What dreams are made of
October 10, 2022 3:14 AM   Subscribe

Question: what is neat cool groovy and free?

Answer: I literally have no idea, though I suspect it might be "this thread."

"neat cool groovy and free" (no commas) is something I jotted down upon waking up in the middle of the night at some point, thinking "oh, yeah, good idea for a free thread!" but by the next morning, I had totally forgotten what was supposed to be the unifying word or idea tying them all together, if indeed there ever was any. So here we are, entirely unhindered by any sense or structure whatsoever!

That's life after 40, folks, which by the way, this thread is. It's our 41st free thread (my, how time flees), so I guess life begins about now? Let's find out! Help keep things neat cool groovy and free by linking and chatting in an unencumbered way here!🥂
posted by taz (105 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Frist!!


Sorry, I've always wanted to do that....
posted by pompomtom at 3:21 AM on October 10, 2022 [6 favorites]


Un-neat cool groovy and free was my hair last night when I went for a bike ride in blustery weather with no helmet. I could feel the wind whip across my scalp and toss my (not long) hair around as I rode at speed along the sea wall. It felt great!
posted by Thella at 3:27 AM on October 10, 2022 [5 favorites]


what is neat cool groovy and free?

Hello old friend
posted by flabdablet at 4:08 AM on October 10, 2022 [10 favorites]


what is neat cool groovy and free?

The wind!
The sun is shining and a good wind is blowing, which means electricity is free (or perhaps almost free, I haven't checked).
Because of the energy crisis here in Europe, lots of people are checking the prices every day, and they have found out that a good western wind means free power. Bake a cake, so you can warm up the house with the heat from the oven. And eat your cake, too.
posted by mumimor at 5:20 AM on October 10, 2022 [7 favorites]


Young, single, and free.
posted by box at 5:22 AM on October 10, 2022 [2 favorites]


When you shoplift those ripple-y potato chips? When someone gives you the gift of corduroy?
posted by rikschell at 5:30 AM on October 10, 2022 [2 favorites]


18 years and this place is still my favorite site on the web. Thanks for making it amazing, everyone.

That's all!
posted by keep_evolving at 6:12 AM on October 10, 2022 [16 favorites]


This is one of those holidays that isn't, really. When I had a job in a very Italian-American town I would get a half day off and there'd be a parade. I wonder how that's brushing along with the increasing local recognition of Indigenous Peoples Day.

Unexpectedly got obsessed with the Alone TV show about solo wilderness survival, because it is something easily watched and then ignored while dealing with dog nonsense, chores, etc., but is also absorbing. A lot of reality shows give you the idea that you could compete if you just brushed up on a couple things, which is particularly funny for this one. I keep reminding myself that I'm a vegetarian, I need pills every day, and contact solution would freeze in the Arctic.

What I do like, though, is that the competitors are generally older and pretty crusty, since you have to be a wildlife expert to get there. The oldest one I've seen so far was 55. He was walking along on the second day or so, talking tough about how he was gonna land some game and fry the meat up in a pan, when he slipped, fell, and immediately broke his knee. The wilderness is no place for performative masculinity.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:20 AM on October 10, 2022 [8 favorites]


Oh oh oh!

I'm doing a no-rules November writing month over on IRL! It's a low stress, no stress, work-on-whatever-you-like kind of thread for anyone who wants to get some writing done before the end of the year, or like me, focus on writing more regularly. Come join if you want!
posted by mochapickle at 6:27 AM on October 10, 2022 [13 favorites]


It's Thanksgiving weekend in Canada. I used to joke that we have ours earlier cos we're more efficient at getting the crops in. I'm thankful for a lot of stuff; we Codgers are pretty lucky in many ways. So, thanks, whoever.
posted by Artful Codger at 6:54 AM on October 10, 2022 [5 favorites]


Poetry, flowers, animals and human grace.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 8:12 AM on October 10, 2022 [4 favorites]


Library books. I still feel like I’m pulling a fast one. Free knowledge, imagine.
posted by Conrad-Casserole at 8:23 AM on October 10, 2022 [9 favorites]


These threads are the dreams, "the threads that dreams are made of..."
posted by Windopaene at 8:47 AM on October 10, 2022


1-Last year for the first time I became a dog lover, and I will never look back.
2-My partner said "No dogs in the bed!". Now we have a dog in the bed every night :)
posted by waving at 8:51 AM on October 10, 2022 [12 favorites]


I tested positive for Covid this morning. I have had the original vaccines and two boosters, and I had Covid in July. Not a clue how I got it this time. Very ticked off.
posted by Daily Alice at 8:55 AM on October 10, 2022 [10 favorites]


TIL about the "lost" Roman Emperor Domitian II.

A long time ago someone tried to sell for 8,000 gold francs a unique Roman coin. But it was an obvious fake: the image of Concordia was the wrong way round, and the name was misformatted, and there was no such Emperor as Domitian II, so it was dismissed.

Until another coin showed up. And then another. And it turned out that Domitian II had had a brief reign over the Gallic parts of the Empire after all.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:57 AM on October 10, 2022 [9 favorites]


There's an equation used in the electronics industry to determine how much current a wire (or PCB trace) can carry before melting and catching fire. It's called the Onderdonk Equation. What a great name!

But here's the best part: Trying to look up the history of this formula get you this:
"To the best of our knowledge, no original source document for Onderdonk’s Equation exists. Who I. M. Onderdonk was remains a mystery."
posted by JoeZydeco at 8:57 AM on October 10, 2022 [11 favorites]


The deadline for voter registration is coming VERY SOON so GO REGISTER VOTERS!
posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 9:08 AM on October 10, 2022 [7 favorites]


Russet napping in a sunbeam this morning. I adopted him last week, and he's been the sweetest, gentlest old man.
posted by Akhu at 9:19 AM on October 10, 2022 [25 favorites]


Russet is a GOOD BOY!

