Toth

Thanks! Yes, that's what I needed to hear. I guess part of me still hoped I could sort out the misunderstanding that caused this in the first place, what with me expecting her to remember to ask me again if I succeed freeing up the weekend for the second meeting without reminding her that day and then getting annoyed at it (though she blew up at me without me even getting to express that annoyance - she... seemed quite stressed and confused... and I was too taken aback to not do anything but take her at her word and give her the space she needed). I was also confused that her explanation was "I don't have regular contact even with close friends, that's just how I prefer things", which... I interpreted as meaning that loose contact was okay, as long as it is initiated by her. And while I am thinking that if she'd be fine with me, she would have messaged me somewhere down the line... I can't avoid thinking that nobody ever messaged me out of the blue and everyone I know instantly disappears the moment I stop reaching out to them. That's just how it is. I'm the one who isn't normal for expecting other people to make an effort out of their own volition, which is just a painful mindset. Yes, I better erase those messages as well. No point in looking back.

Mmh... only tangentially dating related, but I recently noticed something that keeps bugging me. Remember my only non-date that came out of my Bumble experience two years ago? The bored Chinese Master student. Half a year after she told me I've been too much in contact with her and shouldn't initiate things anymore and her never writing back either, I had erased her number. But now I saw when checking through my text messages that I still had her messages, which naturally includes her number. I guess it's a testimony to how stupid I am that I am considering writing to check in how it's going. Really bad idea, right?

Mmh, I've been wondering... why wait until it happens again? Given your previous descriptions of his behavior, I have a vague feeling that it might be even simpler to just bring it up yourself in an appropriate moment. "Remember that joke you did about me being "broke"? I didn't say anything back then, but it's been weighing on my mind this whole time and can't help but find it hurtful." Something along these lines. I'm thinking that portraying it as something you thought over may indicate you being hurt as a more serious concern than expressing it "in the heat of the moment", so to speak. It may even be that he either mistakes it for banter or, in the case of this dragging out even more, for you to bottle up your frustration and make your reaction worse than necessary.

Is it proven? No. But that his plane made a dash for is and it would fit Putin's paranoia. And you would have to assume that anyone in the "Russian power structures" would care if he fled. The whole thing about an army marching up to the gates of Moscow unimpeded would technically be considered enough to end him in a world based on reason and logic.

Sure, this could be a detail added to the idiocy explanation. Though in that case I wonder what those betraying allies would get out of throwing him under the bus? They'd just destabilize Russia for no apparent gain (at least none that they couldn't get by pulling through with the coup... after all, Prigozhin is not a politician, he would need some politicians eager to do the actual ruling. Now you make me wonder whether Putin managed to successfully evade the conspirators/take them out and that's why Prigozhin had to give up. The king wasn't in the castle anymore and while he plausibly could have taken Moscow, there was no game plan for if Putin escaped. Mmh... but still, if that was the case, going down fighting would have been maybe more prudent rather than wait for the inevitable assassination, so we would be right back to Prigozhin lacking common sense.

