Work has been… a thing this week. If I could tell the stories, I would, but I cannot. Suffice to say I’m consistently terrified by how haphazardly large corporations operate (or don’t as the case may be).
Man, if only there was some sort of document that provide a presumption of innocence… apparently some local judges don’t quite get it yet.
In geek news, why are other companies emulating the most hated parts of the video game industry?
In case you’ve never been involved in the board game scene, this explains some of the heavy progressive mindset that is pervasive in it. These are the people who are offended about historic games having slavery in it because it’s triggering to Black people (they can pronounce the capital B, the same way you can hear the parentheses when they say Jew).
In case you need some new shirts to cover your naked chest.
No amount of saying the right words will protect you from allegations.
They keep announcing this as if it’s new information, instead of realizing that people really don’t care.
Since it’s the 5th, this may be a day late; but, if you haven’t heard this song now you have.
Localish (I can get it on my shelves up here) a distillery has released a fantastic strawberry gin. It screams out to be made in one of my favorite drinks in the summer, a Tom Collins:
Ingredients
- 4 parts gin (2 ounces)
- 2 parts lemon juice (1 ounce)
- 1 part simple syrup (0.5 ounce)
- Club soda to top
Add all ingredients but the club soda into a shaker filled with ice. Shake until chilled, strain into a Collins glass filled with ice, top with club soda. Garnish with a lemon wheel and a maraschino cherry if you so desire. One trick I read recently that makes me feel like an idiot for never thinking about it is to add some of the club soda in the bottom, add the cocktail, and then do a harder pour to top to combine.
For the intelligent and bright out there (which is all of you of course, otherwise why would you be here?), you’ll notice that lemon juice and simple syrup is lemonade. Adding club soda to it is carbonated lemonade. If you want to make these quick and easy, pick up some Italian/French sparkling lemonade (or any of the other flavors out there). It’s what I do when I’m lazy.
Bonus recipe video link: The Cherbluble, being done by Charles Phoenix (who I highly recommend watching if you enjoy mid-century modern stuff).
Monetization. Wizards of the Coast was born of microtransactions and gatcha gameplay in Magic: The Gathering booster packs.
Neil Gaiman is straight? I would have lost that bet. Maybe I took his last name too literally.
Whenever I see it I read it as “Guy-Man”
Word better not get out given the number of quiltbag characters in his stories.
I thought Amanda Palmer was trans.
I never thought Gaiman was gay, per se, just English.
“just English.”. That’s halfway to gay, isn’t it?
“presumption of innocence”
This judicial interpretation of the issue will last about five minutes. Fucking retards in robes are going to be the death of us all.
A) Shakespeare was right
b) moar woodchippers.
I’m consistently terrified by how haphazardly large corporations operate
Here’s a fun example of that from today.
Somehow I’ve ended up fielding a few questions about the instructions provided in the company branded Office template documents that we circulate around the company for internal and external presentations.
There were a few things that needed edited to make these instructions more understandable and better aligned with the legal landscape. I started contacting people to figure out who owns the template so I could give them my feedback, and it turns out that I’m the one who owns it. Evidently my team helped build the templates some time back, and everybody involved is now gone, so nobody has been maintaining these things from the legal perspective in almost a decade.
I love finding out I’ve inherited work I had no hand in.
They’re setting you up!
Self Jam
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9QdKhxpLL7c
As Trashy discussed that’s a real thing in big corporate.
If you start asking questions about something there is a non-zero chance you are going to own what you were asking questions about as well as fixing it.
It’s for exactly this reason that you determine if the pain is actually worth asking the question.
It’s for exactly this reason that you determine if the pain is actually worth asking the question.
Thissss. On the other side of the coin, sometimes owning the process is valuable because you get to control the entire process.
In this particular example, it’s very much worth it for us because we’re fielding all the confusion anyway, so we may as well own the process end to end so we can prevent some of the confusion from happening in the first place.
owning the process
yes sir: I wanted to be that guy in my corporate life
On the other side of the coin, sometimes owning the process is valuable because you get to control the entire process.
I used to get irked that I was responsible for opening change tickets and writing the MOPs. Then I realized I could dictate what other workgroups needed to do for it, particularly if it wasn’t something I wanted to do or was really a low value subtask that didn’t need to be done. If they didn’t do it and it was finger pointing time… refer to the approved change ticket…
That is perfect and yet completely unsurprising.
