I believe ACAB, and my cousin is actively trying to become a state trooper.

Doesn’t mean I walk up and spit in his face at every family gathering. We talk, we grew up together, we shoot the shit and have a good time.

But if he asked me to condone or celebrate his job? Nah, he knows how I feel about the police and their profession, as long as he’s safe and not drinking the Kool aid (he will) that’s all I can hope. And that maybe he’ll open his eyes someday. 🤷‍♀️

As a hard rule, though, I won’t date cops or mess around with them. One reached out on a dating app recently and I just politely responded with “I’m not interested in law enforcement, sorry” to which I got “Uh, I’m actually a correctional officer.”

Cool, so you abuse people after the police have finished abusing them, that’s not the brag you think it is.

Damn, you’re right, I misremembered!

Welp, I still think it deserved one more, haha.

Galavant, it was a show that only lasted a season, two seasons, but was just kind of a medieval-era musical drama/comedy that didn’t take itself too seriously.

The songs were catchy, the characters were a little corny but grew on you, and the actors could sing fairly well. But, it only got one season and ended on a cliffhanger, so we’ll never know what could have been I think it deserved one more season to bring some closure to some things. :/

🎶Way back in days of old, there was a legend told, about a hero known as Galavant🎶

Edit: another user pointed out a few things I was wrong about, edited to correct.

USPS will never text you unless you have your account set up that way. My mom sends me these texts asking if they’re legit, and I always ask, “Did you order something?” No. “Well, then why would you have a delayed package?”

Again, USPS will not text you like this, and they use a .gov domain.

Ah, I misread that, fair point. 👍

In Wagner’s estimation, it takes 13 milliseconds for the brain to process information from the eye, a hundred milliseconds to feel pain. But 13 milliseconds into the implosion, there is nothing left intact of the cylindrical section of the Titan.

“They would have been dead ten milliseconds ago,” says Wagner. “They wouldn’t really feel anything or see anything coming. They would just be instantly dead

Source

I used to be a mail carrier, so I’ve got a few stories I could share.

There was the 95 year old retired Army vet who would give me a bottle of wine as a tip at Christmas. The first time I met him, he was writing his name on the top of his mailbox in sharpie, and when I asked why, he said, “Because the doofus you have delivering our mail keeps mixing up the boxes,” to which I responded, “Well, as that doofus, I apologize, I just started” and he started laughing and apologizing. He’d greet me from the porch every day with his mug of wine and a hearty “Oh boy, here comes trouble!”

There was the house that refused to empty their mailbox of mail, they’d only take packages. I took all their mail from their full box like 3 times over the course of six months, making them come pick it all up, and they kept doing it. So, one day, I had two small packages, and their mailbox was 3/4 full. I knew if I just threw the packages in there, the packages would be grabbed and the box would be full of mail the following week.

So, I pulled all the mail out, put the packages in the very back, and put all the mail back on top of it. She called the supervisor at the post office saying they weren’t on her back porch, he told her the packages were scanned delivered and they should be there, check the mailbox. She called him back and said the mailbox was empty. He told her he’d contact me and figure out what happened.

He called me, and asked where the woman’s packages were. I told him this was the house that wouldn’t empty their mailbox, so, I put them under all of her mail to try to force them to take their mail. He laughed and told me when I got back later that she had called back and said she still couldn’t find them despite “looking in the mailbox,” and he simply told her to empty it and she’d likely find them.

Had a house that kept leaving their dog off leash, and it would run up and bark at me while I was walking around their neighborhood. Per USPS policy, if a dog is outside and loose without any kind of fence/leash/etc, then the neighborhood doesn’t get mail that day. I told the kids they needed to keep the dog inside, I told the mother, I told their neighbors, and I was working the issue with my postmaster. The PM called them twice and sent them a letter telling them the dog is either inside when I pull up, or we’re not delivering anymore.

Well, I got one house past the dog’s house, and it came sprinting out the front door, barking and running for me. I’d had enough, and I snapped. I stomped, stood my ground, and shouted at this dog and it just stopped and started running back. Their son was in the yard, and (I feel bad in hindsight about it) I kinda yelled at the kid, telling him that damn dog was supposed to be in the house, their parents knew this, and they were lucky I didn’t dog-spray the little shit (the dog, not the kid). Whole time the kid is frozen, a yard away, just staring at me.

I continue walking my loop, still irate, when I see this guy starting to walk towards me, asking me why I was yelling at his son. I turned and asked why, after all of the warnings and requests they’d gotten, they couldn’t keep their fucking dog inside for 15 minutes a day when I’m here. He followed me on my loop, kept asking me to stop and talk to him, as we’re shouting at each other all across his neighbor’s lawns. I just kept telling him I had nothing to discuss with him since him and his family clearly couldn’t listen, and I strongly encouraged him to call the post office.

