There were a lot of fountain pens for £150-£200 second-hand. (Although they were made in years like “1928”). And some amazing looking Italian new ones, which the person in front of me asked about, and was told that the blue one they were looking at was… £1200. So… yes, it is a ridiculously expensive hobby. I did not spend a lot, but I could have blown through my budget five times over without trying.
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If I had found it, I probably wouldn’t have a cup anymore.
I know that I’m responding to a super old post. I don’t get out much these days.
There was this one time. I woke up instantly. My hand was behind my back and my fingers were in middle of making a circular pattern on my lower back with my hand and throwing it against the door across the room.
@COMaestro woke up from the commotion. I told him I thought threw a spider.
He didn’t think I could have thrown a spider to hit the door. But he found it.
That circular motion I was doing when I woke up was basically getting all of the spiders legs and then throwing it. So it kind of looked like a lollipop on the stick. All the legs were the stick in the body was the lollipop.
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I am so tired.
I had a cold after SPIEL but I didn’t have time to call in sick. There was a project deadline right after the fair (on Wednesday). The 2 days where I felt really sick, I felt strongly that I had to work to bring the project to a close. This was my first project at my new work. I work from home. So I didn’t make anyone else sick. I went to the handover on Wednesday and after that just went to bed.
Thursday morning I had a meeting for another project with a deadline just at the end of the month that needed someone to help out. I was asked if I felt I could do this. But what else could I do? Say no to work? As a freelancer I might have said I need a break, sorry.
By all accounts I am doing good work on that new project and began helping within one day of onboarding on the project. Surprising, considering that this is outside my usual skillset… on a side branch of my CV that is filled with hobby projects.
But I am so tired.
When this deadline is over, I will probably start working the sequel to both these projects in parallel because neither will need me full-time.
There are so many meetings, so many calls. I feel I spend most of my time “on the phone” (teams, but you get what I mean). It is chaotic. And I always knew in my time as a freelancer that I was so glad I didn’t have to go to all those internal company meetings. Yay. I enjoyed being the outsider. Seeing the other side… I know I was right to enjoy that.
I need some routine at work. I can’t do bi-weekly deadlines with (other) people panicking all the time. I feel like I am constantly trying to calm people and tell them what the next steps are. I cannot do my best-work if I am just throwing a bit of water onto the flames of panic. There isn’t even time to get any semblance of a process into these projects. At least there is a team for this one. The other project was 2 project leads, 1 consultant and me as the lone “grunt”.
I am so tired and I am not even working over-time. Not in actual time… because I barely have the energy to do this 8 hours a day. In a good project there are slow hours and fast hours and overall it averages out. But I only have fast hours right now. I want structure and routine in my projects. I want a process. Any really would be nice.
As usual there is other stuff on top making sure that I can’t even relax outside of work.
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Just a little saturated by the post-election conversation. As someone in the disenfranchised middle, who abstained from that item on the ballot altogether, I’m most frustrated by how they seem completely oblivious to what is really going on. Or maybe they know, and what happened in my own process is more unique and not what is driving the national trends? But I do think my own understanding aligns pretty well with the fact pattern.
Hiding the (system oriented, not partisan) politics.
One is basic game theory. We have a two party system. As in a two player game, you can win by destroying the opponent rather than building up yourself. In a 3+ player game, this is just mutual assured destruction. In a two player game, it is victory. We also see how people try to employ this in the multi-player primaries to their own detriment. Anyway, each election cycle the campaigns are leaning a bit harder into this, running as “not the other one” rather than “me.”
The problem is, there are over 300 million people who are “not Trump” in this country. And likewise for Harris. At this point, I need you to stand for something, why you, not just “don’t vote for that awful other one.” It worked for a while, but as we get worse and worse candidates each cycle I’m voting by not playing that game.
However, this dynamic allows candidates to run on on a platform of what they are not, rather than what they are. Trump seems particularly adept at this, defining himself by what he is not. On that platform, what he is doesn’t matter. Harris tried the same thing, but not as aggressively.
**
Second, the liberal left in our country is highly visible. They largely control Hollywood, broadcast television, educational institutions, and print/televised media. The right controls podcasts and radio. And of course a foothold in Fox. Social media is shared, but it walls off the philosophies from each other, except when the other is held up to ridicule.
