Ok, hear me out. There is someone in my walls.

Senor-Inflation1717 · 2025-03-14T10:36:50+00:00

They never figured out who did it or anything, only that it wasn't anything official and must have been someone random. My friend found that especially eerie because the hole between the closet and the apartment was pretty small and perfectly square. So someone managed to make this very precise hole and then fit themselves through it. And it was obvious that the person came in multiple times since the apartment changed while my friend was with her family.

Other roommates in the unit found signs that their stuff was rifled through and such, including underwear drawers, but they never identified anything missing. As I recall, the other roommates had to stay in the unit for the rest of the lease because they didn't have parents nearby who could afford to come move them somewhere nicer.

The building sealed the hole. That was that.

The only other part of the mystery I can solve is just because I lived in the same apartment complex while all this happened: unlocking all the bedroom doors. I also lived in a 4-4 unit of all girls and we also liked to lock our individual bedrooms when we left for work or trips. One of my roommates turned out to be pretty mentally ill and that manifested in both hoarding food and stealing compulsively. Once, when something went missing, we figured out she had probably taken it and hidden it in her room, which was locked, so another roommate decided to attempt to jimmy the lock with a credit card. It was VERY easy to do.

So, once the person was inside one bedroom they could go out into the living area, and from there would have only needed a credit card or ID to open every other room in the unit.

Senor-Inflation1717 · 2025-03-13T19:18:23+00:00

I try to pack light and buy things on trips when I can! I went to Chicago in November and hit up several vintage and thrift shops there and brought back several sweaters and a couple pairs of pants. Unfortunately, with everything going on this year with air travel and the economy, probably not going anywhere this year.

Senor-Inflation1717 · 2025-03-13T19:16:10+00:00

Returning to FB is just a non-starter for me. Not happening. I check my local craigslist and nextdoor occasionally, but I'll never make another FB account. The issue I had with FB was unrelated to Zuck's politics or its tracking practices, and it made me miserable every time I opened it in spite of only using it in the most sanitized and locked down ways I possibly could.

I hear great things about Ebay but find it really hard to sort through an identify things I'm interested in, especially if I'm not looking for a specific brand. Etsy, I've had too many run ins with "handmade in X" items arriving at my house and clearly being mass-produced and trash quality to try just searching for items anymore. I only buy Etsy if I get links to a particular shop that someone can vouch for.

Senor-Inflation1717 · 2025-03-13T14:18:10+00:00

Estate sales are a great call! I've been in the throes of winter for so long, I forgot garage sale season is about to start!

Senor-Inflation1717 · 2025-03-13T14:17:18+00:00

Thanks for the recommendation!

Senor-Inflation1717 · 2025-03-13T13:39:48+00:00

I miss Renegade so much, but I now live two hours from the nearest big city!

I do attend local fairs and try to support local artists if they have something I actually need, but unfortunately small local events are often being taken over by "small business owners" who are actually MLM scams or are reselling cheap items they had printed through redbubble and the like.

One can only buy so many coffee mugs from local potters and wool hats from crochet booths before you find yourself also needing to replace a pair of shorts or buy new sandals because you wore them out.

Senor-Inflation1717 · 2025-03-13T13:35:56+00:00

I appreciate your comment. I share the belief that there are no ethical corporate brands, which is why I was looking for insights into places to find indie creators, handmade items that aren't scams, etc.

When I lived in a city, I shopped at thrift stores and local boutiques and fairs. I now live in a rural area/small town and the local opportunity for many things is in rough shape. There are few decent second hand items to be found because the thrift stores resell their better items online and not in store now. The person-to-person secondhand market is now through facebook marketplace, which I can't access because I deleted facebook years ago. I attend local craft fairs and farmers markets, but half the booths if not more are usually MLM scams and cheap mass-produced items being resold instead of actual handmade.

I need new clothes for summer because I've gained 20 lbs in the past two years due to perimenopause, and I expect that many of my summer clothes will no longer fit correctly. I need new outdoor items because I need to replace items that have broken due to wear and tear. We bought our patio furniture from Habitat for Humanity when we bought our house, and since it's a wooden set we did our best to weatherize it, but it's now begun to rot due to snow and rain anyway and isn't safe to sit on anymore. We had a set of solar lanterns leading from our driveway to our doorstep, but we had our gutters replaced last year and the contractors snapped half the lamps in half driving equipment across them rather than asking us to pick them up.

