Funny, I'm pretty close to the OG Palestine right now. (I went to look up what the big deal with with East Palestine - mostly 'cause I thought it was a reference to the West Bank that I'd never heard before. Assuming you're talking about the one in Ohio, good luck to you. I dunno what happened, but the single picture I saw looked like a massive smoke cloud.)

They were worried about one train car exploding and causing toxicity issues... so they burned a ton of them with what sounds like a variety of toxic chemicals (and other chemicals that when burned create toxic byproducts) as a solution that only a government could come up with.

We're hoping in 6 months to a year there'll be enough data to know where and what is safe, but in the mean time we are heading for greener pastures.

Good luck, Moshe, and a wise choice on getting out of there. What little I've seen of the situation is... very bad. Not quite Chernobyl-levels of bad, but the immediate damage is on the same scale. I would not be in a hurry to move back there- those sort of chemicals tend to linger and not break down.

Unbelievable. Sorry, Moshe. Take care, my friend.

And the whole thing about lobbying against stricter brake requirements...smdh

On a totally unrelated note: I've been up to the top of this hill in Budapest, where my friend happily explained how great it was for a fort...until cannons got good enough to shoot it from the other, taller hill off over there.

Yeah. Before cannons, it was probably amazing. I seem to recall that one side is a pretty sheer cliff, at least in part. But it's not well-situated when you no longer have to be directly below the castle to capture it.

Jander, Luca, and Peregryn, may I please have a roll from each of you. I will let you decide which to roll, but the difficulty is 6 (Luca), 7 (Peregryn), or 8 (Jander).

Intelligence+Etiquette
Intelligence+Politics

None of you have Fields of Expertise that apply to this roll. If you do not have Etiquette or Politics, that's fine - just roll Intelligence straight up, don't worry about modified difficulties or anything. Please add this roll into your next IC post. (It's to determine what you know about Archbishop Geza. Corbinianus, Falke, and Moshe, apologies, but there's no meaningful chance you're likely to know anything - that said, feel free to roll 1d10, and if you get a 10, I'll give you something anyway. ;)

If you can think of something else that might cover political information, you're free to let me know what you think is appropriate.

Nah, no way Falke would have any idea what was going on lol.

No problem, Luca. Life captures of the best of us.

Speaking of which, I'll be out of town... at some point coming up here. There's a holiday in this country that I had no idea existed, so I've been invited to a wedding at the start of the holiday and to spend some free time with some fellow expats during the holiday itself. The wedding is on the 3rd of March, but I have school on the 5th... but not the rest of the week (yes, a single day of school. Why? Because, why not?) I think I may also have school again on 9 March, but I'm not sure.

I will post as I am able during that time, but this old man does not type long messages on his phone if he doesn't have to.

TL;DR: I have no idea when I'll even be in town from 2 March through 11 March.

Minor clarification: The Prince is Prince Rikard? I don't know if the name's been mentioned IC.

Nevermind, I'm blind.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:32, Sun 26 Feb 2023.

Ideal world, I'll get a post up tomorrow, before I leave town (I'll be back Saturday, but I'm not sure what time yet). I'm hoping Jander will post before them, but we are not waiting on Moshe - I've discussed things with him.

Less than ideal world, the girls I'm driving down with will want to leave pretty much immediately and I won't have time to post. Pre-planning? Not their strong suit.

Alas, I have been informed that we will be leaving in about half an hour, so I will not have time to post. I will try to update upon my return Saturday evening. Depends on when I arrive.

Meantime, have an awesome weekend!

Enjoy your trip!

Enjoy and don't worry. We'll be here on Saturday evening, on Sunday morning or even on Monday.

Thank you, and, Corbinianus, good. Have returned! However, I will not have time to post tonight (my students are having this culture's version of a Halloween party tonight). I will try to post tomorrow afternoon, but my ability really depends on a variety of factors (not the least of which being whether I have Learning Center tomorrow - I don't think so, but I'm not sure) because I have the staff party tomorrow night. (In this country, it's a sin not to get drunk on this holiday...)

Anyway, I <i>will<i> post as soon as humanly possible.

Are we all in wait for the others state? It's itching... But Corbinianus would indeed leave initiative to the others.

Geez, how'd I end up the face? :P

I'm writing... just fell over right at the end of the post. Yay narcolepsy.

I hope to get something posted in the next 24 hours--it's the last week of the term for me, my students, and my own kids. I'm also dealing with my first wave of chatbot written papers, which is its own ugly mess.

So glad that I don't have to worry about Chatbot papers here. Instead, the assignments are so dumbed down as to be all but worthless. But at least I don't have to read AI-written stuff that I know the students could never understand.

(Makes me wonder - can AI write papers in other languages? I wonder if the local, non-English teachers have to worry about that stuff yet. I know some English teachers here in-country do, but my students prefer to cheat the old-fashioned way - you know, copy and paste from Wikipedia. :)

*Is simultaneously shocked and not surprised by chatbot essays*

Mind you, last time I was involved in actual schooling was before we had stable internet...

I will leave further responses from Dougenia until others have had a chance to post.

Can I get a quick show of hands for those who are still here, please?

Sure, here's mine

Just got my own at the moment. Give me some time, and I'm sure I'll have a collection.

We at least had a login from Jander, Luca and Moshe yesterday.