Break the shaft in half, now you have two spears.

Only one problem with this.

A spear is superior to a gladius any day. I will fight on that hill. And win, because I have a spear, obviously.

Ikr?

I'd be impressed as hell, and at least salute them as I died from my severed arm bleeding me out

\m/

Brutal

However, you know you done fucked up when that person eventually says "damn, dude, that was dark" while taking a step back from you.

Fuck me running (because I do that all the damn time)

I gotta preface this with the fact that pretty much all American food is based on layers of blending of multiple sources. It's a lot less distinct than some national or regional cuisines elsewhere in the world, and many expressions of things can be American without having originated inside america.

So, with that in mind, I gotta say pit smoked southern pork BBQ. The history of it is very much american, despite it being a fairly universal cooking method. People have been smoking meats in a contained way for thousands of years all over the world. But the particular expression of it that arose in the south is incredible.

For one thing, it's delicious. Hot, tender, smoky pork. How can that go wrong?

There's regional sauces for it too. Mustard based, vinegar based, tomato based, coke/cola based, plus more; and blends of those. I favor a vinegar based sauce personally, but don't turn my nose up at any of them.

But it can serve as a unifier as well. Even BBQ joints tend to have become a sort of neutral ground that can bridge communities that otherwise don't interact much. But when someone goes whole hog on their own, that's a big undertaking, and it takes help to achieve. That help, and the nature of cooking an entire pig, also mean that communities will gather. You don't pit smoke 200 pounds of meat just for a handful of people. It's an event.

And that's what really makes it something indispensable for me. It's a cultural hallmark shared across religious lines, across neighborhood lines, and even racial lines. That kind of BBQ is a southern thang, and it's a thang we tend to let go of the bullshit that divides a community at least long enough to fill bellies.

You go to a whole hog party, and you'll see Methodists and baptists agreeing that, damn this pig is good. You'll see that old black guy and the old white guy swapping BBQ lore. You can end up with family rifts and neighbor disputes settled, or at least set aside for a night because ain't nobody got time to fuss until after they've had some Q, and after they've had it, they ain't got no energy to argue because the itis done crept up on em.

Long as you keep an eyeball on the beer supply, won't be fights or much of anything other than bulging bellies and folks wondering how much they can carry home.

I ain't saying a good smoked pig will fix the world's ills. I'm just saying that it shifts the bullshit down the priority list for a while.

And holy hell, it is yummy.

That's one awesome famous dude

You sound like me!

We have a household rule: don't talk to south until he's awake. How can you tell he's awake? Has he been moving for at least an hour? If yes, then he may be awake, but there's no promises. If not, then treat him like you would a manbearpig freshly out of hibernation.

The grunts and croaks that pass as communication from me that first bit are a passable caveman shtick.

Oh damn! Wet leg and tiny desk! This is gonna be great :)

Thank you for sharing

Edit, after having watched it then scrolled all the way through lemmy. It was great! If you've never seen or heard wet leg, this is a solid point to get introduced to them. Their unique sound is well showcased here.

If you're an established fan, they were on point, and obviously excited to be doing that kind of performance, so the energy is really high and satisfying.

Into a pool? Yeah, it really isn't that hard. Plenty of people manage to get in their first time after verbal instructions and make it short distances.

You won't have great form, and you'll probably wear yourself out fast because of it, but as long s you know ahead of time that there's some basics that even a dummy can do to stay afloat while you rest, you'd be fine.

Wouldn't even take six months. If there was a book written with basic techniques, described well, you could absorb that in however long it takes you to read.

Panic would be the barrier, not knowledge. But knowledge can sometimes prevent panic, so it's totally doable.

I mean, fuck, I know people that have started out with way more complex movements with nothing but reading up and done well for a first timer. If there's illustrations, it's even easier.

Fuck, now this is in my head

Belly rubs, stat!

I see a belly like that and I just want to pet it

No worries man, we all have days like that. I certainly do!

I'm the same way with food snobbery tbh. I see even jokes about it, and it just gets under my skin, even when I am fully awake and can tell it's a joke. There's that flash of "this motherfucker" before I exert control of my brain. So I totally get it.

I'm just sorry I picked a bad joke to try. Like I said, they can't all be winners, but looking back at it, it was a lame attempt.

Hey, sorry that didn't hit right.

