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[nenjin]

Let my cat outside in the drizzle for a few minutes.  Not true, he followed me and I was like 'enh'.


The change was immediate.  It started sniffing everything and meowling like a kitten, and when I touched him to bring him back in, his tail was fully tucked and he was jumpy.  Now he's being a pain in the ass because he wants to go out again.  Yeowling like a cat in musk and running around and generally being vocal and attention seeking.

Poor guy has had an existential crisis lmao.

This is my cat to a T. Rescued him from the streets, have kept him inside for 3 years. He finally started to crack and spends most of his time caterwauling incessantly to the point it's driving me crazy.

So I decided fuck it, let's take him outside on a guided walk. Worked pretty well the first couple times. I'd walk around, he'd follow me, eat some grass, sprint around, jump and hop. All good stuff. But he progressively started being more of a bastard. Hiding under cars. Crossing the parking lot. (I live in a pretty busy apartment complex.)

Then one day I opened the door and he shot out across the parking lot without even stopping or looking. And that's a big no from me. People drive fast through that parking lot, and that's how kitties get run over.

So he lost his outside privileges. And started getting even more unhappy.

So I finally broke down and bought a harness. So our routine now is I make him incredibly unhappy putting the harness on him, he goes outside, steps off the concrete, flops into the grass, eats a little and just sits there for 10 minutes.

Truth is, cats are hunters. They don't want to take walks. They want to stalk, hunt and kill things and do it without someone standing over their shoulder.

I'm hoping he gets more acclimatized to the leash. I feel fucking ridiculous doing it, frankly. I've usually just let my cats roam the wild and live or die by their own skills or lack thereof.

I feel bad for him in truth, this isn't how he wants to live and it's not how I want him to live. I just don't have any alternatives. An unhappy living cat is better than a dead cat turned into road pizza.

[pisskop]

Yeah, every now and then I see a flat black smudge on the road...

I more worried about hawks or even just fleas to be honest.  I know we have a couple of strays and semi-stray cats out there to pass on all sorts of stuff, and we definitely see the remains of a hawk attack in our yard every now and then.

My last cat got stuck in a tree and I had to climb up with a cardboard box for him to jump into, lol.  Still a little surprised he went for the jump into it, but it worked.

[Flying Dice]

Which Japanese engineer thought it would be hilarious to stick an 8mm bolt riiiight up in the corner of the access panel, with less than a quarter-inch of clearance on two sides and less than an inch of vertical space above it? I had to go out and buy the world's smallest crescent wrench made for pixies to get leverage on it because none of my sockets would fit.

Dealing with that little bastard was honestly more annoying than almost electrocuting myself and I'm not sad it went on forever vacation to the bottom of the center console.

[nenjin]

They weren't built for your massive Gaijin hands.

[martinuzz]

Pixies wa doko des?

[Akura]

My mom just suggested I try meeting someone. Because my love life isn't totally dead because my own unattractiveness. And also, the overall unattractiveness of everyone else.

Oh, and the idea she suggested, joining a library club to meet someone, wouldn't work for a lot of reasons. Not the least because the library in our town was torn down to the framework two years ago, and they only recently started rebuilding it. Also, joining a library to fish for women just sounds cringe as hell.

[hector13]

It is a weird place to start hitting on someone.

“Hey how you doi-“
“SHHHHHHH”
“Hey how you doin’?”

[nenjin]

To your mom's credit, bad setting aside, the point is you have be out to be seen. Otherwise you're stuck to like, the grocery store or work. Part of the reason I try to visit the coffee shop once a week. Not just to buy the coffee beans I like, but also meet the baristas. The turn over there is quite high, but I'd say over the last 6 years I've met at least 5 baristas there where there was clearly a spark. Including two right now. They're all a bit too young for me at this stage in my life. But it's a great boost for my ego to get some smiles and a little conversation.

Also you can't go out there down on yourself. Somebody out there finds you attractive. The two best things you can do is a) have some confidence in yourself so you can interact with people at your best and b) take care of yourself so the people that do find you attractive or interesting find you just that more so. Personal care is a big first step in being like "I'm worth dating." It's the small things. Regular hair cuts. Shaving or maintaining facial hair. Regular brushing and whiter teeth. Trimmed finger nails. Not wearing stuff that has holes in it (unless that's your fashion) stains, whatever. Showering regularly (it should be obvious but for some people it's not.) And at the upper threshold, having a little actual style. It's not about doing these things TO attract people. It's about doing these things because they're healthy and show you care about yourself, and by extension, so should someone else. (And from there, deciding to make actual changes about lifestyle, habits, weight, etc.....)

Relationships are often about serendipity. Being the right you, in the right place at the right time. Having tried to do some online dating, one thing I've learned is meeting people organically is just flat out better than methodically searching for a relationship. But that starts with some basic effort on one's own part. Very little happens from your own home.

[Rolan7]

Which Japanese engineer thought it would be hilarious to stick an 8mm bolt riiiight up in the corner of the access panel, with less than a quarter-inch of clearance on two sides and less than an inch of vertical space above it? I had to go out and buy the world's smallest crescent wrench made for pixies to get leverage on it because none of my sockets would fit.

Dealing with that little bastard was honestly more annoying than almost electrocuting myself and I'm not sad it went on forever vacation to the bottom of the center console.

You probably know this, but it's something car manufacturers have done for decades in order to drive people to their dealerships or licensed shops for maintenance.

[McTraveller]

Nah it’s not that - manufacturers optimize for minimum cost to manufacture, not repair. Auto companies don’t really try to drive repair work to dealers, they have a historical love-hate relationship with them.

[Rolan7]

And yet other manufacturers make more servicable cars, in general.  Maybe by coincidence.

Edit: My car is Toyota, I helped my housemate with his BMW, I might be a *little* done with company-specific proprietary crap.

[pisskop]

My audi is *ugh*  stupid tires

[King Zultan]

Modern cars in general are pretty stupid, I mean my mom's car has to have the front tire and wheel well removed to change the battery or my other mom's car where there is barely enough room in there to change the bulbs in the headlights.

[Kagus]

Re: Dating/Getting out there, I'd just like to recommend not trying to go after people like baristas, cashiers, bartenders and the like; unless you get to know them outside of their work environment.

It's their job to be friendly and welcoming, and they're generally rather restricted (or just discouraged) in how they can turn you away. It can often be easy to misinterpret their affability as interest, and if you start trying to pursue that perceived interest then they're kinda backed up against a wall.

Not to say that there aren't situations where they are interested and would like to explore things, but just... Give them space when they're working.

[Lord Shonus]

And yet other manufacturers make more servicable cars, in general.  Maybe by coincidence.

No, they really don't. Working on any modern car is a pain in the ass for exactly the reason McTraveller states. Cars today are heavily optimized for ease of manufacture (usually with a lot of dedicated machinery for things like putting that specific bolt in), as well as maximum efficiency in material use and manufacturing process, because the scale of automaking means that cutting as much as a penny per part adds up to staggering sums. Driving you to specific repair shops isn't something they care about, because they don't own the repair shops - just the branding.