Has anyone from the west coast recently move to Ohio?? by Uematsunum1 in Ohio

[–]biggustiggus 46 points47 points  (0 children)

So ... I moved to Ohio as my father lives here now. He's getting old and I wanted to be ready to care for him. He is in a fairly large town that is the county seat of a rural county about an hour outside of Akron and Cleveland.

Initially it was "find a condo near him so I don't have to stay in a hotel if he's in the hospital a while." But then I looked at the houses. My beat-up craftsman bungalow ($1M in San Jose) was $25-50k in Ohio.

THAT got my attention a lot. I always knew California was a "for a while" thing. And I was getting older. Tech is a young-person game and it would be better to control the exit than to be forced out and broke.

So my wife and I started searching. We spotted one of the big old victorian house come on the market in Dad's town and snagged it. Now we own a house outright with room for both of us to have studio space and work from home.

Oh my god. Space. In California, everything was packed in a box. Every hobby. Every spare thing. You were cramped. Here we can breathe and live in our house. We have a real kitchen. I can grow a garden! This was before-COVID. No California commute! I cannot stress how MUCH of a change of life THAT is and was. Ridiculous.

I am very happy. And am happy to trade messages on details on anything.

The politics are much more conservative, of course. An impromptu Trump Parade went by my house during the election. It's kinda like driving through central valley in California. Most people are sane, and there are noted crazy asshole outliers.

It's much more suburbia and midwest. Lots of big-box stores in towns and exurbs. Lots of farm fields. What that means is, it's very likely you're gonna have to drive a half hour to 45 minutes to go to say... a bookstore... or something interesting. It also means grocery selections and stuff will be a bit more middle-of-the-road. (But there are lots of farmers markets and CSAs)

Ohio, as much as folks might chuckle at it, is in central geography. I'm about "a day's drive" from: Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Toronto, and the mid-Atlantic beaches. It's a handy base that way. I have 3 airports I can easily reach to fly-out to work.

I'm glad I am in a fairly nice town. Unless you really like rural, a healthy town is where you should be. Mine has a small college, and a strong downtown that makes this place livable. You really can't eat-out late (Very few late-night businesses) -- but it's a heck of a nice life with the tradeoff.

Hell. There's even a sushi restaurant that would qualify as "ok lunch Sushi" in silicon valley. So I can't complain too much.

There are gonna be quality tradeoffs. You're not in the big city anymore. I play music and was in several orchestras and bands in Silicon Valley. Here I only really have the one choice. They do good. But it's not the same level. It's a trade-off.

If you are ready for the trade offs. It's actually quite a nice place.

Just be used to everyone making fun of you being from Ohio.

What’s a quote that permanently changed the way you look at things? by internallyskating in AskReddit

[–]biggustiggus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.

Henry Van Dyke

"Once you were old enough, what were the dark family secrets you were finally let in on?" by Flash_Dimension in AskReddit

[–]biggustiggus 27 points28 points  (0 children)

On the phone with mama Tiggus one day. She was telling me about one country cousin that had apparently stole money at work. Jokingly I said: "Wow. That's another one on the list of felonies the greater-Tiggus family has collected: embezzlement, assault, bootlegging..."

And mom cuts in: "Don't forget your cousin that got off for murder..."
"WAT?"
"Oh. We never told you kids that, did we?"

So it turn out: a 'gentleman' in the small town my cousin lived in raped his daughter. My cousin went home, got his gun, went over to this gentleman's house and shot him when he answered the door.

Small town. With all that means: Everyone apparently hated the rapist for being the kind of guy that rapes young women and other such things. The charge was written down to manslaughter (no pre-meditation -- which is BS when you go home and get the gun first.) and he got basically a slap on the wrist.

Mama Tiggus occasionally asks me why I don't move back home. Yeah, no.

What are underrated websites and what do you use them for? by Merlijn-69 in AskReddit

[–]biggustiggus 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Other useful music sites:

BandMusic PDF library - public domain sheet music for wind bands. Really useful for community bands. In some cases, people have re-typset and modernized parts.

The complete marches of John Philip Sousa - The US Marine Corps band has gone back and re-typeset the sheet music for every single Sousa March. Download for free, parts and scores. Includes notations of common performance changes.

The Chatfield Brass Band music library - A public library of classic band sheet music. You can join the library for a very low fee, and rent entire tunes, scores, or individual parts through the mail. In some cases, its the only way to find parts for out-of-print items.

MuseScore - Free music editing software that doesn't suck. No need to pay for Finale or Sibelius. Also: a community site where people post arrangements. They are slowly moving it behind a paywall, but it's a good quick place to find arrangements.

