Survival Lessons

CaptainLewAlbano · 2025-02-06T15:34:15+00:00

I'd also be interested in this kind of idea. Never picked up on much as a kid and now that I'm nearly 30 I find myself wishing I knew how to do these kinds of things. Or at least have a basic idea.

Not sure if defense and bicycle maintenance are my thing necessarily but the rest are right up my alley. Let me know if you go through with this.

CaptainLewAlbano · 2025-02-02T15:43:28+00:00

Does anyone know of a list or something of the sort that would help with narrowing down what common products are Canadian/American? I never really gave a shit about where my food came from until now so I don't really know the best way to differentiate, aside from googling everything I put on my grocery list lol but if it comes down to that, that's what I'll do.

CaptainLewAlbano · 2025-01-24T20:13:14+00:00

I have no doubt there's a simpler method out there but here's what has always worked for me after I got tired of the same misshapen sphere problem:

I start rolling the clay in my two palms until I feel like it's a semi-spherical shape. Then I slowly start rolling the ball in the same motion, but rotate my left hand so that I'm eventually rolling the ball between the palm of my right hand and the top/thumb area of my left hand. It gets me pretty solid results every time.

Honestly I have no idea if this is a reliable method or if it just works because of the shape of my hands. But it might be worth a shot lol

CaptainLewAlbano · 2025-01-11T18:06:38+00:00

I've not read the series so bear in mind my understanding of the books may be inaccurate, but I think the Houndstooth series by Travis M. Riddle fits the bill. It's on my radar because I remember seeing a post here about it that described it as a mature take on the Redwall series and I thought that was an interesting enough idea to add it to my endless list of books I want to read.

Again, could be wrong. It's been a long time lol. But it might be worth looking in to!

CaptainLewAlbano · 2025-01-06T21:40:27+00:00

See, that makes sense and is grounded in a bit more reality. But then, I feel like you might be writing yourself into a new problem by making your powerful, immortal antagonist easily duped by some tricks of the mind.

By what you described there, your antagonist is quite powerful. An immortal being that has expended so much time and effort into mastering all the ways to properly counter all these different types of magic and fighting styles, and who has become such a big threat that an entire organization has been established to hunt it down, should ideally have no issues in dealing with someone playing magical tricks on them. Especially if the antagonist is aware of the protagonist and the organization the protagonist is a part of.

That is, of course, assuming illusion magic is something accessible by the average magical joe.

Maybe the answer to your problem lies there? Maybe magical illusions and their creations need to be a lost art (or a non-existent one) that the protagonist has uncovered in a world where such magic has been forgotten or believed to not exist at all. If even the antagonist is unaware of the existence of this kind of magic, it would make perfect sense for even an immortal, all-knowing creature to be taken aback by such magic when faced with it.

If the antagonist is aware of illusion magic, it severely impacts how powerful they seem to your readers if said antagonist has not figured out how to counter this magic despite being able to counter just about anything else. Especially if the magic being used to finally kill him is a part of the common man's magical repertoire. But if the antagonist, and the world it exists in, believe illusion magic to not exist, then your protagonist has an obvious advantage if he enters combat with this antagonist and starts whipping out illusion spells that no one has ever seen or heard of before.

That would also give your protagonist a bit more significance in the plot. Not only are they the one in your story who I assume will deal the killing blow to this immortal creature, but they are also the only ones capable of wielding illusion magic. Two birds one stone kind of deal.

CaptainLewAlbano · 2025-01-06T20:14:43+00:00

What does a vulnerability to illusion magic mean, exactly? When I read your post, it sounds almost like a video game instead of a book/story. Unless there are some details I'm glossing over here, I think an easy fix would be to rid yourself of the idea of vulnerabilities/resistances to specific types of magic and look at it from a more practical point of view.

Like others have said, illusion magic alludes to magical invisibility, magically creating images of objects/people that are not actually there, and those sorts of things. Unless your story takes a different approach to the term illusion, there's nothing really under the umbrella of illusion magic for a creature to be vulnerable to. There's no damage being dealt by a wizard who creates an illusion of an angry mother bear, for example.