I have a dog who also seeks out the sun spots to nap in.
posted by Windopaene at 9:33 AM on October 10, 2022 [6 favorites]


Good luck, Daily Alice, and I hope it's minor.

Unexpectedly got obsessed with the Alone TV show about solo wilderness survival

We've been watching, and I appreciate that the most performatively masculine guys often end up sobbing their eyes out and talking about how they need to be more in touch with their feelings.
posted by joannemerriam at 9:45 AM on October 10, 2022 [3 favorites]


Onderdonk Equation

The heating should increase with the resistance of the trace/wire and the resistance varies greatly with cross-sectional area (conductance (c=1/r) increases with the 4th power of the radius?). Now you've got me thinking about igniter wires for model rockets and I have other homework to do.

- Our ski patrol's annual Outdoor Emergency Care refresher is all day Saturday and I have complete the online portion today, which will take a few hours. This will keep me mostly indoors today which is good because it's very smoky today due to the wildfire.

- I probably will repair a neighbor's wooden fence today. On Wednesday I was walking our two dogs and this neighbor's 2 dogs were in their back yard. All the dogs got very excited and the neighbor's dogs busted out through loose boards. The people weren't home. It was pretty chaotic for a few minutes with 4 dogs all barking and trying to nip each other. Fortunately two passersby helped. The dogs' owner has metastatic cancer so I offered to help repair the fence.

- Getting my bivalent booster in the late afternoon. I assume that I'll be having chills on Tuesday evening and be wiped out on Wednesday.
posted by neuron at 10:24 AM on October 10, 2022 [7 favorites]


My computer (or more likely?) my graphics card, ceased to function on Friday. I am much less bothered by it than 1. I should be? and 2. I would have expected. It does not seem likely I will be able to go back in there to get My Documents (this might be bad). Or passwords, or bookmarks. But I think Google may have my passwords. Steam will have my games. And my thumb drive will have all my art stuff. Starting fresh might be nice, I think my machine is about 8-9 yrs old.

I recently moved within the same IL county and have mailed my new address to update my voter registration.

And, here is this:
Little Girl Has Tea Parties with her 16-ft Python
posted by Glinn at 10:34 AM on October 10, 2022 [6 favorites]


I sometimes give music recommendations on these threads (I suspect my last one came a bit late in the thread, so thought id get in earlier this time). Here's three new ones (All links to Bandcamp)

Sons Of by Sam Prekop (The Sea and Cake) and John McIntyre (Tortoise, The Sea and Cake). For fans of their other work, this is a modular electronics dream.

Kumoyo Island by Kikagaku Moyo. Sadly, the Japanese psych rock giants decided this was to be their last but they went out with a bang!

The Internal Inferno of The Nocturnal Mock Turtle by Spurious Transients. A mixture of chill-out/motorik electronics and real instruments (conventional and otherwise), it's a lovely, low-key album (and nowhere near as silly as the title might suggest).
posted by deeker at 10:47 AM on October 10, 2022 [4 favorites]


Ann Erpino is a remarkable artist. She has a painting titled "What dreams are made of". Seem appropriate to this thread, although this work purports to be about the future of advanced chemical synthesis and molecular systems engineering, maybe synthetic biology. And stuff.
posted by brambleboy at 10:56 AM on October 10, 2022 [3 favorites]


So I was asked to get a plate of some kind of assorted nibbly thing for an internal meeting today...unfortunately, a lot of the usual places were either closed nor needed 24-hours notice for such an order. One of the few places that was open and could provide, though, was the artisinal donut place about 3 blocks from my apartment. So I really had no choice but to go with them and their Mango Lassi donut and their Blackberry-and-currant donuts and their donuts with Mexican-hot-chocolate seasoned chocolate glaze and a whole tiny churro on top. Oh well!

I also just wrote up a review of Goldfinger for my blog - it was the first time I saw it, and throughout I kept getting reminded of the various Mythbusters episodes debunking several of the tropes. (Fitting, since the whole reason the blog exists is because I heard Adam Savage say on an old podcast episode that "the best way to learn about films is to watch them and talk about them with people".)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:10 AM on October 10, 2022 [9 favorites]


brambleboy, that's perfect!
posted by taz at 12:09 PM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]


A comment that I made on this website 9 years ago has been following me my entire adult life. I think the moment I posted that comment, my entire life changed.

I was 27 when I posted it. I owned a flat, I wasn't married, I was healthy, and I was working as a copywriter at an advertising agency. I never really participated in the conversation on this website after that comment, I don't know why — but I did keep reading MetaFilter over those years. Sometimes I would look at my profile just to see that comment and think about how wildly my life had changed.

Something happened that year (2013): I started taking photographs with my mobile phone, and in 2015, I got myself a camera.

I am now 36. I sold that flat on a whim (it was a manic episode, my doctor would tell me years later), I got married, then divorced, I got diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and I quit advertising. And... My photography was featured in British Journal of Photography last month and at the end of this year, my work will be exhibited at a museum.

Thinking back, photography wasn't even a thing in my life in 2013. Oh man, what a life I've had.
posted by cihan at 12:09 PM on October 10, 2022 [32 favorites]


Wow, cihan, thank you for sharing with us. So nice to check out your website! Today has been a good day. I got some work done for my client (not a given with the ADHD). Fed myself decently. Walked a ways to the grocery store. Met a neighbour called Dragge (that's how it sounded to me, don't know how it is spelled) who I have seen zipping around in his wheelchair for the past year that I have lived here.

