Sure. Here’s a song a friend wrote with me and then I recorded in Audacity. I didn’t realize just how very Andrew Bird it is until much later lol.

Pro-Creation

TL;DR: it’s been the hardest and worst influence in my mental health at pretty much every point in my life.

We moved a lot as a kid and my parents fought a lot. Why? Because my dad was in the army because there just wasn’t economic opportunity otherwise. I still have some psychological scarring regarding food security, and I’ll have something akin to a panic attack if I eat something that tastes anything like Berry Berry Kix because we bought like a pallet of it when it was on sale one time and it’s all I had for months.

When I graduated high school in 2007, I didn’t attend the ceremony. Why? Because I needed to work. I didn’t want to be economically trapped, so I worked as much as I could so I could pay for community college and then transfer credits to a 4 year school and hopefully get some kind of scholarship based on my good grades. While in community college, that plan changed drastically because of the 2008 recession. I managed to complete my 2 year degree though, thankfully.

In 2013, my mom died. She was 51, almost 52. She was very sick in a country that doesn’t take care of the health of its people. She drank heavily from the stress of money being tight, and she smoked since a very early age, so I can’t squarely blame capitalism entirely for her early death, but doctors weren’t interested in helping somebody who was already so far gone that her death would hurt their statistics. In any case, this launched a deep depression in which I stopped finding joy in any sense of artistic expression or productivity for a long while. I stopped caring so much about whether I was alive.

Soon afterwards, while I was already at a low point, I had a boss that was extremely abusive. I learned what gaslighting is. Nothing I ever did was ever worth an attaboy, but not getting screamed at became the reward I would seek. Basically Whiplash, but with chefs instead of musicians. My employment prospects were extremely limited, so I was stuck there. I strongly considered escaping it in the only way I had control over it all, but thankfully opted for a hail mary risk that happened to pay off; I quit and took a temp job scrubbing toilets.

It’s a long story, but that led step by step to my current job operating a combined cycle power plant at about $130k/year. I met a lovely woman in July 2016, married her in September 2020 (despite the covid of it all), and we just bought our first house yesterday. Despite my eventual successes in life, I still bash this economic system because I knew that ultimately I just got really lucky. But this isn’t the ending. I wouldn’t be surprised if housing crashes again at some point and it turns out that we shouldn’t have bought. Idk, we’re just doing our best here.

I could talk for hours about how profit motivations and economic struggles caused people to clamor for returning to school and work at the peak of the pandemic, which caused a million preventable deaths, but that barely moves the needle in terms of my personal mental health. I was an “essential” worker, which really just means “expendable” but I had already come to terms with that by then. It would be more appropriate to talk about how the music industry changes have impacted my interest in making music since I know it’s astronomical that it could ever even be a hobby that pays for itself, let alone make a little extra through gigs.

I hear from people when I cook or play music or engage in other hobbies and interests that I should (paraphrasing here) find a way to monetize that. These things are my escape from capitalist hellfire. They are the pressure relief valve. Why in the fuck would I invite that vampire into my safe haven? I’d much rather give my music away or give away cooking tips. I don’t want to cater your fucking wedding. I don’t want to track how many listens my mediocre music might get on Spotify. I just want to create.

I make money at work and I make happy at home.

RDR2 is very much not for everybody. It is intentionally tedious. It’s the kind of game you sit down and play for at least 2-3 hours every time you play it because that’s just how long it takes to get anything done. You aren’t fast traveling. You aren’t doing things instantaneously in a menu. Your time as a human being is an in-game resource. If you’re in the middle of nowhere and your horse dies, a ton of your shit was being carried in the saddle; you need to walk your ass to the nearest town lugging that saddle, vulnerable to wild animals and robbers. It’s a game about getting things done with your own two hands at the turn of the century when that was becoming much less valued. It’s a game about subsistence. You could have an easier, more prosperous life, but at what cost? At whose cost? It’s a game about nature and living in a natural world as a natural being, criticizing the transition into industrial exploitation of our fellow natural world and natural animals, including natural humans. It’s not a rootin’ tootin’ spaghetti western adventure; it’s an interactive classic American novel that can occasionally have funny or fun moments depending on your tastes. I fully understand that it’s wasn’t a game that you or millions of other people enjoyed, but I think it’s wholly unjust to label it a “bad” game for that. It did exactly what it set out to do, and evoked impactful emotion in sharing its message as intended for the people who wanted to be open to it. It’s successful art, but not all art is for you and not all art is for me. You may have gone in with the wrong expectations for it. I think it really sucks that every rockstar game since the early 2000s seems to be marketed as “GTA but ___” because the Red Dead games and LA Noire are very much not GTA. They’re 3rd person open worlds with similar engines, but that’s where the similarities end.

