GooberEar

I grew up in a home with heavy smokers, so I really had no chance at all as a kid. I have childhood memories of being in a smoke filled car with windows rolled up. Didn't even have to crack the windows because there were ashtrays built into the cars of that era. And then if the windows were open or cracked, there was another danger. I lost count of how many times I had ashes fly back into the back of the car directly into my eyes and mouth, or the lovely feeling of a burning "cherry" searing into my forehead.

Can't tell if it's a joke question, a questions about having agency over your life/others', or if it's specifically about having access to electricity. And at this point I'm too afraid to ask. Based on the responses, they don't clear it up at all.

When I was a kid, we used to coax wild anoles into biting our ear lobes and wearing them around like earrings. Maybe the kitty is doing the same as a labret piercing.

I live in a rural setting, so 90% of the time the answer to that question is wild animal poop or some dead critter. Sometimes though it's a bug or random fruit/veggie.

Purely due to circumstance, the price of eggs became an easy, overly simplified economic indicator, and via massive amounts of misinformation/disinformation, somehow an indicator of the Biden administration's efficacy. Eggs were essentially the stand-in for all the complicated and politically inconvenient stuff that willfully ignorant folks don't understand, prefer not to think about, or simply want to deny.

Willfully ignorant people know that grocery prices in general were being affected by inflation, but understanding the causes and recognizing that it was a global phenomenon was not something they were willing to engage in because it was an easy way to demonize and blame Biden.

In my personal experience, when prices spiked last time, these were the people who claimed that eggs were the bulk of their diet because it was the only protein they could afford to eat anymore. That was never true for most, but that's what they claimed as they lamented how they could no longer afford to eat. They also liked to mention the prices of the highest price tier eggs (name brand, organic, fancy stuff, free range, etc) and try to pass that off as the going rate for eggs, despite the fact that they never bought those "premium" eggs prior to the price hike and that the "cheaper" eggs cost significantly less. Also, now that it's happening under their preferred presidential administration, suddenly they are much less vocal (almost completely silent) about the price of eggs. But if forced into a discussion about the topic, they suddenly appear to understand and advocate for the idea that it's caused by factors outside of the president's control. Funny how that works, huh?

On the flip side, most of the folks who are currently bringing up the egg prices are doing so in a satirical sense (even if it's covertly satirical), fully aware that Trump isn't in control of the egg prices. It's just a good way to further demonstrate his supporters' own hypocrisy. Also, it's sort of giving the willfully ignorant people a taste of their own medicine. Probably not terrible effective from that standpoint, but cathartic for the people currently doling it out.

he should fix that nasty hair and then he might be presentable

I live in the southeastern USA. Weathermen are semi-accurate from May through September. The rest of the time, they lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie.

I take the hot hairy ones quite seriously. Especially the ginger ones.

I know I can Kagi or duckduckgo it or whatever you people are using these days, but what is PixelFed and what's it an alternative to? News aggregators aside, I don't social media so I'm not sure if it's a tiktok or instagram or whatsapp or faceplace.

I'm just not that "type" of person, so I'm truly holding myself back from saying something about this to my conservative relatives.

Just like when Biden was president, I know for a fact that the price of eggs is not a thing that the president controls, but you would have thought it was based on how conservatives presented things the past 4 years.

All of a sudden my conservative family and friends are either quiet on the topic or they've had a revelation that the prices are due to external factors like bird flu / supply & demand and that the current president has little to do with things. Funny how that works.

They voted for the guy that said he'd lower prices. They voted for the guy that they swear "life was better under".

The difference is, I can afford as many eggs as I want at these prices without even noticing. They can't.

To be honest, most of the games I've played in the past 5+ years since I've started to get back into the hobby are stressful in various ways. That doesn't mean they aren't "quelling" stress and anxiety for me, just that when I'm playing them, they stress me out and give me anxiety.

Take for instance my current game du jour: Doom 2016. When battles are going, I'm for sure sweating and amped up, stressed, anxious, and what have you. It's anything but relaxing while playing. But still quite enjoyable.

So, perhaps the "quelling" comes after? A bit like a workout, where you're hyped up and exerting yourself, but after the fact you mellow out and relax?

I was 11 years old when I came to the realization that I am gay. Granted, I was also unusual in that I was a male who went through precocious puberty starting around age 8 so that might've altered the timeline a bit.