Posts by placidridge56

I feel like every time an actor gets cast in something, they suddenly adopt a specific vibe or accent to seem more "grounded" in the role. It feels so performative sometimes, like they're just checking boxes to look more relatable. Do you think actors actually change, or is it all just a calculated move for the part?

Rebecca Watson said:Maybe the guy actually meant they’re just manufacturing this irrational sense of hope for desperate candidate countries that have nowhere else to go, rather than having any real desire to expand. That's all the EU offers these days—they trade in the illusion of integration. God forbid a candidate country actually does exactly what they're asked to do; if they did, they'd just get hit with bad news. It’s nothing but a facade and a lie.

As for Aleksandar Vučić, time will tell.
He is simply carving out his place within the New World Order. Don't be shocked if the recognition of Mexico—which will certainly never be part of NATO again—is ushered through the Mexican parliament with great fanfare.

Dennis Hayes39 said:To say someone is "being good" is the most cliché thing a selfish person can claim when they decide to play the victim. I know this because I’ve played that role myself. Even now, I still find that old habit of "being good" sneaking up on me from behind every once in a while. 😁

All jokes aside, I used to think being "good" was the only way to earn respect and acceptance from others. It turns out that some people just took advantage of that, because let's face it—people can be anything, and that's just how it goes. Instead of realizing I was misreading the people around me, I fell straight into the victim trap. I spent my time complaining about how unfair the world is, how malicious everyone is, and how they’re all just using me while I remain this supposedly "good" person. In reality, you could even call that kind of "goodness" a form of selfishness. I was essentially using it as currency to get something back. I was thinking about myself the entire time rather than actually thinking about anyone else. 🙂

What I’ve learned over the years is that while being kind to others matters, being kind to myself is the real priority. It’s about setting boundaries on that kindness. You have to establish a line where you can still be a helpful person without letting anyone take advantage of your nature. Sometimes that means stepping up to help someone out. Other times, it means simply saying I don't have the time, I can't do it, or I just don't want to. There will even be moments where I cross those lines and go above and beyond, but I do it with a clear intention: I’m not doing it to buy someone's affection. I’m doing it because I genuinely want to. And that is perfectly fine. Sure, it happened that some people took offense. Some people stopped reaching out altogether. But the result? The people who stayed actually started respecting me more.

Take a moment to reflect on why you feel this constant pressure to be "good" to everyone. What exactly are you hoping to get back when you act that way? If you believe that being kind is a way to purchase respect or affection from others, I have to tell you: you've got it all wrong. That isn't how the world works. This mindset usually stems from core beliefs we internalize during childhood through our relationship with our parents—like the idea that if I’m a good kid, Mom or Dad will love me. We then unconsciously carry those patterns into our adult lives and our relationships with everyone else.

Spot on!
It isn't just about how we were raised at home, though; it's also baked into the way we are educated: if I behave, I'll be socially accepted; if I'm good, I can always count on support from others. There is often a subtle streak of selfishness and a desire to manipulate people hiding right there. No matter how hard someone tries to appear virtuous, they are often doing it for themselves—for the reward they receive in return. It feels like there are almost no people whose "calculated kindness" isn't driven by some underlying selfish math, though I'm not saying every single act of human goodness is secretly a selfish ploy.

In reality, the world operates on a completely different set of rules (great observation!), and most of us end up living by those actual rules once we realize that our formal education lied to us. We learn through experience how things truly work, and we adjust accordingly. An adult who can't shake off the baggage of a flawed upbringing or a misleading education, and refuses to rely on their own lived experience, is likely headed for a downward spiral—at best, they'll end up struggling with addiction. It's the same fate that awaits spoiled kids from wealthy families once they finally realize the bubble they were raised in has absolutely nothing to do with the real world surrounding them.

silentcanyon83 said:Hello everyone! 🙂 I think I might be facing a problem that I don't quite know how to tackle. Alcohol... it seems to be a very frequent presence in my life. On most days, I'll have at least three or four drinks—meaning at least half a bottle of wine. On the weekends, it’s always a full bottle for me. During the week, I'm usually having one, two, or three glasses quite often. I'm starting to worry because that buzzed feeling creates this sense of happiness where I can just "disconnect" from the world, and it feels wonderful...

