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Fuck :( What happened?

 

So, my email covered a lot of ground: I told him about my being gay, detailed the abuse I had to go through at the hands of my parents, and summarized my financial and work history up until now. I asked if he would be willing to provide me any help, even if it was just a reference for a resume.

The response had a bit of dancing around my sexuality without ever really addressing it or how he felt about it, "personal beliefs" about the importance of family and how I wasn't giving mine enough regard, refusal to give me a reference because he didn't know anything about my work, and a brief lecture about how he spent two years as a young man pulling himself out of student debt that his parents had helped cover.

 

 

I don't get it. I don't think I'm wrong. I get that parenting is hard, but I don't think my parents deserve regard for the way they treated me. Not even admonishment for their actions. And it's pretty condescending for someone who recovered from debt in two years with their parents to talk down to someone who's battled with it for five without any family.

 

I don't know how I'm going to get by on my own. I've done my best to try to live without family, and I just keep sinking down. And then I finally turn to a relative for help and they let me down like this. I don't know what to do with myself anymore. I don't want to rely on anybody but myself, but I can't do it.

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I'm sorry tegan : ( it's so hard to navigate familial relationship without that added complexity of coming out + abuse. It's so hard to be unemployed and feel that hopelessness. I am just really sorry you have to deal with this.

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I'm so sorry, Tegan. It's heartbreaking when someone surprises you with their shittiness, and that's just compounded by the surrounding already shitty circumstances.

 

I'm so sorry that you have to go through this. Nobody deserves to have to question their ability to survive, least of all rad people like you.

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Come on people, there HAS to be something we can do.  Tegan is an amazing person who deserves our love and support.  I refuse to believe that there's nothing that can be done to help.  I'm racking my brain trying to come up with something.

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Dinosaur Comics just put out the comic summing up basically my entire existence.

 

comic2-2843.png

 

This is me. This is my life.

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Well, I'm at least glad that there's someone else out there who sees the Star Wars series as "6 ok movies" rather than "3 works of genius and three abominations".

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You're a monster.

But there's a reason I don't want to watch Star Wars, and haven't seen it since I saw it on VHS. I know I was young and dumb when I fell in love with it and I like the version in my head more than I'll ever like the actual movie.

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Well, I'm at least glad that there's someone else out there who sees the Star Wars series as "6 ok movies" rather than "3 works of genius and three abominations".

I know, right? We're so few and far between, and anytime I vocally express that opinion in a group of nerds I get a lot of "what the heck is wrong with you, pal" looks.

 

At least people around here are accustomed to my complete ambivalence by now. Right?!

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There are a tiring amount of examples of when nerds think that their opinions about a thing are objectively right, I've just tried to recontextualize stuff like Star Wars as "the best movie for me". It's really hard to divorce the idea of something being the best from the fact that Star Wars practically defined my early teens. I remember using Flickchart to construct my best movies of all time list and there's maybe one in my top 10 that "everyone" might agree actually might have a shot in the "actual" best top 10.

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Yeah and I mean once you actually get into the discussion of what makes Star Wars great for someone, it often comes to wha tyou're talking about.

 

But it's just so tiring day in and day out expressing an unpopular opinion and getting lambasted.

 

I have this reputation at work for "hating" everything, but really I express love for just as many things as I express "hate" (i.e., disinterest). It fucking infuriates me to no end. I'm willing to bet that I actually like more things than most people. I don't mean this to brag. It's just I'm tolerant of a lot of problems of which other aren't. But because I don't care for some of the most popular things, I become known as that guy who hates Star Wars. It's gotten to the point where I explicitly don't express opinions anymore. \:

 

Blah, whatever. I didn't mean to rant. Like I said, that comic sums up my life. Haha.

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I totally hear you, Twig. I also don't like Lord of the Rings. My sister is constantly calling me out for being "some hipster who just hates popular things because they're popular", but I also have an enduring love for the Fast and Furious and Indiana Jones franchises, so whatever. I rank Star Wars and LotR as "things that I came to at the wrong point in life" and will probably never be into as a result of that. I mean, they're fine, but I have never managed to care for longer than the running time of any of the movies and found reading LotR to be an exercise in tedium that I only stuck with to the end due to incredible societal pressure from my friends.

 

Star Wars is actually a weird one for me because I love the aesthetic of it but find the movies just ok. I love the games because that world is a fun one to be in, and I have a bunch of the lego sets because I find the ship designs really cool. I just don't care about the films that much.

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I kinda feel like the films are the worst part of Star Wars. I watch them a lot because they have parts that give me chills and can't really be replicated in games or in books like they can on a big screen, but the best Star Wars stories can be found elsewhere and I think I haven't felt as much "MAN STAR WARS IS GREAT" as when I played stuff like Jedi Knight or KOTOR.

