We buy most of our grocery at ALDI. It’s stupid cheap, everything tastes like the name brand version did when you were a kid, and even their shitty holiday chocolate is richer and more flavorful than US luxury brands.

If you don’t have one near by, take a little time to research your area for a closed building near an active population and you can email them the suggestion.

I was on hold once and the music was some pretty solid low effort lounge jazz that cycled through like 12 different but similar songs. It was calm enough to relax to and when the call actually got ansered I found myself missing the chill soundtrack to my day. More places should do it that way.

My second favorite is when it plays about 2 min of shitty music recording and then interrupts to tell me the call is important, but whatever system they have is clearly not handling this well so the quality of both soundbites starts to degrade the longer you’re on hold until the music sounds like a dying speaker pressed to a handheld somewhere and the important call voice is unintelligible for every other syllable. Those are so fucking fun because it feels like a genuine horror story moment.

I always give them a hand. I also go out of my way to move them to safer or nicer spots. This world is not built for them like it is for us, so the least I can do is help where I can.

Recently there’s a monarch that has been hanging around my front garden patch and I’m pretty sure it’s the Caterpillar that was trying to get run over in my drive way. I moved it to the flowers we have there and I’m happy to see it doing well.

It’s funny you say that, my front end has material you and I just changed my wallpaper.

If you send me your files, I’ll host them on my server and give you free access to it.

Bought a whole domain to share free streaming with friends and family only for none of them to bother…

That one bothers me so much! I don’t give a shit about the copyright on material, I care that my county has been in water rationing for 3 years and a strong wind in a state known for wind can take the power down for a week. We can’t figure out basic community utilities and you’re expecting us to be ok with server farm bigger than my entire neighborhood that uses exponential more of those crippled utilities? Fuck off.

I’m a bit out of the loop, what’s horrible about PayPal? I’ve been using them for banking for some years now and they’ve always been pretty great to me.

Because having a child isn’t a luxury. Reproduction is how a species works and luxury is a term for something wholly unnecessary and is inherently economically coded.

If animals had to afford to have babies we’d live in a barren world.

I’ll take the bait.

So firstly, to blame the poor is propaganda. It is a long and well documented strategy for people who are better off than you to use people who are worse off as the visible threat to your lifestyle. You’ll likely never see a billionaire but you’ll see plenty of homeless and immigrants and it’s easy to point to them and say “that’s what you’ll be if you don’t follow the rules” or “those are the people making it hard for you.”

There are no people that are poor by choice, they are forced into that position by a social structure that needs the threat of poverty to operate. So to blame people for doing a natural part of human biology while poor is like asking “how dare those in debt spend the money they owe on food to survive?”

Empathy is the only thing that threatens this status quo. Quit judging people for being different and instead judge them on the harm they put into this world. Our society is so fucked that we produce excess food just to take up space in stores. Every human being on the planet could live the idealized American middle class life on 30% of the global GDP. The only reason anyone is poor is because we let awful people make the rules.

I like your moxy. Don’t get hung up on some ai dweeb, you’re too cool for that.

I am literally right there beside you, Neurodivergent with my two best friends being being failed romances. But that’s the point I’m making, when it turned out we weren’t going to smooch I didn’t stop being their friend. If anything it reaffirmed our platonic relationship.

See, that’s the dumbest thing to me. It takes no time to be up front with people about your intentions and it vets out the people that aren’t available for it. Then spending all this time with someone and not being cool with just friends is fucking dumb. Why even try if you’re going to bail?

Novelty Flash Drives, they’re always fun to see and normally the last flash drive anyone uses.

You can get some really decent wireless headphones for about that range, fantastic for kids who might not be trusted with higher price options.

USB to Everything Adapter so they never have to find that one cord again.

A personalized mousepad with a really ridiculous photo of you or some equally absurd image.

Back in highschool, I had a pared down Ubuntu bootable on a flash drive I wore around as a necklace. Had a few small games, some modding utilities, and an sftp to my laptop at home. The boot for most the computers was unlocked and I convinced a handful of teachers to let me boot it up to get things from home or play games when I had free time.

