George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
The things you lean on / are things that don't last
User ID: 107
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3d ago
I appreciate your writing this post.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3d ago
Beat me to it but I agree.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
3d ago
Just as an editorial comment, one of your sentences contains 274 words, including 5 parenthetical comments nested within. That's a lot.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
4d ago
There's a phrase Onna gokoro wa wakaranai. (女心はわからない) which roughly translates to "(You) don't understand a woman's heart." Usually used as a retort when behavior causes a feeling of feminine revulsion but the reasons why are either too obvious or too vague to explain.
(You may know this phrase of course; I routinely underestimate people's knowledge of Japanese.)
In this case it might be said to the Japanese government, to no one's surprise.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
4d ago
This isn't my idea, I don't think it's a particularly good idea, and I have serious doubts that it will work to do much of anything, but the big brains in Japan have a plan to actually pay single women cash to leave Tokyo and marry men in rural areas. Presumably this will also get the lusty fires burning as these gals subsequently produce offspring.
This seems like the bizarre idea of a bunch of old men in a conference room, yes.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
5d ago
From the article you linked:
Our vaccine is able to generate anti-fentanyl antibodies that bind to the consumed fentanyl and prevent it from entering the brain, allowing it to be eliminated out of the body via the kidneys.
This seems to be blocking the fentanyl crossing the blood-brain barrier. I haven't read much about this specific process but there's something called antibody conjugation that does this. From the article human clinical trials have not been done, suggesting this might not even work on people. (lots of things happen in rats that don't in humans.)
As for the second question, yes, lots of other problems, but that's not anything new. No one pill sorts out everything about one's life. Except Ozempic TM.
(This post brought to you by Novo Nordisk!)
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
6d ago
In speech it would take the or as in "Whatever he or she would like to do." I've used this phrase as long as I've been speaking in such contexts, but admittedly I'm probably older than you, my ways are likely not your ways, etc. I've never had any pushback. They I'd of course use if there were more than one person, and that's a legitimate strategy.
"If one member of your group wants a single room, he or she should reserve ahead."
" If people want individual rooms, they should reserve ahead."
I just made that scenario up; I am not in hospitality.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
6d ago
What happened to he/she?
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
6d ago
When Force Awakens came out I liked it. Looking back, if I could watch it alone without the ones after, I'd still like it okay--because it was basically of the same film family as the original trilogy, down to the exact same tropes. Rey was feisty and headstrong, but that was a combination in a way of Luke and Han. She showed weakness, at least one time, until she suddenly didn't, but there were unanswered questions that might have been answered in a way later that could have explained this. The film ended with a cliff hanger--you knew Luke was going to be awesome in the next film.
He wasn't. The Last Jedi on first watch was like a spice you've never had at a restaurant you're trying for the first time that serves food you thought you knew how to eat. The spice wreaks havoc on your digestive system and you think "God damn what did I eat? What was in that burrito?" I wanted to like it. I even refrained from piling on when people complained about it. And I still feel like Rise of Skywalker at least tried to undo some of TLJ's damage. But the trauma was too great. It was like taking an overdose of painkillers for a really bad headache. The cure made things worse.
The only thing positive I can say is that the acting as a whole was pretty good in the sequels. Every lead role actor and actress gave convincing performances. The soundtracks were quite good, as to be expected. And now I'm out of praise.
Tellingly, my sons, who I showed the original series to, and then the prequels, and who rewatched these films many times, never wanted to re-watch any of the sequels after seeing them once. Once!
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
7d ago
He says many stupid-sounding things. In the recent event where the guy was grabbed by cops going over the rail I heard Trump in the background (well technically he was the main event but the video footage was of the climbing guy), expounding on how at some point in the recent past (maybe his shooting day) a couple of US flags were flying in just the right way as to resemble, in a photograph, angel's wings. Which is Sunday School for toddlers enough of an image, but then he kept on about it, like he wouldn't drop it. Now I'm not irreligious and I can even be moved by certain religious iconography but this seemed like the kind of hamfisted shitty politicking you'd hear in a Hollywood film penned by someone trying to satire a populist politician.
