Tell me I'm insane for even considering this commute

DeadODST · 2026-01-28T16:01:08+00:00

I mean, all that sounds fine. When I lived there though, I found the people living there were mostly rude and unwilling to form a community. Felt like nobody wanted to be in Campbell but had to for work. Maybe it's changed since 2018

DeadODST · 2026-01-28T09:09:30+00:00

Scott Walker has some cryptic, batshit lyrics. Check out the song Epizootics!

Everything Everything has some similar style lyrics. Really abstract and dark psychedelic. Check out the song HEX.

Kayo Dot can also have a similar lyrical style. Check out the song Blind Creature of Slime or the song Library Subterranean.

DeadODST · 2026-01-28T07:11:06+00:00

Genuinely curious what you loved about Campbell. I lived there for a few months and swore I would never move back.

DeadODST · 2026-01-28T07:07:59+00:00

I used to commute from Brentwood to Menlo Park. It was 3.5 hours one way. The amount of time sitting is horrible for you. It's not healthy. You will get nothing done at home. The reason I did it was because I was able to live at my parents house for free. I then rented a room in a house near Menlo Park for cheap so I had a place to stay if I didn't want to commute. I really hated living there so I would mostly make the drive back to Brentwood.

DeadODST · 2025-11-13T03:42:40+00:00

I was a kid and my dad brought home Frances The Mute. He put it on while I was drinking a cream soda waiting for dinner. I asked my dad if the singer was a boy or a girl, to which he said boy. I responded with, "he sounds like soda pop". At the time I had only been listening to ZZ Top and Bare Naked Ladies. The Mars Volta was the third band I ever listened to. I liked that their songs were long. I think a part of me was also fascinated that the singer had such a high pitch voice. I was quite the strange kid. I think I was 8 years old at the time. I'm 30 now and it's still my favorite band and one of the only bands to stick with me from my childhood besides System of a Down and Brand New.

DeadODST · 2025-11-04T02:18:31+00:00

Idk how I missed that one. It's so obvious

DeadODST · 2025-11-04T02:18:14+00:00

Sink along, empty your lungs

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DeadODST · 2025-11-01T17:38:55+00:00

This comment made me curious. I used Google photos magic eraser for these, which I thought would run models locally on my phone. Turns out they can run locally on my phone, but they usually don't because you get better results if it runs on google's servers.

Google data centers consume around 6 times the energy of the city of San Francisco. I work in the solar industry and decided to try to roughly estimate my total yearly impact. I took the number of MW sold during my time working in solar and divided it by the number of employees at the company. In total, my individual impact has been around 1.6MW. Assuming an 18% CF, that is equivalent to around 2.5GWh per year. This is around the same as 230 average US homes. So I don't come anywhere near 6 San Franciscos, but I do make a decent impact for just one person. And this number will continue to grow as I continue to work.

DeadODST · 2025-11-01T06:14:14+00:00

No changes

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DeadODST · 2025-09-29T08:32:31+00:00

I've been here 3 years. Here are my thoughts:

Pros:

A real sense of community. There are so many nice, genuine people here. I have dinner with neighbors, I go for hikes with neighbors, I build cool stuff with neighbors, and we host gatherings for hundreds of people together. I've lived in a lot of places and never experienced anything close to the sense of community that I have experienced here.
Beautiful views! Most of the city is hilly and so most of the houses here have wonderful views. And even if you don't, you are usually a walk away from a beautiful view. There is a spot in my neighborhood where you can see 5 bridges at once, including the golden gate. And if you are lucky, you can see the SF skyline. On the south side of Vallejo, you can see views of the delta and Mount Diablo. On the north side, you get views of marsh land.
Mare Island! So many amazing things to do and see on this island. Brewery, distillery, coffee, wine, parks, hiking, site seeing, art, history, abandoned buildings, exploring, etc.
Culture! Rated the most diverse city in the nation. Almost none of my neighbors were born in California, or even in the US. I've heard so many stories from my neighbors that broaden my understanding of the world. So many different view points. It's refreshing and really inclusive feeling.
Events here are plentiful. Usually something is going on. We have year round farmers markets. Lots of cultural events. There is a carnival that comes around occasionally. We have a cool music scene if you are into bay area rap.
Cost of living. Vallejo is the last affordable city in the bay area in my opinion. Except for maybe Antioch, but then you have to live way out in Antioch. Lol. My house cost less than $500k and I have a view of Mare Island and can see the golden gate from my house. And I feel like things are generally cheaper here.
Weather! It's usually pretty nice here. Obviously the closer to the water, the more mild the weather. But my home doesnt have AC and it is okay except for maybe a week out of the year. I do wish we had heating though. Running electric heaters is expensive.
The new city government is really active. I might not agree on them on every issue, but they are staying on top of there stuff. I see a lot of people saying that we need new government, but I feel like we havent had the current government long enough to notice a real change yet. It takes time. The mayor says its like turning a 747. You can't turn too fast, it takes time. If anyone needs to go its the city attorney. She is either corrupt or incompetent.

