I love Infected Mushroom, and like you, I haven’t been thrilled with their recent releases, and I really don’t have any similar suggestions, but…

Missio recently dropped a new album, and are worth getting to know if you don’t know them.

I also listen to a looooooot of Jack White. Just pick anything. Literally anything.

And keep the rural poor and uneducated from realizing that they’re one of the groups.

Hancock? Is that the movie you were thinking of?

Yes to a point, but consider…

I’m saving this for reasons I’m not proud of.

I came across this stuff completely by accident doing a search for “Jazz dominant chord guitar charts” and I am absolutely not kidding. Internet is fucking weird.

Ice cream cake

I can still hear that asshole instructor taunting me.

I try to be as patient as I can with her because I still care about her. She’s got a lot of mental health struggles and she’s been through hell. Sometimes she takes it out on me in ways she doesn’t intend, and 99% of the time I can just confront her directly and that solves the problem. I already confronted her about this, and I haven’t decided if I believe her story yet but at least she knows where I stand. Legal action is the nuclear option but I’m hoping that this gets resolved well before that.

Need to give a little backstory here…

My ex and I have a kid together. He was born during Covid and I was away at the time, and it ended up that my name never got on his birth certificate. When we split up we never went to court over custody or child support or any of that stuff, we just made a civil agreement between the two of us how we’d co-parent. And it’s been working well so far.

Well not too long ago I decided that I needed to legally codify my status as his biological father so I had the two of us fill out what’s called an Acknowledgement of Paternity, which gets my name on the birth certificate. There were no selfish motives at the time, it was just the right thing to do.

Fast forward to today. My ex has a new gf and they’re getting very close and she’s been engaging in some fuckery where she’s telling my son that he can’t talk about dad (me) in front of his new “mama.” Never mind that fact that I provide the both of them with an insane amount of material support and that he’s with me every weekend. I don’t know what’s going on, but the situation smells to me like she wants to try and push me out of the picture. Well, guess what? I am legally the boy’s biological father, with all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto now. So if push comes to shove I am fully prepared to invoke those rights, drag her ass to court, and we can do all that custody stuff she never wanted to do.

I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that, but I’m glad I secured my legal rights when I did or that would be a lot tougher.

(Also to add I’m not posting this as ragebait nor am I soliciting advice. I know exactly how I’m going to handle this if I need to.)

I just opened the damn app.

Nobody sings a Bob Dylan song worse than Bob Dylan.

Honestly, if someone gets butthurt if I say I don’t like certain music, that’s a them problem. People tie their identities very strongly to their music preferences and they sometimes take it as an assault on their character. What you said in this case was a valid observation and I don’t think you should assume any responsibility for their reaction.

But if you’re trying to learn to be more diplomatic, something like a simple, “eh, that’s not really my thing,” gets the point across just fine. It’s an “I” statement which avoids putting people on the defensive. Works for just about anything.

Are we still talking about about peanut butter?

Mmmmmm…lab grown trauma!

How do you handle that?

Very poorly. Nothing prepared me for the sequence of events that led to this. Like you though, I hope it’s not forever.

I follow their social media. I don’t bother them, I just like to know they’re okay. Maybe when I feel the time is right I’ll reach out.