Triple D! The Democratic Debate Drinking Game

DISCLAIMER DISCLAIMER DISCLAIMER!!! This drinking game has not been tested and is based on random things happening on live TV, which means following these rules could easily KILL YOU STONE DEAD. (I am not playing because I have children and a wife who would prefer me to be sober. Which may not stop me from taking a shot if I watch too much of tonight's debate.)

This is intended to be tongue-in-cheek (more like... guidelines than actual rules), and anyone drinking during tonight's debate should do so responsibly. As in, don't drink the goddamn rum with the hula girl on the label. That shit sneaks up on you.

Anywho, here are the not-rules:

Take A Drink Every Time:

- Hillary Clinton's email server or Benghazi is mentioned.

- Martin O'Malley brings up his record as Governor.

- Bernie Sanders says "Wall Street" or "income inequality".

- You remember that Jim Webb and Lincoln Chaffee are there.

- Someone makes a joke about Trump or the House.

- One of the moderators has to prompt a candidate to actually answer the question.

Take A Shot If:

- Hillary Clinton throws someone under the bus over her email server or Benghazi.

- Martin O'Malley brings up his record as Mayor.

- Bernie Sanders screws up an answer on race or gun control.

- Someone addresses anything Jim Webb or Lincoln Chaffee say.

- Lawrence Lessig is mentioned.

- Anderson Cooper cracks up or storms out.

Kill The Bottle If:

- Anyone attacks President Obama.

- Hillary Clinton fires any of her campaign staff on Wednesday.

- Martin O'Malley chews out Debbie Wasserman Schultz by name.

- Bernie Sanders announces he's going to play The Most Dangerous Game with the heads of Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo.

- Jim Webb or Lincoln Chaffee walk out.

- Lawrence Lessig comes on stage.

- Joe Biden comes on stage.

- Elizabeth Warren comes on stage.

- Bill Clinton comes on stage. (Just hugging Hillary doesn't count.)

- Don Lemon gets trolled by Internet questioners on air.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Puppy

"Kept you waiting, huh?"

I've been playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain lately. I expect I'm going to keep playing Metal Gear Solid V for quite some time. It's a very large open-world game, which is a game type I've only gone gaga for once (and that was Assassin's Creed 2). I got into Far Cry 3 for a bit too, but petered out sometime near the halfway mark once things got a little... repetitive (climb tower, clear out bases, skin something, repeat). It's a problem that's kept me from enjoying any Grand Theft Auto game, the rest of the Assassin's Creed series, and MMOs in general (once I got the Warcraft monkey off my back.)

I'm still in the early game, so this might change, but Metal Gear Solid V has a couple features that raise it over most open world games for me. First, you can go back and play through earlier missions to clear side objectives you're pretty much guaranteed to miss the first time through. Second, the missions are discrete little games within the game, which means I can drop in to do one without getting lost wandering the Afghani wasteland for hours looking for plants. (Or I can do that too.) Third, the game adapts to your play strategy, so if you get comfortable headshotting guards, they'll start wearing helmets to force you to change up your style. Fourth, there is a crazy amount of different ways to do each mission, from pure stealth to crazy gun nut to full-scale army invasion to cardboard box surfing.

That all adds up to a game I'm unlikely to get bored of anytime soon, because I'll be playing it in short sips and I'm not likely to keep doing the same thing over and over again. That's important for something that'll probably take me sixty hours to finish.

Fourth, there is a puppy. This is his heartwarming story.

* * *

Kazuhira "Kaz" Miller: Boss, this is the Fulton extraction system. You can use it to recruit soldiers and... did you just drug a dog and tie it to the balloon?

K: Boss? You just brought a wild dog onto our top-secret military base. Care to explain that?

Big Boss: PUPPY!!1!

K: Boss, it's been living in an Afghani war zone-

B: Hello puppy! Hello!

K: Boss, can I please-

B: Who's a good puppy? You are! You are!

K: Boss I'm not kidding, that thing probably has rabies-

B: *squeals* Aww, puppy kisses!

Revolver Ocelot: Er, Boss?

