mayalaen

CW Death & Real Life Shit

Death doesn't usually bother me all that much. I believe that people just stop existing, and while it's hard for those left behind, the person who died is no longer suffering and nothing else bad will happen to them now.

The schiz probably helps with it too - my outlook on life and reality in general.

But sometimes things hit me weird, and this weekend I got hit.

I had a few very close friends growing up (I wasn't a super social person + I'm weird 😂), and I've kept in touch with several of them. A few of those were friends + fuckbuddies.

Cecil was one of them.

We stopped playing when he got married. Played after his divorce. Stopped playing again when he got married again. I kept in touch off and on over the years though.

Last weekend he died of complications related to Covid. His wife said he wasn't feeling THAT bad, and once he stopped testing positive, he went back to work. But then his heart and lungs just gave out.

The doctor listed the cause of death as exhaustion, but he was a fairly healthy guy who didn't let life's stresses get to him and wasn't overworked, so his wife and I are convinced that Covid beat the shit out of him and his body gave out.

His wife wants him listed as a Covid death and is pissed the doc wouldn't do that. We've complained to each other before about how dismissive everybody is about Covid.

Anyway, Cecil was there for me during a really REALLY shitty time in my life when I wasn't trusting anybody (not that it's easy for me to trust anyway) and my schiz was at its worst.

He's one of only two people I let dom me for several years because I couldn't let go with anybody else and wouldn't allow anybody else to get me into bondage I couldn't get myself out of. I've always mostly dommed because of this.

It's always the good people who die early and the total pieces of shit who live a long life.

Cecil wasn't perfect, but he left A LOT of family and friends behind who adored him.

He let me complain about my shitty family in my life, and he always joked about how he KNEW they were going to live long lives because they're so shitty. I would tell him he was going to die young because he was awesome. He had a dark sense of humor and thought that was hilarious.

It hit me that he left behind so many people who are really going to miss him.

And in a selfish way it hit me that the only two people I trusted to dom me when I was at my worst are both gone now. Cecil recently and Amanda a few years back.

My family pulled more stupid shit over the weekend that had me scrambling to fix things, so during the day I was distracted enough, but at night when nobody is bugging me and it's dark and quiet, it's getting to me.

One of those "feeling lonely when you're surrounded by people" types of thing when I'm usually not a lonely person, but it's probably just the concept that's making me feel that way. The reality is nothing's really changed.

Long post for a few mutuals who asked about this 🏴‍☠️

Netflix (according to the geeks on server forums -- so this could be off a bit) has individual servers that hold about 100TB of data each, and Netflix claims they have around 18,000 servers worldwide.

Netflix has about 3000 movies and 1800 TV shows available in the United States at any given time. It varies in other countries, but is similar.

This is my server below (pen for size comparison and purple sticky note covering the super bright blue light that bores into my brain)

It's got 5 drive bays, and right now I have 60TB of storage space in it (meaning it's just a little smaller than one of Netflix's servers), and only 37TB of which is currently used. I can easily expand with add-on bays once I fill up the 60TB.

I currently have 4470 movies and 862 TV series, all with closed captioning that I've curated and about 100 of the TV shows have bonus scenes and specials included.

My server cost me about $2700: $1200 for the 5-bay box and the rest was spent on hard drives over the course of 2 years -- 5 inside the server and 6 backup drives. I bought good drives when they were on sale.

I spent another $300 on a range extender for my house so mom and dad could watch in their bedrooms without interruption.

My home internet costs $50 a month and I'm able to serve friends and family in the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia. It's not always accessible (sorry Australia and your shitty internet), but it's up most of the time.

I never take movies/TV shows off of my server, and all the TV shows have their original DVD soundtracks, so nobody has to worry I'm going to remove their faves or ruin soundtracks.

I take requests from anyone, adding it when I find it with no judgement on content.

I don't charge anyone for using my server, and yet I'm paying less than I used to for internet and streaming services.

My payments for internet and streaming for my business and two family houses (Charlie's house and my house) used to be $900 A MONTH ($450 of it was the business internet because ISPs gouge businesses even though the internet usage at the shop is less than home).

Just before I quit Cox Internet, they were about to raise the cost and my new total would've been $1000 per month.

My monthly payments are now $220 for internet service and streaming services. So within just a few months, the server paid for itself.

I still have YouTube TV, Netflix x2 (one for each house), Hulu, and Discovery+.

I'm not saying the average person can set this up, but I want to make it clear that streaming services aren't the mysterious, unknowable magic that people think they are.

They're just servers (hard drives) with data on them and a good internet connection.

Anyone can set up a home server. You don't need a $1200 box like mine. Even an old computer/laptop or single hard drive will work.

A brand new 2TB good-quality hard drive that could hold about 1000 movies or 60-80 TV series would only cost $60 plus another $29 for a basic enclosure/case. (I bought mine from NewEgg for backups)

I use Plex as my media server program. It has a free version and a paid version. I bought the lifetime pass on sale for $90. It goes on sale 2-3 times a year. There are other programs out there too, including Kodi, which has a Netflix skin so it looks like you're using Netflix.

Plex and other programs like it already have a huge library of metadata, so I didn't have to create my own cover art or fill in any other information other than title & year for movies or title + season + episode number for TV shows.

Careful naming of files and sorting in properly-named folders is all you need to have this:

It took me about 3 months to download and organize most of the movies and TV shows in between working and taking care of my home/family. Now I update the server once a week and it takes about 2 hours a week to download/update new TV shows and movies.

I wasn't able to torrent when I had Cox Internet, but the new $50/month ISP doesn't give a shit. Even so, I use a VPN, which is $9 a month just in case they ever decide to get touchy about torrenting.

The server does regular maintenance on itself, and I have backups of everything.

I realize not everyone has the tech skills to set something like this up, but even if one tech person in the family or circle of friends has the ability, they could serve around 60 people.

The most I've had streaming at one time was 10 separate people watching different things, and my server handled it with no problem.

Others on the server forum claim they've maxed out around 25 people simultaneously watching, but 60 people is the number suggested because not everybody will watch at the same time.

Streaming, as it currently works, does NOT support anyone related to the creation of TV shows and movies.

Hopefully this will change, but even if it does, that doesn't change the fact that I can easily support creators myself by buying their DVDs, merch, going to cons, and donating to them or their projects directly.

Right now, pirating movies and TV shows doesn't hurt creators because streaming services and big studios are the main villains, and if all you did was donate $5 to your favorite TV show/movie, you'd be giving them more than if you streamed their content as many times as you wanted each month on a big streaming service.

I have movies and TV shows on my server that aren't even available from content creators anymore due to greedy CEOs and execs who dump their content for tax breaks.

If more people switched to using their own servers, MAYBE it would scare the greedy assholes into paying content creators what they deserve, but in the meantime it's a great way to enjoy content that was created to be shared and to support the creators.

It's a genuine question from an aromantic (i.e. me)

And please stay with me for a minute before you give me an automatic NO.

I don't think I've ever truly been in love, and I don't have romantic feelings myself. I'll perform romantic acts for partners to fulfill their needs, but that's it.

So lemme break this down.

The first stage of a budding romance borders on obsession yet it's called a "crush" like it's cute.

They'll screw with everyone around them and each other for no reason other than they're playing fun little courting games.

I realize that they probably don't even know what they're doing to other people, but that doesn't stop the damage.

Over the years they drag their children and grandchildren into the mess, and if the fire dies between them, they divorce and devastate everyone around them regardless of anyone but themselves and due to no fault on anyone else's part.

I'm not saying don't get a divorce if you're in a bad situation. I'm trying to understand all this shit.

The people surrounding lovers wave it off and say "ah it's just love" but like why does the love of two people have to slam a wrecking ball into entire groups of people?

Now I know movies aren't real life, but extremely romantic people LOVE romantic movies and watch them with hearteyes like this is #lifegoals

Top Romantic Movies of All Time (according to popularity)

House on Haunted Hill (grandma's favorite romance) 1959: Love interests fuck with EVERYONE around them, manipulating them and playing games with on-again-off-again disasters and leading woman even plans to marry another dude (who is made to look like the villain even though he's a decent yet uncool guy) before dumping him last minute for her sick obsession guy
The Notebook 2004: Two people who become obsessed with each other and fuck with EVERYONE around them and cause drama with "oh I can't be with them because ___" when the only thing that's stopping them is their own contrived reasons, manipulating and messing with friends, family (including kids/grandkids), healthcare workers, and the audience
Casablanca 1942: Saw it when I was little and don't remember much, but I remember being disgusted at their behavior and all for nothing in the end.
Pride & Prejudice 2005: Games?! Like constantly? Help?!
When Harry Met Sally 1989: They KNOW they're not compatible. THEY KNOW. But don't let that stop you from fucking with entire groups of people over YEARS until people can't even stand either of you anymore and then you just walk away like you're so noble to realize you're not compatible.
Titanic 1997: Seriously? Let's run around a ship playing tag and sneaking and tee-hee and screw over people who actually like you guys only to pull some epic stupid shit that literally gets people killed only to end on the oh-so-noble "I'm dying for her!!" trope when he didn't even need to and THEN cut to the fucking old bat that says it was all a lie anyway to screw with the audience's heads.
Romeo and Juliet: Do I need to explain?
Beauty and the Beast 1991: Be/stiality + coercion bordering on slavery?!
Brokeback Mountain 2005: This one kinda sorta gets a pass because they were living in a time/place they couldn't be out, but some of the people around them did nothing to deserve being treated like that.
A Star is Born (both versions): Screw with everybody's heads because it's fun and cute amiright? All just to get off on it.

Don't even get me started on Disney movies. It's like they TRY to teach kids this is good and normal.

Granted the average couple in love doesn't get people killed like it does in movies, but sometimes it does, and it ruins lives.

The collateral damage is INSANE.

I'm not just saying this because of all the collateral damage I get from my parents and other family members.

I see it in almost every relationship I've ever seen. It's what made me decide as a kid that I never wanted to get married because it looked like hell. Am I wrong?

Standing on the outside looking in, I can't see it as anything other than mental illness, but I'm open to other thoughts.

Give me something because how can this be loving? There's no compassion. No empathy. No sense of right and wrong.

Is this why asexuals can't even comprehend allos? I mean at least I've got a sex drive that means I'll put up with some shit just to get laid.

The older I get the more fucked up and twisted I realize "normal" people are.

Been dealing with my mom's eye thing for the last two weeks, and there's a good chance she's not gonna regain vision in that eye even once she has months of injections in the eye.

I've been taking her to docs and spending no less than 3 hours per visit because everybody is overbooked and that's in between doing shop stuff from about 3-5am in the morning until 5pm when I make dinner for these stupid fucks.

We're being super careful about masking and distancing and all that because mom's immune system is shot right now with the recent shit she's been through.

We've been leaving Roo with my dad and he watches her so she doesn't have to go in her cage. He's been doing great with that for several weeks.

Yesterday I took mom to a cardiologist to see if the eye thing might have been caused by something with her heart. We're sitting in the doc's office and our Ring cameras start going off.

I check and my dad has invited over several of his anti/va/xxer & anti/mask/er friends (my dad isn't either of those things but he has some friends like that)

he's maskless with them, and I have no idea where Roo is - he's got the garage doors and gate wide open (this man is NOT observant so he wouldn't notice her running away AT ALL).

He also missed the delivery truck coming to the front door with a $9000 shipment of products for the shop, so I have to send Charlie in to pick it up at the warehouse tomorrow. Hopefully it's still there and wasn't sent back to the manufacturer because the freight charges are $900 and nonrefundable.

So I'm freaking out the whole time we're in the doc's office and trying to listen to the doc at the same time to make sure the same thing that happened to one eye isn't gonna happen to her OTHER eye and what we can do about it.

We get back home and I'm shaky and freaked out and mom just goes to bed. Dad just goes on his merry way. Roo was fine BTW.

I still had to cook dinner, clean up the house, walk the dog, and do some late night laundry.

Mom was depressed and mopey all day today, and when I took Roo on a walk this evening, she and dad had a talk.

They do this weird game and dance with each other and I just stay out of those talks because I can't take it.

Anyway. Turns out he did it on purpose.

He's been feeling sorry for himself over a situation HE created for himself (namely that he wouldn't stop harassing me when I would take him dinner at night so I started leaving the plate just outside his room and WOE IS HE that his special dinners I make only for him because he doesn't like what we eat are two steps outside his room and so he has to get off his ass to get his dinner when he does absolutely NOTHING else around here)

so he decided to orchestrate this little thing that he knew we would see while we were at the doc's office.

I mean who does that? Who fucks with people like that?!

And after he did it my mom was all freaked out and depressed, but after they talked and played more of their games with each other, she feels really good, isn't depressed anymore, he's all up and happy, and

I'm just like... are people real?

Are humans fucking real?

I'M the schizophrenic.
I'M the psychopath with a dash of sociopath thrown in for good measure.
I'M the medicated one
And somehow I'm the least fucked up here because even if I thought of doing this to someone (because my brain never stops) I still would NEVER actually do it!

What the fuck is wrong with people?!

Now I can't sleep but both my parents are out like a light and content.

I swear when people ask me if anons/strangers on the net upset me with their hate and all the shit they pull it's like FUCK NO are you kidding they're nothing compared to my family.

And this thing that happened yesterday and today doesn't even rate a 5/10 on my family's fucked up shit scale.

But thanks to me being stressed, overworked, and not being able to sleep much in the last few weeks, this just pushed me over into feeling unreal, so thanks pops. I can feel the love.

My dad has this super condescending way of talking to people, and if you call him on it, he plays it off like aw naw he was just being cutesy but you KNOW it was meant to be insulting.

When I was a kid, I remember redoing my room. I was so proud of it. My mom helped and let me pick out a lot of stuff and we did a lot of stuff ourselves instead of just buying because we didn't have much money.

I wanted to show my dad (for some reason) and he came in and was like "aww the little hamster got new sawdust for her cage" and walked out.

I knew it was an insult at the time even though I was only 7, but I was also a really stubborn 7yo and I was like well hell yeah it's new sawdust and a new chewy toy and color-coordinated cardboard hangouts and...

So now when I see people post pictures of their rooms -- all proud of themselves and happy in their newly renovated spaces -- I can't help but think about them as a happy little hamster squeeing over how content and comfy their new space makes them.

I recently redid my room (and didn't show my dad btw) and there's so much less stuff and more blankets on the walls but with material covers on them so there's not as much of a chaotic feeling in the room (I have a bunch of hand-me-down blankets from people and none of them match).

Got rid of a bunch of clothes I don't wear anymore, so my closet is organized and only has a few things in it! I don't like having a lot of stuff -- I've always felt overwhelmed by STUFF.

My room is so quiet and calm and there's only a plain bed and a nightstand thingy and did I mention it's quiet in there?!

Happy hamster!!

Y’know that fun little game my dad has been playing for years -- the one where he tells everybody we’re mean to him and don’t feed him or we give him shitty food and we don’t let him leave the house ever or do anything he wants to do?

I’ve complained about it here before but if you missed it, it’s a thing he does.

And up until very recently it was apparently a fun game for him. We’ve tried to get him to stop over the years because it’s caused TONS of issues.

Two of his friends contacted us separately on two different occasions (they didn’t do it together) to try to get us to stop abusing him.

Another friend (who is on a fixed income and almost blind) sent him a care package of shirts and underwear IN HIS SIZE and the brand he likes when he told said friend that we refused to do his laundry -- we didn’t, my mom had just had a seizure and was down for 2 days.

I’ve actually worried that he’s going to get us in trouble with an adult protection agency because of the things he says.

Anyway he came to me and my mom today and asked how he could change his relationship with his best friend who lives in another state because “he’s hurting my feelings.”

When we got to the bottom of it, it’s because his buddy is a very negative person, and every time he talks to him he’s telling my dad he’s gotta get away from us because we’re horrible.

But that’s not what my dad wants to do because my dad KNOWS he’s got it good here.

He does almost NOTHING (literally taking out the garbage once a week is the only thing he does here) and we take care of everything and he gets a hot meal every day and anything else he asks for.

We do actually take him out and even encourage him to get out more and even gently pushed him into working on a motor again after years of self-imposed “I can’t do anything” attitude and he’s loving it.

But he actually said the words “well now it’s affecting me and I don’t like it anymore -- he hurt my feelings”

Sooooo it’s suddenly not fun anymore and so NOW he wants it to stop.

It didn’t matter when it was hurting everybody else. Nah, it’s fun and he doesn’t wanna stop. Oh but now that HE’S feeling a little something he doesn’t like, he wants to cut off all ties with his friend just to get it to stop.

Even though he’s fed on this attention from all his friends and his side of the family for DECADES.

I know he’s got the whole malignant narcissistic personality disorder thing going, and I’m learning better how to deal with it, but sometimes it still REALLY impresses me sometimes how horrible these people are.

And he’ll admit it right to your face like it’s not a horrible thing and then wait for us to feel bad for him and tell him how to fix it.

I left the room and let my mom deal with it. I don’t have the time to deal with it and I certainly don’t have any compassion left in me in regards to him.

He burned that away years ago.

The third and final story time to sum up the last few months!

This one isn’t so much my family as the main cause, but rather their reaction to what happened that’s made life.. interesting.

My psych doc started out as a regular doc and got into psych when she worked in a hospital with lots of behavioral health admissions (across the street from the state prison for the criminally insane).

She’s taken care of my whole family for like 15 years now. She’s got a very strong personality, and when we need something, she makes sure we get it.

She fought Phillips Respironics (the biggest manufacturer of CPAP and other respiratory therapy products in the world) bc they were going to make my mom wait for 2-3 years before replacing a CPAP machine that was leaking little pieces of rubber into the hose and going into patients’ lungs.

My pdoc got them to replace it within 3 weeks of us telling her they wanted us to wait.

And she’s done tons of stuff for us including helping to get a few of us on disability for mental issues even when none of us thought we were in need of it (haha yes we thought we were just normal enough to get by but apparently the government was like OH NO here have this disability please and don’t work for a company ever!)

She calls me a lot and we talk. She probably tells me way more than she should, but she knows I don’t spread stuff, and we kinda leaned on each other when it came to work and family and the medical system itself.

She would even talk about tough medical cases with me that they were having trouble solving and it was exciting to be involved in all that again. I helped a few people get treatment for things that I remembered from working all over the country but the docs where she worked didn’t know about. The way my brain links things and sees patterns definitely comes in handy with medical stuff.

Anyway, a few months ago she called me and was like “give me 3 weeks to get through what’s happening right now and then change your PCP to someone else.”

She didn’t explain, but I knew she was having trouble with the last few places she worked at. She made sure all our meds were refilled for three months, which was very cool of her, but it was weird to just hear nothing else from her!

Back when the pan/demic hit, she decided to stay home to work bc her mom has a bad immune system, and she’s been doing Co/vid test results and teledoc for 2 years. One year ago she started working at a Co/vid clinic.

And boy howdy were Co/vid clinics corrupt! Within weeks she was telling me so much shit it was blowing my mind.

All these places popped up at the beginning of the pan/demic and were milking the government for money while not doing 95% of the things they said they did and a lot of places were selling vac/cine cards to people who didn’t get vac/cinated.

The government wasn’t checking into it because they had enough going on, and all these corrupt business people got away with it for almost 3 years. They were taking government loans and aide too.

Until they started talking about dropping the federal emergency (it didn’t end until last month, but they were talking about it for a while).

And then the shit hit the fan.

Corrupt doctors and and business owners left in the middle of the night! Like seriously just abandoned these places over the course of about 2 weeks, taking everything of value and locking the doors.

They didn’t inform the employees, so the employees, non-corrupt docs, and nurses showed up the next morning to locked doors on these businesses with weeks of labor left unpaid.

My pdoc and a bunch of others got together, got a lawyer, who realized how big this was and got other lawyers involved, and this quickly became a country-wide case.

But then I didn’t hear from her for a few weeks.

And then came the call where she hurriedly said to change my PCP.

It’s been four months since then and none of us have been able to get a hold of her. Her website has been down ever since, her phone is being answered by someone new who has her number and doesn’t know her, and all the insurance companies say she just isn’t registered anymore.

So I don’t know if shit got really bad to the point where even the good guys went down or maybe she took a settlement and retired with the agreement that she not speak to anybody? Or maybe she actually was one of the corrupt ones? I just don’t know.

Suddenly the family was left without a doctor, but I wasn’t freaking out because I figured I’d just get me, my mom, and my dad to a new place and that’s that. A pain in the ass but doable.

That’s when the rest of my family called and was like HALP!!!

They had no idea what to do because my pdoc had taken care of everything for so long that they didn’t understand insurance and the medical system anymore, which I do.

So they all expected me to get everything of theirs changed and make them appointments and get them meds and...

I was like uhm no. You’re adults. I’m taking care of enough stuff. If you get stuck and need help I’ll answer questions, but you have to do this.

So for weeks they were running around like the sky was falling, but they got everything worked out eventually.

I’m starting to catch up on 3 years of missed doc and specialist appointments now with me and my parents, so that’s a relief.

But yeah that federal emergency thing dropping last month means a lot of those places are being investigated now, but I have no idea how many they’ll catch given the fact that everybody who saw the axe coming took off.

Current Mood: relieved

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mayalaen

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Walking Corpse

Entries tagged with long post

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my server vs netflix

is romance mental illness?

feeling unreal - i'm venting

happy hamster!

it's not fun anymore :(

Saturday Story Time #3

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January 2025

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