If you ever try it again, come in with a similar mindset to wanting to sit down and watch The Godfather, not The Avengers. There’s a lot to get out of it if you just focus on the story and the characters and the beautiful setting. Enjoy the honest work, and lament the shootouts and heists.

For anybody just casually interested but with lesser needs than OP, I bought a 65W supply to replace a phone charger I forgot at a hotel and I’ve been very happy with it. Don’t just buy a single port replacement if you fuck up at check out like I did lol. Here’s what I bought: https://a.co/d/2TKDE2G and it’s $40 right now.

It has 3 ports total, 2 USB C and 1 USB A. The only issue is that it doesn’t come with cables, so I also bought a 3 pack of 2m USB C to USB C cables. No complaints.

Excellent question. Idk, I can see indirect sex work like camming or porn still happening because that could be connected to a desire to perform for an audience. Maybe less prostitution but I’m almost certain that it wouldn’t go away completely.

At least that’s a consistent viewpoint. What I despise is demonizing sex work but not exploitative labor practices. It’s totally illogical to me that people will pride themselves on working 12+ hour days, skip breaks, come in on days off, work nights and weekends and holidays, etc but look down on people who have an OnlyFans or whatever. I don’t really understand criticizing one without the other.

Personally, I don’t give a shit about sex work. If it were fully legal and workers were protected and everything, I still don’t know that I would pay for it, but I sure as shit wouldn’t fight to take that choice away from others. It just wouldn’t really affect me. Same thing for access to safe drugs or abortions. I’m not going to advocate for other people to not have choices in their personal freedoms, so I guess I’ll fight for people to have access even for things I’m not that interested in for myself.

Yes

Unchanged. Still gonna vote for her. I’m more enthusiastic now that she picked Walz over some of the other finalists though. I’ll probably buy some campaign stickers now in addition to voting.

Thank you for ending your 2024 campaign, Joe Biden. That was hero shit. That humility and duty to something bigger than himself is exactly what made him so much better as a leader than trump ever could’ve been. Joe has earned his retirement, and there’s a part of me that hopes that he becomes the first former president to die of badass causes, flipping his Vette doing a buck eighty or something lol. But not for another couple decades.

Haha, brilliant. I’m still running my 5a, so that sounds kinda crazy to me.

Somewhat related to this so I’m piggybacking here, look into power plants. Once you’re generally competent holding wrenches and understanding OSHA compliance, you can easily become some form of laborer at power plants. From there, learn everything you can about power plants while getting friendly with some in-house people and you might get yourself into Operations or Maintenance. It took years and luck, but I got in as an entry level outside operator at a bit under $40/hour a few years back; after raises and a promotion I’m now operating the on-site ZLD plant for $52/hour. Control Room Operator starts around $60/hour here. This area is expensive so these rates might be higher than you’d find near you, but I’ve heard of higher rates than this in some plants. The only real drawback is that rotating shift work is pretty standard.

I’m not sure what it might be called, but I totally get that. I think it has something to do with the anxiety of expectations. Maybe you feel judged for how you’re choosing to spend your time, or maybe you feel like there’s an expectation that you’ll get better at whatever it is that you’re doing, or maybe it’s as simple as just not wanting to be viewed as predictable. If you’re unhappy with this tendency that you have, I highly recommend working with a therapist to either find a way to change your behavior or change how you feel about your behavior. It sounds like you’re not hurting anybody, so it seems like there’s just some unhappiness for one reason or another that a professional could help you out with so that you can get a little more enjoyment and peace of mind. If the 94 in your username is your birth year, then you’re 30ish and maybe just struggling a little with being comfortable with your identity in some capacity, like you “should’ve” figured out who you are and become comfortable with it by now, and you might be feeling some additional anxiety for not achieving that? Idk, I’m just some guy on the internet who had a similar thing, and it’s helped for me to adopt a slightly more complex version of the hakuna matata philosophy, which I think of as a sort of optimistic existential hedonistic nihilism: nothing matters, so there’s no sense getting spun up; just do what you feel like doing so long as it isn’t fucking others over. You like CAD? Then fuck around in CAD. Enjoying a video game? Hell yeah, that’s something cool to look forward to spending some time with this weekend. Knock out chores and errands for a bit and then you’re free to do whatever the fuck you feel like doing. Hell, light a scented candle while you’re at it. Really enjoy it.

