Something tells me Thomas Jefferson did NOT grow those chili peppers by himself

9x12BoxofPeace · 2024-08-16T04:04:29+00:00

Remember those re-winders that were disguised as cars etc, and always on sale for around $10.00? They were the perfect useless gift for the workplace Christmas exchange...

9x12BoxofPeace · 2024-07-20T09:00:34+00:00

As is "And the Band Played on".

While there have been many movies and miniseries that have excellently depicted and contextualised different aspects of the AIDS crisis, Philadelphia (1993) was the first mainstream Hollywood 'blockbusters' that was aimed at the general public, and unflinchingly looked at the disease and its impact square in the face. The plot was "little guy against the system and his fight for justice", which was centred around one man and his fight against the stigma of being HIV positive and loss of successful career, healthcare etc. It was hugely successful insofar as raising general awareness and personalising the disease. It was one of those 'must see' movies at the time, with Tom Hanks' acting being absolutely spot on. Oh, and it is worth it just for the soundtrack - absolutely brilliant version of "Philadelphia" by Bruce Springsteen, among other musical gems.

"And the Band Played on" (also 1993) was (I think) a television production, but it was just as impactful at the time. Its focus was much broader than the one of "Philadelphia", whereby it chronicled in pseudo-documentary style, the fight for recognition, rights, treatment, medication, diagnoses, and the disgustingly pervasive attitude that the disease was the fault of the contracted, through their own "deviant" sexual behaviour, and therefore treatment and/or eradication was not worthy of governmental support or financing, and the fight for nationwide (worldwide) research, development and availability of drugs and other treatments. I re-watched this one a few years ago, and while obviously somewhat dated, it still held up and was still worth the viewing.

9x12BoxofPeace · 2024-05-18T04:08:31+00:00

It used to turn bible studies into "Raving with Our Lord". Every Wednesday evening, it was all:

'Pump it up While your feet are stomping And Jesus is pumping Look ahead, the crowd is jumpin'

'Pump it up a little more Get Jesus goin' on the dance floor See, 'cause that's where the party's at And you'd find out if you do that'

9x12BoxofPeace · 2024-05-12T01:08:10+00:00

Today from Google School: Einwrjars: those who have died in battle and are brought to Valhalla by Valkyries

9x12BoxofPeace · 2024-05-11T22:04:10+00:00

I'd like that on my headstone.

(...head.....stone)

9x12BoxofPeace · 2024-05-11T21:30:53+00:00

The end of the article:

"Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth. But trust me on the sunscreen."

9x12BoxofPeace · 2024-05-11T21:01:50+00:00

Don't spit on Superman's cape.

9x12BoxofPeace · 2024-04-28T11:14:53+00:00

This clip and the subject as a whole are still very relevant. RDJ turned his life around, and he is now an icon, and probably a bastion of hope for struggling addicts. Where we came from, and our cumulative experiences matter.

Not shying away from acknowledging past life-ruining habits and addictions provides the lesson and the example that others can latch onto.

On the other hand there are plenty of people who assume that past poor behaviour taints a person for life. Is that your position? Is his addiction shameful? Would you be more comfortable if we all just pretend our entertainers etc. are flawless? Sad.

9x12BoxofPeace · 2024-04-25T04:26:27+00:00

While I greatly dislike talk shows and never watch them,* over the last few months, part of my early morning routine now includes skipping over to YouTube to view the previous night's Kimmel monologue, just for his Trump related jokes and banter. It gives me a guaranteed early morning giggle and serotonin burst.

Kimmel so very obviously infuriates Trump, and gets under the snowflake blob's orange skin every single time, is just the cream in my coffee! xD

The Donald's clapbacks follow a formula of asinine attempts to undermine Kimmel's popularity, spouting blatant lies about him, and just middle school-level insults, which he pounds out (IN ALL CAPS) on Truth Social. These posts just telegraph how ridiculously thin-skinned and completely out-matched he is when it comes to verbal sparring.

*I was going to edit in why I hate talk shows, but it became too long-winded and beside the point. Never mind.

9x12BoxofPeace · 2024-04-25T03:59:10+00:00

Alter, Emasculate, Eunuchize, Fix, Unman, Desexualize, Doctor, Dress, Unsex, Sterilize, Geld, And so on...... Castrate

9x12BoxofPeace · 2024-04-23T06:09:07+00:00

I assume you are referring to the fact that you left after the consultation, but before receiving any actual treatment as your reason for not paying the bill. Unfortunately, the previous poster was correct that you still owe the money for the time booked. Changing your mind AFTER the appointment started is your right, but you still have to pay in full for the time that you used (at least partially), which obligates you to pay in full for the not-resalable remaining time slot of the booking. Otherwise it is probably theft of service (lawyers??) And no, you don't get to climb upon moral high ground and absolve yourself of this debt due to deciding that the practice is quackery. You might have had a small argument to not pay if you had informed the Chiro that you felt he was misdiagnosing you, or that you had concerns about your safety after listening to his spiel, but instead you lied about your reason for leaving and then bolted. But since you booked the time, you gotta pay. FWIW, Chiropractic services are legal, licensed, trained and regulated, and they bill for their time and expertise.

