Kinda forgot that DST put me three hours behind or lots of you all three hours ahead however you want to phrase it, and wasn’t going to post because it was so late. But then I thought why not?
Here’s a question for you all- name one thing you think you can do better than most if not all but a small few. Mine is sleep, and I am really, really good at it.
Also- sometimes Maxwell looks exactly like a panther in the wild:
War for Ukraine Day 1,109: Trump’s Goals for Ukraine Are a Full Shakedown & Bustout
Bostondreams
The Righteous Gemstones final season premiere was fantastic. Folks should watch this show.
Also, I can put up with snarky teenagers really well.
Jay
I can wave at deer and antelope in a manner that they respond with “cool bro”.
I can, wearing a mask, “eye smile” at toddlers that makes them coo and giggle.
RandomMonster
Draw. I draw better than most people.
Thatās all I got.
Sandia Blanca
I am exceptionally good at blurting out every cockamamie idea that pops into my head. This skill is somewhat underappreciated.
OCD
Damn Maxwell is a beast.
I’m jealous. Sleep is the thing I am worst at.
I roll a mean joint.
And I used to be able to hide 13 cats from a landlord in about 90 seconds.
Soprano2
I’m good at sleep, but that’s because I’m sleep deprived all the time now.
sentient ai from the future
my withering glare has been tested to a rockwell hardness of 67
sentient ai from the future
@OCD: in my youthiness, i got a compliment that still sticks in my mind years later – while rolling a joint freehand, someone whispered to a nearby friend that i was focusing on the task like a swiss watchmaker.
now, in my dotage, i am looking at actual watchmaking as a hobby.
Redshift
I’m really good at sleep too (slept until 1:30pm yesterday morning!) I’ll challenge you to a sleep-off any time! Best part is, we’d both be winners.
Other than that, I dunno. I have things I’m pretty darn good at, but I don’t know if I’d say better than most people.
Jacqueline Squid Onassis
I am just world-class at Whack-a-Mole.Ā If it were a spectator sport, I’d be rich and famous.
I’m also just about the best I’ve ever met, tactically speaking, at the board game Diplomacy.Ā My lack of diplomacy skills, however, keeps me from being anywhere close to being among the best at the game, overall.
mvr
@sentient ai from the future: Horology (clock or watchmaking) is a cool hobby. There are some really beautiful tools associated with it.
mvr
I’m kind of a jack of all trades who is good at doing things over until they’re pretty good. I’ve made some cool things that way, but I’m not sure that is the kind of thing one can do better than others.
Westyny
Iām told Iām really good at abstract painting, and talking about and writing about all painting. Itās a pleasant side step away from the political fray, though not wholly divorced from it. Ā Iām also a really good cook, almost as good as my wife.
sentient ai from the future
@mvr: yeah, preaching to the choir there. there is something of a renaissance going on in mechanical watchmaking (when zuck released his video about how he was not going to fact check and was moving that team to texas, putting women on said team as well as anyone with a trans loved one at risk, he was wearing a boutique mechanical watch with a retail price of just under $1m) but there’s also a lot of horology content on youtube if you know what to look for. i am fond of kalle slapp, some dude in spain, another rando old guy in seattle transitioning from a career in tech to one in watchmaking (one of two schools in the US for the trade is there), and some guy in switzerland who likes to go get amazing watches at flea markets and shit there and try and repair them.
TS
I’m expert at panic. I panic over anything that isn’t instantly resolved & when it’s over and done I panic that it happened too fast.
ArchTeryx
Story writing and invention of characters. I’m currently working on a short story (that may become a series) about an alien interstellar explorer of a most… unusual kind. She’s a Godzilla-sized half whale, half otter, on a quest for her people. Sylia mostly exists to take every trope and cliche about giants and stomp them, excuse the pun. She’s a very big girl and an apex predator, but she’s also loaded up with a full deck of decency and a vow to not hurt any “Tinies” – she’s there to make friends, not kill people.
One of my favorite pics of her shows a normal sized doctor who specializes in giant beings examining Sylia’s mouth. Dr. Agatha? Totally calm and used to this. It’s the GIANTĀ that’s sweating bullets, trying to keep absolutely still…
People have raved about her for years. I accidentallied into a truly popular character. The highest complement I’ve ever received is that she’s like a char out of a Studio Ghibli film, because of how deep her story is and the themes it explores. At peak, people forget she’s 400 feet tall. She’s just a person that happens to be big, not a monster. And she has many mysteries to solve as part of the Explorer Pod of the Halavahdons.
