I think there’s at least 3 factors at play here.

First, you’re probably living in a largely eurocentric bubble. You’re not seeing other mythologies because they’re not being marketed to you, and in some cases you may not even realize some of the ways that those mythologies and folklore and such are being presented to you because you just don’t know what to look for (for example, Dragon Ball, in the beginning, borrowed very heavily from the 16th century Chinese novel Journey to the West, which is a hugely important book in Asian literature, and I swear every couple of years there’s some new adaptation coming out, but it’s not nearly as well known to Western audiences) and translations can get a little wonky, if you watch a movie or read a book from a non-western culture, instead of naming specific deities or other mythological figures, the translator may figure that no one reading the translation is going to know who that is so they’ll translate it as something generic like “god” or “a great hero” instead of naming names.

Second, Western media is huge, and kind of overshadows a lot of other cultures. White Americans making movies in Hollywood are going to tend to pull from their own cultural backgrounds, and that often includes Greek, Norse, and Roman mythology.

Finally, a lot of it comes down to which mythologies we have actual written records of. The Norse, Greeks, and Romans all wrote about their gods to some extent, Slavic people, on the other hand, did not write until after they’d been converted to Christianity (the Cyrillic alphabet used in Russian and some other Slavic languages takes it’s name from Saint Cyril, who helped to christianize the Slavic peoples, and was developed by his followers,) so there’s no real first-hand accounts of their beliefs and practices, only second-hand accounts from other cultures who interacted with them and wrote down what they observed, and people recalling stories they’d heard about earlier times, and that comes with them inserting their own biases and interpretations and just plain getting things wrong. So if you wanted to write something about, for example, the Slavic gods Perun and Veles, you probably wouldn’t have as much decent source material to work from as if you wanted to write about the roughly equivalent Norse gods- Thor and Loki.

I’ve always been lucky and my skin is pretty bulletproof, I could probably just about wash my face with acetone and shave with a broken beer bottle and be none the worse for it.

I shower, normally every day but occasionally skip a day or two due to weather, lack of motivation, and how much I’ve been sweating, with Dr Bronners Peppermint soap and a washcloth.

I like Dr Bronners because it’s the best I’ve found at stripping the wax out of my moustache. I also find the mint to be nice and refreshing, especially after a hot day. It’s also nice that its organic, fair trade, etc. and since it can be used for pretty much everything I like it for backpacking (I tend to go unscented for that purpose, but if I intend to brush my teeth with it mint in the way to go, still a bit gross and soapy tasting, don’t exactly recommend it but it does the trick in a pinch)

If we want to count it as skincare, though it’s more hair care I suppose, my moustache wax of choice is Firehouse Wacky Tacky

I shave my head with a double edge safety razor, I like Feather blades. I lather up with whatever bar of soap smells good to me when I bought it and looks like it will fit in my shaving bowl, right now I think I’m using Dr Squatch Bay Rum because they sold it in the checkout line of ace hardware and the line was moving slow one day leaving me with nothing much to do to entertain myself but stiff some soaps.

Sometimes, instead, I splash on some lectric shave and use a foil shaver on my head.

Then I splash on some aftershave. I used to rotate through the usual drug store brands- Brut, Pinaud Clubman, Aqua Velva, and Old Spice, but then I met my wife and it turns out she really likes me in Old Spice, so I don’t switch it up too often anymore. I do tend to get a bottle of cheap bay rum to use over the summer though.

I use whatever beard oil or balm smells good to me when I run out and find myself needing more. I honestly couldn’t even tell you what brand I have kicking around currently, I use it pretty infrequently, mostly when I’m dressing up and feel like my beard could use a little extra taming and shininess. I tend to like woodsy scents like cedar.

When my hands feel a little dry and cracked, which isn’t a very common issue for me, I use Duke Cannon Bloody Knuckles balm. Again, I’m pretty sure that was an impulse buy from the checkout line of a hardware store or something, but I think it works pretty well. My wife probably uses it more than I do and she has an actual skincare routine so I guess she agrees.

And for deodorant, I again like old spice. It works for me, and I’ve used it pretty consistently since I was in about 4th or 5th grade when we had a basic sex-ed/some-of-you-stink-so-use-deodorant-please assembly where they handed out a small stick of it to all the guyse Again, apparently my wife likes old spice so that worked out well, and I can usually find a 2-pack of it at most grocery stores and such that is probably the best value in the deodorant aisle.

My friend forgot their umbrella at the office.

They nervously answered the phone.

They’re a lazy motherfucker.

I gave my friend a hug and wished them a speedy recovery.

