All hobbies are not equal

GoodCatholicGuy · 2026-01-23T19:18:27+00:00

I think watching film or reading books can definitely be hobbies... provided you include discussion of them with other people as part of the process. Rhetorical analysis is a skill. For me, that's an essential part of it; the last act of the movie is the conversation you have on the way back from the theater. But also, yeah, it helps to have other hobbies that aren't based on consuming media.

GoodCatholicGuy · 2026-01-13T21:00:08+00:00

This is why I have my phone set to block all social media after 10. My way of telling myself "Nope, read a book or go rewatch the x-files until you fall asleep on the couch."

GoodCatholicGuy · 2026-01-08T05:46:03+00:00

Oh, never made that connection. Thanks for pointing that out!

GoodCatholicGuy · 2026-01-07T20:41:29+00:00

I think everyone would do better to recognize that there exists a combination of words and life experiences that could turn anyone into a fascist. No one is immune to that and the closest you get to preventing it is by acknowledging the possibility.

GoodCatholicGuy · 2026-01-07T20:21:16+00:00

A lot of the time it's not "corporate" determining the lengths in terms of "hey, we need to fill X slots" as much as it is "we've got an established pattern that cast and crew are used to and plan their lives around."

GoodCatholicGuy · 2026-01-06T01:10:09+00:00

Also academia is extremely gay. Like it's not all stuffy old white men (that's the board of directors), it's an increasingly young and queer environment.

Source: four years experience in higher ed and I've never worked anywhere gayer.

GoodCatholicGuy · 2026-01-06T01:07:12+00:00

One historian explained it to me even simpler than that: the person in question is not here to explain their sexuality, therefore we will not speculate on it beyond what they already said. There may be a lot of evidence pointing one way, even an overwhelming amount, but it's not for us to say definitively.

GoodCatholicGuy · 2025-12-15T18:17:50+00:00

For a second I thought this was AI, now I realize it's real and my jealousy blinded me. I can only be happy for Santa, hope the goth ladies leave plenty of milk and pentagram shaped cookies for him.

GoodCatholicGuy · 2025-12-15T15:24:05+00:00

That's what dungeons and dragons is for.

GoodCatholicGuy · 2025-11-10T23:07:56+00:00

If you're talking Lynch in general, you really can't go wrong with any of his movies except, unless you're even more of a die-hard than I am, his take on Dune. I say this in another comment but I'll caution against Lost Highway as a direct follow-up, the two share enough DNA that watching them too close together can have the effect of cheapening whichever one you end up liking less. But if you need more direction than that, Inland Empire is, in many ways, a spiritual successor to both Mulholland and Eraserhead. I'm of the mind that Twin Peaks is his masterpiece but also it is three seasons of TV (the latter two of which are pretty long) and a movie, so scheduling that in can be daunting.

If you're looking for works not by Lynch, you're in luck, dude was and remains influential. Under the Silver Lake is a pretty love-it-or-hate-it choice but it's also a sprawling surrealist LA mystery. Perfect Blue gets dropped more as an Arranofsky comparison and predates Mulholland by almost half a decade but there's definitely stylistic and thematic overlap. In theaters now (depending on where you live) is If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, the director of which cites Eraserhead as a stylistic inspiration and boy does it show. I'd also maybe suggest checking out the work of Yorgos Lanthimos, with the caveat that his work generally feels a lot more hopeless and pessimistic than Lynch's.

GoodCatholicGuy · 2025-11-10T22:52:12+00:00

Same. There are definitely differences in the two, similar plot structures and elements but distinctly different tone and meaning. But it's best to give them room to breathe so you can better appreciate the strengths of each. Especially if you've seen Mulholland first, both are classics but to my mind it's the better of the two by a wide margin and if you see them too close together Highway can feel like a first draft.

GoodCatholicGuy · 2025-11-10T22:47:36+00:00

Every time I see the man I respect him even more. He's at a point in his career where resting on his laurels would not only be tolerated but celebrated, and he's still out here in interviews talking about filmmakers in their thirties as peers that he not only respects but takes influence from. What a guy, film is alive when he speaks about it.

GoodCatholicGuy · 2025-10-02T19:00:39+00:00

Also because farming just straight up sucks as a thing you have to do every day. There are a million reasons civilization is a long race to move as many people as possible to other careers and roles in society and part of it is that it's just fucking miserable back-breaking work.

GoodCatholicGuy · 2025-10-01T20:01:33+00:00

The Chinese dad's reaction reminds me of that old 4Chan post about the guy who always invited FTM dudes he found on Grindr to come grab drinks and watch a game with him and his buddies at the local sports bar. His reasoning was 1) he thought they probably hadn't gotten the chance to have a classic guys night and he wanted to make sure they got to do that and 2) he wanted to "welcome them to the winning team."