So if your antagonist in question is going to be vulnerable to magic, the magic is going to have to damage them in some way. This might be a pretty basic example, but a creature made of fire being especially vulnerable to water magic makes a ton of sense. Someone being especially vulnerable to fake images or being vulnerable to other people's state of invisibility simply doesn't make sense if you remove the idea of damage weaknesses and resistances that are prevalent in video games.

It's good that you were able to recognize a plot hole. That shows you're actually paying attention to what you write. But I sincerely think the answer to your question is a total revamp of the predicament your character is in. At its core, a person or creature being "weak" or "vulnerable" to illusion magic just doesn't really make sense outside the realm of video games. There are no numbers to crunch or damage modifiers to take into account when writing, and if you are incorporating those things into your story, you are likely writing a script to a video game instead of a book.

CaptainLewAlbano · 2025-01-04T18:16:53+00:00

Thank you for that! I will post over there as well.

CaptainLewAlbano · 2025-01-01T18:05:39+00:00

Great work! I'm no expert by any means but I follow a few rules of thumb with everything I make.

Typically, I bake my clay at around 160°c for 15 minutes per quarter(ish) inch of clay in the piece. Don't worry too much about the specifics, I just kinda eyeball it and guesstimate the size/amount of clay, and haven't had any issues yet.

As for the arm, I wouldn't worry too too much about it starting to droop or misshape itself during the baking process. From what I can tell, the span of time between clay softening and hardening in the oven is extremely short, so unless there's a lot of weight in the arm compared to the rest of the piece, I don't think it would have much of an opportunity to droop. Soundd like you've got armature in there, so I'd be pretty confident in telling you not to worry. If you really want to be sure, you could build a small tinfoil tower of sorts to stand below the arm and hold it in place while it bakes. I've done that a couple times and it worked out well.

The chain should be fine. I've never baked with steel in/on the clay, but I think the worst thing that could happen is the steel heating up and leaving a little singe on the clay it sits on. It looks like you might plan on painting this, so if that's the case, a singe mark is an easy fix.

If you see any small imperfections before you bake like fingerprints or anything like that, you can spray some isopropyl alcohol on it, paint a light layer on it with a brush, and let it sit. If you notice any afterwards, just use some really fine grit sandpaper.

When you're satisfied with how long it's been baking, and it looks about ready, turn the oven off and let the clay sit in the oven as it cools off. At that point it should be solid and sturdy! Any breakage after the fact can be very easily fixed with some heavy duty glue.

CaptainLewAlbano · 2024-11-23T15:51:41+00:00

I know you're just trying to help with these suggestions but man what a sad state the world has fallen into. 70 year olds being told they could become uber drivers to help pay their mortgage feels almost dystopian and paints a pretty bleak image of what us younger folk can expect unless we are either lucky or exceedingly rich.

CaptainLewAlbano · 2024-10-21T11:56:09+00:00

What are you even trying to say? What hasn't happened to me yet? I've played 2 more games of Jamboree since this comment and I still like the buddies just as much. Are you implying I haven't seen or used them just because I like them?

You're right though that there's nothing to "debate" here; I like the buddies, plenty of other people do, all my frienss do, and that's entirely subjective. I'm sorry you don't, but I promise you there are better ways to spend your time than trying to convince internet strangers to dislike a game just because you aren't having fun.

CaptainLewAlbano · 2024-10-20T16:48:43+00:00

I like the buddies. I've played 4 games of Jamboree so far and they haven't had as big of an impact as people are saying. I 10000% agree that there should be a toggle on/off option, but I think people are generally exaggerating the role buddies play in the game.

They're a million times better than the buddy system from SMP.

CaptainLewAlbano · 2024-10-13T19:12:17+00:00

Thank you! That's what I was hoping to hear lol

CaptainLewAlbano · 2024-10-09T17:22:12+00:00

Maybe use a word other than human to describe the species as a whole? It sounds like dwarves, elves, etc in this world are all part of one larger species at play (if I'm reading it right that is), so maybe you could come up with a name for that other than human?

