The Almighty Doer of Stuff

~$250/month due to a private charity subsidy. It comes with heating, water, electricity, and people who eat hard boiled eggs with the shells, vomit them into cooking pots, and leave them on the counter. As I said, I'm rather manic and it's making me irrational. I want it to stop very badly, but it won't. My manic episodes are triggered by high-stress situations such as moving into a house with people who don't know what "sanitation" means, and all the problems with the house itself like bathwater raining on my stuff. So it's been almost nonstop for a month. But I have my lucid moments, like, I hope, currently. I talked to my therapist after deciding not to just kill myself, and she reminded me of the actual, single-occupancy apartments for the elderly and disabled. The wait lists on those are somewhat long but not as long as the standard Section 8 housing (if I'm lucky I could be in as soon as 3 years as opposed to 10), and the rent is the same 30% of my income. These are in places like Salem, Beverly, and Hamilton, within walking distance of my favorite train line that takes me to everyone on my treatment team. My therapist will help me fill out forms tomorrow. My therapist agreed that the thing to do is set my room back up nice and clean and organized for the first time in almost two weeks, now that the leaky pipes have supposedly been fixed. My room can be my sanctuary, and I can deal with cleaning the kitchen in order to cook there once a week (I cook in bulk), and the bathroom next to my room is usually clean enough to not make me cry. So for the most part when I'm at home I can sit in here and ignore everyone, aside from the donkey laughing, retching, and banging sounds coming from around the house. I have nice headphones to listen to music and drown it out if I want to as well. Having a disorganized living space is not good for my mental health. A good thing about living in a 10'x15' (at most) room is that it becomes uncomfortably cluttered and messy very quickly, so when I get sick of it it's easy to catch back up, as opposed to living in houses the size my mother prefers, where it's a nightmare. I'm rambling at this point. I've been drinking coffee to keep me awake long enough to clean my room. Currently I have done all my dishes, so that's the sanitation out of the way. But anyway, I'm tired and caffeinated at the same time, so I'll stop typing for now, until someone says something else that warrants a response from me, at least.

I don't have a job at all, which is part of the problem. My Internet searches indicate that it is possible to buy a house on SSI but it's complicated and I don't think there's a lot of flexibility regarding location. EDIT: Actually, a trailer park could possibly be feasible. There's a lot of trailer parks in suburban areas. But they're... trailer parks. They're not usually pleasant places to live.

Anyway, I would like to remind everyone that I've been super-manic for a month and it's beginning to wear on me; it usually doesn't last more than a week or two, so I'm becoming exasperated and my thinking isn't clear. I would love to own a little 350-400sq.ft. (total, all floors) mini-house. That's my pipe dream. But in Massachusetts $800/mo. gets you next to no opportunities for home ownership or even an independently-rented apartment. It's possible I could work a very limited number of hours without becoming overwhelmed, and supplement that, but it wouldn't be much. By my calculations working 15 hours/week at $15/hour (approximate pay for a Certified Peer Specialist, which on further thought is a position that probably doesn't exist outside the USA, one reason I've been afraid to consider moving anywhere) would bring my income to ~$1200/mo or about $14400/yr. Still doesn't get you much, but I wonder if my pipe dream would be possible on that income, including whether it's feasible for such a home to exist in Massachusetts. I really don't know what to do. I've been given until tomorrow to decide what groups I want to lead next semester and I'd like to do three of them, as opposed to two, to see what I can handle. I just... I don't want to live with people like I'm living with for my entire life. They have no concept of sanitation.

I would make exception for ancient indigenous peoples, I suppose. I just don't want an industry made of it. Killing anything with complex language skills irks me, but pale-skinned strangers coming in, killing almost everyone who was there already, ordering everyone else into little reservations, and generally being a giant pain in the butt irks me too. Also, as far as relatives, my great great grandmother was Mi'kmaq, born on a reservation and everything, making my bloodline 1/16th Native Canadian, if that means anything. What IS the situation in Canada? I know the health care system is supposed to be wonderful there compared to the USA and they've recently had a jerk for a PM, but are Canadian jerk politicians as bad as American jerk politicians? What's the rest of the situation like? I do like the proximity to the USA.