Any of those sound unusual, or like they’re referring to more than one person?

Centrifugal governors are possibly one of the origins of the phrase “balls out” or “balls to the wall” (although many say “balls to the wall” has to do with the ball-shaped handles on old aircraft throttle levers)

Also somewhat similar to governors are centrifugal switches, which are used in just about anything with an electric motor to disconnect the motor from a capacitor which gives the motor a little extra juice to get it going (I like this video for an explanation of how they work)

Is not potato man, is secret police. Such is life.

It’s been a long time and I’m not sure of it’s current state, but some friends and I used to have a blast play Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator (I think there’s a couple other games out there now that are similar)

You kind of need the right setup for it to work well, a big TV or projector you can hook up to a computer and everyone needs their own laptop, etc.

The basic idea is- picture the bridge of the enterprise (or your starship of choice) you’ve got a bunch of people with their own consoles responsible for different aspects of the ships operation, the helm, engineering, weapons, etc. That’s what you’re doing.

I think at some point they added support for support fighters and such to accompany the main starship so if you have more people they have something to do.

We also made up a couple extra positions, like a captain who didn’t really have his own console, he just got his own chair front and center and a fancy hat and gave out orders.

I think you underestimate how many Americans just want a cup of Joe with cream and sugar. A whole lot of us are out there drinking gas station/convenience store coffee or brewing a cup or pot every day of store brand pre-ground.

And the ongoing joke about people getting frustrated with just wanting a “large coffee” and being confused by starbucks calling it a “venti” and spouting off about how they don’t want any fru-fru mocha-chino late bullshit even though no one asked.

I think the bigger issue is that of how Americans get around and how available real estate is.

Japan has a lot more people who can/will walk, take the train, etc. that’s a lot more opportunities for them to walk by a vending machine.

Americans tend to get around in our cars, so if you want to sell them a coffee, snacks, hot meal, etc. they need to be able to park somewhere.

And vending machine food isn’t exactly a huge draw, people probably aren’t going to go to your parking lot with a row of vending machines just to grab something to eat, so you kind of need something else to draw them in, some bathrooms, gas pumps, or at least convenient parking to other stuff they need to get to, so you might as well stick a gas station there, and since you’re going to need a cashier you might as well move that vending inside and you can get more and more variety of merchandise on shelves that you can cram into some vending machines so it might as well just be a convenience store.

Sounds like you’re describing a maglite

Maglites are perfectly fine flashlights for most people, maybe a little heavy but sometimes that’s kind of the point (a lot of cops and security guards and such took to carrying them when their agencies started prohibiting nightsticks and batons, especially the bigger 4 or 6 cell models) for a long time they were basically the default flashlight, you had maglites, you had the big spotlight looking things that took a 6v battery, you had cheap plastic flashlights, and you had various small penlights and such (which were often mini maglites) and that was like 90% of what you’d ever encounter.

There’s a good chance if you go rooting around in your dad or grandfather’s car trunk, garage, basement, workshop, toolbox, etc. you’ll find a maglite or 3 kicking around somewhere. I know I keep one in my car for emergencies and I’ll probably inherit a half dozen more from my parents someday.

They still make them, pretty sure they switched over to LEDs (one of their selling points used to be they had a spare bulb stored in the tail cap) and I’m sure they’re still perfectly reliable and rugged, you can probably still find them at most of the places you’d think to go buy a flashlight, and a standard 2 D cell maglite still costs in the neighborhood of $20-$30.

But there are a bunch of flashlight nerds out there these days, who want really specific form factors, battery types, features, led color temperatures, etc. and they’d probably pooh-pooh the humble maglite.

I get it to an extent, I have flashlights I like better, but I’m not about to nerd out about them, and if you someone sent me out with instructions to buy them a flashlight with no other requirements listed, I’d probably buy a maglite and feel pretty confident that it’s going to be an acceptable flashlight.

My dog likes to steal things when we’re out of the house and leave them on the stairs or on our bed.

She’s not a breed that’s known for having a particularly soft mouth, their claim to fame is probably the opposite if anything (malinois) so it’s kind of impressive when I find an avocado or a martini glass somewhere unexpected without even the slightest bruise.

We joke that they’re her “emotional support objects.”

You need to do yourself a favor and go get yourself a proper frying pan/skillet. It doesn’t need to be an expensive or nice one, but if you don’t have one that can fit a few hot dogs, your kitchen is way under equipped.

Anvil firing

You get 2 anvils, stack them on top of each other, the bottom one upside down, pack some gunpowder between them, light it, run, and the top one shoots off into the air and eventually comes back down.

