No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.

What is your budget?

On The Art of Dice by the Roman emperor Claudius would be both trivial and fascinating, I’m sure.

Do you enjoy audiobooks? You can listen to pretty much anything and go for a hike.

I got pretty big into them a while back when I had an hour commute before podcasts were a big thing.

From Wikipedia:

In November 2024, following Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 United States presidential election and Elon Musk’s nomination as a co-executive of the proposed Department of Government Efficiency, Bluesky experienced a surge in new user registrations as people migrated from other social platforms, particularly Twitter. Many came from the United States, United Kingdom (where Bluesky had previously seen growth during the 2024 UK riots following Musk’s commentary), and Canada. The social app added over 4 million registered users in that week, becoming the most popular app in the US App Store and Play Store.

Oh yeah, Amarillo is a big city for the NI-coC. Abilene, too.

The us-or-them situation is exactly what they’re aiming for: isolated people are easier to control. But yeah, I’m not sure if it’s an intentional strategy or just what happened to work out for their purposes.

Well, I grew up in what is known as the non-institutional church of Christ. There are different branches of the coC, ranging from the relatively liberal to the downright draconian.

What made this particular branch of the coC “non-institutional” is that they are independent of each other congregation, so the leadership of each group is separate from every other.

The way it actually shakes out is that every congregation gets super deep into the weeds about arcane interpretations of an ancient text about which they are unqualified to explain while making overconfident proclamations of certainty. Other congregations disagree with a fairly minor point in this reading, and they will become effectively dead to each other. Ultimately, the different churches (they would hate me calling them that) would form a loose confederation across the region with various groups they could live in uneasy peace with.

Within the congregation itself was a religion that taught that the world is a wicked place from which we should set ourselves apart. Evolution was a lie spread by the devil to make us doubt God’s power. Women were not allowed to speak or wear pants during the church service. We did not use instruments to make music during the service, as that was not mentioned in the Bible. Any disagreement with doctrine could get one removed from good standing, and we left two churches (forced out, really) based on the Elders’ strict views on baptism and musical instruments: my father would not agree that immersion was strictly necessary to save one’s soul, or that it was sinful to exceed the Bible’s authority and use instruments.

It is a bit of a weird duck as a cult, but they’re extremely controlling, patriarchal, and reactionary. They’re in most towns, but people usually think they’re an offshoot of the Baptists (of which certain types also dip into cult status in my opinion). I’d place them between the Baptists and the Jehovah’s Witnesses on a fundamentalist belief scale. I think the BITE model is a useful one (but not perfect) for defining cults:

• Behavioral control
• Information control
• Thought control
• Emotional control

The coC did all of these things: they wanted members to live apart from society where only those in the church were acceptable social peers, to limit exposure with “subversive” ideas and science, to make people so afraid of going to hell that you’ll blindly accept the teachings. You were expected to attend every service: Sunday morning & night and Wednesday night.

In short, they wanted to control people’s lives by love-bombing newcomers and then suffocating them until they fit into their assigned tiny little box.

And yes, we were in the end times. Even though nobody knows when Jesus will return. Wink.

I feel equal parts pity and exasperation that they’re ignoring critical crises like global climate change to focus on superstitious nonsense.

I grew up in a cult, so my whole life.

Right? They were awesome.

Minestrone or Italian wedding soup are both pretty chunky.

I’m a man and I’d never date a Republican either.

A person’s politics are a reflection of their values: if they’re willing to identify themselves as someone who validates all that fascist shit, then I want nothing to do with them.

It’s crazy to me that this take is even remotely controversial.

Yamaha makes the best guitar for the money.

The instrument I probably play the most is a nylon string Yamaha with a great dual pickup/mic that I got for $100 at a pawn shop. It has some cosmetic wear, but that’s a bonus in my opinion.

“Female” is fine to use as an adjective.

It’s also fine to use as a noun when describing livestock, which is why it’s a red flag to describe women that way.

Get some canned chilis in adobo; that sauce adds a nice smoky flavor.

Also if you want to thicken it up, crumble some tortilla chips into it.

The cables are extra long so they have plenty of slack, too.

That’s depressingly common in modern times.

It’s easier if you live near a city with lots of people, but going to meetup.com or similar will show you lots of communities that are eager to get more people involved.

It is always easier to stay home so sometimes I need to make myself go out and be social, but consistency is key. Showing up every week to a meetup will root you in a community more that once every couple months.

Find an IRL community that means something to you. You have to feel like you belong somewhere, and people need a support group to help when they’re down. You can’t feel happy if you’re lonely.

I’d never seen this community before. Subscribed!

I’m terrible at keyboards, but I do like to play with 'em.

Yeah, there’s no use in speed-running Reddit.

Let’s make our own thing.