snakes - even relatively small and/or totally harmless snakes. They absolutely terrify me - even seeing them gives me the heebeejeebies.

Well I also have 2 Mosin Nagants (the 91/30 and an m-44 edition) as well as a TT-33.

I figured the SKS was the safest bet because the Nagants would've created a bit of a mess, and I didn't want to get close enough for the pistol to be reliable (my long range pistol aim is abysmal) lol.

Here is another fun story

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So, I have this 4 car garage, I use it for my car - the 2 car attached to the house is full of random crap I've collected and old furniture that I don't feel like taking to the dump yet. For several years I would walk across the yard to said garage, and then open the door - it's a big metal door and so sometimes it's a bit sticky, and sometimes I would slam my shoulder into it to help it open up a bit.

So, I open the door one day to head to the grocery store, and as I turn the knob and push the door back something falls from above my head and hits my hand and then lands on the ground with a wet slapping sound - it's a black rat snake. It had somehow gotten into the garage and was climbing up the door to find a way out or make its home in the attic of the garage perhaps. It spent a moment writhing in pain on the floor, and I ran and got the automatic opener to open the garage door to give it the opportunity to leave. Mostly, I was just thankful it didn't land on my head because I probably would've had a break with reality.

I have a treaty with all snakes - since they give me the willies and I don't like seeing them at all - that I can see them *one* time and then if I find the same snake in the same spot again 24 hours later I will execute them with a shovel.

So, I go back out to the garage, no sign of Mr. Snakey, so I get in the car, do my shopping, get home, etc. Still no sign of Mr. Snakey.

The next morning I go to take kiddo to school, and open the door and there is that damn snake just waiting at the door - it's quite large perhaps 1 1/2 feet in length. And that was when I went and grabbed my shovel - but it made the right decision and fled out the door and into the swamp. I've never seen it again, peaceful relations have continued since.

2-3 years ago my house flooded and I had to completely gut the downstairs and replace some of the studs in the walls due to their having gotten water logged. It was awful.

I did have homeowner's insurance and paid myself (since I did most of the repair/remodel myself) but I also spent about 1/2 the money on a pump system. Said pump system came with a gaurentee to keep the house dry so long as it doesn't actually come under water (the house was never underwater, it seeped in from the ground).

Fast forward to this last week, and we get massive rains - and the stupid pump doesn't work - I guess I should've tested it at some point after winter, but whatever. I call, can't get a repair guy out here till the next day. So, I walked the 1 1/2 miles to my neighbor's (the road was flooded out and I already kerplunked my car in flood waters once before so I'm not gonna risk it again), who has a pool, and asked if she had a pump of some kind - she did - so I take her pump, throw it down in the hole where my stupid pump is supposed to be working but isn't - the hole is entirely filled with water and is about to flood me out again.

So I rig the pump with some garden hose and feed the hose out the nearest window, and extend it out away from the house into the small pond which is normally my front yard, and brace said window with bath towels so that rain + cold air doesn't come in the window or get in around the hose.

Crisis averted.

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I live in a swamp and so swamp creatures occasionally visit or try to take up residence from time to time in some of my buildings (I have 2 garages, one is 4 car the other is 2 car, and a small tool shed). My son and I were out doing some stuff when I noticed this racoon flopping around under a tree. Now, normally, I would just let it be, because raccoons tend not to be that much of a bother to me since my house, and all my buildings, are made of brick, so they can't really get into anything. This poor thing was really ragged looking, you could see its ribs, and it was stumbling all around and could barely walk. So I tell the kiddo to go inside, and try to engage in a mission of mercy.

I get my kiddo's little red wagon, and put a plastic dish in there, fill it with water, and then got a hot dog and laid it out on a plate, and slowly moved the wagon into position near to the sickly raccoon - I figure perhaps its just dehydrated.

I go inside and watch it from a window (so as not to scare it). It doesn't pay any attention to the food and water and just keeps fumbling around and arching up at nothing (showing aggression).

So, I made the decision that this poor thing was too far gone to be saved, went upstairs, and loaded up my SKS. I walked out into the front yard - it didn't notice me - and I shot it 3 times in rapid secession.

So then I dug a little raccoon grave for it, put the hot dog in there so it could take it to raccoon Valhalla, and then covered the deceased creature with tin foil and buried it (you have to do that here or some other critter will dig up the grave and spread whatever disease it had).

My first failure as a medic :(

I try to get 5 1/2 to 6 hours of sleep a night - and then once the weekend hits we're in 3-4 hours territory lol Or none at all :D

I don't really care for coffee - I'm down with tea though.

Refurbed electronics are actually usually a REALLY good deal for the consumer here is why:

The item was sent back to the manufacturer for some reason - that could be anything from an incorrect order (I ordered a Black edition HDD but instead received a Green), to a damaged/opened package, listed components were left out of the original package, original package was mislabeled, or the item didn't work and was returned, etc. It could also mean that something was broken and has since been repaired.

