We are nearing the end of the limbo week. I hope everyone is hanging in there. I’ve got the monster cold that is going around. I went to a kids Xmas party so that was my own doing dammit.
Like how are people this dumb?
Michael Cohen used fake cases created by AI in bid to end his probation
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/12/29/michael-cohen-ai-google-bard-fake-citations/
More monster waves will collide with the California coast after injuring onlookers and causing serious flooding
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/28/weather/california-waves-flooding-west-coast-weather-friday/index.html
JFC
Police killed Niani Finlayson seconds after responding to her 911 call, video shows
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/29/la-police-fatally-shot-niani-finlayson-body-camera
Sprots!
Stonks!
Tech stocks just wrapped up one of their best years in past two decades after 2022 slump
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/29/tech-stocks-wrap-up-2023-rally-after-last-years-slump.html
Happy Caturday!
Those waves attacking Ventura County–Mother Nature has finally had enough of our nonsense. For those who don’t know but are interested, Ventura County is the one north of LA County and south of Santa Barbara County.
They new it was coming and were warned of the king tides plus huge swell. The whole west coast is experiencing them right now. What they don’t really say is that California doesn’t get waves that big very often and it brings out gawkers, wannabe big wave surfers and the real surfers looking for their Big Wednesday…
…been seeing stuff about the lady that called the cops that shot her for a little while now…& it only seems to get worse
…I know defund-tha-police became a sort of parody of how not to get your message across but…damn…how many object lessons does it take to haul an overton window across to a view that includes the idea that maybe instead of police budgets being an ancillary revenue stream for our ol’ buddy the military industrial complex it might be nice to employ people to deal with, say, situations that might be resolved without shooting anything or needing an armoured vehicle…or…nevermind me…I’m away with the fairies
Some of these situations are pretty cut-and-dry where excessive force is concerned. But if I’m called to the scene of a domestic dispute and one party is wielding a knife and threatening to stab the other, it depends on what happened next and what information I had from the dispatcher. It is not always clear to responders who is the victim and there isn’t always time to sort it out when someone’s life is being threatened.
This is why I’ve always advocated for better use-of-force policies, and more and better force options.
I see we’re getting another slow start on the Saturday DOT. Well, I have huge project due on the 2nd, so of course I’m procrastinating as long as possible, and then it’ll be a desperate race to the finish line.
The fat little overfed kitten is adorable. I’m sold. My next companion will be a feline. I suppose I could get one now but Faithful Hound would give the cat absolutely no peace. He would always try to be licking and pawing it and the cat would silently beg to be sent back to the shelter.
Our previous dog, the German shepherd (mix) was all of three pounds when we got her from the shelter. She grew to be a monstrous 85 pounds and was my constant companion. She was the one—did I ever tell you all this? Maybe it was over on the old GroupThink. So on September 11th I eventually made it into my office. The train dropped me off fairly close to Grand Central before it was taken out of service and I had to walk the rest of the way. That’s a scene I’ll never forget. People running for trains at full tilt, anything to get out of the city.
And then in my office it was pure chaos. People in senior management, myself included, desperately tried to arrange for transportation home to the suburbs for the two pregnant women on our floor. But we couldn’t, because the phones were down.
Anyway, I stayed until the bitter end, like 5:30 pm, and then I walked home. I gave Grand Central a wide berth because there was a rumor that it would be the next target. If only those assholes knew how New York worked. Had they targeted Grand Central it would have been out of commission for years and cost 30 or 40 billion public taxpayer dollars to reconstruct.
Then I got home. Better Half was away on business (that’s its own story) so I leashed up the dog. It was a beautiful evening, save for the pervasive odor of burning steel and chemicals coming from our south and the unceasing sirens screaming down the West Side Highway. I grabbed a tennis racquet and a couple of tennis balls and went to the dog run. I’m telling you: my overhand serve was never stronger than it was on that evening.
I’d normally rant about how idiots would rather gawk at disaster than running the fuck outta there.
At least in the video, the big waves seemed to show up quite suddenly.
The one thing I never got about any disaster/monster movie was how people would just stand there. I’d be running like hell, but I guess that’s why I’m not a movie director.
The footage of the 2004 Tsunami that wiped out parts of Indonesia, the frozen non-reaction of my former housemate when he torched something on the stove and the several times I had to shove people out of the way at work when something went wrong taught me that maybe the movies were more realistic than I believed.
At one particular restaurant, there was a server who was…just not right. She was a close mumbler. She’d get right up in your ear and start mumbling and you still couldn’t understand her. Anyway, one evening in the middle of the dinner rush, she had run some bread through the conveyor belt toaster, but it had gotten stuck and caught on fire. Here’s this machine, on fire, and she’s just standing in front of it, pointing and…sort of giggling. I screamed WHATTHEFUCKISWRONGWITHYOU and pushed her out of the way so I could unplug the toaster and pull the table away from anything flammable until we could get the fire put out.
She’s the kind of person that I consider lucky to be born human. If she was born a sea turtle, she would have never made it to the ocean after hatching. Probably would have headed back towards the jungle to get eaten.
