cobysev

Yes, but only because we had a spare TV and nowhere else to place it.

For years, my wife was adamantly against using the bedroom for anything except for sleep. She used to make a big deal about how a TV would just keep us in bed all day, watching shows and movies instead of getting up and being productive.

The thing is, we spent most of our free time just sitting on the couch, watching TV shows and movies. And when my wife went to bed, she’d pull out her phone and spend hours watching online videos or playing games before she would sleep. So it’s not like a bedroom TV would be much different.

When we ended up with an extra TV and no space to put it in any other rooms, I placed it on the dresser near the foot of our bed. When my wife balked, I reminded her how we already spend hours in bed staring at screens; we might as well make progress on our backlog of TV shows instead of wasting our evenings with idle games or random videos.

Besides, our bed is one of those adjustable beds where you can raise the head and/or foot of the bed to whatever height you want. So we can literally prop ourselves up in bed and relax from a comfortable viewing angle while watching shows.

Despite all this, we rarely use that TV. We much prefer the larger one in our living room. But every now and then, when my wife is having a bad day and refusing to get out of bed, I’ll grab a bunch of snacks and drinks, join her in bed, and turn on that TV.

You only get better through failure. Drawing and art is a skill that you develop over time like training a muscle.

I’ve been given this advice my whole life and I’ve always hated it because it’s never worked for me.

I used to love drawing as a kid. I was always sketching things. I got a lot of praise for my artwork and was told that I was highly skilled for my age.

The problem was, I mostly just copied other works of art. I wasn’t very good at drawing something unique. And even with decades of practice, my skill never improved. I never figured out how to draw unique styles, shading, or details. Despite my “skill,” I eventually gave up drawing altogether.

As an older man looking back, I realize now that I was focused on technical details I could actually see and I could never recreate them from a mental image. I never had an artist’s mind. I was just really good at copying exact details from other art. I could’ve even draw based on a photo, because I didn’t know what details to include and what to exclude; there was too much information in a photograph and my brain couldn’t parse it all.

To this day, I can mimic other works of art very well, but I can’t create unique works, and no amount of practice will fix that. I’m just not artistically inclined. I can’t visualize a scene well enough to create it from scratch.

My technique is to not be interested in the person. Not like ignoring them or being mean or anything. But… when I like someone, I get all shy and awkward around them and I tend to screw up any attempt at socializing.

If I’m not romantically interested in them, I can be myself, which I’ve been told is naturally very funny and flirtatious.

Every person I’ve ever dated was a friend long before I started a relationship with them, because I took the time to know them and eventually developed mutual feelings for them. By the time I was asked out, I already had deep respect for them and felt comfortable being myself around them, so dating was just the next step in our relationship.

And yes, I’ve always been the one asked out. I asked out a girl once, and instead of just saying no, she made a public spectacle about how creepy I was and how she would never date me. I was extremely shy back then and my failed attempts to approach her apparently came off as me creeping on her, so by the time I actually worked up the courage to talk to her, she gave me a traumatizingly public “hell no.” I never asked anyone else out again after that. I’ve dated close to a dozen people in my life and every single one of them asked me out.

Akira is a total trip as well.

There’s been a live action Akira film in development hell for over 20 years now. I’ve been patiently waiting since my teen years to see it and I’m in my early 40s now. I guess directors are so scared of not being able to live up to the masterpiece that is the original anime film, so nobody sticks with the project long.

Personally, I’d love to see it recreated as a miniseries. If you’ve read the manga, the film barely touches on the plot. There are gang wars, political factions, economic and social collapse, insurrections and riots, even global wars! None of that is covered in the film; they just focus on Tetsuo and Kaneda.

Heck, even its namesake, Akira, isn’t around! He was a central figure of the manga, but he’s only around for some brief flashbacks in the film.

A miniseries would give it time to world-build and cover everything in the original manga series.

Hobbies are about enjoyment, not skill. You should never measure your accomplishments with hobbies based on how good you are at them.

