That “alien corpse” reminded me of Sectoids from X-Com so I made a remark about mindshields. Yes, in X-COM you harvest alien/ADVENT corpses for equipment, but then they’re doing the same to humans.
Of course, after getting a better resolution picture, I realized it looks like a prop from E.T.
Definitely had to struggle with the second coffee meme before I could get mine going this morning (King Harv’s Nicaragua Lake Shark for the record, which I strongly recommend). And that not being sure of the person’s intentions kitty meme makes the whole acting like Oprah and the Rock meme tricky…
It is very nice. Isn’t it?
That it is! Can’t wait to try the Myanmar if it’s still in stock next time I order some. And I do need to review the Planets, don’t I? Need to set aside some time when I’m not worn out for that!
“You keep your guns in a safe?” Heh. I love a good Tremors meme.
Melvin: “What do you use cannon fuse for?”
Burt: “My cannon.”
Fun story time: my dad’s friend has an actual cannon, which he keeps on his front porch, “Just in case we need to go to war with Idaho.” He took it up the canyon last year and let us help sight it in. That sucker is LOUD, and my dad’s friends are awesome. 😀
He’s not the only one. There used to be a gun blogger named The Donovan. He had a cannon. It was either on his blog or on Pawn Stars (pretty sure TV show) I learned that feds don’t care if the cannon was made prior to a certain year (so reproductions don’t pass). The year was circa 1890, I think.
Blackpowder muzzle loading cannon are used in competitions!
There are .50 caliber “signal guns” that are sold like any other muzzleloaders.
(Note: discussion of some aspects why this organization exists is prohibited on this forum. But we can discuss the resultant boomsticks, which also happen to have high prepper utility. Also there can be riffs on American competitiveness.)
Some German guy moved to Alaska. He was on one of the Alaska game trooper shows, because it turned out it was totally okay for him to have a cannon without a permit (at the time, anyway). He just invited the trooper guy over to watch him testfiring, along with some other cannon friend.
Basically the whole segment was a brag about Alaska, heh. 🙂
Did we respect the CIA? Or did they just give us better drugs?
We liked James Bond’s CIA sidekick, Mission Impossible, Man from UNCLE [Sam], et cetera.
We learned more about them—as well as the FBI not being Eliot Ness or Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.
We learned the US seemed bound and determined to support right bastards like the Shah in Iran, Somoza in Nicaragua, and Marcos in the Philippines. And then we learned the Soviets, CCP, and North Korea were doing the same thing after we pulled out. So we essentially made ourselves look like two-faced bums.
While it’s true that Socialism (including Nazis, Communists, and others) murdered 200 Million humans in the 20th Century, our government facilitated or winked at at least half.
Tail-Gunner Joe was an optimist.
Q: What’s the difference between an American (USA) and a foreigner?
A: The foreigner thinks the CIA is effective.
mostly because we didn’t know what they were up to.
Precisely. Just like we heard FDR ended the Great Depression with massive government spending.
Q: What ended the Great Depression (in the USA)?
A: Two things. FDR’s death so he stopped extending it, AND much of the rest of the world being destroyed. It’s NOT a great way to fix economies.
And at that, FDR was better than obamiden, because we got actual tangible useful things for what we spent. I WISH we were getting an actual “Hoover Dam” somewhere……
Once upon a time there were progressives who actually believed in progress. They died out in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the Apollo program being their last hurrah. Afterwards they were supplanted by a new left with a new party line of “Learn to live with less, you hate-filled greedy bastards!”
Now those actually-for-progress progressives had some major flaws. One was a willingness to bulldoze people’s personal plans in favor of their own Big Plans For Society. Another was to seriously underestimate just how poisonous socialism and government regulation are to an economy. But they still favored a better, brighter, more prosperous future in a way the “Learn to live with less!” leftists did not.
A poem in the style of Dr. Seuss, explaining why a “transwoman” is still a man:
I see your hair. It is a wig.
Your Adam’s apple still looks big.
You are a man, and that is clear.
I do not see a woman here.
I must admit, it’s rather odd
To hear you say you’re now a broad.
You have no uterus, so no:
You cannot bleed from down below.
I do not like your padded bra!
You should not use the women’s spa!
You tell me you had surgery;
Your pronouns still are “him” and “he.”
Your chromosomes are X and Y.
That means you’ll always be a guy.
You gave yourself a girly name.
That does not mean you are a dame.
A surgeon chopped your eggs and ham?
I still won’t call you Ma’am I Am.
The only thing “shovel ready” was the bullshit.
Well…
Hoover Dam was started under FDR’s first presidential opponent, Herbert Hoover, so I’m not sure that one should count. 😛 Wikipedia even notes that the FDR administration changed the name to Boulder Dam (A definite case of pettiness, imo! Congress later changed the name back.). The best mention for FDR would probably be the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).
I’m assuming it’s what’s more commonly referred to as a “body pillow”.
With a face, yes.
“They’re called Dakimakura and they’re art.”
If you’ve ever heard that said seriously, you know a sad, sad person.
But what is art? One person’s art is another person’s garbage.
More art than Hunter’s paintings.
And more art than what hangs in too many museums.
Speaking of garbage……
Mere garbage would be a step UP. I’ve flushed stuff better than some modern “art.” Moo.
It’s actually a reference to another meme (“It’s called Hentai and it’s art.”) that came from a deleted scene from The Office.
This is like the conversation between Freddy (Steve Martin) and Lawrence (Michael Caine) about art, right?
😛
Freddy: “That is a statue of a naked woman. I can appreciate that!”
One of the all time great movies.
One the one hand, yes. On the other hand, something about it always leaves me a bit unsatisfied with it.
