Went.

It’s generally legal and heavily subsidised. See also animal agriculture.

I second this. Either ddg has come a long way with sesrch results or Google enshittified theirs to oblivion. Maybe it’s both. I only use Google search for really obscure stuff that ddg has a hard time fetching. And more often than not Google fails as well.

Oh, the patent expired? No problem, we’ll just methylate the structure, see that it makes no difference and put it out on the market as a new drug. Or maybe take the active part of a racemic mixture and half the dosage. Same drug double the patent. Semisynthetic insulin is even worse in that regard.

R****t felt like the place for tech savvy people when I first joined a decade and a half ago (I feel old now). It was confusing and I had no idea how to use it but the content was better than 9gag which was hugely popular at the time. Felt the same way about the fediverse half a year ago. Now it’s all natural to me.

No, because after a Friday half the time comes the dreaded 13 hour shift which sucks my energy enough to not be able to do anything on Sunday.

Healthcare is a bitch sometimes.

I follow hashtags that I like and if I like a person’s posts I’d check their profile out and follow them. I also look at who interacts with my posts, and give them a follow as well, if I want their interests to show up on my feed. I also follow a couple of a.gup.pe groups. Bookstodon is a fun one, I got some cool suggestions there. They were also integrated with lemmy but I haven’t seen them work well here for now.

My cat is so food motivated he eats absolutely everything. Obviously has a preference for wet food with gravy so I buy a bunch of different flavours in bulk but he’s happy to eat the same thing every day. He also loves olives, bread (wholemeal more than white, sourdough has an advantage too. Local bakery bread is where things are really at. Supermarket bread is a mixed bag, he usually ignores it because it’s crap), seeds, nuts, potato chips, lentils, hummus, yogurt, and grass.

Don’t get me wrong, Bucharest and Sofia are rather LGBT friendly as long as you know where you’re safe. (I’ve only visited both for a couple of days on a number of occasions). I can’t speak about other cities but the Orthodox Church is really strong in Romania. Bulgaria on the other hand has soccer extremists/fascists who are particularly dangerous and tend to mob on their targets so it’s hard to even find the culprits by the authorities… Not that they even bother unless it’s a murder.

In fact I had a mob of Bulgarian hooligans in Bucharest of all places yelling “Look dude Rapunzel!” pointing at me (I present masculine but have rather long hair). I felt realy threatened and uncomfortable but I realised they didn’t know I spoke their language and I was in a crowded place so it all passed.

Bulgaria is an example. The LGBTQ+ community is discussed only during the annual pride parade. Sofia is rather liberal but the rest of the country is highly conservative. The people in power are likely in favour of marriage equality (or most don’t care that much so they just vote with the flow) but it’s a political suicide given the opinion of the most active voters. If you decided to run a country-wide poll, most people would be against gay marriage. The general attitude is “I don’t mind gay people as long as they’re not in my face”. Except many have stronger opinions than that. Especially men.

Speaking of men, the Balkan macho culture created a fear of gay people (literal homophobia). On a regular basis I hear men speaking about being afraid of being raped by gay men in certain situations (think massage rooms, men’s locker rooms, bars).

Football hooligan extremists are especially dangerous because they go on witch hunts for marginalized groups and would attack (and sometimes murder) anyone who looks gay, Turkish, ir has a darker skin colour just for sport. There are still partly unresolved murders of LGBT youth commited a decade ago.

In fact I’m surprised about Greece, they must be the first ortbodox christian country to legalize same sex marriage and they’re very religious compared to us.

Also meal prep for work. Healthier and saves money (5% of my net income per month in my case)

As an eastern European nearing their 30s in a situation much less extreme than yours - do not fall for “patriotism”. I do not mean the “go and fight for your people” type. That takes guts and mentality I do not possess.

I mean the “doing X is unpatriotic” type. Usually comes from “patriotic” formations who follow a certain narrative and work for the interests of other countries. Look for buzzwords like traditional values, us vs them, targeting a group of people as a whole, claiming to get back “what is ours” (territory lost centuries ago, not currently occupied land). Big social media presence coupled with self-produced “reports” and “news articles” (bonus points if they have their own mass media channels) are also a giveaway.

Thank you but I won’t let your aggressor, through puppet parties, dictate what about my attitude and views is patriotic and what isn’t.

Bulgarian Folk Song - Ergen Deda metal version

Been stuck in my head all day.

Thanks, it was meant to be a birthday present for my partner and I did it in secret. Really fun project!

Rather not say but across the border south, about 4-5 hours from Bucharest.

It was fun having to go to work yesterday morning. Nothing was cleared up, no way for cars to get to my house so I had to make a trek by foot. This morning was worse because some of the snow had melted during the day yesterday and it refroze. Everything is slippery now.

One thing outside observers need to know is how incompetent the municipality services are. They knew in advance that this storm was coming. There were warnings all week. It came a day late here so they had extra time. The municipality website showed no information, just some cultural events and an article from two days ago that “the municipality is ready for the winter”. At this point we have a saying for poor organisation during winter time when everyone knows it’s coming in advance:

“The winter surprised us again!”

It’s been a rather productive year so far:

• I did a lot of cross stitching.
• Went vegan.
• Dabbled into gardening (my partner did most of the work sadly but I’m more interested now than I was before!).
• Got into birdwatching so I started exploring nature with a much more different perspective.
• Set up a bird feeding station that got really popular among the birds AND the neighbours.
• Learned how to crochet.
• A combination of the aforementioned things somehow taught me how to manage my depression and anxiety better. I’m in a much better spot now than when I was mostly playing video games.

Lately I find myself listening to The Ocean Collective, Mors Principium est, Be’lakor, Soilwork, Between the Buried and Me. Generally more melodic and progressive stuff. Sometimes I put on metalcore which can also be a banger like Monuments (saw them live earlier this year, they were amazing), Periphery, Bleed From Within.

I know some purists would jump on my classification but it’s hard for me to put labels on music these days with bands having a much more unique style, rather than fixing themselves into a specific genre.

Death metal. Death metal while birding (or more like processing footage). Death metal while cross stitching. Death metal while crocheting. It’s a weird outlet that I mostly keep to myself.

Goblin Hexblood. I know, hexblood is a race too but those were the first two words I saw and I can’t stop imagining a goblin hag.