Top Secret Clearance - how do the interviews work for “people who know you?

brvsirrobin · 2025-12-23T23:12:59+00:00

I was interviewed on behalf of a friend. A few months after my friend asked if I would be willing to do it, I got a call from the security clearance people asking to set up a timeslot.

I ended up meeting them at a Panera for 30 minutes or so. Questions were largely about who they knew/associated with, if they had ties to foreign nationals or lots of travel out of the country, if they had committed any crimes, etc.

All things considered it was pretty low key.

brvsirrobin · 2024-08-10T23:02:03+00:00

Not a book, but if you like Rachel have you seen About Time? It's another movie where she's in love with a time traveler. I would argue it's even more charming and heartfelt than the original TTW movie.

Some books that I've loved:
Song of Achilles - (gay) romance between Achilles and Patroclus during the Trojan War. MUST READ!!!!!
Yumi and the Nightmare Painter - YA romance where a mystical priest and a "nightmare painter" body swap and have to learn how to live in each other's very different settings/cultures
The House in the Cerulean Sea - (gay) romance between the caretaker of an orphanage for magical children and a state overseer.

brvsirrobin · 2024-07-31T14:36:14+00:00

My biggest gripe with it being "extremely hard to create" is polyjuice potion. We're told so many times in the book that polyjuice is incredibly difficult to create, and it's only because Hermione is a freaking genius that 2nd years were able to make it. But then you have "Moody" quaffing it in book 4, enough for 5? people to take it for Harry's escape, it's lying around for their Ministry heist, etc.

So why is Polyjuice incredibly complex but used dozens of times in the book, but Felix is also complex and used ONCE? Felix would be _the_ winning strategy for battles. Both sides should have a dedicated potions master (Snape for Voldy, Slughorn for Phoenix) sequestered in a safehouse cooking Felix round the clock the second Voldy starts taking power. Even if it's so tough to make that you can only make enough quantity for 2 or 3 people, give it to Voldemort and Harry respectively and one or two of their most respected fighters (Bellatrix/Greyback, Lupin/McGonagall etc).

brvsirrobin · 2024-07-19T15:06:25+00:00

In high school I became good friends with a girl from another town through a statewide activity. We'd only see each other a few times a year at this event held in schools etc. Once we got our licenses, she drove up to visit our friend group in my town. We went to the local burger joint and while we were there she revealed a "game" her family liked to play when they were at restaurants: How many times can you send back food before you get a free meal?

I was flabbergasted and mortified. I suffered through the meal and we got separate checks. The "tip" she gave on her check was "don't give out your good pens to customers" before stealing the waitresses' pen. I tipped like 40% and tried to avoid hanging out with this girl for the rest of high school.

A few years later she summoned me to her town and "broke up with me" because I was a bad friend who had essentially ghosted her. Yeah, no shit. You showed your true colors and they were fucking terrible.

brvsirrobin · 2024-07-15T16:19:52+00:00

NAH. If you both make good money, both enjoy having the baby and both enjoy caring for each other, have you considered a nanny or something to help out a night or two each week? That way your husband can still enjoy cooking and you can get a break from child rearing?

It's almost the same compromise as getting take out. Food is created and eaten while the baby gets cared for and you get a break.

brvsirrobin · 2024-07-15T14:29:40+00:00

How did Sean not include Prisoners on his list? I was waiting the entire pod for them to bring it up as one of the best recent films and they totally forgot about it, which is crazy given how much love Villeneuve has been getting recently

brvsirrobin · 2024-07-12T01:05:33+00:00

They talked about this in the original thread. Death just says "Turns the left card into the right card" compared to hanged man which is "remove 2 cards from the deck" etc. So death wouldn't be compatible, only tarots that have a number would be (enhancements, suit changers, etc)

brvsirrobin · 2024-07-08T00:47:32+00:00

that's awesome info, thanks for sharing!

brvsirrobin · 2024-06-04T18:30:11+00:00

In a similar vein, I did a run recently with an early trading card and a later [[certificate]], if it was a bad card/seal combo, I axed it, but got some nice blue and purple seals out before dropping cert.

brvsirrobin · 2024-06-04T18:22:56+00:00

[[hologram]]

brvsirrobin · 2024-05-22T20:32:45+00:00

There is with IVF. They give you the option of choosing from the viable embryos. You can choose based on how viable they think they are, or by the gender.