But it’s still a classic. ^_^
It was a remake of a movie that was really not very good, and was later remade into another movie that was… really not very good.
Be glad we have the middle one.
Why I didn’t look up “waifu pillows”.
I had a really good idea what they were. And me, fresh out of brain bleach. 🙂
OTOH, something (Aliens!) fiddled with the network configuration on the desktop computer, and I spent too many hours tracking down the problem. Now, if I can just figure out how that entry got flipped (from “Automatic-DHCP” to “Manual”), I’ll be a happy retired geek.
I have a kid under 30. I’ve heard the jokes.
I’m 71 and follow people on Gab who have used the term, though not in that way…
My Dad reported a problem with his wi-fi setup. I may have to go look at it next time I visit him. Ah, family tech support.
It turns out that the manual setting has been in place for nigh on forever, and it worked until it didn’t. [Shrug]
OMG! Too true.
Mom doesn’t have a computer (currently, waiting for Samsung Tablets to drop for Christmas). At best she just needs a larger screen to read on (either Kindle, Nook, or email), or run searches on (Amazon, usually). She can send me anything that needs to be printed. (I don’t know how many times I’ve printed out the process, and showed her, when she did have a working computer and printer combo. I still had to go over to trigger the print job.)
I am the only one who gets called, despite also having a SIL and BIL who did computers too (better, they dealt with hardware and system software, I was an applications software and not stuff for the general public). Okay, I am the one in town (at least not doing this over the phone, been there, done that, professionally, thank God for remote connection options). Worse than dad or mom? I am the in house tech support for hubby and son (much less for son, he usually figures it out on his own).
I hate dealing with hardware/systems stuff. There is a reason I stayed out of IT.
Just set mom up with her 89th birthday present from us 3 girls. Apple Watch SE (with fall detection) with her iPhone. I don’t have an iPhone (and thus don’t have an Apple Watch). Got it done. Now (after some research) need to go back and clear some things off the watch that auto installed because on her phone, and turn of one setting, to extend battery life. Apple (and Galaxy) watches have lousy battery life (< 24 hours). (I use a Charge 5 Fitbit, which has a 5+ day battery life, but it doesn’t have fall detection.)
Have you considered a Raspberry Pi? They’re becoming available again. I just checked Vilros and they have the 4 GB Pi 4B at its regular price of $55.00. The $75.00 8 GB version shows SOLD OUT but they have 8 GB kits for $133.00. (8 GB Pi, power supply, case and MicroHDMI adapter cable)
Why they sell 8 GB kits but not 8 GB boards on their own I don’t know. I use the fanless conduction-cooled cases. Fans suck dust and cat hair into the case, and they will fail eventually. Failing is what moving parts do.
I’ve got 3 of ’em, one has been running continuously since 2020. They use a variant of Debian Linux and have most of the usual applications available — LibreOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, VLC, Gimp and so on.
The root filesystem and OS live on a MicroSD chip so you can have a backup OS chip and just swap it out in case of a crash. If the Pi itself fails, you can pop its SD chip into another Pi and be up and running in minutes.
considered a Raspberry Pi
……………….
No. For a lot of reasons. Not just related to I avoid Linux (I don’t want to work that hard). Something to consider longer term. Thanks.
I’m SO sorry.
I laughed good and hard at the waifu pillows, -and- at the “how COULD you?!!” right afterwards.
Harry Potter waifu pillow, BWAHAHAHAhaaaaaaaa… cough
It’s the forum version of “rickrolling” – hydro-testing monitors via suggested research.
In that 6th from last one, with the machete and donuts, they missed the Midol.
Which explains everything.
Sort of like the T-shirt:
I HAVE PMS AND A LOADED .44
ANY QUESTIONS?
I worked for Halloween haunted houses/forests/cornfields/etc before. That shopping list is pretty close to one I’ve bought before.
Machete… well, more of a machete on a long stick, that was for brush clearing. And props. Rope, that was for rigging the scenes, construction… and props, with some possible light bondage going on that I most specifically do not know about. Duct tape, same as above.
Handcuffs, chains, chainsaws, scythe blades, crisco, worms, staple gun, black tarps, fishing weights (about 80lb of), concrete (18bags), baseball bat, nails, gas mask, superglue, a spare bed frame, come alongs, pulleys, heavy chain, lighter fluid, iron stakes, and 40 weight motor oil were what was already in the truck.
I had no plan for what to tell the cops if I was ever pulled over, save the truth.
Ever shot the gas tank off a motorcycle?
Indeed I saw the Midol too. My thought was, are YOU going to ask the nice lady with all that and Midol about anything? I’m certainly not going to do so…
The donuts are bait.
The one about thicc Latina and petite Asian immigrants, and white liberal women is already sort of happening. I mentioned “passport bros” here a few weeks ago (American guys who are sick of the dating scene in the US and go overseas – often SE Asia – to find a wife). Awareness of this is increasing among the same overly entitled women (generally part of the 90% chasing 10% crowd) who turned these men off from the dating scene to begin with, and you can find plenty of videos online of these women (and the “influencers” who encourage those women to act even more entitled) verbally belittling both passport bros, and the foreign women that they end up in a relationship with.
For a while, YouTube was even offering a video in my feed of a woman who concluded that a particular man on the same airplane as her was a passport bro, and was verbally laying into him on the airplane (I didn’t watch the video, so I’ve no idea how it turned out).
This is old. Guess what husband did?
Our shock is both boys found American women. But they’re not…. standard. And certainly not woke.
Did your husband go to Portugal specifically to find a wife? Or did he just happen to be there for other reasons when he met you?
Must be new here. I am (relatively, last few years) recent and even I know Dan and Sarah originally met when she spent a HS year in America.