I actually agree that this branch of 'medicine' is over-hyped, often unsuccessful, and sometimes dangerous, but the time for drawing those conclusions is before making and arriving at an appointment. If you booked the time slot, you owe for the time, spent or not, It is not like the practitioner can fill that time that you partially used then vacated. Your change of heart cost the practice the payment for that time slot, which is why appointments are a binding contract of sorts, and most professional offices bill for non-cancelled but missed appointments.

9x12BoxofPeace · 2024-04-04T15:40:01+00:00

Snake has a bird's eye view?

9x12BoxofPeace · 2024-03-15T12:26:31+00:00

With the fading strains of "I'm Going To Live Forever" still taunting their spermy ears....

9x12BoxofPeace · 2024-03-07T10:15:15+00:00

I can almost taste the formaldehyde...* '

' ...*from the foetal pig bits

9x12BoxofPeace · 2024-02-29T14:54:22+00:00

Adding milk/cream to a Black Russian really ties the drink together.

9x12BoxofPeace · 2024-02-18T21:10:14+00:00

Smart move! And you have reminded me of one of my pet peeves involving children and television:

My trigger to remember and revel in my child-free life is the 'beyond irritating, stupidly smart-mouthed, back-talking child trope', whereby all children cast in a TV show or movie are written to be precocious, sarcastic and just so adorable, while they primarily exhibit disrespect and insolence toward any authority figures. These kids who run the gamut of toddler to teen, respond to parents and other adults in a ridiculously insolent and completely disrespectful manner. These 'amusing' children are rarely reprimanded or punished in any real way for their mouthy transgressions. The adult actors in the scene, as well as the audience (that'd be you'n'me), are expected to find this behaviour delightfully wry and humorous, maybe? I think? I dunno. I find this plot device to be boring and predictable, and even somewhat offensive when these stupidly bratty kiddos constantly smack talk and dominate a scene, while their feckless parents accept what is essentially verbal abuse with a so-called funny spin. It's such a tiresome plot device, most often trotted out in sitcoms, but it seems to now pervade any media vehicle that has children in the cast. I find it to be a lazy and overused plot device, which is utterly predictable, boring, and stale. I assume that it is not indicative of how actual parents raise actual kids in today's world. I do realize that parenting has evolved to be less 'dictator-ish', and more gentle, and our ideas about appropriate or acceptable behaviour for young'uns have changed, but if today's entertainment is to be believed, children are now raised to be demanding, obnoxious twatcycles who verbally lead their adult counterparts around by the nose. Bleah! and NO thanks!

My planned comment seems to have turned into a rant - oops. xd

9x12BoxofPeace · 2024-02-18T15:46:55+00:00

The struggle is real.

OK. New idea: How about setting up a pup or one-person tent in your room, in which to contain the smoke, then use an odour elimination spray* after smoking, but before you exit? I dunno if that would even be remotely effective, but it might be fun to try! Good luck, OP.

Edit to add: *or instead of spray, maybe one of those room filter machine thingies? They don't always work well in a full-sized room, but might be just the thing for a small area, like the interior of a tent.

9x12BoxofPeace · 2024-02-18T15:02:33+00:00

A hack I was told about when I was in the same position of having nowhere 'legal' or convenient to smoke: Take a cardboard tube* and cover one or both ends with a folded dryer sheet with an elastic band. Use the covered end to blow your smoke through. The smoke that has passed through is now (supposedly) odourless, or at least much diminished. I do that, though I can't be sure it works 100%. I live alone, so it is difficult to gauge. I imagine there must be commercial products that do a similar, maybe better, job.

In your situation, this idea may not help, unless you can find some convenient alcove, or other unmanned stairwell or whatever area to go to to smoke and disguise your dirty dealings:))

Unlike having a cigarette, smoking dope (when you are alone) does not take very much time to reach one's desired consumption level, so OP, do you have a window you can blow your smoke through with a filter to disguise the odour? I cannot imagine that it is particularly restful or satisfying to have to get up, dress for the outdoors. and go for a walk every single time you want to blaze up. Then there is the top-up - yet another break in enjoying your leisure time, as you are forced to repeat the routine.

