gondaily

I spoke with my parents today... It was lovely. I love talking to my parents.

I checked my jeans today; clean! I think I got the stains off. Much better day today... Today was good.

Lunch was great... Though I don't quite remember what it was... Oh yes, it was a mix of veggies and mushrooms and soy with rice and salad. A fantastic apple, and a thin but good vegetable soup. Oh boy, oh boy!

I had some discussions online today that were less than pleasant, but that's how it goes sometimes. I should get off the internet more. Read more. I haven't been reading enough.

Sometimes I feel like there's a me out there that I want to be. I can even see a path to reach him. I hope I can take the right steps. I have taken some good steps this week; I haven't had any chips... I basically replaced them with bread! Bread it much healthier and more filling (and way cheaper!), so I consider this a win.

I got back on my SoundCloud account. Lots of interesting music there...

I feel good. Can't wait to meet my brother and grandma this weekend.

My mom says that we're the kind of people for which things always go right, but they have to go way wrong before. Things get fucked and screwed, it's annoying and frustrating, but if we just keep walking, things end up fine in the end. My whole life, this has been true. I feel like it has made me a very passive person, though. If things always work out in the end, why try? And so I haven't tried, and things have worked out. Still, I feel like there are some things that require some effort to achieve, even for us.

I can see some goals I want to achieve. I'll try and be strong.

Today was a terrible day.

Mind you, it wasn't that bad, of course it wasn't... But I'm still reeling from it.

Now, to start off, my alarm didn't go off. Or rather, I predicted my alarm wouldn't go off, and it didn't, so my safety alarm did go off and it was OK but it was a pain in the ass to confirm that my alarm didn't go off. I still have to fix it; I don't even know what's wrong.

Then, I fell off my bike. I bike to school, so I'm used to the commute. It's not particularly rare for some inconsiderate prick to hog the bike path, so I barely got annoyed at that... I just went on the side, fine, and then made a turn to get back on the right way. It rained last night. I was going a little too fast... I hydroplaned? I don't know, but my tires slid! There were people around, but seemingly nobody noticed. It wasn't particularly noisy, I guess, but I felt simultaneously relieved that nobody saw me and offended that nobody came to my aid! Whatever... The much bigger issue was that I was wearing my favourite jeans, which are now in the wash on account of the green stains all over them. OH THE TRAGEDY!!!! MY JEANS, MY JEANS!!! WHYYYYYYYY!!!! and other lamentations... My hands still hurt a little bit, I did cut myself, though I didn't bleed or anything. I'm fine. The bike was fine. But the jeans...

Alright, that's OK. I got to school relatively unharmed. Lunchtime came around. I happened to see my housemates as I was exiting the canteen. They greeted me, alright, no problem, but then they tried to shake my hand. I thought they were going for a dap. TWICE! I missed... Two handshakes, in a row. It was awkward. Well, they showed no signs of anything, but I felt it. I felt it. I know it was terrible, I still feel it. I literally screamed out as I wrote this paragraph, that's how painful this is for me.

You're not ready.

Then, I met a colleague and his girlfriend. Just a few paces from my failed handshakes. Guess what? I waved, he reached out, I reached out, he kept walking, then his girlfriend reached out, I took my hand away because he kept walking. So... I missed another 2 handshakes. 4 handshakes.

In a row.

4 handshakes in a row. Missed.

Am I the most awkward being in existence? Perchance.

The pain, can you imagine the pain? What I'm feeling right now?

Dirty pants, wounded hands. Wounded hands.

I am not joking, by the way. I know the events of this day seem wholly unbelievable. You, reader, must be thinking something akin to "this dude is lying on the internet," but I assure you, this happened. This really, really happened.

I'm gonna go write my fanfic and... I don't know, drown my sorrows, I guess...

I've heard that fanfic is a less scrutinized kind of writing. There's a lot of very young people doing it, a lot of hobbyists and people that are doing it just to do it, so there's less pressure, as a writer, due to the lower quality expectations of the format.

I suppose that makes sense.

That's not the reason, but I did start writing a fanfic. For a long time, probably since I first watched the show as a kid, my favourite Avatar: The Last Airbender character has been Azula. I just love basically everything about her; not on an individual level, necessarily

she's a violent murderer

but as a character, she's awesome. However, I don't like seeing people suffer.

Azula really isn't a bad person, despite what I might've said before... She was just raised by a violent, imperialist murderer to be a violent, imperialist murderer. She certainly had some mean streak about her, but I like to believe that overwhelming talent and ambition is something that can be harnessed for good. Moreover, I like to imagine that, given the right circumstances, she could've been swayed to the good side and seen the error of her ways and led a good life, even after doing such terrible things.

I've had this concept in my head of a while of an ATLA AU where there's another character that does that for Azula. A character that plays the role of that kind heart that guides her to righteousness, without letting go of the fire that makes Azula herself. So, I decided to write it!

Wrote the first chapter already, and it was a lot of fun. I basically just sat down and BAM!, wrote all of it. Had to go over it a few times to fix some mistakes and inconsistencies, but it was actually pretty decent. Well, for someone like me that doesn't really write much beyond these posts... I do write other stuff occasionally, though. Meh, I don't think it matters. It's good practice regardless, and I'm letting myself believe that there's no pressure. It's only fanfic, after all!

I don't mean that to say fanfic is an inferior format, of course. It's not.

Actually, my little brother loves fanfic. We used to go on walks during the summer and he'd tell me all about what he had been reading, so I know the plot of a lot of popular fanfics without ever having read them. I'm... Oddly familiar with the genre, for someone so uninitiated. Mostly Harry Potter fics, that's what he likes to read. I believe he still does read them rather often, though he's also into light novels.