I couldn’t remember the details. However, the topic I was discussing was men going overseas explicitly to find a foreign wife, which is different from men happening to meet and fall in love with foreign women. Thus my question.
I know. And while Dan might have visited her in Portugal, I don’t remember. To be fair, while I know Sarah has posted more, that is all I remember.
As an example, my nephew’s wife is Brazilian, and he met her in Brazil. However, he was in Brazil for other reasons when they met, and not to look for a romantic partner. Given that, what happened with him is different from a “passport bro”.
what happened with him is different from a “passport bro”.
………….
I would agree. But can also agree that would depend on someone else’s perception, regardless of truth. SIL’s son had a girlfriend in Thailand for a bit. He didn’t go to Thailand to get a girlfriend or wife. He went because he always wanted to, then liked it so much, is now living there. But, you know, perceptions.
No doubt. Perceptions are everything in this case, and unfortunately one of the perceptions that’s fueling this is “There’s nothing wrong with me! It’s all these incel men who can’t live up to my standards!”
We argued for a year. I had a wicked crush on him, but he didn’t notice. Or he noticed but didn’t believe it. He had a crush on me, but manifested it by arguing.
It must serve as our excuse that we were 18.
Four years later, we each had a broken relationship and I called him out of the blue (the reason why is too complicated to explain in a comment.)
We talked for an hour and a half and it was…. water in the desert. We decided to get married then, but it took us four months to get formally engaged.
Actually, that’s one of the nicest stories I’ve heard in a while — the gears actually lined up for once. Around the time I graduated high school, a girl in the class behind me gave me a note saying she regretted not getting to know me better. I remember thinking, “Oh, NOW she tells me…”
On the other hand, I have a colleague who met her husband on the band bus in eighth grade. That’s almost too sweet.
Just took mom to a funeral of a friend from HS. His widow cried when she saw mom. They’ve been friends since they were 13. They are 89. Couple were married for 71 years before he passed away at 92. She was 15 when they were married (at least where we are, can you hear the screaming?) First child born summer after she graduated from HS in 1953. He’d already graduated and was in the Air Force, stationed in Germany, when their first was born. Second one is 366 days younger than I am.
Our Hostess said:
I had a wicked crush on him, but he didn’t notice. Or he noticed but didn’t believe it.
Ah that sounds WAY too familiar. I suspect you should embrace the power of AND. Given the General cluelessness of most Male nerds/geeks the only reason we’re not extinct is the sheer persistence of the female of our sub species…
I will note my wife asked if I wanted wanted to go to the movies with her. I didn’t comprehend (experiencing the combination of the two thoughts you mentioned) and when two other guys wanted to come along (including her ex boyfriend from High school) I didn’t say no 🙂 . Yess I was a doofus and yes I figured it out ultimately and she only had to use a small clue bat to get my attention.
No, I know, but at one time everyone in Dan’s job was married to a foreigner. It’s not the same as passport bros, but you know?
My great-grandmother married a foreigner. As did a few of the cousins. Granted, the foreigners all migrated to the US (via Canada for great-grandfather). Joke was they had to marry foreigners, they were related to all the locals. They were the grandchildren of the 1943 wagon train to Oregon. Bad enough that they had 14 or 15, aunts and uncles, not to mention, I don’t know how many, cousins, and cousins once removed (at that time). There were something like 36 or 40 children in their parents generation that came with their (3 sets of) parents on the wagon train west, and that doesn’t count the children born after they settled.
Yeah. I graduated from high school in Stow Ohio. Dan’s family had hosted a student the year before and were my family liaison.
I got along great with MIL, till I married her son.
I got along great with MIL, till I married her son.
……………..
Isn’t that how it works? Or. I resemble that.
No. It wasn’t the normal thing. You see, she didn’t LIKE her son, so I “betrayed” her
Sounds like an example of “You can’t put that in a story; everyone would reject it as being ‘unrealistic.'”
neither. I was an exchange student when we met. But he’d realized he’d probably marry foreign. What he didn’t know: It wouldnt’ have worked. He needed SF/F. So, G-d’s intervention, etc. 😉
And has been going on a while. When I had a room mate just after college, he went through one of the “mail order bride” services which connected you with Filipino women. He found one. Within three years, she got “Americanized” and wouldn’t put up with him.
I suspect that “passport bros” will not do a lot better.
Anec-data suggests otherwise. As an example, the other day I was watching a video talking about a female reporter who pretended to be a man on Tinder, and came away with a realization that yes, many of the women on that dating app really are toxic. While the video itself had nothing to do with American guys marrying foreign women, there were a lot of comments talking about it as an alternative to the frequent demands of American women for ‘666’ (yes, that’s a real slang term – 6 feet tall, 6 figure salary, 6 inches inside his pants, or he doesn’t get a date; a fourth 6 is usually intended, even if not mentioned – 6 pack abs). Some of the commentors claimed to have actually done so, and to have had successful marriages that were still on-going.
Is that proof that a marriage between an American man and a foreign woman will probably work? It’s anecdotal only, and it’s always possible that those are the outliers. But it’s interesting that while I sometimes see comments about men who married foreign and had successful relationships, I don’t see comments like yours. That’s not to say that failed marriages along those lines aren’t out there. But it seems to be uncommon enough that it doesn’t get brought up as a counter-argument.
It’s also important to remember that while an American guy might have an easier time getting married in many places overseas, that American guy also need to have the ability to support a family. A guy might be able to marry a woman while in one of those foreign countries. But if he returns to the US and it turns out he’s only making $30K a year, he’s going to have trouble supporting a family (for that matter, he might have trouble supporting just himself), and she’s probably going to leave him rather quickly.
