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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: December 24th, 2023

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  • So you spent the day outside shoveling snow, maybe you had to walk 20 minutes to get to a friend’s house, maybe the cold itself just took it out of you because your body was burning calories just to stay warm. You finally get home and you are out of breath and just wanting to dry off and get warm again- and that’s when you thank your past self for what you did on meal prep Sunday:

    French onion soup.

    You can look online for recipes, but here’s what I improvised last Sunday (probably not definition french onion soup, but at least a variation on a theme). Mine takes about 1 hour to make (10 min prep, 50ish minutes to cook)

    Ingredients:

    • 1/4 cup butter
    • 1 tablespoon fat (I use leftover bacon grease)
    • Onions (I used 4 but you could do more)
    • garlic (I used 1 bulb, but you could always do more)
    • Apple (I used 1, but you could always do more)
    • veggies (I like zucchini and carrots)
    • mushrooms if you like em
    • protein (stew beef, ground meat, chicken, turkey, hell even sandwich meat will do)
    • cardamom
    • Curry powder
    • vinegar (I use white balsamic, but apple cider vinegar or anything flavorful will do)
    • chicken broth
    1. Cut up the onions into thick chunks, no need to get precise, just hack 'em quick so you have less time being in a tearful agony
    2. Peel the bulb of garlic, but leave the cloves whole- don’t crush them.
    3. Heat up your butter and fat, then add in the onions and garlic. Let it sautee for like… 30 minutes? If you have time to do a proper caramelizing then do that, but it’s still good if you want to make it faster.
    4. While the onions and garlic do their thing, prepare your meat in another pan. Of course if you use ham or something pre cooked you can skip this step.
    5. Slice your apple(s) however you want, I like thin slices but cubes are good too.
    6. Add in veg and apples, let them cook for 15 minutes or so
    7. Add meat
    8. A couple dashes of cardamom and curry and also pour in your broth to desired consistency
    9. Give a taste then add a dash of vinegar to see how it really cuts through the fattiness

    Dish and serve! If you want to really clog those arteries, go ahead and add some cheese on top, I like smoked Gouda. I also use a pipe sweater to torch the cheese and give it a little melty/ crispy texture.

    That and a hot tody will give you the coziness that will lift your spirits in the dark cold months.

    Good luck!










  • I’m digging myself out of a $13k credit card debt hole. I burned through my savings when a job that I had ended on my unexpectedly, and because it was contract work I wouldn’t qualify for benefits. They kept me around as a sub, promising me a full time position if I just stuck around long enough and I was foolish enough to believe them.

    I’m self employed now and making do with the best I can, but I’m planning on ending my dream as a musician/ teacher and moving home. I don’t know who would want my skills, but I know they are specialized and strong. I just gotta see what kind of work would value them.





  • I looked it up and a block in Chicago (where I live) is between 100 to 600 meters.

    Chicago and New York have similar walkability, at least in my experience.

    Nearest Grocery Store is 1.2 km (0.8miles) away from me, I usually take my bike to go shopping

    Nearest park is like… 50 feet from me (15meters) but I happen to live right next to a park.

    Nearest cornerstore is 300 meters

    Nearest train station is 600 meters

    Nearest library is 800 meters

    To add some more,

    Nearest bar is 400 meters away

    I’m a musician, within 1km of me there are 4 open mics I can go to

    Nearest theater is the Music Box which is 1.2 km away

    Nearest baseball stadium is 1 km away

    God I love Chicago



  • I mean say what ya want but running with friends is great.

    At least you thought it was.

    Sam was just next to you a second ago, and then all of a sudden his heavy breathing went silent. You want to call out but the sound of gunfire silences you. You serpentine through the woods to try and avoid the bullets, but one grazes your shoulder. You keep sprinting as you hear the gun reloading. You come to a ravine as the trees get thicker. This is your chance to lose him. You zag along the stream for 50 feet and then run up to the wooded forest. You keep moving, never letting up. He who hesitates is dead.

    In the clearing you find a shed- perhaps you can find something to hide under. You open the doors and you step back in horror. Sam was separated into 3 distinct pieces. Your heart drops as you see your friend, your brother in arms from the 22 battalion, lifeless in front of you. You go to leave the shed immediately, but when you go to open the door, it’s locked.

    He found you.

    You look to the shadows quickly to see where he is, but the shed is empty. You go back to the door but again, it won’t budge. As you go to the windows, you begin to smell gasoline seeping in under the floorboards, and then the sound of a match strike.

    Within seconds the shed was ablaze. You begin to slam your boddy against the door- it needs to open. It must open. It starts to become hard to breathe, but you can’t stop. The flames are beginning to lick your clothes as you feel the burns developing on your body. You keep rushing the door until finally you hear the wood splinter. Your burned body breaks through the door, but you fall immediately to the ground. While the fresh cool air comes as a relief to the lungs, the bark, twigs, leaves and dirt tear through your fragile skin. You yell in pain as you roll over to see the shed collapse from its own weight as the flames consumed the rest of it.

    There was no doubt now that Sam was dead.

    But that thought quickly broke as you felt the heal of a boot come down on your chest. You look up into the barel of a shotgun, and behind it is who you feared the most. The one your father told you about every night in his ghost stories when you were a child. You thought he was just a myth, but there he was.

    Shia LaBeouf

    Also usually when I run with my sister I play music and we have a traveling dance party, it’s great!


  • This reminds me of how when I was young, my dad would get us an extra order of desert when mom left to use the restroom. It was the best dad move. Ofc I was an anxiety case while trying to eat the ice cream before mom got back, it was that intense anxiety where it felt something was following you. Do you know? No. All you know is that every fiber in your being told you you needed get out of that old warehouse as soon as possible. You keep running, avoiding roots and rocks. You keep second guessing yourself. Where we alone? You look to see if Sam followed you but he’s nowhere to be seen. You swear you two looked at eachother with the same chill just moments ago. You call out to him, but you hear nothing. You slow down and turn around but the sun has already set and the trees shroud any sense of direction. You call out again, but regret it instantly.

    The weight of something big is coming.

    You pick a direction and go in an all out sprint. You don’t know where you are going but know whatever has been tracking you is behind you. You are now shrieking call for Sam but he is long gone. The ground below you shifts as you come to a steep decline. You stumble but catch yourself, only to find the moss on the ground won’t hold you. You slip and roll into a ravine, and as you fall your ankle hits a rock. You don’t know if it’s broken but at this point you know that whatever is behind you is worse than the pain of each step. You are limping but moving, but now you are losing ground. The bushes burst open behind you and in the shock you fall back down, firmly breaking the leg you tried so hard to ignore. You turn over while you writhe in pain to see what remained of Sam being held by what couldn’t be a man but couldn’t be a beast. He comes forward smelling the air furiously. You didn’t want to believe it, but Sam was taken and soon you will be too. In your final moments, a face finally comes 2 inches from yours.

    You didn’t want to believe things could go south so fast. You didn’t want to believe Sam was dead. You didn’t want to believe you never would sleep in your bed or eat rainbow Sherbet again. You didn’t want to believe your eyes when you saw him-

    Shia LaBeouf.

    Anyway when mom came back dad would always take the heat for us, but he’s a funny guy and mom couldn’t stay mad for long.