Lost_My_Mind

Ok, so......I was just watching some youtube videos, right? Turns out gorillas are amazing. The gorillas at your zoo remember you. They act different around zoo regulars. They enjoy seeing the regulars, as if they're friends. They can tell the difference between a child actually crying as opposed to a child PRETEND to cry. They get worried when their regulars children are crying for real. It stresses them, because they're behind a glass wall, and can't comfort the child. They put their hand against the glass as if to show they want to be there for the crying child. But if the "crying child" were just faking, the gorillas would sense it was fake, and they'd play and roll around. As if to be part of the fun. So gorillas are really smart who understand the world they're seeing. They have empathy. They see life the way people do.

And dolphins are some of the other smartest creatures on earth. They have sex for the pleasure of it, rather than the mating, and are some of the only creatures on earth known to be smart enough to experience that. So they'll rape you. Make of that what you will.

And then I watched a video of a cat, on an airplane, looking out the window. But the video sucked, because the cat had no concept of what it was looking at when it looked out the window. It was just like "uhhhh.....ok? Some patchy green stuff. Great moving painting. Why are you showing me this?

But I'm thinking, what if we brought a gorilla and a dolphin onto an airplane? I don't even know HOW you get the dolphin to be able to see outside. Maybe it's a custom built airplane with the whole lower half being transparent, and serves as a water tank for the dolphin? I guess?

But the gorilla could just look out the window.

See these are the kinds of science experiments we need to be conducting. Someone contact FOX. I'm sure we could/should film this. Alternatively, hey PBS.....wanna get weird?

You KNOW you gotta see the look on the gorillas face when it realizes "Wait......how the fuck are we this high up??? WHAT is happening right now???"

Even better if you could do that thing where they nosedive and do the zero gravity thing.

Wait......should we bring a gorilla and a dolphin into SPACE??? HEY NASA!!! WHO WANTS TO DO ENOUGH DRUGS TO MAKE THIS IDEA SOUND GOOD ENOUGH TO GREENLIGHT???

Pretty sure Conan just took his show on tour, and his writting team was trying to come up with segments they could film in Germany, and Conan was like GERMAN DOMINATRIX!!!

And his staff was like "....what? We can't do that on...."

"WE'RE DOING GERMAN DOMINATRIX, AND TBS IS PAYING FOR IT!!!"

And so it was.

Like, he pops out of his little hole, and just.....his heart stops.

Do we get 6 more weeks of winter or not? Maybe we get an apocalypse instead?

If you're a terrible petson, maybe don't follow that advice. For example, if you find yourself seig hailing, ever, maybe try being someone better.

So, I'm in the frozen foods isle at the grocery store, and I see chicken marinara, I see ravioli, I see lasagna. And then I see stoffers spaghetti. No meatballs. Nothing else. Just noodles and sauce.

And I'm thinking to myself "Why the fuck would you pay $8 for a little self serving of spaghetti and sauce??? Do you people realize that it's just noodles and sauce? Do you have ANY idea how much money you're overpaying???

And it's not even like it's all that much easier. I'm a TERRIBLE cook. I know like 3 dishes, and they're all dishes you probably expect a teenager to be able to cook. Spaghetti is one of them.

So I'm just looking at this package in the isle screaming in my own head WHY DO YOU EXIST??? YOUR EXISTENCE IMPLIES PEOPLE ARE BUYING YOU!!! WHO IS BUYING FROZEN NOODLES???

It was about this time, I had to admit to myself that I'm developing some serious anger management issues. Part of me wanted to just stand there, next to that door, and act as a bouncer for anyone who wanted to pick that item up. If they did, I was like "I should punch them!" and then my brain intervened and said "No, that's a terrible idea." And I said "But this is a terrible product!" Which made me argue back "Yes, but it's not your fight. You can't just go around punching people. What if an old lady picks it up? Are you going to pick a fist fight with an elderly woman?" and I yelled back, but without rationale. It was the magnetic bracelet incident all over again. Just letting people out there into the world, to make dumbass decisions without me policing their stupid behavior.

