GoodbyeBlueMonday

Thanks for inspiring me to take a crack at it myself! If I actually wind up starting a tank, I'll try to remember to send you a message

Do you have a favorite site to suggest how to get started?

You're entitled to feel the way you do too, but it doesn't change what I've seen in my years, either.

I think I'm being perfectly level headed, I'm just being a little snarky. At least equally snarky to your comment.

I just wanted to point out that nuance is possible with just a few additional words, but only if we choose to use nuance.

Well it's a good thing you did the work and spoke with every Jewish person in north America to be able to paint with such a broad brush. I guess all the people I've spoken with we're lying about their ethnicity.

In seriousness though, simply adding "many" or "a plurality of" is enough to add nuance to the discussion. Starting with the blanket "the Jews" isn't a good look.

I appreciate you taking the time to say that! Thank you. My favorite song by him is probably Desperados Under the Eaves, if you'd ever like to hear the best of his music.

Reminds me of what Warren Zevon had to say about rich people problems, off Preludes. It came out a few years after his death, and the back half of the album has snippets from some radio interview(s?) he did. Neat musings by a complex dude: he was creative genius in a lot of ways, and a titanic asshole in a lot of other ways (he asked his ex-wife to write his biography, and to not go easy on him - alcoholism, violence, absentee parenting...it's all there).

Anyway, that's a preface for the folks who don't know about him: he probably could have been a bigger financial success had he not been a disaster of a human, but maybe his dirty life and times gave him enough material to feed his creativity...who knows.

WZ: I was real lucky, because I always had some kind of work that came along - at the last minute, anyway.

I was always able to make some kind of living as a musician

I also never really got rich, and that might have been lucky too, ya know?

Interviewer: in what way?

WZ: Well, because the less time you spend with the issues of being rich

they're like the issues of being famous

they're not real issues

so they're not real life.

Interviewer: And it leaves more time to be creative?

WZ: There's more of an exchange - a human exchange of ideas and feelings to be had on the bus stop than over the phone with your accountant, and if you're rich you spend a lot of time on the phone with your accountant. it's necessary, I believe.

I know I'm happy and that means I must be lucky. That I know.

EDIT: this is not to say I wouldn't be grateful for more money, myself, but I chose the life of a biologist - in ecology and evolution, no less. I'm happy to make a living, and it's always a little shocking to see folks make double/triple what I do and say it's "not much these days". Those of us scraping by have a wildly different perspective, and I'd love to give folks a tour of what it looks like long-term.

To add to this: if the opposition party consistently shows up to vote, the dominant party gets nervous, and has to focus on the chance of losing. Not showing up means they've truly won.

It also shows the opposition party that they can and should invest the time in supporting that area, because there's people who haven't given up yet.

Also, the president isn't the only person on the ballot, and small races are where more radical third parties actually have a shot!

Also, if you bailed after driving the hovercraft, maybe you didn't get to Black Mesa East, or Ravenholm? IMHO that's where things really ramp up: story-wise (you meet more allies), and you get a better glimpse at the endgame. You get a neat tool to use (which also was mind-blowing in 2004, less so almost twenty years later), too.

If you don't dig it though, I wouldn't force it. I'm a fan of science fiction more than fantasy, so I've never finished a Dishonored game, but I love Prey. Just doesn't hook me the way I know it could...just not my particular vibe I guess, which I think is OK.

This could be the cover for a cyberpunk Far Cry 7

There are some damn cool Karen-looking folks out there.

When I was a gawky high schooler, I worked in a pet store. A lady came in demanding a refund for a broken bottle of flea spray. I apologized and took a look at it: turned out she hadn't flipped the little fiddly bit on the end of the nozzle around correctly, so it was actually functional.

She still didn't want it, and demanded a cash refund. Small independent pet store, so we didn't do that for credit card purchases, or ones without a receipt: store credit only, unfortunately. She started to get mad, and I told her she could talk to the manager first thing on Monday. She wasn't having it.

Behold the entrance of a Savior sandwiched between spiky dyed-blond hair and leopard-patterned pants. Summoning the strength of all the Karens out there - but wielding that power for good - she put herself between us. She started by simply telling her to "leave this poor kid alone, he doesn't make the rules", but when it was clear that the lady wasn't going to budge, she advanced on her prey and said "if you're too stupid to figure out how to use a spray bottle you don't deserve a refund anyway".

Wish I could thank her again: it defined the best and worst of working retail.

Thanks for your best wishes! I'm lucky enough that the hour it takes a year to vote doesn't get in the way of the direct action I participate in the rest of the year.

Mutual aid isn't mutually exclusive with voting.