Okay, I slept a bit more about yesterday's events, read through some threads and... am still dizzy and confused. Something is not right and while I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories where incompetence is a sufficient explanation... But since Russia is dealing in plenty of both... well... So what do we know: - Prigozhin set this up long in advance, stoking hostility between Wagner and the MoD, personally blaming Shoigu for everything that goes wrong with the war, while notably portraying Putin as the innocent Czar who got deceived by his advisors - Shoigu and Putin forcing Wagner to sign up at the MoD means effectively ridding Prigozhin of his control and his protection, making this the most likely reason for the coup being a desperation strike... except that Prigozhin giving in to this demand as part of the agreement pretty much sells out the individual Wagner soldiers and takes away Prigozhin's only shield. Which is effectively the most baffling thing about this whole event - Prigozhin claimed there was a Russian missile strike against Wagner with thousands dead, but the video provided only showed a moderately roughed up forest camp and now he insists this whole thing was bloodless on both sides, so the initial suspicions about this being fake are almost guaranteed to be correct - Wagner took Rostov with no resistance (which was understandable), took Voronezh with barely any resistance, shooting down a few attack helicopters that tried to harass them and there was some off-screen small arms fire audible, but the convoy barely stopped and was never even under threat by fighter jets. So that means either the Russian air force is completely and utterly disabled and we shouldn't be seeing any fighters anywhere else at the borders or in Ukraine, or... they were somehow colluding with Prigozhin and only the army's helicopter force didn't get the memo/was sacrificed to make it more believable - Ahmat was tasked with clearing out Rostov of Wagner, but aside them posing in a traffic jam and one video of a couple of Chechen dudes getting disarmed, there is no evidence that either force even attempted to fight, making this whole thing even more suspicious - Putin's speech branding Wagner as traitors, calling up his allies, his fleeing to St. Petersburg and the frantic (and very poor) fortification of Moscow makes the appearance that Putin took the threat of loosing Moscow very seriously and his apparent walking back on his very strong and very charged condemnation of Prigozhin makes him look horribly weak and impotent to do anything about stopping him. This, at least to me, completely invalidates any theory that this is a theater conducted by Putin. He would never agree to something that makes him look so impotent, because his strong law and order image is essentially the stuff that keeps him anchored to his chair - the initial announcement of the agreement made it sound like Putin sacrificed Shoigu, essentially giving in to Prigozhin's demands... except that now the Kremlin denies that and the outcome, amnesty and exile of Prigozhin, no change to the MoD and Wagner having to become part of the Russian regular forces... makes it look like an utter defeat of Prigozhin even though he had an implausibly good shot at taking Moscow. I can't believe Prigozhin would sacrifice his life, becoming an almost certain target of Putin's petty wrath, out of the goodness of his heart and patriotic soul as to spare Russia from almost certain civil war - it's also odd that this first announcement was first made by Belarus, then Wagner and only in the end there was a rather weak "Yeah, sure" statement by the Kremlin, making Putin look even weaker and an uncharacteristically small actor in the resolving of the situation. This all for me means two likely explanations. The idiocy explanation and the conspiracy explanation. In the idiocy explanation, Prigozhin's antagonism towards Shoigu was a bet on getting his job and climb up the ladder, but when Shoigu put things in motion to have Wagner taken away from him, Prigozhin panicked and made a mad dash for Moscow in a desperate shot for power while he still had some power to spare. Putin's strong condemnation, branding him as a traitor, came as a shock, as he still tried to keep that door open of just toppling Shoigu becoming the man behind Putin, but at this point he couldn't possibly turn back anymore. And even though he had a surprising amount of friends in the military, particularly in the air force, which meant he could march through unhindered, Prigozhin realized that he had no friends in the Kremlin and taking the city would in no way mean taking control of the country, so he foresaw Wagner getting ground down in a civil war and when Lukashenko offered him an out, he blinked and desperately took it, even though it meant backstabbing his loyal forces and his own demise in the foreseeable future as Putin rolled back even the smallest concessions that could have maybe been made to him, but by now Prigozhin had no choice but to nod and accept his utter defeat. In the conspiracy explanation... Prigozhin had friends in both the military AND the Kremlin, with the latter approaching him and convincing him to do this elaborate theater in order to scare Putin, have him arrested as he attempted to flee the Moscow and force him to cede power to them in order to have them stop Prigozhin and stay in power, even though now he's a helpless figurehead. I know, it is quite far-fetched, but it is the only version of the story I can come up with where there is an explanation for that utter absence of serious fighting and that Prigozhin doesn't have to fear Putin's wrath despite having no securities as he slips away to let his Kremlin allies sort the mess out. For now, I still go with the idiocy explanation, but if we see a massive shift in the Kremlin's decision-making from here on out (as in: actually making some decisions instead of keeping the war effort on blind autopilot) while at the same time see even less of Putin, then... I guess I will remain suspicious.

