I’m anaphylactic to lentils and peanuts, and less allergic to other legumes too. If I ever became vegetarian or vegan I think I’d starve to death.
I’m not currently requiring budget protein (I’m still poor-ish but not as bad as some) but my bills are about to skyrocket soon (need to upsize apartment, looking at around ~$600 increase per month) so I might need to look at budget options soon.
I have a couple cats, I guess that makes me a toddler then. Does that mean I don’t have to pay rent?
A good chunk of that is modding but I’d still say a majority is playing the game. I’ve got somewhere in the realm of 50-100 playthroughs of Skyrim, some of which are a few hundred hours. Almost all of them are modded.
Alternate Start is the one I always use. 5k hours and 4.9k probably with that mod.
Probably a decent amount of music stuff.
I used to play piano at an ARCT level, and used to be pretty knowledgeable about theory and music history but I’ve forgotten a lot of it now. I haven’t practiced or studied since COVID hit so unfortunately a lot of it is gone now.
The music that I listen to, I have basically an encyclopedic knowledge of. I know when they were born or when the band formed, when each of their albums came out, and generally know a lot of trivia about them.
I collect records and have been learning a lot about record players and audio equipment over the last couple years. Not as good as an audio engineer but better than the average lemming I’d say.
I used to do classical music composition pre-COVID. Again, probably not as good at it anymore, but I got quite good for a while. My music instructor at the time said I was the most impressive composer he ever taught. I’m still sorta riding that high from 2019. Very unfortunately, I had all that stored offline on a hard drive with no backup, and I’m sure you can guess what happened next. Since then I’ve been dissuaded from composing.
I used to help teach and tutor music courses when I was in school. I was basically the music teacher’s pet, and this was at a music school. The music teacher in question happened to be the head of music at that school too (there were several music teachers at that school).
A friend of mine, who was also into music and knew a lot of music students, once told me I was the only person he’s ever met that should’ve absolutely done a degree in music. This was at a time where he had a strong opinion that you should only go to school for a “real” degree that pays well afterwards. He’s since changed his opinion, but it was a big deal for him to say that to me at the time.
The worst part of all this is my severe AuDHD meant that as soon as COVID hit and I paused music courses and lessons, I couldn’t get myself to continue. Now I live in a place too small for a piano so I can’t practice unless I visit my parents or in-laws, and I have different hyper-focuses now, instead of theory. I wish I could change my brain sometimes.
I only really do it for Christmas now. It’s one of my favourite parts of Christmas though. Christmas Eve we do fish and brewis, Christmas Day breakfast is fishcakes with the leftover salt fish, potatoes, and drawn butter.
In Newfoundland (and I’m assuming other historically fish-based economies) it was really common before refrigeration existed to split your fish (open it like a book on a drying rack) and heavily salt it to store it long term. The drying process could take days with flies swarming around before getting moved to a shack. You’d then soak the fish before cooking to extract some of the salt. It’s no longer necessary but we still do it for the tradition. I’ve eaten it many, many times and never got sick from it, and I can guarantee it was more than 30 mins between the fish dying and it being salted. Especially these days with the codfish population dwindling, it could take a couple hours sometimes to catch all your fish. We kill the fish as soon as it enters the boat so the first fish of the day could be 3+ hours before being treated at all.
That being said, food safety is still important. I’ve seen some people say it’s fine to leave stuff out for a while if you’re cooking it after because it’ll kill the bacteria when you cook it, but that’s not entirely true. I had to take some food safety courses and was considering being an inspector for a while, I can’t remember it all now but the idea was, bacteria can grow after 30 mins at room temperature and while that bacteria can die at 74°C/165°F, it can grow spores during that time that are heat resistant. You’re not gonna die from food that’s been out for 31 minutes but if you often eat food that’s been sitting out for an hour or more, eventually you might get sick. It’s a game of chance, really. I don’t worry about it too much for myself but if I’m feeding others, I try to stick to the rules. If I get sick from my own carelessness, fair enough, that’s on me. If I get someone else sick though, I’d feel awful.
I dress for my wife.
Strangers aren’t gonna fuck me for looking nice.