I’m genuinely not sure whether this is a teachable skill or something more like a character trait.

Depends. At a meh bar with bar food, probably an IPA. Mexican place with Mexican food, probably margarita or tequila sunrise. At a cocktail bar, I’ll pick a signature cocktail, probably one with a whiskey of some kind. If it looks like they know what they’re doing but they focus on botanical type stuff (which I don’t really like), then I’ll usually go for something like an old fashioned or a Manhattan, and if it’s not too busy I might request it with the bartender’s choice of unique flair on it. Or I might order a carajillo if they have an interesting one on the menu and if I see an espresso machine.

I disagree since I met the woman who is now my wife through Tinder lol. We both were looking for something casual and found something worth much more. But it’s almost certainly gotten shittier like everything else, so I understand your reluctance to try it.

In that case, get yourself cleaned up and head out to a bar/club and see if you can meet somebody organically. Be ready to talk about your job, hobbies, and interests. Maybe get a few clever jokes locked and loaded. Passionate, nice, and funny will make you a magnet to decent people. Just temper your expectations because it sounds like you’re probably gonna a swing and miss a few times until you find a comfortable batting stance.

It varies from person to person. The act itself imo is pretty good, but I don’t really enjoy it unless there’s a real connection. Others mentioning things like hiring prostitutes here are recommending that you miss out on what I think it’s a pretty key part of it, plus I think you’d be assuming some real risk in terms of whether that’s criminal, will you be robbed, could you get an STI from them, and of course whether it’s even affordable in the first place. I can understand the desire to try it once, but I can’t imagine it being much better than masturbating compared to the risk and cost.

I think I’d recommend getting on Tinder or something similar and just making it clear in your profile that you’re looking for something casual but want to message a bit first to make sure they’re at least somewhat of a match for you. Sometime before getting naked, it’d be a good idea to say that you haven’t done this before and ask for clear communication so that both of you can enjoy yourselves. You want to be on the same page. And go slowly. You almost certainly won’t have a good time if you’re feeling pressured and rushed.

Overall, yes it’s worth trying, but a lot of people stop thinking rationally entirely when sex is a possibility and I think that’s a bit silly. It’s okay to come to the conclusion that it’s not worth the hassle or even not enjoyable at all to you. It’s totally subjective. Just don’t do anything you don’t feel comfortable with.

Lol happy to help! Yeah, nowadays it’s easy to hit a gig in data usage without even realizing you’ve used any at all. I wish the unlimited tier were cheaper. It feels like we have gotten to a point where we should be able to use GPS or do a Google search without considering a cost. Kinda feels like if anything, they should be paying us for allowing into our pocket this ever changing billboard that scrapes our metadata. But that’s unrealistic to get anyone else onboard with, so I’ll settle for free connectivity to knowledge in exchange for advertising and spying on me.

What state are you in? I’m in VA and considering going from Google Fi to Mint mostly because we would go from minimal data usage to unlimited for about the same price. Definitely not making the switch if you’re also in VA and can vouch that it doesn’t work here.

I’ve been on Google Fi for 3 or 4 years and it’s been pretty much flawless. I’ve traveled to Mexico and Spain with it, and there’s a sort of calibration period of like 30 minutes before you have service in another country, but that’s literally the only time I’ve been without service for any period of time. My wife and I are on it and use very little data, so covering both phones is typically about $60/month. We usually have 5G service around our home in northern VA.

Proof of bill cost:

Toxic by Britney Spears. Absolute fucking banger. Musically interesting for an American pop song. Each chorus has the chords walk down, which is pretty cool, but then on the next bar something really interesting happens. Instead of walking down from the second of the four chords, there are back to back tritone substitutions! So fucking cool!

Depends on the day. If I dismiss outliers where it’s less than 20 minutes, my average is probably about 90 minutes based on checking my app history over the past few weeks. A good chunk of that is typing comments, sometimes looking up a good link to include. I usually swipe through while skimming posts and open comments for a post once in a while, occasionally adding a comment in there. I rarely post anything but comments.

Today I’m at 35 minutes and probably mostly done for the day.