One phrase rings through my head when I read shit like this, from my days at a Children’s hospital.

“Non-accidental trauma.” Still sends shivers down my soul.

I was tier one help desk, overnight, in a children’s hospital.

I had a doctor call me, who expressly made it clear he didn’t want a run around, while manually palpating a child’s heart to keep it in rhythm and thus, the child alive.

I told him there are back ups upon back ups that can be implemented, and I am happy to talk about his computer problem when the patient is SAFE. Not a little, “we got this,” safe, but SAFE.

Tier one help desk, overnight, no support, and I had to tell a person who turned out to be a board member that he could go fuck himself on his computer problem until the child patient was safe.

My first job was customer service, and I’ve been in IT for a dozen years. Its still customer service. You just have to realize who the customer is - in the case of a children’s hospital, it is always the child.

I remember a friend’s first child’s birthday.

Me and the mom killed a pony keg because no one else had the balls too.

I’m about that friend’s age now… man, she went hard. Gonna miss her. I couldn’t keep up now.

Edit: She’s alive and well, married with a gaggle of kids, we grew apart. Just miss those late summer nights where the only place we had to be was a shit retail job, and we could get stoned for that.

I don’t think consciousness objections will be enough anymore. I’m not sure we will ever see a peaceful exchange of power in this country again. Stochastic terrorism has been on the rise, and I don’t see it getting any better.

I Just moved and am still looking for employment, but I live in a red state.

I’m not scared of someone breaking in and taking… stuff. Stuff can be replaced.

I’m scared of political violence. I’m a fucking American. Freedom of Religion is sacrosanct to me. I’m just not Christian. Neither is my wife, and she has a bigger mouth than me.

One of my first purchases when I’m working again (its been a week, I’m not resting on my laurels) will be a firearm for home defense - Ostensibly, to fend off any dipshit neighbors.

I picked up Veilguard because I enjoyed Origins and Inquisition. The second game… at this point, I don’t think I took it right and its my problem and I need to give it another chance.

I’m still very early into the game, but the only “woke” thing I’ve seen so far is variable gender identity during character creation.

You want to play a “woman” who looks masculine, with atypical male traits, even a penis, and a deep voice? You know what, I’m glad the option is open to people. It doesn’t vibe with me personally, but I’m glad that people I care about can make a character that is “them,” because who hasn’t made themselves in an RPG at some point in their life, best they were able.

Again, I’m early to it, but that is all of the “woke” shit I’ve seen.

For the record, I have friends and family in the LGTBQ+(whatever, doesn’t matter) that I support.

I don’t want hate in my heart, and I’ve worked very hard to overcome some biases that came from my more “southern” upbringing. Hell, one of those biased views from the past is now openly trans, and I was the only family member they talked to because they couldn’t talk to anyone else.

I’m imperfect, as all humans are, but it isn’t hard to fucking TRY, just a little, to realize that someone else’s self image and happiness doesn’t affect mine other than what pronouns I use to refer to them. Fuck, its not hard. Just don’t be a dick.

My second job was as a “Sandwich Artist.”

I’m aware, more so than some others.

Also, if you like tuna fish sandwiches there has been a long standing question of whether or not there is actual tuna in their cans. But what I can say, with certainty, at least when I worked there, that the recipe was 90% shitty mayo and very little anything else.

Yeah, TNO is absolutely an individual character you happen to be in the shoes of.

Without spoiling anything, the game IS TNO’s story.

If that doesn’t interest you, best of luck in your refund request.

That being said, I’ve only gotten around to getting one tattoo in my life - The rune of torment.

Yeah, my first thought was the advertisement probably didn’t include anything that was actually food.

Of course, the definition of food seems to keep changing as the decades pass by.

I use proton pass currently.

My life is changing in less than two weeks.

I have an enterprise grade server that I can’t run for a variety of home reasons.

When me and the wife… for lack of a better term, escape, our situation, I’ll be able to self host. I know its gonna be a struggle, I have things to learn, and that is why I’m so excited.

