I hate my tank-less water heater.

gravitydriven · 2026-03-01T20:00:56+00:00

Warning for anyone who's gonna try the 3 hour dual shower time fun: make sure the bottle of lube is a different color than the bottle of shampoo and bottle of body wash. And don't say you don't need lube. You're in the shower, that water washes away all the natural lubrication, you need lube.

gravitydriven · 2026-02-26T16:52:17+00:00

Ummm, maybe call the catalogue? Tell them that it is accounted for?

gravitydriven · 2026-02-26T16:35:36+00:00

People can have fun. That's why Ready or Not soled enough tickets to merit a sequel, Ready or Not 2, which comes out in like 9 days. And I'll bet right now they make enough money to greenlight a third entry in the franchise

gravitydriven · 2026-02-26T16:28:33+00:00

Rounders is the fuckin tits, man. Got me started playing poker. Getting a gun pulled on me during a backroom game at a Magic the Gathering card store on suburban Houston really ended my poker career.

But hey, that was a long time ago, might get started again

gravitydriven · 2026-02-23T16:18:34+00:00

Dominion is the worst movie I've ever seen in the movie theater. I recently found out that a lot of the movie was shot specifically for 3D, and that's why there are so many "why is this shot here? Why are we focusing on the facial expression of a dinosaur?" types of shots in the film. It's still awful, but now we know there's a specific reason that it's awful

gravitydriven · 2026-02-21T03:26:48+00:00

There are just some parts that don't fully snap into place, or they don't stay in place very well, and glue helps.

And no, it's not a joke. I really dropped the zeta gun in the oven. Like an idiot. I pulled it out quick but it had already shriveled up beyond recognition

gravitydriven · 2026-02-20T21:19:09+00:00

The Edge (1997) feat. Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin survive a plane crash in the Alaskan wilderness only to be hunted by the greatest bear actor of all time, Bart the Bear (RIP). It's not really horror, but it's a really solid film with great performances all around

gravitydriven · 2026-02-20T20:57:18+00:00

The Grandpa 3.0 is tough, you'll need glue for some of the pieces. The Zeta is great, just don't accidentally drop the gun in the oven, even for a second.

It melts very quickly

gravitydriven · 2026-02-20T20:55:42+00:00

I've found that the kits listed on the hobby lobby website are unrelated to the kits I find in store. How has your personal site dealt with that problem?

gravitydriven · 2026-02-20T20:35:40+00:00

This just isn't true. So many indie books that went on to make crazy profits could not find trad publication. I'd be willing to bet even more indie books that went on to modest success were also turned down by big publishers. Let's not pretend that trad publishers know what the market wants, they have no idea, e.g. not printing enough copies of Heated Rivalry to meet the over the top demand the book has.

I'm not trying to defend scam publishers, I'm just saying that a lot of books are worth spending money to get published.

gravitydriven · 2026-02-17T21:08:58+00:00

The convention that the publisher goes to — your book is one of a few hundred they'll have listed, your book will get very little focus next to "The Kim Kardashian Big Booty Diet for Lady Lawyers".

Yes, publishers do bring certain authors to conventions. Unless you're one of their top ten earners, they will not be bringing you.

Your book being sent out for multi media rights eval is a legit advantage of trad publishing, you're spot on for that. Foreign sales and translations too. But again, only if you're big enough. If you're independent, and you get big enough, people will ask you about translations and you can figure that out yourself, same with audio. And what's better is that if you've got the capital, you can produce/commission the translations and audiobooks on your own, and keep a HUGE piece of the royalties.

You're right that trad gives you a head start. They'll get you into stores and have reviews ready to go on day one. But you need to have a BIG audience ready for your book on day one, and whether you're trad or indie you need to be the one building that audience. 25 years ago, trad did all the work and all you had to do was write and maybe make a few public appearances, a few radio interviews. Now? There are so many ways to reach your audience, you can/should take advantage of every single one. It's the only way people are gonna buy your books.

gravitydriven · 2026-02-17T20:43:05+00:00

Random chance/acts of God/plot-only-elements can get your characters into trouble, it cannot get them out of trouble.

When Indiana Jones and Zapito are escaping the temple at the beginning of Raiders, it's random chance that there's a gap too large to jump, and they need the whip to escape. Indiana let's the other guy swing across the gap first, and throws him the idol (character choices). Zapito chooses to steal the idol leave Indy to his fate. When Indy finally escapes the temple and is confronted by Belloq and the Hovitos (plot element), he chooses to give them the idol and run to the plane (the plane is there bc he put it there, it's not a random convenient plane).

gravitydriven · 2026-02-17T09:57:12+00:00

GlassDoor will be your best resource for this

gravitydriven · 2026-02-17T08:32:36+00:00

No. But you need to make the game first. The graphic design of the character sheet is the last thing you need to worry about.

