adds to ‘Things to do on your last day to burn all bridges if you magically come into wealth’ wish list

Something to think about, though of course do whatever makes the most sense for your circumstances: what’s better - maintaining your current pace of work, without meaningful breaks, in a way that only further pushes you into burnout and risks impacting job performance to the point you could be let go for cause. Or, using your PTO, which is part of your compensation package, to take breaks and at least try to get some downtime to mitigate burnout, which generally has a positive impact on job performance and with that reduces the probability of being let go with cause?

Not going to lie and say you couldn’t get blindsided and screwed either way, but with very few exceptions I always think not taking your PTO is a mistake.

Will acknowledge I don’t know your circumstances and don’t mean any offense. If what you’re doing makes sense from a long-term survival perspective, then do what makes sense.

The issue is, what is the immediate alternative? You can simplify your life to minimize the amount of resources needed, you can find work that feels pleasant/meaningful enough that it doesn’t always feel like a slog, you can have other people subsidize your lifestyle by working themselves (cool if said people are cool with it/there’s some mutually beneficial exchange - usually involving domestic work, which is still work -, not cool if it’s pure leeching). But ultimately, unless you come from wealth, either you or someone working for your benefit needs to work to get resources needed for living.

It doesn’t have to be this way forever, but this is reality right now. Heck, this isn’t even unique to capitalism - even in a socialist society, people still need to work, they just (theoretically) gain more of the benefits of that labour than in capitalist societies.

Leaning into this will probably garner attention from the right sort of women for you. The ones attracted to “traditional masculinity” (which is kind of a trap in some respects anyway) probably wouldn’t be attracted to you sexually in the first place, based on what you describe here. So you don’t really lose anything by what you plan to do. Go for it!

And if anyone gives you guff about it, tell them to fuck off (or whatever response appropriate to your vibe, but carrying a similar message, would be).

Good choices so far! A few other ideas:

-Museum of Science and Tech is an obvious kid-favourite.

-One I don’t see mentioned as often is the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum at the Experimental Farm. Haven’t actually been in the museum myself, but they do have live animals as it’s a working farm, and I did see kids getting a kick out of that. It’s also across the road from the Fletcher Wildlife Garden, which connects to Dow’s Lake/The Arboretum if the kids have energy and patience enough for a little hike.

-Unless you really want to do a full river/canal boat tour (which admittedly is a good time), if you want to give the kids an ‘on the river’ experience you can take a water taxi from the locks to the Museum of History.

-For a less structured day/period, Mooney’s Bay has what I believe is the biggest public playground in Canada. You can also toss the kids in the water if it’s really hot (depending on water quality and comfort level). Keep an eye out as there may also be festivals going on depending on when you come (all pretty kid friendly as I remember them). Edit: Can also take them to see the Hog’s Back falls while you’re there, it’s close by.

-House of Targ, like 2-3 blocks south of Lansdowne, has all-ages family freeplay on Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 8:00 PM. Bunch of pinball machines and arcade cabinets. Have seen elementary age kids having a grand time there when I’ve showed up early for a band/adults only freeplay.

-Depending on scheduling and available time, the Mayfair Theatre has a Saturday Morning Cartoons program, with cereal and people in PJs, once and a while. People and their kids seem to love it. Bookmark their website and watch for advance tickets, it sells out FAST.

-We have a baseball team - the Ottawa Titans [edit: NOT Giants]! They play at the old Lynx stadium on Conventry. If the kids like baseball/sitting in stands drinking soda and cheering on something they don’t understand, they may enjoy it. Also have soccer and football at Lansdowne.

-If you want to get the kids into nature, Gatineau Park is a no-brainer.

-Vincent Massey Park is nice as well.

Might add some others as I think of them.

You poor son of a bitch.

(Kidding, I like it here. Let me know if you want any recommendations!)

You’d probably dig Martin Denny, Arthur Lyman, The Tikiyaki Orchestra, and Tak Shindo. Might like Raymond Scott as well.

