Something Awful and Friends - The roller-coaster train-wreck embarrassing downfall of a Web 1.0 giant and its tick offspring like from Cloverfield

  • 🏰 The Fediverse is up. If you know, you know.
  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account
Shovel Mick said:
It’s always kinda funny to see goons living in objectively horrible conditions lacking everything needed to sustain a normal life EXCEPT a computer and internet access.
Click to expand...

Remember Bungmonkey?
6B1iK.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I never read the fitness threads on SA because goons are the last people I'd look to for health advice.
 
northstar747 said:
So reading the DIY thread here a goon who honestly has it rough and i wish more goons could know his hardships


I ll spoiler it for you.

warning wall of text about living in trailers in in Alaska

So I have to tell you about the previous two three four homes I had (Jesus Christ they were all terrible), and my current one. I live in the backwoods of Alaska (Although anyone who actually lives in the backwoods would dispute my claim), close enough to regularly see Goose Creek Tower, which is... a whole other topic of discussion. I have lived in five different houses on three different lots, each of which was varying degrees of crappy. I have no photos of any of these, for reasons which shall become apparent. Disclaimer: I am aware that many of the situations, materials, and procedures detailed in this post were at best a waste of time and money and at worst actively harmful to the structure and occupants. I present these anecdotes as entertainment and ask you not to judge me too harshly.

Home One: The Old Trailer
My parents lived in Anchorage in the late 70s until the early 80s, after I was born. The trailer park they lived in shut down as part of the gentrification of the surrounding neighborhood, so they set about looking for new property, eventually taking advantage of a crash in property values (When a plan to move the state capitol to this area fell through) to snag an acre of land for pretty dang cheap. The lot had been a gravel pit used for surfacing the surrounding roads, although it had simply been a hill cut down to the depth of the roadway instead of being an actual huge hole in the ground. They hauled the trailer out from Anchorage, let a friend pile his junk on the lot (Possibly as payment for hauling the trailer), and set up. The lot had (and continues to have) no utilities, not even a well, so we lived by hauling water from a nearby spring, and with electricity eventually provided by a generator and car batteries. Light was provided at first by handmade candles made from ski wax, then propane lanterns, then finally 12-volt wiring and bulbs running off a pair of car batteries. For most of my childhood, light switches were an interesting toy that made neat sounds as I flipped them. This did lead to occasional trouble when I was somewhere where light switches actually did something.

The trailer itself was from the 60s or 70s, used as a doghouse by the previous owners, and with one corner knocked outward from a heavy impact. When it was in place out here, my father knocked the corner back into place with a sledgehammer, clad and skirted it in scrap plywood, insulated it with a variety of fiberglass, styrofoam, and expanding foam, and added a second (technically third) roof over half of it. This roof was open at one end and let a lot of critters in, mostly feral cats. As a child I was adept at wriggling into the space between the roofs (and under the house, and into various voids in the junkpile) and catching litters of kittens to hand-tame and sell at local festivals. Even with the three layers of roof, it leaked. We solved this by hanging small buckets from the ceiling with screw hooks. My father also constructed, using more scrap lumber including a large real estate sign, an addition which we called the mud room, but it possibly had more square footage than the actual trailer and housed a loft bed, half the library, and the woodstove we used to heat the place. In winter we rarely left this room except to cook. This room also leaked until Dad built a steeper pitched roof over it.

The propane situation was really the only other notable crap about the place. While we did have hundred-pound tanks outside, they were only plumbed to the kitchen range, the mud room light, and a light in my bedroom at the back of the trailer. In the kitchen and living room, we had Coleman camping lanterns, hooked to 25-pound propane tanks. The tank in the kitchen was two or three feet from the range. Please remember this Propane Fact for later in the post. It will get worse. Honestly I'm surprised the place didn't burn down, between those propane tanks, a possibly cavalier attitude towards wiring the 12-volt electrics, and a young, budding pyromaniac (me).