Anyway, I'm happy with what I wrote, and I'm excited to write more! I love that I have a firm idea for what I want to happen... I feel like a lot of the storied I come up with are very movie-esque, if that makes sense. I feel like they'd be much better movies than novels. Maybe I'm a very visual thinker. I don't know, I much prefer books than movies, personally, so I think that's kind of a weird thing... Then again, I love YT videos. I don't know.

I'm not sure I mentioned it before, but I started reading Shadow Slave a while ago.

That's it, for today.

I did some laundry today. Not everything, as that would be very hard and expensive on account of several factors, but a little, enough that I'm content with it.

I read a newspaper while I waited at the laundromat. There was a lot of stuff there that I didn't care about in the slightest, but there were a few articles that I found interesting and worth reading. I liked the opinion section in particular.

Also, I managed to not buy chips today. Small steps... I really need to kick this damn habit. I keep saying I need to kick it and then not kicking it... I even walked to the aisle today, I looked at them, I even grabbed the damn chips. But I managed to take control and just... Walk away. Bought some rice and sardines instead. I know that doesn't sound very appealing or anything, but I liked it. I put some extremely hot hot sauce on the rice but forgot to mix it in. So there was just a little blob of black poison sitting there. I didn't notice, and just took a spoonful of it and ate it all. I thought I was going to die, but it was actually not as bad as I expected. Maybe somehow the way I ate it just... Didn't let the sauce touch my tongue or something, I don't know. It was hot, mind you, but not nearly as hot as I've come to expect from that particular sauce. It even tasted kinda good, to be honest. The sauce is what I'd describe as mostly flavourless, it really just tastes like "hot," if you know what I mean, but that spoonful was kinda tasty. Maybe it was something else, or maybe I just hallucinated flavour instead of pain.

I wore a really cool shirt today. It's a Hard Rock Cafe shirt I got in Budapest. It has the Liberty Statue on it, it's super cool. It's comfortable too.

It was a good day, today.

I cleaned my room today.

Cleaned the floor and organized a little bit, put my clothes away and such. I still need to do laundry, but there just isn't space right now. Not like I have nothing to wear or anything, so it's not that critical, but I'd like to get it over with ASAP, of course. I do have some money leftover in a laundromat card, so I'll probably go and use that tomorrow, wash some stuff. I need to take the trash out too... But it was raining a while ago and I got lazy.

I'll get to it, I swear! Today, even! I'll just try and wait out the rain a little...

I've looked into the Indieweb a little. It's really cool. I've wanted to have a website for a while now, but the fact I have to pay for it always put me off a little. I really dislike paying for stuff in general, but especially online.

Oh well, I'll look into it more and see how it goes.

I bought some chips from a different market today. They were about as delicious as the ones I usually buy, but slightly cheaper per mass. They were more expensive overall, but with more chips too. Not sure which is the superior option. Well, the superior option is to not buy chips at all, of course... I'll get on that, too. I'm having a hard time kicking this habit...

I've also been looking into sport climbing. It's really cool! Just watching some YT videos and reading some articles. Looks like it's lots of fun. I remember climbing a wall we had in our gym back in middle school... Holy, that's a long time ago. 10 years! Time sure does fly.

I took it upon myself not to immediately reject Portuguese content on TikTok, recently.

I feel like that makes it sound like I was immediately rejecting it, which was not the case, but I mean more so that I'm now actively inviting it. I've been following several Portuguese accounts for months, if not years, at this point, but the number has been going up dramatically the past few weeks. Political content, cultural stuff like food reviews, music recommendation, linguistics... It's lovely.

It's also changed my perspective a little bit on how young Portuguese people think. I'm in the unfortunate-fortunate situation of having very highly educated friends and family... The only person in my life that even acknowledges the far-right as legitimate candidates is my grandma, which is love, but, to be quite frank, she's not the brightest and age has taken its toll quite severely. I keep telling her that they're not very good, but I don't think she cares about politics, she just likes that the front-man for the far-right is cute and has the same last name as her...

Regardless, the TikTok comments on political videos can get pretty nasty and insulting, but generally speaking the people engaging with the videos that I'm engaging with are young Portuguese people that actually try and think about politics. Of course, I'm aware that this is selection bias, but I find it comforting to see that there really are young Portuguese people getting into politics, educating themselves on our political parties and system, and trying to use their vote in a way that benefits their goals for the country. In other words, I'm glad I'm not the only one trying to learn about what the hell is going on in our country, and what I should do about it.

When I see rallying cries for the far-right, it's always framed as a sort of defeatist attitude, or perspective on the system, and a simple rejection of the established parties. I find that to be profoundly sad, to be honest. It feels like the flip-side of where I'm getting at. I saw that things weren't great, looked into why, decided to find a party that aligns with my goals. But these far-right supporters seem to have just decided that the established powers are bad, so they'll vote in whoever presents themselves as the opposition. They're not voting in favour of what they want, they're just voting against who they perceive to be "the bad ones." And mind you, I do agree that our 2 biggest political parties are corrupt failures. I do not like them very much at all. However, to come to the conclusion that the way to go around that is to just vote in a party that points a finger is so brainless. Really, I mean that. It's like they don't think. I find it very upsetting.

There's also a lot of racists, of course. People that don't know anything about immigration, but just don't like brown people, pretty much. That's also brainless, of course, but at least they're voting with some sense of what they're going to achieve by doing so. It's upsetting in a different, more familiar way, I suppose.