B: IT'S THE CIIIRCLE OF LIIIFE

K: Sigh... Ocelot, get the dog a room and its shots.

B: Wait, what? You can't hold my puppy! You shock people's testicles for kicks!

B: YOU BETTER NOT HURT MY DOG YOU CRAZY TORTURING COWBOY BASTARD!!

K: Great, good, we're done. Can we get back to DID YOU JUST TIE A GODDAMN BEAR TO THE BALLOON

September 10th, 2015

I did end up getting my son back to bed last night... it just didn't last. He woke up again around 12:30 or so and that was it.

I'm going to start keeping a wireless keyboard in his room. If he's going to use me as a bed, I'm going to use him as a writing surface. Fair's fair.

Today I Wrote:

Nada. Today was busy on pretty much every level.

Today I Read:

Two solid links today. One is a blog post called Writing Begins With Forgiveness. It's basically a post explaining that everyone has a different writing process, and you shouldn't feel bad if yours doesn't include writing every day. For me... yeah, that's a nice thought. Not sure I'll ever quite internalize it though.

The other is a post on keeping Facebook from mining your data. It's written for sex workers but applies to anyone who cares about their privacy. I'm a CISSP and I didn't realize how many ways Facebook was tracking me, so I consider this a must-read.

August 24th to September 9th

Well so much for daily updates!

In all honesty my life at work and at home has been hectic, with high-priority projects and sick children to deal with. Also my two-year-old has learned about "DeeBeeDees" and won't stop demanding to watch Frozen or The Neverending Story on a daily basis. He can be distracted, but not for long.

By the way, remember when Disney published high-octane nightmare fuel for the kiddies? Yeah. Check out Lorenzo by Mike Gabriel on the latest Disney short DVD. Freaking Evil the Cat, man!

That ain't right.

...And now it's 11 at night and my son is asleep on my lap. He won't let me put him down. He wakes up and screams if I do. This has been going on for weeks and it's starting to hurt me. I don't know what to do so I'm blogging. Eventually I'll give up on my bed and sleep the best I can in a chair with him. And he wins again.

Is he scared? Is it a wet diaper? Is this normal? Does this shit stop?

HALP!!!

Today I Wrote:

I did manage a few more pages of Gorgon porn, along with two (three? four? Oh wow, five!) more updates to my Vault log series, which you can check out on the shiny new Tales of Vault 867 page of this very blog. I have wrapped up the actual gameplay and I'm just working out how best to bring the series to a close (read: as ludicrously as possible).

Today I Played:

I've been gushing over Until Dawn recently on Twitter and it deserves every word of praise it gets. I may do a blog on it later, but TL;DR version: if you have access to a Playstation 4 and you have any interest in horror, writing, or both, this is the must-play game of the year. Do not look up anything about it until you've gotten through the game once. It's short and it is worth your time to do it blind once.

Tales of Vault 867 - Part Ten

A fine rhetorical question! But as it turns out we have an actual answer. Meet our newest Vault resident:

You probably can't see him because he's a freaking ninja.

I have no idea who he is or why he's in the Vault. I've ordered him removed five times now, and every time he vanishes until I call off the Dwellers. And then he tends the cafeteria.

Since he's a blatantly obvious spy for Number One Traitor Terry I've decided to let him do whatever he's planning on doing. As long as I know that he knows that I know what he's up to, I have the upper hand. (Right? Note to self: double check my grammar before I log this.)

In other news the incessant baby boom continues.

I am giving long thought to lifting the ban on mole rat pets in hopes of sterilizing some of these morons. What part of "limited resources" do they not understand?

Number One Traitor sent more Raiders to attack the perfection of our Vault. His pitiful forces will never succeed in overthrowing my reign!

Groovy Gary led the defense and acquitted himself with honor. He will not be sterilized. Intentionally.

Which is more than I can say for Scumbag Owens. Enough with the damn roofies already!

As a side project, Doctor Adreno managed to capture a Radroach for study.

Apparently at some point she decided the best course of action was to use gene therapy to create a fire-breathing Radroach. Given what happened next I can't even be bothered to ask what the point of that was.