I often think that about myself, actually. I’m blind as a bat, for example. This is another Covid-related symptom, I think. I went into the hospital and my vision, with glasses, was perfectly fine. Now it’s degraded to the point where, come the first of the year, we’re off to the optometrist to get a much stronger prescription. What would I have done in the 16th century? I suppose I would have done agricultural labor and never learned how to read and write.
Isn’t it well documented that people’s instinctive responses to danger vary from freeze, to fight, to run (flight for an alliterative hat trick)?
i dunno…the amount of times at work now ive seent people just freeze and look at machinery going horribly wrong till eventually pnuematics win from whatevers in the way of it doing what it wants to…instead of hitting the big red button…its kind of amazing
doesnt make me feel safer knowing most of my coworkers do not have a first reaction of hit big red button
at least on my side of the shop that mostly just means damaged equipment… hate to have to count on them by the lathes and presses tho
@ManchuCandidate, regarding the stuff you wrote about the former roommate freezing when faced with fire, reminded me of when the *current* girl-roommate & i were at a friend’s soccer game, a couple decades back😉😂🤣
*Some* doofus on the team decided to bring a mini-Webber kettle grill, to cook some burgers & hotdogs before & after the game, but the field the guys were playing on that weekend *wasn’t* one of the irrigated ones.
As I looked over to the grill, I noted that the doofus guys on the team had left the *bottom* air vent-holes twisted *completely* open, and the smaller coals were dropping *through*, directly onto the bone-dry grass underneath.
By the time I stood up to go check on it, the guys standing by the grill were basically FROZEN like your ex-roommate, *staring* like a bunch of drooling idiots, as the gras began to *actively* burn.
I grabbed the grill lid, gently pushed the dumbasses *aside*, and started slapping the damn thing *OVER* the baby-grassfire, and got it ALL out, stomping the last couple spots with my sandals, with only about a 3′ burn radius, then went back to sit down and watch the game again.
The doofuses were STILL standing there, mouths agape, as what had just happened, when the friend my roommate and I had gone to see came over laughing like a hyena, and giving his buddies SHIT, for just *standing there “like a couple of DUMBASSES!!!”, because I came over and put THEIR fire out *for* them, then went back to my seat, apparently “looking like it was just *any* other *regular* old day!” from the way he was laughing at my expression, after putting the damn thing out.😉😂🤣
Here’s some officially depressing news.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/29/us-animals-birds-extinct-this-year
Did I ever tell you [OH GOD HERE HE GOES AGAIN] about the time I was up on the roof with a neighbor/friend, and this free-range parrot (I think it was a parrot) was kind of dizzying circling us. “Do you think this is what parrots normally do?” “I don’t know, Mattie.”
Then, and this is what is so great about New York, this gay male couple showed up, they were renters, for reasons I can’t remember. I think they were doing a little gardening. One of them was French, and hot, and was some kind of naturalist (not a naturist, sadly, because…) and he had his visiting twin brother with him, who was also gay.
So I was sitting out on the roof near the balustrade or whatever it’s called, and the parrot roosted on my arm. Now this couple had turned their apartment into this jungle sanctuary with all kinds of difficult-to-grow plants and birds flying free, with supervision. So the parrot was on my arm and I said, “I think this is yours.” And they said, “No, but that bird looks very sick” and the French naturalist dispatched his brother back to the apartment to get a spare birdcage. Because of course they had one.
Meanwhile I love nothing more than chatting with animals, because they don’t talk back and contradict me, so I consoled the parrot and eventually the hot French gay twin returned and I very slowly and carefully slid my parrot patient into his new home. (The parrot was a he, I learned.)
Thank you. I’m Marlin Perkins and this is Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. Special points if you get this reference.
😂 I have sooooo many interjections!
– Hot not naturists? What a waste.
– Was their jungle apartment humid?
– Identical twins or equally hot fraternal ones?
– Was the brother single?
– Did you speak French Canadian to them? 😂 that would be the quickest way to turn them off you.
– “…hot French gay twin returned and I very slowly and carefully slid my parrot patient into his new home.” Is that a euphemism?
– I can’t get enough of hot “missed connections” (as they used to be called on Craigslist). So many what-ifs that play out better in my imagination than they do reality.
I will try to answer your questions as best I can.
1. Have you ever noticed that naturists are often not the people you’d want to see déshabillé? I’ve noticed this because there are clothing-optional resorts in Palm Springs and of course the Pines on Fire Island is a free-for-all. I’ve transitioned into muu-muu territory so no naturism for me.
2. The jungle apartment, like a lot of our apartments, has big windows and faces south, so it was actually kind of hot and humid, but they didn’t really have to do anything special, like grow lights, to maintain this environment. They had amazing flora, though. They had this fully formed palm tree that was like 12-feet tall (these apartments are all lofts so we have really high ceilings.) The birds really liked the palm tree. It was insane. But we’re all insane. This building is like the Island of Lost Toys.
3. I don’t know if they were identical or fraternal. I’ve never been really clear on the difference. But if there was ever a case for twincest [I just slapped myself across the face really hard. I am a married man.]
