I spent eight hours going home for fifty two hours so I could spend eight hours flying back so I could spend 24 hours picking paint and plants and tile. We have already picked paint and plants and tile. Twice. Effectively we're building a house, except we don't get the deed to it, and we've signed up to pay for the place we built it for ten years with two five year options. It's easy to forget what a pain in the ass it is because it's "just" a tenant improvement but every single fixture? We had to find it. And make sure it works. And coordinates with everything else. And passes code. And satisfies the building inspector (NOT the same thing). And is accepted by the State (also not the same thing). And that means going to the paint store (cover the earth!) three times in one day because this green works in sunlight but it clashes under LEDs. And you feel great that you deep-sixed the ten dollar a square foot tile in favor of the four dollar a square foot tile but then you realize the application is only 120 square feet so you're saving less than a grand and you had to spend seven on a fire alarm system that you don't really need and you better call the hardware store because you're not ready for them to drop off six thousand dollars worth of appliances yet. AGAIN. Know how much the State of New York reimburses birth centers for medicare births? Eight grand. State of Washington? $500. Did you know those rates are paid out by insurance companies contracted by the states? Did you know they're the same insurance companies? I'm flying enough that I'm considering doing TSA Pre just because the fuckheads at LAX always pat me down for my fucking hair. Except that means giving money to the TSA, an organization I would gladly see turned into a pillar of salt. Except apparently I can get a Nexus pass, designed to speed me through the Canadian border, which counts as a TSA Pre, for less money. Which I pay to the Border Patrol. Who operate under the TSA. And which you can only do in like five cities. And if you're canadian, they make you get a mutherfucking retina scan because FYOOOOOCHUR. I hate the TSA. I hate police. I hate authority. But I fuckin' hate the idiots in line even more. So yeah. Fatigue and hatred grudge matches. That's my life these days, Hubski.
It's too bad that Delirium costs 4 times more. We got the Fun Du Monde in a Costco taster's pack of Unibroue stuff - 18 bottles for 20$ while I think I paid about 4,50 for the Delirium one! It was good but didn't feel much of a difference that justified the price :( I took the picture specifically to brag on Hubski, glad it worked!
What the fuck!? $20 for 18??? I need a Costco membership.
_refugee_ i can't find your fuckin email so I'll just answer it here. The "rhythm/rhyme" scheme shit is true of traditional hiphop but in much the same way that there are 8 million types of metal, hiphop/rap has evolved the same way.. The four beat rhyme "requirement" is hardly explicitly followed to the letter and everyone from Death Grips to Kanye to Lupe to Chance play with the genre conventions. If you're looking to define Chance's hiphop I call it "gospel hiphop" because a large part of what DEFINES a rhyme scheme of a hiphop artist is the instrumental backing and in this case it's pulsing choir samples and an emphasis on trumpets and shit. Kanye popularized it with The Life of Pablo and I'm sure that it'll now show up in a million other artists songs because the guy is a trend setter. Note the similarities between Ultralight Beams and All We Got. e. Text YES for more hiphop facts I dunno if that answers your question very well but there you go.
OK this is great also YES basically i think what chance is writing is really really really close to if not actually poetry, please see song "same drugs" except clearly, it's super driven by the chorus imho the chorus is what holds that song together and makes it a song there's practically no rhyme at all not to mention rhythm. was just thinking about it a lot (because i love that song)
My summer job is done, and I can actually relax, so it’s time for a big ol’ check-in on my summer. THE FUTURE I am moving to Chicago in the beginning of October. I had been a bit on the fence about my next move, but then one of the students this summer invited me to move into his open room while he goes to school abroad, and it just felt right. The only thing determining when I head out is the completion of my folk album, so I am just setting aside the rest of this month to write/rewrite songs, and spending all of September recording. I am really looking forward to being with my friends/family out there, and finally living in a city feels like it will be a good change of pace. I already have a job waiting tables lined up for me out there, and have some gigs at various venues lines up too. I am hoping to stay out in Chicago for at least a year, but we shall see. LOVE LIFE Good and not too complicated. Am in a happy open relationship with a girl from Providence, and have been seeing some older local friends very casually. SUMMER FEELINGS emoooooootioooooooons I have been running on empty for the past month. Most days have been at least 10 hours of some kind of work - cooking, cleaning, composing/performing music for the shows, building/striking stages, tending and fixing - and I feel like I was just doing what I needed to do to get to the next day most of the time. It was ultimately fairly fulfilling, but I am a bit disappointed that I didn't have any time to work on my own music. All in all, pretty good. MISC. More feelings/events exist, will update later.
