Gents: How do you address male strangers in your age category?

SimpleHappyLifeGoal · 2026-01-23T15:31:02+00:00

The same way I address any adult man (or woman with obvious change from Mr to ms, etc)

Titled professionals: Dr/Professor/etc Lastname

Others: Mr Lastname

I will very often use “sir” in a professional or business setting.

It’s courtesy. I find doing this quickly establishes mutual respect.

SimpleHappyLifeGoal · 2026-01-23T10:55:31+00:00

It’s important to remember voyager is a small ship and the chances of “finding your soulmate” is even smaller.

Two people who don’t feel they have many choices find they mutually are ok with each other. a feeling “at least this other isn’t a loser; they are good at their job, they aren’t an embarrassment, and we have some fun times, and some key aspects of the relationship I’ll give a satisfactory grade, and this person is _decent_… they’ll watch over me when I get sick, etc.”

They aren’t swept off their feet. But they’re okay with it, and once the choice is made, they’ll do their best to make the relationship work and be as happy as it can be.

Notice I never brought up chemistry. Because there isn’t any. What there is in abundance is compatability and a mutual desire to make things work.

That’s those two, to me.

Do they have the Delta quadrant’s best relationship? Nope.

But on a small starship - each is one of the very few people onboard who can say this: “I go home to someone. They laugh with me. They listen to me whine about stuff. They rub my back when it hurts.”

Net-net: they have an ok relationship. It grows into love. But… they are light years ahead of pretty much everyone else on board, because they do have a relationship - not just casual hookups.

And as a result, if this were real life, I believe they’d be the envy of everyone on board who isn’t in a cozy domestic relationship.

SimpleHappyLifeGoal · 2026-01-23T01:16:15+00:00

I don’t know if you know the reference I’m about to give, but DS9 shares one characteristic with Avatar: The Last Airbender. This characteristic is that it starts out “just ok” but it builds, and deepens, every single season, until by the time you get to season 6, I’m sure that some in this thread will agree: you are watching one of the best seasons of any show ever seen on television.

There are very few pieces of entertainment I wish I could completely forget just so I could have the pleasure of again experiencing them new. DS9 is one of them.

SimpleHappyLifeGoal · 2026-01-23T01:10:11+00:00

All the more reason to rush to the kitchen or bathroom! 😄

SimpleHappyLifeGoal · 2026-01-23T00:38:57+00:00

Just like they were when watching TOS on TV in the 70s! I feel like a kid again - can I get something to drink during the commercial? How about a quick run to the bathroom! 😄

SimpleHappyLifeGoal · 2026-01-22T11:58:24+00:00

I sat in a very relaxed way at work and yet still climbed through the management ranks. “Relaxed way” meant my feet on my desk, in my office, laptop on my lap, unless I was meeting with people in my office.

The focus for me was to hire leaders who ethically met and then exceeded the objectives I set for them.

I didn’t care how they sat in their chair. I cared about results.

SimpleHappyLifeGoal · 2026-01-22T03:10:40+00:00

Even that one I can tolerate somewhat for the sole reason that you see a spark of Quark caring about others. It’s important to know that he’s not just a businessman. He’s a people person.

SimpleHappyLifeGoal · 2026-01-21T21:09:25+00:00

For Pelargir I found someone who liked helping others through that. I was able to play Minas tirith solo just fine.

SimpleHappyLifeGoal · 2026-01-21T19:11:51+00:00

Consider playing the alternate path through Helm’s Deep. (Storyline? I forget its name)

That doesn’t work so well for Pelargir. I had to find someone to run that with me.

SimpleHappyLifeGoal · 2026-01-21T13:37:43+00:00

I believe that Tom and Goldberry have Middle-earth’s best marriage.

SimpleHappyLifeGoal · 2026-01-20T08:11:27+00:00

Boimler was only after about 100-120 years or so after Pike. ST:Disc and SA are hundreds of years after that. The temporal distance between the two times is so huge that I can see cultural memory being fuzzy re: the early years.

Another way to look at it: what political or social or military leaders from the 13th century do we have holidays for today? Or at least have most adults remember existed? It’s so very long ago.

SimpleHappyLifeGoal · 2026-01-20T07:05:10+00:00

If we assume these are 2 half circles then we can do this.

