i didn't get as much done as i wanted last night before i fell asleep, but i did get one of those cube shelves put together, and i think it should be sturdy enough for textbooks (which is what i bought it for), so long as it stays in place. it's pretty solid. i also got another row of cardboard up on the ceiling, enough that i'll be ready to put the first row of aluminum up, as soon as i'm done recovering some corrupted video files and make a short video about it. i had to put together the cube shelves before i could get the cardboard up because i had to use the box from the shelves to get a hole around the light fixture.

i had a food processor and a titanium cutting board delivered the other day, and the food processor is absolutely vicious. it's for garlic mostly, as well as dill and broccoli and other things i want cut very closely. it just destroys it. my old plastic cutting board is smelly and impossible to clean. the metal board wipes right down. that's some more plastic out of here.

i have some rechargeable lithium nine volt batteries coming tomorrow because my landlord isn't responding to requests to replace the battery in the fire alarm. it's his responsibility. while this is negligence, and i'm taking note of it if i need to bring it up, it's not worth it to me. if i get a couple of rechargeables, i have them if i need them. i don't mind paying for that, as i can use them for guitar effects or whatever else. it is useful to have extra nine volts and these are rechargeable for thousands of charges so now i'll always have some. he is paying electricity, anyways. problem solved, although he'll need to note that i'm taking it with me in the end. i also have some concrete on order to fix the holes i'm concerned about. if i actually do that, and have to send him the costs for fixing it, the only remaining serious issue is going to be fixing a door. i'm not going to fix that door myself; if i have to do it, i'm going to hire somebody, and if i have to hire somebody i'm going to need to send him the bill. the door must be fixed. the problem is that the manager here is a massive loser that wants to maintain this property as a crack house rather than fix it. i don't have patience for that, but i don't want to fight with him, so i'm doing it myself, but i also want to avoid conflict, so i'm leaving fixing this door to the very end when everything else is done. i am within my rights to fix things myself if he won't fix it, and he'll have to pay for it if i have to hire somebody. as it is, i'm just asking for a refund on materials.

when my cdb comes in tomorrow, i'm going to need to order some caulk so i can clean and seal up the front of the apartment, which is where i'm moving all of the shelving for books and cds. once it's clean in there, i can move the shelving in, which will open up the studio part of the apartment to move my studio furniture and equipment into. further, once the shelving is in place, i can take all of the books and cds off the floor and put them on the shelves, which will open up a lot more space. there's hundreds of books and hundreds of cds in piles of large boxes. in fact, one of the things i like about this place is that i have a lot of shelving options in multiple parts of the apartment, which i'm going to maximize.

so, i'm trying to avoid getting into a fight about fixing the door, and about fixing the holes, and about the batteries and whatnot. i'm looking for less combative approaches. i have not filed any t2s at this location, but i should have by now. the smoking is minimal and often non-existent, i don't need the money, and i've been looking at a general direction of things to judge how to react. are things, broadly, getting better? then, let me be patient. they were broadly getting better, but it's stagnated since the summer. i don't know if this guy is gone for the summer or what. i can do a lot of this shit myself, but there's a few red lines of things i have to get done and that i might have to get pushy about if they don't get done and that i'm going to try to stay away from until i have to.

right now, i need to eat, and then i need to get back to the things i was doing, which include getting the cardboard on the ceiling and cleaning the front so i can get to caulking it for tomorrow.

the basic question is this: what does israel get in return for withdrawing?

nothing?

then go fuck yourself.

if i were israel, i would make it clear that the end of hostilities in lebanon requires, by definition, the complete disarmament and withdrawal of hezbollah, who are illegally occupying the country. there can be no peace in lebanon without the complete withdrawal of the hezbollah occupiers.

if the agreement between the united states and iran calls for a unilateral withdrawal of israel from lebanon without a subsequent withdrawal of hezbollah from lebanon, that would be a non-starter and something israel could not abide by. so long as hezbollah is in lebanon, israel will also be in lebanon. the agreement would need to call for a bilateral withdrawal, and the withdrawal would need to be carried out reciprocally, or it's a non-starter and it won't be abided by.

i was at 149.6 when i went to sleep this morning. i'm at 149.0 now. it's time to eat again.

i'm noticing some more substantive weight loss over the last few days (i've had to tighten my belt to stop my pants from falling off), and it's had a noticeable effect on the acne. the puffiness akin to an allergic reaction - the stupid jock face syndrome - has lifted, which is exposing a lot of blemishes under the build up of dead skin that is coming off, and that are starting to wash off. so, it looks maybe worse right now, but it's getting better. give it a few more pounds and that should clear up.

i don't think i've ever been over 150 pounds before previously in my life, and i'm 45 years old. this is highly uncharacteristic and about as fat as i'm ever going to get. the reason it snuck up on me is that i've never had to deal with it before. i've always struggled to gain weight; i've always been too thin. i caught it when my bmi started coming up over 23 and i started to notice the acne resulting from it. 

if i start getting back into my normal exercise routine soon, i shouldn't find myself that concerned about the weight. i'm just still struggling to climb out of the rock bottom i hit a few years ago due to the pandemic restrictions, which functionally ended my social life and which i never recovered from, and reestablish a sense of normality. reasserting my normal weight is a healthy part of this process of renormalizing.

it is a clearly empirical, objective, uncontestable fact that there is no such thing as god, and any individual expressing belief in god is expressing mental illness and should be recommended for treatment.

let us begin with that and start from there.

second, we need to more seriously address the problem of drug addiction, as a society. our courts have failed on this issue. repassing laws prohibiting drug use in order to recreate a social stigma around it is a necessary first step, but it's not enough. we failed to properly educate the millennial generation about the dangers of drug use, and we're seeing the consequences of that failure in education. 

the best way to educate young people about the dangers of drug use is to show them what drug addicts actually look like. they're not attractive people, they're pathetic losers, and young people will see that if you stop sheltering them from it and actually allow them to observe the evidence first hand.

no child should say "i want to be a drug addict when i grow up".

we should be spending billions to develop scientific therapies to cure people of the mental illness of theism and religionism, to start with. wiping out the mental health scourge of faith and eradicating the backwardsness of belief should be a dominant public health priority.

the irony you will find with these drug dealer pushers with this most recent snake oil scam is that the true believers think they are providing treatment for "mental health", when the truth is that the bulk of them are symptomatic schizophrenics that need therapy, themselves.

no schizophrenic idiot that believes in god should ever be looked to to provide "mental health" guidance for the mentally ill. 

https://www.cbc.ca/arts/prophet-of-ecstasy-doc-9.7237506