Joined the Mayqueeze.

  • 1 Post
  • 412 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
cake
Cake day: June 12th, 2023

help-circle


  • Sole custody? Not a big chance unless the other parent becomes criminal, sick to the point where they can no longer take care of the child, or worse.

    Japan is embarking on a journey of allowing split custody. That concept is new though because we love a law with tradition that goes back to the Heian era. My layman guess would be they will somehow exclude foreign passport holders without PR, just on principle.

    Forgive me for being this blunt: your friend is effed. They didn’t get their kid a passport. They are at the mercy of the Japanese courts. And even if they had the passport and could ‘go on vacation’ to the US, there is a very good chance the US courts would eventually send the kid back. There is international law at play to prevent child abductions, chief among it the Hague convention, to which the US and finally also Japan are signatories. Your friend’s best chance is a stable life in Japan, a good lawyer, and hopefully no marks on the record that diminishes their chances. Naiveté isn’t a defense. If the friend didn’t know that if the marriage went south this could be the outcome that’s regrettable but also the toughest of luck.

    Also, we only get half the story on hearsay. The other parent’s story might paint a very different picture.







  • It is a bugbear for some, irregardless of when the first example was documented. Loose/lose has the potential to be such an annoyance. For some people.

    The word “new” can carry a connotation of “recent” but it more literally implies “the latest version.” For all intensive purposes, I did not mean to imply the controversy about the metaphorical use of “literally” was a recent development.







  • The problem with the question is us, the consumers. When is the last time you sat down to read the instructions in great detail? A cursory look at the recommended temperature maybe and off we go. Meanwhile a labcoat has produced the greatest formula to clean everything at room temperature. If only we used this much water and these many spin cycles. But no one read the back of the container.

    Where I am at, people tend to not do a hot cycle or if they need it they go to a launderette. The liquid works okay on clothes in a cold cycle. But bed sheets and towels start smelling if they don’t get at least a 40C/100F cycle every once in a while. And I do that one on powder because it was the only one that wasn’t designed to be for cold wash only. So to summarize this extremely boring anecdote: it depends where you are, what your machine is like, and probably on local water quality as well. Or: we’ll never find a good answer here that satisfies the demands of the scientific method.



  • Technically, “the Holy Spirit” isn’t a proper noun. That’s because it contains an adjective also. Personally, I wouldn’t capitalize any of those terms. The head of the Catholic church only really when talking about it as a title in front of the assumed name, Pope Leo. Somebody’s style guide may have them capitalize all nouns with religious notoriety. That’s a style choice then rather than grammatical necessity.

    Also, grammar is the attempt at formulating rules about how people talk. Meaning the talking came first and then somebody tried to codify it. That means there is virtually no grammar rule that doesn’t come with at least one exception. Learning when to use an article or not, when it should be the indefinite or the definite one, is killing students who come from languages that don’t use articles at all. And in some cases also those who speak other article-infested languages. That’s because it doesn’t make any sense and you had to grow up being corrected by other speakers to get this mostly right. It is convention more than clean cut rules.


  • How would you feel about the fact that they made the Jim Carrey movie and put it where you could see it?

    I don’t think the Morisetteian irony of watching a movie that’s equally fucked up in its premise as you found out your life is would move the needle much. The rug would’ve been pulled out from under you and this wouldn’t cause more than a wry bored smile a couple of weeks later when the shock has subsided a bit.



  • It’s a stressful situation, a funeral. It seems insurmountable before it happens and once it gets going it becomes mostly manageable. I get why you don’t want the stress and all the family dynamics and the religious top layer.

    That being said: yes, you are unreasonable. If you like going to funerals, there is something wrong with you. Nobody likes it. For much the same reasons as yours. That’s the baseline.

    Think of it as a game and try to avoid talking to all the family members you don’t like. And since it will be your father’s funeral, you have the perfect excuse to have a thousand mile stare and be monosyllabic. And then you treat yourself when it’s over.

    There is no need to make your father sad now. Tell him you’ll attend. Because it matters to him. Even if you have no intention to show up, which you should though. He’ll either come back to haunt you from the afterlife (slim chance) or the only people who will maintain a grudge are your living relatives. That’s the bed you’ll be making for yourself and you can avoid a whole lot of additional shit in the future by investing half a day and attend the goddamn funeral.