Hey! I’m right here, man. 
Me, too! And to make matters worse, I have Elon on my doorstep destroying the environment with not one, but now two Colossus AIs. Yeah, we’re doomed.
You’re far more careful and methodical than I am. When I accidentally washed my keyfob, my highly scientific reaction was to press a button to see if it still worked. Then I scientifically pressed all the buttons to make sure they all worked. The experiment having been successful, I put it away and had a nice stiff drink. 
Politically, yeah. Certainly not at all my favourite state. But my wife once won a business award that consisted of a free trip to Nashville and, though neither of us cared at all for country music, it was fun. We stayed at some luxury hotel whose name I don’t remember but it was a very nice place that consisted of four wings with a gigantic central area covered with skylights, a sort of decadent indoor outdoors.
My most lasting impression was a Nashville bar we went to. Towards the end of the night I had a beer in some gigantic comically shaped container. It was hard to finish it all so I thought I’d just leave with it and finish it off later. I was informed near the door that you can’t leave a Tennessee bar with an unconsumed alcoholic beverage. I was informed of this by a burly gentleman sporting an enormous revolver hanging off his bulging gut, and he didn’t seem like the sort of dude who would hesitate to use it. Ah, Tennessee – the very heart of America, where I might have been shot!
I was in Nashville for two weeks on a business trip and really liked it. And many years later we went on a family vacation to the Smoky Mountains (around Dollywood though we didn’t get a chance to go there) and really enjoyed it, and hope to go back someday.
It’s a very fun and affordable tourist area. Glad I don’t live there, but it has its redeeming qualities.
(Also, I hate country music too but it’s not like we heard it everywhere.)
I love Popeye’s fried chicken, but have to wonder if the employees are personally charged for every napkin they hand out. Team! It’s fried chicken! I shouldn’t have to ask for napkins!
24 years here as of today. Where does the time go?
Right out the window! You tried to hold on, but didn’t even know you wasted it all…
Congratulations!
I’m still trying to figure out which is worse to clean up, warm cat barf or cold cat barf. Either way, I’d really appreciate it if the cat would stay in one spot until she’s done hurking instead of wandering around leaving multiple areas in need of cleanup.
I got a very nice, nearly new Samsung tablet from a neighbor’s yard sale Saturday. It even synced with my Samsung phone and set itself up with very little help from me. But the only complaint is that the NYTimes crossword puzzle app on the tablet is missing the option to show the answers in list view, despite my phone having that option. The icon is just not there. I’ve hunted inside all the links. I’ve reinstalled the app, rebooted, etc. I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t be there. I went as far as to call the NYT digital help line and submit a request to update the app, as they now depend on puzzle and food subscribers to keep them in business, but I’m not holding my breath.
Hey now, there are some good folks in Tennessee. Not enough but some.
I know And, to be honest, Ashley Judd is still really cute.
I was just assessing the chance of one of the reddest red states in America being turned to the path of Democracy and away from the path of Klan NAZI-ism.
I realize that this change might rankle the pubic-hair wig of Rand Paul… but I’m not his stylist.
My own grandma (father’s side) was a keen cook. Unfortunately, as she aged, she still cooked with great enthusiasm but with less and less taste… everything was over salted, over-spiced… luckily my self and my younger sister were taught from quite an early age to cook by my mother. This delighted my grandmother, so family meals became great events where us kids would do the bulk of the work, grandma would contribute with veg peeling and stories about her life.
She still put an inordinate amount of salt on the meal we served, but at least the rest of us could consider the food edible.
On her defence, she was of a rich colonial generation who at one time had not one, but two chefs in her employ, so she never needed to learn to cook. She did it for pleasure when she was younger, as finances dropped, she started cooking late in life.
One of my lasting memories of visiting her, was sneaking off to the servant’s quarters (yeah, told you it was full-on colonial) and visiting Shadrack, a gentle old man who tended the gardens on the propery. He had a small vegetable patch on the grounds (huge property) where he grew various seasonal crops, including peanuts.
He taught my brother and I how to roast peanuts on a fire, then mash them to make peanut butter. Smoky, delicious. Never tasted anything like it.
It’s not been a great week. The DOJ has been (I suspect intentionally) releasing grant opportunities with much less notice than the legally required 60 days, because fuck non-profits. I volunteered to write two federal grants in 2.5 weeks, mostly out of guilt that I refused to do it the last time. Then I got another grant dumped on me, all due August 15th.
Then the power was out at work so I could get nothing done all of yesterday, and I practically wept in my husband’s arms about how useless I have become, and how I’m going to lose my job, etc. I’ve been struggling to function for nine months and this was the first day I started thinking about how much I wanted to die. My Aunt has assured me it’s just going to get worse until I’m through menopause, in, oh, probably 13 years.
Managed to pull it together this morning and complete two major tasks today, leaving me with the next couple weeks to focus on these two grants. My boss graciously took over the third one, so that’s one less thing off my plate. Tomorrow, I said to myself, tomorrow I’m going to settle down in my home office and get all of this straightened out. I can do it if I’m diligent.