I must admit, I really, really hate this "Just get jacked!" being the go-to recommendation for men struggling with confidence. Yes, I know I'm bad at making the time for my training regimen and yes, maybe it's just an excuse because I found all my sports-related experiences traumatic, getting relentlessly bullied in changing rooms and taking constant shit from my father about what a weak disappointment I am. But I still think I'm reasonably fit at the moment and don't need to waste soooo much time that I don't have and money to become a muscle head to feel better about myself. And I also think it wouldn't change a fucking anything about me being ugly and short and socially awkward. Holy shit, there is more about life than spending hours sitting in other people's stink to push metal thingies like Sisyphus until you can't anymore... In other news, I... got a third response of that new match in as many days. And I specifically say response, not reply, because it feels very much like pulling teeth with how little she's engaging with my questions and worry I'm starting to come off as interrogating her because right now I still don't know any more than before about what her interests are, what she's doing for a living, not even what languages she's speaking. I suspect she got herself 500 matches and is sifting through all of them and I'm very surprised I'm not yet unmatched or ghosted, but at this point this also feels very silly.^^ Anyway, gotta go jogging now before the heat gets too oppressive. Edit: She responded again, this time even more blatantly dodging my question about what languages she speaks by repeating "English is fine". I immediately went in after getting the notification, typed a reply, but she went offline before I could send it. Lol, that's a first for me. Unfortunately I'm also extremely busy, so I guess can mostly laugh about it. In my reply I joked about now pulling out the job application questions before putting out a barrage of them. At this point I'm just curious how little she will manage to dodge those.

Booh, now I have a headache...

I'm waiting until there is evidence of Wagner turning around/a credible video of Prigozhin saying so. Until then, I suspect it could just as well be a last ditch attempt by the FSB to sow confusion among Wagner. There is just no way Prigozhin would survive standing down just because he has Lukas word.

That's what I was thinking last night when I was sitting there at 1 am still refreshing news, Reddit and forum threads. And... what I can say, my index finger hurts because I spent most of today refreshing pages as well, getting only through my work at a glacial pace. History doesn't bother to wait for me. XD So sure, go to sleep on your damn isolated continent where nobody will bother sending a nuke to!

Could be this AN-26: Haven't heard anything about confirmed losses either. Could still be "just" used for transporting equipment.

Eh, that's unfair, the mercenaries in Anabasis just wanted to get home while stuck in enemy territory. In terms of motivation, this is really a literal crossing of the Rubicon. This is Caesar marching on Rome after the Senate ordered him to disband his army and stand trial for unlawfully waging war in Gaul and Caesar being "Nah, I'm coming home alright, but with my army!"

There's more and more videos trickling in about small arms fire engagements in Voronezh and the Wagner troops in Rostov clearing streets of civilians pretty much immediately after Putin's speech. Shit is about to go down. Have also spent a bit too much time scrolling through the M-4 on Google Maps. That's one loooooooooong ass road ahead. That is plenty of time for the Russian air force to get their bearings together and intercept them. Wagner is seen hauling two Pantsirs along, but still... I have a hard time believing fighter jets wouldn't be able to blow the motorway up. And even if they reach Moscow, what then? Putin's National Guard has mobilized and those are on Putin's personal payroll. Will be interesting to see whether they would let Wagner pass like their severely outnumbered and outgunned guys we've seen folding at Rostov. Here the situation would be much the opposite and Wagner should, realistically, get blown to bits. In many ways I'm thinking the Wagner advanced force is a desperate suicide commando, but part of me wonders just how many allies Prigozhin has managed to get at the right places to make the seemingly insane work.

In another forum someone posted this: Are you shitting me?!?

I have to go to bed, but I somehow fear I will miss out on something. XD

https://reactiongifs.me/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Popcorn-Jon-Stewart.gif

