It weighs heavily on me, to say the least. It’s nearly impossible to have an even slightly tangentially political conversation with them that doesn’t leave me deeply disturbed and/or infuriated, so I pretty much avoid it altogether. Now the deepest conversation I allow is “how’s the weather” and “what are you having for dinner tonight?”, and that’s sad.

But it’s absolutely the case that engaging with them on political stuff is destructive to my psyche. And even worse, they have a way of turning otherwise entirely non-political topics into something political. These are not the people who raised me or the values they raised me with. And there’s no real logical consistency to any of it other than it’s definitely going to be in agreement with whatever the latest opinions are on Fox News and Facebook.

As a kid, the only particularly “conservative” view point they shared was on immigration. They absolutely believed the whole “Mexicans are taking our jobs” bullshit. I remember even asking them why they aren’t mad at their bosses for giving their jobs to the “Mexicans” and never getting a satisfactory answer for why that was given a pass.

And then from that one little common thread, the rest of the conservative/Republican agenda has wormed its way in. So, naturally as the conservative agenda morphed into a more fascist agenda, so have my parents’ beliefs. With age and health related mental declines, these ideals have become more cemented. These are people who will never forget or forgive Democrats for NAFTA, but also believe that Republicans wanted universal healthcare for all yet Democrats gave us Obamacare instead. They grew up growing and selling weed to make ends meet, and yet still believe it should be illegal and people deserve to be in jail for it. They have a gay kid but believe gay marriage is wrong, because the Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman, and the government shouldn’t be involved at all.

They honestly buy into the idea that police officers and pastors are infallible. If someone is arrested, it’s because they are guilty of something. No pastor would ever sexually abuse a child, they are a pastor after all. If the president says something is true, it must be true. And again, none of this is how they raised me or the ideals they expressed when I was growing up, so it’s definitely like living in some kind of bizarre reality that’s tough to come to terms with.

Nope. I just go in periodically and click the button to mark all as read. The button doesn’t actually verify that I’ve read them, basically just takes my word for it and then makes the number go away … kind of in the Lemmy way where it might go away for a second, come back a minute later, go away again for awhile, then come back again for a bit, and then finally truly go away long term, permanently.

Joking aside, I get way too much hostility here on Lemmy for what amounts to making stupid boomer-style jokes and sharing personal anecdotes, so I don’t even bother reading replies in my inbox anymore. I find my time on Lemmy is much more cathartic and enjoyable this way. Sadly, that does mean I probably miss out on some discussions or responses to questions I’ve asked, but at least I don’t generally ever even see the nastiness and negativity towards me when I’m just here for a mostly light-hearted break from reality. And that works for me. After all, haters gonna hate, don’t mean I gotta participate.

For me personally, last year was ridiculous trying to get the vaccine, and that was while there was still some sanity and trust, however minuscule, left in the system.

First time I tried to get it, it was out of stock everywhere. Second time I tried to get it, I was turned away for arriving too close to closing time (aka 45 minutes until close) at a walk-in clinic. Third time I was turned away because I mentioned that I had said “Hi” to my neighbor outdoors while they were passing by in their car and then found out about an hour before my appointment that the neighbor just tested positive for covid so the pharmacist refused to administer it. So I went to the next closest pharmacy, which had a walk-in option, and they didn’t even ask me any health questions or exposure questions, they only asked me for insurance information and which arm I preferred.

This year, I have really shitty insurance so I’m pretty much expecting a shit show even if the government and medical field weren’t already a shit show. Fortunately, so far I’ve been hearing that it’s widely available and that there are ample qualifying reasons for insurers to pay for it.

Mmmmm, butterfingers are my fave.

Monarch: Target species acquired.

For those not privy, the plant that monarch is standing on appears to be a common milkweed. That’s one of a select number of milkweed species that monarchs feed on as caterpillars.

Sugar and petroleum based synthetic flavorings with a 10000000000000000000000000000% mark-up. Yay!

It’s only slightly more useful than those service / status / outage reporting links that no matter how fucked the site is, seem to always indicate that everything is 100% fully functional at this time and has been for the past 28+ days.

Oh, you must’ve had a medical emergency in the USA and now all the bills have arrived.

While it sounds great in practice, I find it suspicious that they never mention the the final bill.

Personally, I’ve been compiling a cache of datacentric interpolations of real-world metrics used to synergistically integrate human intelligence with the intersection of science, technology, mathematics, arts, and philosophy since the moment I was born, and let me tell you, this is what I was born for.

I feel like by answering this I’m feeding into OPs sick and twisted furry fantasy, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

That being said, I’m also feeling lazy and pedantic, so I’m going to say human being.

Watch The Squid Game and take a shot every time someone says something in Korean.

This is a dream job!

I mean, nightmares are dreams, too.

I was going to say the same thing. Learn from my parents (and me). These do not make great pets for kids, assuming you love your kids and your kids love their fingers.

I like Linux, use(d) various flavors of it, and have had experience with / exposure to it for over 20 years. But no, I’ve never had a remotely flawless experience with it on a desktop or laptop environment. Wish I could offer more help or encouragement, but figured I’d at least chime in with some emotional support by affirming that you are not alone in that experience.

I would recommend Linux to technologically adept people (ex: tech professionals, computer science students) and only indirectly to less technically proficient people in the form of suggesting something like a Steam Deck for portable PC gaming to someone who might be interested.

But for an aging parent or my best friend’s kids? No. Sometimes I already feel like I’m a free on-call 24/7 IT support tech for friends and family, and that’s with mostly Windows and Android devices that pretty much just work the way folks expect (even if that way is broken/crumby/irritating/etc).

There’s pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That- that’s about it. Oh and cesium shrimp. But really, that’s basically it.

This is perfect for my new seafood diet. It is so simple, I cesium food, I eat ze yum food.

Living in the USA in 2025 is like that movie Cabin in the Woods. Basically every conceivable way for the country to end is happening simultaneously, all at once, and even then nobody bet on the radioactive shrimp, not even the maintenance crew. Granted, the reason they didn’t bet on the shrimp is because they all got furloughed by DOGE back in February.

Hopefully this won’t get me too much negative reaction: I’m not a proud pirate. I’d rather not pirate at all. I’m kind of ashamed that it’s come to this.

There were a few solid years where I literally did not do it and felt no desire to, back when streaming was new, and there were only a few serious players. I’d love to return to that era, but I know it will never exist again.

So now, I and other members of my family, pay a ridiculous amount of money for a rotating suite of services, trying to do things the right way, and still, there are way too many times when we can’t find anything we want to watch on any of those services and/or the thing we wanted to watch is not available on any of those services.

Finally broke down and just said fuck it. I tried to support this mess as best I could in hopes it would get better, but fully knowing it wouldn’t. When it definitely did not get better I said no more.

Bruh yer not doing it right. Are you stupid, bruh? You gotta work on yer promps, bruh. You gotta watch some tiktoks on it, bruh. Bruh, go watch @demisets4, bruh. Learn to prompt, bruh. Your not good at it, bruh. Bruh, you should try something else if you can’t figure it out that’s a you problem, bruh.