Home Two: Dad's Cabin
In the late 80s/early 90s, my mother remarried. My father moved about a mile away into a one-room-with-loft log cabin, and I went with him. The place was very badly chinked, and I could look out of cracks and holes to see daylight and watch birds. The roof was also uninsulated. Naturally, this was not the best situation for heat retention in an Alaska winter. It also had no utilities or well, and not even a generator to charge the car battery (I think Dad just borrowed one from a friend occasionally). Except for that and a ladder for loft access that was nearly vertical, the place was mostly unremarkable, although some kid with more enthusiasm than skill (
emot-v.gif
) did draw this stupid mural on a bookshelf that you could see immediately when you came in the door. In my early teens I moved into a truckbed camper shell that was set up in the yard, until my father got drunk and abusive and I moved back in with my mother and stepfather. My father continued to live there, his alcoholism causing the place to deteriorate and his friends and family to abandon him, until a cigarette butt burnt the place down. He survived uninjured. In contrast to the old trailer, I'm surprised it took that long to burn down, because the last few times we went to check on him, he was using the burners on his range to heat the place, since his woodstove was surrounded with bags of trash and piles of vodka bottles.

Home Three: Mark's Place
We lived in the old trailer for a while, my stepfather buying a second trailer for himself to live and get drunk in on our property. In the mid-late 90s, a neighbor (named Mark, if that wasn't about to become obvious) semi-hired us to house sit his pets and take care of his place, so my mother moved over there, my stepfather (After a short period of living with us at Mark's) moved into a place known locally as Felony Flats, and I ostensibly lived in the old trailer, but mostly just to maintain it before I'd head across the highway to luxuriate in actual electric power at Mark's place, and eventually I just left the old trailer in neglect and moved into Mark's full-time. This place had a well, but an outhouse pit had been dug too close to it, and the area had two aquifers and the well only went down to the first, rust-laden one instead of the deeper, potable level. We boiled the water and only used it for gardening and dishes (A garden hose was used for both purposes, running through the kitchen window when needed). Eventually heavy snow load on the plywood-and-breeze-block well shelter snapped off some valves and we went back to using hauled spring water for all purposes. Mark's trailer was from the 70s, and had a modest shed positioned nearby. The roof of the shed was gabled, and one side was positioned such that snow sliding off the roof would hit the door of the trailer dead on. As the door opened inward (Which I later learned was a necessity in snow country), the latch strike plate and part of the doorframe had just been ripped right off the first time that happened. This was fixed by the installation of what looked like a piece of decorative molding to form an improvised strike plate, until some asshole teenager (
emot-v.gif
) used a cooler as a battering ram when bringing the groceries in. The door never latched after that, which created an amusing anecdote when I had a friend over to stay the night, he went out to use the outhouse, then woke me up by knocking on the window to say the door was locked. The doorknob was locked, but the door could still be pushed open.

The trailer had a host of issues. The wiring was aluminum and in bad shape, so we tended to power things with chains of extension cords and multiplugs from the nearest usable outlet, eventually getting a local electrician to install romex and boxed outlets to our actual living areas. Even then, my bedroom was powered by an extension cord running from the kitchen. And that room shared a wall with the kitchen, in retrospect we could have just drilled a hole. Mark had been using the place as a grow op (A process my mother continued), the heat and moisture meant good times for fungus. There was mold/mildew two feet up the wall of the room that became my bedroom. We covered it up with contact paper. The furnace used oil, which caused horrible smells whenever it ran, and it leaked, which rotted out the floorboards in front of it. We covered the rotted section with plywood and a throw rug, stopped using the furnace and covered the heat registers, and in winter sealed off the back of the house with a curtain and used the woodstove to heat the front. Ordinarily I'd say a trailer having a woodstove along with a furnace was an affectation, but it served our purposes well. We had a small electrical fire in the bathroom and didn't thoroughly clean up after it, so for the rest of our habitance there we had charred walls and counter and dry-chemical fire extinguisher residue around the sink. Which I'll remind you had no water hookup, which was just as well, because the toilet had frozen, shattered, and been tossed out the back door before we'd even got there. The actual plumbing was mostly intact, but just emptied out into the backyard from underneath the end of the trailer, drainpipe didn't even extend beyond the wall. I'm not sure if this is better or worse than my friend's place, who had the graywater from their kitchen sink shoot out a two-inch-long pipe sticking out of the wall into what I can only describe as a small decorative wetland that butted right up against the wall of their house. It was mildly entertaining while we were playing in the yard, but there's a reason "graywater feature" isn't included in realtor listings.