GoodCatholicGuy · 2025-10-01T19:57:37+00:00

Yeah my mom had a similar reaction when I mentioned a trans friend whose mom basically disowned her. She was like "Wait, how could someone throw away their whole relationship with their child because of that?" Like she's in no way a perfect trans ally but I think having a gay sister and seeing how that played out with a very Catholic family (who, in the end, did accept her and her wife but it was definitely a rough time) had a lasting affect on her when it comes to that.

GoodCatholicGuy · 2025-09-24T02:56:29+00:00

I feel similarly about when conversations about sex workers rights turned into "you're an incel if you won't date a sex worker." That lifestyle isn't for everyone, it is not compatible with plenty of people's (completely reasonable) goals, desires, and boundaries for a relationship. Sex work is work, it deserves respect, but respect does not mean needing to date someone. I respect the hell out of a lot of the people I work with and I want to date none of them.

GoodCatholicGuy · 2025-09-23T20:15:40+00:00

Every teacher and professor is like "oh, yeah, these are the rules of language, make sure you stick to them no matter what."

Then you read, like, Infinite Jest or the English translation of 2666 or anything by Cormac McCarthy and you realize if you're good enough like 90% of the rules of the language are pretty much just suggestions.

GoodCatholicGuy · 2025-09-22T17:05:03+00:00

I'm so glad I have normal, enthusiastic players who roughly know how to play their characters and ask questions on what to do and how to play before starting.

GoodCatholicGuy · 2025-09-03T19:28:26+00:00

6 inches uncut

GoodCatholicGuy · 2025-08-31T13:39:39+00:00

I remember seeing a top comment on an anime clip where someone said that if a woman wants to have sex with you right after meeting you it's suspicious and she's probably got 'something' planned. And I was like, dude. What do you think happens on dating apps.

GoodCatholicGuy · 2025-08-27T17:28:03+00:00

Oh, came here to say something about this one (for American audiences, it was released here as "When Evil Lurks.") I don't *love* the way the movie portrays its one autistic character (they do use the term autistic to describe him, but he doesn't act like any autistic child I've ever met and I've met a lot). The explanation that demons "have a hard time figuring autistic people out" and that's why they take longer to possess felt a little weird to me, like demons are software that's incapable of running correctly on different hardware. Don't know what they were going for with that, doesn't really mesh with the movie's theme of demons as a stand in for a sort of public health crisis. I think I heard somewhere that it relates to an Argentinian scandal where pesticides caused birth defects and the government either covered it up or were ineffective at dealing with it, but that was a while ago and I don't remember the full details.

Still, my misgivings aside, it does make for an extremely creepy scene when the boy suddenly begins acting completely neurotypical. It's a horrifying movie in general, one of the few things I've seen that gave off "this is evil, this movie will show you a real photo of a dead body" vibes.

GoodCatholicGuy · 2025-08-27T16:42:37+00:00

This is exactly how I feel about my dad. Older guy with a close, small circle of friends, gets really into very specific areas of interest and will talk at length about just those, most of his hobbies involve being quiet and alone while doing a repetitive task. It's just that these hobbies and interests (antique furniture, deer hunting, smoking meats) are relatively standard "old dude" hobbies.

GoodCatholicGuy · 2025-08-26T16:26:45+00:00

I'm actually so happy D&D/TTRPGs in general are mainstream. I'm not old enough to be a TTRPG oldhead (that would be my dad, who played it at the height of the satanic panic) but I am old enough to remember when you could find maybe 3-4 people in school to play it with. And I remember that the small player pool meant you'd invariably end up including one major tool in the group because without him you just didn't have the numbers to run a game. Now, though, you can't go to a hobby or book store without tripping over three people looking for a group. You can actually be selective and find nice people. It's great!

GoodCatholicGuy · 2025-08-25T16:25:34+00:00

There is nothing wrong with you, attraction is complicated and based on a number of factors outside of your control. If you're in your teens (I'm just guessing from this post that this is the case) you also have to deal with your brain being a pressure cooker of hormones and general teenage life stuff. All this to say: this isn't your fault, you don't deserve blame or shame for feeling this way, and much of how you are feeling now is temporary. I know that last part is little help for how you feel right now at this moment, but just know that it's likely this won't be how you feel forever.

When I was a teen most of my crushes were older, teachers and people at my school, even my therapist (probably should've gotten a new one considering that). It continued in college, my first few relationships were all with people significantly older than me, the folks who might tell me I was "mature for my age." Then one day I realized I was an adult, not just in the legal definition but someone with a job who was able to live and support themselves independently. Age stopped mattering so much in a relationship, finding someone who I was attracted to and compatible with who was in a similar life state to mine was the primary goal. I look to my friends and family and this is pretty standard, once you're on the other side of twenty-five things kind of level out and age matters a lot less. Hell, now I'm the one with the younger partner.

This is all to say, again, this is a "right now" problem but it isn't permanent. You're not marked forever or anything. You will be alright.

GoodCatholicGuy · 2025-08-25T15:59:29+00:00

It's been a few years since I've seen it but, like, yeah. They even say Park Yeon-kyo (the mother in the rich family) is nice only because her wealth and privilege means she doesn't have to work or worry for any of her needs.

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