My childhood buddy lost half his teeth that way.

Hear me out. Have you tried them grilled in garlic butter with a little sprinkle of parmesan?

If it’s not for you then you won’t get any hate from me. I just wanted to throw that out there.

I can’t speak to crocodile, but I have eaten a lot of gator. If it’s not prepared properly it goes from tasting like water chicken to tasting like swamp thang.

Cletus Luxlunae. He’d specialize in spirits. And he’d hate TERFs because they ain’t minding their own fucking business.

And a lot of recruiting companies are afraid you’ll bypass them and go apply directly, thus cutting out the middle man and they’re not allowed to send out goons to break your kneecaps.

That’s no fucking joke. I started with a passion for learning about computers. I love what I do now because I’m a one man company and answer only to myself and my contracts, but I didn’t turn on a computer outside of work for fucking years because of the burnout.

I used to be the kind of person who hated anything popular. And in Texas country music has always been popular. So I mercilessly mocked anyone who enjoyed it. “So is your cousin any good in bed?” “What has 103 fingers and 32 teeth? The front row at a Garth Brooks concert.” I have dozens of jokes about being stupid, inbred, toothless, smoking cigarettes, going to Walmart, and other stereotypical things associated with being a country music fan.

I’m still not a fan but sometime in the last 10-12 years or so I stopped giving a shit what anyone else liked. If it’s not for me but it’s not hurting anyone I just don’t care if someone likes country or pop, movies with popular actors, wants to dress in a way I see as weird, likes food that I don’t enjoy, or whatever.

I wish I could go back and change it because I know I made some people feel bad for enjoying what they like.

Edit: fixed a word.

I still remember every phone number from the day I learned to memorize phone numbers until I got my first cell phone. I remember my pager number. I remember my high school best friend’s parents’ number. I still know the number to the Mongolian BBQ joint that I ordered from when I was stationed in South Carolina. None of these are useful to me.

Also of no use is my icq number from the 90s that I remember.

However, the only useful numbers I remember are my main phone number, my parents land line (but that’s a holdover from before my first cell), and one friend who lives out of state. I don’t know anyone’s number who lives within 4 hours of me.

I don’t know what’s wrong with my brain.

I have a great therapist these days who has helped me a lot. I still hate therapy. I did finally figure out why, though. Because, with the exception of therapy and a couple of really great people, everyone I’ve ever been vulnerable in front of has weaponized it against me. So even though I know my therapist wouldn’t actually do that I’m still waiting on it to come back and bite me.

Also self employed. My situation is a bit better than yours (99% luck, I know how I got my contracts) and I’ll probably be able to retire, maybe even a little early if I can keep up my skills until retirement.

However, my plan when the money starts running out or the back pain makes it too hard to get out of bed every day is the same as yours. I don’t plan on getting married. I’m not leaving anyone behind. I’m not going into a bang 'em and bin 'em joint. My back has been degrading since I got rear ended in my 20s. I have a couple of acres in the middle of nowhere that’s entirely wooded where no one goes (I guess, I only check on the place twice a year…taxes are almost nothing because no one wants to live anywhere near it). I’m going out there and just becoming one with nature.

Case in point: the downvotes are from people who don’t know or care about the difference.

Depends on what you’re calling AI. LLMs (and generative AI in general) are garbage for all those things, and most things in general (all things if you take their cost into account). Machine Learning and expert systems can do at least some of that.

I absolutely hate that generative AI is being marketed as though it’s deep learning instead of a fancy Markov chain. But I think I’ve lost the battle over that nomenclature.

But can they sing? Do fathers on land reprimand their daughters?

Not just an 80s country singer. One that was mocked mercilessly as a big tit bimbo for years. She came out of that kind hearted and when Unknown Hinson came after her for preaching kindness there was such a backlash that he couldn’t play shows for a while and Adult Swim fired him from Squidbillies.

While I get what you’re saying, I’m not sure whether people who are pretending to speak another language in order to avoid talking to you really care after they have your respect.

If you’re a big fat man, I’m a titty fan. And I’d love to see yours, too.

So they’re really trying to fix global warming!

I’m not a big movie theater guy, but I do enjoy heading to the local Alamo Drafthouse occasionally because they have terror Tuesday and weird Wednesday. Then near Halloween it’s like a full day of horror.

Cost of doing business, baby.

We were both terrible people. We were 19 when we got married and enjoyed playing house for a while. We instigated each other at every opportunity. She cheated, we decided to make it work. Then we found out she was pregnant. I told her if she has it and it’s not mine then I wasn’t interested in taking care of her and the kid. She chose to have it (I was mad at the time, but in hindsight and with a lot of therapy behind me I realize that’s not really why I was mad, but I still made the right decision) so I made good on that promise.

She would hit me almost daily. I was severely emotionally abusive. I’ve grown since then and so has she. We’re not friends exactly, but we do periodically email each other to say hello or laugh about the actual good times if something reminds one of us of the other. Because there were plenty of good times.

We were 19 and in love with the idea of being in love. We both came from broken families and fucked up situations. And I think if we met today instead of back then we would be really good friends.