ArtieShaw

Wasn’t Mitt the dude with the lady binders?

It’s not for everyone, but Penguin Island by Anatole France features great auks. I read it many years ago and enjoyed it (in a dorky 19th century satire sort of way). Not for everyone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penguin_Island_(novel)

I thought there was a tangential reference to that recent question about whether there’s a critical mass of water to corpses that people find objectionable.

The example: There are plenty of corpses in the ocean, but people will swim in it. If there were one corpse in a pool, most people would decline the invite that particular pool party.

Mixed with that very recognizable graphic of Saddam in his hiding hole. And balls, for reasons that escape me.

edit: my friend is also a little confused.

I went to a weird conference about 10 years ago and it was very much about data retrieval and long term storage of digital media. I’d say that the speaker was 80% dead on and 20% full of shit. One thing he was very clear about: he lost his own wedding photos due to his own overconfidence in digital storage technology and his wife is still deeply pissed about it.

I still have my wedding photos on CD rom somewhere, so I’m sure they’re safe. /s

In related news, my parents are downsizing and my mom just asked me if I wanted my great-grandparents’ wedding certificate. It’s in great condition.

Speaking as a new hobbyist (2 months), I went with an Creality Ender 3 V3 KE. The cost was in the $250-300 USD range and it had a decent range of features.

I’ve used it almost every day since unpacking it. It’s pretty easy to get to know. The Creality cloud slicing tool is good enough for me (for now), and can be run via a browser or app.

Microcenter has a variety of display models that you can check out. If I had known about it I probably would have gone prior to making my selection. I’m not sure my choice would have been different, but a little extra knowledge never hurts.

I knew someone this happened to. Several months after moving into their new house they started working on a neglected secondary bathroom on the 2nd floor. They didn’t go back there too frequently because it wasn’t a priority, but it was a really cool space connected to their bedroom via a small dressing room/closet.

One day she noticed a low, humming drone and checked the wall of that closet. She claimed that the whole wall was warm to the touch and vibrating. That was not an easy or cheap job, but we got to make jokes about bees for a couple of months.

If you watch enough old scifi and adventure movies, you’ll learn to welcome the “so that’s where Lucas took that idea from” feeling as an old friend. He lifted a lot.

Exactly. That kitty encompasses and rules over aaaalllll that couch. Surfaces and interior volume (as soon as he discovers it). No room for anybody else. Just ask him.

Nice! That’s very similar to something I want to do with my tablet and reader.

The two hobbies I picked up over the past year are leather working and 3D printing. Funnily enough, I was about two weeks into printing before I realized… “hey - I can combine these.”

In the US they were definitely out of fashion in the '80s and '90s. They were fashion statement that said “I’m a gross hippie” or worse, a BeeGee.

I was a teen at the time and the consensus among teen girls was that a beard was the ultimate dealbreaker of a physical attribute. Makes sense, really, because most guys our age couldn’t grow a nice one if they wanted to. (And also - hippies are gross). I always respectfully disagreed, and would point to our classmate, Murad. He had pretty well grown facial hair by junior year and he looked fiiiinne.

The exception that proved the rule? Luckily (for Murad) my classmates generally agreed, but refused to back down from their opinion in general.

That attitude persisted, with the occasional appearance of a goatee or soul patch in the late '90s, both of which proved to be a gateway drug that led to the appearance of proper beards. I think a lot of guys would have liked to have beards, but realized that they were driving away potential partners. But they were pretty normal by 2010.

I’ll drop this line from wikipedia, which should illustrate just how boringly mainstream beards have become in the US.

Since 2015 a growing number of male political figures have worn beards in office, including Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, and Senators Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton.

Damn hippies.

That’s an interesting but grim point. Ebola, for example, is both very deadly and very infectious, but that combination means that outbreaks tend to burn out before spreading widely. One of the early things that scared me about COVID in late 2019 was the rumors of “asymptomatic spreading” that were coming out of China.

That wasn’t the only “oh shit” thing about COVID and the way things were handled early on, but it was a bad one.

I am against earthquakes on principle.

Oddly enough, I just read something today about newly emerging earthquake detection tech. It involved small variations in movement tracked by GPS transmitters, and would give 2 hours (+/-?) before the quake hit. I like the idea of that.

In recent years we’ve been seeing a scary trend of tornadoes hitting the area overnight. Like at 11:00pm or later. That suuuuccks.

When I was a kid they were almost always a late afternoon or early evening event. Official forecasts were crap, but at least you could look outside and think, “this looks like tornado weather, better check the radio.” Now we’re woken out of sleep in the middle of the night by the simultaneous klaxon of our phone alerts.

They’re also hitting us earlier in the year. My calendar has a repeating reminder for early April: “peak tornado season starts in a few months - start drilling the cats now.” We had one in fucking February this year that took out a barn a few miles down the road.

I have an at-home laser hair removal gun. It works best on dark hair and very pale skin because it uses the absorption of UV light to heat and kill the hair. It has a safety feature that makes you validate that “my skin is pale enough to use this” before it will turn on because it will burn anything dark. Hair, skin, whatever.

It won’t work on blond or white hair, and there’s no real workaround to that. Electrolysis is an option for light colored hair, but I think that’s more invasive. Not an option for me, so I haven’t looked into it.

I wouldn’t blame you. We live in the path, but early spring is a 50/50 chance for rain and clouds vs clear weather.

7:07am. Milan.

I’m woken by two texts from my coworker. “Thought we were meeting in the lobby at 7:00. Heading to the train station.”

The train leaves at 7:20. “Well I can’t…” or can I?

Clothes on. Glasses on. All toiletries swept into purse. I run like hell.

There’s a pedestrian underpass, but I Frogger across the road and through the square. I’m in the station with a minute to spare and I’m still somehow running. My shoes are shabby Converse and the floor is polished marble. And I’m 45.

Things are going as ok as any of that can be until I have that out of body moment when I know my foot to forward motion ratio is incompatible with staying upright.

I lunged into the fall, made an extremely satisfying “splat” sound, and skidded several horizontal meters on the marble floor. Two or more nicely dressed Italians look at me in horror, but I’m not physically hurt. Big smile. I thought about Mary Catherine Gallagher-ing it with a victory pose, but just got up and kept running.

Made the train as it was pulling out, brushed hair/teeth once i caught my breath. Moved to the correct train car at the next stop, and met up with my colleague.

We had a nice day trip and the waiter was horrified at how much wine we drank at lunch.

Is “going back to school” a thing in Germany? From what I know about that education system I’m guessing not, but in the US that’s a standard answer.

“I want to move to be closer to my aging parents.” - might work. If you haven’t shared much about your life, it’s an easy lie. And it’s dull and depressing, so the odds of followup questions are slim. I hear it a lot when interviewing job candidates in our area.