In case you’ve never been involved in the board game scene, this explains some of the heavy progressive mindset that is pervasive in it.
Anymore, you can replace “board game” with just about anything that is a hobby, a primarily online endeavor, a form of escapism, or something with a relatively low amount of effort and money required and get to the same result.
A lot of these things are fine and healthy for functioning adults to participate in, but they’re also havens for “failure to launch” types with a lot of time on their hands to wank, become encyclopedic in their knowledge of arcana, and whinge about their lot in life (both individually and collectively).
Harsh, but accurate.
British blogger David Thompson writes a lot about how much of wokeness is basically people weaponizing the idea of tolerance so they can get their inner bully on, and how it doesn’t really matter what they’re claiming problematic.
There’s a famous Guardian opinion piece about the racist nature of cupcakes, and another about the sexist nature of barbecue.
Yeah, it’s just another “institution” that has been marched through.
The list of punishable offences in this world now includes not only racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and Trumpism, but also Zionism. Connie Chang (“they/he/she, threading queer drama w/ black-hearted apocalyptica”), the influential creative director of a popular noncolonial, anti-orientalist “all-transgender, people of color-led dark fantasy TTRPG channel” called Transplanar,
I tapped out here.
I miss the old days.
/adjusts onion on belt before heading to eBay to look for pre-woke gaming stuff
I hate when my interests get invaded by the worthless ‘mainstream’, since the nutters soon follow and wreck anything of worth within.
The nutters were in TTRPGs since forever but at least they didn’t hold real power until the SJW purges of “normies” began.
One of the commenters on that article made a very insightful comment, before blundering down the Path of Idiots and equating the IDF to the Waffen-SS:
aggressive enforcement is the only available indicator of truth and existential foundation
A thousand captains standing on the decks of a thousand ships bobbing in the surf. They’re all shooting at one another for the audacity of claiming, to a person, that they’re the only one on solid ground.
“aggressive enforcement is the only available indicator of truth and existential foundation”
Because nobody would ever aggressively enforce falsehood and self-negating ideologies.
Tooth pain is overtaking my life and all the dentists are closed until Monday
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87821224358?pwd=eW55MTRDbDNtQkh2aHd3M1Nmenlzdz09
are the liquor stores closed?
best of luck
Sorry. I think Don has the right idea.
Clove oil if the source of the pain is exposed. Apply as needed (afaik)
Peppermint oil/extract can work as well.
Ooh yeah, that stuff works well. Add vodka, 1.5 oz every 45 minutes, if needed.
It’ll cost, oh, will it cost, but the ED could be an option. A big enough hospital, and definitely a trauma center, will have oral surgeons on call.
Clicked too soon – tooth pain/oral problems are nothing to fuck with. Some of them can lead to nasty bloodstream infections/sepsis.
Salt water rinse seems to alleviate it pretty well for an hour or so. Eating is a problem.
Neil, why in the world are you having consensual sex with a nanny who’s like one-third your age? Did writing Fragile Things completely suck out the remains of your brain?
Well, when that one-third your age is also old enough to be legal…
Still doesn’t track. Neil Gaiman absolutely knows someone who knows someone who has an in with the circuit Madam (or whatever equivalent) in his area. For $400/hr. he could be banging all the young, hot, friendly, sexually adventurous women his heart and pecker can handle, who all have signed NDAs on file so he can keep any private peccadilloes…private.
EvilSheldon:
Pretty sure Gaiman was in an open marriage anyways, so no real need for secrecy unless he has some kinks he wants to keep private.
Stupid ENTER key…
Anyway, with that in mind, why in the hell is someone of Gaiman’s status perving on the help and/or banging groupies? Three possibilities I see here:
1.) Neil’s accusers are broadly honest with their accusations, which would make Neil an active sexual predator. I find this hard to believe but not impossible.
2.) Neil’s accusers are making up their accusations wholesale. I find the least likely possibility, although I have seen Wild Things…
3.) The accusations are the result of some combination of mixed signals, misunderstanding, and post-sex regrets, and Neil has the common sense of a retarded trout.
OTOH, I am prone to believe that performatively feminist men are more likely than not, sexual predators.
OTOH, multiple accusers coming together to make a podcast reeks of bogosity.
