"Why did the soda cost go up?"

I've spent all summer bemoaning cost of food.

And yet I'm still surprised and dismayed when 20oz coke zeros cost more than 3$ yesterday

@tess @NineIsntPrime

Ivalice

What length needle for IM estrodial?

Prior to last night I only was interested in the world cup to mock friends for their favorites struggling against Cape Verde.

And now I'm memorizing the mexican team players and their histories

Except gotee face. I don't like his gotee

Unless you dear reader can tell me how to download those libraries that is.

So I couldn't get steam to run Shogun 2.

So I lookedinto their script.

and found they were running "/config/filename.sh" instead of "config/filename.sh"

Fixing that in the script caused the script to run fine up to the point where it checked if I was running from steam.

So I commented out the steam check.

Then I finally found the errors. It was at this point I decided my clever investigation was done and that I was just putting in a support ticket.

I'm both happy I found out what libraries I was missing and sad that I don't know how to install them.

=====================================
me@pop-os:~/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Total War SHOGUN 2$ bash Shogun2.sh
sh: 1: cd: can't cd to Shogun2.sh
TADA
/home/me/.local/share/feral-interactive/Total War SHOGUN 2
Preloading libc private symbol hack
ERROR: ld.so: object '$ORIGIN/../lib/private_symbol_hack.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (cannot open shared object file): ignored.
ERROR: ld.so: object '$ORIGIN/../lib/private_symbol_hack.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (cannot open shared object file): ignored.
=== ERROR - You're missing vital libraries to run Total War SHOGUN 2
=== Either use the steam runtime or install these using your package manager
ERROR: ld.so: object '$ORIGIN/../lib/private_symbol_hack.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (cannot open shared object file): ignored.
libtbb.so.2 => not found
libMiles.so => not found
libMilesMidi.so => not found
libvorbis.so.0 => not found
libcurl.so.4 => not found
libssl.so.37 => not found
libcrypto.so.36 => not found
libSDL2-2.0.5.so => not found
libSDL2_image-2.0.1.so => not found
libcef.so => not found
libpdf.so => not found
libfreetype.so.6 => not found
libfontconfig.so.1 => not found
libdbus-1.so.3 => not found

libgomp.so.1 => not found

ERROR: ld.so: object '$ORIGIN/../lib/private_symbol_hack.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (cannot open shared object file): ignored.
ERROR: ld.so: object '$ORIGIN/../lib/private_symbol_hack.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (cannot open shared object file): ignored.
Shogun2.sh: line 211: bin/Shogun2: No such file or directory

Why do I always want people to review MY WRITING but I never want to review OTHER PEOPLE'S WRITING

The Empress of Heaven, most benevolent wife of the Sun Emperor, shining jewel of the stars, had been holding a tea party. She had, out of an abundance of being nosy, invited all of Heaven’s staff and servants and minor guests, so that she and her attendants could judge them on their fitness for promotion to staff of the inner court.

There was a fifteen course meal followed by dancing and preceded by a 37 step tea ceremony. She announced this event with a complete list of all sub events and of all grading criteria a few decades in advance to give everyone a chance to “do their best and earn heaven’s rest”.

It was very very intricate.

The problem as Mor saw it, wasn’t in the planning, or in the detail. Although there could have been maybe a little better investigation of the invite list. The problem was that the event was happening at all.

Mor was forced to attend, being a guest of heaven, for well, a long time now. And in attending was forced to sit at the table and practice manners. This was not something Mor had any intention of doing but she had learned it was easier to passively go along than to directly resist and thus took the path of least resistance. Until the Subchancellor of the Department of the color of flowers started sneezing of course.

She’d been waiting nearly an hour for the morning glory petal she slipped into his sandwich to take effect. She’d almost given up, but then he sneezed, and kept sneezing and almost collapsed backwards out of his chair. It was quite scandalous, and drew enough attention for Mor to slip down under the table out of sight and start reading her book.

