Unsolicited Advice

Helo! -- Durnik I have new rats! Meet Durnik (above) and Barak (below). In accordance with internationally-recognized Rat Law, these little widgets are now the exact geometric center of my entire universe, and will be treated accordingly. 'Sup. -- Barak These guys are re-homes, about a year old. A short list of things Barak and Durnik like: Each other. Humans. Food. Conspicuously absent from that list is 'other rats'. Which was a problem, because they were brought on as companions for an only whose rat-bro had sadly passed away. From what I gather, the singleton is happy and friendly and also ADHD in the form of a rodent. So while Barak and Durnik were settling down into being asshole teenagers (~6 months, for rats), Attention Deficit Rat would basically land on their heads at random going HAY LETS GO RIDE BIKES!!!11!!! or whatever the rat equivalent is. Barak would go JESUS FUCKIN Y U CHOO ON MY HED AGIN?, Durnik would follow, and it would all end in a lo

First things first, a bit of administrivia: Those of you who have been around for a while may remember that I run an "advent calendar" for the month of December. The winter holidays are two solid months with a heavy emphasis on belonging and family. I have a lot of things to say about those concepts, most of which are not what anyone wants to hear while they're wrapping presents and roasting turkeys. I queue up a bunch of fun things instead and hole up to drink until January. This year I'm doing things a little differently. While the advent calendar will be running on the public blog -- this year it's folk tales from around the world -- the regular blog entries will be running on my Patreon for anyone who cares to pledge $1 or more. Because I'm sometimes rubbish at posting on a regular schedule, my Patreon runs on a monthly model, rather than per-piece, so if you pledge $1, you'll never be charged more than that. You are, of course, welcome to give me

My response to extended periods of stress is to distract myself by cramming new things into my head. I had a terrible semester at college once and front-loaded the entirety of the sci.electronics.repair FAQ into my brain. It wasn't useful at the time, but I can repair the shit out of a VCR now, so I assume I'll use it someday. I am so overloaded I am about to claw my own face off, so naturally I am teaching myself Hebrew. I've been using Duolingo to do it, which is frankly a very bad idea. (I should really be using Ha'Ulpan, which is where you'd typically go for a crash course in Hebrew before emigrating to Israel, but that costs money, so no.) Duolingo is billed as a way to teach yourself a language, which it is not. It is a way to memorize a bunch of interactive flashcards. This might be effective for people who don't care how language works -- which is most people -- but it's awful for people like me, who hang all of their memorization off of a framewo