You know, something specific: I saw a video wherein someone presented a flyer by an ultra-nationalist Portuguese identitarian group. In said flyer, they stated that, in 2024, 25% of Portugal were immigrants. The person in the video said that they had no clue where they'd gotten the data for the flyer, but that they couldn't find any source. Now, it just so happened that I'd actually looked up that data only a few months ago, so I knew where to find it. Only about 11% of people in Portugal are immigrants. It's not a very high number at all. It's a little higher than the EU average, but lower than the US, for example, and much lower than countries like Australia, Norway, and Switzerland. I posted a comment saying this (in fewer words, of course), and somehow got two replies that... Well, they just didn't sit well with me.

One of them tried to argue something very weird. It said that, even if the rate of immigration continued at the current pace, which is exceedingly unlikely, Portuguese people would still be a majority by 2050. Now, OK, sure, but that's so irrelevant. And the comment as a whole was so weirdly abrasive and combative. It really felt like they thought that I was somehow trying to argue something there, when I very much wasn't. I aimed to correct the racist-ass flyer. I was trying to point out that those ultra-nationalist scumbags were straight-up lying to scare people. Another comment I got was purely incorrect, stating that most of the immigrants were rich people from the US and other EU countries and that they were buying up all the houses in Portugal, which is causing our housing crisis. Now, I do agree with the fundamental argument that allowing the wealthy to hoard housing is terrible and that that needs to be curbed, but most immigrants are not of that sort. They're people looking for opportunities and wanting to get a job and contribute to society. Not rich pricks hoarding homes.

I bring this up because it showed me that this sort of gut-response to "data" really does exist everywhere, and it's not exclusive to the far-right. Very left-leaning people are also averse to discussing the reality of our society, I guess because they are afraid to face the possibility that there really might be problems different from the ones that they think should be the focus of discussion, on a moral level, maybe. They ended up perceiving a basic statement, basic nonpartisan data, as an endorsement of policy they disagree with. Moreover, they threw meaningless and incorrect data in my face, like it did anything. I can fully understand how someone might come across this someplace else and be discouraged of the state of political literacy in the country.

It did remind of the that old, and still occasionally brought up adage that is "13/50." Using skewed, unrepresentative statistics to make a wrong point. It wasn't my intention at all, but I do see how it might've been perceived in that manner. I can't stand with the idea that data shouldn't be shared because posting numbers is the tool of the enemy or something, though. I think it's important to be educated. If the data said that we needed less immigration, or that the kind of immigration we have is problematic, I would be in favour of curbing immigration. However, that simply is not the case, so I'm not! There's no reason to be afraid of data, as long as it is properly collected, analyzed, and interpreted, it can be a fantastic tool to develop quality policy, in my opinion. I don't think this should be a hot take. I don't think it is a hot take, really, but I do feel that it may be the case that it can touch a nerve here and there.

Another interaction I had was a more positive one. Someone was supporting our (ex-)prime-minister, saying basically that he did nothing wrong. He did do many things very wrong, in my view, but I digress. I posted a reply explaining that they were misunderstanding the issue. Basically, our prime-minister did some shenanigans with a company of his: he sold it to his wife so he wouldn't have to report it; his wife sold it to his kids when he got called out; he refused to be investigated for it; and that ended up leading to a vote of confidence in parliament and the fall of the government. Huge oversimplification of the whole mess, but that's what happened. The person in the comments said basically that the Canadian prime-minister was extremely rich and there was no issue, so why was it an issue with our prime-minister. I've heard this before, that there should be no problem with having a businessman in politics. That's not he issue, of course, and that's what I said. The problem isn't that he has a company, not even a company that had deals with the state, but rather that he had control of said company and a clear conflict of interest; as CEO of the company, it was hard to trust that he wouldn't use his knowledge of what was going to be decided by the state to steer it unfairly to greater success. I pointed that out. Then, someone replied that the Canadian prime-minister retained his wealth and shares of the company (different phrasing). I pointed out in return that Mark Carney put everything in a blind trust to avoid that very issue when he got called out, while our prime-minister very much didn't do that, instead choosing to try to run around the reasonable questions of the parliament. Up to this point, it was OK, frankly. Then, I got complimented for my reply!

That made my happy... They also commented on my profile picture, on TikTok, which I thought was kind of a cute thing to do.

I try to leave comments on videos and reply to comments that provide some value to my daily life. I love showing support to people that take some time out of their day to post something informative on a public platform, so I thought it was nice to receive some words of encouragement myself.

When I first got on TikTok, I actually avoided Portuguese content like the plague. It was a different time, and I was a different person, to be fair. I don't necessarily regret it, as what I was getting on my FYP were grainy videos of kids dancing or families posting random stuff... But I'm glad that I've been reintroduced into the Portuguese side of the app.

Again, I am reminded to steer away from nationalism. I think it's great to feel love for my country, and to aim to improve it. To make it so that the young ones that are now growing up here can have an even better time than I did, so that the next generations can prosper more than I ever have. That would be amazing, but I can't let myself fall into weird identitarian politics like the ones on the flyer... It was a really disgusting piece of propaganda, really. The person that discussed it on TikTok that I saw was very eloquent and I thought they had really great analysis. I'm glad that was the case... Maybe some people that didn't see anything too wrong with that sort of thing came across her video and realized how terrible the messaging really is.

