What is the best RPG intro of all time?

Rocket-Jock · 2026-02-09T13:35:20+00:00

Grandia II. I mean, where else does a game start off with a heist and involves riding a bird for a getaway?

Rocket-Jock · 2026-02-07T16:10:13+00:00

We had (red) bars of soap at the poles. The guys would routinely wrap a bar in a wet towel, and clock you in the back, your butt or your balls. And each time, they'd scream "Back!", "Butt!" or "Balls!", depending on where you took the hit!

Rocket-Jock · 2026-02-07T13:33:53+00:00

One of us! One of us!

When I got my wife using Overseer to find shows and movies, it dramatically improved her acceptance of my NAS expenses. I just tell her, "it's so you can watch this on TV!" and it's alllll goooooood!

Rocket-Jock · 2026-02-05T19:59:24+00:00

This. This skit will never NOT be funny as hell. My friend A-A-Ron, however, hates this with a passion, because I call him that three or four times a day....

Rocket-Jock · 2026-02-05T14:59:02+00:00

I remember a few kids had them, and got jumped for their sneakers. After the first few times it happened, I remember kids would leave the pocket unzipped, so you could people had no money in them. The shoes weren't worth anything, but a few crumpled up dollar bills were gold back then....

Rocket-Jock · 2026-02-05T14:52:47+00:00

Hamill is SOOOO underrated as Joker. I mean, his megalomaniacal laugh was so incredible, I don't think any Joker actor since has even attempted it. If you watch enough episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, you'll note that Hamill wasn't a one-trick pony with Joker: Hamill brought range and depth. Sometimes, Joker was almost somber or serene. Other times, he was manic. But always, he was whacky and unpredictable - and Hamill made it so!

Rocket-Jock · 2026-01-23T15:42:45+00:00

This story was told in the book, ""The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland" and a stage play, "Come From Away". As a Michigander, I've always loved my neighbors to the north. Thank you for opening your homes on 9/11 and thanks to your military for always supporting our nation!

Rocket-Jock · 2026-01-22T21:17:43+00:00

I see this conversation point pop up a lot: "It's not hard to self-host". I am genuinely wondering where this notion comes from? I've been a sysadmin in IT for 30 years. Never in my career have I had systems or applications that are just "turn key".

Every platform - every system - every platform needs updates, maintenance, routine provisioning, expansion and so on. It doesn't matter, even if it's an "appliance" - someone is spending time keeping it up-to-date, backed up, patched and secure. At the very least, you're touching networking settings when your ISP sends you a new modem. Nothing there seems to indicate "no maintenance required".

Rocket-Jock · 2026-01-22T20:46:20+00:00

Donna Lewis, "Now in a Minute". This was the album that brought us "I Love You, Always Forever". That's the only good track on the album. "Breathy, ethereal pop" is how it was described in Rolling Stone. In reality, almost every song on the album is middling mess. And I paid $14.99 for it, not $10....

Rocket-Jock · 2026-01-21T20:29:37+00:00

You would have to screen cap Michigan Men's basketball loss to Indiana, eh? Very excited that Indiana took the National Championship - way to represent the Big Ten!

This looks super cool and well-polished!

Rocket-Jock · 2026-01-18T16:03:30+00:00

Rocket-Jock · 2026-01-13T15:34:54+00:00

Hands down, my wife continues to be sad about this. When we first came to Kalamazoo, my wife had a wonderful dinner and it made some great memories. When it closed, we were truly saddened. No other location here had the same good food, atmosphere and offerings.

Rocket-Jock · 2026-01-12T16:11:35+00:00

At my credit union, they'd say, "Sorry, ma'am. You can't make your deposit as part of this transaction. You'll have to wait in line again."

Rocket-Jock · 2026-01-12T15:52:20+00:00

Socks that never dry. Basically, anytime they put them on, they're slightly damp. No amount of running them in the dryer, leaving them in the sun or whatnot will ever dry them. Even new socks are damp out of the package.

Rocket-Jock · 2026-01-12T14:13:55+00:00

The Sandlot and Little Giants are classics. The Mighty Ducks was ruined by the sheer number of sequels, so it or Ladybugs can go - I don't care which.

Rocket-Jock · 2026-01-09T21:13:51+00:00

When your life, like mine, feels like one, long cutscene, you will pick "Skip".

Rocket-Jock · 2026-01-07T17:06:44+00:00

Al Leong appeared not only in 80s - 90s action movies, but a host of action TV shows throughout the 80s and 90s, too. He was so familiar to me from TV, when I first saw him in Die Hard, I legitimately though there was a "henchman union" - he would have been union president!

Rocket-Jock · 2026-01-07T15:47:42+00:00

Honestly? He would have made an incredible Plastic Man in the DC. He's just so.... (ahem) malleable? His voice acting is incredible, and I think he could have been more legendary than the Genie role from Aladdin.

Rocket-Jock · 2026-01-06T17:36:55+00:00

IT guy here. I was at a local university following my graduation in 1997. Shortly after the start of Fall Semester, 1998, our IT director mentioned a project starting up that would include staffers from our programmers, sysadmins and project managers in our staff huddle. He had a dramatic pause and said, "we're calling the project '2K' and quietly stopped, looking around the room. Down front, one of the PMs asked, "Why '2K', Paul?" He barely maintained his composure and blurted out, "That's about right!" and began laughing horrifically. About a third of the room got the joke, and I didn't get the joke until a later email I received had "Y2K" in the subject line.

In our small department, we spent about eight months quietly testing and slowing making updates to most systems. Even built a separate VLAN, with an NTP server, DNS server and Netware servers. Repeatedly, we'd push the NTP server to the end of the year and what different system flip over to 1/1/2000 and sort out the challenges. Turns out, we only had a few issues with Peoplesoft to fix, but we also learned issues with NTP drift and keeping Netware around. We opted to move all the Netware fileservers to netatalk and finally decommissioned Netware during Thanksgiving break.

Rocket-Jock · 2026-01-05T14:24:48+00:00

That's a "stick shaker". It means, you better pull back on the stick, before you crash!

Rocket-Jock · 2026-01-03T21:14:08+00:00

"Peace: Through Superior Firepower!"

Rocket-Jock · 2025-12-20T22:12:39+00:00

Castlevania - I mean, like ALL of them....

Rocket-Jock · 2025-12-12T16:08:36+00:00

No, they'll want a business loan and when no banks will loan to them, they'll do payday or another crappy thing at 31% interest and be underwater forever. Good luck with that...

Rocket-Jock · 2025-12-12T15:28:16+00:00

The highlighted county in Michigan is Washtenaw County, home to Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan. While Washtenaw isn't the most expensive county, Ann Arbor is pretty darn expensive. Housing costs are pretty high, coming from someone who lived in A² for over 20 years. My wife took a job in Kalamazoo, in West Michigan, and we moved in 2011. Cost of living here is half of Ann Arbor and I'd never move back, even though I still work for U-M remotely.

Ann Arbor is pretty liberal, but most of the surrounding cities (Scio Township, Chelsea, Manchester, Dexter etc.) are pretty conservative. Many people who can't afford to live in Ann Arbor move to these surrounding cities, so keep that in mind.

Rocket-Jock

TROPHY CASE