southsamurai

You win an outie going into your innie!

In fairness, I have a weird capacity that’s the opposite of aphantasia. Some people can’t picture things in their minds, the same way some people don’t have an inner voice. I call my thing hyperphantasia.

When I’m reading a book (or writing something), I can see and hear things as they’re described to the extent that I stop perceiving the real world fully. If the author describes smells, I sometimes get those. It’s a very immersive experience beyond what I’ve seen other people describe as their inner imagery. I’ve even gotten hints of feelings on skin if I’m deep enough and the descriptions are right.

I know I’m not the only person that experiences things that way, but it does seem to be rare based on responses when I talk about it online.

The human brain is wild!

I probably shouldn’t answer this tbh.

I have three main “voices”, plus a couple of situational ones. As you say, a talker that’s mostly “me”, my conscious self. A listener that isn’t just a listener that’s essentially my subconscious throwing up images and memory in response to my conscious self. Then there’s the other self, the third thoughts, the meta mind, whatever you want to call it.

That third voice is observing the “conversation”, and making commentary and corrections as needed. Like “that’s not how that really happened” when images flash up that are nebulous. Or “no, that’s not who you want to be, stop being a dick” when my conscious self is under stress. Or “go fuck yourself” when thoughts triggered by mental health issues come up.

Plus, and this isn’t some kind of bullshit DID¹ thing, I have fictional characters in my head. There’s this thing I do when I write or DM where I kinda spool up a virtual machine in my head where a character “lives”. These aren’t real entities, they aren’t split off from me, they’re just a construct that’s useful. They can be “deleted”, they don’t take over, nothing like that.

I can, however, have conversations with them if I do a bit of mental prep work to sort of fake forget that it’s just my imagination playing a game with itself. I used to participate in some Mastodon writing prompt hashtags and I’d sort of interview my characters with them sometimes surprising me with what they said. Alas, the instance I used shut down without warning, and I didn’t have a recent backup, so I lost most of it.

While I was writing that paragraph, one of my characters got switched on for a second and grumped at me. I know it’s not a person, it’s all imagination. But it is a fucking trip anyway.

Yeeeears ago, I was running a game. It included a deity coming back to life. During the process, I had been wrapping my head around what they’d be like, and one of the players had communed with the deity a good bit. During a session, the player had their character call on the god to manifest. My ass just started talking as the deity. Full on zero conscious control over what came out. It felt creepy but cool. This imaginary part of myself took over, my voice changed, I stood up and moved around, but none of it was “me”. My conscious mind was starting to freak the fuck out a little because it felt like the imaginary thing was taking over.

That wasn’t the last time it happened, but I’ve never been able to make it happen. Well, not to that degree anyway.

I guess what I’m saying is that my internal monologue isn’t a monologue. Shit gets loud up in here.

Edit: ¹

My bullshit DID thing, I don’t mean that did isn’t real. I mean that it isn’t me pretending to have DID or some other dissociative disorder. People do that, and it’s fucking weird

https://www.amazon.com/Koss-KSC75-Portable-Stereophone-Headphones/dp/B0006B486K

They may or may not be right for you, but the sound is way better than the price tag, and the price is low enough to be worth trying them. They have a Bluetooth version as well. No anc though. They’re as comfortable as it gets for clip ons.

Thing with buds is that you gotta find the right tips. Comply is the default brand because they make something to fit every damn size out there. So you may just need to hunt down new tips instead

Well, I have chickens, so that’s the obvious answer. But I already know what they’d say and it amounts to “feed me” 24/7

So, the next obvious answer is dogs because I love them so much. But, beyond the fantasy of it, I suspect that would end up depressing as fuck because not every dog has a good life, so what they say might drive me to homicide.

Which leaves rats. I’d go with “rodents” given the choice, but if I can only pick one, rats are the most problematic overall. The chance to talk to them and maybe negotiate them buggering off instead of getting killed would be both awesome, and possibly profitable when successful.

Eh, when it comes down to it, my concern isn’t country of origin, per se.

Since my concern is about the company making an item, and how shitty they are, you’d have to dig up some serious numbers to show me that a given Chinese company is significantly worse than a company from elsewhere, or that there’s a proven issue where the hardware had known vulnerabilities introduced by virtue of being Chinese in origin.

Both of which are entirely possible. But until I’m actually shopping for the hardware, I have way too many other things that I have to pay attention to to give a flying fuck, so this hypothetical is a zero fucks given for me. China isn’t inherently worse than any other country. It’s got flaws and virtues as they all do. Buying shit from any given country is picking exactly what flaws you prefer.

Out into the yard. It had plenty of arc what with being backed up a good bit lol.

Our yard had plenty of trees and shrubberies even back then (now, it’s essentially a meadow), so for someone to have seen anything at all they would have had to be in the yard itself, and thus deserved to see a dick hanging out a window and pissing on them :)

Pissed out of a window rather than walk ten feet to the bathroom.

In fairness, I had the flu, and was a teenager. Feeling like hammered vulture shit, with a window right there and open anyway? No way was I getting out of bed. The window was just barely above the top of the mattress, so all I had to do was roll over, kinda prop up, and let 'er rip.

Surprisingly, not only did it not go horribly wrong, but the little forethought I had with a fever that high managed to prevent any drips from being a problem. Well, a problem then. Still had to wash the towel later, and that left me without a clean towel for fever sweats, but I had bandanas I could use for that.

