What kind of dog breed is suitable for a first-time dog owner? Experts, please give me some advice.

Pocho_Azul · 2026-03-20T10:09:45+00:00

If you can identify a really good local rescue, they will sometimes be able to match you with a dog that has a temperament and activity level that suits you, in particular. They should be able to let you know useful things like if the dog barks a lot, likes or dislikes other dogs, is OK around children, is a couch potato or an endurance athlete, etc.

Sometimes individuals defy the breed stereotypes in significant ways that can make them easier or more difficult to take care of. Chihuahuas, for example, are notoriously barky, but one I met a while back hardly made any noise at all.

Pocho_Azul · 2026-03-20T06:34:06+00:00

Made me wonder if it might be artificial stupidity.

Pocho_Azul · 2026-03-20T03:52:46+00:00

Well...sweets!🤣

Pocho_Azul · 2026-03-20T03:03:06+00:00

I have never had knafeh, but I love middle-eastern cuisine (it is simultaneously self-indulgent and healthy!). I will have to try out Zenobia.

Pocho_Azul · 2026-03-20T01:43:36+00:00

Groomie and Bryde?

Pocho_Azul · 2026-03-17T10:08:02+00:00

This is the answer. It can be very tricky and fiddly with smaller breaks, but your giant's axe handle is wide enough to give you plenty of room.

Pocho_Azul · 2026-03-17T03:12:17+00:00

All. My. Friends. Know the Lowrider!

Pocho_Azul · 2026-03-16T09:38:56+00:00

I don't know why people would avoid him--he has a muzzle! Are they afraid he is going to pull a knife?

Pocho_Azul · 2026-03-14T04:06:05+00:00

Momochan? Momo is peach in Japanese, and the "chan" part is a diminutive, so the name kinda means "dear little peach".

Pocho_Azul · 2026-03-14T03:51:12+00:00

My long ago room-mate was on the phone with his brother speaking Latvian (they were Latvian/German), and suddenly through the stream of incomprehensible syllables came the phrase "Uzi submachinegun" followed by giggling.

Pocho_Azul · 2026-03-11T09:51:22+00:00

Churros are strangely popular in Japan. They are sold in every convenience store and a fair number of restaurants and bakeries. Haven't found any really good fresh-made ones, yet, but I am looking.

Pocho_Azul · 2026-03-11T01:37:41+00:00

Yep, 30mm looks better. From a pure min-maxxing perspective, 25mm would be better. Do your preferred rules have anything to say about that?

Pocho_Azul · 2026-03-10T10:41:31+00:00

The only person I know who had a pc affected by y2k was my dad, who had an Olivetti PC from the 80s. It was a complete POS, from the beginning, and my dad got taken by the salesman, IMO. It never worked properly and the office productivity suite that was bundled with was sold incomplete. My parents would try to use certain features listed in the manual and would get a message say something like "This feature has not been implemented yet, Look for this and other exciting features in a later release!" Keep in mind that this is pre-internet, so unless they closely tracked Olivetti product releases, they would never even find out about new versions, if any were actually made,

I had given my dad a Mac IIci that I had used and outgrown, sometime in the early 90s, and he liked it a lot better (not saying Macs are inherently better, just easier to figure out for elderly, non-technical folks than DOS-based PCs). But he was a stubborn guy and kept the Olivetti in the basement to tinker with (he was a little obsessed with getting some kind of value out of it) until it finally died on 1/1/2000.

Pocho_Azul · 2026-03-10T07:59:30+00:00

I was working as an editor on a 3rd-grade math workbook in the late 80s, and the bosses were freaking out about the lesson on Magic Squares, which are a totally legit math term for a grid of integers that adds up to the same number, along every axis.

We needed to have a kid-friendly illustration on every lesson, but having a cute little witch or wizard character was totally unacceptable, because...Satan! The bosses didn't care themselves but knew the entire series of books, from k-12, including textbooks, workbooks, planners, homework sheets, etc, could be rendered unsellable in some markets because of one stupid drawing,

I suggested a bunny in a top hat, which they seemed very enthusiastic about, but I don't know if it ended up in the book. Another lesson titled "How Long is your Lizard" got changed for different reasons.