On my way to the store, I looked up from my patio after locking my front door and saw my neighbour looking at me so I waved at him and then headed to the store. I'm American, I couldn't help myself. Quickly after that, he came zooming up next to me on the sidewalk. Was I born in Sweden? Nope, in the US. Why would I move from the US? To be near my kid and grandchildren. But Swedes don't care about family (instead oldish person rant against annoying adopted culture here, including the fact that the Swedes he knew never invited him over for coffee).

After a bit, I introduced myself and asked his name. Dragge (or something like that) he said, but they call me Daniel. Nice to meet you, Dragge, I said. I have to get to the store now. As I passed him, he asked me something. Pears? Did you ask me if I like pears? Indeed, that is exactly what Dragge asked me. I said yes, we said goodbye, and then he zipped around me and drove his chair like a speed demon off into the distance. Came home, had dinner, then the doorbell range. It was Dragge with his chair's basket filled with pears. A Swedish friend of his has a tree and gives him tons of pears every year.

Now, I don't know anything about this guy, except that he is from Serbia and obviously lonely. That doesn't make him suspect in my eyes. I'm not convinced he'll be invited over to my place for coffee any time soon but I will probably make something with the big bag of free pears and take some over to him.
posted by Bella Donna at 12:31 PM on October 10, 2022 [15 favorites]


Pears? Let's talk Pears.

When I was little my dad owned a couple of pieces of land just north of Kansas City, MO.

Had a house where he had lived before he married my mom, and then about a half mile away, a chunk of land that was mostly a large pond. (He was a fisherman person).

But up by the property line above the lake was a row of pear trees. One year, we decided to pick them. I wasn't a huge pear fan at the time, but omg. These were the best pears I have ever eaten...

He eventually sold the places, and they got bulldozed to make a subdivision. Can't even remember where it might have been when I have been back in KC. I always try. You go past what used to be the Southwestern Bell building, and then in an exit or two or three...? Bummer

But to lighten things up a bit.
My wife mostly grew up in southern oregon, and her parents have lived there since the 60s, so have spent a ton of time there. I listen to the radio a lot. Pears and other fresh fruit are big in the Rogue Valley, (or used to be). So I am driving, and an ad comes on the radio. A man and a woman singing:

"
The Time is Right,
The Time is Right,
The Time is Right for...
"

"pears"

Which is voiced in the most obviously dubbed in line you can imagine. No emotion, no singing. Just "pears"

Pretty sure I remember hearing it another time when it was some other fruit.
posted by Windopaene at 1:46 PM on October 10, 2022 [9 favorites]


Windopaene, every part of that was great. Thank you!
posted by Bella Donna at 2:16 PM on October 10, 2022 [2 favorites]


Why is today technically a holiday, but without a day off? Hey, Juneteeth now gives us a day off.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:35 PM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]


Last week I had just fallen ill with something. Turns out it was covid, still working on getting out from under that. I think I've had a pretty mild case of it, but still wipes you out and I'd rather not have it. Has cut into my life, such as it is, and that's annoying for sure. Still not clear on where I got it. Anyway, Mr. Dog has been most patient with his walks being cut from 5 miles a day to 2.

Also, I bought The Mummy 2 based on how much I enjoyed the original, and...it was pretty bad. NO ONE likes little kid protagonists. I swear they left them out of the trailer completely. Plus Brenden and Rachel mucho annoying as established couple vs. wooing one another in original film. Not recommended.
posted by maxwelton at 3:38 PM on October 10, 2022 [2 favorites]


On the one hand, I had a series of joint "this is so bad, it's hilarious" academic experiences this morning. On the other hand, an article I sent out a few months ago came back with "accepted with minor changes," so that makes up for quite a lot.
posted by thomas j wise at 3:38 PM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]


Can't update the original thread, but the pedo database story made This American Life this week.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:43 PM on October 10, 2022


The other day, I found “a dice game,” I innocently thought, in a drawer in dad’s former shop.
The block of foam padding that held the dice in place inside the little book cover had almost completely disintegrated, so I cleaned up the dice and the vinyl cover, and got the few bits of old foam and glue off the book, and a little trip to boardgamegeek showed me that what I had found was the 1968 edition of the symbolic logic teaching game, “WFF ‘N PROOF.”

Dunno if I will ever play it, and neither do I know if the remaining pieces are in good enough condition to make it a collector’s item. I’m thinking about cutting a new piece of (less volatile) foam and putting it all back together.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 3:53 PM on October 10, 2022 [3 favorites]


Wffnproof! I played that with my dad as a kid. Sweet.
posted by clew at 4:39 PM on October 10, 2022 [2 favorites]




neat cool groovy and free?

How about cool and green and shady?
posted by hippybear at 5:29 PM on October 10, 2022 [2 favorites]


Big news of the day is the arrival of a batch of late season kittens for us to foster. There were six, but two of them were adopted by people local to their neighborhood, so we only are fostering four. They're about 8 weeks, which is near the ideal time. Two black, one tabby, one black-and-white, although I'm taking the descriptions on faith because I didn't get a personal close look at them, they were already tucked in the back of the kennel eyeing us suspiciously by the time I got to meet them. They're all freaked out now but I'm sure they will loosen up fast.
posted by notoriety public at 6:09 PM on October 10, 2022 [6 favorites]


Yesterday, I asked a question on a reddit group for autistic women. I asked whether people agree that we're seeing an increase in the number of people realising that they are autistic, because of their experience during the pandemic. That's what happened to me.

Wow, the answers I got!