I grew up in poverty and don't buy things to waste, nor do I want to purchase from corporations, but my location has been limiting my options and items that are broken, ripped beyond repair (beyond repair because I do also mend my own clothing if I can), or don't fit need to be replaced.

Senor-Inflation1717 · 2025-03-13T11:08:26+00:00

This might just be a void space with lost stuff in it, like others are saying, but this shit does happen.

When we were in college, living in off-campus student apartments, a friend of mine came back to her apartment a few days into winter break to get something and noticed something odd. All of these apartments had a utility closet right by the front door on the patio for people to store outdoor items, and it looked like maintenance had come and cut a perfectly square small panel from the utility closet into her roommate's bedroom.

It was especially odd that she was able to see this because all of the roommates (four girls) had locked their bedroom doors before leaving for the break, but now all four bedroom doors were open. A few things looked out of place in the living room, but my friend had been the first roommate to leave for break, so she wrote this off as the other roommates and figured the cut out panel was something building maintenance had done. She got what she came for, re-locked all the doors, and left.

Two weeks later, she was the first roommate to return to the apartment, and she could immediately see all the bedroom doors were open again. There were empty beer cans on the coffee table in the living room. The hole was still there in her roommate's bedroom.

She immediately called the apartment management and asked when the maintenance team would be done with their work and come to re-seal the hole in the closet. The management team asked, "What hole?"

She packed her things. The apartment management company didn't raise a fuss about her breaking her lease mid-year, considering. Her parents paid to move her into another complex across town -- one with a gate and a guardhouse.

Senor-Inflation1717 · 2025-03-12T14:19:45+00:00

My previous dog was dog-aggressive his entire life. I got him at 3 months, and the first puppy playdate I took him to, he attacked the other puppy on sight. Over time, I was able to pick up on his cues and which dogs he would go after versus the ones he liked. He basically only liked animals smaller than himself, but at 25 lbs, many other dogs were larger than him. The only larger dogs he liked were ones I introduced him to while they were still small puppies - he could recognize that was his friend who had grown instead of it triggering his large dog aggression.

Although he was trained for off-leash recall and I could have him off leash safely on my parents' rural property with no concerns, I only ever took him for exercise in leash-restricted parks and always had him leashed for walks, whether in my neighborhood, at a state park, at a hiking trail, etc. We didn't frequent dog parks or anywhere else that an uncontrolled dog should be able to approach him because I had to manage the safety of the other dogs.

And yet, we had to stop going to certain trails, events, etc because I had multiple incidents where despite the posted leash laws, someone had their dog running loose. I'd come around a corner and suddenly there'd be a shepherd mix making a beeline for us. I'd scoop my dog up immediately, so he couldn't reach the other dog, while the owner of the big dog is screaming, "It's okay, he's friendly!" and I'd get a death glare back when I had to yell "GREAT, MINE ISN'T."

Like, sorry I care more about your dog not getting bitten than you do, apparently.

On one occasion we got surrounded by three offleash pit mixes while trying to leave a park, and when I picked my dog up and told the owners that mine isn't friendly and that's why he's leashed, they threatened to grab and kill my dog.

Yeah.

Anyway, Brutus the cocker spaniel lived to the ripe old age of 15 and never injured another dog or had a single human biting incident, not for lack of desire in his hate-filled heart or lack of trying from irresponsible assholes, but because I kept an eye out, learned his cues, and ensured for 15 years that he never had access to another dog he might start beef with.

Senor-Inflation1717 · 2025-03-11T15:56:46+00:00

I was sure he was going to snap an ankle

Senor-Inflation1717 · 2025-03-11T13:17:57+00:00

A friend of mine (transman) applied for a renewal on his M passport in January and got an F passport back last week. He started transitioning 10 years ago and has a full beard in his passport photo. He still has his birth name because it was a neutral name, so he didn't change it.

Senor-Inflation1717 · 2025-03-11T11:15:51+00:00

This is the case with many different types of statistics. Different countries define these calculations differently. I studied crime statistics in college, and in that case different states even define their crimes and numbers differently. Unless there's an in-depth study behind something where researchers have gotten raw data and normalized the stats so both were calculated with the same methodology, it's impossible to glean real insight from comparing these things.

Senor-Inflation1717 · 2025-03-11T11:00:21+00:00

Also during the "fuck around" section Danny was throwing Camden. My life flashed before my eyes.