So he asked for my name, and I told him “Dave, no need to write it down, I’ll be letting my postmaster know you and I spoke,” and left. When I got back to the office at the end of the day, I was pulled into the office and handed a stack of letters from my postmaster. “You’re to deliver all of these to that neighborhood tomorrow, this is the 4th instance of that dog being loose, the whole neighborhood is going to the curb.” (This means moving the mailboxes from the house to the road) Well, the neighbors absolutely lost their shit that they were being forced to move their mailboxes because of their irresponsible neighbor, even asking me about it as I would go through the neighborhood.

To end on a slightly lighter note: the reason I told the guy my name was “Dave” was because it was the unofficial response for our office. We had a carrier named Dave that was kinda the office punching bag (he took it well and gave it right back). The old timers told me that years ago, one of the carriers Scott (I think) got into with a woman on his route. Like, in each other’s faces, shouting, cussing, etc, it was heated. Well, when the woman asked for Scott’s name, he said, “Dave!”

Dave got back to the office that day, and the PM is laying into him about how he was speaking to this customer. He’s shouting back at her that he has no idea what she’s talking about, and she keeps insisting the woman said the carrier’s name was Dave. She checked the address, and it wasn’t on Dave’s route, so then she started yelling at him about why he was so far from his route (this was before the GPS-enabled scanners). All the while, Scott is laughing his ass off in the break room listening to all of it until they realized and started yelling at him, haha.

Last one (again, not my story, but another from an old timer): Back in the 80s/90s, the post office was a different beast: no GPS tracking, no cell phones, if management wanted to observe you work outside the office, they had to either find you or ride along with you. Because of that, carriers used to do all kinds of stuff back in the day that you can’t now (like everyone finishing their routes by 11 am, and then all going to the bar until 3 before heading back to the office).

Well, this one carrier had one of the “rough” routes in his city, but he was always treated well because he brought the government checks every month. Well, his customers knew when their checks arrived every month, so on that day, he’d park at a bar at the end of this long street, and just drink his beer while the customers came through and got their checks. When everyone from that end of the road had come through, he’d drive to the bar at the opposite end of the road and repeat, since everyone had just watched him drive by. And they’d all cycle through, all while he sat on a stool, drinking his beer, and making his bread for the day.

I personally believe we should have the right to die, moreso as an individual choice than one a relative should make. We as individuals, who did not consent to living in this absolutely broken society, should have every right to just say one day, “Y’know what, I’ve had enough, I’m done.” This comment will likely be controversial, and I am not encouraging anyone to commit suicide, seek help where and how you can, suicide can be a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

A friend of mine told me once she considered those who commit suicide (outside of terminal illness) to be cowards, taking the “easy” way out and leaving their loved ones to suffer. I argued back that how is it unacceptable for loved ones to suffer, but it’s perfectly acceptable for the individual to suffer to keep the loved ones comfortable? And that’s what mental health (tin foil hat time) is entirely about: not comfort for the individual, but comfort for the society.

It doesn’t matter if you are completely disenfranchised with society, struggling to make ends meet, working multiple jobs with no benefits, eating the same meal 2-3 times a day every day to save money, none of that matters because you’re not contributing to society/capitalism they way you’re supposed to. When the VA was trying to force me onto SSRIs despite my objections due to the side effects they can have, I told them flat out I wasn’t taking a pill just so I could be “productive” for a society that will let me die in the streets at the earliest and cheapest convenience. And no “pill” is going to fix how sick and broken we are as a society.

We as a species weren’t designed for this kind of society, we’re an analog species trying to adapt to a digital world we haven’t had time to properly adjust to. We aren’t designed to work 40 hours/week, 8 hours/day, 50+ weeks per year. We aren’t designed to work ourselves to exhaustion and forego social interactions in the pursuit of more money to try and keep the lights on. And we are watching the largest transfer of wealth to the ultra-wealthy, making the Gilded Age look like child’s play.

So I guess, to sum it up: I think everyone should have the right to end their own life, regardless of the reason, but I don’t believe anyone should have the right to end someone else’s life outside of already-established practices (DNR orders, “pulling the plug” as PoA, etc). We are too broken as a society to trust ourselves to choose when others should die, but we should absolutely be allowing individual’s to end their own lives.

So is it fair to the family not to mourn?

How many families of Holocaust victims were given the privilege and closure of mourning and burying their loves ones?

I agree that no person is at fault for the actions of their family or their ancestors, but, their family’s actions do no negate the consequences of those actions. Seeing what people like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini did to their own people, nevermind what they did to those of other countries… Do their families have more right to mourn their loss than the people do who suffered at their authoritarian hands?

I would argue no, because life isn’t fair, but also because the amount of suffering enacted should not be met with honor or remembrance or respect. The family of authoritarians can mourn in their heads, if they do choose, but I would argue they should choose not to. There’s no “separating the art from the artist” when it comes to authoritarian genociders. Mourning their life isn’t just mourning the loss of them, but the loss of everything they did in their life as well.

If you’ve lived the kind of life where people are debating the morality around whether or not you deserve a funeral, I’d say you don’t deserve one.

garbage disposal soup

We called this “Moscow Soup” at the last couple kitchens I worked in.

