This little beast has had $10k in preventative maintenance done over the past years and I got it all for free.

I must have slept wrong or turned over wrong or something because I woke up with immense pain in my neck and shoulder.

Now I can't turn my head without feeling like a knife is stabbing me in my neck. I can't even lie down properly because it's agony.

I've taken ibuprofen and paracetamol, which helps a little. What else should I do? Heat pack? Cold pack?

sorry about the dog fur, It Is Inevitable (literally just showered too and there's already this beast's pelt everywhere)

I try not to waste money on something that I'll probably piss out anyway so I don't really do multivitamins. The only things I take now are creatine, which is probably the most studied supplement in history and pretty definitively works, and vitamin D in the winter, which isn't quite as definitive but I need all the help I can get in the winter months. Anything else I should look at?

I recently got back from a trip to Spain with my family and I'm giving my trip report/impressions.

Flight:

Flew Iberia Business Class direct to Madrid. Flight attendants were nice enough, barely spoke English. Same with the Captain. Their little screen/media center was terribly laggy and the remote didn't work on the way back. Movie selection was okay, watched Dungeon & Dragons, Ocean's Eleven, some Family Guy episodes, and Puss and Boots. Must have been some other stuff because total flight time was 20 hours. The food was good but still airplane food. Very smooth flight except the last hour on the way home which was hilariously bad turbulence. Didn't sleep either route, never suffered jet lag but now that I'm back in the states I'm waking up at 4am. Customs both going in and out took about 2 minutes.

Madrid:

I stayed two nights in Madrid, the first and last day. It seemed interesting enough and I should have spent more time here. First night was near Atocha and there was some festival/concert going on in the plaza called Hispanidad. The hotel I stayed at was renovating and had probably the thinnest walls I've ever experienced in a hotel. I could hear everything in the street, including a bunch of cars blasting their horns at 3am for an hour straight for some reason. Only real touristy thing I did was a tour of the Palace of Madrid the next morning which was neat. The last night I stayed there was a nice hotel, but near the airport and basically in the middle of nowhere. Walked 10 minutes to some restaurant that vaguely reminded me of Chili's and had a chicken shawarma.

Train:

I took a highspeed train from Madrid to Barcelona. Round trip was $60, about 2 1/2 hours each way. Super convenient, showed up 20 minutes before departure and security took about 2 minutes total. There was a food cart on board and the wifi had some movies you could watch on it, or pay the astonishingly high fee of 20 euro. Cell service was iffy. On the way back to Madrid, they didn't even bother checking my passport. Just asked me if I had it and I said yes. Really need to build these things in Texas.

Barcelona:

I stayed here for 8 days and it felt about two days too long. Apparently the whole city was built within the past 100 years and it is basically a tourist trap.

The people- It's one thing to know it, it's another thing to see how fricking fat Americans are. I would say about 80% of the women just walking on the street would be considered model thin here. The rest would be described as thin. You could tell who was American/British just by them being noticeably fatter than everyone else. I must look like a Spaniard or I carried myself with overwhelming confidence in the subway because I had about 12 people come up to me asking for directions and I had to tell them I had no idea what they were saying. Most people spoke some amount of English, and I knew enough Spanish to at least get the point across. Google Translate works really well too.

Las Ramblas- overpriced, touristy, also didn't have nearly as many thieves as people said. Also took a wrong turn and ended up in some weird Arabic section where everyone stared my brother and I down

Sagrada Familia- Church which will never be finished. Once again, only ~100 years old.

Bike ride tour- Should have done this the first day, but we did a bike ride tour through the city. Hit the city park, Sagrada Familia, Olympic Village, and some other places while riding on the streets. Pedestrians are a menace. Saw one woman get between a truck that was backing up and a wall and nearly get crushed. Completely fricking r-slurred.

Zoo- Not great but they had gigantic seagulls hanging around. The only picture I took was terrible but they were seriously about two feet tall and were bigger than most marseys.

Olympic Village/beach- Okay section that's noticeably different than the other parts of the city. The beach itself is only 30 years old, created for the Olympics.

Casino- Extremely mediocre and didn't have craps. Played a poker tournament there and got knocked out 24/110. One fricker kept on making weird bet sizes in Spanish that were hard for me to understand. Shit like cuarenta y cuatro mil seiscientos cincuenta. I was told the week before the tournament had 400 people so it varies a lot.

