By “performer” do you mean musician? Playing bars or coffee shops here and there? I’ve done that for a free drink or two here and there. I think that would be one of my retirement activities if I had loads of free time, but it takes a lot of energy to set it all up and be “on” regularly while also working full time.

*puts on glasses

Oh! Oh. My crush had a crush on me the whole time. Oh, I’m an idiot. My dog is not at a farm upstate. My day is ruined.

I’m guessing that EI is what you call unemployment benefits where you are? In which case, unfortunately no. Previous employer made up bullshit to fire me over so I wasn’t eligible, and I was told I didn’t work long enough at the place that burned down to qualify. My savings got almost entirely wiped out just paying rent and buying groceries.

It was a dark time full of struggles, but I got through it and I’m doing pretty well now. The silver lining is that, when I’m having a rough week, I can think back to how that chunk of life was going and know that I’ve gotten through worse. I was homeless for about two months a bit later, but by then I found a job and knew that I’d find stability soon. Things didn’t actually start getting good until I quit the kitchen career. And I’m one of the lucky few who never even got sucked into the hard drug aspect of that life. Never even smoked a cigarette lol.

I was gonna say most of this. I would just add that now, when referring to a year between 2001 and 2009, I just say “oh [number]”. So I’d say “Did Batman Begins come out in '05 or '06?”

I was unemployed for a while in late 2010, early 2011 and was constantly on the job search. I was a line cook previously and was looking for similar work. I finally got in at a sports bar, but they only had an opening for a host at the time, so I took it. When I went in on my third day, I found that the place had fucking burned down.

I was unemployed for another few months before finding a new job. That was a rough year or so lol.

I’m not sure that he’s even mentally capable of the abstraction necessary to consider such a thing. If he did a freaky Friday body swap with a somehow horny 7 year old boy, I’m not sure we’d ever know the difference. Dude likes trucks and cops and hamberders, and has absolutely zero media literacy and introspection skills.

And you’re just being alarmist for suggesting that he’ll do the things he’s literally promised that he will do. He’s obviously joking when he’s talking about tariffs and deportations and using the military against “the enemy from within” and “finishing the job” in Palestine. Because, you see, Kamala laughed too much or something.

And I’m sure his wealth will grow by $100 billion as a result. If your only moral compass is your net worth, then that was obviously the best thing he could’ve done. Among the best investments he’s ever made.

But that’s obvious. It doesn’t make him smart. He’s still a stupid, sexist, white supremacist asshole.

They weren’t hiding, they just stopped screaming long enough to get a good breath of air for the next scream.

Well boy howdy, it turns out we already been done doin that there part about criminalizing and incarcerating them black people just out of sheer racism. You’re telling me that there could’ve been a profit motive to it this whole time too?

jk, private contracted prisons were already profiting deeply off of that.

That can’t be right. Corn can’t be only 85% of our food.

But seriously, there’s so much goddamn corn. Our meat is fed corn. Our processed foods and drinks are pumped full of corn. Even our fucking cars eat corn. We’re up to our fucking ears in ears of corn.

Not so much weird, but it’s weird that it’s simultaneously hilarious and day-ruiningly depressing.

I saw a little bowl with small jewelry in it like charms and earrings. Among them was the right half of a heart that read “FRIENDS” and just below that was “EVER”. I’m 100% certain that there exists somewhere the left half of that heart that reads “BEST” and “FOR” with identical formatting, and that friendship either ended dramatically or fizzled out over time.

It made me think about some previous close friendships I’ve had and how people can either just grow apart or have a violent falling out. And I wondered who in their right mind would buy just half of that best friends forever charm. Why would a thrift shop even have that available?

Kinda fascinating that an entire coming of age story can be told by just half of a piece of jewelry I found at a thrift store, and I’ll never know the truth, yet I’ll never forget it.

Blackout curtains have been essential for me. Instead of earplugs, I prefer a noisy fan. Circulating the air is good and the constant white noise normalizes hearing stuff, so neighbors or traffic or whatever isn’t different enough to wake me.

