bolido_sentimental
No bio...
User ID: 205
bolido_sentimental
3mo ago
That's really overstating it. I play golf by myself because I just like golfing. Tons of people take golf seriously for its own sake.
bolido_sentimental
3mo ago
This is just my own curiosity but - doesn't that make you feel like crap the next day?
I really like drinking, and that's the main thing that holds me back apart from trying to avoid weight gain: that upset stomach/headache feeling persists all the following day for me, and I almost never go beyond 4 total drinks. For context I'm in my mid-30s and in fairly good physical condition.
bolido_sentimental
4mo ago
Note that Moby Dick came out in 1851.
bolido_sentimental
4mo ago
For that matter, the Barsoom novels occur on a Mars which was previously much more inhabited.
bolido_sentimental
4mo ago
In my view, the 1998 Modern Library list of the best 100 novels of the 20th century has mostly held up. As of now I have read 50-60% of the books on the list and was generally glad to have read each one.
https://sites.prh.com/modern-library-top-100#top-100-novels
Something else that you may find interesting to do, is to examine some of the books that were bestsellers in different time periods. In the '50s you had writers like Nevil Shute and A.J. Cronin; later you had authors such as Arthur Hailey and Mary Stewart. However, rather than being slop, I've generally found these writers' works to have held up quite well; to my mind this reflects that at one time, the reading public was much more male, had longer attention spans uncorrupted by digital technology, and had better liberal educations than what prevail now.
bolido_sentimental
4mo ago
I'm mainly just a lurker, but I've been on this site from the start; and from here, I went on to start using Data Secrets Lox, X, Rdrama.net, and especially Substack. Subjectively, outside of here I enjoy the content and discussions on Substack the most. There are a lot of Discords, but I don't really like using Discord to talk to anons very much.
The Motte and its predecessors have been my favorite parts of the Internet since I discovered SSC around 2013 or 2014. Somehow I still feel the sense of shared heritage and mindset, but I know that it's all fragmenting. I have tried to resist that happening, because I don't think I can build the same feeling of community as a Peachy Keenan fan or Yuri Bezmenov Comrade or whatever. I just came to those things too late. My next "community" will actually probably be the Old Men Eating Lunch group at my church.
That sub has fallen off tremendously in terms of activity from 6-8 years ago, which is a somewhat unusual thing to see on Reddit. I often wonder why that occurred.
https://odh.ohio.gov/know-our-programs/breastfeeding
We still have "mothers" in Ohio, for now. Almost reminds me of a warrant canary: when the state websites no longer use the word "mother," you know they've been got to.
bolido_sentimental
5mo ago
It was a hell of a car. I paid $2800 cash for it, and at the time that felt like a ton of money. Then I drove it for eight years.
I wonder what that same money would get you now. Do you ever think about that scenario? "I'm 22 years old, I've got 3k saved up, and I've got to get a car that will get me to my job for at least a year or two." I imagine you'd end up with something like an Oldsmobile Alero. Maybe a Mazda Protege if you live in a lower-rust area. Definitely nothing under 10-12 years old.
My favorite car I ever owned, or probably ever will own, was a 2001 Volvo S40. I just loved the way it looked, and I never had a better-feeling car to drive. The handling was very precise and the turbo was very responsive. It drove like it was on rails. Even more than that, I absolutely loved having a car nobody else had. Here in the Midwestern U.S., I have seen fewer than 10 other 1st-gen S40s, ever. I mean, ever. And I keep a sharp eye out for them. (The first-generation V40 is even rarer.) Obviously there's stuff out there like the BMW M series, various Acuras etc. that would have been hotter performers, perhaps objectively better cars on any axis; but that Volvo S40 was mine. I identified so strongly with it for some reason.
But it got to the point where I couldn't keep the CEL off reliably, and I really got tired of crawling underneath that thing, or putting my arm down in the engine bay to try and wrench out more stuff with my Torx kit... I am grateful for the mechanical competence I got from dealing with that, but I have a good job now and I just don't need to do that shit any more. I was ready to have that feeling that when I go to start the car, it definitely will start and I will get where I'm trying to go.
So I traded it in, and I now drive a white Buick sedan. In general no one will notice it. This Buick is definitely the most reliable car I've ever had. My cost of ownership has been minuscule. Absolutely great, reliable car. But it's not especially fun. Just comfortable. I wonder if I will ever have another car that I think is "fun." By the time I'm ready to, I wonder if driving yourself (instead of having a self-driving car) will be banned.
People that went from not exercising regularly, to exercising regularly: what motivated you to do that? What got you started?
Personally I've enjoyed exercising since my mid-teens. I carry on doing it because I like having functional strength for the demands of daily living; and I also need agility and stamina to do well in sports I enjoy, especially tennis. When I was younger, I was also driven by the desire to look better. I did have success there, but I don't think about that aspect much anymore.
There are a couple of people in my family who, while they have normal or at least not-terrible weight, simply do not exercise. It isn't part of their life. While I know such a change largely has to come from within, I know from conversations with them that to some degree, they simply have never seen a reason to - having, perhaps, never really thought seriously about it. I'm curious about what angles I might take to try and convince them to give it a shot. I have a lot of social capital in this setting, and I do think I'd get a fair hearing.
