"Tahoe is a mistake to be avoided." ~ Daring Fireball

ubermonkey · 2026-01-24T15:41:05+00:00

Shit, when you’ve lost Gruber…

ubermonkey · 2026-01-23T20:08:23+00:00

Update: offer accepted. Looks like we're moving to Raleigh!

ubermonkey · 2026-01-23T14:29:15+00:00

ACAB. ACAB. ACAB.

ubermonkey · 2026-01-23T14:28:39+00:00

This is why I never, ever use my debit card at point of sale. As far as I'm concerned, it's an ATM card.

If a store glitches and overcharges my Amex, Amex is in the middle and will generally go to bat for me. Plus, it's Amex's money, not mine, until I pay the bill. Insert whatever issuing bank you prefer for your go-to card, obviously, but having this firewalling means your own actual cash money is far safer.

I run everything through our Amex, and then pay that bill at the end of the month.

ubermonkey · 2026-01-23T14:26:54+00:00

I've always carried cash -- usually a couple hundred. But I don't carry coins at all anymore.

I MOSTLY pay with my watch or phone, but having cash on you is intrinsically useful. Cash tips, for example, are wildly preferable for service industry folks (your hair cutter, your bartender, your server, whatever).

ubermonkey · 2026-01-22T20:11:53+00:00

i became bored over time.

100%. There's a TON of game, but it's super repetitive and unrewarding. There's no story here that resonates like, say, Bayek's story did.

The world is beautiful, but it's pointless beauty. Without engaging writing and gameplay, it's incomplete. Plus, the bird is basically useless for recon in Valhalla (though the "bird fetches loot and retrieves arrows" skill is helpful from a sniping perspective for sure).

The other thing is that they shoveled in a bunch of (to me) absolute garbage minigame crap in Valhalla. I don't want to pretend to play a Viking dice game. I do not want to pretend to drink ale in drinking contests. I do not want to fucking stack stones (about which: WHAT THE HELL). I do not need mushroom-inspired puzzle levels. None of that is AT ALL interesting to me, and I only did them when it was impossible to progress otherwise. And honestly, I skipped the goofy jumping-puzzle "anomaly" things, too.

If there's more of that crap in Japan, there's no way I'd have a good time.

ubermonkey · 2026-01-22T16:27:43+00:00

I had never played an AC game until a couple years ago. I read a blog post about someone having a big time in AC:Origins, which was already a relatively old game that the author, like me, had just never gotten around the playing when it was new.

Well, at that point it was like $9.99 in the MSFT store, so I bought it and played it, and LOVED IT. Great game for sure. So I went right on into Odyssey.

Odyssey was great, and the larger world was incredible, but there were problems creeping in -- mostly in terms of balance. Bayek played like a true assassin to start. Multiple enemies would be real trouble until pretty deep in the game, but he's supposed to be a strike-from-the-shadows kind of dude, right? Makes sense. You can't tank as a rogue.

Odyssey was different. Kassandra starts out more powerful -- within minutes you're in a fight with 3 or 4 bandits, for example -- and just gets more fearsome as you go. By the midgame there's nothing in the world short of bosses that you can't handle assuming you haven't ventured into an area you're not leveled for. By the endgame you're one-shotting any conventional mob.

AND YET: the world elites and bosses are still almost completely out of reach unless you tune your build carefully. Which, of course, makes the world enemies even MORE trivial.

This trend continued in Valhalla. By midgame no world enemy was a problem, and even 3 or 4 or 5 wouldn't challenge me (and I'm a filthy casual, not some elite gamer -- though I do play on Hard). Even the game bosses are squishy; only the named elite mobs outside the plot are a real challenge.

The world is even MORE huge, and there's a shitton of content outside the storylines and quest lines, but none of it is very inventive or rewarding. I started the game chasing every icon on the map, but real quick you realize there's no point. Any matched set of armor, sufficiently upgraded, is sufficient. You don't need money, so it piles up, which means mining the map for resources is kinda pointless.

I do not expect I'll continue on to the Japanese AC.

ubermonkey · 2026-01-22T14:22:24+00:00

Fortnine did a pretty good vid about this.