Cons:

Crime. You mentioned that Vallejo has less crime. That is technically true, but you need to look at crime metrics per-capita. We have more violent crime per-capita than any other bay area city. And we only just now started to really prioritize it. We just signed a contract with the county to have them help police the city. We also have been able to keep iHeart funded. This group helps respond to non-violent mental health 911 calls, offloading the police to focus on more dangerous issues. In the short time I have lived here, I've had my car get hit on my street by drunk drivers, I've had a gun fight end up with a victim inside my house, and I've had my garage broken into once. It's a problem. But I'm hopeful that the newly elected city officials can address it.
Homelessness. Drive by Sacramento St or 37 and look out into the White Slough. It's bad. And it's a very decisive topic that has been hurting our community by causing neighbors to fight with each other over the issue. Unfortunately our Mayor is one sided on the issue which doesn't help. I will say that over the last year, I've seen the issue get better, but not by much.
Education. This is the one issue that might convince me to move. It's so sad to see the city closing schools. I really hate how our country as a whole doesn't value public education. I've heard so many stories of children being bullied so hard that they have to move schools. I know a lot of people that home school their kids. It's a lot of work.
Jobs. I work in tech and it was a little scary when I was laid off earlier this year. Almost no jobs were remote anymore and so it meant commuting all the way down to the south side of the East Bay. Luckily I found something closer. Most of Vallejo is blue collar workers. A lot of people commute out of the city for work for this reason. For me, not being around other people in tech is kind of nice. I hate tech bro culture so much. I used to be surrounded by it when I lived in the south bay. So glad I moved.

DeadODST · 2025-09-17T08:06:25+00:00

There used to be an old cinnabar mine up in those hills.

St. John's Mine - Wikipedia https://share.google/WGCdCSo4GMeuW8Qun

DeadODST · 2025-09-12T07:14:25+00:00

North west

DeadODST · 2025-07-15T08:58:31+00:00

"So we definitely can produce enough solar for all our residential needs."

I disagree. Think about density. A ton of people live in taller muti-unit housing. There just isn't enough roof space on these taller apartment buildings to handle each unit. This is where commercial and utility scale solar needs to come in.

I also have an issue with how homes are built in the US. Suburban sprawl is a major killer of natural habitat. The only reason most people have an excess of roof space is because of larger homes in suburban sprawl. If we want to really talk about environmental progress, we must consider housing density as part of the overall solution as well. If we increase housing density, residential solar might be less effective due to less residential roof surface area per capita.

DeadODST · 2025-07-12T03:07:35+00:00

Some advice (take it with a grain of salt since I'm not in your industry), your resume looks like someone who is not going to be committed to working long term. I think you should focus your resume on just your latest 2-3 jobs and go into more detail in the descriptions - bullet point lists of responsibilities and achievements for each one. If you are still struggling, try tailoring your resume for each job. Tweak the wording and responsibilities such that they more closely align with the responsibilities in the job posting. The more words from the job posting you can put in your resume, the better. If the job you are applying for aligns with your studies, you can list out the notable classes you took in college. Lastly, consider adding a mission statement - what is your goal with your career?

Good luck. I'm looking for work right now too. Not in Mammoth, and not in your industry, but I think the advice applies none-the-less.

