worrywrite

[worrywrite]

I like how the "problematic age gaps" in the locked tomb series are so convoluted you can't really comment on them.

Like, no matter how you look at it, Nona crushing on Hot Sauce is weird. But you never think about that. Still, Nona is simultaneously 6 months old, 20-something years old, 10,000 years old, and millions of years old. And Hot Sauce is like 14. Was it a romantic crush? I don't think you can articulate the kind of homestuck-ian leprechaun relationship system Nona operates on, so who's to say. But the age gap is there one way or another.

[worrywrite]

I used to bike to work when I lived in Arizona, just outside Phoenix. Some folks down the street had a ranch with horses. And sometimes, very early in the morning, they'd ride those horses around on the roads in the area. Sometimes I would be riding my bike on those roads that early in the morning.

And let me tell you, dodging horse droppings in the bike lane and sidewalk was not fun. Neither was encountering a horse up close, because those ranchers were jerks and ignored pretty much everything that wasn't a car speeding in their direction.

Nearly getting pancaked by one of a million Tesla drivers that believed their car was fully autonomous was still worse. Worse than when people would park their dead EVs in the literal middle of the road in a busy lane at 8pm in the dark. Which happened twice while I was driving on those same streets the horse used.

In conclusion, the smarter the vehicle the worse the driver. The worse the driver, the more likely they are to put you in danger just by being near you.

For most of human history, Vehicles had automatic collision avoidance and could even take you home when you were sleeping or drunk. Then we got rid of the horse.

[worrywrite]

Okay, but hear me out, why not do just one vampire lit book like this.

Every vampire was new to it at some point and ostensibly vampires haven't stopped making more vampires. It stands to reason that, at some point, every vampire has a phase where they were really trying to hide that they were a vampire because they're embarrassed to be a vampire and under 100 years old. And in modernity that phase is extra weird because of how fast and casual society is.

Maybe there should be one book about just the most pathetic young vampire ever who keeps getting in these situations like "what do you mean you're 30? You still have an ID from when you were human? You pay taxes?! What's next? No castle? Spirit Halloween bats hanging from the ceiling instead of actual bats? Does your thrall even have a hunch or is it just mild scoliosis and a mixing bowl down the back of their shirt?" Like the couple that inherited a vampire title in Reaper Man but were exceptionally suburban and just trying to fit in.

Gimme a vampire lit book that hits all the tropes but the human partner is severely unimpressed that the vampire is more normal than they are.

Legitimately the funniest thing just happened in our virtual book group after someone rec’d a vampire romance to me and someone else piped up that it had a “problematic age gap.”

In a vampire romance novel.

Like, yah. I sure fucking hope so.

[worrywrite]

Proletariat hero

[worrywrite]

some days you cannot help but pity some people

[worrywrite]

🇨🇦🇺🇸recall of nearly 2 million sharkninja multi-function pressure cookers: serious injuries and dozens of lawsuits🇺🇸🇨🇦

recall issued may 1, 2025

if you have one of these, stop using the pressure cooking functions IMMEDIATELY. contact sharkninja for a free replacement lid.

🇺🇸recall link for US🇺🇸 -- 🇨🇦recall link for canada🇨🇦

Name of Product: SharkNinja Foodi OP300 Series Multi-Function Pressure Cookers Hazard: The pressure-cooking lid can be opened during use, causing hot contents to escape, posing a risk of burn injuries to consumers. Remedy: Repair Units: About 1,846,400 (In addition, about 184,240 were sold in Canada)

the problem is with the lid during pressure cooking. the vast majority of units were sold in the US.

This recall involves all Ninja Foodi OP300 Series Multi-Function Pressure Cookers. The cookers have functions that include pressure cooking and air frying. They were sold in black and have a 6.5-quart capacity. “Ninja” is printed on the front of each unit and on the product label. Model numbers OP300, OP301, OP301A, OP302, OP302BRN, OP302HCN, OP302HAQ, OP302HW, OP302HB, OP305, OP305CO and OP350CO are included in this recall and are printed on a label on the side of the cooker. An additional code following the model number is not part of that model designation. For example, a unit labeled “OP301 I07” is a model OP301 unit. Any OP300 series replacement pressure cooker lids purchased as an additional part are also included in this recall.

emphasis mine, to make the model numbers easier to read. all of these models and any previously purchased replacement lids are being recalled.

