I really did think that a Chinese social media company would never stand a chance here. I run into 80 year old farmers who ask me, “Did you see ‘at feller on TikTok who does ‘at thang with the tractor?”

That same person will go on and on about China. People are neat.

Mike Tyson is more than a man. He could’ve entered the ring in a frilly pink skirt with a lollipop sticking out of his ass and he would have still been terrifying.

Being in school was wild when that happened. My school banned baggy pants over night and required us to carry clear backpacks. We weren’t allowed to carry more than the book we needed for the next class, and cameras went up.

I was overheard telling a friend (jokingly) that I was going to kill myself if I had to take another timed test. Police showed up soon after and handcuffed me. Some girl overheard me and swore I said I was going to kill other people. Luckily one of the officers was from my neighborhood and believed me, but I was still suspended and he drove me home.

You know what really sucks though? All these years later and people are still terrified. Last week I woke up a few minutes after my teenage daughter got on the bus, my wife said, “Maybe you should go get her. Someone has threatened to shoot up the school.” I drove over and got her, fortunately the officer guarding the door just let her leave with me and was understanding. A day later and another threat hits. Someone says they’re going to shoot up the pep rally. I didn’t send her to school. Two unexcused absences in one week at the beginning of the school year over that shit.

She did online school last year and it was a nightmare, but I’m all over the place on that right now. I want her to be able to make friends and things. It wasn’t healthy for her last year. I only did that because her mom had recently died and I wanted to give her a break from everything.

I guess some kids thought it would be funny to do that last week. I just wish no one had to take them seriously.

All of them be trying to charge us to be alive. If my landlord could come up with a good enough reason to charge me to breathe, he’d put it on the invoice.

Watch the clip. If dude’s name had been Bob and not Nicky it wouldn’t have happened.

Still though, your point stands and it’s still one of the funniest, most awkward moments caught on video. :p

Haha, god I loved doing this on Counter-Strike. “Did you guys hear about the hidden tit pics in counter strike? No shit, hold alt and press f4 and it shows the best tits I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how game developers get away with this stuff.”

Half the lobby is gone, the other half is laughing.

Oh no, the only computer that is working right now is the one that keeps us alive.

Our heart rates increased because we were terrified for like, 7 minutes. Ok, 2 minutes, I’m sorry! Fine! 30 seconds. We’ve been stuck up here for so long. It isn’t my fault. You can secretly get yours, mines leaves evidence!

My cat wanders around hissing at anything that moves and threatens the family all day. She’s a devil, except for when she isn’t. That’s at the same time every day, first thing in the morning. She gets on my lap and gives me love and won’t leave me alone or stop following me. Around 10:00 though, every morning, she’s right back to contemplating the murder of every other living thing in the house.

The whole “small town on the edge of dying” bit. Holy shit have I experienced that firsthand.

See, what happened with a lot of these towns is that their industry became a part of their pride and culture. Where I’m from it’s coal. Trucks everywhere have a decal of a coal miner with one of two phrases. “Coal keeps the lights on.” and “6 inches from hell.”

My grandfather was a coal miner, so was his father, and his father, on both sides of my family. My father realized that the industry was dying so he left (and left us here haha). My brother did it for awhile but left it behind because of the drug problems in the mines. There was a whole underground urine market that kept things moving.

Even the poor fools who never worked in the mines go on and on about coal like it’s some kind of idol.

I would imagine the same thing happens in other places. The people fear big changes until their fear backs them into irrelevance. I’m getting older, so I can relate to that, only I vote for my kids, not to make me feel less afraid. Whatever world they grow up in won’t be one that I’d be perfectly comfortable in. It has always been that way as far back as we have been recording history. No sense in fighting where the world is going just because I don’t understand it or relate to it.

That vile bitch! “You were talking about the economy!” Let him say what the fuck he was talking about. Take off the baby gloves.

Nope. Won’t do it. He wins and your ratings go up.

No matter how tempting, if this asshole wins I will not click a single post or video passed around by Fox News.

Moscows are fat. Trump is fat. Coincidence? Probably not.

Don’t count on people who never breathe through their nose to look deeper than what some personality on YouTube said. They don’t care about definitions, they just hear words and repeat them without looking any further. Like happy little dumb parrots. Some jackass said, “we ain’t no democracy, wurr a cawn-stuh-toosh-uhnool republic!” and they said, “huht huht! That’s right!” without bothering to learn what a constitutional republic is.

But nuthin hayuh-pinned! It wuz aint teefuh! Reeuhnt freeee…

It’s crazy how money puts people in permanent positions too, even after they’ve lost it all.

I have a friend for example, his family ran one of the biggest farms in the area. They had millions. With those millions they made very important connections.

