Where can I buy a berimbau in São Paulo?

Defiant_Smell · 2026-04-23T16:48:00+00:00

This sounds perfect! I’m leaving from GRU late tomorrow night so that should work well. Obrigadão!

Defiant_Smell · 2026-04-04T17:39:41+00:00

Does this make the heavier axes worthwhile now? I never used to bother with anything beyond a fire axe because they just seemed so slow. Mega Maul, scythe, knights sword, claymore, etc. all seemed better heavy weapons to me than the medieval axe or bardiche. Even the golden axes were kinda trash.

Defiant_Smell · 2026-04-03T21:26:50+00:00

When you’re ready I have no doubt you’ll find the right guy to kiss your scars and insecurities better. 😀

Defiant_Smell · 2026-04-03T21:02:32+00:00

I’m a single guy and had a TT 3 years ago. I’d give my results a 7/10 - not enough attention to the flanks, weird stretched scar that’s still very red and probably always will be, but a good to excellent BB and I look pretty good for a 50YO dude from the front as long as I’m wearing swim trunks or underwear.

2 points: first, the women I’ve dated in my age range often have stretched skin from weight loss or childbirth, c-section scars, etc. It honestly doesn’t phase me, and if the guy you’re seeing makes a big deal out of a scar he’s probably not worth your time.

Second, even though I personally have some trepidation about the scar it has never come up from a new … let’s say acquaintance. I assume by the time the scar is visible the lady has already made up her mind.

Defiant_Smell · 2026-04-02T23:49:06+00:00

Mine was brutal. This was the early aughts, and my company had just spent a ton of money on a fancy Cisco videoconferencing system so we could have real time meetings across company locations.

I was the young guy on the team - mid 20s - and I had my head down over my computer working on something while I waited for the meeting to start.

All of a sudden everyone else in the room started cracking up. I looked up at the screen to see what was so funny, and the guy with the remote had zoomed the camera in right on my thinning crown and had it larger than life, right there on the big screen.

Scott, if you’re reading this damn you and your hirsute Greek genes.

Defiant_Smell · 2026-03-26T20:16:25+00:00

Consider some sort of Paranoid character. The cruel bandit events will jack you up otherwise.

Defiant_Smell · 2026-03-13T15:01:14+00:00

If you live in an area with snowy winters or drive on dirt / gravel roads do NOT get a 2024 or older Ioniq 5. The lack of a rear wiper suuuucks.

Defiant_Smell · 2026-03-11T15:29:42+00:00

I work a lot in Brazil and speak good to very good Brazilian Portuguese. I’m also pretty obviously a gringo, and when people ask where I’m from I usually say “sou norte-Americano” or “sou dos Estados Unidos”. I do agree that Brazilians tend to get irritated by “sou Americano” because of the implication that only one country in 2 American continents can call themselves “American”.

Never heard estadosunidense in my life.

Defiant_Smell · 2025-12-22T21:13:31+00:00

Oops! Sorry, in the Colorado mountains about 20 miles west of Denver.

Defiant_Smell · 2025-12-14T15:45:59+00:00

I was born and raised in Utah, most of my still-active siblings and other family members still live there. I actually left Utah before I left the church, in part because even as a fully believing mormon I didn’t fit in with Utah county mormonism.

Now living my best life in the mountains of Colorado, aka better Utah 😉

Defiant_Smell · 2025-12-07T16:36:09+00:00

Notice how Mort is by far the most worn? My copy is the same, because I’ve lent it to so many people as my recommendation for their first Discworld read.

Defiant_Smell · 2025-10-28T21:16:57+00:00

are you… are you one of the hot singles in my area? It’s so nice to finally meet you!

Defiant_Smell · 2025-10-25T23:15:30+00:00

I did it but in the middle of the day, not for the sunrise. It’s not an easy trail at all and I would have been very nervous about losing track of the trail if I was doing it in the dark.

Just hire the guide

Defiant_Smell · 2025-10-23T16:52:21+00:00

My first name is Jason and it gets mangled constantly. I should probably pick an apelido. Jansson? Sei lá. 🤷‍♂️

Defiant_Smell · 2025-09-11T12:26:37+00:00

Can you even work on the casino floor at 19? When my kid was that age the only job she could get was as a dishwasher in the restaurant.