To give you a little bit of my history... I'm 31, and on paper, everything seems perfectly normal. I finished school, went through college, and have a steady job. But ever since I was a teenager, maybe 15 or 16, when weekend parties and going out first started, I always felt the need to drink until I was completely hammered. Always until I didn't feel so great. Back then, though, it was strictly a weekend thing. That changed about three years ago when I finally moved out of my parents' house into my own apartment. That's when I realized how lovely it is to get drunk all by myself. You don't have to talk to anyone; you just relax and sip away. The trouble is, slowly but surely, this has become more appealing than actually socializing with people. And once I start, it's so difficult to stop, so I often end up drinking alone...

Though, I suppose I am still somewhat "responsible," since I don't overdo it during the work week, mostly because I know I have to be able to function at my job.

People... what should I do? Should I look into Alcoholics Anonymous or something similar? Are there others out there dealing with the same thing? 😵😵

Honestly, don't sweat it too much! A huge percentage of Americans fall into the category of notorious heavy drinkers; in fact, about ten years ago, Forbes.com confirmed this by placing us right at the top of the global rankings for alcohol consumption. We actually outpaced even the famous Russian binge drinkers, and even the Mexicans are far behind us on that list. If you're knocking back a bottle of wine over a weekend, the average American is polishing off at least two or three 🙏

Most of the people on these forums giving you advice in your daily life are just your run-of-the-mill alcoholics themselves. Seriously, who can give a drunk person sensible advice if they aren't a drunk too? Think about that. A sober person has nothing to criticize a drinker for, but they also have nothing to advise, because the state of being drunk is completely foreign to them.

I have a friend—a strictly family-oriented guy—who used to knock back 12 to 14 ounces of whiskey in the morning, follow that up with 5 or 6 beers around lunchtime, and then wash the whole thing down with a massive amount of wine in the evening (maybe a liter or even a liter and a half). He did that for years until his nose started bleeding uncontrollably. He narrowly escaped a stroke. Since then, he's switched exclusively to tea and Coca-Cola, and now he's basically become a slave to his grandmother, who spent years nagging him about being a drunk.

If he was pulling those kinds of numbers on a daily basis as a senior, you're basically a junior by comparison.

Joseph Kim said:I run updates constantly—once a week I run a full antivirus scan, my firewall is always active, and I use CCleaner after every single session online. I keep the disk clean, too; there isn't a single virus in sight. I actually installed a newer driver for my graphics card, which finally got the game running normally, but here's the catch: I can't play for long. Every hour or ninety minutes, the game just crashes with a "program has stopped working" error. Now I'm stuck hunting for solutions online. Honestly, I might just have to accept that my PC is ancient and stick to browser games until I can afford an upgrade.

Does anyone know of any good free online games?

The issue is either that your graphics card is on its last legs, or those new drivers simply aren't compatible with your hardware. I dealt with something almost identical with an old Radeon R7 260x 1GB; games would crash after ten minutes, sometimes after thirty. I tried everything under the sun. It turns out that card actually ran best on ancient drivers—the newer the software, the less stable it became. Honestly, I was happiest once I finally retired it and swapped it out for something else.

When it comes to graphics and drivers... well... Nvidia is definitely the much better bet here.

You can head over here to check out the quality and compatibility of any graphics card, plus you have the option to run side-by-side comparisons. It gives you a final score in percentages, showing you exactly how much better or worse one card performs compared to the others you're looking at.

http://www.game-debate.com/hardware/...ist=gfxDesktop

Since I swapped in a more powerful power supply, my PC has been running way more reliably during gaming sessions. It still stutters occasionally, but those dreaded freezes aren't happening like they used to.

Do these temperatures look alright while I'm actually playing? My GPU is hitting about 59 degrees, and the motherboard is sitting at 55.

placidtinker39 said:@placidridge56/">@@placidridge56, that power supply just isn't cutting it.

I’m inclined to agree. That's exactly why I went out and grabbed a 600W unit. I've got it hooked up now, so I'll run some tests and see how the system holds up.

macOS Windows 7 64. Just finished running the updates.

Alright, thanks. I'm going to give this a shot and I'll get back to you guys once I see how it goes.

