Notices by ZenHeathen 🇨🇦 🎃 (zenheathen@beige.party)

Do you ever get the feeling that all of Mastodon is just one big house party, and the only difference between you and someone you don't follow yet is that you haven't gotten up to their floor yet--but we all know someone who knows someone we know?

I was just feeling grumpy and miserable about work, then my Chinese lady came by and wanted to give me a big hug. 😃

They're such a sweet couple, I'm glad we're hitting it off.

(In case you haven't followed my toots, by "my Chinese lady" I mean one half of an older couple who recently moved in nearby. They seem very nice, but speak only a little English, so I've been trying to pick up a couple of phrases in Mandarin to help them feel welcome in the area.)

@farah That kind of noise comes up in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, too. People are having similar nightmares, and they use the holodeck to try to figure out what's common to all of them. In the end, they discover that some kind of extra-dimensional insectoid aliens are abducting the crew through portals in their sleep and conducting medical experiments... Yeah, that clicking noise... 😬

@steter a) How the hell would Trump know anything about it, and b) you missed twice-impeached.

@TerryHancock @moira @blogdiva Good luck finding a brand that doesn't do this to some degree.

@renata

I had occasion to help someone today, someone who has very little English. She speaks Chinese--Mandarin, I'm pretty sure. She has more English than I have Mandarin, to be sure. But she also had an app on her phone she could speak to and I could read from, and vice versa. Without it, I wouldn't have been able to help her. Later, her daughter called me and thanked me for my help and patience, which made me feel very good, but also like I could do a little more.

I would like to learn some simple phrases, spoken properly, in Mandarin. When we see each other next, I want her to know that I'm trying, in my small way, to make an effort. I taught myself a few phrases in American Sign Language for the same reason once before (which I *really* need to practice!), and my effort was well received, and I felt good for having done so.

I'm sure there are people here in my follows who speak Mandarin. I would never ask you to teach me; it's 2026, resources are available. But can you recommend any websites, videos, or other sources to learn a little from knowing nothing? In particular, I'd love to find something very basic on the "four tones" broken down for me to learn. It seems that's the place to start. I worry about happening upon the wrong website, and learning incorrectly from a site written with AI, for example.

Any suggestions?

@CStamp An EO for that is meaningless even *in* the U.S., except to toadies.

@steter Pretty sure here in Ontario, Canada, it's something like double-booked everywhere.

Guy outside my windows here teaches driving school, and he parks in a Fire Lane to wait for his student.

Suddenly I'm less surprised by the quality of drivers I encounter out there.

Dear game devs: Even if I've enjoyed the hell out of your game for 50 hours, if you suddenly turn on PvP without giving me any option to turn it off or avoid it? I'll delete your game instantly. That's total bullshit, and it needs to stop. It's a *completely* different game experience, and some people don't want it--give us the choice, or at least warn about it up front.

On my way home from work today, I passed a Little Free Library.

It's door was left open.

This disturbed me.

@cyberpunklibrarian I've been starting to feel the same thing. And maybe old games, like GameBoy carts. My wife is feeling a pull to creating a curated collection of physical books to pass down, needful reads.

I think we, as a generation (and some ahead and behind) are feeling the digital slipping away from us. More accurately, stolen.

@vlrny I grew up learning to hold the door for people. I got to university, and I got shouted at for it, told it was sexist. That hurt, I was just being nice to people. So I decided, rather than ceasing to hold the door for people, I'd just make sure to hold the door for *all* people. It's not about them needing the help, it's not about me thinking they need the help. It's about me doing a tiny little favour for my fellow human being, whomever they might be. No one's ever had a problem with it since.

@tezoatlipoca Non-software twisted "bar" joke:

Two guys walk into a bar. Which is weird, because you'd think if the first guy walked into it, the second guy would've seen it...

@farah He actually appeared on The Big Bang Theory. Ugh.

I wish I could just be an actual introvert or an extrovert, one or the other. Seems like either would be so easy, by comparison.

I'm mad, I'm sad, I'm lonely, I'm scared of the world, and I don't feel like anything will ever get better.

@MikeImBack @crispius

"You have to help me clear the Straight of Hormuz!"