For longevity?

Satisfactory and Elden Ring.

Honestly, something like Call of Duty or fortnite might be nice too. I haven’t played in years but the skill ceiling is very high so it could at least keep me occupied for a very long time.

Right?

My ADHD is shaped like this: Hyperfocus on a new interest. Read everything about it. It’s the best thing ever. Think about it while doing other things. Then about a week or two later, I have 6% less fun when I do that thing and it’s time for a new interest.

I’m honestly very good at many things you can learn in a week or two for this reason. I also have at least a laymen’s understanding of many, many topics. But I am an expert in nothing.

When I’m very lucky, my interests overlap later and I can look like a pro when I “just started” this new hobby.

Plenty of non-gaming examples but one that comes to mind is Besiege / Trailmakers. I loved Besiege deeply for about two weeks. Built everything you could build in that time. When I played Trailmakers, I was outbuilding my much smarter friend because I already had a pretty good understanding of how the gyros and logic blocks would or wouldn’t work in that type of game.

ADHD really is the perfect example of a blessing and a curse. A superpower with an equal and opposite cost.

I think anyone who has worked HR knows why you ask for references.

Because some people literally list their mother.

Because others list previous employers or even best friends who have nothing nice to say about them.

And because some people, having really thought it through and providing the best reference they can come up with, list their buddy Steve who will get on the phone and say something like:

“Jack? Great fuckin’ guy man. Works hard and parties hard, ya know? Just keep his psycho ex away from the job site bro, that bitch is crazy.”

You can weed these people out without wasting time. Half of what a job interview is about is seeing if people have a good head on their shoulders. If you pick a bad reference or lack a good reference and don’t even have the brains to have someone lie for you, it’s probably the tip of the iceberg with your bad choices.

Donald Trump’s presidency pretty much removed any doubt I had about the official 9/11 story.

He proved that our government is full of regular idiots who are just barely able to work together. Of course the 3 letter agencies have a lot of power and fancy technology, but if the CIA or NSA was seriously that in control of this country, Trump would have never happened. He is a bumbling moron who did a ton of damage to this country and nobody lifted a finger apparently? Damaging alliances, burning undercover assets, etc.

Our Congress can’t work together long enough to pass basic bills. No way the Patriot act was planned with a false flag in mind.

The 9/11 conspiracy is just way too big and would need way too many participants to keep it under wraps like that.

Plus, every big disaster has conspiracy theories. If you believe all of them, you’re pretty much saying bad things never happen without the overlords planning them. 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, JFK assassination, RFK assassination, Pearl Harbor, and every other major event have had massive conspiracy theories and claims that they were inside jobs.

Yeah, the official story has holes but reality is messy. It was a big attack involving/affecting a lot of agencies, corporations, and people. It’s pretty much guaranteed that out of the measly 365 days in a year, a lot of these groups and individuals would be doing their “once a year” inspections, misremember details in their panic, deal with other terrorist attacks, intersect with ongoing crimes that were being committed separately, etc.

Seriously, a plane crashed into one of the biggest and wealthiest business centers in the world. The conspiracy theories write themselves no matter how clear the evidence is. Of course one of those companies has ties to foreign governments, obviously one of the CEOs is commiting fraud, one of the employees is bound to have worked for the government in a sensitive role. Imagine the ties you could find on one of the planes alone. Every plane in the sky right now has a politician’s relative, a political activist, a criminal, a foreign diplomat, high-ranking military, or all of the above. All of these things would spark a great conspiracy theory. Imagine the things you could find if you wanted to blame Boeing. Start looking into details about every employee they have and connect some dots. It’s easy.

Schools are absolutely guilty of underpaying teachers and overpaying admin. Many probably mismanage their funds to some degree. And a lot spend way too much on sports stadiums and other things they probably could do without.

But don’t forget, they also have to shell out tens of millions of dollars all at once when their infrastructure needs to be fixed or updated. If the student population grows, they may be on the hook to build entire hallways full of classrooms and the necessary technology for each room. Usually they sock money away knowing that things have limited lifespans. Even still, many unplanned expenses and planned updates have to wait due to lack of funding.

1. Listening to AM 740 out of Toronto. I’m in the US but it comes over here. My grandma listened to it and I find it calming when I’m stressed because my grandma was the only person who truly loved me unconditionally and without question.

2. Eat bits of granola cereal one at a time and chew them slowly. I don’t even really like it. It’s just such a simple food and I can kind of meditate on how simple it is.

