Turious

2008 Dodge Avenger. Believe it or not, it was that 2008 Dodge Avenger.

I hated every inch of that car. It was big without any of the benefits a car might have from being big. No power at all, pretty bad on gas. Didn't have a very comfortable road feel or suspension. Every inch of the car was cheap. I drove it for a long time and towards the end, around 100,000 miles, everything in the car felt like it was malfunctioning.

Asia. China and Japan, I know in particular, go nuts for pay-to-win gatcha mechanics.

I'm out of the loop on Reddit, but I was beyond a power user on there two years ago. Back then, if every human user on the site stopped using the site, the admins would not have noticed any difference because nearly every post was bot networks reposting old top posts and filling the comments with the exact comments from the last time it got upvoted.

Garbage website. I miss it for what it was capable of for a while there.

I've always had an obsession with maps, which as an adult has brought me to wanting to visit the "extremes" of the world. Far north, far south points of things. But I'm not the adventurous type so a lot of those places are just never going to happen. Nuuk has always been high on my list of places that would be neat, while not being impossible to get to comfortably.

I'm at the stage of burnout where all my hobbies feel like extra jobs, or at the very least like chores.

Trying to learn how to use Natron felt impossible. It's a very different approach to what it does and I could not even start to figure it out.

I'm not an adventurous person. I haven't been to a sex shop at home in decades so I don't keep up with what's available out there. But on vacation in Tokyo in 2023, I was at a four story sex shop in Akihabara. The top floor is exclusive to men, no women allowed up there. There are all sorts of fuck dolls and the more intense, expensive dude stuff up there.

Now, what I was not mentally prepared for was the glass display case. I don't remember much about what else was in the case but the thing that caught my eye was what I can only call "The Device."

The Device was a very inelegant metal machine that in any other context I would have assumed was some kind of kitchenware. But it had a nozzle on the end and it was incredibly obvious what The Device was there to do. This was not a nice machine, it was a tool with one purpose. I imagine it was incredibly good at that, too.

I was tight on cash for that trip and this thing was listed at 45,000 yen, which was about $375 at the time. I joked with my friends that it would be well worth it. It would have been difficult to get home due to size and I imagine heft. I would have taken The Device back to our rental house and let it suck the soul out of my body. I would have died on that trip and would have had no regrets.

I went back to the same store earlier this year and the glass case had other things in it, The Device nowhere to be found. Someone bought it, took it home, and was claimed by its power. The shelves of the top floors of that shop are now sleek looking plastic and silicon jerk machines that look very user friendly; exactly what you'd expect from a sex toy. But they are probably nothing compared to The Device.

The Karen I grew up around nails the "karen" archetype so perfectly that when people started using the name like that, I immediately understood what they were referring to. It was uncanny.

These years later, even my boomer family all know the reference and agree, regularly point it out to our Karen.

Wow, I remembering having these cards/book when I was a kid. I wonder what ever happened to them.

Bring back Strong Zero! Yes, I know they still make them and you can still find them. But they aren't as convenient anymore. And who knows how long they will last now. I'm sad.

Sounds pretty incredible. When I met my lost brother years back, we found out he was kind of an asshole.

I got to make regular jokes about "being the new guy" and subtly shoot shade at the management team any chance I get.