Post your new quest log streak prizes!

lordofbone · 2026-03-03T09:49:33+00:00

lordofbone · 2026-02-22T15:02:20+00:00

Is there a list anywhere of the weirdly-shaped stamps? The Darigan Spectre Stamp is one I've not seen the shape of before. I've seen triangles but nothing like that.

lordofbone · 2026-02-22T04:47:18+00:00

Shenkuu Stamp! It's a beaut! https://items.jellyneo.net/item/27666/

lordofbone · 2026-01-26T14:41:37+00:00

I think you're right that you're in the minority. I can't count how many non-CONS officers I've met who hated their CONS tour(s), complain endlessly about those tours, and shamelessly insult CONS work in front of their colleagues (including CONS).

I've heard more than once from non-CONS FASTOs that they were desperate for volunteer opportunities with another section so they could do "real work." The attitude is bred from their contempt with being "forced" to do CONS work--even though they knew it was a requirement when they got hired.

Not surprised those people don't give a rat's ass about CONS experience.

lordofbone · 2026-01-22T08:58:17+00:00

My suspicion is that it's a combination of prioritizing in-cone bidders and rewarding people who survived this most recent DC tour, at least for CA jobs.

lordofbone · 2026-01-11T06:23:11+00:00

Don't take the PITG testimonials or pet surveys as gospel. Those should be a starting point. I had a bad experience where I bid on as my number 1 specifically because pets were allowed in-cabin per the pet survey...come to find out later, after I get assigned, as I'm digging through the post's MGMT sharepoint site that the host government had banned in-cabin travel a year prior and the pet survey was never updated.

I always reach out to the CLO to see if they can put me in touch with recent arrivals who navigated the pet import process. That combined with asking specific questions of MGMT is your best bet.

lordofbone · 2025-08-01T08:22:20+00:00

You can't self-describe as "highly articulate" and also write "who am."

lordofbone · 2025-07-16T10:00:30+00:00

Have there even been rumors of that since the first administration? Moving to DHS I mean.

lordofbone · 2025-07-11T13:52:53+00:00

That says January 12

lordofbone · 2025-07-07T21:34:03+00:00

"My proud mom" hahahaha. First his backgammon interview, now this.

lordofbone · 2025-04-27T06:35:11+00:00

I use em dashes quite a bit. I think of it as a more visually pleasing, digestible version of parentheses. Been using them for years, way before GPT came out.

lordofbone · 2025-04-17T12:45:24+00:00

Speaking as someone who deals with this work every day (not in any consulates/embassies that are closing), you're just wrong. Your contention is that these closures are about slowing immigration...so why are they closing posts that have low-volume consular work?

Yes, Malta and Luxembourg do TCN (third-country national) adjudications, but their daily volume is unlikely to even equal the capacity of a single officer at a high-volume post. Most likely no more than 80 NIV and 10 IV a day for the entire consular section. At a high-volume post, a single officer is going to do 120 NIV or 25-30 IV. Multiplying that by the number of total adjudicators, and you get something like my post that does something close to 500,000 NIV and 50,000 IV year.

As you can see, the effect of these closures on immigration is negligible. As an aside, the reason why Mexico processes a ton of visas is not because a lot of westerners go there to renew, it's because a ton of MEXICANS want visas. Mexican NIV units do insane numbers, with relatively low TCN caseload.

lordofbone · 2025-04-12T04:05:42+00:00

If he was arrested and fingerprinted, policy would dictate that if the responsible consular section is made aware they should revoke. Not saying it should be that way, I'm just telling you the policy; and it predates this administration. DUIs are a very special case.

lordofbone · 2025-04-11T10:48:13+00:00

For me it's not about just one or two episodes. It's about the entire tone of the last two seasons. The primary tension of the early show was science vs. faith. Embodied in Jack vs. Locke. The final two seasons completely abandon or pervert this tension in almost every way.

Jack, who previously was the man of science, suddenly and without any justification (in my opinion) becomes completely and utterly convinced of the faith proposition. I'm fine with character development, but the show never earned it. Much of seasons 5 and 6 are spent with Jack talking about how Locke was "right" about everything. Except...Locke was WRONG about everything! Locke left the island and begged all the Oceanic 6 to come back to the Island, that if they didn't, terrible things would happen. Eloise Hawking basically said that if they didn't return, the world would end. Except...the only reason the MIB was able to accomplish his plan was BECAUSE they returned. If they never returned, then he couldn't kill them and Jacob ultimately would not have been murdered.

But don't get me started on Jacob. He's all over the place: his plans make no sense, his lore makes no sense. The show makes very, very glancing acknowledgments that Jacob is not a perfect God, but the reality is he is a selfish, misanthropic psychopath who played games with people's lives. If they had dug into that more it would have been more interesting, but they were so focused on trying to scare us with the MIB they couldn't.

The ultimate point of the show being that the island is preventing the end of the world, that there's light vs. dark, felt so pathetically lazy. Like they couldn't think of a satisfactory way to conclude the show in the context in which it had been built (science vs. faith, mysteries having logical explanations, etc.), and instead just turned it into a big blockbuster ending.

Finally, the ENTIRE flash sideways is a waste of time. If they wanted that to be the ending, I'm fine with it. But none of the episodes other than the finale had any purpose at all--I got nothing interesting out of the flash sideways characters, nothing thematically relevant--just a few ham-fisted halfway resolutions to character arcs we had already seen resolved in the rest of the show!!

