It's time of Secret Santa in many companies again! Not here in Korea where I live now, but we had it back in Sweden. That made me think, what was the most elaborate or cool gift you either gave or got from Secret Santa?

We had a max cap on about $10 (that was 10 years ago). What I did was I bought beef for $10 about a week before the Secret Santa event. I dry curred it (similar to what I did here https://jeena.net/air-dried-ham ), then I packaged it into a plastic bag and that was the present.

The person who got it was terrified, because they had no idea what it was. Everyone else had a key chain or some small gadget, etc. Because it was Secret Santa there was no way for me to explain what it is, with one exception, if this gift was voted the best gift of all of them (we were about 25 people), then this Secret Santa would be relieved and would get a $100 gift card as a price.

Luckily for me this present actually won because it was so different from anything else and I was able to explain that I bought the meat for $10 and then curred it without spending more money than allowed, and by doing so the worth of the present grew significantly over $10 and that this was my goal.

The guy then cut up half of the meat so that everyone could have a bite and try it and took the rest home to his family with him.

How about you?

What is your favorite "epic" movie?

By "epic", I'm referring to the old-school style of movie. Expansive story, massive production kind of movie.

I'm currently rewatching Lawrence of Arabia.

Let's take a moment to look at what's going right. What's made you laugh or smile recently? No matter how big or small it is, we want to hear about it!

For those that do creative projects, how do you get past choice paralysis? If you're a writer and have 5 book ideas you feel are pretty good, how do you choose the best one to move forward with?

I mean, it's gonna take years to actually finish a novel, you don't get the dopamine.

Work on something shorter, and you get to enjoy your creations more.

Have you been rocking an old classic? Discovering something new? Revisiting some nostalgic bands from the past?

If you've got links, post 'em up!

A fun tool for discovering new bands: https://www.music-map.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNNzSK3VCfs

Mine (Zimbabwean 🇿🇼) is the mbira.

For a feel of the sound: https://youtu.be/R5RMYh-n3LU

Jah Prayzah the guy singing is a renowned musician.

They seem to be using the mbira in modernized covers, but the metal pestle order seem the same as the more traditional looking ones.

P/S I'm not self promoting the YouTube link. It just shows how the mbira sounds unedited.

I'm a Zimbabwean 🇿🇼 who has stayed half of her life in Malawi 🇲🇼

If I could pick one souvenir food wise it would be this garlic sauce from here in Malawi.

Will make a series of posts on this.

I had ordered a couple things for my wife from the Disney Store recently. PJ's as a Christmas present. However, I already received everything I had ordered.

Today another box showed up with my name and address, but it's nothing I ordered.

I just tried chatting with a cast member via their online chat, but I don't think the person I'm chatting with can wrap their head around the concept.

I know I don't actually have to do anything about an unsolicited package, but I'm trying to be nice.

They keep asking me about the things I had ordered.

Feel free to have a look at

!movies@piefed.social
!television@piefed.social
!animation@piefed.social

Heya! I've had to come home from work because I'm too run down with some kind of flu.

I'm going mad. I can't work out, can't go for a run. I can't focus on any freelance work. I don't have the energy to paint or record anything. I've just about got the energy to vacillate between my desk and my bedroom, but it's driving me nuts being so unproductive. I'm on a losing streak in online chess.

I've already eaten way past my maintenance calories. My hoover doesn't work so good else I'd be hoovering the apartment. I've done laundry and the dishes. I need a productive, non-thinky, preferably arty, low effort task.

So, what do you lot do when you can't do anything? When you're sick, run down, out of energy, or just having a day of paralyzing executive dysfunction -- how do you get through it without driving yourself up the god damn wall?

Which one do you prefer, lol? Wrapped or 2 flour tortillas with fillers in-between then cut in half or quarters?

I have a chair that I got in March off of amazon. An hour ago the baseplate bent and now the pole that it sits on is just wobbling around. Cannot sit on it unless it is directly up. I found this out when the whole thing tilted back, slamming my head into a shelf and throwing me out of the chair. So I go to Amazon to at least leave a shitty review, maybe see if I can contact them for a replacement part. Product is de-listed and no contact information at all. So I contact Amazon who just instantly starts a refund process I didn't ask for, smugly telling me I'm not eligible when I knew that. First rep sent me to a 'special team to help'. That 'special team' was the front desk for Amazon.com instead of the Canadian one. She just did the exact same thing, another refund I never asked for and putting me on hold and refusing to listen to me. Asked to speak to a Supervisor who then started to say the same shit before I cut him off and said I just wanted the fucking contact information for the fucking manufacturer. He emails over a page for the manufacturer that is their warranty/refunds page.

It's empty.

It's literally empty.

It's fucking empty.

So I've got a chair I can't sit in without it causing personal injury, no way of getting a replacement part from the manufacturer without like buying a whole ass new chair that I can't afford and both Amazon and this fuckin Company are just like "You bought a shitty product? Aww. Poor baby. Cope."

I just wanted to LEAN BACK AND WATCH PORN BUT FUCKING NO.

I'd throw the fucking chair at the wall if I didn't need to still sit on it like a goddamn stool.

Let's take a moment to look at what's going right. What's made you laugh or smile recently? No matter how big or small it is, we want to hear about it!

I remember hearing about this years ago, but I didn't watch it back then. Now I remember about that, I'm trying to watch it (I don't even need any English subtitles, cuz native speaker perks), and oh my god that voice of the mother character was so... uncanny... weird... my heart was just beating so fast hearing that tone of the voice... and I don't even use Mandarin at home (Cantonese used at home), and those words just cause flashbacks to my mother's "evil" voice talking to me. Omfg...

I'm gonna have to finish this, but holy shit, my heart can't fucking take this... this resonates with me so much... 😭

(I'm talking about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Children (known in Chinese as: 你的孩子不是你的孩子)

(It's on Netflix, has English subtitles, not sure if other platforms have it, since the original network is a Taiwan thing; I was unable to find a torrent for it)

Title covers it.

Is Tora! Tora! Tora! a Christmas movie?

Have you been rocking an old classic? Discovering something new? Revisiting some nostalgic bands from the past?

If you've got links, post 'em up!

A fun tool for discovering new bands: https://www.music-map.com/

Read a random comment on the r/AsianAmerican sub and it got me thinking...

I mean my mother is so fricking weird... like she tells me she loves me, but whenever she gets angry, I get yelled at and I get rold how much she sacrificed for me, and I now remember those memories of my mother just complaining about coworkers and then tell me that I "不爭氣" ("don't work hard enough"/"disappointment"/"failure" or something) and told me to "爭氣" (which is the antonym, so I guess "work harder"?)... so, I remember just feeling so sad and crying...

Now I kinda understand... its not my mother's fault, its society...

I have good memories of her, I remember us having fun when I was a kid... it was society that disrupted that...

Now I understand... I should really redirect my anger away from my parents, it's not their fault, this society did that.

Society is why I spend so much time in afterschool programs having no friends, and why I'd be just sitting alone during dismissal time wondering when my parents would pick me up from school, as the sun is setting. Society is why I was often left at home alone with my older brother, why we fought a lot.

From now on, I'm just gonna blame the system, the system did this to my family. The same thing that happens to all families.

Who know how many loving families got destroyed by this system.