It's quite something to read about everyone's experiences.
posted by Zumbador at 9:16 PM on October 10, 2022 [6 favorites]


Sometimes I go to bed and just lay there for six hours thinking until something inside just clicks and I'm done laying down. Then I wonder if I even slept. Then I go back through my chain of thoughts and "OMG WTH was I thinking" and realize that I very likely did sleep and that was a dream. I have whole theories about dream mechanics. But it's not an easy path, I've just had many years of going to sleep when I'm tired and waking up when I wake up so it often just blends together. I sorta only know I've slept because some thoughts are weird enough (even for me) that they must be dreams.

+++

Continuing on a theme... this week's FanFare was Space Camp. I have a story about Space Camp that's not quite suitable for FanFare cinema nerds.

Probably the last night or second to last night the Resident Administrator (RA, probably some college student with a summer job herding kids that I had a bit of a crush on (go figure)) came busting into the apartment and was a bit under stress. It's like 11pm and she's been looking for me for the past hour. I'm sitting on the couch with a girl in nightgowns or pajamas on either side, another is in the shower and the other one has gone to bed. We're eating cold pizza and chips and dip and drinking sodas while watching TV.

There had been an "end of camp" party in that dorm apartment earlier in the evening. All the other boys had eaten their fill and left and didn't drag me along. I didn't notice. The girls didn't kick me out. We were just chilling and eating leftovers.

I am both a year younger than the rest, only son of only son, grew up with sisters and their girl friends and aunts and grandmothers. I'm guessing I was like the not obnoxious little brother, I'm surprised they didn't try painting my toenails or something. Fourteen year old boys... I don't understand them, they're still rather stupid. Fourteen year old girls, much easier to hang out with.

That dear reader is one of the reasons I have more stories involving girls than boys, like 90% of my friends have been girls/women. I just have fewer guy stories except from roommates or coworkers. Except for a handful. Probably way more estrogen than testosterone during my formative years.

Maybe I'll tell a guy story later, it involves both not getting caught and wondering if we'd Biden's simple possession pardons.
posted by zengargoyle at 9:39 PM on October 10, 2022 [3 favorites]


That's an amazing thread, Zumbador.
posted by brambleboy at 9:52 PM on October 10, 2022 [2 favorites]


. It does not seem likely I will be able to go back in there to get My Documents (this might be bad). Or passwords, or bookmarks. But I think Google may have my passwords.

If it becomes a problem it is pretty straight forward to put a hard drive into an USB enclosure which can then be used like a big thumb drive.
posted by Mitheral at 4:05 AM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]


Then I wonder if I even slept. Then I go back through my chain of thoughts and "OMG WTH was I thinking" and realize that I very likely did sleep and that was a dream

zengargoyle, for me, the line between dreaming and consciousness has been an interest of mine as of late. There is the idea that everything we experience and interpret while awake is not much different than that which we experience in a dream because both are creations of our mind. I like the Tim Freke podcast, and his books. Some may think he's pushing it but he really does break down his philosophy in a way that is non-spiritual and non-religious about existential topics.
posted by waving at 6:34 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]


I knew that Trump was saying various other presidents had kept classified documents... I had not seen the actual quotes. Here's what he said about Obama's records:

Trump: "[Obama] moved more than 20 truckloads, over 33 million pages of documents, both classified and unclassified, to a poorly built and totally unsafe former furniture store located in a rather bad neighborhood in Chicago.”

And here, I thought I lived in a suburb people use as a shorthand for bougieness.

And here's the building. It's across the street from a Mariano's Fresh Market with a sushi bar.

It's a gated, guarded, stone and brick building with two foot thick walls, administered by NARA.

Not that this is news to anyone here that Trump is full of shit, but he's never lied about like, the specific area I live in before.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:04 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]




(quick note that I think the free threads are supposed to also be political-talk free?)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:22 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]


Sorry. To my eyes, that was strictly comedy. It involved a political figure, but it's just silly. No skin off my back if that gets deleted, though.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:24 AM on October 11, 2022 [3 favorites]


Respecting my kid's privacy, so I can't post a photo, but DOT Jr's hair is green now and he looks cool as shit.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:44 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]


I keep wanting to do my beard green. I'm just a tiny bit too chickenshit to do it.
posted by hippybear at 1:28 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]


I also apologize, only posted for sheer ridiculousness of it all. Mods, delete me.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:30 PM on October 11, 2022


Here's a beard thought...

I went with a silly shave yesterday, but could have gone so much sillier...

How about the "neck-hawk"? Right down over the adam's apple. Nothing much else, just that strip. So fun.
posted by Windopaene at 1:49 PM on October 11, 2022


I'm gonna grow out the hair on my cheeks, just above where a typical beard would be.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:54 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]


That is an awesome idea I have never considered. That would be fun as fuck.
posted by Windopaene at 1:58 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]


I was kidding, but you go on, king.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:07 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]


Then I wonder if I even slept. Then I go back through my chain of thoughts and "OMG WTH was I thinking" and realize that I very likely did sleep and that was a dream

I went to bed quite unsettled and upset after finishing the Ken Burns US and the Holocaust series, and drifted along failing to sleep for ages while listening to a podcast ...until I found myself surveying my bookshelf for a few good titles to take into my bomb shelter for the imminent nuclear strike. By the time I realized I'd been dreaming I was more preoccupied with how the dream about nuclear destruction was completely devoid of stress.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:38 PM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]


I guess at that point it's too late to stress; nothing left to do but shrug, put you head down between your knees, and kiss your ass goodbye...
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:08 PM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]


I'M Onderdonk
posted by biffa at 4:12 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]


Haiku for a slightly scatterbrained friend:

Brain like dragonfly
Flits zig-zag through the azure
Alights just briefly
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:40 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]


I went to local courthouse today to submit paperwork for a name and gender change. Walk up to a self-serve kiosk, wander through the menus on two different computers trying to figure out how to find the option that this falls under, eventually find my way into a "no, this isn't it.. no, this isn't it.." situation and get a default category. Walk up to window, hand over forms, pay ~$125. Now I wait 4-6 weeks, after which I can do the SSN changes (which take about 2 weeks), and then I can update my info at work, passport, etc. Hopefully all more-or-less sorted by Jan 1.

