I work hard at whatever I’m doing, deriving satisfaction from a job well done. That attitude has driven me forward at almost every job. If it doesn’t, or management is abusive, I’m out. Hell, if management annoys me enough I’m out. In any case, management has never ignored me. That mobility drove my pay to triple over 6 years.

Out of IT for the moment, not sure I want back in, but I have to get back to work if I’m to overcome the depression of sitting around for months on end. So I’m taking a shit, part-time job at a hardware store. Kinda was looking to retire into that sort of thing to keep me busy and fit, little early for that.

Know what? I’ll still work hard. Even if the pay sucks, hard work gets you bonuses. Management respects you, gives you better jobs and schedules, cuts you slack when you fuck up. For example; In two customer service jobs I quickly got sick of taking calls, basically moved myself up to training incoming classes, 6-months or less each time. Love training!

I call it “The Hawkeye Pierce Theory of Work”. Be too damned good to get fired, coworkers and “officers” respect you, and you can get away with murder.

Mississippi is far worse than Oklahoma. Love those folks, but it’s bad.

Not sure we should remove suicide stats. Makes the numbers less “panicky”, but an easy point-and-click death is something we have to talk about.

Random death vs. fear of random death was the point. One of these things is not like the other.

guns are popular and legal in America to the point where you can’t even safely walk alone in public during the night or safely send your kid to school

Absolutely untrue, hardly ever seen a gun in public that wasn’t on a cop. Born and bred in Oklahoma (extremely conservative), worked in South Chicago (gangbangers everywhere) and now live in NW Florida (conservative again). And I’ve been in a lot of scary places and ran with seriously sketchy people when young.

About half of guns deaths are suicides. Most of the rest are gangs doing gang shit or interpersonal violence. Most murder victims knew their killer, anything but random.

Year in, year out, CDC stats have vehicular death at the same numbers as gun deaths. Stay away from shitty people and places, don’t kill yourself, you’re far more likely to die in or by a car. That scares the crap out of me, yet no one talks about it because it’s normal.

Had to drop my Spotify subscription. Figured I grew up on radio and broadcast TV, few ads won’t bother. Yeah, not like they do.

Maybe I’m paranoid, but I’d swear the ads were reasonable for a bit before they went nuts with them. Feels like I’m being bullied in renewing.

Define “blatant falsehood”. See where the problem starts?

Probably something dumb like your case. We lived without heat for 2 years. Working in the closet with a buddy led me to screwing the breaker box to the stud properly. Never tripped again. No idea why.

Easy diagnosis. Take speed. Calms you down? ADHD. Speeds you up? No ADHD.

My best friend is ADHD. Dated a long-time friend that was ADHD. My daughter is ADHD.

Give 'em speed, they chill. Give me speed, I bounce off the walls. Many of the same symptoms.

I see tons of young people online, “I want to be special. I have ADHD! Also, I’m trans and gay!”

STFU. You’re young, wildly horny and figuring life out. We all went through that.

“But I’m SPECIAL!!!”

No, odds are you aren’t. Stop taking away from people who actually have these conditions/problems/lives.

“OK. But I’m OCD!”

Jesus. STFU.

More pics! Love the yellow and gray builds.

Latest terrarium, work in progress, used from thrift, front doors open.

PIC

Excepting the center-rear plants and two epiphytes (Lowes), everything sourced or created locally.

Substrate: rock (found and cleaned), charcoal & dirt (made myself)

Contents: Mosses, dead and alive, green onions, tiny pine trees, purple hearts (swiped from the gas station trimmings), driftwood (found hiking and canoeing, power washed), reindeer moss (not quite visible)

Lighting: Thrift store light with various grow bulbs, still painting and assembling. Not thrilled with the color, can’t get the high color-fidelity (CRI) grow bulbs I’ve used before, had to mix it up best I could.

Animals: Nothing so far, but I want to pack it with detritivores like millipedes, springtails and roly polys. Wife is getting me a chameleon, probably tonight! Not sure how to keep the bug population going with him in there. Ideas? Rocks to hide under? I may also get a Pac Man frog.

It’ll be way cooler and different in a year. Just put the round, green moss in, hasn’t settled naturally, stuff like that. The pines will be worked over as bonsais, some stuff may die or turn out inappropriate, wood may move around, etc.

EDIT: Got the chameleon! “Doctor Lector”. Still working on insect populations, but we got 20 crickets to start him off.

Friday, I’m in love. On another note, learned I was born on a Friday, just today.