My wife has a Bluetooth sleep mask, so she can play soothing stuff from headspace or YouTube or Spotify while keeping light out of her eyes. You can find it pretty cheap.

As we enter dry winter months, a small humidifier in the bedroom might also be a good idea.

It also helps to have a routine on how you wind down for bed so that your body and mind can ease into being ready to sleep even if the clock or the sun are telling you otherwise. Maybe do some light reading, wash your face, set out something for the next day (like your outfit), whatever you need and can repeat nightly.

It’s almost like there should be a law against somebody like him running for office. Oh wait, there already is, and it’s been on the books for 150 years to keep Confederate traitors from holding office. 14th amendment, section 3.

It’s fucking insane that he’s even on ballots after what he did.

“just following orders” all over again.

There’s only one thing trump has yet to steal from Hitler, and it’s killing the leader of the fascist movement.

Here’s to hoping 🍻

I can forgive people for changing their minds once they’ve learned and experienced more. However, at this point, I don’t think that there is actually any excuse for not learning or experiencing enough to not know who or what they’re supporting. MAGA should be carved into their foreheads à la Inglourious Basterds. Make them advertise forever that they were dumb enough and hateful enough to fall for helping the most obvious con man imaginable to become a fascist dictator. At least the oligarchs have legitimate reasons to believe that they could benefit from him having power through cutting regulations and taxes for them. What the fuck do the millions of peasants in shacks in flyover states have excusing their donations and votes?

Same, but for some reason my wife doesn’t like the look of high refresh rate in games for the exact reason I don’t like low refresh. I played Jedi Survivor on PS5 for a little bit and felt uneasy until I found a setting to switch it from quality to performance. I was getting very mild headache and nausea symptoms until switching that, especially when spinning the camera around quickly. Running it in higher framerate also made timing in gameplay much easier. The only drawback was that cutscenes broke immersion because they were still locked at 30fps.

I really wish that game devs would prioritize achieving 60fps above 4k resolution. This question is even assuming that 60fps is the lowest acceptable option, yet it’s still not a given even at 2k yet. EA released a game in 2023 that runs in 30fps by default. I enjoyed the game overall, but it ran like dog shit, crashed multiple times, and felt a little short/barren to me. I could excuse all of that if it were a smaller company or the first year of the console’s life, but neither of those were the case in any way.

Anyway, yeah 60fps should be the bare minimum, but it still sometimes isn’t, and it literally makes me sick.

No, the goal in 2021 was to delay/stop the certification and keep trump in power. This time, I’m sure the Nazi propaganda framing would be to stop Kamala Harris (sitting VP and therefore president of the Senate) from “awarding herself the presidency.” But since there will definitely be appropriate security this time, the cowardly Nazis will stay home and masturbate to deepfake porn of Democrats, activists, and controversial celebrities instead.

It’s like 1488 hours until January 6th

It’s really fucking bizarre that it actually is the Nazi-est number hours imaginable between the election and final certification of the election. I legit thought you were just doing some Nazi dog whistle virtue signaling until I did the math to find that 1488 hours is 62 days, and we are in fact 62 days from January 6. 🤯

Reduce carb portions and replace with larger veggie portions, and understand that corn and potatoes and other starch vegetables are just carbs (but it seems like you already know that). You may need larger protein portions in your meals to feel more full, and that’s fine if your choosing lean proteins, which it seems like you already are.

Don’t be afraid of having fat in your diet, just avoid overly greasy stuff like too much fried food.

Overall, you’ll probably be fine to do what you’re doing, but stop insisting on having a ton of bread. Just control your portions, limit bread, and be conscious of how much sugar you’re actually eating in a day because that shit is in pretty much everything. If you’re rarely eating out and rarely eating processed crap like TV dinners and rarely drinking calories and rarely reaching for sweets and snacks, then you’re gonna do great! It takes a shitload of jogging to undo even a modest treat. Having two double stuff oreos sets you back 140 calories, which will probably take you about a mile and a half to work off. If you ask me, oreos just ain’t fucking worth it lol.