But I digress, mainly to avoid discussing Mark's roof. The roof had apparently been a nice, snow-appropriate curved roof sometime in the 70s. Heavy snow load and infrequent care had caused many of the roof members to crack and/or rot. When we got to it, the roof was mostly flat with some weird ribs sticking up and a few really concerning dips. We did what we could to keep the snow off, but the poor insulation worked against us by melting the snow, which would refreeze in low spots and at the edges, resulting in inch-thick ice running two feet from the edge. And as we discovered trying to deal with that, it was incredibly easy to knock holes in the sheet metal roofing. The upshot was that every room leaked, often through the ceiling fixtures. We did set up an ingenious gutter system to channel the bathroom leak into the hole in the floor where the toilet had been mounted, but otherwise we just learned to set dishpans and buckets up in a secure manner, and empty them regularly. Of course, that was just managing symptoms. How could we actually mitigate these leaks? The answer was tarps. And campaign signs. Every other year, usually as the autumn rains were beginning because we were bad at planning, we'd go up on the roof, make patches out of plastic campaign signs, plastic sheeting, and duct tape to cover the areas that had been leaking badly, then cover the whole shebang with two large woven plastic tarps, the edges and vent holes stuck down with rubber mastic, and the sides hanging off the roof tied to nails. Unsurprisingly, this did little to actually stop the leaks. We eventually had over half a dozen layers of tarps on the roof, but the water situation still got so bad that the living room ceiling bowed downward about a foot and a lake formed (But hey, the lake meant that the water wasn't all coming through!). We actually propped it up with a beam and some plywood to spread the load, and I'd thought about posting here to try and get some better ideas. Every time I brought up the need to do something a little more permanent (My main suggestion was essentially hiring someone to build a roof on columns over the entire trailer, very proper, concrete footers and trusses and everything), my mother would remind me we didn't actually own the land and so couldn't legally make changes to it. Mark had given us the deed to the trailer when he came back to pick up his dog, but the land was still in his name (Even though we had gotten the state to recognize that we could pay taxes on it. Funny how they're willing to be accommodating if you want to give them money), and with him being either in jail in Florida or on the run in Mexico, we'd be just as likely to get his next of kin who'd be well within their rights to say "Hey, we want that land now, get off it."

Interdomicium (? I only have a modest grasp of Latin)
We lived at Mark's place from before the turn of the millennium until August 17th, 2019. That was when the McKinley Fire started. We got out with a van full of essentials and most (
frown.gif
) of our pets, but the fire burnt both Mark's place and the old trailer to the ground, which is why I have no photos of them. Have you ever tried to sleep on a cot, on an indoor soccer pitch, with 30 other evacuees in varying states of mental trauma? Do not recommend. We bounced around between evacuation shelters, spending a few nights in the van before getting put up in a local rental cabin gratis for a few days, then actually renting a room in another lodging for a week.

