c/Superbowl

For all your owl related needs!

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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • From looking up more usage, as it isn’t a word I often hear, it seems by nature to be neutral, but context can direct it to be more positive or negative.

    If I heard someone say it in conversation, it would put a lot of emphasis on the tone of the conversation to take the meaning. I’d imagine it being used more sarcastically, as it sounds like a fancy word for someone with shallow knowledge of a subject.

    “John won’t shut up about that trendy new art exhibit.”

    “Oh yeah, he’s a real dilettante all of a sudden!” 😒

    John had never shown interest in art before, but now that he saw it and either liked it or pretended to like it to show off his “higher appreciation of culture” than his friends now he keeps talking about it even though he doesn’t know anything about art.

    I wouldn’t say it’s impossible to use in a positive manner, but being dismissive feels more likely. If someone used it that way I’d feel I was potentially missing out on a joke at first.



  • Probably 70% home, 25% takeaway, and 5% eating out.

    Takeaway and going out used to be switched, but the gf’s been pulling a lot of OT at the hospital this year, so it’s hard for us to get together most days, and sometimes she doesn’t know when she’ll get home so it’s easier for her to grab something for herself or us on the way home.

    I prefer cooking at home because it’s cheaper, potentially healthier, and I hate all the trash generated from takeout, but it’s hard for me to meal plan when our schedules are so off from each other.

    We do still make all our breakfasts and lunches, so it’s mainly just dinner that’s the question.


  • Unfortunately I spent more time watching him for anatomy lessons than taking his fitness advice! 😂

    Guy seems very legit, gives away so much help and info for free, good sense of humor. I love seeing the internals of movement on the skeleton, especially things like impingement, and then the demos with his body or an assistant so you see what you’d see watching yourself do movements. I’m glad to see he’s still doing his thing.



  • Yeah, it may be more than coincidence since it started this year. I try not to worry about things beyond my control, but it’s been hard to look anywhere lately and not see something dark.

    I’ve had to learn how to deal with things in healthy ways since “getting better” and this may just be the hardest situation I’ve come on since then.

    Some of my stressors should be going away soon, and I have a few vacations coming so perhaps relief is near.




  • Before I was diagnosed, I tried the Zoloft my brother wasn’t taking, and that kinda put me in a numb cloud. I dealt with things better but it smashed down the good stuff too much so I gave up on that.

    Tried a girlfriend’s free sample pack of something that wasn’t working for her, and that worked pretty well. Just leveled me out. It was harder for me to get frustrated and angry, and I just had a better baseline feeling. That was fairly early internet, so we had no clue what the pills were, so when they were gone, they were gone.

    I don’t know how much any of that would have helped because I was still around my family, which was the prime source of my depression.

    About 9 years ago, I hit a low point in life and decided to deal with this in an appropriate manner after realizing I’ve had depression for about 20+ years. Doc gave me Lexapro and said it would take 2 weeks or so to kick in.

    I swear the next day I felt like a new person. The doctor said it doesn’t work that way, but I felt what I felt. Maybe I was just bone dry on serotonin and just a little bit was a shock to the system, who knows.

    It didn’t make anything better, I want to be very clear on that. Before the pills, my insides were like a sponge. Anything that happened to me would soak in and get held onto. Bad stuff from my past, my own self esteem issues, any perceived slight someone gave me, whatever, it was all soak into my head and stay there until I blew up or panic attacked, etc.

    What happened with medicine is now like I had an emotional raincoat. Most of that stuff would still hit me, but it would run off instead of soak in. The intrusive thoughts were there, my stressors were still there. But I could deal with them as they came up. I wasn’t still trying to get out from under a pile of them every time another hit me.

    I could still get sad or depressed for no reason, but it felt like something I could handle instead of that being the only thing I could be. And that got better with time.

    This year, I’ve been having problems again so I’m going to need to check in soon to discuss if I need to change something. I’ve been feeling slightly depression more often, I’m low on energy, and I’m losing interest in a lot of things I enjoy. There’s no real new stressors I’m aware of, so I’m not sure what’s going on.

