I've been lazy about posting these lately, but not collecting them.   I think it has been well over a week since I last put up what I considered memorable from 9gag but I'll go ahead and let you know why I 9gag so much, same as I do every time.

About 2 years ago I decided to "leave" traditional social media like FB and Instagram because it all seemed like such a waste of time and everything was becoming political.   I saw long-term friends and even family members having falling outs with one another to the point where they were blocking their own sister or brother and talking trash about them publicly.   This is not ok in my book especially since I know these people and am very familiar with how they would not act like this in public.   

I think society at large spends entirely too much of their time being obsessed with having an online presence to the point where they don't really even focus on having a real life presence.   I was guilty of this as well and wanted to do something to change it.   I still have a FB and IG account but I never post anything nor do I get wrapped up in any sort of debate.   It' just stupid because you aren't going to accomplish anything good by doing so.  

Instead I just look at memes and funny Tweets on 9gag, which is a wonderful place and the toxicity it kept to a minimum because most of it is anonymous and if you don't want people to know who you are, it is very easy to do that.   It's meant to be all funny but a lot of times people still manage to sneak political and social stuff in there.   Whatever, you can just click around them.   Here are some things that caught my eye in the recent past.

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I recently started trying to get back into shape and have been seeing pretty good results.  Friends of mine have taken notice and one of them asked to come to the gym with me.  I told him that this is fine but I am not looking for a gym bro.   I put my headphones on and do my thing... I rarely talk to anyone at the gym.   Well I soon found out why my friend wanted to have someone more experienced go with him because it was kind of hilarious how he had no idea how to use any of the equipment.   I helped him after I saw him get into a few weird situations.   This meme is now how I view him.

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Sometimes Tweets are frowned upon by the 9gag community but I don't mind them since I don't have Twitter nor do I care to get involved with it.  To me it just seems a bit too self-indulgent.   Anyway, I have a rather extreme fear of heights and also don't like to not be in control.   Hot air balloons to me just seem like a personal nightmare of mine and I don't think I would do it even if someone else was paying for it.   There aren't many deaths in the sport, but that doesn't really matter to me - it just looks terrifying.  

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When I first started running my near daily 3-5km I did them in the morning on an empty stomach.   This was gruesome and something that I quickly abandoned.   I agree with the statement above though.  After doing that first thing in the morning I felt like nothing bad could possibly happen to me the rest of the day, since I already tortured myself as soon as I woke up.  

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People who know me already know that I am extremely attached to my own dog and while sometimes having her is a pain in the ass since I live a transient life, I wouldn't really know what to do if she wasn't a part of it.  She keeps me in line and on schedule.  I can't just stay indoor all day because I have someone else that is depending on me for "poopie walks."  We have more dog treats than we do human food in my house.   

Also, as I get older, and I know it is a cliche, but I have very little patience for people and sometimes avoid social situations because I just can't be asked to participate.   I do however, love spending time with dogs and never get tired of that.  Heard of crazy cat ladies?  How about crazy dog guys?   If I had enough stability and money I would gladly just get a dozen dogs and then have limited interaction with people altogether.

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Speaking of dogs.  This is something that comes up all the time when you are speaking to fellow dog owners.   I've never been in a similar situation with a cat owner and not just because I don't know many cat owners.  I once knew someone that had 5 cats and the topic of "what kind of cat is that" never came up.   Cat is cat!   

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Lastly I present you with this.   As an American expat you need to get some thick skin and drop the "USA number 1!" attitude pretty quickly unless you want to be upset all the time.   A sport of sorts exists in the expat community globally to pick on Americans because we live life differently than a lot of the world.  We also have, even if you don't want to admit it, some pretty horrible diets over there.   There isn't much reason for this product to exist but as soon as I saw the Tweet on 9gag, I was thinking to myself "ooooh, I'd love to try that."   I can't really think of any other country's culinary choices that are made by absurd fusion like this.  

That's it for now.   9gag has had less funny stuff in it lately because of the fact that people invade the funny section with political propaganda, but there are still some gems in there.  I would block the "politics" tag but at the same time, the only reason why I have any idea what is going on in the world is because of that tab since I don't look at any other news.   

If you have any memes or funny Tweets to share back I'd love to see them.