dessa_dangerous

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Posts posted by dessa_dangerous

  1. Posted

    I'm not a parent which is part of why I decided to remove my comment altogether, but you were too fast ;) is it possible that you're only "offering" things you think are interesting though?

    In the now-gone comment I wrote, I didn't need to be asked twice if I wanted to play an instrument and indeed I was already able to name one straight away.  I still play that instrument for fun til this day.  Is there a chance that your kid is interested in something that hasn't been "offered" to her?  A child who cries when they are not allowed to warm the bench at soccer obviously never wanted to be there in the first place.  Does she really only care about her smartphone?  Even there you might be able to figure something out.

    You can also take alternative routes.   Kids actually love to volunteer.  You can "offer" your kid to work at the local food bank, tutor younger children, or give tours in an organic garden (yes I'm not being imaginative, those are all things I have done as a young person).  There's lots of stuff for them to do outside the regular sports and instruments route.  Also though it may not stop them experimenting and bowing to peer pressure.  You can't prevent all the mistakes they're inevitably going to make.

     

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  2. Posted

    I've also never had "ants on a log" in my life, but PBJ was a regular since I was on solid foods, to be sure.

     

    Buying peanut butter in the regular grocery store used to be so unusual that the normally quite stranger-allergic Germans would even comment upon it.  Nowadays I buy the good stuff online and don't have to explain it to anybody looking on, ha.

    shopping?q=tbn:ANd9GcTlHcQdNNaZPEeHp_xoA

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  4. Posted

    kathleen was such a beautiful soul, smarter than all of us put together ten times and a total feminist badass.  Always standing up gently but firmly for justice and equality.  Wicked wit and wry, succinct style of making her point.  She had led several lives learned from each one, rectified her mistakes and oversights and passed this hard-learned knowledge and wisdom on to others. 

     

    A true treasure of a human; I admired her immensely.  Her intellect, her warmth, her frankness.  I am of course sad for her family members who survive her, but, selfishly, I am also quite sad for those of us who didn't get to say goodbye. 

    Kath, if you can see this--travel in power and know how much of an impact you had on my, on all of our lives.  We will miss you.  Until we meet again. <3 

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  5. Posted

    On 1/17/2023, 10:56:42, AlexTr said:

    So we're all gonna act blasé blasé like @dessa_dangerous showing up is not a thing to be remarked? Nah! Hey girl, how you doin?

     

    hey girl hay!  Oh, I'm holding up I suppose.  Good to read you :) 

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  6. Posted

    9 minutes ago, kathdonn said:

    How exciting!

    In 1962 I took part in a Peace Walk from San Diego CA to Vallejo CA which ended with 12 members of the group being arrested on federal charges and put in jail. During their time there they could read donated books, but nothing that they wanted to read, like Siddhartha and political books. But someone donated Catch 22, which caught on like wildfire. The guards had no idea why Heller's book was so popular, why there was loud laughing from their cells.
    I hope you'll enjoy it, @dessa.


    the book is truly a treasure.

    A little removed from my personal experiences as I've never served in a war nor been in danger of being drafted.

    But as a person who left my entire country due to its policies around wars in general and in specific--it speaks to me as well.  A lot.  Certainly less than others who have lived that life.  But I can appreciate the soul-wrenching irony of how much of the world works.  How heavily the meritocracy crowd relies upon the established constructs of cronyism.  

    Super glad I've never had to go through it first-hand myself.

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  7. Posted

    my current book is Catch-22, which i'm reading for the first time.

    Since I discovered internetarchive.org I've been reading about two books a month. 

    Agatha Christie's racist ass is among my favorites.  But, she is super racist/classist... even for "her time"

    The catalyst for all this online reading was buying an expensive piece of workout equipment (liegeergometer) and not needing/wanting to watch shows for 60-90 minutes.

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  9. Posted

    42 minutes ago, Krieg said:

     

    We would have to check his race first.  "Mentally ill" usually applies only to white people.

     

    I would have enthusiastically agreed with you on this until I watched a documentary specifically about people pretending to get be crazy in order to get away with murder.  In that series at least, all of them were white.  And the investigators really did work *very* hard to prove them sane.  They were just as insulted as you or I would be that this cold-blooded killer was trying to game the system and play them for fools.

     

    However, where I will agree is that your average uniformed beat cop responding to a 911 call is much, much more likely to treat a suspect behaving strangely as a person who may also be in distress if they are white, and to attempt to apprehend them without the use of deadly force.

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  10. Posted

    you would also be appalled at how many people in their "right" mind premeditate an act and plan from the beginning to blame it on mental illness.  They don't come right out and say, "I plead temporary insanity."  They said they got a sign from the radio or voices in their head or were told to do it by Q.