Sorry that the bar opened late. After two weeks off-the-grid, I am not quite back yet. It felt really good. It was nice to see that upon my return, someone would pay me $2 for each ETC that my ETH budded just before I left. I dropped that ETC like it was hot.
The Future Hopping on a plane in a couple of hours to fly 45 minutes to Seattle. Am I excited? Maybe, cautiously. Love Life Just wonderful. ButterflyEffect wrote below Summer Feelings I can't call this Vancouver weather summer. Maybe next week. Miscellaneous I wish I could throw more time into _refugee_'s writing prompts, but every day has been bizzy. I'm off to Seattle actually to teach a writing workshop at a genealogy conference. Most of the workshops are about understanding the 1910 census or searching for gravestones in no-longer-existing villages, but people have a hunger to turn history into stories. I did something like this in LA in 2012. They told me to expect maybe 15 people, so I made 15 handouts. 45 people showed up. This time I made 50 handouts. I'll probably have 30 leftover to snail mail to anyone who is interested. The Only Thing that Really Matters At the moment, the only thing that really matters is to pack and leave. Bye for now hubski!! EDIT oh, and by the way, it's my five-year-anniversary on hubski today, if you count a year as 365.25 days and/or throw in a leap year.having forsworn all forms of online dating once and for all. It's a sham.
You're right bfx, it is mostly a sham -- and there's always champagne for our real friends and real pain for our sham friends -- but you just never know.
Stealing flacs subheadings because subheadings are neat The Future More grad school applications have been submitted. At some point I'm going to have to stop applying and actually pick a program, if for no other reason than applications are starting to get expensive. I dislike having to give people money in order to give them more money. Related note, which I'm intentionally downplaying, I think I can start to envision what my life might be like if I wasn't constantly at war with myself. Love Life For probably the second time in my life, I went on a first date and enjoyed myself. I had a nice conversation with someone I think is interesting, and maybe I'll do it again. I'm talking to someone else too, who seems even more interesting. I hope to enjoy myself if/when I actually meet up with her. Summer Feelings I recently learned that I have to make new friends. Beyond the 'I've lived in this city for a year now and don't have people who live close by to hang out with regularly' thing I also discovered that I am no longer any kind of priority to some old friends. In the time we've been apart, they've apparently forgotten that I'm physically limited/unhealthy. And I need to be able to say 'This person, these behaviors are not good for me or my mental health. I shouldn't be on the defensive around people I'm supposed to trust. I should not have to pretend to be something I'm not in order to avoid ridicule.' I'm not going to actively cut anyone off, but I'm done initiating things with people who can't moderate their behavior. I'm going to include a quote because of how much it stung me. Alcohol was involved, the person who said this doesn't remember saying it. I was stone cold sober. MISC My kombucha turned out well, which makes me happy. The tomatoes in my planter aren't doing well, but the herbs seem to be thriving."Dude, I tell you you're going to be fine because that's what I tell my dog whose dying of cancer. There's nothing else I can say."
That's unfortunate :[ I was told to think of it more like a pet than a beverage. I kept mine in a cupboard next to the fridge. After the 10 day ferment, I added crushed lemons and ginger root, let them steep for an additional day, then filtered it. I'd like to try with green tea next time.
It made it slightly sweeter but added carbonation for sure. It's an important factor for me because I feel I've slowly been cultivating a soft drink addiction after Asia (you get sick of water when you drink about 3 litres every day) and I feel it would be a great/healthier alternative. I've heard of simply mixing it with carbonated water after, but I don't want to dilute the taste too much. I think we'll be firing up our 2nd batch today. We'll add a bit more sugar and taste it after 5 days this time. It's strange that my friend told me about a 6-10 days ferment not 10-14... What ratio sugar/tea do you put?