Us: Uh, Chef, that’s a lot of different ingredients and leftovers you’re throwing in that soup pot…

Chef: I’m making Moscow Soup! You know how to make Moscow Soup? It’s easy: whatever you’ve got on hand, goes in the pot!

Fun fact: ever had soup at a restaurant, and then made it at home but it didn’t taste quite the same or as good? There’s two main reasons:

1. If it’s a restaurant that actually makes their own soups (versus them being shipped in in a bag to be reheated), they’re very likely using leftovers to make your soup. So unless you’re using the exact same ingredients as the restaurant, it’s not going to taste the same.

2. The bigger reason being that they likely made the soup you’re eating at least the day before it’s served to you. This gives the ingredients of the soup time to marry, this is that “blend together” they’re talking about. This takes time, regardless of what you’re cooking, but it gives the ingredients the necessary time overnight to just… Become a better soup.

The leftovers they use have likely been marrying their flavors for a day or two before they’re put into the soup, so all of that blended flavor deliciousness is going to blend even more in the soup.

It’s crazy to think about those few years. Woodrow had a bad stroke, and Edith basically didn’t allow anyone to disturb him. So they’d bring issues/bills/etc to her, and she would go in and “advise” the President, and then come out and relay his supposed response.

The closest we’ve ever come to actually having a woman President.

Three Mile Island, and they want to do it to power their AI development. Not move their current servers and infrastructure to the nuclear power grid.

And the owner of Three Mile Island, who’s working with Microsoft, is trying to get the fed to give him the money needed to get the plant running again. Taxpayer money for Microsoft’s AI project that they’ll reap all the reward from.

Kurzgesagt has a video about life after nuclear war… It’s not pretty.

Seriously, look at the beauty standards and treatments of the Victorian era.

Women would squeeze citric acid in their eyes because they believe it cleaned them and whitened them, and the burning sensation was just the germs being cleaned.

Why’d the cookie go to the hospital?

He was feeling crummy!

What’d the envelope say to the stamp?

Stick with me, kid, we’ll go places.

What the fuck happened?

Four years of a milquetoast, centrist Democrat telling the American people what they’re living isn’t the actual reality of the situation. Biden’s admin kept rolling out the “soft landing, economy is doing great,” schtick despite numerous news outlets reporting Americans don’t feel like it’s an economy working for them.

Then that Democrat finally stepping aside, too late for his constituents to have a say in who they want representing them. And then she ran on a centrist, return-to-the-status-quo platform that didn’t inspire the majority of Americans, who are so apathetic based on decades of being ignored by politicians they just don’t vote. Because what’s the point?

Only thing I’ll disagree with you here is the machinist comment. My dad’s been a machinist for like 45 years now, same industry, same building.

He is constantly complaining to me that they can’t find machinists, or even people who are willing to learn. I have zero machining experience, and he was trying to get me hired at one point, that’s how desperate they were getting.

And it’s not a bad company, to be clear, they’re a government contractor, have very good benefits, competitive pay (he’s even complained they’ve given guys with a year’s experience multi-dollar raises to keep them), etc.

According to him, if you have mechanical aptitude and are willing to learn all of the intricacies of machining, you can and will make a decent salary for the rest of your life so long as you’re willing to work.

My dog has to smell my breath after I eat/drink something. If I’m eating a sandwich, he’ll watch the whole time, and when I’m done, he’ll hop up and start sniffing/licking for crumbs.

Then he’ll stand on my lap, and put his nose up to my face, sniffing and kinda wagging his tail. I’ll open my mouth wide, and start exhaling, and he’ll eagerly start sniffing riiiiiiiiiight up against my mouth, wagging and kinda shifting his weight on his front legs. And if you don’t listen closely enough to his sniffing…

… He’ll sneeze in your mouth. 😂 He makes my friends do it too, and I do warn them about keeping their mouth open too long.

Beyond that, the only other weird thing he does (besides his crazy yoga poses he does in blankets on the couch) is lick the floor. If I’m cooking, he’s standing by the stove, ready to lunge at anything that falls to the floor. But when I’m done cooking, he’ll basically walk the entire kitchen floor, focusing primarily by the sink and stove, licking every speck of oil and crumb he can find. You’d think I never feed him based on how he acts towards food, but here we are. 😂

He nabbed some chili seeds off the floor one night before I could get them, and I asked him how they tasted while he’s walking around the kitchen, licking his chops over and over. Moved to his water bowl, drank a good chunk of that, moved to the living room, laid down there for a bit… All the while, licking his chops, trying to get the spicy to go away. And then he came back for more 😂

I attempted to deliver cremated remains once while I was a carrier for USPS. I say “attempted” because you have to have the recipient sign for cremated remains, but they weren’t home…

I’m not sure how I’d describe it, but it’s an odd feeling leaving a “Sorry We Missed You” pink slip for a person versus a package.