I bought some for my daughter to learn and you’re right, it’s not cheap.

It didn’t go the way she wanted it to go so she threw it away. I really wish I had been able to keep it so she can see her progress one day.

This about me and my kid ain’t it? :p

My cousin (actually double first cousin, so almost a brother biologically. His mom is my mom’s sister and his dad is my dad’s brother) had a fuuuucked up childhood.

His father was a severe alcoholic and abandoned him. I wasn’t allowed around his dad as a kid. I have two memories of him from when I was a kid. One time he bounced the muscles in his arms and legs and told my brother and I he had live frogs under his skin. In the other memory, he chased my father with a chainsaw and jumped through a window in an attempt to kill him. My father doesn’t associate with most of his family. My father abandoned me too, but I had a mom and a step dad who did their best.

His mother had him until he started school. She dropped him and is 1 year old sister off with my grandparents and disappeared. She popped back in when he was a teenager. I mean, she was around before that, but she tried to be a mom when he was around 15.

He thought his father didn’t even think about him. When I was in the 7th grade and he was in 5th grade, we snuck into the attic of my grandparents’ house to sneak a cigarette. We were snooping and found a box full of unopened letters from his father. Neither of us were even allowed to have pictures of our dads.

His dad had written him a letter at least once a month all of his life despite never getting a reply. That broke something in him. He went from thinking that he had a father who didn’t care at all to the harsh realization that our grandparents hid letters from him. The only people who loved him, in his world, had betrayed him in the worst way.

We sat there bawling our eyes out reading those letters. He found out he had two half siblings, Michael and Rebecca. His father had sent him pictures of every stage of their lives. Turns out that despite his problems, the woman he had his next two kids with had it worse and abandoned him to raise them as a single father.

I’m crying typing this. Lord.

Next day at school, he had a binder with their pictures glued on the front. He wrote underneath the photos. “Michael and Becca, I love them both.” He had never met them, but had read about their first words, their first steps, favorite foods, the ways in which they reminded their father of him. Goddamn.

I didn’t know anyone from my father’s family but him, and we were close all of our lives. We learned to play music together, wrote songs together, we did everything together.

I didn’t understand his interest in the whole juggalo thing when that came up and I thought it was cringe as fuck. I don’t feel that way now. As bad as I had it, he had it worse. When I was a kid I could only focus on my problems. My grandparents had it together. They had a nice house, money, and nice lives. I was dirt poor. I had nothing. I thought he got lucky and I envied him for having a real home to grow up in.

Only as an adult did I see that he had it worse than me. My mom had problems, but she was there. No one lied to me about my father. My father legit didn’t care, and even though he was doing better than my uncle, he didn’t write me any letters. Shit, I contact him today and he might reply three months from now. My cousin was lied to. He was told that his father a worthless drunk who didn’t care and didn’t even try. I’d rather learn that was true than learn they’d hid my father’s love from me.

My grandma died two days ago. I should message my cousin. Goddamn I’m mad at myself that I haven’t yet. Didn’t even cross my mind. Fuck.

But yeah, I can’t relate to the juggalos, but I get it. I get where they’re coming from.

My cousin is a full fledged juggalo. I don’t personally get it. I’m antisocial anyway, but the lifestyle is just bizarre to me. It isn’t for me I guess, but I’m for people being happy and doing what they love no matter what it. I don’t need to get it.

He loves the lifestyle. That man has travelled all across the country couch surfing with complete strangers. It seems to me that almost any juggalo will invite another juggalo into his home like they are a huge extended family.

He’s had some wild life experiences that I could only dream of.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNRRQI6NtoQ

Me too. God bless the Appalachian mountains.

I’ve probably met more mouth breathing, lead paint eating morons (myself included. As a matter of fact, at one time I was a t-1000 Liquid Metal mercury from 50 thermometers in my hand moron) than most people will ever encounter in 10 lifetimes. I can count on one hand just how many of those people were truly bad people.

If I have a visibly heavy load at work, it can be annoying how many people wander up and say, “hey ‘ere buddy. Yew gawn need inny hep wittat? I’ze just checkin’.”

Open the hood of your car and you can summon an entire neighborhood. For real, need directions in the Appalachians, just stop somewhere with houses, open your hood and spend a few minutes staring at your engine.

Shit, I’d put my money on it’s actually him.

I struggled with my back being numb and tingly for 3 years over a pair of shoes wearing like this. Nearly drove me insane and a decade later I still have issues from time to time.

It’s called the Mandeller effect. You’re trying to stir shit up, aren’t you?

Yo, cut this out before you jinx Mick Jagger and cause him to die.

I seriously have a boiling hatred for computers now because I couldn’t even be a little bit mean. I’ve snapped a few times when people blamed me for problems years after I worked on their stuff, but mostly I just got trampled on and robbed at every turn because I didn’t want to upset anyone.

By the time I was mean enough to demand payment and things like that, I already hated it.

My daughter is passionate about computers, so nowadays if I so much as want to tweak something a little bit I let her do it unless she don’t want to. I don’t want to burn her out too.

Your dad sounds like the childhood hero of mine who got me into computers.

Severe ADHD prevented me from ever learning to code, but I became damn good at repairs and things and just general understanding of computers because he was available to ask questions at almost any time.

He went to school auctions every year and got me a pile of hardware to learn from. He never asked for anything in exchange. All around great guy.

I heard him on the phone a few times dealing with the people who he worked with though. Good god he was mean. I couldn’t imagine him being that way with me ever, but he was brutal when it came to work and money.

A dude called him one time while I was sitting there, he listened for a few minutes and he said, “I’ve got a 14 year old kid here, he’s been doing this stuff for about 2 years. I’m gonna let him walk you through this for the 10th fucking time because you’re a goddamn idiot and feeling like a fool when you hang up the phone with a grown man isn’t teaching you any lessons. Maybe get a pen for this one because if I have to remind that a child walked you through it last time, I’m not going to be so fucking friendly.” I was so nervous, apologized multiple times, when I was finished walking him through it he took the phone and said, “now don’t you feel stupid? 25 years and this kid just schooled you.”

He told me, “you gotta be real with idiots or they’ll bother you with stupid problems every single day of your life.”

I wish that lesson had stuck haha, it just wasn’t in me to be mean. As a result, a hobby that I was passionate about all of my life is something I avoid like the plague now. People ruined it for me by bothering me constantly.

I can’t believe it’s been a year. Damn. I really didn’t think I’d make it. I half worried I’d go crawling back.

My last two comments, one year ago were, “Memmy for Lemmy. Been happy all day.” (though voyager is my app these days) and, “Thank you. I already love it. I hope this is where all of the old heads go.”

That was a response to my introduction to lemmy.world.

I meant it when I said I was leaving. I wasn’t 100% sure I could make it after using Reddit for so long, but here I am.

Oh yeah that’s my shit! Thank you.

I don’t even know what edging is haha. Oh well. Getting old.

Exxxxactly

Exactly.

Ah, yes. I see. My friend, when you serve the one true religion you feeeeel it deep down, as though god is talking through your feelings.

You can’t just allow people from false religions to galavant around claiming they are part of the one true religion. And, see, since we’re all immortal (at least in the true religion) this world doesn’t matter really, except where religion counts.

Gaaaaaaah. The whole world filled with people with perfectly good noses, and yet they breathe through their mouths.

I’d like to, that’s for sure.

I’m almost out of certified classics to play though and this loot box, cosmetic, buy this, buy that, always online crap don’t appeal to me.

I wish I could pull that hat off. You gotta actually live the pope life though. People can see through that shit too. “Why you wearing that hat? You ain’t no poper!”