I mean, it blows my mind that people were excited to watch the Super Bowl at all. The advertisements are often the best part, given that the game itself is so mired in interruptions - often to deliberately increase the amount of air time for ads.

The eternal pestilence of physical advertising. Our world will not truly be clean until Linux purges the sins of marketing from this Earth.

Incidentally, you might be interested in Cidade Limpa

I have those random realisations

I definitely have moments when I wonder if I could have played my cards better. But I’ve also catastrophically misread interactions and embarrassed myself to the point where we just stopped talking to each other entirely.

Also been friends with someone who doggedly insisted “We’re just friends”, then decided she wanted me one night, then insisted it meant nothing and she just wanted to be friends again. shrug

Romance just be like that sometimes.

All Men: “I wonder if that woman wants to sleep with me.”

All Women: “I’m gay”

Record of Lodoss War was created in 1986 by Group SNE as a Dungeons & Dragons “replay” serialized in the Japanese magazine Comptiq from September 1986 to September 1989 issues, though they also used the setting with other systems such as Tunnels & Trolls and RuneQuest.. Many shorter Lodoss scenarios and replays were published in the Comp RPG magazine (initially a supplement of Comptiq) that ran from 1991 to 1994. Replays are not novels, but transcripts of RPG sessions, meant to both hold the interest of readers and convey the events that took place. They have proven to be popular, even to those who do not play role-playing games but are fans of fiction (including fantasy fiction). Similar to light novels, many characters and parties in replays have become popular as characters of anime. An example of such a character is the female elf Deedlit in Record of Lodoss War, who was played by science fiction novelist Hiroshi Yamamoto during the RPG sessions.

Also, obviously, there’s the Critical Role franchise that gave us Vox Machina and The Mighty Nein.

The best DMs have a stack of unfinished manuscripts in their study.

Better include a steel roof, because the structural integrity of the ceiling ain’t looking great once the dust clears.

The point is the average person doesn’t give a shit.

Average people give an average shit. They tend to see what comes close to goring their own ox and ignore what’s out of view.

It’s why going 50 in a 50 is considered ridiculous.

When you’re on an empty road, it feels ridiculous to go 50 in a 50 because nobody is in your way.

When it’s bumper to bumper traffic, it feels ridiculous to go 50 in a 50 because you’d immediately collide with the car in front of you.

When everyone else is going 50, it feels sensible to keep up with the herd, even when a sign indicates a different speed is more appropriate.

Ignoring the circumstances in favor of the written rule isn’t virtuous on its face. Sometimes the rules are wrong and you need to use your own judgement. Sometimes the rules are there for reasons that go deeper than their most literal interpretation.

Probably better to describe it as “fairness”. Maybe even “stubbornness” The problem with justice/fairness is that it is ultimately subjective. And a 10-year-old’s view of fairness is often divorced from principles of personal safety or propriety.

You’ll see this problem with adult libertarians all the time. Everything from seat belts to sales taxes to dress codes intrude on their sense of fairness, largely because they’ve ingested enormous volumes of propaganda. The real joke of it is when the term “social justice” impugnes your sense of personal justice. Same with the social conservatives who get up in arms over “illegal” immigration and desegregation, environmental regulations and speed limits, prohibitions on state sanctioned religious education, and age limits on who you can marry.

A sense of justice is a very plastic (especially at a young age) and perspective oriented. Wars have been fought and rivers of blood spilled over a population’s conviction of their own righteousness.

When I was living in apartments, the nicer spots would have big community fire pits in between blocks. They were great for mixing and mingling with other apartment residents, especially during the holidays or weekends with good weather.

One of the more annoying parts of being a home owner right now is getting people over to your place and finding places for all their cars. So much easier when everyone just kinda lives in the same two or three blocks and can walk over to catch a show or BBQ or play board games.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_listening

Really helps both the person talking and the person listening stay engaged. You’re encouraging the speaker to focus on the parts of the conversation you find interesting. They’re receiving feedback, so they know what they’re saying is being valued and encouraged.

They look like a good idea until you have to vacuum.

Why do you think Bill was always sending down all that lotion?

I always considered meditation a kind-of inward focus. Like, you’re not ridding yourself of thoughts. You’re deliberately ignoring outside stimulus. That’s why people meditating will typically close their eyes, relax their body, play some kind of white noise to deaden outside sounds, burn some incense to occlude any distracting scents, etc. Also why some kind of physical practice like long distance running or yoga is helpful - you’re leveraging exhaustion to encourage relaxation.

For someone with ADHD, that probably does feel like a superpower. But it’s more like a muscle that you develop over time. Little kids are notoriously bad at it. Much older people tend to fall into a meditative state more easily.

The mythology of neurotypical/neurodivergent discourse is ten times as fascinating as the actual science.

Who is holding the camera?

I believe that I can go to the store and purchase a sense of security. Once I own a gun, I can indulge in revolutionary fantasies that aren’t complicated by material conditions.

It’s religious mythology built atop historical cultural standards. Arguing over the age at which a literal angel impregnated a virgin is fucking absurd and has nothing to do with modern morals either inside or outside the religious traditions predicated on it.

Two-thousand years later, members of this same Christian faith have overhauled both the cultural and legal standards for marriage around the globe. Meanwhile, outspoken atheists like Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss ended up all over the Epstein Files, despite unburdening themselves of archaic religious dogma.

Mary was 13 when she gave birth to Jesus.

There is absolutely no verifiable documentation of Jesus’s birth, much less Mary’s age at the time of pregnancy. Might as well complain about the ages of Alcmene or Deichtine.

This kind of rhetoric is playing straight into the magical realism of the biblical literalists. Next, you’re going to start accusing Adam and Eve of incest.

Catholic here. Not as difficult as you might think.