I got a new laptop at work and everything, every file I worked in, was creating a second copy of itself on OneDrive. It was so annoying and took awhile but I found instructions on deleting the duplicates.

It took all the files off my local machine and left the ones on OneDrive.

Aaaargh!

We actually pay for all our kids’ phone service because T-Mo let us add them for $10/month each line. If they raise it 5 per line it will add quite a bit but I think I’d just ask the kids to pay their $15 a month then, or spin them off if they prefer, and save money overall, T-Mobile has already saved us thousands of dollars over the years, improving service without raising the price so they have a little bit of loyalty from me. It may get shitty from now but it’s been a good run for 15 years at least.

Yeah I had acupuncture to induce labor with one of my kids, the water had broken and I was “on the clock” so the midwife called an acupuncturist and they did some sort of electrified needles and it absolutely did work, and is apparently as effective as pitocin, or slightly more so. It was an unsettling feeling to get acupuncture done to induce pain.

I have no Facebook, I want no Facebook. When I got my now job a few years back they said “we couldn’t find you on Facebook.” That’s right, you can’t.

And yes I get left out of that communication stream, but absolutely don’t care. Like, not even a little bit.

I’m waiting it out. Already my kids see it as “boomer shit”.

2 of my kids are young enough that they were targeted by the micro transactions, but the total lifetime spend on gaming stuff is under $1k, mostly spent on a PS4 and a PC for gaming, bought some Steam games, some PS games and both spent a little in Genshin. But not ever from my money, except for the equipment, I split that cost with them. $0 before they were 15. And they both UNDERSTAND money, both got part time jobs in high school, they make money. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to throw a little cash at a game you enjoy but it needs to be a decision not an impulse, turn off the game and think about it.

They’re not spread out like churches though. Here, it might work, we have an insane # of churches per capita and a lot of homeless, but what about LA? No way there are as many churches as homeless there. Same with houses, as someone suggests upthread. There are few vacant spaces here and many who need homes but in any state beginning with the letter I maybe there are thousands of homes and few homeless because they would freeze to death in the winter.

Yeah it sucks. If it’s coded as “screening” it’s covered. As a tip - my GYN says she can see as much in the 3d mammogram as she can with the regular plus ultrasound and that one she can code as screening and it costs about $25 as an add-on.

Our dryer does this to us:

Put clothes in, start it - it estimates 35 units of time. Come back in 15 minutes to check, it says 15 units left. Come back in 15 minutes, it now says 21 units left.

I am, like all of us, unsure of the fundamental nature of time. But the dryer even more so. The units are not one standard length, and they don’t move always in the same direction.

We’ve never had Spectrum and they relentlessly woo us as well. When we ignored the mailings, they started sending them in Spanish, as though they thought we simply couldn’t understand them. Like nobody could possibly resist them if they could read the advertisements, right? Waiting to see what they try next.

My brothers were swimmers and skinny and small (and really fast, won national titles) and that combination of young, male, and active does create a black hole of metabolism. I also had a friend who was 6’6" and 140lb but healthy too, poet not athlete. He ate, it’s just hard to eat enough to fund that much height.

The model though, that’s an aesthetic choice not an aspirational body type. Androgynous and otherworldly is what I think they are going for. It’s not mainstream attractive, certainly.

“Like you would make it for your grandma” usually works for me. But not if it’s the whole order, only if I am trying to get one item really spicy.

Once at an Indian buffet, the owner had okra out & I was so happy, love okra but he kept warning me off it - “no, no, it’s spicy” and I was like “Great!” and he would say “no, no, I mean it’s spicy” he really was worried.

Nope. It was not. Like, some perceptible heat, sure. But nothing anyone would consider too spicy. Like medium taco bell packet of hot sauce spicy. I was so disappointed after all the warnings!

I will miss my manual transmission car. What do you not understand? I have a Honda Accord and the manual is what made it actually fun to drive. Feels so much more like driving, more engaged with what I am doing. Even my kid who resisted learning to drive it now always wants to take my car everywhere. This is likely my last gas powered car, a 2014 I bought new, but yes I love driving a manual shift car, never have I bought an automatic. Also clutch & manual gearbox so much cheaper to fix. When the automatic transmission fails, the car is basically totalled, and it will fail eventually.

I will miss my beloved manual shift car, yes.

Yes and the glorious “playing near you” feature of Play Music. That made the best recommendations for local shows, and I mean local, within a few miles, not just bands I’d listened to but always relevant and often small shows! That feature, I found several new bands I liked that way and good live music. YouTube has nothing like that. Also interface not as intuitive, more cluttered. My kids like it better because they do like having the videos available, but as I do not give a fuck about that but do like live music this is still not as good as the Play Music.

Exactly. Not fruit punch. I try to make something complex, with some bitter, some sour, some sweet. Young pineapple tepache or ginger beer, before they get at all boozy are good if you aren’t serving actual recently recovering alcoholics as they are non-intoxicating and delicious and complex. Grapefruit juice non alcoholic cocktails are also good and complex.

Chinotto soda or Malta can also be good adult choices for a party.

Usually even the drinkers at a party like the non alcoholic fancy drinks. And Diet Coke is always popular too.

Alcohol abuse absolutely affects everyone around you. We had a friend who used to say “there is no problem in the world that can’t be made worse with alcohol!”

Even setting aside things like car crashes under the influence and violence under the influence - lost days at work affect your coworkers, hung over parent who can’t help out, alcohol abuse harms others, not just the abuser.

Yeah it’s so hard because for most of us, alcohol is food culture, not so much a drug. I drink one cocktail 2 - 3 times a week, only ever one because I don’t enjoy being drunk, and make drinks at parties BUT also always make sure there is something adult, delicious, and not alcoholic plus plenty of soda and pitchers of water because I know not everyone can just pick it up and put it down like that. But most people can & do. Fewer people just smoke a couple times a week.

Humans have been fermenting things to get alcoholic drinks for a really long time.