My lately neglected guitar is keeping its abused stares at me and I want to pick up playing again. I've rediscovered my love for blues lately so I want to focus on that a bit more. You guys play any instruments?

Place is taken over by libs that like a red flag I guess

It is starting to reach freezing temps here and my bedroom is a nice and cozy 12 degrees C right now. My gf and I look like the grandparents in Charlie and the chocolate factory because we lay on the couch under blankets the whole evening. But my heating is still off. I pay 66 euro's a month right now but my energy supplier suggests upping it to 192 euro's a month, or pay a 350 euro end bill. I choose the end bill in the hope that shit will calm down soon because the amount is doable right now. Several of my coworkers pay 2-4000 euro's for their end bill though. Needless to say, they can't afford it. How about you guys? Got any tips to heat the house without turning the heating on?

Xief Keef telling Trudeau what he don't like.

A friend asked me a question about examples of the way a state functions as an instrument of the current economical system. He said he was in a discussion about the end goal of Communism (moneyless, classless, stateless) with someone that said that without a state, the 'poorer' regions would be oppressed by the 'richer' regions. What I'm asking for is examples of the state as an instrument of the current economical system and also examples or theory of how a socialist state with a vanguard party evolves into full communism. I have read several books about this I think but I'm also blacking out on who and what was written.

The goal of this post is to function as a vent post. Tell us what's on your mind, yell, post pics, do whatever to clear your mind. So yesterday my father in law and I went to this lake for a morning swim. It was 8 degrees celsius (46F) outside, the water was probably of a similar temperature. There were a few fishermen walking around in special wetsuits as to not get hypothermia and they were staring in disbelief at two guys walking into the water in underwear. It was cold as fuck to the point that the cold water did nothing but hurt my skin. I swam for around ten minutes I think and the entire time I kept thinking: why would anyone do this? Why do humans feel the need to go to great lengths to do stupid shit like this? Surely it has to be more than just adrenaline. Did I enjoy swimming in cold water? I don't know. It made feel alive-ish. Would I do it again? It does have a certain lure to it. It did make me think about people bragging about 'suffering'. For example, my gf and I want to try to keep the heating off until at least the 21st of December, because shit is expensive yo. But when someone mentions that they already have the heating on, I start feeling proud of myself in a way. Because I don't have the heating on yet, and I'm fine. Money is not even what I think about then, just that I am able to tolerate more cold or something stupid like that. I have no idea why I do that. It's completely in line with my ideology and party work. But it still happens. Why do humans do this? Also: **FUCK CAPITALISM**

I live in a bigger city but I'm currently residing in a cabin in the woods, away from civilization. It has got a fire place going, some basic stuff and lots of board games etc. It also has a nice garden thing where you can just chill out for a bit. There's beautiful woods surrounding it where you can walk. I like living in the city, with all its chaos. But whenever I'm out in nature I feel this immense rest coming over me. I don't know if I can actually live here, but for now it's good. My gf's family is talking about buying property in rural Sweden and they want to build a house there, one where the kids can always visit. I like the idea of living a rural simple life. Can't leave the city now though, with all the activism going on. Bit harder to radicalize the deers in the woods.

There's a lot of confusion right now regarding the death toll on the stadium construction. Nevertheless the workers rights seem very dodgy to say the least and there is this anti-LGBTQ+ rights. What are your takes on it? Is the West right in its outrage?

Things are cooking over here. I'm not saying a revolution will happen next week, but it would be naive to ignore the things that are happening. Lenin has good revolutionary theory. But what other suggestions do you guys have? I think it's good to have some theoretical knowledge on working class uprising.

[@GrainEater@lemmygrad.ml](https://lemmygrad.ml/u/GrainEater)

Fuck you and your private jet. And fuck the person spreading fake news about a medical flight that could not land. News which has been denied by the airport itself. Time to increase this shit.

If so, how did you know you lost your taste? I am currently under the impression that I don't taste anything anymore, but I'm not sure. It's a bit weird to be honest. Like, if I see what I'm eating and I concentrate on how it SHOULD taste, then I can sort of taste it I guess? But if I just eat or drink without thinking about it, I don't taste anything really. So, how do you know if you have lost taste lol? And how long did it take for your taste to come back? I tried asking people around me, but no one actually lost their taste when they had COVID.

