MrShankles

Didn't realize Tim Burton was behind Big Fish. I enjoyed it, but it kinda grew on me more than anything

Nice

Same. I guess we were able to share it together though, so that's something!

Impossible... that would break some fundamental law of physics or something

I have mine stop at 80%, but it'd be cool if it would still show that as being 100% ... just to make my brain feel nicer about it

I'm an ICU nurse, and that first year of Covid felt like a warzone. I guarantee it traumatized almost all of us; we still talk about it amongst ourselves as if referring to the "dark times" or something. I would love to never experience that again if I could... it was terrifying and I was coming home to my wife who is immunocompromised.

Constant uncertainty and overwhelming levels of people dying in amounts that you're not ready for. In the first few months, people that were intubated (put on a ventilator, which we did quickly in the beginning) were effectively made a DNR. If they coded, we didn't even try to resuscitate them because we didn't have the protocols in place for performing advanced cpr, without infecting everyone

And it didn't seem to care about their age. A healthy 30 year old dies; A 55 year old, grossly overweight patient with multiple comorbidities, walks out after a week. A marathon runner now needs a heart transplant. A 80 year old just has the sniffles... and then a massive stroke. It was unpredictable and awful to watch

My wife and I both had covid for the first time just earlier this year... we managed to avoid it this long at least, when it's now not nearly as lethal (we were diligent and very lucky). So there's that. But yeah, that stuff definitely fucked some nurses up. But we're "healthcare heroes!" and sometimes get free pizza, so it's all good, we continue forth regardless.

I'm just ranting now, and rarely talk about it anymore. But I feel like it's good for people to still get an inside snippet sometimes. It's almost impossible to put into words, as is. Shit was wild

I've recently used YT more than I ever have in the past... and was surprised at some of the suggested content at first (like, why tf would you think I'm interested in that‽). And it was weird being able to almost "see" the algorithm and what it was trying to decipher about me (to offer more personally-relevant content of course!)

I started getting suggestions for click-bait shit at first, and if it got me for even a moment ('I wanna see what this is about'), the suggestions became even more brain-dead and polarized.

I had to actively choose to cut my curiosity off while mindlessly perusing... because apparently, if I want to watch bull-riding, that immediately means I want to see rage-bait bullshit about power-dynamics and diviciveness. It was a bit much, seeing in real-time how someone might be casually walked into an echo-chamber of self fulfilled crazy.

So I did end up encountering the surface layer of it, but now it's sliding back into my hobby-areas of interests. But it still pops shit up with AI generated images for videos (that never actually occurs in the video) with click-bait titles, and is inherently only used to induce "doom-scrolling" while increasing engagement. It's fucking disgusting, to put it bluntly.

I just wanna see how different drywall anchors work sometimes, I don't need to know how a "Navy Seal pwned a police officer that pulled them over (AI picture of a dude body slamming a cop)". Dumb shit

In my early years, I was offered ether once. And I've never seen nor heard from it since (granted, I never really tried to find it)... but it was probably one of the rarer substances I've crossed paths with

When I first read Fear and Loathing, that quote stuck out a bit for me. I could see it; how easy those depths could be found (and completely forgotten). I've done my fair share of Xanax-over-indulgence in the past, but even that didn't fully compare.

Xanax is over and done when you've lost yourself; there's no memory coming back. Ether keeps downing you while you're constantly coming back, and it becomes a hell of a rollercoaster. Like a fever-dream type thing — it is not something I could imagine publicly-indulging on... let alone, doing that while tripping, fucking hell!

So that quote rang a little true to me. I'd wager there really is nothing 'more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge', especially when compounding with other chemicals. I literally couldn't imagine... and kinda glad I never found out lol. God speed for anyone testing those waters

"Dubba-you" is my informal; "dubbya" if I'm throwing an exaggerated southern accent

I'm not sure I'll ever truly recover what "telephone" means... it's like a fleeting hazy picture, disappearing as I turn to look

I started watching the show because of the Star Trek memes around here lol. Turns out I was a fan all along, who just never watched it before. Now I've watched TOS and TNG, I'm over halfway through Voyager and Lower Decks as well, and will probably start throwing in some DS9 soon. It's good stuff, especially if you like sci-fi

I've heard smelling coffee beans can sometimes help when this happens; regarding the whole smell fatigue thing others have mentioned