Courthouse part took maybe 15 minutes.

I feel so extraordinarily lucky I live in a US state that makes this so easy, but also worried about the future and possible repercussions with government changes. Still, I've been fighting tears all day, just generally overwhelmed with the enormity of the thing.

What a fucking pandemic its been.
posted by curious nu at 6:10 PM on October 11, 2022 [14 favorites]


curious nu, i am cheering so loud for you!
posted by mochapickle at 6:13 PM on October 11, 2022 [3 favorites]


Congratulations curious nu!!
posted by mumimor at 10:15 PM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]


Love to you, curious nu! ❤️🌅
posted by taz at 12:58 AM on October 12, 2022 [2 favorites]


🎊🎉❤️😍🎉 congratulations curious nu! that's so awesome.
posted by Zumbador at 1:08 AM on October 12, 2022 [2 favorites]


Okay, so can anyone explain this to me: I keep seeing these really simple math or logic questions posted on Twitter as though they are sooooo puzzling, and then they have like 600 comments, usually with mostly wrong answers. Whyyyyyyyy? Here's the latest I noticed. (I'd like to say that this is the most ridiculously simple so far, but I saw one with long drawn out arguments over something like "2+3.")

What is going on there? Is everyone in on it as a big joke, or
posted by taz at 2:54 AM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


Years ago, I was pouring out my excited heart to my hugely sympathetic Mum about some victory or another, real or imagined it matters not - I was happy. The phone rang. It was one of my sisters who poured out her sadness to the same equally attentive and listening Mum. When sis was done, Mum returned to me as engaged as ever. I learnt then and there that 'unalloyed joy' is unlikely in any world of more than just me. The challenge is to treasure your moment of happiness and let it live and breathe alongside sadness, to fold and hold both inside. Easier said than done.

I woke today bouncing with joy - life is good, healthy eating is rewarding me, lots of exercise too, pranayama breathing exercises, meditation and qi gong - threads in a fine weave of bliss and happiness. I popped out the front door to put the bins out while the kettle boiled for the first cuppa of the day.

The man had his back to me, shoulders slumped, stood still, going nowhere in front of the garden gate. I nearly skittled him in my exuberance and didn't recognise him. It was a neighbour from a few doors down. I don't know him well - I haven't seen much of him or his wife over the covid years.... seemed a decent bloke, quiet, with a busy active family, 2 university age lads, his wife always up and about, a young 50 ish attractive woman, cycling off someplace or cycling back. Not anymore.

It wasn't covid. She had developed some mysterious untreatable illness that left her racked, half out of her mind with pain. Friday night was awful, black cold, wind and rain. She slipped out of the house in the small hours got her bike and cycled off into the night. They found her 3 days later on the rail tracks. She left a card and her wedding ring on the window sill. He muttered something about funeral arrangements. I don't know what. I'll ask another neighbour later. I hugged him close. I didn't know what to say or what to do. "May you know the peace she knows now" came out of my mouth. I know because he looked me in the eye for the first time, broke free, turned and walked off. What a look. Where was he?

I went in. Still in. That was 2 hours ago. His sadness is in every pore of my body. I'm sitting with it. Incomprehensible. Terrible. And somehow so human so much part of who we are and what we face. Can I fold it into the mix that is me? Like the recipes say.... Not yet. It's a full eclipse of the sun. All darkness now but I know that the sun is still there. I hope he will too one day.
posted by dutchrick at 4:09 AM on October 12, 2022 [7 favorites]


Is everyone in on it as a big joke

No. Basic numeracy really is going backwards that fast as tech in general and Twitter in particular continues to strip-mine every last scrap of attention to anything that doesn't induce instant outrage.
posted by flabdablet at 5:12 AM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


First, congratulations to curious nu! We are cheering you on. Oh my goodness, dutchrick, what a terrible experience for your poor neighbour, of course, but also terrible for you. If you can turn your face to the sun (or funny videos or anything that might give you a respite from this sadness), please do. It makes me so sad that you woke up today bouncing with joy and then slammed into the unyielding wall of this neighbour's tragedy. You were kind to listen and kind to hug him, I just hope you can pull yourself out of this dark place. I say that in part because I never wake up bouncing with joy. I hope you can find equanimity if you aren't there yet, and perhaps even joy again soon.

As I may have mentioned earlier, my youngest brother-in-law, the one with Lewey Bodies with dementia, had a stroke recently when I was out of town. I won't be able to see him until next week. He has lost the use of one hand, which is not nearly as terrible as the older loss of using his formerly excellent brain. Now, whenever something feels joyous or special to me, I think of my beloved relative and try to enjoy that moment in his honour as well as for myself. Like, I get that is probably stupid or hokey or something. But I am prone to taking shit for granted, when nothing at all that is good should be taken for granted.

Apologies if this ramble is too long. I have a fierce if entirely digital love for the MF community. Life is just too damn hard on some days. Virtual hugs to anyone who wants 'em.
posted by Bella Donna at 5:16 AM on October 12, 2022 [6 favorites]


These quizzes that anyone should be able to solve, they have to be just data harvesting. Then their algorithms break out the info, by what ever means they have, other data they have, you know what kind of site, the dominant age group, other inferred properties; and they sell the info to interested parties of all kinds.
posted by Oyéah at 7:37 AM on October 12, 2022


taz, it's definitely a joke of some kind.

Looking at the responses on the example you posted, when someone responded with the correct answer, they get told that they missed the joke.