That said… when I was younger, I only indulged in hobbies that I had any skill in. If I sucked at something, I typically gave it up quickly and looked for something else to do.

Video games were an exception. I enjoyed the gameplay so much, it didn’t matter that I was awful at them. I’d grind the same levels over and over, hoping to finally beat it this time.

Interestingly enough, I’m actually really good at video games now. Not professionally so, but I have a lot more skill than most of my friends. I’m usually appointed team leader in any co-op games I play with my friends because I’m really good at tracking the mission objective and keeping everyone together. And now that I’m retired young, I spend a lot of time gaming throughout the days, which only makes me better.

I don’t play games for the challenge or skill, though. I mostly play to enjoy an interactive story. So I usually turn the difficulty down to the easiest option so I don’t get stuck from progression at any point. I can handle really difficult games, but I just don’t want to. Unless my friends want a challenge, then I’ll crank it up and then be constantly bailing them out from the nightmare they chose to play.

I must’ve been tired last night… I stared at this meme for so long, not able to make any sense of it. What does the Cold War have to do with refrigerators?! I finally put down my tablet and went to sleep.

This morning I picked up my tablet, saw this meme again, and immediately thought, “Oh, the COLD war.” Duh.

I saw the “Women in Metal” title and thought this would be a thread about women in trade jobs (i.e. metalworking).

In the US? Democrats vs. Republicans.

According to the rest of the world, the US doesn’t have a left party. Democrats are right wing and Republicans are extremist right wing. The left is completely unrepresented in our government. Both major parties lean conservative (from a global perspective) and care more about helping major businesses and the rich elite than actually representing the people.

That’s why there’s a whole movement centered around “no war but class war.” The American people are not actually represented and are instead pitted against each other in this fake “red vs. blue” distraction so we don’t actually go after our political leaders, or weed out the source of the money behind the scenes that dictate their actions.

I’ve been paying for Proton VPN for a couple years now and I’ve never been blocked by YouTube.

I’m also using uBlock Origin and Firefox as a browser. YouTube takes like 5-10 seconds to load videos, thanks to their built-in delay timer when ads can’t play, but otherwise it works fine.

Honestly, I’d gladly wait 30 seconds staring at a black screen than watch a 10-second ad. So their delay timer is pointless.

40-yr old male here, been retired since I was 38. (Collecting a military pension, plus 100% VA disability benefits) I’m usually awake until around 4-6 AM, then sleep until either noon or 1 PM. Unless I’m having a night of PTSD-induced insomnia, which strikes randomly. In which case, I might be awake until 10-11 AM, then crash for the rest of the day.

I’m a night owl and am at my most productive at night. Then I go to bed and usually don’t set an alarm so I can wake up naturally. After I wake, I might lie in bed for another hour or two, catching up on news or social media on my tablet. Then I’ll shower, grab some food, then plan out my day from there.

I’m drowning in hobbies and interests, and I have ADHD, which makes me hyperfocus on a dozen detailed tasks all at once. So there’s never a shortage of things to do each day. But I also don’t feel the need to be accomplished every day. Some days, you just need a day to rest and do nothing.

Not to mention workers. Capitalism doesn’t work unless there are enough worker bees keeping those cogs turning. If you can have more workers and pay them next to nothing, your profits will soar. That’s the capitalist ideal.

Back when I was a teenager (~25 years ago), I had the worst time waking up every morning for school. My dad would have to come drag me out of bed, then I would be sitting in the shower dozing for a while before I actually started cleaning myself. Like, literally sitting - I would sit on the edge of the tub while in the shower and just slip in and out of consciousness for a little bit until I was awake enough to shower.

Of course, this made me run late every morning. My dad always poked his head into the bathroom to yell at me that I’m going to miss my school bus if I don’t hurry up. I rarely ever missed the bus, but I also barely caught it most days, which always made my dad anxious about my morning routine.

