I’d buy the shitty flat.

You’re 50. You don’t know how long you’ll be able to work to pay off the expensive flat, nor do you know what needs you’ll have as you get older. You can buy the shitty flat, pay it off quickly, and you’ll own it. If you lose your job, you won’t be evicted for not paying rent. Depending on where you live, you’ll still have condo fees, property taxes, or whatever, but you’ll still have more leverage and leeway than simply being a tenant.

Don’t just grab any shitty flat; think of what you want now, and what you’ll need as you age. You may not still be in the same flat 10 or 20 years from now, but make that assumption and plan with that in mind. I don’t know what you want now (lots of kids vs no kids around, etc), but some things to think of as you age:

• People hanging around outside: this may be difficult to notice this time of year (I’m assuming you’re in the northern hemisphere), but kids playing, a community garden, someone sitting on their porch smoking - anything that speaks to a level of comfort being outside. That generally means more neighborhood spirit / community involvement, and generally means less tendency toward future crime.
• Some neighbors younger than you, and at least a few kids. When you get older, you’ll occasionally need help, and asking younger people you know is the easiest way.
• A grocery store within reasonable distances that is accessible either by walking or public transit.
• Minimal stairs to get into the building, minimal stairs to get into the flat, and minimal stairs within the flat. Stairs become more of a barrier and more of a danger as you age.

Probably other stuff as well, those are just the first things I thought of.

If it’s a small shop, it may be because the door is constantly being opened and they’re trying to keep the store warm for the people working there.

The first cards were issued in the fall of 1936. I wonder how many people were using this number deliberately because they didn’t trust the government.

I miss my old phone and my old PC, with their limited memory. Every so often, my browser would crash under the weight of the tabs, and refuse to re-open unless I agreed to discard them all …

Make a mental commitment to spend at least 30 minutes going through tabs.

Scroll through all of them. If any are news articles and that news has been moved on from or it just makes me angry, close the tab. If it’s a news article but it’s more of an “interesting read” thing and I’m still interested, keep it.

Keep scrolling. If you find several tabs relating to the same or similar concepts, move them next to each other; that gives more weight to following through on that group.

If it was a “yes, I’d like to buy this but my card isn’t convenient” tab, if I’m still interested in it, get my card and order it. (I deliberately don’t store my card, to impede impulse buying.)

If it’s something I was researching (usually something I’m interested in buying) and I have the energy, keep researching. Once I’ve completed research, either buy the item immediately, or add it to my “things to buy” bookmark folder. I go through the folder a couple times a year and decide if the item still interests me. If it doesn’t, I delete the bookmark. If it does, I may or may not buy it then.

If it’s a video, download it and put it into my ‘watch these’ folder for later.

If it’s something I was thinking of for a friend (a meme, news article, something to buy), I’ll send them a text about it. If it’s after hours, I’ll prep a text, save it as a draft, then send it the next day.

If it’s a piece of fiction, I’ll group those together as well, then leave them for the moment: I’m interested in clearing tabs right now, not getting distracted.

If it’s a piece of reference material, I’ll either bookmark it or add it to a collection so I can come back to it later.

If it’s a recipe, I’ll copy it to Word, format it to my tastes, print it out and move it to the kitchen.

If it’s a thread that I wanted to read through, I’ll stop and read through it, then either discard it or bookmark it if I may need to reference it again.

If it’s a quick curiosity thing, I’ll give it a quick read to satisfy my curiosity and close the tab.

Eventually I run out of energy and browse the internet, opening up a few new tabs in the process.

You are confusing “you can generally follow the plot” (which is what I said) with “paying attention gives you a richer, more entertaining and in-depth experience, with details you won’t be aware of unless you physically watch”.

If you watch a lot of BBC stuff, you’ll find that you can generally follow the plot without necessarily paying too much attention to the screen. In their case, it’s because the BBC originated as a radio broadcaster and their script culture still reflects some of those old styles and practices. The fact that they maintain a robust radio play / audio drama production focus certainly doesn’t hurt either.