Home Four: The Mold Trailer
Eventually the great outpouring of support and charity in the wake of the fire got to us, and we got an offer from someone who had an old trailer home just sitting around. We could have it for the cost of moving it up here. Spoiler: We overpaid. The guy that had it spent a little time prepping it to move, but still had some work to be done on it once it got here. This trailer was from the early 60s. We don't know exactly when, the only date on it was an inspection tag on the breaker box saying 1964. We had it hauled in and placed on the lot the old trailer had occupied (Since, of course, we didn't own Mark's lot). Not to put too fine a point on it, the trailer was a piece of shit. The guy that gave it to us said he'd cleared out some moldy carpet. I got to watch over the winter as mold/mildew grew up the walls to a height of two feet and infilitrated every drawer (We lost a few socks and some dried beans). He said he was going to replace a broken window. He got as far as leaving us with a sheet of plywood over a gaping hole in the wall, which he did actually fill with insulation and cover with plastic sheeting before leaving for the winter, but we did eventually have to cover it with blankets too to keep it from sucking all the heat out of the room. He did also leave us the window he intended to install, which we used for our later cabin. He said he was working on getting the furnace converted to propane. Turns out, you can't get the parts to fix a fucking early 60s furnace, much less convert it to propane, and we were stuck using a ventless propane heater. But we weren't in danger of suffocating, because none of the windows closed completely! We knew we weren't in danger, because we'd had a CO detector donated, and it went off when the guy absent-mindedly left the generator he gave us up against the trailer with the exhaust pointing directly underneath! At least I hope it was absent-minded, I texted him about it after I fixed it and his reply was more "Oops, my bad" than "Oh shit, I nearly killed you."

The roof leaked, because why would it not, and somewhere in the chain of previous ownership the wall between the main room and one of the small bedrooms had been removed entirely, which didn't look load-bearing based on the appearance of the floor and ceiling, but couldn't have been good for structural integrity anyway. The bathroom was mostly rotted floor and hole, the guy patched it with one sheet of plywood. The shower door was fastened to the shower/tub surround with random 2x4s and caulk. And one of the kitchen walls was painted the most horrific shade of pea-soup green. The guy replaced the front door with an interior door, which swelled up with the moisture and eventually would not close. The guy donated a range and hardware that could be frankensteined together to hook it to a tank, but the first leak test revealed a leak inside the range, and after much searching it was discovered the parts for that model range were no longer available, so we cooked on a Coleman camp stove. Indoors. It was fine, the range vent was right next to it and only covered with an ill-fitting sheet of scrap metal.

Also, did you know that propane gels in small tanks at subzero temperatures? I didn't! Cue a -20 cold snap (That's in America units, like -30 in logicalville), waking to find none of our propane would flow, and having to huddle around a kerosene heater as neighbors scrambled to get us a warm place to stay. We went back after a day (Mostly driven by the cats, we'd been put up at the rental cabin again and they didn't allow pets. So we could only have them in there in the carrier, and they just cried and cried all night) and worked out a system. I set up three propane tanks inside: One by the door and two about three feet away from the open-flame heater. When the tank outside froze, the noise of the heater going out or drop in temperature would wake my mother (We later acquired a fridge thermometer with an alarm to do this), who would wake me, and I would carry the warmest tank outside, swap tanks, bring the frozen one in, place it by the door, and move the tank that had been by the door over to the heater to continue warming up. Then I'd go back to bed and sleep for two or three hours until it happened again.

Home Five: Tiny House
Everyone that saw that trailer told us "We're not gonna let you stay here any longer than absolutely necessary." Early in September, we were asked if we'd like to have a cabin built, which of course we said yes. It took two months to get the builder sorted out, and as the first serious snowfall was coming down we signed a contract and handed over a check for $4500 for materials. The recovery group would handle labor and provide either fund-matching or just a set amount for other fixtures. Once they were ready to get the materials out, there was a foot of snow on the ground and they had to get a guy out with a bulldozer to clear the area.

So you can already tell something's gonna be fucky with this place because they're building on snow. Then the builder showed up and started working out what could be built for 4500 dollarydoos. Interior structure was going to be to our specifications, but the building was going to be 12 x 25', shed roofed (I knew that style as "half gable" from the Sims and maybe it's just a matter of pitch?), framed with 2x6s and mounted on a pair of 4x4 skids. We talked it over with him and did some planning for how we wanted our windows and interior walls, and he got to work. He and his partner seemed to do good work, I didn't notice any major defects in the framing. He got the exterior walls and roof up in subzero weather, only stopping work when the compressor for the nailgun started developing its own weather sytem.

