Random Thought Thread

That sucks.

You remind me of me though. When I first arrived in Japan, due to some absolute bald-faced lies minor omissions by my new employer, I found that I had, well, not enough money by a long shot. For the first month I was here, I survived on:

(100yen-~$1 USD)
Breakfast: Cup noodle (100yen) one coffee cup of CC Lemon (a lemon soda soft drink with vitamin C. Keep reading, I was honestly concerned about scurvy.) 1.5L, 200yen (one week's worth).
Lunch: One six-inch-ish garlic french bread loaf from the local bakery (157 yen), one can of strawberry milk from the vending machine (100 yen)
Dinner: Water (included in rent)
Snack(s): Water

That was workdays. I had Wednesdays and Thursdays off at the time, and the local bar had half price drinks for foreigners on Wednesdays, so I would have three gin and tonics (250 yen each, 750 yen total) on Wednesday evenings. To ensure I didn't go over budget, and to maximize my bang for the buck, I didn't eat anything on Wednesdays though.

Thursdays was protein day, I'd spend 500yen on a fried chicken bento.

I didn't have access to a scale, but I lost 3-4 inches from my belt line in about 40 days, had to punch new holes when I ran out.

Now I'm overly fat and unhappy about it.

You will look back and laugh at this. It'll be a bitter, angry laugh, with a touch of incipient madness to it, but you'll laugh.

 

This is why God created credit cards. He was in the midst of a pay dispute with his clients during the creation of the universe (why do you think he took a day off?), so he created a restaurant (probably a Cracker Barrel) to eat at, and a credit card to pay them. Eventually he got around to creating banks, currencies, interest, and economies in general, and then he took another day off and spent it down at the pub because damn, economics is hard and boring. All this, by the way, is told in detail in Genesis (unabridged version).

Anyway, so much for advanced theology. Credit cards. Look into 'em.

 

Or she could just ask the federal government for food...right?

 

Two weeks into my stay here, I said "Fuck it, I'm going home," but at the time, Japanese travel agencies didn't accept (weird, I know, but...) credit cards, and I wasn't going to ask my family for a loan.

So many tiny decision points in my life...

 

You know you would do it too.

 

It's finally the weekend, time for

 

Hear, hear!

 

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait:

Tom Hardy was in Star Trek Nemesis?

 

I came home to the ranch yesterday evening and my parents took the family out to a nice dinner.

I bought braised boneless short ribs.

Then promptly consumed all the bread and my soup appetiser then took the main course to-go.

I can make a meal of that meat for at least two days. ♥︎♥︎(๑ᴖ◡ᴖ๑)♥︎♥︎

 

You all know where this joke is going.

 

True this:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/tomphillips/twitterstorm-2018?utm_term=.vsXogozN3#.knbdpdmX5

 

I'll just leave this here:

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/writing

 

I'm watching The End of the F***ing World on Netflix. It's delightfully cynical. The first episode ends in the two protags leaving a strangely American-looking* bit of suburbia in a stolen car. It's a strange bit of "mirror world" whenever a scene cuts to the inside of a right-hand drive car. It's all askew akilter.

* It takes place in the U.K., but it's a kindov' pine forest area which just isn't a landscape I associate with the U.K. It looks almost Pacific Northwest, tbh. And the homes look... North American. Overlarge on large plots of land.

 

Seen on Facebook:

 

Is there no end to human goofiness?

https://goatyoga.net/

 

No. I particularly liked the juxtaposition of goat yoga and wine tasting. The only things missing are the underwater jazz music and candlemaking. Put them all together and go on Shark Tank to raise a million dollars. Obviously, the nation is crying out for this!

 

Volunteer a couple of hours at a food bank, tell them your situation, show them your bank statement, and some will give you a bag of food in exchange for your time without your having to be referred by social services. I've never done it, so the rules may have changed, but that's how it worked for some of my friends.

This is how I survived for the first month I moved to L.A.:
When you spend, use cash instead of a card, and save the change. Never spend the coins. When you're broke, use the coins to go to the Farmer's market so you can buy 1 of something...an apple, one chicken leg, whatever you can get with the coins, which you'll have a few dollars worth of. Spend more of the coins on generic boxed macaroni and cheese or, if you can't afford a small milk to make the macaroni, ramen noodles. Macaroni and cheese can be made without butter. If sour cream is cheap, you can make it with that instead of milk and butter. When you have a little more money, add a can of tuna = stovetop tuna casserole. More money or having a friend to dinner? Splurge on a bag of frozen peas. Add 1/3 to your tuna mac, now you have peas to do something else with such as English pea salad with hard boiled eggs.

@Iain Aschendale is right. Someday you will look back on it and laugh rather than cringe...My job was in Beverly Hills at an "image" company, so no one could know how terribly broke I was. The employer I was originally supposed to be working for had skipped town without paying the employees, so I was scrambling.

 

If @NoGoodNobu is in the sitch I was, the credit cards are already maxed from moving and clothes for the new job.

 

So - and this only speaks to impression and association - that's not a landscape that I would think of as particularly U.K.ish.

Let me explain...

This isn't the U.K. that the U.K. Media Machine generally exports to the rest of Anglophonia. When I see films that are set in the U.K., they are set in 1) London, 2) Twee as Fuck little country town all dressed in tweed and set against rolling open green countryside, 3) Somewhere in The North where the economy is bad and lives are drab but there's that one person with a spark to them that says "fuck this two up two down colliery neighborhood!", 4) Primeval Magical Woodland Realm™ made of Oh So Magical Ancient Oaks, draped in mossy carpets of a violent green, ferns that knew the breath of Druids, shimmering with woodland birdsong and the promise of running into a unicorn or Merlin.

The image you posted above looks like Oregon or Washington State to my American eyes.

 

Preach!!!!

 

Oh Jesus. That guy. We fucking hate that guy.