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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   2814 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 1, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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What do you find it rewarding to play/watch/do on evenings where your head is a bit fried and tired and anything requiring quick reactions or any real mental effort would feel demanding? :)

Right screen: Sam sulek vids

Left screen: Stardew Valley

I've been enjoying the "Murderbot Diaries" audio books, but I finished them all.

I also enjoy Total War Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires, but I use cheat engine to give myself a huge amount of money and just set about purging chaos.

Videos where people make things. There is a fun channel where a guy makes really sharp knives out of random materials. There are lots of wood spinning channels. They put a big lump of wood on a spinner and just carve away. Sometimes they'll add resin or other stuff to fill in gaps. Mark Rober makes interesting and silly gadgets.

Videos where people shoot or blow up thing, usually in slow motion. Explosions are cool yo. Kentucky ballistics.

There are lots of wood spinning channels. They put a big lump of wood on a spinner and just carve away. Sometimes they'll add resin or other stuff to fill in gaps.

Using a lathe on wood is typically called wood turning, not wood spinning, but I agree that they're great videos to wind down the evening without much stress or effort.

I'll throw out restoration videos, too. I love seeing an old rusty butcher cleaver turned into a chrome polished show piece, or to watch some old piece of machinery restored, complete with newly machined parts where necessary.

Science and Futurism with Isaac Arthur videos.

Especially if I'm high. His speech impediment takes on an almost hypnotic quality.

For video games, Civ5 or Slay the Spire. You can play a just a few turns or kill an hour until your head is back on straight.

Infotainment YouTube: Tasting History, Abroad in Japan, James Hoffman, The Modern Rogue, and How to Drink are my go-tos.

Those are also great times to do small mindless chores, like wipe down the kitchen sink/counters, sweep the floor. With the temperatures dropping, this week I put plastic film on the windows after work.

I'm not sure what your literary tastes run to but I usually keep a couple "popcorn" books on hand; books that'll occupy your brain just enough for a light mental meal. The Reacher series, memoirs of a d-list celebrity, or some pseudo-history (for sheer entertainment spectacle).

ETA: Videos of cows getting their hooves trimmed is oddly peaceful. Something about returning things to a clean pristine state, I guess.

Plastic film? Does that help?

On older single-paned windows or drafty windows (caused by bad installation or aging-related warping), yes. Not going to do that much for modern, double-paned windows with good seals on the gaskets.

In the long-run, it's better to just replace old windows but if you are renting or don't plan to stay more than three or four years, plastic film works fine as an inexpensive get-by solution.

I think I might have to re-seal them too? But I'll try the film, thanks.

Yeah, first thing you should check is caulking around the frame.

If your windows are old and drafty it does for sure -- if they aren't it might create some dead airspace I suppose, which is R-... more than just a window?

My windows are pretty old and definitely drafty. :( I'll look into this.

Slay the Spire, truly! That one is always fun. So much fun I actually 100%ed the achievements and pushed the Ironclad until I won Ascension 20. I'm not normally a completionist, but StS just never stopped being fun.

I just picked it up a few months ago on a whim and have been casually playing the wind down in the evenings.

I've been watching Baalorlord's channel, as he usually posts winning runs a couple times a week, and was doing his mastery challenge this year. I also managed to win on A20 with Watcher and Silent this year, after being limited to Defect and Ironclad for years prior.

Play PC games with buddies. They're fairly slow gamers, so it's primarily a social activity with some mild gaming on the side. Lately we've been playing Darktide.

Other than that, I like to just go to bed early, with a big cup of tea and a book, and then I usually just fall asleep. Which works out just as well. Maybe I'll do exactly that today, get up early tomorrow, and go for a swim before wife and child wake up and notice that I'm gone.

Some video games are very low effort. For instance, I have been playing Mother 3, and JRPGs in general do not require quick reactions.

Otherwise, a low-stakes TV show, or maybe put on some music and get a beer and just enjoy it for a bit.

Lately I've been reading Conan. Nearly finished actually, only have 50 pages left of Hour of the Dragon and then A Witch Shall be Born. Sometimes whiskey helps get my mind to stop being so dopamine fucked and slow the fuck down and focus on words on a page.

When the weather is nicer. I sit on the porch with a cigar and my ipad, and watch terrible anime like Baki or Bastard! Just the dumbest, most testosterone power fantasy shit I can find. Fucking love it. Iron Blooded Orphans wasn't bad either.

Been reading some Howard lately -- there's plenty more in the same vein when you run out of Conan -- but Howard's other axe-in-your-face protagonists just aren't the same. The introspective Kull, the melancholy Bran mak Morn, the borderline-unhinged Solomon Kane, the various bitter and vengeful Gaels from Black Turlogh to Donald MacDeesa, they all lack Conan's occasional gigachad jollity. They're all drawn from the same head-breaking tiger-man archetype, but the others just aren't having fun with it.

Have you watched Tartakovsky's Primal? The main characters' names are taken from the title of a Howard story, and it's turned up to 11 to the point that our hero doesn't interrupt his primitive ass-kicking with a single spoken word until the end of the first season.

You know, I plan to come back around to Solomon Kane at some point, but I want to get through Blaine Lee Pardoe's Land & Sea some. And I also got Vermis II in the mail recently, and am dying to dig into it. Vermis I was fucking amazing and lit my imagination on fire.

I read all the Conans a few years ago. Surprisingly good. The only real downside, to me, were Conan's absolutely inevitable victories, but otherwise it was quite enjoyable.

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