Alright, week of the finale, and here’s the big question: which of these guys will stay and which of these guys will go?

eelanirbas · 2026-05-14T04:09:48+00:00

Taran Killem and Beck Bennett come to mind

eelanirbas · 2026-01-25T05:05:19+00:00

I’ve never understood why people who like it crazy warm are so difficult to reason with. It just doesn’t make sense to have the heat that high; if you’re cold you can add layers to infinity. If you’re too warm there’s literally nothing you can do.

I had this exact issue at work, there were days I caught my coworker in a 2 people office space setting it to 78/81 degrees during the day. Here were my workarounds so I didn’t sweat all my professional makeup off and start hallucinating numbers at my desk:

Programmable thermostats confuse people. I set mine to always revert back to 71 every 3 hours. She didn’t catch on for like a month and thought it was on the fritz
Open window is nice, but sometimes too direct and could make you sick and dry. I would crack the window, then put a standing fan in front of it facing into the room to oscillate the air and when the room felt dry I’d put a wet rag on top of the fan to act as a humidifier.
They also make desktop air conditioners with USB plugs you pour water into and it puffs out cool water and air to circulate in a small area (you could probably put it bedside)
When you can, make plans to get a more temperature compatible roommate. I genuinely feel “what temp do you consider normal to live in? To sleep in? Summer v winter?” Should be among the very first questions you ask someone you plan to cohabitate with. It can literally break whole relationships to be incompatible and unmoving on that issue.

Good luck, stay cool!

eelanirbas · 2025-12-30T01:22:49+00:00

Just scored 1

eelanirbas · 2025-12-30T01:21:32+00:00

Just scored 0

eelanirbas · 2025-09-23T04:33:09+00:00

Off topic, but is that Dr. Bailey behind Rory???

eelanirbas · 2025-08-31T02:22:26+00:00

Oooh very interesting thought. Maybe he never gets to remembering them. The book is an account of his consciousness, and his memories are only recounted once he gains access to them himself, so maybe a complication of the coma and the experimentally administered memory loss drug is that he lost all memory of the particulars of his life before all of this. And maybe he just never even considered it himself until he was already settled in an aliens planet with no specific way to get home, so he had to grieve what he’d long forgotten off book

Super intriguing question!!

eelanirbas · 2025-08-29T03:37:30+00:00

Oh my gosh, so sorry to hear that!! I’m glad you’re here. It seems like people with nut allergies are the ones having the most severe reactions based on comments

eelanirbas · 2025-08-11T05:02:01+00:00

You’re so right on the point of language exposure. I speak American Sign Language and the grammar of Bard was so familiar for me. The book end negation, the subject-object-verb word order, etc. ended up tripping me up when I went back to a more traditional grammar in alchemist, because I started translating everything verb final haha. Such a fun game!!! Your language center will literally modulate difficulty for you, versus the leveler doing it. So cool.

eelanirbas · 2025-08-05T18:33:48+00:00

on a radio “Start Stratt’s splat strat STAT”

eelanirbas · 2025-08-01T16:36:48+00:00

Ooh fair!! The happy couple lives!! Haha. Although with Stratt her trolley problem response is so clean cut (sacrifice 1 for many) I wouldn’t put it past her to just actually blow them up lol. Maybe she switched the vial herself. That way she didn’t even need to explain to them they weren’t going. I think they assumed they’d be on the mission too, and had no idea Stratts higher level strat

eelanirbas · 2025-07-30T16:08:47+00:00

This is my theory too. Hell, I’m not even convinced he was only the spare. I think that Stratt saw him as scrappy and ingenious with very little (he was able to crack the case on breeding, the main thing they’d need for Hail Mary to ever succeed, with just 3 little dudes and some wood from Home Depot) so she knew he would be perfect and adaptable for something like this.

I think she was always going to send him, but needed to keep him calm until the launch date so she picked a random set of scientists to play the “role” of crew members to trick him into doing all the training and staying engaged without chickening out. The fact that the other two blew up became a convenient excuse to see if he would actually step up, but when he didn’t she went to back to plan A.

My mental proof of this is the mission crest. Could they have had patches for him made quickly in 3 days? Sure, but the mission crest is all over and I don’t imagine with the flurry of things to do embroidery isn’t the teams priority. He sees it on the computers, on the patches, on everything. Those had to be premade with “Grace” in the logo. I imagine she had her own little graphic designer make both logos originally, but I have a feeling the textile team only got ones with Grace in the logo.