I’m sure it’s a blast (literally) but I’m not trying to looney tunes myself.

I think “cave diving” is generally understood to refer to the underwater variety.

If you’re referring to general cave exploration, that would generally be called “spelunking”

Historically hell has often been depicted as a rather cold place, away from the warmth of god’s love or what have you.

Anecdotally, 20 or so years ago, that’s what I remember being taught in CCD class when my parents were still making me go.

Dante’s Inferno (c. 1321) for example, depicts the 9th and deepest circle of hell as a large frozen lake. And many of the damned he encountered throughout the different circles are at least somewhat sympathetic, especially at the first level of where the inhabitants are by and large good people who just to not be Christians. (And to be clear, Dante often found himself at odds with the church, so his works don’t necessarily reflect official doctrine and were absolutely written to reflect his own agenda, that said a lot of our modern ideas about hell owe a lot to Dante’s depiction, and any actual mention of hell in the Bible is scarce to non-existent depending on how you interpret certain passages, so his version is just as valid as any other in my opinion)

So ignoring the technical problem of how it could actually be done, let’s assume we somehow did it, cut every cable, and somehow blocked every cell tower and satellite from somehow connecting to North Korea to the rest of the world.

For the average north korean citizen, probably nothing much changes, most of them don’t have much access to the internet to begin with.

For those who do, the elites, people in university, those government, military, etc. it will probably worry a bit.

For the elites who get to enjoy the internet as a luxury, probably not too much changes. I doubt that except for maybe the very top echelons of DPRK society, the Kim family for example (and maybe not even some of them,) anyone is getting totally unrestricted access to the global Internet. They’re probably limited to mostly a bunch of north korean-hosted websites, and unless they’re relying on data centers and such abroad (and they very well might be,) there’s not really much we can do to take them down unless we really want to go in and attack all of the internal Internet infrastructure.

It’s going to hamper their universities and such, sucks for them, probably no great loss for the world, the next big scientific break through probably wasn’t coming from the hermit kingdom anyway.

It will definitely hurt their ability to conduct espionage, cyber attacks and such, that goes both ways though and it also makes it harder for other countries to spy on them.

They will do their usual sabre-rattling in response, maybe even going a bit above and beyond their usual mostly empty gestures, but probably nothing that’s going to lead to any actual escalation p

I think you have some faulty assumptions here.

Israel is very reliant on US support to be sure, but not totally reliant on us. They have their own military industrial complex and could ramp that up if needed, they have their own nuclear program, they would certainly have to scale back in some aspects, but I don’t think there’s much that we can do that would stop the war in its tracks. They’d change tactics, and Israel can be very creative, look at the recent pager bomb thing.

That’s not saying that we should continue supporting them and sending them supplies. I just don’t think it would be the quick end you’re thinking it would be.

If they knew the US wasn’t going to step in, we might see other countries, Iran perhaps, step up their involvement. If Israel starts getting desperate they might do some incredibly stupid things, like using those nukes, their mindset seems to very much that if they think they’re going down they’re going to take as many people with them as possible.

There is basically no chance you’re going to be able to land that boat at any port in Israel/Gaza and let 10k people loose. You’ll be stopped at the port if not even sooner, I’d honestly be a little amazed if you even be allowed to set sail in the first place.

While hamas is overall arguably on the right side of this conflict, don’t mistake that for meaning that they are an overall good organization. 10k Americans would make for some damn good human shields and hostages and they’d snatch every one of you up that they can. It’s not going to be as simple as just chilling in Gaza clogging up streets so Israel can’t get through (assuming Israel doesn’t just decide that your enemy combatants too and wow you down) you’re probably just as likely to end up as a Hamas prisoner and spend months or years in some pretty terrible conditions hoping for rescue.

And the idea that you’re going to get 10k to sign on is pretty laughable, I’d be amazed if you could get 100.

I’m just scraping the surface with a few thoughts off the top of my heads.

I’m obviously not planning a Pennsylvania secession movement anytime soon, but just in case it ever comes to that

General policy, not necessarily Pennsylvania specific, in no specific order:

Universal healthcare (including all vision, dental, psychiatric, addiction treatment, gender affirming care, etc.) constitutionally enshrined access to abortion and birth control, abolish the death penalty, legalize all drug use with pardons for all non violent drug offences, huge corporate, wealth and inheritance taxes and major tax cuts for anyone making under 100k/year per person, major investment in nuclear and renewable energy, bans on fracking, free college or technical education for all up to a bachelor’s degree or equivalent certifications, UBI, low-income housing, major police reform, a ban on homeschooling except when necessary due to medical issues and a ban on private and charter schools except for very specific magnet schools that cater to particular vocations and enormous amounts of oversight and regulations on those schools, absolute separation of church and state (Churches and religions get no more legal recognition or exemptions than any other private social club would be entitled to,) a plan to phase out all reliance on non-renewable energy, down-payment assistance for first time homebuyers, high speed Internet access as a human right, major public health spending (we will get hit with another pandemic eventually, and there’s a damn good chance it will be far worse than covid,) a ban on corporate ownership of housing, basically all government services and requirements will be free of charge, legal recognition of poly marriage, election reform with ranked-choice voting, and major gun reform (too much to go into detail here but mainstream republicans and democrats would both hate my gun plans)

And probably a few dozen other major points, but thats what I could spout off from the top of my head

Pennsylvania-specific (disclaimer, I’m based out of the Philly area, so my opinions are the strongest about this region, and I’d need to read up on most of the rest of the state):

High speed rail connecting, at a minimum, Philly, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Scranton, state college, and Erie

Commuter rail along the Schuylkill connecting philly and reading (side note/fun fact: the legal remnants of the old reading railroad company, yes the one from monopoly, that used to connect those two and other cities, is now a chain of movie theaters, with locations mostly in Australia, New Zealand, and California) probably as an extension of the Norristown high speed line which we’re also going to reroute to have a stop inside the King of Prussia Mall

Really more rail in general, but that seems like a good starting place and we can continue building out a network from there.

The sixers are staying put, if they want a new stadium they can put one in the existing sports complex. We’re also going to cover vine street and reconnect the two halves of Chinatown.

This is very low priority, but I’d like to find a constructive use to refurbish the SS United States instead of turning it into an artificial reef.

We’re doing away with the PLCB bullshit, you should be able to buy beer, wine, and liquor at any grocery store.

We’re getting rid of any remaining blue laws- not being allowed to hunt on Sundays, dealerships not being able to sell cars, etc.

An absolute ban on confederate imagery except for museums, historical reenactments, etc. I see more confederate flags being flown in parts of PA than I have in a lot of the actual south, what side of the mason-dixon line do these idiots think our state lies on? Especially in this hypothetical scenario since we’re not even going to be part of America after this is all over and I don’t want any of these shitheads getting the wrong idea that our movement is some sort of “the south shall rise again” thing.

Really we’re just generally going to finally drag a lot of Pennsyltucky kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

Major infrastructure spending. I’d say this should be a general not-pennsylvania-specific issue, but holy shit have you seen the state of some of our roads and bridges? You can usually tell by feel the exact moment you cross over the state border.

We’re really going to lean into being “Penn’s Woods” and preserve our natural resources and wildlife. We have some amazing parks, forests, etc. here and I want to make sure it stays that way. You can barely drive 10 minutes through much of the state without crossing some small river or stream, and I want all of those waterways to be clean and teeming with life. I’ve never seen our state amphibian- the eastern hellbender, in person in the wild and I’d like to fix that.

Some goofy, not totally serious proposals

Mehmet Oz is not allowed to set foot on Pennsylvanian territory.

Any building in Philly taller than City Hall must have a William Penn statue at the top. We finally managed to break the curse with the Comcast building and we’re really going to cover our bases.

We may look into annexing the south jersey shore.

An official Pennsylvanian English dictionary covering the Philly, Pittsburgh, NEPA, and other dialects, covering definitions, spelling, and pronunciations of such words and phrases as : Yinz, youse/youse guys, jawn, Schuylkill, Bala Cynwyd, Conshohocken, heyna, jeet, water (“wooder,”) creek (“crick”) and many others.

Do they control a territory? Do they claim to be the official government of that territory? Can they back up and defend those claims? Do the civilians living in that territory overall recognize their authority as the government of that territory? Do other nations recognize them as the government of that territory?

It’s not a totally black and white issue

If I hypothetically rallied up a group of supporters who share my views and ideals and start carrying out terrorist attacks to force the government to address the issues I’m championing, I don’t think many would consider me to be a government. I’m still acknowledging the authority and legitimacy of the government, and am just acting in opposition to it.

If my goal is to seize control of a territory, let’s say Pennsylvania, I’m starting to look a bit like a country. But unless I have the support of enough Pennsylvanians, and have the resources and manpower to back up my claim, and can get other nations to recognize it, it’s a pretty empty claim.

