Episode 9 - Sydney Sweeny's Swearfree Swedish Standup Show

In this episode sit down to talk about standing up. Huh, funny that. I end up talking about chorizo, Sweden (or Switzerland) and other fun topics.

If you want me, find me. ChocolateOcelot on x, previously known as twitter, formerly known as twitter, futurely known as x.

Transcript

Russell: 0:01

My name is Russell Stuart brown. I may not be the Russell you're looking for, but I am the one you've got right now. And these are things I've learned. Something I've learned is it can be very hard to stand up for yourself. And I've been thinking about how I can explain that. And I think maybe the best way to do that is by telling two stories. One where I successfully stood up for myself. And another one where I didn't quite do that. Or at least I didn't follow through. And I'm going to explain why I didn't in the second case. And maybe ask you guys, do you think that I should have. Now, what I will say is that I have since worked on that second one, but Hey, let's not get into that too soon. Because first of all, I'm going to tell you a story about when I did stand up for myself. Now. I guess to be clear. Thinking about the details of this story. This might not be a case of standing up for yourself in the same way that maybe you'd expect it to be. Like in none of these cases, was I being bullied being bullied actually is probably an instance where I very, very quickly will stand up for myself or people being rude to me. I enjoy that. I see it as a, like a challenge, like, like the throwing down of a gauntlet. But I suppose standing up for yourself in those sciences, maybe like looking for. Making sure that you're getting the most out of the experience your supposed to be having. So in the first instance I did a. Sort of. Well, so it was during the pandemic. So what normally would have been was a week long camping retreat and on reflection. I'm, I'm really glad that I got to do this week long, non camping retreat instead. Because when I've tried to do the camping retreats the first night in a tent, just it wrecks me. I think given a few hours to recollect myself on a mountain side, maybe I could camp in general. But it's very difficult for me to be productive in the same way that with this one, we were doing this nine to five, so I was able to return home and sleep and stuff. But on the first day, we all had our cooking ovens and they're culled tranches. Now we were told they were either the Swedish or the Swiss military who invented them. I'm not saying that it was either the Swedish or the Swiss, because, and, oh, the reason I can't tell you, which was, which, because I remember. When, when it was brought up, somebody said, Let's just say somebody said, yeah, it was the Swedish. Somebody else went, wasn't it. The Swiss. And then that was just never resolved, but if you've never seen one of these tranches and try and judge, by the way, it's about T R a N G I a, just in case you were going to spell it a different way. Like, if you want to Google this to see a picture. These things are amazing. It's like, it's like if you combined the absolute kitchen essentials into a small pot, Like within this pot, when you unfold the like leads and. There's another small pot inside of it. Like when you unfold all of this stuff, you have everything you need to make a small, like frying pan, small pot of boiling water. Whatever you need these traunches. And on the very first day, when we sat down to make our. Challenge. Food. For lack of a better word. Everybody asked me oh, Hey, are you going to make something? What are you going to make? And I was like, oh, I'm just not that hungry today. Now that was true. But like, as I was watching everyone go, I was like, no, that's, that's not a hundred percent. The reluctance that I have. So I actually said just started at. To the group. I said, Hey, yo, so. I'm actually not hungry. And that, that is something that I always like. I think I overdo I over preface. I over preface my. Explanations of things in order to sound less suspicious and it makes it way more suspicious. Like I will, if I do have to borrow two year old, for whatever reason, like I'm fully prepared to explain the whole story and everything like that. But like, I will often preface it with saying, yo, this is going to sound so much like a scam. But can I use your phone? And it's like, like, you know, I mean, I don't know. It's one of those things where I feel like my over preparation, when I try to come up to someone and say, hi I really have to make a phone call, but I don't need to use your phone if you want to just take the phone number and pass on a message. And that sounds worse. It sounds worse, but, but my, my thing with that is, hi. I don't want to take your phone from you. I don't want to dial anything into your phone that you aren't comfortable with. When you answer the phone, you're probably going to talk to my mom and just tell her, Hey, this is the time the train is going to arrive at, you know, like the. That's when this guy's going to be here. Like it's it's, it's nothing. Weird. But. It sounds weird because I've over prepped it. By the way I think I'd do that in RPGs as well. And had dungeon master, like, I mean, I'm just this kind of person who will like over elaborately, describe something completely innocuous in the room or, or like, yeah. Before you go up to a treasure