     

    The prosecutor will find out whether this person is actually mentally ill.  Personally, I'm skeptical.  Everything about his MO indicates that he knew what he was doing was wrong, which is why he went to some lengths to prevent his wife being able to stop him doing it and also carrying out the act in a foreign country which he may consider to be a lawless wasteland where Americans can do whatever they want and stroll back out, whistling with their hands in their pockets.  Parents kill kids all the time, usually for reasons of extreme selfishness and callousness.  But they're not all crazy.  Just evil assholes.

     

    I will follow this story, I'm interested in what his psychological analysis finds out.  I have a feeling he'll stand trial as a sane man.

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  11. Posted

    The first time I saw Korean sushi was in Vancouver in the early 2000s.  The size was all wrong and they were offering some weird stuff, like cooked and breaded fried things for the inside.  Never tried it.  Though I adore Korean food in general. 

     

    Now in Berlin, you can get "sushi" with whatever you want in it, including cooked chicken, mozzarella, arugula, and various other things I'm sure were never intended by the Japanese.  No idea who "invented" sushi, though.

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  12. Posted

    in my experience you can't freeze leafy stuff and expect it to retain any structural integrity.  I do sometimes eat frozen spinach and kale, but it's known that it will be eaten in a more or less liquid state.  You wouldn't and couldn't buy frozen spinach leaves and then expect to use them in a salad.  

     

    Since the whole point of bok choi is to stir fry it and not to puree it--I wouldn't think that would work, no.  I've had bok choi in the too-cold part of a refrigerator once, which basically melted it.  I suppose the base was still usable, but even that was pretty much just a soggy mush after cooking.  The leafy tops were destroyed.  And that was in a *refrigerator* that was just a bit too cold.  

     

    Unless the plan is to make it into soup, I wouldn't store bok choy or any other cruciferous vegetable (e.g. broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, kale) in the freezer unless you're cool with it being mush when you take it back out.  Vacuum sealing it won't change this.

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  13. Posted

    I don't think jeremy was ever banned.  He asked to be deleted, AFAIK, only once.  Hence the "two" after his name.

     

    As the for the rest of it, we're on shaky ground here.  This can turn quickly into a thread that will get shut down if it turns into a big cesspool of speculation on which members might be dupes.  Take it to your PMs, please.

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  14. Posted

    19 minutes ago, Keleth said:

    This is key I found.Many time I tried to  give up immediately and could never get past a few days.The time I last gave up I decided to give up the next day because the 1st cigarette in the morning I found to be the 1 I missed most and if I could give that up successfully then the rest was no problem.Also found being off work for a couple of weeks helped tremendously because at home there was no routine of smoke breaks while you get the chance etc.

     

    I was actually really pleasantly surprised to go back to work and not miss smoke breaks.  The couple of times that I had quit before, I noticed that, ironically, time at work actually went by faster without taking smoke breaks.  Maybe psychologically, because you don't constantly have the thought of your next break in the back of your mind, and physiologically, because you're not in a constant state of withdrawal.  It's weird how after years of smoking you think you need it to feel normal and are worried, primarily, that you'll have no idea to do with your mind or your time if you give up.  Sometimes it's just the opposite.  You give up and wonder how you ever found the time, or in my case, how you ever did such a dirty and gross thing.  But by the time I stopped I was already disgusted with it.  One day to the next, almost. Still don't mind other people smoking, though.  Weirdly enough, I started to even kind of like the smell of other's people's cigarettes, which always bothered me when I still smoked.

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  16. Posted

    16 minutes ago, klingklang77 said:

     

    Sorry to go off-topic. Last one. 

     

    I have no clue how I do it. I don’t even like cigarettes very much. I just have a habit of only smoking at night and a cigarette before bed. I don’t like to smoke much in summer. Been doing this on and off for 20 years. 

     

    Back on topic and sorry! 

     

    basically same situation as me.  It's so much easier to manage when you have a smoking routine.  At some point you just... don't smoke at the prescribed time, and then hardly miss it the rest of the time.  Granted, it took a little time to get used to coffee without a smoke, without the ritual of fetching the ashtray and positioning all my stuff.  About a week and a half, I'd say.  After that I hardly even noticed anymore that something was missing.  Ditto in the evenings.  Also the same for me was that I had stopped liking smoking.  I had been an avid and enthusiastic smoker for over 20 years and then at some point I just went off it.  My plan all along was to quit some time in 2021 but even I was surprised that one day I just woke up and was like, OK, that was it.  Flushed my tobacco down the toilet and threw all the papers and filters in the trash, then poured nasty dish water onto the trash.  Didn't make the mistake of "finishing the packet" or whatever smokers tell ourselves in order to procrastinate quitting. I found it much more empowering to flush the tobacco than to stay a slave to the packet because there happened to still be some in there.  In fact, in the first weeks after stopping, I thought of that moment several times a day, and felt strong.  And I couldn't believe how little time it took to feel SO much better.  Even after reading all the stuff--I did not expect to feel THAT much better after quitting.  Smoking once or twice a day is juuuuuuust enough to put you on edge and in a state of withdrawal for the rest of the day/until the next time you smoke.  I found that my mood improved almost immediately, I slept better and was much less cranky and irritable in general.  