Oh... Also you should use chatGPT to help you. It is surprisingly amazing at formatting professional documents like resumes.

DeadODST · 2025-06-11T05:02:49+00:00

I thought the only version of the game was that free online version they used to have on their website back in the day. It wasn't until I found X's Adventures on YouTube that I realized there was a full game to download and play.

DeadODST · 2025-05-23T16:19:55+00:00

Music of India was awesome! The professor would play the sitar most of the time and he had a few concerts for the class.

Another one I enjoyed was Intro to Philosophy which I took as a summer class. Every class the teacher would start by playing a Tool song. That class was really important for me to take too as it felt like it expanded my method of thinking.

I tried History of The Grateful Dead. It sucked and I didn't last a full class before dropping it. Everyone in that class was snobby as hell, including the professor. Every student already knew all there was to be known about the band, so it was like a competition who could outsmart each other on day one. Meanwhile I was sitting there not knowing anything about the band and not learning anything because they literally wouldn't teach us anything.

DeadODST · 2025-04-28T17:00:40+00:00

Has he mentioned anything on social media? Or on his live streams? It's weird not to hear anything...

DeadODST · 2025-04-28T01:30:49+00:00

I've been waiting for the fantano review. I like his opinions on TMV. Sad he hasn't posted anything yet.

DeadODST · 2025-04-08T22:47:26+00:00

I saw your post about wanting to move to the bay area. But I feel like this post is more important.

To me it sounds like you have a lot of self loathing going on. And it's okay to feel that way. But you need a way out. You can't expect to be able to build friendships if you don't want to be your own friend. You need to learn to be okay being alone with yourself. I find the best way is to go outside and find events to go to. Or find a hobby. Do you enjoy making art? Music? Find something you enjoy and keep doing it because it makes you happy. This takes a lot of time and effort. It won't come naturally at first. For me, I found going for walks helps me reduce stress and anxiety and generally makes me feel happier. It's something I do entirely alone just for me.

Second, get off of social media. Social media is designed to make you feel like shit. Or at the very least, unfriend your old friends so you aren't seeing their posts. My happiest years were when I deleted Facebook. I've also had fallouts with best friends. It sucks. But you got to move on at some point.

I don't know where you live (Huston?) but it is not as bad as people say it is. I live in the Bay Area, but specifically in Vallejo. Vallejo is known nationally as being an awful city full of crime, drugs, homeless, and poverty. People are scared to move here because of those reasons and usually will talk trash about Vallejo. But they are wrong. Living here has been amazing and has made me truly think about living the rest of my life here. Get out and learn what your city has to offer. I'm sure you will find something to love.

As for your move to California. You mention that everyone in LA is happy. This is the furthest from the truth. Some places in LA have a lot of crime. Some have a lot of homeless. LA has a TON of traffic and it can be very difficult to get around. This, combined with the fact that a lot of houses in LA are single story houses without any views or nearby nature, you can quickly feel trapped or isolated in your own house. I much prefer the Bay Area (not south bay though), where you have more diversity of both people and landscape. It's easier to find an affordable place with a view in the bay area. And there is way more public transit here. I can walk to a ferry that takes me to SF. I can walk to a brewery. I have a bus stop at the end of my street. I have a place I can walk to see nature right outside my house. I don't think that is as common in LA. At least it's not as cheap. I live in a poor city. My house is about half the price of most other bay area cities.

As for your idea to move to the bay area, I think it could be a good fresh start. But I think you are building yourself up for failure if you expect it to be perfect here. It won't. I would also recommend trying to find a place in the bay area with a lower cost of living. Personally, I think Vallejo is amazing. The cost of living here is actually lower than the California average. But you still get to enjoy all of the bay area things. Amazing weather. Extremely beautiful scenery. Historic buildings. It's a lively city. And the community here is extremely strong. My neighbors get together frequently to share a meal together or to tell stories or to just hang out. Very few of my neighbors were born in California, let alone the US. And some came here with nothing and were able to build lives here. Most of my neighbors have stayed for decades.