Typically, refurbed electronics are MUCH more heavily inspected and tested than standard production models (often they are USED directly to ensure they function correctly - this is particularly true of refurb peripherals such as keyboards) - because the item has to be signed off on by at least one QA tech before it can be sold again.

Now my forewarning here, is that if you intend to buy a refurbished product, particularly something you intend to use for a while (like an HDD), once you find a refurb for sale, you should hunt around for additional refurbs or any news articles regarding recalls. If you see a *lot* of refurbs of one particular item, that means there is some sort of production problem or design flaw in play, and you should avoid purchasing that item unless you're totally desperate or the price is so low that you can't say no.

If you can find a major brand HDD (western digital is my favorite) labelled as a refurb - on Ebay for example (several distributors list refurb items direct to ebay since they sometimes have trouble selling them to retail outlets) I'd jump on it as long as there isn't a recall on or there aren't tons of other refurbs out there at the time.

But when it comes to HDDs, especially if it's your only HDD it pays to wait it out and save up to buy something good, because trying to recover data off of a dead drive is super annoying lol.

This medic player wants it gone, but you know - the only reason I'm posting here is because Breloom did - holy crap a blast from the past lol.

I was honestly a pretty big fan of defy's posting of 0 text and only communicating through pornographic images back on NATF2. The lewdness of the image indicated progressive levels of disapproval.

should the game live 3 more years, I'll unleash my son on TF2 - he's been playing MGE since he was 4... he's 9 now.

Huge shoutout to Marmadog for taking my place for the second set - I had to work 12 hours today and host a party afterwords so there was absolutely no way I would survive on 1-2 hours of sleep lol. He's my forever MVP.

I'll be available to cast any day other than this Friday :D lol Hopefully something can get worked out.

Nah I wasn't try to call you out botmode is just did a little explaining there so newer folks who perhaps didn't play long ago would have some frame of reference.

I miss shotgun roamer though - but I know that's never coming back :( lol. Solly rotation play was so much fun for me lol.

I see what you're saying botmode - but solly wasn't so bad back in the day and here is why:

Presently, you shoot things, and die. They get arrowed, and now you've died for nothing. Whereas without arrows they're AT BEST taking 24/hp second if their medic is attached to them and healing nobody else. This does two important things. Either hurt people will b-line to their medic (as they no longer do typically) which will draw a team together making them easier targets for your other splash wielding teammates, or they have to leave the area and get a pack - which makes their movement very predictable in transition fights, or outright takes them out of the fight altogether for an extended period of time.

Basically solly (particularly roamer) trades survivability and not having to worry about kritz heals and buffs as much - for having to worry about kritz heals and buffs again, but their damage is much more meaningful.

I mean it used to be a viable strat for roamer to just sit back and spam rockets at the enemy med on last pushes because all the hurt people would run to their med and you'd farm free kills - I can't name the last time I've seen that in a game in the last year+

They're overreacting, the game is far better without them. I could understand newer players being nervous about it since they've probably only played *with* healing arrows - but trust me it's just a better game without them. You can still get flashy frags, you can still heal people, uber timings are a lot more predictable (thus you look like an idiot less often), and you don't have to deal with teammates you can barely see hollering for arrows all the time.

I mean needles man... https://youtu.be/KnlscKfch54?t=23

I would be completely in favor of banning arrows here is why:

A *primary* part of playing medic, and in fact an intrinsic design decision that was made in the beta, was the concept of "critical" aka "kritz" heals. It encourages players who are hurt to back up and wait a moment before going in again as opposed to dying and waiting for respawn.

Arrows completely break that entire mechanic by allowing you to heal for absurd amounts to anybody who can stand still for a fraction of a second. The problem that it introduces into comp is that it makes it a lot easier to escape situations where you should certainly die by standing still for a bit, especially if there is some cover nearby. It also breaks up transition fights because the medic can ignore kritz heal and just arrow everybody to full in a greatly reduced period of time relative to the slowest heal rate.

The fact that they also screw up uber timings is also damaging to the game because it screws up one of the primary assumptions that people make when playing. /

I'm not totally opposed to arrows, and I'm not totally opposed to them granting *some* healing, but they should fire much more slowly and provide much less healing, and until they do that it's just silliness.

Not to mention that they also make playing as a team more difficult because peoples' health numbers can change tremendously just by taking an unseen arrow (making soldier more difficult, since your sacrifices are often reduced to nothing in a matter of seconds as long as a medic player can hit an arrow). In ye olden days if you would get something out of comming damage numbers, because you knew how much HP x person had and could try to block their access to healthpacks or their medic. But now they can just shoot an arrow from relative safety and their buddy gets 60+ hps.