Venting thread

[Travis B.]

No, it's a flower; some sort of rafflesia, I think. Here's the official art:

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I just thought the 3D model (it's a really old one, from something like 1998) was amusing with the eyes open and the face looking like that.

My phone won't display the art and when I try to open the image itself I get 403 Forbidden.

[Ares Land]

I'm spending most of my time these days taking care of my elderly parents. (They're sick, and sadly, not always terribly cooperative.) That's one of the most exhausting and stressful thing I've ever done. I sort of feel my brain leaking out my ears right now.

[Raphael]

Ugh. Good luck and strength!

[Travis B.]

Sorry to hear!

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I'm spending most of my time these days taking care of my elderly parents. (They're sick, and sadly, not always terribly cooperative.) That's one of the most exhausting and stressful thing I've ever done. I sort of feel my brain leaking out my ears right now.

[Sending virtual hugs.]

[Ares Land]

Thank you!

[hwhatting]

I wish you strength!

[doctor shark]

Vent: My grandmother (maternal) passed away yesterday at the age of 88. I wasn't close to her at all, to be honest, and the information I got secondhand was that things had been declining quite severely in the past years, so the loss itself isn't really hitting me that badly (apart from that lingering regret of not having a relationship), but it was quite sad to hear the circumstances of her passing (combination of very severe dementia and just seeming to lose the will to live). It also feels surreal that I no longer have any surviving grandparents, and I don't feel that old...

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It also is a strange feeling, to me, that the family loss that really affected me the most emotionally was that of my cat who we'd had for 17 years, Bella, a little over two years ago, and family members passing away really hasn't hit me.

[Nachtswalbe]

My father's younger sister has stage 4 ovarian cancer. Fuck mom for suggesting using the opportunity to try converting her to Christianity.
Also viewing the other board's official random depressing comic thread has me writing exceedingly gruesomely depressing scenarios

[hwhatting]

@doctor shark: Well, there's no accounting for one's feelings.
@Nachtswalbe: That's simply horrible. The sooner you leave your toxic family behind, the better...

[Travis B.]

@doctor shark: Well, there's no accounting for one's feelings.
@Nachtswalbe: That's simply horrible. The sooner you leave your toxic family behind, the better...

I agree with both of these. And in particular, Nachtswalbe, the sooner you move out and ditch your family, and especially your mother, the better...

[malloc]

Damn it, I accidentally bought a Kelloggs product. The one time I allow myself something beyond basic staples and I made a horrific mistake. No idea what I should do now as even throwing it out is too late.

[Travis B.]

Damn it, I accidentally bought a Kelloggs product. The one time I allow myself something beyond basic staples and I made a horrific mistake. No idea what I should do now as even throwing it out is too late.

How is buying the "wrong" brand of cereal a big deal?

[bradrn]

Damn it, I accidentally bought a Kelloggs product. The one time I allow myself something beyond basic staples and I made a horrific mistake. No idea what I should do now as even throwing it out is too late.

This is the first time I’ve ever heard of buying Kelloggs as a ‘horrific mistake’. I have Kelloggs cereal every morning for breakfast and I seem to be doing just fine. If you don’t want it just keep it in your cupboard in case you need it in the future, and go back to the store and buy a new one.

[zompist]

Malloc is presumably referring to the Kellogg's strike. Workers have been working 80-hour weeks through the pandemic, but management offered only a 3% raise, and is now replacing workers with scabs. Thus there are calls to boycott Kellogg's products.

[Moose-tache]

For the curious, there is an ongoing war between the companies that sell snacks and the people who make the snacks.
A Frito-Lay factory in Topeka had been forcing "mandatory overtime" on its employees, which I didn't know was a thing you could just say out loud, as opposed to hiding it in a euphemism or shady ultimatum. The workers went on stirke and got the company to adopt the Stalinist policy of at least one day off a week. Then the same thing happened again at a Nabisco factory in Portland, though this time the workers got more money instead of more time off. Now several Kellogg's factories have gone on strike because the company has been squeezing them for more work and less pay, and threatening to move to Mexico if they don't like it.

So, to recap: we stopped eating Doritos so the workers could get a six day workweek like they're sprinkling flavor dust on triangles inside a Victorian work house. Then we stopped eating Oreos because they're bad, but also so that those few cream filling spreaders who survive to retirement could have savings to live on. Now we're choking down oatmeal so that the guy who removes the flavor from shredded wheat doesn't get worked to death and docked pay and replaced by a foreigner. So the 21st century is officially just the 19th century, but this time, again.

[Travis B.]

Thanks for the update - somehow I did not hear about all this. Thankfully, as far as I am aware, I do not eat any Kellogg's products... [checks shelves in the pantry]

[Rounin Ryuuji]

We also aren't, on that note, getting all of the nice parts of the Nineteenth Century (though I just have a thing for Art Nouveau and what is now old-timey language in my fiction), though I suppose we don't have all the social ills of the period, either...

[Moose-tache]

We also aren't, on that note, getting all of the nice parts of the Nineteenth Century (though I just have a thing for Art Nouveau and what is now old-timey language in my fiction), though I suppose we don't have all the social ills of the period, either...

Honestly, the rampant syphilis and the over-the-counter opium just about cancel each other out. And sooner or later architects will run out of stupid ideas and have no choice but to start over, cycling through all the wrought iron and masonry building styles that people actually like to live in.

EDIT: OH! I have a new gripe!
So for my birthday, we went to a Chinese restaurant in the fancy part of town. We live in a newer, car-oritented area, but for the most part it behaves like any other part of Seoul: lots of buses, lots of pedestrians. But whenever we go to this particular affluent area, it is always a nightmare. Because it's the rich part of town, everyone drives a massive BMW or a Land Rover or a Mercedes. You see the occasional Maserati or Hummer. And these drivers follow the global trend that concern for others scales with the inverse of the value of the vehicle, so they're peeling down the road like you owe them a favor for the opportunity to jump out of the path of their absurd money-burning machine. But the thing is, these aren't the new, wide streets of the outer developments. This is the old, charming part of town, so these idiots are blasting down Medieval streets that look like Kowloon Walled City with the top cut off. Every once in a while they get stuck because five of them are trying to simultaneously enter an intersection just large enough for a scooter and a butterfly fart, and their anarcho-Capitalist worldview provides them with no solution other than honking their horn louder than the other guy. The whole experience is like being in a river full of angry hippopotamuses, only they're traveling at 60kph and they're somehow even uglier.

[Ares Land]

I gave up on Kellogg's products after watching the Road to Wellville. Eating corn flakes just felt too awkward.