Heretic. In theaters, I think opening weekend.

It was, BTW, absolutely fantastic. They absolutely nailed Mormon doctrine and dogma, as well as the practices of missionaries. I highly recommend it.

It’s been years since I had glög; I should make that again since it’s starting to get chilly.

Unfortunately, part of living in the US is that most people aren’t exposed to other languages to any significant degree. If you are a native American English speaker, and grow up in a large city, you might hear enough Spanish to learn it, but that’s about it. I learned Spanish in school, but there was no opportunity to practice until I moved to a large city close to the Mexican border.

I watch one season of some show in a language I don’t understand

I wish my brain worked that way; I’d be watching Finnish television and movies all day, every day.

I watch a fair number of shows in Swedish or Norwegian, and I’ve never picked up anything from what they’re saying. I always have to have subtitles.

The gun charge was a sham. Yes, lying on form 4473 (firearm transaction record) is a federal crime. It’s also one that has historically never been prosecuted on it’s own; it’s always used as part of another prosecution, such as bank robbery, conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, and so on. You can count the number of times where that’s been prosecuted on it’s own on the fingers of one hand, in part because it really doesn’t come to light unless you’re caught committing another crime while also possessing a firearm that you can’t legally have. The justice dept. was originally going to drop that charge altogether, until pressure was applied from the political right. (Also, maybe don’t write a memoir where you admit to crimes, unless you’re past the statute of limitation on those crimes.)

The tax charges were pretty legit though. Depending on sentencing guidelines–which are quite complicated–the odds are pretty good that he would have ended up with large fines and penalties, in addition to having to pay the back taxes with interest that he owed.

Dubya at least had a face of ‘compassionate’ conservatism, and believed in the rule of law. Yeah, he bent the law a lot, but he never outright broke it. He was incompetent–or, he was at least not up to the task of being a president–but not apparently malicious.

Pity that SCOTUS stepped in with the Florida recount, since it was eventually found that Gore should have won. I wonder where we’d be on climate change now if Gore had won? Oh well Florida, enjoy your flooding and hurricanes.

He allowed American Surveillance with Patriot Act I and II.

People at the time were begging for that. There were a very, very few civil libertarians that realized just how dangerous those acts would be, but the people, as a whole, were really behind them. Just like the people went in gung-ho for the start of GWoT.

He is essentially the ripple effect of everything we’re dealing with today and Trump is merely the symptom of that.

I’d put that at the feet of Reagan first. Reagan was the one that cozied up to the ‘moral majority’, which was based in racism and misogyny, what with Bob Jones University being forced to desegregate. That’s where the birth of the alt-right (which I guess is now just mainstream Republicans) happened.

Absolutely.

But the loss of the manufacturing base, and the subsequent decrease in number of people covered by labor unions, has been one of the single largest factors that’s harmed the middle class. It’s not the only thing, but a manufacturing base ends up being a pretty important part.

tariffs very rarely ever benefit the country establishing the tariff.

Well. It depends.

If tariffs are sustained, then it can make sense to establish domestic companies that can supply the goods that were previously being outsourced. In that respect, over the long term–and I’m talking, like 20-30+ years–it could be positive. One of the things that made the US economy strong in the 60s was the fact that we had strong labor, and strong manufacturing; outsourcing our manufacturing has harmed labor and the middle class.

But that’s all very long-term stuff. It’s taken us 40 years to get to where we are now, and bringing manufacturing, and strong unions, back can easily take just as long. In the short term, it’s going to be super-bad for the working poor and the middle class.

The point is to watch local craigslist, […]

Oh yes. I def. do that. :)

Good advice overall, thank you.

I have the table saw and router, I need to get a planer for sure. I’m currently looking for a used DeWalt 735/735x ($400 or so seems to be the mid-range price), and planning on replacing the HSS knives with a Shellix head. I have several combination squares, and a few carpenter squares; I’ll need at least one precision square. I hadn’t really thought of doing pinned tenons; a quick search seems to indicate that it’s mostly cosmetic at this point (e.g., Titebond 3 holds much better than hide glues). But I’ll add that to the list of maybes.

And yeah, lumber is def. going to be one of the expensive parts. While QS white oak is more traditional, I like the appearance of the wormy red oak that one of the yards near me stocks; there’s a nice contrasting appearance when you fill the worm holes.

How have you forgotten Remedy, with Alan Wake, Control, and Quantum Break?

I feel like Finland might be where I belong. If only I could realistically learn Suomi…

Lots of weirdly emo ballads, TBH. The metal is good, but it’s still pretty niche from what I understand.

It depends on what you’re doing with it.

I use it solely for Ace XR, which is a dry-fire simulator/tracker. Ace XR is available solely for Meta Quest (2 & 3), so I didn’t really have many options. Unfortunately, I’m currently rehabbing a serious injury, and I am unable to practice.

For gaming? Not really. I like the PSVR2 headset more for that; it’s a better headset overall. I’m still working on getting it set up to work with my PC though. As other people have said, getting corrective lenses for a headset really makes them more enjoyable if you need glasses; it’s a pain in the ass to have to put in contacts when I want to use VR. For the Meta Quest specifically, and upgraded head band and spare battery (that also acts like a counterweight) is very nice to have.

Third, divorce. You will find out who your real friends are when you get divorced.

When my ex- and I were going through a divorce, they didn’t want me to say anything publicly at all. They were insistent that it wasn’t anyone else’s business, and since I was trying to make the process as painless as possible, I assumed that this was a good-faith request.

I was wrong.

I was being silent, and they were telling everyone a load of horseshit about me, and bad-mouthing me in public to every single one of our mutual friends. I lost all but one of our mutual friends; my silence was assumed to be an admission of guilt.

Paul is 9-1, the one loss being a split decision, and 6 of the wins being knockouts. He’s inexperienced, but that doesn’t mean he’s not good.

I want to see Tyson knock him out in under ten seconds. But I don’t think I’ll get my wish.

Eh. I dunno. Tyson is in his 50s, and has a much shorter reach than Jake Paul. As much as I’d prefer to see him win, I don’t think that Tyson is gonna pull this off.

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Currently I recommend bupropion and atomoxetine, but once I get an appointment with a psychiatrist, I’ll probably recommend lisdexamphetamine.

Modafanil is pretty great too.

To paraphrase Nietzsche, that which doesn’t kill you psychologically scars you and leaves you with a lifetime of therapy bills.

According to Mormons, god is literally male, with (perfect) male genitalia. There is also a god–the-mother, who is female, and is both secret and sacred (they really don’t like talking about her), and also utterly subservient to god the father, because of course she is. According to Mormon theology, both gods were once mortal, and were raised up to godhood by their godly parents; Mormons–if they’re good enough–can go to Mormon super-heaven, where they will also become gods in their own right. Before everyone was born physically, they were born spiritually, in… More or less the same way babies are born now, except in heaven, to a heavenly mom. And there were hundreds of billions of spirit babies, so I guess that god the dad and god the mom really like sex or something? The implications start getting really, really weird, very fast. Which is part of the reason why Mormons don’t usually want to talk about stuff like this with people that aren’t Mormon.

I believe that the quote is, “As man is, so once was god. As god is, so man can become,” or something like that.

Source: was Mormon for >25 years.