Life

[syntheticgerbil]

I know that feeling. I think the only way I dealt with it was to get out of the apartment as much as possible. Then later it became a place to play video games forever with no one mad about it.

 

But yeah, that sucks, hopefully it's not too tough on you.

[tegan]

I'm getting cabin fever here. It's been either snowing or hailing in Moncton for a week now. You can't go outside without either getting snowblind or poundd by hail, there's 28000 people with no power, and I can't buy milk because the power went out at the pharmacy last night and they had to dump theirs.

[Justin Leego]

They should have stored it in the snow!

[Roderick]

Since this week I've begun working parttime. After a year of fulltime employment I've made the step to get two days in the week for myself and my writing. It's a little scary, but also exciting and not too risky. My income still covers all the expenses I make and I don't mind living frugally. More importantly, I now have the time to WRITE and publish my first novel Pindakaas en Sushi (Peanut Butter and Sushi)!

It's a young adult novel about Japanese conventions in the Netherlands and it'll launch 2,5 months from now on the year's biggest festival. I've set up a publishing label just for it, Uitgeverij Leeuwenhart, and it's a TON of work to make and arrange everything. Very hard, but very fulfilling as well.

I've created a (Dutch) Twitter account for chronicling and marketing purposes, so if you want to follow my progress: @LeeuwenhartNL / https://twitter.com/LeeuwenhartNL

[syntheticgerbil]

Wow, that was quick! Congratulations!

[Merus]

My bet was a draw! Mum and Felicity didn't lose enough weight to win either! (It was over three months, and losing a tight, but reasonable, amount of weight.)

[dibs]

I think that means everyone looses. When you play the game of thrones*, you either win, or you die.

 

*throne here taken to mean toilet.

[dibs]

looses? loses? looses?

[Justin Leego]

Rodi, what goes into creating a publishing company in the Nederlands? Is it as easy as registering with a website or is there more to it than that?

[Roderick]

Synth: thanks!

Justin: To be honest, I haven't even delved into the (official) business aspect of it yet. I already have a registered company, so perhaps it'll be as simple as giving a new description for it to the chamber of commerce. I expect it to be no more difficult than creating any old small, one-man company here: just fill in some forms and you're good to go. But who knows, maybe there are some arcane additional rules for publishing houses? I'll look it up next month when I get around to it. Should be no big deal, there are tons of people with their own book company.

[pabosher]

I feel like I haven't posted in this thread for a while, so here goes:

 

I'm doing okay, largely. Bummed out about a woman - what's new there? - and feeling incredibly snowed under by the weight of my dissertation (with my first draft due in 10 days, and my final piece due in exactly one month), but largely level-headed about the whole thing.

 

Oh, and by the way, if you wanted to help me out in your own small way - Thanks! - you can fill in some online survey things at www.tinyurl.com/gamesanth and www.tinyurl.com/anthdiss

 

Now back to lurking.

[Badfinger]

looses? loses? looses?

Loose pants, lose weight.

 

Did it.

 

I am currently in full "get healthy" mode. It's so strange how portioning food seems like a horrible torture and then when you get to the end of the (actually reasonable, stupid american stomach) portion your stomach says "OH MY I AM FULL NOT ANOTHER BITE". it's satisfying in both ways. Also there are times when my body tells me it's compelled to exercise, as a good thing rather than as a punishment for liking candy.

[Twig]

I am currently in full "get healthy" mode. It's so strange how portioning food seems like a horrible torture and then when you get to the end of the (actually reasonable, stupid american stomach) portion your stomach says "OH MY I AM FULL NOT ANOTHER BITE". it's satisfying in both ways. Also there are times when my body tells me it's compelled to exercise, as a good thing rather than as a punishment for liking candy.

TEACH ME YOUR WAYS!!!

 

Recently I've come to the (re(re(re(re(re)))))realization that the state of my body prevents me from doing a lot of things I would love to do. Now that I'm back to living with my parents after failing to get a job for seven months, I figure this is a good time to start living healthier. But that's easy to say...