Oh hey - thanks for that!

MPox: infection numbers in the US are generally low in the US - the weekly average is generally between 3 and 18 cases per week. I haven’t tracked transmission vectors in a couple years - I think the last time I checked was around 2022-23. From memory, at that time, the main vector was men who had sex with men, and then people who had sex with infected people. The CDC’s recommendation list for who should get vaccinated still seems to focus on those groups, as well as travelers to areas where MPox is endemic.

Measles: in the US, this mostly depends on when you were born/vaccinated. If you were born before 1957, you are presumed to be immune because measles is so contagious and it was so prevalent back then. If you were vaccinated before 1967, you should get a booster shot: the vaccine they used back then was less effective than the later vaccine. If you were vaccinated after 1967 and before 1989, you should consider getting another shot: up until 1989, they believed that a single dose gave lifetime immunity, but then they realized a second dose was needed. People who received two doses of vaccine after 1989 are presumed immune.

People who migrate from states with a strong “culture of honor” bring with them a don’t-back-down defensiveness learned in their home communities, and that makes them more likely to die by violence even in historically safe states […] The most violent U.S. regions — Appalachia, the Deep South and the old frontier states — are still deeply marked by a Wild West, stand-your-ground ethos,

While I agree with you to some extent, I would also argue that someone who grows up in a culture where many disputes are “solved” with violence, or where a noticable percentage of people don’t have the emotional maturity to handle their anger without physical expression, is also likely to struggle with those issues when they move away from that culture. Socioeconomic class is not a replacement for emotional maturity, it simply gives one some more leeway before some types of pressure apply - and they’re often replaced with other types of pressure.

Depending on your locality, your town, county, or state may have laws against this. They’re often health department statues against providing something that attracts pests like rats and snakes.

That Blake’s 7 fandom was materially better before the show aired in the States. They had gone through the painful sorting out of characters and characteristics and relationships and were developing these really interesting themes of psychological trauma and manipulation that they were beginning to explore - it was really interesting and the themes were fascinating. Them the show aired in the States, they went wild over Avon and all the stories and themes starting revolving around him. I don’t mind him as a character; I do mind his character taking over all of fandom. It’s sort of like if all the Harry Potter stories suddenly and inexplicably became Ron-centric; it’s not necessarily wrong, but it’s weird and people who liked other characters got left out in the cold, and some of us still resent that.

As an aside, when Blake’s 7 fandom split up, that too was fascinating. As was usual in those days, there was a pro-slash contingent and an anti-slash contingent. When B7 fandom split up, all of the pro-slash fans went into Robin of Sherwood fandom, and all the anti-slash fans went into The Professionals fandom. The problem being that RoS was almost exclusively gen and Pros was almost exclusively slash. It was very weird.

What else? That the second season of War of the Worlds should’ve been an entirely different series: the people who loved season 1 were never going to like season 2; and people who had tuned in and disliked the series during season 1 weren’t going to Even try season 2.

That Krycek became such a big character on The X-Files due to one woman who saw his potential and kept talking about it to her friends, many of whom were popular/prolific fannish authors and artists. She convinced some of them (there was incredulity and resistance at first) but it gathered steam, Chris Carter was flummoxed but rolled with it, and here we are.

That the main follow-on series for Highlander: the Series should’ve been The Methos Chronicles and that one’s not even up for debate.

That the final episode of Miami Vice is a masterpiece, particularly with the echoes and parallels to the first episode - and that the show itself took a major downturn the moment they decided to kill off their comic relief characters. That having God in the final episode of Quantum Leap (the original) being played by an actor who was also in the first episode of the series made it much more interesting. That if you were ever interested in Space: 1999, the “Message from Moonbase Alpha” short has some really interesting implications.