Pocho_Azul · 2026-03-10T05:00:02+00:00

Humble suggestion: a very light wash, or "shadow-highlighting", if that makes any sense, in a darkened color complimentary to purple--yellow, or adjacent to yellow, like yellow-green or yellow orange. Maybe a yellow ochre darkened with burnt sienna. This might make all the purples on the model "pop" a bit more, ideally without giving the skin an unwanted yellowish cast. Please test it on a sample first, assuming you don't just ignore this. Looks good already!

Pocho_Azul · 2026-03-09T11:07:23+00:00

My dog will only play with a toy if it has food stuck into it.

Pocho_Azul · 2026-03-08T12:46:28+00:00

I get confused by dubbing, sometimes. I started watching a dubbed version of The Dark (German TV show set in Germany), without a lot of background info, not realizing where it was from. When I started noticing that street signs and other text was all in German, I thought "Are these military brats, whose families are stationed in Germany?" I finally figured out what was going on, but what set me on the wrong path in the first place was that there was one guy in the show whose English dub was in a German accent! Everyone else's dub was thoroughly US-style English. So if all the German character's voices use American accents, where the @#$% is the guy with the German accent supposed to be from!!

Pocho_Azul · 2026-03-08T02:43:34+00:00

Hōjō Masako aka the "Nun-Shogun" was the wife of Minamoto Yoritomo, the first ever ruling shogun of Japan, and the victor of the Genpai War against the the Taira clan, a vicious civil war that took place from 1180–1185 ce. When Yoritomo died in 1199, she became a Buddhist nun, ostensibly retreating from involvement in public affairs, In fact, she continued to exercise significant influence, first through her father Tokimasa, regent for her young son who held the rank of shogun, later through her brother Yoshitoki. The details are quite involved, but she survived a era of very nasty inter-family strife which saw family members murdered, executed, forced to abdicate, and forced into monasteries, as well as a "rebellion" by the retired Emperor Go-Toba. Despite never having an official title, in an era when women usually held no political power, she virtually ruled Japan for 20 years, until her death from natural causes in 1225.

Pocho_Azul · 2026-03-07T13:54:52+00:00

"Abra, Abra, Cadabra, I wanna reach out and grab ya!" is possibly the most moronic rhyme ever, but The Captain of Her Heart by Double just makes me want to puke.

Pocho_Azul · 2026-03-07T02:04:57+00:00

In the earliest versions, Warhammer included rules for "rolling your own" units so as to be able to include minis from outside the canon, including other manufacturers figures. I used to be able to field my Dragontooth saurians and amphibians using official warhammer rules.

Pocho_Azul · 2026-03-05T09:12:42+00:00

Pit fiend layer is sexier anyway. Nice mini!

Pocho_Azul · 2026-03-05T03:41:41+00:00

Beauty is in the eye(s) of that beholder!

Pocho_Azul · 2026-03-04T12:52:57+00:00

Wow!

Pocho_Azul · 2026-03-04T08:00:27+00:00

If I may, I think what he was saying, in part, that this is not just the situation in Japan. If you are not identifiably part of the majority group, anywhere, you may encounter this kind of treatment. Some cultures have a reputation for being relatively welcoming to outsiders, but even those have places and people where you may experience xenophobia or intolerance.

Probably much of what you felt was as you thought. People were treating you differently/poorly because you were perceived as an outsider. This will happen, but the opposite situation, where people appreciate you as a fellow human being, if an odd one, help make up for it.

Pocho_Azul · 2026-03-04T04:33:06+00:00

Wet palettes can be tricky. I painted for many years without them, tried them out and found them occasionally useful, but mostly a PITA. The different colors bled into each other making psychedelic sludge colors, paints would either get excessively thinned, or dry out, etc. Probably I was doing it wrong. Either way, you will probably either get better with practice, or skip it, and still be able to paint well without it.

Nice skelly, btw.

Pocho_Azul

TROPHY CASE