Subway- Neat system. Took me a couple of days but I was very comfortable using it to get around after the fact. Funny enough, the only trouble maker I ran across was a Black American getting arrested by cops for jumping the turnstile. Seriously. Also my dad's phone got pickpocketed the last day.

Museums/Houses- Went to a couple of them. Picasso, Gaudi houses, and a contemporary one. Gaudi is a famous architect there that built weird houses, and was the chief architect for Sagrada Familia until he got hit by a tram. Once you see one of the houses, you've seen enough of them. The contemporary one was pretty meh, but it did have an interesting artist who did surrealist/nightmarish pieces. His name is Guillermo Lorea and appears to have no web presence at all.

Montserrat- An actual 1,000 year old monastery in the mountains with a Virgin Mary statue. Great views and well worth the day trip. Lit a green candle in hopes for a good harvest this upcoming year.

TV- The only things in English were true crime stories, Ancient Aliens, and the news (DW, BBC, CNN International, Al Jazeera). The news heavily was leaning against Israel, as in anchors were just grilling hosts that were part of the Israel government. Definitely no in Europe. I watched parts of a really weird German dub of Payback in Madrid. It was this scene (1:20 if the timestamp doesn't go through) but they included low budget 70s movie music in the background.

American Embassy- Visited a McDonalds for the heck of it. Got stuck behind two British women at a kiosk who legitimately took 7 minutes to order their food. They simply couldn't handle the options. The menu and food itself were basically the same but the largest chicken nuggets option was 9 instead of 12 here in the states

Gay S*x Shops- My hotel was near a well known gay district that had a ton of gay s*x shops. Across the street from the store called "S*x Shop" was "Sauna Gay Casanova".

Overall, I enjoyed the trip. It's different enough from the US but not wildly different. As I said above, I would limit Barcelona to about 4-5 days though. It really felt like we were running out of things to do on day 6.

So I was heading towards my metro that arrived, I was heading down the stairs but there was tons of people in front of me and I wasn't in mood to push people so I didn't catch the metro. Then a neurotic mayo mid 40 that was pissed he didn't catch the metro sarcastic told me “going slowly” I boldly told him “frick yeah” and he pussied out.

He was like typical mayo from city who played the rat game and hate his life, who is often kitty, doing shit job because he has shit degree and is mostly poor while he copes about thinking he is good person and helps the soycity. He had one moment of boldness and wanted to show his personality but pussied out the moment escalation started. He him self didn't tried hard to catch metro yet he decided I was the problem

And there are tons of mayo's like him. Like once I was walking with my dog near some social housing and my dog decided to piss at spot where all dogs are pissing and some mayo in his mid 30 started crying “no I don't let your dog piss at my house”

I ignored him and let my dog do his thing

Then he tried to push my dog I stoped him and told him is that his house ?

He told yes

I told him no, it's public property and dogs can piss on it

Mayo's don't even know the laws they created

Poors with ego are the most pathetic thing especially when they are mayo men.

But thing is a lot of city mayo's (25+ year old) are like Peter Pans they are hippies who act and think they are those wholesome children late bloomers who soon will be successful and they live like pizzashill for years yet think tomorrow will change everything while they waste their money on some “soul food” (not the same as burger soul food but food that supposedly being correct made with respect of nature) and drink tons of alcohol. Then cry when nobody respects them they are legit good at nothing.

Like growing up I though I would end up being some weak r-slur that is good at nothing but looking at those mayo's I think I ain't that bad in the end

they moved the regular cotton plain weave to the premium category

Fricking Windoes. Imagine having to actively opt-out of advertising on an OS you paid for in the first place.

Frick Microsoft to heck.

Having a dumb argument with my sister @NotFrozenYetStillChosen (she hasn't visited since I told her I could see when she viewed my profile lol which btw was almost everyday bc she copies me and wants to be me and wear my skin)

Edit: chewy on the left

Edit: oh shit

Rekt:

About 70% of dudes on the internet are in relationships pretending they're single to flirt with internet women and so won't want to show you a picture of a big bed with their wife's pillow on it. If you've been talking for a couple of weeks already there's not really any reason not to show you so the excuses get kind of funny.