Serious discussion time. I don't at all know where to look for information like this, so I'm posting here and on the Flying Spaghetti Monster forum because both forums are full of reasonable people who mostly seem to like me. I have lived in Massachusetts, USA, for my entire life. Not once have I had a permanent residence father than 26 miles from my childhood home. Every time someone asks, I say I don't want to live anywhere but Massachusetts, because it has the best mental health system in the country and is also probably the most liberal. I say I love the USA and Massachusetts is my home because I can't go anywhere else and be safe. But I'm suddenly tiring of the USA. There's a lot of nationalism disguised as a patriotism in this country, and if I say "I don't like this place," I risk being abused by everyone around me. It's "wrong" and "giving up" and "shameful" to say I don't like this country, and therefore I love this country. It's "abandoning the land that raised you" and "the land that fought for your freedom" so instead of feeling neglected, I act loyal. There's nowhere in the world better than here, so not only is it a waste of time but it's ignorant to look elsewhere and it's wrong to try. But that's like Stockholm syndrome, except the abuser is a country instead of one person. Isn't it? I don't want to harp too much on what's wrong with America. There's a lot I adore about it but I'm afraid it's not meeting my needs and I really would love to know if there's somewhere better. And this is an international, largely-intelligent forum, so I'm hoping I can at least get a starting point regarding both location and feasibility. Things I MUST have: -Strong mental health care and dignity for the mentally ill -Strong health care in general (especially if it's free) -Not being forced to live in poverty just because I happened to only be able to prove I was too disabled to work after age 22 (if not this then I may as well stay in Massachusetts) -Strong laws against anti-LGBTQ/anti-atheist/anti-mental-illness discrimination and abuse -Sociopolitical climate at least as liberal as Massachusetts Things I would really like but which I may be able to flex on: -Large English-speaking population (I tried learning Italian and Spanish once but neither of them stuck, could have been the American public school-style education hindering me though) -Good treatment of animals (absolutely won't live in a whaling country, but things like better farm practices and such are just a plus) -Good public transportation system (I can live near or in a city if I need to although I'm definitely a suburbs guy at heart) And this would be a bonus: -Legal allowance for, upon my death, my salvageable organs to be donated to others in need, my skull and jaw to be removed and painted whimsically and sold at charity auction to a museum, and the remainder of my body to be fed through a wood chipper and fed to a sapling (I was recently told the second and third are illegal here) So that's what I'd like in a place to live. The other issue is, would I be able to find a place there, get to that place, and stay there sustainably? That's also important obviously. I hate saying I don't want to live in America. I have an American flag on my hat and on my website. But damn, I'm living on $850/mo in a privately-subsidized house for nine people, and if the country swings right again, even that could all get taken away and I could be homeless and without healthcare. That scares me. I didn't choose to be sick. I had dreams of having a job and owning a home and being respected as a valuable member of society. I didn't want all that taken away from me and if I could have it back I'd take it in a heartbeat, but it's becoming clear that even the Certified Peer Specialist position will be too much for me. I teach two classes per week and I feel drained and frustrated doing it. I can't imagine doing three times that every week without the ability to say I can't handle it and not get fired. Is it my fault? I hear hallucinatory voices telling me to do childish things or say rude things that sometimes talk so loud they drown out my thoughts. I've been manic for almost a solid month. I alternate between being so happy that even really bad ideas feel like good ones and my smile is hurting my face and I want to cry and be sad just to relieve the pressure but I can't, and being so anxious and restless it feels like my heart and stomach are having a fight to the death, and I never know what I'll be from day to day or sometimes even hour to hour. I didn't ask for it. No reasonable person would ask for it. I want to live somewhere where that's understood, and I want to feel safe and secure that my life won't be destroyed at the behest of Donald Trump. Is that so much to ask? Is there anywhere in the world like this? Where can I live?

One of the Exile games printed recorded data to a TXT file, so there really was no limit. Was it E2? I'll have to ask Celtic Minstrel what he thinks of this issue, for BoE. With 300+ scenarios it could get messy.

