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Yeah, happened to me back in about November. I got lucky and am unscathed. I treat ramen with due respect these days. Was it the semi-fancy Nongshim stuff that got you, too?

FTR, I'm not riffing or joking, I'm glad you're mostly okay because I have genuinely seen this happen firsthand (at a fair distance).

Naw, I'm fine with it.

I mean, okay, I tried something new and it WORKED but then it exploded.  This is better than when I cut off a chunk of my ear prepping burgers, because I was at least successful.

Well, after a fashion.  I have no idea where the ramen wound up.

Tried something.

What did you try?

I love this CIA woo-woo bullshit. It speaks to me very strongly.

Now that it's out in the open, I have a story to tell that a few have already heard:



As a kid, a woman I will call "E" met me through an online roleplaying community. We spoke for awhile, and then she introduced me to the idea of psionics. She gave me training and background in it, which was extremely formative for me, because my family basically abandoned me to my own devices from a very young age.

There was some non-woo weird shit here, though. She was easily in her late 20s, early 30s, and I was like... 12, 13. I asked her where she was at one point because she mentioned the sun not setting for awhile (she was tired, hadn't slept) and she said "Antarctica". And then, the event.

Later on, she learned I had lied to her and manipulated her, because I was a fucked up kid. And she cut ties (as you do), along with a threat to have me eliminated (as you MIGHT, MAYBE) if I contacted her again, along with a satellite photo of my apartment building (as you definitely didn't).

This was 2002, 2003-ish? The average person could not get satellite imagery of random residences then. They sure as shit would have a hard time finding someone's address on demand (I never told her), getting a satellite image in under an hour, and sending that to you on MSN Messenger. And it's weird that an older lady would take a kid under her wing and start explaining weird woo-woo shit in great detail, encouraging exercises, all this shit. Talking about different disciplines of psionics, making reference to concepts I still can't find sources for but which were developed enough not to be wholly made up by her.

And Antarctica is not a place a normal person lives for any length of time, though I admit lies are possible there. It also isn't a place the average person would think of lying about being in, since it's well known as an inhospitable place with no long term residents other than official figures and scientists. Far easier to talk about being somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Idaho, or in a major city.

The whole thing smells like CIA or some other intelligence group trying to find a deniable, no-cost way to continue their weird bullshit after it had been defunded. Never heard anyone give me another suitable explanation, because all the easy ones get fucked over by the introduction of the satellite photo.



Funny enough, I'm actually okay with the whole thing. It's a huge part of who I am today, and if I ever should meet "E" again without dying, I owe her a drink somewhere. I'd be a perverse, toxic little gnome of a woman, taking after my garbage family, if she hadn't intervened.

That is a hell of a story!

helloooo lovelies


I did it. I finally did it. Canada has become just like everywhere else.

???

What the fuck did you do to the timeline?

I made a boo-boo.

helloooo lovelies


I did it. I finally did it. Canada has become just like everywhere else.

And while I've been preoccupied with this, SCOTUS basically dismantled Roe v Wade.

They'll be after the Gays next.

Didn't take very fucking long.

Howdy EoC

He's just Ayn Rand with even less of a sense of humor.

The Anuguration is in, like, 30 minutes -- so I know I'm too late to predict anything

But I don't think the boogs are gonna be a threat today. I think the gross majority of the Stop the Steal crowd are aging boomers and deluded dupes who will hold a gun symbolically but aren't gonna take any initiative. Hell, look at the capitol riot - the majority got inside and then didn't know what the fuck to do. There was no plan.

Weirdly, the QAnon conspiracy almost seems to suppress action. QQ cultists are expecting that the real government is gonna arrest the "deep state". They don't have to do anything because the good guys are actually in power already.


looking back on the last few weeks of political drama -- it reminds me of the Sovereign Citizens movement, who think that these symbolic and ceremonial actions (like gold tassles on a flag, or stating your sovereignty) are where the power resides. As if Pence had any authority to read a name that's not written on the card he was handed. If it could happen to Steve Harvey, it could happen to America, right?

