Sufficiently advanced technology may be indistinguishable from magic, but they’re not treated the same way by authors. I was thinking about this after I read an implementation of ultratech that was probably sufficiently impossible to be magic, but it really didn’t set off my “this is magic” alarm bells the way other pseudo-scifi does.
I started off by thinking about how various impossible powers are treated in their respective genres. Some things are treated the same — robots/AIs are written the same as familiars/demons. Weapons also aren’t treated that differently. But then things get divergent fast. Scifi always includes mass production, Fantasy rarely does. Tech works for everybody, Magic requires you to be a wizard. To the extent that mass communication exists in fantasy, it never reaches the level of the modern internet, whereas in scifi, the advertisements/black markets/porn/surveillance are (almost) always written to be (at least) one step beyond the author’s experiences. You might even go as far as to say fantasy authors are trying to be mor optimistic/less venal than scifi authors, or that fantasy is concerned with heroism whereas scifi is concerned with cleverness.
But I think the difference is in implementation, magic is about the effect, scifi is about the principle that leads to the effect. Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak makes him invisible. That’s what it does. End of explanation. If you’re living in Altered Carbon and you want to be invisible, you need to screw with people’s implants. And if you’re there erasing your image from their data anyway, why not put in some bogus images while you’re at it? The principle (data manipulation) lets you do things beyond the effect (non-detection).
All the stellar activity is based around a three-day blip later in the week. It starts off on Wednesday with Venus moving into Pisces (yay Pisces!) and ends on Friday with Saturn moving into Aries (boo Aries, unless you’re actively harvesting sheep/goats/ibex/etc. in which case, it’s a great day for you!) Somewhere between there expect a shock on the domestic front as the Moon and (especially) Jupiter retrograde team up to take a shot at you. Forewarned is forearmed.
Aquarius: 4 of Cups – Weariness, disgust, ennui, boredom.
Pisces: Ace of Coins reversed – All the bad things about money.
Aries: 8 of Cups reversed – Great joy, happiness, feasting.
Taurus: 9 of Wands reversed – Obstacles, adversity, calamity.
Gemini: 9 of Cups reversed – Truth, loyalty, liberty, mistakes, imperfections, etc.
Cancer: King of Wands reversed – Good, but severe person; austere, yet tolerant.
Leo: 5 of Coins – Material troubles, but also enduring hardship with others.
Virgo: The Hermit – Prudence, circumspection, treason, dissimulation, roguery, corruption.
Libra: The Tower reversed – Misery, distress, indigence, adversity, calamity, disgrace, deception, ruin, oppression, imprisonment, tyranny.
Scorpio: Knight of Coins – Utility, service, ableness, interest, responsibility, rectitude.
Sagittarius: Knight of Cups – Arrival, approach, advances, proposition, demeanor, invitation, incitement.
Capricorn: Ace of Cups reversed – House of the false heart, mutation, instability, revolution.
Every ’90s music major had this album
Sagittarius: Knight of Cups – Arrival, approach, advances, proposition, demeanor, invitation, incitement.
*pulls up drawbridge*
Material troubles, but also enduring hardship with others.
Sixpence None The Richer makes this less shitty than it sounds.
Now do sci-fi vs SF…
https://youtu.be/jL8AgEzg5fI
SugarFree is his own genre.
Gemini: 9 of Cups reversed – Truth, loyalty, liberty, mistakes, imperfections, etc.
This horoscope is obviously wrong, considering that I’m perfect.
“ Cancer: King of Wands reversed – Good, but severe person; austere, yet tolerant.”
Someone’s getting flogged.
Imam?
American woman not named Lindsey Vonn wins women’s downhill gold medal.
I like the downhill race for the simplicity. One run down an extremely long upper “blue” run that has been prepped so it is basically a sheet of ice. Fastest time wins.
Lindsey Vonn global warmed by needing a helicopter
“Leo: 5 of Coins – Material troubles, but also enduring hardship with others.”
My 27th wedding anniversary is this Friday (the 13th). She’s a Leo, I’m Sagittarius. Looks like you got her right.
