They banned Slaughterhouse Five. Just a little information on Kurt Vonnegut’s experience in World War II that eventually inspired him to write the book:

He was sent as a POW to Dresden. On February 13, 1945, British and American bombers destroyed the city by dropping high explosives followed by incendiary bombs. The resulting firestorm turned the non-militarized city into an inferno that killed up to 60,000 civilians. Vonnegut and his fellow POWs survived by accident only because they were housed some 60 feet underground in a former meat locker and slaughterhouse. Vonnegut’s job for weeks after the bombing was to gather up and burn the remains of the dead. His experience at Dresden marked him for life and eventually resulted in his literary masterpiece, Slaughterhouse-Five.

The Florida Department of Education banning one of the most important American novels of all time, that was written by a WWII veteran, from American schools, is the kind of dark humor commentary that you’d find in a Vonnegut book.

It’s a big win overall, but some of the scumbags still got something out of it:

Even though scalpers are taking a loss on the Pro, those who banked on people flocking to buy the PS5 disc drive are turning a profit. The Pro is digital only which means you’ll need to buy a disc drive if you want to use it to play physical media. It took a while, but the disc drive appears to be sold out everywhere which means people are buying them for inflated prices through resale sites.

Not the worst thing but still annoying, like whatever the opposite of a silver lining is.

A portable SSD. I need a new external hard drive anyway, so adding that November sales have reduced prices currently and that announced tariffs are designed to raise them very soon, there really is no better logical time for me to get one other than now.

Franky knows what it means to be free!

You are thinking of the right word but a missing letter in the spelling of the word creates an innocent, humorous translation error. Drumstick is what these are typically called, like sticks used to play drums in music. Dumbstick instead invokes the comparison of a stupid, dumb stick, which is fun to think about.

The Guardian in the back has that look on her face like she just lost a bet that you wouldn’t return until 20 years passed.

17

“An hour saved is an hour earned.”

Saving this to read after I get the game and finish it!

My best guess is the Tales to Tremble By scary story collections:

Each story had some creepy art by Gordon Laite:

A lot of this fits with your descriptions from the best of my recollection.

Edit: Removed paragraph about potential third scary story series containing spider egg story, just realized that one was from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark 3, so Tales to Tremble By and its sequel is my only guess here.

Mobius is pretty fascinating and Klein is hilarious! They all have their own quirky charm that makes them all fun to interact with, though I’m partial to Dr. 0 simply because it’s the same guy that voiced Dr. Venture on The Venture Bros. and the Wild Wasteland trait has him reference the “giant walking eye” as a nod to the show.

Whose your favorite out of all the doctors at the Big MT?

No announcement or confirmation from Night School Studio regarding GOG, Steam, the Playstation Store, or the Nintendo eShop as of yet. My guess is they would give a decent warning announcement if it were to leave those outlets as well, but regardless I did download my copy from GOG to my backup drive just in case.

The Batterfly Effect

Cheeseburger with no onions and animal style fries I believe, and a beauty at that!

This is well presented and thorough, I gotta say he does a fantastic job at actually showing the big differences that make it really clear once he gets into it. I expected a lot of the Sega hardware to come up but was surprised to also learn about the current gen version of Super Monkey Ball vs the original.

Just to clarify, what temperature do you set your freezer at and does it stay that temp of do you notice it fluctuating more than a few degrees throughout the day?

I’ve got family members that have loyally progressed through this game over the course of years and they absolutely love it still. Great music throughout.

Gubernatorial

I’m not sure if it’s underrated but Mario Tennis Advance for the Game Boy Advance is a gigantic standout for the series.

It’s an action RPG from the same company that made the Golden Sun games for the GBA. The usual fun power hits and tennis mechanics with some of the tightest controls in the series with quality world building and the kind of RPG satisfaction you’d get from a company like Camelot.