Thought Dump

The way to get around these STEM-obsessed idiots is just by calmly explaining that coding is nothing other than sowing in the 21st century. And like, sure, I'd like to know how to mend my clothes. But let's not pretend that it is some kind of secret elixir.

Are video games the only thing in this world that are constantly/consistently improving?

Wait, are they?

I mean, maybe objectively they are. But I don't want anything to do with whatever videogames are now. I liked them more when they were 8 bit Ninja Gaiden and Mega Man. Admittedly, I get that this is like me doing a weird contrarian bit, but I actually mean it. I ain't got time to lose myself in a universe... but I like videogames and it felt rad to beat Contra and not lose more than an hour out of my life.

^I absolutely identify with this post and yet I feel as though I'm able to see the other side of this for the first time and maybe this new perspective is so fresh and fun that I'm willing to betray my ideals. Or at least it's preferable to wallowing in the anti-Gamer sentiment that I've felt stuck in for the past 20 years. Because that is a battle I cannot win.

Or something.

Damn, is that a Mike Kinsella deep cut!

Harold Pinter. A buddy sent it to me and it blew my mind.

Lol, just realized the Kinsella connection.

Huge mental timeline inaccuracy : I cannot believe The Nightmare Before Christmas was a movie that people saw in a world where Cobain was still alive.

I volunteer for squid game.

Kill me now or give me something.

I’m so sad about human islands.

At least we have Simon & Garfunkel.

Does anyone here keep a journal?

The last time I did I was in my early 20s and all I remember using it for was to write about how miserable I was and how much I regretted all of my choices and how badly I wanted to be anywhere, doing anything else other than what I was foolishly stuck doing at the time. So I don't think it was particularly "good" or "healthy" or "helpful" for me at all. And I don't really know if I've matured enough since then for the results to be much better this time around. Or perhaps I have, but every last little bit of that youthful hopefulness is completely dead so I imagine it would quickly become a disturbingly grim object to bring into existence.

Maybe boarding took the place of writing in a journal/diary. Thank God social media didn't fill that void, I think I just barely escaped that, but you might say that even though I don't have my own account for that stuff, I'm balls deep in it anyway so what difference does it make.

I remember moving out of an apartment I had 15 years ago and I destroyed that journal page by page in the most elaborate, time-consuming fashion possible. That was silly but I don't regret it.

I started keeping a journal 4 years ago. Started it right after my mom passed away and felt for some reason like writing down emotions from the day, mundane happenings or things my kids were doing was a way to communicate with her.

It was actually great therapy for me and I still do it almost everyday. Even if the only thing I write down is “my cat slept on my desk while I was working” I try to write something.

Whatever happened to John Mellencamp running for governor of Indiana? There was a window when he could've cinched that shit but instead he just... what did he even do this century aside from letting Bon Jovi steal his sound?

Even Mayor Pete could have taken it but he went straight for the top and now he's toast.

Why are there so many migrants who want to come to the USA across the Mexican border?

Does this indeed happen more often than it used to? Compared to 2 years ago/10 years ago/20 years ago?

If this IS happening more than ever, why? No one anywhere seems interested in discussing that in good faith.

I tried to have a conversation about immigration with my deeply religious, semi-right-wing-brainwashed, but genuinely decent Romanian teacher today. My "numbers and logistics are really really really big and difficult, which is why we just can't track every single person that comes in and force them to leave as soon as the visa expires" argument was not as good as it should have been. But even if I made a better go at it, I don't think it stood a chance. She quickly pivoted to "the police need to do a better job locating them and cracking down." I don't think she realizes that she would be and probably has literally been a target of the sort of prejudice that defines our country's entire police apparatus.

The fact that there are still people bound and determined to find a way, illegal or otherwise, into this destroyed sinking battleship makes me so damn depressed. I assume the reason is that the situation in south and central america is just so unimaginably horror show... but is this new?

I guess I didn't answer your question, I just asked it again. I guess nobody discusses anything in good faith with anybody who would debate the contrary on an issue where the contrary has been preemptively deemed evil? There is no more good faith debate, because the opposing sides of literally every argument have become mortal enemies incapable of rational discourse.

Am I the only one who is constantly baffled that… Donald Trump is allowed to exist, and Poochie died on the way back to his home planet.

I'm no expert on the topic but my understanding is that there is indeed an unusual number of people seeking asylum, and it's overwhelming our immigration court system. A lot of the people coming up are escaping poverty and persecution in Venezuela, which has been exacerbated by sanctions placed by the Trump administration. Of course, the only real reason it's a problem is that most of the migrants are in a limbo of being allowed to stay here but not allowed to work here, so they can't find a place to live. A fun fact is that in the last two years Chicago's received more refugees from Ukraine than South/Central America, but they A have an established community to settle in and B have a protected temporary status so they get to work and receive aid, which is why we aren't talking about them and they aren't sleeping on police station floors.