After the last few weeks, that sounds refreshingly dull.
From the ded thred. There are employers knowingly hiring illegals straight up (cash under the table/piece rate wages). There are those who turn a blind eye or tell them to go to to get counterfeit documents and stolen SSNs. And then there are companies that knowingly use subcontractors who underbid by using illegal labor but wash their hands because they’re not the employer of the illegals. Or sub of a sub.
Start arresting government employees of agencies who provide benefits to illegals. When a judge dismisses the charges, arrest the judge too. Fuck those enablers.
Nobody steals a SSN to get a job. The idea is a work of fiction. There was even a recent article about some goober who’s SSN was stolen by an illegal to get a job and was causing all sorts of problems. This article had several telltale signs it was also a complete work of fiction designed to cause handwringing. Illegals get work using a US gov’t issued Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN). The ITIN works like a SSN and the US gov’t form for an ITIN even lays it out for them as do variius NGOs when they cross the boarder along with how to apply for all the various assistance programs. If you want to truly know how little your gov’t cares about stopping illegal immigration long term, just look up the ITIN form instructions to see just how complicit they are in this charade.
It is documented that contributions come in on dead SSNs, which means there are indeed people using numbers never assigned to them.
Then those people are idiots, the NGOs spell it out when they come across the border, go to your consulate and get a consular card for ID, get an ITIN and sign up for food/housing/medical assistance.
Well, we already know that the civil service hates anything that reduces its power in any way. So, no, it isn’t a surprise that ITINs are issued to anyone who asks.
And, yes, some SSN’s are stolen, or from long dead issuees.
If I remember correctly, that article you are talking about came from that most infamous bastion of right wing anti-immigrant propaganda The New York Times.
There are a lot of reasons why illegals would rather go for fake documents stolen from citizens.
Also, the whole racket where they claim asylum at the border en mass is a relatively new phenomenon beginning during Obama. So that resulted in large numbers of undocumented in the country who existed in this weird quasi-legal status where it was easier I’m guessing to get the ITIN compared to the people who just said fuck it and snuck in when immigration enforcement was a thing and we didn’t just allow the mass abuse of refugee status for obvious economic migrants.
Even still, working and not paying taxes is kind of a sweet gig if you ask me. You can take lower wages than your competition and still have the same take home pay or roughly the same to start with. On top of other advantages. So there’s still many reasons why current illegals would want to avoid the ITIN.
Many illegals still do not have any interest in the ITIN bullshit even if there wasn’t currently a massive crackdown on immigration taking place.
I can assure you from personal observation that this does, indeed, happen.
ITN is a tip-off that they’re not legal. Fine for a place that does paper records but will fail e-verify. Just go down to Woodburrito and get your docs like everyone else around here.
I know of one personally that used fake docs to work on a non-work visa. Shit happens.
For actual ID, don’t even need the matricula consulor anymore. State DMV will give you a state drivers license with minimal testing or ID with none. And register you to vote at the same time.
Use of mine hires a group of illegals from ElSalvador in his paint shop.
They used their kids SSNs.
He went out of business and got busted by the feds for not paying their withholding taxes.
That was ironic and hilarious.
Buddy of mine.
Good god autocorrect.
Ok, so a bit of hyperbole to say ‘no one’ but it’s not a necessity, our gov’t gladly goes along with it most of the time.
Ok this is art
https://x.com/charlescwcooke/status/2020508104861876400
Yep
I was going to link the same tweet.
Wodehouse meets the youth patois.
(Side thought: if you told your teenage daughter that the film for Family Movie Night was The Goonies, would she be curious, or completely creeped out?)
Ha!
I have to call out The Last American Hero for a post he made earlier.
He sarcastically implied a figure skater of the past was manly.
It is in fact totally gay to even know the name of a male figure skater.
It’s like a 9.7 gay on the Dildo Richter Scale I’ve developed. It’s scientific like Marxism.
And yet it’s still straighter than Brochettaward.
Oh, bravo, Bro.
