Some middle-aged guy on the Internet. Seen a lot of it, occasionally regurgitating it, trying to be amusing and informative.

Lurked Digg until v4. Commented on Reddit (same username) until it went full Musk.

Was on kbin.social (dying/dead) and kbin.run (mysteriously vanished). Now here on fedia.io.

Really hoping he hasn’t brought the jinx with him.

Other Adjectives: Neurodivergent; Nerd; Broken; British; Ally; Leftish

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 13th, 2024

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  • So, there was this TV experiment where they served soup to a well-known scientist*, but, with his agreement, they stirred it first with an unused - and I stress unused - toilet brush.

    He couldn’t bring himself to eat it.

    Metaphorically speaking, our world is full of amazing things but they’re all stirred by clean toilet brushes. Sometimes, it’s worse than that and they’re used.

    Do not want.

    * Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, he was later cancelled for being old and out of touch on women’s issues among other things, which is kind of an example of this same trope when you think about it. His opinions and reactions on soup and food disgust aren’t linked to any of that but you might be tempted to ignore the result because of it.

    But then, that puts him in the same category as Louis CK and that’s what I’m responding to. Food for thought.



  • The tale of the the one that got away.

    No really. This must have been early on in schooling, and we were colouring in - with wax crayons - a hen for Easter. We might even have drawn it in pencil beforehand, but I’m not sure about that.

    One of my friends was off sick that day and they asked me to colour one in for him and take it to him at home, since he lived near me.

    For his, I used a different red-brown crayon colour to the plain brown I’d used for my own and, perhaps because it was a second attempt, it looked ten times better.

    I wanted to keep it, but mine had my name on it and his had his. There was no way to switch them, and even at that age I knew it would have been a mean thing to do to give a sick friend the bad one. I don’t even know how much he appreciated it because it was never mentioned afterwards.

    Forty-plus years later, I’m still salty about it.







  • Never really have. Around 8 or 9, I stopped wanting to get any older and since then I’ve always felt like I was pretending to be my age rather than being it.

    I understand that a lot of other adults are also pretending, but I’ve all but ceased to be able to keep up the charade.

    For example, I own a house, and even managed to look after things for a while, but that was a struggle and there’s no way current me is up to any of that.

    I envy others’ strength and ability.



  • Another UK perspective here. When the decorations go up may depend on the weather and/or the mood of anyone in the house. Each household will have their own preferences and rules for that and everything else.

    Putting the decorations up in November is considered a bit soon, but I have some family precedent regarding that, and there was also something on the radio a few days ago about how particularly dreary weather has convinced a few people to get the Christmas tree and lights out early to brighten up the place.

    Some put them up at the start of December, but the sensible time is usually a couple of weekends before the big day.

    The superstition about taking them down again before Twelfth Night runs fairly strong here, but mostly because it’s “right” to take them down at that time rather than any courting of misfortune. (Or is it?)

    As for other traditions, that’s harder to pin down. You don’t know that what you’re doing might be unusual until you see other people’s perspectives. Everyone knows what a horse reindeer is… Right?

    Guarantees: Kids up at the crack of dawn ripping wrapping paper off presents. Someone will want to watch the King’s speech and someone else won’t. Someone will put on music that someone else doesn’t want to listen to.

    For the adults around me (and me), we generally wait until after a late breakfast on the day itself to exchange gifts. Then there might be some visiting out or receiving visitors. Visitors might stay for dinner which is mid-afternoon.

    Then it’s kids playing with gifts, adults reading any books they might have been bought, and finding something to watch on TV (or streaming or DVD etc.) that everyone can agree on.

    … and hoping beyond hope that nothing happens that isn’t going to make you dread Christmas next year.




  • I created an account on a Mastodon first. The Fediverse Tips account over there suggested KBin over Lemmy because of Lemmy’s tankie connection, and probably also because Kbin was a combination of Mastodon and link aggregator.

    To me, the Kbin interface was marginally preferable too.

    So I joined the original Kbin. But the dev / owner Ernest had to deal with real life. That instance died and the Kbin software was succeeded by Mbin.

    So I moved to kbin.run, which was actually an Mbin. But that mysteriously vanished when - I guess - the owner didn’t want to, or couldn’t afford to, er, run it any more.

    And now I’m on fedia.io.