My comment was that a) this has been going on for a while; it isn’t new, and b) that like any other marriage, there are no guarantees you’ll get a good one without putting in the effort to find the right one, and keep him or her.
Yep. And by going on for a while, one could stretch it back to when raiding the village over the hill was how one got a wife, with the latter point still be unquestionably true.
I will add that if you’re not willing to put the effort in to finding the right one for you, chances are good you’re not going to put in the effort to do what’s necessary to keep them, either, even if they are pretty darned good anyway.
I would figure the last part is automatically understood by everyone here (as we’re a fairly responsible bunch, I hope). The issue is that these days there are a lot of issues for men trying to date. I’ve discussed some of them in the comments here, and others in the comments to earlier blog posts. The long and the short of it is that men who are decent people get frozen out through no fault of their own. Yes, some of them are poor quality. That’s always been an issue, and always will be. But a lot of them aren’t. And a lot of single American women won’t give the decent ones a chance to demonstrate that they’re decent.
Meh. Some of us got americanized and we are fine. So were all of Dan’s colleagues.
The reason I put up the comment wasn’t so much to comment on the fact that some American guys are going overseas to find brides. It was to highlight the other part – that there is a growing awareness of this trend by American women. And many single women who become aware of it are responding by essentially throwing a temper tantrum and attacking men.
Back when America had the Chinese Exclusion Acts, one of the laws removed citizenship from any American woman that married a Chinese man. I suspect given half a chance a lot of American women would be pushing for the turnabout version of that these days that removed American citizenship from any American man who marries a foreign woman.
c4c (let’s see if email is working correctly, yet).
I guess not. (Sigh!)
Well, I saw both of your posts via email.
Don’t know why, but only getting responses via email to MY comments. Grouse, grumble, whine. Not any general comments, or comments to anyone comments.
Don’t know what I am doing wrong.
What’s the only difference between a conspiracy theorist and mainstream news?
Six months.
if that
Less than that, now. The half-life of conspiracy theories is getting shorter and shorter.
““The federal background investigation (BI) process is broken,” stated the Sept. 14 AFL report (pdf). “During the Trump Administration, candidates for presidential appointments were subject to a BI process that involved the FBI’s repeated, agency-wide violations of the Privacy Act and the Paperwork Reduction Act, among other laws.” It alleges that certain agents in D.C. tanked President Trump’s potential appointees through selective reporting of unsubstantiated, derogatory information.”
Yeah. I knew that. And it’s why “DeSantis will pick better” is bullshit.
Re meemz 1-3:
Well, I still can’t find my password, so hadto open a new account. W!P!D!E!
Laughed out loud at the Grumpy Cat meme.
Well, I still can’t find my password, so hadto open a new account. W!P!D!E!
Laughed out loud at the Grumpy Cat meme.
Regarding meme #1.
I am nearly twenty years uncaffeinated. I am NOT, and never was, a morning person.
I get up before 4 AM every day.
Guns are loud.
Silencers (boom mufflers, they’re not in any way silent) should be MANDATORY.
Yes, I have seriously contemplated bloody murder of noisy morning people before. The tools exist. We have the technology.
Yet there’s that teeny tiny little voice inside. Still. It’s entirely too reasonable for me. It says that drowning all the noisy morning people would be MUCH quieter than shooting them all.
Fortunately for good order and discipline, such measures have not yet been deemed necessary by the management of every single company and person of authority I have mentioned this very reasonable solution to. So far.
You can’t kill them all, if you did no one would be left to bury them, and just leaving them where you dropped them is so unprofessional. One might say, tacky….
“Buzzards gotta eat. Same as worms.” (Spit)
Joseph Wales
On a completely unrelated note…
For those who have been playing video games for a very long time…
I just discovered yesterday that someone’s rereleasing the very first Wizardry game, Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, with modern graphics. But the core game is still supposed to be the same.
“As of now, there are only six confirmed cases confined to the Indian state of Kerala, but the authorities have already instituted widespread lockdowns.”
Pfui. No.
That’s totally a Dalek.
That’s absolutely a dalek
Yep, definitely a Dalek. Now we know where they’ve been hiding. 😀
(Waves hand) This is not the coffee you are looking for…”
#5 — that’s not an alien, it’s just the Wicked Witch Of The East Coast.
Let’s all hope for a house falling out of the sky. 😀
Kenneth Branagh moved Agatha Christie’s Halloween Party to Venice. Okay…
Then he cast Tina Fey to play Ariadne Oliver. And what a freaking insult to Christie’s memory, to make her self-insert joke into a skinny woke American. Ugh ugh ugh.
Halloween is just not a Venetian thing, as far as I can determine.
Apparently All Souls’ Day is the thing in Venice. They leave out traditional cookies called the Bones of the Dead, for the dead, in case they drop by the house. Some nearby cities leave out a lamp, bread, and water, so the dead know they’re welcome and can get refreshed.
I bet domestic cats and dogs love these festivals, heh….
Which is, of course, the day AFTER All Saints’, not All Saints’ Eve.
Yep.
I hate the poirot ones.
Sarah’s new anthem is “Thank God and U-Haul I’m Gone!”
According To Hoyt 
Comment for Saturday Memes.
That “alien corpse” reminded me of Sectoids from X-Com so I made a remark about mindshields. Yes, in X-COM you harvest alien/ADVENT corpses for equipment, but then they’re doing the same to humans.
Of course, after getting a better resolution picture, I realized it looks like a prop from E.T.
Definitely had to struggle with the second coffee meme before I could get mine going this morning (King Harv’s Nicaragua Lake Shark for the record, which I strongly recommend). And that not being sure of the person’s intentions kitty meme makes the whole acting like Oprah and the Rock meme tricky…
It is very nice. Isn’t it?