chest. Like I'll give a treasure chest, like an overindulgence. Oh, well, There is a perfect word right here is. Hi permanently. I'll just, you know, I'll give it way too much and then just be like, Hey, open the chest. Nothing. Nothing too much there. And it's like, I'll then undersell the ones that are trapped and it's like, I can feel it. I all right. A quick detour is that. And this is something where, or I don't know if, if it is fully related, but like, I feel really bad as a DM. With my players, like. Especially, especially when it's not me, but especially when like a chest is chopped. And like, I don't know, there's a part of me that like, wants to tell my players, like, Okay. So some basic rules of dungeon near. All right. Yeah. Before we go into this story. Oh, All right. Basic rules that does engineering will come later because what I said to them was look, look, I back to the Tron, just story. If you can remember that, sorry. It's seven minutes in a James with topic four times. All right. So the charges I'm like, yo, I actually am not that hungry, but also I'm intimidated by using these challenges. So maybe tomorrow is there, is there something I could cook? Tomorrow, even if I'm not going to eat it. And then people were like, yeah, all. That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool that you were able to show your vulnerability or whatever. I think that's not a good tone for that day, that week going forward and that sort of thing. And the next day I learned how to cook and I ended up becoming like, just like the Territo guy. With the treats. So being, I think people know what to read. So it was this weird time where like people were describing what Theresa was in the same way that like, oh, you've probably had not heard of it. It's a spicy sausage. It's like. You know, I've heard a Teresa. I didn't realize no one else had heard the Teresa. But I also remember the first time I was given Teresa and I was like, how has no one ever told me about this? However, I've never been introduced to this before. So I understand that. But yeah, like, you know, treats. I suppose sausage was kind of like X, formally known as Twitter. By the way, I don't know if anybody else. Like I'm sure. There has to be someone out there. Who has it set up so that when they type. Either. Well, actually, yeah, here's the question, right? Let's say you're a journalist and you have to write. The website X, formerly known as Twitter, like constantly. Right. One option, of course. Keep it somewhere nearby. Assign it to a specific macro. Okay. Keystrokes that will just always generate that phrase. Right. But let's say you want to do something else, which is, let's say you want to just type the name of the website and have that auto complete. That whole phrase. Obviously for posterity, you could do both. Here's. What happens if I type X here's, what happens if I type Twitter, but like, I think for most of us, we'd set it up. That if I typed Twitter, please include x.com formerly known as in front of it. Now if you were a professional journalist for speed, it would almost certainly be if I type x.com. Please write formerly known as Twitter. After it. But like, Ergonomics aside. Well, I suppose, is that really the argument? Cause I suppose. Well, my question that I was going to hypothetically put to people was do you use Twitter X, but like, come on. Nobody Elon Musk doesn't use X, Elon Musk tweets. On Twitter. You know what I mean? Like, like there's no way that guy is thinking of it. But I also think, and this is something. That's. I'll see if I can thematically. Link this back to. To standing up for yourself. But before I tell the other story where. Oh, and yeah, just to top off the other story. I stood up for myself because I was nervous about a vulnerability I had and I stood up for myself by saying, yo. Especially at a, I should say this retreat was about like life skills and self-improvement so like, it was definitely a place where it was okay. You know, it wasn't that I had had gone out on a survival course. And. Just ignored a huge elements of it in that sense. But yeah, I don't know if people know what. I see the thing is that Twitter. If you look at what Elon Musk wants to do and. And I'm just going by what he has said. He wants to do Twitter. Twitter is not going to be the same thing as X. He wants X to be. I mean the best way to put it is if you know how the Chinese government run their social media. Or, or even just there. Their app environments, like they don't have Facebook. They don't have eBay. I assume they don't have eBay, but they don't have Amazon. They have things like we chat and they have things like Ali Baba, and they're happy, happy enough to sell things to the west in that sense, like, like Tik TOK. Sorry, this sounds like I'm trying to be topical. But no, I assure you I'm out of touch. I've never downloaded Tik talk. I don't want to download Tik TOK. I understand that every app on my phone is trying to spy on me, but I would rather, my daughter goes to Zuckerberg than Winnie the Pooh. But Yeah. So what, what. What Elon Musk wants X to be is, is he wants it to be like I think apple Apple's integration into the iPhone is maybe a good way of putting it. Because Google is well integrated into Android, but in the way that. I mean. Google is the default for a lot of things. But like, if you think about the way that when you're