When I was in grad school I lived in an international student dorm where I was basically the only American. One day we had a party, and after a few drinks the Europeans started into this game they’ve all seemingly done a hundred times before where they started saying the most vile shit I’ve ever heard to each other while laughing. Like “OK, sure everyone in my country is drunk all the time, but it’s better than you guys letting in all those thieving gypsys!”

So they did a full round of about 20 people throwing the worst racism/nationalism I’ve ever come across in real life at each other, including absolutely dunking on the only black guy as if he was a representative for all africans, then like a hive mind they all turned to me and someone went “At least none of us are as racist as these Americans!” followed by uproarious laughter. I ask myself internally all the time if my behavior is problematic, but it seemed like these people never learned that skill but instead were taught “USA=racist, everyone else is good” and never questioned it or themselves.

For years this led me to privately think “Man, Europeans are way worse.” But then, you know, we elected Trump twice and the Klan came back dressed in camo.

TIL, thanks!

Damn, and I thought it was hard being a non-drinker in the US.

I hear assholes in muscle cars going by outside my window a few times a day, and their cars are so loud following traffic at like 30-40 mph. I would get it if they were racing or something, but if your car is doing just normal low-level driving why does it need to make so much noise?

It feels like if a person walked from one room to another while panting and gasping for air like they just did an intense sprint. I would be more likely to call an ambulance than hi-five them.

I can’t tell if this comic is trying to make the sports car guy or the tesla guy look good, either way I’m not vibing with it.

For me I just want a fast forward button. They have something they call fast forward, but it seeks instead.

It was as severe of a tone shift as a miscarriage in the middle of a Dora the Explorer episode. Also, iirc the artist wasn’t having a personal miscarriage drama in real life, he just suddenly wanted an edgier plot line for his unfunny comic, so people started making fun of him for it.

Now it’s just a pattern recognition joke.

Only music video from the pic I could place. Love half alive.

I’m also hung up on “Crypto is UBI”. Surely this is a one off crackpot quote and not a thing, right?

I guess a Bris fits under “any excuse to party”.

I said “Sortie” out loud for the first time the other day, and even though it was pronounced correctly I still interrupted my own story to repeat it with a look of disgust, thinking “Surely not!”

I spent over a decade thinking “God this sucks, but at least things will get better once the boomers die off.” The worst political blow of my life was realizing that the younger generation also lacked critical thinking skills.

I’m gonna have to turn to hunting down forum posts

The real strength of Linux is you can go on the forums and get a flood of enthusiastic help from people who know what they’re talking about, no matter how basic the problem. Every Microsoft help thread I’ve seen is fifty people saying “I have this exact problem!” and one rep saying “This is a known problem. Thread closed.”

A real rollercoaster going from “This is a chance to use that word, it fits perfectly!” > “Wait, oh god how do you pronounce it?” > “I think I nailed it!” > “Oh no, they don’t know that word and now I have to explain it like a pretentious jerk.”

First time I used “sortie” verbally my face immediately twisted with a “Is that how that sounds?!”

What the fuck.

Some captchas use AI generated images which have been categorized using AI to have me verify I’m human. What are we doing here, guys?

I’m rooting for you! I’m convinced it’s magic so it might even cure diseases, who knows.

https://www.homedepot.com/pep/321779430

Made by a company called EcoLab, legitimately made me happy for days every time I saw my tub and remembered it was actually clean.

https://www.homedepot.com/pep/321779430

It used to be the time to buy TVs because they would get heavily discounted like 80% to make way for new stock. I got an xbox 360 for $50 on black friday. Kind of made sense, but I usually stayed home just to avoid the crowds unless I heard of a sweet deal.

I’m not super in touch with these things, but it feels like over the years the deals have gotten worse and worse. Now it’s like 10% off sales, or they mark stuff up 50% then give a price cut to balance it back to full price.

It’s bizarre to me people still get so invested in it. Like they have been wired to think “OK, time for the shopping day. We must go consume. Think of something to buy while I get my coat.” Maybe the deals are good but I’m just too disinterested to find out, idk.