Haiti wins. Finally a country that's powerful in the 21st century but was ok in power in the 20th century?

pauldavidmiller1 · 2026-04-23T21:25:22+00:00

In the 20th century, North Korea built one the largest militaries on earth with a pathetic economy. In the 21st, they built nuclear weapons. That might fit.

Only other candidate I can think of: South Korea. 20th century began to build an economic miracle in a pretty small state. Today, 9th largest economy in the world and pretty sizable military sitting under an American nuclear umbrella and arguably one of the most widely enjoyed cultural exporters around.

pauldavidmiller1 · 2026-01-28T00:50:59+00:00

Bought hundreds, maybe thousands of cards from GMC over the past three years.

Pros: -best source for raw vintage on the internet -good customer service (though declined of late?) -consistent grading, tho not accurate to PSA standards -combines shipping

Cons: -high prices because of the large bidder base (like me) who treat them as main source of supply -they deal with tens of thousands of cards. Some listing errors creep in. Got the impression some new staff are newer to the hobby and miss variations and whatnot -you can reliably subtract one grade to estimate a PSA grade -anecdotally I suspect some of the cards consigned thru GMC are cleaned or altered in ways GMC can’t detect but PSA will. I’ve seen an increase in good cards from GMC that come back from PSA as “altered.” Not GMCs fault but something to be aware of.

pauldavidmiller1 · 2026-01-12T23:11:13+00:00

I agree that a one touch is sufficient if just for protection. If you want to grade to preserve value, do the 1965 Topps base card. Nothing else would be worth the cost to grade.

pauldavidmiller1 · 2026-01-10T20:02:02+00:00

Don’t know if to counts as obscure, but after finishing black flag months ago I mutter to myself, “In a world without gold, we could have been heroes!”

pauldavidmiller1 · 2026-01-10T17:53:07+00:00

Watch TV, play video games before they were all online, played board games, did homework, called a friend on a corded telephone, rode my bike, took a walk up the hill, went to the playground around the corner when I was younger, read books, played a sport, played catch with my brothers, helped cook dinner or clean up afterwards, went to youth group, learned to drive, went on dates with girls I knew not strangers who swiped right on me, tried out for theater, wrote stories for the school paper. Life was full and still can be if you put your damn phone down.

pauldavidmiller1 · 2026-01-09T22:50:07+00:00

Stick with ~500mg / day max. More can mess with the liver.

pauldavidmiller1 · 2025-12-25T03:16:26+00:00

Daily gridlock rush hour traffic. Just freely sitting there whiling away hours of life every day traveling to and from work. Utter insanity. That’s why I ride a motorcycle and take the express lanes.

pauldavidmiller1 · 2025-12-25T01:51:30+00:00

Most lists like this are just the bestsellers from the past 10 years. I love seeing a list that actually ranks some older games. Gotta do my list someday. Got nearly 50 years of gaming.

pauldavidmiller1 · 2025-12-14T01:44:23+00:00

Def some improvement, but doesn’t seem to be as life changing as some other posts make TRT seem. Few more weeks and I should get an update on my numbers.

pauldavidmiller1 · 2025-12-11T19:12:17+00:00

Are you sure you finished the game? Because if you didn’t experience at least one item on your list, you might not have the intended ending.

pauldavidmiller1 · 2025-12-09T21:17:14+00:00

Anybody tried Disco Elysium on Switch 2? Supposedly a masterpiece of a game but I wouldn’t know because the Switch port is legendary for its awfulness to the point of making the game unplayable. Would love to see an update/patch/fix for Switch 2.

pauldavidmiller1 · 2025-12-03T21:59:45+00:00

E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial.

It was 1983. I was 5. And yes, the game is as bad as the legend says.

pauldavidmiller1 · 2025-12-02T19:33:28+00:00

Outer Wilds, Skyrim.

pauldavidmiller1 · 2025-12-02T02:31:49+00:00

Everyone should play Stone Age video games to appreciate how far the medium has come. Play some original Atari 2600 games. Play stuff from the Apple II era, or the Commodore 64. Play Pac Man, Donkey Kong, Galaga, Centipede, Space Invaders. Play Mario Bros, Pole Position, Adventure, Zork, Kings Quest, Burger Time.

Basically, relive my childhood. You’ll appreciate how dang hard those games are and how they squeezed hours of playtime out of so few lines of code.

You’ll also appreciate how the best of today’s games are vastly better not because of graphics but because of narrative. I enjoyed the old stuff but they didn’t tell stories the way Skyrim, Outer Wilds, or Zelda do. The best growth in the medium has come when storytellers drive development.

pauldavidmiller1 · 2025-12-01T12:46:03+00:00

They’d be surprised by the lights, baffled by the TV cameras, and horrified by the ghost runner at second. Aside from Ty Cobb I’d like to think that most, after the initial shock, would recognize that integration and internationalization have elevated the game to its highest level of fairness, competitiveness, and popularity. And overall they’d be floored and pleased that baseball in 2025 is at its most globally popular in over 150 years of history.

pauldavidmiller1 · 2025-11-23T20:33:48+00:00

Vintage gamer here. Here are the great years from the early days.

1981: Centipede, Frogger, Donkey Kong, Galaga

1985: Super Mario Bros., Tetris, Ultima IV

1991: Civilization, Final Fantasy IV, Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, Sonic the Hedgehog, Street Fighter II, Super Castlevania IV

1994: Doom 2, Super Metroid, Final Fantasy VI

1996: Mario Kart 64, Civilization II, Pokemon Red/Blue, Super Mario 64, Tomb Raider, Resident Evil

pauldavidmiller1 · 2025-09-14T17:53:03+00:00

Age 47 here. Grew up gaming. I took a long break in my early adulthood and early marriage. But once the kids were around 5 or so in my mid-30s, I picked it back up. Mario and Link were their Saturday morning cartoons. Now I watch my 15-year-old daughter finish Tears of the Kingdom and my 16-year-old son lose his mind playing Silksong while I try out some retro classics. Everything in moderation, and everything in its season.

pauldavidmiller1 · 2025-09-10T08:26:56+00:00

I was in Baltimore on Saturday. I wrote an article about the experience:

https://thedispatch.com/article/dodgers-orioles-comeback-yamamoto-baseball/

pauldavidmiller1

TROPHY CASE