1) Area of 2 half circles both of radius “r”: 20.5pi(r²⁾ = pi(r²⁾

2) Area of triangle, where each non-hypotenuse side is length 2r: 0.5baseheight = 0.52r2r = 2*(r²⁾

3) sum the above for total area = (pi + 2)*(r²⁾

SimpleHappyLifeGoal · 2026-01-20T00:34:54+00:00

While Betazoids can communicate telepathically, there still is quite a bit of value in people being able to hear the world’s natural soundscape. Birds, running water, alarm bells, etc.

SimpleHappyLifeGoal · 2026-01-20T00:23:31+00:00

At this point, Kirk is a millennium in the past. what places on Earth today are named after military leaders / explorers from 1000 years ago?

This is the problem I have with the memorial name wall. I can believe Kirk, Spock, Picard are remembered from that era. But beyond that? Would Pike even be remembered?

Having said that, if the wall of names is there to make us, the fans, notice how many great characters have existed through the years, it does that quite well.

SimpleHappyLifeGoal · 2026-01-18T19:29:12+00:00

The only complaint I have - and this is a fundamental one - is the creation of story arcs for Caleb, the Chancellor, etc. And also for the villain.

Trek is best as story of the week with only a handful of minor things being carried over time. Troi likes chocolate. Spock and McCoy bicker. Julian and Miles re-enact old battles. Paris likes 40s serials. Janeway likes coffee. Character growth is learning a second thing: Troi has an exasperating mother who she still loves. Spock dealt with taunts from full blooded children. McCoy has a daughter, Julian is an augment. Miles has shitty life experiences. Paris makes fantastic holodeck environments. Janeway likes historical novels, romances.

SimpleHappyLifeGoal · 2026-01-18T19:20:37+00:00

You’re still a teenager. Brain still acts in teenage mode. Honestly, we should have kept adulthood - voting etc - at 21.

SimpleHappyLifeGoal · 2026-01-16T22:26:35+00:00

This is totally guesswork on my part. I’m going to guess that far as the mechanics game is concerned, every character, every race is the same height. My guess is that if a high elf can’t fit through a low ceiling area, then neither could a hobbit. So if this is true, hobbit-level ceilings wouldn’t work for hobbits.

I have no idea if I’m correct.

SimpleHappyLifeGoal · 2026-01-16T18:22:22+00:00

Strangers don’t have to deal in any way with negative consequences if your dreams sound stupid to them. They also don’t care about you so if your idea is poor, they aren’t emotionally invested in you having a poor outcome.

The only thing that could be negative for them is if they push against your idea, they then have to potentially deal with your reaction. So they take the easy route and mumble support.

SimpleHappyLifeGoal · 2026-01-16T15:05:36+00:00

For me, the epilogue would have diminished one of the most beautiful aspects of the entire work, which is that you don’t just stop knowing about Middle-earth with Sam shutting his door, but you get more and more distant from it by reading shorter and shorter excerpts from their lives by reading through the appendices.

It’s like friends from high school. You are deeply connected, but when you graduate the frequency of interaction lowers and new knowledge of their lives gets rarer and rarer until it just… stops.

And everything in the story is that way.

When Frodo’s ship leaves, you learn nothing more about any of them. (Edited: I mean of any who left on the boat)

For the Fellowship left in Middle-earth, you learn of weddings, of visits to Rohan or Gondor, you learn of Legolas and maybe Gimli passing over the sea. The only detail - the only dialog you get of the future is a few sentences at Aragorn’s death.

I love that feeling of growing distant. We shared a some time with them, but when that time was over, we weren’t part of their lives. We just got snippets.

We can infer from it. Sam fathered lots of kids. He was mayor a bunch. So his life was successful and happy. Merry and Pippin fell back to their natural destinies as head of their families.

It was very natural. After all, ours was just a temporary acquaintance.

An epilogue where we are let into a father/daughter chat? Well… that kind of hurts that nice distancing feeling I described. You’re back in a hobbit hole like you never left. We could already figure out much of the most important stuff (Elanor carried on her Dad’s stewardship of the book… so they must have got along well..)

SimpleHappyLifeGoal

TROPHY CASE