But apparently the police don't think I'm a good enough of a judge to go punching stupid people. Somehow I'D be the one in the wrong! Pssh! Can you believe that? ME! The guy telling you that paying $8 for a handful of frozen spaghetti dictates that you get a punch, and that power bracelets are a scam. I'll scam your face right here with my fist right now! How about that?!

Ugh! This is how we end up in the world we're in. Where people are starving, because rich assholes thing they rule the world. And now, nazis are taking over. You see what happens when I don't punch you guys? THIS shit happens. Where we sell spaghetti to poor people at inflated prices with reduced portion sizes. Meanwhile, the media is still too pussyfooted to call these assholes what it is! Nazis in the government, and punches need to be flying. Punch a nazi today I say! But nooooooooo! Can't do that! That's not legal!

What's next? Selling ramen noodles at upscale restaurants with the flavor packet costing $20? It's bad enough baseball games want to think that peanuts are some high priced luxury item! And now all these products, if you pay attention to the packaging, they will list bulk volume weight of what you're getting. It's shrinking.

Look at Luigi. He kills Brian Thompson, and suddenly, this mega corporation that's in charge of healthcare pedals back on their decision to limit how much anesthesia they'll cover in their policy. Not because of any shortage, or any decent reason why they'd have to limit it. They just thought "How can we profit even MORE???" and they thought "Well why waste the anesthesia on these plebs? Let's not pay for that."

Suddenly, Brian Thompson gets shot, and all the sudden they pedal back on that stance. People who would have had to go through surgery in pain suddenly had the anesthesia covered in their policy.

Now I'm not saying to go out and shoot the CEO of Doritos because the bag sizes shrink. Doritos bag sizes aren't as important as affordable healthcare. I get that.

........but what about a good punch to the nose? If this CEO is walking around getting punched, but not killed, everywhere he goes, maybe suddenly those "Party Size" bags could actually be more than a slightly bigger than normal bag was in 2008.

And then there's the spaghetti. Who's at fault here? Is it the soulless corporation who makes no attempt to be a good person? Or is it the enabling public who lack any critical thinking skills whatsoever? And now with AI being shoved down our throat for the express intention to dull the general public's critical thinking skills with each passing generation.

The republicans started this plan to make America dumber starting back with Nixon. And from here on out we as a society have become dumber and dumber and dumber. Now with AI, it's going to get so much worse in 50 years.

That means humanity has reached it's peak. It's all downhill from here. It's been going downhill for decades, and you think it's bad now, and it is, but it's about to take a fucking nosedive.

So yeah. I want to fight. Because I'll be DAMNED if I sit by and let the boomers be remembered as the peak of humanity.

So I noticed something a while ago, and I'm just now getting around to fixing it.

I notice that if I click the middle mouse button on windows, a scroll icon comes up. If you then drag your mouse down slightly, the page scrolls slowly. If you drag your mouse down a LOT, the page scrolls a lot. Then you can left click anywhere to turn off the scroll mode.

Except in ZorinOS, I don't get that. I click the middle scroll button, and......nothin. What do I have to do to get scroll mode?

Scenario:

You're talking to someone, and you mention the treaty of versailles. They say "the what?" and you say "The treaty of versailles. You know, when Germany lost WWI and had to give up land and other military functions?"

and your friend just stares at you and says "......what?". So you say "Just google it."

Well your friend is an idiot. You should have seen that coming from the fact that they don't know basic history. Be that as it may, you're trusting your friend to use the most powerful search engine on earth to find things he doesn't know what he's looking for. So he searches "Treaty of her thighs"

Which for some reason returns THIS RESULT. No really, I was hoping it would return some porn result, and I could have made fun of that. But no, top result is an Ohio war. Which may be because I'M located in Cleveland, so google is like "You're searching for dumb shit, here have an Ohio war instead". But I can work with this to help prove my point.

So you told him to just google treaty of versailles, and he comes back talking about a war between native americans and white people in ohio in the 1790s. You see how wrong that went?

