Should have called it the Nintendo Top.

Same, honestly. I’d kill for a remaster or a proper sequel.

Loved Freelancer! Did you try the Everspace games? They’re the closest to a spiritual successor that I’ve played.

I would have if I expected it to be delivered. It wasn’t supposed to be there for another week, hence my surprise.

We have a parcel room.

They don’t use it half the time.

Same thing happened to me.

I ordered an expensive instrument, and they said it’d be delivered the week after Thanksgiving.

Got an email that it was delivered to my porch the day after Thanksgiving, when I was all the way across town.

I didn’t want to leave a $1,300 lute on my doorstep for anyone to snatch, so I drove the hour home to secure it. It wasn’t there after all, so I installed their stupid app and it told me it would be delivered next week.

One of the worst buying experiences I’ve ever had. 1/10, would not recommend.

What is your budget?

Thanks, I could kind of tell CO by comparing to those around it, but that’s not an option the way DC is presented.

The green is almost exactly the same in value as the red or orange, whatever that color is.

Coding data in color is a pet-peeve of mine. As a colorblind person, maps like this are nearly useless to me.

On The Art of Dice by the Roman emperor Claudius would be both trivial and fascinating, I’m sure.

Oh yeah, Amarillo is a big city for the NI-coC. Abilene, too.

The us-or-them situation is exactly what they’re aiming for: isolated people are easier to control. But yeah, I’m not sure if it’s an intentional strategy or just what happened to work out for their purposes.

Well, I grew up in what is known as the non-institutional church of Christ. There are different branches of the coC, ranging from the relatively liberal to the downright draconian.

What made this particular branch of the coC “non-institutional” is that they are independent of each other congregation, so the leadership of each group is separate from every other.

The way it actually shakes out is that every congregation gets super deep into the weeds about arcane interpretations of an ancient text about which they are unqualified to explain while making overconfident proclamations of certainty. Other congregations disagree with a fairly minor point in this reading, and they will become effectively dead to each other. Ultimately, the different churches (they would hate me calling them that) would form a loose confederation across the region with various groups they could live in uneasy peace with.

Within the congregation itself was a religion that taught that the world is a wicked place from which we should set ourselves apart. Evolution was a lie spread by the devil to make us doubt God’s power. Women were not allowed to speak or wear pants during the church service. We did not use instruments to make music during the service, as that was not mentioned in the Bible. Any disagreement with doctrine could get one removed from good standing, and we left two churches (forced out, really) based on the Elders’ strict views on baptism and musical instruments: my father would not agree that immersion was strictly necessary to save one’s soul, or that it was sinful to exceed the Bible’s authority and use instruments.

It is a bit of a weird duck as a cult, but they’re extremely controlling, patriarchal, and reactionary. They’re in most towns, but people usually think they’re an offshoot of the Baptists (of which certain types also dip into cult status in my opinion). I’d place them between the Baptists and the Jehovah’s Witnesses on a fundamentalist belief scale. I think the BITE model is a useful one (but not perfect) for defining cults:

• Behavioral control
• Information control
• Thought control
• Emotional control

The coC did all of these things: they wanted members to live apart from society where only those in the church were acceptable social peers, to limit exposure with “subversive” ideas and science, to make people so afraid of going to hell that you’ll blindly accept the teachings. You were expected to attend every service: Sunday morning & night and Wednesday night.

In short, they wanted to control people’s lives by love-bombing newcomers and then suffocating them until they fit into their assigned tiny little box.

And yes, we were in the end times. Even though nobody knows when Jesus will return. Wink.

I feel equal parts pity and exasperation that they’re ignoring critical crises like global climate change to focus on superstitious nonsense.

I grew up in a cult, so my whole life.

Right? They were awesome.

Minestrone or Italian wedding soup are both pretty chunky.

I’m a man and I’d never date a Republican either.

A person’s politics are a reflection of their values: if they’re willing to identify themselves as someone who validates all that fascist shit, then I want nothing to do with them.

It’s crazy to me that this take is even remotely controversial.

Yamaha makes the best guitar for the money.

The instrument I probably play the most is a nylon string Yamaha with a great dual pickup/mic that I got for $100 at a pawn shop. It has some cosmetic wear, but that’s a bonus in my opinion.

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