She’d made it through the bit where the barbarian is ravishing a village. And past the bit where the barbarian climbed an unclimbable wall. She had gotten to the bit where she thought “this is getting good” and was pretty sure someone was going to be kissed quite salaciously soon… when someone stepped on her ankle.

The pain and annoyance brought her out of the book and she was about to snarl at whoever was so stupid; when she heard the tinkle of china hitting a marble floor, and the liquidy sound of liquid splashing all over the floor. The tea… might have been heavenly once. But even heavenly tea turns into floor tea when it is dropped on the floor. And no one wants floor tea.

In her excitement it seems that she had slowly inched her way from the safe center of the table to the unsafe edge, and her foot, kicking happily at future thoughts of salacious kissing had gone past the unsafe edge into the very very unsafe out-from-under portion of the table. There, it had found a dutiful chancellor of tea doing his duty and very very focused in his work as he carefully walked the tea over to the table of the Empress without so much as causing a ripple in its surface….until of course, the bit with the foot and the tinkling broken china.

Mor didn’t have much memory of the next bit. There was a hushed shocked sound that accompanies events that will be discussed for several decades. She’s pretty sure the chancellor of tea died a 2nd time on the spot out of shame and his soul fled from heaven never to be heard from again. Someone flipped the table off of her and hauled her to her feet, they didn’t even let her mark her spot in her book.

She was pulled in front of the Empress of Heaven, most benevolent wife of the Sun Emperor, shining jewel of the stars and pushed to her knees.

The Empress of Heaven, most benevolent wife of the Sun Emperor, shining jewel of the stars’s voice was too precious to be heard by mere guests of heaven and so she whispered into her chief handmaiden’s ear, who then whispered into the sub-chief handmaiden’s ear, who then whispered….. It took eight people okay. Eight. Eventually they got to someone who was deemed low enough to speak to a mere guest of heaven.

“You, lowly and degenerate worm, foolish fool of scholars, who has no grace, and no maiden. You have defaced the teapot of the Empress of Heaven, most benevolent wife of the Sun Emperor, shining jewel of the stars. You have embarrassed all of creation. You are not worthy of standing in these halls any longer. You will be cast out!”

A shocked murmur rushed through the surrounding… witnesses? She wasn’t sure what to call them. People get offended if you simply say guests. Whatever they were, they were certainly murmuring.

“But the Empress of Heaven, most benevolent wife of the Sun Emperor, shining jewel of the stars is merciful and just and will leave a path to repentance. Collect from the bottom of the sky a bride. She has been gifted with the grace of heaven and will need to travel here. Provide her protection and you will be granted as a reward two more tasks that you may regain your status as the least of all immortals.”

At this announcement the guards pulled her to her feet, hauled her across the floor to the nearest window and threw her out.

Any suggestions for fantasy or scifi books where the protagonist is a woman over 40?

I made a dark bargain.

I found a obsidian blade and picked it up and a dark haired lady in a long flowing green ballroom dress appeared.

"Hello. My name is Lucinin. I can unlock your true potential if you want to make a bargain. Are you interested?"

She held out her hand.

I wish I could tell you there was trepidation. I wish I could tell you I thought carefully. But I didn't. I already knew that I didn't like myself or my current situation and really any change had to be an improvement.

I took her hand.

She picked up the obsidian blade and drove it into my chest. There was a sound like glass cracking, or crunching eggshells, or reality splintering. The blade was gone.

I looked at her.

“I don’t feel any different.”
“You will.”

I looked at me.
“I don’t look any different.”
“You will.”

“How will I know?”
“When you see me in the mirror and not in your mind.”
“How long will it take?”
“The time that is needed and appropriate for you.”

“Will other people be able to tell?”
“Yes. Most will notice before you will. They will tell you but you won’t believe them.”
“I’ll believe them.”
She looks at me sadly.
“No you won’t. But try anyways.”

“When will it be done?”
“When you no longer think about that question.”

And then she was gone.