Annoying Questions I'd Like Answered...

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 5:34 am

That's my impression as well, Count, but I've also been burned the worst by other women on jobs. I don't get it, either.

-Crissa

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 9:12 am

Oh, my relationship is totally committed. We're getting married in the near future, living together indefinitely, maybe having one or two babies when we're thirty...

I'm just also making out with other girls. First, because my fiancee's school is far away, and second, because making out requires less effort on my part than NOT making out.

EDIT: Also lesbianism. I dunno, it never appealed to me either.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 1:13 pm

Count_Arioch_the_28th wrote:Here's a question: Why are men obsessed with lesbianism? Every guy I know gets excited to the point of whipping it out and starting to fap right there when they see or hear about it.

I’ll start this with the notion that I don’t get “excited” at the mention of lesbianism. Never the less, there is an element in erotic lesbianism that is identical (at least from a man’s perspective) to heterosexual eroticism from a man’s perspective. To understand this, (and since, damn it, this is a gaming board) I will defer to the wisdom of a famous character of Fritz Leiber, the Gray Mouser. In one story, the Mouser, who is somehow magically transported underground from Rhyme Isle to Lankhmar where he winds up magically viewing the bedroom of the Wererat Hisvet, who is erotically playing (in a master/slave relationship) with her two female servants.

Given his current situation, as well as several near death experiences being trapped underground and a near escape from death’s sister pain, he muses on why he finds watching the threesome so fascinating. I don’t have the actual paperback in front of me, but the gist of the argument was that since he found the naked female form so attractive, he could, on one level, appreciate when someone else had a similar attraction even if that someone else was also female.

(Side note: The implications that it is Leiber and not Tolkien that is the source and core of fantasy role playing has a lot of implications that are generally ignored. Leiber could write erotic fantasy with the best of them. While this is not as obvious in Gygax’s works, we owe him a debt of gratitude for the great “Shadra the Castrator” in he Arduin Grimoire … and if you think the fascination with lesbian eroticism is odd the fascination with homosexual erotica combined with personal threats to ones own genitalia is also odd … note in the above reference the encounter between the Gray Mouser and Pain is in that type of erotic genre.)

Now we can get into the fundamental difference between erotica and porn. Erotica is all in the mind; porn is basically a spectator sport. This is where it gets interesting, since we are dealing with two females, the erotica/porn boundary can shift erotica right into lesbian porn, since there is no clear substitute for the self in the twosome. Sure these are two girls who wouldn’t touch you with a two foot pole (unless they are bi … suspension of disbelief is critical here and threesomes are very erotic) but most erotica requires a suspension of disbelief anyway.

CryptoSolipsist · Post by **CryptoSolipsist** » Sat Oct 31, 2009 1:03 am

tzor wrote:The implications that it is Leiber and not Tolkien that is the source and core of fantasy role playing has a lot of implications that are generally ignored.

Yes! Thank you! I have long held the belief that old-school D&D owes a far greater debt to Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser than it does to Frodo & Samwise. For example, the Thieves Guild plays a prominent role in several stories, and seems to have been lifted almost whole-cloth into D&D. Sure, LotR gave us Orcs and Elves and Dwarves and Trolls, and all that guff, but that's more of a plagiarism issue than anything else. Thematically, you can't go wrong when designing a low-magic low-fantasy campaign if you look to Nehwon for inspiration.

Tzor: Have you read Swords Against the Shadowland? As a general rule, classic literary series that have been picked up by a modern author make me want to puke, but this book left me pleasantly surprised. It didn't have nearly the poetry that Leiber gives to his prose, but it captured the tone well. And there were even a few inspired moments, such as a great scene about a third of the way into it in which Fafhrd has a misadventure running through the alleys of Lanhkmar, buck naked, equipped with his only his greatsword.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Sat Oct 31, 2009 1:29 am

Orcs, elfs, dwarfs and trolls were around long before Tolkien.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Sat Oct 31, 2009 2:14 am

Ahh, but only he wrote them as you see them in today's fiction, shad.

