bolido_sentimental
No bio...
User ID: 205
bolido_sentimental
1mo ago
Most library systems have a "recommend a title" or "recommend a purchase" page on their website. I have used this on three occasions that I can think of, and in each case the library has gone ahead and purchased it.
You should find this page on your library system's site, and request it; and then follow up. Either they'll get a copy of it, or hopefully give you a reason why.
I am surprised to see that my major-metro library system does have 4 copies of The Bell Curve. And indeed I'm actually currently reading a copy of Camp of the Saints from the library.
bolido_sentimental
1mo ago
Sherrod Brown got the boot here in Ohio, after 21 years in Congress. Obama won Ohio both times, and the state has almost always had one Republican and one Democratic Senator; now all statewide elected officials are Republican. Not a bellwether anymore, I don't guess. I don't know how interesting that really is, but I'm always fascinated by how states flip over time. When I was a kid, it was utterly unimaginable that North Carolina or Georgia could ever be play for the Dems; in future years, they probably will be blue from time to time.
bolido_sentimental
1mo ago
At some point I want to look into how other states handle redistricting. Ohio seems unusual in how gridlocked we are on that.
Something I'll be watching as an Ohioan: we'll be getting a new Senator to replace Vance. I wonder who it could be? Governor DeWine has to appoint someone for the rest of the term. There are local GOP functionaries like Frank LaRose, or maybe it's a chance for Vivek Ramaswamy? Either way, someone will have a chance to raise their national profile.
bolido_sentimental
1mo ago
It will be a pleasure.
bolido_sentimental
1mo ago
I wasn't able to stay up to watch the entire 2017 Australian Open men's final; I fully expected that Nadal would come up with his usual plot armor bullshit and pull it out. Waking up to see that after five years in the wilderness, Federer had finally won again on the very biggest stage - defeating his greatest rival to boot - is genuinely one of my favorite memories.
I have to go to bed now; I wonder if tomorrow will be another morning like that.
bolido_sentimental
1mo ago
I'm still feeling very Nybbler-y about it all, myself.
bolido_sentimental
1mo ago
People keep talking to me about "civil war" and "post-election violence" and so on. Are any of you preparing for that in any particular way?
I can't really envision anybody messing with things in my inner-ring suburb, or my dumpy little house in particular, but who knows, I guess. I could sit on my porch with my shotgun but I'd just feel like a tool.
bolido_sentimental
1mo ago
I like walking in cemeteries. For that reason, a bit later in life I hope to set aside some funds for a burial plot and a headstone here in the neighborhood. Ideally, I can think of something neat to have them engrave on it. Then, someday, awkward teenagers on a semi-date amble can read it and think, "Wow, that guy must have been a kook when he was alive."
The funeral service itself, gee, idk. Let the pastor and my surviving kin do that however they think best.
bolido_sentimental
1mo ago
Do you live in an area where most of the people you meet, work with, and/or live near are ideologically similar to you?
If you do - do you feel like this is better for your life than the alternative?
If you do not - do you wish to eventually? Or do you feel it doesn't matter, or even find that undesirable?
bolido_sentimental
1mo ago
LOL
Tbh, it's like I'm the guy in the original post except I really want it to stop.
bolido_sentimental
1mo ago
I am a native of Tennessee, have lived in Kentucky, and currently live in Ohio. None of these could be described as "blue states." Pretty much everyone that I talk to on a daily basis lives and votes in one of these three states.
For the last three or four months, almost every person I know has been assaulting my ears, unsolicited, with monologues about how Trump is a racist, sexist and fascist, and he must be kept out of the White House. Literally - I'm not saying that as a stock example, I mean that people have actually used those terms, in series, in sentences to describe him and his politics. Additionally, multiple people have told me they wish the would-be assassin's bullets didn't miss their mark. These people include my dad - a blue-collar tradesman; my coworkers, at a blue-collar manufacturing firm; my mom, a retail worker; a close friend of mine who joined the Army; and a guy I know who works in construction. No matter their age, race, or who the winners' policies would be likely to benefit, there is a lockstep consensus, even though these are all people who are the types of people, in the appropriate states, that you'd expect to support Trump. The only exceptions that I personally have are my fiancee and her family, a close friend from church, and an old coworker. All other people are happy to start venting about Trump to me.
(Notably - and this is not meant to be boo outgroup - I never hear anyone talk about how the election outcomes, or the policy outcomes that follow from that, will affect them personally. One guy I work with did at least reference his neighbors who are voting for Trump because they don't want their taxes to go up, which he described as "greed.")
My subjective impression, is that this is primarily caused by the successful capture by liberals of so many institutions, resulting in leftism becoming the "default position" in America. When all the big companies, all the media, and all the artists and musicians push in the same direction, you have to be a serious non-conformist to push the other way; and that is an uncommon trait. With that in mind, I don't know how the Republicans ever win any elections.
bolido_sentimental
1mo ago
The community aspect of NaNoWriMo was responsible for some of the best times of my life. I ran my city's NaNoWriMo in 2019, and it was a wonderful experience in every way. We really embraced the core idea of NaNoWriMo as it was originally conceived: ordinary people, getting together to try and exceed our old level of ability, urging each other on to believe that we can do more than we think we can.
So the idea that they would mention "ableism" is very galling, and represents the extent to which the original entity has been skinsuited. Unfortunately, that was in progress for years prior, and 2019 was really the last gasp. In 2020 and 2021, they opted to disallow officially-sanctioned write-ins because of Covid fear - no matter what local regulations said. They also explicitly stated that they wanted more "diverse" people to run the groups in each city, and discourged non-diverse people from applying. And, of course, last year there was the huge grooming scandal. The whole protracted decay of NaNoWriMo, from its apolitical roots in the 2000s, was very blackpilling for me; it directly crystallized for me the idea of, "These are the people who are hostile to you personally, and to what you value most."