Completely unrelated, I've decided to learn more about XMPP. I've been looking for something that could replace WhatsApp, and all alternatives put forth seemed insufficient... Signal is American, Threema is paid, Matrix is terrible

I really hate Matrix, by the way, terrible experience every time I use it ---, Session doesn't have video calls, et cetera, et cetera. But this XMPP stuff seems somewhat promising. I installed Monocles Chat. We'll see how this goes.

I sold my old jeans, and I bought some new jeans. They're almost exactly the same as the jeans I usually wear, but a bit longer. My mom suggested wearing slightly longer jeans might be better... I don't know, she might be right, so I decided to order some.

Let's see how I like 'em! I wonder when they'll arrive... At most, assuming they're actually sent and the seller doesn't fuck up somehow, they should arrive by next week.

Excited!

There's another pair I'm interested in, but I don't want to be buying jeans in bulk, especially if I'm not sure they're exactly what I want. I'm buying a new size, so it'd be best to see if I actually like it before buying more. It's a shame, since it might very well be that the one I want will be sold by the time the new jeans arrive... Oh well, that's just how it goes, sometimes, I suppose.

Portugal is going to the ballot box for the 3rd time in 3 years. What a shame, I must say. 2 governments fell with corruption scandals, and now we'll elect a new one.

It seems that this government is gonna be reelected. Nobody I want to vote for has even a remote chance of winning, but I'm happy that there's at least 1 party that I don't find thoroughly dreadful... I think our Communist party is mediocre, but I like some of their points... I don't like others. They're a little too anti-EU for my liking, I think I lean way more federalist than they do. There's another party that I like, to a certain extent, though I think they have a really weak program. They do a lot of talking, like "we want this" "this is the goal" but then the practical ideas are very... Loose, let's say. I don't feel comfortable voting for them, based on that. However, looking at their motions in parliament... It does seem that I'm more aligned with what they're actually doing...

I suppose, at the end of the day, that's what I should guide my vote with.

I've also been thinking about wars, recently. There's the war in eastern Congo, Palestine, Ukraine... Trade wars too, I mean, there's just

I don't know

there's so much going on, it feels overwhelming...

Recently, Portugal selected our song for the ESC, it's called Deslocado by NAPA. You can find the English lyrics here.

It's beautiful, in my opinion.

There's been a little controversy with the selection, however. The song only ranked 2^nd^ in the fan vote. Personally, I think the ESC should be about more than just winning, it's not meant to be about winning, it should be about sharing each country's musical culture. This song is that 1000 times over. The song that topped the fan vote is I Wanna Destroy U by HENKA. It's not bad, though I do prefer the NAPA's. Regardless, being in English just... Doesn't sit right with me. We have beautiful Portuguese music in Portuguese, and we're sending an English song? Nothing against English-language songs, I love tons of artists that sing exclusively in English, I listen to English songs all the time, but the ESC is just not the place for that.

The narrative online seems to be that NAPA is the choice for Portugal, while HENKA would've been the choice for a win.

I think my position on this issue is obvious. It reminds me of a classic of Portuguese hip-hop... It seems we've forgotten it. Check it out.

I'd like to take this opportunity to share a couple Portuguese songs I love:

• HUMANA TARANJA -- Podem Entrar
• Mind Da Gap -- Bazamos ou ficamos?

And what is perhaps the greatest rap song ever made in Portugal:

• Valete -- anti-herói
  The lyrics here.

Valete is the best Portuguese rapper and, quite frankly, it's not close. We have some other good ones, mind you, but this man speaks in a way the others simply don't. That song is almost 20 years, at this point, but he still makes great music.

Portugal has great music, and great music in Portuguese. Why the hell should we send an English song? Come on...

Chocolate milk is delicious. I know, I know, hot take... But I'm serious, I love love LOVE chocolate milk!

My granny often buys these chocolate milk little thingies, huh, I forget the word for the thing but they have a straw and they're rectangular... You know what I'm talking about. Packets? Whatever. They're fine, you know, low quality, cheap, but they're fine.

However, there's levels to this.

One can make their own chocolate milk, of course. Mix chocolate powder and milk. Very good, good choice. More cost-effective too. However, even that is not quite peak, you know?

Do you know peak chocolate milk?

It's UCAL. UCAL is peak chocolate milk.

Holy crap... I just, I can't even describe how much better UCAL is than the competition. It's honestly not close, and let me tell you, I know chocolate milk.

I've tried chocolate milk.

I've tried different powders, different brands, different techniques

hot mixing, cold mixing, different amounts, large quantities ---, I am a chocolate milk connoisseur. I know chocolate milk. And UCAL is the best.

The glass bottle UCALs? Great. The UCAL Go bottles? Great. The big UCAL bottles? Great.

You want chocolate milk? It's UCAL.

How in the fuck do they make it taste so good? No clue. I've tried to emulate it, but I can't. Different milks, adding sugar, adding honey, using actual chocolate instead of powder... Yeah, no. It's not UCAL, it's not good enough.

UCAL is the best chocolate milk out there.

I have a vision of what I want to look like.

Slowly, I'll morph into that. I can see it, I can feel myself sprouting!!!!!!! I SHALL BLOSSOM!!!!!

I joke, but I am serious... I am surely walking towards my true self. Sounds a little cringe, but the true cringe is stopping yourself from being honest, so I say it anyway.

I've recently been hearing about the war in the DRC.

I don't fully understand the extent of the violence, but from what I've seen, it's rather terrible. The Congolese government is terrible by all accounts, committing several atrocities itself while being violently corrupt.

However, it does seem that the Rwandan-backed M23 militia is completely self-interested in their actions, despite their arguments to the contrary. Rwanda wants minerals and to continue it's persecution of political opponents internationally, while using that very authoritarian crusade as pretext for horrendous acts of violence against innocent Congolese.

