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OftenBen  ·  287 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: June 14, 2023

I need this tea as soon as its done steeping.

Please post information on the documentary when you are free to do so.

We live in an oligarchy. I am trying to learn to make my peace with it.

OftenBen  ·  359 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: ‘Hot Ones’ Was a Slow Burn All Along
OftenBen  ·  888 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Netflix employees walk out to protest Dave Chappelle’s special.

I would be interested in coffeesp00ns take.

OftenBen  ·  916 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: September 22, 2021

A bunch of negative rapid tests. Nobody is doing PCR unless you're symptomatic to some degree.

OftenBen  ·  988 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Delta Variant

Literally not possible.

The population of people that is unvaccinated and socializing does not see the welfare of their fellow man as desirable.

My in laws are the classic example. Unmasked, unvaccinated gatherings continuously as if Covid never happened. Open mockery of those scared of the disease even after its killed about 6-7 members of their congregation.

OftenBen  ·  1079 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: April 14, 2021

I'm so weary of MD PHDs looking me in the face and going "Well what do you think we should do?"

I want you to listen when I say I'm out of ideas, I'm not a doctor, stop asking me.

OftenBen  ·  1084 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski April 7th 2021

I've got my first of two, happy days.

OftenBen  ·  1130 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Daft Punk Break Up After 28 Years

That is sad in some way I find really hard to describe.

OftenBen  ·  1172 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What books are you reading hubski?

Darkness in the Blood by Guy Haley.

I take my non fiction is doses and need breaks. Warhammer novels are some of my favorite sci-fi pulp.

I also re-read the latest two Dresden Files books and im going to take this opportunity to re-recommend the series to any fantasy fans who haven't read it. Jim Butcher does great.

OftenBen  ·  1197 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: December 16, 2020

In process, I'm told things look good.

Rollercoasters have never been my thing friends.

OftenBen  ·  1267 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: US jobless claims were worse than expected amid slowdown in hiring

I'm not the only one having a hard time with their anger right now.

OftenBen  ·  1273 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Sharing my misadventures in going off-grid (so far)

Consider me super interested.

Most of the homes I'm looking at right now don't have enough yard to do much more than grow a nice garden and maybe put some solar panels on the garage. I'm still super interested in permaculture and carbon neutral/ carbon negative living though.

Great post man, glad to have you around.

OftenBen  ·  1288 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: I just got hacked

I got an email from Infosec once that my password and username had been found in a batch-file purchase off the dark web. My employer has active measures looking for our data for sale on white, grey and black markets apparently.

As half of a young couple who is in the process of buying a home, fuck my parents and in laws.

There was a time when it was a time of celebration and happiness when a young couple bought a home.

The unhappy crowd that makes up my family, biological and extended has forgotten that older generations are supposed to (Are biblically commanded actually) support their children. They have labeled us 'entitled' for pointing out that their parents helped them out at every turn.

My in laws in particular have taken many unkind jabs at our humble existence when they literally live in their parents basement. They would laugh themselves sick if I end up having to rent an apartment again.

Cheap nursing homes for the lot of them ASAP.

Edit*

My realtor was lamenting the other day that he rarely sees people under the age of 40 buying homes anymore.

OftenBen  ·  1359 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: July 8, 2020

Thanks for the first bit of good news I heard today friend.

OftenBen  ·  1366 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The Strategies of Dementia Politics

We get to watch two geriatrics with dementia call each other names while the country burns.

We deserve this because we evidently arent capable of anything better.

OftenBen  ·  1377 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Voting Age

I'm totally onboard with this.

A 16 year old today is a wildly different animal from a 16 year old 30 years ago in many significant ways.

OftenBen  ·  1378 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: If your parents or grandparents still plan on voting for trump...

They dont care.

Their support for Trump is religious in nature and based solely on Democratic support for fact based sex education, public access to contraception and legal abortion.

The elderly that I am fortunate to know are happily chatting with each other about the end of the world in fire and judgement and blood.

It's like everyone has their fingers in their ears when Republicans tell you why they support Republicanism.

"He's not hurting the people he needs to be."

OftenBen  ·  1397 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Denver Just Shut Down

I've seen multiple videos of National Guard forces in Minnesota firing rifles towards civilians to enforce curfew.

OftenBen  ·  1426 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Hubski Craft Fair v4.5 - April 17, 2020

Finally installed these magnets after having them through 2 moves and never putting them up.

I spent a few hours being terrified now I'm over it.

I'm going to get sick. My compromised immune system in combination with the amount of time I spend in the hospital and hospital-adjacent properties means it's basically a guarantee.

I'll survive or I won't. These dice get rolled every flu season.

OftenBen  ·  1517 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Republicans defeat Democratic bid to hear witnesses in Trump trial

I gave Bernie another $50.

Do you think I oppose complementary treatment?

I do not. We have covered this before.

If someone thinks they have a cure and wants to do a series of studies to demonstrate safety and efficacy of their technique or substance, by all means, go right ahead. I support evidence based medicine.

I do not support the constantly made claim that essential oils will cure cancer by themselves and should be taken in replacement of chemotherapy other procedures. This is an idea that doterra and their people push, in my experience and the experience of others. That makes this involvement concerning.

Glad venting at me gives you the warm fuzzies.

OftenBen  ·  1528 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: I'm having all four of my wisdom teeth out in 12 hours, kinda freaked out.

That's really the only semi-logical fear left.