My first job was in a nursing home. I lasted three weeks.

First let me say, the place was horrible and the state shut it down a week after I left, so my experiences tend to the dramatic.

I’ve worked Medical IT for a long time and I have to say, even in IT, patient care is a priority.

I’ve told a president of the company they can go fuck themselves because a patient needed assistance. Thankfully, they saw my point (this was not the nursing home)

All that said, this nursing home was awful. I washed dishes. That was it. I didn’t have to bus trays, or any of it, it all got dumped on my sink and I washed it. I got paid minimum wage, and had difficulty with things like taking a state mandated lunch break. Yeah.

I got dishes back from both the lunch room and the guest rooms.

The stuff that came back from guest rooms haunted me.

We’re talking about a person who has lost the plot, so to speak, and is not sensible; stuffing mashed potatoes and napkins into a cup and it festered. I don’t mean like, it was room temperature and gross - thats whatever. The shit that came from their rooms was a biohazard.

Medical work is gross, and grueling, but at the end of the day, maybe you helped someone. I wasn’t clinical, but I spent enough time in patient rooms fixing stuff to get to know a few.

I didn’t cure their condition, but when a child wakes up screaming in a hospital bed, sometimes its just an IT guy who is there to calm them down, let them know their situation (as best you can, I don’t have their medical info) so they stop freaking and pulling out IVs and sensors and shit.

Oh fuck me, I’m still studying to red team basic computing.

I take it you’ve never had to log into a printer with an AD account before?

Yeah, I went out to 32 characters once. Until I needed to work on a printer.

Yeah, as someone who doesn’t get paid to do security, but does it anyway because it is their passion…

Dad is on the right side of things. Hijacking a phone connection like that is fucking HARD. I’ve been studying hacking since Zork.

While spelling out your email and password phonetically is a pain, its fairly secure.

To pedants: I said fairly, no one under observation from a three letter agency should use this.

I’d like to report that the more specialized a medical doctor is, the less common sense they have.

Had a doctor chew me out because he couldn’t be bothered to simply turn the computer on.

That was the issue. Pushing a button was beneath him. Cool man, I’m the only one here at this hour and the phones have to be manned constantly. That ticket can go to another department and wait until they come in morning.

Also, low priority and I noted that the doctor refused to simply turn it on.

I think that ticket sat there for over a month.

Black Isle Studios.

Hands down, no contest.

If you’re looking for a name, Chris Avallone. Planescape: Torment and fucking New Vegas.

I only have one tattoo, and it is the Rune of Torment. That piece of art touched me.

My expectations of Bethesda, since Oblivion, has been as a mod platform.

Gimme a new engine with updated graphics and great mod support and let the community does what it does best.

Front Right: Keys, wireless earbuds, active nicotine packet container.

Front Left: Eckster Wallet, spare nicotine packet container, phone.

Back Right and Left: Utility Spots, used as needed.

Right Pocket Watch Pocket: CRKT CEO knife, if off the clock, THCa pen (legal in my area)

I don’t find myself “engaged,” I find myself wanting to spend money for something that will bore me the next week.

There is a reason I’ve mostly played single player games for the past decade.

I was tired of the “seasons” and micro transactions when I just wanted a story. If the story was good, I’d be ok with purchasing an expansion upon it. I remember my first expansion pack, Warcraft 2, played over a phone line. It felt worth it.

For more modern games, The Witcher 3 DLC felt like proper expansion packs. I have no bad feelings about those.

But just adding a few cosmetic items? Fuck off.

This does not apply to electronics. You want that 99% to leave as little moisture as possible.

I’ve thought of this, but don’t have the wherewithal to actually make a project come to fruition.

I’m also not a lawyer, but I’ve read multiple articles on this, and it doesn’t seem like any legal violation. Corporation got lazy, didn’t confirm where 10m in royalties went and under what circumstance, and got burned.

Finally a corp gets scammed by the common man.

I say good on him.