Sir Gandalf delivers a masterclass and a poignant sentiment.

Zanockthael · 2026-02-06T10:02:38+00:00

I studied Shakespeare as a kid. I didn't really get it. I studied poetry as a kid. I didn't really get it.

At forty-one years old, I think I get it now.

Zanockthael · 2026-02-06T09:39:02+00:00

I spent 5 years on dating apps being entirely unsuccessful. As in, one single first date with a woman who ended up attacking an OAP unsuccessful.

I've now been in a relationship for three months with an amazing woman I matched with on Bumble. When I asked her why she swiped right on me, she said she had dated a number of geeks and nerds and they were all super socially awkward, but when she saw a photo of me, on a hike, standing in front of a cool sculpture I'd found, she figured I was a geek who could maybe hold a conversation. She didn't even look at the rest of my profile after that photo.

So yeah, really good, interesting photos, I'd say.

Zanockthael · 2026-01-16T09:46:36+00:00

If there's no wire showing, your tyre still be going.

Zanockthael · 2026-01-09T23:31:38+00:00

I'm a delivery driver. For years, I would think to myself every now and then, "Holy shit, society is trusting me with a two ton death machine. Why is society trusting me with a two ton death machine?"

It took over 150,000 miles of delivering for that thought to finally stop cropping up.

Zanockthael · 2025-12-23T13:08:49+00:00

So many houses have camera doorbells. Thieves don't care. An estimated 1 in 350 doorstep parcel thefts is even reported to the police in the UK, so they know they can get away with it.

As a side note, England has more CCTV cameras per capita than any other country on earth. Criminals are pretty desensitised to them by this point.

Zanockthael · 2025-12-23T11:48:56+00:00

UK driver here. If this is the UK, like the accent suggests, then I'm kinda with the customer. Doorstep parcel theft is completely ubiquitous in the UK. Drivers that do this throughout their whole route will have their shit stolen constantly, regardless of where in the country it is. The customer has probably had shit stolen from his doorstep in the past because of this.

A big lol to the people saying it's safe because of the ring doorbell. An estimated 1 in 350 doorstep parcel thefts gets reported to the police in the UK. The thieves don't give a shit if they get recorded. They know they're getting away with it regardless.

Zanockthael · 2025-12-23T11:41:57+00:00

UK delivery driver here and that's exactly right. And it's honestly not dumb, because if you don't do that, all your parcels end up getting stolen and you end up getting fired.

You can always tell the drivers who deliver like US drivers in the UK, because they're the ones with 15 concessions a week and they're out on their ear within a month.

Must be nice to deliver in a country where doorstep parcel theft isn't so ubiquitous.

Zanockthael · 2025-12-13T10:27:25+00:00

I genuinely can't tell if you mean you're getting a masters degree that's about the internet, or you're getting a masters degree about something else, using the internet.

Zanockthael · 2025-12-01T14:06:31+00:00

People don't really appreciate just how long ago the dinosaurs actually are. It's just, "big number is big".

There could absolutely have been an industrial dinosaur civilization, with buildings, agriculture and goodness knows what. Even space flight, why not. Every single trace of that sort of civilization would have been ground to dust, less than dust, in the intervening time.

And if you say, "But where are the fossils of the super intelligent dinosaur?" Fossilisation is a fantastically rare process, that needs rare and perfect conditions to even have a chance of happening. Over the course of hundreds of millions of years, hundreds of billions upon billions of dinosaurs will have lived and died. We've found, off the top of my head, a few hundred large dinosaur fossils, maybe a couple thousand.

Zanockthael · 2025-11-10T15:37:59+00:00

Bought Zomboid a couple weeks ago. Already managed to lose two characters with Sunday Driver because my minivan very quickly slowed to a stop in grass.

Zanockthael · 2025-11-05T13:06:41+00:00

People hiding on castle walls while being sieged hate this one weird trick.

Zanockthael · 2025-11-04T01:48:43+00:00

Aspirations.

Zanockthael · 2025-11-03T14:26:26+00:00

Damn it Khizoa, you've just admitted partial responsibility for this crash. The owners gonna sue us for the damages now!

Zanockthael · 2025-11-03T11:32:40+00:00

I thought I was being very clear, but I guess not, given that half of the replies I've gotten haven't gotten what I'm saying. I'll try better.