I really don't know what more to say about this. I don't really have the words to talk about it, I don't think. Instead, I'd like to share some resources that may help you understand it yourself.

From what I can gather, it seems that the West needs to pressure Rwanda way more to stop this.

By the way, to anyone reading this, do suggest where I should post about this. I think it's not getting talked about enough, and I don't think my little stream-of-consciousness comm is the best place to speak this...

There's so many ways to interact with the Fediverse. The most popular, by far, seems to be Mastodon, but Lemmy, Misskey, and Pixelfed are also relatively popular. Kbin used to be popular, but it has apparently been abandoned, and is mostly dead at this point.

I recently learned that Mbin is a thing, checked it out, and it looked really cool! Has anyone used it? How different is it from Lemmy? I hear they have better integration with Mastodon.

What Fediverse services do you actually, regularly use?

For me, it's mostly Lemmy, though I do hop on Mastodon every now and then.

For a few months now, Uber has been lagging rather intensely for me.

I have no clue why, but it's pretty annoying. As such, I was thinking of switching from Uber to Bolt. A nice bonus is that Bolt is a European company.

The UI is way better, the app feels way smoother, there's bike and scooter rentals... Why was I not using this before?! The price's are the same, anyway...

I also ended up uninstalling a bunch of other apps I wasn't using, in the process. Pretty nice!

The Warriors have been doing really well since the Jimmy trade. They're 9-2. That's very, very good.

Here's the thing: in that stretch of games, they faced exactly 0 (zero) actual contenders. By actual contenders, I mean OKC, the Nuggets, Boston, and Cleveland. The closest things to a contender they faced were the Mavs, the Knicks, and the Bucks, but the Bucks didn't have Giannis, they went 1-1 against the Mavs without AD and they're cooked regardless, and well the Knicks were actually good and got blown out. That is to say, I'm unconvinced.

You see people talking about how Steph's been unleashed by Jimmy, which might be fair

he has been playing really well, regardless of whether that can be attributed to Jimmy or not

but misses the point, at least in part. Has he been playing well against fuckass OKC? Because, quite frankly, if they can't beat Shai, it doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter.

Steph needs another ring, Jimmy needs a ring. Anything outside of a championship is a failure for this season. Time is running out, and I just don't see this team performing at a high enough level to get there. I say this with a pained chest, of course, but they just aren't good enough.

I know, I know, shocker. Nobody's really walking around saying that the Warriors have a shot at the big-one, so it's not like I'm providing revolutionary analysis here, but it does frustrate me to watch this.

I'd also like to talk about NBA nicknames. I've always thought nicknames are one of the coolest aspect of NBA fandom; the joker, king James, chef Curry... These are iconic. They make watching the games that much more fun. Recently, the NBA has underwent a bit of a nickname renaissance, so to speak, seemingly on the back of "The Anomaly," referring to Jayson Tatum. It's not a bad nickname, as far as nicknames go, but it doesn't fit at all. It's a brilliant example of undeserved glazing, if anything. However, people have taken it in stride and started developing nicknames for other, sometimes mostly irrelevant NBA players.

My favourite ones so far are "The Trolley Problem" for Santi Aldama, and "The Ad Hominem Fallacy" for Jalen Green. I've tried looking it up, but I have no idea why Jalen got stuck with that, which makes it even funnier. They're so ridiculous, like Santi's, but mostly they're comprehensible. The idea is that Aldama presents a moral dilemma to the defender. Not bad, not bad... But I think that the sheer absurdity of a nickname as incomprehensible, nigh undecipherable, as Jalen Green's pushes it over the top of great into legendary status.

I saw a comment on a TikTok where the nickname "The Butcher" for Draymond Green was advanced. It pointed out how the Warriors have a chef, a butcher, and a butler. That's just perfect.

I think it's great that the internet has connected so many people. I love that I'm able to talk to someone on the other side of the world with a very different culture, language, and just overall life experience. I love that I can learn so much; so many different skills are just... Taught. For free. Online. It's really insane, when you think about it.

However, I hate how huge the internet feels, sometimes.

And I love how small it can feel, as well.

I follow this rather popular creator on TikTok called Mei. She does tinned fish reviews. It's hard for me to put into words how much I love her videos, but let it be known that I do love them very much. She has a website too: https://www.daywithmei.com/, consider checking her out. She's great.

Relatively recently (about a week ago), she posted a video in which she wore a super cute shirt. Pic related.

I don't know where she got it, but I want it!

It's so frustrating to want to put my feelings into words and failing. I feel so ignorant all the time, like I don't know enough to speak on any issue. When I do speak, I feel like I always miss something, some detail of the bigger picture, and it's always pointed out to me.

That's a good thing, I suppose. To be able to speak your mind and be corrected and helped.

I'm a patriot, I think, but I'm not a nationalist. I love my country because it's given me so much: a good education, good health services, good public transport... I love our language and our culture, our music both old and new, I love our rivers and the ocean that graces our shores, our forests, our food and our water... I saw a TikTok a few days ago, actually where a Portuguese person talked about how, whenever they travel abroad, they're flabbergasted by how terrible foreign water is. I've traveled all over Europe and can vouch for that. Foreign water sucks, it's crazy. Portuguese tap water is better than Dutch bottled water. I love our people too, all of them.

However, whenever I express this, I feel like I'm crazy. It's like there's only two kinds of people in this country: those that hate everything about it, and nationalist xenophobes. The people that see the good points of our country are not the ones that hate everything about it, by the way... And I really don't want to be associated with the xenophobes.

