Former PoE supporters: what have you been spending on?

Merry Xmas, my friends, Exiles and...the rest of you.

Two things today.

One: despite a no present mandate the wife couldn't bring herself to save everything for my birthday so I found myself unwrapping a very heavy department store box at midnight last night (basically the very earliest moment of xmas here).

I don't know if this is some grand assault on gender roles or just me being a weird middle aged nerd tired of too much nerd shit, but I am utterly gobsmacked to receive a pot. A big heavy cast iron bastard with a lifetime guarantee. It emanates "heirloom". It is straight up granny shit...

And I am going to make some killer pasta with it. And slow roasts. Soups.

I'm a 43 year old nerd and I own a Le Creuset. AMA.

Two: I splurged on more games on sale pn the psn. Because why not.

Chaosbane Slayer edition was 20 bucks USD. No way I'd pay full price for a d3 wannabe set in Warhammerland but 20 bucks? Thats 'Because I was curious' pricing. I can't but love how much sheer testosterone warhammer has. I swear I grew a second pair of balls from the narration alone. It's all derivative tropy nonsense but I think I'd rather that as an excuse to play an arpg over the ruining of a more beloved franchise. Diablo 3 made me so sad; Chaosbane just makes me laugh. Also it has a few interesting mechanics I've not seen before in an arpg like manually controlling projectiles and class-locked weapon switching changing the function of akills so...yknow, For Sigmar!

(Deeply disappointed I can't play a Sister of Sigmar. Loved that faction in Mordheim.)

Sekiro finally hit 50% off. Time to play Tsushima 0 on super hard mode.

And I double dipped Disco Elysium (played it a fair bit on pc) because who doesn't want to sit on their couch having deep, bery well arguments with various parts of one's being promoted by inanimate objects? Also the game was briefly banned here so I'm doing my little bit to show I support mature themes in games no kid would find interesting for long.

Tldr: merry xmas i got a pot and some games. That 'a' is important.

Life!

House stuff, stuff for my new hobby (I don't game as much anymore anyway and definitely don't support PoE). I've spent more money than I dreamed I would in last 2 years. Pathetic.

And middle age causes you to like home stuff for some reason. I bought a new set of silverware this year a few months back. Been using antique stuff from the 40s since I was a kid. Nice to have something shiny and new. I bought several new sets of bed linen. This is the kind of stuff I used to hate. Wife is making some new linen napkins next year (got a sewing machine). She also made some towels in a size for some reason you can't find in stores anymore but is perfect for long hair.

Not counting all the tools, drills, electric sanders, snow blower, ladders, shit like that, for house.

Merry Christmas! I still love Christmas. Making a standing rib roast tomorrow with some au gratin potatoes. Made a devils food cake today with chocolate ganache-sour cream frosting (a newish Christmas tradition).

This was supposed to be a small Christmas but the cats have TONS of stuff (one of their b'day is Christmas Day).

Dude. I loved every word of that. :)

Cant convince seamstress wife to make napkins. I just suggested and she was like nope dont like napkins. We are naughty paper towel junkies.

Now and then she just gets this fierce energy and a week later there's an amazing dress. Then a huge period of deflation, doubt, and gloom: a creative comedown after the high of being in the zone. We are far too alike in that (if we are both coming down we just do our own things quietly) but it does mean I completely get it when it happens.

Napkins would be a good mid point between turning out a one of a kind wonder that too many people want a copy of and being crushed by the reality that we don't own q convenient textile factory. I think she does accessories to fill that void.

But I cant talk. Im either writing like a demon turning out 10k words a day or reading and pretending its research. I wont do short stories or give any sort of journalism a shot, so if she doesnt wanna do napkins in between dresses, I abide.

I havent even turned the pc on in months.

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Sort of non-sequitur, who else is waiting for the third Rothfuss book? I saw a horribly relatable reddit post suggesting that he might have simply outgrown the first two books. It has been that long.

What happens when you burst out of the gate with youthful vigour, but then realise when it is time to continue the story, you arent young anymore and the whole thing looks like a mix of what you know you did well and what you now see was immature and unrefined? Rothfuss' protag was pretty MarySueish: talented, heroic, sexy, well placed to be the centre of a bunch of adventures. It is quite remarkable that the books were still genuinely superb despite that.

Can an ageing author fake the sort of youthful confidence and skill that makes such a character feel legit?

Or would it just feel like tryhard YA?

WoT tv aged its characters up from teen to early twenties for this reason. And Jordan was no spring chicken when he wrote those books. But WoT preceded the YA genre so it wasnt too weird. It was and is still weird. He wavers between writing his late teens as moping dolts and wunderkind with superpowers.

I wonder if Rothfuss knows with each day passed Kvothe's story of blessedly potent youth becomes that little bit less relevant to his own.

FWIW I do think he will finish it. And it will either be much better than what came before or much worse.

Meanwhile smart fucks like Abercrombie just stick to hard bastards slogging in the mud of human violence. You never outgrow that.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

Merry Xmas, my friends, Exiles and...the rest of you.