Most importantly she brings some sunshine to people’s lives during these dark times. That’s worth a lot to me.
pacem appellant
I used to be really good at sleep, too. But between getting older and getting a CPAP for my apnea, I can’t sleep in anymore. But I wouldn’t trade a good, shorter night’s sleep to have that super-power back.
Since we’re only being judged against a small few, I can read Ancient Greek. I am just a novice learner, but the number of people globally who can read Ancient Greek at any level is vanishingly small.ā
Lily
suddenly understanding something/someoneĀ years later
Redshift
I used to be really good at withstanding cold. As long as I wasn’t wet and stayed relaxed, I didn’t get cold. I could go out in a T-shirt in winter (even with bare feet for short periods.) Sadly, I’ve lost that ability as I’ve gotten older. I kept it for a good long the, though, not just when I was young and stupid.
John Revolta
I dunno if I should say. I mean, it’s not the sort of thing you just come out with, in mixed company, you know?
Oh, what the hell. Well, I’m a pretty damn good bagpiper. There. Whew!
Lily
@ArchTeryx:Ā She sounds wonderful.
SpaceUnit
I’m very good at compartmentalization. Ā It’s a vastly underrated life skill.
sukabi
lol… John, you’re really good at plumping up your rescues… Maxwell is looking rather reubenesque….
also, procrastination seems to be my primary skill…
pacem appellant
@John Revolta: Pipe on! I wish I was good, but I can play ’em. And they make me happy.
SpaceUnit
@John Revolta:
Why do bagpipers march?
Come on . . . Ā somebody, anyone.
prostratedragon
@sukabi:Ā We should have a match some day.
John Revolta
@pacem appellant: Well that’s the main thing!
@SpaceUnit: Gosh I don’t know, SpaceUnit! Why DO bagpipers march?, he queried
SpaceUnit
@John Revolta:
To get away from the noise!
ETA: Ā That’s an old one.
prostratedragon
Leave Jesuits alone!
rikyrah
Maxwellš¤š¤š¤
West of the Rockies
I’m a decent trail runner and mountain biker for a 63-year-old.Ā Reasonably flexible still, too. Not terribly strong.
Also, as it’s after dark, I am a good writer of erotica (under an assumed name on Amazon).
West of the Rockies
@SpaceUnit:
I don’t know.Ā Why do bagpipers march? (I’m guessing this is a punny joke.)
sab
Well this is depressing.
I am reasonably competent at many many things, but not exceptional at any of them. No gold star for me.
sab
@John Revolta: Not everyone agrees, but I love bagpipes.
Ole phat Stu
Writing textbooks
prostratedragon
Detained by ICE š§µ:
otmar
Lurking.
This comment just destroyed that track record :-/
SpaceUnit
@West of the Rockies:
It’s a really old joke among Celtic music fans.
I love Celt bands like Old Blind DogsĀ that can weave bagpipes into their music so perfectly that it almost has a trancelike effect.
John Revolta
@sab: Your bagpipe opinion is correct. Gold star!
Pete Downunder
It depends on to whom one compares oneself. I am the best cook among my friends, but that is not a high bar. I was a pretty decent public speaker after a career as a trial lawyer, but I would never be called an orator. In a semi-related idea, I saw a thing on the Internet where someone suggested that each country randomly select a citizen to perform an event at the Olympics, if for no other reason than to show how amazing the actual athletes are. Next up on the balance beam is Fred, an accountant from New Jersey.
SpaceUnit
Old Blind Dogs:
The Wisest Fool
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Redshift: so *youāre* the original of the āshorts and T-shirt guyā on the āannoying people of Minnesotaā meme. Now we know.
lots of people here are good at sleep but my specialty is sleeping late. My technique is, after waking up at the usual time & feeding the cat, I go back to bed & basically take a morning nap. I wake up feeling so rested, Iām never going to even try to become a morning person.
eclare
There is no way I could sleep better than my kitty or dog.Ā I am so jealous of you.
YY_Sima Qian
Welcome to Sellers’ Inflation 2.0:
Gift link to Bloomberg article below:
eclare
@otmar:
I see you.Ā Wow.Ā You popped back up.
frosty
@sab: Same here. Iām not exceptional at anything I spend time on now. Cycling, birding, photography, guitar, harmonica – nope. I had some moments during my career though.
I also seem to be really good at procrastinating.
YY_Sima Qian
@YY_Sima Qian: I hadn’t realized that Howard Lutnick had served as Chairman of Cantor Fitzgerald, & had steered the firm through an extraordinary painful period following its devastating loss on 9/11.
Just another formerly “respectable” personality who has abandoned all propriety since fallen into the Trumpian vortex.
NotMax
Modesty forbids.
;)
sukabi
@prostratedragon: lol…maybe next week…
prostratedragon
“Animula vagula blandula …”
NotMax
@prostratedragon
“What happens if I press this button?”
//
Mel
@John Revolta: Magnificent!
NotMax
@prostratedragon
Obligatory?
sab
@frosty: I am excellent at procrastinating. I make the excuse that I am pondering, giving great thought to various options.
Martin
@Pete Downunder: Yo, don’t shit on Fred.
NotMax
Le sigh.
Dolt 47 – multiple times within the space of minutes – calls rare earths “raw earths.”
VeniceRiley
Got y’all beat. I can sleep and procrastinate at the same time!
knally
I couldn’t come up with anything for the original question and then I thought I can probably embroider better than 8 billion people. it’s all about perspective :-)
Hildebrand
My favorite comment in a student evaluation, which I have decided to take as a compliment, and therefore something I shall clam as something Iām good at: Ā āCould comfortably be cast as Lex Luthor in any Superman film.ā
NotMax
@knally
Doff my digital cap to you. Closest I ever come to embroidery is a Whitman’s sampler.
;)
knally
@NotMax: I had to go look that up and was much amused by it!
Don L
What can I do that most people aren’t good at? Thinking. I’m very good at it. Most people aren’t.
TBone
Before Covid, I had an almost photographic memory (exception was peoples’ names).Ā I never needed to look up phone numbers of friends or family, they were stored in my head. Once got out of a sticky driving situation by quickly reciting my driver I.D.#. – the cop was surprised. Never had to look up a local zip code (DelCo has many).Ā I always knew if anything physical was out of place, not how I’d left it.Ā Song lyrics were all in there too.Ā Really came in handy at work, and I was also really good at finding missing or mislaid documents and files.
Now, fuggedaboudit.Ā I’m stil pretty good at recall on reading though, thankfully.
TBone
@sab: I disagree – you are a wonderful teller of tails tales!Ā Five gold stars level.
Betty Cracker
I’m really good at housetraining puppies. I suck at all other types of dog training, but I can get a puppy to understand that outside is the appropriate place to do their business in a very short time. Badger was the easiest to train — I had him woofing at the door to be let out inside a week.
Rose Judson
Evidently my voice calms fractious infants and delights dogs.
Liminal Owl
@ArchTeryx: Please let us know when this story is published! I am eager to read it.
Might I put in a plug for one of my favorite recent books?Ā Someone You Can Build a Nest In is, well, a lovely story of an unusual monster.
satby
@SpaceUnit: A new (old) band for me to like, thank you!
I also like bagpipes and uilleann pipes, the Irish version. Here’s the late, great Paddy Moloney, of the Chieftains showing how it’s done in this fun medley.
MagdaInBlack
My late husband used to say I was really good at saying (blurting out) what everyone else was thinking.
Unfortunately, this skill is not highly appreciated.
p.s. I like to think of it as cutting through the bs.
TBone
Today’s Internet travels so far revealed in several different places the reasons that Dotard & admin. really Do Not GAF about the stock market.Ā As well, the hegemony of The Dollar is a bugaboo for them.Ā I expect severe shocks now more than I did yesterday.Ā Strap in and buckle up.
TBone
@MagdaInBlack: I appreciate your skill!
Liminal Owl
I remember names, but not faces. Ā I am exceptionally text-oriented: if I met someone a week ago, I probably wonāt be able to recognize them visuallyābut give me the name of someone from grade school, and the index cards in my brain provide data and memories.
Which is also the basis of the one thing Iām really good at: proofreading.
satby
I’m told I make a decent bar of soap š.
Betty Cracker
@satby: You sure do! The tea-infused variety is my favorite of any soap I’ve used, ever.
Liminal Owl
Per report on Bluesky that refuses to share link: Xitter outage, globally.
Liminal Owl
@satby: Your soap is excellent, and I need to order more.