At this point it all goes pear-shaped. Having volunteered to build this house especially for us on a rush schedule through the winter, the builder proceeded to demonstrate his complete ignorance of the definition of "volunteer" and complain that he wasn't getting paid. To us, and to the recovery group, who eventually decided to pay him. He proceeded to complain further about lack of pay, and the group just handed him some more money. He did not return to work. This was completely unprecedented behavior, the builder had been well-regarded with a solid reputation, if a bit bad with investments. His partner did show up again to put insulation between the studs and finish framing the windows.

So our new cabin languished until spring, as the one dude on the recovery group that was trying to light fires and kick asses tried putting together volunteer teams to finish the cabin and get us out of this drafty, leaky mold farm. Then COVID hit, and it became even harder to get someone willing to go out and maybe come into contact with another human being, even up here. Eventually enough people came around in dribs and drabs to get the windows installed (Which had not initially been framed for the windows we had available) and interior panels on (Insulation needed to be added as well). The initial builder had left the roof partially unfinished, since the roof metal had been damaged in transit, and we were living in the cabin for a while before a crew cut usable sections off the damaged metal and cobbled together the remainder of the roof. So that's something to watch. The interior walls are OSB with a single coat of off-white paint, lotsa little voids. The OSB sheets are also all anywhere from a millimeter to half an inch off flush (The half-inch gap is at least filled with caulk). It was also still sitting on the skids on bare ground. A porch got installed (Though not attached to the house) before we got a crew out to jack up the house and put pier blocks under it.

The electric system is a bit wonky. We're running a solar panel setup, which has the batteries powering an inverter, some LED lights, a refrigerator, and a porch light. The porch light is a motion-sensing yard light, which may be fine if we ever need to come home at night, but absolutely useless for doing any outside work like, say, fueling the generator (I have discovered that twerking alone will not trigger the motion detector, and more vigorous dance moves risk spilling gas). The generator hooks into a completely distinct set of cables and outlets that culminates at a charger for the 12v batteries. There's no way to have the inverter power the AC outlets unless I cobble together a male-male cord (Which I know better than to try, and honestly never even thought was a possibility until I saw it in this thread. I thought electricity had directionality). It works out, because the AC outlets power the microwave (Too much wattage for the inverter) and electric ignition on the range.

Speaking of the range, remember that Propane Fact from earlier? Before we got the house plumbed for propane, the tank for the range was sitting right next to it. We also had a mounted vented heater which we had trouble getting started once fall arrived (Faulty piezo? Clogged jet? Took the front panel off and found no user-serviceable parts and not even a backup hole to shove a lit stick through), so for a while we were using the same ventless heater we had in the mold trailer, with the tank for it six feet away under a table. Everyone who saw that setup told us it was dangerous. We know it's dangerous, you weenie non fire likers, we'd prefer not freezing to death. We have the place plumbed properly now, with 3/4" black iron pipe that should be capable of maintaining usable pressure at 30 below (I don't understand the physics of it, but those more knowledgeable than I say it'll work). We also have a pickle barrel tank, which is a lot better than having to swap 25-pounders every few days at best and every 2 hours at worst.

So, by obvious comparison, this place is miles better than any place I've lived previously. Mostly because it doesn't leak (yet). My mother watched a few episodes of a tiny house show and commented that what they were showing off were at least twice the size of our place. I do have a few questions regarding DIY projects I have planned or desired, as well as a tale of building inadvisable sheds, but those can wait for another post.

His follow up explaining his situation

Most of the answers to these and questions like them can be summed up with "A long chain of bad decisions and inertia." Which would make a good thread title.

So first things first, I have no work. I was tempted to bullshit and say I have occasional gig money as a freelance writer, but no, I don't even have that because my last gig fucking ghosted me and soured me on the concept. At my most cynical I insist I have no marketable skills. The job I feel most suited for is "ideas guy," which generally requires more people skills and/or less ethics than I have. I have a high school education, a broad array of very generalist knowledge (My most focused topic is feline behavioral psychology), an immense creative drive, good crisis response, and weak noodly muscles. And that creative drive is almost entirely due to unmedicated ADHD, so if I medicate I gain the ability to do basic tasks, but lose most of my self. And more weight than is healthy, going by the last time I medicated.

There are three things keeping me in Alaska: Breathtaking natural beauty (Admittedly much diminished locally because we had a fucking forest fire), the fact that we actually own this land with no mortgages or loans, and my mother. She's past 75 (And I, her youngest child, am approaching 40), and her medical issues required my care while I was still in high school and have only worsened since then. We're living on her Social Security and a few other government support programs. I am absolutely terrified for my future after she dies. There's a minor fourth thing keeping me here with the Permanent Fund Dividend, they are literally paying me to live here. A job, any job, would provide more money, though.

There's internet because there are phone lines. Phone service up here was considered vital, and the phone company had government subsidies to wire up practically everyone. There's no power because there's no poles in the vicinity. We looked into getting hooked up after the fire, but the power company wanted 25 fucking thousand to install new poles. This was after admitting fault in the wildfire and pledging to restore power to those affected, so if I ever want to make myself angry I just have a good think on that. And municipal water and sewage only happens in, you know, municipalities.

TooMuchAbstraction has the right of it for why we don't leave, though. While living here sucks, moving would absolutely wipe out our savings and there's no guarantee we'd end up in better living conditions. I mean, it would be difficult to wind up in worse, but my mother spent some time living in a converted chicken coop. There's room to go downhill. And environment is a big part of it, we'd need to be somewhere out of town, where the smog wouldn't aggravate her emphysema. Before you ask, yes, cold air does aggravate emphysema, she doesn't go out much in winter.

To keep this post from just being disaster tourism (Be honest, I know some of you do want to help and I appreciate that, but we're goons, there's a sick fascination in watching someone's life trainwreck in slow motion), DIY questions.
-We don't have a vent for the range. While it's not essential, I would like to limit the amount of flying grease coating everything in our one-room hovel. Is there a decently strong extractor fan, that can seal shut to limit the heat loss from a big hole in the wall, that runs on batteries? I'm thinking 9-volts, because line loss in the 12v system was apparently so high that the electrician couldn't actually run a light over the range. One that just plugs in would work as well, although that would mean we could only use it while the generator was running.
-I know propane water heaters exist, but I assume none of them are robust enough to survive well outside in subzero winters. If, heaven forbid, you had the task of designing a water system for this cabin, would you attempt to add a water heater? Would a water system even be a good idea, with all the piping external and no consistent power for heat wrap? We've hauled water in jugs and heated it atop the stove for over three decades (At Mark's and the old trailer, we had pots full of water atop the woodstove, gave us hot water on demand and helped with the dry winter air), doing it from a hand pump in the yard would still be an upgrade. Mind you, I would not be DIYing the well itself (Unfortunate, means we lose out on the possibility to make goon-in-a-well jokes and post pictures of me standing vacantly in a wet hole while a shed toots in the background), there's big high-tech machines and trained operators to do that for us.
-I want to disable the motion detector on the yard light so when I flip the switch it turns on and stays on. I did get a look at the controls on the sensor, but it looked like those just affected range, time, and sensitivity, no discreet positions labeled "off." If it came with documentation and the electrician left them here, I could look through that and maybe see if there's a way to set it properly, but failing that I'm probably going to need to go up a ladder with a screwdriver and some wire tools. I haven't done a whole lot of electrical work before (My previous experience was limited to an electronics science experiment kit), but could it be as simple as cutting and splicing a few wires together? I'm always a little antsy making changes to the only instance of a thing we have, but the light's not terribly useful in its current condition, so if I fuck it up there's no great loss.

None of those are winter projects, though.

goons goons never change
Click to expand...
So did he link a GFM? I just got the “leading up to a GFM” post the entire time in that thread.

It’s hard to believe a guy who claims to have only had electricity via car batteries until recently somehow also has a working computer with internet access. Having a phone line is very different from having a cable/DSL line. I still have relatives in a rural region, in the domestic 48, very near towns of thousands who only were able to get off of expensive satellite internet in the past few years. Is he using a 38k phone modem like goons did 20 years ago?

I only buy about half the story. The rest I think he’s taking from crazy uncles living rough and other people he’s known in Alaska.

When someone said they gave him credit for “taking care of his family” I thought I’d get to the part where he was struggling in his own shitty house with a wife and some kids. Nope. He’s just lived in poverty leeching off his mom’s SS and whatever the govt hands out for his entire adult life.

His excuse for not moving off some desolate piece of land with a shack lacking all fundamental utilities is beautiful scenery and it would “wipe out our savings.” Huh? First, savings are for getting you out of awful situations and two from his description the savings must be a few hundred bucks if they had to have a charity pay for their new shack. If they are so broke they live like live in utter poverty and desolation how do they have “savings”?

Sounds like his biggest worry is mom dying and losing her social security income and not getting his free govt money for living in in a frozen wilderness. He’s just living in a shitty remote location instead of a warm basement in Wisconsin.

I still only buy about 30% of his take of woe and think this is just another goon charity money grift.

Read about the Russians who live along Kolyma Highway in Siberia if you want some crazy hard asses living in the coldest place on earth. I can at least respect them for being hardcore motherfuckers living rough as fuck.
 
Last edited:
MirnaMinkoff said:
Read about the Russians who live along Kolyma Highway in Siberia if you want some crazy hard asses living in the coldest place on earth. I can at least respect them for being hardcore motherfuckers living rough as fuck.
Click to expand...
Except the Russians, and most people I know who live in Alaska, work when they can to improve the situation. Even if it's going to the fucking landfill and finding scraps of wood to repair their drunk-shack with, or digging into the frozen ground to make underground rooms to cook meth and brew alcohol in car radiators.

It struck me that it seemed like he never did anything to improve on any of it. No stealing lumber like a Native, no raiding construction sites like a junkie. Just going "Eh, what can you do" and then pulling a Ned Flander's Parents with "We've tried nothing at all and now we're out of ideas."

I've seen meth'd out alkies who at least climb on the roof and layer another couple tarps up during the summer and put stolen plywood on it to try to fashion a better roof. I've seen rez drunks who at least try to make sure the roof doesn't leak too bad while they were sober or just buzzed.

Eh, probably just reading too much into it.
 
Jet Fuel Johnny said:
Except the Russians, and most people I know who live in Alaska, work when they can to improve the situation. Even if it's going to the fucking landfill and finding scraps of wood to repair their drunk-shack with, or digging into the frozen ground to make underground rooms to cook meth and brew alcohol in car radiators.

It struck me that it seemed like he never did anything to improve on any of it. No stealing lumber like a Native, no raiding construction sites like a junkie. Just going "Eh, what can you do" and then pulling a Ned Flander's Parents with "We've tried nothing at all and now we're out of ideas."

I've seen meth'd out alkies who at least climb on the roof and layer another couple tarps up during the summer and put stolen plywood on it to try to fashion a better roof. I've seen rez drunks who at least try to make sure the roof doesn't leak too bad while they were sober or just buzzed.

Eh, probably just reading too much into it.
Click to expand...
It was odd to me too. Everyone I’ve ever known who lived out in the sticks hustles and (when sober) tend to work like beavers on their land and home. This is particularly true in cold weather regions where preparing for winter is a big fucking deal. Work all summer to survive the winter.

His family sounds like the laziest white people in Alaska. Like they are in a shitty situation, barely scrapping by, and someone other than them should fix it.

I know a guy who has almost built an entire house by himself in five years on land he owned out in the sticks. How has this guy made it to forty and not managed to even marginally improve his living standard? He couldn’t even bother to move out of the shitholes his parents subsist in.

I kept expecting to get to the point where the writer left his crappy parents’ nasty homes. He struggled and had some bad luck building his own home in the wilderness after a shitty childhood and little resources. Nope, never even tried.

Most goons have a parental basement with all the creature comforts, but obviously they will stay even if the parental “basement” is freezing cold with a bucket to shit in. It’s some extreme shit just to avoid minimal adult responsibility and a job.

He and his family sound like incredible dumbfucks with the foresight and long term planning capabilities of gnats.
 