Knowing who Brian Boitano or Scott Hamilton isnt gay
Some roles are considered unmanly but actually require massive physical endurance and strength. Figure skating and ballet dancing are two of them. Those guys train harder than NFL players.
Competitive Pokemon rant #2.
There is a community that focuses on single battles compared to the “VGC” official double battle style of Gamefreak.
Gen 9, the latest generation of Pokemon, basically had like 100 different Pokemon from the new game banned because they were supposedly all too powerful. Now, I don’t play Smogon. Tried it as a kid, but lost interest when I lost interest in Pokemon. Maybe I’m crazy.
But there’s a point where you just ban all the new shit because it’s supposedly too powerful and you have to start wondering about the logic of it all. If there’s 12 really strong strategies that are tough to stop once they get going, that’s doesn’t seem inherently unhealthy. It’s the same as what I said about the VGC open team sheet bullshit. The goal seems to be to limit strategies and force people to use the same general shit.
There’s also a new gimmick as every generation has called Terrastilizing where you can change a Pokemon’s type along with an offensive buff to attacks that match that type. One Pokemon per team per battle. So this can definitely create chaos. There was a strong push to just ban that outright because it was…too unpredictable. Created too many possibilities and people were losing when people got creative with the type changes.
I can understand some portion of the bans, but they went far further banning shit than any previous “council” had for previous gens (which are all still played today online). If everything is power crept and you are banning new strategies after a week before people even have a chance to try and develop counters and see how things shake out, that’s just rage banning to me.
People develop new strat that seems overpowered. It’s a bahn within a week. New strategy is found. Rinse cycle repeat.
They just seem to be limiting the number of competitively viable strategies rather than actually balancing anything.
Pokémon is gayer than male figure skaters. It ranked 9.8 on the Dildo Richter scale.
Sadly fails in comparison to Pie’s Jeeves link.
I would never in a million years have guessed the Bro was a Pokemon aficionado.
There is a Brony in the group too.
Most expensive Pokemon game drops soon.
https://sternpinball.com/game/pokemon/
If they don’t laser engrave the balls to look like a poke ball they literally dropped the ball.
Serious journalism for serious people
Some see the relatively limited fallout — in a public arena where infidelity or even smoking marijuana were once enough to sink a career — as a reflection of the diminished standards of the Trump era, when the president’s own indiscretions and extreme polarization has led to a greater tolerance of the scent of scandal. They point to the Cabinet nominations of former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, both of whom would have been unthinkable in the past given allegations about their involvement in sex crimes that both men have denied.
“Some of that has to do with the general chaos on this side of the pond where it’s a never ending stream of scandal emanating from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and Trump has set a tone of defiance on refusal to accept and feel any shame,” said Norm Eisen, a former U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic who is now a top Trump critic and the founder of Democracy Defenders Action, a bipartisan group that tracks what it calls “autocratic” behavior by the administration. “Those who should feel shame are hunkering down instead.”
Self-appointed Witchfinder General sniffing out the taint of Satan, no matter where the trail leads.
Or just a garden variety envious bougie cretin indulging his priggish lust for malicious gossip.
Sure, Jan.
The European scandals would put ours to shame except they have no freedom of speech there so it’s easy to hide them.
And the reason there is little fallout from Epstein is because both sides have something to lose. Nobody wants to draw attention to their side.
Because no president before Trump has had “indiscretions” or scandals.
“A never ending stream of scandals….”
I wish these people would just shut the fuck up. They’re tiresome, and fucking liars on top of it.
Why won’t Trump feel shame?
+1 presidential kneepads, ’96 edition
Allow me to direct your attention to Teddy Kennedy leaving a woman to drown in his car while he arranged the coverup.
My personal favorite is the people saying that Trump needs to be article 25ed due to mental decline… who were defending Biden the whole time.
I was actually shocked this got made into a movie in 2017 in ‘Chappaquiddick’.
Neph, to them not being a true-blue lockstep Progressive means you are certifiably insane or mentally deficient in some way or another. It’s starting to approach late Soviet Union levels of nutsoidness.