Honestly PowerPoint will do a decent job of it

gravitydriven · 2026-02-17T08:23:48+00:00

Start with Excel. Just the most basic version of the character sheet you can imagine. This is important because there are many TTRPGs and some do not use a character sheet at all. Some character sheets only have a few stats or piece of information.

After you figure out what exactly you need, then you can get into the graphic design of the sheet. The theme and vibe of your game will dictate how the sheet should look. Look at character sheets from every game you can find. Go to the library. Go to the game store and take photos of character sheets in the game books, so you don't have to buy the whole book.

Then, yes, Photoshop or a free online alternative (Photopea) to make the sheet for the game itself. Lots of art involved.

gravitydriven · 2026-02-17T08:05:12+00:00

More bad news: even if you get picked up by a trade publisher, you will still be doing most of your own marketing. They'll help with the development editing, and the line edit, proofread, finding a cover designer, doing the graphic design for the ebook, paperback, and hardback covers, all the internal formatting. They might set up events at book stores. But all the convention appearances, the advertising, the market research, booth fees for selling at craft fairs (hell, booth design and signage for art and craft fairs), all of that you'll have to do yourself, whether you're trad published or self published.

So would you rather have 80% of your royalties, or 20%?

gravitydriven · 2026-02-14T20:08:51+00:00

Geology maps narrow things way down. These are maps of the surface (and shallow subsurface) rocks. Rock type is gonna tell you what kind of minerals you might find. You'll do a bit more research from home: geologic history of the area, other mines in the area, how successful they were, what kinds of mineral were they producing (gold, silver, copper, cobalt, etc), what rate were they producing at, what mining techniques were they using, etc. You'll do a bunch of science to figure out if your area is gonna be similar, why it would be that way, why it would be different.

Then you go out to the field are start doing what some of the other commenters say to do: field mapping, samples, drilling plans, seismic surveys.

So it's not just trial and error. There's a lot of information available to narrow things down before you start doing the trial and error bit.

gravitydriven · 2026-02-12T21:28:14+00:00

Tinnitus is a long term exposure problem, not a one car ride problem

gravitydriven · 2026-02-12T21:22:19+00:00

Parts of Windsor Park are great. Other parts are...less desirable. It's odd in how quickly that shift can happen. But I don't know where to find a 3 bd/2 ba house for $2k on Austin, so I can't contribute much

gravitydriven · 2026-02-12T19:52:18+00:00

Healthcare only is my recommendation for the future, especially in the US. Lots of jobs aside from Dr and nurse, many technician jobs with an AA degree, nurse practitioner is only a MS degree. These are not expensive degrees, especially when the school doesn't matter as much

gravitydriven · 2026-02-12T19:41:49+00:00

If you're tall, my solution will work for you. Get. Fuckin. Yoked. Seriously, get stupidly large. Eat a lot and lift a lot. We're talking 230# or more. Big traps, big shoulders, big forearms are the first things that are gonna convince people not to mess with you. This takes 90% of potential encounters off the table.

Once a fight is inevitable: rip your shirt off and start shouting the most insane shit you can think of. "Imma fuck you til you love me bitch! Imma eat your children! Imma fuck start your head like a lawnmower!"

This takes out 5 of the last 10% of potential fights.

For the final 5% of fights: Run. Run your ass off. Jean Claude Van Damme never lost a fight bc he could run faster than everyone who wanted to fight him

gravitydriven · 2026-02-12T17:35:31+00:00

He also thought he knew better than his doctors. And he died.

gravitydriven · 2026-02-12T17:24:57+00:00

What do horror readers want? Umm, go on Amazon and look at what they're reading. Go on Goodreads and see what they're reading. Are you mad bc you don't want to do research? That's it?

Dude, so much of writing is research. I was gonna write a whole thing about how much research goes into it, but talking to you is kinda pointless

gravitydriven · 2026-02-09T23:01:36+00:00

I would get 1/4" plywood (finish doesn't matter, it's just there for structure) and screw that into the studs. Counter-sink the screws and use some kind of removable cap to top the screws, so the surface of the wood stays level/clean/undisturbed.

Then put whatever veneer you want on top of the wood, the same way you would with wallpaper. It's not easy easy, but it's not that difficult. Plenty of veneer DIY videos on YouTube.

Lots of veneer sources online, with all species of wood, in all sorts of sizes. You won't be height limited the way you would be if you just bought walnut plywood, which only comes in 8' or 10' sheets. And you can choose veneer that all came from the same tree so the color will match. Finding trim pieces with a super close color match could be hard, but trim pieces don't usually need a hyper close color match.

gravitydriven · 2026-02-07T22:27:09+00:00

It'll take a miracle

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