on an apple, you don't use Google maps on your iPhone. You use apple maps because it's just the default. I think that's what Elon Musk wants to be. Wanting to X to be.'cause he said he wants it to be, we chat. He wants it to be Facebook marketplace. He wants it to be this, that, and the other. And so in that sense, I don't know how much, if there really is the corporate intent to rebrand. Twitter to X and tweeting the X-Wing. Because at the end of the day, I think he wants x.com/twitter to be a sub domain. Of x.com. No. The thing is that if you look at what he's done with Twitter, since buying Twitter, You might not have the same sort of energy going in. I don't know. He's got a break dancing. Oh, okay. Yeah. I was about to bring up the break dancing dad thing. So yeah, you can tell that I've gotten full of like just topical. I sound like I'm trying to trigger it like a bunch of SEO stuff. Like, I don't even know. I don't even know it se oh, oh. I worked it out in my head. I was going to say, I don't know what it is, but I'm guessing now that it's search engine optimization. That HESI was pretty easy. I'm the, always a guest, but like, I don't know. It feels, it feels like I've heard it before. You know what I mean? That's a tough judgment to make, but I think it I've definitely seen it written out. Now that I've said it out loud. But yeah. I don't know. What should I just, oh, Russell talks about Sydney Sweeney. Like no, like what I had. W why does. Sorry, I've been really frustrated with this because I think Sydney Sweeney has become a really popular topic. For men to talk about. Women's bodies. And in a way that. It feels like, oh yeah, women are liberated. This is how we talk about their bodies now. But like, it doesn't feel like that one it's guys doing it. If that makes sense. Like something I've learned. Boom. If I can't link it back to something else, I'll look into this. Something that I've learned is that people love a headline and the, they use a headline. So, so easily. Without reading the rest of the article and then just it's. It's a relevance. The rest of the article could just be lorem. Ipsum text. All they need is the headline. And if the headline proclaims that a certain body type is back. Well, all of a sudden, a bunch of dudes think it's okay to, to just talk about that body type and how great they love it. It is, you know what it is. It's like. Chris, Chris rock. Did. A very good standup routine. Which used a racial slur. And it sort of divided. The idea. Of the slurry into an archetype of a person. So, what he was trying to say was that. There were people who were being referenced by the slur and. It was something, I think he regrets it now and I feel bad for him. I understand why he does now, because what happened was a lot of white guys started thinking, oh, well, if I draw the line, then it's politically correct for me to use the slurs. And oh, you know what? I think this is, to be honest, I think this is the slur. If this doesn't clean it up, I think this incident is what introduced us to the concept that hard R is what makes A slur. Not. It like, I mean, the concept was there, but I think Hardart versus soft R when it comes to slurs. And honestly, if you don't know what I mean, Don't like, like if you don't know what I mean, you don't need to. You know what I mean? Like skip forward another 45 seconds. I'll have changed topics twice. But yeah. Yeah. That's that's, that's what it is, is that, you know, I think white people appropriated Chris rock stand up. Routine. And medic like, okay. For themselves. They never met it. Okay. They met it. They met it feel okay. Enough for them to say the bad things, but it was never okay. In the same way that I think right now, like if a female writer wrote that about Sydney Sweeney originally, I think, and I try to keep this somewhat like PG this podcast. If I'm going to swear, I want it to be from a mess up or a screw up. Like I don't, I don't want to just throw out words, but like you know, th th there's certain headlines that are just viral, that we all end up hearing them. And I think the algorithm's going to get us from different directions on that. I wasn't getting most of this Sydney Sweeney stuff until Madam web and. Specifically when she did Saturday night live, because obviously I watched that. Because I will offset. And I live and obviously that's going to trigger the algorithm to sort of give me more Content, but like, I don't know if you guys feel this way, but like, I feel like the algorithms talk to each other. Like in that same sense that like, If me and my brother in the same room, I feel like the ads target us instead of me or him. I feel like they target us. I feel like sometimes Spotify will recommend me. But honestly, you know, that's probably add just Aquafina. Yeah. That's that's. That's something I've learned is I was easy to see patterns where they don't actually exist. And sometimes when you see those patterns, You can get paranoid. You can think the world is against you and you can be afraid. To stand up for yourself. Boom. Back to the topic, self high-five. Well done Russell. I just want to, by the way, I just want to acknowledge I know Hailey is the absolute number one person, but I just want to acknowledge everyone who rolls their eyes. When I say, well done, Russel. Like when I congratulate myself with like a genuine sense of earnestness, but