I guess I may begin with the reason I want them to do it: as a defense against all-cause mortality, and as a method for keeping quality of life high well into middle and older age ranges. But I'm not sure how to back this point up or drive it home. Maybe if I had the right anecdote, blog, or article from a well-spoken source, it would help me.
bolido_sentimental
5mo ago
I would like to read the female version as well.
It's spelled Hlynka.
bolido_sentimental
5mo ago
I'm not elite enough in any respect to really merit an elite doctor. I go to the doctors' office nearest my house. My doctor is a nice Indian lady. Maybe she's good, maybe she's not, who knows.
bolido_sentimental
6mo ago
Yeah, controversy creates engagement, much more so than raw quality. There's only so many ways I can say, "This is great and I really agree with everything it says."
bolido_sentimental
6mo ago
"It doesn't really matter. Here goes nothing. It will be interesting to see what happens."
— Sloan Wilson (The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit)
bolido_sentimental
6mo ago
Reading David Copperfield. I believe this is my fifth Dickens novel.
Every time I go back to him, I am surprised at how easy it is to read, and how funny he can be. Also with this one, in Dickens's preface he describes how much he's going to miss the characters now that he's done writing the book. A very modern-feeling touch.
Do you participate in any organizations or activities based around your identity, ancestry, or heritage?
Examples of the kinds of things I'm thinking of are:
- A German-American helping put on the local Oktoberfest
- Someone whose father was a coal miner, contributing to the local miners' museum
- A Welsh person teaching a Welsh-language class
bolido_sentimental
6mo ago
It's always been funny to me that you very seldom see anyone question this with regards to NBA basketball.
I miss those days, but in 2017 I vowed to never play FM again. It's just too hard to stop.
I'll always have my one CL title, in which Will Hughes scored the only goal in Stoke City's unforgettable triumph over Bayern. And what a banner day it was for Laurentiu Branescu in goal.
bolido_sentimental
6mo ago
I think they all move out of Iksan as soon as they can, and never return. As for what they get up to in Seoul, I can only imagine.
bolido_sentimental
6mo ago
It depends on what you want out of life, really.
I lived in Iksan, Jeollabuk-do for a while, and played on an amateur soccer team. The other players were all middle-aged guys who worked in various trades or for small manufacturing companies.
They seemed happy with their lives. Iksan has plenty of places to like... have a grillout and drink soju, or whatever you want to do. It's not a high-status place, and I'm sure strivers would find it miserable. But the world is not made up entirely of strivers. Some people just want to raise their kids, and play soccer with the boys on the weekend. I guess the user you mentioned would not be satisfied with that life.
I also spent time in other large cities there: Daejeon, Jeonju, Busan, Incheon and some others. But not enough to grasp the differences. They were all, you know... large. If you need to be surrounded by a million people, those are places you can do that.
bolido_sentimental
6mo ago
I have a few days off coming up, during which I'm not working, but also not traveling as I have other scheduled travel coming up.
What do you like to do when you have a few days off like that?
I was religious before, although not from childhood. I came to that in adulthood.
I guess I would say, frankly, that I personally am trying to focus on what I'm able to control, and to narrow the scope of what I consider "my tribe" to a set of people I know I share at least certain key values with. As another Mottizen recently commented, if we are able to successfully model "functional community" for other people, they may see that we have built something good and try to join it or replicate it; and at the same time we have a certain level of gatekeeping against people who don't actually share our values. Over a long enough time horizon, this mode of organization could restore healthy community in many places. However, if it doesn't, I and my tribe will at least benefit from our mutual increased focus on our mutual benefit.
I agree that this isn't likely to have electoral impact. I suppose I've largely given up hope in electoral processes bringing me any benefit.
People of the Motte, I am engaged to be married. AMA I guess. Reaching this state was a surprisingly long journey - I'll be 35 on wedding day. I have been dating off and on since I was 18, and at that time I never would have imagined that I'd still be playing the game 15+ years later. Glad to be finally be checking out, hopefully for good.
I can't help but wonder how checking Culture War Roundup threads every day for the last 10 or so years, may have contributed to my ultimate change from rootless, callow 20-something to homeowning family-seeker. This was previously a classic path that people tended to follow, but relatively few of my peers ended up following it. I often wonder if being a SSCer/Mottizen has actually been a good thing for me, or whether I'd have been better off never knowing about the things we discuss here. Nevertheless, though you do not know me, there are many of you to whom I'd send a wedding invitation if I thought we had room for it; and indeed it will be an interesting culture war occasion to observe, as many blue tribe + red tribe friends and family will meet for the first time. But of course on the day, I'm going to really try not to think of it in those terms lol.
Anyway, as far as Friday Fun: my fiancée and I have been doing jigsaw puzzles lately, while listening to the "oldies" station on AM radio. I think for many people, if you see this activity on a list of activities to do, your eyes may pass right over it - it seems so boring that it doesn't merit serious consideration. But seriously, it's actually really satisfying when you get the whole border put together, or when you get on a roll with a big section of the puzzle. Are jigsaw puzzles what they call "lindy"? In any case, I realized there must be a reason why they continue to sell jigsaw puzzles in every Target, Wal-Mart, Meijer, Big Lots etc. in America. Consider giving it a try if you want to do something easy and analog for a while, as a nice little break from technological recreation.
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