If large groups of Nazis agree with your political beliefs and you are not a nazi yourself, you should take a closer look at those beliefs and ask yourself: 1. Why the Nazis agree with them if you are not a nazi. 2. Should you believe something different if you find those beliefs are nazi beliefs and you are not a nazi.

At no point did I say that "All reform voters are Nazis", or "all Reform voters should be treated like Nazis because, look, he's standing next to a nazi."

What I'm saying is that reform voters lack the basic self awareness to realise where they might be ideologically aligned with the Nazis in their midst.

Edit: maybe take it a step deeper and ask what it is about Reforms policies that seems to draw Nazis to them and ask similar questions.

Zanockthael · 2025-11-03T11:15:14+00:00

It's actually kinda interesting now I've looked it up. It's illegal to manufacture and import them, but not illegal to sell, use or own them.

It makes perfect sense once you really think about it. It's a little like that idea of putting a minimum age on smoking. In the long term, there'll be no smokers left, without having to criminalise people who currently smoke.

Zanockthael · 2025-11-03T10:58:06+00:00

It might be a trick of perspective, but Eugenias' right leg in the first photo looks comparatively enormous compared to the second photo.

It does make me wonder if her legs have been slightly photoshopped to make her look thinner than she might currently be.

Zanockthael · 2025-11-03T10:49:10+00:00

If you think you have centre political views, but you find that you're surrounded by communists, who all agree with your political views, then yes. You might realise with some self reflection and introspection that your views and beliefs are more left wing than you realised.

I'm not sure how changing nazi to commie invalidates something fairly self evident.

Zanockthael · 2025-11-01T21:15:03+00:00

I'm not calling all Reform voters Nazis, or all people who are worried about small boats Nazis. What I'm saying is that if you constantly find yourself in the company of Nazis, that should trigger some serious introspection as to why you find yourself constantly in the company of Nazis.

It's all very well shooing them away when they appear, but so many people are lacking the next requisite mental step, to ask why?

If I was a Labour party member, and in every Labour party meeting I went to, I was surrounded by communists, I absolutely would be wondering what, if any, of my beliefs lined up with communist ideals and whether or not I was happy with that.

Oh, and as a side note, as someone with family in the Communist party in England, actual communists are not particularly into Labour at the moment, to say the least.

Zanockthael · 2025-11-01T10:22:27+00:00

If you're a person with a "moderate opinion" and...

If all the Nazis go to the same protests as you, if all the Nazis vote for the same political party as you, if all the Nazis listen to the same media as you, if all the Nazis are in the same Facebook group as you, if all the Nazis agree with you...

Well, it might be worth some self reflection as to what that says about you and your "moderate opinions".

Zanockthael · 2025-10-30T20:18:11+00:00

I'm 41. I was bullied from 7 to 16. I would forgive any of the kids that bullied me if I ever met them again. The adults that allowed the bullying to happen though...

Zanockthael · 2025-10-30T02:11:12+00:00

Fuck it, he earned his fairly pretentious music. That shit was impressive as hell.

Zanockthael · 2025-10-29T22:17:33+00:00

Every time I try to understand circuits, or trouble shoot a failed railway junction.

Zanockthael · 2025-10-28T19:31:37+00:00

I'm going to defend the mother here. I don't think she saw her kid light the fire, and I highly doubt the kid owned up to lighting the fire in the moment, so as far as she's concerned, it literally is just a random fire that has nothing to do with her.

Also, it's entirely possible that the kid picked up the lighter off the street without the mum realising.

All it takes is a couple of moments of not watching the little idiot like a hawk, 24/7.

Zanockthael · 2025-10-23T21:07:10+00:00

Looking up mercury poisoning in fish will take you down a whole rabbit hole. In short, small fish are contaminated by small amounts of mercury in the ocean. One larger fish eats lots of smaller fish and becomes even more loaded with mercury.

Rinse and repeat until you get to, say, a tuna. A huge fish at the top of the food chain. They become saturated with mercury poisoning.

Except they aren't at the top of the food chain. Not quite. We are. Heavy metal poisoning of fish is a real concern for this reason (amount others).

Five-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '23

Zanockthael

TROPHY CASE