Anyway. I am trying very hard to see Trump in the best possible light. I find not listening to him speak useful. God help me.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
7d ago
I expect probably both bitchy and sassy are undesirable adjectives here. Confident and aggressive, maybe.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
7d ago
@naraburns said pretty much everything I would say, only he said it more eloquently and in more detail. My sons are 13 and 15. My wife was 26 when she had our first, and I was a few years shy of forty. I have heard guys say they'd never have kids if they were too old for fear they couldn't throw the ball around with their sons. To that, I say pick up some goddam weights or go for a jog. It's fine. I also noted, as did nara, that your wife may lean toward No but at the same time extenuating circumstances may be what's contributing to that. Not some fundamental unwillingness to be a mother. Though of course you know best.
I would also suggest the timing is never perfect (true of most anything.)
Many women and girls get pregnant by "accident" and don't want the child, or the dad bails, etc. etc. Of the universe of couples who could have children perhaps you two are of the lot who should be having them.
My children are the absolute best thing I've ever done (with help). I can't tell you what to do, but I can say that.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
7d ago
No self-respecting writer will stick around for this kind of treatment.
I would say many, many writers would stick around for that kind of treatment if they're getting paid. Whether they're self-respecting or whether the best writers are self-respecting is of course another issue.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
9d ago
In that amount I don't see a problem but I'm very much not an expert.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
10d ago
I am not sure what you're asking. I know they may smell nice but beyond that don't have that strong a therapeutic benefit except maybe in aromatherapy. Possibly some help ease inflammation if applied topically. Peppermint oil is supposed to help headaches Tea tree oil has mild antimicrobial properties and is an irritant, but can be used to treat things like warts for this reason if used with a carrier oil.
Also most essential oils are toxic even in small amounts to cats. As you suggest, they can also toxic to humans because they can interact with liver enzymes or thin the blood if you swallow them, and that's apart from the irritant properties of some of them. They're pretty much unregulated so adulterants (solvents, other oils, added fragrance, etc.) added to oils of "poorer quality" can be an issue.
What are you considering using an essential oil for?
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
11d ago
They do indeed. TIL.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
11d ago
Micromanaging is I believe a way, along with car costs, driving school costs, and periodic car check-ups (called shahken) to thin out the road herd. It's already pretty congested even though public transportation is excellent.
I don't actually know all the fine points but I know I wasn't supposed to keep my hand on the gear shift as much as I did.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
11d ago
My Japanese wife once was cut off by a woman in another car and I heard my wife scream "CUNT!" This had never happened before and hasn't happened since. Road rage is interesting.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
11d ago
My only formal experiences as a student taught driving were our weekly Driver's Ed classes that in I think sophomore high school. I remember the football coaches (for some reason) were the teachers--I wonder if they got paid extra for that? We had these machines you sat in and turned wheels and stared at video screens and worked the foot pedals. But mostly it was a dry-as-a-bone watching videos of re-enactments and remembering the rules of the road. In these videos you'd be on some residential street and suddenly a ball would fly out into the road. What, what do you do? This would have been around 1982 or 3.
When I had to drive on an actual road for the first time I was around 15, which is the age at which you could get a driver's permit (meaning an adult had to be with you in the car. I don't know if this is still the case.) We only ever had manual transmissions in our cars at home so I had to learn to work the gears and clutch, and there was a lot of herky jerky. Once I can clearly recall my dad, my brother and I driving to my grandfather's house, which was then about 15 miles away. My dad getting out of the car, me getting out, circling around from the passenger to the driver's seat. When we hit 55 it was the fastest I had ever driven, but this was a slow speed for other drivers and people were overtaking me and I had slower people in front and I had a moment of near-panic. I remember my dad telling me to man-up, though he did not use those words. "BUT I'VE NEVER DRIVEN THIS FAST!" I said. His response: "Well then I guess we're all going to die."
I will never forget those words, and what I guess was the resignation borne of frustration with which he said them. Anyway whether I in fact man'd up or not I don't know, but we did survive, got to the house, and I suppose I kept driving. Years later when I drove automatic it was like driving a bumper car at the fair--so easy as to be bizarre. And to my way of thinking offers much less control, though with the way cars are automated now I suppose controlling the car yourself is seen as quaint.