That it is! Can’t wait to try the Myanmar if it’s still in stock next time I order some. And I do need to review the Planets, don’t I? Need to set aside some time when I’m not worn out for that!
“You keep your guns in a safe?” Heh. I love a good Tremors meme.
Melvin: “What do you use cannon fuse for?”
Burt: “My cannon.”
Fun story time: my dad’s friend has an actual cannon, which he keeps on his front porch, “Just in case we need to go to war with Idaho.” He took it up the canyon last year and let us help sight it in. That sucker is LOUD, and my dad’s friends are awesome. 😀
He’s not the only one. There used to be a gun blogger named The Donovan. He had a cannon. It was either on his blog or on Pawn Stars (pretty sure TV show) I learned that feds don’t care if the cannon was made prior to a certain year (so reproductions don’t pass). The year was circa 1890, I think.
Blackpowder muzzle loading cannon are used in competitions!
There are .50 caliber “signal guns” that are sold like any other muzzleloaders.
State laws, of course, vary.
North-South Skirmish Association
http://www.n-ssa.org/
(Note: discussion of some aspects why this organization exists is prohibited on this forum. But we can discuss the resultant boomsticks, which also happen to have high prepper utility. Also there can be riffs on American competitiveness.)
Some German guy moved to Alaska. He was on one of the Alaska game trooper shows, because it turned out it was totally okay for him to have a cannon without a permit (at the time, anyway). He just invited the trooper guy over to watch him testfiring, along with some other cannon friend.
Basically the whole segment was a brag about Alaska, heh. 🙂
I live in Alaska, what’s a permit?
Back when we respected the CIA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hPm4eiiD08
Did we respect the CIA? Or did they just give us better drugs?
We liked James Bond’s CIA sidekick, Mission Impossible, Man from UNCLE [Sam], et cetera.
We learned more about them—as well as the FBI not being Eliot Ness or Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.
We learned the US seemed bound and determined to support right bastards like the Shah in Iran, Somoza in Nicaragua, and Marcos in the Philippines. And then we learned the Soviets, CCP, and North Korea were doing the same thing after we pulled out. So we essentially made ourselves look like two-faced bums.
While it’s true that Socialism (including Nazis, Communists, and others) murdered 200 Million humans in the 20th Century, our government facilitated or winked at at least half.
Tail-Gunner Joe was an optimist.
Q: What’s the difference between an American (USA) and a foreigner?
A: The foreigner thinks the CIA is effective.
mostly because we didn’t know what they were up to.
Precisely. Just like we heard FDR ended the Great Depression with massive government spending.
Q: What ended the Great Depression (in the USA)?
A: Two things. FDR’s death so he stopped extending it, AND much of the rest of the world being destroyed. It’s NOT a great way to fix economies.
And at that, FDR was better than obamiden, because we got actual tangible useful things for what we spent. I WISH we were getting an actual “Hoover Dam” somewhere……
Once upon a time there were progressives who actually believed in progress. They died out in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the Apollo program being their last hurrah. Afterwards they were supplanted by a new left with a new party line of “Learn to live with less, you hate-filled greedy bastards!”
Now those actually-for-progress progressives had some major flaws. One was a willingness to bulldoze people’s personal plans in favor of their own Big Plans For Society. Another was to seriously underestimate just how poisonous socialism and government regulation are to an economy. But they still favored a better, brighter, more prosperous future in a way the “Learn to live with less!” leftists did not.
A poem in the style of Dr. Seuss, explaining why a “transwoman” is still a man:
I see your hair. It is a wig.
Your Adam’s apple still looks big.
You are a man, and that is clear.
I do not see a woman here.
I must admit, it’s rather odd
To hear you say you’re now a broad.
You have no uterus, so no:
You cannot bleed from down below.
I do not like your padded bra!
You should not use the women’s spa!
You tell me you had surgery;
Your pronouns still are “him” and “he.”
Your chromosomes are X and Y.
That means you’ll always be a guy.
You gave yourself a girly name.
That does not mean you are a dame.
A surgeon chopped your eggs and ham?
I still won’t call you Ma’am I Am.
The only thing “shovel ready” was the bullshit.
Well…
Hoover Dam was started under FDR’s first presidential opponent, Herbert Hoover, so I’m not sure that one should count. 😛 Wikipedia even notes that the FDR administration changed the name to Boulder Dam (A definite case of pettiness, imo! Congress later changed the name back.). The best mention for FDR would probably be the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).
We got Dinosaur Park out of it. It showcases the very rare breed of vertice-montis apatosaurus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur_Park
So I had to look up “waifu pillows.”
And then I spit tea all over my keyboard.
Thanks for that, I guess.
😉
I’m assuming it’s what’s more commonly referred to as a “body pillow”.
With a face, yes.
“They’re called Dakimakura and they’re art.”
If you’ve ever heard that said seriously, you know a sad, sad person.
But what is art? One person’s art is another person’s garbage.
More art than Hunter’s paintings.
And more art than what hangs in too many museums.
Speaking of garbage……
Mere garbage would be a step UP. I’ve flushed stuff better than some modern “art.” Moo.
It’s actually a reference to another meme (“It’s called Hentai and it’s art.”) that came from a deleted scene from The Office.
This is like the conversation between Freddy (Steve Martin) and Lawrence (Michael Caine) about art, right?
😛
Freddy: “That is a statue of a naked woman. I can appreciate that!”
One of the all time great movies.
One the one hand, yes. On the other hand, something about it always leaves me a bit unsatisfied with it.
But it’s still a classic. ^_^
It was a remake of a movie that was really not very good, and was later remade into another movie that was… really not very good.
Be glad we have the middle one.
Why I didn’t look up “waifu pillows”.