Anyway though, just engaging in NaNoWriMo yourself is something I still think is a great idea. For many writers who can't do it as a full-time practice, there's nothing better than simply getting a bunch of words onto the page.
--
As an aside - I've written in this forum before about how, up until a certain point in my life, it was quite common for story ideas to pop into my head at any given time; but this process largely halted a couple of years ago as I entered my 30s. There are a lot of practical life factors in play, but subjectively, it feels as though my head were a radio, and the tuner knob has gotten bumped off of the frequency where all the story ideas are broadcast. Before, I could just hear them, and now I can't. Have you ever felt that way? And did you change anything in your life accordingly?
bolido_sentimental
2mo ago
As a rule, if you don’t have preexisting physical health problems and make it through your first year or two(almost all tradesmen have to start on a construction site) then just take care of your body and the work won’t be too tough on it.
Just to supplement this. My dad has worked in a quite physical trade for 40 years now. (He's a glazier.) He has no particular ailments associated with it - he's a good weight, hale and healthy, still very physically capable. He's never been a overeater or a drinker, and I think getting lots of exercise each day has kept his level high. I'll be lucky to be as healthy as he is when I'm in my 60s.
The one problem he has is that he's had multiple melanomas removed, because he did not wear sunscreen at any point in all that time lol. He knows better, he doesn't deny it, but he still doesn't put it on.
bolido_sentimental
2mo ago
Gonna be giving out candy. My neighborhood is full of kids. Something I've noticed: they hardly ever remember to say "trick or treat" these days. Halloween has fallen.
I'm going to Pittsburgh this weekend, mostly for business though. What's the signature food, and where do I get it? Somebody tag the Pittsburgh guy!
Update: I'm in some place called Fiori's Pizzaria currently. This feels very Pittsburghy.
Update 2: I had an Italian hoagie. It was really very good.
I am originally from Tennessee, and UT is the SEC school there; I wonder how similar the experience is. Throughout the state, there is this sort of low-level obsession with UT; when I tell people I'm from Tennessee, even now, they say, "Oh, did you go to UT?" even though I grew up 200 miles away from UT's campus.
Then as now, I was not interested in the "SEC lifestyle." It all sounded like a very poor match for my own personality, and I never even considered going there, though many people from my high school did. I ended up going to a much calmer public university in Tennessee; one which had a Greek life, but where the Greek life was not the center of all social life by any means. There, I was able to just nerd out and focus on academics in relative peace. I made friends and found romantic interests through "normal" channels - through classes, campus clubs, intramural sports etc. After various twists and turns, I am living the normal middle-class lifestyle of a State U grad.
I wonder where I'd go if I'd grown up in similar circumstances in Alabama. Maybe UAB? Or UNA?
I feel like even now, I mix more often with people that, like me, went to places like Northern Alabama, Northern Kentucky, UT-Chattanooga or whatever than I do with Ohio State/Michigan/Alabama/Duke sort of people. I'd be keen to read more about that kind of social sorting. I probably missed out some access to elites, but I don't think I belong in that stratum anyway.
bolido_sentimental
2mo ago
Not especially. I appreciate when our forum members provide these humanizing elements; especially since we have a core of users that has been stable for a long time, it makes me feel like I know them a little bit as people, instead of just as collections of culture war viewpoints.
bolido_sentimental
2mo ago
Ahahaha I'm not there yet if it is. Can't wait lmao.
bolido_sentimental
2mo ago
I'm not sure about that, honestly. From that specific ATM, I have never withdrawn more than like 80 dollars at a time; though I know it can do more.
I was more weirded out by the way he kept picking the "credit" option. My understanding is that this incurs big fees for people that use a credit card to get cash advances. It made me think that he was using a stolen card. But - I don't know that much about the ins and outs of that, so I might be mistaken.
I am reminded of the posters I used to see in airports and on public transit, that said, "If you see something, say something!" I suppose they were looking out for bomb threats, etc.; but how do I know if the "something" I've seen is pertinent to anything?
bolido_sentimental
2mo ago
He was in his 20s.
I didn't look at it from your perspective, but now I'm really starting to see it that way, actually.
bolido_sentimental
2mo ago
It does. I don't know if he knew that, though.
bolido_sentimental
2mo ago
Yesterday, I stopped by a CVS to use the ATM there.
I ended up stuck behind a man who used the ATM as follows: he inserted a card he had, entered the PIN, and pressed the "Credit" option and withdrew 100 dollars. He then repeated this same process probably 10 or 11 times: using the same card, he did that and withdrew 100 more dollars, over and over again.
Is this is a legitimate thing to do? I can't think of why someone would do that. I got a feeling like it was some kind of fraudulent behavior, but I just don't really know. I guess maybe he didn't know how to use the ATM properly, but that doesn't feel likely to me. He was a younger man in apparent possession of all his mental faculties.
As a secondary question: if you see someone who is definitely using some kind of stolen card, or tampering with an ATM in some way... what do you even do then? Who would you tell? (Assuming you didn't want to just ignore it, which is what I would probably do by default.)
On this forum, I'm less concerned about giving offense, and more concerned that spelling out the N-word will make readers think I'm trying to be "edgy" on purpose; which reduces the odds of their being willing to have a serious discussion with me.
For better or worse, I can't write anything without imagining what it will make the reader think.
I drink it all the time. Most people in the lower classes do.
I have a Pur pitcher, but bizarrely... I like the way the tap water tastes.
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