There's something going on there that you're supposed to respond with "1000" and it seems to reflect on you somehow, if you don't.

But that's all I could figure out. I have no idea what the actual joke is 😐
posted by Zumbador at 8:39 AM on October 12, 2022


Something to do with this "bad math" meme maybe?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qXKr7_ldil0
posted by Zumbador at 8:48 AM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


These quizzes that anyone should be able to solve, they have to be just data harvesting. ... they sell the info to interested parties of all kinds.

Probably to manufacturers working out how much more they can bamboozle consumers with deceptive packaging and reduced product sizes/amounts, guesses this cynic.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:50 AM on October 12, 2022 [2 favorites]


TODAY'S SPECIAL: Buy this 1000-10 gram bag of dried beans for the price of just 988+2 grams!
posted by taz at 9:24 AM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


By Grabthar's Calculator, what a savings!
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:45 AM on October 12, 2022 [5 favorites]


I'm from Metafilter and I could overcount a bag of beans.
posted by flabdablet at 9:57 AM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


I guess at that point it's too late to stress; nothing left to do but shrug, put you head down between your knees, and kiss your ass goodbye...

It's horrible, I was "sick" the day of the Challenger disaster so I could stay with the grandparents and watch the launch. I wasn't sure if school would break out the TVs for the event. When it happened, I laughed hysterically. The next day my classmates were aghast at my mirth. They did not know of the kid who knew all about fighter pilots and test pilots and astronauts who had been writing NASA for years and building models and planning on trying to be a test pilot and then astronaut and history and strapping yourself on top of a controlled bomb hurtling you up into outer space. And when things go that bad (which is bound to happen sometime) you're dead. There is a very high risk element in riding a rocket.

I gave up on my plans when I found out I was too short to be a fighter pilot. They make those things for a certain range of body sizes, all eyesight and human factor stuff.

But I did *cough* get to fly a plane for a bit. My boss was taking flying lessons and this other guy at work had his license. We used to take three hour lunches. To the airport, in a plane, to another airport, lunch, fly back, go back to work. Other guy was racking up his hours of passenger carrying flights. Scores of flights sitting in the co-pilot seat. Flying around Disneyland at night to watch fireworks. And a bit of "here, take it through a turn and drop to this altitude". It's fun once you get used to it. I have this bit of fedora that I could probably take off and land a Cessna, I've watched it so many times. Or at least I'd be really easy to talk down, I know all the do-hickeys. But that was like thirty years ago.
posted by zengargoyle at 4:49 PM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


the Challenger disaster

The teacher on that flight, Christa McAuliffe, famously had blue eyes - One blue left, one blue right...

She was posthumously fired from her job, you know...yeah, she blew up in front of her class.

Turns out NASA stands for "Need Another Seven Astronauts".

(I lived in the Cape Canaveral area at the time; we all resorted to graveyard humor while trying to deal with the massive horror of the failed launch)
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:46 PM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


The Challenger crew survived the initial explosion, so not only are these jokes demeaning to brave and humble public servants (and the humor is jarringly out of touch nearly 40 years later), they are factually incorrect.
posted by mochapickle at 7:28 PM on October 12, 2022


mochapickle: Too soon!
posted by hippybear at 7:56 PM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


They are not demeaning to the people and family and friends who supported them because they fought and trained for who knows how long to catch their dream. It was a poor decision to launch as came out in the investigations. But the people of the crew fought long and hard tooth and nail to be the people on that crew. It's not a car crash or drunk driver or a stray bullet. It's more like a New Orleans Jazz Funeral celebration. They worked for their dream, it ended badly, still a good way to go. I have a feeling that if they were around somehow, they'd enjoy the dark humor, you don't sign up for dangerous things if you don't have that.

The same goes for things like skydiving, free climbing, race car driving, fire fighters. We do our best, but there are accepted dangers. Those that choose to do... know what might happen.

Do not mourn those who reached for their dreams, be joyful that they did.
posted by zengargoyle at 8:16 PM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


Naw, man, I laughed at those jokes in 1986 like everyone else (I was ten!) but it's a true turd-in-punchbowl move in a GOOD VIBES open thread. I mean honestly, wtf Greg_Ace.
posted by mochapickle at 8:17 PM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


Hey, here's a thing: post your own GOOD VIBE thing to change the vibe you don't like! It's pretty simple, you just post your own good vibe thing to counter what you think is a bad vibe.

If everyone keeps trying to top each other's good vibes, I don't see a loser in that situation.

I have a dark sense of humor, so I might not always succeed at this.
posted by hippybear at 8:35 PM on October 12, 2022


I was (and still am) an ardent follower of the space program, and I was just as devastated by the Challenger and Columbia disasters as everyone else. My admiration for those people isn't diminished by any jokes I might make.

Laughing at death doesn't automatically imply cruelty or callousness toward tragedy and anguish. I know dark humor isn't for everyone but it's helpful and sustaining to others. While I don't expect everyone to share my sense humor, I do not apologize for it.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:46 PM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


Greg_Ace, if you created a post about how people use dark humor to navigate and reconcile our connections and reactions to prominent tragedies, and even if you gave those jokes as example, I'd probably check it out. I'd also probably duck out if the thread itself turned entirely too ghoulish but honestly, to each their own.

My point is that maybe you should read the room before you jump in feet first, turds blazing.
posted by mochapickle at 9:12 PM on October 12, 2022


Nah, blame me. I started the whole Space Camp thing.

A better story...

Once upon a time (1992 when I was 22) I was having trouble making the rent on my studio apartment. The university area slum lord was all like apartment across the street they can use a roommate. That's when I met 'blah blah blah the III" and I went hey like "blah blah blah the blah blah blat" and he wen OMG fucking yes, forget about it. His grandfather is sorta woo/occult/esoteric famous and he hates the crazies.