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I do admit that the side stories have always been more interesting. I actually loved the (original) Clone Wars cartoon. Though part of that might be my Genndy Tartakovsky love spilling over from Samurai Jack and Dexter's Lab.

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I will be taking a vacation to Toronto from June 11–16!

 

Right now I have plans to see plays at the Stratford Festival and Shaw Festival, but no plans for anything to do in the city itself.

 

Are there any must-sees in Toronto?  Does anyone have any tips for someone traveling outside the US for the first time?  Is it worth it to get a SIM card for my unlocked phone?

 

I see from our Idle Thumbs map that Spenny is the only self-identified Toronto resident.  Anybody else around?

 

Thanks!

 

Hey, so I was on a trip of my own and couldn't respond to this, but I'm totally happy to give some advice and echo what others have said now that I'm back home.

 

The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is one of the best museums I have been to, totally worth checking out. The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) doesn't compare to what you might find in New York or Chicago, but its Canadian collection is probably second only to the National Gallery in Ottawa, so I'd really only make that recommendation if you're into art. Casa Loma is a house built to look like a castle, and is maintained as a museum, worth a look.

 

Go up the CN Tower, it's tall, and has a great view. If you want an extra thrill they do the "Edge Walk" where they let you walk around the outside of the tower, you have to book that in advance. At the base of the CN Tower you have the Steamwhistle Brewery and Ripley's Aquarium. I haven't been to the aquarium yet but I hear it's good. The brewery tour is fun for sure.

 

I really like going to the Toronto Islands, but, for me it has always been a way to escape the city, so I'm not sure it's the first thing I'd suggest if you want to do city things. The best way to see them is on a bike, and the ferry ride over gets you great views of the city. 

 

Kensington Market is a cool neighbourhood with an eclectic mix of stores and people. I like going there to buy cheap sunglasses and Chilean empenadas. 

 

Yelp will go a long way to find you good food and drink where ever you are in the city.

 

Get Well is my favourite bar in the city, lots of craft beer and arcade games. Pizzeria Libretto is a VPN certified pizzeria, and has a few locations across the city. Try and get yourself some poutine. Smoke's or Poutiney's do a good one.

 

If you like sports, Jays games are cheap, and Real Sports Bar was rated ESPN's best sports bar a couple years ago.

 

If you like beer, Bar Volo and Amsterdam Brewhouse could be worth a look.

 

Bar With No Name has board games you can play, for free.

 

High Park is a nice park with a cute zoo in it.

 

Avoid the Toronto Zoo, it's on a far border of the city and is really spread out, making for a day of walking and driving. 

 

The Distillery District is a historic part of the city, a bit touristy, but quite beautiful. Mill Street Brewpub is down there and a good place to eat and drink.

 

That's my disorganized thoughts on cool things to do in the city. When I travel to the US, I just buy some roaming packages through my cell provider, I paid 50 bucks for unlimited texts, calls and 250 mb of data. I would hazard a guess that a US carrier will have better prices than that. Hope that helps.

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I do admit that the side stories have always been more interesting. I actually loved the (original) Clone Wars cartoon. Though part of that might be my Genndy Tartakovsky love spilling over from Samurai Jack and Dexter's Lab.

 

I loved that too.  It pretty much represents what I wanted the Star Wars movies to be like.

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I remember using Flickchart to construct my best movies of all time list and there's maybe one in my top 10 that "everyone" might agree actually might have a shot in the "actual" best top 10.

 

And now my whole day is about this.

 

It's so pointless, but so well designed! The instant gratification is too strong to resist.

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And now my whole day is about this.

 

It's so pointless, but so well designed! The instant gratification is too strong to resist.

 

I secretly linked it for that reason, it's super addictive and I need to spread the virus to others so I don't feel so bad about having spent hours and hours ranking.

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Well, I'm at least glad that there's someone else out there who sees the Star Wars series as "6 ok movies" rather than "3 works of genius and three abominations".

 

I see them as six kinda shitty movies, so I'm glad we're in agreement that they're all the same.

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Lotta Star Wars Cool Kids round here suddenly.

 

 

So I'm looking for apartments, and suddenly it appears that I might be better off buying instead of renting. The afternoon has been spent receiving phone calls from realtors about condos.

 

I don't know what the hell I'm doing but it sure is exciting!

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I've been thinking of starting a Patreon. Anyone have any experience/advice/recommendations?

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A friend of mine has one that works reasonably well for her. It's worth having multiple tiers of both funding goal things and patron levels. She had $50 and $100 level ones that people actually paid up for because they were commission rewards. Good low level rewards are things like livestreams, password protected galleries that have more art than non patrons see (like WIPs and practicey stuff). Maybe tutorials too, if you're so inclined. Low level ones should be easy work to supply to a group of people, so you're not doing a bunch of work for the people on the low end.

Also make up ideas of stuff you'd do if you don't have anything in mind for the funding goals, and keep people updated on the progress when they're close, it can tip some people over the edge of putting in money.

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