I had a really good idea what they were. And me, fresh out of brain bleach. 🙂
OTOH, something (Aliens!) fiddled with the network configuration on the desktop computer, and I spent too many hours tracking down the problem. Now, if I can just figure out how that entry got flipped (from “Automatic-DHCP” to “Manual”), I’ll be a happy retired geek.
I have a kid under 30. I’ve heard the jokes.
I’m 71 and follow people on Gab who have used the term, though not in that way…
My Dad reported a problem with his wi-fi setup. I may have to go look at it next time I visit him. Ah, family tech support.
It turns out that the manual setting has been in place for nigh on forever, and it worked until it didn’t. [Shrug]
OMG! Too true.
Mom doesn’t have a computer (currently, waiting for Samsung Tablets to drop for Christmas). At best she just needs a larger screen to read on (either Kindle, Nook, or email), or run searches on (Amazon, usually). She can send me anything that needs to be printed. (I don’t know how many times I’ve printed out the process, and showed her, when she did have a working computer and printer combo. I still had to go over to trigger the print job.)
I am the only one who gets called, despite also having a SIL and BIL who did computers too (better, they dealt with hardware and system software, I was an applications software and not stuff for the general public). Okay, I am the one in town (at least not doing this over the phone, been there, done that, professionally, thank God for remote connection options). Worse than dad or mom? I am the in house tech support for hubby and son (much less for son, he usually figures it out on his own).
I hate dealing with hardware/systems stuff. There is a reason I stayed out of IT.
Just set mom up with her 89th birthday present from us 3 girls. Apple Watch SE (with fall detection) with her iPhone. I don’t have an iPhone (and thus don’t have an Apple Watch). Got it done. Now (after some research) need to go back and clear some things off the watch that auto installed because on her phone, and turn of one setting, to extend battery life. Apple (and Galaxy) watches have lousy battery life (< 24 hours). (I use a Charge 5 Fitbit, which has a 5+ day battery life, but it doesn’t have fall detection.)
Have you considered a Raspberry Pi? They’re becoming available again. I just checked Vilros and they have the 4 GB Pi 4B at its regular price of $55.00. The $75.00 8 GB version shows SOLD OUT but they have 8 GB kits for $133.00. (8 GB Pi, power supply, case and MicroHDMI adapter cable)
Why they sell 8 GB kits but not 8 GB boards on their own I don’t know. I use the fanless conduction-cooled cases. Fans suck dust and cat hair into the case, and they will fail eventually. Failing is what moving parts do.
I’ve got 3 of ’em, one has been running continuously since 2020. They use a variant of Debian Linux and have most of the usual applications available — LibreOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, VLC, Gimp and so on.
The root filesystem and OS live on a MicroSD chip so you can have a backup OS chip and just swap it out in case of a crash. If the Pi itself fails, you can pop its SD chip into another Pi and be up and running in minutes.
No. For a lot of reasons. Not just related to I avoid Linux (I don’t want to work that hard). Something to consider longer term. Thanks.
I’m SO sorry.
I laughed good and hard at the waifu pillows, -and- at the “how COULD you?!!” right afterwards.
Harry Potter waifu pillow, BWAHAHAHAhaaaaaaaa… cough
It’s the forum version of “rickrolling” – hydro-testing monitors via suggested research.
In that 6th from last one, with the machete and donuts, they missed the Midol.
Which explains everything.
Sort of like the T-shirt:
I HAVE PMS AND A LOADED .44
ANY QUESTIONS?
I worked for Halloween haunted houses/forests/cornfields/etc before. That shopping list is pretty close to one I’ve bought before.
Machete… well, more of a machete on a long stick, that was for brush clearing. And props. Rope, that was for rigging the scenes, construction… and props, with some possible light bondage going on that I most specifically do not know about. Duct tape, same as above.
Handcuffs, chains, chainsaws, scythe blades, crisco, worms, staple gun, black tarps, fishing weights (about 80lb of), concrete (18bags), baseball bat, nails, gas mask, superglue, a spare bed frame, come alongs, pulleys, heavy chain, lighter fluid, iron stakes, and 40 weight motor oil were what was already in the truck.
I had no plan for what to tell the cops if I was ever pulled over, save the truth.
Ever shot the gas tank off a motorcycle?
Indeed I saw the Midol too. My thought was, are YOU going to ask the nice lady with all that and Midol about anything? I’m certainly not going to do so…
The donuts are bait.
The one about thicc Latina and petite Asian immigrants, and white liberal women is already sort of happening. I mentioned “passport bros” here a few weeks ago (American guys who are sick of the dating scene in the US and go overseas – often SE Asia – to find a wife). Awareness of this is increasing among the same overly entitled women (generally part of the 90% chasing 10% crowd) who turned these men off from the dating scene to begin with, and you can find plenty of videos online of these women (and the “influencers” who encourage those women to act even more entitled) verbally belittling both passport bros, and the foreign women that they end up in a relationship with.
For a while, YouTube was even offering a video in my feed of a woman who concluded that a particular man on the same airplane as her was a passport bro, and was verbally laying into him on the airplane (I didn’t watch the video, so I’ve no idea how it turned out).
This is old. Guess what husband did?
Our shock is both boys found American women. But they’re not…. standard. And certainly not woke.
Did your husband go to Portugal specifically to find a wife? Or did he just happen to be there for other reasons when he met you?
Must be new here. I am (relatively, last few years) recent and even I know Dan and Sarah originally met when she spent a HS year in America.
I couldn’t remember the details. However, the topic I was discussing was men going overseas explicitly to find a foreign wife, which is different from men happening to meet and fall in love with foreign women. Thus my question.
I know. And while Dan might have visited her in Portugal, I don’t remember. To be fair, while I know Sarah has posted more, that is all I remember.