[SecretAsianMan]

(re(re(re(re(re)))))realization

 

 

I spent a good 15 seconds making sure you balanced your parens.

[Twig]

Me too!

[Gormongous]

I am so excited to talk to my students about fascism today! Saying as much to my date last night almost blew it for me, but I don't care. So much of the modernity that we've been talking about for months now leads directly into fascism, which is basically just every "modern" concept smashed together into a single semi-coherent philosophy. FASCISM is the RELIGION OF EFFICIENCY in which the STATE IS GOD. INDIVIDUALS ARE FREE to REJECT FAILED IDEOLOGIES and BECOME ONE WITH THE STATE that is the source of ALL HUMAN ACHIEVEMENT.

 

Also, it's very difficult to write or talk about fascism without sounding like you're buying into it. See aforesaid sentence about my date.

 

I spent a good 15 seconds making sure you balanced your parens.

Me too!

 

Ugh, STEM people.

[Justin Leego]

That's interesting. Do you feel that Post-Modernism is therefore also susceptible to fascist interpretation, rooted as it is in Modernist ideals, or has it sufficiently changed to avoid such an end point?

[Badfinger]

TEACH ME YOUR WAYS!!!

 

Recently I've come to the (re(re(re(re(re)))))realization that the state of my body prevents me from doing a lot of things I would love to do. Now that I'm back to living with my parents after failing to get a job for seven months, I figure this is a good time to start living healthier. But that's easy to say...

 

First thing is that flat out I wasn't able to do it by myself. I absolutely went to a trainer because I needed a plan. Because I am an internet nerd, I went to an internet trainer that I found through Something Awful.

 

http://www.swolept.com/learn

 

http://www.swolept.com/fitquiz (this is new since I was on the site, it seems quite cool)

 

Take that quiz. Be honest. Be overhonest if necessary. Mostly because it gives you a fairly accurate indicator of your base metabolic rate and calorie burn per day. As I was prattling about in the thread earlier, weightloss = calories in - calories out. If you're a more resourceful person than me you can probably just take that and go from there.

 

The basic gist is that he built a diet structure and an exercise structure for losing weight and building muscle and then it was just up to me to follow it, plus consultations multiple times a week depending on the plan chosen. I don't want to make this post a cheerleading ad for the trainer I used, but he was awesome and I'm grateful. The biggest (hugest) factor for me was preparation. If I planned ahead, prepared and brought meals, there was no reason to cheat. Why go out to lunch when lunch is 30 feet away? Plus it's SO inexpensive. At one point I estimated I was eating about $4.50 of food a day and that was with 30% protein in my diet. If I hadn't been buying expensive greek yogurt for breakfast it would have been even lower. I slipped back due to a number of things including a lot of stress, thus the comment about "getting back to it", but I lost about 30 pounds in about 12 weeks when I first started up. There's nothing fancy about doing things properly. It just takes effort. For me, lots and lots of effort. Oh, and a real effort to get a good night's sleep.

[Gormongous]

That's interesting. Do you feel that Post-Modernism is therefore also susceptible to fascist interpretation, rooted as it is in Modernist ideals, or has it sufficiently changed to avoid such an end point?

 

I am going to go way out of my depth here (and also sound like a fascist), but yes? I mean, fascism and post-modernism as political ideologies are both answering the same question, the failure of "modernity" and more pointedly the nineteenth-century liberalism that created and informed it. Fascism does so by rejecting divisive ideologies that detract from the presence and strength of the state, the oneness with which is the ultimate point of human experience, while post-modernism embraces diverse ideologies as the point of human existence. But yeah, Mussolini would reject post-modernism for doubling down on the failures of modernism and especially for undermining the reality of the state, which is the engine of progress and well-being for humanity.