Came home exhausted tonight to find the power is out all down our street. No apparent reason. No storms. Just the power is out because FML.
I feel your pain. Only in my case, it’s phones. I have 2 lines, one personal and one business. Neither is working. And haven’t for the past 2 weeks. The shit phone company that provides this “service” tells me it is finally supposed to be restored by tonight. I’ll believe it when I hear that dial tone.
Sadly, this is a common occurrence here blamed on regular copper wire theft. (Yes, we still have copper phone wires.)
Sure hope I don’t need 911 before they get it fixed!
Ooof. 
At the time I finally canceled my landline, it hadn’t worked for a month. CenturyLink didn’t seem to care, canceling my initial ticket with no repairs performed. It was impossible to speak to an actual human through the phone, so I ended up dealing with agents via chat. I guess in this area they make most of their money now through internet services, so one angry little phone customer didn’t mean a thing to them. I never did get an explanation for what they thought was wrong.
I’m sure this has already occurred to you, but I’m finding that the background noise of American politics is sort of a low-grade, constant mental health irritant that makes every. damn. thing. that much harder. I mention it, because if it’s the case for you, too, that is one external factor that has nothing to do with your ability to accomplish, and everything to do with your being an empathetic person. I’m mostly getting my news information here and trying to walk the fine line between staying informed and not letting it overwhelm, but even so it weighs on me a bit.
This is a really good point, yeah. And I think there are some politics threads on this board I should not be following.
Same.
I actually think they are actively trying to schmuck their last remaining phone customers off the service and on to VoIP so they can just shut it down. Only my phones haven’t worked long enough for me to get in touch with my ISP, and it may not work anyway for a number of reasons. I’d sure like to get the chance to try!!
The last online chat I had with a CenturyLink rep, they asked if I’d be interested in their internet service. I replied, tersely, “I’m very happy with my current provider, thanks.”
I refrained from saying, “Only if I want to be completely cut off from communication with the outer world for half my life. So, no thanks.”
I’m sorry to learn their shittiness is universal. 
But not surprised.
My small town has been engaged in infrastructure replacement since December 2023.
My street (and everyone else’s) has been dug up three separate times since then.
Gas lines, water lines and now sewer lines. It’s been a profoundly disturbing mess coupled with episodes of uncertain parking and utility interruption. It’s been difficult trying to predict when the streets might be closed off or otherwise unavailable especially for grocery shopping, random deliveries or luggage packing/removal.
We are talking full on cement removal, grass and landscaping destruction, etc. with a constant hellscape of tar, potholes, gravel and dust. And mud - they took out my freshly landscaped grass in front of the house which the gas company had so nicely installed last September.
Now I have a 5 x 5 chunk of mud and rocks.
My porch, front door, car and everything else is covered in a fine mist of dust and cement particles. I wear crocs 70 % of the time except for deep winter and just wash them off daily.
I quit dusting a long time ago and only run the sweeper occasionally because it is never ending.
I thought the upheaval was done for awhile. The construction workers packed up their aqua porta potty and yellow backhoes on Monday after laying another thick layer of farewell tar and gravel which finally dried up today.
I pulled into my street after work to discover yet another No Parking sign indicating I cannot park in front of my house from July 31 through August 6 for paving.
I don’t mind the need to make other arrangements for parking. I am immensely grateful for the upgraded infrastructure and I understand the confines of construction projects of this nature. However, I am really angry that we were not given at least a couple days notice. This is the night before it is due to start. 
I had to schlep myself out to the grocery store after work to get supplies for the week. I was planning on shopping Friday or Saturday when the weather cooled down.
Don’t know where I found the energy. Probably anger.
Now my back is in agony but rest should cure that.
Of course this is not a huge deal and a temporary inconvenience for me.
But … a little advance notice would have been appreciated.
So I called the paving company and left a complaint message.
I am not even going to call my borough office. I tried calling them last week to inquire whether I had been hooked to the new water main while I was on vacation.
My neighbor eventually alerted me that we had indeed been hooked up. The borough never returned my call.
It’s just tiring to live in a constant unpredictable mess that you can’t avoid or clean up.
We’re going through this, though much farther from our actual house - that sounds really hard! The utility work they said they’d be doing until December. It is right outside our subdivision on a very busy road and they’ve kindly placed a large trailer in the perfect place to block our line of sight for oncoming traffic. They are doing some serious shit, with giant trenches as tall as humans and four snorts* going at any time. And they are big ass snorts!
*Snorts = Excavators. Three or more snorts are a snoggle, so for clarity, we have a veritable snoggle of snorts! This is the only redeeming feature of this situation.
The thing that sucks the most, to me, is that you can no longer get into our subdivision if you’re heading south, so I have to drive about three miles out of my way every time I pick my son up at daycare to get to the intersection where I can head north. And lately it’s been backed up.
I really think if I had a single wish, it would be a toss-up between world peace and banishing road construction.