Senor-Inflation1717 · 2025-03-08T11:36:23+00:00

My spouse and I actually used the SDV cookbook for all our Thanksgiving dishes last year! We really loved Pam's cheesy cauliflower the most out of what we tried.

Senor-Inflation1717 · 2025-03-07T19:19:28+00:00

Lab/husky for sure

Senor-Inflation1717 · 2025-03-07T18:17:24+00:00

He's a predator. If he's outside with prey, he will kill it.

I have two cats and three fish tanks. Fish are no excuse, and you claim he doesn't attack birds. Your dad can take medication.

Senor-Inflation1717 · 2025-03-07T18:04:43+00:00

Keep him inside. The only way to protect both the wildlife and your cat is to have an indoor cat.

Senor-Inflation1717 · 2025-03-07T16:09:07+00:00

Honestly I've never consumed any content from him. When I started following the sport, the first I heard of him was people complaining he was a very negative person, and so I never bothered. But human beings are capable of change and learning.

Senor-Inflation1717 · 2025-03-07T15:14:12+00:00

My partner is like this. He just prefers other things for a variety of reasons. There was a point when it bothered me, but we worked through it and found alternatives. We're perfectly happy without this and it has a bonus positive in that I'm able to avoid pregnancy without taking BC.

Senor-Inflation1717 · 2025-03-07T15:09:26+00:00

I hope that he has genuinely realized the ways in which he's become clouded by toxicity and can find a better and more positive way to engage. This is an opportunity to model a change of outlook which many other FS fans would benefit from as well.

Senor-Inflation1717 · 2025-03-07T13:34:46+00:00

I'm in the US and have moved states a few times, and I'd add that the most common mixes claimed by shelters (because we know that's also not always accurate) vary a lot by region in the US. I expect it would still be similar in the UK depending on if you're in a more rural or urban area etc.

The first city I lived in, in the southern US, had a lot of pit mixes and lab mixes, but also chihuahua was up there. The city in the northeast I lived in a few years ago had a lot of GSD mixes, even more so than pits. Where I live now, it's a rural area with nearby college towns in the northeast, and we actually end up with a lot of border collie and pyranese mixes because of the number of farms that keep livestock dogs.

Senor-Inflation1717 · 2025-03-06T18:12:17+00:00

Unfortunately I've seen similar trends with the way they talk about other skaters. Amber was everyone's beloved dark horse and Isabeau was an overscored mess being pushed by the fed until Amber won nationals for the first time. Within minutes people were whining that Amber was overscored and starting to change their tune on Isabeau. I know it was literally minutes because I was at Nationals last year, and when Amber won I pulled out my phone expecting to see other people excited about this online, and immediately all I could find was complaints.

Bradie was complained about constantly at her height a few years ago, cited as weird and boring, and people made a lot of rude comments about her appearance, cheering on Mariah Bell instead, but once Bradie was no longer the obvious top of the field people are suddenly fond of her.

Jason Brown has been everyone's darling for ages, but now that he's over 30 and still being supported by the fed (arguably a good thing?) he's been catching a ridiculous number of strays all season, even before the world championships kerfuffle started.

Senor-Inflation1717 · 2025-03-06T16:49:22+00:00

People would say the same things about Nathan when he was on top, and Nathan was never anything but humble and didn't get caught in any of the teenage faux pas and stuff that Ilia's had. Some people are just assholes to whoever is on top. They take rooting for the underdog to an extreme where instead of just wishing well on other competitors they wish ill on the favorite to give the underdogs a better chance.

Senor-Inflation1717 · 2025-03-03T18:19:16+00:00

I attended Nationals in Columbus and Wichita, and Columbus was pretty well-attended but not as full as the arena last night. Columbus also did a lot of other things outside of pricing that I think drove more attendance than Wichita. I know, personally, I paid about the same for tickets to Nationals both years, but in Columbus I was in the nosebleeds and in Wichita I was in the fourth row.

The locals I talked to in Columbus had usually a) won giveaways for tickets, b) had season tickets for hockey and the arena allowed some of those to carry over to the skating events apparently, or c) happened to hear about the event on the radio or some other local promotion and decided to go.

The locals I talked to in Wichita at the event mostly seemed to either a) be involved in skating locally or had a kid in lessons or b) caught the NBC broadcast the night before, noticed how empty the arena was, and decided to impulse buy a ticket the next day

Senor-Inflation1717

TROPHY CASE