As we all look out at an uncertain world...

[thegreyelf]

"The men are saying there is no hope. They say that we will all die."

"This is a good sword, Háleth, son of Háma. And there is always hope."
--Aragon and Háleth, words to remember.


Game on, folks. Game on.

[Deleted]

Nah, brother. It's not time to lose hope. It's time to kick some ass. It's time to show what we're worth, as a society, and as individuals.

Protect your loved ones. Safeguard those who cannot help themselves. Be brave, be patient, and accept that doing the right thing may cost you. Be the knights and heroes we all pretend to be when we play our games. Or, if we cannot man up for this one time in our lives, to hell with us all.

Chuck Palahniuk, the author of the novel "Fight Club", once wrote that "our 'Great War'" would be a spiritual one. And it is. All over the Western world, we've spent the last fifteen years letting the people in power educate us that somehow being cruel equals being smart. I'm not even talking President Orange Monkey, I'm thinking of "Game of Thrones", "The Walking Dead", and on - all the people in those shows, their main character traits are that they are not a very nice persons to each other. And while those are nice, masturbatory fantasies for puny folks that feel like life owes them, predictably enough, now we find that this logic not only has its limits: We find that it is fundamentally wrong in actual practice.

Drop that bag of ramen at the homeless shelter. Give those old gaming books to child care facilities, instead of saving them for that ebay deal of your dreams. Ring up on your elderly relatives and neighbors. Just make a testimony that you f**king care. Because if not now, then WHEN?

You know, of all people, THIS GUY has always impressed me. There are worse things than death and suffering; mainly, "dishonor". Not all of us can be medics, or policemen, or firefighters. But we can all choose not be to be f**king girl thingys.


Of a group of nine, six of my best friends from high school went on to study medicine. I'm one of the guys who didn't. So, now I get to sit at home and eat chips while they're doing 24-hour shifts, quite probably without the proper security equipment because OF COURSE some thingyflaps bought out the supply stores last week - in Germany, no less. Now, I can't do what they do. But I can do my part, however small. And so can you.

[Dohojar]

My only hope from all this is that we as a race learn something from it (though I doubt we will). We need to to learn to stop fighting with each other and make this a better world to live. This kind of outbreak can and will happen again. There are thousands of viruses that can come from animals that we don't know about and even though this pandemic is the worst we have seen since probably the Spanish flu, the next one could be a lot worse.

I sometimes just sit back and think about all the things we as the human race could have accomplished by now if we would just work together instead of fighting each other over stupid shirt like politics and religion. All those trillions of dollars spent on weapons we probably could have colonized mars by now.

[scalydemon]

"Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!"

Also some people and companies are being cool and posting free games
www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/306835

[Finarvyn]

Freebies are always nice.

I'll tell you this -- teaching as a "Remote Learning" experience is really odd. We take attendance online. I post assignments on ONE NOTE and can look at my students' work. They can e-mail me with questions. We set up a forum where they can chat with each other (and us) with questions. I maintain "office hours" where I am supposed to be online for their benefit. Better than nothing, of course, but still very strange. My students all want to know about AP exams. They want to know how colleges will interpret their transcripts. I keep telling them that this is a national crisis and everyone will be in the same situation, so it will work out okay.

[muddy]

My experience & classes are exactly the same. I haven't heard from some students since we transitioned online, others want everything (now!) to be as close to our in class experience as possible.

Tell your students not to worry about how this might affect their college application. My guess is that it won't matter much because we are all in the same boat. Selective colleges will look at their record prior to this semester, others will be happy to have applicants. My guess is that this fall we will still be teaching online.

If there is something I can do to help your students with their college concerns (or even you just want to shake things up and talk about college in general or something) PM me, I'd be glad to help.

[doublejig2]

Social distancing as a party order touchstone? Hmm...

[tkdco2]

Here's a post about courage at this time.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cttRb8GkDm4

[scalydemon]

More cool free offerings listed today at www.exaltedfuneral.com/

With the idea if you like the author/line you may also consider purchasing something to help them out

[asaki]

Mar 19, 2020 9:31:43 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

I keep telling them that this is a national crisis and everyone will be in the same situation, so it will work out okay.

That's what I keep telling myself. I keep seeing people who are worried about losing work, about kids out of school, about places shutting down...we're all in the same boat. Not one of us is in some special position where we are immune.

[clownboss]

Best wishes out to everyone! I'm fine in Serbia since I work at home anyway and the country has a tight grip on the crisis. We really just have to sit and wait it out. If anything, from my personal angle I love that this crisis has demonstrated an apt opportunity for people and countries all over the world to truly cooperate. And as a neat side bonus it will probably forever normalise working from home.

[skars]

I have a chip on my shoulder and I'm trying to get over it. But, wtf? We already failed and now we are digging ourselves out. This is the same shirt from a century ago and so far we haven't learned much. The more things change the more they stay the same. I think the best thing we can do is take accountability and change course so our great grandchildren aren't forced to repeat the same. I can't help but think the regressive minority maintaining a grip over us politics at least have doomed us to asking stupid questions we already know the answer to or deeming facts that are self evident fake. But finger pointing gets you an artificial leg up...so all I can do is empathize with those suffering from our blunders

[azera]

Mar 20, 2020 8:20:02 GMT -6 clownboss said:

Best wishes out to everyone! I'm fine in Serbia since I work at home anyway and the country has a tight grip on the crisis. We really just have to sit and wait it out. If anything, from my personal angle I love that this crisis has demonstrated an apt opportunity for people and countries all over the world to truly cooperate. And as a neat side bonus it will probably forever normalise working from home.

That last bit is part of my read on things, too.  Not just working from home, but hopefully also expansion of work structures to enable working from more remote locations rather than being limited to being in the same city/region/country as your employer (the last is probably reaching too far because it'll gum up tax obligations, but why not aim high when looking for positives? )