Look, I was creeping into dangerous fever levels lol. Not the best set of decisions, but it worried out in the end

Alas, saying that is so moronic that my irony detector exploded

Acetylcholine.

There’s plenty of things that can trigger it being dumped into your system. It’s a neurotransmitter, and works throughout the body like most of them do.

One of the things that triggers it is eating. You eat, it gets released. It gets released and fairly quickly hits the receptors that are open to it.

One of those receptors in the gut then increases bowel/intestinal motility.

Thus, you wake up, and your body starts pumping out fresh chemicals. You eat, and the chemicals related to that crank up. Then, poop happens.

There’s a shit ton of things besides eating that can get the job done, but it’s extremely common for a post prandial poop to pop.

Me? IBS has fucked my shit up for ages, and I can usually time when that first rumble will hit after I start eating. Fifteen to twenty minutes. It isn’t always urgent as that’s determined by a wide range of factors, butt it’ll definitely hit in that time range if there’s no stimulants involved (and I’m real sparing with caffeine). So you aren’t alone at all :)

Hypothetically, any time you’d not be able to have a person do it.

Thing is, all the current models out there are built on stolen talent. So you have to decide if that matters to you.

Me? I don’t hate generative software per se. I think it does fine for the exact cases you mention.

Not an asshole, but on “normal” days, if you’re bending rules in your favor, it’s not unreasonable that you’d bend them the other way when there’s a crunch. ER work is fucking brutal, so there’s a ton of unofficial shit in the culture. I think you’re running into that.

Transport is supposed to be different from other positions. There should be different standards where you aren’t going to be moving your entire shift and only get a break that’s official. However, when you’re stationed in the ED, you’re going to be held to their standards, fair or not.

You have to make a choice. If you’re going to hold to the standards of your actual position, you gotta hold to them entirely and not dip into ED supplies. If you’re going to partake in ED side benefits, you gotta work to their standard unless you want to end up an outsider. Again, fair or not, that’s the situation.

Me? I would err on the most sustainable choice, the way that you can be certain your performance for patients is going to be optimal. If that means sticking to ED expectations, that’s how it goes. If it means sticking to the official standards, it sucks to lose access to the unofficial benefits, but that’s the way the ball bounces sometimes.

Tbh, that kind of unofficial, unstated rules are why I wouldn’t work hospitals back when I could still work

I dunno, seven samurai is the kurosawa film for me. But the magnificent seven stands on its own as a classic of the same caliber.

I’ve seen both dozens of times (more for SS tbh), and I don’t know that I can point to one or the other as better, not in totality.

I’ve done that :)

Sometimes I get lucky and a given gathering is up for the really gnarly (but still entertaining rather than maudlin) stories, and I end up going on for quite a while lol.

I used to be banned from dinner tables because of that lol.

Aight, as someone that used to wash dirty bodies for a living, and insists on a level of cleanliness because of that, you’re way overestimating the funk most people have in the short term.

The typical person that’s bathing regularly (not even daily) and is changing clothing daily just isn’t going to smell that bad.

Hell, if a person is actively sweating, they’ll smell better because sweat will flush away the stuff that makes funky smell or taste, so all you get is saltiness.

For real, even in nursing homes with urinary incontinent patients, they didn’t stink just by virtue of being in a wet diaper for a while. A washcloth (or the equivalent) and a light scrub would remove any aroma. For an ambulatory adult using basic methods to clear residual urine, you might get the lightest hint at the end of a long day.

Mostly, genitals just smell genital-y. A little light musk, some hints of sebum scent, and maybe the generic scent of skin. It’s far from unpleasant, even when strong enough to detect while helping someone change clothes.

Now, I never went down on, or fucked a patient. Wouldn’t have been interested in crossing that line even if they were otherwise compatible.

But I have gotten freaky with people after their work, after workouts, etc. The truth is that if they stink it points to something being out of whack. It’s not the default at all. A person’s diet and intake of things has way more influence on their taste and similar to their scent than just being out and about randomly.

For real, while I do prefer such intimacy fresh out of a shower because of my history dealing with people that did have something out of whack, it’s not some kind of horrible experience otherwise. Like, it’s less unpleasant than kissing after eating roasted garlic (which isn’t really unpleasant tbh, just intense).

And it’s not like a full bath is going to be significantly better at knocking down UTI risks than a wipe it washcloth and a light attention.

Seriously, where did you get the idea that crotches stink that bad just walking around?

I mean, if you can’t have the vent go outside, it’s better than nothing, but it won’t pull a majority out of the vented air without passing over the ice pack multiple times.

Only people I’ve ever known to try them thought they weren’t worth a dime

Shit, I think I was the weird kid

A twelve inch sub, two bags of chips, a bottle of soda for each, and some Reese’s cups.

I did the entire load except the Reeses.

This was back when FUBU was still a viable company. I could fit a full sized handgun in each pocket, so two drink bottles in one and a sandwich in the other were easy. Chips in the back pockets. With pants that loose, and a baggy shirt over the top, it wasn’t even visible lol. Good belt helped though.

With a good coat in winter, I could smuggle anything I damn well wanted almost anywhere. Hell, anywhere at all that didn’t search people, no almost.

Edit: me and my homie went together, it wasn’t all for me