Real talk, I love the idea of being part of the Lemmy contingent that ‘crashes’ (see: participates respectfully in) local reddit meetups.

Not a huge board game guy though, which is the most established one in my neck of the woods…

Not weird or stupid!

Friends? Absolutely! People may go back and forth on the value of online-only friendships, but you can definitely make friends if you keep a decent back and forth going, no different than other online spaces. Obviously, be aware of the risks (scammers bots), but there’s lot of folks here who’d probably be down for friendship to at least some degree.

Relationships? This I’m a little less certain about - probability seems very low if you’re hetero, slightly higher but still pretty low if not. But who knows?

Don’t neglect meatspace, though (even if it’s kind of a horror show sometimes).

“And I suggest you let that Ontarioiate” has officially been welcomed into my lexicon, and I wait anxiously for an excuse to use it.

Edit: agree with them though, fuck everyone who voted Ford back in.

‘House’/basic no-name wheels are probably fine if they’re just trying it out for now (edit: just pay attention to hardness with an eye to where they’re skating - harder for park, a little softer and/or wider for street. Talk to the guy at your local skateshop). I second Reds or Bronsons for bearings.

The indy fanboy in me says they deserve a good set of Independent trucks, but honestly at this stage of the game the cheapest trucks you can find at the skateshop probably suffice. Pick them up a skate tool while you’re at it.

This is what I was thinking, but I’m digging the lists for both holidays rolling in too.

Excellent choice! Didn’t even consider that one.

Flirty answer followed by real answer if actually pressed. It’s not like it’s something you reasonably have control over anyway (I don’t consider lengthening surgery reasonable, though more power to anyone that does, it ain’t my body), outside of maybe some small gains if losing weight in your pelvis area or improving your general cardiovascular health.

Not gonna come out here and say size is totally irrelevant, but there’s lots of ways to have great sex without going around bruising women’s cervixes.

sh.it.head, for a lemmy user of a certain vintage, anyway.

Beyond that idk 🤷‍♂️

Frankly, this is the best outcome. Going and winning a decent amount your very first time is a huge risk for developing a gambling problem, because your monkey brain goes “It happened once, so it can totally happen again”. Doubly so when you’re young and your ‘decent amount’ is lower than it might be otherwise.

It could, sure, but the actual probability doesn’t line up with your probabilistic fluke, and that’s a hard thing to overcome for a lot of folks.

Never got to a point where it was a survival threat (very lucky in that regard), but that $300 I won when I was 19 was the most expensive money I’ve ever made.

What I think is even funnier, as someone who moved around the country a lot, is it’s often thought of as a regional thing when it’s actually ubiquitous.

In Victoria BC, it’s called a Langford Dinner Jacket. But if you’re a blue-collar working class Canadian anywhere in the country, it’s more likely than not you own or have owned one of these (which is good, 'cause they’re a good warm layer).

Nope, St. Albert. They make the cheese curds typically used by the fine men and women who operate the grease shacks in the Ottawa Valley.

I think my ban from Quebec for calling St. Hubert Quebec’s answer to Swiss Chalet expires soon.

Hell, I BARELY dress for myself, let alone others.

The two deciding factors are “Does this protect me from public indecency laws” and “Am I warm/cool enough in this”. Anything goes so long as it meets this criteria.

Every day, I say a prayer of thanks to St. Albert for living in their delivery radius.

It’s kinda warm in Osaka, so I forgive them for not donning our national formal attire.

IIRC there are prescribed acts you can do that should be a form of penitence - that whole “Say 10 Hail Mary’s and don’t call Satan in the morning” thing. It feels a little akin to a kid, caught doing something bad to their neighbour’s property by mom, getting dragged to the neighbour’s door to apologize. There’s a good chance they are apologizing without actually feeling penitent, but once the conditions of the punishment are carried out, they are in a sense free to go.

Like with the above, I think the idea is that you should truly feel penitent and these acts are an honest expression of that. But if we take a look at the history of the Catholic Church I’m not convinced that wasn’t put to the wayside a long time ago (see the trade of plenary indulgences in the middle ages).

Second the request any comments from ex- or current Catholics though, this is just my impression from the outside/watching a lapsed Catholic grapple with their faith.

So they’re slowly rotting (I mean, not rotting but you know what I mean). It’d be wise to back them up digitally if better digital copies are hard to come by.

But a couple additional thoughts:

1. Whenever you actually watch one of them, put it back on the shelf backwards/upside-down. Wait up to six months. Anything on the shelf that isn’t backwards/upside-down gets put in the ‘don’t keep’ pile.

2. If you’re looking for a hobby, don’t want to keep them but don’t want to toss them right away, you could play around with … idk exactly you call it, but video mixing? A couple VCRs, some sketchy looking hobbyist tech from Etsy, and a capture card, and you can play around with multiple analogue video sources and noise introduction to make some cool as fuck visuals. Actually looks hella fun, it’s high on my post-divorce distraction list. Use 'em till they’re dust for this purpose or you get bored. If you want to squeeze more life out of them afterwards, there’s lots of crafts you can do with old VHS bodies and tape.

Caveat: At minimum, if you have old VCR recordings, back that shit up ASAP. Old commercials and TV shows (particularly super local stuff) are of massive interest to a certain type of person, who would appreciate your efforts. This goes double for cam footage/recordings of live events.

Bro, are you ok? Your post history to date is actually really concerning.

To answer your question, no, I don’t think raising the age of consent to your early to mid 20s is a good idea. Is the relationship dynamic in what you describe probably kinda fucked? Yeah. But adults get to make adult decisions, no matter how others may feel about.

Ugh, same. Back when I was married both in spirit and law, there was a nice, well-endowed bartender at my local. I had no designs on anything at all, wanted to just have regular ol’ barfly-bartender platonic chatter. Here was my inner monologue:

Don’t stare at her boobs, don’t stare at her boobs, oh god I’m looking at her boobs, look UP you fucking creep she doesn’t need that shit; ok, maybe just identify all the liquor bottles behind her - THAT’S A FUCKING BOOB KNOCK IT OFF - k, Wisers, Captain Morgan’s, some coffee liqueur - wait, she said something. What did she say? Oh shit, she’s got the customer service scowl on and has covered herself. Congrats, Cracks, you are now officially one of the creepy guys, no better than the alkie dude who asks for hugs. God damn it - go play some pinball and go home.

Stupid lizard brain. Doesn’t happen all the time with every woman (thank fuck, that would be paralyzing), but awkward as fuck for everyone involved when it does.

I have decided that this is dating advice.

It seemed much cooler back when it was called cyber-anthropology. Second Life seemed like it was going to be much more important than it turned out to be, among other things.

In a world where we all have phones, I see no reason we all can’t have sad violin music at the ready for these occasions.