There are a fixed number of messages in the game and the journal limit could easily enough be set to equal this number. This always frustrated me too. Jeff likes his arbitrary limits.

Some have called *i's Blades of Exile scenario, "At the Gallows", Exile 4.

Do any of you know what the best way to reach Luz Piazuelo is? Or, are you Luz Piazuelo and this qualifies as reaching you? I sent an email to the address on The Blazing Blade (backup hosted at TrueSite4Blades) but given that it's an old site I'm not sure whether it's an unused address. Celtic Minstrel and I are looking to package some of her graphics with Blades of Exile, and to cover our behinds we're looking for her blessing, since they were released for use in custom graphics sheets with custom scenarios, before the open-sourcing, and for all we know she has a burning hatred for all things GNU. I think it would be fine but I want to be sure. I did manage to find Andrew Hunter easily enough, to email him about the E1-3 graphics that Jeff and Mariann can't remember whether they own the rights to. I'm almost certain they do own the rights, because their site has always said "lump sum, full rights, no royalty" but again, just being safe. It's possible Mr. Hunter knows who owns the rights, and if he does he may grant us the right to use the old ones, and if not, we can ask Spidweb again and say "Mr. Hunter says..." and hope they answer. (I can't link to his website; his current artistic projects are rather "inappropriate", which surprised me, but at least I found him.)

Hey, speak for yourself! I play them for the graphics. Andrew Hunter's beautiful pixel work has been a great influence and inspiration to me as an artist.

That might be a decent new feature idea, though: Setting not just the coordinates of the tile in the outdoors section, but also which outdoors section. I'll suggest it to CM.

Touché. *runs off and hides in his hole*

I don't know exactly what I'm trying to get at, like I said. Maybe even just some Let's Plays of people using stats that sound fun and making seriously suboptimal choices and just adjusting to the consequences throughout the game? It's just a thought, really, but when I see minmax posts everywhere, pinned to the top of the forum, etc., it frightens me away from playing, like if I buy this game and play it, I have to read the fan-made documentation and follow what it says or I'll lose. Spidweb games are designed with both talentless casuals and hardcore minmaxers in mind, and I think more emphasis on the fact that you can totally suck at the game or even just not want to read about it and still win and have fun could be beneficial? Again, I'm not much of a gamer these days so I don't know what the solution or even the real problem is. I'm just musing.

Slarty, I've often felt that same way as Count Hogan described, and it just struck me as to part of the reason: The min-maxers and optimizers tend to post a lot of in-depth threads about how to perfect their characters, which is of course the point of min-maxing, whereas I don't recall ever having seen any threads on any gaming website about how to play the game effectively WITHOUT min-maxing. It leads to an impression that the game can't be played at all without min-maxing and makes it seem difficult and not fun if you're not keenly aware that it's just one playing style. I don't really know what the remedy for this would be, what particular kind of discussion would balance it. I'm curious to find out if anyone has any ideas.

It is not a synonym for cattail. Cattails are a TYPE of reed (seemingly not a true one though), and they are also edible, although if the Avernites are using cattails I would bet the GMO nature of Avernite flora renders them even more disgusting than the mushrooms, judging by the lack of descriptions of people eating them.

I don't think I'd want to sleep on a demonic pillow.

I'm still mad about that. The hydra nest was my favorite part of E2.

Three of them, Slarty, by Brave Sir Robin.

Regarding that last bit, Randomizer, IIRC Jeff was posting around here recently and mentioned he was going to find some way to target the square instead of the mob itself, didn't he? I don't remember the context though. If you like multitarget spells, there's always Blades of Exile!

I'm almost certain that book isn't the only one. Jeff scattered all sort of random crap with useless, unusable abilities throughout the Exile series and other series, because he thought it was funny. That's just one of them, and if you pay attention you may find more, and I'm not talking about Avernum's Xian items. We used to have a list somewhere...

I have never left the states on the East Coast, except to go to Vermont. I'm actually terrified of leaving New England due to the health care situation. The most frustrating part of that is it kind of limits who I can date...