/No Context Book Quotes.
WAKE UP, SHEEPLE
The strategy largely works, because less politically engaged Americans assume that “both sides” engage in hyperbole. Low information people are ready to believe the false accusations that liberals are “deranged” when they warn of Trump’s plans to be a dictator. Project 2025 seemed to be rolled out with this assumption that “normies” would never hear of it, and that the few who did hear would dismiss the fears as overheated nonsense.
——-
There hasn’t been new polling data yet, but this spike of interest suggests there’s a strong chance that the sands are shifting. If the chatter about Project 2025 continues in both the press and social media, the knowledge of Trump’s plans might start to influence the election — and in ways he will not like. Trump cannot win without a large percentage of voters backing him under the false belief he’s “not so bad.” The more they find out about what he intends to do in office, the more will have second thoughts about risking another Trump term.
Trump is waving his evil Fourth Reich blueprint right under your noses. Rise up. Resist!
I gotta admit Trump must be playing multi-dimensional chess again.
As I understand it from my proggie friends his strategy is/was: collude with Russia to steal the election from Hillary; demonstrate a generous amount of incompetence & bluster; do well on a couple of metrics (economy; border; gas drilling); try to go full authoritarian on a virus; decide to contest close election; lose election; engineer two failed coups (Georgia & Jan 6); run for re-election; win re-election THEN institute dictatorship.
Say what you will about old Adolf’s competency, but he managed to get the Enabling Act through in less than 30 days.
“the knowledge of Trump’s plans might start to influence the election — and in ways he will not like”
Or, perhaps, in ways he will like. Stuff like “deport illegals”, “keep drag queens away from kids”, and so forth is actually pretty popular outside of Deep Blue enclaves.
I admit, I was gonna read the linked article in Salon until I read the byline: Amanda Marcotte.
Nope. She’s a moron.
Mandy’s back! My favorite room-temperature-IQ journo-hack from the leftosphere!
Is her alter-ego Amanda FUCKING Palmer? ‘Cause just as stupid and useless.
‘Project 2025’ is ‘menacing’, but the 1861 Project* is brilliant and heroic. Got it.
* – …or whatever the fuck it was. My DDGing can only cover so much.
1609 Project.
1861 Project
it’s a thing
I could show you some of our gravestones
Well, lefties want to make slaves of us all.
Neil, why in the world are you having consensual sex with a nanny who’s like one-third your age?
What could possibly lead this prissy dimwit to pretend consensual sex between people he doesn’t know is any of his goddam beeswax?
If you’d ever seen my browser history, you’d know that prissiness isn’t one of my faults.
I took it as a purely practical objection myself, along the lines of “don’t stick it in crazy”.
Huh, and I just realized that 18 will be a third of my age in six months.
Now, just got to become a billionaire…
Sparkling lemonade. So yummy.
Sadly, I’ve never seen sparkling limeade. One of my favorite combos is guava nectar and limeade. One of these days I’m going to add rum to that mix just for fun.
I think I’ve seen that at World Market a couple of times. Not seeing it as an option on their site now.
The French make a great drink called panaché (the French equivalent of the British “shandy”) from their sparkling lemonade mixed 50/50 with any decent beer (you can also buy it pre-mixed, natch).
It’s verra good.
Drinking Steigl Radler right now.
Try Trader Joe’s, I’ve gotten French sparking lemonade there and may have seen limeade too.
The try was for Aloysoous up thred.
Or Radler in Germany. Popular with ladies and kids.
Sadly, I’ve never seen sparkling limeade.
I used to mix limeade and tonic half and half. Very refreshing. I should go back to that.
That sounds eminently drinkable.
That does sound good. The kind of thing one would drink on one’s tropical veranda, wearing linen while a servant fans you with a big palm leaf.
It’s a slam dunk
If President Joe Biden decides to withdraw from the election, Democrats need not fear — they have a ticket in front of them that can still defeat presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Not only would a ticket with Kamala Harris as president and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as her running mate have the best odds of getting the party through this moment of crisis, but also the potential to excite voters and produce a historic outcome. To be sure, there are serious risks. At the same time, this could present an exciting opportunity for Democrats.
Genius. Who wouldn’t want that?