My girlfriend and I on average spend 30-40 euro's a week on groceries. This is below half of what the country's average weekly shopping budget is for 2 people. Are my girlfriend and I frugal? No. We're also not even broke or anything. We just happen to have found a 'smart' way of doing groceries. The best thing we changed in our routine is to plan our meals for the entire week. On monday we do the grocery shopping and we have a meal plan for every day of the week. This helps us to have a clear overview of what we need to buy and also lets us combine ingredients for multiple days. It also helps to buy everything at once, compared to daily grocery shopping. I've found that we were spending a lot more when we did daily groceries, oftentimes at least doubling our current weekly budget. We also buy things in bulk. When we buy rice, we will buy a big bag of at least 2kgs which will last us weeks. It might seem excessive to buy large quantities of stuff if you don't know what you will eat for the next few weeks, but in my experience it's far cheaper than buying new things every week, in smaller sizes. Eat green. Going vegetarian or even vegan can be a touchy subject in ML circles, as some comrades find it very privileged to be able to go vega(n). If your idea of vega(n) is the Wholefoods Californian Hipster type, then you might be right. But a lot of cultures around the world are already partly or completely vega(n) and there's a lot of things we can learn from their cuisines. Eating meat in my eyes is a privilege and meat in The West is heavily subsidized to make it cheaper than it should be. Still, cutting meat out of my diet greatly lowered my weekly spendings on food. Meat is expensive, and the alternatives (lentils, beans, soy, tofu, seitan etc) are almost always far cheaper and probably healthier. Going vega(n) is not about changing the piece of meat on your plate for a plant based meat option, it's about changing your entire view on your diet and being open to other cultures and their cuisines. Routine. I have accepted a routine for my breakfast and lunch which I rarely change. I have been eating the same things for breakfast and lunch for more than a year now. It is nutritious and helps me with my gym life, and it's cheap. If you find meals that work for you, sticking to it can really help you with reducing costs. My breakfast and lunch combo costs me 1.50-2 euro's a day max, and I never get tired of it. Having this routine not only saved me money, it saved me time and it allowed me to have a healthy base to build upon. I also don't have to think about what to eat that much. Discount shopping. Supermarkets around here have weekly discounts that change every week. It's a good strategy to look what will be in the discount section for the next week and to add it to your meal plan. It can save you multiple euro's each week. Don't buy brands. Another really big thing that helped me cut spending is to stop buying brands and focus on the cheapest option in the store. I used to drink lots of soda, mostly name brand, and that alone takes up a big part of your budget. I only drink water or sometimes lemonade these days, but if you have to drink soda, buy the cheapest option. The difference in taste is often minimal and your just paying for the name anyway. This goes for a lot of things. Store brand stuff is oftentimes as good as the name brand one, but can be several euro's cheaper. Be consistent, not perfect. Don't be too hard on yourself if things don't always work out. But be consistent. Have a plan and stick to it for at least 80% of the time. Find out how much money you can spend on food and how much you're willing to spend. And stick to it. Withdraw the weekly amount in cash if you have to, so you can physically see what you have left to spend. But stick to it. That's the important part.

I myself rarely buy new clothing or furniture and thrift almost everything. But it's easy living in a city with a lot of second hand/vintage/thrift shops. I can't remember the last time that I bought any new clothes or something. And a lot of stores here have good quality name brand stuff like Levi's, Fjällräven, Wrangler etc so even though it's not new, it will last a lot of years still. I also try to keep extra waste at a minimum. Soap bars, safety razor, shaving bar etc all allowed me to reduce my (mostly plastic) waste. I don't eat meat and try not to buy too much packaged food (if possible). I live in a big city so I rarely use a car. I walk/bike/public transport almost everywhere. How about you?

For some reason I put in on (yay being sick and bored) and so far it seems pretty... anti-capitalist? Like, not even hidden anti-capitalist. Is it actually worth watching?