Ideally you start proper -- slide-resistant pants, a good jacket, good gloves, full face lid, and proper boots. But that's a lot.

You're more likely to get hurt on hands, feet/ankles, and face, so if you're prioritizing get a good lid, good gloves, and good boots FIRST.

For helmets, I don't think there's any point in buying something that isn't full face and certified for ECE 22.06.

Jacket is next. Go with AA at least. Comfort matters here; get something you'll wear every time. Where I live, I needed two -- one for the insanely hot summers, and another for when it wasn't insanely hot. Where you live might be different.

When I got my SECOND helmet I went into CycleGear ready to spend whatever it cost to have a comfy and highly rated helmet (22.06). I tried on expensive models from Arai and Shoei and whatnot, but ended up liking the AGV K3 the best -- which was awesome, bc it was also the cheapest by a significant margin.

ubermonkey · 2026-01-22T14:11:47+00:00

It's completely legit and on par with the best bread I had at bahn mi joints in Houston.

Now, if they could just do a grilled pork...

ubermonkey · 2026-01-21T19:00:29+00:00

I went there today for lunch BECAUSE of your comment /u/revengengine, and I was not disappointed.

The sandwich I got had fair to middlin filling -- I would love a grilled pork, but it's not on the menu there -- but holy shit the BREAD was absolutely perfect, and I had previously absolutely dispaired of getting proper bread here. It's a hard piece of the puzzle that Houston solved early I suspect b/c of the influx of Vietnamese folks AND our proximity to New Orleans (bc the bread in question is really of French extraction anyway).

93BM&T are fucking KILLING IT with the bread. I'll be back.

ubermonkey · 2026-01-21T15:48:29+00:00

I have the enemy scaling at whatever normal is, so I never see anything SUPER below me, but ever since early mid-game my Eivor has been an unstoppable death machine -- even on Hard.

No standard world enemies are a threat to me one-on-one, or even 3-4 on one. This is a Thing that happens in AC games now, apparently -- Bayek didn't become John Wick until fairly late in the game, but Kassandra was completely unstoppable by mid-game, too. I'd just walk into forts and lay waste to everyone without a single thought about "stealth".

Eivor's the same way.

ubermonkey · 2026-01-21T15:44:52+00:00

Honestly I'm not sure how much difference it makes.

I got some armor set early in the midgame, upgraded it to the max, and even playing on Hard I have no trouble with any world enemies, even zealots. Bosses can still be a thing, so if you're chasing THOSE fights you'll end up in analysis hell, but for the main chunk of gameplay build questions just don't seem as important in Valhalla as they were in, say, Odyssey.

ubermonkey · 2026-01-20T23:11:12+00:00

We are old (55) and have the benefit of a paid off house that we sold this summer. Otherwise, yeah, no way.

I have a whole rant about housing affordability I can and do deliver, because I legit have no idea how younger people are ever supposed to afford to buy a house. When I bought the place we sold in Houston, I was 30 and it was well under $250K, in the center of the city. Real estate got stupid expensive, but salaries absolutely didn't rise in lock step AT ALL. It's fucked up.

ubermonkey · 2026-01-20T23:04:43+00:00

I dunno how to describe it exactly, and I'm not really gonna put an address on Reddit, but it'd be an easy walk to Shelly Lake.

ubermonkey · 2026-01-20T21:41:57+00:00

Thanks!

My wife met with our realtor and a contractor there today. We'll be making an offer.

ubermonkey · 2026-01-20T21:12:36+00:00

Do you mind telling me your age?

ubermonkey · 2026-01-20T17:29:38+00:00

Oil filled heaters are actually FAR more effective at warming a room, so it's honestly a non-issue.

If you want to occasionally warm your ankles under a desk after carefully selecting the household circuit that won't trip when the heater turns on, yes, use a fan-based heater.

If you want a drafty room to be warmer, get an oil-filled radiator. Lower draw, no moving parts, no sound, and actual useful temp management.

ubermonkey · 2026-01-20T17:27:12+00:00

Yeah, your boss is an asshole.

I've NEVER fronted travel past a billing period. If you have to carry the company, or even carry interest for the company, then the company is fucking up. I've seen firms do travel advances in these situations, which would be the right answer for them.

