George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
The things you lean on / are things that don't last
User ID: 107
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2hr ago
On a related note, how do you know whether you're magnesium deficient?
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1d ago
Is this sarcasm or are you suggesting Kirk was a Nazi? I assumed sarcasm but it's hard to be sure.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1d ago
Don't be an asshole.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
4d ago
I think class isn't entirely or even mostly about one's salary.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
5d ago
Sorry I can't tell if this is meant ironically or not.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
5d ago
More and more I feel like deleting reddit from my phone and nearly never visiting the site (it has been about a month this time) has been a very good choice.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
7d ago
Chiang Mai, Pattaya, Bangkok, these are all heavily touristed areas, which I would argue give a different picture of Thailand than you would get from a more local experience.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
7d ago
I'm mildly surprised that I haven't yet seen talking heads complaining about the coverage of the murder and protesting that "black women also get murdered and nobody cares," etc. (This may be happening but I have yet to read it personally.)
Years ago when I first heard of "missing white woman syndrome" coined I guess 20 years ago by a TV anchor, I thought "Hm, that's interesting." But it's less-and-less interesting to me now. Now, whenever I hear people throw it out it seems to be yet another tedious effort to downplay criminality and make every god-damned thing a zero-sum-game involving race.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
7d ago
I keep reading your references to Bangkok, but Bangkok is not really representative of all Thailand. Surely this is something you are accounting for?
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
7d ago
Are we talking about outside of Bangkok?
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
8d ago
I bet my kids can kick your kids' asses.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
9d ago
I'm not buying it. To your one example of what you're calling 'face,' this is a cultural phenomenon noy a linguistic one, and to suggest it's related to some inherent (as opposed to learned) trait seems the opposite of Occam's razor. But your world weaving is entertaining.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
9d ago
Cool story.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
9d ago
I closed my eyes and touched the screen and the language one is what my finger stopped on.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
9d ago
I found this:
their brains are genetically-wired to support those different language types, even when their parents have moved to a new area and speak something else entirely.
to be the kind of jarring pseudoscientific statement of the sorts I noticed in the last installment, though I should probably go back and read them all. There's a matter-of-factness here that is reminiscent of Tsunoda's theory of the Japanese brain, which finds fertile soil in the traditional, Japan is #1 types, but is almost completely without any but the most flimsy, irreproducible evidence. I am always reminded when I read this kind of thing of the blue eyed, blonde white daughter of two friends of mine, a girl raised from infancy in Japan, who speaks, reads and writes Japanese better than many Japanese. She is only one example of many that contradict this kind of neurolinguistic chauvinism, but because I've seen her grow up into adulthood from basically her birth she is my first thought. I personally taught a Bantu language for six months after about two year's immersion, and didn't notice any particular cognitive overload in the learning or speaking of it. But my brain and everything else would have been younger then.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
9d ago
These stories are certainly disturbing but they're largely sensationalized rarities. Family support systems keep the majority off the streets even if they're personally broke. In the cases where you have a girl in the situation you describe it's almost definitely a case of some sort of seriously bad home life (eg molestation, etc) and not simply "times are hard in Japan." While living in one's parents' home well into adulthood may be odd to those from anglo or European countries, it's not such an anomaly here. When you have a girl who has opted out of that it's for a reason.
Homelessness does exist in Japan, of course, but it's miles away from the type of widespread homelessness you see in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago, etc. (I am only naming places I've actually been.)
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
10d ago
Is this a wall/window unit or central air? We have our wall units deep cleaned about once every two years or so. I don't know if it's planned obsolescence (or a racket) but the thinking is that Japanese wall units get a lot of crud that needs flushing out and otherwise gets breathed in and can cause irritants to those sensitive. This even when you run the self clean mode and/or clean out the removable filters.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
13d ago
I was just going to mention cromulent. I am old enough to have watched that Simpsons episode live, and didn't think about it for years until people started writing it in reddit. Then I've seen it in this very forum more than once, used in otherwise serious passages. I feel like anyway that cromulent may be more a word that that goddam word sonder.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
13d ago
Wishing you the best.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
16d ago
Older than I (am) is the correct form, prescriptively, but usage varies, per your point.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
16d ago
One reason I asked here (in this forum) is that in Japan you never know what the hell the group reaction is unless you are finely tuned to the group, and in this case the group is varied enough and one-scene enough (just this gym) that I cannot calibrate their microexpressions, etc. In other words everyone ignores his oOOOomphs and Ragghhhhhs except me, and I don't know anyone well enough to know if they are equally fazed. As I say this is a dude who doesn't really interact with the normal pleasantries.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
16d ago
The music is always godawful, but I have a thing against blocking out ambient noise in a public space. I know that is not normal.