Also: Showing actual shame is also being treated as sign that you are certifiably insane or mentally deficient. The sorry/not sorry fauxpologies we see more and more of are often truly gut-heaving.
Nobody steals a SSN to get a job. The idea is a work of fiction.
You’re spoiling the narrative.
For what it’s worth, I am opposed to making it hard to offer or accept employment, no matter who is involved. As for “welfare” you can make it as hard as you like, for anybody.
As for working under the table for cash, don’t knock it.
I don’t know if we really need to make it harder or more bureaucratic to hire anyone to enforce it. You simply have to have harsher penalties and actually enforce it to probably deter it.
But this was pointed out to me and it’s 100% true. There’s no shortage of Trump-flag waiving, pick-up driving guys in the trades who employ illegals themselves or who benefit from their cheaper labor.
Get everyone’s hands dirty so it never stops. Timeless technique. Mafia, commies, Epstein…
I have a bunch of these guys as customers. It’s always Tejano in the work trucks and Fox News in the bosses truck.
I’m not sure how to move the cash from my bank to cash and make it look legit on the books.
Payroll is one of your largest expenses. How do they pull that one off?
Straight up cash business or discount for customers paying cash.
I have some customers that write checks. I’ve never dealt in cash.
If I buy some tool or part off of Craigslist I’ll buy it and reimburse myself.
I give you this week your weekly[1] report from North Nowhere Vermont.
We’re enduring another outbreak of Arctic air just as predicted. Last night was -8.5F which is cold but not stupidly cold like the -16F the National Weather Service was predicting a few days ago. Yesterday evening when I got back from my office it was 40F inside the cabin. A few hours of intense woodstove operation later it was 80F. This morning it was 40F again. I relit the fire at 6am and keeping it on “simmer” it’s been about 65F most of the day so far which I find perfectly comfortable. It’s +4F outside right now and tonight is forecast to go down to -10F.
The sky is covered with a gray haze that is permitting sufficient light to penetrate and impact the solar panel array that I’m not going to have to run my generator today. Tomorrow is supposed to be clear and sunny so I expect I’m not going to run the generator then either. I will use some of the free electricity to do a badly needed round of laundry.
Tuesday marks the start of a period of seasonable temperatures which, after the last four weeks, will seem like Heaven.
Two years ago, while helping a neighbor drink his beer, I announced I had joined a religion. “Oh yeah?” he replied suspiciously. “Yes!” I replied with enthusiasm. “I bought a Milwaukee M18 battery powered tire inflator for my Honda side-by-side.” Buying into a tool manufacturer’s battery powered line of goods is as much as like joining a religion as I can think of. I’ve bought several other M18 battery powered tools since then but yesterday made a Supreme Submission when I succumbed to temptation[2] and ordered a four-pack of M18 12 amp-hour batteries on sale at Home Depot for $700. They’re usually $250 each. My two most power-hungry tools are a vacuum cleaner and a chainsaw. They don’t run very long with the 5 amp-hour batteries I have. The 12 amp-hour batteries have excellent reviews and should make it seem like they’ll last forever.
Footnotes:
[1] More or less. You might get another tomorrow.
[2] How cool is a religion that wants you to succumb to temptation?
It’s awful, really, as it encourages bad outcomes – We have examples of the sort of people such an ideology creates by the million.
At least my religion is better than those of tele-evangelists. Instead of a vague promise of redemption I’m actually getting something for my money.
I grew up in a house like that, Richard.
Now I let the fire go out, last wood in the stove about 8 PM. 5-6 AM on a -30 morning it’s about 60 downstairs, a couple degrees warmer upstairs. , feels cold to my old bones. Takes a couple hours to bring it up to 75-78. If the sun is shining the thermal effect makes a big difference.
Wood furnace, dry wood, mostly birch, and lots of insulation. I burn about 5-6 cords a winter.
All of this year’s wood is ash. The emerald ash borer is killing them all and everyone with a wood lot around here has been cutting down the dead and dying trees. A neighbor has been taking care of my lots, part of his preparations for a new sugar bush, but I haven’t yet gotten any of the firewood yet. Certainly this Summer.
