George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
The things you lean on / are things that don't last
User ID: 107
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2d ago
That's interesting, are we more likely to smile if we can see ourselves? I think in my case the smile I can summon that I think looks smiley is not at all my natural smile, though it may seem to be for the untutored (fortunate) who don't know me well. I've even had people remark at photos I thought were good: "I hate your fake smile."
My real smile--my genuine one--I think makes me look like an idiot.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2d ago
So sometimes you get one of these "would you rather have sex with a dog that is alive or dead"
Bro I haven't even finished my first coffee yet.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2d ago
To keep up the pedantry, wouldn't a German say nein?
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2d ago
Keep up your muscle mass, do some resistance training, perchance you've not yet quit the gym? Pushups are something to consider if you have. A regimen every morning.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2d ago
Harissa sauce thrown in the crushed tomatoes and green peppers is all you need. The cumin is all in there. Bring to a simmer, drop in the egg(s), cover a bit. I love it, but one has to be ready.
I cook nearly every day for my family, two teenage boys and a wife in her 40s. She is easy. The Golden Rule of My Wife is if there is a salad, she is happy. So a salad, which means usually two types of lettuce (one frilly, the other ideally bitter like rucola but not necessarily). Julienned carrot. Thinly-sliced paprika (red bell pepper). Thinly-sliced cucumber medallions. Thinly-sliced red onion, soaked first in ice water to take out the bite. Add something like homemade croutons seasoned with olive oil and oregano and salt, and/or some crumbled bacon but she doesn't love the bacon. A salad dressing. She doesn't mind bottled, but having more than one is good.
I've recently learned how to make a quite good miso soup, though I only do that if I have a more Japanese-y meal plan. Rice is then going to be the starch.
I usually, however, make pasta of some sort, or curry and rice (no miso soup in that case). The key is make things you know people like and don't make things you know that they do not like (neither my wife nor in my youth my mother follow(ed) this rule as much as I do). Also of course make something that you like, but I keep my own preferences secondary. A good bolognese sauce is not hard but easy to do poorly if you are lazy. It takes around 2 hours. Philly steak sandwiches aren't hard if you have good bread. Spicy mabou-doufu is good on rice (again in this case miso soup not needed). Chicken and broccoli. Various kinds of fried chicken (popcorn, something they call chicken tatsuta here, karaage or Japanese fried chicken). Pulled pork with mashed potatoes and cole slaw (again no miso soup). Various lasagnes with different meats or sauces. I used to make a shrimp pasta with feta cheese and spicy red pepper but I expect my boys wouldn't eat it. Beef stroganoff also used to be a standby. Twice-cooked pork with cabbage and onions. There are also things I cannot cook and haven't tried: Nabe or hotpot, which done well is amazing, but takes work on one person's part while everyone else eats.
In Africa I learned to cook down dried beans into a hearty meal. I learned to roll tortillas from scratch with a wine bottle, some baking powder/soda, and a bit of lard. Mexican food is great to learn on. I do fajitas once every few months. Taco rice, because hey, Japan. Eggs Benedict in the morning of a long weekend. I have recently discovered Harissa sauce and Shakshuka and it is amazing with crusty bread and hot coffee. Implausibly breakfast is my big meal of the day if I have time to make it, which I rarely do. I would kill for a good diner open early. Pancakes and waffles take a bit of practice. Chicken à la King on toast or rice. Sautéed spinach with onion and some mozzarella or something melted on it. Crocque Monsieur grilled with gruyère cheese and a nice ham. Then there's chili. Or beef stew. Or hayashi rice. I'm only listing things I make, but I am discovering new stuff all the time that is healthier. A good quinoa salad with lime, cilantro and cucumber is very refreshing and healthy. I can pan fry steaks but am still weak on the grill. Part of my burger recipe involves a cast-iron skillet. Ah, I used to make patty melts and mash the caraway seed into brown bread to simulate rye (which is hard as hell to find in Japan.) Now I'm hungry.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2d ago
Impeccably formatted, as usual.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2d ago
Your results mirror what I expect mine would be. I got as far as the register wall and clicked out. The very first two faces said "Which woman do you prefer"? And one of them was 100% a dude, looked like a teenaged boy actually. Weird.
Edit: I did not choose the boy.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
5d ago
It strikes me as a rant with a rhetorical and fairly presumptuous question imbedded. Is feminism really the issue here? How do you define that term to reach your conclusion?
