For me it took getting into therapy and realizing why I would lose control and drink to excess. I understand now that, for me, excessive drinking is a physical manifestation of an underlying problem I’m not confronting. If I drink when I’m not in pain or emotionally distraught, I drink responsibly, but when I am angry/sad/depressed I’ll drink uncontrollably. I liken it to taking hallucinogens, specifically mushrooms, if I take mushrooms when I am already feeling bad emotionally, I will have a bad trip, if I take them when I am already happy and in a good mood, I’ll have a good trip. It’s about being mindful about your state of mind and what you put in your body that can effect that state of mind.

I appreciate the kindness, take care too ;)

Thanks for the kind words!

Yes, I did get into SMART for a time. I found that it was easier to just go to AA since I didn’t feel like going through the hassle of maintaining a digital form and having to print it out every time I had to show it to my probation officer.

There have been a lot of successful lawsuits contesting the legality of mandating AA through the courts, in fact, no lawsuit has lost to date. I would have loved to contest it as well, but honestly I live in a small town and the police and courts here are the type to hold a grudge, so I didn’t want to draw any unwanted attention. But yeah, it is most definitely a religious organization, no matter how much they try to maintain they aren’t.

I had a similar experience myself, I was desperate and was looking for a way out. I initially joined before being mandated by the court, and for a little while I was on board, but after a year or so I got fed up with the methodology and rhetoric of AA. About six months before the mandate I was pretty much through with AA, and then I got a DUI and was forced to go. Which just further brought out my distaste for AA.

Luckily I’m just about finished with the court requirements. I only have a few more weeks of outpatient, and was told by my PO that once I completed the outpatient I’d be off of probation. So, very happy it’ll be over soon.

The positive thing was that I did take a break from abusing alcohol and resassessed my relationship with alcohol. I don’t intend to stay abstinent, but I do plan on having a healthier relationship with drinking and being mindful of when and how much I do.

Oh man, this is the fucking truth. I’m court mandated to go to AA, and it’s driving me up the wall. The steps are ridiculous and the true believers will endlessly drone on about how amazing and effective they are. It’s literally just religious fundamentalist ideology (AA itself was created by Bill Wilson, who was part of a religious organization called the Oxford Group, and used their existing principles to create the 12 Steps). The organization is definitely a cult, the largest operating and hiding in plain sight cult in the world. It’s crazy how prolific it is and most people don’t realize it is a Christian temperance cult.

For sure. I’d argue what makes it even more brutal is the friendly, artificial face it puts on the system. You can especially see it on commercials and mainstream tv. It makes it even more repulsive when the conditions of capitalism are given some utopia, Fisher Price look.

Apparently people are pretty happy in Finland, at least that’s what that happiness index article said recently. Otherwise I no fuck-all about Finland lol.

Yeah, the work culture in Japan is pretty crazy. Although, same could be said about US work culture in a lot of ways. Working three or more jobs. Crazy hours with little or no overtime in some places etc.

Another sad consequence of their brutal work culture, is the fact that suicide resulting from overwork is so prevalent that they actually have a specific term for it over there. I can’t remember what it is called, but it’s a big enough issue that it has it’s own term and social consciousness.

Definitely. I try to remember that. I just get stuck in my head the ideal of what I want, and if that ideal doesn’t match what I think I am able to accomplish I just don’t try in the first place. It’s a terrible habit I need to break, especially if I’m going to ever get any decent amount of writing done :|

I think their perfectionism is pretty well known, or at least their intense work ethic. I was just watching something recently (can’t remember, a docu I believe) that had a segment on Japanese work culture and how the Japanese government had to even force workers to take a vacation because it was eating into their economic activity. The Japanese were working so much that they weren’t spending enough to stimulate their economy creating a downturn. One employer locked the doors and shut the power off at the office, and the workers broke into their own office building and did their work by flashlight and their own wifi hotspots. Crazy.

Yep, I’m sure a few things I’ve read in the past through FB were Bande Dessinee before I was even aware of the designation. It wasn’t until the past two years that I started to pursue Euro stuff specifically.

Sweet! I’ll take a look at those sites. It’s been something I’ve been meaning to do, but up until now I’ve been mostly content with grabbing recommends from Reddit and TCJ.

Honestly, I feel that way about most things internet without having any kind of over-arching ailment (well, aside from Chronic Depression :/ ). The amount of stuff, and the depth of the rabbit holes, get too damn daunting to where I just throw up my hands most of the time.

I had no clue about comics from Quebec honestly. Although if someone had mentioned French-Canadian comics and there being crossover with Bandee Desinee in Europe I wouldn’t have been suprised. I know there’s a fair amount of French music from Canada. I live fairly close to Canada on the US/Canada border and one of the radio stations I can get out here is exclusively in French, there’s some great sounding music on there too.

Yeah, relatively new. It’s been around a year and a half, maybe two, that I’ve started looking into BD with any focus. I suppose I had more of an exposure than most by being into the alternative comix scene in the US which has some association with BD at times, especially Fantagraphics Comics. So that definitely helped in getting me into them. I’m sure there were.a.few scattered BD I’ve read in the past that didn’t even register with me as such in the past, but nothing I can recall.

For sure! It’s nice the signal/noise ratio is low on the fediverse, but at times it needs a little signal boost. It’s also a good way for me to immerse myself and get more familiar with BD stuff in general, a win win on all fronts. I’ve learned a lot even in the past week or two.