What field are the programs in? Public Health? And fwiw, I kept the numbers on my application and all-in-all, it costed ~$800 for me to apply to grad school. Which felt pretty good compared to my friends and family in med school, which costed each of them many thousands of dollars. I'm not allowed to ask the total costs involved in residency applications. Coincidentally, it's also much less than cost of raw ingredients for a summer's worth of kombucha in my undergrad's co-op.More grad school applications have been submitted. At some point I'm going to have to stop applying and actually pick a program, if for no other reason than applications are starting to get expensive. I dislike having to give people money in order to give them more money.
The double-or-nothing Big Mac / Oil wager is looking about as bad as the original bet did in the first year. The new agreement compares petroleum to a Big Mac Index two-thirds lower than before. Shale gas may have saved me last time, maybe this time it will be electric cars. After tracking down London Stone last month, I might have a chance to visit Ankara soon. I intend to maintain a low profile.
I'm thinking of cutting my pull list in half. I buy exclusively in trades, which is nice because it gives me more time to save up, but it's still a bit of money being spent here and there. I'll try to make it up to my comic shop by trying to do what I can to send more business his way, but saving money is important. I was finally able to give out that stack of books to friend A and I made a new friend, B, at work and gave him a bunch of stuff as well. At this point, there's not much more on my shelf that I'm willing to part with, so I think I'm going to stop giving away my books for a while. However, I'm entertaining the idea of picking up a few classics here and there to give out as random gifts when the mood strikes me. I'm enjoying _refugee_'s writing prompts. It's nice to come on to Hubski during lunch or in the evening and see what the writing prompt is and what people have contributed. It's an awesome idea and it's great to see so many people enjoying it and contributing to it.
The Future I'm only taking one class this fall and doing research, so things won't be as painful as last fall. Going to be visiting Los Angeles next month and then San Francisco in December, but both occasions are for attending conferences and there's no chance that I'll get much time to explore. Life is research and coding. Love Life The love of my life is not feeling well today :(. Last night, we made dinner (ok, mostly she made dinner) and then ate every bite of it while watching thirty solid minutes of corporate-Olympic-hype-fest-but-actually-bankrupt-of-content television programming, interspersed with about 45% commercial time. If you can stomach it, try to catch the tail end of your local news, thirty minutes before NBC's ordained "Prime Time", from 18:30-19:00 local time. My girlfriend commented that it felt really dystopian, and I have to agree; once every two years, for about ten days, we watch broadcast television a couple of hours a day, and it's like culture shock. I know it's meme af to bash on NBC's Olympics coverage, so, sorry Hubski. And I know you can use a simple VPN service to watch BBC or CBC coverage of the Olympics, but I have a morbid fascination how NBC handles their national monopoly. Summer Feelings Is it over yet? The heat here is absurd. Commuting on foot to the campus rec is pointless, as you will need to shower upon arrival. MISC I'm lurkin' around here all the time, but I don't post much. Just super busy. Glad to hear everyone's still alive and kicking stronger than ever.
bought my plane tickets and hit all the points i wanted to hit: less than 24 hours worth of travel, no super long layovers (longest is just under 4 hours), get there midday on my arrival date, less than $1000. shout out to kiwi booking service. been making time to mess around on the fiddle. i've figured out most of the basic notes but i definitely need to schedule an actual lesson to break bad habits and figure out string crossing and stuff. i told my first line supervisor i'm leaving soon because we were out at a baseball game and people were talking about how our contract recompete gets revealed next week so they were like haha i hope we still have jobs... and i was like oh... yeah... well........ i was going to tell my superiors this friday but he went and told my contract leads and they're really excited obviously but i had wanted to tell them first. i guess that's to be expected when you blab big news preemptively lol. uhhh what else... really into wearing long black skirts rn? partially because it strikes a comfortable balance in the combination of the nasty weather outside and the subzero temps inside. it also makes me feel really witchy which is always positive.