The fact that relatively few people know any of this and that on the whole we're not talking about it is a pretty strong indictment of our political discourse and our so-called biased liberal media.

I don't know what is happening in Venezuela or any other countries in the northern half of South America or what's happening in any of the countries in Central America. Maybe I ought to fucking find out???

Were we giving aid to some of these nations that was making a meaningful difference in combating poverty/propping up Democracy? Because I think a lot of that was cut during Trump's presidency. If it wasn't then I'd be surprised to find out because he talked a lot of shit about cutting it out altogether and I don't think anything was ever stopping him from doing so!

I would love to find out how much money we were sending to these countries in the past vs. how expensive it is to house tens (hundreds?) of thousands of migrants and process them through our systems and also sustain all of their basic needs instead of allowing them to work to support themselves.

I might as well have written post #666 of this thread on my own (not word for word but the general gist of it). Beyond admitting that, I don't know if it's safe to discuss in any public-facing portion of this board.

Spoiler:

I think the US government has historically supported or provided aid to Cental/South American democracies that install a leader that supports whatever goal someone like the CIA are trying to accomplish. Helping to eliminate poverty is not a priority.

But yea, I’d love for our liberal media to help us understand if all those kids in cages at the border have been freed and whether those cages have been dismantled. Weird that went unfollowed up on…

undo wrote:I might as well have written post #666 of this thread on my own (not word for word but the general gist of it). Beyond admitting that, I don't know if it's safe to discuss in any public-facing portion of this board.

Spoiler:

I guess a better way to frame that post would be to say that…
Like 2% of fiction is based on “let’s go back in time to kill Hitler,” but we stand at a point in history where we have the option to just not elect our Hitler, so people should make the smart choice come election time so that future generations of writers aren’t reduced to hackery.

But yeah, I’ll never own a murder weapon either. Fuck that shit.

Nick wrote:I think the US government has historically supported or provided aid to Cental/South American democracies that install a leader that supports whatever goal someone like the CIA are trying to accomplish. Helping to eliminate poverty is not a priority.

Yeah I'm not assuming that the US government would try to "fight poverty" in another country (or here at home, lol!) because it was "the right thing to do" but because the calculated costs and ripple effects of not doing it comes out as being more costly in whatever timeframe they want to frame it in.

This is probably the ultimate status quo Lib mindset but, like, as cynical as that is that's the least I expect of them! And if we're not doing that then we're just cutting off our nose to spite our face

When the Shredder says "Tonight I dine on Turtle Soup"

was he being serious or just talking shit to them and/or the viewer?

Would he eat them?

Does he know that the soup has just as much human in it as it's got turtle?

undo wrote:When the Shredder says "Tonight I dine on Turtle Soup"

I’m no expert, but I’m a very interested observer and I care about this world.

was he being serious or just talking shit to them and/or the viewer?
Gut feeling? Just talking shit. It was likely just a metaphor for killing and/or dominating/torturing/eventually killing his enemies.

Would he eat them?
Maybe!? I mean, the Shredder was fucking ruthless, so I wouldn’t put it past him. If Super Shredder from the end of Secret of the Ooze had uttered this phrase, I have no doubt that he’d have meant it literally.

Does he know that the soup has just as much human in it as it's got turtle?
But does it?
And does he think it does?

When a human turtle hybrid mutant happens… does the resultant creature have new dna? In other words, is ninja turtle soup just soup filled with equal parts turtle and human? Or is it soup with a completely different being - ninja turtle - as its meaty ingredient? And if so, how much difference does that make? To a guy like me? None. Ninja Turtles have proven to be thinking, sentient beings on the level of humans (no way in hell I’d even eat an orca or a gorilla without having a crisis of “cannibalism”). But to Shredder? I don’t know!
Like… maybe a jerk would eat an orca. Or a discerning but white supremacist cannibal might eat a black dude? Or a white supremacist but differently discerning canibal might not eat a black dude due to what he imagines to be racial inferiority, and therefore he only eats like white, aryan-adjacent dudes?

If that mental wormhole had anything to do with Shredder, I think it got me to the point of realization that Shredder thinks of the turtles as inferior. To him? Definitely. To humans in general? Not sure. So whether or not he’d be ok with eating them? Again, unsure. But if he thought eating them would be a powerful and useful flex for whatever reason, no doubt he’d do it. Like, if he knew Splinter would see it, I bet he’d go for it just to destroy his former buddy turned nemesis.

Man, Ninja Turtles are rad as fuck. Like, god damn.

Those Michael Bay movies looked like the absolute worst kind of trash so I never saw them. The new animated movie looked like it might be fun, but even so, I didn’t feel like it was super “for me,” ya know?

Any of you dudes know of any TMNT content post-1990s worth seeking out? Videogames included although I promise not to play them until I’m either old or divorced.

Did you ever read the comics? I’ve heard they’re very good, although, admittedly, I haven’t read them myself.