Consumers should immediately stop using the product’s pressure-cooking function and contact SharkNinja for a free replacement lid. Consumers can continue to use the product’s air frying and other functions. ... SharkNinja has received 106 reports of burn injuries, including more than 50 reports of second- or third-degree burns to the face or body, with 26 lawsuits filed.

TWENTY SIX FUCKING LAWSUITS FILED. TWENTY SIX LAWSUITS BEFORE THEY RECALLED THIS. these types of injuries can kill someone!

sharkninja is shipping out a free replacement lid to everyone who owns one of these. get on that quick, because shipping two million replacement lids seems like it might take some time.

Sold at: Walmart, Costco, Sam’s Club, Amazon and Target stores nationwide, and online at www.Ninjakitchen.com, www.walmart.com, www.costco.com, www.samsclub.com, www.amazon.com and www.target.com from January 2019 through March 2025 for about $200.

these were on sale for 6 years all over the country, online and in stores. I bet a lot of these were given as gifts.

if you know anyone who cooks a lot, or who might reasonably have one of these, reach out to them. with nearly 2 million units recalled, it will be a while before everyone with one of these can be reached.

the non-pressure cooking settings are apparently still safe (says the company that took 26 lawsuits to issue a recall), even before getting a replacement lid. check your relevant recall link for instructions on how to get a free replacement lid.

🇺🇸recall link for US🇺🇸 -- 🇨🇦recall link for canada🇨🇦

with this many serious injuries, I am shocked they are not yet reporting any deaths.

[worrywrite]

Man, some people have better self control than me.

Sometimes I'll make a post and someone will respond and completely miss what I meant and I'll spend a good 45 minutes or more writing a lengthy (and imo interesting and informative) refutation if that post. And in that 45 minutes or more the pos I'm responding to is deleted and my post vaporizes.

And in the end we're all probably better off for it.

Although now I'm regretting not copying that last essay of a post. Talking about the mathematical variety of board games vs improv games and the second hand immersion of board games vs video games was actually quite fun.

[worrywrite]

Yes. Please give me, a mediocre writer, money so that I can continue to make more mediocre writing that could eventually become the next best piece of traditionally published mediocre writing. And then, with much work (nostalgia) a beloved piece of fiction your kid remembers in 20 years that they suggest their own child reads.

The thing with amateur local theater is it is almost always bad BUT keeping it alive is the most important thing

[worrywrite]

Nothing gold can stay.

This is a general principle I remember every time I find something nice. When a writer or an entertainer makes me laugh, I remember that one day, like in the next 5-8 years they won't be there to do that anymore. Maybe they'll die, but usually they'll just dry up and stop or their sponsor will abandon them.

And sometimes it's really easy to see. Very easy when it's a social media driven platform that relies of specific talent. When the talent leaves, for one reason or another, and they can't change the guard (so to speak) and bring in someone else just as good or better and keep the audience there they'll dry up. And I think that happened with Polygon.

Extended ramble/rant under the cut.

I think BDG Unravels and Monster Factory were their golden geese bringing in clicks. They got people to recognize Polygon when everything "shifted to video". But the clear warning sign was, imo, before those series had their talent leave for greener pastures, Polygon as a media company was trying to capitalize on the talent they had as much as possible by putting them in places where they weren't able to benefit from being the version of themselves that people liked. It's harsh to say, but I think putting any kind of actor in a "casual" situation to entertain viewers is a bad idea and a sign of creative stagnation and profit squeezing.

And if you aren't sure what this looks like based on my description, it's generally when a media company has a group of their actors (their "talent") sit around a table and play board games on camera. It might sound fun in theory, and it might be a good way to get sponsor money from the game maker, but it's honestly just... It's really dull entertainment. I'd sooner watch a poker championship on G4 or ESPN extra or whatever channel that's always on (is G4 even a thing anymore? I feel like it's not). The production of a show or series that allows an actor to be funny or interesting in a way that they are creating something is what catches an audience. The actor's real personality doesn't matter, so their approach to playing a board game or general tabletop game (excluding role playing games for obvious reasons) doesn't matter and it doesn't draw people in, because when you break I down it is just 3-6 people sitting at a table and making decisions based on elements decided either randomly or for them. They aren't creating, they're following rules.

