Wandering Adventure Party

Nature can exert similar pressures without intelligence involved.

“Survival of the fittest” has been around a long, long time and now we know better.

I’ve felt that dogs have taken the same path. Notice how expressive their facial muscles are? Wolves don’t have nearly so many facial muscles. Wild to learn about isn’t it?!

I think the hangup is thinking evolution can’t proceed quickly. We were taught in school that evolution take millions of years and we resist the idea that it can move quickly.

We’ve been figuring out over the last two decades that evolution can move fast, given enough selective pressure.

Arguing with a reasonalbe Christian on reddit 10-years back; Said African elephants were growing smaller, or no tusks, in response to poaching. He called it “breeding”. I call it hella selective pressure. Same difference?

Capers are more useful than one might think.

I grow my own!

Cannot believe the ancient Greeks or Chinese didn’t figure out that we had these totally seperate experiences. I first learned about it on reddit. People on both sides were shocked.

The inside of my head is a movie screen. If I have a picture to help me along, I can keep the memory accurate and sharp. My memories are very short video clips, but I can see them clearly. I can picture sitting around the breakfast table after seeing Star Wars, 1977. I can feel and smell the cheap, smooth texture of my parents polyester comforter, when I was old enough to stand up and touch the top.

If I lost this ability, it would be tantamount to being blinded, no idea how I’d cope.

I kinda get how others do without. Sometimes solutions to problems come to me by instinct, gut feeling. Playing Solitaire on my phone I have no real memory of what’s in the draw pile, but I “know” there’s another red queen in there. But I have to be moving fast, otherwise I stop to smell the roses, look for the picture. Does that make sense? I’m imagining that instinct is much sharper in people without internal pictures.

EDIT: Tested my wife. She’s about totally eat up with aphantasia. No wonder I’m so fucking frustrated when she can’t describe a thing! “Harrison Ford. Can you see his face?” No clue, but she knows him when she sees him. “Can you picture an apple?” “Red.” I see every detail of an apple. I can “see” every pore in my wife’s nose. Fucking mind blowing.

The inside of my head is like watching a movie. I know memories get blurred, lose accuracy, etc., but I can watch scenes from prom night 35-years ago.

There were plenty of non-religious people believing the lies, pretty much everyone on the right, and they’re not all religious. It was an us vs. them take.

How about fresh? I like both, but I get sick of the sour pickling pretty quick.

Because in the States we settle for cheap, dusty paprika.

PRO TIP: Get Hungarian paprika.

PRO PRO TIP: Grow your own. Peppers are about toughest, easiest, most forgiving plants out there. Dry it in the sun or get a dehydrator from the thrift. I use a cheapo, dedicated coffee grinder for pepper powders.

We’re not going extinct. FFS, we survived at least one ice age. At another point, scientists studying our DNA think we were down to as a few as a thousand individuals.

Humans are the AR-15s of the animal kingdom. Not the greatest* for strength, speed, vision, etc., but excellent at multipurpose roles. Like insects, we survive in any climate outside Antarctica. We can walk endlessly. I’m 54, not in great shape, pretty sure I could spend my entire waking day walking, stopping only to eat.

We’re social animals who stick together when the going gets tough. We love fucking and we can make babies every month of the year, no waiting to go in heat.

No animal comes close to our dexterity and advanced tool use. Stone Age man was more adept at tool use than every other animal combined. We’re stupid reliable, smart and tough as well.

* OK, we can throw and catch like nothing else on Earth.

Well, 2012 was like, last year. Right? Right?!

Little House on the Prairie?! How old are you? Goodnight John Boy.

And if you catch that reference, you old. SOURCE: Am old.

Never wrote it out, made it so many times I vibe it. But here’s what I put in, adjust to taste, dial the heat in as you like:

• Black pepper, fine ground and chunky, whatever I got

• Paprika

• Cayenne

• Chili powder

• Onion powder

• Dehydrated minced onions, go low on the onion powder if you use this one, or exclude it

• Salt

• Parsley flakes, just for color and to break it up so it doesn’t stick too thickly

• Cumin

• Red pepper flakes

That’s the core ingredients, but I’ll throw other stuff like Sazon in there to mix it up. I use rock-bottom, cheapo spices because I make a lot and the less flavorful stuff is more forgiving if my ratios are off. White pepper is pure awesome, can’t afford it.

I put it in a plastic container, shake hell out of it, taste on my fingertip. If one spice comes out above the others, I adjust. I do like to be able to pick out the salt. Nothing overwhelming, but I want to know it’s in there. Having said that, no one but my wife salts food like I do.

Learned working at Eskimo Joe’s in college, had stolen the recipe and lost it 30-years ago. The stuff we put on burgers was called “jizz” and only 4 people in the company knew how to make it. Like my black spice, mostly tastes like dust until it mixes with meat juices. If the black spice burns on a small taste, too hot. Even for people like me that are superhot junkies, you can’t cover meat like that. That’s another reason I use the cheapest, bulk spices.

Be glad to tell more, but that’s mostly what I got!

The AI witch hunt, chill on that.

I do the same with my black spice. No way would I make the effort to mix all that up each time I need it.

I could see a mechanism for this. Wife and I just had COVID, and I seem to have scored the long-form version. My lungs are so fucked up that walking to the bathroom and back gets my heart racing.

She scored a banging deal and a metal shed we need, went to take it apart yesterday. Pretty hard work disassembling the thing for an hour and a half in the heat.

Today my lungs are better than they’re been in weeks and I suspect that came from pumping air in and out.

I do this with Aldi pizzas! Less than $5 a pop, add red sauce, extra pepperoni and cheese, whatever, kids fucking LOVED it.

My secret sauce is preheating the oven with the pizza stone in there. Won’t even attempt pizza without a stone.

Dear reader, if you haven’t tried a pizza stone, get one immediately. No need to pay a bunch of money, it’s basically a big chunk of ceramic. LOL, go get a chunk of tile at the hardware store.

Not to be a jerk, but the presentation, uh, is lacking.