It's interesting if this dude wants attention, because he seems so un-selfaware that he also seems unaware of everyone else. I suspect some sort of autistic tendency but whatever. I'll probably just fucking deal with it. (Also not to awooga again but the siren-y girl only showed up once, thank the Olympians.)
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
16d ago
Awoogaposting, that's a new one for me. Also I didn't realize I had a tendency to make such posts. So much for self-awareness.
here in America I don't think this behavior is outside the norm
Good to know. Probably the guy's general selfish obliviousness (as if the gym is his living room) is the little drop of Retsyn that makes his grunting irritating.
A question for the gym-goers here: Do you make all sorts of grunting noises when lifting?
That's the question and basically that's the only question, but to explain why I am asking it, the following:
I go to a local gym three times a week. There is newly-opened Anytime Fitness about 3 minutes from my house that replaced what used to be a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant. I've been in it and they did a good job of revamping it, but the price of membership is not cheap and anyway gyms are almost impossible to quit here (that is a boring story I will not tell.) So I continue to go to the old-man, almost-free gym which is a bike ride or a 15 minute walk through the park away.
You tend to see the usual people at my gym. Meaning, the same healthy Japanese people almost every time. It depends on when you go, true, but not always. Mostly you see old men, some really old men, some men who look older than me* but probably aren't, a few old/older women, and occasionally teenage or 20 something guys who for some reason do not go to a cooler venue. One fattish late teens girl who does a lot of staring at her phone for some reason goes there and is always given a torrent of advice on her lifting form by one old guy. She seems to appreciate every word from his mouth but I have my doubts. People are usually friendly to one another--a nod, a chat, some of them seem to like talking. I do not. Once a 20-something guy came in, having brought with him with a girl of similar age, except she was wearing some sort of black latex body suit but without the modesty shorts--she was also gorgeous, brown hair up in this ponytail, and it was as if the clothing she were wearing had been designed expressly for her, designed solely to showcase her youthful perfection in all its...perfection, yeah I can't even find words, it was a moment--and I nearly walked over to the guy and asked "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Very bad form bringing a shockingly gorgeous girl to an old man gym. For a moment I felt like a grizzled Muslim dropped unprepared on Miami beach.
To the point: There is one guy in particular at this gym, he lifts pretty heavy, he is the kind of dude who has two things going on--one set of reps he is doing at the bench press, but he also tries to monopolize the leg curl machine, etc. He does not talk or greet, nor does he bow when entering or leaving (strictly not necessary as this isn't a martial art, but most of us do it anyway). This guy, when lifting (and I don't think he has great form) always makes noises like something out of Forrest Gump when the guy is banging Forrest's mom upstairs. I cannot reproduce the sounds on keyboard. Like a man lifting a sofa but then his back goes out and he groans in distress. Except he does not groan once. He keeps rhythmically groaning and huffing. Yesterday he had the 50kg dumbbells in each hand and was doing a dumbbell bench press with each (he did not get all the way up, at least when I saw him) and it was only at this moment that I expected a grunt--but nothing. No. He saved the grunts for later when he was using the full bar to bench and kept raising it like 5-inches, and lowering it, and raising it again, like miniature reps. Maybe this is a thing. But each rep came with its own damned grunt. And I do not mean "damned" in the normal way. I mean that each grunt was of the pit, was curséd, like the speech of Mordor.
I get moving really heavy weight sometimes there is an involuntary grunt of effort. Like when pushing a truck out of the mud with your buddies. But god this guy's constant utterances annoy. What is the proper etiquette, if any, for gym grunts?
*I know that should be "older than I" but I can't bring myself to write it.
You might balk at this, but consider going a week without taking any biometrics or monitoring at all. I'd actually suggest a month or longer. From my wild and woolly point of view the currently popular idea of "optimizing" one's physical health is more like micromanaging when maybe just grooving for a bit would be more helpful. I suspect however that this suggestion does not interest you.
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