And I’m cracking up at the scammers phoning up my 85 year old father telling him his Windows has been compromised on his Linux desktop.

Just assumed he was incognito at a “wizards only fools” sort of place.

I’ve been getting ads for Henson razors -Not an endorsement! I know nothing about safety razors- . But the idea of not buying razor cartridges anymore is attractive, provided I’m not cutting myself all the time. But supposedly this sort is less likely to cut me, even if I’m a klutz?

Started really paying attention when my health imploded some years back. Would add that food content literacy tends to drive me to the outer edges of the grocery, and out of the middle where there’s more junky, processed crap.

Oh no. It’s getting hit on the head lessons in here.

Much the same for us. The toxic attitudes here in Appalachia are shocking. We’ve sure tried to give back and make ties, but authentic ones have been exceedingly rare. Something awful in the zeitgeist here now that makes it nigh impossible for folks to get along for the simplest tasks/clubs/gatherings.

A scale model of Devil’s Tower, Wyoming. It would mean something.

“and POTENTIALLY tell me to go fuck myself.”

Oooh. Catharsis.

Once, I used a bunch of plastic storage bins as a bedframe. Properly elevated bed, plus a lot of storage.

Kentucky Route Zero came to me at a shaky time in my life. Such that it was full of impactful moments. Maybe made more so by myself living in the often grim, beautiful and haunted place that is east Kentucky -and of course late stage capitalism.

Orchids to Dusk is another that inspires awe. Though it is entirely about looking for a nice place to die.

This is my speculation too. Been super-sick a number of times. Always swabbed negative. Anecdotally, I know folks that tested a lot more often and only came back with a positive on the 4th try or so when feeling ill. The fine-print of my at-home tests say they’re only something like 76% accurate. Maybe I need to play the odds.

Somebody explain this to the trees that drop millions of nuts in the surrounding forest every few years skyrocketing not only rodent populations but also their parasites; ticks, chiggers, fleas. Predators are here, but they can’t seem to catch up to the mouse output.

If you are in the U.S. and have a Habitat for Humanity ReStore nearby, there are often lots of “dumb” flat screens to be had for a song. If you don’t mind a slightly older bit of hardware.

There’s a meatpacking plant in the closest little town to us out here in the Appalachian sticks. It stinks to high heavens from miles away. Nobody seems to work there long. They had some push to import laborers from eastern Europe and for a time had flyers posted around town in those languages. Then, after a while they all seemed to be gone.

You do have to admire that sort of commitment though.

Same boat. It took my health totally imploding to galvanize my resolve to look closely at what I might do and do it. I lost 115 lbs and have kept it off 22 years this summer. Managed to resolve all my metabolic health problems and vastly improve some unrelated ones. My quality of life improved in many ways. A tough row to hoe. Yet totally worthwhile for me anyway. And I do recognize there is a privilege in being able to devote the resources to one’s health. I know it’s far tougher for lots of folks. And certainly more so now than a couple decades ago.

Yes! Those channel knobs were so easily broken. I thought we were the only ones turning channels with pair of vice-grips clamped on the nub.

This reminds me of a recent meme pushing back against the “greed is human nature” narrative. Was something like:

“If you see a bear riding a bicycle at the circus, do you assume it is the nature of bears to ride bicycles?”

Also frequently hear the same argument made for any change to the thoroughly corrupt healthcare scheme in the U.S.

That any form of socialized medicine would collapse the insurance industries putting thousands out of work and damaging stock portfolios and retirement accounts that may have invested in such. But hey, it’s totally ok to bankrupt tons of citizens and enslave ill folks to lousy jobs because they can’t afford to lose employment-tied insurance that would never be affordable as an individual.

Still remember a print ad for The Grudge “Runs circles around The Ring!”.