I have had the bad-fortune of having woke up from anesthesia prematurely twice now, both times in the last 18 months.

I'm a big tough moose, getting bigger and tougher.

OftenBen  ·  1620 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What's a good HORROR movie?

I'm always more into sci-fi horror than straight horror, so here's my list

Alien - Needs no explanation. Preferably binged watched with the other Alien movies, and possibly Alien Versus Predator #1

Pandorum - A fun, neatly contained, spooky lil deep space horror piece. A giant, decrepit colony ship adrift in deep space.

Event Horizon

30 Days of Night

The Descent (The book is WAAAAAY better)

The Oats Studios short films by Neil Blomkamp. I think they are a nice palate cleanser.

OftenBen  ·  1722 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: July 10, 2019

I always wanted to garden but I've never really been able to. At my parent's house, the garden was mom's domain. Help with the weeding and don't complain too loud about the fifteenth loaf of zucchini bread. I killed a few houseplants in college, a few more as a young guy living alone.

A short while ago we started accumulating plants and I'm growing rather fond of the little guys'n'gals.

My fiancee got this cute lil guy as a birthday present. He was forgotten, alone on the window sill for a few weeks until I noticed he had dropped a few petals. He sat happily in the shotglass sized pot he came in for a few months and I just repotted him two weeks ago. There's a little shoot coming up from the root bundle and I think we're going to get a whole extra flowering stalk.

This is a Pesto Party basil and I love it, use it in marinades and on top of grilled meat all the time. I bought it because my nose pulled me into the farmers market stall and led me right to a pallet full of them. If you so much as nudge a few leaves aside to put water in the pot the whole thing erupts with spicy perfume. 10/10, waiting to grow more of this ish when it goes to seed eventually. I actually really badly overwatered it when I first got it and the stalk started to rot a bit. I cleaned it up, repotted with better soil and it's been healthy and happy ever since.

This is grocery store basil that I saved from being tossed in the garbage. It almost died twice for the same reasons as the other one, whoops, lessons learned. It doesn't smell as nice and vigorous as the pesto party but it's less spicy, more traditional, so it gets used in different applications. There are a few separate stalks and I've braided three of them to see if I can encourage them to grow in fun shapes. Did you guys know that when you pick basil leaves you're supposed to pick small leaves and let the big ones alone? The big ones have less flavor than the smaller ones and the plant is dependent on them for mass photosynthesis. The more you knoooooow.

This is lettuce doing things I've never seen lettuce do. It started off purple. Then they grew green leaves. Then the purple leaves fell off. Then one of them grew more purple leaves, which then fell off. Now the two on the right have decided to become small trees. I haven't even tried eating any of it, they mostly just confuse me. The hope was nice bushy little salad bowls and I've ended up with weeds. ???

These are succulents. If you know the name of the species, hit me, I've been too lazy to turn my google lens at the darn things. I think they look nice and I've been trying to think of how I want to repot them for long term growth and display. The little ones are going to be turned into a present for a friend I think.

This is my pride and joy though, the Plant Monster! I'm a little frustrated with how hard it is to get a good photograph of it, this one doesn't really show the scale of the hanging basket and the vines coming off the thing. The same day that I found the pesto party I came across a guy selling hanging baskets. This was the only one of its kind, had a card on it that said $10 and I loved it. I asked the vendor what it was called and he said he had no idea, it didn't have a card or anything. I bought it, took it home and hung it up in the bathroom. In the process of transportation two little shoots broke off, and on a whim I stuck them in some potting soil, and wouldn't you know it, one took root really well, so now I have two of them!

When we first got the big one it had only a couple small vines coming off of it. I'm really looking forward to watching it flourish and fill it. I have a vision of it draping all over my bathroom, possibly trying to throttle you during some late night bathroom journey. Maybe I've been reading too much r/imsorryjon, who knows.

I'm really enjoying how my appreciation for both enjoying art/artistic things and participating in art/artistic things grows with age. I hadn't really thought of this as a creative venture until I got a compliment on my windowsill arrangement. It's a nice feeling, especially because I've considered myself limited to musical expression up to this point. However! Music is art! Food is art! Gardening is art and science! Baking is necromancy!

Some friends got engaged last week on the 4th of July after 9 years of dating then we all spent the weekend on Lake Huron before they left for 4 weeks in Europe. Summer is bubbling along nicely. One day soon I'll make a cohesive post about cardiac rehab but that's for another time.

Cheers pubski, I'm going biking (And staying in the air conditioning and listening to a book while I do.)

OftenBen  ·  1788 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: May 1, 2019

Looking for a new pain doc.

I do not have anxiety. My chest hurts really goddamn bad. I know that I don't have anxiety because anti-anxiety medication has been tried on me and it doesn't do anything to make my chest not hurt.

Fuck doctors man.

OftenBen  ·  1804 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Malicious Tampering of 3D Medical Imagery using Deep Learning

At one point, all devices that interfaced with pacemakers, ICD's, etc - had to be air-gapped from everything else.

At this very moment there is a box in my office that has a live connection to the generator in my chest and is sending real-time data to my medical record via the internet.

Nothing is safe. I'm pretty sure there are wifi enabled IV pumps.

OftenBen  ·  1835 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: March 20, 2019

Had my first session of pre-marital counseling this morning. Some reading to do, some thinking to do.

Still playing with medications. Trying to get back up onto the bike, it's been a disturbingly long time since I've done any mileage worth discussing.