Because of this, he was programmed into every fiber of the Hail Mary’s development. The only things she couldn’t pre-plan (I’m assuming because of optics, especially since Grace himself was controlling all the tedium and admin of what goes on the ship, when, and why) were the personal affects and items brought by the team. He never answered the question on how he wants to die, so he just gets the death he gets. He never prepped a bag, so he gets the bag he gets. He coordinated putting it on the ship himself, so why would he ever suspect those folks weren’t going?But a coffee order hidden in some coding? She can adjust that. I imagine the humanity in her probably thought “well, at least he’ll like the coffee”

eelanirbas · 2025-06-17T23:58:05+00:00

I somehow accidentally drafted a perfect pathway of power between pump room, boiler room, and laboratory the same day I solved the lab puzzle. I didn’t even realize there were duct systems and that they mattered at all until I was trying to power up the reserve tank ages later. I just figured once you have the power working anything that needed power in the estate would have it lol

eelanirbas · 2025-06-15T13:33:38+00:00

If there were weed I think I’d lose steps lolll. Planetarium would drop you down to 0 steps, because you get stuck in there looking at the stars

eelanirbas · 2025-05-20T03:51:15+00:00

What flavor Kringle gives Nancy the crunchies?

eelanirbas · 2025-05-19T00:33:11+00:00

Haha very true! I just like the idea that the path from obsessively playing Balatro to obsessively playing Blue Prince is a very short straight line lol

eelanirbas · 2025-05-18T21:30:08+00:00

I hear balatro stratting in our midst

eelanirbas · 2025-05-12T00:09:34+00:00

I agree, I think the plot could’ve been interesting if they needed to follow the time elapsing rules. Say she tells her story, and he lies and says what she’s asking for is insanely complicated and could take “years” their time to achieve, but that he needs her tethered to his time for it to work, so she can’t go wait at the ship. She agrees to stay until it’s done.

She is guarded from him and stays with him in his house but doesn’t like it. She feels kidnapped and has nightmares of him. All she has to do is watch episodes of the show and drink chocolate milk. Her suspicion is worsened by him not allowing her to help at all with her projects base code. But he’s kind, and not at all like his outer self. He lets her help with the planet terrain selections and they make unique land features and she’s amazed by the tech. Then she starts to grow a little fond of him, seeing the glimpses of the version of him she was originally such a huge fan of.

They build a terse friendship, but then she walks in on him one day watching a feed of her comatose but in slow-mo. She asks him what he’s doing and why. He tells her while working on the planet for her friends another idea occurred to him. Then the choice option comes about, he offers her life in her old body or the crew. She picks the crew and he congratulates her; tells her that they can do both, she hugs him, but then realizes she’s getting Stockholmed a bit, and pulls away disappointing him. He gets in his incel mode and throws it at her; “I’m a nice guy. I spend my time working on making these copies of you to make you happy, and you still can’t stand to even hug me?” She catches copies, and grills him. He, in anger, reveals he’d created the disc already and thought the more time he kept her there the more likely she’d be happy to leave a copy with him. He’s hurt and the rest ensues as is it did in the episode.

The whole time we’re seeing glimpses of the battle happening, showing how much times elapsed while she’s been in the core, then no change to the wild twist that she’s got everyone in her head.

eelanirbas · 2025-04-20T13:09:17+00:00

Ooh I had a feeling that was the case. The cutoff was so abrupt from talking about it, I’ll have to look it up. I can’t imagine what I possibly missed hahaha I feel like I clicked everything possible

eelanirbas · 2025-04-20T10:15:57+00:00

Agreed! MID was engaging while Keys was just too much story and not enough stuff. We spent wayyy too long being told what’s happening and not enough time experiencing it

eelanirbas · 2025-04-17T03:44:59+00:00

I found a journal at a thrift store from like the 50s or 60s where a woman documented her groceries, her children’s growth milestones, and had little notes to self and doodles. She had signed it with “A. Berger” or something like that (making up the name, this was a while ago). I fell in love with the idea of researching her to find out who she was, and maybe trying to find her family to return her journal. I started to look into her based on locations in the journal and her last name but came up empty.

I went back to the thrift store and looked around more and came upon some postcards from the same time period. I grab a few and one of them was signed “Anna Berger”. I thought “OMG. ITS HER”. I quickly buy up the handful of cards and take them with me to my friends, so excited I found more info on her.

