Ask me anything (me = forum)

I just realized we don’t have Barts and Calvins anymore because of Adderall.

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I’m guessing that my taki udon mister clone isn’t going to be delivered in q3 or 4 as intended. Should I just bite the bullet and try to get a used mister before the prices skyrocket? Am I just being overly cautious?

Can you drive a standard/stick shift/manual?
  • yes
  • no
  • I cannot drive
0 voters
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Does being able to drive the truck in Euro Truck Simularor 2 with a wheel count as standard/manual?

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yeah probably, I bet

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I got my driver’s license for manual transmission. Tried out automatic once and it felt like driving around a toy car.

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i discovered calvin and hobbes as a kid on my third grade classroom’s bookshelf, and quickly became a fan. i’d borrow the calvin and hobbes books from the library, flip through them, and often burst out laughing. even the strips that didn’t make me laugh, though, still resonated with me, especially the ones where they’re barreling down a hill in their wagon. just the vibe of this creative, precocious kid and his similarly-tempered stuffed-animal friend, playing outside alone, or getting into antics and upsetting their parents, classmates, or teachers; it was funny and silly, but also approachably thoughtful for my child-self.
i definitely think reading the comic in book form, with many strips collected, back-to-back, probably helped me enjoy it more than i would’ve if i’d been reading along as it was serialized in newspapers. rather than be disappointed by a strip that didn’t quite do it for me, i could just move immediately on to the next; as well, not every strip had to be funny, as there were enough funny strips that maintained the comic’s comedic nature to allow non-funny strips to exist. maybe i even liked that some strips weren’t particularly funny, and just ended with me and calvin both going “welp.”
i haven’t really revisited the comic, but whenever i come across a strip, i still like it. i pick up a bit better on some of the strip’s ideas, and sympathize with the adult characters a bit more, but it’s clear i wasn’t missing too much as a kid. if anything, i probably picked up better on some other things.
i brought my two calvin and hobbes books with me to my college dorm, even though i haven’t truly looked through them for a couple years. maybe tonight, or some time tomorrow, i’ll finally sit down and read them again.

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What’s up with Japanese media referring to Japanese places with only their starting letter?

I just listened to the audio book of Murakami’s The City and Its Uncertain Walls and he refers to how the protagonist wants to move away from Tokyo to Z-city in Fukushima prefecture. I’ve encountered the same naming scheme in visual novels, adventure games and other media with a somewhat contemporary Japanese setting. Same thing in Yokomizo Seishi’s The Honjin Murders.

Sometimes it’s only the city name that gets shortened that way but sometimes it’s also the specific district or area within a city or the prefecture’s name, like T-Ward in O-City in the K-Region. I get it that it can be used as an easy way to make up a place or anonymize a real location but sometimes it’s very obvious that it’s a specific place and not too hard to figure out where it is meant to be.

I find it fascinating because I’ve encountered this only in Japanese media so far. The other authors I read that wanted to make up fake places or anonymize existing ones just made up a name. What is it that drives Japanese creators to go this idiosyncratic route?

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This is a pretty common thing in all literature tbh, but I do notice it quite often in Japanese literature (n.b. I do read a lot of Japanese literature so maybe some bias there).

I think traditionally it signals “I’m basing this off a real place but I’ll only hint towards it,” but then of course it became a trope of its own. I’m sure if you asked most authors who do that, they would say “I did it because X did it in their books”

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“…but what the heck is ‘D–––––’???”

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lmao the sea of D

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Ah yes, Les Misérables, my favorite Japanese VN!

I can’t remember ever stumbling upon that outside of Japanese media very often. I probably just have to read more.

Also: D–––––s nuts (I’m sorry)

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how many glasses of water do you drink per day

  • way more than 8 glasses a day
  • 8 glasses a day
  • probably close to 8 glasses a day
  • not even close to 8 glasses a day
  • not even 1/8 glasses a day
0 voters

(fwiw I’ve heard that the recent several year long ‘hydration fad’ is a uniquely American thing but you need to drink A LOT of water before it actually hurts you)

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just water by itself?

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I hate the nothing taste of water, so it always felt like taking bitter pills or something. Would be happy if I never had to drink water again in my entire life.

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How much is a glass?? I drink water out of a 1L nalgene or a 1L (probably 1qt actually) The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course (2002)-branded mug.

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like, yea

hard disagree: there is good and bad tasting water. if you have bad tasting tap water my heart goes out to you (my tap water is undrinkable so i pay for water cooler water that i fill up each week)

pics or i dont believe u

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Does the mouthful of water I swallow after brushing my teeth count as a glass?

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I’ve drank different kinds of tap water, they all taste the same. It feels like being particular about the taste of paper.

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