like also in a. There's a slightly patronized tone. That the way I congratulate myself, It's like, you know, like, Well done Russell. We weren't expecting much out of you. So the fact that, and Hey, this is the experience of a white man. It look, I did the bare minimum. Please acknowledge it. You know what I mean? Like, like I don't, if, if you don't know what it's like to have white male privilege, then what. I mean, there's no way to really replicate it. Is there. I'll try to think of that. I'll try it. I don't know if I'll get away with making a video game called white male privilege simulator. Could I. No, no, I couldn't because like, that's the thing is that when you're within the privilege, The fact that I have, and this is actually yet something I have learned is that sometimes people will acknowledge something and act like they're a good person for noticing. And what you get a lot. With that. This is people who acknowledge flaws of their own. And I'm definitely one of these people, but like, there are certain people where if you were if you point out one of their flaws, they just own it. And like, Yeah, I never on time. Sorry. You know, like that's just owning a flaw. Or Yeah, no, I'm really bad at my handwriting is horrible. That's owning a floor. That's fine. But then things like. I've noticed that you You tend to make the conversation about you a lot. Like you're very self-centered that's like, yeah, it's just something pretty egotistical. And it's like, okay. But I came out here with a practical issue there. I don't. I mean, I feel like I've had that conversation with people. I feel like I've been the egotistical person. And that wasn't my response, but our sauce. Oh, I'm not actually egotistical. I'm. I'm arrogant. That's like a fake confidence. It's it's, it's different. I'm actually, I'm actually hugely I'm hugely what's the opposite of self loving. It's not self-deprecating and self hating fuels too, too easy. I feel like there's another word for it, but You know, I would, that's actually a big one for a lot of people, and this is actually something I hate to see on the internet. Which is I found that most people don't bring up. Autism. Unless they're excusing something they've done. And. Listen, as much as we can see patterns where they aren't like in my experience, this is actually, yeah. I was talking to. Got back to somebody. Who's written in, I was talking to Claire and we're actually, I'm hoping to get her in for the. Season finale. By the way, if you want to be in the season finale, find me on Twitter at chocolate ocelot. You can tell that I genuinely do want people to. Call in for this, because I actually told you where to find me. We'll be clear. We're talking about role-playing in the sense of forum games which is, I hope something that's not dead. But it was, it was really the way I think forum role-playing could be best described was it was a collaborative fanfiction. And I think that was how we all sort of banded together to feel better than fanfiction writers was. I was introducing a concept that there was actually a game being played. That was not the case. We were just running around in my case star wars in Claire's case midlife. That's the shyer specifically. And Over the course of many of these games, which I would have played online. You run into a lot of people. In that community. The worst community, honestly, that I have for it was People who play grand strategy, video games. On the internet, it feels like if you. Or someone who joins. Community for a grand strategy, which is when the whole world is a map. And you're just watching the map change sort of rather than individual tanks. But those, those communities are filled with people who. We'll say some really rough stuff. And now, look, I hate this. Like, I hate to just like throw these accusations out at, at nameless groups without backup, but honestly, I don't want to go find it. It's not hard to find, but I don't want to go find it. But like, I would see a lot of people using conditions, which I have been diagnosed with as their excuse for having gone on. An offensive rent. Offensive for a variety of reasons, but then they'll say, you know, like, look, if you're having an argument about genocide and. You claim that the insulting names you throw during this argument? Oh, well, that was my autism flaring up. I like that. That wrote, I have a problem with that. Because. I don't know. I'm somebody, I don't know. I don't know, I have. Sorry. I've just said that I don't know, six times. Which I think means that like some sort of demon gets someone behind me. To ask me a riddle which I'm so ready for it. We all know that. If that demon drives asked me at paradox, I am just poof. I'm going to shoot an arrow at it. But Yeah. I'm someone who. Gets told a lot. You don't seem autistic. And I think that might be true until, you know, I have autism. And then I see hella autistic. And I think that. In some cases, it's just that people haven't always been exposed to. The style of autism. I have the flavor, the ice cream flavor of autism is as fans of the show. Remember it. But. I think part of it is also that I'm masked well, And that isn't to say that I don't act autistic. It means I've figured out a way to sort of. Be at a resting state of autism. That isn't too bad. Like, if you come up to me, if I haven't said anything for awhile, if you come up to me and ask me a complex question out of nowhere, right? I'm going to immediately start answering it truthfully. Because I got lost in my head and boom, I'm just going to like, you know, I'm one of those people where if you ask me a hypothetical. I will consider it. Even if I don't want to do either of the two things I will try to consider, which is worse, I don't like to do it necessarily. But like, there are certain hypothetical's like something I've learned is that. Okay. Everybody has a position on this. And usually the position is I don't want to do it. On this specific hypothetical, but let's say you had to drop cake a baby. Okay. How far do you think you could drop, kick the baby? Out of your, out of your two hands, picture it right now. I hold the baby up. Picture the Dropkick. Boom. All right. This is the part where we freeze because people get so obsessed with the idea of, of, of kicking the baby. But in this hypothetical, I actually work. Like record scratch. Pause before the baby gets, I don't want any babies getting kicked the question, the real question. Isn't how far do you keep the baby? How far could you get the baby? The real question is how would you hold the baby? Like when you're drop, kicking this baby. Right. And the reason I say this is because I think I saw someone drop, kick a baby doll. And they kicked it head first. Right? And actually seemed completely wrong to me. You know, I mean for the obvious reasons where, you know, don't kick the baby, but like, And see right there, that, that part where I go like, and I'm able to go, okay. Yeah. We're not going to kick a baby or whatever. Like, I'm just able to write off the fake baby. And. I feel like that may be related. To my autism. In that, like, I. Look, if you told me to kick a real baby, I would have a lot of difficulty with doing that. Like I would not want to do it. I'm probably taking. If you told me to kick a baby, you're more likely to get kicked by me. Or at least I'm more likely to throw the kick at you than the baby, because look, if you're going to put me in that situation, Like, I'm going, I'm going to hold the baby, but like, I'm going to hold the baby protectively and then to try and kick you. Maybe no, I'm going to put the baby down, then try to kick you. Yeah, I have time to put the baby down then. Do like a spinning heel kick. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Cool. That's another thing. This is something I've learned in something you should know. Again, if you are not a white man. You might not know this, but white men are convinced that with enough. There is no fight. That a white man thinks he couldn't win. If he was given enough. Either time, knowledge, money, like, like there's always some sort of caveat where, where like, like, White men think that that every fight is winnable. So long as so long as you just let me. Spend enough time until someone else fixes my problem. I guess.'cause that's another thing I used to say this, right? This is hugely problematic and I didn't realize it at the time. But. Now that I've packed it out. Like, I'm going to tell you what I used to say. You say. What I've found is that. Okay. I don't know why, but my hands literally went drunk as I started to. What I've found in my lifetime is that I surround myself with strong women. And then my problems just seem to go away. And I always tried to think that, oh yeah, I'm complimenting all the women who are around me, as I say that. I didn't realize no, I was like, Hey. I'm in capable. Come take care of me. I mean like, like I was, I was essentially saying that I just offload all my, my work and baggage onto people who have. Way more of their own. And, you know, what. In five years time, I might look back at this statement and I might go, oh yeah, well here, I'm just trying to get, you know, I'm just trying to, don't forget the subtitle or alternate title for this is not things I've learned, but virtues I'm signaling. But like I'm constantly decompressing and like deep deconstructing the packaging. However you want to put it. But like, The default white man. State is like this weird case of like, oh, look at where I'm standing here. I can see everything. And then someone goes, oh, Hey, turn your head to the left. And you see like 90 degrees more and you say, ah, I saw everything before and now I see more everything. Now I see everything. And then it's like, yeah, but bro, if you turn another 90 degrees, you're going to add another thing. And it's like, no, we'll just add that to the first thing. And it's like, yep. We understand these things perfectly. A white man will say that. He could win a fight with a bear if given enough time to prepare. A white man will say that he could win a fight with a. Prime Mike Tyson, if he was given enough money to motivate him. You know, it's, it's like, whatever it is, it's like, there's this little piece of invincibility in. In every white guy, which is entirely fabricated, but like we're convinced is there. I mean, I feel like one day someone's going to find. The kryptonite that will literally SAP that out of. Men. I'm thinking. I think in dune, they referenced that, but I don't really know. I'm just on a Wikipedia rabbit hole from doing so. I suppose a Wikipedia sand wormhole from dune. So I shouldn't speak with any confidence, but. It's been interesting. Anyway, I will tell the second story before I go. And that is the story that is much more recently where I did not quite stand up for myself and it might be extremely humorous that I didn't. Some people say that Comedy is tragedy plus time. I disagree and I don't mean this in a joking way, but what I think. Comedy is tragedy plus context. The way I'll put that is that if I have had the worst time. I've ever had doing a specific thing. If I have had the worst time of my life going on a camping retreat. I'm not going to find that funny. Until I've done something comparable, but worse. And then I can go, Hey, at least it wasn't that. So in that case, You know, you have to add context and often the context is. In a joke. There's too many people who go tragedy and it's been 30 seconds, boom comedy. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. That's not it. You don't just get it. I have a lot of, I might be a satellite junkie. But I'm definitely a joke snob. And that's another thing. This is another thing. Take this with you. If someone tries that it's just a joke, bro. Just ask them to explain it. Like try to find what the funny part of the joke is. It won't always work. Nothing, nothing works a hundred percent of the time, but like, Either they have to explain it or they can't explain it. And by the way, I'm sorry that I don't edit out when I get texts. I usually turn off my phone. So it's not an issue. I do get I, and I'd like to thank the one person out there. I'm not going to name them. Cause they'd be upset if I named them, but I've already named them in this episode, who would give me a timestamp and say, Hey, you left a text in here. I'm just saying if, if this was a professional job and I could hire anyone, Hailey would be my producer. Anyway. Yeah. Back to the story about how I didn't stand up for myself. So I'm at a conference. Okay. And I don't know if y'all know what a cluster headache is, is very similar to a migraine, but I think I'm lucky in that. They happen more rarely than, than migraines. Most people suffer from. But both having a cluster headache. And the painkiller I was on for this cluster headache. Have a symptom of photosensitivity. So while I'm at this conference, I mean, what I feel like. Is possibly one of the most reflective rooms I've ever been in. And it's, it's not all glass, although there are some beautiful mirrors that have a phobia of mirrors. Didn't include that on my list though. I wouldn't say it's a phobia either. It because it's not a rational. The fear it's like, you know, it's not a rational thing. You're going to fall from a height. It's not irrational to think you're going to fall into a mirror and never be able to emerge back into your original dementia. It's just, you know, A fact of life. But They've all they've got brass. They've got Chrome. They've got everything. It's in. What was the inside of this hotel? It was quite nice. Outside. I don't know, but I only saw it from one angle. And. After having a rough day. So. Anyway, I'm in there. And at this conference, there's someone taking. Pictures with flash photography. And I accidentally. Catch the guy, because like it's not his fault. He has to take flash photos. But I accidentally catch the camera twice straight to the eye. And I'm photo sensitive as all hell because of the, again, the, the headache and the painkillers. And what happens from that point is that every success of flash, even if I don't quite look at it because it's a room with so many spots to blank out and. Even just my peripheral vision in general. It starts getting worse and worse. I eventually start feeling like my eyes are bleeding. That is not a sensation of pain. Like it started to hurt after time. Because I think my eyes strained from the sensation, but like being sensitive to it's like getting flashed in the eyes with light it's it's, it's uncomfortable and it's not fun. But it isn't. Straight away pain all the time. But yeah, I feel like my eyes are bleeding and, and. This is just one of the things you close your eyes. You can still tell if the lights are on or not. And by this point, My eyes I presume are because they're so sensitive are just getting worse and worse, raw. And so I had to leave the room. By the way I leave the room as, as a politician starts making her speech and I'm convinced she thought I was leaving on like a political, like. She thought I was like, you know, protesting her speech by walking out and it's like, no lady, I got to cry. For a bit. And I did cry for a bit, not like in, again, not in the sense of like, oh, I'm in pain, but in the sense of like all my eyes, all my eyes and they watered. But yeah, so. After this, you know, I took some time to recover. And I came back and I just tried to look for a little spot, maybe outside the door of the hall, where the convention was. And someone noticed and said, Hey, can I help you? And I said, yeah, I was just wondering, is there anywhere I can listen to this? And not actually be in the room cause I'm just really photosensitive. And that was me standing up for myself and to the credit, like this was the thing, they, they jumped on that immediately. They were like, we don't have that, but we will provide it immediately. And we're going to find it for you right away. And I was so appreciative. And we found a room. And it was nearby. And we were all set up. And unfortunately the wifi connection. Wasn't great. I'm going to admit that. Sorry, actually, this