When you tell someone to "just google it", you're entrusting that the person you're talking to isn't a massive dumbass. That's a pretty tall stretch these days. I find most people are completely intolerable. We have all these PSA's that people need to tolerate other people for being different. Which never made sense to me. I don't give a shit that you're a different background than I am. I'm judging you for walking into an autozone and throwing bricks because they're out of blinker fluid.

My grandma taught me growing up "If you need to raise your voice to be heard, then nobody wants to hear what you have to say. If that's the case, you should reflect on why that is. Is it because you're wrong about everything you say, and people have figured that out? Maybe try NOT being wrong about everything you say."

And that's when I watched the family interactions as a kid a little more closely. My dad would yell over everyone, and growl and piss and moan and do everything he could to be louder than his sisters, while his mom is shaking her head. Meanwhile, if my grandma tapped her glass indicating that she was to speak, EVERYBODY shut the fuck up, and the room quieted to dead silence. She spoke at a normal tone, and everyone listened to every word. My dad, who has no self reflection, no ability to judge people or situations, or reality, just yells until he gets his way.....which even after he gets his way, still doesn't work out in the end because it was the wrong approach to start with.

So to trust someone like my dad to just google things for himself, instead of just googling it for him, and showing him the CORRECT results, is something that would lead to him being 1 bit smarter than otherwise would. Over time, enough of these bits would mean he's smart enough to start thinking on his own. THEN he can google on his own.

But right now, you're asking a nation who just elected trump by popular vote to think for themselves. And I'm at a point where I think that's just a bad idea. I think the collective average of society equates to a man who puts hammers in a box, and puts that box in the garage, high up on a beam, barely supported, directly over the space the car would pull in. Then when you get out of the car, and close the door, the air movement is enough to make the box wobble. The wobble is enough to make it fall. And it falls right on your head. Because you put it there. And you can't figure out why that happened.

That's what I think of society. That's where I think we're at, mentally. Partially because I've seen this exact scenario play out. And partially because I see these people in public, all day, you know the ones. The people who you wonder how they are able to walk properly without their brain short circuiting, and they fall more often. The people who breathe through their mouth. These are the average day to day people who are (somehow) living their life on their own.

And you want them to think for themselves, to make decisions which affect everybody else..........god dammit. Why did we give Americans the right to vote??? They shouldn't even be googling things by themself!

You kids just don't know what it's like! When I was 19, it was 2002, and do you know who we had as a president? We had an idiot that couldn't socially function, but the republicans made excuses for him daily. You don't know what that's like.

When I was 19 we had a president that thought he deserved to be president just because of his last name. You don't know what that's like.

When I was 19, we had an overly polarized society where nobody could agree on anything! It was almost like the media was pushing a divide among people. You don't know what that's like.

When I was 19, the republicans in texas were trying to reshape our lexicons by calling it "freedom fries" when everybody knew that was just a thinly veiled attempt at pushing racism through by removing the name of a foreign country from a well established term. You don't know what it's like.

When I was 19, we had a president that racist people loved, but everyone else could easily tell he was racist. You don't know what it's like.

When I was 19, there was an unwarrented mass hysteria that we were going to be entering WWIII soon, even though no nation wanted that. You'd turn on the news every night and see stories of war overseas, and think something bigger was about to erupt. You don't know what that's like.

When I was 19, we had a president that made up his own phrases, such as fool me once, shame on....shame on you. Fool me twice....can't get fooled again! He would just make up his own phrases and words to suit his own political image, and never admit he made a mistake. Well then the other republicans would DEFEND his misuse of language and covfefe him! You don't know what that's like.

When I was 19, everybody complained about everything being made in china, but nobody actually did anything to STOP that from being the case. They'd just blame china as an easy political fall guy who they didn't need to worry about consequences of. You don't know what that's like.

When I was 19, gas prices were a real problem! They often got as high as $1.10 per gallon! Outrageous! You don't know what that's like!