They’ve been broke for a decade now.

See, some years back my old buddy was thrown off of a horse and has permanent brain damage. Something changed in him after that. What he’s doing isn’t something anyone can defend, but he should have been stuck in a hospital and treated. Before his mother died, she kept him on his medication and he was ok. After her death no one is there to enforce it, so he doesn’t take it.

He’s been charged with stalking three women in less than two years. He gets it in his head that they love him and they’re testing him. The judge is in on it, the police. Anything anyone says he interprets as being part of this big test. “I was there at the local arts center and the cops came and said, “We know you care for her but you can’t be here.” See, they know I care for her. It’s all a big test buddy, I’m telling you.”

It took multiple charges before they finally put him in jail. 2 with the first woman, 3 with the second, 2 with the third. Finally they couldn’t do him favors anymore. Or, favors for his dad that is. His dad played golf with the judge for years, the family lawyer is a lifelong friend who has finally had enough and was working his cases for free. I think he finally gave up after the last batch of charges.

I mean, maybe it’s because they know him and feel sorry for him having seen him grow up and the trauma his family experienced when he nearly died after the accident. Still though, money afforded him that position and even broke they still have it in a sense.

Anyone else would have been buried under the jail for what he’s done. I mean, I feel bad for him, but a line has to be drawn somewhere and the entire local small town system has pretty much let him run wild with these delusions because they know his family so well.

It’s a mess.

A lot of very smart people?

Red Bull is also twice as expensive. You get used to the jitters eventually. :p

In my town at least, we’ve got it right, that is if we could get more funding and help everyone.

The system that I went through has tiers, and it’s mostly drug addicts, but man I’ve seen it turn people around completely.

If a person ends up arrested because they’re tweaking, paperwork is immediately filed to get them into a specialized local hospital. It’s very small, but the people involved really do work hard to get things moving.

Once the person is in the hospital, they keep them until withdrawal ends or psychosis subsides. Then they enroll them in a very strenuous program that pretty much takes up their entire life for a bit. They try to get the person on Medicaid, but if they don’t qualify the hospital actually has a fund to pay for their treatment. They are provided with a ride to drug classes and group therapy multiple times a week and drug tested daily. If they fail a drug test they take them back to the hospital, unless they’ve been charged criminally, then it’s back to jail first, but ultimately they’ll end up back in the hospital.

Assigned case managers will visit them at their home at random daily. If the person doesn’t have a home, we have several “sobriety houses” in the area where folks are sent until they can get on their own feet.

Their case worker files applications for low income apartments and other programs like HUD. The person will ultimately end up in a home if they work the program.

In my time with the program I seen way more success than failure. The only failures I seen were those people who just made criminality their entire life. I’m talking drug dealing, robbing, constantly fighting. There are some people you just can’t help. I might be wrong there, but I seen a personality type that didn’t seem like it could be helped anyway. It was those folks who found their source of pride in a criminal lifestyle.

I probably do have some bias on the success of the program because they stick you with people who have progress similar to yours. If you’re a success in the program, you’re generally going to have appointments scheduled alongside people who are doing at least roughly as good as you are.

When I left the main program in 2020, I always had my appointments with the same people. We were the “no failed drug tests in years” group. Several of those people were homeless but they aren’t now.

You know, until this meme and your comment I swear to gyatt I thought the word was pronounced like Wyatt. Why would I think that?

I’m getting old. One can’t pwn forever, I suppose.

At my store (which I worked at for 23 years and miss dearly), I would always let my regulars come in after closing if I could still serve them. If they had cash, I’d ring it up the next day.

That was one of 7 stores I worked in over the years (same company).

The other 6, hell no. Once they realized that I’d open the door after closing those bastards were coming up to an hour after I locked the doors. Same jerks every time yelling and cussing at me, “Well yer still here yuh faygit I don’t see why you won’t let me git a beer!”. Sometimes I’d stay late and hide in the office to watch a little tv before going home. It was always the same jackasses beating on the door at 1 AM putting their hands and faces up to the glass with stupid looks on their faces. I stopped letting them in after it became a problem for me and no matter how many times I said no, they’d walk their drunk asses to that store to try me.

It is amazing how much culture can change over 40 miles of road. I mean it, it’s crazy. Even the meth heads were polite and reasonable when they were in the middle of a 3 week, no sleep, hallucination fueled nightmare. “Ah, man. I’m so sorry that I bothered you. There’s people following me across the road so I’m just gonna borrow a little of your light here until someone I know comes to get me. I hope you have a good night.”

In that one store every local was always polite. I had two memorable assholes there over 23 years. At the others I had so many I couldn’t tell you.