He's a stoner hippy dude. And he has this Australian Sheppard named 'Jude' (yes, Beatles 'Hey Jude') and she's smart as fuck. I was tending to a friends cat at the time, "Hey Jude, go fetch the cat." out she goes and five minutes later the cat comes screaming back inside and Jude had this "Jude did good job, play ball now?" One doesn't casually mention either of the words 'ball' or 'frisbee' around her. Balls were like six tennis balls that were tossed into the parking lot next door and she would dutifully bring them all back one by one and look at you "throw balls again". Frisbee was "Hey Jude, frisbee?" and a leash and a skateboard and she drags you to the throw frisbee place. Jude is a chick magnet BTW. Then it's finally time for "Hey Jude, let's go home" and another skateboard ride.

Back to blah. He ran an Adult BBS out of the room. Once I lent him my car because he was going out for a three-way hookup of some sort (didn't ask). He didn't come back for three days (not lending him my car again).

Then blah was like "want to take a road trip to visit my mom and pick up some weed?" Yay road trip! So we drove from LA to Texas and crashed with his mom. That 'cookie' tin that's never cookies and is usually a sewing kit... nope, full of weed. Then we went to visit his father 'blah blah blah the II" in this giant warehouse with this fascinating roller coaster like thing (it was a test bed for an airport automated baggage handing facility). Then back to mom's place.

Then blah went out with old friends to get some weed, that was the mission after all. He came back with *five* pounds/kilos (Archer joke) of full on packaged up drug smuggler weed. OMG what have I gotten myself into.

We stuffed that weed up under the dashboard of my car and carefully headed back to LA. Along the way in like New Mexico or Arizona (it was the desert) we stopped at a Grateful Dead show. Fished out one of those bags of weed and cut it open and traded for tickets and walked around with "a bunch of weed". First and only Dead show I ever went to.

About halfway through across the desert there were dark storm clouds brewing. By the time they got to the extended solo bits the wind was all swirling around like mad and a bit later it started to drizzle. Luckily the show was pretty much over, we were all wet by the time we made it back to the car.

Then we continued back to LA with almost five pounds/kilos of weed.

At some point earlier I had introduced (lol) my wife-not-wife to blah. She was like "hey! blah!", they had slept together during freshman orientation (not even a surprise, just coincidences follow me around like that).

I left shortly after that, off to Topeka to crash with an old friend and find a job. Got blah to send my some LSD once. I also (sorta sadly mistake) left blah my buff assed Amiga because there was no room in the car for it.

The other two guys in that apartment were how shall we say it First Gulf War Jarheads. They had this spent anti-tank missile launching tube that was lot's of fun, simple instructions. Extend tube, release sight, cock, aim, remove safety, pull trigger. I don't actually remember their names. Just blah and jude.

I wonder if five pounds/kilos of weed counts as simple possession..... lol
posted by zengargoyle at 9:12 PM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


I can not believe it. I am sixty years old (thank you, thank you) and I just spontaneously discovered a new way to position my tits in my bra that is both more comfortable and more boobylicious. Life is full of surprises.
posted by Thella at 1:06 AM on October 13, 2022 [8 favorites]


So I was at a meeting where the atmosphere was kind of tense, I don't know why, though I was somehow part of the tension.

Then a text message comes in: MAMA COME HOME NOW. (Child is not a child, 24 years old).
It turns out the dog was sick, after having stolen something we don't know what was yesterday when I was at work till nine.
I instantly used the message as an excuse to get out of tense meeting.

When I finally came home, child had grown up, and told me to take the dog for a walk while they washed the floor. Very rapid development, I must say.

While walking the dog for an hour and a half, I called a colleague and we sorted out the tensions. Finally the dog felt better, I felt better, we had a business plan and I didn't have to go to the vet.

Lemons to lemonade all the way through.
posted by mumimor at 6:00 AM on October 13, 2022 [2 favorites]


...There's more than one way to position your boobs in your bra?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:02 AM on October 13, 2022 [1 favorite]


Okay, here's a thing.

After reading zumbador's excellent comment above about late diagnosis of autism, I was curious what the symptoms even are that you would look at for autism in adults. The first Google result I found was an "Am I autistic?" quiz, so I took it. It said I was probably autistic. Huh. I took four more quizzes. They all said I was probably autistic. I had my partner answer the questions from a quiz as me, not telling her what it was for. It said I was probably autistic.

So that's interesting, and something I will need to speak to some professionals about.

In the meantime, I pinged zumbador about this and they were kind enough to send me some links, so I'm working through those.

Quote from my partner: "The surest sign that you are probably autistic is the grim certainty I have that you will research this obsessively and it will be the primary thing you talk about for like three months."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:12 AM on October 13, 2022 [7 favorites]


I am both a year younger than the rest, only son of only son, grew up with sisters and their girl friends and aunts and grandmothers. I'm guessing I was like the not obnoxious little brother,

This is kind of me as well; in my mom’s side of the family, my great-grandmother (i.e. my mother’s mother’s mother) had only daughters, and they had only daughters, and they had — with the exception of me — only daughters, and all those cousins of mine have had only daughters. I am the first and only boy born in the family since, oooh, 1850 or so. Pretty much from adolescence to this day, all of my closest friends have been women.

I’ve been married twice and I didn’t even look for a best man for wedding #2. I just asked my closest friend to my best person, and she agreed. (At wedding #1, I did have a best man; he subsequently became ever more assholesque as he has aged and I barely speak to him at all anymore.)

