My dad recently passed away suddenly but there’s a saying he used to tell me that has helped me through the grieving process. He used to always say that life has yin and yang. That we couldn’t feel rested if we didn’t know exhaustion, fullness without hunger, or happiness without sorrow.

Having this perspective has helped me accept that all of the joy, laughter, and warmth he brought me has to be balanced with the sadness I feel when he’s gone.

You don’t have to use the exact same analogy but I think the general philosophy is helpful.

So jealous you get to watch the Cunk On ___ docuseries for the first time. They’re all super funny.

My father passed away recently and his wife who he was separated from did not want to relinquish her rights to plan his funeral. Up until last Friday she had been respectful of what my brother and I, my dad’s only biological children, have asked for.

However, on Friday she published the viewing and funeral dates on Facebook without consulting us. They’re on days my brother can’t come home since he’s working out of the country. When my family asked to change it, she said she had formed a committee for the funeral made of my dad’s close friends and to ask them to change it. Of course, she only did this to avoid responsibility for the date.

When I called one of the men on the committee and gave him a list of reasons to change the date, he basically said the plans were set and the notifications sent out. I replied that nothing was set in stone and that we could re-upload the obit. I further explained that my brother and I were hurt we were left out of the funeral planning and that it didn’t have to be this difficult since there was availability a few weeks after the selected dates. His response was, “It’s not. Just go with the flow”.

I was so stunned I didn’t know how to respond. I couldn’t believe the audacity from him saying this was not a difficult situation and for us to just accept their decisions. In the end, I told him that it was hard enough dealing with my dad’s death without all this added stress of being left out. I didn’t want to be overly rude since they could easily change their minds and cremate my dad without telling us anything.

TLDR: Brother and I were left out of the funeral planning for our father and when I asked to change the date for my brother to be able to attend, I was told to “Just go with the flow”

The GTA series might be a good example. All of the protagonists of the games commit exceedingly worse crimes as the game progresses but they’re made to be sympathetic since they just want success in a world with not much other opportunities.

Games with karma systems may work as well if the bad option isn’t overtly evil. I’m thinking games like Dishonored, Fable 3, Undertale, or any Bethesda game.

Anti-hero protagonists like Kratos from God of War, Arthur Morgan from Red Dead 2, and V from Cyberpunk could also somewhat fit the bill.

Edit: just watched an Outside Xbox video that summarizes a few games with just this premise.

That sounds hilarious. Best of luck to you

There are ways to make Stardew more competitive:

• Parody of The Bachelor and all players could compete to marry one NPC

• First to unlock each new area and plant a sign, like a conquistador planting a flag

• Biggest ho: first to get 10 hearts with all romancable NPCs

• First to get married and have 2 kids

• First to get to a million (if you chose split money)

• Most money earned in a day/season/year

• Most combined hearts from NPCs in a day/year/season

• First to complete ___ collection

Honestly, at the rate each new Jedi is getting trained per franchise, the next Jedi Padawan will introduce their name to their master before becoming deemed a Master.

Thought it would be funnier if we added Leia

Lazlo Cravensworth vs Jackie Daytona

The voicelines are a bit too much. I get that they’re trying to add personality to it but to give a phrase for almost every action is overwhelming.

Lights Out is an oldie but a goodie horror short. Could do without

at the end though.

Curve is another really good short that builds a sense dread and hopelessness. No cheap jumpscares, overused tropes (looking at you overly exaggerated smiles), or complicated lore. Just good old fashion universal horror.

The reason I bring up my phone’s age is to try to explain a likely reason why I haven’t experienced any bugs, at least none to my knowledge. Running the Samsung S20. Love my expandable storage and the battery still lasts decently long

Personally I’ve not experienced any problems but that’s likely because I’ve got an old phone with a old version of Android.

One of the tech YouTubers I like a lot did an in depth look at alternative launchers to Nova in this video.

Trump has to live up to his title of “pedophile protector”

Personally I like Vera best because it’s a unique name that sounds pretty. However, as someone with a long name as well, I just let my friends call me whatever they want so long as I agree with it. That’s sort of how nicknames work; you don’t get to choose but if your friends are respectful enough, you can approve of it.

Back in college and grad school I used Adobe Acrobat to read all class materials and write notes/highlight texts. One of the benefits was that it was easy to search for key words. You could search your own notes/comments and you had the option to copy the highlighted text so it was searchable.

The pro version also has OCR features so you can do the same with scanned text. I wouldn’t pay for it now considering Adobe’a anti-consumer policies, but you can easily find a bootleg copy.

And if you enjoy reading print outs, you can print the pdfs along with all your comments and highlights.

Edit: Forgot to mention this was all on my laptop since typing and reading is a lot easier oh that than a smartphone

Surprised PBS shows aren’t mentioned more here, especially not Mr. Rogers Neighborhood being mentioned.

So in no particular order:

• Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood: great show for teaching kids to how to navigate emotions and complex situations like death and discrimination but in ways they can understand

• Sesame Street: similar to Mr. Rogers but more for younger children

• Bill Nye the Science Guy: Made science accessible and fun for children. Good way to build a sense of curiosity and desire for experimentation

• Zoom: similar to Bill Nye in that it made me what to try all the activities they shared. Lots of fun games, recipes, brain teasers etc to keep kids busy. The fact that it had an all kid cast made it more accessible as a kid. Highly recommended since it seems less remembered than other PBS shows

Non-Educational:

• The Simpsons: this may be divisive but I grew up when they were super popular and I believe it helped develop my sense of humor. The earlier episodes were also pretty wholesome

• The Avatar (Last Airbender and Korra): well written show that is based on many East Asian cultures and touches on themes of depression, genocide, war, and hope (among many others). One of my favorite shows to this day

The Portal games are fun puzzle FPS platformers with a great story, though there’s a good chance you’ve already played those and didn’t consider them platformers.

Another FPS platformer is Roboquest. It’s a roguelite shooter. Very fast pace and stressful but fun if you’re into that kind of thing.

I also want to second Psychonauts. I haven’t played #2 yet but the first game had a unique and interesting story with fun gameplay.

I’ve heard A Short Hike is a relaxing game. More about exploration than meeting game objectives but could be a nice break when you’re stressed. Basically the opposite of Roboquest haha

“This book has been debated for ages,” said Nguyen, a bookseller on Hanoi’s Nguyen Xi book street, who gave only his first name for fear of inviting backlash against his store.

Funnily enough, this could be more identifying than if he gave his last name. There are more Nguyen last names than first names.

Can you use an aux cable? Just thinking of old school solutions