The Totally Radical Thread for Crotchety Old Bitches

Used my last day of paid time off to take my car to the shop. I expected to have a car with a functioning driver window, new brakes, and an estimate on getting my AC working again.

But they were busy and didn't get my diagnostic done until I had less than an hour to get home and take care of my niece and nephews, and they found that:

The brakes are fine. About 50%. Even though I'm pretty sure I don't think I've had them worked on since a shop told me two years ago that I should let them do my brakes.

AC is discharged but there's no indication where the leak is, so they'll need to add a diagnostic dye when they flush and recharge. Not a big surprise.

Window is what I expected. It's the fourth of four windows that have needed a new regulator in six years.

Now... while checking the AC, they found that my intake manifold is very leaky. It's like a $2k fix.

Also, while the brakes are fine, it feels bumpy when stopping is because the control arms are going bad. That costs about as much as I was expecting to pay total.

And the shocks and struts are bad. But I've known that for like five years now.

The total estimate was almost four grand. Considering it's a 2000 Buick with a broken bumper and crumpled fender, that seems like a total. I'm not sure I should bother doing the shocks, struts, and manifold before I sell it off.

Para: If its a Buick it sounds like a write-off. The total repairs sound like they are way over the value of the car and possibly a good chunk of a replacement. I have been through that exact same song and dance with a couple of cars including a 94 Buick Le Sabre. Still my favorite car to date.

I got a job!!!

...oh and also hi everyone, I haven't been in these parts for a while. How's y'all doing?

Hey good to hear from you. Congrats on the job. Good thing you kept that familiar avatar or I would be wondering if my memory was failing me.

How have you been doing in general?

Ah, the top hat is basically my brand now. I could never get rid of it.

Been doing well overall. Family's been fine, despite two near misses with the pandemic. I did get told to leave my apartment and now live on my aunt's house while she's in out of the country, which was... a thing that happened... but overall I'm in a pretty good place.

I am glad you have a place to hang out and are not loose in the wind so to speak.

i've just turned 31!!!! this is my second quarantine birthday. having a quiet dinner with my sister at home because no way am i going to any of those opening restaurants or bars. we probably would have done that anyway, but it would have been nice to have the choice of inviting other people.

i got the runaround for a cashier job and i'm pretty pissed off honestly. they had me do two interviews and list three references, and after all that they turned me down. ugh. i have another job prospect which pays better, working at a park, so i hope i get that one.

Happy b-day Lera!

So I've got an appointment for my first Covid shot on Tues through the pharmacy at the store I work. Of course it does mean I have to go in my day off lol.

Leradny: Happy Leramas! Good luck with your interview.

Mark: My wife got her first shot just yesterday, it should be ok.

Got my shot today, and besides a slightly sore arm I feel... an overwhelming urge to actually purchase Win RAR for some reason.

I'm kidding, arm is just kinda sore, that's all.

I was trying for a few weeks and kept getting "no appointments available, try again later". Eventually I found out that they release appointments at specific, regular times and you've gotta be on the site at those times to get in line to make an appointment. And then once I made plans based on the knowledge of when they release the appointment blocks, they changed the release schedule from half on Mondays and half on Thursdays to Mondays and check back on Thursday to see if anyone canceled soon enough that we can offer their slot.

So I opened the site on a Monday evening pretty late and I saw "you 11k in line. There are 6k appointments available this week." I kept the page open until there weren't any left anyway, and the space between me and the front of the line did in fact shrink faster than the number of available appointments, but not by nearly enough to get me in. Then the next two weeks I was busy on Monday night and didn't get to the website.

I did open it up last night less than an hour after the release and I handily got in. I've got my appointment tomorrow after work. So of course the state is opening up appointments to anyone who wants them next Monday.

> an overwhelming urge to actually purchase Win RAR for some reason.

come on,you know you want to be part of the special club that actually paid for it!

I am on a long waiting list for my shot. It might be a while for me or any one my crew.

I had my first grade teacher's first class as a teacher. She's retiring this year. That is how old I am now. Rookie to retirement.

I had an ex who was a student teacher at her old high school. Several parents thought she was joking when she wore her "student teacher" ID.

just found a credit card payment for $500 and a netflix account charge, neither of which i made. i just got a new card this february. quarantine life: continuously sorting out credit card fraud.

Just finished running a table of Dnd, was fun but im wiped. I missed this, i really did.

Tuef: Gonna have to give us deets, choom.