 

All that said, it doesn't mean much, because fascism is virtually political solipsism. Every other ideology, unless it exists solely to support the state as a single collective entity, is in some way deficient. Communism seeks the destruction of the state and therefore is antithetical. Socialism privileges socioeconomic class and therefore divides people from the state. Democracy oppresses the minority and therefore divides people from the state. Only fascism, an ideology specifically designed to subordinate people to the state, is a truly effectual ideology.

[dibs]

i just force myself to go jogging 3 times a week, a few walks as well. i like walking so that is cool, but i really don't like jogging. however, i found that the more i jog, the less hungry i feel in general and the more likely i won't bother having that extra something bad, so its a win-win extra exercise and better eating for 30 mins pain a few evenings a week.

[Badfinger]

i just force myself to go jogging 3 times a week, a few walks as well. i like walking so that is cool, but i really don't like jogging. however, i found that the more i jog, the less hungry i feel in general and the more likely i won't bother having that extra something bad, so its a win-win extra exercise and better eating for 30 mins pain a few evenings a week.

 

I hate jogging. It's the most mindless, boring exercise activity. That combined with the fact that it's the lowest point of entry to making sure I do cardio is basically the worst thing ever.

[Roderick]

Gormongous, it must be annoying to teach these incredibly interesting things from an objective/historic standpoint, but then have to constantly pre-emptively defend yourself from the possible accusation that you might be the thing that you teach. It's the hallmark of taboo: even the reek of association with things like socialism (in American culture) and fascism (everywhere) is toxic to a high degree, despite them being impartially totally fascinating and only become monstrous in the hands of men (and reality).

[Gormongous]

Gormongous, it must be annoying to teach these incredibly interesting things from an objective/historic standpoint, but then have to constantly pre-emptively defend yourself from the possible accusation that you might be the thing that you teach. It's the hallmark of taboo: even the reek of association with things like socialism (in American culture) and fascism (everywhere) is toxic to a high degree, despite them being impartially totally fascinating and only become monstrous in the hands of men (and reality).

 

Yeah! I think fascism is so interesting because it's basically the fruit of seeds sown by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that could only bloom in soil watered by the blood of millions, which no one saw coming of course, but I can't get too excited about the historical implications because then I lose the appearance of impartiality. Like I was telling to my date last night, I have mostly coped by cultivating the sense of not taking anything seriously in order to insulate myself from looking like I have any political beliefs, which isn't hard because human history is really just people being terrible to each other over and over while telling each other that things are getting better, but it's a shame that I can't get too engaged in anything without risking the loss of someone's attention or respect.

 

Speaking of taboo, here's a great series of books called Reacting to the Past, which are little one-shot roleplaying sessions for important historical moments. You'll notice that, of the ones that have been published as opposed to the ones still being tested, there's only one from the twentieth century and it's a very safe topic with a fairly positive outcome, Indian independence. I don't think it'll ever happen, but I think it would be really instructive to have someone roleplay the rise of the Fascists in Italy or the rise of the Nazis in Germany (or even the rise and then collapse of the Blackshirts in Britain). They were seductive ideologies at the time and, since they're so taboo, there's not much danger of anyone being seduced anymore, at least not at a modern Western university, so I think it would help to be forced to see why they were so seductive then, through roleplaying or any other means, rather than just taking it as self-evident that they were abhorrent and unsustainable ideologies, which... I don't know. I actually need to go to class now, but it is food for thought. I'm still learning myself, really.

[Twig]

Ugh, STEM people.

):

 

Badfinger: Oh, nice. I will look at this today!

[Thrik]

So much of the modernity that we've been talking about for months now leads directly into fascism, which is basically just every "modern" concept smashed together into a single semi-coherent philosophy. FASCISM is the RELIGION OF EFFICIENCY in which the STATE IS GOD. INDIVIDUALS ARE FREE to REJECT FAILED IDEOLOGIES and BECOME ONE WITH THE STATE that is the source of ALL HUMAN ACHIEVEMENT

Well, that's me sold!