I know there is some tags at the bottom of the article. I didn’t pay close attention to them. I did try the Angouleme tag, which was suprisingly scant, only a few articles from a 4 or 5 year span. In the next week or so I am going to find some sites that cover BD exclusively, or at least have a larger focus, as TCJ seems to only have a sprinkly at times.

Those were the publishers mentioned at the counter festival, which were mostly smaller, independent publishers. I made a note of them for that fact alone since it hadn’t occured to me to look at the BD output outside of the mainstream publishers.

Definitely. My motto these days is “the perfect is the enemy of the good”. Although I don’t always adhere to it completely. The past few months my writing has fallen off since I fell into the “it wont be good enough” mindset. I’m trying to shake myself out of it, but it’s a difficult habit to break.

For sure. I feel lile that about drawing. It’s another skill I’d love to aquire, but the level of detail that is desirous to obtain is daunting. Sometimes I yearn for a return to a child’s simplicity of being able to make something without getting hung up on it looking “good”. I feel that way about most things, writing, learning about new things, etc. It’s what I aspire to attain most, the act of doing something irregardless of the percieved level of competence.

Absolutely. I love watercolor. Keep meaning to get into it myself. I’m currently blissfully unaware of it’s difficulty lol.

I found Djinn a few months ago. I’ve read the first four volumes digitally, but have held off reading more because I want to get the other volumes in trade since it’s such a gorgeously drawn series. I’ve really enjoyed it so far though. I’ll have to look for more by Dufaux when I’m through, same for Miralles.

No problem, I enjoy being able to contribute to such a small, intimate little community. I hope you’re treating yourself well. Stay strong, friend <3

I never used it myself, but I appreciated that it existed nonetheless.

Give yourself all the time you need. Grief needs room to be able to manage. It took me a looong time to deal with the world again when my fiance passed, and I’m still figuring it out.

As hard as it is try and do little things to keep yourself sane, even things like cooking, cleaning and going for a walk get very hard to do, but if you don’t make time your emotions will get even harder to manage. I neglected a lot of things and it really brought me to a bad place.

My heart goes out to you, take care of yourself. Sending love your way <3

For sure! Such a trip it made it on the DS, with a level editor even.

That’s awesome! I’m all about upcycling. It’s amazing what people will toss without thinking about repair. Although sometimes it’s not worth the headache. I remember flipping my shit when I couldn’t figure out how to repair the read error on a PS2 I picked up. Ended up just giving up in the end. Also spent hours through the middle of the night jacked up on energy drinks pulling a laptop apart to fix an issue with the processor running too hot, only to put it back together and still have the same issue.

Ah, what’s the issue with the Game Genie? I’m buying an Everdrive, I think I heard that it had built in cheat support.

Yeah, nowadays I shy away from hardmods because of the experiences I listed above. I’d rather buy from someone with the time and experience if I need to go that route. Otherwise I’m completely fine with softmodding or flashcarts for my needs which tend more towards software. I wouldn’t mind seeing a RGB mod in person running on something cool like one of those “HD” Trinitrons that were used a video editing monitors back in the day. I hear they look fantastic, the highest fidelity picture you can get for CRT based systems.

Haha, close! According to Google Translate: “Blue in Daylight”. I used my French dictionary and was thinking “Blue in the Day”.

I was looking specifically for BD with minimal text as well. That, and comics written for children. Oh man, A Gift for a Ghost looks amazing. I have to say I really am loving Gonzalez’ style. I’ll have to check out his other stuff soon.

If you are wanting the physical copy of Bleu, Stuart NG has it for $30 I believe.

For sure! I used to lurk over a /r/bandedessinee. It’s nice that this community is here, since I try to avoid Reddit at all costs these days. I’ll definitely be around :D

I would always be jealous of my friends who would talk about playing a Link to the Past and Chrono Trigger. Here I was sitting in my room playing Pitfall and Enduro on my 2600, while they were jamming on their SNES systems. I had one friend who was lucky enough to have a PS1 when it first came out, seeing FFVII on the PS1 blew my mind at 12 years old. Eventually my parents did get me a other systems, first the SNES than the Genesis and later a PS1. My dad got in on the PS1 pretty hardcore (he was a big car fanatic and thought Gran Turismo was amazing). The funniest time as a kid was when my parents got us a Genesis, and we got the Sega Channel through the local cable company. My parents got so hooked on Shining Force that they’d play for hours and hours, a lot of times they’d hog the Genesis to where we kids barely got to play lol

Sweet! Thank you, happy B-day (or soon to be) to you too! The CRT is the icing on the cake, I love real scanlines in action. Sadly I didn’t pay attention to the listing close enough and purchased the console only so I don’t have the dogbone controller (was really looking forward to it too). I had to grab a generic NES one for now. Eventually I’ll be grabbing the dogbone when I can though.

Makes sense. The Famicom AVs on Ebay were anywhere from $95-$125, while the NES toploader was at least $140-160. That’s why I opted to get the Famicom AV instead.

It’s baffling to me why the toploader didn’t have AV ports in the first place. Hell, the US NES had them, I don’t see why they went with RF only on the first release. I wasn’t even aware of that fact until I looked into getting one, I always assumed the NES Control Deck had them.