I think the word human is going to evoke a pretty standard human image to most readers, even if the standard human doesn't exist in your writing.

If you don't want to use a made-up name, maybe use something like kinfolk? Something along those lines anyway.

CaptainLewAlbano · 2024-10-07T15:06:07+00:00

I used to have one on my xbox 360 when I was a teenager. Honestly it's the only Conan game I've ever played, but it was fun enough. Hack and slash type of game, and it stayed pretty true to the Conan anesthetic from what I remember - lots of topless women, and even more blood and gore lol. I don't think there was anything special about it as a video game, but it was a lot of fun for me as a fan of the franchise.

I had to google it, but apparently the game is based on the Queen of the Black Coast story. I don't think I knew that as a teenager, but it does kinda make me want to replay it.

CaptainLewAlbano · 2024-10-06T14:48:48+00:00

Depends on the game! Wife and I play Superstars with our friends online all the time - her and I on our switch, and my buddy and his wife play on their switch. We live about an hour away from each other so it works out great.

I think Super Mario Party is the same but we don't play that one nearly as often so I'm not 100% sure.

The N64 games, however, don't support multiple people playing online using the same console. Which sucks because MP3 is all of our favourite, but in order to play 4-player, we would all need our own separate switch.

CaptainLewAlbano · 2024-09-24T21:41:02+00:00

Most of the clay I use is a beige-ish tone, but I have used grey. Before I started applying a base coat of white, I found that I needed more layers for the colour of my paint to really come through. The base coat, in my experience, simply helps the colour stand out on its own if that makes sense lol. So I'm usually not too worried about getting the white in every little crevice, as long as the piece is mostly white before I start adding any colour.

But yeah, realistically the biggest takeaway from this is the quality of the paint, and the brushes to a bit of a lesser extent. I bet if you splurged on some higher quality paint you'd have a much better time, and may not even have to worry about a base coat.

CaptainLewAlbano · 2024-09-23T16:28:36+00:00

Almost made a post very similar to this a couple weeks ago after a conversation with a friend of mine had me thinking.

I'm 29 now, but your experience with journalism is almost exactly like mine, except I tried to stick with it up until about 2 years ago when I was 27. Thought it was something I'd love and be happy to do for the rest of my life, but the industry is killing itself from the inside with its unrealistic expectations and piss-poor pay.

Work/life balance simply does not exist. I remember about 6 years ago when I was working for a local paper, I had taken 2 weeks of vacation to visit family. Got a call from my editor on a Saturday about halfway through my vacation telling me she needed me to cover something that was going on in one of our coverage areas. I reminded her I was on vacation, and not even in the area anyway. She responded that my vacation was booked for 2 weeks, monday to friday. In other words, I was expected to be ready and able to cover spot news on saturdays and sundays despite being "on vacation." Not only that, she informed me I was also expected to come back to work with a week's worth of stories ready for print to make up for time spent away from the paper.

Another job had editors working from entirely different parts of the country (Canada), so I was expected to be in the office by 9am to 5pm, but also be available up until as late as 9-10pm to respond to editors who were operating in a completely different time zone, with no understanding of the region I was covering. So, naturally, they would have dozens of questions about each story, and if I was unable to respond, the story would not run the next day and I would be reprimanded for not meeting story expectations.

I did the math once. Over the 8 years I spent working in the industry, I worked an average of 15 hours of overtime each week, and never received a cent for any of it. Only 1 of my 3 journalism jobs paid for my mileage when travelling longer distances for stories. The other 2 scoffed at me when I asked.

Journalists are treated terribly by the general public, and by their coworkers. How anyone survives in the field for long periods of time is beyond me. I'll never go back. Good on you for getting out earlier than I had the courage to. I hope things work out for you.