When I was 19, you just COULDN'T afford food. You'd get a job at a fast food job just to take home the extra food or whatever. Living off of ramen noodles, and rice. And hey, if it's 3 hours until close, and the boss says to put 6 potatoes in the oven.....and you put 8? oopsie poopsie! That's how you had to eat during a time when the politcal regime didn't care about it's people! You don't know what that's like!

When I was 19, healthcare was absurdly expensive! It often felt like the rich were just profiting off of peoples suffering. You don't know what that's like.

When I was 19, the police were corrupt, and not held to any amount of accountability. They'd get away with whatever they wanted, and would often beat people, or kill them without reason. You don't know what that's like!

.......kids today man, I tell ya! It's a different world out there now!

Woman: You see her? You think she's pretty?

Guy: Hmmm?

"Do you think she's pretty?"

"I guess.....why?"

"So, you think she's prettier than me?"

"Do I think she's prettier than you......hmmmmm, let me see your butt."

"What?"

"I gotta compare butts."

"You have to compare butts.....to know if she's prettier than me?"

"Well, yeah. How would you YOU judge it?"

"Self depricatingly! Obviously!"

"That's because you can't see your own butt."

"Huh?"

"It's behind you. It's a great butt, but you never see it."

"What's so special about my butt?"

"Here, bend over a second. Let me show you something."

"Ok....."

"You feel this? This is a nice thick curve. It's got some juicyness to it, and right here---no no, don't straighten up. Stay like this. A man is explaining your own worth to you now."

"A man...."

"Yes, that's right. Don't worry, you don't need to be observant, which means to notice things. You're pretty. That means you don't need to think, or even notice how pretty you are. You'll still be treated nice."

"I.....what?"

"Shhhhhhhh, don't ruin it by talking."

And THAT is how you get women to stop being self conscious about if they're pretty enough, and START a whole new fight about if you think they're smart. Then, you just let them win a few arguements of being smart, which creates confidence within them. And that ends their internal need to prove themselves to you, because now they feel smart AND pretty.

And now you're not fighting. Or maybe you are. I'm single and don't understand life. It sounds like a solid plan though.

GUYS!!! Why are there like 4 Cleveland communities, but all of them are dead??? Let's all post here, and let's all say all the Cleveland things!

And since I know controversy creates engagement, and will get you guys to post in this thread, I'll go first.

I don't like the west side market. I don't see all the hype, and quite frankly, the only perk they have that makes it slightly worth thinking about is the fact that you can easily get to it via the red line rapid. Outside of the convenience factor, I don't see what all the hype is about. And my one visit to Sokolowski's left me unimpressed!

NOW COME AT ME WITH ENGAGEMENT!!! LETS GROW THIS COMMUNITY!!!!

Dear Aldis....

Why are you like this? I show up to buy ramen noodles, and I can't find them. So I think "Did they move them? There's not an empty space on the shelf where they used to be. Either they moved them, or they no longer carry them."

So I ask a person, who's stocking shelves with a look on her face that tells me she's now 3 hours behind schedule and worried about being tied to the rack after her shift and whipped mercilessly. That mixture of anxiety and fear make me even hesitant to break her concentration. So I ask another employee who's seemingly having a staring competition with a milk carton. I can't tell if she's winning or losing. Either way I'm fairly sure she's high as balls. I ask her if they've moved the ramen noodles. The response I'm met with is "Oooooh, yeah, maybe."

........ok? Can you maybe point me in the right direction?

"Well, they're probably getting ready for valentines day. They sometimes change the packaging to be holiday themed".

At this point, I'm thinking she misheard me? Because when the fuck have you EVER seen valentines day themed ramen noodles??? I'm not talking about fancy shit. I'm talking those little tiny packs of noodles you get for like 50 cents each. The cheap shit!

So I ask "No, I'm asking about RAMEN noodles."

and she replies back like I'm stupid "Yeah, we're probably waiting on the valentines day packaging."