OftenBen and I have similar things to talk about, so... The Future I'm almost outta this rotational program and into an engineering role, waiting on the official title transition. Either way, already working in the position and really enjoying this department. Radio is still ongoing, starting to get more people involved in one of them and becoming more disenfranchised with the other one. The later of which is making me question the effectiveness of a decentralized organizational structure. By which I mean, I don't think it works. Love Life Not even attempting to date anybody out of contempt for...the world, I guess, and having forsworn all forms of online dating once and for all. It's a sham. At the same time, I don't have much interest joining groups from Meetup or the like, the subtext behind it just makes me uncomfortable and desperate so, I'm not going down that road. This also applies to making friends (see below). Summer Feelings Three of my close friends in town moved away. Two up north, and one to California. Effectively halving the number of people I regularly see in the area. I've learned that there are people I can always see up in Seattle, but when that's thirty miles away it's hard to consider most of those people friends when you see them once every other month. MISC I saw Yo La Tengo on Sunday night and experienced tears of happiness when they took the stage. Y'all can call that kind of a reaction shallow or lacking depth in character or whatever, but music is a central tenet of my life and allows me to communicate with myself and with others. Seeing a band that, not necessarily saved your life, but helped you get through some hard times is a transcendent experience. Somehow they exceeded my expectations. Though I will say, can't remember the last time I had tears for that kind of a reason. It felt nice.
There's not much in my life at the moment, mainly self-study, doing my various little projects and piano training. However I was asked by my 'attending professor'[1] one question and I figure that I might as well get some feedback from you here. Question is: Would I want to go abroad and study in USA or Canada as an exchange student? At the moment I'm on the fence about it. Aside of stuff like "what university should I pick" (I'll be given a list in a few days), I have some concerns: 1. Do you think that my English is good enough? 2. How are Poles treated in these countries? (I've got seriously burned by all of my visits to England and I would rather not spend six months going for a German accent just so people would bugger off.) 3. Do you feel there is something in particular which I should know about or prepare myself? My knowledge of both of US and Canada is meagre at best, news don't help much. Although I know that USA is not only about gun violence, tornadoes, election and football… believe me, sometimes it's hard to remember.[2] Thanks in advance! _________ [1] - I'm on individual study track on physics. Aside of a broader selection of harder classes I am getting a personal guidance and occasional assignments from one of the senior researchers. [2] - Obligatory "I can't believe I felt that I should to specify it, but Internet can get weird and oversensitive" arse-shelter: Just please don't take it as some condescending foreigner talk. I'm well aware about my lack of information, that's why I'm asking questions. I simply can't phrase it better.
Surely the answer is yes almost without regard for how the question ends. 1. Your written English is probably better than average for the U.S. 2. I don't think any accent would work against you in most places. 3. You don't need to carry a gun to fit in, a cowboy hat is enough.Question is: Would I want to go abroad…
I'm going to take that with a grain of salt, but thank you! I think I can easily make better Yippie Ki Yay than Alan Rickman. That's a plus, right? ;) I'm still laughing from that one :D. Thanks! I'm actually warming up toward the idea of student exchange, but I'll have to get more details myself. Transport feels like a bit of a pain, but at the very worst I'll do what I was doing to get to my high school: get a bike.Your written English is probably better than average for the U.S.
I don't think any accent would work against you in most places.
You don't need to carry a gun to fit in, a cowboy hat is enough.
More details, huh? Ok. Here goes. We got awesome food, awesome music, awesome art, awesome cars, awesome shopping, awesome parks, awesome museums, zoos, and aquariums, awesome sports, and more! Most importantly, we have awesome, wonderful, amazing citizens of all types. You wanna be here. ;)I'm actually warming up toward the idea of student exchange, but I'll have to get more details myself.
Do you think Lewis and Clark had to go and get visas and all that stuff when Jefferson asked them to explore the Louisiana Purchase? Hell no. He just called them into his office and said "Yo. Get your shit cause I'm sending you on an extreme camping trip." Get your shit Devac and go camping. Visas be damned.
I would absolutely adore history teacher with this style of presentation :D. I'll just walk confidently to your border control (TSA?) and answer all questions with "manifest destiny". Try to stop me now, America!Do you think Lewis and Clark had to go and get visas and all that stuff when Jefferson asked them to explore the Louisiana Purchase? He'll no. He just called them into his office and said "Yo. Get your shit cause I'm sending you on an extreme camping trip."
If I were border patrol, "Manifest Destiny" would be the secret code word to automatically be allowed in. I think there's a reason I don't work border patrol. If you do make it here, find a friend with a Hulu account and check out Drunk History. It's nothing short of magical.
1. Your English is fine 2. Chicago has a very large Polish community. I doubt you'll find many people with a strong opinion one way or another about Poland anywhere else. 3. You want to know how to drive; like rd95 said, we don't really do public transportation here. Gun violence isn't something you need to worry about day to day most places. I don't get football either.
