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johnperich.com
cod:mw:gerd
@johnperich.com
1.1K followers 330 following 8.9K posts
Callin' yourself educated for writin' a thesis is like gettin' held up by the bank teller!

Short TTRPGs: https://professorcoldheart.itch.io/
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johnperich.com
cod:mw:gerd @johnperich.com · Nov 22
To introduce my #ttrpg work to new followers (hi!), to document my actual work, and to fend off impostor syndrome, here's a list of everything I've published or worked on this year:

First, FLY FROM MONTGOMERY, a 3rd-party scenario for LANCER. A desperate heist on a war-torn planet!
Fly From Montgomery: A LANCER Scenario by ProfessorColdheart
Mercenary scavengers undertaking a desperate heist in a world on the brink. For LL0 Lancer PCs.
professorcoldheart.itch.io
Reposted by cod:mw:gerd
bloomberg.com
Protesters thwarted a planned immigration operation in Lower Manhattan, forcing federal agents into retreat after blocking the ramp of a Department of Homeland Security parking garage near Chinatown.
Protesters Disrupt Federal Immigration Action in Lower Manhattan
Protesters thwarted a planned immigration operation in Lower Manhattan, forcing federal agents into retreat after blocking the ramp of a Department of Homeland Security parking garage near Chinatown.
bloom.bg
November 29, 2025 at 10:52 PM
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theworldsgreatestwriter.com
God keeps giving me His easiest battles and it’s really fucking up my self-esteem
November 29, 2025 at 10:30 PM
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oulipien.bsky.social
Hat bearing the text "no useful generalizations are possible about the attitudes either women or fish bear to me"
November 29, 2025 at 8:53 PM
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alana-m-vincent.net
We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it.
Thomasina: But instead, the Egyptian noodle made carnal embrace with the enemy who burned the great library of Alexandria without so much as a fine for all that is overdue. Oh, Septimus! -can you bear it? All the lost plays of the Athenians! Two hundred at least BG Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides-thousands of poems, Aristotle's own library brought to Egypt by the noodle's ancestors! How can we sleep for grief? Septimus: By counting our stock. Seven plays from Aeschylus, seven from Sophocles, nineteen from Euripides, my lady! You should no more grieve for the rest than for a buckle lost from your first shoe, or for your lesson book which will be lost when you are old. We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it. The missing plays of Sophocles will turn up piece by piece, or be written again in another language. Ancient cures for diseases will reveal themselves once more. Mathematical discoveries glimpsed and lost to view will have their time again. You do not suppose, my lady, that if all of Archimedes had been hiding in the great library of Alexandria, we would be at a loss for a corkscrew?
November 29, 2025 at 6:15 PM
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gregjenner.bsky.social
Farewell to a modern great

Playwright Sir Tom Stoppard dies at 88 www.bbc.com/news/article...
Playwright Sir Tom Stoppard dies at 88
www.bbc.com
November 29, 2025 at 5:12 PM
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seantcollins.com
1966 Commissioner Gordon talking to Chief O'Hara via a word balloon
November 29, 2025 at 3:03 PM
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robdelaney.bsky.social
Bong Joon Ho hit me up for the squad you legend deadline.com/2025/11/bong...
Bong Joon Ho took a characteristically radical approach when questioned on his thoughts around the rise of Al technology at the jury press conference of the Marrakech Film Festival on Saturday. The Korean director, who is president of the jury, gave two responses, one measured, the other deeply personal. "My official answer is, Al is good because it's the very beginning of the human race finally seriously thinking about what only humans can do. But my personal answer is, I'm going to organize a military squad, and their mission is to destroy AI," he said.
November 29, 2025 at 12:49 PM
johnperich.com
Great thing about being a lapsed Catholic: I have just as much authority to lecture people on the 1HRCA Church as the "tradcaths" do, and I think it sucks! And they can't say shit! I'm baptized! I'm confirmed! My ticket is just as valid as yours and we're both getting off at the same stop!
November 29, 2025 at 5:28 PM
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dieworkwear.bsky.social
calmly explaining why we shouldn't bomb random venezuelan boats to people who argued we should torture random iraqis and then won an election by saying they were against a war they advocated for
November 29, 2025 at 4:35 AM
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oldfriend99.bsky.social
Bernie Taupin: I have some lyrics for you Elton. I expect the music on my desk by Monday morning

Elton John: Yes sir Mr Taupin sir
November 28, 2025 at 11:39 PM
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johnrogers.bsky.social
It was Downey who coined the phrase in the LEVERAGE writers room “future episodes do not win out over present episodes”. Trust me, you’ll have more ideas. You’ll die full of them.
antonyjohnston.bsky.social Antony Johnston @antonyjohnston.bsky.social · May 21
WRITING TIP, something simple but it catches many of us out: if you have a great/fun idea for your story, *use it now*.

Don’t save your ideas for some nebulous other story you might write tomorrow. I promise you’ll have more.