Since the post was in a meme community, I didn't take the post as a serious complaint. Memes bring out jokes, that's part of the point of them. I intended it as a form of commiseration with a bit of tongue in cheek playfulness. If I'd known you were making a real complaint rather than playing with a trope for laughs, I would have made a totally different comment.

So, here's what I would have said if I had known you were experiencing distress over the issue.

I get it. Back when 3.x was a thing, the old ad&d diehards made the same kind of statements. Now, 5e devotees make the same kind of statements about 3.x, and even ad&d, as well as the ongoing new version coming out. It's a fairly universal thing.

When it's said in a lighthearted, unserious way, it can even help bridge players and DMs that are more entrenched with one version or another because it acknowledges that there's not always compatibility between versions, making play groups harder to arrange since very few people really enjoy learning a new system to play what is (at its core) the same game.

Me and my kid make the same joke to each other, both of us aware that we have played both systems and have a different preference. Me and the DM of my kid's group talk shit about our preferred versions too. And we piss and moan about the difficulties of running games with players that are most familiar with one edition and having trouble adapting years of play experience in one to a different one.

Like, I've got over a grand in 3.x books. At least that, maybe more, I lost track. So I'm not going to pony up a dime to get the equivalent library in 5e, or any future editions. But I've had players from 5e, and ad&d in my games (though I haven't DMed in years at this point). There's always a learning curve to a different edition. It places an artificial barrier of entry to the underlying game. So most people will commit to one version and stick with it.

When they do try others, what they see is changes that are a pain in the ass for fairly minor benefits, along with one or two great ideas. Us 3.x folks look at bounded accuracy, or advantage/disadvantage and drool a little, but there's no way we'd switch just for that when the rest of the edition is just different, not better. 5e folks look at the 3.x prestige classes and how easy they are to home brew and really make a unique character but look at all the imbalances in the base classes and nope the fuck out

And don't even ask about how newer players stare blankly at you while you try to explain thac0. Or how a black hole of despair forms and sucks your brain in trying to explain a truly awkward and counterintuitive system like thac0 in the first place.

There's no such thing as a perfect system. They're all approximations of fantasy settings (I'm talking about standard d&d here, but there's no perfect system in other types of games either), and approximations simply can't fit every situation every time.

So, when some asshole is being serious about "your edition sucks, play a better one", fuck them. It's bullshit, and if they don't know it, they're going to be a shitty player or DM anyway. They're not worth the time and effort. But the rest of us kinda have the shorthand of the trope as a way to say "the problem exists, but we can't fix it". You either put the effort in to learn the details of each edition, or you stick to the one you like best and deal with having more trouble finding stable groups.

No bullshit Stamets, my entire goal was to join in on what I thought was your joke along that same line. I thought you were poking fun at the trope of it, and that's what I was doing. The little winky face ;) didn't do enough to convey that, or maybe your stress over the subject meant nothing would have conveyed the intent of shared recognition of how silly it all is to edition snob. But it definitely failed to convey the intent, no matter why it failed.

Sorry about that. They can't all be winners ¯(ツ)_/¯ but I swear it was meant to be something we'd both have a chuckle over.

My chaps are large, thick, and pendulous too

Gotta be GI Joe. There's a lot of shows that could be in the #2 slot, but that cartoon more than any other really was my childhood favorite. Since I can still watch it without rolling my eyes (though not without some laughter at the silly, cheesy parts), it's gotta be top of the heap.

I'd guess Spider-Man and his amazing friends could almost bump GI Joe off the top spot then, but some of the writing is eye roll territory now. Same with Super Friends, though it wouldn't compete with Spidey.

If I picked a modern one, it would come down to exactly what you think of them in terms of being for kids. But it would be either Johnny Bravo or Powerpuff Girls (but only the original run). Johnny, it's dubious if it was really meant for kids or not, but I laugh at it more than PPG. But the girls hold a special place in my heart just because it was so well done as a kid's show that was watchable as an adult that didn't have kids. I'd watch PPG out of my own enjoyment, where I wouldn't with spongebob or most of the kid's cartoons of that era.

Everything is a dildo if you're brave enough

Dammit!

Anon is totally gay, but the realness present in this text has broken my brain.

Also, that song is still fucking awesome.

Oh hell yes! That's what I'm talking about!