But yeah running TTRP Gs is a bit taxing but so fun. The Cyberpunk RED group I'm in does a rotating DM type deal (and our old friend Drunk Scriblerian is in it too) and it is preem. I had previously thought my old D&D storm sorcerer was my favorite TTRPG character I had made... until I made Chloe Chaos for Cyberpunk lol.

I've always wanted to try Dungeons and dragons,the lore is super interesting to me though

Mark: Sure deets condensed version. Warning this is off the top of my head, stream of mental notes.

It is a home brew set in the current time period of Forgotten Realms. The players, a six-person table, have all traveled to a new boomtown that has sprung up in the wilderness near a magically artificially growing forest that has been keeping people out. Wood that has managed to have been harvested from the forest is highly valuable for magical construction and has an array of useful properties. The town is basically harvesting and selling wood where they can.

The town is protected by a small-town guard and a band of professional mercenaries all of who are stretched thin protecting a wild frontier town in the Spine of the World Mountains.

The town is accruing problems faster than they can solve them. They have problems with their local mines which supply their copper and iron, the forest won't anyone deeper into green depths than 200 feet. Those who have tried to force their way in are never seen again. The forest is causing natural forests to shift into magical woods and grow out of control. A road that helps them collect normal timber has been partly overgrown and the woodsmen have been disappearing off of the road.

Bandits are raiding supplies and migrants heading for the town causing problems with them getting tools, supplies, and other things they need. A gnomish tinkerer's tower somewhere in the mountains was raided and one of his creations was given life by the Gnomish god Gond, and is on a mission of revenge (PC).

The town has become an unwilling melting pot with a wide number of races including traditional enemies mixing leading to some as of yet unseen issues, think gangs of NY but fantasy, the council that effectively rules the city is a mix motley adventurers all retired from the life at one point or another and all having their own stake and goal in the town.

They have been effectively dragooned by plot hook and a need for petty cash by the local adventurers guild. They were going to stay in the guild but political issues with the chartered parent guild forced them to move into the dormitory owned by the guild across the street. That night the town was attacked by a Goblinoid raid led by Hobgoblins with Bugbears for muscle and Goblins for fodder. They won and captured one of Hobgoblin raid leaders.

The PC's are a Warforged Artificer/Cleric brought to real life by Gond and seeking revenge for his Gnomish creator's murder, a charmingly and childishly friendly Kobold Monk who was critically injured in a cave in and woke up with a magical prosthetic arm and is looking for what happened(flavor no function, yet.), a human Justicar Cleric of Tyr who is looking to help establish law and order in the wild town think classical western law bringer but in DND and as a cleric, An Aaracockra (bird person) Fighter that is skittish and shy about his very colourful plumage but is on a quest to find an unnamed artifact, a dwarven ravager who has fallen down into the bottle and found the town wandering the mountain roads after wearing out his welcome in other places with a deeply personal grudge for the deaths of friends and family at the hands of an orc raidign band, and lastly a happy go lucky Black as ink Drow with blue teeth, a fruit bat (normal bat stats) familiar called Sir Fluffy Bottom who is seeking other drow who worship Ellistrae and has a house rule of sunlight adaption in exchange taking normal dark vision instead of superior that found the town by getting lost.

The town has been around for about five years and has already fallen into stratified arrangements of the town's interiors on top of a whole host of issues.

First, sesh was five hours because of introductory role play for all six players getting a chance to make their way into the city and take the obvious plot bait of the adventurers guild except the drow and the dwarf who went to a seedy bar that is like the Mended Drum from Discworld and god involved in shenanigans and a bar brawl.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Mar 31st 2021 at 8:56:13 AM

Preem. And if the players don't get into at least bar brawl, is it really D&D?

I was surprised to learn dragonlance setting came about solely because someone felt there were'nt enough dragons

I did not know that was how Dragonlance came about. My first intro to it was "The Legend of Huma" followed by Kaz the Minotaur books.

Mark: I am hoping the whole party gets in on one in the future.

I should throw a good old fashioned bar brawl into one of the games of Cyberpunk I run. Starlight Overkill can put out some hurt with her cyberarm, and my Rockerchick is okay at brawling but would probably either go with an improvised weapon like a beer bottle or just hit them with her guitar.

> I did not know that was how Dragonlance came about. My first intro to it was "The Legend of Huma" followed by Kaz the Minotaur books.

Kinda,I'm probably wrong,I just remember that Dragonlance's setting strongly favours dragons so it does feel like someone really wanted the game to live to the Dungeons & dragons

Edited by Ultimatum on Apr 1st 2021 at 8:20:54 AM