Lorindól

My right foot is almost one size wider than my left foot. Finding a good pair of shoes is hard.

And I can’t remember what kind of clothes people are wearing. Colours, sometimes, but it’s like my visual cortex dedicates zero processing power for clothes.

Now this is a good list.

Yep.

Something quite similar happened to me in my twenties. We had a pretty close-knit group of friends in university and in the second year one of the girls started to show signs of romantic interest in me. I was oblivious, of course, so my friends had to point it out for me. I was single and quite unexperienced with dating, so I thought “what the hell, why not?” So we ended up dating and I was starting to slowly fall for her.

Then we went to this student party together and we hung out with people as always. I went for a swim in the pool and when I came back, she came to me, looking extremely happy and said that she had just met this amazing guy and wanted to try things out with him. I stood silent for a few seconds and said “OK, it’s cool with me” . She smiled and ran off to her new man.

I got dressed, finished my beer and walked home. It was a long walk, but instead of disappointment and sadness I remember feeling immense relief, as I had just learned what “dodging a bullet” truly meant.

She and the new guy dated for maybe a year, before she lost interest in him - he really was a great guy, right at the start of their relationship he wanted to talk with me and he was genuinely sorry for “stealing my girl”. I assured him that I held no grudge and we became friends after she dumped him.

During their dating she quickly drifted out of our circle of friends by her own choice, so I got to keep things pretty much like they were before. I was always friendly towards her when we met and she did likewise. My friends were surprised that I wasn’t angry at her, but I told them that this was for the best and that I was happy how things had turned out.

Next year I found a wonderful girlfriend and I was happy. Few years later I happened to meet this “ex” of mine in a work-related seminar. When the seminar ended, I walked to the bus stop and saw her standing there. Turned out that we lived along the same bus route. Then she suddenly said “wouldn’t it be nice if you came home with me?” Like, WTF? She knew very well that I had been in a steady relationship for years and she had even met my girlfriend a few times.

She looked at me seductively and said “so, how about it?”. I’d known that she wasn’t stable, but at that moment I realized how truly fucked up she really was. “No, that’s not going to happen now or ever”, I said and walked away.

That was the last time I saw her. Few years ago I heard that she had been married twice or thrice before she was 40, and was single again.

We haven’t and we won’t, unless the “poor lost plane” would be heading directly towards some critical infrastructure. Then it would be blown out of the sky.

Russia has been playing this stupid game of theirs for years, their plane violates our airspace and we send our F/18’s to signal them to GTFO.

They play the same game with on-off GPS-interference, which is annoying but has very little real effect.

By responding to these petty provocations with lethal force would only result in a diplomatic crisis and more importantly, it would reveal the true effectiveness of our defensive capabilities. And Russia would love to learn that, for a low-low price of one Sukhoi fighter/pilot. Yeah, we’re not falling for that.

I share your “gift”. No matter how much or how many days I drank, next morning the only symptom was tiredness. My partying never really got out hand, but I just kind of lost interest in it after my studies.

My both granddads died of alcohol-related causes before my birth, so the danger was very real. Without the fear of hangover it would have been so easy to just keep on going. Luckily I never felt any pull towards it.

I got my first real hangover when I was closer to 30 and it was a mindblowingly horrible experience. Nowadays I get drunk maybe once or twice a year and I do enjoy a craft beer or two on weekends, but that’s it.

It was truly special. The characters had real, believable motives and flaws and they grew with every season, while trying to survive in a gloriously chaotic universe.

I’ve had my Amazfit Bip (the original) for 6 or 7 years and the only complaint I have is the shitty original non-breathing silicon strap. After I replaced it with nylon strap, it was pretty much perfect.

The battery still lasts over three weeks. The display glass only has a few tiny scratches on it, despite that I’ve worn the watch basically 24/7 all these years.

It has all the basic functionalities I need built in and the not-so-important-but-nice ones I can get via Tasker.

And it was really cheap, I originally bought it just to see what the fuss about smartwatches was all about. But it’s been so damn useful and trustworthy that I won’t even consider upgrading until it fails someday.