As a healthy young teenager, I always had morning wood that wouldn’t quit. I had gotten used to it, so getting ready in the mornings with a raging boner wasn’t unusual. But I was generally pretty good at keeping it hidden from others until it went away.

One particular morning, I had gone through my shower-sleep routine and finally got around to cleaning myself. I had lathered up my entire body with soap and was scrubbing all the cracks and crevices thoroughly (I was a bit OCD when it came to cleanliness).

This day, my dad had finally had enough and decided to see what took me so long in the shower every day. Out of nowhere, he whipped open the shower curtain and opened his mouth to yell at me.

I was standing there, frozen in shock, both hands gripping my soapy raging boner. My dad glanced down, then back up at my face, then gave me the goofiest smile I’d ever seen him make. Then he wordlessly shut the shower curtain and walked away.

It took me a minute to realize why he changed his mind about yelling at me; it didn’t process at first what the situation he walked into looked like. I was just washing my body, after all.

My dad never again yelled at me to hurry up in the shower.

For some reason, this just sparked an ancient memory of the Geek Code, which was a sort of signature block you could append to your emails and online bios to show off how much of a geek you were in the geekiest fashion possible.

Goddamn I’m old.

Dozens of people die

“It’s just a prank, bro!”

“They Live!” A guy finds some strange sunglasses that lets him see the subliminal messages hidden in all our print and media and advertisements. He can also see aliens walking amongst the population, disguised as regular humans!

Turns out, Earth had been invaded by aliens long ago and they’ve been keeping us under their control with subliminal messages for decades.

Well, I did serve throughout the Iraq War. I got some PTSD from my time in war zones that is a 70% disability rating alone. Plus several minor and major physical injuries over the years that I never fully recovered from.

The VA doesn’t do a direct addition when it comes to disability, so a 10% rating and a 10% rating doesn’t equal a 20% rating overall. They have some weird equation to calculate disability, which would probably bring it out to 12-15% disability total. But I had so many claims to submit, I made it all the way to 100%.

I thought I had maybe 2-3 medical claims to make when I retired. But I spoke with a VA counselor who spent 3 hours pouring over my 20 years of medical records in the military, then went over every single body part and asked detailed questions about my functionality and how it’s potentially degraded over the years since I joined the military. By the end, I had 33 claims to submit, and the VA accepted 30 of them. Enough small ratings (plus a few large ones) got me all the way to 100%.

I may not look disabled if you met me in person, but I am struggling, both mentally and physically. The VA actually fixed my knees; I was walking with a cane for the last 4 years I was in the military. But it’s not a perfect fix, so I still struggle to get around and I can’t run anymore without pain. But I don’t need a cane anymore, so there’s that.

YOU ARE ONLY 38?!

I was 38 when I retired three years ago, actually. I’m about to turn 41 in a few months. Sorry if I didn’t write that clearly in my comment.

The first few years going home feels like nothing ever changes but I recently went to my home town for a wedding and saw some friends for the first time in 15 years. Wow did the passage of time hit me like a truck.

I feel this. In my early years of the military, I used to take a month off every year and go home to chill with family and friends. The first few years of that, it was like nothing changed. But then I started dating my future wife and spending my time off traveling and honeymooning with her. When I did finally go home again, I almost didn’t recognize it. My friends and family had moved further away, my hometown had changed, everything was suddenly different.

True, 38 isn’t that old. But keep in mind, I’m 100% disabled according to the VA. Two decades of military service has wrecked my body, so I’m unable to work any physically demanding job. Heck, I struggle just to go up and down stairs in my own house without pain in my knees and back.

Which is a shame, because I was an extremely fit and active person in my youth. That’s part of the reason I joined the military - I was in the best shape of my life and could keep active all day without breaking a sweat. I’m actually frustrated now that just walking from my house to my mailbox takes me out of action for an hour or two.

I keep telling myself I’m young, but my body’s acting like it’s 80 years old. That’s the one downside to military service; it can easily overstress your joints and physically age you much faster than normal.

This is a compartmentalization technique seen in a lot in people with ADHD. Not saying OP has ADHD, but it’s something to look into if they have other signs.

