Semisimian

I’m closer to his age, so I am nowhere close to regular enough to shit on command on a cop car. That is a young man’s game. Back in my day though…

E.B. Farnum from Deadwood (the HBO show, anyway. Who knows what he was like in real life?)

I know her job is to work with feet, but I still hope they know each other. Well.

For the people making the decision whether to return to office or not (AKA management), their job is simpler with everyone in the office. It is the nature of management. If everyone is in the same building, it is easier to keep them on task, foster collaboration, etc. It doesn’t matter that YOUR job is easier for you if you can work from home. Their job of management is more difficult.

Also, for businesses that also own the land underneath their building, the business is another way to purchase real estate. They are in essence double dipping, making money off of the business itself, and building value in the land underneath that business. The reduced square footage of a work from home model does not serve the land grab.

Some people might argue that it’s for a desire for control. Some people might argue that it’s just old people with no creativity trying to do things the way they’ve been done in the past. I think the reasons are more practical and fiscally driven.

It’s a boob joke - I didn’t see anyone mention it. The “she has good genes” is an adolescent euphemism. Now, could they’ve found a person of color with large boobs to do the ad? Of course, and please do. I hope AA tries to remedy their mistake by releasing ad after ad of all the young actresses (using the word loosely for Sweeney) with “good genes.” Double down and give the public what they want!

Okay, now defend us from the foreign censorship that Israeli lobbyists baked into our state constitutions. https://www.newsweek.com/pro-palestinian-protest-states-colleges-illegal-bds-1895292

We don’t have the RV thing where I am. The people in the video are talking like this is commonplace in Portland. Is this mobile drug manufacturing? Mobile prostitution? Do they move the RVs often to avoid police? Are they stealing the RVs or is there some black market?

It just seems organized. Thanks ahead for any insight.

Avalon on the island of Catalina. It’s the one and only town on the island and there isn’t really anywhere else to go. People use golf carts to get around. There are no gas stations on the island, so if you do have a car, you have to import your own fuel or use the marina.

Miniscule car infrastructure + laws limiting the number of cars on the island = no car culture. Bam.

As I was reading the article, I had to keep checking the URL to make sure I wasn’t on the Onion. Is the BBC doing satire now?

From the article: “There’s something about the freedom of mobility and there’s something very American about it, and so, I also think that there’s a lot of people around the world that think about American cars, and they think about American road trips, and we want to invite the rest of the world. They’re going to come for FIFA’s club games, or they’re going to come for the World Cup, or they’re going to come for the Olympics, come and see sporting events, but then you can also take a week or 10 days with my family to travel around this great country. Stop at our great restaurants. Stay in our wonderful motels or hotels. Gas up your car with great American energy.”

THIS is actual car-brain thinking. I see a lot of memes in fuck cars attacking individuals and the choices they are forced to make, but this article illustrates issues that we have to fight. It’s got all the delusion you expect from a government source written by car companies: tying car ownership to freedom, oddly thinking that non-americans think about our car culture as a positive experience, and that wonderfully tone-deaf tagline.

Your city likely has some form of a transportation committee. Join it. Go to the meetings. The switch to Zoom has made it even easier to do so. My experience with our local zoning committee has reinforced that you have to fight like hell, even with your own neighbors, to do simple things like decrease parking requirements. Car-brain is real and it’s propped up by decades of propaganda and policy.

And then saying “inflation is down,” as if that has any real day-to-day impact on our travel plans.

I’m 6’4" and have driven tons of cars and owned a few. Stepping into a proper pickup was the first time I thought “oh, a vehicle designed for me.” I’m also a carpenter, so it is essential to my work. Memes like this are low hanging fruit.

Yes, we do have a size problem in the USA. Is everyone that drives one of these trucks a selfish, tiny-dicked, backwards-thinking asshole? No, and honestly, the majority of the people that I know are like me and need a work vehicle like this. More than half of them are in a union. We can point out the absurdity of the size wars when it comes to American vehicle design, but stop picking on pickup trucks.

Before Jenny, there was Pennsylvania 6-5000. From wiki:

“Many big band musicians played in Hotel Pennsylvania’s Cafe Rouge in New York City, including the Glenn Miller Orchestra. The hotel’s telephone number, Pennsylvania 6-5000, inspired the Glenn Miller 1940 Top 5 Billboard hit of the same name.”

And similarly, Transylvania 6-5000, which is where I first heard it.

ARTHUR: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. That is why I am your king!

DENNIS: Listen – strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

This is a total flip of the intention of the source material, but in this moment (in the film) it reads in the character’s voice. I think this is a good message buried in a questionable meme, unless I’m missing something. I’m old, so i used to be meta, but then they changed what meta was, and now what is meta is strange and scary to me.

They’re related, those incestuous, chinless WASPs. Brother takes sister to a formal dance and stops by the pharmacy to get a malt and let Dad get a whiff of sister’s corsage. Keep it in the family!

They do, and as a Canadian, they should know that fellow Canadian John Hopps invented the 1st pacemaker. He’s even considered the father of biomedical engineering. I dug through trying to find out if he coined the term “heartpacer,” no such luck. It sounds like a Dutch translation to me.

I am outside of the loop and I appreciate your break-down. I am all for paying for useful services, but I have such a backlog of media that I need to watch, I don’t benefit from Trakt. I like a paid business model, though

We should all question a “free” app that lets us spend 1 or 2 or 8 hours a day on their platform. We’ve gotten greedy, thinking that everything should be personal data or advertiser supported. It stinks that Trakt is cutting features while raising prices, all for a pretty simple service, but I think subscription services that protect your privacy are worth funding.

Sir, this is a Wendy’s.

Pets help us understand our own mortality in ways that continue to surprise me. When I was young, the first pet I lost was a young cat, just a few years old. I raised her from a kitten that was probably too young to ween so we had a close bond. She was indoor/outdoor and was attacked by a neighbor’s dog during the day when I was gone. Holding her and watching her die broke me, like she waited all day to die in my arms. She was mine and I felt like I let her down. Woof, it hurt. Still does.

But while I was holding her, our family dog (Allison) was next to me. She was older than I was, a feisty Lhasa Apso that had lost her ability to hold her bladder. We diapered her: we’d cut a hole in human diapers to pull her tail through to keep the hardwoods from getting ruined. She died a year later, after living a full life.

I buried both of them in the front yard, under a couple of pines that bordered our neighbor’s pet cemetery. Both times, digging those holes gave me the time I needed to be able to return them to the earth and say goodbye. I learned so much from their passing. It is the last gift our pets give us, their final act of love.

Now, older, with kids of my own, we have Sadie, who I am looking at as I write this. She’s a rescue, probably a golden mixed with some border collie, at least 16 years old. Her sister died last year and it was the first close death my kids experienced. Her passing taught my kids the alchemy of aging gracefully, the privilege of old age. Now, they find charm in Sadie’s rickety hips and excuse her incontinence. Getting old is okay; we are lucky to be able to do it. Watching your loved ones get old is a privilege we should cherish.

Edit: I wanted to thank OP for posting this. Reading your observations of your aging cat brought It all forward.