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

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’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.

Absolutely disgusting chocolate in my opinion. Chalky and bland. It’s nice that they claim to be about equality, but the product itself just isn’t to my taste. And yes, the dumb way they make these bars also really puts me off.

I just want a normal, boring bar that tastes nice. And this is not the brand for me.

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…

Well sure, the warp core is inherently dangerous. But they seem to have a good grasp on the radiation aspect as well as general safety. It’s also a fairly acceptable trade off to sail among the stars at faster than light speed.

But the transporter? I consider it an inherently evil and untrustworthy device. It basically kills the user, sends an energy beam and reassembles an entity at the other end that thinks it’s the person who just stepped on the pad.

We know this is how it works, because we’ve seen incidents that clearly show us. In TOS ‘The Enemy Within’, Kirk is split into two people. And similarly, in TNG’s ‘Second Chances’, the transporter again splits Riker into two people.

Logically, if the transporter sent and reassembles the actual matter, clearly it wouldn’t be able to make perfect copies. You’d end up with two half scale copies at best. So, the matter used to reassemble is not the same matter that was disassembled. Therefore, the transporter inherently murders anyone who uses it.

So nooooo thank you, I’m taking the shuttle.

I’m always a bit disappointed with how safe and PG Star Trek is. Because transporters would be an awesome way to put some gruesome body horror into the series.

It really is the scariest thing by far on any ship. The ‘science’ behind transporters basically makes it a murder machine if it works correctly. I want to see what horrors beyond imagination can occur when that thing messes up or is deliberately sabotaged.

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 will definitely second that recommendation. They turn basically every shoe into a slipper.

I was skeptical when I read about them, but gave them a go. Reason being: my feet swell during the day, which means I was constantly loosening my laces throughout the day. Which isn’t ideal.

The Lock Laces help in that they’re always perfect: they flex with my feet and always have just the right tension.

They are popular with a wide range of people. Triathletes like them for fast transitions since you don’t need to retie your shoes. Marathon runners also love them since it means no more laces getting undone. And yes, they’re obviously great for old folks and people with disabilities.

I like them so much, I now put them on every new pair of shoes that I buy.

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.

Geez, you’d think Gemini would be better than it is if they spent that much on it…