Maybe you should add a bit of lithium with the detergent.

The best therapist I’ve known had a neat little cross-stitich on her lobby wall that said:

“Normal is just a setting on your washing machine.”

Every mode of human thought and behavior is represented by a spectrum. There is never a clear boundary between normality and mental illness.

The world would be a happier place if everyone did.

Reading, In-Person Roleplaying Games, Disc Golf, and Writing.

That is a concern, but they seem to have taken precautions to prevent that from being exploited, at least in the short term. We’ll have to see how it works out. I haven’t given up on them yet.

Startpage is a good choice. I am currently experimenting with searXNG. It seems a little messier to use, but I’m getting more relevant results and less junk.

I understand where you’re coming from on this. I love it when genres are mixed successfully, but the key there is “successfully”. Everything needs to be consistent with the situation and the characters for it to work. It’s realistic for people to be funny, tragic, romantic, and angry in sequence. Sometimes even all at the same time. But there have to be motivations for all of it that make sense in context.

Most humor in action movies is completely inappropriate. It destroys the suspension of disbelief. That is the result of bad writing and, sometimes, bad acting. It can also be done well.

Memento. From one perspective it’s a happy ending, but …

Good man! And best of luck with the cat. That isn’t an easy job.

I’ve been out of it for a while now, but I spent a number of years Nerfsmithing. Which is to say, I modified Nerf blasters. I upgraded the internals to get longer range and higher rates of fire. My real fun, though, was modifying the exteriors to see just how silly I could get. I made a lot of different designs, but below is my masterpiece.

I attached a real red dot sight, after carefully painting it to look like a Nerf accessory. I attached a real laser sight and tactical light, after mounting them inside the case of what had been an official Nerf light. The 10-round straight magazine was replaced with a 35-round drum magazine. A rifle strap (in bright yellow) and a Nerf bipod finished off the main unit (a Nerf Stampede).

Then I attached a Nerf Magnus pistol, still fully functional, as a front grip. And I attached a Nerf Zombie Strike Machete under that as a bayonet.

It looks overbuilt and ridiculous, which is what I was trying for, but it was also an absolute terror in the office Nerf wars. I had a lot of fun building it.

I haven’t used that one, so I don’t know. From what I’ve seen, most audio editors can do this stuff.

There are probably plenty of other audio editors that would do what you need, but Audacity has worked well for me. I’ve used it to loop tracks, to assemble tracks from multiple sources, and to break up audiobooks into chapters.

Glad I could help a little. If you run into problems, post here and I’ll take a look at the actual process again.

It’s been more than a decade since I did this, but I can give you the basics. The key is to start and end the clip at a point where the sound pattern temporarily hits zero (the horizontal axis). I used Audacity to do the editing. It had a feature that would find those crossings automatically, which made the process somewhat easier.

You may well be right. I do not have enough familiarity with the situation in India.

I think the principles still apply, but how to carry them out might well be very different.

Thank you for your comment.

First, get them out of the situation. If they don’t have somewhere to go that the abuser doesn’t know about, see if you have a local women’s shelter. Leaving the area entirely, at least temporarily, may be a good option.

Second, help them take action about the abuse. Contact the police or find a lawyer to help with the process. There are lawyers who will work cases like this without charging. There may also be local government agencies that are specifically tasked with investigating abuse.

Third, get them to seek help in recovering. There are likely to be local organizations that provide counseling and other resources. This is not going to be a short or easy process, but working at it will make a world of difference over the rest of their life.

I’ve been through this with more than one friend. Every bit of it is tough. Having your support will make a big difference. Abusers try to make their victims feel powerless and alone. Having a friend who will help works against that, as well as providing comfort.

I wish you both all the best!

I live in an urban area where the cost are slightly above average, but not by much.

Depending on whose statistics you accept, somewhere between 55% and 62% of the country are living paycheck to paycheck with little or no savings. That is a literal majority of Americans. It really is that bad and it’s getting steadily worse. I was quite comfortable 20 years ago and reasonably so ten years ago. The dividing line passed me about five years back.

Consider me as a data point. My salary is in the low six figures. I have a reasonable mortgage and car loan. I also live paycheck to paycheck and have trouble paying my bills every month. I am currently in default on several thousand dollars of medical debt, that I am trying to pay off gradually, but I’m not always keeping ahead of my new medical debt.

Part of my income goes to helping out some relatives and friends who are in much worse shape, but even without that, I would have trouble breaking even.

I am just barely short of being in the top 10% of US incomes. The income inequality in this country has left the vast majority of the population struggling. Many can no longer afford enough food or housing.

Thanks for the positive response! I love reading about other people’s pets too.

It’s nice to see someone arguing the nurture side of things. Breed does have a significant influence, but how a dog is treated makes far more difference to their eventual personality.

I have always talked to my dogs the way I would talk to a human. I don’t use babytalk or even adjust my vocabulary. Not only does it seem to give them a startlingly good understanding of human language, it also makes them more inquisitive and more interactive. If you treat them like people they behave more like people.

I have had dogs that were smarter than others, but the average has been far higher than people generally assume.