Real-Life Weirdness

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by William

Following up on the new Mozart, we now have new Bram Stoker: a short story called Gibbet Hill, found in a collection overlooked by his catalogers.

People familiar with D&D's "Ravenloft" setting, with its many Domains arranged around the central Domain of Barovia focused on the vampire Strahd von Zarovich, might find it amusing to have Gibbet Hill be a brand new Domain suddenly appearing themed around this story. What mystic ties there are to the writing of an author in some distant world (and the awareness of a given work by the general public) would, of course, remain mysterious.

Bah, the vulgar fiction of a demented Irishman.

Mystic ties and travel between worlds should involve the Dreamlands of H.P. Lovecraft, with liberal thievery from Indo-European mythology, in particular the Poetic Edda, Lord Dunsany, Edgar Alan Poe, Lewis Carroll, Cervantes, Fritz Leiber, Clark Ashton Smith, R.E. Howard, the less well-known Arthur Machen and the inimitable, almost-unreadable, but incredibly imaginative Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Stephen King and Dean Koontz have both done more modern versions of the same, with King's forays into the genre generally far superior, and depending on the players, a bit of Cormac McCarthy might or might not improve the flavour. It's strong spice and an acquired taste, to be sure.

For instructions on how to prepare the meal, turn to the incomparable Ken Hite and his Suppressed Transmission, still the greatest guide to worldbuilding and concepts for campaigns. Of course, you know about the Suppressed Transmission? You'll probably not regret buying anything else written by Hite, such as GURPS Horror, in case you like Horror, GURPS, or just any kind of gaming where horrific things might occasionally appear.

[Irish Wolf]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Bah, the vulgar fiction of a demented Irishman.

Mystic ties and travel between worlds should involve the Dreamlands of H.P. Lovecraft...

Bah, the vulgar fiction of a demented New Englander. :)

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by RyanW

It's a cookbook! It's a cookbook!

It's in the section titled, "Methods of Meat Tenderization."

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by L.J.Steele

Major cheese heist in the Netherlands

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/08/w...therlands.html

Have another one, this time in the UK. Apparently the thieves managed to pose as a French wholesale distributor and tricked them out of 22 metric tons of high-quality cheese. I like to think they discovered the heist when they reached out for payment and got a response of "I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries. Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!" in a ridiculous fake French accent.

[tshiggins]

What happens, now that they've removed the skeleton from the coffin specially equipped to keep her from rising?
https://www.zmescience.com/science/n...olish-vampire/

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

What happens, now that they've removed the skeleton from the coffin specially equipped to keep her from rising?
https://www.zmescience.com/science/n...olish-vampire/

They buried her with the padlock and sickle to make certain she'd never come back to life in any form, and the fact she was buried in such a way compelled researchers to bring her back to life [obi-wan]from a certain point of view[/obi-wan] (remaking her face). Classic self-fulfilling prophecy, that.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Have another one, this time in the UK. Apparently the thieves managed to pose as a French wholesale distributor and tricked them out of 22 metric tons of high-quality cheese. I like to think they discovered the heist when they reached out for payment and got a response of "I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries. Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!" in a ridiculous fake French accent.

Not to be outdone by European dairy-product thieves, the US FDA recently recalled nearly 40 tons of sweet cream butter because (checks notes) they lacked the "Contains Milk" warning label.

Don't get me wrong, lacking proper allergen warnings can be a pretty big deal, and not everyone considers that butter (and cream, which in addition to being in the name is listed in the ingredients list) comes from milk. But I have my doubts that there are people out there who know they are allergic to milk products but don't realize butter is one (in no small part because they've spent the bulk of the lives purposefully avoiding butter, on account of being allergic to it).

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Varyon

. . . everyone considers that butter (and cream, which in addition to being in the name is listed in the ingredients list) comes from milk. But I have my doubts that there are people out there who know they are allergic to milk products but don't realize butter is one (in no small part because they've spent the bulk of the lives purposefully avoiding butter, on account of being allergic to it).

Sufferers, yes. Cooks and servers in restaurants, no. My mother is lactose-intolerant and has been hit by "it was only a little bit of butter" - is that dairy?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Sufferers, yes. Cooks and servers in restaurants, no. My mother is lactose-intolerant and has been hit by "it was only a little bit of butter" - is that dairy?

This was butter for the consumer market, not for restaurants. I could see a small restaurant using it, however. That said, with how hectic a restaurant environment is, I have my doubts that the cooks even have a chance to register any allergen warnings on the containers (if the ones they use even have them - sure, the shipping and storage packaging would probably have such, but they might just empty those out into tubs or similar for later use), so if they don't remember butter is dairy, they probably aren't going to be reminded by the label (but I may be mistaken here).

Notably, unless all those cases happened to your mother prior to 2006 (when it became law that packages need such labels), every single instance of her getting hit with "a little bit of butter" was one where the labels weren't noticed. Although it may well be the case she would have run into more instances if the packages weren't labeled (at the very least, if the cooks are either using the original packaging or are involved in shifting them to whatever they do use, they might be reminded when they see the label and thus be less inclined to forget that when someone says "no dairy" that includes butter).

And, to be fair, the FDA was probably right to issue the recall - rules like this exist for a very good reason, and "Oh, this one isn't that bad" may be a dangerous precedent to set. I just thought it was humorous that they've recalled more than the cheese heists' combined weight, albeit in butter rather than cheese.

[David Johnston2]

Chat GPT can not write the words "David Mayer". It can write them separately, it can write them in reverse order, but it can not put the name "Mayer" after the name "David". It will reset. Clearly David Mayer will be the name of the Chosen One who will defeat the robots when they turn on us.