This happened in E3 not just with Fort Emergence, but later there is a big wall blocking entrance into Footracer Province, and another earlier on blocking another province (I can't remember which). I believe at least the earlier one can be avoid via portal in that wizard's house in Krizsan Province. E1 had a few different ways to get to the Great Cave, but the easiest way was through Almaria, exactly like you say is in "The Fog": Walk over a river bridge, no choice but to walk through Almaria, and actually you have to pay a toll too IIRC. THAT can be annoying. I don't remember if Almaria does this, but an option could be, once you've been through town once, you have the opportunity to skip straight through it with a special node: "You've come to Hippopotamus Town again. It's a lovely town, but would you like to pass through quickly?" (Yes) (No) EDIT: Actually I don't think there's a town, just a special encounter, at the earlier wall. I never made it to Footracer Province so I don't know about there.

I think it's OK for me to bump this thread, right? I know it's old but the content seems to be "timeless". Here is my newly cleaned-up desktop environment! That background is called, "Barn at the Grand Tetons". I don't remember where I found it, you can probably Google it. It's one of my favorites, and it's great because it allowed me to make the Bandit Busywork enlarged scenario icon: I recognized the mountains in Bandit Busywork's tiny little 32x32 icon in BoE as the mountains in this photo. I then sought and found a public domain photo of the same mountains and edited away! On my right monitor (which looks bigger to me because I can't make the max resolution on my monitor stick for some reason) I have my panels, featuring assorted hardware temperature and activity monitors along the top, and my open applications just above my bottom panel, featuring lovely Linux Mint icons. I love the Mint-X theme with all its little rounded-square icons! Some of those are standard icons that actually belong to other programs I have no reason to actually use, but you can see my Blades of Exile icon (edited into Mint-X form from Erdos's original), and My Briefcase (where I keep things I want to sync with my other computer via my flash drive, or just stuff I want easy access to), inspired by the old Windows Briefcase software, although I actually use a program called Unison to synchronize it. The briefcase icon is edited from a public-domain SVG I found on Wikimedia Commons. Everything from the ladybug to the window to the night sky, when clicked, open a menu with five programs or files, for easy access. I created the color scheme, inspired by the wallpaper. I like to make wallpaper/color scheme coordinated themes. I'm about to figure out where Linux Mint keeps the themes so I can copy them to My Briefcase.

Thanks, CM, and also thanks for telling me Doomguard Armor is Zaloopa's (and it works), and Lilith's is Demon Armor. D'oh. So what's Undoomvahgaz Armor? I don't know if it even existed...

I don't know what the filenames are, because I can't unzip them. All I have is the full titles that Jewels put on her ZIP files. Thanks for sending me DE though. Anyway as I understand most of those scenarios are pretty crappy, except: "The Claim" is Lt. Sullust's well-received second scenario (a collaboration IIRC). "Doomguard Armor" is a more-or-less useless-now utility from Lilith. It was released under her old moniker, Thuryl, if that helps someone find it, although I bet she probably still has a copy herself. Do you, Lilith?) "Foreshadows" is part of *i's "At the Gallows"/"Spears" series, probably released under the name Stareye, and I believe it's a cinematic scenario. *i, if you have a copy, please send. "Kallaskagathos" and "Signs and Portents" are part of Alcritas's super-popular series, "The Arc", so I'm sure someone has those too. Please send. "The Za-Khazi Edit" is Alcritas's attempt to "fix" "The Za-Khazi Run", a scenario many didn't like, but I loved it. Regardless, it would be good to have the edited version. ------- But again, it's important for us to get our hands on the other, unpopular/rarely played scenarios too, at least for posterity's sake. Anyone who can, please help! EDIT: Celtic Minstrel pointed out that I just said something offensive and incorrect unintentionally. "Doomguard Armor" is OBSOLETE, not useless. As I recall it was a watered-down version of "Undoomvahgaz Armor", a scenario made with the infamous Super Editor to give the party super-powerful equipment. We weren't allowed to talk about the Super Editor at the time and Zaloopa was always picky about who they let use the scenario, so Lilith made "Doomguard Armor" with the standard editor, as good as the equipment can be without "cheating". Now even "Undoomvahgaz Armor" is obsolete, with the new capabilities of the OBoE Scenario Editor.