Ook-tober Mini-rants

I already said that this is our tradition, but I forgot to say that we mostly do it because the holiday gives us a long weekend to get this done, so it’s just a practical time to do it.

Yesterday I finally got around to decorating the outside of the house for Halloween. Usually my wife handles the inside of the house, and I do outside, and this year was no different but I didn’t do my part until long after she did hers. I’ve just been so busy. Even my days off have been filled with errands so they don’t feel like days off. After I got it all set up, it was a huge relief for me. I like decorating outside, I just don’t like how much time it can take. (In this case, a couple of hours.)

I use ublock in Firefox and get no adverts on youtube at all

Same (MS Edge in my case but same ad block plugin).

Riding a moped in the bath sounds like fun though.

I get the same, that is lack of ads, when I watch YouTube through Firefox on my laptop. I’m using Adblock Plus.

But I can also get YouTube vids through my TV, using a voice remote, and my TV has no ad blocker. So the choice becomes: watch small videos without ads from 18" away, or watch big videos with ads on the big screen from eight feet away? Most times, I opt for the latter.

Oh well. YouTube’s algorithm seems to be learning. I haven’t seem or heard a French ad for two days now.

Last week I bought a 4-pack of tissues. I put them in the trunk of my car and left them there until yesterday. I took them out yesterday when I went to get the mail. On my way down the driveway, I decided to set the box down so I would have both hands free to get the mail out of the box, and then promptly forgot to pick them up on my way back up to the house.

This morning I noticed I was running out of tissues and went to my car to get them out of my trunk. Oh yeah, I did that yesterday. What did I do with the box? Oh yeah, left them on the side of the driveway. Are they still there? They are not! Guess I’m getting another 4-pack today when I go to the store.

Here’s my anti-rant… I needed some tissues and was planning to grab some this weekend at the store, but somebody left a 4-pack of what looked like brand new tissues out where anyone could take them! I’m guessing they had too many already and these extras were just up for grabs for whoever needed some. What a great day for me!

Yaay Freecycle! :zany_face:

Last year I went 1 month from no A/C use to turning on the furnace*. This year 3 fucking days.

*yes, I keep track of that shit.

That sucks. 3 whole days of not having to use power to be comfortable.

I love X aka twitter. Follow some local famous people, football players, weather peeps, comedians. So I follow a famous person. Theres a few accounts with same name. One told me to message on telegram. Seems he wants my help. He wants my paypal so he can put money in to purchase coin bitcoin as he is, as he says, restricted.
Wanted me to sign up on changelly.
Its fun playing with him though, I dont reply for awhile and Im snubbing him and being insulting, etc. Almost dont want to stop and say forget it but its a game and I like the back and forth. Calls me dear and hon. Not the legit famous person as not many followers and its a locked account. Sent me 2 disappearing photos but I wouldnt recognize AI if it bit me.

Back when I lived in snow country it was common to run both the heat at night and the AC every day for about a month in spring and another month in fall.

My husband is an atheist.

His cousin sent him this batshit insane video. This is honestly one of his best and coolest cousins. But this video.

It’s an African woman saying there’s far more witchcraft in the US than in her country. In her country, witchcraft is recognized as evil and is stamped out. But in the US witchcraft is celebrated and encouraged from a young age, through Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Moana, and people spend so much time learning about witchcraft that they don’t read their Bibles and can’t defend themselves against evil.

“In my country, if you dress kids up as skeletons and go door to door, they’ll kill those kids.”

I’m trying to conceive of what was going through this woman’s mind when she sent this. “Spouse Weasel is an atheist, he’ll appreciate this random African woman ranting about Harry Potter.”

Yes his cousin does believe in witchcraft and complains about Halloween every year. She’s sending her kindergartner to private school so she doesn’t learn about trans people. Sometimes she says stuff that is so out there I can’t tell if she’s just bullshitting me.

It’s not the beliefs I’m struggling to understand (though I find it rather shocking) it’s why this video to this man at this time?

Wow, I’ve lived in snow country all my life and I don’t think I’ve ever done that. Now I’ve never had central a/c and that may make a difference…

One of my best friends is a witch and she’s probably the nicest person I know.

She stumbled upon the video, she believes all of it, she’s very uncomfortable with her cousin’s (your hub’s) beliefs, and she’s sure she’s doing him a vast favor by opening his eyes.

I get the same kind of crap from evangelicals; they are certain that a) I am wrong, and b) The Power of Jeebus in this video will move my soul and I will be Saved.

My interests enter into their thinking exactly nowhere. Only their interests are involved.

Oh yeah Wiccans are great. It doesn’t make witchcraft real.

I mean come on.

I just have these moments with religious people.

Like I have a very good friend who is a Presbyterian minister. He is not what you’d think of for a conservative theologian. We met at a D&D Encounters night, we bonded over our love of Tarantino movies, and he gave me early feedback on my incredibly dark and explicit romance novel.

We have movie night once a week. One night we’re talking about Tool, the band, because he also loves prog rock (he is the coolest fucking person) and he says, “I was going to take my son to see Tool but I read that one of the band members was trying to summon [insert made-up demon] during concerts and I wasn’t sure it would be safe.”

And I’m just like, “Oh, right. I forgot he believes in magic.”

So weird.

Well, yeah, no. And Wicca is an “ancient” religion that dates back to the 1950s. It’s just her belief system and she openly calls herself a witch, and anytime someone talks about “the evil of witchcraft” I just remember my nice friend who my daughter calls aunt: she stood with me at my wedding and is married to my best friend.

I like that some people are reclaiming a term that was created specifically to villainize women.

Tool is one of my favorite bands of all time and I still haven’t seen them or A Perfect Circle in concert yet, but I still hope to.

I’d say the idea of Tool summoning demons is crazy but have you seen the music video for Stinkfist?

:laughing: