Oh we have the worst, most starved public transportation, half the buses run only every hour, and on the bike to work - only to work - I do occasionally get there faster if there is traffic but there is no bike lane, I either use the sidewalk if no pedestrians, or the road if people are using the sidewalk. Traffic has to be pretty damn bad before I can move faster than the cars, I still have to stop at the same lights.

We have the most generous annual E bike voucher raffle in the nation, I believe, and the city is working on bike lanes, but really, the road between my house & work has no bike infrastructure at all. The public transportation problems are because that’s funded by the county not the city, the suburbs don’t want to pay for it. But inside the city we need it.

Personally (city dweller) a car is a time machine. I can get where I need to go mostly on a bike or my feet, but if I’m pressed for time - and that happens plenty - a car can get me there faster.

My penultimate child was at university about 10 miles from the house. There was a bus that got within a couple blocks of the sprawling campus, so I told her take the bus, but a year in said she could use my car and I’d walk to work since my commute was so short. That gained her about 3 hours per school day and lost me about one hour. Car is a time machine.

I fly a pirate flag here for Gasparilla, then usually nothing. We don’t have a whole flagpole though.

My kids put a rainbow flag in the window.

American flags on flagpoles left up all night just crack me up. Dudes wanting to proclaim they are so patriotic but then not following the etiquette requirements for that piece of fabric they put so much emphasis on. At school there were routines we had to follow, to put it up each morning and take it down each evening and fold some particular way.

If I had an actual flagpole - I’d make it a Maypole in spring. At Christmas make it a Christmas tree made of string lights. At Halloween put a skeleton stripper on it. At Gasparilla the pirate flag and in the summer use it to help anchor a shade cloth stretching to the house. I don’t think I’d usually use it for a flag.

Thanks, I did give them more water. And yes she is such a cutie!

My boss once asked how tall I was (we were the same height), and I said “are you asking for real, or as a guy?” And he said “I think as a guy?” So I said, “oh, I’m 5’10” and he was happy.

Because guys my height all seem to say they are 5’10". I am between 1-2 inches shorter than that, 173cm now, maybe 174 back then.

So, in my (admittedly limited) experience, medium height dudes do round up a couple inches usually.

Four days with a migraine is the longest I have gone. Even if I put a spoonful of water in my mouth I’d puke. That was back when they would give you opiates to break the migraine, they don’t work as painkillers for it but make you high enough to finally sleep - pain felt so far away - and I would wake up with no headache. It’s happened about 7 times total in my life, now they won’t do that but they do IV fluids to prevent damage and some antihistamine to make you sleep but it doesn’t break the migraine. Hopefully it never happens again.

On purpose I have fasted 3 days but would NEVER purposely fast without water. Water with electrolytes if going more than a day or so.

His mom was actually pretty when young and it’s only the villainess hairdo and heavy jewelry, style keeping her from looking like a regular old lady.

His dad wtf is going on with his face? Was never a looker but did he have to have a chunk of it removed or something? He looks like he’s been Frankenstein-ed.

This is the one and only thing that Copilot has done for me successfully. There is a theoretical PDF to Excel function in both Adobe and Excel and they suck. The ridiculous AI tool actually does a reasonable job of it, after a few rounds of back & forth with it.

We are all our own worst critics. Like, when I look at myself all I see is the flaws, right? It’s a kind of dysmorpia.

There are literal good days & bad days of course, bloated or bad hair day, or bad skin day, but they aren’t as extreme as you see them. Nobody else would notice or care.

I was anorexic so I always look fat to myself, it doesn’t matter my size really. You can’t trust the mirror and you don’t see what others do.

Not like red bean ice cream.

Louisiana red beans & rice, chop all of whatever veg you have laying around, saute them, add andouille sausage if you have it, it’s fine without though. Add beans & water & salt, cook them.

On Camellia rice.

Pintos are traditional here not kidney. Kidney beans are for red beans & rice.

Beans. Punch away. I would take the meat out of chili before the beans.

Tomatoes or tomato paste, spoonful of unsweetened chocolate, some red wine. And why the heck did you not start with an onion?

Dogs don’t work like that. A dog gets protective when it’s anxious, and thinks it has to be in charge because you are ineffective. If your dog is relaxed and looks to you to protect it, you are doing a good job of raising your dog.

Dog park, I dunno, but "standing up to other dogs’ just sounds like asking for a dog fight. Playing dogs are not necessarily jockeying for dominance but even if they are it doesn’t mean they can’t all have fun, without being mean.

I agree that even good, happy dogs can have a nose for danger, our awesome shep-akita was pleasant with adults and gentle giant with other dogs but once was so growly snappy with a girl my stepdaughter brought home and she did steal something. The dog picked up on her we did not.

I have a big family and cannot understand thinking everyone else in the world needs to do the same thing to make me feel ok about it. Like, how insecure do you have to be to need that? Can’t you just do what you want to because it’s your preference without needing it to be the only ‘right’ way? Just because something is good for me doesn’t mean it’s good for everyone, and it’s a good thing, too. I figured the only reason I even can have many is because others have none.

1990s Usenet

Nothing

Reddit

Lemmy

Republican voters skew older (retired) so if you make voting difficult for people, the ones with more free time are the ones more likely to vote.

The easier it is for everyone to vote, the less the Republicans are favored.

Mail in ballots would also favor rural voters but I guess there are not enough of them for the conservatives to worry about?

But in short - no, the mix of voters does not stay the same as it increases.

That’s not as profoundly bad as I was, nor my nearsighted child, and I had a work colleague with -12 who got her vision corrected with Lasik.

I had the Lasik in my 20s for a -6 prescription and got, not perfect, but good enough vision to only need thin, light glasses.

When I was profoundly nearsighted I got really good correction with contacts, hard contacts gave me supernaturally good vision, but glasses never did. Even now I can’t get perfect vision with glasses, it’s just good enough.

You are farsighted? Two older ladies at my work had to get cataract surgery and in the process, their vision was corrected. Do get a second opinion, but it is true that you may not be able to see perfectly through glasses, I never could. Well enough to work, to read, and to not get headaches from squinting all the time, though, I don’t feel disabled by my sight.

No tengo una plancha.

I have never had an iron, just wear knits mostly, natural fabrics. If absolutely necessary, will steam them, but only a couple times a year.

My mom didn’t iron much but she did have the board and the iron. Some of my coworkers do iron their stuff.

My mom talked about staying up late to hear the black radio station because everything on the radio was so boring. She ran away from home to see Elvis!

You live in a different world, with streaming, you can listen to so much music. I can remember before that - we at least had community radio with volunteer DJs who played different stuff but top 40 radio literally played about 40 songs on repeat.

I suppose your grandkids will also consider whatever you think shocking music to be boring too

I just had what I think is such an American fry up for breakfast:

Tater tots, soft scrambled eggs, refried beans, sliced avocado and onion, sharp cheddar, and chipotle salsa.

Cuban sandwich is American - the bread is Cuban (I asked several people from Cuba) and while we have made some foods worse (fast food Chinese) some are better too - there is great Italian American food, certainly, and fusion stuff that is amazing. And fried chicken can be so good. I think we are aquisitive as fuck, both the language (we will take your word and make it part of English) and with foods. For better and worse.