Emerald Ash borer started killing off our trees 6-7 years ago down here on SE Pennsylvania. The last couple of years they’ve been falling across our walking trails and making the younger woods a mess by taking down live trees with them. This was about the time the spotted lanternfly finished off our tree-of-heavens, and THEY also started falling down and blocking paths. Fortunately there was only one significant grove of them.
Nice. I submitted to the Bosch 18v sect for all future battery-powered tools. So far, all I have is the oscillating multi-tool, which every aspiring handyman should own, but I do plan on getting the 3-in-1 drill + driver + hammer drill at some point.
To misquote a billionaire venereal disease spreader:
“18 volts should be enough for anyone.”
My Milwaukee chainsaw has a single huge battery compartment. Its size made me realize it wasn’t designed for my five amp-hour batteries hence my big investment in 12 amp-hour batteries. Milwaukee has dual M18 battery chainsaw version:
https://www.milwaukeetool.com/products/details/m18-fuel-20-dual-battery-chainsaw-kit/2827-22
But it’s really expensive and frankly heavier than I want to wield these days.
I run some 8, a 9
And a 12 amp hour in my milewalkee string trimmer.
I prefer the 9. It outlasts the 12 for some reason.
The 5s on that load will burn out the contacts on the battery side.
The higher amp hour battaries have beefier contacts.
The newer 12s have a cooling fan and heat sink in them.
I can’t see the fan making that much of a difference in how long they run but I have not been impressed with the 12 amp hour I have.
Milwaukee has a few different 12AH batteries:
– Red Lithium
– Red Lithium High Output
– Red Lithium Forge
The High Output batteries have horrible reviews. The Forge batteries have excellent reviews. I only have some 5AH batteries so I wont be able to make a good comparison.
That is if the batteries I get are genuine. I ordered them from Home Depot so I think I’ll be OK. This video illustrates the difference between genuine and counterfeit batteries:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTTGGv6-syA
The “High Output” verions wasn’t very good according to the reviews.
One I have is the forge. Ordered it from milewalkee direct. Have a 8 amp hour forge. It dosent seem to be any different than the 8 HDs i have.
The angle grinder and string trimmer put them to the test.
I am a Milwaukee guy but I much prefer DeWalts multi-tool (better blade changing, and a trigger not an on off switch) I got a Milwaukee to DeWalt battery adapter and am now no longer a slave to one brand.
I wish they had all gone 24v right off the bat. Would fit in with my MV stuff.
From the ded thred:
I know my legal wife is definitely more anti-illegal than I am, and I’m pretty ardently anti-illegal.
She also voted for Trump 3 times. I voted for him once.
In 2020?
Interesting topic today while I’m working on my (what I’m now calling) “speculative folklore & magic” (ChatGPT is good for SOMETHING at least).
My big bugaboos about magic are “hard system” versus “soft system,” which I didn’t know was A Thing before I started in on a genre I know less than nothing about. A hard system is mostly one that’s the “advanced technology” of Arthur C. Clarke fame, so the process, as above. You can learn it. It’s sCiEnCe. A soft system is the effect, as above. Both have one principle in common: Magic always has a price. This is a variation on a theme of the first law of thermodynamics.
Another thing is I can’t dissociate Christian theology (any denomination) from my stories. It’s just a bit I committed to and then it became a habit.
Some time ago I tried to write a lucrative genre I found oogey, but it was lucrative, so I held my nose. For a while. I couldn’t do it. It was too oogey. But it involved magic, and magic always has a price (no, I can’t content myself with just letting the invisibility cloak be invisible). I had my main character conjure her favorite snack, then felt the need to explain that it came from a STORE, so it was actually STEALING, and she was set up as a moral pillar (because of her theology), so she couldn’t STEAL, and then I had to think that out to its logical end and it was just a clusterfuck for my plot. Good gravy, no.