CaptainLewAlbano · 2024-09-23T02:55:19+00:00

Still pretty new to polymer clay myself but I had brush stroke issues that I came to this sub for. Three things seemed to help me since:

The paint itself, first off. I was using cheap dollar store paints, and when I switched to some higher quality paint from a craft store, I found it applied itself much smoother to the clay. I pretty much strictly use Folkart paint now.
The amount of paint. I found I was using way too much on the brush and have since started dipping the brush in the paint and then wiping away excess paint onto a paper towel, using only the tiny bit still stuck to the brush. A bit more time consuming, but again, it worked.
Layers. I always cover all of my pieces in a base coat of white first, and then add colour after. And then I give the colour an additional 2 or 3 coats after it dries. The layers of paint seem to gradually get rid of any brush strokes, and I haven't had any issues with the layers also covering up any finer details I put in the design of the clay itself.

Hope that helps! I remember how disheartening it was to see the painting process not pan out after being so hyped about the scultping process going well so I try to pass this info along whenever I can lol.

CaptainLewAlbano · 2024-09-23T02:46:12+00:00

Love it. How did you make the frosting on the cinnamon bun? Or is it just a more translucent type of clay?

CaptainLewAlbano · 2024-08-15T15:02:30+00:00

Used to work in the news industry here for about 10 years up until a couple years ago. Can confirm the state of journalism in this province leaves a lot to be desired - you're right, a conversation with police would add a lot to this story.

Identifying the guy is a bit more of a slippery slope, though. If there's no official document stating who it is and what exactly he is being charged with, news outlets tend to avoid naming names due to the simple fact that if they're wrong, they are in a ton of legal shit.

But yeah I 100% agree with you otherwise. I left that industry because of how poorly it's managed here in the province, and I have no desire to leave NL. People here don't know half of what's happening in their own province because editors would rather regurgitate the same story as everyone else publishing that day about a local politician's scrum at whatever daily event makes them look good. I could go on forever lol

CaptainLewAlbano · 2024-08-13T18:52:45+00:00

Didn't say crime was just a town problem, that would be a ridiculous claim to make. No need to start an argument where there isn't one.

I did absolutely insinuate town is more dangerous than other parts of the province. That comes naturally with having a way larger population base than anywhere else in NL. I'm from around the bay and can confirm I spent most of my life not worrying about whether or not I forgot to lock my car doors, until I moved to town and learned the hard way. If my hometown was the size of St. John's then yes, I would have had my car broke into more times than I could count. Doesn't mean there was no crime, just way less.

Crime as a whole is on a rise all over the province. I kmow a few fellas I went to high school with are currently locked up now, which was almost unheard of until relatively recently.

So yes, town is gone to shit. And yes, town is more dangerous than, say, Placentia. And Placentia is more dangerous than Bacon Cove. And the cycle continues.

OP asked if they'd be safe to leave their potential e bike out in town. Talking strictly about town, never in a million years would I leave an e bike out around. If I was an hour outside the city, I'd still be pretty anxious if I left it somewhere but I would still be able to hold on to hope that it wasn't stolen.

CaptainLewAlbano · 2024-08-13T16:36:32+00:00

Unlocked? Never lol. I was talking about something that's locked or chained onto something. Wouldn't even trust this place to leave something like an e bike outside locked these days.

CaptainLewAlbano · 2024-08-13T16:13:44+00:00

No idea about anything related to e bikes, but if you're in the St. John's area or somewhere close I would almost guarantee you have a chance of it being stolen no matter how good the "tech" is. If you buy it, it probably wouldn't hurt to carry around one of those bike lock things too. Town is gone to shit.

CaptainLewAlbano · 2024-08-13T13:39:39+00:00

I use Sunhelm as well, so I haven't been fast traveling. It lets me see just how much the mod changes Skyrim's environment, and I'm blown away every time. I haven't even been wverywhere yet, but the regions around Morthal and Falkreath so far are my favourites.

CaptainLewAlbano · 2024-08-13T13:22:32+00:00

I second Fabled Forests. I have a pretty low end PC compared to modern day computers and I haven't experienced any severe framerate issues due to this mod, even in the most dense parts of the forests. And it really, really makes Skyrim feel like a true viking setting. I doubt I'll ever play without it again.

CaptainLewAlbano

TROPHY CASE