IMHO, J.J. Abrams should not be allowed to touch any scriptwriting duties ever. He is not a bad director, but he doesn’t seem to give a shit about the internal logic of the script if it comes in conflict with the “cool ideas” he has.

His two Star Trek films were perfect examples of this fallacy, as was the last and worst Star Wars film. With Star Trek he kinda butchered the heart of the franchise - the point of using starships to explore - with “Oh, the transporter can now beam stuff over interplanetary and interstellar distances, because it will be so awesome and less time consuming!”

Yes, it’s science fiction and suspension of disbelief is required to fully enjoy it, but it is possible to obey the decades old in-universe rules and still write an enticing storyline if you put a little effort in it. Sad model example of lazy writing.

Of course the fault is not all his, the other producers should have stopped his stupid ideas but chose not to. Still, ROS was so bad that the guy should have been blacklisted for life.

Many of my friends really love Coldplay, so I’ve heard several of their albums played at parties. Many times. But I cannot remember a single song from Coldplay and most likely wouldn’t recognize them if one was playing on the radio.

And I have a decent ear for music, I can play a few instruments and can even find the right chords for a song after hearing it once or twice. But not Coldplay. There is nothing wrong with their music, but it doesn’t make me feel anything. It’s just so generic to my taste, I guess.

I have a battery operated tube radio from mid to late 1940’s. It even works, but the battery it uses is getting rare and quite expensive. And my country doesn’t really use AM radio broadcasts anymore, so it’s more of a curiosity nowadays.

I also have a lot of working stuff from the 1950’s, mostly radios and amplifiers. Great gear, and much easier to service than their modern counterparts.

The “Lord of the Rings” is not a character driven book and the same goes wirh the film adaptations. It is plot driven with heavy focus on world building, which can either make it an amazing or a boring experience. Depending on your preferences.

Based on the list of your favourite films (excellent, BTW, some of my own favourites are there) you seem to prefer character driven ones. So I can easily understand why you find the LOTR films boring.

I think there’s also one on a ski lift gondola in Lapland…

There’s one made of stone and a natural brook runs through the floor.

In the winter there are several saunas built from snow / ice. The snow sauna is said to be an especially pleasing experience.

There are sauna rafts that have engines, so you can cruise around the waters.

There are car trailer saunas that you can rent and drive to any open beach you wish. Or your own backyard.

And probably a whole lot crazier ones that I can’t remember right now.

My eyes are very sensitive to light, so I’ve been using “Men in Black” - style wraparound sunglasses since the late 90’s.

I am a dad, but pretty much as far from conservative one can be. Where I live conservative dads do not tend to use these at all.

My old Xperia Z5 Compact was the only phone I’ve ever owned that had decent speakers. You could actually listen music with them without getting pissed off. It was small and had amazing audio capabilities and great camera, easily the best phone I’ve ever owned.

But listening music / watching videos in public with your phone speakers on is an abomination. It should be made illegal everywhere.

Where did you find this?

Though apocryphal, it would give the Númenoreans a solid reason to see the Valar as deceitful. “The Gift of Men cannot be taken away - except for Tuor, due to reasons we will not explain.”

After a revelatation such as this, it would be far easier to accept how quickly Sauron managed to incite them to attack the Undying Lands. The kings would have known that immortality was somehow possible for men and the temptation would have already been there for generations.

The canonical version works without problems, but I think this would have been a nice addition.

Yes. I was almost three years old. I don’t remember much, but I do remember that I started to sing during the wedding ceremony when my parents knelt at the altar. Of course no one else sung.

I also remember that the priest scared the shit out of me and that my godfather “fell asleep” in the toilet and had to be carried to a car. I learned years later that he had severe social anxiety which he treated with liquor.

Tervaleijona 4-eva, man!

I did this with my friends when we went to Thailand. We were enjoying the delicious taste on a beach, two Australian guys were wanted to try it. They both spat it out instantly and the other one got so mad we thought he’s actually going to attack us.

After he calmed down a bit he demanded to see us drink it to be sure we hadn’t tricked him to drink poison. So we downed the entire 1 litre bottle to appease him. It was the start of a great day that lasted for few days.

I tried American chocolate once. It tasted like vomit aftertaste.

Never again.