Rooster Teeth and Achievement Hunter - their fall from grace was slow at first. First yet another corporate sellout and Bernie leaving, then the employee scandals - especially Ryan. RvB outlived itself and it was their prime thing. RVBY went downhill after Monty died. The new talent wasn’t as entertaining as the old, and then the pandemic really kicked their ass.
I went to Austria for skying, flew to Innsbruck and two days later caught the train to go to the ski resort.
That train was basically an intercity train (which even stopped at the little town from where a pretty regular commuter could be caught to the little ski resort) … which just so happen to be coming from some city in Switzerland and would end in some city in Germany.
So I sit down in one of those places with 2x2 seats and a table in the middle. A couple of guys also seat down there and eventually we starting chatting.
It turns one of those guys was an Italian surf promoter, who had actually been to my country (Portugal) as part of surf events in Ericeira (big surf place nowadays thanks to the almost unique massive tube waves it gets at certain times in the year).
The guy did not spoke Portuguese but could speak several other languages. We ended up having a one hour or so conversation and as my German was a bit so-so (and, let’s be honest, because it just felt cool to do so), we ended up doing with in the several languages we had in common - German, Spanish, Italian, English and French - just sort of jumping from language to language as we couldn’t remember a word in one so used a different one or because the 3rd guy only spoke English and German so we had to switch to one of those when including him.
Coming from a very peripheral country in Europe - Portugal borders only Spain, and if you travel about 1000km in Spain, you get to the only other country it has a land border with, France, and then it takes another 1000km or so of France to get to the rest of Europe - the whole “absolutelly regular train that just happens to cross 3 countries” and casually chatting with somebody and using various languages when they happen to be convenient, thing was the first time I really felt a hint of what it is to just normally be European in Europe.
Fun stories like this remind me why my country (UK) just never feels connected to Europe. We’ve got this amazing continent on our doorstep but the poor state of our language education prevents many from feeling comfortable to explore it. I would love to share a story like this.
Yeah, I was living in the UK at the time and in that sense it feels almost as peripheral when it comes to Europe as Portugal.
Living in the UK actually made this feeling in that train in Austria more intense for me because I was actually living in an European country other than my homeland but it still didn’t feel much closer to the rest of Europe than in Portugal, though I did jump on the Eurotunnel Express once in London for a couple of days in Paris, which was nice and is definitelly beyond what can be done in Portugal (were international train connections abroad are so bad that for example Lisbon - Barcellona is at least half a day, probably more).
Then again there is a little extra distancing in the UK because English being the lingua franca of this age, Britons can seldom speak any other language, and it’s not at all the same thing when you’re somewhere to use it as it is being able to speak the same language as the locals. (Mind you, I suspect I wouldn’t get the same feeling in Eastern Europe as in that experience in Austria, simply because I cannot speak any language at all from those language branches, except for Romanian which is a Latin language so I can more easilly guess the meaning of words).
Not as frequent in posting as he used to be, but Todd in the Shadows is a pop music reviewer who also makes interesting videos talking about the careers and context of one hit wonders and career killing albums.
I was forced to realise before covid, that my family is dysfunctional and delusional. This obviously extends to family events such as Xmas.
I lost interest many years ago in the whole theatrics of it, it’s a capitalist holiday and nothing more. My family touts that “it’s about the thought and the people” when in actuality it’s always been about the gifts (and by extension, money spent).
With that said, covid caused a pause in a lot of said family relations, and that was the straw that broke the (camel’s) back. Most of my family is now rarely in contact, and Xmas as a family event finally bit the dust.
I’m on top of the world, and there’s still money in my wallet, as well as less familial bullshit.
Since I haven’t seen him mentioned, Michael Stevens aka Vsauce, great Philosophy and science YouTuber.
Sadly only makes like 2 videos a year :/
But his older videos are all still very good watches, I love to rewatch them.
I recently discovered that he’s been consistently putting out YouTube shorts that actually maintainsl the same quality as his long form videos. Worth catching up on.
Well, after looking through, I saw that some of my favorites are not on here.
Kraut: makes well thought out video essays on politics, history, culture and everything in between. He also tells you his reading list that went into making a particular video.
Adam Something: bit of politics, bit of urban planning, bit of shitting on Elon Musk, bit of shitting on stupid ideas.
The Great War: started in 2014 doing week by week of the first world War, 100 years after it began. Now is doing a similar series on the second world War.
The Operations Room: breaks down historical military operations minute by minute, incredible level of detail.
Korean Englishman/ Jolly: Josh and Ollie a couple of British guys introduce korean food to people and on Jolly they go get into other foods and hijinks
Townsend: showing what life was like in early colonial America
My favorite thing about Adam Something is that he points out consistently that nearly all the big hyped “futurism” ideas for transport and infrastructure, are just solving problems that we have already solved using trains. except it’s always slower more costly and less efficient than a train.
For some other recommendations, specially about videogames, Civvie11 does reviews and playthrough of old FPS games (the boomer shooter, Doom and Quake generation). His videos are very entertaining.
Warlockracy is similar, but for CRPGs like the original fallout and various obscure, usually eastern European mods for them. He’s also extremely entertaining.
MandaloreGaming does a mix of old and new games, usually older, and goes into great detail about them and their development and he’s probably the most fair and honest reviewer I’ve ever seen. He reviews games he thinks are interesting so sometimes they’re obscure and sometimes they’re very popular oldies.
Went to New York city to go see Ozzy in concert (from Canada). My first time in the US. It was me and 3 other male friends, all in our mid/late 20’s. On our way back home we got pulled over by a state trooper because my friend was speeding.
The state trooper walks up to the window and says he smells marijuana. Which was total bullshit because this was a new car and we aren’t dumb enough to bring that shit with us. He proceeds to make us all stand in the cold for 45 minutes while he goes through the entire contents of the car and finds nothing. They give us a warning then leave with all our shit just laying around.
This was like a month before they legalised weed in Canada so we figured that was why they did it. The entire time I was just scared they would plant something. I’ve been conditioned to not trust cops due to all the shit I’ve seen online. This experience just made it worse. And we were just a bunch of white guys, can’t even begin to imagine what people of color have to deal with when it comes to cops in the US.
Youre right not to trust American cops. They’re corrupt and above the law. If you had pissed him off in any way he would have certainly planted something and arrested you. He searched your car because your ages and destination. He wanted to find something.
asklemmy
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