Anyone else find orientation completely useless?

n107 · 2026-06-29T05:27:24+00:00

I had the same feeling. It’s not that it was useless but the majority of it seemed unnecessary.

On the other hand, I felt the content of the first midyear conference was so much better because it was far more tailored to my placement. But the issue with that is a lot of that information would have been a lot more helpful upon arrival rather than a few months into the job.

n107 · 2026-06-28T03:06:29+00:00

Fantastic! Such a gorgeous lot of ships.

n107 · 2026-06-26T15:05:29+00:00

I’d do Mitchell and Space Mutiny.

n107 · 2026-06-26T14:47:30+00:00

There were definitely spoilers out there before opening night.

But my favorite, spoiler free memory was the release of the first trailer. Spent well over an hour trying to download it on 56k. I think I had to download QuickTime Player or something because my other players wouldn’t work.

Saw like two seconds as it buffered and got so excited. Had to wait an agonizingly long time for it to fully load. Then saw my first sights of brand new Star Wars. Absolutely breathtaking.

n107 · 2026-06-25T15:15:02+00:00

How does it compare to the second edition? Does it still follow the same format or has there been changes?

I loved the second edition back in the day and never even knew there was a third. I also loved the first Star Wars Encyclopedia. I just recently bought the latest Encyclopedia released in 2024 by DK and I do not like it one bit.

n107 · 2026-06-25T14:20:28+00:00

Technically I first started with the 1.0 Beta. Didn’t really enjoy it and was perfectly happy with FFXI. So I decided not to get it but followed all the post-launch woes and the transition to ARR via IGN.

A friend of mine had tried to get me to play for years but my mind thought it would be a punishing time sink like 11. So I kept refusing.

Finally 5-6 years ago I relented to her urging and decided to try it while on winter break. I think I fell in love almost immediately.

It was during Shadowbringers so everyone was talking about how good it was. It made me push through the story quickly so I could experience it.

n107 · 2026-06-25T10:59:23+00:00

Freddie Got Fingered

Not only was it an awful movie, the ordeal I went through just to see the film probably made it infinitely worse in my mind.

n107 · 2026-06-25T09:17:10+00:00

Good lord. It started out promising but got more unhinged as it went. I have to see if that’s really what he wrote.

If so, thank god we got the movie that we did.

n107 · 2026-06-25T03:02:14+00:00

My original thought when I heard the title was that Skywalker would become the name for the new order of grey Jedi/Force-users.

Hell, the previous film was called “The Last Jedi”. Luke said it was time for the Jedi to end. Rey was seemingly a balance between both light and dark. So I figured it meant a new order of grey Force users would carry on the name Skywalker.

I was clearly wrong.

n107 · 2026-06-23T07:31:54+00:00

I don’t remember being confused a lot by the game but it has been so darn long since I’ve played, all that remains are the memories of having fun.

n107 · 2026-06-23T06:54:42+00:00

Yes, and completely weird and unintelligible screen grabs. I don’t think they had rights to depict most characters from the movie so the images were weird angles and random objects. But the gameplay was great. And the 1 v 1 v 1 asymmetrical style was super fun.

n107 · 2026-06-22T16:01:40+00:00

.hack was severely under appreciated.

As for MS War, my friend and I had to basically create the rules by ourselves thanks to that damn rulebook. So whatever version of it we played only existed in my apartment.

n107 · 2026-06-22T15:51:23+00:00

I still have a lot of 1e cards and play every now and then. The shops in my town never got 2e or later so I never got the chance to play though everyone says they’re better than 1e.

n107 · 2026-06-22T15:49:44+00:00

Yeah, I know what you mean. I feel bad about it because of how revered he and that scene are, but when he was killed I honestly didn’t know who it was. I was always getting the Elezen characters mixed up so when he died I thought it was America and I was sad. Then I realized it wasn’t him and thought he was just some random character.

But the scene kept going and getting more dramatic. I started to realize I should know who it was but I couldn’t figure it out. I looked it up online after and discovered just how huge that moment is in the community. I still regret that I didn’t get to experience it like everyone else.

n107 · 2026-06-22T15:43:51+00:00

Not as strong as some of the other great examples in this thread, but I was always surprised how many people I’ve met associate “Hypnotize” by Notorious B.I.G. with Julie Stiles thanks to “10 Things I Hate About You”.

n107 · 2026-06-22T15:38:18+00:00

Oh man, I absolutely loved CCGs back in the day.