I mean, people reacting disgusted by someone like me trying to strike up a conversation is already bad enough.^^ And that fear I guess struck me oddly badly today. This morning someone next to me in the train sneezed and then spent the remainder of the trip fighting with their nose, so much so I considered offering a paper tissue as a practice of being considerate to another human being, but then thought nobody would like to accept that from the bag of a stranger, so I kept to myself. On my way home I was then also approached by a former student who asked a few questions about the possibility of me teaching a class of hers next year and some exam procedure and after answering, I disentangled myself rather haphazardly as I was distinctly in after work mode and wanted to avoid us using the same train. Probably looked a bit weird from her perspective. And then while waiting on another connecting train I bumped into a former classmate from primary school of mine that I had occasionally met before because her boyfriend lives in my area. Was quite surprised she greeted me back (after not reacting the last couple of times I greeted her), but still couldn't find it in myself to go to her and strike up a conversation, so she walked past me and took another train car. All in all an unusually dense amount of encounters, but I guess you get the impression of my usual tendencies. That's the reflexes I'm right now trying to take apart, but obviously with limited success so far. As much as I am posting these threads when I'm down, my usual self is more focused on just fighting my way through tough spots. I'm telling myself I'm not doing nothing. However, as seen above... yes, it's a very hard problem to solve. And makes every bit of socializing all the more harder. It is damn difficult to make friends when you don't have friends, as you will be a stranger and foreign object in every interaction. I am financially independent from my mother, but she isn't from me, which is at the core of the whole issue and will never ever change. My issues about my looks are mostly with the stuff I can't change. On top of that I have extreme issues getting muscles feel really bad doing sports, so "getting jacked" isn't an option. Advice from a woman for my dress-code also isn't possible. Again, I don't know anything and have no relatives I'm on speaking terms with. The hobbies part... well, no. I made quite distinct experiences that people will immediately go blank and disentangle themselves from a conversation when I start rambling about an interest they don't share. But mostly I guess it's the overall package and that I should give off the impression that I'm a hassle to deal with the moment I let any of my insecurities show (something I obviously try to avoid). Though back to the topic at had, I also have to add another surprising encounter after all these weeks: Another match! Which I guess could strike me pessimistic as it means my profile is still shown and the deafening silence is rather a result of literally nobody being interested. The only issue now is that this match is either a catfish or naturally not really interested and replied to me earlier just out of obligation. Very curtly and then went immediately offline again. I suppose that could mean it's not a catfish because those I imagine to be slightly more responsive, but on the other hand it's another bored Chinese expat with an empty profile, but even drastically out of my league by an insanely large margin than the first one I had my non-date two years ago with. Still couldn't find any of the pictures through reverse picture searches... and yeah, the disinterest also seems counter-intuitive for a scammer... but still, the photos are just odd...

Years ago I actually tried to do the same, but half-way through I got bored and stopped playing Elite altogether... I guess there is very little motivation to pick it up again and start away with doing mindless jumps for hours, with just some refueling stops inbetween. My poor dude still stranded in space...

As far as I can tell Wagner is not involved in any of the defensive fighting, so you can bet it's meant as a snipe at Shoigu. That the official Russian assessment of Ukrainian losses involve a laughable ton of wishful thinking is pretty much a given as well however.

After five weeks without a drop of rain, everything outside had been yellow and the general dryness had been alarming alongside troubling news about decreasing ground water levels. So the rain this last week had been very welcome... ... except of course that train rides in hot moist atmosphere with everyone ripping open the windows, causing a bone-chilling draft is just... ugh... I really didn't feel well today, my mind has been kind of hazy...

Just earlier today I read Isaac Asimov's "review" of the script Roddenberry showed to him. Yeah, the core premise is... mindboggingly stupid, though admittedly I really liked the shore leave scenes fleshing out the friendships of the main cast. No! Just no! Leave Saavik out of this plot. She... may not have been much of a character in her movies either, but I just don't find it plausible to have her be a villain. Granted, her positions didn't feel quite right for a Vulkan to have altogether... The man had quite a number of glaring flaws, but I must say, I don't understand the recent bile thrown at this specific commandment. Why? Just because current Trek showrunners like to shit on it to rationalize why Starfleet bridge officers snarking at each other like catty spiteful teenagers is somehow good television? Without this specific commandment TNG wouldn't be the competence porn it was. I... really loved that about it and wished so much modern Trek shows could just go back to that formula. I suppose SNW does, mostly. I take that every day in order to avoid shallow soap opera drama. Well, Towards the end of his life he was acting and speaking like in some weird daze, as if he wasn't quite there (and I suppose his alcohol and drug problems were a large part of the problem). I like to picture him as some rambling stoner that everyone nodded at and then ignored at this stage.

I suppose it fits here, given that it's technically some kind of royalty thread, but... I'm kind of baffled about something I incidentally stumbled across yesterday. Is everyone close to the power in Britain related? So I was researching for a lesson about the English Revolution and somehow stumbled across a Sir Winston Churchill. In the 1650s. Made a bit of a double-take and it turns out it's truly an ancestor of the later Winston Churchill, with the latter being specifically named after him. Neat. But while scrolling through his Wikipedia page, I notice he had a granddaughter named Anne Churchill, who married a certain Charles Spencer. Spencer? It couldn't... then I look down his family true and it was. So Winston Churchill was Princess Diana's cousin of the 7th degree. Meanwhile Anne also had an aunt named Anabella Churchill who was a mistress to King James II., which doesn't amount to anything, given said revolution I was researching about, but still. This whole family tree looks like a damned pretzel. And now I want to play Crusader Kings again...