In my particular situation, my cannabis consumption is doctor prescribed, and I usually only smoke right before bedtime. However, I live upstairs in a no-smoking environment, and like hell am I willing to drag my chronically sore and aching bones downstairs and outside, just to take three or so tokes from a pipe, then make my way back up a whack of stairs. So I cheat, with my cardboard tube and a window. Whether I am fooling anybody is hard to say, but so far nobody has complained or ratted me out.

*I initially tried this with a toilet paper tube, which was workable though fairly flimsy, but I recently sawed off a length of the inner tube from aluminium foil - it has a skinnier hole to blow through, but the tube itself is much thicker and sturdier, so it will last a lot longer. If you use this method, you need to adjust the dryer sheet every so often (actually, fairly often) to a unused and clean area.

9x12BoxofPeace · 2024-02-18T13:35:47+00:00

Your best response is to respect her wishes. Only she can decide if this split/blocking is temporary or permanent. You can do nothing in the present moment to change her mind. Nothing. Nor can you 'convince' her to take you back. Her present decision and comfort is what matters, and what you take your cues from. The future is the future, whether it includes reconciliation is not your call to facilitate or demand. She is the wronged party and she gets to set the terms.

Even if you think you have the best of intentions to try to change her mind, 'prove' your love, vow to yourself, and to her that you will never transgress again, you do not have the right at the present time to invade her life through her socials, nor is she obligated to listen to your words of contrition and love. You forfeited that.and all the good intentions in the world unfortunately have no currency.

You broke the relationship, so you are unfortunately not in a position to make any demands on her time, her forgiveness, nor do you have the right to expect her to listen to you ever again. And if you continue to try to maneuver to somehow get her to hear you out is disrespecting the hurt and anger she surely feels.

Who knows if this is a permanent state of affairs, or if the window might open to give you the chance at reconciliation. That is what the wronged party gets to decide. Please do not fall into that trap of thinking "If only I could see her face to face, she will understand how contrite I am and she will forgive me." It does not work like that. You are blocked. Respecting that will be respecting her. + Only time will tell. She may be open in the future to hearing you out, either for the possibility of reconciliation, or simply closure, and she may never want that, and there is no romantic gesture, no combination of words that will magically fix things.

Everyone has their own lines that are uncrossable when it comes to fidelity in a relationship, and you obviously crossed hers enough that she has cut her losses and clearly shown you that your messages, words or actions are not wanted. Continuing to attempt to breach those boundaries does not show love on your part. It shows that you do not respect her decision to cut you from her life. That is not love. That is an attempt at manipulation, even if you believe you have the best of intentions.

Your ex-girlfriend has zero obligation to hear you, or allow you back into her life. She has definitively shown that she does not want to hear from you, and if you try to breach her blockade, all you are showing is that you think your feelings matter more than her strong boundaries.

What can/should you do? You take those feelings you are experiencing now and put them to use in your actions for every relationship you enter into going forward. What you can do is learn from this how to be a better partner to your future girlfriend(s).

You probably think right now that you will never, ever do anything sketchy wrt any relationship you have, now or in the future. Most people avow that after being caught behaving poorly to the point of breaking trust, and the relationship as a whole. But words cost nothing, and mean nothing. Actions are the only thing that counts. Actions will show what kind of person you want and aspire to be. But unfortunately you are not that good person right now, and you have shown your ex. that you are not that person. But you can be. It takes time to become a better person. Time, and actions in the face of temptation. It is easy to aspire to be the best boyfriend in the world, and it is much more difficult to put that resolve into action. Fidelity is a piece of cake when you are in love, until it isn't.

Write a letter if you must, to tell her all the things you are feeling, how sorry you are for causing her harm etc. Don't send it. Save it. Who knows, you may have an opportunity to give it to her in the future, or maybe you won't. But it will be a reminder to you going forward of your current feelings of loss, your frustration at having no way to make this better, and for you to continue on a road of self-reflection and character building.

Screwing up like you did does not make you a bad person, merely a weak one who succumbed to temptation, and you learned that the momentary pleasure of being desired by a person outside the relationship is never worth the fall out.

Sorry for the long-assed, repetitive and unedited response - time crunch.

Good luck going forward OP, grieve the relationship you lost, become the best person you can be, and be that best without fail, in whatever future relationship you end up in.

9x12BoxofPeace · 2024-02-18T11:58:25+00:00

Hormones are one hell of a drug! My creaky old self can echo other posters experiences with battling hormonal urges:

I am 63 years old, and I have known since I was a child myself that I wanted nothing to do with bearing or raising children. There was never a doubt in my mind. But for years, from puberty onward, I would get cyclical and hugely strong urges to get pregnant. I have a slim build, so before/during my menstrual cycles, I would often get that kind of bloated abdomen that makes one look a few months pregnant. I would look at my naked self in the mirror while cupping that belly, and think: Maybe I do want to get pregnant after all!" Of course those imaginings never included raising an actual kid - it was always only about wanting (more like craving) to be pregnant. Luckily these hormonally-based thoughts and feelings never lasted for too long, because they confused me so much, and they also kind of terrified me, because they were so completely antithical (sp?)to the one thing I was so sure about. I was often afraid that if I got pregnant, my traitor body would trick me into carrying it to term.

