Casual Conversation

What is it and what is the presentation? It can be a game, movie, series, book, toy, device, gadget, thingymajingy whatever.

,She lived with us for about 3 years, maybe 4, and then they broke up he doesn't think it's his but I've been talking to her all night and I have been for weeks and weeks. I tried to reach out to my ex-fiance about it but she was only trying to tell me about all the liability and like what the fuck bro I'm going to be so happy if this is my grandchild and she just like oh are you happy about the grandchild or you have it by the title of being a grandfather. I mean on God this baby's coming either way and if it's my son's I want to fucking be a part of this little girl's life so I guess I shouldn't have reached out to anybody else I reached out in the Fediverse now because I guess I just have to shout into the void to get it off my chest I'm freaking out waiting she's dilated to four and it's crazy I talked to her for like 5 hours today, pretty disappointed in the fact that my son is acting like it's not his but she just wants to show him it is she doesn't want the state to go after him, she has a fiance that wants to raise this girl as his own, so that's pretty cool. But everybody else I talked to is just worried about logistics, I'm like fucking excited and everybody's fucking ruining it with logistics and bullshit so anyway lemmy, I'm just venting nobody needs to talk to me if you don't want to but damn I might be a Grandpa

E: it happened

My best friend (allegedly) that I shifted my entire life to move half way across the country with suddenly decided they didn't want to be friends anymore and peaced out back to whence they came. There are plenty of failures and miscommunications on both sides of the fence, but at the end of day I'm now stuck alone in a new state with no money, no sense of community, a shit job, and nobody to share anything with. I'm confused as hell, tired as shit, and depressed as fuck with no idea what to do, but anyway here is my lame ass attempt to change all that by talking to strangers on the internet the way humans were evolutionarily designed to.

Soo, hello, I guess . . . not really sure what do now.

Ooh, I started watching Orphan Black the other day and I gotta wonder how they found so many actors that look alike, wait no that's an old show.

Uhm, I really like anything related to space, astronomy, sci . . . (shush, people will think you touched the Tylenol)

What about this weather we've been having lately, something about a little ice and human rights? They keep talking about releasing some kind of files, but idk, they seem a little shy about the whole thing. (I know this lies a little out of the jurisdiction of 'casual', I'm just trying to fill the space with empty words at this point so my ghost of an english teacher grandmother doesn't re-traumatize me from the grave like some kind of angry, judgemental harpy, or maybe I'm possibly just avoiding actually submitting the post at this point by typing a really ridiculously long run on sentence like a highschooler discovering chatGPT for the first time that I'm genuinely surprised your still reading with your one and/or two eyeholes, earballs, or fingers, like seriously I'm not saying anything useful or interesting anymore I'm just sitting typing away trying to think of something funny to say like maybe some kind of joke or something but I can't think of any except maybe this one about a couple nuns riding bikes on the road to Rome)

Wait, actual question. I have celiac and cant eat the forbidden bread, any of yall have any good ideas for packable lunches that don't include sandwiches or anything that has extreme refrigeration/ heating requirements? ADHD brain is running out of ideas and I have a sneaking suspicion that tuna packets make me look poor.

Let's take a moment to look at what's going right. What's made you laugh or smile recently? No matter how big or small it is, we want to hear about it!

Have you been rocking an old classic? Discovering something new? Revisiting some nostalgic bands from the past?

If you've got links, post 'em up!

A fun tool for discovering new bands: https://www.music-map.com/

It was pretty good. We can discuss it here, maybe.

I wanna see how it would taste if I "masked the flavor" but anyway...

Feel free to have a look at

!movies@piefed.social
!television@piefed.social
!animation@piefed.social

!casualeurope@piefed.social

I've been looking for a job and jesus it's really gotten to me. Half the listed jobs are either the big tech companies like meta/aws etc. or defense contractors like lhm, northop-grummann or even dodgier glowie orgs. I'm pretty sure when such a large chunk of the economy is fucking defense contractors that it shows in the job market for something utterly unrelated (IT), that's fascism. Then I see they're selling off the UK military to palantir. Great.

It wasn't like this before. There were your goofy startups and your B2B SaaS companies, the latter I work for and it's been going under for years because it simply was never a good idea.

But that's just the straw that broke the camel's back because it was so real in a way reading news stories on the internet just isn't, it wasn't just a fact, it was an element of my life now, no different from the weather outside.

