All of this is stressing me out… i’m going to Starbucks.

Preferably out the back of a C130 just off the coast of Florida.

Dutch guy here. I definitely knew he was a terrible clown when it came to business, well before he ever ran for office.

I mean… he’s so bad at running a business, he had several casinos go bankrupt. And those are pretty much a license to print money if you run them halfway decent. He also failed at stuff like running his own airline and a host of other ventures. I also knew he was at one time involved with the WWE, I knew about The Apprentice, Home Alone…

Basically, if you were alive in the 90’s, you had plenty of opportunity to know about this clown of a ‘businessman’. When he ran, I figured it was a joke - a publicity stunt. Imagine my surprise when Americans actually voted for him!

Yep, I’ve worn contacts since I was three years old. In my nearly 40 years of wearing them, it’s happened maybe five times that they slid to the side. There’s no reason to freak out when it happens; I usually just close my eye and gently nudge the lens back with my finger on my eyelid.

Of course, it helps to know that it can’t physically get ‘behind your eye’ even though it certainly feels that way.

Look at history. The 2003 Iraq war and subsequent occupation resulted in at least 150.000 deaths, at the absolute lowest estimate. The biggest estimate is over a million.

Afghanistan? 176.000

Gulf War? 50.000

Yugoslav war? 130.000

Vietnam War? 970.000 to 3 million.

And those are conflicts that the US was directly involved in with boots on the ground. Few people lost sleep over any of those civilian casualties. Could you even point to Kosovo on a map?

What’s another 50.000 dead Palestinians you ask? A rounding error on a footnote of history. It’s a statistic. And that’s ignoring the fact that this is happening in another country with only indirect US support.

People SHOULD care about the Palestinians. But it’s just not relevant to the day to day lives of average Americans.

I know, right? This sort of thing would get you a neat title like ‘enemy of democracy’ and a suitably unpleasant execution method. Like getting dropped from an aircraft into the ocean.

It’s… probably… good the US doesn’t do it. But that’s definitely the sort of crime you should avoid anywhere outside of the US and Europe.

I don’t smell burnt toast, but clearly I’ve had a stroke if that’s supposed to be readable.

Most people are incredibly lazy when it comes to writing.

Over on Reddit, there’s a subreddit where you needed to write a 500 character text post to accompany your picture. That’s to prevent it from becoming just another photo dumping ground. After all, it is a DISCUSSION forum. DISCUSSION, for emphasis.

Well, that rule - which had existed since the sub was formed - got more and more criticism the past few years. It was deemed ‘too difficult’, ‘elitist’ and other such nonsense. And of course, with people’s terrible reading comprehension, that’s a barrier as well.

For reference, 500 characters is less than two tweets. So most people should be able to write that.

God, I miss the early internet when people put actual effort into writing posts.

Decisions are made by those who show up. That’s what it boils down to. I always see it like this: even if I don’t get the result I want, I’ll at least have the satisfaction that my vote cancelled out someone else’s who’s voting against my interests.

So make sure you show up, or someone else who DOES gets to decide for you.

I’m amazed they even go to that much trouble, or that condemned have a choice in the matter. Just a single bullet to the back of the head should suffice. No need to get creative or prolong any suffering.

If the state feels like it must kill someone, do it with a quick and effective method. This just feels needlessly cruel.

Decisions are made by those who show up, it’s as simple as that.

You may hate it, but the Republicans are definitely better at getting people in line, both literally and figuratively. They turn up and vote even if they don’t like the candidate because… that’s their party. And it’s the only one that they feel represents them.

Meanwhile a lot of Democrats stay home because the candidate isn’t the one they wanted, doesn’t support everything they want, is too old/young, etc. There’s this attitude of ‘if I can’t have my perfect candidate, I’m staying home out of protest.’

I get it. Every voter wants a perfect candidate. But perfect is the enemy of good, as the saying goes.

I always look at it like this: if I vote, I might not always get the outcome that I want, but at the very least I’m nullifying the vote of a person on the other side.

If the other guy shows up and you don’t? That’s how you lose rights.

Be someone who shows the fuck up.

I recently purchased a new computer monitor; an LG Ultragear OLED. It’s as dumb as a bag of rocks - which is why I bought it.

And let me tell you: it’s quite the search to find a monitor that DOESN’T have smart bullshit features built in. Most of them are now set up as if they were a TV first instead of a monitor - as in, you need to go deep into menus to find actual monitor settings.

I’m glad I was able to find a dumb monitor, but I fear it might not be possible anymore when this needs replacement…

These people are utter cunts.

All this does is annoy people and potentially damage the actual art. If they threw soup at oil execs or something, at least it’d be somewhat related to their message. But attacking paintings does nothing.

If I saw that in a museum, I’d punch them in the mouth.

I actually do have WPE… it was in a bundle one time, so I got it for free. Tried it once, but I’m conceptually not a fan of running extra software on my gaming PC to run fancy wallpapers.

Supposedly it’s not TOO power hungry and can turn itself off when gaming. How’s your experience been with that?

I don’t have a cat. I’m always amazed at people who just let theirs roam free about the neighbourhood. I feel like that’s a good way to let your cat get hurt, abducted or worse.

Just yesterday evening, I was coming back from work on my bike. And there’s this lovely orange cat just walking in the middle of the street. No collar or anything, but looked healthy and well kept as far as I could tell. I’ve seen him around once before in the next street over.

If I was so inclined, there’s basically nothing stopping me from picking him up and taking him home. That should be somewhat concerning to his actual owners, no?

I still have PTSD from the era of the ‘polyphonic ringtone’ hype. Those were the ‘fancier’ ringtones that weren’t just your usual beep or bell.

Usually you’d buy them by sending a text message to some expensive number and it would be sent to your phone. If you were dumb, you could get basically scammed into a ‘subscription’ so you’d get sent these expensive ringtones frequently. Many a teen got yelled at for that mistake in the late 90’s.

If you were a tech savvy lad, you could hook your phone up to your Windows PC and upload shitty ringtones yourself as well as wallpapers and such.

These days, who gives a shit? My iPhone ringtone is still the default ring. I honestly don’t care what it is, as it’s usually just annoying anyway.

A Gaza Sausage sounds like a terrible warcrime euphemism, like ‘Bigeard’s shrimp‘.

Paying for ANY wallpaper is just silly, much less a subscription model.

The only time you should pay for one if it’s an artist you want to actively support and/or thank for that specific work.

Back in the Trump days I saw a documentary on YouTube about the rise in LGBTQ+ gun culture.

Basically, most of the interviewed folks reasoned: I’d rather not need or use a gun, but the people who want me dead all have them, so I want to protect myself. Obviously, there’s also just people in that community who enjoy guns regardless. Both are perfectly valid reasons.

After it gets dark, they refill it with lighter fluid. Every morning they light it fresh with a big ‘ole Zippo.