That Space Rangers and Moon Over Miami were cut off entirely too early. That Quark is funny as hell for a science fiction fan of my generation, even if it’s extremely dated now. Similarly, The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne was hella fun and should’ve lasted much longer (though Michael Praed’s Shatner-esque line deliveries were exceptionally annoying at times!). That the Sonny Steel grave arc is majorly under-represented in Wiseguy fiction.

Almost certainly others, but those are the ones that came to mind.

Whatever you spend it on, may I make a suggestion, if you have a little extra money yourself? Spend the gift card money, yes: buy something you’ll enjoy, share that joy with the people who got it for you, let them see how happy they’ve made you.

Then take the card that the giftcard came in, put in $75 cash, and put it in a special place. Do that every time someone gives you money or a giftcard. As I’ve gotten older, a lot of the people in my life have died, gotten ill, or moved away. Sometimes, when I’m feeling sad or depressed, I’ll go to my little drawer of cards and pull one out at random. I’ll re-read the message, and think about the person and the love that we shared at that time, and I’ll take the money and do something special for myself, to cheer myself up a bit.

Then sometime in the next few days, I’ll get the same amount of cash from the bank, put it in the envelope, and replace it in my stash: the caring we felt for each other at that time was true (regardless of how things eventually turned out), so the cards give me a little emotional boost and the cash lets me do something for myself that I’d normally not spend money on. It helps me feel better, even if only for a little time.

[I’ll also be honest and say that sometimes I’ve run out of money, and something will twinge and I’ll remember I have this little stash of cash, and having that has helped me get through some slightly tough times. But I always put the money back in the cards when I can afford it.]

Get one of those reacher-grabber things they promot to the elderly; that’ll let you access more of the space (you can use the grabber as a pusher as well).

Then store lightweight things that you’d like somewhat accessible and are aggravating to store somewhere else. If this was my mom’s space (she loves to travel), she’d store her empty luggage in there. If this was my sister’s, she’d put all her holiday stuff into plastic bins with large handles and store that in there.

You don’t have not-have an opinion on the US healthcare system, you just have to claim that your opinion on the healthcare system won’t affect your ability to reach an impartial verdict.

They voted against support for Sandy too.

As I said, OP seems to be a young person trying to figure how they fit in the world, and they’re not giving much information (which is fine). But we’re not all born with an innate understanding of all the flavors of sexuality, or all the options out there.

They say they’d like a male partner, which could be situational depending on where they live; it could be a definite preference; or it could be that they’re demisexual and haven’t realized that’s an option. And if they do get a partner, in extremely general terms, there tend to be different benefits depending on which sex you partner with.

If I may ask, without being rude: are you sure you’re asexual and not demisexual? For me, there would be a difference between someone who’s really not interested in sex at all vs someone who’s really only interested in sex once they’ve emotionally bonded with a person.

If you are asexual, there are definitely other asexuals out there who would still be interested in having nonsexual partners.

In your original post, you mentioned male partners; I’d also suggest you consider whether you’d be okay with a nonsexual female partner. Again, not trying to be rude, you just seem to be trying to figure out how you can fit, and I’m not sure what options you’ve considered.

You should also know that your preferences can change over time, and that’s okay as well; it doesn’t necessarily mean that you were “wrong” about who you were, it may simply mean something is different about either you or your situation.

This version was probably too long for the regular series. I do find it interesting that, when enumerating the cast at the end, they individually refer to the Skipper, Gilligan and the Howells, while Ginger, Mary Ann and the Professor are not individually called out.

In the original series theme song, they went with “Gilligan, the Skipper too, the millionaire and his wife, the movie star, and the rest”, which was absolutely stupid as there were only two more people to list. They later changed it to “[…] the movie star, the Professor and Mary Ann”, which was better.

Which leads to the fun fact that Russell Johnson and Dawn Wells kept in touch for decades afterward, and they always signed their Christmas cards to each other as “the rest”.