In retrospect it does seem like Q might have been a plan to keep dupes docile. "Trust the plan" is a very passive action to encourage over and over.

This thread is now about the American Southwest.

Seems hard to imagine.

Dammit.

It got so bad we have MAGA freaks north of the border now. Can I mail them back to you, please?

this wins the internet

Yeah I came back and searched his name on here after watching the same thing. Looks like we were one of the sites he tried to make it look like the video existed before it actually did. Creep.

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As a child, I believed that Canadians had no culture; presumably, I saw "culture" as the ways in which people from different countries acted differently, and since we all acted "normally", we therefore had no culture.


Gender identity seems...complicated.  Generalization based on abstraction is the basis of how humans think and communicate, so we like to put things in neat categories.  Naturally we want to put ourselves, and even other people into neat categories, even when this is nonsensical, or harmful.

I try to think in terms of continua, rather than binary classifications.  Cisexual/transexual isn't a thing; it's a range of things.

Please don't get triggered by my particular choice of nouns below; I don't think they match the standard lexicon, but they're what I've got to work with.  This general model has been lurking in my head for a while; if it's entirely wrong, and I am to be excoriated, then this forum is as good a place for it as any.
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1. Sex: < Male (0) ... Intersex(5) ... Female (10) >
This is the "physiological / biological" axis; essentially, are your chromosomes XX or XY, and how your plumbing is configured.  It's what you're born with.  It can be tweaked to an extent with hormones, and surgery can have an effect, but without the technology to completely rewrite a person's DNA, you're kinda stuck with this.

Arnold Schwarzenegger might score around 0.  I only have to shave 2 times a week, so I might be about a 2.  Consider that Schwarzenegger's use of steroids may have contributed to his score.

---
2. Gender: < Masculine (0) ... Neutral (5) ... Feminine (10) >
This is the "psychological / cultural" axis;  i.e., a person's gender identity within society.  People who are on opposite ends of the sex and gender axes often identify as trans.  A tomboy might be classified as "female / masculine".  Keep in mind this is a continuum, and knowing someone identifies as cis-female doesn't tell you whether they're a princess who would like to go pony riding, but is terrified she might break a nail (10), or a butch field entomologist who drinks whisky while watching sportsball (2).

I was mistaken for a girl periodically as a child; if you saw a picture, you'd understand why.  It still happens to me occasionally.  I wear my hair in a braid, and (during the winter) wear a long coat, both which are feminine markers around these parts.  Being only 5'7" doesn't help.  The mistake typically happens when a store clerk approaches me from behind.  It's partly annoying, partly amusing.

---
3.  Orientation: < Straight(0) ... Bi (5) ... Gay (10) >
This should be self explanatory.  One of my pet theories is that there are more people close to the middle of this axis than identify as such; "closeted bisexuals".
---


...no wait, I forgot about asexuality.  Let's add another axis to cover that.

And isn't axis 3 an oversimplification of orientation?  What if someone is sex-straight, but gender-bi?  What if I'd rather date the butch field entomologist?

Isn't making masculine / feminine a single axis terribly reductive? There are dozens of factors involved in gender within society, and a simple label doesn't begin to cover it.  How do we take into account gender roles that are reversed across different cultures?

Is that a skirt, or is it a kilt?

Wouldn't it be great if we could just let people be who they want, and dispense with labels altogether?  I'll have a side-order of World Peace, while you're at it.

Gender identity seems...complicated.

Yes, growing up in an a very average town in Canada, watching primarily American television (except in rare circumstances) and no noticeable ethnic traditions of my own family, I became obsessed with the USA because it seemed like "real life" - which I realize is counterintuitive.

Also, I also personally identify is No No Always, but rarely bring it up because decades ago I defaulted to an almost aggressively male "look" and am too lazy to change at this point. Me inside is very different from what I generally present outwards.

Great topic.