As an example, my nephew’s wife is Brazilian, and he met her in Brazil. However, he was in Brazil for other reasons when they met, and not to look for a romantic partner. Given that, what happened with him is different from a “passport bro”.
I would agree. But can also agree that would depend on someone else’s perception, regardless of truth. SIL’s son had a girlfriend in Thailand for a bit. He didn’t go to Thailand to get a girlfriend or wife. He went because he always wanted to, then liked it so much, is now living there. But, you know, perceptions.
No doubt. Perceptions are everything in this case, and unfortunately one of the perceptions that’s fueling this is “There’s nothing wrong with me! It’s all these incel men who can’t live up to my standards!”
We argued for a year. I had a wicked crush on him, but he didn’t notice. Or he noticed but didn’t believe it. He had a crush on me, but manifested it by arguing.
It must serve as our excuse that we were 18.
Four years later, we each had a broken relationship and I called him out of the blue (the reason why is too complicated to explain in a comment.)
We talked for an hour and a half and it was…. water in the desert. We decided to get married then, but it took us four months to get formally engaged.
Actually, that’s one of the nicest stories I’ve heard in a while — the gears actually lined up for once. Around the time I graduated high school, a girl in the class behind me gave me a note saying she regretted not getting to know me better. I remember thinking, “Oh, NOW she tells me…”
On the other hand, I have a colleague who met her husband on the band bus in eighth grade. That’s almost too sweet.
Just took mom to a funeral of a friend from HS. His widow cried when she saw mom. They’ve been friends since they were 13. They are 89. Couple were married for 71 years before he passed away at 92. She was 15 when they were married (at least where we are, can you hear the screaming?) First child born summer after she graduated from HS in 1953. He’d already graduated and was in the Air Force, stationed in Germany, when their first was born. Second one is 366 days younger than I am.
Our Hostess said:
I had a wicked crush on him, but he didn’t notice. Or he noticed but didn’t believe it.
Ah that sounds WAY too familiar. I suspect you should embrace the power of AND. Given the General cluelessness of most Male nerds/geeks the only reason we’re not extinct is the sheer persistence of the female of our sub species…
I will note my wife asked if I wanted wanted to go to the movies with her. I didn’t comprehend (experiencing the combination of the two thoughts you mentioned) and when two other guys wanted to come along (including her ex boyfriend from High school) I didn’t say no 🙂 . Yess I was a doofus and yes I figured it out ultimately and she only had to use a small clue bat to get my attention.
No, I know, but at one time everyone in Dan’s job was married to a foreigner. It’s not the same as passport bros, but you know?
My great-grandmother married a foreigner. As did a few of the cousins. Granted, the foreigners all migrated to the US (via Canada for great-grandfather). Joke was they had to marry foreigners, they were related to all the locals. They were the grandchildren of the 1943 wagon train to Oregon. Bad enough that they had 14 or 15, aunts and uncles, not to mention, I don’t know how many, cousins, and cousins once removed (at that time). There were something like 36 or 40 children in their parents generation that came with their (3 sets of) parents on the wagon train west, and that doesn’t count the children born after they settled.
Yeah. I graduated from high school in Stow Ohio. Dan’s family had hosted a student the year before and were my family liaison.
I got along great with MIL, till I married her son.
Isn’t that how it works? Or. I resemble that.
No. It wasn’t the normal thing. You see, she didn’t LIKE her son, so I “betrayed” her
Sounds like an example of “You can’t put that in a story; everyone would reject it as being ‘unrealistic.'”
neither. I was an exchange student when we met. But he’d realized he’d probably marry foreign. What he didn’t know: It wouldnt’ have worked. He needed SF/F. So, G-d’s intervention, etc. 😉
And has been going on a while. When I had a room mate just after college, he went through one of the “mail order bride” services which connected you with Filipino women. He found one. Within three years, she got “Americanized” and wouldn’t put up with him.
I suspect that “passport bros” will not do a lot better.
Anec-data suggests otherwise. As an example, the other day I was watching a video talking about a female reporter who pretended to be a man on Tinder, and came away with a realization that yes, many of the women on that dating app really are toxic. While the video itself had nothing to do with American guys marrying foreign women, there were a lot of comments talking about it as an alternative to the frequent demands of American women for ‘666’ (yes, that’s a real slang term – 6 feet tall, 6 figure salary, 6 inches inside his pants, or he doesn’t get a date; a fourth 6 is usually intended, even if not mentioned – 6 pack abs). Some of the commentors claimed to have actually done so, and to have had successful marriages that were still on-going.
Is that proof that a marriage between an American man and a foreign woman will probably work? It’s anecdotal only, and it’s always possible that those are the outliers. But it’s interesting that while I sometimes see comments about men who married foreign and had successful relationships, I don’t see comments like yours. That’s not to say that failed marriages along those lines aren’t out there. But it seems to be uncommon enough that it doesn’t get brought up as a counter-argument.
It’s also important to remember that while an American guy might have an easier time getting married in many places overseas, that American guy also need to have the ability to support a family. A guy might be able to marry a woman while in one of those foreign countries. But if he returns to the US and it turns out he’s only making $30K a year, he’s going to have trouble supporting a family (for that matter, he might have trouble supporting just himself), and she’s probably going to leave him rather quickly.
My comment was that a) this has been going on for a while; it isn’t new, and b) that like any other marriage, there are no guarantees you’ll get a good one without putting in the effort to find the right one, and keep him or her.
Yep. And by going on for a while, one could stretch it back to when raiding the village over the hill was how one got a wife, with the latter point still be unquestionably true.