3. This isn’t odd but a hot bath. Truly a portal to another world for me.

4. Listen to Dreamscape on YouTube and imagine dystopian fantasy/sci-fi worlds I could live in. Maybe I’m stranded on an alien planet, maybe I’m in a dark forest and creatures are hunting me, or maybe I’m driving through a foggy, wooded hillside and I see something weird I need to investigate. Whatever the scenario, it gives me an escape from emotions I don’t want to feel and allows me to create situations where I can feel whatever emotion I do need to feel.

It’s harmless and I love it, but it’s definitely odd my friend!

Like a lot of older books, it doesn’t quite give you that dopamine hit you get from today’s media. It’s a product of its time in that way.

But in other ways, it’s a timeless classic. I was rewatching the vice documentaries where they visit North Korea and I was absolutely blown away by the parallels between the DPRK and 1984.

When Kim Jong Un attends Vice’s basketball game with the Harlem Globe Trotters and talks about friendship with the Americans, the journalist points out how bizarre it is considering the fact that their entire trip has been nonstop “fuck the American Bastards” propaganda up until that point.

All I could think was “We’ve always been at war with Eurasia.”

Similarly, the way the North Koreans in the stands scream, “Live 10,000 years!” over and over and over when Kim Jong Un enters the room reminded me of the two minutes hate from the novel, just inverted.

I mean, whether it’s a riveting tale or not (I happen to think it is), it definitely serves as a warning. The novel seems absolutely absurd to us in modern America because we can’t believe that their society could really exist. We might know it logically but I don’t think it hits home for us emotionally that 1984 is a perfectly realistic outcome for a society gone wrong.

Joking aside, getting sober sucks, but being sober is amazing.

It took me multiple tries and a lot of misery but I have over 6 years clean now and my life is immensely fulfilling and better than I thought it could be.

Anyone with a heroin/opiate addiction should check out the new injection Suboxone they have. Essentially a cure once you’re ready to make the switch for good! And I was able to get off the shot with essentially no withdrawal at all - unlike the strips. Just saying, it saved my life!

Please don’t pity him. His first episode on his new show (Tucker on X), was him interviewing a lunatic who claims to have had a gay, drug-fueled orgy with Obama. Tucker literally interviewed this guy as if it were a serious claim, ignoring the fact that the guy is a convicted felon who is known for lying about crazy shit.

I think it’s relative.

But yes it’s valuable. Even at only 30 years old, I often learn from the 8th graders I teach.

Adults overcomplicate things and rationalize bad decisions. All it takes sometimes is one kid with a “naive” outlook to ask, “Why would you be friends with someone you don’t like?”

Then you think, yeah… Why would I?

I’ll assume you meant that in good faith.

If being trans is caused by microplastics, alright. They’re still not hurting anyone. If there is an environmental culprit, then hopefully conservatives would finally acknowledge that there is a biological process at work and it’s not a choice made by deviants or whatever.

Seinfeld is hilarious.

It was just so popular and unique that everything after it tried to do the same thing and we all got used to seeing this type of humor everywhere. There is a whole TV Tropes page about this called Seinfeld is unfunny.

It’s still funny though. If you just pick up a random episode halfway through, you probably won’t find each moment-to-moment interaction to be side-splitting. However, if you know the characters, you’re just waiting to see which petty societal norm is going to turn into a whole ordeal - like George and Jerry disagreeing about whether moviegoers should pick up their own trash after a movie showing or something. Of course, the hilarious part is when George inevitably loses the perfect relationship with a beautiful woman because her father worked as a movie-theater cleaner and was never home for his family due to inconsiderate movie goers. He leaves his junior mints on the ground, she storms out, and we see Kramer walking into the movie theater with a metal detector as he scours the floor for valuable trash as part of his new side hustle.

It’s not a real episode but that’s basically the formula and it just works. You are waiting to see how shitty and petty they can be while living up to your expectations of them as characters. You know they never learn a life lesson or gain any true moral clarity. Oh, and my wife especially loves that they frequently do little gags and call backs to previous episodes.

It’s a classroom management thing.

I didn’t understand this until I was a teacher but unfortunately, “if I let you do it, I have to let everyone do it” ends up being pretty true. Kids will absolutely point to other kids and say, “but you let Joey put his head down and listen.”

My response can’t be “but Joey is passing my class.” As much as I would like it to be.

It’s also a respect thing and I don’t mean that like you might think. I don’t demand unearned respect from everyone like an asshole. But one thing that happens is, if you let kids skirt classroom expectations and let them avoid doing things you ask them to do, they learn that your rules/expectations are actually just suggestions. Everything becomes negotiable.

Sorry dude, I would have made you take your notes too.