The upshot is that the right can see the left. They know everything the left stands for, what they are up to, etc, because they bathe in it unless they take special precautions to shut it out. This has given the right an advantage for the last two decades. The left, on the other hand, cannot see the right. I think the right remains something of a mystery to most of the left. Written off as stupid, uninformed, prejudiced, etc. Unclear on what they believe, how they are segmented, especially on why they believe what they believe. So the right becomes better poised to resonate with demographics outside their core, and to deconstruct their opposition.
The chained upshot is that the left is unable to engage the right. In this specific situation, the left would have loved to engage the right in a “never Trump” cause, and I believe the potential energy was there. But if the right is currently characterized by anger, the left is characterized by disdain. Even the conservatives who reject Trump as a felon (and other labels, but trying to stick to notarized facts here) have an equal aversion to the disdain hitting them from the liberals. And the middle remains split.
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Third thought is how easy it would have been to win this election with a centrist candidate. You don’t have to go all the way to Manchin-middle. Biden was center enough while he was still functioning. Kaine. I know him because he’s Virginia and ran with Clinton 2, but I’m sure there are others with name recognition. Harris tried to brand herself as a Biden centrist, but it was just four years ago she ran for president in the Warren/Sanders camp. She has a machete-hacked trail from California. It’s way left. Maybe she really has shifted middle? I don’t think anyone trusts what they see during an election over what they see on the record, regarding actual stance.
Just consider, if the democrats had run someone centrist, would anyone on the far left have defected to vote for Trump? Not shown up, for the chance to keep Trump out of office? Unlikely. Harris was an easy target for the Republican campaign to split or disenfranchise the middle. A centrist candidate, if they could control the message and keep themselves there through the Republican onslaught, would have devastated Trump’s chances in the middle. It was obvious this summer and is obvious (maybe just to me?) now.
**
The Democratic post-mortem states that the country is too full of sexists (which doesn’t address for why democratic males also lost heavily in congress). The country is just full of awful people (unlikely to be true, and good luck gaining ground with the electorate next cycle). Biden stayed in the race too long (but Harris was the best choice its not her or our fault).
The Republican post-mortem states that everyone loves Trump and he has an unprecedented mandate from the people (despite lower voter turnout than last cycle and an approval rating that has never broken 50%, indicating that he indeed won on an “I’m not Harris” ticket rather than an “I am Trump” ticket.)
I don’t really see a way out of this system. Maybe if a third party can gain traction, and then credibility, in the House - that would be the beachhead needed for a third party, and that would put an end to the pure “not the other guy” campaigns and force people to again notice the lost buckets of the electorate.
Or, I suppose, if more of those lost buckets stopped playing the game and it became more clear to the political powers-that-be that there were votes to pick up with other tactics. Maybe that is where I’m wrong - as long as moderates keep voting for candidates they don’t like, the wings are correct in saying their approach is mostly working.
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Every election year, I think that someone needs to sue the Associated Press for misrepresenting American Politics as a two-party system.
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In what way? Meaning there are maybe three parties within the Democrats and three parties within the Republicans? The systematic problem remains that after a play-off they each provide only one candidate. If a subparty resonates better across the aisle, they never actually get the chance to be voted for.
I know the Libertarians and Greens exist but functionally don’t matter.
If that is what you mean, it makes me think of a problem we had in business school where one boat was best poised to reach the finals but almost assured of losing them, while another boat had a lower chance of reaching the finals but a good chance to win them. Overall, we were supposed to understand how the second boat had the better overall chance of winning everything. Our preliminary system tends to choose first boats…
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This is why. Why don’t they matter?
You can’t tell me that Harris and Trump were the best two candidates. But they are the two candidates put forth by this ancient political machine.
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I’ll put on my mod hat for a moment here, to remind you all to be civil and nice and don’t get too deeply into politics. Even systemic politics. It’s still politics and not a topic we usually discuss here.
I know frustrations are everywhere. Times are difficult and most of us probably don’t have enough outlets for the amount of frustrations we carry around.
There are people at the other ends of your posts. Consider if you are adding value to the conversation. If all else fails please agree to disagree.
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Cheers to all of that.
And yes, I’ll just close by agreeing that maybe the press would be a helpful part in growing the footprint of the <1% parties.
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All I will say is that, viewed from outside the US, the fact that Harris can be considered as ‘far left’ borders on the absurd.
And that I hope the fears of the many people who now feel very unsafe are not warranted.
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She is very much a centrist, despite the lip service she gave to the left last time she ran for president. What the majority of our country considers “left” would be very much “centrist” most other places, if not leaning right. Today’s Democrat (in office) is basically a Reagan-era Republican. Which shows how hard the Overton window has shifted.
And with that, I’ll leave any more politics at the door. As has been said, there are better places for political discussion.