The absolute onslaught of anti-intellectualism, it's like a virus tearing through the population, a psychological blight, much worse than any coronavirus could be. The hypernormalization of it all and the sheer whiplash of the overton window has even got me shifting rightwards, through sheer osmosis and pressure.

Every time I hear my coworkers mention "grok" I get like a reaction, like "oh, that's the internet thing" and the compartmentalization of brain rot falters, I'm forced to acknowledge it is in fact - real, that what is going on is in fact real, and not just something I can laugh at. Being queer and an immigrant it's frankly shocking I've even been able to maintain this defense mechanism this long. My very future is on the chopping block, always has been, but maybe the city walls just can't stand the seige anymore.

But while I can take care of myself, I worry about the world, about others, distant and close alike. I don't need everyone to believe what I believe or align with what I think, but I feel insane at times because it seems like even the simplest rational thoughts are few and far between, everyone seems unhinged or some sort of insane grifter. It makes me want to grab the world and shake it like "why can't you just be normal".

And then there's people who plunge headfirst into the hypernormalization, realigning with the status quo, maintaining a pretense of continuity, when it is clear there's absolutely no real belief beneath. The pretense just intensifies to compensate.

Nonetheless I don't think there's much I can do, I don't know where to even start, I'd happily fight against the world that's coming but I can't do it alone, and it sure feels like I'm pretty much alone.

The burden of our time sucks, is all. Anybody got some good strategies to disconnect for a bit, so I can recuperate my psych defenses? Smell the roses and all?

EDIT: thanks everyone who responded. Think I'll check out of Lemmy for a bit, I'll make sure to read your insights and experiences when I get back. Thanks, and be well.

It's officially over now... how was it?

So, without needing to guess much, it's likely going to be a shittacular Holiday Season. Everything is going to be expensive and stupid and extra scammy and shit. More so than usual (Subscribe for more uplifting messages every day delivered to your inbox. Or don't. See if I care.)

Anyway, I cook, and make lots of homemade stuff as the season and market allows.

I just finished making 10 jars of super dill-y dill pickles, and a few of okra. Which I'm making with the plan of giving them to people I like for the holidays, as people usually love the recipe I use. I never planned on being "the pickle guy" but here we are.

Might also make some bubbly 7% ABV spiced honey wine, beer, vanilla extract, herbal bitters for coughs. We'll see.

Just curious if anyone has any similar plans in mind and what y'all are making.

Let's take a moment to look at what's going right. What's made you laugh or smile recently? No matter how big or small it is, we want to hear about it!

Have you been rocking an old classic? Discovering something new? Revisiting some nostalgic bands from the past?

If you've got links, post 'em up!

A fun tool for discovering new bands: https://www.music-map.com/

We can rarely see them in the uk so I'm fascinated. Article here

It all started by me looking to the year each country was created. I landed on a wikipedia page with a list of countries by date of sovereignty (*not sure how that is defined) and learned Liberia was the oldest country in the world according to wikipedia. Thats also when I learned their flag closely resembles the american flag. The next wikipedia article explained that it was due to the country's founders being former American and Caribbean slaves. .So timeline of flag origins and countries sovereignty dont add up without further research.

During this rabbit hole adventure I also read that the idea credited to George Washington says the American flag was made using the stars from heaven, the red symbolizing the British motherland and white to seperate America from its founding origins.

Im sorry im not including sources cuz its not worth going thru my browser history to re-read each article to know which citation source applies to each point im referencing but I assure you if you start at The Liberian flag article and follow links for the country's origin and the links about their flag being apart of the stars and strips class of flags you'll find sources of everything in this post. I didnt leave wikipedia for any of the shit im posting about.

The paraphrased reference about George's take on the American flag, as far as I could find, seems like a one off from most origins of the American flag. Most of what I read about claims to the origin of design for the American flag say the stars were the colonies, the red was for bravery/sacrafice/courage/valor, white is pretty unanimously considered purity, and blue is the colour of the chief/justice/perseverance.

Even if you buy the meaning behind its colors, you have to see that theyre also qualities required for declaring freedom, right. So did the symbolism of stripes get used to represent freedom from something before the American flag or is it all just accepted propaganda by America and isnt actually any older than the past 200ish years?

I'm having a shite day and reading the news and browsing social media with everything going on everywhere isn't making it better.

Please share something good around you or from your part of the world. A little text, a little image, an article, a video...

Feel free to have a look at

!movies@piefed.social
!television@piefed.social
!animation@piefed.social