What's everyone up to right now?

[CDF47]

Watching the news and chatting on the forum.

[Angrboda]

Just got back from the grocery store. They had a sale on various flavored beans this week, but at the store I went to on Monday they only had one of the three flavors that I like. So I made a separate trip to a different store.

Watching the Bears / Jets football game and catching up on the news in my inbox.

[Angrboda]

Making hamburger helper.

[Rev. Rye]

Looking at Mumkey Jones' Elliot Rodger videos.

You know, for someone who dresses up like a monkey, uses an annoying voice, and reviews anime while making off-colour jokes, even turning this monster into a comedy protagonist in the vein of Basil Fawlty or anyone from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, it's actually amazingly insightful: crucially pointing out that the way we ostracise other people for how different from the way we think they should be, whether it's people of a different race from us or that creepy guy who thinks wearing nice clothes makes him a nice person. Who knows, if someone actually showed them some kindness, maybe you might actually reach them while they can still be reached. Maybe they might actually think twice about a Day of Retribution.

Initial video on the question of whether mass shooters like Elliot Rodger can be stopped using the conventional talking points that the Dems or Republicans like to say could prevent violence:





I have to admit that I kind of had serious issues with the way he really wailed on Peter Rodger's skills as a parent, especially knowing that it took a while before my father caught on that I had more serious mental issues than simply being on the autism spectrum, something that might require professional help. It took me feuding with a teacher before they figured out that I needed to see a therapist, even though I had told them for years that I was fairly certain I had something worse, and my parents just brushed it off until I was 22. Parental capacity for denial can be infinite is what I'm saying. And, of course, then this happened, and even Mumkey had to figure out that he was way too hard on him, and too soft on his biological mother:





Years later, he re-assessed his views: 





He's got other videos on the subject, including several dedicated to the darkly comedic elements of his quest to win the lottery, the time he got drunk and crashed a party, and  how much of a failure the Day of Retribution really was (note: of the seven people he killed, three were nerdy Asian kids in a similar social situation to him, two were girls who were less attractive than the sorority sisters he was trying to kill and spent several minutes knocking on the door so they could let him in to kill them for being the most beautiful sorority, one was just some random kid buying potato chips at a deli, and the last was himself. The original plan was for him to kill his stepmother, younger brother, his roommates, several women who he expected to somehow lure into his apartment, as many members of the hottest UCSB sorority that refused to let him into their house as possible, then as many people as he could run over with his car, which was supposed to be his Dad's SUV. You can see the disconnect there.) And, of course, there's an audiobook of the entire manifesto, two reviews (one of Peter Rodger's Oh My God, and the other of a film about a school shooting where he goes into the subject of sympathy vs. empathy, contrasting the killer in that film with Rodger), and a few others.

They're a lot more insightful than you might expect.

[*Deidre*]

Just found out that tta forums were shut down as of 10/1. I was surprised but I guess they weren’t as busy as they used to be from what I learned was a possible reason. Sad. I will always hold that place fondly in my heart, good memories.

[Ravenshire]

Porn. Lots of porn. I can't seem to get laid in a morgue just lately.

[Astreja]

In preparation for Halloween, I packed up my black robes and sundry arcane accessories (e.g. the components for a Lightning Bolt spell!) to wear at work tomorrow. For the first time it'll be my own white hair and not a wig.

Then I staged an occupation of the kitchen, vowing to stay there till I figured out how chocolate fudge worked. (Got it on the second try -- the ingredient mix was okay but I took it off the heat too soon and it didn't harden, so I mixed that batch with fresh stuff and recooked it, and it worked like a charm.) Also made a batch of peanut butter fudge. Half is staying here for me and my daughter, and the other half is going to the office.

I suggested that maybe the transcription department should put Endocrinology on speed dial, to stage an intervention should we all keel over from mass quantities of sugary treats.

[Joods]

Dealing with day 2 of an IBS flareup.

I don't understand why I can't just lose weight when these things happen. It'd be worth going through the pain if I actually lost some weight with these events. But no. I just continue to stay fat and ugly. As usual.

Joods, PM me?

I pm'd you the other day.

[The Valkyrie]

Joods, PM me?

I pm'd you the other day.

I kudosed that post.

Did you add more to it after I gave kudos?

You're not fat and ugly!

Big Beccs hugs!

[Astreja]

*cough* Sitting here at my desk channeling Raistlin Majere, mere footsteps away from All the Candy There Is.

I might have to fireball those cupcakes, though -- the bright pink and orange icing looks potentially lethal. :-D