Now I’m working on this other thing, and I finally figured out what I’m going to do about this. It occurred to me that there’s a lot of energy out there in various universes that is just lying around doing nothing productive. It’s a bottomless well. The magic is converting it to the matter you specify, so my character can have her maple nut goodies without zapping it out of a store and thus, stealing it. The price of the magic is … responsible usage, virtue even. You can’t be a Faust.
Half science, half mystic.
Now, if this has been done, I don’t know. These are the things I ask ChatGPT because I don’t have time to immerse myself in the genre, and I also think it’s to my benefit to be ignorant of tropes and conventions. But I’ll tell you this much: I have broken my fucking arm patting myself on the back for this bit of brilliant problem-solving.
I think as long as you ground the rules into a cost, regardless of that cost, people will buy in and understand it. Even if latient energy of the universe that isnt being utilized, there is a cost of pulling that energy.
I vaguely recall reading a story ages ago where the sci-fi energy source was drawing energy from other dimensions.
Turns out people lived in those other dimensions, and when the energy started getting sucked out of them, it was catastrophic.
R C Dean:
I know there’s at least one Asimov book that has something along those lines in it.
“The Gods Themselves”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gods_Themselves
Classic Science Fiction involving multiple deep themes.
Sorry for going tangential but since you’re sort-of a Christian (smiley emoji) and working on the problem of a rational system of magic I want to mention a new TV series I’ve mentioned before “The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin”:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23734948/
Based on the books by Stephen R. Lawhead it is to this non-Christian a refreshingly clear take on “While there is evil in the world, all power comes from God.” It’s set in the fifth century when Christianity is just getting to the English island so avoids all the later controversy.
Despite having read the books I found the first two episodes difficult because there’s a lot of back and forth of times and locations. Plus the two principle women are so similar I had to think to decide which one I was seeing in some scenes. The third episode is where the story really starts and is much more straightforward.
Watched epsiode one and for the very fact of the production doing a time period piece with tine period people amazed me.
The production is very fine. In my opinion nearly “Lord of the Rings” quality. Some of the Bull Ring scenes are not of the best quality but you’ve got scantly-clad Charis (Rose Reed) to make up for it:
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7533016/
I have that on my watch list, thank you. The preview has hinted at being theologically based, so at first I thought it was an Angel production.
Looking my bookshelf I observe I’m a fan of the following series involving magic:
– Harry Potter[1]
– The Rivers of London
– The Dresden Files
In Harry Potter magic only had a cost when used at extreme levels like creating a Horcrux in which your soul was torn apart as part of the process.
In “Rivers of London”, much like “The Laundry Files”, using too much magic literally ate your brain.
I keep forgetting there’s a new Dresden book coming out. IIRC in that universe magic was largely powered by one’s personal energy and could be depleted with heavy use.
Footnotes:
[1] I like the Harry Potter series, both the books and the movies. Fight me. I even wrote a fan fiction story, of which I am very proud, to which I provided a link on TOS. It was totally doxxing but those were simpler times.
I liked Harry Potter too,* so no shade here.
HOWEVER. This anecdote:
Everybody who’s ever read A TALE OF TWO CITIES and/or romance novels knew that the first time it was mentioned Snape was in Lily/James’s friend group. Like, duh. Also anecdotally, Rowling was approached with this by a reader very early on and was shocked the reader caught it. Lady, you really didn’t read enough romance novels. Or Dickens.
*I should say, I liked it until I had to wait so long for the last book and had grown past it by that time. I think I got 50 pages in, saw which way the wind was blowing with Hermione and Ron (it’s what I would’ve done, cliche kick the shippers in the balls), and got on with raising kids.
It was Dumbledore’s completely irrational trust in Snape that finally clued me in on Snape’s true allegiance. The James/Snape/Lilly interactions went completely over my head.
Ron and Hermione OTOH was obvious from the first time they met on the Hogwarts Express.
It was, except that as the series went along, I felt Hermione’s feelings for Ron were bordering on contempt, and to me, that should not have gone anywhere.
Maybe the invisibility
Cloak had a price for the creator of it but not the second and third hand users.