MagdaInBlack
@satby: The oatmeal-honey smells so good I want to eat it :-)
Central Planning
I have the ability to make technology work just by being around it. I canāt tell you how many times someone asks for my help because something isnāt working right, only to sit down and have it work as expected, or, it works when they do it just because I am near the device (laptop, phone, computer, etc)
Anyway
Procrastination ā-
satby
@Betty Cracker:Ā @Liminal Owl:Ā @MagdaInBlack:Ā (blushingāŗļø) thanks!
satby
@Liminal Owl: šš hope Anonymous has something to do with it. Been wondering why we haven’t seemed to hear much from them lately.
Sometimes bad guys make the best good guys.
Betty Cracker
@Liminal Owl: Back up now, apparently. Damn, I was hoping it would brick for at least a day.
David_C
@Central Planning: OMG, I also make computers work by just being near them – I would call it my aura.
Being bored a lot in high school, I taught myself to wrote backwards in a script that is neater than my forwards script.
Being a scientist for a long time, I probably know more than the average person, but among scientists Iām nothing special, but have the knack of focusing on the big picture and navigating complex bureaucratic (acquisition and drudgery approval) regulations. People have noted my diplomatic skills, especially dealing with the egos of successful people.
MagdaInBlack
@Anyway: We put the “Pro’ in crastination?
FromĀ LatinĀ crastinusĀ (āof tomorrowā), fromĀ crasĀ (ātomorrowā).
Princess
Iām going to be bold and say cook. Thatās what I can do better than almost everyone.
Central Planning
@David_C: Exactly! I tell people I wish I could teach them!
Liminal Owl
@David_C: I have the opposite, er, talent: computers stop working when Iām near them. Often in ways nobody has seen before or can replicate.
prostratedragon
@Martin:Ā And now you know why Smokie Robinson had to use his own name, Bill, in that song.
prostratedragon
@NotMax:
Guess he wasn’t exactly a hipster back in the day.
Rugosa
I’m a good speller.Ā I almost always achieve Genius on the NYT Spelling Bee and have a few Queen Bees as well.
prostratedragon
@Central Planning:
Aha! An anti-Pauli!
Central Planning
@prostratedragon: I did not know about that! I think my wife embodies the Pauli effect :)
BellyCat
Similar, except for me this involves the judicial system.
ETA: To be fair, same appears to be true with any large organization
prostratedragon
@Central Planning:Ā So nice to have names for things, isn’t it?š
Gin & Tonic
Iāve been complimented on my ability to kill conversations. Not in a malicious way, I just have this remarkable ability to respond in a way that forecloses any avenue to respond further. It comes in really handy on airplane flights.
karensky
@YY_Sima Qian: Many thanks for this Bloomberg article.
TBone
@prostratedragon: so glad I came back here for that!Ā You lit my candle again.
Wayward!
lowtechcyclist
Calendar math. You want to know what day of the week August 7, 2086 (or any other random date between 1901 and 2099) will fall on, I can tell you within seconds. (Dates before 1901 or after 2099 take longer because 1900 and 2100 not being leap years screws up the pattern.)
This skill isnāt at all useful anymore, given the calendars on everyoneās phones. But itās still fun.
Also pretty much any word or phrase will remind me of a song, a skill that drives my wife up the wall.
TBone
@lowtechcyclist: wow color me impressed
TBone
@BellyCat: I’ve been wondering about how you’re making out with the redneck system here in PA.
David_C
@Gin & Tonic: To kill conversation, I just mention that I facilitate the development of drugs to take in case of nuclear holocaust. āOh, thatās interestingā¦ (backing away).ā
CaseyL
I am very good at “civilian” Scrabble – that is, playing against friends. I mean, none of them will play with me anymore because I beat them by 150 points or more.
I keep thinking about joining a local Scrabble club and seeing how I do against the cognoscenti.
Central Planning
@prostratedragon: Yes, but in this case, āName it to tame itā will absolutely not work.
BellyCat
@TBone: Sent you an email Ā update.
pacem appellant
@Central Planning: I have the same “skill” too. I didn’t do anything to earn this magic. I wonder if it’s selection bias, or something unconscious from having worked with computers my whole life.
StringOnAStick
I can sew better than anyone Iāve ever known, both clothing and making useful things from scratch, like padded microphone carrying cases, and repairing things back to their prior function or better. Ā Iāve discovered later in life that i have an excellent singing voice and Iām taking lessons to further enhance that. Ā Iām serious about water wise landscaping and i think i do a great job at design of those.
I think my main skill though is pattern recognition; i see how things integrate and work together.
TBone
@BellyCat: thanks!