mvilain

Climate is what we expect. Weather is what we get. – Lazarus Long

It’d be better if Pope Leo deputized and trained additional Vatican Guards and deployed them at various locations. Also a priest.

I’m perfectly fine switching back to a “feature phone” aka dump phone that takes phone calls and sends texts. If it also could be used as a music/podcast playiner, that’d be great too.

Be sure to hydrate if you do.

I left FB before the pandemic and don’t regret it. When I still had an account, I had to verify my account by sending them my DL. I did it but blanked out my address and DL #. That was invasive enough. This is just insane.

Yep. I’ve joined the buycot for Lent. I put off all purchases there until after Easter and Passover are over.

When I make Scampi, I use the shells to make a shrimp stock to cook the shrimp and butter. Broiling jumbo shrimp with Bay’s Seasoning in the shell means I take the shell off before eating it.

I read a post on Mastodon from someone in Ontario Canada that was proposing shutting off all export of oil and electricity to the US. The thing that made me doubt this was they were also calling for impeaching 45 (again!). That would leave Vance which scares me even more.

Before Medicare, I paid $1500 for a mid-tier Kaiser plan. It had a $6000 annual deductible which I kept in a tax deductible Health Savings Account. For the most part, I paid for routine stuff like vaccinations, yearly checkup and bloodwork, meds like statins, and a bid discount on stuff from their pharmacy. With Medicare, I pay $185 to the US Government and $199 to Kaiser for their Advantage plan.

Someone here said this cartoon is typical of pre-adolescent brains. A friend who’s the local “Jewish mother” of her block had the kids next door visiting her kids for a play date. She asked them if they wanted some cheese for a snack.

“I want goat cheese” said the 6yo boy.

The older 8yo was a little more polite “Do you have any brie?”

True story and so perfect I had to add it to a fanfic I was writing.

Back in the mid-80s, when I got an email from HR about the Christmas Party at the local office, I sent a reply to the district HR manager complaining that not everyone in the company celebrated Christmas. Later that day, another email came out announcing the Holiday Party. So glad I had a hand in educating HR.

Why did the dinosaur cross the road? Because they didn’t have chickens back then.

I’d love for some enterprising IRS auditor to find out what churches she appeared in, then send each of them an audit notice letter. They’ve lost their IRS tax exemption.

Is it my imagination or are these dim-witted assassins getting easier to catch. Trump didn’t even get to bandage his ear this time.

I wonder if the owner is booking a flight to a non-extraditable country or if he’s going to go private.

I predict the deceased’s executor will have to sue Wells Fargo for their last paycheck. They’ll claim they were working the full 4 days since they were found. And entitled to overtime since they’re hourly rather than salaried.

Someone should suggest Clarence play a game of solitare. If the Chinese can Manchurian someone, I’m sure Putin’s got something similar.

Pasolini’s SALO. Images from it corrupt my brain.

I got hit by this AT&T usage cap for internet downloads. I went through 250GB of downloads in less than a month. Most of it was internet backups of a newly installed system. They don’t offer a data tier without a cap in my area so I was stuck paying $10/10GB over that month. Next month I added a $30 unlimited data charge to my bill. That’s OK as I’m consistently going over their cap again due to backups. Unless I buy much more expensive plan from a commercial provider and pay for Fibre installation, I’m stuck.

40 years ago at UCLA, I had to do my FORTRAN programs on punch cards submitted through the batch system. The CS/Math department (no CS department then), only offered 1 section in FORTRAN with 40 others in PASCAL. And it was taught by an Engineering professor. Why would a Chemistry major take a computer science class? Remember all those shiny machines CSI uses to do forensic analysis? They came from chem labs.