Yes, my little brother is awesome. One of those people everyone loves. He really looked up to me growing up, then surpassed me in every way, which makes me proud.

Mixed results for me.

Lack of loyalty from me cost me the most important relationship of my life, something I’ll never fully recover from. I didn’t cheat, but I took them for granted. Of course someone smarter than me swooped in, and it was all over. I got dumped, and I deserved it. I’ve moved on the best I can, but some self-inflicted wounds never fully heal.

Loyalty to and from my younger brother has been all good, and very worthwhile for decades.

Loyalty to some of my more difficult and challenging friendships has gone very well, in spite of the rough patches. Sometimes you should cut someone loose, but I think most modern people are far too quick to do that. I try to give people multiple chances, but not be an enabler or sucker about it.

Loyalty to some of my other family members has only caused me grief and long term suffering.

Excellent choice.

Yup, Rush and Billy Joel are almost always amazing lyrics.

“And it’s your face, I’m looking for, on every street”.

That one will haunt me for the rest of my life. For reasons similar to Knopfler’s.

I attempt to only talk about these things with IRL friends. When our opinions disagree, we’re all nice about it. When we agree, it’s really fun to geek out on it together.

Even when we disagree, it can be fun to hear the reasons why. Because we don’t attack each other over personal preferences.

But trying to do that online? Nah. Tis a silly place.

That really did seem like a major cultural turning point, and I was watching it from the outside.

2009 = “two thousand nine” (or “twenty oh-nine” if you’re a time traveler from a previous century).

2026 = “twenty twenty-six”.

If you say “two thousand AND twenty-six”…I assume you probably write your name in your underwear.

There’s a restaurant I go to once in a while (it’s out of my way) that consistently makes excellent fries that are a magical. They thick, are long-cut fries with a bit of skin and a hint of edge crispiness. But overall they are kind of limp and soft. The occasional smaller “runt” fries are very crispy, but the longer thicker fries are wonderfully limp and they taste like actual potatoes.
They are not greasy.

Too many fast-food French fries don’t taste like actual potatoes to me. They taste like some kind of synthetic starch compound, almost like a Pringles or some shit.

If Thanos snapped his fingers and sent all of the marketing MBAs to “Planet Marketing”…nobody would fucking miss them. Nobody.

Agreed. And at this point people should say all recent years as “twenty-twenty-six”, etc. The few people who still insist on saying “two-thousand and” make me grind my teeth.

I enjoy silly questions like this (is a hotdog a sandwich, etc).

IMO “goo” is usually used when talking about something unpleasant. I think of honey as something very pleasant (barring any accidents).

However, after reading the other comments: I think I’m probably wrong and honey is indeed a goo.

TIL!

Gladys West

IMO South Park just holds up a mirror to society (in probably 90% of their episodes, anyway). People who are comfortable / powerful in society won’t like looking at the ugliness in that mirror. People who understand how fucked up everything is will appreciate the value of the mirror.

I think a smaller amount of their material is just them griping about various pet peeves, which is fine. They are human and very creative, so of course some of those types of things will come out in their work, too.

And some of it is just to be funny, pure absurdist jokes and gags. In the sense of “the universe doesn’t care” types of things. Those land hard for me, but some people don’t find that kind of thing funny. The people who don’t find it funny aren’t wrong, they just have different tastes in humor.

I remind myself that an internet rando means absolutely nothing to me. Like the figurative “dirt on your shoulder” that you just brush off. It really helps to take a break from all things social media (and social media adjacent) on the internet for a while, too. Get interested in something else (tv show, hobby, book, music, whatever) for a while.

Loneliness is a real bastard.

Your state’s domestic violence coalition may be able to help you. They can provide a lot of guidance and services, and in some cases even secure transitional housing.

One possibility for long-term would be to rent a room from someone you trust (who understands the situation) and never specify this as your address on any form ever. Use a PO box for your official address instead. You can also look to see if the state you want to live in has an Address Confidentiality Program (ACP) which are for abuse survivors.

Other options include a high rise with a doorman (expensive, security level varies a lot from place to place), or a gated community (security is more optics than real security, but could be a deterrent).

I have a friend who moved to Mexico because he couldn’t afford his medications in the US any longer. He has to return to a border town every 6 months to renew his visa, which is a PITA. But, something like that might be an option, too. It’s unlikely he’d think to look for you in another country.

It’s a little hard to explain without coming across as pedantic. The Wikipedia article on the “Dash” does a pretty good job of it. Compare en dash to em dash. Or just read the “Usage” sub-section under “Em dash”. I used to use the em dash (occasionally) in my writing but now I try to avoid it, thanks to AI over-using it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash#Em_dash

The philosophy of Antinatalism makes a lot of logical sense to me. I find it difficult to argue against without appealing to nature, traditions, emotions, etc.

People really, really, really hate AN, though. It’s not something I enjoy engaging about. I don’t really care if other people subscribe to it or not. I’m not an AN evangelist.

Unfortunately, AN attracts a lot of weirdos, childfree types, and suicidal people. There are some brilliant folks who subscribe to it, too. But the signal to noise ratio is awful.