Partially, I'm scared that I'll become like them. I don't want to be hateful. It really does seem like the fascistic side of the deal really does have a monopoly on patriotism, though. Not patriotism, I suppose, it really is nationalism, but I find that that's a difference that only matters to the people that already know it, and that's not the everyman.

I saw this other TikTok about how the right has a narrative, and even if the narrative doesn't make sense, it's more than what the left has, so people flock to it in times of need. The right wins because the left fails to convince... And I find that this might be a big issue. I see people talk about how there's a big focus on the bad sides of our history---of which there are many---instead of the good sides. I don't know... I feel like that's a talking point, but if it resonates, then it matters, I feel like. I mean, I know of our country's history, and I still love it. I want to make our country better, to improve it, but it seems that the narrative that appeals to this mysterious time from before when we swam in gold coins like uncle scrooge is what people care about. And of course, it's all the browns in our midst. It's very frustrating...

I don't know. I feel like what I'm saying doesn't make that much sense, but I'm kinda hoping that getting it out might help me wring out some meaning out of this digital rag drenched by my stream-of-consciousness.

I find it really frustrating that Lemmy doesn't let you link posts or comments natively. You can like a comm with ! like in !gondaily@lemm.ee, you can link a user with @ like @gon@lemm.ee, but you can't link a post or a comment. I've looked into it a little, and I get why it's not possible, but it sucks!

It really frustrates me when people complain about action. I know that statement is so vague as to be meaningless, so please allow me to elaborate.

I'm seeing quite a few people post on Reddit about this new-ish movement of buying from the EU, which has actually also been catching some wind here on Lemmy on comms such as !buyeuropean@feddit.uk, namely on the Portuguese financial literacy subreddit. Now, whether or not that kind of thing has a place in a financial literacy sub is debatable, but that's besides the point, as that's not the chief complaint I see from commenters.

Instead, they complain that this idea of buying from EU is either useless, not enough, or virtue-signaling.

I find that very upsetting.

I'm not sure I'm totally on-board with the idea, but I do at least think it's a good thing overall to support local or regional businesses, it's good to support small businesses working on better, innovative, high-quality products and services, rather than the slop that the established giants take for granted consumers will eat up. It's not even a point of morality, it's actual practicality; you should aim to buy the best products, and capitalist monopolies are incompatible with quality service, so you shouldn't support monopolies.

Also, do small acts not count anymore? That one really irks me. I saw someone complain that this was all ridiculous because why are we worried about this instead of being worried about the housing market? What? That is such a monstrously STUPID thing to say that I was genuinely taken aback upon reading it. First of all, who said they're not also talking about those issues? But even if they weren't, so what?! Do smaller issues not matter? Is there some sort of restriction on the significance of issues that get airtime in a public forum?! Ridiculous.

Of course, people that wage these complaints don't talk about the "real issues" either, unless when they're trying to tear down those bringing up the "meaningless issues." Is this what they call reactionary politics? It's disgusting.

The worst part, maybe, is that they call the movement reactionary hypocrisy! I mean, on a surface level, everything can be said to be a reaction to something else, I suppose. However, I think there's a difference between being proactive and idle push-back. If the US starts on a rampage of poisonous international relations policy, then aren't the people affected entitled to a reaction? Are people not entitled to decide where their money goes?! Are they not entitled to decide to financially benefit this or that nation, that or the other company, in whichever way?! How is that hypocrisy? It's true the world is highly interconnected, it's hard, if not nigh-impossible, to completely disconnect from the US, but how is it hypocrisy to clamor for that sort of decoupling, regardless of one continues to use this or that service? Things aren't black or white, there's plenty of grey, there's levels to this, things don't change overnight. This genuinely bothers me.

On my part, I think I'll stick with my values of value-buying. Trying to get the most bang for my buck, the most quality. That will include a lot of European products, I think, but also American and other manufacturing, though it will mostly include second-hand and refurbished stuff.

Still, this rather intense hate I see some people react with is just... Beyond me. Whenever I see people react so strongly, I simply can't help but think that I might be missing something. There might be some aspect of this that I'm so terribly unaware of that I say the stupidest things.

The more I think about it, however, the more I think that I'm right. We really do benefit from supporting small businesses, buying second-hand, decoupling from dominating monopolies, and so on.

I love the way the setting sun casts enormous shadows onto the trees.

The winter time has rendered some of the foliage that surrounds me into skeletons; thin and lanky arms reach to the sky as if in prayer, uncountable off-shoots branch out in seemingly inscrutable patterns. The trees lie in wait, dancing softly in the wind, waving the setting sun good-bye.

A shadow crawls across the football field and the houses and the roads. The cars run in and out of the darkness, none the wiser. Soon, the dark reflection cast by my apartment complex will reach the clustered trunks. Then, it'll continue its incessant journey, until it covers every branch, dead or alive, indiscriminate as it is.

Even having lost their leaves, they pray. Even as they lose their light, they pray. The sky grows darker as the sun is snuffed out by time, and the trees still pray.

They look desperate. Underfed, famished. I wonder if each tree prays for something different, or if their connected roots, winding and touching and hugging and crushing each other, I wonder if their mouths that melt into one all whisper the same hymns and the same obsessed desires. A thousand, maybe a million tiny fingers reaching to the heavens all singing the same song, begging for life, and still the shadows cover everything.

They have no eyes of course. Even if they had had them, once, I'm sure they would've already gone blind from staring up.

