Brian MacDonald

I was at the time, yeah. It should be noted that I was at an off-site in another time zone, and work was stressful, so my analytical skills may not have been at their sharpest.

"Ambient" is the most likely answer, but when I pressed the button, nothing dispensed.

MERV GRIFFIN!

Ryan, would you deny the world a Hulk / Dolly Parton crossover? How can you be so cruel?

Today on our Speaker 📣 Spotlight 💡 we're highlighting @bmac-editor.bsky.social who will be presenting Verbs, Not Nouns: Writing Documentation Users Want to Read.

Join us April 13 either in-person or virtually to watch. Get your ticket today pytexas.org/2025

I feel very unsettled! Also strange!

Have you heard of the cabal of witches and wizards who provide spells and incantations on a share-alike basis?

They're the open ensorcelled community.

Aww, man! I wanted to see Shattered Windshield, but I read the poster wrong and ended up seeing Drunken Spiderweb instead.

A diagram of a dopamine molecule, rendered in black lines. Text reads: "Congratulations. You've scrolled so far you found the dopamine." Creator: @Funny Cam

You can stop now.

The Empty Promise of AI-Generated Creativity “Are you going to add AI writing to Yarn Spinner?” It’s a question I hear almost weekly these days. Whether at game development conferences, online, or during meetings, there’s an assumption that ever...

Game writers, you'll be glad to know that Yarn Spinner rejects using GenAI.

"What troubles me most is how AI threatens to devalue human creativity by suggesting that the creative process itself—the vision, the intention, the evolution—doesn’t matter."

hey.paris/posts/genai/

Oh wow, what a fun site! I haven't been a regular concert-goer in...well, ever. But I certainly went to more in the 90s than I have recently. This is quite cool.

Oh, we're not interested in living it down. Philly sports fans know a poor performance when they see one, and aren't shy about expressing their opinion.

I'm just saying that story has outlived its shelf life. How about the time the mayor threw snowballs at the Cowboys from the upper deck?

I'm obligated to point out that the Santa Claus incident happened in 1968, over 50 years ago. I think we can safely let it go now?

Also, Santa was falling-down drunk and totally deserved it.

Oh man, my current group playthrough hasn't killed any companions yet! We'll need to get on that.

I overdosed on Counting Crows back in the 90s, so I'd legitimately forgotten how hard the lyrics to this one hit me. "If you think that I could be forgiven / Wish you would."

I have a few of the "nanocoaster" metal roller coaster models. They're not nearly as intricate, but built in the same manner. I've got the tiny tools and a magnifier now, so I sometimes think about fancier metal models, but with your example to guide me, I may be able to resist.

Got a hole-in-one on Wordle today! That's the first time that's happened.

In Philly, I-76 is "the Schuylkill," pronounced roughly "skoo-kul," because of the river it's next to.

I-476 is "the Blue Route," because when it was being planned in 1958, there were three options: red, blue, and green. Guess which was chosen?

I-95 is just I-95, though.

Any day when you see a Space Shuttle is a good day!

Apparently closing coasters forever with no warning is what the cool parks are doing now. Glad I managed a last ride on Nighthawk in October.

Because, my dude, people know top-notch writing when they see it.

Probably not going to ride any more coasters this year, so it's stats time. It was a weird year for me, and I skipped the whole summer.

New credits: 14. No change to my top 10, but a couple in my top 25.
New parks: 2.
New to my "defunct creds from Great Adventure" list: 2, for a total of 7 <sigh>

Oh, I'm gonna need to check that out. And set up a bridge, since my builds for the past couple years are all on Mastodon.

Theme park community intro post:

Fav park - Hersheypark
Fav coaster - Fury 325
Fav dark ride - meh?
Fav season - Summer
Bucket list park - Nagashima Spa Land
Last park visited - Carowinds
Last coaster ridden - Fury 325
Coaster count - 254