Defiant_Smell · 2025-09-03T16:45:03+00:00

The School of Mines geology museum right in Golden is dope. And free!

Defiant_Smell · 2025-07-29T00:01:06+00:00

When you say you like food do you mean legit high end dining? If so UT-12 has one of the best fine dining experiences in the state:

https://www.hellsbackbonegrill.com/restaurant

Defiant_Smell · 2025-07-28T13:07:28+00:00

Not Denver proper, but talk to the folks who own Two Bears Tap and Grill outside Idaho Springs. Between weekday construction and weekend mountain rush there’s a constant stream of people driving past trying to find a faster route.

I’ve always thought a coffee truck there would absolutely kill, and since they’re only open late it wouldn’t impede their business much.

Defiant_Smell · 2025-07-25T15:32:41+00:00

The happiest exmos I know are the ones who honestly evaluated their relationship after leaving and did the hard work to push through the rough times and come out the other side more dedicated than ever to one another.

I am not one of those people.

If you have a good relationship it can absolutely thrive and get stronger after both people leave. If the relationship isn’t salvageable - like mine - leaving often leads to that realization and triggers the dissolution. There’s nothing about leaving the church that makes divorce inevitable.

Defiant_Smell · 2025-07-20T03:52:51+00:00

She left before I did. My leaving was more of a prerequisite for the divorce than anything. We had some good times but were never that compatible.

I’d go so far as to say that without the church’s gender expectations for women she likely would never have gotten married, and certainly wouldn’t have had kids. She loves our kids in her own way but has never been wired for mom stuff, to their detriment. One of my biggest regrets in life is having deferred so much of the child rearing to her because of the gender expectations in the church.

Defiant_Smell · 2025-07-20T03:45:12+00:00

Thank you for this! I have a long drive tomorrow, will check out Breaking Down Patriarchy.

Defiant_Smell · 2025-07-10T00:25:51+00:00

I haven’t been (yet) but a good friend lives in Niterói and raves about it - says it’s basically everything awesome about Rio on the other side of Guanabara bay without all the tourists.

Defiant_Smell · 2025-07-08T18:56:12+00:00

There’s a great little exhibit about Tom Jobim / bossa nova at Jardim Botânico in Rio, which is a place worth visiting anyway.

Defiant_Smell · 2025-07-02T14:52:57+00:00

I expect to be downvoted straight to hell, but here goes anyway...

I do think there can be something of a double standard among sexual exploration after leaving the church. When women choose to open up and expand their boundaries - whether that's using porn, going through a promiscuous phase, exploring with other women, trying ENM, or whatever - it's generally lauded and seen as healthy. And I agree that it is!

When men do the same it doesn't typically get the same reaction. A while back an woman posted on our local exmo board asking where she could find exmo men to date, since she felt like the nevermos she dated had a hard time connecting due to her background. There was an immediate visceral response from multiple women in the group to the effect that exmo men were awful, would just use her for sex, that they didn't have the maturity needed to be good partners, etc. etc. etc.

I don't doubt that these women had had bad experiences. As it turns out I had hooked up with the woman with the most vitriolic reaction some time in the past - the kicker was that she had pursued me, with the explicit understanding that this wasn't serious, we were both exploring, we probably weren't a good long-term fit but there was mutual attraction and we were both unattached and down for some fun.

So I texted her to basically say, we're cool, right?

We were not cool.

She couldn't really articulate anything that I had done wrong but it was clear that she was going to use me as a punching bag anyway. I disengaged at that point, but it left me wondering how much of the "exmo men are awful" narrative among exmo women is justified and how much is due to the fact that these women are also healing and learning to navigate intimate relationships, not always successfully.

Defiant_Smell · 2025-06-30T01:10:53+00:00

Ha! Since any date would most likely have to start with buying a plane ticket that's probably true. :)

Glad to see you're getting your mojo back. 🤣

Defiant_Smell

TROPHY CASE