That made me think of the screaming choir from Finland. He says

Do people need to shout? Yes, that is necessary. Human being comes to this world, it’s the first thing they do.

It feels good to go to a concert and just scream your head off.

Were you pretty sure the price would go down, or did you just roll the dice? I’ve watched prices at the places I’ve lived, and they only ever seem to go up. As in, I’m paying $1600, about to get raised to $1800, and the unit next door is listed for $1900. But one place used RealPage, and I would bet the other one used something like that too.

Different ways, depending on how I feel.

• Music. Metal, mostly. Something I can turn up and get into.
• Sing along or scream. Ideally in the car on the freeway, so I don’t have to worry about scaring the neighbors.
• Something active or active-ish. Cooking something complicated. Practicing the piano/keyboard. Bike ride. Gym, so you can punch stuff. Or a long walk with something to listen to.
• Vent to a friend.
• Write it out and delete it.
• Stew in it for longer than I should.

You can think of “le” as a way of showing that it’s a syllabic L. Meaning that you say a dark L, and there isn’t really a vowel before it. The L takes up the whole syllable. It can sound like there’s a schwa in there (usually just a blip of one), but that’s just part of how you say the dark L. It comes from having the back part of your tongue press down and back.

This happens at the end of a word when the L is in an unstressed syllable. The spelling can vary a little. For example:

• people
• simple
• model
• oval

There isn’t really a reason why the spelling is different. That’s just how it happened to develop.

The pronunciation can vary a little too. If you hold the L longer, or emphasize the syllable more, it can sound more like a proper vowel is in there. But your tongue stays a tiny bit lower than it does for the schwa sounds.

Smell, not that I remember. Sound, all the time. I’ll have conversations or hear people saying things, sometimes in different languages. Sometimes a word comes to mind that seems totally real, but usually it’s not. Some of the more detailed dreams have had storms, sirens, earthquakes (that eerie rumbling they have). Or even music.

I have some open-back headphones (wired) that I can wear for hours and forget they’re there. Not hot at all. The cushioned part is breathable too. They were a little snug at first, but great since then.

Yeah. And how is it that corporations, or big businesses in general, have elevated themselves to an almost holy status? Why is it murder when Blackrock kills 17 civilians in Iraq (Nisour Square), but not when an insurance company denies an operation that a doctor who’s at the top of their field says could save your life? And the hospital helpfully tells you it will cost over a million dollars. For all the non-Americans, that’s not an exaggeration.

And even with Blackwater, it was only the individual employees who got convicted. The company just kept going under a different name. And the employees got pardoned later.

Adding to that: I’d like to see the top dogs at insurance companies go through the same thing they put us through. No MRI or CT scan for you. You get ibuprofen and PT because nothing else is necessary. Maybe in a few years you’ll get surgery, when the problem is almost hopelessly bad. You get to shell out 5 or 6 figures for it, and no, you don’t get to use your millions. You have as much money as someone who absolutely can’t afford it. Oh, and that time off work? Unpaid.

And make them pay for the consequences of their actions. How many people like Wilfredo Engalla have there been and will there be? He had lung cancer, but it was misdiagnosed as colds and allergies for 5 years. When he found that out, he sued Kaiser. They forced him into arbitration and dragged out the case so nothing happened until he died, because they thought they would only have to pay half as much that way. In the end, his family got $150,000 (minus tens of thousands in costs to get that far).

Do that to enough people for enough years, and eventually you find out people have a breaking point. Who would have thought.

Live music does it for me. It’s best when I’m close enough to make eye contact with the musicians, and when the audience is into it too. It’s a total rush. If I had to pick between music and sex, it’d be music, hands down.

I can relate to the comment about swimming too. I imagine hiking, kayaking, or anything else physical that you really like could give you a similar feeling.

Yeah. Those keys on the piano are E and F. You can see those notes in the sheet music for the title track. Those long rows of notes are a bunch of E’s and F’s.

If you hit the play button in the bottom left corner, you can hear a computer-generated version of the song. Real version here.

I started learning a little about music theory. I’ve been interested for a while, but always thought I wouldn’t be able to understand it. But it’s doable, a little at a time.

And I’ve been going outside more. I spend too much time in front of the computer. It’s nice to have fresh air and read, listen to music, or just take in the surroundings.

Good posture also helps you breathe better, which can help you feel more energized and concentrate better. Your diaphragm doesn’t work right when you sit hunched over, so your breath gets more shallow.

If you ever need to talk a lot for work or some other reason, good posture is essential so your voice sounds good and doesn’t get tired too easily.

And it helps strengthen your core, which is good for balance and other things.

OK, we need a name for this new (bread) roll. Suggestions?

Seed thingy-wingy.*

Little crunchy-munchy.*

Why not just “whole grain roll”?

*These are made-up words that are almost impossible to translate. They’re supposed to sound ridiculous. I went with the first thing that came to mind.

For me, it would have to be something nice, but not so interesting that I want to stay awake (Ariadne auf Naxos). Or something I’ve heard a million times (The Magic Flute).

Beethoven has always been calming for me, so maybe Fidelio too.

If you’re looking for beautiful music, maybe Tosca or Rusalka.

There are others that I wouldn’t necessarily fall asleep to, like Don Carlo, Pagliacci, Rigoletto, or La Traviata. This is a pretty good list of some of the best known operas.

Three months isn’t a lot of time, so I would talk to a lawyer sooner rather than later. Google employment lawyers in your area, or “attorney referral service [your state].” You should be able to get a free consultation.

Some lawyers may be able to tell you right away if they’ll take your case, but it may take a little time. And you may want to get more than one opinion. If you have any documents, round those up and hang onto them.

Yeah, it’s kind of like eating raw flour. But extremely bland and weirdly minerally. Still better than kibble.

Oh hey, I love your owl posts. I always read the comments too because I know there will be more pictures and info. I’ve been meaning to comment there, but work got super busy and I forgot to stop by.

And then there’s the different ways to connect verbs in English.

• I want to go to the movies. (“I want going” is wrong.)
• I like going to the movies. / I like to go to the movies. (Both ways work.)
• I despise going to the movies. (“I despise to go” is wrong.)

There aren’t rules for that, as far as I know. Just very fuzzy guidelines at best. And word stress is pretty random too. Both of those things can be tricky for non-native speakers.

Gender often comes along with cases, which basically show you what role a noun is playing in a sentence. For example, is someone doing something, or is something being done to them. That lets you change the word order and keep the same meaning. You can emphasize different parts of the sentence, or just be more flexible with how you say things.

Here’s an example from German:

• Der Hund (subject) hat den Mann (object) gebissen. / The dog bit the man.
• Den Mann (object) hat der Hund (subject) gebissen. / The dog bit the man. (Implied: That guy, and not someone else.)

In English, the meaning changes when you change the word order.

• The dog bit the man.
• The man bit the dog.

Languages do fine with genders and without. They’re just different systems that happened to evolve over time. And languages can even change. English used to have 3 genders, but they disappeared hundreds of years ago. Instead of having like 12 different ways to say “the,” we just have one, thanks to the Vikings and the Norman invaders.

There’s feddit.it in Italian and feddit.ro in Romanian.