I like the candy bar bit. Good call on it being stealing.
Probably would.
From before:
Started weed ~15yo and only ‘had’ to stop when living in Korea (eventually got ’round that) and Singapore (never fucking THOUGHT of trying)
I’ve never even smoked a cigarette -Maybe a pack a week if I’m working
I rarely drink – used to daily, have been clean since last seizure in late August
I don’t gamble – have played house card games and bet on horses a few times, but nothing in a casino
I’m usually in bed around 10pm – Around 2am is a good ‘early’ night’s start
I don’t own a gun – Never owned one; fired plenty, including a legit cannon a few times
I’ve never been to a strip club – Only once, delivering for Jimmy John’s to “Regina’s” in Evansville. Delivered to “Autumn” Good tipper
Jan 15 was my last day at Walmart, still out 34hrs PTO I’ll never get, but tomorrow I start orientation at Meijer’s gas station. Plan is PT with at least Sunday off. Incredible cabin fever, still don’t know anyone, one (bad, bad) date in 3 years and just unhealthily shut-in. I’d do full time if I can get the weekend, but I’d like a weekday open so I can keep gropin’ ’round for long-term work.
Singapore Pt 1 is in, and I really should finish work on my other Pt 2, “The People of Walgo” before memories fade.
Sadly, I’ve got a couple medical bills and bits of confusion to sort, which won’t be pleasant, but ’tis necessary. (A psychiatrist for some Ritalin /Adderall would be ideal, but I shouldn’t be ignoring my teeth. I likely need two crowns, the not-glamorous kind.)
Odd thing I should likely talk to Derp about: I’ve got a sincere, possibly inspired desire to give stand-up a shot. Get happy with a tight-5 or 10 and see if bars ’round here do little things like that. (I don’t go out here in Expensive Land.)
Someone needs to read the magic system from Mage: The Awakening.
“Leo: 5 of Coins – Material troubles, but also enduring hardship with others.”
Not me, fortunately.
“Leo: 5 of Coins – Material troubles, but also enduring hardship with others.”
Not me, fortunately.
You do appear to have squirrel issues.
Whar muh regime change?
While the clock ticks down on Cuba’s communist government, America’s vision for a communist-free Cuba remains opaque. Seasoned observers within government worry that the United States will, in a matter of months, be caught, effectively flat-footed, and left to deal with with a newly-failed state just 100 miles from Key West, Florida by a White House disinterested in Cuban stability.
The apparent failure of the Trump Administration to prepare for Cuba’s implosion is inexplicable. Cuba watchers have repeatedly warned the Trump Administration that the end is near. Six months ago, AEI Senior Fellow Michael Rubin worried that “today, neither President Donald Trump nor Secretary of State Marco Rubio has a plan for Cuba’s transition.” Outside of the rhetoric, nothing seems to have changed. Despite making the collapse of Cuba a full-throated goal of the United States, nobody in the United States appears to be ready for the chaos of a Cuban collapse.
Where is our puppet-government-in-waiting?
Why haven’t our best and brightest neocons been put to work reimagining our lost next door neighbor turista playground?
Typical Hitlerism behavior not to be interested in who is in charge in bordering nations.
-smoked weed a few times; never worked on me “as advertised” and usually leaves me a mass of paranoia and anxiety
-smoked a pack/day from age 16-36, quit, then met the Big, Huge, Giant, Pollock that smoked like a broke stove. Managed to quit again. I miss it everyday.
-I drink daily. Duh
-suck at gambling, so I play for entertainment (watching my money leave) until Ive hit my set amount then go to a bar.
-in bed by 10 or 11 and up at 0530
-had that canoe tip over once and lost my collection
-strip clubs are money pits*. You’re not getting laid, and beer costs too much. Better off sitting home with a 12-pack and pornhub.
*Disclaimer- the filthy ones we used to have here on a place called the “dixie strip” were fun to go to just to watch the clientele. All shut down now.
Life before internet porn . . . . .
Your options were limited to strip clubs and grungy movie theaters. Not that I would know anything about any of that.