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So the novel I have 98% finished has been 98% finished since April. I had my editor take a stab at it, and they gave me some very useful advice.
Basically, at around 2/3rd of the way through the story, there is a Big Reveal and a Little Reveal (that has big implications for the further story, but not much actual impact on the story right now). My editor was confused by the Big Reveal, and suggested that I either need to foreshadow it much better (fair), or that I have to take it out because it happens so far into the novel that it doesn’t really need it.
I think she’s right, I should probably cut it. It’s kinda trope-y, and although I like some of the implications, it’s really in the story only for one moment at the climactic moment (basically a “Use the Force, Luke!” deus ex machina moment, but better than that). It’s an easy cut, for the most part, and I should do it.
… and that’s been true since April. I just have to do it. And I haven’t. Because it will involve going through the entire novel again and removing all the foreshadowing I have done (which, while not enough, is certainly a significant amount), and then massively rewriting an already difficult ending that I wasn’t crazy about.
So it sits, open on my laptop, but untouched since early May.
I’ve written a few podcast episodes about Battletech history, because I know that’s what I want to listen to. There’s a great series called “Tex Talk Battletech,” but they release one massive episode a year or so, and that’s not nearly enough. So my plan was to write these little 20-30 minute talks (my working title is “Marx Mutters about Battletech”) that will highlight specific moments from the diegesis… the first episode I talk about The Crescent Hawk’s Inception, the first Battletech game I ever played (although everything is presented diegetically, just like in Tex Talks… I’m voicing a person who lives in the Inner Sphere, sometime around 3150, looking back and discussing “history” with the listeners). It’s been a lot of fun to write, but then I think about having to upload and build a website and keep up a steady stream of content, and as much as I desperately want to… gosh it’s exhausting?
And there’s a part of me that knows I’m doing this Battletech thing because I need money. Not a lot, but enough that I can actually write for a living instead of having to do four different jobs to try and save up enough money that I can write occasionally. Sure, I love the BT universe and I can talk about it for hours, but given the option I would do it for fun, but I can’t because I don’t have time or money to do anything for fun. It has to be in service of making enough money that I can leave my retail job so I can pour all the energy I have into my creative work, which is what I have been desperately trying to do for… 8 years now? 8 years.
As an aside, I have completely given up on trying to find a job. I’ve put out at least two hundred applications over the last two years and had a grand total of one interview where I didn’t get past the first round.
So. Yeah. Fun!
tl;dr version: stuff is hard, yo. I hope y’all are doing well and stuff isn’t as hard for any of you, because this sucks.
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Having not heard back about this I finally gave them a call to see what was going on.
“Oh yes, your file says we need to book you in for a face to face appointment. We have none available currently. Try calling back in the new year.”
Trying not to read too much into that as my doctor originally said they’d just give me a call.
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That does sound a bit ominous. On the other hand maybe they just made a mistake in telling you, you’d get results via phonecall. Especially with an MRI. I am surprised you didn’t get to speak with a doctor straight away. I regularly have brain-scans because of the migraines and I always get to talk to a doctor right after?
I also previously had doctors forget to get back to me with results. They are just humans. And once the time has passed for that initial “they will call you” thing, you have to go in, because the nurses can’t tell you on the phone. Had this happen with a blood test a few years back. I was completely worried–for nothing.
I wish you all the best and don’t get consumed by what you don’t know.
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Well that doesn’t sound like anything’s likely to be urgently wrong at least, or you’d have been rushed in somewhere.
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We went to see the Nutcracker as a family.
I can confirm that the rat king and the nutcracker head are just as terrifying now as they were as a kid.
(the rest of the ballet was excellent but I think we all came away a little scarred)
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Separately, food poisoning! Just ate something that was too old. Man, it hasn’t been long enough since that has happened.
Initially you just have to ride it out. Then you get to the very confusing part where you wonder if your stomach is upset because you are still sick or poisoned, or if it’s upset because of the massive headache from 24 hours of dehydration? Scenario 1 means take it easy, scenario 2 means drink water, and both pathways are fraught.
Through the worst of it, just recovering strength now.
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Either way, you should be drinking a lot of fluids.
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How to put it circumspectly… I think in some situations the fear is that ingesting more fluid will cost you what little you’ve been able to successfully ingest so far? That kind of day.
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The trick is very small quantities with pretty high frequency. if you can’t do even that, iv hydration is probably called for, especially in children.
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I was in this position recently. About a week ago, really.
Hope you feel better soon
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