I'm a 43 year old nerd and I own a Le Creuset. AMA.

Same to you good sir, my younger sister got me a Le Creuset a couple of years ago for Xmas.
Heavy as f*(k but is great to cook with.

Wishing you and all the other Exiles all the best.

You can use it to store a lot of packets of instant ramen I guess

This is coming from someone who still makes coffee on the stove top in a saucepan. (jk my sis got me a french press 5 years ago and I do use it. But before that? sheesh)

Rothfuss can always rewrite Kvothe as a washed up deadbeat dad trying to clean up his act, quit meth, recert in practical pyromancy, etc. If there's a story we love more than the young gifted hero, it's the redemption story.

Duuuude I so want to read that. "My name's Kvothe. You might have heard of me...back before shit really went down and I lost my teeth..."
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Le Creuset buddies! High five (kg cookware)!

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I did mention at some point Ive been casually bedazzling various instant ramen brands and types. Theramenrater is a hell of a clickhole. It also revealed to me I quite like shin ramyun black with buk choy, frozen fish balls and a slice of processed cheese.

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Got a quick tv rec we just found. British 'quiz show' called I Literally Just Told You.

Jimmy Carr from QI and 8 out of 10 cats hosts. Questions based on everything said on the show. Stress makes people get easy shit wrong. Jimmy Carr mercilessly mocks them in that oddly British way that is at once scathing, endearing and inclusive. It just started a few weeks ago, is uncensored on YT and the second ep had the woman and I in tears. Jimmy Carr is a gift.

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So a few years ago my 'favourite' instant coffee went to shit and I only found out recently the hard way. Anyway even more recently I was at my mums and her partner made me a cup of the same brand and it tasted just as I remembered.

Wtf?

Then I looked at the label. It was the same name but with the word "indulgence". It also cost a few dollars more.

Those. Dirty. Bastards.

Anyway I have converted to recyclable pods so fuck them.

For lovers...of coffee my half arse.

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Im going to resume writing of book 2 soon. Showers are getting longer and any fiction writer who says they don't storm ideas in the bathroom is lying even more than they usually do. Admittedly Im storming ideas for the wrong books but that incentivises a dude to write the ones you need to do first. Which then leads to much more determined contemplation of how to resume. For me its usully Oh Fuck What Happens Next because that is how it always stops. Not knowing that.

And then the crushing weight of Getting It Right. I already got swordsmithing horribly wrong. Wtf do I know about growing up in an all female convent or historical abortions? I know, I only need to know enough to support the story but I know there's an expert for ANYTHING on the webs...just lurking waiting to pounce with their annoying 'facts'...

Then again realistically I have so few readers that its statistically very unlikely obscure experts will ever even know of my gross injustices to their fields of knowledge...

Hahahaha and that has been todays Episode of Why WJC Should Have Learned A Trade Or At Least Paid Attention During Microeconomics.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

I'm going to resume writing of book 2 soon.

Goodie! I, for one, am excited to hear this.

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DoubleU wrote:

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

I'm going to resume writing of book 2 soon.

Goodie! I, for one, am excited to hear this.

I dunno. The more I drag myself through WoT the more I see it really got into my skull way back somehow. Cryptomnesia is a bitch. So is Lanfear, and so is Vachaelle. Not that I think I've just ripped Jordan off but tropes are hard to shake and "manipulative condescending hottie preying on virgin vulnerabilty" is a very common one. But I suppose we can trace that all the way back to Lilith.

Ugh and all the dream sequences. I like to write them but I rarely like to read them unless they are done exceptionally well.

I've realised Im hate-reading these books. So much wrong in the micro and so much right in the macro. As one friend put it, this is the difference between 'story by' and 'written by' when it comes to movie and tv credits. Jordan is an exemplary storyteller. He is a downright average writer. All ego aside I think I'm the somewhat the opposite and thats why I can really get into well written shit that doesnt really go anywhere. By a lot of standards that translates into me having pretty poor taste. :)

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I ordered the KFC a day ahead this time. Hell or highwater, we will be eating Dirty Bird for NYE!

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My mother called this morning to inform me that two of her afternoon guests on Xmas day just tested positive for Omicron. I've only seen her to drop off some cake the wife made but I thought it was very thoughtful of her to tell me. But what really got me laughing was when she asked me if she should tell the guests who left in the morning. Literally impossible to infect someone if they left before the carrier arrived but I was just so in love with my mum's covid hyperawareness. Boomers aint all bad after all.

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See yall next year. :)

other than poe i dont have much to spend on, i run 2 olschool runescape subs at all times, and then every now and then donate 50 bucks to median xl to keep them going, because its such a good arpg, all in all i try to keep my spending on poe like 20 bucks a month and consider it sort of monthly sub

bought a forest parcel from one neighbour. It's gonna be a lot of work for some months or years, is actually in a bad state of care.
Working in my own forest is my favorite 'passion', beats playin poe at ease. stuff like cutting timber, doing the thinning and maintenance, planting young trees where needed ...