Now, I'm fairly sure since I asked twice, and made sure to enunciate clearly the second time, I'm fairly sure she didn't mishear me, but there's still SOME miscommunication going on. I just have no idea what.....so I don't know how to move this conversation along. My brain is really struggling to even comprehend what a valentines day ramen noodle would be. Like, is it just pink packaging with hearts? Are the pre-cooked noodles shaped like a heart instead of a square? Is it a special flavor? I'm totally lost by what we're discussing at this point.

Just then another guy walks by dragging a big cart behind him to stock shelves. And she says over to him "Hey, are we still waiting for the valentines day ramen?" and he says yes. He just agrees with her.

I'm fairly sure they're messing with me at this point. I don't know what is happening or even what to envision with valentines day ramen noodles.

WHAT THE HELL IS IT???

I just googled it, and I'm finding stuffed animals from 5 below in the shape of ramen noodles.....which, just in itself.....what?

I'm finding etsy products where they take ramen noodle imagery, and valentines day imagery, and make a pink wrapper for the noodles......again....what?

But I'm not finding official products from any ramen noodles producer that seem to be real. So. What the hell just happened???

Then I go over to where the hot chocolate packs are. I buy 1 pack every 2 weeks in the winter. The space where they'd normally be is totally empty. So I sigh, and walk away. That week our current temperatures were negative 5. I can fully understand why hot chocolate sold out that week.

Next week I go in. Temperatures are now 25 degrees. Still not warm, but not nipple hardeningly cold as it was. Still though, it's been almost 2 weeks at this point since I had hot chocolate. Still none.

Last week I go. Still a bare shelf. At this point I want to ask an employee if they've stopped carrying it, or if there's some manufacture issue. But that didn't exactly go great last time, and my sanity isn't exactly my strong suit right now. I'm not sure I could handle being told some random bullshit like Marty McFly came back from the distant future year of 2015, and took them all. This was almost a month ago, so I don't think the new tariffs, even if they would be affected, would be in place yet.

And I can't even call Aldi's before I leave my house to go get hot chocolate. I'd love to just call and ask "Hey, is it on the shelf right now? It's not? Well that saves me 45 minutes coming out there for something you don't have! Thanks!"

Instead, I just gotta roll the dice, possibly waste my day off, and don't talk to anyone. That's what obtaining hot chocolate has come to. I'm legitimately considering going to Walgreens......but then I remember that they always have the same cashier, who always wants to talk your ear off. And I'm sorry, but I don't give a shit about your kids. I don't care what award he won in 3rd grade. I don't care about his peanut allergies. I've never met your kids. I have no interest in doing so. I'm just here to buy whatever handful of items you happen to carry that are hard to find elsewhere. Which apparently no longer includes DVD-R's. I wanted to buy a small bundle of maybe 10. I understood I'd be overpaying, but fuck it. I just wanted to get home, use 1, and throw 9 in a drawer to never be used again. But no. Walgreens doesn't even carry them anymore. They'll carry a USB stick of 8gb for $30, but no DVD-R's. In fact the cashier didn't even know what I was talking about. She used the excuse "DVD what? Like the players?" "No, these are like the discs, except they're blank. You can write data to them." "No, we sell some DVD movies that nobody ever buys...." and points to a bin of movies that nobody should ever buy. Why are these here? Why do these even exist at all? Who is ever going to buy a Tim Allen movie called "Restless for the holidays"? See you've never heard of that movie, and don't know if I just made it up, but it serves the example of the level of movies they're carrying in the Walgreens $5 dvd bin. All that to say that no, these dvd's are not DVD-Rs. And she says to me "Oh.....I don't know what they are. I'm too young for that."

Was NOT angry before she said that. I was disappointed. THAT comment brought me to "NOW LISTEN HERE YA LITTLE SHIT!!!" levels of anger internally. Holy shit. I have a good poker face, so she never even knew I was mad, but oh my god.

All of this entire post just to say, that I'm cold in my apartment, and instead of using my new electric kettle I got in December, I'm sitting at my desk in a sweater! A SWEATER!!! LIKE A PLEB!!! ARE YOU HAPPY ALDI'S??? YOU DID THIS!!!!