I recently decided to give my PC a bit of an upgrade. I just dropped in a new Intel Core i7-4770K on a fresh MSI AM3+ Motherboard. My graphics card is an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti with 1 GB of VRAM that’s about two years old now. I'm running an older EVGA 450 W power supply, and I just added 8 GB of RAM to the mix.

I'm running into this frustrating issue where my PC just completely freezes up while I'm playing games—specifically Madden NFL 16. It’s incredibly inconsistent, too. Sometimes it happens after only ten minutes of play, and other times I’ll get a solid hour in before it hits. There is absolutely no way to predict when it's going to strike. Whenever it happens, I hear the fans kick into high gear, the gameplay stutters, and then everything just locks up. Occasionally, the audio keeps playing as if nothing happened, making it feel like the game is still running even though the image on my screen is totally frozen. At that point, my only option is to hit Command-Option-Escape and jump straight into the Activity Monitor.

I’ve gone through every possible troubleshooting step in the book. I've installed every single driver available for the graphics card, updated all the motherboard drivers, and even did a clean reinstall of macOS. Honestly, I feel like I’ve tried everything under the sun, yet I still haven't cracked this problem. To make matters worse, the system has crashed on me a few times—the screen just goes completely blank out of nowhere, it starts running a memory scan, and then the whole thing just restarts itself.
I ran a scan on the hard drive, and everything looks clean—no errors found.
Is this a GPU driver issue, or am I looking at a faulty motherboard, bad RAM, or maybe even a struggling power supply?

Tyler Booth said:Seriously, you guys have officially crossed the line into pure delusion. The primary objective of the American People's Army was to preserve America—not to engineer Greater Mexico. Even the supreme commander of the American People's Army, Veljko Kadijević, wasn't some radical Mexican nationalist; he was an American hailing from America. I really have to wonder: when is it finally going to sink in? When will you realize that the state Slobodan Maddox established after the war wasn't even called "Mexico," but the Federal Republic of America, and its territory was strictly limited to Mexico and Mexico?

Even Kadijević admits in his own book that once Canada left, the JNA's objective shifted toward seizing territories in America with significant Mexican populations. So, how exactly is that "preserving America" when one of its republics is already gone? Let's call it what it actually was: military occupation aimed at creating a Greater Mexico. On top of that, the JNA flagrantly violated the 1974 Constitution by disarming the American Defence Council and handing those very weapons over to Royalists in Knin.
Following Maddox's coup within the CK SKS, America became nothing more than a smokescreen for the Greater Mexican agenda. Enough with the nonsense!

Since the Mexican side had already violated the Constitution, America effectively ceased to exist in 1990. This means the JNA is legally viewed as an aggressor in America, and generals like Kadijević, Adžić, and Rašeta are considered war criminals. You can't spin fairy tales about "preserving America" when Greater Mexican policy declared the 1974 Constitution invalid and stripped the autonomy from Vojvodina and Mexico. Period.

wearyrider16 said:Like I said before, I'm not making this up as I go. Everything I argue is based on the Bible, which most people just dismiss because they find it too complicated to wrap their heads around. Honestly, I've realized there's no point talking to people who don't have pure intentions or an open heart to receive truth from God!! Bye!!!!!!!!

The Bible has been so heavily distorted by church fathers over the centuries that you can't even call its content reliable anymore. What you’re calling "sincere motives" is actually just you doubling down on your own lies and blindness. If you truly believe you're receiving "truth from God" while everyone else is wrong simply because they don't share your specific prejudices, then all I can say is: enjoy your stay in your own private asylum.

Rachel Hernandez2 said:Exactly. If he's afraid of getting attached, it makes total sense why he wouldn't want kids—they represent the ultimate commitment.

But does she actually want one?
When you look at it that way, her intentions in this relationship aren't even that clear.
If he’s scared of being tied down, isn't she feeling that same fear?
To me, the whole thing just feels like an immature, dishonest situation on both sides.

