Must be a case of this superior sense of humor that we Germans famously do not possess.

Ain’t nobody got thyme for that.

That’s awesome, man. Huge respect, I know how hard it is. I was very lucky to somehow get out of my debts, and it really gave me back an inner peace like I last felt when I was a teen without any obligations.

Life isn’t perfect, but hey, it never is. But I can at least take out my wife for a fancy dinner each wedding day and I don’t feel like a total loser anymore. Keep going, even if life throws shit at you, never ever give up.

I’m not good with people either. You can’t solve all your problems at once and some problems never, but you can take some weight off your shoulders. Every bit helps, every small step forward gives you a little more energy, a little more emotional wiggle room and belief in yourself gradually returns.

Not gonna lie, it’s not easy. It took a long, long time for my brain chemistry to readjust so I could feel joy again from something else than weed. And I’m not sure if I could have done it without help from family and friends (the very few that I have).

But I am so glad that I somehow made it. You will be, too. I root for you, my friend, and I wish you well.

I hate to be that annoying fuck who mentions having money to get by.

But I have been broke for such a long time (until I started working on getting my life back on track), I even once got evicted from my then relatively cheap apartment in Berlin. I spent all the money I had back then on smoking pot. Tried getting away from my problems, mainly caused by being broke, by being stoned off my face 24/7. You can imagine how that went.

So yeah. 15 years later, having saved enough so I don’t have to worry about these things anymore is a huge deal for me.

“Kommunist Metafisto” made me chuckle. Thanks.

I’d prefer it if the AI gave it to me straight, like a pear cider that’s made from a 100% pears.

No fair. We all know that is the coolest car ever.

It looks cool? Well, we have completely different ideas of cool looks, apparently… I think this car looks cool.

That may be true, but in case of the Cybertruck, I doubt that there is any lipstick you can put on that particular pig that can somehow turn it into something I would even remotely consider buying.

I mean, I’m European, I can’t buy the fricking thing anyway, but I am also rather glad that I’m spared from ever seeing it in the wild.

Leaving all the downsides of the Cybertruck aside - the fact that it’s built by a fucking nazi, the fact that it can turn in to a death trap, the fact that the build quality is shit…

Who the fuck buys a hideous, hideous car like this…? Who suffers from such poor taste that they think a piece of junk that looks like it was designed by a five-year-old is something worth spending money on, let alone so much?

It was several teams from different German cities, five people per team. Don’t remember how many teams exactly, but at least eight. I got 9th in the solo ranking but we won the team title.

Same here. My balcony faces North. No way I can grow my own peppers, but I know some places where I can at least get decent quality habaneros, scotch bonnets and jolokias.

Recently made a mango habanero sauce using fermented yellow habaneros. Lovely stuff.

Well, I don’t like it, but you definitely have a point. :)

Definitely. I have stopped using extracts altogether, I go for best taste now, make my own sauces, I frequently attend Chili Festivals here in Berlin and I’ve tried hundreds of hot sauces. It’s become a hobby.

But I will never, ever again participate in a hot food contest.

To be honest I only backed out because some medics who were present took my blood pressure and emphatically recommended that I stop.

PS: While I didn’t win the solo title, my team got the most points, so at least I won the team title, which is nice.

PPS: Rank one and two had a decider - pure The Source wiped from the plate with slices of dry bread. Painful to watch.

That particular extract tastes very awful, really bitter. There’s a British manufacturer called Grim Reaper who has figured out how to produce extracts that aren’t bitter, but “The Source” will ruin the taste of your food along with making it extremely hot.

Um… thanks, I guess. I’m one too…

So I participated a bit longer ago, the hottest pepper extract available at the time was called “The Source” rated at 7.1 million Scoville units. To put that into perspective, Carolina Reaper peppers, depending on how well they’re grown, can reach about 2.5 million Scoville (Reapers weren’t around at the time either, hottest pepper was the aforementioned Bhut Jolokia).

I quit when they served a lemon sorbet with a large amount of that in it - which was the most sadist thing they could come up with in my opinion. Imagine you’re in a lot of pain from having suffered through all the enormously hot rounds before that one, and then they serve you something icy cold, which you are desperately longing for, but you also know it will just inflict immense pain.

It’s like throwing a drowning man a barbed wire rescue rope.

Well, then I shan’t.