I’ve got one friend who’s super social but doesn’t have many friends herself, so she tries to see me almost every day. Realistically I probably see her 2-3 times per month. Other than her, I only really have two friends I hang out with in person. Each one is probably once a month or so, maybe every other month. I’ve also got a friend I like to play games online with, that used to be a weekly thing one time but we haven’t played together in a few months. I’ve got a little bit of time off work right now so I should probably try to hop on with him before I go back.
Bayle, Midra, and Messmer. Dancer of the Boreal Valley from Dark Souls III used to be my favourite boss until SotE came out.
Tangentially related, and mostly for others reading this, but if you have 4K blu-rays I’d definitely consider keeping them. Disc looks far better than compressed digital, and uncompressed 4K movies take up way too much space, unless you’ve got dozens of TB of storage or only have a few movies. I have a few 4K AV1 (and HEVC too) files where I also have the 4K disc for, and the disc looks so much better it’s not really close.
I started carrying a sling bag with me everywhere now. So everything goes there except my phone which I keep in my front left pocket.
Yeah, I’m aware they’re not great movies. I still want to see them anyway. Maybe I’ll like one a lot more than most people. Or maybe I’ll hate all of them but at least then I’ll know what all the fuss is about.
It’s probably a hot take but I think SotE is the best content they’ve ever released. It might be my favourite video game release of all time. The final boss is tough as nails though, or at least was pre-patch. It’s a fair bit easier now but still really hard.
SotE has my three favourite bosses ever, as well as some of my favourite locations ever. I think it’s got their best world design since DS1 too. Most of these are probably not common beliefs but hopefully you like it like I did. It is definitely harder than the base game, but that’s sort of the point of a FromSoft DLC.
Funny, I’m finally getting around to watching all the Predator and Alien movies. I’ve only ever seen the first of each. What’s also funny is I’m a massive fan of both, especially Alien (one of my favourite movies of all time), and I’ve never once watched anything else from either series. So far I’ve only checked out the second movie in each (Aliens and Predator 2) but looking forward to continuing on.
Probably Halo Reach Forge mode, couch co-op with a friend of mine. We’d spend countless hours building bases, doing races, all sorts of stuff in Forge. We played other stuff in Reach too but Forge was always my favourite.
We haven’t spoken in years. We used to be super close, I hope he’s doing alright.
I remember reaching that point with Isshin, where Genichiro was something I could basically do in my sleep.
Did you do the Elden Ring DLC? If so, how’d you feel about the final boss there? I found that to be the hardest boss they’ve released, more than Isshin or Malenia.
Yeah but then Apple gets to have MAGA engineers (rich people’s kids) who are the best, maybe ever. Ask the citrus Caesar himself, I’m sure he’d agree.
I have a sling bag that keeps everything I EDC other than my phone and knife. So phone, knife, and bag is all I think of before leaving home. In my bag:
I’d like to get a decent flashlight and a decent pair of earbuds (either wireless or USB-C wired) so those probably in the near future. Otherwise I think that’s it other than random misc stuff I need to take out (receipts etc).
Obviously also stuff I wear (clothes, wedding ring, watch) but that’s always on.
Canadian here, I’d stay in my country. But with that being said, not where I currently am for sure. If by money not being an issue you mean I don’t need to look for a job, then I’d build a house in rural Newfoundland right on the ocean. If I have to look for a job but just don’t need to worry about housing expenses, then a nice house, oceanfront, probably BC. Not a major city, I hate big cities, but if I need work then I’d go somewhere close to a big enough city that I could find work no problem. Being able to see the water when I wake up in the mornings would be a necessity in this hypothetical scenario. I’d prefer the ocean but could do a Great Lake too if need be.
I don’t work in a field where it’s possible to work from home but if I did then I guess the same situation as not needing a job, as I can remote work in that case.
That’s just what I’d want though. Realistically, I have my wife and daughter to think about too. Raising a child isn’t easy and having support from my parents and hers has been very helpful, so I’d probably stay where I am, just in a nice house. There’s some smaller bodies of water near me, or larger bodies of water not too far away, so lakefront in my general area probably.