good to know, I realize now it's been quite a few years since I've used it and I didn't know that
The best way to see them all for free is annualcreditreport.com. It's jointly operated by Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion to comply with some federal law that says they each have to give you a free report every year. You only get one of each annually, so if you want to keep tabs on your credit more frequently you can get one now from Experian, wait four months, get one from Equifax, wait four months, get one from TransUnion and repeat.
To be clear, this is the app you'd use on a macbook or imac or whatever they call their desktop computers these days. It's not the app for iphone or ipad
To me, Biden seemed certain to lose, while with Kamala it could go either way. In no way is she a worse candidate than Biden. I think we should all be deeply invested in Kamala winning the election. Not because I want to see Trump lose, though I do. Not because I want to see Kamala win, which I don't really. What I want, what I think we all want, is to see Hillary Clinton looking on as another woman becomes the first woman president. Not just that, I want to see Kamala win easily, just to make it clear to Hillary that she, personally, was the problem in 2016. No one thinks Kamala is an impressive candidate, so if her mediocre ass beats Trump with a comfortable margin, it'll more or less settle the argument as to who was responsible for Trump's victory.
To be clear, I haven't lost sight of the fact that a Harris presidency would basically just be the Biden presidency with more awkward laughter. We're not going to get a good president this time around, or maybe ever. I'm aware that I'm doing something similar to the republican rank-and-file who know their candidates won't do anything to help them, but will at least make the people they don't like suffer. We should all be protesting, agitating, and organizing for something better, but with the understanding that organizing is almost certainly not getting us a better candidate this cycle, let's try and find joy where we can. In this case, in schadenfreude.
and here I was thinking the joke was to give them literal maids or maidens or something
I'm not as highly paid as I probably could be given my skill set, but I'm comfortable where I'm at and that's all I've ever wanted. To be comfortable. To not have to think about my finances on a day-to-day basis. That said, I make more money than I ever have, and more than anyone around me, and the same is true for my partner.
What keeps my convictions from eroding is empathy and an (I think) mostly clear-eyed view of myself and how I got where I am. I'm not in this position because of how hard I worked, even though I did have to work to get here, nor am I an this position because I'm the best at what I do, though I think I'm pretty good at it. No, I could have done all the same things and ended up destitute if not for some social and professional connections, and the pure dumb luck of finding myself in the right places at the right times. Everywhere I look I can see smarter people working much harder and longer to barely keep their heads above water. Maybe it ultimately does come down to what resides at the core of your humanity. It would be so easy to believe that I deserve what I have because I was better and smarter and harder working than everyone else. But no, I deserve what I have because everyone deserves what I have, and I don't know how to ignore the desperate, crushing need all around me just because I got mine.
I mean, he's right. We just let them do it. If he'd like us to take matters into our own hands I'm sure we can oblige.
I got to do this once. I look like the type a prosecutor would probably want on a jury and I wasn't individually asked any questions before being chosen. The case was a non-violent drug offense and it was a wild experience for reasons I won't get into. Once we got in the jury room it pretty much went like:
"Not guilty."
"Why not guilty? It's a pretty clear cut case."
"I don't believe the cops."
"Why don't you believe the cops?"
"I didn't find their testimony credible. It didn't convince me beyond a reasonable doubt."
"What about the body cam footage? Do you believe that?"
"I didn't find it convincing."
"The whole thing is on camera, do you think they faked it all?"
"I suppose that's a possibility. I just haven't seen enough evidence to convict."
"What more evidence could you need?"
"More than this. I'm not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt."
And around and around we went like that. I was the lone holdout. I have to say, the other jurors were pretty cool about it. Eventually we had to tell the judge we couldn't reach a verdict on any of the charges and it was declared a mistrial. Totally worth it.
As someone who has never cared about Batman or any other superhero but enjoyed all the Arkham games, I think it's worth it for the Gotham-at-Christmas atmosphere. I often replay it around Christmastime
I'm not one to get into a F2P online competitive shooter, but The Finals has hooked me. I used to play a lot of TF2 and L4D vs mode back in the day, but nothing since then has looked like anything I'm interested in playing. Never played any CoD, Battlefield, Overwatch, Destiny, PUBG, Fortnite, Apex Legends, never had any interest. I guess actually I did play Fall Guys for a hot second and it was fun but the novelty wore off quickly and it's not really the same genre. All that is to say I have very little to compare to The Finals.
I only picked it up because environmental destruction in games is interesting to me, and The Finals is free so there was no barrier to entry. I just wanted to check out the destruction mechanics. Now it's the first game I reach for in my free time. Like I said, I don't have the experience or the language to discuss the finer points of the game's balance or whatever and frankly I don't give a shit because I'm having fun. I was playing the new event they have going on and it was so satisfying to know that I could access the heavily guarded cashout station on the floor above me by destroying the ceiling to bring it down to my floor. I'm aware this isn't the first multiplayer shooter to make destruction part of the game, but the way entire buildings can be brought down is so cool and something I haven't seen since maybe the Red Faction games. The other day I got matched with a pair of sledgehammer heavy teammates who didn't even try to win and just ran around leveling the map. We ended up almost winning anyway because they caused so much chaos that the other teams couldn't easily get to the vaults and cashout stations. I love that even when you're not very good at the game (and I'm not) you can just try to create enough chaos that you give your teammates an opening.