If I manage to win over the popular support of the citizenry, they may start to regard me as the legitimate ruler of Pennsylvania, however just because they’re willing to follow me, doesn’t mean that anyone outside of the state is recognizing my claim. Other countries aren’t going to engage in diplomacy with me the same way they would with other nations, they’re going to continue regarding Pennsylvania as part of the US until I manage to actually have control over the territory. That means in some way removing the existing government from power, and more importantly defending my claim from the US government, who isn’t going to just roll over and accept my claim.

So let’s say we manage to take control over Pennsylvania, the citizens support me, we’ve ousted the previous government, and are generally filling all the roles you would expect a government to handle, and at least for now we’re somehow managing to hold off the US government and defending our claim to Pennsylvania.

At this point, we’re the defacto government of Pennsylvania. However we still lack recognition. The US government is still trying to retake control and has not recognized our independence, nor has any other country, we’re seen as rebels, warlords, etc. by the rest of the world. We’re essentially on our own, unable to trade with other countries.

From here let’s imagine a couple different scenarios

1. Some countries start to recognize my legitimacy. They offer to support my regime and to open up trade. Popular support from my citizens remains high, and we’re managing to hold off the US government. At this point we’re in a situation not unlike Taiwan or Palestine. Whether we’re a legitimate government is going to depend on who you ask around the world, with answers ranging from that we’re a group of rebels trying to secede from the US to having their full support and recognition as the legitimate government of an independent nation.

2. Our rebellion is a resounding success. The US backs off, recognizes our independence, other countries also recognize our independence, maybe we even join NAFTA. It would be hard to argue that we’re not a legitimate government at that point.

3. I start to lose the support of Pennsylvanians, and they stop recognizing my authority, even though I still manage to maintain control over my territory by force. Some countries, especially those that are not friendly to the US, may still recognize my claim, although in the eyes of most of the world, I’m probably just a terrorist or warlord.

4. The US government is successful in ousting me, I manage to flee to a country that recognizes me as the legitimate ruler of Pennsylvania or at least is willing to tolerate my presence, and I set up a government-in-exile. I continue to conduct myself as though I am the ruler of Pennsylvania, maybe some Pennsylvanians and other people and countries throughout the world continue to recognize me as such, but without the ability to actually exercise that authority over my territory, it’s a pretty empty claim.

A few years back my area got hit with a pretty bad storm, beat the previous flood record here by about a foot, that previous record was set about 85 years prior. Bad flood, but statistically not totally unprecedented, you often hear talk about 100 year floodplains, and so that was almost a textbook perfect illustration of that, if you normally only get a flood that bad about once a century we were just about due.

Then the next year hurricane Ida hit, totally smashed that fresh new record by about 5 ft. It took them like a week to figure out exactly how bad the flooding actually was because it totally swamped all of the river gauges.

NOAA’s website has a list of 42 historic crests of that creek going back to at least 1933. 29 of those crests have been since 2000, and 7 have been in just the last 5 years.

Once upon a time in my area, ice was an industry, big blocks of ice would be cut out of nearby lakes in the winter, shipped out around the area, and stored to last through the year. There may even be a handful of older residents in our area who were alive when it was happening, and certainly a few who are old enough that their parents would have remembered it. We’re only about a century removed from that time.

My friends’ dad used to tell stories about being able to ice state down the local Creek in the winter and being able to skate all the way from our town to one about 6 miles downstream.

I have rarely seen any of the waterways in my area freeze over with even an inch of ice, certainly none of them freeze over thick enough that I’d be comfortable ice skating on them (I keep an eye on all of the ice conditions because I want to try ice fishing, been keeping an eye on it for a decade, haven’t had a chance yet. A lot of the local parks have posted regulations for ice fishing because it used to be a thing you could do around here) and absolutely not thick enough that you could cut a block of ice out of it.

We also set a record last year for the longest recorded stretch without an inch of snow. Snow totals have been overall trending downwards for a while, over the last couple decades a lot of the local school districts have cut down on the amount of snow days they build into their calendars because they just weren’t using them. A small local ski slope near me has had to invest in new snow making equipment because they absolutely couldn’t count on getting real snow anymore, or necessarily even the temperatures being cold enough for their old equipment to work reliably

Climate change should be pretty damn obvious to anyone in my area, and yet a whole lot of people around me refuse to see it.

Same goes for a lot of generic-sounding “A” business names- Acme, Apex, Ajax, A+, American-whatever, etc.

I work in 911 dispatch, it drives me nuts how many people lose consciousness for various reasons, and then when they come to they say they’re fine and don’t need to be checked out.

There’s maybe some very narrow exceptions for people with known conditions that they’re already managing with the help of a doctor and they know exactly what’s causing it.

But in general, if you’re losing consciousness that’s a bad sign and you need to see a doctor about that ASAP