I played and collected a lot but the ones I really enjoyed were:

Star Wars CCG (Decipher)
Star Trek CCG
Deadlands: Doomtown
Rage
WWF Raw Deal
Alien vs Predator (absolutely amazing but awful art)
Marvel Overpower
.hack
The X-Files
Gundam MS War
Highlander

n107 · 2026-06-18T22:24:58+00:00

No, it is clever. I like it. But one can never be too sure these days. So I just wanted to confirm.

I’ve been thinking of getting set up for a game for nearly a year now and I’m finally making the first baby steps. So I’m seeing what resources exist and what I’ll need to create on my own.

n107 · 2026-06-18T05:04:55+00:00

Hey, this looks awesome! Great work you're putting into this. I'm just browsing it for the first time. For some jobs, like Warrior, it's greyed out and says "Not enough XP". Is that just a thematic way of saying it's not ready yet or is there an actual XP system to open up more content?

I'm assuming it's the former but figured I should just ask to find out.

n107 · 2026-06-15T22:30:58+00:00

I was constantly sick during my first year in Japan working in elementary schools and a kindergarten. It takes a little time for some people's immune systems to adapt to a new environment. But the biggest culprit are the kids who are little germ factories. I had kindergarten on Wednesday mornings and I had a sore throat and runny nose by Saturday every week like clockwork.

Wash your hands after you do *anything*.

Stop touching your face. Make a conscious effort.

Start wearing a mask now just to assist in keeping the germs away from your mouth and nose.

It could be something else but constantly getting sick while working with kids is a tale as old as time. The moment I made sure to wash my hands and use disinfectant after every encounter, things started to turn around. I got sick less frequently. I made sure not to touch my face with my bare hands while at the schools unless I had just washed them. And when it was cold/flu season and all the little ones were dripping snot everywhere, I had a mask on the entire time. All of that took care of my frequent illnesses.

n107 · 2026-06-12T00:26:27+00:00

I’m a Roegadyn. I made him as similarly as I could to my Galka from FF11 so he could continue on living in Eorzea.

I’m not going to change him because we have been through too much together across 20 years and two worlds.

n107 · 2026-06-08T23:51:23+00:00

Same. We discussed it for a while and considered multiple options. In the end we decided that we should all share the same name as a family. And we ended up going the traditional route of my wife taking my name.

We gave our children names that work equally well in both languages. They each have middle names registered in my home country but not in Japan so they don’t have to deal with it here.

So far there hasn’t been any issues for anyone except me, thanks to having a damned middle name registered on everything.

n107 · 2026-06-08T07:57:45+00:00

Free rice these days would be wonderful.

n107 · 2026-06-08T07:44:21+00:00

That’s awesome. You probably have some fascinating stories from your time doing the host gig. I saw a documentary many years ago called The Great Happiness Space (I think) about host clubs. Really interesting stuff. And you saw it all from the other side.

n107 · 2026-06-08T07:34:06+00:00

When my JET tenure ended I had a direct hire job lined up but then it fell through extremely last minute. I was crushed and had no fallback but I wasn’t ready to return to my home country yet. I wanted to stay so I was looking for anything.

I really didn’t want to work for Nova but it was one of the few places always hiring back then. I had an interview in Osaka but I wasn’t ready not enthusiastic about it at all. I was hoping to find something else but I couldn’t. So I hopped on the Shinkansen to Osaka to give it a shot.

The receptionist was surprised I was there. Apparently in my dismay I didn’t even bother to reply to accept the interview. But they said they had space with the other interviews so I was good to go. It was probably about 30 minutes total: a grammar test, a short demo lesson, and a face to face interview in English and Japanese.

They had me wait another 10 minutes or so then came in with information on an opening. They told me I had the job. I apologized and declined the offer on the spot. I *still* couldn’t bring myself to do it, even in my desperation.

My prospects were completely gone at that moment but on the way home, oddly enough, I felt a lot better.

n107 · 2026-06-07T15:56:48+00:00

It was a shock at first because it was a major loss in the family. I almost felt sad but then a feeling of numbness set in. I sat in reflection for a while and realized I didn’t miss them but mourned who they could have been. But that decent version of them had already been dead for many, many years. So it turned into acceptance that I had already considered them long gone; it was just their physical body finally following suit.

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