in comparison to other books but RJ really excelled at fleshing out a continent with diverse and unique peoples that made sense in that world.

When your kid runs at you to give you the most enthusiastic hug of your life just because.

I have an irrational dislike of her voice and the way she talks but nothing against her as a person or a professional.

Terminator, the Matrix and Dune are all the same universe at different points in time.

The way I see it, the more Harris signs on people’s lawns, the less people can pretend that trump voters are the majority. If you see house after house with Harris signs and that county votes blue, then someone might be less willing to believe bullshit about the election being stolen from him.

Haven’t seen anyone here recommend The Woman in Black (2012) which fits the atmospheric horror genre perfectly. Stars Daniel Radcliffe and I remember it as being quite good, with no gore and minimal cheap jump scares. I don’t think the trailer is a good representation of it so that would be one to go into blind.

Dance, and music. It could probably be argued that dolphins already dance and don’t need any extra encouragement. I bet a dolphin would love to play with a sound board that could play tones when buttons are pushed. Object arrangement, like someone else said. Sand patterns maybe. They can also interact with things out of the water too so painting isn’t so ridiculous, they just don’t have the dexterous appendages that elephants or chimps do.

Every kid is different, but if you’re not able to ask the parents then a safe bet is a duplo set. Bristle blocks are also great. My kid is currently 2 1/2 so these are what I know would be hits with him and his friends.

You could also get one of the following books:

Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site
Don’t Worry Little Crab
The Little Blue Truck (it’s a whole series, the Halloween one would be appropriate)
Bear Snores On or any other book in that series.

I like Walz so it was frustrating to hear him tripping over his words and misspeaking. I think I heard him say he was friends with a school shooter, when I know he meant to say people effected by shootings. I felt that unfortunately Vance sounded clear and authoritative which will sway some people, despite being full of shit. One question Walz handled excellently was the one on abortion and reproductive rights. I just wish he had been that solid and aggressive and confident throughout the whole debate.

This is one is genre specific, but Caesar 3. I love city builders and have played them for as long as they’ve existed. I’ve learned all the little tricks and systems of the ones I’ve played, exploiting esoteric mechanics and optimizing my little utopias and creating epic, sprawling empires that far exceed every metric asked of me. That said, Caesar 3 is a challenge I still relish after (oh wow, has it really been) 25 years. It’s the only city builder where the “peaceful” branch in the story is harder than the “wartime” scenarios. I revisited it recently wondering if I was just missing something back when I was younger, but nope. On the harder levels it asks you to sustain larger and larger populations with increasingly limited resources, and reaching the level of getting patrician housing (only achieved with sustained, stable access to literally every amenity) is extremely difficult but oh so satisfying. Every other city builder I’ve played, I barely have to think about every house becoming the top tier, but in Caesar 3 it’s impressive if even a single block achieves it. It stands out even now after so many new entrants into the genre. Hell, it’s still worth playing haha.

I’ve had to make the call on senior pets about four times now, and it’s tough. Sometimes it’s easier, when they’re in visible and obvious pain and sometimes it’s hard, when there’s no one thing you can point to. The lovely home vet who helped my last senior kitty pass said it helps to keep track of the good days and bad days. If your pet is affectionate, playful, can get excited, that’s a good day. If they hide, lie in quiet places and aren’t interested in things they usually love then that’s a bad day. When the majority of their days are bad days, it’s time.

I wouldn’t think your dog would have better care in a shelter, even if you’re feeling guilty about being away a lot. Maybe there’s a way to shift your schedule to have more time with your dog when he’s most active, or maybe there’s a local kid who wouldn’t mind hanging out with your dog on certain days. It’s worth exploring more options because a shelter will almost certainly be a worse experience for him.

I appreciate the shout out to Guild Wars there. Aside from the opaque learning curve it’s one of the most player friendly live service games going.

EV driving really shines in local trips, which is the majority of most people’s driving. My husband and I have solar panels and a plug in hybrid, so his commute to work every day is essentially free for us (aside from wear and tear). If you’re regularly driving long hauls then fully EV doesn’t seem to make sense yet, but for every day driving, the trade off of having cheaper daily trips with occasional higher expenses for long hauls probably still nets a lower cost per mile.

I’m quoting the article since you said you weren’t able to read it. For the most part I agree most animals are happy to live and let live and most animal attacks are easily avoided.

But, then I’ve also met Canada geese, so I’m reserving judgement, myself.

Makes me think this is like most animal “attacks” and the result of a human mistaking reality for a Disney movie. The vast majority of the time the human starts it intentionally or be thinking wild animals are tame and pissing them off.

The victim was a jogger in a park, the article was positing that it was territorial behavior based on protecting their young but they “came out of nowhere” as far as she was concerned.

This is really well articulated and puts into words the reason I stopped playing. I was one of those non FPS players who really thrived on Sym and Moira and Mercy and I felt welcomed and appreciated when it first came out. I just had fun and that made me want to try to get better and kept me coming back. As they kept retooling things, especially with Sym 3.0, I felt they were deliberately pushing me and people like me out. Instead of having a fun, wild and playful team game for my friends to all have a good time in, it became just another FPS game.

Oh man, as a new-ish parent I’m starting to get those sudden out of the blue hugs and cuddles and they’re amazing. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that my kid would love me but it’s like an instant shot of dopamine every time.

It was not an uncommon occurrence for people to play as, say, Symmetra, Torb or Hanzo and refuse to switch regardless of the circumstances of play and whether they were able to use those characters effectively. People got reported (and subsequently banned) for throwing matches and griefing constantly if they were on an off-meta or “troll” character in Overwatch 1. Thinking specifically around seasons 1-10 or so.

I’ve been getting into having a pdf of the various manuals for things around the house on my phone. I recently consulted the manuals for my fridge, a new dehumidifier and the lawn mower and it was pretty awesome not having to find and dig out a paper booklet each time. My phone is on me all the time plus I can get rid of the paper copies.