All this to say I recall the moments of panic, if not enervation. I never did driving school, though. And when I got to Japan and my international license ran out and I had to take the course test, I failed a total of five times. Bastards. I think this is because I was taking manual (what they call "mission") and the obscure Japanese rules for this regarding hand positions were unknown to me (Japanese people pay upwards of 4K to take driving lessons at driving schools, which teach these esoteric rules so people will pass the tests. It's a racket.) When I gave in and took the automatic test (by then my wife and I had an automatic anyway at home) the rater guy looked at me at the end and said "Where'd you learn to drive so well?" My father's words came back to me, but I just said "From my wife," which seemed to satisfy him.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
12d ago
I don't know maybe it's age but all I can think of here is how nice it was to be in a room with my parents listening to them talk about whatever, when they were both alive.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
14d ago
I don't mind political humor as long as it isn't laser-focused to sway my vote because of some misperceived social responsibility to be both funny and have the high ground. I think I'd like Steven Colbert as a man, like if I knew the actual guy, but he seems to be almost religiously democrat (unless he's changed recently) and that really prevents me from enjoying his comedy as I'm just waiting for his next hymn to Biden/Kamala (or whoever).
I remember Stewart in an interview chiding the later-year members of Crossfire (Tucker Carlson and I think Bob Novak) that their polarizing rhetoric was "destroying America" but then his own whole schtick became extremely partisan. My last straw was when he dialed back and accused his past self of "shitty and reductive" views on transgender issues, to wild applause. Know your audience, I guess.
I enjoyed the linked clip and once again feel like Twitter and its ability to raise my blood pressure (by reading responses) must in the end be a net negative for at least the Western world, maybe everybody.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
16d ago
Not to geek out, but this is the passage from the book:
“Traveling through hyperspace isn't like dusting crops, boy. Ever tried calculating a hyperspace jump?” Luke had to shake his head. “It’s no mean trick. Be nice if we rushed it and passed right through a star or some other friendly spatial phenom like a black hole. That would end our trip real quick."
So the book was ghost written by Alan Dean Foster from the story by Lucas. I assume the only reason "star" and "black hole" are used here are because they're things in space, and "there's a lot of space out in space" (thanks, writers of Wall-E.)
Anyway as I say this point can be discussed at length and I am sure on reddit and other places it has been, but my point is it always made sense to me based on my viewings of the films and having read the book.
I am also sure that it never crossed Lucas' mind to have ships doing hyperspace kamikaze jumps, and that this decision by Rian Johnson or whoever wasn't great. But it wasn't a dealbreaker for me.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
16d ago
My wife used to enjoy watching Japanese dramas back in the day, then after having kids sort of didn't have time, but now watches Korean dramas. If she enjoys them I would feel pretty ungallant shitting on them for what well may be cultural biases. I have often heard Japanese people say they prefer Western media because Japanese media is so bad, but these have usually been bilinguals who like English so who knows what's going on there.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
17d ago
I don't know if you are going to be able to get that here. Certainly nothing definitive. Though you may get reassurance--that everyone at some point, or at many points, has experienced and will experience a similar feeling.
Japan
Although I am not particularly educated in seismology, I have long assumed that it was somewhat like climate science: One can model it, one can draw conclusions from the past, but it is difficult to precisely make predictions with current technology--and predictions necessarily involve changes or events that occur over vast periods of time, not in days or weeks. With these assumptions I am not sure how to take the now month-something old predictions that Japan is due for a massive quake.
The term Nankai Trough you are starting to see a lot now. This trough is a subduction zone, a deep underwater trench off the southern coast of Japan, where the Philippine Sea Plate is subducting (or being pushed beneath) the Eurasian Plate. Seismologists have (somehow) made enough of a determination that there is an impending event in this area that they apparently prompted the Japanese government to make public statements about it, namely that the population should be aware and take precautions in the event of a major quake, or "mega-quake" as you are sometimes now seeing written.
All this has had predictable consequences. There is a rice shortage due to various factors (including considerably more tourism than the last few years), but exacerbated when people have begun buying up essentials (of which rice, yes, is one in Japan.) Bottled water and bread are also thinner on the shelves. The sections of hardware stores that normally carry emergency goods such as solar radios/lanterns, MRE-type pouches, mylar blankets, etc. are also bare. It's not as bad as it might be, but it's noticeable.
As in the COVID years, it's difficult in the middle of such a frenzy to know whether to take it more seriously than usual, or just shrug it off as probable fearmongering for some tedious purpose unknown to me. After the last biggish earthquake near my home (the street up from my house cracked open in places--nothing like the bad earthquake of 95 or even the one I felt in 2011 that caused the tsunami, but pretty jarring) we stockpiled quite a bit, but that was a few years ago and much of the foodstuffs were near expiration so we ate them.
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