Their steps are perfectly choreographed; it's a slow, methodical service. The priest speaks and whispers and blows, and the trees bow their heads, though they never kneel. They sway, but never lower their craving, reaching arms.

The moon takes the place of the sun. Maybe they'd recognize their god's light, I thought, but they didn't. Just as the shadows chased away the heavenly father, as is the mindless march of time, so did the trees' prayer warp. It no longer carries that same warmth and understanding, that scream for life. Now, it cries and it thinks and it rages.

Their fingers don't yearn and they don't dance. They reach like blades. The trees see a different nature in the moon, they see it as a phantasm, a mirage, a simulacrum of heat that brings nothing but pale light. They wag their fingers as they cry out, they rage at the darkened heavens as they scream. Their trunks are rugged and cracked, bleeding sap. Every new branch nothing but a tumorous growth from a gaping wound, but they take all they can get. They brandish their swords and they stab with their spears.

A blowing priest into a howling general. It screams like they scream, it cries like they cry, and it howls as they creak.

The very stars cower, tiny in the sky.

The moon hides behind the clouds.

The trees never sleep; they never forget. Still, in the morning, they will pray to the sun, with smiles carved into their bodies.

My little brother is awesome! :D

I got to speak to him, and I love him so much! We talked politics. It was great :D

I've been thinking of switching from Windows into some Linux distro. I haven't given this too much thought. I have a laptop somewhere with Debian installed---or Ubuntu, I don't quite remember---and I used to have Arch on it.

That part isn't really too much of a concern. If I really want to switch, I can easily get it on my laptop, or actually buy a new laptop so I can have a Windows and a Linux machine for different purposes. My current laptop is a little... Slow, to put it kindly, regardless.

The Android side of things, however, is a little bit weirder. I know that there's a lot of custom ROMs and OSes out there that increase privacy and de-Google your device and whatnot, but I simply don't know enough about basically any of them to make an informed decision.

I've heard of GrapheneOS, which seems cool but is only compatible with Pixel phones, it seems. I've heard of CalyxOS too, but I've heard some less than great reviews; I like Futo and Calyx is sponsored by them, but I don't put my trust there enough to just trust it. Maybe /e/OS is the best option?

I'll look into it.

I need to start taking notes... I keep forgetting the stuff I want to write about when it's time to write these posts.

I hate WhatsApp. Or rather, I hate how much of a grip on the market WhatsApp has.

Basically everybody uses WhatsApp over here; it's a given that you'd have WhatsApp if your age is below 55 or something. 55-year-olds are also expected to have WhatsApp, actually, if they have a smartphone... Which would be expected of a 55-year-old. I don't know what the cut-off age is, but it's high!

There's Signal, for example, which has equivalent functionality, but people just don't use it. The point of communication is to communicate, there's no point in being alone on Signal while everyone else is on WhatsApp.

I suppose that what's keeping the crown on WhatsApp's head is the fact it's closed-source. If there was a way to write an app like Signal that also interopped with WhatsApp I'd switch in an instant. Now, because of the Digital Markets Act, this should happen eventually... But it seemingly isn't happening.

I'm trying to wean myself off of Google, too. It's really hard though. Google has really entrenched itself into my life in a way that I simply hadn't realized. Before I knew it, I look around and everything's Google: my entertainment, my communication... I'm using a Tuta account now, for sign-ups and the like. I've also ditched Google Drive and associated services. But it's simply impossible, right now, to get rid of everything.

Slowly, though, I'm moving further and further away from these gigacorps.

I reviewed Re:Zero today, so that'll be the daily post.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/56619187

More than meets the eye, again and again.

At first, things seem quiet and unremarkable. A cliché premise, cliché developments, cliché characters... Actually, things didn't seem quiet and unremarkable at all; Re:Zero seemed boring and uninteresting. More of that ever-pouring slop Japanese webnovels insist on becoming, more of that persistent stench of mediocrity and the unbridled numbness of barren creativity.

Re:Zero is just more of the same old, same old.

At first...

But, at first, even the normal is strange. Even as we're born, we cry. We're confused, lost, terrified as the world that we now take for granted assaults our senses and wrecks our mind and body alike. Voices endless, smells, feelings, all of it is so much---too much! What makes life beautiful aren't the large pieces that we all have in common, but the small distinctions that make us unique. One would assume death is the same, of course.

All one can do is assume death is the same. That is, of course, except for Natsuki Subaru.

Re:Zero throws us into the typical isekai fantasy world---it even tricks us for a bit!---but pretty soon we understand that that's not the case at all. Natsuki Subaru doesn't die. Or rather, he dies and is then reborn. He gets to try again. That's what Re:Zero is about.

What if you could try again? What if your biggest failures were erased and you had a do-over?

As a premise, this is brilliant. It's not the first time I've read a time-travel story with a somewhat similar outline---shout-out to Mother of Learning---but Re:Zero is unique enough from within what I've read to trigger that novelty factor.

The cast is extensive and varied, including several of the traditional isekai tropes while continuously subverting them in some of the most creative ways possible. Even Subaru himself, the MC, is a subversion of the typical isekai MC. He reminds me of Kazuma from KonoSuba, actually, at first.

That's always the point, isn't it? At first, at first, at first... There's always more than meets the eye.

If that was all that Re:Zero was, it would be enough to make for a good story. However, Subaru is faced with the flip-side of his condition: he loses all the good parts too. The pain, the suffering, the despair that dripped from the pages when he loses everything was at times so overwhelming I actually had to take a breather. It's like the Witch's miasma bled through the screen and seeped into my eyes---that's the only reason I cried, of course...

