Back when I still did Christmas at all, I converted first to a religion that didn’t have Christmas. It did have, however, a 4-5 day festival of approximately equal importance in the spring. I made sure all my family, friends, and colleagues know that I wouldn’t be celebrating a Christian festival, but that I would be giving gifts in March. Then I’d look at what I got for Christmas and did some cynical calculations.

For each person who gave me a gift, I decided if I wanted to lessen the relationship, keep the relationship as-is, or deepen the relationship. I’d then pick a gift of lesser, equal, or greater value (roughly speaking) and give that response gift in March. The only difference? I’d get them all for a song and a dance in the inevitable post-Christmas bankruptcy sales.

So the best time to get Christmas presents is after Christmas. January and February is when businesses get very desperate (to the point of dissolution for many) and prices drop like concussed bees.

I’m binge-watching The Last of Us this weekend.

I avoided it because it was based on a video game. I was wrong to.

Because he is wrong. It’s that simple, that stark.

His misery comes from within and, worse, it defends itself from ending by insisting he can’t be anything but miserable. He needs professional help, not the help of random people on the Internet.

Good point. I just spotted the name. I should stop engaging.

Joining with the other sex and reproduction is literally the main purpose of all living beings…

This reductive view doesn’t help you and, indeed, probably hurts your chances of getting what you so desperately want.

Drop this focus on sex and, ironically, you’ll have a better chance of having it. We can generally tell when a guy wants us only for orificial insertion; that’s a bigger turn-off than almost anything.

As others have said (that you didn’t bother to respond to) work on yourself before you start working on getting others. And in your case I would strongly recommend getting professional evaluation for possible clinical depression before it literally kills you.

AliExpress’ “weird delivery system” is THE FUCKING POST OFFICE YOU IDIOT!

Well, I kind of think blaming the right people is important. But it’s easier to blame people literally half a world away from you, isn’t it?

It’s not “their” delivery system, though. Their logistics system ends at the border. After that it’s in the hands of whoever did the local delivery.

Living in China my own time sink for this kind of stuff is obviously Chinese. 🤣 But before I came to China I was always intrigued by the central American civilizations.

The kit I got was the most expensive of that particular vendor’s starter kit family and it cost me about 105RMB (15USD). It comes with everything in this picture—original left, (bad) translation right. (Click through to see full size with readable translation.)

It’s not a top-quality kit, obviously, at that price. A top-quality set of chisels alone would be more than five times the price of that whole set, but for beginners it’s absolutely fine. The weird rubber stamps are basically a way of getting an image onto your stone for practice. Anything that’s not red after you do your impression is to be carved down. I don’t want to have to learn carving while I’m learning Chinese calligraphy, so that’s a bonus. Loads of these kinds of rubber stamps are available for both direct use and for practising seal carving, and practice-grade stones are about 0.25USD each. (High quality chop stones can exceed $20 for the size range displayed here and can exceed $600 for the more esoteric stone types in larger sizes.)

And if I decide I enjoy the hobby, I’ll upgrade the components over time.

I’m a sucker for anything non-European in history and folklore. (I don’t dislike the European stuff, just that I’ve been exposed to it all my life so it feels “ordinary”.)

There’s some special stones used for most chops that are durable, yet paradoxically easy to carve. (Not entirely dissimilar to soapstone, but without the soapy feel.) I’ve got about a dozen practice stones, each of which is probably good for at least a dozen attempts to get a proper image on them. That’ll last me for a while and when I reach the end that when I decide if I want to continue or not.

I literally just this week picked up a kit for carving 印章 (those Chinese seal stamps) and carved my first one last night.

I botched it.

Thankfully it’s really easy to erase and start over. 🤣

So … you’re comfortable with fascists in your bar?

Congrats! You’ve got a fascist bar!

I mean, you do you and all that shit, but you’ll find that over time all you’re going to get is fascists as normal people bail out on you.

I should have known better than order from AliExpress…

There are secure lockers but they were not used.

I fail to see how this is in any way, shape, or form AliExpress’ failure. I mean aside from the knee-jerk “CHYNA BADD!” shit that Americans always spew.

I’ve started a new hobby of carving 印章 (yìnzhāng or seals or so-called “chops”). They’re those red things that you see on Chinese calligraphy and paintings. I got a beginner’s set of tools and practice stones on Sunday, and found time today to make my first attempt.

Which I naturally botched.

But it’s easy to undo your mistakes with a very coarse grit grinding pad followed by a fine grit sandpaper, so I’m all set up to try again possibly tomorrow. I expect to have my first chop that’s not a complete embarrassment ready to photograph by the end of the weekend.

There’s a good explanation from the Light Colonel here.

It’s FAR better to be in the eye of the storm than in the part that has all the winds and rain and stuff.

For the downvoting cowards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71Ue5Qy6w1w Go downvote that too.

You think you’re going to have one?