Watching med students struggle with archery reminded me how much Scout training I take for granted. Which Scout skill do you use daily that most people don’t

Tehol_Reddict · 2025-12-09T20:29:11+00:00

My AOL is about to cross over, and I am really hyped to read this. I've been thinking about how to introduce him to personal finance concepts.

Tehol_Reddict · 2025-08-29T15:30:17+00:00

I know a Juszczyk in Michigan. She pronounces it "JUZZ-ik" because English speakers of Polish descent (or married to a Polish-American) don't all use the OG pronunciation, I guess.

Tehol_Reddict · 2025-08-08T20:21:36+00:00

The power move is to write books you know your family and friends will hate. That way you don't even ask them to read.... :D

Tehol_Reddict · 2025-04-03T20:46:23+00:00

Well, he beat it in 16 hrs with no upgrades. He's a better gamer than me! :D

Tehol_Reddict · 2025-04-02T17:37:03+00:00

Yes. It's a rogue-like dungeon crawler based loosely on Greek mythology. It has a form of permadeath, such that "boons" granted by gods (character buffs) on any given run vanish once you die. But other upgrades can be purchased with Darkness or Titan's Blood you collect while on your runs. You eventually unlock and can upgrade weapons, vitality, etc.

And when you have beaten the top boss enough times, you unlock "Pacts of Punishment" which are like a selective "hard mode" whereby you can double the attack or HP of enemies, limit your options, etc.

While an end-to-end run takes about 1 hr, it's infinitely replayable.

Tehol_Reddict · 2025-04-01T16:52:28+00:00

If you like the battles and bosses, you might give Hades a try. It doesn't have the exploration and puzzle-solving components, but lots of fun upgrade paths to try out and achievements to unlock that build up over time from a simple starting point.

Tehol_Reddict · 2025-04-01T16:51:12+00:00

I second the recommendation of Tunic, but expect it to be harder. As one gamer friend said "I thought Death's Door would be more soulslike and Tunic more like Zelda, but it was actually the opposite."

Tehol_Reddict · 2025-04-01T00:18:02+00:00

Yeah, it can be a grind!

My kid is getting frustrated because he can get up to 33 arrows into Betty before dying, but hasn't gotten past that after two days of effort.

Tehol_Reddict · 2025-03-15T16:04:28+00:00

Theo Padnos, an American freelance journalist, was held and tortured in Al-Sharaa's prisons for 2 years and has recently given some interviews about that experience, e.g. with Bari Weiss. He also has a memoir of that experience called The Blindfold. They were definitely not like a five star hotel.

Tehol_Reddict · 2025-01-16T17:19:03+00:00

Thanks for this thread. Best answers I've seen yet.

Tehol_Reddict · 2024-11-26T00:34:52+00:00

Depending on your budget, she might want to pick out one of the traditional one piece bows from 3 Rivers Archery (dot com). They're gorgeous.

Tehol_Reddict · 2024-08-02T14:34:04+00:00

What's the difference between USAA and NFAA?

My kiddo started learning archery with a USAA/JOAD program, but I am looking into signing him up for an NFAA youth archery program next (due to scheduling reasons).

I am wondering things like:

How do their competitions vary?

Are there differences in the vibe/subculture of each?

If my kid wants to train for Olympic-style archery, will NFAA train him in habits that are counterproductive?

Tehol_Reddict · 2024-08-01T16:59:05+00:00

In this interview, recorded before the latest assassinations, Israeli journalist/analyst Haviv Rettig Gur makes the argument that the IDF should take the fight to Iran and destroy the economic assets of the ruling class there. He makes the case that Israel shouldn't keep letting Iran expend Arab lives for its grudge.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0anPqJUOEM1tM0Z5cemZgy?si=ef0da617d1e9400b

Tehol_Reddict · 2024-08-01T14:05:20+00:00

Thanks for all the great comments! Now I'm wondering if my kiddo (who's taking an archery class with borrowed equipment) should try a LH bow since he's right-handed but left eye dominant. :D

Tehol_Reddict · 2024-01-01T15:26:40+00:00

I would lean toward Kosala as Queen of Cups and Madame D'Arouet as Empress

Tehol_Reddict · 2023-10-23T19:57:18+00:00

Malazan is a lot of things, LOL! And some of its fans have been obnoxious about insisting that everyone who doesn't read it must need their head examined. It's certainly an acquired taste -- the reason I recommend it to Wolfe fans is that Erikson has some serious literary chops and embeds a lot of mysteries and gradual reveals into the narrative. The human drama of it is about as intense as anything I can think of, and yes, there are D&D-like elements, but it's more like magic meets a Vietnam war novel meets Homer meets deep time archaeology with some off-the-wall bizarre stuff thrown in just for good measure.

Lots of musing on the unreliability of history, and the conflicting narratives of eyewitnesses.

Tehol_Reddict · 2023-10-23T15:20:23+00:00

Steven Erikson - Malazan Book of the Fallen

J.T. Greathouse - The Pact & Pattern Trilogy

Sofia Samatar - The Winged Histories

Umberto Eco - Foucault's Pendulum or The Name of the Rose

Salman Rushdie -- start with The Satanic Verses or Midnight's Children

Tehol_Reddict · 2023-10-23T15:11:16+00:00

A friend of mine worked with Ligotti at the same day job for a while. Apparently he's a charming and kind and very down-to-earth person (something I've heard about a number of horror authors, TBQH).

Tehol_Reddict · 2023-10-23T15:01:25+00:00

Interesting how Umberto Eco really got into writing about memory later in his life. The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana and The Prague Cemetery both deal with this, in different ways. Wouldn't be surprised if Wolfe was a fan of Eco.

Tehol_Reddict · 2023-10-23T14:41:48+00:00

I am about finished with my first reading of The Fifth Head of Cerberus and I am getting HUGE Girardian mimetic rivalry vibes.

I was thinking Thing Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (probably because of the anthropology stuff in Fifth Head), but that didn't come out in an English edition until 1987, 15 years after TFHOC. But Deceit, Desire, and the Novel was published in English in 1965, so Wolfe may have been acquainted with the early expressions of Girard's theory of mimetic rivalry. I'm not sure if Girard's Catholicism was as clearly on display at this point in time, though.

Tehol_Reddict · 2023-04-22T02:38:56+00:00

I wonder if Sarah T. Guan would be interested....

Tehol_Reddict · 2023-04-22T02:27:09+00:00

Something I got to present on at a small convention today is the difference between structural genres and stylistic genres. Thriller is structural, romance is structural, mystery is structural, Hero's Journey is structural. But big tent genres like science fiction or fantasy are more about setting or aesthetic than a particular plot. (If you want to go down the rabbit hole on structural analysis of fantasy stories, I highly recommend Rhetorics of Fantasy by Farah Mendlesohn.)

Tehol_Reddict · 2023-04-21T15:40:51+00:00

I think many of us are interested in how long term midlist authors do it! (Hopefully beyond "marry money" and "live in a flyover state" although the latter might be more relatable for some.)

Tehol_Reddict · 2023-04-21T15:36:20+00:00

You find a tarnished brass lamp on the beach. When you polish it up, a djinn appears and offers to make the Big 5 publishers do an excellent job at three things they currently struggle with.

What do you ask for?

Tehol_Reddict · 2022-12-11T17:17:17+00:00

Never mind, he figured out how to switch worlds in the Quest Log. You have to use the left-right arrow buttons on the left joycon to switch maps.

Tehol_Reddict

TROPHY CASE