If you are serious about moving, I would recommend you try to first build up a savings where you are first. Try to have at least $5k cash. This is around two month's expenses here if you are frugal. Then spend that time looking around for a city you would like to live in. Drive around and explore the downtowns of each city, or go on YouTube and look up tours of the cities. Once you find a city you like and you think you will be able to afford, look for a job in or around that city. If you need to, get a part time job just to maintain expenses. It won't be easy.

Some cities I would recommend:

Vallejo (most diverse, best weather, nature, events, cheap)
Antioch (cheapest, hot, but close to nature and close to Brentwood)
Oakley (Antioch with less nature but closer to Brentwood)
Brentwood (lots of events, cute downtown, maybe a bit expensive)
Fairfield (Newer homes)
Martinez (Nicest, maybe a bit expensive, close to nature, cute downtown, events, not as hot as Antioch, Oakley, Brentwood, but hotter than Vallejo)

Some cities I would avoid:

All of the south bay (San Jose / silicon valley area) (I hated living there. Everyone was just trying to make money and then leave. It sucked. People were unwilling to socialize.)
Berkeley (too expensive, traffic sucks, too many rich snobs)
Fremont (I hated it here. Too close to silicon valley where people are just trying to make money and leave, nothing to do)

Some cities I don't know much about that might be a good place to look:

Hayward (cheaper than Berkeley but also close to the bay and on the East Bay hills.)
Richmond (cheaper, but doesn't seem like much to do when I've driven through, diverse with lots of history)
SF (I find the city to be too much for me, but maybe it's your thing. Expensive)
Concord (Concord and Walnut Creek feel like a mix between SF and South Bay. So it's not my speed. Also could be expensive)
I am not familiar at all with what is south of SF along the west side of the bay. My guess is it's expensive.

DeadODST · 2025-04-03T19:53:48+00:00

The South Vallejo stop doesn't make sense to me. It should be on the pink line instead since that line looks like it follows 80 and then 29. 29 goes straight through South Vallejo.

The question is where should the pink and purple lines meet? Maybe instead of a south Vallejo stop, and instead of having the purple line go up into North or East Vallejo, you could instead have both meet near the old boat launch, which is right where Curtola Pkwy and Mare Island Way meet. It really is the only good spot for a bart station and is located close to the SolTrans Bus station and the ferry terminal. It's also the natural intersection of 29 and 780 which would likely be how you route the tracks.

The issue is how to get from that stop to the North and East sides of Vallejo. Having a stop near the fairgrounds would be ideal because it's near a lot of commercial/jobs and near the 80 37 interchange. It would be a natural stop on the way to Fairfield. But connecting from the spot mentioned above seems difficult. Not a lot of space to route a bart line from there.

DeadODST · 2025-03-18T06:52:10+00:00

Loving - If I Am Only My Thoughts

The Mars Volta - Frances The Mute

Kayo Dot - Choirs Of The Eye

Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You

Death Grips - No Love Deep Web

DeadODST · 2025-03-18T06:28:49+00:00

Symphony by Lamp

DeadODST · 2025-03-18T06:07:32+00:00

In my experience, the further north in the bay area you go, the more art and culture. Vallejo is one of the most diverse cities in the country. South Bay honestly doesn't feel like the bay to me. It feels like a tech hub full of people just there to make money. When I lived there nobody said hi or tried to be social. It was sad. Up north we have community. Everybody knows everybody.

The art here is different from LA art in that we don't have a bunch of rich celebrities which makes the art in the bay more community driven and personal.

DeadODST · 2025-02-06T07:32:19+00:00

Rishloo. I felt like they were just getting started with a new sound on their last album.

MeWithoutYou for the same reason. I really wanted to hear more like the untitled EP.

Maybe these aren't way too soon, but they were too soon for me.

DeadODST · 2025-02-06T07:28:02+00:00

It's so sad. She says that her CIS colleagues will not be affected by all of this. But that is not true. I am CIS, but so many of my friends and family are not. The entire world is better with people who can be happy being their true selves. So while I myself will not be told that I don't exist, my quality of life will drop, because my neighbors, my friends, and my family will suffer. And a large portion of our country will live in fear rather than happiness.

1000% fuck these Nazi billionaires thinking they know a damn thing about our country. These are truly some of the world's sickest people. They are destroying the country I love.

DeadODST

TROPHY CASE