4. The brother was single and despite his age, we must have all been within 10 years of 40, he still lived at home caring for his aging parents. He lived in La France Profonde, rural France untainted by tourism or really any industrialization.
5. He himself had a very funny accent. He spoke English well enough, somewhat, but a couple of times we had to switch into French. I think I’ve told you that when I’m in Québec I do my best but I sometimes have to switch into English and amazingly everyone seems to understand me. But he was the visitor and I was the native and he wanted to practice his English so I was like the building’s Welcome Wagon.
6. No, the parrot was on my forearm and I was speaking quietly and soothingly to it and I inserted it and he into the birdcage. He was eventually nursed back to health. He was a very good boy. But it’s a weird feeling, the bird claws on your arm. Not painful, just kind of unsettling.
7. This wasn’t a Missed Connection. I’ve been with Better Half probably longer than you’ve been alive. But he was so hot.
Fun Fact! Marlin Perkins was the second director of the St Louis Zoo and his office was put on display in one of the buildings there. 🙂
I have lots of questions about this story. At 16, I flew all over alone & I don’t know how an airline could fuck up this bad?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/christmas-nightmare-frontier-flies-unaccompanied-215934972.html
“Logan said they didn’t scan it,” Ryan Lose said. “They would’ve known it was the wrong flight if they scanned the boarding pass.”
uhhh….they’d have known it was the wrong flight if they’d so much as looked at the boarding pass
last i checked all boarding passes have 3 big print letters saying where your going
They also announce 10x the destination. Did he have headphones on the whole time? He must have heard an announcement to know to board? The kid is too stupid to be traveling alone & the airline is too incompetent to operate.
i was also thinking that….especially as the flight left 2 hours before his
but you know….airlines are supposed to employ professionals so the stupid can travel…so im blaming them
and you know…the kid being a first timer makes me want to go easy on him
It says he was nervous about flying alone. Flying is hectic and stressful for adults in general and winter holidays makes it immeasurably more so. I don’t blame the kid at all.
Yeah I can 100% see this happening. Lots of people wear headphones the entire flight and don’t talk to anyone etc. And he was at the right gate, just the wrong time.
I don’t understand between this one and the story last week about Spirit Airlines sending a 6yr old on the wrong flight – do these airlines not scan boarding passes? I’ve only flown Delta, American, and Southwest and those 3 always scan the boarding passes.
I have no idea what the details are, but airports and airlines screw with gates and personnel all the time. You can look at a board and it will say A12 and when you get there it’s been changed to C21. You rush back and you and 50 other passengers make it with minutes to spare. Gate personnel can get switched mid check-in, and the handoff in terms of who is checking what doesn’t happen correctly.
I think there are a lot of assumptions at the gate that these things will get stopped because two people will try to sit in the same seat, and the flight attendants will then sort it out. But then connections get blown, planes get kicked out of their gates half full, and the conflict never comes up.
kinda makes you wonder what the fuck they want you to take your shoes off for….as they take security so seriously
right well…now we’ve established no one really gives a fuck can we please unfuck airtravel?
its a lot of suck to put up with just coz america had an owie one time…especially if you’re not even taking it seriously yourselfs
…when I was an unaccompanied minor…which was around 10 or 11, I think…you got delivered to the check in desk by an adult & the airline staff kept an eye on you until they handed you off to the stewards for the actual flight…who in turn turned you over to another lot of staff who whisked you off to basically another check in desk from which you were collected like lost luggage by whoever had to deal with you for the duration
…so…I guess they “fixed” the whole routine?
That’s the way it works w/ most airlines but the story says they don’t have an unaccompanied minor program. It costs them more than they make having an employee having to spend all their time babysitting for an extra $25 to $50. Airlines will usually allow kids 14 or 15+ fly as adults w/ a parents release.
oh this is going to be fun
https://nltimes.nl/2023/12/30/hague-light-new-years-bonfires-tonight-dec-31-due-high-winds
high winds on new years eve….
noice.. the words INCOMING! TAKE COVER! come to mind
Farscy, THANKS for the reminder to check in on the Gävla Goat!!!
Apparently the goat didn’t burn this year, but it IS looking pretty saaaaaad and, well, pathetic!😉😂🤣💖
https://www.visitgavle.se/sv/gavlebocken
Apparently, the straw didn’t get harvested like it *usually* does (wet harvest), sooo there was a WHOLE lot more *grain* in this year’s Goat than usual (much more “Hay” than “Straw,” basically!), annnnnnd this year the “Destroyers of the Gävla Goat!” Were the local BIRDS! 😆😂🤣💖
Poor goat is lookin’ *pretty* rag-tag, as of this morning…. Buuuuut at least the Birbs are fed!💝
That’s one HECKUVA big ‘ol bonfire!!!
That’s honestly (and surprisingly!😉) bigger than *any* of the “bonfires” i grew up attending, and heck *we* typically burned downed trees, and a few sofas at once!😉😆😂🤣💖
lol didnt know about the gavla goat!
and tbh….the bonfires are fairly small nowadays…
used to be a bonfire arms race along the coast
anyhoos high winds and give or take 50 meter tall bonfires put an end to that