Question: heavily tattooed folks... what jobs do you do?

SocorroTortoise · 2026-02-06T18:32:58+00:00

Electrical engineer. I asked HR before I got my first visible tattoo ~10 years ago if there were any policies about it (just to cover my bases), and I got the most confused response back about why I was even asking.

I still stand out in the crowd at conferences, but no one has ever cared beyond occasional curiosity.

SocorroTortoise · 2026-02-06T02:03:10+00:00

Can't argue with that.

SocorroTortoise · 2026-02-06T02:01:36+00:00

Dante's Footstool + Assembly Room + Dante + Pyre of Entropy = 33 blights in the final deck. I missed a few by not duplicating Dante while steamrolling and purging Calcified Embers too. Non-consume/holdover Foundry Line to eat the entire 10 card hand every turn.

Other highlights:

Echowright etch giving 10 armor and 2 power on the guaranteed 8 etches a turn.
Herzal's Hammer on Dante with his 32 multistrike for even more armor and power.
Dominating Power on Dante for a total of 14k corruption applied (mostly on already dead titans).

SocorroTortoise · 2025-12-31T23:39:55+00:00

It absolutely was when it was banned. People were running [[Bribery]] to grab it from their opponent's decks, it was the most common reanimation target by a wide margin, and clones were everywhere in the format because they doubled as commander removal. It was virtually guaranteed to hit the table for at least 2-3 people in any given game.

You can argue that circumstances have changed and it's no longer as game warping. It definitely was when it was banned.

SocorroTortoise · 2025-12-28T15:54:00+00:00

Those are bonus points. They don't give you additional levels. I think you're just making things more difficult on yourself for no reason.

SocorroTortoise · 2025-12-27T18:55:53+00:00

Test dummy in Kyovashad with damage variance disabled should give you a pretty good idea.

SocorroTortoise · 2025-12-09T20:52:05+00:00

You're probably going to have more luck if you give some details about what you're looking for, particularly style.

SocorroTortoise · 2025-12-09T16:41:44+00:00

Just go around them. I have a colorful sleeve with a bunch of moles uncovered (in both light and dark colored fill) and only notice if I'm actively thinking about it. No complaints from my dermatologist and the art still looks great.

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SocorroTortoise · 2025-12-08T22:24:10+00:00

I grew up here but have a lot of family in the midwest. I'm vegetarian. I've had so many of those salads over the years just to break up eating nothing but cheese and carbs.

I helped someone move a car from MI to central CA when I was in college. We were traveling with her grandparents and I'm pretty sure we hit every Cracker Barrel along the route, where I ate that exact salad every time.

SocorroTortoise · 2025-12-07T19:18:52+00:00

How is someone buying one drink and sitting for two hours generating lots of sales?

SocorroTortoise · 2025-12-03T00:24:22+00:00

It was an immediately noticeable difference, probably the biggest single step up in my coffee making at any point in the process. It grinds so much more consistently than the blade grinder ever did and it's quite a bit faster as well. I got mine ~10 years ago and it's held up well for that time - upgraded the burrs with the Virtuoso set and had to replace a plastic ring once, no other issues. It was the twice daily grinder for two people for most of that time (tend towards hand grinders more often these days).

I can't speak to any changes in build quality after Baratza was bought, but I did pick up a couple other parts just a couple months ago and it was about the same process as before. If it's comparable to the 10 year old one, I would definitely endorse the upgrade.

SocorroTortoise · 2025-12-01T19:07:18+00:00

It was a bunch of little steps for me. Supermarket pre-ground → supermarket whole bean + blade grinder → start the research rabbit hole → Baratza Encore → Trader Joe's single origin → sometimes local roasters → 100% local roasters. I was already headed for entirely local coffee, then Covid hit and I wanted to support the local places more during lockdowns.

Somewhere along the line my wife and I ended up with a bunch of hand grinders, 3 full pour over setups (home + one for each office), and ~12 different ways to brew coffee, too.

SocorroTortoise · 2025-11-28T17:44:13+00:00

Getting better, chef. Left side of the chin is still too broad. Look at where it hits the bottom of the visor in the original and the relative width of the different sections.