45 and flight?

There’s a few people I know who use it for boilerplate templates for certain documents, who then of course go through it with a fine toothed comb to add relevant context and fix obvious nonsense.

I can only imagine there are others who aren’t as stringent with the output.

Heck, my primary use for a bit was custom text adventure games, but ChatGPT has a few weaknesses in that department (very, very conflict adverse for beating up bad guys, etc.). There’s probably ways to prompt engineer around these limitations, but a) there’s other, better suited AI tools for this use case, b) text adventure was a prolific genre for a bit, and a huge chunk made by actual humans can be found here - ifdb.org, c) real, actual humans still make them (if a little artsier and moody than I’d like most of the time), so eventually I stopped.

Did like the huge flexibility v. the parser available in most made by human text adventures, though.

AVAST, 'TIS A LOVELY SENTIMENT! THANK YE KINDLY, FELLOW SEADOG! ARRRRR

That’s chimerism. Capitalism is a large-scale and violent event in the natural world.

YAR MATEY, I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THE TRADE WINDS!

If it’s any consolation (I had a ‘what exactly constitutes a counterculture in 21st century Canada’ moment a while back, and eventually, unhappily, landed on the same conclusion), it means that a lot of the progressive values that used to be considered countercultural are now mainstream. Generally a good thing, I think.

Granted, many of those have been coopted and watered down to the point that they don’t constitute a legitimate threat to established power - or at least, that impression exists - so that’s not great.

That said, a counterculture is never a monolith. Just a personal project while the world burns, but I kinda want to revisit that rabbit hole a bit now that I’m writing this.

Just gonna chime in to say this was a pleasant exchange to read.

Nah, and to be honest it threw me off to hear some people interpet it that way. It’s always meant “acknowledged” or “I agree, no notes” to me.

If I wanted to be rude I’d do this instead: 👍🙄

I was very sad, and very self-isolating for a long while. This even translated to online interactions - always lurked and never posted, because really what did I have to say that anyone gave a shit about?

Started to feel a little less sad, and talk with people online a bit. The walls didn’t necessarily tumble, but they started to crack.

So here I am, speaking though Cracks_InTheWalls. Now, people still don’t give a shit about that, but in turn I don’t about that, which IMO is a significant improvement from where I was.

There’s enough worry about Canadian sovereignty and enough people who aren’t maple MAGA idiots/grifters but don’t immediately ignore what Trump says that, if they don’t think about precedent that much, this could swing.

I don’t really know or care what Trump’s intent was, even while I have some guesses, but I do know it’s being used as a talking point in the Conservative propaganda machine. “Lol, you think Carney’s going to defend our interests, but Trump just endorsed him. Hope you like being the 51st state. If carney wins, Canada loses. WEF, Ghislaine photo, Axe the Tax, etc.” The gambit is that all of this convinces more undecideds to vote Conservative than Conservative voters to vote Liberal (or NDP, or Green, or Bloq, but you get my point).

You and I, and I hope enough others, see through this particular tactic. But coupled with points like “Carney said he’d get rid of the carbon tax and GST on homes - those were PPs ideas”, there’s enough going on that I could see people getting swung. No one is truly immune to propaganda, and the machine do be churning.

Final edit (note to self: try all things before posting): the url works with or without dei in it. Do wonder about an existing link, somewhere, to try. Beyond that, post is false in my testing.

/paraderaining

Former Post Millenial writer - shocker.

I’ve drank, and got drunk, at exactly one work function in my current capacity. The living hell that was a day of serious meetings with 3 hours of sleep and a wicked hangover/still being drunk has made all other functions water and bed by 9:30 affairs.

Luckily everyone in the meetings had either made the same mistake before, or were functioning alcoholics, so the fallout was just being a pile of misery.

If a VP decides to take everyone for drinks at a club after the official function, at absolute most show up to nurse one drink then leave. Do not be the last one out the door.