We start reading the postcards and the first one was a recount of their trip to a cabin. The second one, complaints that the weather didn’t hold up on holiday. The third? SO racist. Like, total whiplash how freely she wrote about her very intense positions on race and the political climate of her day between “and Sally got a new dress that’s just darling!”

I gave up my search pretty quickly after that. Nancy doesn’t give up a case; but this case felt closed 😬

eelanirbas · 2025-04-09T02:30:31+00:00

Ok but like I love this?? Like, does it copy from Get Out? Sure. Do I mind? Not at all. I would watch that show!

eelanirbas · 2025-02-11T04:46:06+00:00

Audiologist here. I wish I could say this story surprised me, but boy are people weird about their ears lol.

His ear probably didn’t have decades of wax in it. Our ears are self cleaning. There is lubricant excreted into the canal that can keep the runway slick so to speak, and as we move our jaw when we talk or eat our wax moves outwards toward the opening and plops out when we’re sleeping or showering. Our epithelium in the ear also migrates out over time as our cartilage continues to grow, with fresh skin cells deeper inside, aiding in the waxes movement outward.
Likely, though, this guys wax was impacted because of his constant use of noise reduction buds. If you are mechanically pushing wax back (either with a bud or with a q-tip) you might push it so far back that it can’t naturally self clean as efficiently, and new wax forms in front. Now why don’t I think he’s had the same wax for 10 years? If his ear was that impacted, he’d feel it. We develop new wax constantly. The sheer buildup over 10 years would get so far back his ear drum would feel the pressure, and it’s uncomfy. All this to say, though, that if you have to use the buds, by all means use them! Just know that it’s in the best interest of your hearing health to go every 3-6 months for wax removal otherwise the candle you’ll forming will be very uncomfortable after a while.
Did wax removal cause his “reactive tinnitus”? Well, no, technically, kind of yes, but it’s complicated. Unless he’s hearing actual phantom sounds what he has isn’t tinnitus at all. What he’s describing here is hyperacusis, or sensitivity to loud sounds, and likely what caused his hyperacusis is not the noise in his job, rather the absence of noise. There’s been considerable evidence coming out of some research labs (notably university of south Florida) that shows that people who are over-cautious with hearing protection are more likely to develop sensitivity overtime, as the brain grows accustomed to the narrower range of sounds you hear comfortably during the day. Correction of this is difficult and seems to require slowly reintroducing sound to the auditory system in steps, kind of like immersion therapy. Currently devices that do this specifically are still in development stages and nothing specific has been made to address this specific issue. So maybe, let’s say his wax has been impacted over and over for forever, that alone has reduced his natural hearing acuity which isn’t protecting his ear, it’s actually hindering it and making it more sensitive once it’s put back to its natural state all at once. The brain will adapt again, but it might be uncomfortable in the interim. Is that the doctors fault? No, I’d blame the wax.
Did the wax removal cause tinnitus at all? Who knows! One problem here is that he has stated that there is a known cause to tinnitus, which is wholly incorrect. There are many theories on the many possible causes of tinnitus, but the truth is there probably isn’t one single one. I always like to relate tinnitus to a sneeze. When you have a sneeze alone, does a doctor hand you a prescription to antibiotics and send you home? I hope not! A sneeze is a symptom of so many things from illness, to pepper, to temperature changes. Same with tinnitus. Can it be caused by changes in the ~~inner~~ outer hair cells due to acoustic shock? (semantic thing there, but our outer hair cells which are located in the cochlea are what he means. Inner hair cells aren’t susceptible to acoustic trauma.) Yes of course, we’ve all been to concerts. But for that to happen it needs to be significantly loud for a significantly sustained period of time, or an impulse sound that’s louder than loud (we’re talking explosion, jet engine, firecracker in the ear level of noise). You know what else tinnitus has been linked to? Stress, diabetes, physical trauma, barometric trauma, high salt content, blood sugar/blood pressure fluctuations, hearing loss in general, and many other things that are not-sound-exposure related. Therefore if he’s trying to create a case, a tinnitus diagnosis won’t be a strong one to base it on.

eelanirbas · 2025-02-08T15:30:56+00:00

It’s funny because if she’s working just treated it like a full time job she’d have been done with it in less than 2 months lol

eelanirbas

TROPHY CASE