nimble

I once had a couple of real shitbag room mates. A couple, one of whom was very domineering and manipulative, but also very stupid (stupid enough that he believed, as far as I could tell, that he was a mastermind). Long story short, I ended up breaking lease to get the hell out of the apartment. Now, the first thing is, I had a shitty landlord. They did NOT want me to break the lease. The second thing is, well, I said this was a couple, but the domineering room mate claimed to the landlord that it was just him that would be left, and that he couldn’t possibly afford the rent all alone. So the landlord insisted I pay a prorated, reduced rate until he finds at least one more room mate. His boyfriend was already living there off lease, which I had allowed, and in the meeting with the landlord, I did not contradict my room mate.

As I’m moving out, he shows off that he’s moving in two more people. They’re all incredibly rude – I have some physical disabilities, and the only person to help me was my mother who also has disabilities due to polio, so it was pretty insulting that there were four able bodied people sitting around a table watching two disabled people try to carry out boxes. No one offered to help, even though that would have gotten the process over with much faster.

I confer with room mate about the new people. He confirms that they’re going to be living in the apartment, and no, he hasn’t told the landlord. Yes, he remembers the agreement about room mates. Why would he just tell me this? Well, again, not getting into it to keep this from getting too long, but remember that he thinks he’s a master manipulator. There was a lot going on as well with him trying to antagonize me behind the scenes, somehow not realizing I’m just screen grabbing everything. He thinks he’s got me cornered or something. Anyway, I finally finish moving out of that apartment into my new one, and I immediately tell the landlord about my conversation regarding his room mates, including that his boyfriend has been there most of this time as well. I am released from the agreement, and owe the landlord nothing. I learned a few months later they’d lost the apartment entirely and were living out of the boyfriend’s truck. Not surprised…

(to be honest, it was a ‘dick move’ only to the room mate lol so I’m not sure it entirely counts. I suppose the ‘honest’ thing would have been to mention the boyfriend earlier, but I would have gotten in trouble at that point for allowing a person in the apartment off the lease. However, once room mate showed themselves to be extremely dishonest, let alone all the screen shotted threats, there was no question that he would be in much more serious trouble than I, so.)

Duped? I find that hard to believe. I mean, has no one seen some of the other movies he’s been in? Machete in an ICE uniform… ICE has never been “good guys” and to be honest I already assumed he was a shithead just from that. This whole “good guys vs bad guys” crap was why Latino support for ICE and Trump had been so high leading into the 2024 election (also, Latino membership in ICE is fairly high). I think Trejo knew exactly what this movie was about. And if he’s having second thoughts it’s only because of how bad the optics have become for ICE, not that he doesn’t still believe in it.

Alternatively, sure, let’s say he was tricked. I mean, he’s not getting hired for roles based on his acting skills so much as what he symbolizes, given his backstory. And I do think that’s part of the problem here because it might cloud his judgement: he might think he’s just playing himself for the umpteenth time, but I’m not sure he quite gets that for racists, his roles are confirmation of their stereotypes.

I can’t sympathize with a man this rich lol. Good gods, I agree with everyone else here saying that he can’t really be this helpless. I am sure I have heard about actors breaking contract, becoming un-directable, sabotaging productions, etc. He could push to get fired. Hell, if it’s all as fishy as people claim, sue. Why care? Even if Shapiro has enough clout to ruin his chances of acting again (yeah, right), he’s in his 80s. He can’t retire already?

yeah, I don’t understand when people get hot against downvoting. Sure, it sucks if people don’t like what you post, but people need to be able to voice both agreement and disagreement. I mean, in real life, if you’re in a situation where you’re not allowed to disagree, merely demur or agree, it’s usually considered toxic. It’s not healthy, at any rate. Making silence the only “no” allowed doesn’t work because silence is usually taken as a softer form of agreement. And while people are usually allowed to comment negatively, this isn’t great because people will usually want to avoid that unless they’re in the mood for a fight. Not everything is worth an argument, and downvoting allows people to give their opinion without having to dwell on the post or comment in question. Allowing for some ‘unfair’ downvotes works because the majority will be for more rational reasons, like for posts that are cruel, wasting space, deliberate misinformation, and so on.