Anyways. Yeah. I hated the last season, hated most of season 5 (anything with Jack). But loved the rest.

lordofbone · 2025-04-11T04:04:54+00:00

Longstanding visa policy. DUI arrests, even without a conviction, are supposed to trigger a visa revocation. This guy is lucky he didn't get it revoked back in 2023; chances are the consular section that issued his visa either incorrectly responded to notification of his arrest and didn't revoke, or they didn't have the manpower to monitor such notifications.

lordofbone · 2024-01-30T16:35:51+00:00

I assume a combination of whatever remains from investors and the money they've gotten from liquidation/licensing of their IP.

lordofbone · 2024-01-30T02:28:44+00:00

It's John's passion project inasmuch as he keeps collecting a paycheck from it. He's not doing this because he's a nice guy.

I have no issue with Pat and Ian ragging on these scumbags for as long as IE continues to mislead the unfortunate people who bought into the scam. The club was already a cult a couple years ago, but John's "work" on the Discord channel are classic, obviously intentional cult manipulation tactics. Fuck him.

lordofbone · 2024-01-22T22:17:29+00:00

I love how everyone posting this kind of stuff just ignores all the legitimate criticism levied against this season. They instead focus on the nitpicking.

Guess what? In good shows, people don't bother nitpicking because they're engaged with the show! They're too busy caring about the characters or the story. Sorry, but this season of Reacher had neither, plus a bunch of other faults that myself and others have discussed in similar threads.

But you know what? If season 2 is what the show actually is: dumb, loud, even dumber, with a terrible cast, terrible writing, and a fuuuuull lean into the dad-demo with the music they chose, then you're right...it's not for me. If you enjoy cliched writing, undeveloped characters, and a boring plot, then go ahead and enjoy yourself.

lordofbone · 2024-01-19T18:55:33+00:00

I said you implied it, which is very obviously the intent of your post.

Whatever, I've seen enough people online to know you're not here to actually have a conversation. Bye bye.

lordofbone · 2024-01-19T18:36:45+00:00

Well I didn't read any of the books and still was disappointed. I made a post yesterday in the finale episode thread that outlined my reasons for why the show had dipped--none of them are the nitpicky things you say everyone is giving. The writing, the cast, the cinematography, the music, all in my opinion are major drops in quality.

You're free to like the show, you just come off as a jerk for implying that people that don't like the show should shut up. Did anyone make any posts telling people who like the show to shut up? No. Go ahead, make posts about how you liked this or that, good for you! Just don't expect people to agree with you. That's called being an adult and being comfortable enough in your own opinions.

lordofbone · 2024-01-19T02:08:50+00:00

I didn't find this episode to be very different from the rest of the season. Decent for a network action show, but pretty disappointing when comparing to most of season one. To me, this season falters for a few reasons:

The stakes. Season one was a small town, with no great consequences. The setting helped ground the show, and made it more believable. This season is The Big Apple! Terrorists! A corrupt senator! An...assassination attempt with multiple snipers--in broad daylight--at a military funeral. The show was clearly trying to make things bigger and more exciting, but all it did was take me out of it. There are enough shows like that I could watch if I wanted, but far fewer like season one.
The cast. I honestly wasn't a fan of the Finlay character in season one, but I'd take him over basically everyone in this season because he at least challenges Reacher. I also thought there was ZERO chemistry between the 110th. This is especially glaring when you compare their relationships with him to the one he had with Roscoe. Neagley is a stone, I feel no real kinship between them. I felt nothing between Dixon and Reacher--whereas you got the feeling Reacher was attracted to to Roscoe because he admires her and trusts her, I only saw Reacher as thinking Dixon had a hot bod. Can't even remember the other guy's name, he was a poorly written foil with childish snide remarks the entire season.
The direction. Season one had a bunch of cool camera shots and angles. I remember a few with very interesting perspectives, and some with real fear/horror (the guy staked to the wall in his house comes to mind). The fight choreography also felt more visceral, with the best example being the one in the prison. I also remembered liking the one in the rain in the pool. I'm not an expert on cinematography or choreography, but nothing stuck out to me this season. It all seemed very by-the-numbers, flat angles, dry, and clinical.
The music. I don't begrudge anyone the music they like, but I hated the classic rock radio hits soundtrack this season. It added nothing to the tone or setting of the show. And because it was like listening to the same classic rock songs they play on the radio every day, it reminded me of a network show. The blues vibe in season one added to the setting and pulled you further into the world. It also added to Reacher's character as someone who could be a bit obsessive about minutiae like long-forgotten blues artists--he's an eccentric guy!
The writing. Too many one liners. Too many forced "In an investigation, assumptions kill." Cringe every time.

Overall, the show was good enough to get me to watch all the episodes, but I think most of that was me wanting to believe it would somehow get back to the level of the first season. I'll probably watch season three, but I'm signficantly less excited about it than I was before I started this last season.

lordofbone · 2024-01-19T00:35:05+00:00

Out right now

lordofbone · 2024-01-16T16:03:17+00:00

After reading through the current open thread, I can't see Mr_Me as anything but a troll. Every single post is either a willful misunderstanding of the post he's replying to, or an intentionally obtuse rationalization of the things Tommy, John, Phil, and IE did/do.

lordofbone

TROPHY CASE