southsamurai

Icq was the shit!

Mind you, if you’re driving far enough to go on a tangent, you should pack a bag. For that matter, you should always keep a small bag of basic supplies in your own car anyway. A change of clothes at least.

And, if you’re smart, you’ll have a go-bag for an unexpected overnight trip ready to grab in case it happens.

Of course, that comes back to the EDC mindset of preparedness.

That mindset is often compared to the old scout motto, and that’s one of the good things that scouting did.

It’s a shame scouting died off because of the bad parts of the organization itself.

You know, my uncle was the den leader for our area, and it’s something he’s fondly remembered for.

Speaking of, anyone remember back when scouting was less about badges and more about useful skills and camaraderie?

Man, I miss camping, too. Not just scouting camps, but all of it. My family would go several times a year. When I grew up, I would even go out alone and do primitive camping.

I ran into a bunch of feral dogs and coyotes back when I was doing it. Damn near got killed by them once, and ran into trouble another time.

Luckily, I always parked my car in a location that was easier to get back to that it was to get away from, if that was an option. You always want the hard hike to be towards your camp site when you’re alone because, if something happens you want a better chance of getting out in a weak or injured condition.

A long hike is bad enough if it’s downhill. But you still have a long drive back to a town or city.

Which gives you plenty of time to go off on tangential thoughts.

That’s what I wanna say, 128.

I think it’s https://lucida.to/ this

Yeah, I’ve never run across it before, and there’s too many things that use it as a name to run a regular search

Fwiw, I’ve never put drm on anything I’ve published digitally, and never will.

Not that it matters, nobody buys my shit in the first place lol. But, as a matter of principle, even my crappy stories as a form of culture aren’t only for the people with money.

Mind you, that do? I have no beef with. You make your own choices, and I ain’t mad about it. But it just isn’t something I can do.

Ngl, I love me some twinks.

Back in my salad days, they were always so sweet and fun (on average). Even more than the queens, it was the twinks that made me feel welcomed and embraced by the local culture as an outsider.

Not every town allows it, not every home has the room, not every household has the resources, etc, etc, etc.

Pretty much the same as anywhere, really.

Fwiw, depending on the number of conditions chickens you have a “small” coop isn’t realistic.

You can’t keep chickens in the coop 24/7. Well, I guess you can, but you’d be an asshole if you did. They need light and air and exercise and mental activity, and you don’t get that in a coop.

So, you need enough space for them too. A decent sized yard can provide that.

Oh, wait, now the chickens are eaten by a neighbor’s dog; oh well!

Build a chicken run. Solves the roaming problems.

But now, snakes and small predators can get to your chickens because they can’t run away.

But, if you just fence in your yard, there’s still predator access in different ways.

I get the impression that folks really don’t know how much wild animal life there is in the US, even in cities. Like, I used to live in a fairly big city, and we still got raccoons in the garbage, and coyotes occasionally rolling through the streets.

In my town, we’re on the edge of farmlands and mountains. We don’t get the big critters like bear and cougars, but you better believe we have foxes and coyote, and feral dogs, and snakes and hawks, and the list can go on

Just in the last month my rooster has been in three fights with other animals that got inside our fence. And we aren’t outside of town. Before we had chickens? Never saw a coyote inside the fence, or a feral dog. Foxes were rare. And easy to keep out because they only came in when the fence got damaged; they weren’t trying to get in.

We also didn’t have as many mice trying to move in (which you deal with on the edge of farmlands anyway, but it was less) to get their food.

Chickens ain’t exactly a casual decision is what I’m getting at.

Maybe wherever you are, the towns are far enough off from that kind of stuff, and you can just let them roam all over with little or no risk, I dunno. But you can’t do that everywhere here for sure.

Also, if you didn’t already have chickens before the bird flu started hitting, they aren’t cheap now. Even breeds that aren’t considered great layers have gone up in price. Our pet hen was less than ten bucks, and she’s a fancy breed. The same bird would be twice that now, from the same breeder, and that’s in less than two years.

WHAT?!

Frankly, we don’t need Luigi, we Tyler Durden

Yeah, I enjoy the movie a good bit. It has some minor flaws, but they caught the feelof the Odd verse very well.

