Asked a girl out on a date. She invited me over to watch a movie with her at her parents house (we were in our late teens). I arrived; her recently deceased family dog and incredibly distressed mother were both in the kitchen. Dog was a really big golden retriever that had been euthanized, and the mom had bought him home? Not sure why? Maybe to bury in the back yard or something? Idk

Anyway I offered to leave but she was insistent that we watch the movie together, which we did, on the couch, with her mom crying in the next room. Halfway through the movie the mom screams he’s still alive, he’s still alive. Go into the kitchen, she’d gone to move the body and it had expelled air and made some noise. I had to explain, with my best year 12 biology, what had happened. Five minutes of this woman losing her shit with grief out of her beloved companion dying.

Girl insisted we watch the last 10 minutes of the movie, it finishes with us watching in silence, I get up to leave and said something stupid like hey I’d love to do this again sometime and she says “I have a boyfriend”

I’m like alright well that’s that then and didn’t put in any more effort. Stupid me, she was hot and I really liked her. Being a dipshit I wrote a song about it, using the three guitar chords I knew, which takes me to act ii…

…five years later, I’m at a party, exchanging worst first date stories with friends and fellow partygoers including a cute blonde. I wait my turn, tell the story, she laughs her arse off and then goads me into singing the song, accompanying myself poorly on the guitar. I absolutely fucking nail it, everyone is in stitches, sit down next to her and the night goes from there. We end up leaving the party for a walk down to the local beach, made out on the beach, things get frisky, jump in a cab back to my house, in bed together, have drunken sex…which results in a broken condom. She lives literally the other side of town so we have to wait till (a) I’m sober enough to drive and (b) pharmacy is open to get a plan b, then have the most awkward drive back to her house. Get there, offer to walk her to the door, she says no, kisses me goodbye in the car, then texts me…to say she has a boyfriend.

Tricky, theirs is a cover version, so the original would still exist.

There’s a movie about that scenario with the Beatles. Called yesterday.

tbh we are all just snapshots of ourselves at different stage of the same cycle. The Simpsons did a whole thing about lolapalooza which starts with homer looking for his favourite artists in a record store, and the record store dude, and being directed to the oldies section.

The bands that feature in that episode are the smashing pumpkins, soundgarden , cypress Hill and Peter Frampton, all of whom appear in Spotify old school lists

Wooosh

*"Listen, happy endings is fine if they turn out happy,” said Granny, glaring at the sky. “But you can’t make ‘em for other people. Like the only way you could make a happy marriage is by cuttin’ their heads off as soon as they say ‘I do’, yes? You can’t make happiness…” Granny Weatherwax stared at the distant city.

Fuck me. Thank you. Life just got a lot easier.

Wtf

Specifically broccoli, carrot, chard, beets

If you have potatoes don’t peel them

Also fruits especially raspberries and mango

Breakfast smoothie of whole rolled oats, frozen raspberries and oat milk is easy to get down especially if you soak the rolled oats in the oat milk overnight first.

I add cottage cheese for protein and three ice cubes for water, happy days.

Except there absolutely is an absolute right and absolute wrong to gender equality (and more importantly, equity)

There is not. Equality is arbitrary. Equity is arbitrary. They are ideals / values that we each hold individually, and rank individually. Clearly, equality is an important value for you. Good. But your value of equality is shaped by you, not anyone else.

If you take your value set and say this should be the value set which everyone else has - you won’t change them. That’s my point. Equality is a value. It is ranked amongst other values. Do you value equality more than security? Financial independence? Safety? Control? Family? Social status? Faith? Children? Education? Career? Mastery of skill? Respect? Knowledge? Influence? Conservatism? Freedom? The environment?

For a given person you engage with, whether it be online, in person, in a relationship, over the phone, randomly in a street - their value set is intrinsic to them. Equality might not rank in their top five, or ten values. When you speak up on equality and say “you should”, people who don’t share your value set hear something different. What they hear is “You are wrong”. Speaking of which:

And you clearly don’t

you’re just another wilfully ignorant self serving misogynist who is wrong

sigh

That’s a shame. I’m sorry that you feel that way. Have to say it’s the first time I’ve been called a misogynist. I think if you met me you wouldn’t think that at all.

Your opinion of me doesn’t really matter - it doesn’t change anything. What did change things for me was reading The Mental Load by Emma. It crystallised what I already knew, and helped me to better understand the difference between contribution, effort and load.

Do you want to know why?

Then as those roles are indeed slowly being broken down it stands to reason that each successive generation is less willing to put up with them - but if you still see them as normal it will come as a surprise.

Except…entrenched gender roles are normal. This is expected human behaviour for 90% of the world. Equality, be it gender, age, ethnic or religious, is…just not how things work. It may be distasteful for you personally, but the rest of humanity doesn’t give a toss - Western civilisation is a thin smear of civility which only popped up in the past couple of hundred years, and what’s worked quite well for millennia is what’s still working pretty effectively for several billion people.

There is no absolute right and absolute wrong to gender equality, and that there is a regression or progression over time, merely opinions shaped by culture, background and opportunities. The events of the past 10 years have convinced me that the “good” parts of liberalism are unsustainable because people at their core are just…selfish. The only way to convince them to change something is if it is in their self interest. Regrettably, equality rarely aligns with self interest because it requires relinquishing something. Equality and equity of opportunity only exist when the opportunity exist. Otherwise it’s back to the dumb old shit we used to do.

Edited to add:

I didn’t phrase it well above,

The ground state for humanity is inequality. Whether we wish it or not.

The pursuit of equality and equity means these things need to be prioritised above other things.

It is hard to convince people to prioritise something they are not invested in, especially if they don’t benefit from it or value it.

Anything that you can think of has already been thought of, modelled, and done by international actors who have more resources, technical capability and time than you, and have far fewer morals.

You want a specific outcome to this election? So do Russia and China. They’re a lot better at this than you are and are orders of magnitude more invested in it.

Insomnia in my ass

you’re not missing anything, you paid attention in chemistry.

Farm feedstock.contain all the nutrients an adult cow needs, including a wide range of vitamins (including A, B, D, E, K), essential fatty acids and taurine, without the need for grass. Although obligate herbivores in the wild, domestic cows still need nutrients they would normally source from vegetation. Thankfully farm feedstock contains all those nutrients in a bioavailable grain.

grain is a professional cow food, created by grain manufacturers in 50,000BC, formulated and checked by independent animal nutritionists to meet the AAFCO(USA) and FEDIAF(Europe) guidelines for animal nutrition.

We’ve had safe and healthy variants of cow food for 52,000 years. Trying to elevate the question to animal abuse speaks entirely to personal ignorance.

Eta - modifying the diet of a domesticated animal for your convenience seems to run contrary to the premise of minimising animal cruelty.

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Fwiw I think that the people you’re discussing this with haven’t had the same experience in the workforce that you have had.

“Words mean things” - inspired. I think I’ll have a t-shirt made.

Have an awesome day, you’re a top bloke with a lot going for you.

Man the projection is wild here. Have a good one mate. You’re welcome to visit Australia any time, you’ll fit right in.

Sure mate. Have a good one.