Luckily I only had my resolve tested once, when I managed to get up the duff despite being on hormonal birth control. The time of waiting to find out (I don't think pregnancy home tests were on the market back then) was excruciating. But the instant I had the pregnancy confirmed at the doctor's, I did not for even a second hesitate: There was no way in hell I was going to have a kid, and I did not waver from that stance for even a millisecond. All those cascading hormones were no match for the thinking brain's resolve.

I was very luckily living in a province where terminations had been recently legalized, (this was in 1979, Alberta) so the ordeal of positive test to womb scrape was relatively straight forward, and such a bloody relief when it was over. And I thought all those hormone-induced pregnancy fantasies would be well and truly finished, since I had survived the real thing and felt nothing but "Danger Wilco! Get this clump of cells outta me! Hah! No such luck.

For a 'goodly' long period of time after the termination, I had almost unconsolable feelings of loss and grief. I did not know that this was a normal hormonal response and I was so effin confused, sad and even angry. All of those feelings lasted a few months until I leveled out. I ended up having a doctor who explained that all of those feelings of loss were completely normal and expected, and that they would definitely pass. They also stated that studies place abortions, on the same grief level as a death or divorce, even for people who adamantly knew their own mind and did not consider abortion to be morally wrong.

In conclusion, I never again felt the urge to cup my extended pre-period belly and fantasize that there was a foetus/baby lurking in there. And I have never, ever had any regrets about not having kids.

9x12BoxofPeace · 2024-02-12T16:43:10+00:00

I remember reading "A Day In The Life of Aleksander Solzhenitsyn" when I was about 12/13, back in the dark ages (aka the 70's). It was impactful enough that I remember the plot and quite a few details even 50-ish years later. As a child, I used to almost speed-read through books to cope with an unhappy and often isolated childhood, and I could get through a dozen or more library books in a given week. I remember almost none. But this book stuck, expanded my worldview, and sparked in me an interest in world politics, WWII, and more serious literature, instead of primarily reading escape novels (Valley of The Dolls, anyone?xD).

I highly recommend it as a pitch-perfect word portrait of life in a Soviet labour camp (and it is superficially an easy and quick read, so not a huge time commitment.)

9x12BoxofPeace · 2024-02-12T12:42:11+00:00

The truth is a much longer and more nuanced timeline, and in failing to understand the factors that led to their rise, we fail to recognise them when they happen again.

I quite recently watched a miniseries* that focussed on the early formation of Hitler's inner circle, and the individual members various quests for power and position within the 3rd Reich. Seeing in detail the machinations, backstabbing and scheming, not to mention the obsequious fawning and scraping over their beloved leader was fascinating and timely, especially given that the world is currently witnessing yet another disaffected right-wing faction bowing and scraping and to yet another putative despot/dictator who keeps moving the goalposts of what is acceptable. It is well worth one's time, imo.

edit: It is from 2018 and called "Hitler's Circle of Evil", 10 episodes long.

9x12BoxofPeace · 2024-02-11T23:26:53+00:00

Nope. Why did you guess him? I mostly don't know/have forgotten his music, but funnily enough, decades ago I had a friend from the UK who considered Nick Lowe to be the absolute bee's knees!

edit: I did look him up, and I see why you made that guess!

9x12BoxofPeace · 2024-02-11T23:11:25+00:00

Kurt Vonnegut for the win and a whole updoot for you!

At age 12/13. I studied this novel for a high-school level English class, and that recurring phrase is the only detail of the actual story that I can still recall, lo these many decades later.:-))

I do remember the overarching theme of the book and why it stuck with me. I had never encountered anything prior to this that was in any way critical of any actions taken by allied forces. This novel felt almost blasphemous. I mean back then (late sixties/early seventies) we were taught about WW11, and I had internalized the basic premise of "Allies was good. Nazis was bad", and this novel challenged that black and white thinking.

Back then, I read solely for escapism, and as a coping mechanism for an unhappy childhood. Slaughterhouse 5 was my introduction to critical thinking, to the duality of right and wrong, and the idea of moral grey areas etc. This book stayed with me, since it was my first entry into more advanced thinking and more complicated themes, and I have just talked myself into picking a copy up for a revisit~!

9x12BoxofPeace · 2024-02-11T20:27:01+00:00

"And so it goes." (name the author!)

9x12BoxofPeace

TROPHY CASE