-Crissa

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Sat Oct 31, 2009 2:46 am

No he didn't. He just brought them together from other places into one world.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Oct 31, 2009 10:55 am

shadzar wrote:No he didn't. He just brought them together from other places into one world.

No.

-Username17

CryptoSolipsist · Post by **CryptoSolipsist** » Sat Oct 31, 2009 5:05 pm

See, here's the thing. If I pick up a book and read on the dust jacket that it's about "elves" it really could mean any of a number of things. Are these the elves that are two feet tall, with little blue wings that grant wishes? Are these the elves that steal your babies out of their cribs and transport them to Faerie to be raised for ten years, which is only one week in the real world? Are these Dragaeran elves? Santa's little elves? Mythology is full of them, from all over the map. It was Tolkein that codified "elves" in the way that modern D&D players think of them - slender, mysterious, ageless, beautiful in an overly-sexualized way, but esssentially no more different from humans than the crinkly-forehead-species-of-the-week was on Star Trek. And if you look at, say, dwarves in Norse mythology, you can see that they have more in common thematically with D&D drow than with D&D dwarves. It was Tolkein's version of demi-humans that was lifted straight into Dungeons & Dragons, and thusly many kids these days don't think to look any farther than that for inspiration.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Mon Nov 02, 2009 3:05 pm

CryptoSolipsist wrote:Tzor: Have you read Swords Against the Shadowland?

No, but I'll definitely look into it (actually I one clicked it) because after all my writing for NaNoWriMo I'm going to need some reading material in Devember.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Mon Nov 02, 2009 3:22 pm

CryptoSolipsist wrote:See, here's the thing. If I pick up a book and read on the dust jacket that it's about "elves" it really could mean any of a number of things.

First and foremost, word creep is everywhere. One cannot find a simple definition for any fantasy creature from a historical perspective and names are often given local meanings or are mapped to other names in a haphazard manner.

The Etymology of elf gives us clues to why such a problem might arise as it is a corruption of words going back to Old Norse. Does it come from the Latin albus (white) or the Greek alphos (a white skin disease) or even the Welsh elfydd (earth)? Complex this is and like most fantasy words (with the exception for unique creatures) confusing.

Webster is, however adamant in the two definitions of the word and whatever that definition is; it ain’t Tolkien.

1 : a mythical diminutive being in human form endowed with magical powers and given to beneficial or mischievous interference in human affairs : FAIRY, SPRITE, PIXIE
2 a : a small being or creature : DWARF; especially : a small usually playful or prankish child <the school yard teemed with running, shouting, laughing elves> <a little child, a limber elf -- S.T.Coleridge> b : a mischievous, sly, or malicious person

Finally, let’s consider this one question. What is a Tolkien Elf? I would suggest that there at least two types of Tolkien Elves. The first is the Tolkien Elf as told through the Hobbit; able to walk on the snow without leaving a trace while everyone else sinks into it. The second is the LOTR Tolkien Elf, who is more down to earth and not as fey like.

AD&D clearly had the “Tolkien” grab, but the original D&D where elves were basically a class is debatable, especially since at that time, the notion of elf was also corrupted by comparison to Star Trek (elf as fantasy Vulcan). Gygax’s gnomes originally fit the build of the classic Norse Dwarves.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Mon Nov 02, 2009 7:22 pm

AD&D grabbed a setting that was prototypical Tolkien but the theme was more or less Fritz Leiber, Robert Howard, and some of the others like C.L. moore, and Moorcock.

I don't mean Moorcock in the sense that you have Jerry Cornelius stories but more on the themes of Stormbringer and such.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sun May 30, 2010 10:30 pm

Does anyone here know the difference between hydrocortisone and hydrocortisone acetate?

Quantumboost · Post by **Quantumboost** » Sun May 30, 2010 11:11 pm

Maj wrote:Does anyone here know the difference between hydrocortisone and hydrocortisone acetate?