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
5d ago
Well also it's a very unclear photo and all the children are wearing masks.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
7d ago
I agree. In my limited experience nurses frequently talk outside their wheelhouse and feel they do as much as (and often feel they know more than) doctors. It does not strain credulity that a nurse might claim that because she is a "medical professional" (a weasel term, in my view, that we'd do better without) that she should be granted ascendancy in matters of health, even mental health (or pharmacology as the case may be). This is a personal bias of mine but it's been borne out in conversations many times.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
7d ago
Well Fischer's book came out this year, so it's likely the other way round. But I'm not sure.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
7d ago
The Last Kings of Hollywood gifted to me by the same guy who gave me a few other film-related books. It follows the careers of Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg from the 60s to the 80s. It's a hardcover copy which I like but means I don't carry it on commutes, so may take a while.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
10d ago
I feel like the vagueness of your pronouncements here ("social catastrophe, "we" cannot be "ourselves", lack of imagining a counterfactual to some of the historical gestures you're making) weakens this to the point that it's hard to reply.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
10d ago
Your docs suck at stats link is broken.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
11d ago
Cancel your gym membership? You've been holding out on us that you can perform miracles. Maybe it is different in the UK but in Japan you don't just "cancel" your gym membership. Basically you need to hack off a finger to successfully end a gym contract. Even then you must do so a month before you actually will have your membership terminated.
I'm being facetious obviously but one of the reasons I hesitated to join my local gym was because of the bureaucratic cartwheeling necessary to quit a gym. Some years ago I was moving away from a town (where I am now back) and needed to end my membership (at a different place than I ended up joining recently) and was flatly told that it was impossible to do so. The desk girl, with whom up until that moment I had had a cordial relationship, suddenly turned flat and went extremely cool. Ultimately I did quit but they were not at all happy about it, and I think I would not be welcome there if I tried to re-up. They had a pool, too, it's too bad.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
12d ago
It has a wide reputation as bullshitto. I watched a few videos years ago where this older Russian guy touting Systema was dodging attacks and somehow debilitating his opponents without as much as touching them. "He was doing something I can't understand," said his opponents.
Unconvincing.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
12d ago
Paging @FlyingLionWithABook
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
13d ago
You show patience you didn't think you had, you empathize, and you just get through it. Any siblings? My own brother was basically useless and even counterproductive, but my female relatives were very helpful (and at times annoying but you take people as they are in such situations.)
I can recall very clearly feeding my dad with a plastic fork and telling him he had to swallow his macaroni (he had become dysphagic after what I believe was a stroke). Heartbreaking is the right word. It's not something I'd wish on anyone, though most of us will have to experience some form ir another of this. If your parent is in a hospital or care center or hospice much of the burden is relieved, though then of course there are other worries (are these people competent?) and so on. Relatives can really help though in ways that friends can't or don't. It's a reminder how important family is, and in particular the important role of nurturing (i.e. women.) YMMV I suppose.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
13d ago
Hasn't hit Japan yet as far as I know, but here there are already enough charms, amulets, bracelets, talismans, and assorted other apotropaic tchotchkes spread about the shops, stalls, shrines, and genkans that people probably don't have much mental space to add in the heavens. Oh and blood type, can't forget that. Blood type interest seems much more female coded but the general vibe toward what I'd (as someone raised Christian) see as animistic superstition is general. Of course I recently heard of a Japanese woman mocking Catholicism as a bizarrely morbid cult that has the gall to hang its god's body out in the middle of the place of worship, so there's that.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
13d ago
That would be approaching from a rational, or at least reasoned, perspective, whereas those who seem to embrace astrology also seem very much emotional and intuitive. The rational trappings about celestial positioning and whatnot are just embroidery, in my view. Like a Grimoire page 257 suggesting you need exactly three drops of virgin blood to cast the spell, or whatever. The exactitude is the sleight of hand to get you to buy into it as real, though fundamentally it's hookum. When confronted with your point here it isn't hard to imagine a bit of handwaving and scoffing that "that's not how it works," followed by a topic change.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
13d ago
Monkey here. But I didn't know that pre Japan. I used to read a lot of Camille Paglia and I find her takes fascinating but her attachment to astrology was always weird. In your categories she's probably more hardcore nut, though she's also separated from her lady friend. To listen to her talk about starsigns with the same straight faced dogmatism and tachyphemic eloquence that she does with most everything else was an experience.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
14d ago
There are of course Kathoey in Bangkok, Pattaya, etc., but there are also thousands of actual females from the countryside peddling ass in the tourist areas. There's no contradiction here.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
15d ago
It's really amazing that you can know this much about someone, though of course you may have an inside track I'm unaware of.
Not GLP1 but a friend of mine on HRT has turned, in his fifties, into a horndog and is leaving/divorcing his wife to presumably chase tail with abandon, as well as becoming a gym rat. His kids are grown(ish). I cannot say with certainty that the testosterone is causing this but I have my suspicions that it isn't not causing it. I don't think realistically the 50s is still 'midlife' but it could have to do with the not untypical older guy collapse.
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