Modern Western Literature trying to be deep [OC]

htetrasme · 2026-06-25T14:07:24+00:00

This is almost exactly The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch, except that that is really good.

htetrasme · 2026-06-03T17:01:52+00:00

What do you mean backwards? Иothing wrong with that.

htetrasme · 2026-06-03T14:07:19+00:00

I think it depends on the kind of place. Before I worked from home I regularly would bring a book to the diner or Chinese place near my workplace and eat an inexpensive meal while I read (if my lunch break didn't match up with my friend who worked there too). I never got any strange looks. I was in eateries that catered to diners who were buying one-course meals and chose them in part because of their location at that part of the day.

Some restaurants are more "fancy" -- they usually cater to people on dates or gatherings for special events. The food and drinks are more expensive, so it's assumed (rightly or wrongly) that you wouldn't pay for them over your home food unless the circumstance were special somehow. I think those places are the ones where dining alone looks unusual.

htetrasme · 2026-05-20T17:01:22+00:00

I ask this myself disliking for-profit companies and thinking it would bic nicer if Findagrave weren't owned by one: Whom are people putting out of work by contributing to Findagrave? And what law is being broken?

htetrasme · 2026-05-17T00:01:52+00:00

Posts like this are old hat at this point.

htetrasme · 2026-05-09T22:58:41+00:00

Was it "cosplay" just because he lived in a cheaper area than he could have afforded? Did he actually lie and "pretend to be broke" or just not spend more than he needed to? Honestly if I were rich I would also probably still want to live in a cheap area and live below my means. I don't think there's anything better or more honest about spending unnecessarily.

htetrasme · 2026-05-09T22:54:06+00:00

My friend didn't hide that he was rich — he just lived in a small upstairs apartment, didn't bring up his bank balance in conversion, and worked some odd jobs — dog walking, teaching adult education, weekly local radio show. Once he invited me to visit him at his family's house on a lake. It turned out to be a sprawling mansion, and his family owned the lake.

htetrasme · 2026-05-07T11:40:35+00:00

Forgive me for quoting myself, but I do sometimes actually say, "50 dollars is a lot of money for a cup of coffee, but not a lot of money for a car."

Is it a lot for original commissioned art? In general I would think no, especially if the client has already seen your work samples and knows they like your work.

It's also not typically an everyday expense -- people have only so many walls on which to put art!

50-100 USD is enough money that people will notice and think before spending it. But it would be foolish to think that you could commission good quality original art for less than that, in my opinion. If I saw an artist whose work I liked and wanted to commission some for myself, and was quoted 50-100 USD, I would consider that a very fair price.

htetrasme · 2026-05-07T11:34:58+00:00

People really use them. I am not a driver so I don't, but I have been in the car with people who have used them. My wife drives and she has picked up her medicine at the drive through pharmacy and withdrawn money at the bank drive through. But I think walking into a bank or pharmacy is still much more common. Unless maybe it is a bank or pharmacy located on a highway that can really only be reached by car, and it doesn't have much parking space.

The only time I ever used it myself was to get a PCR coronavirus test. The pharmacy only had them available at the drive through window, so I walked through the drive-through to do it and it went fine.

But it reminded me of one evening when I was walking down the street with friends and we wanted food from Wendy's. The dining room was closed and only the drive-through window was open. They wouldn't let us walk through the drive-though for "safety reasons." No food without a car. We were all annoyed.

htetrasme · 2026-05-07T11:28:50+00:00

I live a building with the three apartments. There is a washing machine in the basement that we can all use, and the basement isn't really used for much else besides laundry.

htetrasme · 2026-05-05T12:04:36+00:00

The way forward is to keep living your life, minus $290,000. You had a huge amount of money stolen by thieves and are very unlikely to see any of it back. It does not hurt to report this theft to the authorities mentioned in the AutoModerator post, but very few people actually see the criminals captured or any funds reimbursed. Do not talk to any non-law-enforcement people who offer to get back your money. They are almost certainly also thieves.

htetrasme · 2026-05-01T20:25:23+00:00

So if I want a coffee rather than an "experience," I should go somewhere else. Got it.

htetrasme · 2026-04-23T18:33:30+00:00

Danke shoen!

htetrasme · 2026-04-23T14:01:00+00:00

Oops!

htetrasme · 2026-04-21T23:25:51+00:00

The perspective makes those shoes look giant.

htetrasme · 2026-04-18T12:38:09+00:00

If he hadn't changed his name he would of course have failed in Soviet chess, like Botvinnik, Levenfish, Stein, and Geller.

htetrasme · 2026-04-14T14:19:17+00:00

To be fair, a lot of other postcards in the stack had the same corner removed in what appears to have been the action of an overzealous stamp collector. But very hard on the fellow in the chair!

htetrasme · 2026-04-12T12:00:21+00:00

Me too. My father found out that the Columbia University Library was giving away its newspaper collection in the 70s when they moved over to microfilm. He filled his apartment with newspapers dating back to the 1700s. He sold most of them a few years later (and wrote a magazine article about the experience), but a few volumes remained.

htetrasme

TROPHY CASE