At least as far as ice harvesting goes, that’s a pretty well-documented historical fact that can be verified.

As far as my friends dad being able to ice skate on the creek, it’s a bit harder to verify what he was doing 60 or so years ago, especially since he’s dead, but he was also the kind of guy who did plenty of crazy things in his day, and that story would be downright tame compared to just about every other story involving him so it’s kind of hard to imagine that that was the one he misremembered or embellished, but I suppose it was possible.

And there are plenty of other little leftovers, like several parks and such in the area where the ice thickness is monitored by the park staff because once upon a time you used to be able to reliably skate and fish on the ice.

I live in an area where ice used to be an industry. Not even a minute drive from my house is a lake where they’d cut big blocks of ice and ship them downstream to stack and pack in sawdust and such to last the rest of the year. This area supplied a lot of the ice for the city of Philadelphia because closer to the city the Schuylkill and Delaware rivers were too dirty and no one wanted ice from them.

This went on until around 100 years ago, maybe even a bit longer, my dad in his 70s remembers his grandmother still getting ice delivered for her icebox for part of his childhood until she finally got a refrigerator.

My friends dad, who was a bit younger than my dad, used to tell stories about how the local creek would freeze over in the winter and he and his friends would ice skate down the frozen creek to get to another town about 5 miles away.

I actively keep an eye on ice conditions around me because I would like to try ice fishing some day. It’s only been a handful of times over the last decade or so where any body of water around here has frozen over enough for it to be possible, and even then it’s only been just the absolute bare minimum 4 inches and I’d ideally want another inch or two before I felt comfortable enough to actually try it.

I’ve never even seen that creek freeze over enough that even some foolhardy kids would be able to try skating on it, I’ve seen it get maybe 1 inch of ice, and even that was a rare occurrence, they’d break right through if they tried.

These are things that people around me should remember or at least should remember their parents and grandparents talking about, not something that’s totally out of living memory, and yet they still refuse to see it.

It might just be my regional (Philadelphia) accent, or even just how I personally speak

But I do feel like there is a very subtle difference in how I pronounce scent, cent, and sent.

Like so subtle I absolutely wouldn’t notice it if I wasn’t specifically listening for it, and wasn’t even aware of it until just now because I never had a reason to even think about it.

In scent, I sort of stretch out the “s” a little longer, and the “e” feels a little more nasal

With “cent” the “c” becomes almost like a “ts” sound, and the “e” feels a little higher-pitched than in “sent” and I also kind of hit the “t” a little harder which kind of makes the word feel a little shorter and punchier.

Again, this is all “very” subtle, not something most people could probably pick up on at all in actual conversation, but sitting around talking to myself at midnight and really thinking about it I can pick up a little bit of a difference.

It’s not the pinkest of pink collar jobs, but I work in 911 dispatch, which does skew a bit more female, and sort of evolved out of a more secretarial role which are of course more female-dominated.

Side-note, generally speaking, we do still tend to be classified as clerical positions instead of protective services like first responders, which does have an effect on what kind of benefits we receive, when we can retire, etc. there’s been a few attempts to reclassify us, I believe most recently at the federal level it’s being called the 911 SAVES act, so if that’s something you’d support maybe talk to your senators/representatives about passing that.

I don’t think there’s any particular bias, at least at my center, about who gets hired, promoted, etc.

You do see some difference in how we get treated by callers and field units and such. You get the occasional caller who is a real asshole to a female dispatcher but is polite and respectful when they get a man. Also some creeps who say some really inappropriate stuff to my female coworkers.

But overall there’s nothing much else that really jumps out at me as being partially interesting about working here as a man.

The way you described the lady. No nothing wrong with it.

If that’s the actual phrasing he used, I think it was pretty weird. Not necessarily offensive, just weirdly specific in a strangely technical way. Something like “the small Asian lady” would get the point across while sounding less like you’re some kind of robot or alien trying to classify her as a research specimen.

And the bit about either being from an Asian country or having Asian parents is kind of weird, for all OP knows her family might have been in the country for generations. People have a tendency to view people of Asian descent as a sort of perpetual foreigner, and that phrasing kind of feels like it’s playing into that.

“East Asian” also feels needlessly specific. How likely is it that there’s other women who otherwise fit the exact same description but are of, say, southeast Asian descent that OP needs to differentiate her from? I also think it’s probably the kind of distinction a lot of people just won’t understand. At least in the US I know I’ve had to explain what I’m talking about when I’ve talked about southeast Asia for example, a lot of people just don’t think that much about geography, let alone know about the cultures and physical characteristics of people from different regions.

It just all feels like a weird way to describe someone. Personally, I wouldn’t take it as rude, but it would definitely make me think that the person saying it is pretty odd and socially awkward.

I am not, on general principle, opposed to it. I do believe that there are some people who pose significant danger to others with no hope of rehabilitation, which basically leaves 2 options - locking them up forever, possibly in solitary if they’re dangerous enough, or killing them, and in many cases I think the later may be more humane.

But, and I’m not going to go into all of the details because there’s a lot, but I have basically no confidence in any of the systems we have in place to use that power in a fair way that can’t be abused, and I’m skeptical that such a system could ever be implemented

So in actual practice I oppose it.

I’m similarly not a fan of seafood, and I’ve given it plenty of fair shakes, and will continue to do so, I’m not a picky eater by any stretch of the imagination and I want to like it, especially since I love fishing

But I do personally find raw fish to be more palatable than cooked. I wouldn’t say it’s good, but it’s not bad, I wouldn’t seek it out but if it’s what’s available I wouldn’t be mad about it.

I also, in general, find freshwater fish to be better than saltwater. At least around me I don’t tend to see a whole lot of freshwater fish on menus or in grocery stores, if you’re in a similar boat, that might be another avenue for you to investigate the next time you decide to give seafood a chance.

I’ve also played around making some oddball non-fish sushi since my wife doesn’t share in my dislike of fish and is a sushi fiend, so it’s a way to scratch her itch for that while also making something I’ll eat. Probably my best creation has been a spam, pineapple, and jalapeno roll.

I’ve casually perused some Gameboy mods over the years, but never actually done any

And I have no idea what these shops are offering

But to give you an idea of what I’ve seen out there in general

There’s of course shells and buttons, and replacement parts to replace worn/damaged components (and I would imagine that in some cases those new components might be better than the original)

There’s options for better screens, and backlit screens on models that didn’t originally come with them

USB charging (and charging in general for models that originally used disposable batteries, and higher capacity batteries for those that already had rechargeable)

Video output to hook it up to a TV or whatever

Amplifier circuits and such to improve audio quality

And I’m sure there’s others, but that’s what I remember seeing off the top of my head.

50000 yen is around $315 right now. I feel like I’ve seen some places selling pre-modded Gameboys at roughly about that price point, so depending on what they’re offering that’s potentially a pretty solid deal.

But a lot of mods seem like they’re pretty much just a matter of opening the case up and popping the new components into place, and the parts aren’t terribly expensive, so you could probably shave some money off by DIYing it at home if you’re more interested in having the Gameboy than the experience of going to a workshop to do it. Some mods do require a bit of soldering, it didn’t look like it was particularly complicated soldering, but I know that a lot of people just aren’t interested in attempting that themselves, don’t know what your personal comfort level with that is.