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

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.

When the power goes out and that fan stops, it’s the quietest thing you’ve ever imagined. It shouldn’t even be possible. I hate it.

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.

I’m really into JDM cars, which are always interesting to see in America. I had a Toyota AE111 Levin for a few years. Ran into the most unfortunate luck with a large hailstorm and losing my job in the same week. Sold it for a fraction of its value to someone who wanted to fix the hail damage.

That car was the perfect car for my level of skill in performance driving and the style of roads where I live. I’ll never be able to replace that thing.

Big Money Salvia on Internet Comment Etiquette makes full on short films for his ad reads. They are pretty great.

The clutch is a third pedal to the left of the brake which lets you disengage the engine and transmission so you can change the gear then let the pedal out, engaging the new gear.

With a clutch, the brake pedal is usually really narrow. So when you get into an automatic instincts will tell you to press the clutch and change gears but that pedal doesn’t exist and the wide brake pedal is there instead. Instead of changing gears, you slam the brake.

They just want more people being pushed to their NFT marketplace while getting free development. It’s astounding they are getting so much good press.

I stopped paying any attention to them when they started talking about NFTs. This is cool news.

It wasn’t even meant to be like that. I just thought it would be funny to choose the name Dangle-balls before knowing if the child would even have balls.

He’s? I don’t know if it’ll be a boy yet.

I’m being downvoted for what I thought was a funny joke. Just like the old days～

I locked into something, but I have no idea what it is. Cool.

Gotta go with Bad Religion on this one.

I’m naming my kid Dangle-balls.

Did the trailer include the part where he was hammered to death during a play? Linking how it happened below. Pretty graphic stuff.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=d_dRw62qVLs

Some of my favorite games from back in the day had a half dozen vendor intros. There were a few years where they were completely out of hand. It’s not all so bad these days.

Mine is a fun sort of specific. Years later, I’ll remember that I hate a person’s guts but will completely forget why I hate them. But that visceral hate stays with me.

I recently had a conversation with my ex-fiancée of 15 years and she was apologizing for things I didn’t even remember her doing. But I remember the bitterness from those things.

Way back when, I had a job where I used them regularly. Always had one on me at work. And therein, I had 4 or 5 at home any given day.

My really obvious one, and a huge source of problems for me, is Discord. But the biggest one was a wild one:

Irfanview

It is a super-fast image viewer and simple image editor. Supports every format I’ve ever thrown at it. Bulk conversion and resize works like a charm. Hell, it’s half the reason I haven’t moved to Linux for my daily use.

Irohas Melon Cream Soda. Long since discontinued Japanese seasonal item from about five years ago. Others come close, none are as good.