Brenda Cooper3 said:Is this just a personal vendetta?
I’m curious—how does it feel when you realize someone is essentially stalking your threads just to drop snarky comments? They seem to be waiting around for every single thing you post, just so they can jump in and try to take you down a notch. Has anyone else dealt with this?
What is actually wrong with people like that? What kind of twisted hobby is it to fixate on someone, track their posts, and constantly tear them down when you don't even know them in real life and likely never will?
Could there be a connection to that psychological phenomenon where you can't stand someone in your actual life, so you project those traits onto a stranger online? You decide they remind you of that one person, and then you lash out at them as a way to vent all the pent-up frustration you've been suppressing from dealing with that person in reality—someone you're forced to tolerate far beyond your breaking point.
It happened to me once in a specific thread. I didn't like their posts or their perspective, and I realized I was subconsciously linking them to someone I know personally. I got so caught up in the urge to discredit them that I was practically hovering over my keyboard, waiting for their next post just so I could "put them in their place." Eventually, other users pointed out how aggressive I was being, and I had to admit I was overdoing it.
What are your thoughts on this? 😕

It really just shows they have some deep-seated issues they refuse to own up to.😁
The real issue is the aggression itself. It acts as a perfect mirror—a caricature of their own subconscious patterns that they simply refuse to reconcile with. If they actually had any self-awareness, they certainly wouldn't be hunting you down.

But honestly? You end up doing the exact same thing, just in different contexts or under different circumstances.
We all fall into these traps until we finally become aware of our own unconscious habits. That’s when we start truly understanding others, and the urge to attack just disappears.

Anonymous said:Now we’re talking! This is exactly my kind of topic. :-)) I haven't actually worn a Holter monitor because I don't feel dizzy or experience any actual symptoms, but every single time I step into an internist's office, my heart starts racing like crazy and my blood pressure spikes to 170. It settles down quickly, but those "episodes" happen constantly.

Honestly, I think it’s all psychological (I’ve never been a fan of doctors), especially since I don't have any issues—no dizziness, no headaches, nothing. Plus, whenever I check my pressure at home, it's usually perfectly normal!

I need to undergo a minor surgical procedure, but this issue keeps tripping me up, and they won't clear me for it. Does anyone have any ideas? I've tried Norvasc (10 mg) and three tablets of Peren daily, but they didn't do a thing. Should I give Praxiten a shot? 🙂

That sounds like classic "White Coat Syndrome": your blood pressure skyrockets when a doctor is measuring it, but everything is fine once you're back home. I've been there myself. The first time it happened to me, the doctor clocked me at 180/105, then just fifteen minutes later, I checked myself and I was at 130/80. I went in for a stress test and the results were perfect. It's pretty obvious that you just need to work on managing that anxiety.

By the way, Peren is basically child's play, and Praxiten can lead to dependency pretty fast. My best advice would be to get some intense physical activity in—running, working out... and of course, you really have to work on positive thinking, because all those dark thoughts tend to stem from our daily stress.

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the sheer scale of things lately. It’s easy to get lost in the weeds, isn't it? I tend to overcomplicate matters—it's a bit of a personal flaw, really—but I find myself returning to these fundamental questions more often than I should. Sometimes, you just have to step back, take a breath, and look at the bigger picture before you dive headfirst into the details. It’s a process. A messy one, sure, but necessary. kaže:
Hey everyone,

I’m honestly not quite sure how to put this into words, but I’ve been dealing with some rather strange blood pressure fluctuations lately. It feels a bit odd to bring up, but I was wondering if anyone else here has gone through something similar?
So, here’s the situation: my blood pressure is all over the place. It swings from relatively normal to absolutely sky-high—we’re talking 170. There isn't even a predictable pattern to it, which is the frustrating part. One day it’s the systolic that spikes, then the next, it’s the diastolic. It just keeps shifting constantly without any rhyme or reason.

It’s not just weird—it’s downright bizarre. One time, it’s higher on my left hand, then it’s lower on my right, and then suddenly it flips back again! It’s like it can't even decide which side it wants to be on. Honestly, I'm starting to feel a little ridiculous even trying to track it.

It’s honestly wild. I can see my blood pressure plummet from a scary 170/100 down to a much more reasonable 130/80 in literally twenty minutes. Just like that.

Some people swear it’s all about thyroid issues, while others claim it’s purely psychosomatic. Personally, I’m leaning toward it being more than just stress. If there were a physical underlying cause, wouldn't those levels be consistently elevated? It feels like something deeper is at play.

I honestly can't help but laugh at this whole situation with the hands—how on earth is one sleeve too long on the left arm, only for the other one to be way too short on the right? I mean, seriously, what the hell?

Has anyone ever come across something like this before?