    I feel I’ve had a luckier time than many with medication, but even so, it isn’t a silver bullet, it’s still a chronic condition. Working meds just get you to the same starting line as “normal people” for you to deal with your day. You’re still running the same obstacle course every day, but you’re not starting way behind. Hope that was some help.




  • I started working at a wild animal rehab this year. I’ve fed a few hundred squirrels, dozens of song birds, some really cool raptors, and a good handful of mammals.

    I consider my time with them positive, but they really don’t want much to do with us. I just released an owl this weekend and it bit me multiple times as I was trying to let it go. That’s the attitude it takes for it to survive, so getting a positive attitude back is typically not an outcome I should, or realistically want to see.

    The person being hostile in this thread is going pretty extreme. We shouldn’t be touching or feeding animals directly, but many do need indirect human presence to survive. They evolved with us to an extent, and they take advantage of our food storage and waste and some of the molding of the environment that we do by creating fields and farmland.

    Most animal injuries I see are from cars, pets, manmade structures, and cutting down trees animals live in. What people are feeding the birds is likely a very small portion of their diet, as they eat pretty constantly. Keep your bird and squirrel stations clean and provide shelter from predators and you likely aren’t hurting anything in the grand scheme of things. A loose dog or cat is way worse IMO.


  • I’m not going to tell you your methodology is wrong, you give a perfectly valid reason for doing what you do.

    I don’t so much as avoid them, I will still often check what they are saying, but I look at what they’re saying to other people. If I know someone is trolly or has a pretty shitty bias, if I see them misrepresenting things, it offers me a way to maybe offer a contrary opinion to those they’re talking to, or I can see they may be the wrong person to talk to about ethical/moral things but may still be good for getting answers to technical questions from.

    There’s people here I just won’t engage with at all just as in the real world, but just like in life there’s people I know to just avoid certain topics or opinions with but they’re still ok people or can be helpful in the right context.

    Now, both online and in real life, if I encounter one of those people who swears everyone is always starting shit with them for no reason, often it becomes obvious that there is a reason why they have so many problems with other people, and usually they are the common denominator. Not always, but I’d say the majority of the time. And especially someone proud of telling strangers that they have a big list of people they don’t like or want to waste their time on, it makes me wonder why. That’s why it’s a red flag. You can tell me that’s who you are, and I don’t have to decide that second to avoid you, but I’m certainly going to feel you out a bit more than I would someone else that decides to give me a friendlier first impression. That’s me looking out for me, just as your methodology does for you.

    I just see myself as someone who gives strangers the benefit of the doubt to start with, and that is yours to mess up. Some people don’t trust strangers and they have to earn that initial trust first. I don’t know you or your story so I won’t hold that against you, but I do feel that tells me something about you. You have to actively work on it for me to outright distrust you, but at the same time, don’t think of my trust and friendliness as naivete. I’m paying attention very closely, I’m just letting you show me who you are rather than forming my own assumptions.


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    I avoid most controversial comment threads since I’m not here for drama. I do have a few people I put user tags on if I see them have consistent bad takes or if they treat other people poorly so I can avoid interacting with them. There hasn’t been any need for me to actually block anyone.

    This isn’t directed at you personally, but these threads pop up from time to time, and for how few people are active commenters here, to have 100 blocks and the need to share that feels like something of a red flag to me. I don’t think I’ve blocked more than a dozen people in about 30 years of being online.


  • I never expected there were so many other long haired men here secretly dealing with hair issues! I thought I’d been dealing with this alone the last few years since I decided to stop buzzcutting myself. Now I wish we had a more active hair community. Not necessarily male only, as this post seems to show we have “human hair” and not “guy hair” or “girl hair.”




  • Bank of Canada’s inflation calculator only goes back to 1914, and that says $2 CAD from then is worth $54.47 CAD today (39.83 USD, 35.06 EUR) so it does not look like that was any type of good deal back then, nor would it be today even if it increased with the CPI.

    Totally shameful what the governments continue to do in regard to native people. It’s not like they forget you’re there, since I’m guessing they have to approve the payment every time, so it seems to be an active and ongoing choice each time to deliver that slap in the face. Makes it hard to say it was just a mistake in the past but those of us alive now have no responsibility in that.