George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
The things you lean on / are things that don't last
User ID: 107
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
Not in Japan. Yes there is such make-up but not in news readers or anchors. At most the pearly white tooth caps (sashiba, crowns).
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
Just a followup: Giuffre was reporting that a bus hit her going 110 kph. The driver disputed that, as did the parents of the kids on the bus. The Western Ozzie police reported it as a minor crash with no injuries. The driver also said he didn't even see Giuffre in the car, but an elderly woman.
Now these sources are all probably less-than-perfect. But this is weird. And then she offs herself? After saying in 2019 that she was not suicidal? My tinfoil hat is right here, but I hate putting it on, it's really stupid-looking.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
There's a certain type of girl who, through a weird touchy uncle, a demeaning mother, an absent or hostile father, or just lack of moral guidance anywhere, will end up selling herself for cash. Moving from childhood to the blossom of sexual maturity is in the best of situations a disorienting hormonal surge of conflicting desires. Throw in peer pressure, an amoral upbringing, or the sense that as long as it's secret, anything is permitted (hi, Japan) and you have a recipe for this. Epstein having wads of money and an effective scout in Maxwell (and then girls who would, for even more money, gull their peers into a taste of the glamorous life (TM) didn't hurt.)
A guy I once knew once described Japanese girls as "all whores." I think that's a shittily uncharitable way to view the world. But at the same time I'm often surprised at the amount of prostitution here, from the casual, French-art-film level day hooker to organized crime brothels to high-end callgirls. To say nothing of snackbars (hostess bars) or cabarets, burlesques, etc. My point is that without Epstein these girls may have become prostitutes on their own, but you can't be sure. Zig instead of zag.
I feel bad for Giuffre. She made wrong choices from day 1 (she was a street urchin before she even met Epstein), but one would hope anyone could turn it around, especially with a payout from Maxwell and basically everyone affirming her as a heroine.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
Pictures at a Revolution about movies in the 60s.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
Some lines in that book are interesting to read in 2025. In particular how Bond describes his desire for Vesper.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
In the end this is what will differentiate the wheat from the chaff, the humans from AI output.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
Dude, speak plainly. What are you on about?
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
My best friend was a cop for 10 years, got shot, did another 15 years, then finally opted out and took early retirement. Went into welding, took the math classes, became an apprentice, now I think journeyman working toward master. He's 57. Tough as a rhinoceros. Rents out his lake house and he and his wife travel the highways and byways in an RV as he works. His job sounds extremely physically demanding when he describes it. Often he'll send me a photo of a bunch of pipes or something, proud of his work. I usually don't know what I'm looking at but I am sure it's something I wouldn't be able to do. I say this not to disagree, but to agree that it's physically demanding. And he was not at all white collar previously.
He used to bitch about it more, especially when he was around the youngsters, who occasionally gave him shit (until they realized who they were dealing with).
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
I don't know. Surveys suggest Japanese people aren't ready to get rid of the death penalty, citing 80% of respondents still want it.. Infer from that what you will.
The year before I got here a 14 year old kid cut off the head of his classmate and jammed the head on the gate of his high school. That kid is now walking the streets, to some outcry.
Generally if the topic comes up the people I've spoken with over the years give circular answers, eg the death penalty is good because it's the law. You never know what people really think though, in English conversations, and in Japanese I've never broached the topic.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
I appreciate the explanation. I think if the only thing preventing one from murder is societal deterrent they're already well on the way to being a sociopath (insert the term there that may be more fitting). As opposed to just angry
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
Okay, thanks. This still seems an odd thing to post to illustrate the penalty for murder is death.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
That link you posted to the Wu Gang uprising in China seems non sequitur. What am I missing?
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
I would be the first to claim ASMR is bullshit, except I understand the purported sensation. The earliest I remember feeling it was when Katherine Drew crinkled the paper bag in which she had brought whatever the hell she had brought for show-and-tell in Mrs. Rice's first grade class, many many years ago. Later, certain quiet rooms and voices could bring on the feeling --like a tingling fizziness in the spine, and not at all sexual. Very peaceful even. But I have not had the same sensation in years, and never once to any of the supposed ASMR-inducing videos that our porn-obsessed culture (s) have produced. The subreddit is another case of reddit-fueled pathological fantasizing.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
Thanks for responding. I posted here rather than the CW thread simply because I felt this was more international news than CW fodder. where it seems to be receiving traction. This site's norms in regards to what gets posted where are odd to me.
Fascinating. Although I live in Japan I rarely watch anime and never read manga, but I am continually surprised by some of the work produced once someone exposes me to it (sometimes, as now, in ways that aren't immediate recoil).
I would be more likely to read the story as an allegory of how Japanese society already operates (and not necessarily just the criminal justice system, but workaday life) than somewhere less homogenous such as, say, the US.
Here you sometimes hear of people suddenly committing murder---but in a bizarre way, like randomly stabbing a girl, or randomly stabbing a woman, or a bunch of people, or doing the truck ramming thing then leaping out of said murder truck and, again, stabbing. The stabbing isn't that surprising (as a technique I mean) since knives, unlike guns, are readily available. What's surprising is the sudden randomness.
If the cops are to be believed (I have serious doubts) the killers always say things like "I just wanted to see what murder was like" or "anyone was good for killing". In other words, a sudden snap from the normal mooring to cultural mores, to say nothing of the rule of law. This resonated with me when I was reading your post and how the imagined criminal just resigned himself to rampage once he was targeted as depraved-- because he knew his planned life was over anyway. That, to me, isn't the first reaction I suspect I would have.
Ironically, Japan's CJ system seems very much geared for reform rather than retribution, except in the most dramatic cases.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
The Pope has died after apparently getting most of the way through an illness.
I don't even want to visit reddit for a few days, I can do without the hot takes.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
Best to you and your wife, and hopes for an untroubled pregnancy and healthy delivery. Once you have that, really everything else is gravy. If you want advice as the dad: Your wife will be doing a lot of the difficult parts for the foreseeable future, so pick up the slack whenever possible.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
Some of the many times I've audibly said "Thank God I'm a guy," have been when emerging from a toilet to see my wife still in a very long line of women waiting to enter one.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
Thank you. Much older now.
"We people" as in everyone on the Motte?
Nevermind I see it's a quote and I'm daft.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
Thanks. Reading it through it really is overly sentimental, but if I fretted over everything I wrote I'd never let anyone read anything. As for Dr.Hermann's class, my notes are probably a good reflection of how impenetrable I found most of his lectures.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
I guess only a DM will determine this.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
I'm not that into watching other people talk about Japan. I will say I happened upon this account by a European German girl living in Kyoto that made me rethink everything about living here. She makes every day seem like some sort of glorious moment of learning and experience, whereas I'm buying a coffee at the Family Mart. I realize this is because her channel is highly produced and she is probably insufferable to actually know (as she is probably filming everything). I'm convinced my life is reality, whereas what she is doing is for the cameras. But it certainly is beautifully made.
I once had a reddit discussion about this, and how every Big Mac you get in Japan looks exactly like the ad. It's never been not true for me I was of course doubted and dismissed as a weeb or whatever. I sent my antagonist a photo a month or so later when my in-laws took the kids to McDonald's. Sure enough, a perfect Big Mac.
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