Gotta say though, this is my first direct experience with games that have seasons and battle passes and it's wild how manipulative it is. You can see exactly how it's engineered to create FOMO and to keep you from being able to calculate the real monetary value of anything you're buying. Everyone who has been around this block is like "yeah that's how it works" and I follow the industry enough to be familiar with these practices, but it's still kind of shocking. I haven't spent a dime on the game yet, and I may never. We'll see how far I get on the battle pass as a casual player before season 1 ends. I'm not going to be beholden to a game that feels like a job.
Other things I like:
There doesn't appear to be any text chat and voice chat is off by default. You better believe I leave that shit turned off, and the players I get matched with probably hate me for it, but they'll just have to scream into the void. I try to be a good teammate though and use the gestures or indicators or whatever to communicate where I'm going or where enemies are.
Even with the manipulative monetization, there's no way to buy weapons or equipment with real money. Everything that affects gameplay is unlocked by playing the game. We'll see how long that lasts.
Technical performance is generally good.
Interesting aesthetic, lovely environments, cool music.
So anyone else playing it? What's the consensus?
People should write their info on paper more often. Meet someone on the train, have nice conversation, "this is my stop, here's my number/insta/tiktok/whateverthekidsusethesedays, hmu if you'd like to continue this over drinks" and leave it at that. It'll be clear you've asked them out, but they don't have to decide in the moment, they don't have to reject you to your face, and they don't have to give you any personal info. You leave them in a position where they only need to take action if they're interested in talking to you again, and they don't have to expend any additional energy on you if they're not interested.
If someone asks for help and you're in a position to help, you help them.
It's especially weird that companies are still like this after seeing the success of a game like Baldurs Gate 3. The runaway hit of the year, and biggest earner on Steam, doesn't even implement the basic Steam DRM. I tried it. The game launches and runs just fine when Steam isn't running at all. It's so messed up how capitalism leads to that (providing good products at fair prices and respecting your audience) being seen as an "unsustainable business model."
Half-Life: Alyx is the game that shows us just how incredible vr can be. And it's the game that ruins you for all other vr games because nothing else is anywhere near as good.
Since you mentioned Myst, Cyan published a vr game called The Last Clockwinder. It's a cozy little game where you solve puzzles using automatons that repeat your own recorded actions. So for example, you record yourself picking up an object and dropping it in a bucket, and then a robot repeats the same actions over and over. Before long you're creating assembly lines of robots that are all interacting with each other, and are all recordings of you. It's easier to understand from watching a trailer. Anyway, it has a cute solarpunk(?) aesthetic, some nice casual queerness, and the kind of corny, earnest performances I remember from the Myst games. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1755100/The_Last_Clockwinder/
Beat Saber is an obvious good option, but before you spend any money on song packs, check out a site like BEATSAVER. Beat Saber can be modded and there are custom song managers you can use, but you don't have to bother with all that if you really don't want to. Downloading the zip file from beatsaver and dropping it into beat saber directory is enough (assuming the custom song didn't require any mods, some of them do). There are so many good songs on there that rival anything officially released.
Also Blade and Sorcery. It's rough around the edges, but the implementation of magic is pretty great. Hurling fireballs, using telekinesis to pick up and throw weapons, objects, and enemies, holding a ball of electricity in one hand and using it to imbue the sword you're holding in your other hand, it's all very fun. Even if it does make me more motion-sick than just about anything I've played in vr.
Fully expecting this to be yet another Rockstar Special, i.e. a technical marvel rendering a painstakingly crafted world, full of boring gameplay, underdeveloped systems, and dull, unlikable characters.
someone already said to my boss "oh they're getting us all in a room so we're fish in a barrel?"
I'm having fun with friends online, jeez
this is my favorite suggestion so far 
Found out we're doing a mandatory active-shooter training at work. It'll be "non interactive" which I guess means no fake guns or practice takedowns or whatever they do to scare people. At least one of my coworkers has already expressed adamant opposition to this, so I have at least one ally. I'd be more opposed if I were going to have fake guns pointed at me, but if it's just sitting in a room listening to someone talk, I don't mind being paid to listen to their bullshit. Anyway, beyond what I've said, I don't know much about these trainings, so what are some funny ways I could derail it? Don't hold back
I like the grapefruit seltzer and hate actual grapefruit 
The first game is one of my all-time favorite games, absolutely love it, so it's interesting that I never had the slightest interest in the second. I very much doubt I'll ever play it. For me, the ending of the first game is devastating, and is the end of Joel and Ellie's story. We don't need more. We know their lives will continue past the credits, we know the world the characters inhabit will go on, there's more plot that could unfold, but it doesn't need to. We know who these characters are now, we know the rules of their world, and whatever comes next is not going to reveal anything new about Joel and Ellie. We've been given enough that we can fill in the rest of their stories in our minds.
Which is why I didn't need a sequel with these characters. Or any sequel at all really, because as well-drawn as the setting may be, it's just another zombie apocalypse. The story of Ellie and Joel is why it's worth my time to trudge back out into the thousandth video game zombie apocalypse, so a sequel with the same setting and new characters was going to need to be spectacular. From everything I've heard, it sounds like a game that's jaw-dropping on a technical level, but is decidedly inferior to the first. I don't feel any fomo by skipping it. In my mind, it doesn't exist.