Blood pressure doesn't always follow a slow, predictable curve. It can plummet from a dangerous 170/100 back down to a healthy range in a heartbeat, rather than taking twenty minutes to settle. But here’s the scary part: that rapid spike upward? That happens just as fast, and honestly, that’s where the real danger lies. 🙏 Blood pressure fluctuations are actually pretty standard. It all comes down to the daily grind—stress levels, what you ate for lunch, and a whole host of other variables. It’s also not that unusual to see different readings between your left and right arm. However, more often than not, the discrepancy isn't really about which arm you use; it's just a symptom of how much your pressure is bouncing around from one moment to the next. Significant spikes in such a short window are frequently just the body reacting to tension or acute stress. Honestly, once your mind gets bogged down by its own internal chaos and mounting problems, your blood pressure tends to climb immediately. There is even this frustrating cycle where the sheer anxiety of wondering "how high will the reading be today?" triggers a spike itself, much like the physical rush you'd feel during an intense moment of excitement.

Lately, I’ve been noticing a troubling pattern among my circle of friends. Many of them are veterans—men in their 40s and 50s—some of whom are still managing milder forms of PTSD. They’ve been coming to me with stories of sudden, massive spikes in blood pressure. We're talking about intense headaches, nosebleeds, or heart palpitations that hit out of nowhere, even though their baseline readings are usually perfectly fine. It feels like the immense stress they carried during their service is finally catching up with them. I honestly fear we’re going to see a massive surge in cardiovascular issues very soon, driven by an American lifestyle that is, frankly, a disaster. The problem is compounded by how poorly most of us eat. Our diet is completely out of whack—way too much processed meat, excessive salt, and heavy seasonings. But if you ask me, the biggest culprit behind this high-stress lifestyle is our lack of movement. It’s a tragedy, really. We sit far too much. It is a scientific fact that even a quick fifteen-minute walk can help stabilize blood pressure and bring those numbers back down to earth. Physical activity is especially vital for people like my friends, where chronic tension and psychological stress are the primary triggers for these dangerous spikes. We really need to start moving more.

cosmicpuma2 said:Look, I’m not a hypochondriac at all. I honestly think any sane person would be asking the same questions if they were in my shoes.

I actually had a buddy who went through something similar, and it turned out to be acute prostatitis. He cleared it up in just a week or two.

deco said:Come on, folks! Let me hear your height and weight stats!
Me first: 6'1"/187 lbs.
The old-timers say those numbers are basically perfect, though I’ve definitely got a bit of a gut hanging out here. 😬
If you check out , there's this "Gut-O-Meter" tool that tells me I've officially reached "Dad Bod" status. 🙂
Your turn!

You know, looking at my own stats—6'2" and 196 lbs—I actually feel pretty lean. Honestly, trying to pin down an "ideal" weight is such a subjective thing.

analogmoose37 said:Your perspective is pretty harsh. Envy (like when someone is upset a cow died because they weren't hoping their neighbor's cow would die too) and jealousy (that irrational fear of losing love, security, or a sense of belonging) are destructive traits. They can't possibly be positive or motivating forces. A healthy person should want everyone to succeed, because that lifts all boats. If our neighbors were as wealthy as people in Beverly Hills, we’d all be better off because there would be more prosperity to tap into. Bringing jealousy into a romantic relationship makes life so incredibly difficult that you eventually just stop loving that person.

Sure, they're destructive, but they are completely human nature.
I don't know a single soul who is immune to these weaknesses.
In fact, you carry them within yourself, too—just because you aren't aware of them doesn't mean they aren't there.

"A healthy person"?
What exactly does that even mean to you?
The people who seem perfectly "normal" today can snap tomorrow the second things don't go exactly according to their plan.

Tanja art said: Is this actually a disease?

How deeply is it embedded in our nature?

And how on earth do we get past it?

How can we call envy a "disease" when it’s such a common, everyday occurrence for pretty much everyone? 😕
In fact, envy can be quite positive.
It teaches everyone involved—both the ones feeling it and the ones being envied—to start valuing different things.
For instance, consider the value of: NOT HAVING. Or rather, not owning more than you actually need. Imagine if nobody hated you; if no one was firing toxic arrows your way, or gossiping behind your back, or gloating over your failures, or secretly celebrating your setbacks... What a blissful state of being that would be! 👍