I laughed at this joke, then looked over at my end table…

I know this is a shitpost, but to answer honestly… the last pear I had was when I was a child, and I’m in my 40s now.

I still remember their wonderful taste and I haven’t been intentionally avoiding them. I just never came across an opportunity to eat one since my childhood. I’ve primarily consumed apples and oranges over the years and I can’t even remember seeing pears at the store.

Maybe I should go check out my local grocery store and buy a few.

Ah, well… I’m not an auditory learner at all, so I need subtitles for everything I watch. Otherwise, voices kind of turn into white noise to my brain. I need something visual to focus on to follow the spoken dialogue.

The Witch completely went over my head with the thick dialects and Old English language, and whereas visual context clues usually help fill in the gaps, I honestly had no idea what was going on until I re-watched it with subtitles. So I guess YMMV. I personally got more out of this film by understanding exactly what was being said with subtitles.

What I love about this film is that it’s left ambiguous, so you don’t know if the family is actually being cursed or if they’re just letting their isolation and religious superstition drive them mad. It can be interpreted either way.

The witch(es) in the woods? Maybe just some ladies who decided to give up the Puritan life and live as hermits in the wild. We don’t know for sure if they can actually cast spells, or if they’re just high on hallucinogenic herbs or something.

Another thing I love about this film is that the language is preserved as closely as possible to the era it’s set in. Which is difficult, because we only have a handful of writing samples to tell us how they spoke. You definitely need subtitles to have some idea of what’s going on, especially with Ralph Ineson’s gravelly voice.

Robert Eggers did his best to accurately portray an era, rather than modernize it for regular audiences, and that’s why this is such a classic work. Every film he’s created so far has been incredible.

I just watched his film Nosferatu (2024) recently, and it was spectacular! He took the first ever vampire film from the 1920s and reinvented it as an incredibly realistic and terrifying spectacle to watch. Apparently, it’s been a dream of his to recreate that classic film ever since he was a kid, and I think he did a wonderful job with it. I’m excited to see what new films he makes in the years to come.

This is why I keep a tablet next to my bed. When I want to recline in bed but watch something, I can do it on a decent-sized screen instead of squinting at my phone.

But my couch also has two “zero-G” recliners on either end of it, which basically means they recline so far, my feet are slightly elevated over my head. So I don’t really need to go to bed to lie down and watch something.

It’s more about if I’m trying to settle down for the night or not. I have wireless headphones for my TV, so I can watch shows late into the night without disturbing anyone, but if I’m gonna fall asleep myself, I’d rather be in bed already so I can just set down my tablet and sleep without any more effort.

That was the first Final Fantasy game I played all the way through. And the first one I owned. It will always hold a special place in my heart.

Note: I was a teenager when that game released, and I related hard to Squall’s emo attitude toward everyone and everything. I thought he was so cool. Replaying it as an adult though, I cringe every time Squall has to interact with anyone. He’s basically a whiny baby who only has friends because a bunch of people decide to ignore his antisocial tendencies and indulge his emo behavior. Nobody would tolerate him in real life. Why did I like this character?!

The Gary Jules cover of Mad World, for the Donnie Darko soundtrack.

Similarly, the original song by Tears for Fears sounds really upbeat and happy, but you’d never know it was a sad song unless you paid attention to the lyrics. I love both versions!

I barely got grandfathered into a pension program with the US military. They went away in 2015. I had served over a decade at that point and they still let me retire in 2022 under that program. The new program is a sort of 401k type system, but I didn’t have enough years in service to contribute to it for retirement, so they didn’t even give me the option to switch over.

Granted, I retired after only 20 years served so my pension is not very big. But it’s money in my pocket every month for the rest of my life, so I’m not complaining. I’ll never starve or go without shelter.

Two of my childhood friends helped develop that game. One of them wrote the music for it, the other was a programmer who helped code it.

I don’t know if it’s a standard feature or a setting you can adjust, but my Steam chats seem to disappear after a certain amount of time. If I can’t keep a history of chat logs, then I can’t use Steam as a Discord replacement.

Also, I have one friend who constantly spams our chat groups with random links and videos, no context. I kind of like having channels so I can filter some of that stuff into categories and keep some of our chats from being drowned out.

I was gonna say, “what ads?” I haven’t seen a YouTube ad in years now. If they ever force their way through, I’ll just stop watching YouTube videos. I’m not tied to the platform; there are other ad-free places to watch videos from.

I saw this article with a giant photo of Trump’s face and the line, “Later found dead” and I got my hopes up for a moment.

There was a moment in that fight where Pink got killed and dropped a bunch of grenades when he went down (an ability one of your custom uniforms grant you). And we all happened to be grouped a little too close together, so we all got blown up by him. That’s my one death in that mission - a team kill. I wonder if that did enough damage for his score, or if he kept flagging people with his rifle while shooting enemies.

That’s one of the interesting things about this game. Some players have asked the devs for the ability to turn off friendly fire, but they refuse, saying that friendly fire is funny and part of the ridiculousness of the game.

Right? The way I hold controllers, I can barely reach the bumper buttons without shifting my whole hand, so it’s much easier to just use those underside buttons.

This is my situation too! I bought the original LCD one when they were on pre-order, then my right bumper button broke (a common issue with the first models) and I took too long to request the free fix/replacement from Valve.

So my wife encouraged me to just buy one of the new OLED ones that had just released and she’d take my old one.

She hardly games on it anyway, and when she does, I showed her how to remap that bumper button to a different button. Almost no games use the trigger buttons on the underside of the Steam Deck, so those are always available.

Good to know. I’m always on the lookout for a better, more secure option. eufy is my best option at the moment, but if you (or anyone here) knows a better choice for home security systems, I’m all ears.

This is why I a.) live out in the countryside, and b.) replaced my dad’s old Ring cameras with eufy security cameras.

eufy doesn’t require a subscription service (although you can get one if you want to trust their cloud service). If you buy a HomeBase, you can store all your security footage locally on a small box. Easy to hide and/or grab if you need to get out.

Sure, there’s a security risk of storing data locally. But I trust myself to protect video recordings of my property over some company’s cloud service. Ring complies with police when asked for your video footage, and they don’t even notify owners most of the time. Cops could be looking through your video feed without your knowledge, which is a nightmare if you have cameras inside the house.

And now, apparently, so can your neighbors. Fuck Ring.

That’s “Rock the Country,” aka “MAGA Fest.” It was a different show held in South Carolina, where all the other artists started dropping out when they realized it was promoting MAGA.

Kid Rock was headlining that show, but it’s separate from Turning Point USA’s halftime show starring Kid Rock. As far as I know, that one is still happening.

In India, it’s a huge taboo to kiss anyone whom you’re not married to. Public affection in general is mostly frowned upon there, and sometimes charged as a crime depending on where you live.

That’s why you never see lovers kiss in Bollywood movies. They always just hug or hold each other at arms length. They would be outraged if two actors who aren’t married to each other kissed on screen.

American here. My childhood home was completely covered in thick carpet, except the entryway and the kitchen, which was laminate tile. Yes, even the bathroom was carpeted. My bedroom literally had shag carpet.

My family always wore shoes indoors. And then wondered why the carpet was discolored, worn, and tearing in places.

I spent 20 years traveling the world after becoming an adult and learned about many other cultures who took off shoes before entering homes. Now I feel weird wearing shoes even in the entryway.

By the way, I’m retired now and living back in my childhood home, which I inherited when my father passed away. The whole place has been re-carpeted, the bathroom and dining room floors have been swapped out for laminate/wood paneling, and when I get around to remodeling the living rooms, I’ll probably switch them to wood floors as well.