This was the answer to all beige/“off white” of the preceding decades.

When you sell a house, it needs to be as generic as possible, to appeal to as many people as possible. The staging furniture is suppose to take up the style slack. Except we made all the furniture gray, too. And, cars, for some reason.

Fucking gray cars, WTH?

Gray is the color you get when you mix all colors together. It’s literally the average of all colors. The least interesting, exact center of blandness. It’s the definition of “normal”. But, it also doesn’t distract from your phone. So, that’s a plus… for people trying to sell you crap.

I guess to remind the bottom 30% of this country how terrible Dems are just before the election?

Remember, if you don’t vote with your pen (or stylus, or finger), you’ll need to vote with something more substantial in the future.

Being comfortable away from civilization.

I mean, very few people go off into the woods anymore without some way to communicate in case of emergency.

In the mid-80s I’d go off backpacking with friends for a week or ten days, and the only hope we had if we something went terribly wrong was the occasional park ranger, or other hikers. We might run across four or five other people on the trail per day, but some days no one at all. We’d set up camp by a pond and be the only ones there, and probably for miles in any direction. We never thought about it, because there wasn’t the option of taking a GPS, or phone, and we didn’t bother with a radio because we never needed one before, so we just never thought to take one.

It was fine. We had skills, we were prepared, we had each other. We had experience. That’s all we needed.

I suspect that is very rare now. It would be considered foolish. Fewer and fewer people have the experience of being that disconnected anymore.

Here in NM, out on my walks around the neighborhood every day, I say either “good morning” or “hello” to everyone I pass, which varies from one to perhaps ten people per walk, 99% respond in same. It’s not fake, it’s just common courtesy to acknowledge other people. I see about half of them every day, and I know of two regulars who won’t respond, so I don’t say anything to them.

There was one guy who enthusiastically said “good morning!” every time for a couple of years, we even stopped and chatted briefly a couple of times. I didn’t see him for an entire summer, then when I saw him again he wouldn’t say hello. Then he started saying hello again, on his own. I don’t push. Some people have a lot going on.

I don’t know about “heavy eye contact is a challenge”. At about 15 feet apart, walking toward each other look to make brief eye contact and say “good morning”. By the time you’ve said the words, they’re nearly past you, and they either respond or don’t. That’s all there is to it.

If I had friends who responded to a smile and a wave with a sneer, I think we wouldn’t be friends for long.

I wear the same clothes two days in a row, sometimes three. This alone cuts laundry in half, or by a third.

When I take off my clothes I don’t bunch them up or turn them inside-out, so they come out of the dryer ready to hang with minimal fuss.

All of my socks are the same, black Dickies, so I don’t need to match them.

I hang everything, because I hate folding. Also, when it’s folded, it’s stacked somewhere, and you need to dig through the stack to find anything. Socks and underwear go in a bin.

The Dorothy Hamill cut. It was huge after the '76 Olympics:

I had a crush on Susan, the new girl in the 4th grade, a redhead with that cut. I threw up on her shoes, once. She never talked to me.

An aging Congress, out of touch with the AI revolution, could find itself out of its depth.

I’ll point out that term limits for Congress would mitigate this issue. And, term limits are better than simple age limits, because a young person voted into office could still have decades to become entrenched and corrupt. Whereas term limits keeps up the churn.

A bit of good news this morning?

Too bad Joe is still hanging around. I suppose him dying wouldn’t have stopped them from invoking his ghost, though. Their bag of tricks is running dry. It’s hard to keep blaming Biden two years after he left. It’s comical, really. I hope they keep it up.

I’m also hoping gas prices keep going up, we’re at $4.36/gallon national average. Love to see that hit $5 before the election.

Birchall was born in September 1974 in Modesto, California.[2] As one of 11 children, his family toured California as part of a musical group called “The Birchall Family Singers”.[3] He earned an Eagle Scout rank in his youth.[2] He entered the Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, in 1992 and graduated in 1999 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Before graduating, he also spent two years as a Mormon missionary.[4][5]

I bet his parents are so proud of him.

To be fair, the only mormon I ever knew was a decent guy. He was a co-worker, so he wasn’t trying to convert anyone, and I have no idea what went on in his mind, or what his life outside of work was like.

Pass this on to people in your circle who might be affected. Do it before the mid-terms. You know Fox News isn’t reporting on this.

When I was a kid, I needed clarification on these weasel words. My dad told me, a couple is two or three, but not one. One is always one. Four to six is a few, and seven or more is several, and you can remember that because several sounds like seven.

So, that’s always been it for me. If you ask me for a couple you’ll probably get two, but maybe three. You’ll get five or six if you ask for a few, and you’ll get seven if you ask for several. My dad an I were a lot alike.

Also, a “handful” is either five, because five fingers, of course, or however many I can grab with one hand, if it’s candy or something.

“I stepped in some shit, clean that off, too.”

I don’t know, it just helps me focus, somehow.

I’d pick Spain. But, there’s no way I can do it now, I’m too old and poor.

Had I known what a shithole this country would become, I would have started out with that in mind and made it happen. I would have done many things differently, had I known. Hindsight is 20/20.

“All in favor?” <chirp, chirp>

“All against?” “NAY! NEIGH, NA-HEY!”

The ‘nays’ have it.

Estimated range: 205 miles.

Removed by mod

Apart from graphic design and advertising, art is difficult and risky for billionaires to profit off of. Human artists are notoriously flaky and difficult to work with. This is one reason Larry Ellison bought WB.

Billionaires want public schools to turn out people who are as close to robots as possible. We all know they’d prefer actual robots, but that’s not happening anytime soon, regardless of all the hype. So, public schools drop anything not reliably connected to billionaires profits. They’re thrilled at the prospect of getting rid of human artists.

I haven’t logged into my Amazon account in ten years, and this won’t make me do it.

Learn the difference between need and want. Stop buying crap you don’t need. And, never knowingly buy anything off Amazon.

Fuck Amazon, and Jeff Bezos. All excuses people make to willingly buy off that fucking site are bullshit.