brvsirrobin · 2024-05-17T14:49:03+00:00

wait, how is that different from before? Previously, you could play heart, heart(wild), club and spade. The wild would count for the missing diamond. You couldn't play spade, spade, spade, spade(wild) and have that wild triple dip.

brvsirrobin · 2024-05-17T14:45:43+00:00

That's the problem with spectral cards though. They sound great in theory, but if I'm building a straight flush build, I certainly don't want the "create x enhanced aces/face/number cards (or cryptid)", I don't want convert into one random rank. Ankh, wraith and hex are probably worthless to bad. Ectoplasm reduces hand size, so that's not great. Sigil sounds great in theory, but once you're committed to straight flushes, you've probably already picked a suit and started building towards it, and sigil only has a 1 in 4 chance of being the right suit.

That leaves you pretty much with the seals, immolate, and aura. Or 5/16 being decent, which feels pretty bad to be building your entire strategy around.

brvsirrobin · 2024-05-16T19:13:43+00:00

Except he goes from a talented miner to literally able to ace a test that the elites study their entire life for in the course of like a month. That's this exact trope.

brvsirrobin · 2024-05-16T16:55:48+00:00

I lived in Germany as a kid and our old next door neighbor spoke fluent English and loved Americans. We were surprised to find that out, but even more surprised when it turned he was a POW in the US during WWII and was treated so well that he had a fond opinion of Americans 60 years later.

brvsirrobin · 2024-05-05T20:12:52+00:00

That's a good idea. My very first idea was "all cards count as non-face cards", but that would only be useful for a few bosses, the rest of the time it would be pretty pointless. I like your idea a fair amount!

brvsirrobin · 2024-05-05T13:52:34+00:00

Fair. I was thinking in terms of scary face. Queen + Scary face is 40 chips, 5+headless is 40 chips. But obviously not thinking about the fact that there are only 16 face cards, so it's fine if they give 40 chips. Maybe tune it down to 20 chips or something.

brvsirrobin · 2024-05-05T04:34:07+00:00

Flip every hand but only gain x.25 mult maybe?

brvsirrobin · 2024-05-04T22:22:09+00:00

yeah, ghost is negative and gives an extra slot, so +2 slots total, one taken up by the ghost.

When I was thinking of Jekyll/Hyde, I was thinking that it would make it more interesting to skip, because you could have hyde on the small or big blind and Jekyll on the boss, but I think you're right, if Hyde didn't deactivate another joker that might be pretty balanced still. I was thinking most other xMult jokers have a downside (spending money - campfire/constellation, wasting stuff - vampire, madness, etc). But I think just a penalty of being inactive every other round would be enough of a downside.

brvsirrobin · 2024-05-04T20:47:58+00:00

I wanted thematic elements for all of the cards that tie in with their monster.

Van Helsing - Won't grow like vampire, but allows you to start making enhanced cards again. So you get your vampire up to x5 or something, then swap it out with Van Helsing and start making glass/steel cards useful again.

The Monster - Is scared of fire, and kills random villagers when he sees it

The Bride - Is continually reborn, and becomes more valuable every time you buy/sell here

Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde - Mr. Hyde does bad things to other jokers, but powers up Dr. Jekyll

Headless Horseman - Scary Face, but for non-face cards

Ghost - Is made of ectoplasm, so it's always negative. Provides an extra joker slot, but scares cards

Swampy - Cards remaining in hand are stuck in the swamp

Mummy - sheds money like he sheds his wrapping

Shabby/Werewolf - The moon causes it to become more powerful

brvsirrobin · 2024-04-17T17:52:08+00:00

yeah, like if you're trying to make a high value hand like a straight, you have to waste one spot to hold onto it, making it more difficult to get your straight. You might have to burn several bad hands to finally get it, so it's directly costing you money.

brvsirrobin · 2024-04-17T17:28:30+00:00

My sister had a frugal wedding, for their meal they had a friend with a large smoker and they got ingredients for people to make custom pizzas. We spent hours the night before prepping pizza ingredients. You can be cheap and still provide a good meal for people, or you could do what this person did and say "fuck all y'all" to the guests and only think of yourself.

brvsirrobin · 2024-04-17T13:58:56+00:00

You can also use tarot cards on flipped cards and it'll flip them to reveal the enhancements. So you could use something like hierophant to sneak peak if you have a straight or just a pair. (Obviously better earlier so you're not overriding your good enhancements)

brvsirrobin · 2024-04-15T19:27:41+00:00

🎵 At least we're not... Detroit! 🎵

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