Yeah, I had to do some work up there recently and it was so depressing.

Chuck Schumer is Bloom and Nancy Pelosi is Bialystock.

Edit: recast

TIL, what a badass. Thanks!

がんばいます！

I appreciate the feedback, this Anki deck should hopefully get my vocabulary to that point. I am actually pretty good at getting the meaning usually and the readings are the tough part, so I’m doing okay I guess. It just feels like a lot, but that’s true of any language I suppose. I’ve learned a lot in the last few months. Thanks for the encouragement!

I started with Duolingo and while it has all the regular duo problems, I think it actually does a good job with the kana stuff. You can turn off the Romaji too, forcing yourself to read. It doesn’t teach grammar, though, so I bought Genki Vol 1, working my way through that, and wotaku.wiki has a lot of good resources.

I really like the Cure Dolly stuff for grammar (though she can be difficult to understand, use the youtube transcripts or if you prefer reading a book someone helpfully wrote it all up). Her approach is totally different from the Genki methods, but I find it easier to understand.

I am also using Anki with the Kaishi 1.5k Kanji deck for kanji and vocabulary. This is honestly pretty painful, I’ve been doing it for like 10 days now and I feel like I’m doing badly every time, but I am improving. I could probably stand to study the radical stuff to understand more how the kanji is constructed but I haven’t found a good resource for that just yet.

Watashi mo, but getting better every day.

こんにちは！日本語を勉強しています！

I’m 90 days into learning Japanese. Most of that has been learning kana and I’m now working on kanji and grammar. It’s very different from English but I really like the way information is conveyed. I’m struggling with grammar stuff right now pretty bad, particularly conjugation, but it’ll click eventually. Also the lack of spaces is definitely something to get used to.

At least the landscapes will be pretty.

Kokomo

I can hear Henry’s sweat

I mean, that’s fucking weird though. If I said that shit at work I’d get a talking to from HR.

I up voted you, but I struggled to do so. I’m a year out of a… difficult relationship, and this is exactly right.

She eventually dumped me for the Dweezil. Probably for the best.

One of them is rich.

Sennheisers are great, I’ve been using their headphones for years. Those and my Audio-Technicas get a lot of love from me.

Lol I thought that’s where I was

No they’re not lol. I bought them because of podcasts and my $20 JBLs are better. The fucking ANC does nothing and they sound like crap.

I love spicy foods and they don’t upset my stomach. Though I did eat one of those “one chip challenge” things back in the day and I did fine at the time but the next two days or so I felt like I had been poisoned. Only time that ever happened to me. You probably have a threshold too but it’s just very high. Genetics and practice helps, your gut biome critters are probably used to it too.

The EFCore change is pretty big. They’re basically changing how the data is accessed from the database so that would touch most of the software, so potential for new issues is fairly high. Hopefully it will improve performance and concurrency. If you are not comfortable with potential issues, I’d hold off on updating for a while.

Because alignment of your physical and mental self is very gratifying. Ask trans folks. The problem, I think, is chasing an unattainable self image and trying to fix what’s inside by changing what’s outside.

Personally, I find the idea of changing my appearance surgically for beauty standards rather distasteful, but I am a person who has always been pretty confident and comfortable with who I am. Cosmetic surgery as you describe it in general strikes me as vain and bougie, and ultimately just makes everyone look the same, which I feel strongly about. Don’t get me started on these face filters.

All that said, I have tattoos and whatnot that others might find distasteful but they make me feel more like who I really am and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I support (and engage in) all sorts of gender-affirming behaviors meant to change my appearance though, so maybe I’m a hypocrite?

I once met a man who had functionally turned himself into a cat, via surgery. Screw in whiskers, lip bifurcation and cheek implants, everything. He was a nice guy, very kind and surprisingly shy given how much he worked to stand out. That’s how he was most comfortable and I respect that. I liked him a lot better than the gaggle of rich blonde moms who all had the exact same faces that I see at the mall or whatever.

Everybody should look the way they want to look. I guess maybe make sure you keep up the insides too, lest you mistake a lack of spirit for a lack of beauty.

This isn’t really on topic but I read Cujo like 15 years ago and I remember being struck by how very sad it is. Poor sick dog, bad situation all around. I guess I expected it to be scary, and it clearly has stuck with me.

And then this, even the author doesn’t remember the headspace he was in then, that affected me so much. Art is wild.