What if you had to choose? What if you could try again, but even then you failed?

The ever-growing pressure of his mistakes digs into your heart and crushes your very soul, I'm telling you. Seeing him come to terms with how much he's lost and watching him gather the courage to keep going... It's beyond fantastic.

My biggest gripes with the novel are the following:

• The translation is mediocre and littered with errors;
• Subaru does too much talk no jutsu.

Still, it's not a big deal. I'm used to reading webnovels, so reading a poor translation isn't a significant problem; I just expected more. Subaru's incessant yapping can get frustrating at times, but I can rationalize it by saying that, well, if he dies, he can just try something else. When it works, it's hard to say that that wasn't the best option so... I can't really complain... I just don't like it that much. Let it be known, though, Re:Zero isn't just Subaru's yapsesh; he very much works! He tries, and fails, and tries, and fails, and he tries again. He tries everything he can think of. What I love most, perhaps, is that he doesn't get random power-ups like you see in other series. He gets stronger by failing and learning. He improves slowly by trial and error. It's really satisfying to see him figure things out!

The world is getting more and more complex by the volume, by the chapter, by the page really. By Volume 15, it felt like the world had grown ten-fold, both geographically and lore-wise. It's so complex and enticing with so many mysteries to dive into. I can't wait to learn more.

I mentioned the extensive cast already, but there's really no reason not to bring it up again. There isn't a single character I dislike in this whole thing. There are characters that are very much despicable, yes, but there aren't any of those cliché "bad because they're bad" or "good no matter what" characters. Every character is either extremely complex, with believable and deeply emotional motivations, or simply not developed enough to tell just yet. After all, there's so many characters but only so many pages to talk about them. I don't think that's to the detriment of the narrative in the slightest, though.

Really, the only character I actually have sincere gripes with is Subaru himself! Specifically in regards to his choice of heroine. He's wrong, and I'll stand by that. He's the only character in the whole series whose motivation I question. You'd think this would be a big deal, but it really isn't. He's an idiot, an irredeemable moron. That's what makes his story so compelling: we get to see an irredeemable moron turn into a somewhat redeemable moron, little by little, life by life, death by death.

Is this the greatest masterpiece of the 21st century? The century isn't over just yet, but it's in the running; I'll tell you that much.

What do you think?

---

Rating: 5/5

Read on Witch Cult Translations!
Disclaimer: I read the Light Novel version of Re:Zero, not the WCT webnovel translation.

I recently came across Romance Neolatino (Neolatin). It's an auxiliary conlang based on romance languages which aimed to be like a natural evolution of Vulgar Latin---that's what Wikipedia says, at least. I think that's a really neat idea.

I knew of Interlingua already and how understandable it was for romance language speakers, such as myself, but Neolatino is even more so.

These languages really aren't very useful, of course. After all, if two people want to understand each other, especially if they already speak languages in the same family, then they might as well just learn each other's language instead of diving into some conlang that nobody actually speaks. The benefits of learning Neolatino would be to kind of surprise people by speaking something that they don't recognize and yet understand? Maybe? Which is rather silly, of course.

I should really learn French...

I've been thinking about this a little bit lately, on account of the recent push on Reddit to ditch American companies and services in favour of European ones. Not that the Fediverse is European... I digress.

It seems that the single biggest hang-up people have with adopting Fediverse social media is the servers.

Lemmy's onboarding experience, for one, is absolutely terrible.

What's a server? Why do I need to join? What's the difference between the different servers?

All of these are reasonable questions, and they're not answered in a clear way at any point. This turns people away; they get confused and then give up on joining.

Mastodon is a little better, but not by a lot.

At least they highlight a server for people to join, making things a little more intuitive. Mastodon actually has a whole other issue regarding the way feeds are organized on the app, but I'll leave that for another post.

The problem with the Mastodon approach is, of course, that it heavily funnels people towards a single server. The whole point of the Fediverse is to be decentralized, so that's a rather counterproductive approach.

I wonder if it wouldn't be possible to suggest (heavily suggest) a server based on the user's location or something, maybe weighted by how many active users there are or something.

Basically, a balance needs to be struck between pushing people towards a server and not pushing everyone towards the same few servers.

Of course, many Lemmy servers don't actually disclose where they're hosted, so that could be a problem... Or not, I guess if there was a push for this system then servers might feel that it benefits them to disclose that information. Or maybe not, and that could be good too, I don't know.

The thing is that there's a problem. People see this whole "server" talk and turn tail.

Also, Lemmy looks ugly AF! There's plenty of alternative front-ends, of course,---I use Alexandrite---but it's really frustrating that the default look sucks so bad.

Sigh!

Mostly unrelated, but I'd like to talk about some stuff I'll be using going forward. Well, I hope to, anyway.

Email: Tuta
Drive: Filen.io
Map: HERE WeGo
Office: LibreOffice

The rest I haven't changed like Firefox and AntennaPod. I did also switch to the Fossify suite for my phone app, file manager, and gallery.

WhatsApp is a tough one... It's basically a must-have here. It's so engrained in day-to-day communication that not having the app is the equivalent of being a 70-year-old grandma or something. Nothing against grandmas of course, but they're not working or texting a bunch of young people everyday.

I thought that maybe Element could replace it? I think Element is more of a Discord type of thing... Some people mentioned Threema online, but that's a paid product. Signal is virtually the same as WhatsApp, but open-source and by a non-profit. Maybe it's a better option? It's not European, though. Well, a hard problem to solve, I guess.