You either work your way through life or you leech off of others. Those are the options. There are kids who grew up in war zones, sleeping through air raids and watching those around them die. They still work. There are kids who were in and out of foster care, kids who watched their parents OD, kids who were SA’d every night, kids who slept on the street. Few people have had the ideal childhood you’re describing. Those people still work. They get into therapy. They make something of their life.

Quit making excuses for your laziness. Get a job.

That’s your survival instinct doing what it’s supposed to do. Don’t let a stranger into your home, don’t go into a stranger’s home. That’s just asking to be a victim.

Remind me of the babe

I’m on the top floor of a poorly-insulated midrise, and summers are absolutely miserable. I have a window AC in the bedroom, otherwise it’s all ceiling fans and ice packs. I bought a few “pillow insert cooling pads” (basically a Chillow) and just put them on my neck or in my shirt during the day. Frozen water bottles also help.

This is the bad place.

Oh man, Basshunter was huge in the chronically-online gamer space in the 2000s. His other songs are pretty good too.

To put it in perspective, the fact that they’re gaming on laptops and LCD monitors was an enviable flex when his songs released.

That’s a throwback. Let’s take it one step further and just get back on Ventrilo and play some DOTA. (For the younger folks who don’t get the reference: https://youtu.be/aTJncWndUB8 )

I have two servers, one Mac and one Windows. For the Mac I just map directly to the smb share, for the Windows it’s a standard network share. My desktop runs Linux and connects to both with ease.

Not gonna lie, I just map a network share and copy and paste through the gui.

“I’m in a contract position, and hoping to find something long-term with the potential for upward mobility.”

I agree that voice is what matters, but I feel that femshep is way better than male shep. Agreed on V, though.

Major roadblocks to piracy and porn in the US. Piracy will never be eliminated, but the barrier to entry will become too difficult for most folks. I’ve subsequently been hoarding all of the media I can get my hands on in case this happens - I refuse to pay for 20 streaming services just to watch movies and TV.

Ani DiFranco put it well. “God forbid you be an ugly girl, 'course too pretty is also your doom, 'cause everyone harbors a secret hatred for the prettiest girl in the room.”

A recruiter cold called me. I’m usually pretty rude to cold callers, so I played hardball out of the gate and I managed to get a $30k raise vs my current position.

You hit the nail on the head. Compliance and legal obligations for security and storage are a constantly moving target, so there’s always a lot to adjust alongside the day to day management.

Pork butt roast and sauerkraut. It’s a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch recipe meant to bring good luck and fortune to the household on New Years. You simply season a pork butt with salt and pepper and put it in the slow cooker with a large container of saurkraut and cook on low til it shreds. Served with mashed potatoes, peas, and pork gravy. Guaranteed to give you a food coma.

For appetizers, I love beet-pickled eggs. It’s essential to pickle them for 24+ hours to ensure the pink fully penetrates the egg white.

There’s an outdoor cabinet in my neighborhood that is used as a food bank. I fill it to the brim weekly with shelf-stable food. I was formerly homeless and know what it’s like to go hungry, and I work hard to ensure that no one in my neighborhood has to go to bed hungry.

Microsoft 365 Administrator, $130k USD. I only have an Associate’s degree but I have over a decade of experience in the field. Most of my day is spent coordinating with cybersecurity, compliance, and lawyers to ensure our data practices are sound. It’s a constantly-moving target.

Exactly this. I would be ecstatic if my employer paid for my cert tests. I pay for them myself and study on my own time, then leverage them during annual reviews to show why I deserve promotions and raises.

For context, I went from homeless to six figures because of this kind of hustle. If you want to just tread water then do so, otherwise you need to put in the work on your own time.

I’m glad I was born, if for no other reason than being able to lay my father to rest. He was a good man. I do enjoy life, though, and I work hard to ensure that the world is better because I’m in it.

I chose to not have children of my own because I personally could not give them the life a child deserves, but I admire my friends who did have children and are raising them into kind, compassionate people - The world will belong to their generation someday, afterall.