Posts made by TNP

1 year, 8 months, and 8 days ago, my little boy Shadow died. One day I noticed he was eating less and losing weight. Then he stopped eating completely. Doctors couldn’t find anything. Less than 3 weeks later, he was dead. He was 14.5 years old. t was horrible. But at least I still had his mother, Sable.

Last week, I noticed she was feeling bonier than normal. She was always thin and underweight but not like this. I took her in for and exam and blood test, hoping it was her thyroid. That’s very treatable. Blood test results, if not normal, didn’t indicate anything that would be the cause, just symptoms. Yesterday she had an ultrasound.

There are masses in her abdomen. Without further, expensive testing, they can’t be absolutely certain but it almost certainly is cancer. The vet said three times how sorry he is. She’s 16.5.

And now I get to go through it all again, this inexorable journey towards a yawning abyss of overwhelming, crushing grief and not even one of my kids left. My heart is breaking already and I can only hope it really does on the day that’s inevitably coming.

@Roz Oh, shit. 2 months after being diagnosed? Fuck cancer. I love this video of him and Aaron Tveit singing “Take Me Or Leave Me” From Rent.

For at least today, for one moment in time, there is justice in the world. This makes me happy.

@Alveraxus said in Celebrities We Lost 2024:

Pete, with all due respect, someone’s gonna put him in something, and people are gonna want to see him.

A coffin. rimshot

That was very good. Congrats, @Coin.

Paul Alexander. Technically not a celebrity but kind of fascinating. He was the last person alive to have been in an iron lung. Back in 1952, he got polio and he was in the iron lung for 72 years. I can’t imagine it.

David Mixner

@Rinel said in Elysium /MUSH:

Back on topic, my favorite not-horrific part of this trainwreck is the flouncing away from the planet where baby goddess mysteriously gained her powers. Fuck you, Earth! You were mean to me about my predilection for preying upon children, so I’m going to go make a new reality!

This plot twist is that it’s all just a holodeck simulation (tempted to call it a stimulation).

Only if they’re 1000 year old vampires.

@icanbeyourmuse Correct. I’ll edit.

So, I’m putting this out here since it’s not been on the news despite it being a huge problem.

On 2/20, Change Healthcare got hacked by the Black Cat ransomware hackers. What is Change Healthcare? They’re the largest clearing house in the US. What’s a clearing house? They’re the middlemen between insurance companies and medical providers/hospitals.

Your doctors and hospitals send their insurance claims to the clearing house which sends them to the insurance companies. The insurance companies send the money to the clearing house which then sends it to the doctors and hospitals. The medical providers also send your prescriptions to the pharmacies which use the clearing house to validate them and file their insurance claims.

Pharmacies are starting to develop work around solutions but it’s made getting prescriptions filled difficult in many cases. Okay, inconvenient for everyone but only a disaster for some, right?

Wrong. The clearing house also has your medical information that is on the insurance claims. And Black Cat, who have claimed responsibility putting any doubt to rest, also has stated they stole 6 Tb of information. (That’s 6 million Mb so you don’t have to do the math.) So basically, anything that’s passed through Change Healthcare might now be in the hands of hackers.

Social Security numbers are not usually on insurance claim forms but your names, addresses, and insurance ID numbers definitely are. Be aware of this. It’s only been 8 days so far and no one has any idea what’s going to happen.

Juerg. That name sounds familiar. Was that the cheese log guy?

When someone shows you who they are, believe them.

I think what it comes down to is this…

It’s very nice to give someone the benefit of the doubt and say ‘Well, maybe they changed.’ But it’s been what, 25 years? (Seriously? That long?) And they’ve proven over and over that they have no interest in changing their behavior. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me two dozen times, I’m an idiot.

Stay away. Stay far, far away.

Wasn’t it Spider who lied about having cancer to get sympathy (and money?)? And Surreality would certainly say they were were dangerous as they did thousands of dollars in damage to Surr’s home and refused to pay a cent.

@watno said in The Arx Secrets Thread:

@TNP said in The Arx Secrets Thread:

The Inquisition? What a show.

Fact: Inquisition meetings were the best meetings.

Everything’s better with a musical number.

The Inquisition? What a show.

You just want the glaive.

Anyone know Jasher’s?

I played him for a while a long time ago. If I recall right, he had the blessing of some god/dess or something but I can’t remember the details and I never fully learned the point of it all or what it really meant. Now I’m curious.