I did this for literal decades. I was excited to start my adult life after high school, but an opportunity I couldn’t pass up dropped into my lap, so I chose that route instead.

Joining the US military was that opportunity. My uncle explained how the Air Force had taken care of him for 30 years, giving him free food, free lodging, free education, free travel around the globe, free medical and dental, and a steady, decent paycheck on top of it all. It sounded too good to be true, so I signed up as well. I figured I could get back to my plans for adult life later, after I’d taken advantage of all the benefits the military could offer me.

20 years later (3 years ago), I retired from the Air Force. It was a pretty stressful career, in a positive way, so I was glad to get home, relax a bit, then finally pick up my life where I left off.

The things is, a lot happens in 2 decades. All my friends had left town and moved on to new lives, new careers, created new families, etc. my own family had mostly moved away, except for my dad who was still living in my childhood home. He offered to let my wife and I stay with him rent free as long as we wanted. He passed away last year and I inherited the house from him.

So now I’m back in my childhood home, just starting to really get settled back in and trying to figure out what to do with myself. I feel like my life has been on hold for so long, I don’t even know where to start in picking things back up again. I’m not young anymore, so a lot of the physically active jobs and hobbies I was previously interested in are either difficult or impossible for me now. I also changed a lot mentally with 20 years of military service. I’m not the same person I was at 18, so I have to readjust my interests and hobbies.

Fortunately, I have a lifelong pension from the military. I was grandfathered into the old pension program before they switched to a 401K-type plan, so I get paid half my final paycheck every month for the rest of my life. I also got the coveted “100% Permanent & Total” disability rating from the VA, so that is an additional monthly payment for life that’s about double the size of my pension. Plus free medical and dental for life. My wife didn’t retire from the military, but she also got the 100% P&T disability rating, so she gets the same medical pay and benefits as me.

So with all this passive income, we can actually be retired, as of 38 years old, and have the free time every day to focus on rediscovering our lives. I don’t feel like I need to put my life on pause while I work a job I don’t necessarily care for, or save up enough money for something I really want to do. I can live my life fully now, unpaused, for the first time in my life. It’s been very liberating, both mentally and physically.

We set up Teams during the pandemic (because Zoom was being a bitch about the govt not paying to use their full suite). We already used a bunch of other Microsoft products, so it was easy to get a contract for Teams integration too. I don’t remember Teams giving people a notification when you joined though, just the meeting host. But I’ve also been retired for nearly 3 years now, so I have no idea how Teams has changed recently.

Your boss has no right to ask you to come earlier than your agreed time.

In the military, they have every right.

You see, when you join the military, you sign a contract for 4-6 years of service. The day that contract begins, you start your first shift and it doesn’t technically end until your contract expires, several years later. You’re on shift 24/7/365 until your contract is up. So your boss can demand you work any shift or come in at any time, day or night, and you just have to do it. Even if it’s outside of your normally scheduled work hours.

There are regulations that outline “regular passes,” which is time off granted daily because you’re human and can’t literally work 24/7. A regular pass allows you to go home, eat, sleep, and be refreshed for the next day. I don’t know if the federal regs have changed in the last handful of years, but the last time I looked them up, you couldn’t work more than 17 hours straight before you were required to take a minimum 8 hours off to rest. Most shifts are typically 8-12 hours long, so hopefully you don’t get stuck working a 17-hour shift anytime soon.

The whole point of this is that military people need to be ready to respond to war, no matter when it strikes. You don’t work a regular day shift, then argue about extra hours or overtime pay when shit hits the fan. You just grab your bugout bag and go. And yes, we don’t get overtime pay because again - we’re always on shift.

We do get lots of time off, though. From the day you join, you start earning 2.5 days off for every month you serve, which adds up to 30 days off per year. You can carry over something like 60 days off every year too. It was pretty nice. In my early service days, I would save up a whole month of time off and then take it all at once to go hang out with my friends and family back home.