The other thing too is that people seem to forget we’re not on Reddit, where the voting mechanism was used against people, whereas here only your own voting patterns are reflected upon you. I mean that we don’t have the karma system which did make the voting a problem. Downvoting in the fediverse isn’t going to affect the other person’s ability to post again elsewhere. I can understand people getting very hot about downvotes if they had bad experiences on Reddit and assume the system works identically here (again, it doesn’t! Although feddit.online (or PieFed?) will remove your ability to downvote if your ratio hits 0, and you can upvote some stuff and get your downvotes back :V ). I do wish documentation was clearer/easier to find. Gets a little confusing how each instance is a wee bit different, plus we say Lemmy, but there’s also PieFed, and then there’s also the rest of the Fediverse…

Ouch, sorry to hear that. It’s harder to evaluate a relationship in such a context. Though, like you said, she’s barely there so… maybe that helps since it’s not too different from not being in a relationship anyway. I hope you have better luck going forward.

It’s up to you. Thing is, when a relationship is this young and she can’t find time, she’s not going to ever find time. The norm is getting (has gotten) established that you are a low priority and are OK with this, so she can show up only on the rare occasions she wants to. If you really were happy with this, whatever, but you do not seem happy with this. Do you have specific reasons for wanting to keep on with the relationship?

From the Appalachian region of the US, I bring you:
“I’ll cut the blood out of you!”
and more generally within the US (I think?):
“I’ll clean your clock!”

Both are threatening a fight, one a little more graphically than the other. I don’t think I’ve heard either in a very long time, and it was only ever from my grandmother that I’d heard the first phrase. Not directly, as in discussing idioms.

The phone has a great deal more distractions on it than the e-reader does. The brain has a much harder time focusing on a task in a distracting environment (in this case, device choice). If I want to read, I use the e-reader since it’s got better proportions than the phone, it has a much easier to read screen than the phone, it’s definitely sturdier than the phone, its screen won’t get streaky from finger oils like the phone’s does, and best of all it lacks all the distractions that come with a phone. When one wants to read a book, one usually prefers to immerse themselves into it, and not to be popped out constantly by notifications of any sort. It’s an activity that should require an hour or two, which means it’s pretty bad for doing on the phone, whose battery will not last. Since the phone is important for other tasks, one prefers not to be caught out without power to use.

Oof, I have a cat like this. Usually she’s not too bad, but if she gets agitated at all she’s a horror story. 17 years of this, too. Normally, it’s better to just tire the cat out with playtime during the day at a time more convenient for you. She wants attention, mostly. If cats didn’t have social needs they wouldn’t make good pets, and cats do have a strong need to socialize with their humans. Normally she’s good and only comes in at about 9, 9.30am when I usually want to get up. But sometimes she gets it into her head that we need to be up much earlier, usually if we’re having trouble sleeping and she notices we’re sort of awake. Or lately she wants the faceted crystal baubles in the window to throw off rainbows for her to attack, but it’s the wrong time and she doesn’t get it and thinks we activate it. She’ll take me to the stair window first thing when I get up, and put her paws up on the sill and complain and complain, but there’s aught I can do!

The contrast is that if I or my partner are feeling sick or depressed in the morning, she’s just the sweetest, kindest creature and will just snuggle and purr, and won’t care what time you finally get up. But if you’re healthy? Forget it. We say that she’s Momma to our Owen, for those of you who have seen Throw Momma From the Train.

1. Default behavior is to allow emotions to drive thoughts, which immediately inform behavior. Times are very hard for people around the world, so it stands to reason most people online are going to be in a negative frame of mind to start with. Anger going sideways and getting projected or transferred where it shouldn’t, and solves nothing.

2. Bots have definitely made their way to the Fediverse and like anywhere else their whole point is to foment disagreement and fights, as well as pressure people with a flood of information implying the majority opinion is far right, pro-AI and that sort of thing. See above, but it behooves them to create a stressful atmosphere since stressed people are angry people and angry people don’t think clearly.

