I have a semi-theory that Dracula's castle in SotN is a sort of mocking microcosm of humanity. The themed areas represent many different forms of human endeavour (scholarship, spirituality, sport) twisted into surreal violence. It's installation art, in a sense; it's humanity's underbelly with a frame around it. …

I came to think of it as a frontier. It's not the whole of Hyrule, just a lawless stretch out on the edges where few people can manage to survive. I figure the presence of the dungeons plays into that.

All-dressed is my favourite flavour. It's very difficult to describe, though. It's like BBQ, but with a different kick.

I'm going to check out a bunch of the new food articles and I'm going to do my best to treat them fairly, but it's hard. The Snack Expo was one of the only food-related things I've actually liked from the AVC. Most of the food content (the most recent examples of which now coming across as a cynical exercise in…

Maybe this is your chance? You could write up some short articles to the new specs and submit them to the AVC. I'll take back everything I'm currently thinking about the site if the new section gives you a platform.

It's kind of funny to look back at older times and remember when people were pissed about TV Club seeming to completely take over the site. If only we knew where things were going. I'm going to give a bunch of these food articles a go, but I'm not expecting much.

I have a really tricky relationship with it. Hope seems like borrowing money that you can't currently repay with the hope that you'll be able to pay it back with interest soon, but applied to happiness. By hoping, I borrow against future happiness to cover my lack of happiness in the present. If happiness doesn't…

I know what you mean. I now reflexively avoid getting hopeful about practically anything because I don't want to deal with the stress of disappointment. If that stress would be too much for you, then my approach of making it this big thing is the wrong way. Something small and casual would be better, like trying it…

True. I should walk it back a touch. I was thinking less "this is big and it had better be good" and more "I feel so much better right now that anything else is a bonus". The latter is pretty hard to achieve sometimes, so correction well-taken.

As someone who has gone into masturbation with little more than grim determination in the past, I'd suggest that you reconsider how sad it really is. Setting time aside to reclaim sexual pleasure for yourself isn't shameful; indeed, it's the least expensive decadent pleasure this world offers. Blow other shit off…

You might be surprised, then. I know a fair number of people holding the opinion that formula is in no way a good alternative to breast milk. I'd be surprised if the only people looking to buy breast milk were doing it for fetish purposes.

Ah, so this is one of those jobs that considers health less important than school or childcare obligations. I had a few of those. Fuck those jobs. If you're looking for new employment anyway, you might not have that much to lose by telling them that your medical care is no less important than classes or kids (which…

How secure are you in this job? If HR cleared it, that manager had damn well better be providing some serious reasons why you can't rearrange your schedule. This may be worth a battle if you think you can win it.

Oh ho ho, you can totally starve here. We have a safety net, but it's in pretty bad repair sometimes. I think we could stand to incorporate substantially more socialism into our economy.

I don't think that would hold up. A person can masturbate to a photo of a model, for instance, but models aren't considered sex workers under the law. If the law only required the possibility of one's product or service being used for sexual gratification, then basically everybody on Earth with a job would be a sex…

The entire island definitely isn't, from what I've heard, but it is definitely way less shocking over there for whatever reason. It think it's just familiarity; it's one of the English language's longest-standing unchanged words, I seem to recall.

Sounds like the other people on the dais wanted to murder her in a well. Seems pretty harsh.

Yeah, the Friar's Club does its own thing and it's not televised. That's much more of a meeting of friends and colleagues than the ratings-driven CC roast.

It's a pretty mild lean. He generally identifies as apolitical, I think, and has said that he doesn't vote.

I miss the days of my childhood when Canada had two conservative parties and the rabid one never had enough seats to form a government. The PCs were stodgy, but they mostly just cared about economics (as I recall). When Reform swallowed them from the inside somehow, all bets were off and the party got strange. As…