And I don’t think any story involving a rooster can be boring. They just don’t allow themselves that luxury lol. If you want, there’s a weekly post on [email protected] (I think that’s the right instance, I’ll check here in a second and edit this if my memory is messing with me) about pets; I semi regularly have stories on there, and most of them are our rooster roostering.

I can see your story in my head too. Just chilling, enjoying the company of love, some wine and a friendly vintner, and then cock-a-doodle-doo right in your face. Chickens have zero chill in that regard.

It really is.

I’d legit cuddle that pig too though

Being real, even “light” PTSD is no joke. Compared to some combat PTSD survivors I’ve known, my version is a cake walk. Like, support group meetings can get real because folks can trigger each other, and the vets, they can sometimes totally dissociate from the world around them because the trauma is just that deeply ingrained and suffused into their system. But that doesn’t mean your trimmed traumas amd symptoms aren’t absolute hell too. A different area of hell, yeah, but still

Me, it took years of group therapy, 1 on 1 therapy, and support groups to get to the point where I was stable enough to return to life on a realistic level. Time helps for sure, but I’d not be here without the external support to get that time.

That’s one of my favorite series of books.

And, yes, your comment made me laugh :)

I feel you :)

Oh, she’s a little cutie pie. Pad trained (mostly) and she loves cuddles when she’s sleepy.

She’ll hop up on the bed, where her pad is laid out, then preen a little. Then she comes over to me and nestles in to my side, wiggling her little butt, then she’ll take a nap. That’s if I’m already asleep. My wife has watched it happen a goodly number of times lol

Sometimes, she’ll see and hear me yawning and start trilling and do the same little routine, but she’ll also peck lightly at my arm or whatever to get me into position. When she was younger, she’d want my arm over her; not touching, but over.

When I’m not showing signs of being sleepy, she will.

She paces back and forth a little, fluffing up and trilling until I pay her attention. Then she’ll waggle her tail and bok at me until I settle into position so that she can either lay up against my side, or against my arm. Then she’ll purr a bit. If I don’t lay my head down, she’ll peck at my arm until I do. But once my head’s down, she settles in and drops off. Since my old ass can usually nap at any time, I tend to drowse a little even when I’m not tired, just because it’s easier than doing stuff that might wake her up.

This damn bird lol. Between her and the rooster, who is not allowed on the bed when he’s inside the house, there’s always something going on.

Lmao! I’m writing this, and she’s in the living room with my kid. I hear a loud pweep! that is a chicken sneeze, followed by my kid going “awwwwwuuughh! She sneezed in my mouth!” Well, if you didn’t keep trying to kiss her, your face wouldn’t get hit.

I can’t say I’d recommend chickens as pets across the board; they’re messy and more expensive than you’d think, and they take a good bit of work. But mine are worth it. If you’d told me at this time in 2023 that by this time in 2025, I’d allow a chicken in my house at all, I’d have told you you were crazy. But a few months later, the hen that was actually a rooster had come along, and then the actual hen, and here we are, creeping up on two years of chickening, and happy with it.

Be glad you can’t, and that you don’t have the super power of moving in your sleep to a large degree.

I can punch full speed in my dreams, and then hit things in the waking world. Luckily, I’ve also got some kind of “radar” that excludes people that sleep with me on a regular basis, and animals that do the same. I’ve never punched a dog or cat, nor my chicken when we fall asleep together for a nap.

Never punched a partner unless they tried to grab me when that’s going on.

It’s not a fun thing. I also don’t talk about it much outside of support groups because some ninny usually has to offer advice like I never thought to look into ways of fixing it. Don’t be that ninny, if you’re thinking of it.

I have broken some shit over the years, including wall paneling, a headboard, multiple lamps, a window, plus stuff that falls off of headboards and shelves close enough to get shaken by the impact.

Ain’t PTSD fun?

Well, that’s great, but you’re the first ligma

Sure, but intent does matter.

As does the structure of the comment/conversation.

For me, if I’m trying to convince someone as the intent, I go about it different than if I’m expressing my thoughts/opinions and if it ends up convincing them, that’s okay, but it’s also okay if it doesn’t.

I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything.

Well, maybe that the conglomeration of everything across the world into the hands of oligarchs means that tariffs are the lesser problem, but even that, I ain’t got patience to convince people of.

I’m just rambling and venting a little