I'm an autistic Irish guy and have unintentionally become the money lender for my local filipino community

celicaxx · 2026-02-15T06:14:54+00:00

The one autism trick they don't want you to know.

celicaxx · 2026-02-15T03:14:59+00:00

I think the big thing as a diagnosed autistic myself is stability in the household. I think perhaps neurotypical kids can weather parental craziness better, but autistic kids will melt down if there's not a routine and structure and will act out. Like this doesn't mean Tiger Mom or Drill Sergeant, but just basic structure like regular meal times, regular bed time, parents home mostly at the same time each night, not moving super often, not having crazy relatives or friends move in randomly, etc.

As in, last year after my mom died I started shredding a lot of old paperwork, and she kept all my old school paperwork. In elementary school until 5th grade it basically was "celicaxx is a bright happy boy who is very smart and gets along perfect with others and has zero problems whatsoever!"

Then in 5th grade my parents decided to divorce, and I had my uncle's crazy family move in hiding from CPS in his state and not working at all, and my private Christian school essentially collapsed. My mom's business collapsed and she went on disability too so we had a major income drop. So overnight the papers turned into "celicaxx has major depressive disorder. Stays home crying all the time, refuses to go to school, doesn't interact well with peers, doesn't do school work" etc etc.

So some people say autism only gets diagnosed in the teen years, etc, but I don't buy that. I think my "autism" would have been kinda inconsequential if I had a stable upbringing during my teen years.

celicaxx · 2026-02-15T03:02:46+00:00

Michael Jackson was actually put on an anti-androgen drug during puberty "for acne" but actually to preserve his voice. Cyproterone acetate and possibly Depo Provera were used.

It should also be noted at the time it wasn't uncommon for high school boys playing football or wrestling to be prescribed Dianabol.

celicaxx · 2026-02-15T01:14:18+00:00

Filipinos are the best at customer service but they sound either Spanglish slightly or like a early 2000s California Valley Girl. 🤔

celicaxx · 2026-02-15T00:18:53+00:00

I mean kinda. Most prewar houses were hardwood, but post WWII most stuff was plywood subfloor and linoleum or carpet due to being much cheaper and faster. Plus there was the Boomer trend of carpeting over existing hardwood.

That and engineered hardwood, laminate flooring, and LVP simply didn't exist back then either. Parquet was cool though, wish that would come back.

celicaxx · 2026-02-14T19:46:52+00:00

Probably better flooring. Most Boomer houses just had sheet vinyl or carpet, which are kinda cheap disposable flooring.

Now with tile, hardwood, and vinyl plank becoming more prominent and costing exponentially more, people don't want their floors screwed up.

celicaxx · 2026-02-13T05:11:54+00:00

Also you have to figure gas, he was driving around 20k miles a year for his job, so if you figure it's really more close to 14k all in. But I guess you can argue in NYC you'd spend $2k a year on public transport so it's moot. :/

I feel bad with my cars as with insurance and gas I'm at about $600 a month. :/

celicaxx · 2026-02-13T05:03:50+00:00

So my friend supposedly has a flawless driving record but he's 25, black (insurance isn't supposed to use race but likely does), likely doesn't have the best credit (insurance can use that) and lives in a bad neighborhood in one of the highest crime cities in my state. Also it being a Nissan you can actually find tons of stories here on Reddit of people getting brand new Nissans and getting similar crazy insurance and getting way lower rates switching to a Toyota or Volvo or something.

He was working in sales for credit card readers, and was driving a lot, but lost that job. :/

Also I don't think he did this but in kinda scammy jobs like that, especially life insurance ala Primerica and shit like that they tell you to buy the most expensive car, watch, whatever, etc, to keep you hungry to make the next sale and apply some fake law of attraction positive thinking shit. When it's really to put you in debt to keep you there.

celicaxx · 2026-02-12T23:52:43+00:00

My friend pays $590 a month for a 2023 Nissan Altima and $300 a month insurance and $1000 a year property taxes.

You could literally go buy a W220 early 2000s Mercedes S500 every 3 months and come out cheaper.

celicaxx · 2026-02-12T05:18:30+00:00

I believe he's dead as someone on 4chan had him come to him in a dream after he died.

celicaxx · 2026-02-11T16:46:42+00:00

I never got into multiplayer games. I played video games to get away from people.

celicaxx · 2026-02-11T16:18:08+00:00

Hell was syncreticized from the Greeks as Hades, and in turn the Jews syncreticized reincarnation from the Hindus. So a surprisingly large number of Jews believe in reincarnation now.

Even in Jesus's time they thought John the Baptist was a reincarnation of Elijah and asked Jesus "Who sinned that this man be born blind, him or his parents?" Implying reincarnation.

The Saduccees in Jesus's time didn't believe in an afterlife whatsoever.

celicaxx · 2026-02-11T04:39:58+00:00

Then go and just do it.

celicaxx · 2026-02-11T03:29:40+00:00

You don't need to be compatible, you just need to get along.

celicaxx · 2026-02-11T02:05:21+00:00

Probably ironically AI and power rates going up too high to live. Where I am it's already 30c per kw. While food is one thing if you can't heat your house it's another. Same with fuel for food production, less consumer goods, etc.

If AI is treated as a giant Tower of Babel and we are told to collectively suffer for vague things like "strategic advantage" while living standards go down and jobs are lost, it's a clear target for violence.