I'm pretty sure it's made out of bugs or saw dust

One thing that comes up a lot in my diet progress threads is whether I feel different and healthier now that I'm 100 pounds less fat and truthfully for the most part I don't, I have about as much energy as I did when I weighed 307 (which isn't a lot, I'm a big napper).

So that got me thinking well if that's the case why did I lose 112 pounds and I got thinking about the good stuff that I do like about having lost weight so here's a list of things and maybe if you weigh a lot this will motivate you to lose weight too.

• No longer ashamed to look at myself in the mirror

• Don't mind occasionally taking photographs (I still don't like the way I look in photographs, 180 or die trying)

• Can buy clothes in any store instead of having to shop specialty sites that carry gigafat-person sizes

• Get complimented frequently by people who knew me before I lost the weight

• Decreased risk of diabetes (my mom is diabetic so this was a big motivation)

• Decreased risk of heart disease, a bunch of other shit I forget

• Knees don't hurt anymore (they used to hurt a lot)

• Fingers aren't fat anymore (it was really depressing as I was getting fat when I first realized my fingers were now fat)

• Peepee looks slightly bigger due to FUPA receding (doesn't hurt)

• Enjoy buying and trying on new clothes instead of it being a depressing chore

So those are basically the ways my life has improved since going from morbidly obese to just ordinarily overweight. I'd definitely say it's been worth it and I'd tell anyone who's heavier than they want to be that there's no time losing like right now.

my boyfriend broke up with me over not wanting to do anal 5 times a week

i'm not one to judge someone else's sexual preferences. i'm open to almost anything. my one thing is that i wouldn't do anal more than once a week since it's a LOT. my bf and me are long distance and we broke up a few days ago due to him saying he can't do the distance anymore (when we're irl, it's great, when we're not, he said it feels like a friendship). after talking about it for a few days and deciding we talked about everything and we discussed how to better our relationship & our needs/wants and out of no where he tells me that he actually can't commit to something if i can't let him do anal 90% of the time (when we would be together, he said he only wants that) then he broke up with me. is this normal? common? i'm heartbroken because i feel blindsided and if it was so important thought we would talk about it months ago (he's never tried it irl with me?). i don't know what to do and would love advice from people in similar situations. my first thought is this is abnormal but i might just have a clouded mind bc of emotions. i don't want to hate him and would be open to staying friends but also would love advice from other girls who may have had this happen too

I've been cleaning all day and made some progress.

I'm going to post when it's finally clean and you're all going to be so proud of me.

In the dream, I was screen-sharing during an all-company presentation at work, but I'd accidentally left rdrama.net up in a background window, so the title bar was visible to everyone.

My boss sent me a slack DM like, "hey you can do what you want in your personal life, but let's keep the gay furry dating sites off the all-company monthly." Thank gods for the stupid joke titles that are less embarrassing than what this place actually is.

Anyway, I woke up mortified, and now I'm really worried somebody in real life might discover this site exists. I think I'd be less embarrassed to broadcast actual porn on a work zoom.

Fortunately I am working and don't have time to make that confession

Use this thread to tell me your secrets instead.

There are thousands of organizations out there with hundreds of thousands of people if not millions all getting paid to fix the worlds problems.

They couldn't do it all so far.

Yet here you are by your lonesome, thinking that you would solve the world's problems or gain some special knowledge all by yourself that millions of others with far more years of experience could not.

That's hubris.

There is nothing wrong with knowing a bit more about the world. To put in effort into being aware of what's going on.

It's not worth it to do so at the cost of yourself and your own growth.

The first question that should always be on your lips before you help anybody else or try to focus on any other part of the world should be," Are things going well enough for me right now?"

If you have an important problem right now. Focus on fixing that first.

If you have a big limitation. Focus on fixing that first.

The world still exists outside of that and after you are done taking care of your things.

Make peace with yourself, then save the world and the people around you.

Even in the airplane flight safety videos, they tell you to put your oxygen mask on first before helping anybody else.

You can't save anybody else if you haven't even given yourself the space to breathe and hold on to your senses.

So save yourself, and take care of yourself, and then go save the world, and take care of your loved ones, for when you are healthy in body and mind, you can safely give far more of yourself to family than you ever could half sick.

( Disclaimer : All this advice is more general life rather than how to handle life at emergency situations which need you to do things right then and there. For that look for advice elsewhere or good luck trying to make the advice here fit those scenarios. )