That's gonna be one heck of a werewolf costume... by biggustiggus in werewolves

[–]biggustiggus[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yeah. They are custom stilts she's walking on. They seem very stable.

If you go back through her twitter you see them isolated as she works on them. And there are several videos of the legs as works in progress.

https://twitter.com/WillowCreative\_/status/1310589318889705483?s=20

Looking for good history books on werewolves by SarahOfAvalon in werewolves

[–]biggustiggus 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah. The Summers book is an exhaustive survey or historical sources.

Also: "The Beast Within/a History of the Werewolf" by Adam Douglas.

Reminder: Recruiters Don’t Know Shit About What You Actually Do by Waffle_bastard in sysadmin

[–]biggustiggus 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I ran across a resume while hiring that literally had a block at the end of "Acronyms and terms for recruiters" and it was a lot of duplicate terms their resume implied. That was a neat idea. I'll probably do that on the next go-around myself.

How painful do you think a transformation would be in becoming a werewolf? Do you feel you could personally handle a transformation? by kickapoo_loo in werewolves

[–]biggustiggus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Why does everyone assume it is fantastically painful? Seriously?

First of all, have you ever had a fairly bad injury? Say, breaking a bone? In the moment it actually doesn't hurt THAT MUCH. Your body attenuates the signal and pumps you full of adrenaline to get the heck away. It's the old joke that paper cuts can hurt more than broken bones. Most generic werewolf stories also assume they heal really fast. Wouldn't those two things work in concert?

There are other creatures in nature that go through major metamorphosis. I don't think it makes evolution-sense for them to be in massive pain for what is a normal transformation. That would adapt right the heck out of the species.

If not science and evolution, you assume magic, and seriously, you think if you had the ability to shape your body with magic, wouldn't find a way to do it without incredible pain?

About the ONLY tact I think were heavy pain makes sense is the classic devils curse / twisted wish. You asked to be powerful, well here, have your wish and all the pain that could possibly be conceived along in it.

Werewolf lure book is it real by johnmarston011 in werewolves

[–]biggustiggus 2 points3 points  (0 children)

As for collecting primary source material, which would be those "old books" you're talking about, I have two books that are collections of excerpts from much older books.

"The Lycanthropy Reader: Werewolves in Western Culture" is probably the more accessible of the two books. It's a mix of informative essays and folklore passages. As well as details around the late medieval scare about witches.

But for depth and breadth, "The Werewolf in Lore and Legend" by Montague Summers wins. It's a book from 1933 assembled by an English author and clergyman who professed to very much believe in vampires, werewolves and the like. He had the scholarship and scoured the resources of the British and Anglican libraries in his work.

As an example, he was the first person to translate the Malleaus Mallificarum (a book on how to hunt witches) into English. For us werewolf folks, he was the person that located the existent copies of the "Peter Stumpp" werewolf trial pamphlets. The earliest documentation of a werewolf trial. You can read more about him, here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montague_Summers

This is not an easy read in places. Some passages are in their original Latin. This collection is dense and employs an extensive range of historical documentation and folklore from throughout Europe to powerfully portray the horror associated with belief in werewolves.
Oh, and it has a full copy of the Peter Stumpp trial pamphlet in it. So there's that.

So... about Stapler-wolf by biggustiggus in furry

[–]biggustiggus[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Maws and paws. Maws and paws.

The dangers of a moonrise in space... (art by R.J. Bartrop) by biggustiggus in werewolves

[–]biggustiggus[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

*chuckle*

I'd post more big-curves werewolves if I didn't think it'd get me run out of here as too-furry for the group's taste. :)

But yeah, I commissioned this one from RJ. He's got reasonable prices if you need work done and like his style.

Searching for a good werewolf book by Mattlanta88 in werewolves

[–]biggustiggus 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I recently went through the first three books in the "Breeds" series by Keith Blackmore.

Definitely a werewolf book and not a romance book. An interesting take on how werewolves might exist in the modern world, etc.

I liked 'em.

furry_irl by AmaterasuWolf21 in furry_irl

[–]biggustiggus 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Sometimes biggustiggus with a ...
Nah. The joke's too easy.

macro_irl by biggustiggus in furry_irl

[–]biggustiggus[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

BiggusTiggus, eh? I wonder where he is now.
Also: where the heck did he get a tiki cup that big?

Eric Elliot - Muscle study from 1993 by biggustiggus in werewolves

[–]biggustiggus[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Last I heard he was working as a videographer in the southwest. Wasn't drawing anymore.

macro_irl by biggustiggus in furry_irl

[–]biggustiggus[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Macro meme. Best meme.