And it becomes less interesting than a let's play of a video game as well, because it isn't about experiencing the game or exploring the game, it's about who gets to win the game. Even if the game isn't about winning. For example, when I plan Catan I know I'm not going to win (I'm very bad at Catan, I don't think I've literally ever won a round), so I play the interesting strategy and cause chaos to make it more fun for the other players; but that still isn't fun to watch because you know I won't win and you can generally see who will pretty easily, and the only real entertainment at the table are conversations we players are having--but those conversations are specifically really only entertaining to us. This is the inescapable truth about 99% of tabletop games: they're almost never fun to watch but they can be very fun to play. And if you can't even watch in the same room, so you can also be part of that conversation a little or back a specific player and tease everyone else, there's virtually no entertainment value. After the entertainment value is gone, the sales value is all that remains.

And some media companies actually understand this! There are some productions, like a few that do MtG cubes but focus on the banter at the table or some that play the same thing over and over again like Among Us or Town of Salem or whatever online party game of the week and really only focus on how the players interact with each other, that do this well and successfully. But the big companies almost never get this, and if they do get the same results they get there by accident and still don't understand why.

Another reason I used board game show as a death knell metric, is because I know of a few productions that tried it out and then shut it down pretty quick or very quickly adapted the show to be about the players instead of the games. I know GameGrumps has been through that before, I know CriticalRole has been there, and I know a few smaller productions that were basically extended friend groups have been there. And they all survived (as companies) by pivoting to player focused entertainment.

To bring it back to Polygon. Polygon was always a company first. They hired good talent for a long time, they had good writers. But they were always about the profit, and so they always focused on what they were selling. Sometimes, when they were successful, they were selling opinion and personality as entertainment. But just as often and ever more frequently, they were selling ad space.

As a forewarning, a while ago Dropout rolled a show out that is basically their "cast plays a few board games" show. And I haven't watched it, so I can't be sure what kind of version I this show it is, but the small price hike in subscription fee (which was rolled out perfectly, I have to admit) combined with the increasing cast size and the introduction of their board game show, isn't a good sign for where they're headed. By my metrics, they have 5 more years, max, before they close doors. And it will have been a good run regardless. And that's the important thing, I think. That's the "nothing gold can stay" aspect of it all. When it comes to entertainment, even if it's good and ends it was still good.

Jesus Christ. Polygon's done.

Plante is out as editor. Massive layoffs across the staff, including Nicole Carpenter, Petrana Radulovic, Michael McWhertor, maybe Charlie Hall...

Fucking hell. I wouldn't have even tried to start writing about games without that site. Goddamnit all.

[worrywrite]

that "OKAY SO" before someone u love starts infodumping........ most blessed feeling in the world

[worrywrite]

my friend told me to watch this cooking video while listening to sad music. so i mixed a little something for you all

[worrywrite]

10/10 dad joke

[worrywrite]

I could see them doing this, but only in the wat that square enix makes Final Fantasy movies happen. They are an extension of the cannon of the games that can be largely ignored and never really comes back to interact with them. And frequently they don't focus on the main character of the games.

So they could do a movie that is essentially the first loop for the Hex. The techrot shows up, they go in, they get infected, entrati shows up and they get peotoframed, they hunt down entrati but get the indifference instead, and get essentially the whispers in the walls ending plays out. The final moments can be a reset moment where a drifter shows up.

Warframe Movie

What would you think of a Warframe 1999 movie with all the Hex members and the Drifter? Would you like it or rather not?

[worrywrite]

I love seeing the ogre comic. Because it reminds me every time of the day I was at college and snuck into a professors only lecture because I knew there would be cookies and every professor there was collectively astonished that one of them had actually finished reading Ulysses at all. The professor presenting was talking about something like how extensive subject research doesn't necessarily benefit education from the teacher perspective and mentioned their recent reading of the book as an example and the uproar stalled the presentation for a couple minutes.

These were all English professors (and also me, a junior year undergrad that had accidentally gotten a staff e-mail and really wanted free cookies). Most of them with masters and doctorates in niche things like surrealist poetry and feminist literary studies and colonial literature. And they were aghast. Great presentation though. Pretty decent cookies. And, now that I'm thinking about it, also lemon bars.

i beat myself up for not knowing enough about my special interests a lot but then i remember the average person off the street has no idea what the carboniferous is and i feel better

[worrywrite]

For those confused, wondering, or curious what these really are: these are rubber gaskets for canning/jam making. When you have a clamp sealed jar, the glass on glass seal is generally not air tight and so a gasket is used to make the jar air tight to preserve the contents.

Here's a full picture.

Item: Ball’s Good Luck Jar Rubbers. Next time your good luck jar needs a good rubbing, be sure to reach for your Ball’s!