is another thing I'm going to have to admit the wifi connection was fine. The stream that was going out was having trouble. And me and the guys in the hotel who. We're actually dealing with it. cause they would send guys from the hotel eight. And they'd say, Hey, yeah, he's trying to watch this, but it's not coming in. And we'd all be on our phones and we'd be watching other things at 10 ADP and we'd be like, yeah, there's nothing wrong with the room. Like it's whatever they're putting out. But. I was like, God is like, don't worry, I'm fine with it. Like, I'm still gonna listen, take notes and everything. But unfortunately what started to happen was that because the other people in the room would complain about the wifi. And there'd be skipping or buffering moments is that conversations would start. And all of a sudden, when the wifi wasn't that bad, they were in the full swing of a conversation and other people were finding the room and. Aye. Didn't. Say anything. I just left because. I couldn't hear what was going on. So, I mean, what was the point of me being there? And now. The question is, should I have stood up for myself on the way out? No. Well, I'm going to preface is that. I was in two minds at the time. And the decision I made is the decision I went with and decision that's now in process, which is that. For next year's conference. I really hope. And I don't foresee why this wouldn't be the case. I really hope that there is a room with a link. That is designated as a quiet room. I think a lot of people would benefit from that. And I think based off of the eagerness to help me. I don't think that's something that they'll have any issue providing. And that's, that's another part of it is that I couldn't predict I'd have had the cluster headache. I couldn't have predicted that the medication would react in this way. I, I wouldn't, I didn't say anything in advancing. Oh, hi. I'm photosensitive. Because most days of the year or most days of the week, it's not that big of a deal. It can be from me, but. I very rarely have to leave a room because of it. In this case, I did. But. This wasn't something they had prescribed. I didn't feel like I had any right to ask people to stop talking in the room. Because I think they had created a nice little cozy room for themselves. And honestly, If I hadn't been there trying to listen to that on wifi. There's a good chance. They could have used that room for exactly that there's a good chance that two people could have came in just to plug in their phones, to charge while the conference was on, started the conversations and all that. So I didn't feel like it was right for me to tell these other people were enjoying their break from. I can feel like it was right for me to ask them to. Stop. Especially given. And the actually, no, this is the, probably the part that I feel the least enthused about, which is, I don't think it would lie if I was really that bad, but. I was also in a position where I only had the wifi to go on. So for me, I think that made more sense because for all these people, I don't think that. Another thing this room was not signposted marked or in any way, like there was nothing saying that this room was a quiet room or anything like that. So while I asked for it for that reason. You know, it didn't quite. End up being that. And so. I'm working to make sure that next time there is that room. And I guess in that way, I am standing up for myself. And that I suppose is important. Because the conference was for. Patient advocacy. And standing up for your. Situations where your disability might uniquely affect you. And you might need unique accommodations to deal with them. And honestly, If I've been able to listen to the speeches. Maybe I wouldn't have. All right guys. That's amazing. Sorry. About last week. I haven't been having a interesting week. Interesting fortnight the last week has been a hell of a month. Don't you think? And as a result, I hope you've enjoyed this. It's a little bit long, but I enjoyed doing it. I missed doing this, but also the anxiety was killing me for. So long. And hopefully having this much fun, having, doing it. We'll make next week even easier. But I also found that the easiest thing for me to do is to start the show when I have people Who have said stuff about the last show? I'm not looking for a lot of listeners, but if you are listening and you want to talk about anything, if you want to pass comments on anything, you've heard me say. It will spiral me off into 10 minutes that might be related or unrelated. But if you want to do that, I would love to hear it because that's another thing as well. I try not to talk too much about the podcast itself with people I meet. Because I don't want to retread stuff, but if people say stuff to me they find out. I almost, yeah, that's another thing. I always warn people. I always give you an option to anonymize yourself and whatnot like that. I don't put anyone's details out there, including my own. Apparently. Either way. Please do get in touch. If you are interested, I'm on Twitter and chocolate ocelot. Like chocolate, like the bar ocelot, like the revolver. Where the cat. I guess. Find me there. If you have questions, comments, critiques, or feedback, find me. I've had a lot of fun. I hope you had two high fives all around. Oh, and I have been Russell Stewart brown. But you knew that didn't, you. See ya.