I always thought it’d be cool to make some of those with a pre-built chat room, Minecraft or a bunch of emulators. Then hand them out to the gang on novelty drives. Sort of a secret digital clubhouse they can carry around.

Novelty Flash Drives, they’re always fun to see and normally the last flash drive anyone uses.

You can get some really decent wireless headphones for about that range, fantastic for kids who might not be trusted with higher price options.

USB to Everything Adapter so they never have to find that one cord again.

A personalized mousepad with a really ridiculous photo of you or some equally absurd image.

Back in highschool, I had a pared down Ubuntu bootable on a flash drive I wore around as a necklace. Had a few small games, some modding utilities, and an sftp to my laptop at home. The boot for most the computers was unlocked and I convinced a handful of teachers to let me boot it up to get things from home or play games when I had free time.

I always thought it’d be cool to make some of those with a pre-built chat room, Minecraft or a bunch of emulators. Then hand them out to the gang on novelty drives. Sort of a secret digital clubhouse they can carry around.

As I understand it, the cults that send people door to door do it because they know people will be assholes to them. When you spend all day getting told to fuck off for what you genuinely see as trying to improve their lives, it reaffirms the cult’s stance that everyone else is irredeemably ignorant and evil.

I make a point to be wholly kind and welcoming, upfront about my paganistic practice and my satisfaction with it, and if possible engage them in some of the more philosophical ideals that Jesus reportedly championed. I’m not out here to abuse them for their demagogue, I’m not here to test their faith, I’m here to make sure they don’t get heat stroke in those starched collars.

Hey my dude, you need some recipes and some mental health. Im happy to help on both fronts if you need.

Eggs and potatoes are easily the two most versatile substances on the planet, other ingredients to make them into things are actually equally as cheap, spices look expensive until you realize that $4 lasts up to 6 months. To add to that, I was once an incredibly picky eater and found personally and through feeding others that, outside of phobia and dietary constraints, the majority of food preferences is based on a history of bad cooking. Give me deets on your dietary limits and I’ll give you every recipe I know. If there’s anything you’re willing to experiment with, I’ll teach you everything you need to enjoy it. Anything from dry beans, to tofu, to grinding your own amaranth or acorns for flour.

If you’re in the western world, mental health services are decently accessible, even in the US without insurance. Shoot me a DM me your location and situation and I’ll do all the leg work, all you’ll have to do is make the appointment.

As for the information provided, the recipe that springs to mind is cheese gnochi bites.

You’ll need 3 large russet potatoes 2 eggs 1 cup shredded chedder or other strong cheese 1 cup flour Salt, pepper, garlic to taste Oil to fry in

Microwave the potatoes until baked, immediately shock in cold tap water and peal by hand. (fantastic trick for any mashed potatoes as it not only takes less time but does not add any moisture leading to fluffier potatoes)

In a large bowl, mash the potatoes and add the cheese, mix so that the cheese melts and spreads evenly.

Once incorporated, feel mix, if still hot, let it cool until luke warm or cool to the touch then mix in the eggs and spices.

Finally, add flour until it holds together when scooped.

Heat oil on medium in either a pot or skillet depending on oil availability and intended shape.

If using a pot with at least an inch of oil, scoop a glob of potato with a spoon and use another spoon to scrape it into the pot. Fry until golden all the way around.

If using a skillet with shallow oil, put the glob in the pan and gently press it flat leaving some thickness. Then flip like a Patty when golden.

If you have access to gallon bags, you can put the mix in the bag, cut off a corner, and squeeze the mix into the fry like a piping bag. Either making dollups for deep oil or doing a tight spiral for shallow.

Let cool on a wire rack but eat warm. Oil can be strained of bits and stored to fry with later.

You can also add extra cheese and cook in an air-fryer but the texture won’t be fried so much as baked. The extra cheese gets more oil in the mix to help the exterior crust up.