—-

I was thinking today about how public faces of public figures can be pretty far removed from who they actually are. We can all think of examples of actors and musicians and directors and politicians who have turned out to be horrible people. What occasioned my thought today was not anyone especially famous: if I mentioned the name, I’d be surprised if one reader in ten thousand recognized the name.

From some peripheral involvement with the music scene in Canada for thirty years, I count a few minor legends in my circle of friends and friends of friends. Most seem great from my dealings with them. One... well, he’s incredibly talented and while not a racist or sexist so far as I can tell, boy oh boy does he take a lot of pride in being a “critical thinker.” We have been connected on social media for a decade or more. It used to be open musing about shaped charges in WTC Building 7. Now he is full on antivaxxer/microchips/imminent New World Order.

Once every month — like today — he reappears on my page with a link to vaccinetruthnow.ru or something, and I sigh and snooze him for another thirty days.

Don’t meet your heroes.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:09 PM on October 13, 2022 [1 favorite]


The other thing about those simple quizzes, or questions, ie, what was your family's first car, what was the name of your first pet, half the time they are classic security questions, which people give the answers to, on a public page. The other thing is you replying,then creates a facebook conversation which looks like you posted it and the entire pyramid of your friends and their replies, builds beneath your reply. They make a lot of connections.
posted by Oyéah at 7:12 PM on October 13, 2022 [2 favorites]


As always, there's an apposite xkcd
posted by flabdablet at 8:48 PM on October 13, 2022 [1 favorite]


I was thinking today about how public faces of public figures can be pretty far removed from who they actually are. We can all think of examples of actors and musicians and directors and politicians who have turned out to be horrible people.

It's funny, just the other day I was talking with my sisters about how some public figures who appear to be really obnoxious are actually really nice in real life. Because that is a thing too. Maybe they have terrible politics or they have a job where they need to make the tough decisions, so they look bad in public. But in real life they aren't scared of being vulnerable and human (and for many of those I have met, the real life humanity gradually influences their originally horrible politics. Many people I know and like were libertarians or stalinists when they were 20, and they got over it).
posted by mumimor at 4:25 AM on October 14, 2022 [2 favorites]


Late response to this comment on WFF'n'Proof....

Me too! Back when I was but a weedy sprout with nerdly pretensions, relatives would seek out "educational"* toys & games as Christmas or birthday gifts. And one year someone gave me WFF'n'Proof. No one else around me was interested in playing it. I thumbed the manual a few times, but without a mentor or someone to play it with me, there wasn't any incentive to get into it solo. But I knew it was an Educational Game, intended to Improve Me, so I've hung onto it. For like 47 years.

And yes, my game's foam case disintegrated too. I've kept everything. I think I will store the bits in a biscuit tin or a purple Crown Royal bag.

WFF'n'Proof is a game that teaches symbolic logic. As it turns out, I later self-taught myself into a second career as a software developer, so maybe that kind of game wasn't far off the mark for me, or just by keeping it I learned by osmosis.

*another gift I received in the educational category was a 50-in-1 electronics lab set, and that led to my first career. It takes a village, etc
posted by Artful Codger at 8:40 AM on October 14, 2022 [4 favorites]


So after a long period of me feeling like my job has been full of small invitations to leave, I got an email via linkedin from an HR professional recruiting for a position with another organization, wondering if I might be interested. Why does responding with an indication that I'm willing to talk about it feel like I'm betraying someone?
posted by nubs at 8:49 AM on October 14, 2022


Why does responding with an indication that I'm willing to talk about it feel like I'm betraying someone?

Because you're the one that's making the decision to maybe leave. That's always the harder position - if you were fired or laid off, then the decision was taken out of your hands and you had no control over it. But if you make the choice yourself...it's your choice and so if it's a mistake it's your own fault, and that's a little bit of a mindfuck.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:53 AM on October 14, 2022 [3 favorites]


I agree, it's just that I haven't done anything yet beyond saying I'm open to having a conversation about a possibility of making a change!
posted by nubs at 10:49 AM on October 14, 2022


Because you've been brainwashed by the man, man.
posted by Bella Donna at 2:31 PM on October 14, 2022 [1 favorite]


For some random reason, I feel compelled to note that last week I had a dream in which 45 showed up (this is not political, I swear) and he claimed I owed him money. In more upbeat news, I successfully cared for my two oldest grandchildren between Wednesday afternoon and Thursday evening and no blood was shed.

The kids did take turns weeping and having meltdowns, which was somewhat demoralising because I was on deadline for a client plus was massively sleep deprived. The kids' parents recently got divorced and the 5-year-old had a cold, so it wasn't surprising that it was a day of contrasts. I was so proud of myself for not dissolving into tears myself, which I often did as the neural-atypical mom of a neural-atypical child. Al-Anon, therapy, and old age have somehow managed to make me more resilient than I use to be. I still weep buckets, of course, but so far not in front of the grandchildren. Which is good, because the oldest grandchild is parentified to a horrifying degree already. I spend half the time we are together reminding him to chill, it is not his job to take care of me or to boss his younger sister. That's my job!
posted by Bella Donna at 2:39 PM on October 14, 2022 [2 favorites]


Just for fun: Paul Newman's Fuck Hut.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:40 PM on October 14, 2022 [2 favorites]


Regarding Paul Newman's Fuck Hut, 10/10, would read again.
posted by Bella Donna at 2:43 PM on October 14, 2022


Two things I want after reading this thread:

WFF ‘N PROOF

Paul Newman's memoir
posted by taz at 9:30 AM on October 15, 2022 [1 favorite]


It looks like WFF ‘N PROOF might be still in print.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 10:15 AM on October 22, 2022


I just got an inexpensive copy of WffnProof used, too.
posted by clew at 10:19 AM on October 22, 2022


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