A relative gifted me a really ugly tree ornament. I don’t put up a Christmas tree and haven’t ever in my adult life. Relative knows this and delivered it alongside comments about me needing to get a tree and get more into the “religious” spirit of the holiday.
Normally I would at least look to donate or something I don’t want, but ugly, religious proselytizing junk goes in the trash.
I was gifted a fancy-schmancy whiskey aged in port wine casks. It’s delicious but I’m allergic to something in it. The warmth of the whiskey quickly turned into burning and itching.
I hope you are right. I am sure there are some Guardsmen who see themselves as Texas soldiers over US, and I am concerned that the number is growing. After all, someone voted in these state politicians who are laying deadly traps intending to kill brown people.
I cracked a joke that made a person laugh who is very difficult to make laugh. I’ve known them for nearly a decade and it was the first time I ever heard them laugh out loud.
The size. Longer pianos, upright < baby grand < concert grand allow for longer strings and larger vibrating surfaces, meaning richer sounds and less opportunity for undesirable harmonics.
Grands also have more space for better mechanical apparatus from the keys to the hammers striking the strings.
And a grand having the cabinet with strings and sounding boards open to the audience sounds better than an upright sending sound into a wall.
Better than as a presidential candidate and now Trump acolyte.
He got credit for navigating the city post-9/11. Which, ok, I think just about any semi-talented politician with a PR team would come out of that wrapped in a patriotic halo effect.
He discouraged going after undocumented immigrant students in schools, but pushed broken window policing tactics that disproportionally affected the same undocumented immigrants and people of color.
He seemed ok with protections and benefits for domestic partnerships (this was before gay marriage was legal) but also pushed for a school voucher system that would build up private and religious schools that were very clear and open about discriminating against LGBT people.
He was undoubtedly corrupt. But no more corrupt than any predecessor. So mixed bag compared to his peers and bad compared to the sort of politician I wish could be elected in a place like NYC.
Yes, same on the explosion to mod queue. I modded a sub for a traditionally male-dominated hobby but we had a really positive environment (mostly) for the few women members and any who happened to pop their heads in with a newbie question.
That turned quick, and women were being flooded with “well if you don’t like it, you don’t belong here”, “you should carry a gun at all times to protect yourself or just stay home” victim blaming type stuff. One of many reasons I peaced out, as did so many of the long-time members (men and women) who no longer saw the community they had built.
Think beyond software/online privacy, don’t forget physical. If I’m sitting in an airport, who’s to say someone sitting next to me doesn’t see me type out a message about a bomb, they report me, and I’m getting dragged off the plane no matter what messaging app and encryption I’m using.
I will not be making jokes about bombs and planes in any format while I’m at the airport in public.
I want to live in a Star Trek Federation post-scarcity world. No need to work unless one wants to, no need for a salary. And that applies to everyone around me too.
Australia is getting battered with storms rn with several people killed. Fights over tax cuts for the wealthy. Protests over Gaza and immigration policies. The largest specimen ever of the most venomous type of spider was found; it will now be used in a venom-milking program to help make antivenoms, because no matter what’s going on the tropes must be fulfilled.
I can’t claim to represent anyone other than myself. I use an RSS feeder for news, articles, and webcomics. I have some ebooks from the library downloaded. I have been playing an MMO phone game for the last ~year and check on that a couple times a day. Discord. Lemmy has replaced reddit for me but I don’t spend as much time on it as I used to on reddit.