3. Every platform tends towards certain patterns of behavior and I am inclined to agree on the specific pattern here. It’s almost always about something personal, including political beliefs. I have seen some incredible comments and comment threads based upon someone reading whatever OP posted as if it were a personal attack or a political press conference. People also seem here, like on tumblr a decade or two ago, to think that fighting with random people online is equal to real political action. It’s not. It never will be. Worse, it seems a lot of people feel insecure about their intelligence because man do these arguments stink of someone trying to prove how smart they are against, again, some random person they don’t even know.

tl;dr, people are angry but don’t know how to handle it in a more mature manner, or they’re deliberately fomenting discord with bots because they were paid to do so, which honestly circles right back to the beginning because why do that?

I do think it’s still better here than on Reddit though. I hope that this remains the case for years to come. I had some bad shocks on Reddit which caused me to cease engaging there. Same to BlueSky, honestly. I follow some people who know what they’re talking about, but… the keyboard warriors are just too much.

I’m gay, but, Yennefer (The Witcher series) is pretty fine, and back in college I had quite a thing for Seras Victoria (Hellsing).

Oh, I’ve been through a few. Most places in Ohio, but particularly Toledo and Cleveland. Sandusky, OH is also pretty off. Oh, and Cincinnati for hiring demons for its urban planning. I visited once and felt queasy the whole time. I mean, I don’t have a problem with hills but Cinci is an M C Escher print mixed with a Sonic the Hedgehog stage. Helen, Georgia has a pretty rotten energy. Atlanta, GA isn’t much better around Easter. Now, Atlanta was better when I lived there some years ago, but it seems to have dropped off sharply around the time I left. I’d say before that specifically Five Points and Buckhead, sometimes Inman Park, felt not good, but now a days it’s probably the whole city. I definitely felt a shift which prompted me to get out when I did. Dallas, Texas. What cold, miserable people. And I can’t really pick a place in Florida. I’ve been to a few, they all suck.

Really well! I tend to only play it docked, actually. I use my PS4’s controller, plugged in (since it’s paired with the PS4 and switching BT pairing is always such a hassle. Well, now it’s never in need of charging either so). I do sometimes have trouble with responsiveness, but it’s never been a big issue. The only issue is that if I want to switch between play modes the Steam Deck really hates that. Also, the controller doesn’t work in desktop mode which is a pain when I want to do something like use Jellyfin and need to fiddle with something during playback. Granted, there might be some settings to mess with to enable that but I haven’t got around to it.

Also, it may help to know I am using a dumb TV (I noticed another commentator had caveats based on their smart TV). It’s quite old but has HDMI and runs the deck just fine. Occasionally the connection will cut out, but I’m honestly not sure if that’s the Deck or the TV having a problem. I thought it was the TV (it’s old, it’s got some crystalline looking spots, and one of its four HDMI ports does not work) but when playing multiplayer those disconnects came with online disconnection too, so maybe it’s the Deck. Not sure. Very rarely occurs. Thankfully I have a penchant for turn based games so I can sit and wait it out.

But yeah, playing the Deck docked works pretty well in my experience. Just about any controller that can be plugged in via USB will work, too. I used to use a very cheap, wired-only Switch controller until it died (a brand I knew full well was crap and the controllers always have some issue in the long run, but it was RGB for just $25…).

Oh, sure, although mostly older stuff (The Real Ghostbusters, Freakazoid, Sonic Sat-AM, Digimon Adventure 02 specifically, Batman The Animated Series, etc). Nostalgia is certainly a factor, but I enjoy animation and especially appreciating the work that goes into creating a cartoon. Helpfully, a lot of the shows I grew up with in the late 80s and through the 90s were only sort of intended for children and were made by people who loved art and animation and wanted shows they could enjoy, and not just slop intended to sell toys (not that I don’t watch The Masters of the Universe on occasion. What a goofy fucking show. I watched it a lot as a kid and always said I hated it, but obviously I didn’t. Today, an Orko figurine lives by my computer). TRGB slips after the first two seasons, but the others I enjoy wholly. Eh, there’s others I like too but only watch piecemeal and on occasion, like Dexter’s Laboratory and Power Puff Girls. I need to find Pinky and the Brain to rewatch. I wonder if I would enjoy rewatching Inspector Gadget?

Newer stuff not so much. I mean I like animation a lot as an art, but also, I am very picky when it comes to style, so most newer programming for any age is right out.