dessa_dangerous

oh dear, Metall.  When you edit your posts and change your story to save face, you fuck up the context and continuity of the posts.  For the sake of continuity, your last two posts were originally      you're a terrible liar.  I know you're not stupid, but you really act like it sometimes.

honestly, Metall... you reported him for "illegal activity" and we didn't take down the topic so now you've decided to take matters into your own hands.  I'm not sure if you think I'm that stupid or you're just that much smarter than everybody else.

you weren't.

@thenoisywatcher it's a bad idea to give random noisy, meddlesome internet strangers your name and address, especially ones who want to use that information to turn you into the authorities.  Just a heads up.

that's great.  I'm glad you came up with ONE example which doesn't need to bear any correlation to how the average person feels or acts towards people with special needs.

  also a resounding "no" from me.  Generally I find Germans not to be accepting of anyone who is different from them, even your "enlightened" types who consider themselves progressive because they don't have anything against foreigners as long as they relinquish any semblance of their religion or culture at the door.   I have discussed with multiple people who are otherwise against abortion saying that knowing a fetus would eventually be born with Down's would be a legitimate reason to terminate a pregnancy.  Two of them were people really close to me..  With those two I was eventually able to convince them that Down's kids are definitely worth keeping around; with others I didn't bother.  (edit: I'm not a Pro-Lifer, I just don't put Down's in the same category as kids who will be born vegetables and require constant care their entire short lives.) I suppose if you move around in international circles where people are used to foreigners, your other kids will fare OK, but don't expect the general public to treat your oldest boy with dignity and respect.  A lot of people will stare and plenty of old ladies will ask you ludicrous questions and make shocking statements.  Don't bother showing your indignation--it's your responsibility as the outlier to cater to the natives.   I'm sorry to put my point across so frankly, but I think I would have personally benefited from some advance knowledge of the more insidious ways Germans can have of making outsiders feel unwelcome when I arrived.  Not knowing this had a huge impact on my mental well-being as I was made to feel I was doing something wrong but nothing I ever did made them like me either.  I know this all sounds quite negative but if ever someone was in need of the empowerment that comes along with the phrase, "it's not you, it's them" it will be a foreign family with an almost-grown son with Down's.  I wish you all strength and good luck.  

this is the stuff... wow looks cheaper than my local market, which I hate going into anyway on account of the stuck-up ladies that work there and always act like they think I'm going to steal something. peanut budda

I love these

@lisa13, I guess you've probably already tried all the Erdnussmuss[es] from the Biomärkten?  I really like the one carried by Vitalia, not sure if they have those around your way  Basically just peanuts and salt, I like the one with chunks, can't really go wrong.  Not the cheapest (something like €7 for 650g) but could be worse.   edit: and not at all runny like the one from Denn's, which was cheap but terrible, runny stuff like you describe.  Al Natura also had a good one back in the day but I think they may have switched manufacturers and I don't go by one in my daily travels anymore so no clue what they've got going on nowadays.  Vitalia the hit though

  it's NOT jeremy or jeremytwo, in case anyone's confused.   The guy in my post "dared" to do a lot of things, many of them truly awful, and which were removed from the public's eye.

I think he left Germany to work in some other country, but I could be mistaken.  

I'm obviously biased, but what makes a forum like Toytown "better" than Berlin or Germany-related groups on facebook is the anonymity..  If I make or respond to a post, or even "like" something in a facebook thread, it's an invitation for literally thousands of people to trawl through my personal profile, which, even with my current pretty tight privacy settings, still reveals what I and my partner look like, where I work, where i'm from, and my first and last name.  Here, you can set up an account and nobody, not even admin, need know your real name or identity.     While I do enjoy reddit, I find it to be a little too anonymous even, and like Berlin-based facebook groups, with so many thousands of members and hundreds of comments to each post, you don't really get a feeling of community, or I don't anyway.  On TT, you can easily read most posts in a thread, ignore users, mark things as read, edit your stream, and each comment field is larger, which makes for me a more comfortable experience.  I like knowing and being known on the fora of my choice but don't necessarily want to be associated with my actual real life personality.  Forum participation allows you to troll and argue behind your nick and also pick fights with your favorite enemies without the threat of the person showing up on your doorstep.  Well, not me personally, as I've been doxed to fuck and back (thanks j******, you awful fuck, and thanks for stalking and harassing me on facebook although we do not know each other and are not friends) but for most others who don't have peeps posting their first and last names, which is the vast majority.  As long as no one compromises your anonymity a forum can provide a type of freedom and comfort I don't feel whilst participating in fb discussions.

  right, the main thing in AA is the higher power bit.   I come from a family with a big 12-step tradition on both sides (parents met at a meeting) and nominally Christian but I would say I'm the first to actually really believe and have faith in something akin to a god.  Funnily enough I also eschew both the Program as well as (any, all) religion in favor of a less dogma-heavy approach where I reach out to my higher power and we chat like pals which I'm aware qualifies me as some sort of nutcase.. (as an aside, it found me and not the other way around... as many can attest, there's nothing quite so faith-shattering in the world as growing up Catholic. thankfully I went to public school so wouldn't consider myself to be a "recovering" Catholic. Certainly didn't foresee suddenly "believing" around age 20 though.)  I don't really have the feeling my higher power judges me for my substance abuse  but rather wants me to be calm, balanced and happy and helps me to figure out how to get there.  I know I can't get there while drinking, not anymore.  Some people can, and more power to them. really, one isn't supposed to drink alcohol-free beer?  Without it I never would have made it for several years the first two or three times around and without alk-free sekt probably not this last time around either.  Both have been an enormous source of comfort while giving up the booze... as we all know, getting over the ritual is half the battle...

we can do a merge, or you can just have a read through of this https://www.toytowngermany.com/forum/topic/242950-life-without-alcohol/ I fell off for a bit but been back on the wagon for nearly three years now.  Feel free to pm me if you like @Cammiede

  I've now had the curse TWICE to live in the "coolest" city in a place during the height of its national/global appeal, and it's exactly that, people come flocking from around the everything to chase the feeling they got from a bit of carefully scripted cinematography.  Pathetic really..