The Omnibus Deplorables Thread

There is no escape. Know what the solution is? Turn off the news. It's pure poison. It's the mental and emotional equivalent of having a shot-glass of battery acid before bedtime. And then live your life like Simple Man from Lynyrd Skynrd. That doesn't mean turning into a moron because simple doesn't mean stupid. It means non-complicated. It means concentrating on the important things in your life and booting the other shit out of your mind altogether.

That's the worst thing we've done to ourselves over the last six decades, made things so ridiculously complicated at work and at home and in every other respect. It's overwhelming and the human mind can't multitask to that extent. And when you add the non-stop crises of the outside world to your life you're adding things you have no power to fix into your life, and that's the shit that will finally break your brain.

Well-informed and politically-attuned people are statistically among the ranks of the most unhappy. It's not a case of not giving a damn, it's more that it can no longer be endured as part of your personal life. My misfortune was coming from a family of obsessive news-watcher and political complainers. It's a major factor in my general ongoing unhappiness because my family let things beyond their control make them unhappy.

The only fix is to turn off all the switches and cut off the outside input. Stay informed of the important shit but leave the rest of the crap behind, ESPECIALLY that non-stop society-killing shitshow in the United States. We can't do fuck all about it so just give it up. I certainly could have done without letting the Trump horror show dominate so much of my time and energy over the last five years. How much of my life did I waste worrying and raging about that piece of shit? Why did I do it at all? I let that c********r into my brain and no one else is to blame for it but me.

Gotta stop soon before it kills me. Maybe I'll figure out exactly how to do that before I do end up dropping dead from being dumb enough to let that kind of extra (and thoroughly un-necessary/unwanted/wasteful) stress into my life. Help me!

^^^

That is a good measure of people, the extremes. Although, it seems the extremes are getting farther apart.

I watch woodworking and model-building videos on YouTube to help calm me down. Wish I'd been brighter when I was younger and gotten into a trade like that, woodworking, the kind that leaves a person satisfied at the end of the day.

It's one of my hobbies. I love the sound and smell and feel of freshly planed wood. Each wood is different.

I'm fairly envious of some of these guys who do that work, or with some of the welders who put things together for their home shops. Not just for the end product that they create but for the ideas they have. Never knew so much could be done with something like a fifty-year old reclaimed fencepost or a pile of rust steel channel pieces. That's what I'd do if I ever won the lottery. Not spend it on nonsense like luxury cars or travel or some putridly garish mini-mansion. More like get an acreage, far enough away from the Cities of Idiots of course, with a nice small-sized barn and turn it into a woodshop.

^^^

You and me both.

(Edit: Or at least make room in my mechanics shop for a little woodworking)

The wood-shop would have a fridge in it too, to save going back and forth to the house for refreshments. Half full of Monsters and half full of beer. [drool]

Oh! No, no Monsters. I don't even know why those are legal. I hallucinated on 1 Red Bull once. Got heart palpitations too. Nope, not for me.

Just beer. Imported from the Yukon. [B-o]

Monsters are mellower, as far as energy drinks go. I hate Red Bull. That shit should only be sold in liquor stores or by prescription. They're terrible. PDT_Armataz_01_27

Been working on models again lately. It's helped reduce some of the stress/despair. Bought a couple of Revell cheapies just to get the old skills back up to snuff. Found out that the new Revells, especial Revell of Germany, are top-notch kits. Not too far from Tamiya quality and ease of build. Unfortunately, and this really bugs me that they do this, their older ones under Revell USA are not fun at all. Ancient molds that a completely shot that are full of flash or raised panel-lines or mis-fits that just exponentially increase the amount of work to get it to look somewhat respectable. I'm not an artist but my quasi-OCD kicks in too often and I go "that isn't right or acceptable". So I try a fix or scratchbuild, which I am not very good at, and it ends up looking worse. Frustrating. Very frustrating. And there's no way to tell in the store which kit is a newer release with modern quality apart from something from the early 1970's that's been reboxed a dozen different times over the years and passed off as new. They shouldn't be allowed to do sales gimmicks like that. Grrr! :evil:

I was looking to get back into that over the winter. Update my Star Trek fleet with the new movies and Discovery models. Saw some really nice kits.

Also thought hard on getting a 3d printer, so I could make some of the SG-1 related things that aren't in stores.

What those guys can do with those 3D printers, especially the ones that use resin instead of styrene, is incredible. Back to the lottery dream for a moment. If I won the big Max prize I'd seriously look into buying some rights to produce a line of injection-moulded kits with additional 3D-resin and photoetch parts based on the machines from the grand old BattleTech war-game, now owned by Topps. Like why leave the field of battle-suit modelling to the Gundams or those other crappy Japanime cartoons, all of which are now made in China. I know BattleTech is still deeply loved by the gamers and I'd bet that a lot of them would absolutely love a series of 1/35 or 1/48 scale models of the suits. And I'd set it up so that they were made in North America under a strict quality assurance/control system in order not to pass off substandard garbage to the buyers. As the owner I'd at a minimum absolutely demand a level of quality and detail on the par of Tamiya or Dragon Models. These are the kind of small ideas for investment that I think could turn out to be profit-turning winners.

Going to move to the Random thread, as I don't want to continue off topic in this one.