     

    OK, I'm sorry too!  Dangit, I knew I should have started a thread ;) maybe I still will...

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  17. Posted

    Topic split from: Coronavirus

     

    2 hours ago, klingklang77 said:

    I smoke 1-2 cigarettes on average (more when I drink)

     

    I don't wish to burst your bubble (well... actually, yes, I really do), but "light smoking" is almost as dangerous to your health as heavy smoking.  The damages that are caused by one or two cigarettes do not increase in a linear manner like you would expect.  In fact, the damage caused by one or two cigarettes a day is only doubled when the person smokes an entire pack a day.  You might even notice that you don't feel especially worse off on days when you've smoked more.  Or those nights when you were young and smoked two packs in a night--you had a bit more of a cough the next day but weren't completely destroyed.  That's because your lung function is already significantly impaired by the first cigarette--those that follow are just following the path beaten by the first.  Also don't forget that smoking affects literally every organ in your body, not just the lungs.  Smoking can even cause hair loss and cognitive dysfunction.  And you get to the same place with one or two cigarettes as with a pack, in the same amount of time.  Scary stuff.

     

    Honestly, this is what led me to quit.  I wanted to congratulate myself on having cut down to "only" four cigarettes a day--two with coffee in the morning and two at night.  I wanted to hear that it was basically harmless and that I had more or less already quit.  Yet, I couldn't find a single piece of evidence to relieve my conscience, and believe me, I tried REALLY HARD to find confirmation for my bias, for someone to tell me what I wanted to hear.  The more I read, the more freaked out I became.  For any "light smokers" reading this, I really encourage you to find out how bad light smoking is for your health.  The good news is that it should be much, much easier for you to quit than for a heavy smoker--so your restraint has some benefits after all.  However, you have to quit first before you can reap any of those benefits.  Otherwise, you might as well smoke more as smoke less.

     

    After you quit, here is another sobering thought: Fully 90% of people who smoke "just one" return to smoking again.  That's why it's important to simply... never smoke again.  The tail of nicotine addiction is long.  You smoke for five minutes, but the nicotine receptors in your brain take months to go away again.  It's simply not worth it.

     

    sorry for the long-winded PSA, just from one former "light smoker" to another--it's still not too late to determine what kind of middle age you are going to have.  I want to have a comfortable and healthy middle and old age and that's why I stopped smoking "lightly."

     

    /lecture

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  19. Posted

    The division of tips is different in every establishment--from bartenders working one till and personally deciding how much to tip their barback, to tips simply going in at the Point of Sale (bartender) and being split with every person who does a job in the whole place, down to the toilet cleaners.  If you see more than one person using one register and multiple people putting tips into a tip jar, you can assume the tips will be pooled and shared among many people who worked that shift, depending on the establishment, including even people who worked behind the scenes or outside of operating hours.

     

    Then there are different wage classes.  So, a cook in a restaurant is likely to get a much higher wage than a server, host/ess or bartender.  Managers may also make a higher wage and take either a reduced share of the tips or no tips at all.  

     

    LukeSkywalker's method of tipping is the most common and the most "correct" way in Germany.

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  20. Posted

    4 hours ago, john g. said:

    Do you mean dessa should sin bin me for a few days for posting something she disagreed with? Like officially? Like a time ban? Which inappropriate post? Because we like different comedians or not?

    Your reply is wishy washy...why let others explain? It was YOUR suggestion..." so give him a time out for once."

    Did you infer I should reflect or dessa should ban me?

     

    I was irritated because you kept editing your posts after I had already responded to them.  Not because of your bad comics.

     

    However, as irritating a faux pas as well as bad netiquette as that is--it's only that.  Annoying.  Not time-out worthy.

     

    The issue could have been laid to rest a page ago yet you came here to challenge fraufruit and again play confused and innocent, always conveniently having no idea what anyone is talking about.  Yuck, I don't like that either.

     

    Now, please let it go, everybody.  It's What Made You Laugh.  Let's move on, please. 

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  21. Posted

    46 minutes ago, hooperski said:

    Jeez, that Bruce Chandling is the least funny "comic" I've ever heard.  Truly dire.

     

    yeah, it's satire, so that's the point :) that being said, the actor who portrays him, Kyle Mooney, is not much better than that either, in my opinion. 

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  25. Posted

    no, I like bad, dirty, non-PC jokes (you would be surprised, I think, john, at the difference between what I can laugh at vs what is appropriate for the forum ;)).  But it must be FUNNY.

     

    "Look at me, I'm a miserable fat slob who hasn't been laid in five years, I'm literally a whale, free my belly of five years' worth of stored sperm."

     

    Just.  Not.  Funny.  Not smart, not clever.  Just gross.

     

    Sorry. 

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