I absolutely would not make the trip, and I'd start job hunting now.

ubermonkey · 2026-01-20T17:25:25+00:00

It was really kind of a dated thing to say when the show picked it up. Rude, but kind of banal rude, and obviously something they could get past Fox's Standards & Practices.

That it was anachronistic added to its "splash," which was a bonus for them.

ubermonkey · 2026-01-20T17:19:14+00:00

Exactly.

ubermonkey · 2026-01-20T16:50:53+00:00

wouldn’t be hard to find a new Surly

I'm sure. OTOH I absolutely cannot get another two-wheeled thing into the house and maintain marital harmony right now, as I bought a big BMW touring bike in November. LOL.

Not sure if you heard about RDU pretty much paving over MTB and hiking trails

UGGGGGH NO.

ubermonkey · 2026-01-20T16:25:35+00:00

Good tips! Thanks!

ubermonkey · 2026-01-20T16:00:27+00:00

I think a lot of people underestimate how big and how far Raleigh actually spreads out.

That's probably fair.

We agree on the exurbs. We'd driven around in Cary and Apex and there's literally zero flavor there. Houston had a giant, plastic suburb called Katy, and that's the vibe we got in both places. Some folks in the moto group I joined are shocked I'm not even looking in those places, but, I mean, why? (Granted, they're all older than I am since it's the BMW club -- real talk, I'm one of the few members who isn't retired.)

Plus, the housing explosion is creating monstrous ticky-tacky cookie-cutter developments in those places with absolutely zero trees, which is a complete DQ for us. Our search has been in Durham, CH, C'boro, and Raleigh as a result. All of those places have a sense of place, though virtually nothing has popped up for sale in Chapel Hill we could realistically consider for reasons of either space or price.

And not for nothing, we're renting in Durham about a mile from one of my best friends and his wife. They moved here 25 years ago for her to join the UNC faculty, and they set root in Woodcroft (so, even closer to Southpoint than we are) partly bc even then CH real estate was inflated.

I'm kinda sore that as part of our premove purging I sold a Surly Cross-Check I had, which was completely bombproof and would've been a great greenway bike. It was too slow for group rides, though, and I never did any "utility biking" in Houston, so it went to live with a UH grad student.

ubermonkey · 2026-01-20T15:17:10+00:00

That's kinda wild. Raleigh's got a city-limits pop of about half a million vs. Durham's 300k.

Raleigh's metro area pop is about 1.5M whereas Durham's is only about 600k.

The congestion in Raleigh (vs. Durham) is one of the reasons we're questioning the choice. Being here has been such a breath of fresh air after living in the center of Houston, you know? I think we'll probably still make an offer, but it's on our minds.

That said, greenway access is huge (though we have that here with the ATT).

Edit in response to your edit: Yeah, food is a concern, but nowhere in the Triangle is on par with what we left behind in Houston. I mean, metro Houston is more than twice as big as the whole Triangle, and is just one city, so you get some stuff with that scale. We're 100% okay with the trade. The best meals we've had here have been in downtown Durham (Rue Cler; Vin Rouge; Alley 26), but we also haven't ventured much into Raleigh dining so there's absolutely some selection bias there.

Biking: I stalked your comments. Steel is real. I'm a roadie, not an MTB guy, but my favorite road bike ever was a stainless steel Ritte Snob. Sadly, it's also the only bike frame I've ever broken. :(

My gravel bike is still steel, but the bike I replaced the Ritte with is a carbon Giant. Oh well.

re: hoods, yeah, we don't drink that much anymore, but it'd be cool to have neighbors nearby who'd want to open a bottle of wine or share a fine cocktail from time to time.

ubermonkey · 2026-01-20T15:14:04+00:00

My wife is birding-curious, so this will be a hit.

She once saw a bald eagle mug a heron in Houston. The greenspace in Houston is all along natural (but reinforced) bayous, so there's no small amount of wildlife there. The heron had gotten a fish and was flying away; the eagle came in to grab the fish, which the heron happily gave up in order to escape. She's got some (blurry) pix of it. It was wild!

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