I will add that if you’re not willing to put the effort in to finding the right one for you, chances are good you’re not going to put in the effort to do what’s necessary to keep them, either, even if they are pretty darned good anyway.
I would figure the last part is automatically understood by everyone here (as we’re a fairly responsible bunch, I hope). The issue is that these days there are a lot of issues for men trying to date. I’ve discussed some of them in the comments here, and others in the comments to earlier blog posts. The long and the short of it is that men who are decent people get frozen out through no fault of their own. Yes, some of them are poor quality. That’s always been an issue, and always will be. But a lot of them aren’t. And a lot of single American women won’t give the decent ones a chance to demonstrate that they’re decent.
Meh. Some of us got americanized and we are fine. So were all of Dan’s colleagues.
The reason I put up the comment wasn’t so much to comment on the fact that some American guys are going overseas to find brides. It was to highlight the other part – that there is a growing awareness of this trend by American women. And many single women who become aware of it are responding by essentially throwing a temper tantrum and attacking men.
Back when America had the Chinese Exclusion Acts, one of the laws removed citizenship from any American woman that married a Chinese man. I suspect given half a chance a lot of American women would be pushing for the turnabout version of that these days that removed American citizenship from any American man who marries a foreign woman.
c4c (let’s see if email is working correctly, yet).
I guess not. (Sigh!)
Well, I saw both of your posts via email.
Don’t know why, but only getting responses via email to MY comments. Grouse, grumble, whine. Not any general comments, or comments to anyone comments.
Don’t know what I am doing wrong.
What’s the only difference between a conspiracy theorist and mainstream news?
Six months.
if that
Less than that, now. The half-life of conspiracy theories is getting shorter and shorter.
Three conspiracy theorists walk into a bar…
The fourth one ducked.
He had heard it was planned….
This is good news from Texas.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/texas-ag-ken-paxton-acquitted-on-all-16-articles-of-impeachment-5491525
UniParty lawfare fail.
I think the Bushes just spent the rest of their political capital. Too bad…giggle…giggle…
That was fast. Thought that would take quite a bit longer.
I’m glad to hear it.
UniParty lawfare win. Trump didn’t even get to pick his own people….. as I said all along.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/how-the-fbi-violated-the-privacy-act-to-undermine-trumps-presidential-appointments-watchdog-report-5492716
““The federal background investigation (BI) process is broken,” stated the Sept. 14 AFL report (pdf). “During the Trump Administration, candidates for presidential appointments were subject to a BI process that involved the FBI’s repeated, agency-wide violations of the Privacy Act and the Paperwork Reduction Act, among other laws.” It alleges that certain agents in D.C. tanked President Trump’s potential appointees through selective reporting of unsubstantiated, derogatory information.”
Yeah. I knew that. And it’s why “DeSantis will pick better” is bullshit.
Re meemz 1-3:
Well, I still can’t find my password, so hadto open a new account. W!P!D!E!
Laughed out loud at the Grumpy Cat meme.
Well, I still can’t find my password, so hadto open a new account. W!P!D!E!
Laughed out loud at the Grumpy Cat meme.
Regarding meme #1.
I am nearly twenty years uncaffeinated. I am NOT, and never was, a morning person.
I get up before 4 AM every day.
Guns are loud.
Silencers (boom mufflers, they’re not in any way silent) should be MANDATORY.
Yes, I have seriously contemplated bloody murder of noisy morning people before. The tools exist. We have the technology.
Yet there’s that teeny tiny little voice inside. Still. It’s entirely too reasonable for me. It says that drowning all the noisy morning people would be MUCH quieter than shooting them all.
Fortunately for good order and discipline, such measures have not yet been deemed necessary by the management of every single company and person of authority I have mentioned this very reasonable solution to. So far.
You can’t kill them all, if you did no one would be left to bury them, and just leaving them where you dropped them is so unprofessional. One might say, tacky….
“Buzzards gotta eat. Same as worms.” (Spit)
Joseph Wales
On a completely unrelated note…
For those who have been playing video games for a very long time…
I just discovered yesterday that someone’s rereleasing the very first Wizardry game, Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, with modern graphics. But the core game is still supposed to be the same.
Oooooooh. I played that one.
Oooooooh. I played that one.
BOHICA.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/benbartee/2023/09/16/the-next-current-thing-virus-with-a-purported-40-75-kill-rate-breaks-out-in-india-n1727679
“As of now, there are only six confirmed cases confined to the Indian state of Kerala, but the authorities have already instituted widespread lockdowns.”
Pfui. No.
That’s totally a Dalek.
That’s absolutely a dalek
Yep, definitely a Dalek. Now we know where they’ve been hiding. 😀
(Waves hand) This is not the coffee you are looking for…”
#5 — that’s not an alien, it’s just the Wicked Witch Of The East Coast.
Let’s all hope for a house falling out of the sky. 😀
Kenneth Branagh moved Agatha Christie’s Halloween Party to Venice. Okay…
Then he cast Tina Fey to play Ariadne Oliver. And what a freaking insult to Christie’s memory, to make her self-insert joke into a skinny woke American. Ugh ugh ugh.
Halloween is just not a Venetian thing, as far as I can determine.
Apparently All Souls’ Day is the thing in Venice. They leave out traditional cookies called the Bones of the Dead, for the dead, in case they drop by the house. Some nearby cities leave out a lamp, bread, and water, so the dead know they’re welcome and can get refreshed.
I bet domestic cats and dogs love these festivals, heh….
Which is, of course, the day AFTER All Saints’, not All Saints’ Eve.
Yep.
I hate the poirot ones.
Sarah’s new anthem is “Thank God and U-Haul I’m Gone!”
https://notthebee.com/article/police-investigate-pop-up-bar-at-homeless-encampment-in-downtown-denver