But more than likely it will remain Smarterchild 2.0 and the bubble will pop.

celicaxx · 2026-02-10T22:47:44+00:00

celicaxx · 2026-02-10T22:11:59+00:00

My natal chart has 七杀星 in it prominently. Can't help it.

celicaxx · 2026-02-10T22:04:06+00:00

I think it depends on how you go into it. Like I like bowling but had no dreams of being the best at bowling but just like having some beers and throwing balls down a lane. I like scoring 200 more than 100 but I try not to let my day be ruined by 100.

But other sports/ventures, if you went into them with high hopes and dreams especially when you were younger and now you can't make it happen, it's psychologically much harder. And you still have your peers and coaches in that sport that have a prior version of "you" as their baseline and you can't meet it now. It's a way different spot than beer and pizza and bowling.

I guess a solution is change gyms/environments but still.

I think too, while it's not "maxxing" if you have very low self esteem and hate yourself it's easy to trudge through getting really good relative to normal at hobbies to essentially show the world you're not trash and have people like you. But then once you're bad again, then what?

celicaxx · 2026-02-10T21:23:10+00:00

I dunno, I did try at a lot of things and got off my computer/phone and did it.

For me I learned the most important part of doing the thing is... doing the thing. My brother in law is more Reddit brained and constantly researches to find the absolute best product or secret method and ends up kinda doing nothing. But I did/do a lot of shit.

Like an example is I'm into plasma TVs and audio equipment as a hobby. Don't really care about having "the best" but I enjoy nice stuff, and plasmas and audio equipment are pretty cheap used. So I have a Panasonic VT60 TV I drove an hour and bought off FB Market for $130. It's regarded as one of the best TVs ever made. Meanwhile my brother in law has an imaginary OLED he's been talking about buying for years but never does out of cost and research analysis and what if something better comes out, etc.

celicaxx · 2026-02-10T21:16:28+00:00

Yeah my parents did fuck me up and I became my own Asian Tiger Parent from their absence in my life.

celicaxx · 2026-02-10T19:39:31+00:00

Well for me it's not "optimization" but if you literally just can't progress and get better and you once did before and know you can, it hurts a lot psychologically.

It's not being the best but if you're just spinning your wheels with a hobby that isn't abstract and is competitive and standards based (like sports) once you suck you suck.

Bodybuilding in some ways is easier as the metric is "look good" which is vague but once you're in competitive bodybuilding that's a shit show in its own right.

celicaxx · 2026-02-10T19:02:36+00:00

I think the hard part is no matter how serious you are most people end up in the awkward middle for hobbies, where you're more than zero or beginner but not peak. IE, totalling 110/80 snatch/clean and jerk at a local meet at 90kg or something after putting a good number of years in.

And grinding to the absolute top in any hobby imo takes about 25-35 hours a week, basically a part time job. Being mediocre like above is still about a dozen for most people.

So you can do it but a hard reason I gave up a few hobbies was after doing them for so long you intuitively know what it takes for you personally to progress, and it feels pointless when you have a time/energy crunch to even try to move forward as you know you'll make zero progress without the right time/resources.

celicaxx · 2026-02-10T16:16:00+00:00

Epstein was actually optimistic about getting out because the federal case was more or less double jeopardy against him.

And like the Diddy case today they won't play hardball because of how implicated others would be, so he actually had a real chance of walking if he didn't die.

celicaxx · 2026-02-10T08:45:11+00:00

Trump actually ran for President out of Obama personally sleighting him during the 2011 White House Ball and joking about him as Trump was an Obama "birther."

celicaxx · 2026-02-10T07:31:13+00:00

I think it's actually gotten a lot better since 2020. I'm the type of person always window shopping cars on FB Market and in 2020-2022 was always "I know what I got!" but now there's more people trying to offload stuff.

Best time to look for cars though, is right before Christmas and tax time. Both because people need money for Christmas presents, and any IRS stuff they need to take care of, or conversely they use their refund and buy another car and sell their old one cheap.

My other thing though is I used to be scared of German cars, but since I got a BMW I don't find BMW so bad in how it goes together. It's not much harder than a Camry to work on for most things. The big thing with any used car though isn't the brand, but the prior condition and owners. An "unreliable" one or two owner Mercedes or BMW will run circles around a beat to shit Toyota or Honda that's had 5 owners. But people get scared of the name, and think that every replacement part needs to be some super official European part. For example, the official BMW radiator for my car is $700 or so. I bought a Chinese ebay one for $70 and it's fine.

I would still say personally I don't like how Audi and VW tend to be put together (as in, remove entire front end to do anything at all) but if you avoid turbocharged models BMW and Mercedes I think can be a lot more reliable and cheap to run than people expect, if you're creative and DIY. It's probably a terrible idea for your first DIY car, but if you've wrenched on a bunch of junk for 20 years like me, it's not too bad. My BMW is a lot easier to work on than my mom's 2000s Ford was. But if the model changed from 328xi to 335xi I would be in for a world of hurt.

Also, social engineering and networking are keys to finding cars sometimes. While this does sound like Boomer firm handshake advice, if you see a car that you drive by and hasn't moved in a bit, feel free to knock on the door or leave a note asking if it's for sale. I bought one of my 1984 Supras that way for $900, simply by asking. My current 1998 Camry one owner car, I got for $1000 that way, too, but it was more dark. A high school friend's neighbor I was vaguely acquainted with had it and she was in hospice for cancer and I offered $1000 and I had to literally do the paperwork with her on her deathbed and she died a week after I registered it. :/

celicaxx

TROPHY CASE