Break your story’s status quo. Go a step further. Use the big idea.
November 29, 2025 at 2:42 PM
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jessehawken.bsky.social
"Life goes on. A man becomes preeminent, he's expected to have enthusiasms. Enthusiasms, enthusiasms. What are mine? What draws my admiration? What is that which gives me joy?"
The Pope holding the gift of a baseball bat in the aisle of a commercial flight
November 29, 2025 at 1:23 PM
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leonardpierce.bsky.social
I cannot emphasize this enough:

If all communism did was remove the vast wealth and power a handful of impossibly rich assholes have to spend on ridiculous, poisonous horseshit they inevitably use to discipline labor, it would improve life in ways that would seem positively miraculous
carnage4life.bsky.social Dare Obasanjo @carnage4life.bsky.social · 2d
A study by Dayforce shows 87% of executives use AI for work, compared to 57% of managers and just 27% of employees.

I think this explains the massive disconnect we see in how CEOs talk about AI versus everyone else. It also raises the question of how useful it truly is for frontline work?
Execs are embracing AI more than their employees are, new research suggests
Research from HR software company Dayforce suggests that executives are leaning into AI far more than their employees.
www.businessinsider.com
November 29, 2025 at 4:23 PM
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gravelinfluencer.bsky.social
The Boston Globe identified the companies in Massachusetts that employ the most SNAP recipients. A key stat: "In Massachusetts, 74% of working-age recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are employed, half of them full-time."

Full article: www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/28/m...
Number of SNAP recipients Amazon 2,456 Walmart 2,318 Uber 1,799 DoorDash 1,462 Tempus Unlimited 1,425 Stop & Shop 989 Mass General Brigham 956 Dollar Tree 952 Albertsons Companies, Inc. 896 Bayada Home Health 887
November 29, 2025 at 3:55 PM
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moochava.bsky.social
One element not mentioned: teenagers today saw the hard-working, earnest, dedicated millennial generation study hard and get good grades and choose all the best classes and extracurriculars and then get obliterated by our no-jobs-for-anyone economy. Kids today saw what hard work gets you.
November 29, 2025 at 4:47 PM
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jesbattis.bsky.social
When I ask them: "What are you reading? What are you watching? What are you listening to?" Often, the answer is: nothing. Which has a direct effect on their over-use of prompts and AI, because they can't think of ideas, because they are literally not engaging with a single figurative thing.
November 28, 2025 at 10:33 PM
johnperich.com
ah fuck yeah crush this up and put it under my tongue
November 29, 2025 at 1:41 PM
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nedraggett.bsky.social
Hell with it, I'm just going to post the whole thing here via screencap and alt text. It's Kaleb Horton, man, his writing always deserves the second read, especially since it could have just easily been lost forever like so much else. Read it, share it.
A look at forgotten Hollywood landmarks By Kaleb Horton Let's say you come in from down south, and you're looking for an unsung movie landmark. So you fly in to LAX, rent a car, blow right past Hollywood, leave Los Angeles county heading north, go over the Grapevine, gape at the monumental hills and, wow, there really is a Smokey Bear Road, then you turn off the air conditioner when the sign tells you. Once you come down the grade too fast and see the world's loneliest Denny's, you're well on your way to what you're looking for – the middle of nowhere. You're going to Kern County to find the spot where Alfred Hitchcock filmed one of the greatest scenes in movie history, the crop duster sequence from "North by Northwest." It takes place in Indiana, of course, but the Indiana road sign and the imported corn field can't deceive this Bakersfield native. The parched and desolate heat of the scene feels too much like Kern County. The scene people know off-hand — Cary Grant running from an airplane — isn't why "North by Northwest" is a classic. The film's greatness, as was often the case for Hitchcock, lies in its build-up, its suspense, its mood. The plane moment is almost anticlimax. It is those five minutes before Grant's desperate escape that constitute a mathematically perfect suspense scene. So expert is Hitchcock's hand that he creates suspense, a slow burning dread, with no camera tricks and no music in broad daylight. Grant's character is a prototypical James Bond. His perfect suit, fast wit, high-alcohol tolerance and effortless charisma have got him out of every predicament so far. In the city, among people, he has powers. Take him away from people, put him nowhere, and he's just like us — totally helpless. He has no powers: His suit is no good out here; his million-dollar tailoring and perfect haircut is just vanity now. No amount of pretending can provide escape. Here, is the one place where he can die, and he gets by on the grace of God. All he can do is wait for what's coming. So when you seek the lost landmark of this scene, you're looking for an idea as much as a place. You're on Highway 99 now, going 30 miles north of Bakersfield, looking for an unassuming patch of dirt that carries spiritual weight. The scene was filmed neart Garces Highway to the west of Delano. You'll think there's a handy exit for it. There's not. You'll probably get lost in Delano, counting on a connection. You're at once a million miles from Hollywood and a hundred miles away. It's lonely. The horizon sprawls forever like there's nothing past it. There are broken down trucks on the side of the road, plumes of smoke from faraway fires. You'll find Garces eventually. You'll pass a bar called Rosy's Place, abandoned houses, an oil field, a prison, a cemetery, a sign that says "we clean headstones," and a whole lot of gold-on-brown punctuated by an occasional trailer or car going faster than you. You're looking for where Garces meets Corcoran Road. That's where this "North by Northwest" scene was filmed. You'll get a vague idea where it is but you'll never be exactly sure, since there's little impetus for clear signage 10 miles from a prison. Maybe Corcoran Road is unlabeled. Besides, that Indiana sign and the prop cornfield haven't been there in 56 years. If you're anything like me, you'll lose the light and call it a day, unsatisfied with the route you took. You return to I-5 northbound. From the 5, you'll meet Route 46, and go through a place called Lost Hills, then back in to the location from Corcoran Road instead. That's how Hitchcock probably did it. More intuitive. Still in the middle of nowhere, but on your way to Corcoran Road, you're right next to another Hollywood landmark: Blackwells Corner, James Dean's last stop. It's a glorified Texaco, and gas is 50 cents a gallon more than it should be. They sell Jelly Bellys and '50s kitsch artifacts — plates with Marilyn Monroe's face on them, and so forth. They really figured out how to cash in on death. You don't want to stop here. But I stopped. I asked the kid at the Blackwells Corner counter how to get to Corcoran Road. He gave me a look that said "there's no reason to go there," and then wearily told me where to go anyway. I was about 8 miles from the destination. Going there is a meditative experience. You're not just going to the middle of nowhere. You're going to the perfect nowhere. Going alone, in the hypnotic heat of the Central Calfiornia Valley, you might even forget what year it is. There is no reason to believe the road would be so well preserved for half a century, intimately tied to the career of an actor born in Bristol 111 years ago, but it has been. There's an abandoned house. A barn with a cross on it. But almost nothing has changed in 56 years. At some point new lines were added on the road. There's overgrowth where there didn't used to be overgrowth. A couple discarded Budweiser cans from who knows when, but mostly it's identical. This is the same sleepy loneliness that Alfred Hitchcock used to make great art in 1959. And that may sound dull, but tranquility is the point. You stand on that dirt and there's no distraction from what's in your soul. It's an inner destination, not an outer one. I told my grandma about it when I got back to Bakersfield. She told me her Uncle Harold thought it was the prettiest road in America. And she showed me a picture of a Corcoran grade school class posing in the dirt with Grant and Hitchcock. It's just a field trip picture. The kids are fidgeting, many with arms folded, some shielding their eyes from the sun, all with obedient smiles. They'd all be in their sixties now, but they'd remember where this road is. It emphasized the ugliness of James Dean's last stop becoming a place to sell T-shirts. It's about what we preserve, and what we don't, and what we remember, and what we don't. It's easy to find shrines to morbidity and hard to find meaningful places. For those, you have to go looking.
November 26, 2025 at 9:52 PM
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cjfrieman.bsky.social
We can read 4000 year old texts. We can't open 20 year old digital documents
November 28, 2025 at 11:18 PM
johnperich.com
HOT TAKE: your TTRPG does not need a "What is an RPG?" section but it *does* need an explicit, unironic, exacting description of what the PCs and GM are expected to do in a given session of play.

