Yeah, it was a bullshit analogy.

Just like yours.

I thought that’s what we were doing.

Taiwan is a representative democracy now, not a dictatorship.

I think a slightly better analogy, if you’re serious, would be the relationship of the U.S. and Cuba (to make you feel better, I’ll go along with your propaganda and pretend that the U.S. is the only bad guy in the world).

So, China and Taiwan are like if the U.S. tried to control Cuba and failed, and then some other country from the other side of the world (just for example, let’s suggest it was Russia), stepped in to prop up and protect Cuba.

So, can you see how maybe what would be best for everyone is that the Cubans should get to decide on their own how they are governed? Much like the people of Taiwan, through their representative democracy, should be able to tell China to piss off already.

We do about $300/kid. We haven’t increased that over the years with inflation.

Kid’s are all grown up now. A couple years ago we started having everyone make Amazon wishlists. It was too difficult to figure out what everyone wanted. The wishlists make it easier for everyone. Also, we can put all our purchases on an Amazon store card and get 12 months interest free.

(I know. Amazon.)

Last year I also gave each kid a $300 Amazon gift card because everything sucks, and I didn’t want them to feel pressure for the holiday. I’ll do that again this year.

It probably seems crazy, but it works for us.

OH MY GOD!!!

When I was in college, a computer lab coworker asked me how long I had been dating my girlfriend.

I told her 6 years. She said, “Shit or get off the pot!”

That was the moment I decided to propose. We’ve been married for 33 years, together for 39.

When people ask about the proposal, I tell that story, and end with, “…so I decided to shit.”

Honda has a policy of not making political donations.

They don’t just placate MAGA. The Toyota PAC spends money to support MAGA candidates.

They spend on each, but generally more to Republicans.

https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/C00542365/summary/2024

Be careful. I think what you just said probably labels you as an antifa terrorist.

All those dirty fish swimming around…

He is going to still protect whatever privileges he still enjoys. He doesn’t give a shit about Trump or any other pedophile seeing any kind of justice. He just wants to keep himself as safe as he can.

Leopards weren’t that interested in my face, so I moved to a country with hungrier leopards.

he said something to the effect of, “Is what I’m seeing on TV different from what’s happening in reality?” - made me seriously wonder if he’s being shown footage of some riot somewhere and told that it’s a US state rioting against ICE.

I thought it was confirmed that the reason he wanted to send military was because Fox News said there were riots and showing video from 2020.

So, yeah, Fox News is lying and Trump, like all his supporters, is believing it.

Desperately trying to get the taint off his soul before he dies so he doesn’t spend eternity burning in hell.

If the UK doesn’t invoke Article 5, NATO has no involvement.

The vacuum has no capability for an Internet connection and no cameras or audio recorders.

The quality of the vacuum wouldn’t lead me to choose anything else from Eufy. It’s just a good robotic vacuum.

We love Meryl.

I’m going to get a piece of wood, paint it white, and mount it under the fridge so she doesn’t get caught underneath.

Leo finds her a bit frightening.

Just when he thinks he’s safe, she turns around and goes on the attack.

I got a Leatherman Wave years ago and it’s almost always on my hip.

Fantastic thing.

I’ve got another one:

Long before COVID, I would go to a barber shop for haircuts.

The place I went to had one short, old guy who had arthritis. I’m tall, and long in the torso. When he was cutting my hair, he couldn’t lower the chair enough to be able to cut my hair, so I’d have to scoot down in the chair so that I was sitting with my ass at the edge of the seat and my spine bent so my head was low enough.

When you entered the shop, you’d write your name on the board, and if you wanted someone specific to cut your hair, you’d put the barber’s name next to yours. So, I started picking one of the taller, younger guys to cut my hair.

One day I was in a rush, and there was a line, so I figured I’d just take whoever was available and scoot down if I had to. The old guy skipped over me two times. When someone pointed out that I was there before him, the barber got pissy and said, “he doesn’t want me cutting his hair”

One of the other barbers apologized and took me next. I gave that guy a $20 tip.

When I got home I went online and bought a Flowbee. I haven’t been to a barber shop since. It does a great job, there’s no line to wait in, it takes me about 10 minutes, leaves no mess behind, and I haven’t paid for anything but electricity and shop vac bags ever since.

Eufy 11S Max robot vacuum.

We had a Roomba back when they were new. It did ok, but it wasn’t really that impressive. My wife had a rechargeable upright vacuum after that. When that died, I argued for going back to a robot vacuum because her health problems were both making it hard for her to use the vacuum and also leaving me too busy to do it.

She resisted because she was never happy with the job the Roomba did. However from day 1, the Eufy vacuum did a visibly good job cleaning and won her over.

We have it set to run once a day. There’s one chair it occasionally gets stuck under, and we have to block the base of the fridge or it gets stuck there. Aside from that, it’s very independent. It does the vacuuming and then finds its base to recharge for the next day. It needs to be emptied out every day and cleaned more thoroughly once a week.

We’ve been very pleased with it.

We named it Meryl Sweep.

Who complained?

I don’t know if this would count as uncommon, but here are the guinea pigs,

Rose:

and Daisy: