I have learned to circumvent this issue by simply never being important enough to be invited to formal events.

It’s worked well thus far, though nobody seems to notice.

If Harris loses, I don’t even want to think of what the next four years will bring. But, whichever way it goes, I take at least some small solace in knowing the PAC text spam will finally shut the fuck up for a little while…

I would agree with this. The rational part of me likes to try and eat a sandwich in a 3x3 grid of bites, right-to-left, working my way downward.

But, I’m a wacky, inconsistent li’l bitch, so it almost never works out that way. But, I don’t think I ever exceed 12 bites. That’s a pretty solid ballpark range.

As a certified Orange Enjoyer, it always perplexed me how other kids were always so ready to trade away their orange Starburst.

As someone who also thinks the pink ones are way overrated, though, it ultimately didn’t matter to me, because li’l me was out there making some deals

It was the threat of the bartender reaching for the bat. If the nazi didn’t think there was a chance he’d actually use it, the threat wouldn’t work.

The threat of violence is a deterrent to keep nazis from getting too bold, thinking they can do what they want without repercussion.

Some people think the threat of violent response is overreaction to someone who’s just expressing their ideas. As a bisexual man, I think it’s a pretty even response when those ideas are “hey, what if we rounded up you and everyone like you and marched you off to death camps?”

At the very least, you can never let them believe that you’ll just roll over and let them do it.

Dipfuck??

Fuck 'em, I do what I want.

Probably a bug I was saving for dinner? I don’t anticipate I’ll have a whole lot to bring with me at that point.

“Can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is one that’s very pertinent to my life right now.

So, I was a pretty dedicated musician in my younger years, but I’ve never quite gotten around to learning how to produce music digitally. Recently, I’ve been trying to learn. Thing is, since I’m in my early 30s, I’m only just now hitting that age where my neuroplasticity isn’t what it was when I was 20, and learning things is starting to become noticeably a little more difficult.

So, that’s where I think the expression comes from. You get older, you try to learn something new, you underestimate how much more difficult learning that new thing is at your current age (because, honestly, you have no way to gauge how hard it’ll be until you’re doing it), the challenge gets the better of you, and now you have to admit defeat.

“Can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is basically a different way of saying “No, no! I’m not owned!! I didn’t lose!!!” It’s a way of shielding oneself from the sting of defeat by framing it as “well, that’s just the way things are when you’re older.” It’s not that you couldn’t rise up to the challenge of learning. You just cannot teach old dogs new tricks, and that’s a fact. Don’t you hear people say that all the time? Why would people say it so much if it weren’t true? So, yeah. I didn’t lose. I’m not owned.

It’s an especially harsh process when you’re learning to do something related to something you already know really well, and struggling with it, like I am with music production. It makes you question how well you really knew that thing in the first place. But, like I said, I’m only in my early 30s. If I were 60 and struggling to learn a new way to do something I’ve been doing my whole life, I’m sure it’d be wayyy more demoralizing. I’m sure I’d want to guard my feelings from that.

So, I get why the expression exists. I just don’t think it holds any real weight. People treat it like it’s some fact of life, but it’s just an excuse. You’ve just gotta keep pushing, be prepared to accept failure when it rears its ugly head, and then muster the energy to get back up and get back on as many times as you can before you’re beat. Easier said than done, though.

Damn, I have almost the exact same answer. Switched to Steam once WON got taken down (held out as long as I could), and had a friend send me a Gmail invite a few months later.

Only differences are that I mostly used mine for TFC, and my account won’t technically hit drinking age until early next month.

I kinda wish I could say I had like a bottle of liquor I’ve been saving for the occasion, but the idea of a “21-year-old Steam account” genuinely never occurred to me until one day I woke up and realized it was about to turn 18. Made me realize how fast shit moves, and this is just driving the point home…

I used to mix it in with fried rice that’d been left sitting out for too long and turned really dry. Gives it some moisture and a vinegary edge, but probably not for everyone, since ketchup’s trademark is stomping all over the subtle flavors of a dish.

When I was in elementary school, I’d dip my pizza crusts in ketchup at lunchtime. I still do that every now and then with Sriracha ketchup

Also, same elementary school lunch: on pizza days, they also used to give us a side of tricolor fusilli straight-up. Just plain pasta without even so much as a little olive oil. So, fuck it. It got blasted with 'chup.

Absolver. It was the precursor to Sifu, but with slightly slower and more methodical combat (more like a Soulslike, almost).

The coolest part of it is, as you play and fight players and NPCs, your character will slowly learn and unlock the moves that are used against them, which you can then put into your moveset and chain together with other moves to create your own style. If you don’t want to do that, you can join a player-run school, and be given the fighting style of that school’s master, which your character will learn as they use it.

The story mode is pretty short. It’s mainly about PvP (although, before development stopped, it DID get a free DLC with a co-op dungeon run that’s worth killing a couple of hours on). Of course, a PvP-focused game with nobody playing it isn’t exactly the most entertaining thing to spend your time on, so- outside of a small collection of diehards- it pretty much stays a ghost town.

It had heart, it had ambition, and it had creativity. My friends and I were really hoping the success of Sifu would mean people might start going back and maybe breathing a little life into it, but that didn’t happen. We hoped maybe they’d announce a second one, but that hasn’t happened yet, either. It’ll probably just be another Sifu. That one was a proven success, so it makes more sense.

The servers are still up for now. No idea how much longer it’ll be supported. But, if you’ve got friends you can play it with, it might be worth looking into and seeing for yourself what the game offered, and what could’ve been.

I figure it’s because the year can be seen as an optional appendage if you’re talking about dates from the current year. Like, I can say “that happened on May 5th,” or “I’ll be there June 18th,” and you can reasonably assume I mean in 2024 unless I specify “June 18th, 2063.”

Now, as for why you can say “I’m going on the 18th,” but Americans don’t say 18th of June, 2024, I haven’t a clue. We really only seem to have logical explanations for the way we do things about half of the time.

I’m biased towards Y2K from the nostalgia, since those were the prime years of my childhood right before my teenage years kicked in.

But, I love the design of that time because of how obsessed with futurism everything was. It took the future chic look of the mid-late '60s and revamped it, taking that hype for the future- with the Space Race- bringing it back, and updating it for the Information Age.

It felt like we, as a society, had so much optimism for the world that was to come. So, if anything, I think that’s what I’m mostly nostalgic for. I was so excited to grow up in that world. Damn.

I’d like to say it’ll be something pithy like “Thank God that’s finally done with,” but, more likely than not, it’ll probably be “Ah, shit, aaaaghhh, fuck, this sucks, God dammit, this hurts like hell, ughhhhh shit,” and then the sounds of me groaning my final breath and softly shitting my pants.

“You can do it, buddy. Shit your pants!”

I mean, I don’t actually know if people ever say this or not, but you can start if you wanna be a cool trendsetter!

I’m not sure what I think the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard is, but I know my mind usually goes to two songs:

Pastoral, by a man who went by the name of Moondog. He was a legendary blind composer, playing on the streets of New York City between the late '40s through to the early '70s.

He’s kind of a “your favorite musician’s favorite musician’s favorite musician” figure, and was known to play several instruments of his own invention (one of which I believe is used in this song, but I’m not sure). This is a very minimal song, but beauty doesn’t always demand grandeur.

Second would be Slips Away by Peter Silberman, the lead singer of a band called The Antlers (who also have a bunch of really moving tracks in their discography).

This one is also very simple, and quite melancholy, but I think it says all that needs saying. If I have a funeral when I pass, I’d really like this to be played at it.