See, I can drive, but I am not eligible for any kind of licence that's worth the hassle (and if half of the legends about your DMV are true, it would go tenfold for US). The best I could hope for in Poland/EU would be a temporary permit that I need to renew every two years, due to colour blindness. Thanks! You want to know how to drive
1) Your English is fine. If you never shared you weren't a native English speaker, I doubt anyone would have guessed. 2) Americans, with the exception of a few jerks, are relatively nice to foreigners. Your accent will also probably get you bonus points with the ladies. 3) Not so much Canada, but with a few exceptions America sucks when it comes to public transportation. Prepared to be disappointed. If you live in a city, you'll have the opportunity to try so many different types of foods from different cultures, your mind might be blown by it. Prepared to be wowed. Some cities have better scenes than others when it comes to art, music, food, etc., but since you're in college your classmates will probably be able to steer you to some pretty nifty places. America is very big, and while there is an underlying culture, different regions and different groups of people will have their own subcultures. If you ever have trouble navigating a social situation, just play the foreign card and more often than not, that almost immediately smooths things over. America kicks ass. If you do decide to visit, you'll more than likely enjoy yourself here. Off Topic Edit: You start your game campaign? How's it going?
Thank you! I don't have the slightest clue where I might end-up regarding student exchange options, but I think that my university has some ties with University of California, Princeton and University of Chicago in particular, University of Toronto in case of Canada. All of these seem to have great maths and physics programmes from what I gather. If that helps with specifying anything regarding my questions, I'm all ears. Although it's a bit of a shame that public transportation is lacking. That's my primary way to getting anywhere here, aside of walking. Since car is out of the question, how can I remedy that? Regarding my campaign, it's a bit slow. Problem with having a group of five science majors lies in the fact that they really pulled their weight with helping me balance some of the mechanical stuff, but we hardly got into the story as of yet :D. Sorry for no updating by the way, I still have a habit of writing primarily in my notebooks while rarely having the will to type it up into computer. However! I think that majority of my background notes are just about done and I'm fairly deep into the races, each should have something close to 4-6 pages for themselves with culture, psychology etc.
Oh, I don't know much about what colleges or cities are better or worse, so I'd take other people'so advice on that. As for public transport? It depends on the city, New York has subways, smaller cities usually have busses and such. If you're gonna be on a campus though, there's usually a small economy of restaurants, shops, and other services within walking distance. For stuff that's further out, a friend with a car can drive you. Your campaign sounds like it's coming along great. I look forward to the next update cause I'm excited to see what you've done with the races.
Social Media I've signed up for Goodreads. Last time I had an account over there, they still did the book exchange. Now I'm hoping to use it for discovery. It turns out almost none of my friends/family have accounts over there. I also signed up to facebook. I discovered that my mom was sending emails to an address that wasn't me. Making an account on facebook seemed easier than getting her to change the email address in her address book. I added her and a few other family members I don't hear from often. Image macros. Image macros as far as the eye can see. It's like a weird mash up of icanhazcheeseburger and /pol/. If /pol/ were populated by computer illiterate baby-boomer liberals. I need to figure out a way to hide everything they share that originates from a third party. Work Is crazy bad. I won't say too much since I don't use a pseudonym on here, but, wow. I did get recognized by the big boss. For doing the exact same shit that they previously kicked me to the ass end of the building for. That cost me a lot of lost hours and a lot of office politics to dig my way back to where I had been. He doesn't seem able to grok why I'm not grateful.
this makes me laugh to think about. my mom's email is fairly simple and for some reason hella people use it to sign up for social media/games/what the fuck ever so she'll always forward the notifications to me and we get a good laugh out of it. once she called a woman bc she used a bunch of personal info on an email that wasn't hers. which reminds me that i still need to call the woman who signed up for a bloomingdales gift card using my email and tell her to change that shit bc i have her personal info. presumably we share the same name but stillI discovered that my mom was sending emails to an address that wasn't me.
Life is totally amazing and utterly enchanting, and I am pretty much floating on a cloud all day, every day. My job is great. My wife is great. My dog is great. My family is great. I am happy. Even though I have a boot on my foot for a week, due to a tendon injury in my left foot that I have been ignoring for four months... so immobilization this week, and ankle brace for two weeks, and then exercise to strengthen the bastard back up.