As a recovering heroin addict, I wholeheartedly believe his story. His later stories contained some region-specific drug slang and his post-recovery updates were the perfect amount of mundane and specific for me to recognize exactly the same feelings in myself.

Side note: if you’re watching a movie or TV show, one thing that non-junkie writers never get right is withdrawal. They often show characters skipping withdrawal entirely, or show them mildly sick but still moving through the story without any real issues. Worst case, they’ll show a character being sick and then totally fine after a short time. Huge pet peeve of mine. Really undersells the catch-22 you find yourself in when using heroin.

What withdrawal is actually like is pure, unadulterated misery and suffering for two weeks at minimum, followed by months or even a year of exhaustion, depression, suicidal thoughts, restlessness, and feeling like everything is weird and new. It feels like you’re a reptile that just shed its skin and everything is raw including your emotions and thoughts. Those first two weeks are just nonstop puking, shaking, sweating, an uncontrollable urge to kick and jerk your body, total insomnia, scary and suicidal thoughts, full body aches and pains, and enough self-loathing to last a thousand years.

I made it three months cold turkey once before relapsing. Fucking never again. I honestly don’t know how people quit dope before modern medications like Buprenorphine and Methadone.

Feeling like you want to break the cycle of addiction but knowing you can’t get through the withdrawal is an incredibly scary and traumatic experience.

I don’t know if this is what you’re looking for, but I was so fortunate to find an amazing job where my coworkers treat me like a good person who has value.

I teach middle school, and I am just surrounded by hardworking teachers who treat each other well. We all compliment everyone behind their backs and to their faces. They tell me I’m good at my job and that I’m a nice person. I used to reply jokingly, “sometimes!” because I honestly could not accept that compliment.

This was incredibly hard for me to handle when I started teaching here. Never felt super loved at home as a kid, only person who told me I was unequivocally “good” was my grandmother, so deep down I always doubted it. I had serious imposter syndrome when people would say nice things to and about me. Still do from time to time, but overall I feel so much happier and more confident than ever before. This job is the best thing to ever happen to me. I’ll work there until I retire - found my forever job. But you could do this without the job.

Surround yourself with people who know you’re good. Be as good as you can be. And know that multiple narratives can be true - I know I have stepped on toes and put my foot in my mouth with coworkers who love me. I have kicked myself for it. But I truly believe that it’s only a very small, very human part of the positive narrative we have all decided to focus on at my job. The positivity has bled into my home life too. I catch myself being better.

I guess what I’m saying is that some of this is “fake it til you make it, then realize you weren’t faking it at all.”

Can’t let a bunch of train virgins take away my Ford F-750.

Some pretty appalling lyrics in this song in my opinion.

He complains about the struggles of the working class and then immediately says:

If you’re five-foot-three and you’re 300 pounds Taxes ought not pay for your bags of fudge rounds

He also says:

Lord, we got folks in the street, ain’t got nothin’ to eat And the obese milkin’ welfare

Gotta love a working class hero who takes a giant shit all over the working class. A smarter man would have commented on how the rich men in the food industry have helped to fuel the obesity epidemic, which disproportionately hurts those living in food deserts and/or economically depressed areas. This would include inner-cities and struggling mining towns, but I feel like we can probably infer which area this singer is more sympathetic toward based on other lyrics in this song.

This guy is just pandering to right-wingers who can’t think beyond Reagan-era talking points. Obese people on Welfare aren’t the reason for America’s shrinking middle class. This guy should have done more reading before he tried his hand at writing.

Shame because he’s got a good voice and knows how to make a catchy song.

What do you even have left to do in Minecraft at this point? Not asking to be rude, but as an ADHD guy I actually can’t imagine playing a game that much!

I probably spent the most time in Red Dead Redemption 2 or ARK, but that’s because I went for 100% completion and there were always things to do for me. Once I completed the games (about 400 hours each), I was over it.

The west isn’t the good guy but you’re nuts if you think China isn’t sucking Africa dry.

I just watched a documentary recently (I will genuinely try to find it again and link here if I can) where Native African workers were being put out of business by China in their own country. China is mining for rare Earth metals using Chinese workers and trapping a lot of these countries in debts they won’t be able to pay back. Once I saw it coming from the mouths of Native Africans, I knew it wasn’t propaganda from either side. Straight to the source - people who live there and see it every day. They start out very grateful for China’s assistance and then later on realize the trap they are in.

Here is some other info: https://apnews.com/article/china-debt-banking-loans-financial-developing-countries-collapse-8df6f9fac3e1e758d0e6d8d5dfbd3ed6