(Presuming it's an RPG with PCs and GMs, of course)
November 28, 2025 at 9:13 PM
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diedfrombeing.labeledrude.online
"One of his catchphrases is a saying attributed to Veuillot: ‘When the liberals are in power, we demand liberty from them, because that is their principle; and, when we are in power, we’ll refuse it to them because that is our principle.’"
davidjroth.bsky.social David_j_roth @davidjroth.bsky.social · 1d
I thought this was really smart overall and a great explanation of the intellectual leaders/vision of Trumpism in particular, but it bumps up against the same problem that all such essays do, which is that there are so few meaningful principles there to understand. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Jan-Werner Müller · Caesar wept: Trolling the Libs
All post-liberals have at one point or another declared themselves anti-libertarian. Why is it, then, that once in power...
www.lrb.co.uk
November 28, 2025 at 7:30 PM
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spacecitymarc.bsky.social
It's hilarious that Queen went pretty much balls-out on a 1970s concept album about faeries, ogres and battles between imaginary kingdoms and then, when it was time to give the thing a title, just went ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and named it "II."
November 28, 2025 at 7:44 PM
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plognark.bsky.social
I cannot co-sign this hard enough.
pookleblinky.bsky.social Pookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social · 1d
Saying you "coded for 36 hours straight" is something only people who have never programmed, and have no idea what programming is, would think is an impressive thing.

It is a claim that literally would not even fool a first year CS student. They'd laugh at you for saying it.
November 28, 2025 at 8:35 PM
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nerdniteyeg.bsky.social
Rofl
November 28, 2025 at 4:31 AM
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jkass99.bsky.social
There might be no better example of the war coming home than a CIA trained teen death squad recruit getting asylum in the US and then shooting a bunch of soldiers who were deployed to DC for no reason other than Kabuki Security Theater
November 28, 2025 at 5:34 PM