Peter Drake, he/him, LFHCfS 🔥 @peterdrake@social.cleverlibre.org

@cy@mstdn.io There's a whole world of indy RPGs if you want to avoid WotC. Also, you can do it with just paper books; the publisher never knows what you do with them.

@cy@mstdn.io

On mutual aid societies, I know someone involved in one (admittedly in Portland). While there is definitely an anarchist protest bent, they've also been doing things like delivering water to the unhoused during the heat and taking people to the hospital when they show signs of heatstroke.

I imagine this sort of group is harder to find the farther you get into the suburbs, but I did see this:

https://pamplinmedia.com/bvt/15-news/520768-415924-beaverton-food-project-brings-mutual-aid-ethos-to-suburbs

While I'm not one to recommend a church, I understand the Unitarians don't really insist on any particular belief.

NextDoor aims to do some of the things you're aiming for, but in practice fails pretty hard. Most of the posts are either "stop letting your dog poop on my lawn", "I saw a brown person in the neighborhood", or "does anyone happen to have a carburetor for a '62 Buick that I could have for free?". Still, if someone was to announce a block party, that's where they'd probably do it.

It looks like you've tried a lot of things that I might have recommended. Why didn't those work out? I've found, e.g., the gaming community to be very supportive.

People can get into something (as you mention about Pokemon Go) too much, but maybe sometimes what they're getting into *is* community. When a roleplaying group starts they might all have their faces in their rulebooks, but after they've been playing for a few months half the session is just chatting among friends.

I hope these thoughts are helpful.

@cy@mstdn.io I don't know any more about this organization, but it may be worth a try.

Other thoughts:

Pokemon Go

Mutual aid societies

Blood donation (if you are eligible)

Most of all, get out there and try something. If one particular thing turns out not to be for you, at least you spent an hour or two with other people.

@cy@mstdn.io How about volksmarching? There's an event coming up:

https://my.ava.org/event-view.php?sn=121674

(Hopefully the smoke will have died down by then.)

My thought is that doing something *with* other people could be a step up. If there's a sport or game you're interested in, that could work, too.

@cy@mstdn.io Can you ... go to a park?

Oregon landscape crispiness status:

'I'll go,' said Hornblower. He could not trust Jones or the marines. He could trust no one but himself. He seized the reel of quick match and squeezed through the shattered door. There were timbered steps under his feet, but he expected that and so did not fall down them. He crouched under the roof and felt his way down. There was a landing and a turn, and then more steps, much darker, and then his outstretched hands touched a hanging curtain of serge. He thrust this aside and stepped cautiously beyond it. Here it was utterly black. He was in the magazine. He was in the area where the ammunition party would wear list slippers, because nailed shoes might cause a spark to ignite the gunpowder. He felt cautiously about him; one hand touched a wall of cartridges, serge cylinders ready filled, and the other hand touched the harsh outline of a cask. Those were the powder-barrels--his hand involuntarily withdrew itself, as though it had touched a snake. No time for that sort of idiocy, he was surrounded by violent death.

He drew his cutlass, snarling in the darkness with the intensity of his emotion. Twice he stabbed into the wall of cartridges, and his ears were rewarded by the whispering sound of a cascade of powder-grains pouring out through the gashes he had made. He must have a firm anchorage for the fuse; and he stooped and sank the blade of the cutlass into another cartridge. He unravelled a length of quick match and wound a bight firmly round the hilt, and he buried the end in the pile of powder-grains on the floor; an unnecessarily careful measure, perhaps, when a single spark would set off the explosion. Unreeling the quick match behind him, carefully, very carefully, lest he jerk the cutlass loose, he made his way out past the curtain again, and up the steps, up into the growing light, round the corner. The light through the broken door was dazzling, and he blinked as he came out crouching through it, still unreeling the quick match.

Halfway through Dungeons of Dreadrock, a satisfying dungeon puzzler.

#VideoGames #android

I suppose I could straighten my hair and go as a Chris Pine meme for Halloween.

@jalefkowit Popes also get to choose their official names, and I'm told there hasn't yet been a Sixtus the Sixth.

A variable is a thing that varies.

For a computer scientist, it varies over time (including multiple runs of a program).

For a statistician, it varies over a population.

For a mathematician, it varies over possible universes.

@worldsendless Yup! It should be the first hit in a web search.

I wish Mastodon had such a thing.

@worldsendless Advanced Twitter search.

#pdx #portland #voting

I need to find a new #Android #podcast app. The default Google app commits the unforgivable sin of occasionally just throwing out all information on which episodes I've already listened to.

"Or, hear me out, you could just stay in bed all day." #Violet #dogsofmastodon

@errant This changes nothing for me.

It looks to be a good year for Fire Arts. There were close to 50 people there tonight. They're very excited, and we've only DESCRIBED actual fire to them.

#FireArts #FireDance #fire #dance

Dipping my toes into Nebulous: Fleet Command. This looks like the sort of game that will take some time to master the controls, but be satisfying when I reach that level. The atmosphere is good -- feels like you're commanding military spacecraft. The tutorials are clean so far.

#NebulousFleetCommand #VideoGames #SpaceCombat