Speaking of Hitler, I take it the entire CNN building is like those scenes in Downfall where all of the hangers-on (typists, attaches, third-string military commanders, etc.) are in the bunker in Berlin and realize it’s over so they decide to drink every bit of booze available, dance, play grab-ass, and so forth.
It’s already been done from the standpoint of DNC HQ.
https://x.com/SageListener/status/1807564544660922701
Two ovaries for the price of one!
Historic!
Momentous!
Profundus!
Lol, I meant 2 sets. Before you people correct me…
I know, let’s put the two most grating women in politics not named Hilary on the same ticket. It’s gold, I’m telling you. Gold!
[Kathy Hochul has entered the chat]
It feels like she’s an also-ran in that crowd. It must be galling.
“his could present an exciting opportunity for Democrats”
And, if they lose, it’s because of racism & sexism.
MSNBC needs an immediate mental health check for their commentator Joy Reid. Joy came right out and called Trump “Hitler.”. Can you imagine Fox letting it go if Gutfeld, say, started calling Biden “Stalin.”?
Producer: Great show Joy. Say, do you, uh, really believe all of that stuff you say on the set?
Joy: Absolutely. This is an existential crisis. Democracy is at stake, blah, blah, blah [room full of frantic word bubbles]…
Producer: Ookay! Great. Just checking. Keep up the good work.
*shrug*
They’re panicking. It’s not a surprise at all. I’d be more surprised if she ended up having any non-trivial consequence for saying it.
A Harris-Whitmer campaign could also deal the ultimate blow to a Republican campaign that has revolved around strength defined by toxic masculinity. But this ticket would be more than symbolic. Both Harris and Whitmer have been passionate and effective champions of what could be the defining issue in 2024: reproductive rights. Polls have shown strong national support for legal abortion. Harris and Whitmer would be convincing foils to Trump, who has repeatedly taken credit for overturning Roe v. Wade by nominating three conservative justices to the Supreme Court.
Seriously? Is Princess Kamala going to issue an edict from the Inaugural podium, while the bible is still warm where her hand lay on it, declaring abortion to be free and universal at any stage? Maybe she can just make it mandatory.
Is unrestricted abortion really the single most important issue in the world today?
Is unrestricted abortion really the single most important issue in the world today?
For a large contingent of women, yes. They have been conditioned to believe that any hint of restriction on their own personal Molech worship is akin to sexual slavery.
I would like to disagree, but abortion pretty much brought a number of Dems to power in 2022. Including Arizona’s own shockingly mediocre Abortion Barbie, Katie Hobbs.
Although I’m pretty sure she got a big boost from AZ’s broken election system.
My anecdote is after the Dobbs decision came out, some conservative women I knew through pushing back on the Lil Rona Panic Orders were pissed that abortion would be regulated and/or banned.
some conservative women I knew… were pissed that abortion would be regulated
I’ve noticed that abortion cuts much more on lifestyle lines than on political lines. Those lines aren’t orthogonal, but they’re not quite parallel, either. There are a few pro-life democrats and pro-choice republicans.
There seems to be a correlation between number of kids one has and opposition to abortion. There also seems to be a correlation between “body count” (in the sexual sense) and support for racking up a body count (in the baby killing sense).
Anecdote: I know women who had children, unplanned and unwanted because they could not bring themselves to abortion. In no time at all they said it was the best thing they ever did and ended up with more children.
Go figure.
Ill get my anecdote in here, since we’re all doing it.
I’ve always been some level of pro-life, but was much more in the camp of finding some middle ground compromise point that avoided the worst excesses until I had my first kid. Watching my wife experience a pregnancy made me into an abortion abolitionist. The fact that we could see the beginnings of personality traits in the womb from somewhat early on and then see them outside the womb really changed my perspective. My 7 year old still has that energy level that showed up in constant moving and kicking that we could see in ultrasound appointments even before my wife could feel her kick.
Between that and the mask being ripped off the “shout your abortion” crowd, I was radicalized.
There seems to be a correlation between number of kids one has and opposition to abortion.
To add on to my anecdote, one of those pro-abortion conservative women who was pissed about Dobbs has two kids.
I don’t really have an anecdote other than I was never really strongly pro-abort even in college with the crowd I ran with and when it was expected of me.
Much later after applying my own thought to the issue I came to the conclusion that anti-abort is the “logical” position.
There is no danger of me having to live the issue, so there’s that I guess.
any hint of restriction
What women think is that any hint of restriction is………restriction.
