Sort of. My spouse worked nights in the oncology ICU during COVID times, then slept most of the day. Then back to work. 1 accumulated hour of actual Christmas spent eating breakfast and opening gifts sucked.

I’m the one who makes all the posts on Lemmy. Sorry you had to find out this way.

Saw an ad for a protein soda. I am vomit.

I think so, unfortunately. Please keep your financial stability. The music major route is either teaching or performance, and you’ll probably just end up with side gigs if you’re not doing either. That may be a fun outlet if you’re not committed to performance or academics, but if your regular job and domestic life are already taking all of your time, it doesn’t sound feasible. I had to make a similar decision regarding a performance major many years ago, and I regret not keeping up with playing for fun outside of the intense academic environment. My overall advice: Keep playing! Seek out private lessons in the meantime and see what happens (not the collegiate route quite yet, since that’s a separate career commitment and very intense). Keep on doing the thing that brings you joy.

Seeing a lot of love for the RAZR, but I loved the Motorola SLVR. Perfect size, incredible antenna.

Not sure how obscure this one is, but in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, there’s typically a bunch of creative ways to do things, and you’re punished for being consistent (you do mostly headshots? They get helmets!). There’s a boss fight with an ancient sniper known as The End, and Kojima wanted it to take a week to complete. He was told no, of course, but it’s still a massive exercise in patience.

Alternately, you can just quit the game, pop the cartridge out for a week, and when you start it up on day 8, The End has died of natural causes.

Hope you like asparagus

Pull a card from Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies and see what happens

Cannot emphasize enough how important it is to ask questions if anything is unclear. Stay after class for a few minutes if you need to. Use office hours if you can. The students who did the best in my classes always asked for clarification on stuff and I was thrilled to take time and give whatever help I could. It shows that you’re making an effort to learn, and you’ll stand out (which can sometimes count for a little extra something at the end of the semester if you’re on the fence between two grades).

Big Black’s recording of Pig Pile. Not even a top 10 band for me, but the energy of that show is incredible.

Cases of a favorite beer sounds like a good idea! My mom always urged some kind of consumable as a gift in these situations. Consider if there’s anything unique to where you’re going (e.g. if I went to Hawaii, I’d bring back a Kona blend coffee).

Preferred: “I EAT BONES AND SHIT GHOSTS”

Millennials/gen Z with their phone sound on. I get it’s to fill otherwise blank space in the sound, but we’re not texting with the click-click-click-click.

Some mornings, it’s just not worth chewing through the leather straps.

This is how Autechre programs beats.

Bubba Ho-Tep. Bruce Campbell is a still-alive Elvis forgotten in a nursing home. He’s got to fight a mummy that’s sucking the souls out of old people’s assholes. Also Black JFK assists. It really shouldn’t work, but it somehow manages to.

Letterkenny. Absolutely zero laughs out of me and something about it just induces a headache. I wanted to like it, gave the entire first season a watch, but my god it was painful.

DFW’s nonfiction is his superior work. But who cares because Infinite Jest, bro!

It’s very much a Gen-X nostalgia bucket.

Miss Cleo clearly said “Call me now, hon!”