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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: July 1st, 2023

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  • It wasn’t so much that there was a stigma against watching Monty Python per se. It’s that it became sort of inextricably linked with a certain type of kid who became obsessed with it, could (and frequently would) recite all the lines of the movies from memory, and would tend to be a little obnoxious about their fandom. They were usually nerdy kids who already weren’t well liked by the more popular cliques, and aggressively shouting lines from Holy Grail at people wasn’t helping matters. Like, my friends and I loved those movies, but I guess not as much as the theater kids who were galloping around the school on imaginary horses shouting, “Ni!” at people and demanding a shrubbery.


  • It really shouldn’t be that bad. At worst it’ll be moldy, but it’s entirely possible you’ll come back to find it just kind of shriveled and very squishy. It depends on how ripe it was when you left, and how warm and humid your apartment is. But even if it smells, it won’t be the kind of smell that hangs around for very long after you throw it out.

    Of all the food you could have left out and forgot about you really lucked out with it being an avocado. If it were milk or raw fish you’d probably be coming home to something truly horrific.





  • I think a big problem is a lot of the explainers for new users, at least the ones that were around back when I first joined Mastodon, were or are absolute dog shit. They were all existential explanations rather than practical ones. I was trying to figure out which instance to join, and why one might be better for me than another, and every explainer I saw was basically a variation on, “iT’s JuSt LikE EmAiL. wHy Is tHaT hArD? sToP bEiNg So sTuPid, DuMmY.” None of them really explained the user experience, and how different instances might affect it, let alone the existence of the local and global feeds and how your instance choice affects those. It was like asking someone how to use chopsticks and them telling you, “It’s easy. Just put food in your mouth with them. Works just like a fork.”

    Technically true, but it omits some pretty crucial information.

    Once you’re into it and have the lay of the land, it seems really simple in retrospect. But if you’re coming in cold with no idea how any of it works, and the only help you get is some dickhead shouting, “EmAiL! iT’s LiKe EmAiL!” then the learning curve seems a lot steeper than it actually is.


  • Not really. I have some old friends that are still pretty active on it, but I only check in every few months to see what they’re up to. I usually have to go directly to their profile because my main timeline hardly has anything I actually follow in it anymore. I fell off using it regularly back when they broke the chronology of the timeline, but now it’s just so much worse. There’s almost nothing in my feed that I actually want to see anymore, it’s all ads and bullshit posts injected by some algorithm.








  • Rom-coms are aspirational fantasies. They’re modern-day fairy tales of getting swept off your feet by a handsome prince and living happily ever after, never wanting for anything ever again. Material comfort is always a factor in these stories. If it’s not overt, as in Pride and Prejudice where the main character betters their station by ending up with the mega-rich guy who seemed like a dick but turned out to have a heart of gold, then it has to be implied by the setting and the lifestyles of the characters. If the material wealth of the love interest isn’t going to be a factor in the story then it has to be demonstrated that those financial needs are met in some other way.

    You’re probably never going to see a rom-com where the main character gets their one true love, but being with them condemns them to a life of struggle and poverty. No matter how you try to spin it so it’s ok because at least they have each other, that would never be a truly satisfying ending in this type of movie. Material needs to be taken care of too. Even in movies like Overboard where the whole point of the movie is Goldie Hawn learning to be a human being by struggling through a working class lifestyle, they still have to end up rich at the end for the story to feel fully resolved.

    It’s polite to pretend that money doesn’t matter, and a lot of rom-coms try to down-play it, but it does. It does matter. And it always shows up in one way or another.