Snarking about whether they should bristle at your lack of approval doesn’t make them wrong.
I enjoy telling people to fuck off when they get in my business; I’m not surprised that many women do.
Trump retort: Pffft! I’ve been responsible for a lot more abortions than you two unfuckable psychos.
LOL
It really is a sign of the times that a non-national issue is going to be the focus of another goddamn national election.
Harris and Whitmer also offer experience and stability in governing. Harris has served as attorney general of California, US senator, and vice president. Whitmer has been a successful and popular governor in a crucial swing state.
Stop it. You’re killing me.
*cackles*
“In case you need some new shirts to cover your naked chest.”
A couple of nice ones there, if I was still buying t-shirts with stuff printed on them.
It’s a hot day. Wife decides to do a lot of cooking. Wife wonders why it is so hot in the house.
“Hey, baby, is it hot in here, or is it just you?”
Yep, Frau Zwak did this yestermorn. When it was just above 90, not just below 100.
Which means cocktail hour and nibbles starts in 30 minutes here at Schloss Zwak.
Speaking of First Ladies…
I have a theory about Howard Dean. His candidacy didn’t fail because of The Scream. It failed because, at about the same time, somebody interviewed his wife, an actual medical doctor, as I recall. When they asked her if she was prepared to take on the sacred duties and trappings of First-Lady-hood, she said, “Fuck that. That’s his deal. I’m not going to quit my job to be a social secretary.”
Right down the drain.
Behind every great man there is a woman with a strap-on?
Woke = Lunatics running the asylum. That is not hyperbole. The evil part of it is the learned lunacy. The people who taught it did so with undiluted malice of forethought.
Whitmer: Didn’t she give Cuomo a run for his money during the cootie hysteria for most evilest state governor? She also did some other beyond the pale authoritarian bullshit but I cant remember what it was. In my mind I just put her on the list titled ‘Poison’ and stopped paying attention.
She did.
Tom Wolf did too with his second lockdown.
I kept an eye on the Lil Rona Panic orders in each state. My recollection is Newsom in California was bad, but not as bad as Cuomo, Whitmer, and Wolf.
That also reminds me that Harris argued before the CA state Supreme Court that she, as attorney general, should not have to release prisoners they ordered her to release because ‘the state needs their labor’.
Yep. Good ol’ fashioned chattel slavery.
Oh, I remember that too.
Yeah, that’s a winning ticket. Just remember today is today and yesterday was today for us, but yesterday. And tomorrow will become for us today, but tomorrow. So live today in such a way that the future today will be like you like yesterday’s today, only tomorrow. That’s all I have to say about it.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/tech/fisker-is-begging-a-judge-to-let-it-sell-leftover-ocean-suvs-for-14000-each
That’s a helluva markdown. Ouch.
That’s a helluva markdown. Ouch.
No warranty, no replacement parts. Good luck. You can always LS swap it and put in a nine inch Ford.
Well, at least you would have a pumpkin that was worth more than a boat anchor then.
Michigan DOT’s Model T
The State of Michigan still uses a Ford Model T in a professional capacity, and we aren’t talking parades and festivities. No, the Michigan Department of Transportation uses a Tin Lizzie to audit the shoulders of rural roads, and the reason behind it is rather sound.
See, Michigan is home to strong Amish and Mennonite populations, and the both these groups get around by horse and buggy. As it turns out the Ford Model T features a similar axle width to that of most northern-built buggies since, oh, the 1800s. This makes the Model T pretty much the ideal vehicle for make sure the shoulders of rural roads are safe for horse and buggy travel, which is why the DOT still uses it today.
Wait, this is the same MI that revokes registrations for vehicles that don’t meet federal motor vehicle safety standards(*). Yet they use such a vehicle themselves….
https://www.theautopian.com/michigan-becomes-the-next-state-to-fight-the-battle-against-imported-car-bans/
*imports over 25 years are exempt from FMVSS
Smoking meatloaf for dinner tonight. Mac & cheese to be added later.
What’s everyone eating post 4th?
Steak.
Fried Chicken and German potato salad.
Whew! No jury duty Monday morning! 😅
July 5 in KCMO … 80F, low humidity, cool breeze.
Climate change #FTW!
Homemade potato pizza . Don’t judge me. It’s pretty good.