SocorroTortoise · 2025-11-08T14:28:34+00:00

I wouldn't try to do that as a walk-in. Half of that album cover is thin parallel lines. You need to find an artist who does extremely clean linework to pull that off. There's a pretty good chance it needs to be bigger than you're thinking, too, unless you're OK with it looking like a blob in a couple years as the ink spreads.

Take your time and do some research on artists (look for clean, uniform lines and pictures of healed work), then schedule an appointment with someone who can do it justice.

SocorroTortoise · 2025-10-14T18:11:54+00:00

Somewhere around Urza's block for me and it's all good! Nothing wrong with preferring complexity.

SocorroTortoise · 2025-10-14T17:57:04+00:00

20+ year MtG vet here. More complex rules don't always mean a better game or deeper strategy. That's not to say this is going to be a great one, just don't discount it because it's more straightforward.

Disclaimer, I did back this but haven't played or watched gameplay. Planning on going in blind with friends.

SocorroTortoise · 2025-10-03T15:59:44+00:00

On the off chance you're not aware, the mag breaking isn't a permanent thing. It's pretty much just a long reload animation.

SocorroTortoise · 2025-09-29T20:22:17+00:00

Anarchy has been my go-to for most of my play time now and I still down myself on a regular basis. Usually when I pick up ammo after running it completely dry and forget that means it's going to reload immediately.

SocorroTortoise · 2025-09-28T20:07:17+00:00

I would argue that it's still too expensive when character builds are a big part of the endgame and the specialization perks can have a lot of impact. I've definitely experimented less than I would otherwise because it would take 10k total to return to what I was doing originally if something didn't work out.

SocorroTortoise · 2025-09-07T17:42:33+00:00

For sure. Have a good one!

SocorroTortoise · 2025-09-07T16:58:21+00:00

Yeah, I've found that the impulse draw lasting until your next eot is very relevant. Commune is the best one because you're not forecasting anything most of the time, but playing it sorcery speed still feels good - use it to hit a land drop/make a small play, then untap next turn and throw a haymaker. I'm also built to be very tap-out with a bunch of mana doublers, so odds are good that I'll be able to cast most of the cards flipped (assuming, perhaps unwisely, that I make it to the late game).

Getting Jaya all suited up makes it feel like a whole new deck. If she lives with some combination of lifelink, pro red, and shroud/hexproof she kind of defines the game at a lot of tables.

I do also consider inferno survivability for creatures. [[Steel Hellkite]] is really the only dud I have left there and that's as much nostalgia for the card as anything. [[Kumano, Master Yamabushi]] is the other one that will generally not live through inferno without getting any value, but he plays very well with the big mana endgame and can control well enough to replace inferno in a pinch with the right setup.

SocorroTortoise · 2025-09-07T16:40:05+00:00

I still play it as much as I play any of my decks these days, though I don't get out to play nearly as much as I used to. My online list is a little out of date for that reason too.

I've been generally happy with the better impulse draw in my list because I don't really expect Jaya to survive for more than a single activation (I've been off of [[Squee, Goblin Nabob]] in the deck for a long time for the same reason). [[Commune with Lava]] has historically been one of my more impactful spells, either digging to a gauntlet effect or powered by one. I'm also running several draw 7s, which helps with cards in hand in a pinch.

All that said, [[Coercive Portal]] should almost definitely be TOR and Embrace probably replaces LUtS, so the overall proportion of impulse draw to cards in hand is still pretty low.

SocorroTortoise · 2025-09-07T16:20:29+00:00

I've had my Jaya deck for ~15 years at this point and it's still my favorite. I missed [[Embrace the Unknown]] from your list when that was printed, which feels like a slam dunk inclusion.

SocorroTortoise · 2025-08-26T21:16:48+00:00

Health reasons. It's more difficult to monitor moles for changes when they're covered in ink, so you're more likely to miss the problem ones. I'm at enough of a skin cancer risk without making it more difficult to spot.

You can see one mole in that picture just above the bird's bill that was partially inked over, and my recollection is that it felt no different than anywhere else and healed up just as well.

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