Not familiar with hydrocortisone itself, but "acetate" would mean that it's essentially dissolved in vinegar - or possibly chemically bonded to the acetic acid.

Either way, it sounds like the difference is how the chemical is packaged and delivered to the body.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Mon May 31, 2010 2:33 am

The doctor told me the get some hydrocortisone cream for my son and the two different kinds were sitting next to each other on the shelf at the store. I have no idea if there's a difference in efficacy, use (there doesn't seem to be on the package), and my googling isn't bringing up any good answers to the question.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon May 31, 2010 2:28 pm

The active ingredient is Cortisol, Acetate is just a buffer. It's like how a bunch of drugs say "HCl" on them because they put some hydrochloric acid in them to make them the right pH.

-Username17

Count Arioch the 28th · Mon May 31, 2010 11:55 pm

I know the Acetyl group in Aspirin makes it less damaging to the stomach lining (Not harmless, but less harsh than straight salicylic acid would be). Perhaps that is why they did it? (Or not, I'm not sure of anything in hydrocortisone that would need buffering like that.)

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Jun 01, 2010 9:03 am

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:I know the Acetyl group in Aspirin makes it less damaging to the stomach lining (Not harmless, but less harsh than straight salicylic acid would be). Perhaps that is why they did it? (Or not, I'm not sure of anything in hydrocortisone that would need buffering like that.)

There's a difference between adding an acetyl group to a molecule and adding acetate to the solution. Acetate is just the conjugate base of vinegar.

-Username17

Count Arioch the 28th · Tue Jun 01, 2010 12:10 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:
Count Arioch the 28th wrote:I know the Acetyl group in Aspirin makes it less damaging to the stomach lining (Not harmless, but less harsh than straight salicylic acid would be). Perhaps that is why they did it? (Or not, I'm not sure of anything in hydrocortisone that would need buffering like that.)
There's a difference between adding an acetyl group to a molecule and adding acetate to the solution. Acetate is just the conjugate base of vinegar.

-Username17

Ah, right. I scraped by 2nd semester chem with a C and a lot of that stuff escaped me.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Tue Jun 01, 2010 10:35 pm

So it should work just as well? Because it's not doing a damned thing, and I'm wondering if I need to buy the plain hydrocortisone versus the hydrocortisone acetate.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Tue Jun 01, 2010 11:57 pm

No, hydrocortisone often doesn't help at the over the counter dosages. Changing brands may change how you apply it - is it a liquid or a cream, etc - and change how it affects the general oiliness or dryness of your skin, but that's it.

If it's not working, go back to the doc.

-Crissa

Count Arioch the 28th · Wed Jun 02, 2010 11:31 am

I had often heard that over-the-counter medicines are uniformly useless because the government is so scared we're going to use them to get high. The only effects that a medicine could have is make you sleep or get you hyped up. This is on purpose.

violence in the media · Wed Jun 02, 2010 12:32 pm

You know, in regards to that rumor, what is the basis for our societal beef against altered states of mind?

I mean, I don't use drugs and rarely drink excessively, but I don't particularly see anything inherently wrong with such things. However, I have a guilty pleasure in reading various advice columnists (Dan Savage, Prudie, Margo, etc) and, with the exception of Savage, the comments section is filled with the most obnoxious collection of hate-edge, pro-prohibition, uptight prudes I've ever seen. And, even beyond the rightful indignation towards fucking up your life, or the lives of your loved ones, is the senseless wrath towards anyone that acknowledges that sometimes it's nice just to relax and get your buzz on. WTF is up with this? Is this just a skewed perception?

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Wed Jun 02, 2010 4:00 pm

Yeah, for instance there's a drug that cure various addictions... But it is also psychotropic. So it is allowed by prescription in some countries, and Schedule 1 in the US.

-Crissa

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Thu Jun 03, 2010 1:07 am

Scheduled drugs are annoying because it requires me to call/see the doctor everytime I want a refill script. Granted, this makes me seems as someone too lazy to make a phone call. But it's absurd to have some drugs not allow the same refill procedures as the rest of them.