MirnaMinkoff said:
It was odd to me too. Everyone I’ve ever known who lived out in the sticks hustles and (when sober) tend to work like beavers on their land and home. This is particularly true in cold weather regions where preparing for winter is a big fucking deal. Work all summer to survive the winter.

His family sounds like the laziest white people in Alaska. Like they are in a shitty situation, barely scrapping by, and someone other than them should fix it.

I know a guy who has almost built an entire house by himself in five years on land he owned out in the sticks. How has this guy made it to forty and not managed to even marginally improve his living standard? He couldn’t even bother to move out of the shitholes his parents subsist in.

I kept expecting to get to the point where the writer left his crappy parents’ nasty homes. He struggled and had some bad luck building his own home in the wilderness after a shitty childhood and little resources. Nope, never even tried.

Most goons have a parental basement with all the creature comforts, but obviously they will stay even if the parental “basement” is freezing cold with a bucket to shit in. It’s some extreme shit just to avoid minimal adult responsibility and a job.

He and his family sound like incredible dumbfucks with the foresight and long term planning capabilities of gnats.
Click to expand...

No if you check is post history he s pretty normal in terms of goons.

Remember that troon barney who is basically a fail son working for daddy? Or KM a well off negress living in the suburbs getting a gaming pc for video editing.

This dude is pushing 40 and while I never lived in such poverty I remember my grandparents talking about it. There are trailer parks in florida that dont have pumbing. It could just be its the life he knows. If you grow up hailing water and craping in a out house, it can seem pretty normal.

Also he mentions and its true the phone company has a mandate to provide services to rual areas and if you read the DIY thread he explains that, also other mentions his hustle selling cats and finally other posters talk about how rual alasaka can get.

He s on SA and goonyness is in his DNA he has a tug boat of his own.

But where I will defend the dude is this. You have man children goons who cry and whine about everything but they would fucking die living the way this guy does.
 
northstar747 said:
No if you check is post history he s pretty normal in terms of goons.

Remember that troon barney who is basically a fail son working for daddy? Or KM a well off negress living in the suburbs getting a gaming pc for video editing.

This dude is pushing 40 and while I never lived in such poverty I remember my grandparents talking about it. There are trailer parks in florida that dont have pumbing. It could just be its the life he knows. If you grow up hailing water and craping in a out house, it can seem pretty normal.

Also he mentions and its true the phone company has a mandate to provide services to rual areas and if you read the DIY thread he explains that, also other mentions his hustle selling cats and finally other posters talk about how rual alasaka can get.

He s on SA and goonyness is in his DNA he has a tug boat of his own.

But where I will defend the dude is this. You have man children goons who cry and whine about everything but they would fucking die living the way this guy does.
Click to expand...
Up to you if believe every word of his hardship tale and what did he call it, disaster tourism? As if living in a shitty house in Alaska by choice is the same as Haiti after a hurricane or India some shit.

I understand phone lines installations were subsidized by the state, same in the rural areas I mentioned, but DSL/internet service was not part of that until maybe the last few years with some new federal grants that were made available.

He literally said his most focused area of “study” is “feline behavioral psychology” aka hanging out with his cat. I’m sure a cat psychologist is in big demand Alaska. Call me crazy but maybe learning/studying a trade like woodworking or plumbing or agriculture would have been more apt for bumfuck Alaska than observing his pet cats and watching YT for a decade...or “gig writing”

I can’t imagine selling cats is much of a “hustle” given they are given away for free everywhere during kitten season.

He’s doing the absolutely bare minimum to survive, but it just happens to be more than a typical goon because he lives in mom’s shack in AK not mom’s house in Des Moines.

It’s the not improving circumstances and having zero ambition at 40 that makes him a tried and true goon.
 
Can anyone tell me if I am making this up or not?

I remember reading something (I think on Something Awful), about a tranny dude who wanted to experience menstration, so they would stick something sharp up their ass every month or something to make their ass bleed, and then stick a tampon in their butt.

Does anyone remember this? Bonus points if anyone has the post saved
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom